Earlier this week, journalist Ryan Grim of the Hill’s Rising show did a segment entitled, “Democrats’ Culture War Problem is Much Deeper than The Squad.” I highly recommend checking it out. In it, he touches on themes I’ve written about both on TK and at Rolling Stone, namely that the Democratic Party’s seeming rhetorical turn on social justice issues may predate The Squad and have origins in counter-rhetoric used by Hillary Clinton against Bernie Sanders in 2016.
Ryan’s monologue came after the publication of a recent Axios article called, “Squad Politics Backfire” that essentially lays the groundwork for the Democratic Party establishment to blame a possible midterm collapse on politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar. That theme is likely to be heard more and more in the coming months, if the current polling situation holds. Is there validity to that criticism? Ryan and I discuss.
We’ll also talk Loudoun County, the state of the press, and some other issues we’ve both covered. Click here to join at 4:30 EST today!
As a parent and Board member of FAIR (www.fairforall.org) in the Boston area, I am kind of gobsmacked at how uninsightful Ryan's piece was. I agree that this is not the squad's fault.. but I don't see this as an issue being driven at the Federal level so much (except where the Federal Government is providing protection to education officials who seek power over parents)
If we go back to Matt's great articles on the Loudon County debacle we will find far more reasons and reality about what's actually going on to alienate the formerly Democratic LIberal base form it's party. What happened in Loudon County, VA, is happening every where in the country, but most markedly in metro areas (read affluent areas). Activist administrators and teachers are using the teachings (tenets) of Critical Race Theory (now coined: Culturally Responsive Teaching) to offer an oppressor/oppressed dichotomy in every single class/learning opportunity in K-12 schools. If you are not aware of this, you really need to start investigating your own school district for yourself (and if you don't have kids, take a look in your town/city government) -- you will find it there.
While many parents (like me) believe in the goals of equality of outcomes, common humanity, tolerance, what is being taught is far from these goals. The word Equity is a key indicator that your school or institution has been infected with these ideas. Equity does not mean equality -- it means over-correcting for past un-equal treatment. In practice, it shows up when:
1) Freshman in high school are disallowed from taking advanced courses because it would adversely affect a child who comes from a disadvantaged household.
2) White students are told that their opinion on race or race issues does not matter in a class because they don't have the "lived experience" of some of their cohort.
3) Administrators create "safe spaces" for groups upon the announcement of current events like the Karl Rittenhouse trial outcome where kids are separated by race and color of skin and belief systems (meaning if you think the outcome was warranted, you can't commune with the kids who think it was a travesty of justice, so you must go to a room where the teacher can educate you on why you are wrong thinking)
4) Teachers and Administrators are allowing children who believe they are gender dysmorphic to present as the opposite sex and a different name at school without alerting the parent. Telling the child that this is "our secret" and falsifying documents and conversations with the parents during conferences.
5) asking Kindergartners what their sexuality and pronouns are -- showing them the Gender Giraffe and the Gender Gingerbreadman to explain gender is a construct (which is confusing for 5 yr olds and goes against much of what they have learned to date)
6) A Librarian of Elementary aged kids telling a class that he is bi-sexual and to keep that a secret between them.
all of these things have happened in the Newton MA school district in the last 3 years! And that's just one district. The Wellesley MA district just lost a lawsuit because they sponsored race based affinity group for kids in the school - which is a violation of the Civil Rights Amendment. Their sex ed curriculum is pretty risque as well.. but at least the male sex ed teacher putting the condom on a dildo was for high school kids.
And many many more.
In the end, it's not a culture war per se, it's a war against indoctrination of children. And if you think it's not happening, you are sorely mistaken. Activist Teachers in CA described why they wanted Gay Straight Alliance groups in elementary school so that they could groom kids in their "activist" ideas - and the younger they could do this the better. and they wanted to keep all of this out of the purview of the parents.
The reason that many previously liberal democrats are leaving the Democratic party in droves is that progressive liberals have overtaken all of their institutions and they are determined to grab them back -- just look at the school board elections that are and will continue to be happening in the next year. So much of this activism went on without oversight during the last decade or so. But since parents are now aware they are taking action.
And what's important to understand is that the main stream media (even Ryan himself) play this off as a "conservative" issue.. but it IS NOT> all the people in my FAIR chapter are liberals... and most of us bristle at the more conservative actions of book banning and legislation banning CRT from curriculum.. but we find ourselves working with many of the same groups not because we agree on all the topics, but because we know that hte current model is damaging to kids and needs to be eradicated immediately.
Oh, there is so much more to say, but I'll leave this here.
