The best estimates of the state GOP chairman race are, shall I say, optimistic for Democrats. Which is to say, the state party looks like sometime next month it’s going to elect the second-worse of the top-three terrible losing candidates in 2022 to lead the party boldly, and bankrupt, into the future. Seriously. This is a guy who was fired by one of his law firms, accused by another of getting physical with a client, but who pushed the stolen-election lie early and often, winning the endorsement of guess-who. He faced the only truly beatable candidate on the Democratic slate and lost by…checking…eight points.
In other words, 2022 taught them nothing.
This morning I read about a new initiative to monkey-wrench sex ed in Michigan, led by the Thomas More Law Center, which I will heretofore refer to as Those Guys. I don’t know what its chances are of success; Those Guys make a lot of sword-and-shield noise before they drive off a cliff, but admittedly, I don’t know a great deal about them, other than their co-founder’s role in failing to convict Jack Kevorkian. (Turned out of office in a landslide, he sought a safe haven with the right-wing non-profit and became one of Those Guys.)
I don’t know what world these people are living in. Every single suburban mom I know has her sassy gay boyfriend, and many of them gay children. The sorts of people you’d have expected, 10 years ago, to make a face and say “ew” when you mention gay people, now look thoughtful and say, “Well, we do love our niece Sandra and her wife Joellen.” Even “wife” and “husband,” as they apply to same-sex couples, no longer have air quotes around them where I live. We just had a meeting of the nonprofit I serve with, one that helps women get their lives back on track, and no one batted an eye when we decided, unanimously and without discussion, that we’d help trans and cis women alike.
So carry on, Republicans. Gretchen Whitmer wouldn’t be on the shortlist for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024 without your help.
Little Bird said on January 30, 2023 at 1:44 pm
Yesterday I learned that a high school classmate of mine passed away. She was probably one of my school’s more famous alumni, Annie Wershing. She was an actress, mostly TV. What’s most notable to me is that she was only 45. She died from cancer. I seem to have lost a number of friends in the past few years.
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David C said on January 30, 2023 at 2:41 pm
The chuckleheads are stupid in a few ways. First they think they’re in the majority. The abortion amendment passed by a huge margin. Most people aren’t anti-sex maniacs. The Dems hold all three branches of government. The lege will change the law and the courts will hold them back until the law takes effect because they won’t get the supermajority needed for immediate effect. Shouting their plans from the rooftops guarantees it’ll fail. I’m a very mediocre poker player but I’d love to play against them.
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Peter said on January 30, 2023 at 2:47 pm
This is the same MO that the GOP has done in Illinois, and, I suspect, many other states: When normal people lose, either in business, politics, or life, they may go over what happened to see what can be done to widen their appeal, or to make them acceptable to more people. The GOP? Every time, whenever they lose, they believe the reason is that they needed to be more radical, more strident, more offensive.
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Alan Stamm said on January 30, 2023 at 3:11 pm
Discomfiting to see that Those Guys considered several states for their new gambit of swamping schools with sex-ed opt-out forms, and chose Michigan as the best place to succeed. Hope you’re right about misreading changed times.
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Jeff Gill said on January 30, 2023 at 4:14 pm
Little Bird, sorry about your loss; Wersching was in a number of programs I’d watched (24, Timeless, Star Treks). That’s truly too young by any measure.
The Thomas More Society is more interested in taking down public education in general, and along the way, getting in particular more students to leave public schools and channel cash with them into for-profit and bogus non-profit schools. Catholic schools are a tiny piece of the religious education landscape these days, and while I really think there’s a great deal of good that’s been done by Catholic schools in sum over the last 150 years, the real problem since the mid-1950s is how religious schools and segregation academies were intertwined. What’s peculiar progress, of an ironic sort, is how conservative families would feel differently today than in 1954 about a student of color in their child’s classroom: what they’re anxious about now are ideas of a different color, so to speak. The spark for militancy in redirecting and reorienting education is anything that sounds outside of what the parents are comfortable with, and the gasoline for it is the money that charters and private schools can siphon out of the public funding. I wish there was a clear way I could support some forms of “money following the student” when it’s a placement that really is in the best interest of the child, but most of the “backpack” legislation being pushed by the GOP right now is cream-skimming of easy to serve students into pockets of nostalgia, and tightening the spigot for the parched programs that serve students with IEPs and 504s and needing a variety of supports, all of which get demonized as “too many administrators” which I can assure you is not an accurate statement. I just walked down a hall behind a high school principal pushing a mop, who asked me if I could cover an ISS room until he got done. I’ll stop before this goes to 5,000 words of venting…
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Deborah said on January 30, 2023 at 5:35 pm
Here’s something I found on Post that is very disturbing about police brutality etc. I’m not sure you can read it if you don’t have an account on Post, but here goes https://post.news/article/2KGKrX8SWvkmI39N2HVdd37rwv8 If you don’t have an account consider getting one as an alternative to Twitter.
