Month: January 2018

 
From driftglass:

Jeffrey Toobin confirmes what Dirty Hippies have been saying all along.

From the WaPo:

CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin: ‘I regret my role’ in Hillary Clinton false equivalence

…

No question about the attack on Clinton, responded Toobin, citing “all that bogus stuff about the Clinton Foundation” — perhaps a reference to the Uranium One story or even to the pre-election reporting of Bret Baier — later withdrawn — that there would be an indictment relating to the foundation.

“And I hold myself somewhat responsible for that,” continued Toobin, a steady presence on CNN since 2002. “I think there was a lot of false equivalence in the 2016 campaign. That every time we said something, pointed out something about Donald Trump — whether it was his business interests, or grab ’em by the p–––y, we felt like, ‘Oh, we gotta, like, talk about — we gotta say something bad about Hillary.’ And I think it led to a sense of false equivalence that was misleading, and I regret my role in doing that.”

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From Infidel753:

One of the tools for evaluating American society’s acceptance of gay people is GLAAD’s “Accelerating Acceptance” report, an annual survey which tests public attitudes across a range of issues. The report’s results have been in line with other opinion surveys in showing a steady growth in acceptance year by year — until the latest one, just released, which shows a decrease in the percentage of Americans with broadly accepting views, from 53% last year to 49% now.

It’s conceivable that this might be just a statistical fluke — 4% isn’t a very big change — but that’s probably not the case, because other results are in line with the change. The percentage of those who say they would be uncomfortable at discovering a family member is gay rose 3%, the proportion of gay people reporting encounters with discrimination is up 11%, etc. These figures represent something real.

Confronted with evidence of inexorable social progress, the enemy likes to use the metaphor of the pendulum — claiming that while attitudes may move in one direction for a while, they inevitably “swing back” to the more conservative position, and the midpoint of the swings doesn’t really move. However, there’s no evidence that changes in public attitudes on social issues really work like that.

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From author John Scalzi:

Over on Twitter, some foolish person posted the following question, which I will replicate here with all grammatical confabulation intact, because it’s necessary for context:

As a straight male, how would u feel about your child having a homosexual school teacher?! Who their around 8hours a day !

This was my response:

As a straight male, the best teacher I ever had was a gay man. Among many other things, he taught me the difference between “there,” “their” and “they’re.” His name was Keith Johnson. I would have been absolutely delighted for my daughter to have known him. I sang at his funeral.

This tweet, boosted by folks like Neil Gaiman, JK Rowling and Nick Offerman, has now been seen by over three million people. So now I would like to tell you a little bit about Keith Johnson, the best teacher I ever had.

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From Reductress:

Despite her best efforts, including not buying her daily coffee, 25-year-old Tyra Manning is still dealing with the effects of intergenerational poverty.

“I don’t know what I’m doing wrong,” said Tyra. “I stopped buying my daily $3 coffee from the cafe on my block and I’m still poor.”

Tyra, whose family descended from American slaves, decided to quit buying her very inexpensive daily coffee after hearing the advice of many pundits and baby boomers.

“There were so many articles and outlets reporting that skipping your little daily expenses was the path to overcoming decades of familial economic insecurity,” she said. “So I tried it. I even started bringing my lunch to work every day. Unfortunately, I’m still deciding which bills to pay!”

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Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.

 
From The Onion:

About 68 percent thought it could restore dignity to the office, 42 percent thought it would represent the country well overseas, and 57 percent said they could see themselves getting a beer with it. Admiration for the widespread celebrity it’s attained by appearing on commemorative stamps and monetary notes also played a major role in determining support.

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From Batocchio at Vagabond Scholar:

Few injustices can compete with the Holocaust, but it’s always worth remembering that cruelty and dehumanization exist on a spectrum and manifest in different forms, with varying degrees of toxicity. Most fall far short of genocide or even legalized discrimination, but nonetheless should be questioned and challenged.

Sometimes these impulses erupt as angry demonization and obvious bigotry. Other times it’s as casual inhumanity. I’m reminded of the false belief that most poor people live in poverty because of a lack of moral character instead of misfortune. There’s the self-serving notion that I and others of my chosen political tribe deserve government services but those other people not like us that I don’t like are unworthy moochers.

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From North Carolina pastor John Pavlovitz:

I don’t know how your children came home this week, but likely they did come home.

If they did, get on your knees and be grateful.

Bailey Holt didn’t come home this week.

She died in her school.

She died trying to call her mother.

She died violently in the glorious, radiant prime of her young life—and what’s worse, is that it was barely news in America.

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From Ted McLaughlin at jobsanger:

Trump’s numbers are upside down, and have been since he was sworn in — and they don’t seem to be improving any at all. He currently has a negative approval gap of 22 points. But Trump’s numbers, as bad as they are, actually look good when compared to the job approval of the congressional Republicans. They have a whopping negative approval gap of 46 points!

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Wondering why a few conservative friends fail to be impressed.