Every once in a while I tune into Rising, which has Grim as one of its hosts. I find his take on everything entirely predictable and in consonance with the mainstream Democrat narrative. The only reason to watch Rising is Kim Iverson.
I have little interest in anything that Grim has to say, but - that said - might listen to the Callin episode anyway. Who knows, he may surprise me.
I watched the segment and the point was made that voters are alienated by mask mandates, CRT, and trans swimmers. Fair enough. But what about the "new breed" of DA's who are turning loose violent felons in the name of "social equity"? That doesn't even rate a mention?
I watched that segment, and it was mainly good, but Grim does ignore the fact that the squad has largely dropped just about all vestiges of a labor/left politics in favor of extreme identity politics.
Sure, it was already happening and Clinton used it in disgusting ways when faced with Bernie, and Biden and the old guard are unfortunately using it in really stupid ways too, but I feel like the squad are indicative of the post-Bernie movement getting almost 100% away from what made Bernie so popular (across the aisle even). We've now seen everyone from the Working Families Party, the ACLU, the DSA go all-in on identity politics, and often with anti-working class rhetoric. Hell, recent rewrites of "left-wing politics" on Wikipedia have gone heavily on "all identity, no economics," although the most current rewrites seem to have rectified that.
I feel like AOC and her ilk (who I initially supported) found the slow death of incrementalism in DC stifling and found that calling everyone a "white supremacist" on their Twitter pages brought instant, massive likes, and they just went all-in with junior high politics and burnt the husk of the Bernie movement so it would never live again. They certainly didn't start it, but they likely finished it.
Both Matt and Ryan have been right much more often than most of their peers because they are actually journalists who follow the facts, try to be intellectually honest, have non-tribal, reality-based world views and have not been captured by ideology. I learn a lot from both of them even when I may disagree on some points. They are thoughtful challengers of prevailing establishment orthodoxies, don't fall for extremist simplicities and are among the few good guides I've found as our world gets more and more difficult to make sense of the current confusion and incoherence. I look forward to hearing this afternoon.
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota in the AP piece:
While only a handful of Democrats in Congress support stripping such money from police departments, for example, conservative media popular in rural communities — particularly Fox News — amplifies such positions.
“We’re letting Republicans use the language of the far left to define the Democratic Party, and we can’t do that,” Heitkamp said. “The trend lines in rural America are very, very bad. ... Now, the brand is so toxic that people who are Democrats, the ones left, aren’t fighting for the party.”
Democrats have always looked for excuses to go further to the right, and the upcoming mid-term slaughter, expected by everyone it seems. will just generally be blamed on what are called "far left" positions like Defund the Police and whoever is being trans at the moment. These aren't far left positions, they are culture war positions. A far left position is to actually rein in the financial sector. What makes Hillary such a loathsome person here is her pretending to care about race and the other culture war stuff; she's interested in staying a Republican dressed in blue clothing, and that means taking care of the banks, like Obama did.
Conservative Democrats believe the same as Fox News viewers might believe, just to a lesser degree, that there is a left in their party, and it is the problem. There is no left in the Democratic Party. There are barely liberals, the Clintons having ousted them long ago. Chris Hedges' book documenting the death of the liberal class is several years old now. But the constant noise from--almost everyone--is that a far left consists of culture war positions. What we have now is the same old, disingenuous and fake New Left, whose woeful history is all too well known. No hope for the Dems, I don't think, but you don't need to mention the squad at all.
So no, this video was terrible, scattered. Grim has a batting average below the Mendoza Line.
Has the term ‘Democratic Democrat’ become an oxymoron? When you cut down the tree of knowledge, you end up with a stack of dead 'idea-logs' on all sides. And speaking of sides, our Planet is a sphere, it has no Sides, only Poles that are frozen wastelands without life. DePolarize…..Come in from the Cold.
And do not worry about Climate Change. There is no Global Warming in Canada.
Thanks to Mr. Trudeau, everything is frozen, from your freedom to your funds.
Honestly, I don't care who they blame their loses on as long as they lose.
And of course the DNC establishment will blame their loses on someone. That seems to be their MO these days.
"Social justice" has always been a convenient mask the Dems wear to conceal the decay & corruption that has been the real platform of their party since Clinton was in office. The Dems have been quite adept at finding "victims" to pander to for votes.
Of course that will just leave us with Republicans and a whole new set of problems and complaints but that's the Faustian bargain America has struck with it's 2 party, either/or system.
That's the idiocy of American politics isn't it? In the consumption sphere of our society we have endless choices. Endless brands of toothpaste & deodorant & pantyliners & tissue paper & literally everything else under the sun. But in the political sphere all of that lovely choice goes out the window and all we're left with, year after year, is a choice between conniving Frick on one side of the aisle & corrupt Frack on the other side.