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Little Bird said on January 30, 2023 at 5:46 pm
Jeff Gill,
Annie and were never really close, she was in direct competition for parts in school plays and musicals with my best friend. So, by the rules of high school besties, Annie and I could NEVER be close friends. But we knew each other, and worked together in at least one of our school’s productions (she had the lead, my bestie had an integral part, I worked sets and costumes).
That bestie? She died a few years ago. She was the same year as Annie, so I think she was 42 (barely, by maybe a week or three).
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Jeff Borden said on January 30, 2023 at 6:19 pm
There are numerous stories today noting recently elected RNC chair Ronna McDaniel –who defeated the MyPillow conman– is urging 2024 QOP candidates to aggressively push for anti-abortion laws. In her words, “Go on offense!” I’m pretty sure most Americans do find the fetus fetishists offensive, but sure, great plan, Ronna.
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alex said on January 30, 2023 at 7:11 pm
Jeff Gill, here in Indiana, where money follows the student, the road leads to the poorest trailer parks and ghettos where at least one charter school I’ve heard of offers cash kickbacks to parents who couldn’t give a shit whether their kids are getting a subpar education but they love getting paid $1-2K per kid every year.
I heard about this through an attorney who is representing a teacher who got fired by this particular academy, a teacher who paid for textbooks out of her own meager salary because the school didn’t provide them. The school functions as little more than a babysitting service and makes faculty and staff sign NDAs.
Our dear friend Ronna dropped the disgraced Romney from her hyphenated married name, although she was more than happy to drag on its coattails in the pre-Trump GOP. She’s obviously quite good at telling Republicans what they want to hear vs. what they need to hear and that helped her retain her position despite strong competition from some people who are genuinely more batshitty but far less cunning. She obviously cares more about her own ass than the future of her party, and in that respect she is a Republican through and through.
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Peter said on January 30, 2023 at 9:49 pm
Little Bird, Annie’s going to have some company – Washington Post has reported that Cindy Williams (Shirley of Laverne and Shirley) and Lisa Loring (the original, and in my opinion, the best, Wednesday Addams) have passed away.
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FDChief said on January 30, 2023 at 11:38 pm
I could be contemptuous of the GQP’s excitement over panty-sniffing (whether it’s over the genitals inside the panties or the product that can follow removing them) if it wasn’t such an obvious distraction. I mean…what ELSE they gonna shop to their chumps? “Tax Cuts For Rich Fucks – Now More In Your Face!” “Welcome Your New Plutocrat Overlords!” “We Promise Our Insurance Company Bureaucrat Will Deny Your Claim For Only The Most Profitable Reasons!”
If it wasn’t for nitwit grade school bullying and moronic bible-banging these gomers couldn’t attract three registered voters and a billy-goat…
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Dexter Friend said on January 31, 2023 at 5:07 am
…but exciting news out of New York! What, you don’t believe Trump will be indicted, tried and convicted there? Ye of little faith… (guffaw)
NEW YORK (AP) — Manhattan prosecutors investigating Donald Trump have convened a new grand jury to hear evidence in a years-old probe into payments made to keep the porn star Stormy Daniels quiet about an alleged sexual encounter with the former president, according to multiple news reports.
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Jim said on January 31, 2023 at 6:11 am
The GOPerverts just want more money and f” America .
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Dorothy said on January 31, 2023 at 10:41 am
My daughter-in-law is 40 today, and in 11 days my daughter will be 40. I still remember my declaration at that birthday: I’m not going to take any bullshit off of anyone. And my daughter who was 15 at that time said “Mum, when did you EVER take b.s. off of anyone?!” When you’re right, you’re right. Maybe I just meant I was going to be more obvious about it.