And let's be honest, what have the Squad done in office except Tweet & Instagram & TikTok their often erroneous social & political comments as they posture for their demographic?
AOC seems like a smart girl. I'm sure she realizes that she just has to play the game, (vote Dem always, blame Republicans & racists for every party failure and keep her social justice blather to a manageable decibel level), and she'll be wealthy before she's 40.
In other words, my sympathy for "Da Squad" is incredibly limited.
Ryan: "sports and transgender rights". Males will eliminate women's (and girl's) sports - there's simply no contest. Not much balance in Ryan's framing. Government bureaucracies lie about reality to sporting bodies across the country. The Canadian Centre for "Ethics" in Sports has a manual, which states that any misgivings about self ID (males competing as women) as being based on "myths and gender stereotypes". Watched Enola Holmes last night and could understand how a keyboard generation might think any of those fight scenes between a 16 yo girl and a full grown man - with her triumphing every time, means men and women could compete fairly together.
“The conservative censorship we saw at work this year in the battle over the arts is certainly loathsome, but I believe that liberal censorship may pose one of the biggest impediments to free speech in the future,” Hughes said.
“The ‘sensitivity police’ are out to promote the idea that no one should be allowed to say anything that might possibly offend anybody else under any circumstance that could make somebody feel like an abused minority. I think this is a deadly course to follow--one that will not only cause free speech to suffer, but will ultimately destroy the language itself.” - Robert Hughes, LA Times 1990
It was not "dark money" from whomever that caused the three members of the school board to be recalled. It was their ignorance of history, their ignorance of fiscal matters, their adherence to a essentially racist agenda, and their arrogant indifference to the feelings of parents. It may make you feel good to think charter schools were an issue, but you are wrong and can empirically be shown to be wrong by listening to why the voters voted the way they did. ---- from a resident of the
I watched the segment. It's basically Ryan, in typical New York Times fashion of never directly getting to the point, saying: Please don't blame The Squad for this.
Ryan Grim: "to fend off a multiracial working class, to demand real changes to how power is structure in America. [Captured it as well as I could.]. What a complete blathering idiocy. Seriously, Taibbi, do you really think this guy is anything other than just another occupant of the leftist-intellectual class who seeks his own power? Ima gonna listen, but hope I do not retch during the Callin.
If you believe Ryan Grimm is a real journalist then your a retard. Sorry no nice way to say it. Ask Jimmy dore. hes the guy who's real like Matt they dont get paid by billionaires to work they do it out love for their jobs. And I'm guessing to help this world be a better place
I threw up in less than a minute into Grim’s sales pitch for the Squad. This bit is clearly part of a long con being engineered by the DNC. Who wants to take bets on whether the DNC pivots to Squadism as the wheels fall off the Joe-lopy as a result of their political malfeasance. Right now, it seems that the number one objective is to burnish the gold plating on the Squad's plastic politics. After all, the DNC needs a Hail Mary strategy and the Grim one is the perfect person to kick it off. AOC for President or Vice President? That is the question.
Matt, why are you helping Grim prop up the utterly corrupt and collapsing DNC?
Listening to Grim talk about Loudon, by saying "the dems could have effectively misdirected regarding title IX and got one over on the GOP" was truly sad. It is hard not to see him as a partisan hack.
So just so I understand, 100% of the issues in the US revolve around the Democrats and that is why the focus of these conversations are always on them. Is that accurate Matt?
Matt got booted from Rolling Whatver D-Bags. Matt is an honest broker who has spent time in the Eastern Bloc and Russia. His father Mike was a news guy/ presenter on our local Boston TV in the 1980s-1990s. Taibbi means Christian and Lebanese for ye dumbasses out there. His mother might be very pale Boston Irish for all I know.. (I did not look at Wikipedia etc) Trump is my man but you are very honest from your perspective. You know what is going on. MATT_______________>>> Go here this summer with your loved ones
dead wrong on his first assumption- if Biden got the spending it would make zero difference in the short term and inflation would be even worse. So basically they would be telling people that they would be giving them money in the future that would be worth much less. Marvelous
WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THE SUPREME COURT or THE KEY HOLE PRINCIPLE. They could be legislated out of relevance without a constitutional amendment. And, a lot of problems would be instantly solved.
My impression of AOC has always been that her future may be in political commentary - a show on MSNBC perhaps. She has the look and the style for being a media personality. Her distain for getting political power by winning elections makes me wonder about her political chops. She has no experience being in the minority in the House. It may not be long until she moves on to her next gig. She has that star quality so we can expect her to become a fixture.
Wow, where to start? I'm was so impressed that the underlying logic to every policy decision was What will win? What will give our side or the other side power? They even project that value(?) onto Republicans as if every policy decision is taken solely for to get to rule. I can't remember a place where any motive was assumed or projected to be "because it is right." Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Discuss things with Republicans and you inevitably get into details of what's fair, what's equal, what's freedom and can if be compromised. They are fundamentally discussions of applied inalienable rights.
Have Democrats completely lost their moral compass? Or maybe are Democrats so arrogant about their own self-righteousness that they just assume their own secular holiness?
Hasn't this been their line for decades? In her recent "Requiem for a Liberal Giant" Michelle Goldberg quotes Todd Gitlin: "When Ralph Nader's Greens equated a Bush presidency with a Gore presidency, they took leave of any practical connection to America."
Al Gore lost in 2000 because the capital-D Democrats would not allow Nader into the Presidential debate. If they had, Nader would have been the intellectual on the left, Bush the ignoramus on the right, and Gore the solid everyman in the center — a winning position. With Nader excluded, Gore was the smartass sighing contemptuously at Bush, an ordinary guy who evoked sympathy for not knowing much about history, don't know much biology... Gore also would have won if he had ditched the "more research is needed" line and supported states' rights to legalize marijuana for medical use. But the Dems were in thrall to Big Pharma.
You all really fail to understand that we are facing a global pandemic. You are underestimating a significant issue and you are proud it. (We don't have good solutions yet but if Grim thinks asking children to mask with effective masks is a social failure, this points to lots more problems). Net impact right now: no news source is a news source; they are an opinion sources.
Is that right? More tales of leftist playground teasing from the po' po' me rep-o machine. The grievance box is on the wall to the left of the fire exit. Alarm has been disconnected.
So it’s official. It’s USA vs USSR. Which side is Trump on?
I’m actually being serious and with as much as the guy has blasted every local, state and federal branch of our government (don’t forget our military and he’s a draft dodger), if I was a betting man, he’s riding with Putin, who just so happens to lead a country Trump has never once criticized.
Dear humans, not everything anyone says is garbage or gospel. Grim’s argument in this case is sound, based on facts, and is appropriately giving fair warning people interested in calling bull shit on the “DNC Democrats” blaming ONLY the squad in November. He is merely saying the Axios article is shallow.
Well, I've been thinking about this and where I think you are coming from all the time. Am guessing you are kind of a Bernie guy. I actually can see why some people who supported some of those social programs think that Hillary Clinton and this corporate Democratic machine are the problem -- while not going for conservative ideas. Especially when you see what they did to Bernie AND to Donald Trump!! And plan to again (got away with it with Biden as well). And I'd almost be persuaded to your position if you heard Bernie Sanders of AOC complaining about these authoritarian tactics, but you DON'T. Because some of the social programs are ones they agree with, they say nothing about this totalitarian regime. Ends justify means people still. So I don't believe they, big government people, wouldn't do exactly what these people are doing. You don't hear them talking about freedom or censorship or mandates. Not a word.
How about comparing Loudoun county and the San Francisco school board recall?There is dark money behind the SF recall, now the mayor gets to pick 3 seats on the school board which will surely be pro charter.Lee Fang wrote an article saying it was anti-woke pushback, ignoring all the other factors in play.The most recent West Wing Thing podcast has a good breakdown of what is going on, it's covered in the first 15 minutes.-
Once again, we don't want anyone to point out the staggering income inequality that is at the root of all the issues. Way too many Democrats have gone the way of the Clinton gang which is to take the money and run. Even Bernie got a book deal that made him a minor millionaire. All it takes is financial security to make anyone more conservative. What if we all had some kind of financial security? Would everyone calm down and start loving their neighbor? Or would be all want to rule the world, like Vlad and Joe and Joe and Kyrsten?
As a parent and Board member of FAIR (www.fairforall.org) in the Boston area, I am kind of gobsmacked at how uninsightful Ryan's piece was. I agree that this is not the squad's fault.. but I don't see this as an issue being driven at the Federal level so much (except where the Federal Government is providing protection to education officials who seek power over parents)
If we go back to Matt's great articles on the Loudon County debacle we will find far more reasons and reality about what's actually going on to alienate the formerly Democratic LIberal base form it's party. What happened in Loudon County, VA, is happening every where in the country, but most markedly in metro areas (read affluent areas). Activist administrators and teachers are using the teachings (tenets) of Critical Race Theory (now coined: Culturally Responsive Teaching) to offer an oppressor/oppressed dichotomy in every single class/learning opportunity in K-12 schools. If you are not aware of this, you really need to start investigating your own school district for yourself (and if you don't have kids, take a look in your town/city government) -- you will find it there.