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Mark P said on January 31, 2023 at 10:42 am
There are encouraging signs from the Fulton County DA about grand jury action on T****’s attempt to solicit election fraud in Georgia. I have fun imagining T**** in the Georgia State prison at Reidsville. But I doubt that he would actually get prison time if he were convicted, despite the threat he poses to American democracy. I heard a radio report that said polling showed him running ahead of any other potential Republican candidate, and that he was polling ahead of Biden. A guilty verdict may be all that stands between us and Armageddon.
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alex said on January 31, 2023 at 10:57 am
Polling ahead of Biden? Who’s being polled? And who’s doing the polling?
Other than among the most diehard stoopidz, Trump is toast.
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alex said on January 31, 2023 at 11:01 am
Mitch Daniels just announced that he’s not running for Senate. Guess we’re gonna be stuck with Banks unless someone else comes along who can mop the floor with that sumbitch, not that I was ever a fan of Daniels.
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Mark P said on January 31, 2023 at 11:24 am
I don’t know anything about the polling, and I’m not a big fan even of the ones considered reliable. But, as Mencken is supposed to have said, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Or, to restate it, the evidence of my own eyes and ears convinces me that there is a whole hell of a lot of stupid Americans.
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LAMary said on January 31, 2023 at 11:45 am
I don’t think I would have survived my divorce without my gay male friends and I’m sure many divorced women would say the same.
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Dexter Friend said on January 31, 2023 at 11:58 am
Daniels said he’d just be a flunky pawn as he’d be a one term senator with no connections, obviously no seniority. So why did he even explore the idea?
He was a big hit one day at Auburn’s Town Tavern years ago. I wonder if he had the fish or the giant tenderloin sandwich on a bun? I wasn’t there but I heard he was well received.
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Julie Robinson said on January 31, 2023 at 2:37 pm
What happened to Governor “I’m cool now that I grew a goatee” Holcomb?
Long day, blacked out in the shower, fractured my ankle, and am waiting at the ortho guy. First ever broken bone, can’t brag about sturdy peasant bones anymore.
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4dbirds said on January 31, 2023 at 3:51 pm
So sorry about your loss Little Bird. I attended a funeral yesterday. The 40-year-old friend of my deceased son. 40 and had a massive heart attack while watching TV. Dead before anyone could get from the couch to his chair. Another reminder to take my blood pressure meds and statins.
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Sherri said on January 31, 2023 at 4:17 pm
Julie, ouch! Hope the blacking out in the shower is nothing serious.
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Julie Robinson said on January 31, 2023 at 6:46 pm
Dehydration. Any liquids ingested have been used by my body to make phlegm. All other infections tested for and ruled out. And it’s an uncomplicated break, so tomorrow I get a walking boot. No surgery.
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Dave said on January 31, 2023 at 7:21 pm
Goodness, a fall in the shower. That’s scary, Julie, glad that it’s not complicated but a fall of any sort can end with all sorts of possibilities, few good, but I am preaching to the choir, I know.
It’s not like I wanted Mitch Daniels but . . .
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Deborah said on January 31, 2023 at 7:58 pm
Julie, take it easy, that must have been frightening, glad tests all say nothing serious.
Our tiled sink backsplash project is finally finished, it took way longer to do because we had some unforeseen problems related to everything but the actual tiling. We like the way it looks a lot. As I said, it’s not perfect but we’re happy with it.
We’re getting a garage door opener for our garage here in the condo building. We’ve been lifting it and lowering it manually for 10 years now, and nobody is getting any younger and backs, shoulders etc are wearing out. It may get done as soon as next week. Yay!
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Deborah said on January 31, 2023 at 10:17 pm
The Republican barely controlled house won’t allow Jamie Raskin to wear a cap because of his hair loss from Chemo for his cancer. How petty.
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Hilary Held said on February 1, 2023 at 4:50 am
(longtime lurker and fan)
LA Mary, you speak the truth. (Go ask Alex; I think he’ll know.)
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Dexter Friend said on February 1, 2023 at 7:05 am
An old high school classmate suffered a broken pelvis due to a fall late last year. She is 73. Here in NW Ohio, I am being very careful as my yard and surroundings are shimmering ice, and it’s too fucking cold for ice melt to work. Sunday the big melt is coming and I will be hop-skipping and jumping all around.