While many parents (like me) believe in the goals of equality of outcomes, common humanity, tolerance, what is being taught is far from these goals. The word Equity is a key indicator that your school or institution has been infected with these ideas. Equity does not mean equality -- it means over-correcting for past un-equal treatment. In practice, it shows up when:
1) Freshman in high school are disallowed from taking advanced courses because it would adversely affect a child who comes from a disadvantaged household.
2) White students are told that their opinion on race or race issues does not matter in a class because they don't have the "lived experience" of some of their cohort.
3) Administrators create "safe spaces" for groups upon the announcement of current events like the Karl Rittenhouse trial outcome where kids are separated by race and color of skin and belief systems (meaning if you think the outcome was warranted, you can't commune with the kids who think it was a travesty of justice, so you must go to a room where the teacher can educate you on why you are wrong thinking)
4) Teachers and Administrators are allowing children who believe they are gender dysmorphic to present as the opposite sex and a different name at school without alerting the parent. Telling the child that this is "our secret" and falsifying documents and conversations with the parents during conferences.
5) asking Kindergartners what their sexuality and pronouns are -- showing them the Gender Giraffe and the Gender Gingerbreadman to explain gender is a construct (which is confusing for 5 yr olds and goes against much of what they have learned to date)
6) A Librarian of Elementary aged kids telling a class that he is bi-sexual and to keep that a secret between them.
all of these things have happened in the Newton MA school district in the last 3 years! And that's just one district. The Wellesley MA district just lost a lawsuit because they sponsored race based affinity group for kids in the school - which is a violation of the Civil Rights Amendment. Their sex ed curriculum is pretty risque as well.. but at least the male sex ed teacher putting the condom on a dildo was for high school kids.
And many many more.
In the end, it's not a culture war per se, it's a war against indoctrination of children. And if you think it's not happening, you are sorely mistaken. Activist Teachers in CA described why they wanted Gay Straight Alliance groups in elementary school so that they could groom kids in their "activist" ideas - and the younger they could do this the better. and they wanted to keep all of this out of the purview of the parents.
The reason that many previously liberal democrats are leaving the Democratic party in droves is that progressive liberals have overtaken all of their institutions and they are determined to grab them back -- just look at the school board elections that are and will continue to be happening in the next year. So much of this activism went on without oversight during the last decade or so. But since parents are now aware they are taking action.
And what's important to understand is that the main stream media (even Ryan himself) play this off as a "conservative" issue.. but it IS NOT> all the people in my FAIR chapter are liberals... and most of us bristle at the more conservative actions of book banning and legislation banning CRT from curriculum.. but we find ourselves working with many of the same groups not because we agree on all the topics, but because we know that hte current model is damaging to kids and needs to be eradicated immediately.
Oh, there is so much more to say, but I'll leave this here.
Oh for puke's sake. Ryan Grim eructating the sounds of his billionaire (3 of 'em) masters' voices. Why, Matt, why?
Every once in a while I tune into Rising, which has Grim as one of its hosts. I find his take on everything entirely predictable and in consonance with the mainstream Democrat narrative. The only reason to watch Rising is Kim Iverson.
I have little interest in anything that Grim has to say, but - that said - might listen to the Callin episode anyway. Who knows, he may surprise me.
I watched the segment and the point was made that voters are alienated by mask mandates, CRT, and trans swimmers. Fair enough. But what about the "new breed" of DA's who are turning loose violent felons in the name of "social equity"? That doesn't even rate a mention?
I watched that segment, and it was mainly good, but Grim does ignore the fact that the squad has largely dropped just about all vestiges of a labor/left politics in favor of extreme identity politics.
Sure, it was already happening and Clinton used it in disgusting ways when faced with Bernie, and Biden and the old guard are unfortunately using it in really stupid ways too, but I feel like the squad are indicative of the post-Bernie movement getting almost 100% away from what made Bernie so popular (across the aisle even). We've now seen everyone from the Working Families Party, the ACLU, the DSA go all-in on identity politics, and often with anti-working class rhetoric. Hell, recent rewrites of "left-wing politics" on Wikipedia have gone heavily on "all identity, no economics," although the most current rewrites seem to have rectified that.
I feel like AOC and her ilk (who I initially supported) found the slow death of incrementalism in DC stifling and found that calling everyone a "white supremacist" on their Twitter pages brought instant, massive likes, and they just went all-in with junior high politics and burnt the husk of the Bernie movement so it would never live again. They certainly didn't start it, but they likely finished it.
Both Matt and Ryan have been right much more often than most of their peers because they are actually journalists who follow the facts, try to be intellectually honest, have non-tribal, reality-based world views and have not been captured by ideology. I learn a lot from both of them even when I may disagree on some points. They are thoughtful challengers of prevailing establishment orthodoxies, don't fall for extremist simplicities and are among the few good guides I've found as our world gets more and more difficult to make sense of the current confusion and incoherence. I look forward to hearing this afternoon.
Is Ryan Grim the latest version of David Brooks?
The focus on the squad isn't it.
A better piece on the subject was from the AP, titled: ‘The brand is so toxic’: Dems fear extinction in rural US
Most political writers don't know where that is, so they twist themselves into thinking it's about someone in D.C.
https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-elections-pennsylvania-lifestyle-election-2020-fc79679ef54d850c0245f96dac37456c
Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota in the AP piece:
While only a handful of Democrats in Congress support stripping such money from police departments, for example, conservative media popular in rural communities — particularly Fox News — amplifies such positions.
“We’re letting Republicans use the language of the far left to define the Democratic Party, and we can’t do that,” Heitkamp said. “The trend lines in rural America are very, very bad. ... Now, the brand is so toxic that people who are Democrats, the ones left, aren’t fighting for the party.”
Democrats have always looked for excuses to go further to the right, and the upcoming mid-term slaughter, expected by everyone it seems. will just generally be blamed on what are called "far left" positions like Defund the Police and whoever is being trans at the moment. These aren't far left positions, they are culture war positions. A far left position is to actually rein in the financial sector. What makes Hillary such a loathsome person here is her pretending to care about race and the other culture war stuff; she's interested in staying a Republican dressed in blue clothing, and that means taking care of the banks, like Obama did.
Conservative Democrats believe the same as Fox News viewers might believe, just to a lesser degree, that there is a left in their party, and it is the problem. There is no left in the Democratic Party. There are barely liberals, the Clintons having ousted them long ago. Chris Hedges' book documenting the death of the liberal class is several years old now. But the constant noise from--almost everyone--is that a far left consists of culture war positions. What we have now is the same old, disingenuous and fake New Left, whose woeful history is all too well known. No hope for the Dems, I don't think, but you don't need to mention the squad at all.
So no, this video was terrible, scattered. Grim has a batting average below the Mendoza Line.
Grim is a boob, a willing distorter of objective facts, and a seriously minor mind. What’s not to like?
Has the term ‘Democratic Democrat’ become an oxymoron? When you cut down the tree of knowledge, you end up with a stack of dead 'idea-logs' on all sides. And speaking of sides, our Planet is a sphere, it has no Sides, only Poles that are frozen wastelands without life. DePolarize…..Come in from the Cold.
And do not worry about Climate Change. There is no Global Warming in Canada.
Thanks to Mr. Trudeau, everything is frozen, from your freedom to your funds.
Honestly, I don't care who they blame their loses on as long as they lose.
And of course the DNC establishment will blame their loses on someone. That seems to be their MO these days.
"Social justice" has always been a convenient mask the Dems wear to conceal the decay & corruption that has been the real platform of their party since Clinton was in office. The Dems have been quite adept at finding "victims" to pander to for votes.
Of course that will just leave us with Republicans and a whole new set of problems and complaints but that's the Faustian bargain America has struck with it's 2 party, either/or system.
That's the idiocy of American politics isn't it? In the consumption sphere of our society we have endless choices. Endless brands of toothpaste & deodorant & pantyliners & tissue paper & literally everything else under the sun. But in the political sphere all of that lovely choice goes out the window and all we're left with, year after year, is a choice between conniving Frick on one side of the aisle & corrupt Frack on the other side.
And let's be honest, what have the Squad done in office except Tweet & Instagram & TikTok their often erroneous social & political comments as they posture for their demographic?
AOC seems like a smart girl. I'm sure she realizes that she just has to play the game, (vote Dem always, blame Republicans & racists for every party failure and keep her social justice blather to a manageable decibel level), and she'll be wealthy before she's 40.
In other words, my sympathy for "Da Squad" is incredibly limited.
Ryan: "sports and transgender rights". Males will eliminate women's (and girl's) sports - there's simply no contest. Not much balance in Ryan's framing. Government bureaucracies lie about reality to sporting bodies across the country. The Canadian Centre for "Ethics" in Sports has a manual, which states that any misgivings about self ID (males competing as women) as being based on "myths and gender stereotypes". Watched Enola Holmes last night and could understand how a keyboard generation might think any of those fight scenes between a 16 yo girl and a full grown man - with her triumphing every time, means men and women could compete fairly together.
“The conservative censorship we saw at work this year in the battle over the arts is certainly loathsome, but I believe that liberal censorship may pose one of the biggest impediments to free speech in the future,” Hughes said.