Old house, plumber came to cable-snake a clog, said my problem is old pipes and I need to have a hole cut in a wall and new pipes and a new drain, first estimate, $1,000. That means a lot more than $1,000. These guys always go over. But then he said I could try the old sulfuric acid cure. Shaky stuff. I’ll ponder the options. That’ll only be maybe $40. Or I could bathe with a washrag and a bar of soap. Nope, not gonna do it.
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Jeff Borden said on February 1, 2023 at 10:36 am
Our Supreme Court certainly has a significant number of kinky creeps in black robes. Aside from Old Clarence’s crazy insurrectionist wife and Strip Search Sammy Alito tipping off uber-wealthy Christian nationalists about upcoming rulings –not to mention the uninvestigated sexual escapades of Beer Bong Brett Kavanaugh– the wife of John Roberts is now at the center of a significant scandal. She has earned millions recruiting far right lawyers for firms with cases pending before SCOTUS. The stench in that courtroom is becoming overpowering. Man, those lifetime appointments are looking worse and worse these days.
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Deborah said on February 1, 2023 at 12:39 pm
This article is making the rounds online so you’ve probably already seen it, about the “enshittification” of platforms like Amazon, Twitter etc https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys. It explained something to me that I’ve found irritating as hell on Amazon, which is why they show me a bunch of crap I didn’t ask to see when I typed in what I was looking for in the search box. It’s because they get fees from the companies that make the products or distribute products if Amazon puts those upfront for your eyeballs to see when you’re searching. So they show you what they want you to see because they can get paid for it, not what you asked to see. I’m getting closer and closer to quitting Amazon like I did Twitter. It’s going to be harder to do that though because it’s so hard to find products at brick and mortar stores, because of Amazon. It’s a vicious circle.
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Icarus said on February 1, 2023 at 1:17 pm
Good article Deborah. BTW: please find a way to post pictures of that tile.
I’m trying to take a break from LinkedIn because 1) there are no jobs right now, none I qualify for anyway and 2) the influencers and their BS so did not happen stories are getting repetitive.
been reading very old GinandTacos posts, circa 2008-2016. I wonder if Ed had any idea when he posted this in 2014 that the nutjob owner would go on to become an even bigger whackjob in the RightWing Stage.
http://www.ginandtacos.com/2014/07/18/npf-free-at-last/
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Scout said on February 1, 2023 at 1:57 pm
When searching Amazon, I’ve learned to sort by Avg Customer Review instead of Featured. That helps get rid of the stuff they are actively pushing.
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Sherri said on February 1, 2023 at 2:17 pm
Amazon showing you things they’ve been paid to show you first is not a new strategy; brick and mortar stores have done that long before the Internet. Book stores was famous (infamous?) for selling the display space at entrances, end cap spaces in grocery stores is sold, and I’m sure it happens in other retail spaces.
The bigger problems you need to be wary of at Amazon are the third party marketplace and the fake reviews. There’s a lot of fake crap being sold on Amazon Marketplace, with fake reviews to match, plus the drop shippers. You really have to pay attention to who the seller is in the fine print.
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Sherri said on February 1, 2023 at 4:06 pm
Quack lives matter. To police. When they need a distraction.
https://open.substack.com/pub/radleybalko/p/for-police-pr-flaks-quack-lives-matter?r=2h24&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post
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Dorothy said on February 1, 2023 at 5:36 pm
Oh Julie I saw your broken foot post on Facebook. I’m sorry this happened! I keep hearing about people falling – I posted about my husband’s fall at the end of a previous post of Nancy’s. The blacking out part is what is concerning me. How did they know so fast that it was dehydration?
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Deborah said on February 1, 2023 at 5:58 pm
Icarus, I have no idea how to show you photos, I’m no longer on FB or Twitter.
Shows how innocent (ignorant) I’ve been about brick and mortar stores selling endcap and window space. It never occurred to me that the stores charged fees to do that, I thought it was just them putting stuff out there that they thought would entice you to come in.
What I hate is when I type in the search box that I’m looking for an orange (whatever) thing on Amazon. And they show me every color of that thing that I’m not interested in. If I type in I’m looking for a 12″ long thing they show me every damn size there is and hardly anything is 12″ that they show me. It wastes a lot of time because I scroll and scroll thinking eventually I’ll see what I’m asking for.