“The ‘sensitivity police’ are out to promote the idea that no one should be allowed to say anything that might possibly offend anybody else under any circumstance that could make somebody feel like an abused minority. I think this is a deadly course to follow--one that will not only cause free speech to suffer, but will ultimately destroy the language itself.” - Robert Hughes, LA Times 1990
That was written in 1990
It was not "dark money" from whomever that caused the three members of the school board to be recalled. It was their ignorance of history, their ignorance of fiscal matters, their adherence to a essentially racist agenda, and their arrogant indifference to the feelings of parents. It may make you feel good to think charter schools were an issue, but you are wrong and can empirically be shown to be wrong by listening to why the voters voted the way they did. ---- from a resident of the
I watched the segment. It's basically Ryan, in typical New York Times fashion of never directly getting to the point, saying: Please don't blame The Squad for this.
Ryan Grim: "to fend off a multiracial working class, to demand real changes to how power is structure in America. [Captured it as well as I could.]. What a complete blathering idiocy. Seriously, Taibbi, do you really think this guy is anything other than just another occupant of the leftist-intellectual class who seeks his own power? Ima gonna listen, but hope I do not retch during the Callin.
If you believe Ryan Grimm is a real journalist then your a retard. Sorry no nice way to say it. Ask Jimmy dore. hes the guy who's real like Matt they dont get paid by billionaires to work they do it out love for their jobs. And I'm guessing to help this world be a better place
I threw up in less than a minute into Grim’s sales pitch for the Squad. This bit is clearly part of a long con being engineered by the DNC. Who wants to take bets on whether the DNC pivots to Squadism as the wheels fall off the Joe-lopy as a result of their political malfeasance. Right now, it seems that the number one objective is to burnish the gold plating on the Squad's plastic politics. After all, the DNC needs a Hail Mary strategy and the Grim one is the perfect person to kick it off. AOC for President or Vice President? That is the question.
Matt, why are you helping Grim prop up the utterly corrupt and collapsing DNC?
I am now officially skeptical.
Listening to Grim talk about Loudon, by saying "the dems could have effectively misdirected regarding title IX and got one over on the GOP" was truly sad. It is hard not to see him as a partisan hack.
So just so I understand, 100% of the issues in the US revolve around the Democrats and that is why the focus of these conversations are always on them. Is that accurate Matt?
Matt got booted from Rolling Whatver D-Bags. Matt is an honest broker who has spent time in the Eastern Bloc and Russia. His father Mike was a news guy/ presenter on our local Boston TV in the 1980s-1990s. Taibbi means Christian and Lebanese for ye dumbasses out there. His mother might be very pale Boston Irish for all I know.. (I did not look at Wikipedia etc) Trump is my man but you are very honest from your perspective. You know what is going on. MATT_______________>>> Go here this summer with your loved ones
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTHGIifvqf4
dead wrong on his first assumption- if Biden got the spending it would make zero difference in the short term and inflation would be even worse. So basically they would be telling people that they would be giving them money in the future that would be worth much less. Marvelous
Holy fuck that first caller was annoying.
WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT THE SUPREME COURT or THE KEY HOLE PRINCIPLE. They could be legislated out of relevance without a constitutional amendment. And, a lot of problems would be instantly solved.
My impression of AOC has always been that her future may be in political commentary - a show on MSNBC perhaps. She has the look and the style for being a media personality. Her distain for getting political power by winning elections makes me wonder about her political chops. She has no experience being in the minority in the House. It may not be long until she moves on to her next gig. She has that star quality so we can expect her to become a fixture.
Wow, where to start? I'm was so impressed that the underlying logic to every policy decision was What will win? What will give our side or the other side power? They even project that value(?) onto Republicans as if every policy decision is taken solely for to get to rule. I can't remember a place where any motive was assumed or projected to be "because it is right." Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
Discuss things with Republicans and you inevitably get into details of what's fair, what's equal, what's freedom and can if be compromised. They are fundamentally discussions of applied inalienable rights.
Have Democrats completely lost their moral compass? Or maybe are Democrats so arrogant about their own self-righteousness that they just assume their own secular holiness?
Hasn't this been their line for decades? In her recent "Requiem for a Liberal Giant" Michelle Goldberg quotes Todd Gitlin: "When Ralph Nader's Greens equated a Bush presidency with a Gore presidency, they took leave of any practical connection to America."
Al Gore lost in 2000 because the capital-D Democrats would not allow Nader into the Presidential debate. If they had, Nader would have been the intellectual on the left, Bush the ignoramus on the right, and Gore the solid everyman in the center — a winning position. With Nader excluded, Gore was the smartass sighing contemptuously at Bush, an ordinary guy who evoked sympathy for not knowing much about history, don't know much biology... Gore also would have won if he had ditched the "more research is needed" line and supported states' rights to legalize marijuana for medical use. But the Dems were in thrall to Big Pharma.
Interesting-just read a piece on Vox from 4/21 admitting the same thing about wokeness but realizing that it may be a strategy
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/22338417/james-carville-democratic-party-biden-100-days
Please check out my work Matt! https://tumbleweedwords.substack.com/p/russia-is-being-erased-the-rejection?s=w
You all really fail to understand that we are facing a global pandemic. You are underestimating a significant issue and you are proud it. (We don't have good solutions yet but if Grim thinks asking children to mask with effective masks is a social failure, this points to lots more problems). Net impact right now: no news source is a news source; they are an opinion sources.
It was painful to try to listen to Ryan Grimm, please don’t waste my time with him again., Matt. Branch out, meet new people.
all you woke trolls out there, go cram it.
Is that right? More tales of leftist playground teasing from the po' po' me rep-o machine. The grievance box is on the wall to the left of the fire exit. Alarm has been disconnected.
I believe it. I knew his father fromNYC news man. Are you saying this to
minimize how much of a hack bullshitter Ryan Grimm is? or just making the comparison?
So it’s official. It’s USA vs USSR. Which side is Trump on?
I’m actually being serious and with as much as the guy has blasted every local, state and federal branch of our government (don’t forget our military and he’s a draft dodger), if I was a betting man, he’s riding with Putin, who just so happens to lead a country Trump has never once criticized.
You are area delusional over self loving fool. Take your hate and shove it.
Of course it was not. Stop believing in unicorns.
ukrainegate.info nice summary of Bidens' corrupt rule in Ukraine (found the link in Comments – never seen it before)
https://ukrainegate.info/short-part-1-a-not-so-solid-prosecutor/
Dear humans, not everything anyone says is garbage or gospel. Grim’s argument in this case is sound, based on facts, and is appropriately giving fair warning people interested in calling bull shit on the “DNC Democrats” blaming ONLY the squad in November. He is merely saying the Axios article is shallow.
Ryan Grimm :)
Has anyone mentioned today's FAIR discussion about press propaganda by omission?
Ryan's report, excellent.
Well, I've been thinking about this and where I think you are coming from all the time. Am guessing you are kind of a Bernie guy. I actually can see why some people who supported some of those social programs think that Hillary Clinton and this corporate Democratic machine are the problem -- while not going for conservative ideas. Especially when you see what they did to Bernie AND to Donald Trump!! And plan to again (got away with it with Biden as well). And I'd almost be persuaded to your position if you heard Bernie Sanders of AOC complaining about these authoritarian tactics, but you DON'T. Because some of the social programs are ones they agree with, they say nothing about this totalitarian regime. Ends justify means people still. So I don't believe they, big government people, wouldn't do exactly what these people are doing. You don't hear them talking about freedom or censorship or mandates. Not a word.
How many democrats (politicians) pay attention to the middle class? The squeaky wheel gets the oil.
How about comparing Loudoun county and the San Francisco school board recall?There is dark money behind the SF recall, now the mayor gets to pick 3 seats on the school board which will surely be pro charter.Lee Fang wrote an article saying it was anti-woke pushback, ignoring all the other factors in play.The most recent West Wing Thing podcast has a good breakdown of what is going on, it's covered in the first 15 minutes.-
https://westwingthing.libsyn.com/the-hillary-clinton-master-class-part-3-wspecial-guests-tom-sexton-aaron-thorpe
Once again, we don't want anyone to point out the staggering income inequality that is at the root of all the issues. Way too many Democrats have gone the way of the Clinton gang which is to take the money and run. Even Bernie got a book deal that made him a minor millionaire. All it takes is financial security to make anyone more conservative. What if we all had some kind of financial security? Would everyone calm down and start loving their neighbor? Or would be all want to rule the world, like Vlad and Joe and Joe and Kyrsten?
An outstanding book:
The Plot to Scapegoat Russia: How the CIA and the Deep State Have Conspired to Vilify Putin
by Dan Kovalik Esq., Alex Hyde-White, et al
https://www.amazon.com/Plot-Scapegoat-Russia-Conspired-Vilify/dp/B07771BMV8/ref=tmm_aud_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1645575140&sr=1-1-ef9bfdb7-b507-43a0-b887-27e2a8414df0
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A must see: Tucker Carlson Today – interview with Dan Kovalik: “Russia, Russia, Russia” (Feb. 4, 2022)
This and Tucker-Tonight should be available on Rumble and elsewhere
An outstanding 4-part Fox-Nation video – “Who is Hunter Biden”