I don’t even know why I bother because obviously they’re trying to get me to spend lots of time looking and looking because they want me see something that I’ll spur of the moment click on and put in my cart. Yes like brick and mortar stores do when they make you have to wander all over the place to find what you want hoping you’ll see something else you might spontaneously buy while you’re wandering. Some stores are worse than others. Now that stores have fewer people who can help you find something it’s extremely aggravating.
It’s baked into the design of stores nowadays. They want people to get lost and take more time looking for stuff, it’s been like that since the 80s that I know of anyway. The first architecture firm I worked for back then did a lot of retail design.
Paying in advance on Amazon Prime for shipping costs makes sense if I buy lots of stuff in that year, but if I hardly buy anything then it’s a waste. Also I don’t think there has been a single movie I’ve wanted to see on Amazon Prime video that I didn’t have to pay to rent, so why am I paying up front to rent later?
It’s all such a racket and it gets worse and worse.
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LAMary said on February 1, 2023 at 7:06 pm
I occasionally buy used books on Amazon and make a point of checking the name of the seller. Pretty often it’s Goodwill or some other nonprofit that has thrift shops. I just bought a copy of Mark Bittman’s grilling cookbook for the recently married son. I also found a copy of a children’s book I loved that had belonged to my oldest brother. It was published in 1934 and the illustrations are lovely, just as I remember them. So Amazon gets a cut of what I paid but a nonprofit get most of money.
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David C said on February 1, 2023 at 8:14 pm
We buy used books on shopgoodwill.com so it all goes to the nonprofit. Unless shopgoodwill is just a front for Amazon which wouldn’t surprise me because everything seems to be a front for Amazon.
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susan said on February 1, 2023 at 8:39 pm
I was so pissed off when Amazon bought Abe Books. I used to get all kinds of arcane and (to me) sought after, hard to find books from Abe, but no more.
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Julie Robinson said on February 1, 2023 at 8:50 pm
Dorothy, she did some testing that came back negative for Covid, Flu A + B, RSV, UTI, ear, throat and sinus, and I suppose based on her observation of me. She wants me to make sure my BP isn’t dipping low.
Today I got a walking boot and can hobble around a bit instead of staying in my room and rolling around on an office chair. The boot came from Amazon, of course. We asked where to buy one and they told us the two medical supply places, both downtown and closing soon, but that based on what our insurance might pay we could also just go through Amazon.
Dennis had another appointment today and it would have been hard to fit it in. On the way home I looked up the models they gave me and chose the one that could be delivered today. That’s why I love Amazon.
Why I hate Amazon is all the reasons mentioned above.
Almost every shelf at the grocery store is paid for by a manufacturer, abd they’re often in charge of stocking it too. Ever notice all the guys in Pepsi and Coke shirts? I learned a lot being married to an advertising guy.
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alex said on February 1, 2023 at 10:14 pm
Well Trump’s back on Twitter (even if only being retweeted from Truth Social):
https://www.21alivenews.com/2023/02/01/trump-endorses-jim-banks-indiana-senate-race/
Hey, it was the kiss of death on Dr. Oz, Kari Lake and Herschel Walker, so maybe we’ll see the last of this douchenozzle before too long. God, please.
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Dexter Friend said on February 2, 2023 at 2:02 am
I am not a scholar of SCOTUS history, but this rotten bunch in there now is deplorable. Clarence Thomas is a dirty rotten player and Kavanaugh is a drunken liar with lots of baggage, which was set aside during his confirmation hearings. Now the story that Jeff B. relates just confirms it: rotten.
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Icarus said on February 2, 2023 at 10:05 am
Deborah, I was gonna suggest good old-fashioned flickr, but if you have a gmail account, you have access to Photos. You can create an album there and make it public (or give specific access if you prefer).
How did we communicate to set up our Donut Date in 2021? I can’t seem to find your cell or email?
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Deborah said on February 2, 2023 at 10:43 am
Icarus, it had to be either text, email or DM through Facebook which I’m not on anymore. Email: first initial together with last name dot year I was born dot gmail dot com. My last name is the same as an Irish author/playwright who lived most of his life in France. The year I was born was exactly mid century.
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