Nov 1, 2024
How Bad?
Pretty fuckin' bad.
JD Vance called for ‘federal response’ to block women from traveling for abortions
VP nominee pushed baseless warning in 2022 that George Soros would pack planes of Black women to get abortions
JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, promoted a baseless rightwing talking point in 2022 when he warned of George Soros-funded planes transporting Black women across state lines for abortions.
“I’m sympathetic to the view that like, okay, look here, here’s a situation – let’s say Roe v Wade is overruled,” Vance said in a recently resurfaced podcast interview. “Ohio bans abortion in 2022, or let’s say 2024. And then, you know, every day George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity – uh, that’s kind of creepy.”
The US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022. Vance’s statements echo a common anti-abortion talking point accusing abortion providers and their supporters of targeting people of color.
Black women did seek abortions at a higher rate before Roe fell, but public health experts say that this is far from proof of a racist conspiracy. They point to a number systemic factors – for example, Black women are more likely to live in areas where it’s harder to access contraception. They are also disproportionately harmed by abortion bans.
Vance continued: “And, and it’s like, if that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening? Because it’s really creepy. And I’m pretty sympathetic to that actually. So, you know, how hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion in California and the Soroses of the world respect it.”
While Open Society Foundations, which was founded by Soros, does support reproductive rights, the billionaire philanthropist is not directing planes to swoop up Black women for abortions. He has been the target of antisemitic conspiracy theories for years.
Vance’s comments were reported by CNN. On Thursday evening, Kamala Harris’s campaign posted audio of the remarks on X.
Vance’s record on abortion has come under national scrutiny since Trump picked the Hillbilly Elegy author as his vice-presidential running mate. In 2022, Vance suggested he would support a national 15-week abortion ban with exceptions. But, like other Republicans wary of the political fallout of Roe’s demise, Vance has more recently sought to soften his position and said in an interview that “we have to accept people do not want abortion bans”. He has also expressed support for the availability of mifepristone, a common abortion pill, and said he agrees with Trump’s position that states should decide their own abortion laws. (Trump has flip-flopped on this stance.)
But in January 2023, Vance signed ont o a letter urging the Department of Justice to use the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law, to ban the mailing of abortion pills nationwide. Since Roe’s fall, anti-abortion activists have begun claiming that the Comstock Act remains good law and can be used to enforce a federal abortion ban. Project 2025, a wish list for a conservative administration written by the influential thinktank Heritage Foundation, reiterates this argument.
“Senator Vance has made his position clear: he agrees with President Trump that each state should have the chance to individually set their own abortion laws,” Taylor Van Kirk, a spokeswoman for Vance, said in a statement. “Desperate attacks from Democrats will not distract voters from the deadly effects of Kamala’s wide-open border, the untenable cost of living caused by her inflationary spending or any other aspect of her far-left, radical agenda.”
JD Vance: from 'never-Trump guy' to vice-presidential candidate – video profile
Vance’s vice-presidential run is off to a rocky start, and he has spent the last week haunted by other resurfaced remarks. In a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, Vance said that the United States and the Democratic party wwere run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies, who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”.
He then named Harris, who has two step-children, as an example, along with Pete Buttigieg (who has since had children) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said. “And how does it make sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
Those comments have provoked an uproar, drawing condemnation even from relatively apolitical celebrities like Jennifer Aniston. Kerstin Emhoff, the ex-wife of Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff, called the attacks on the presumptive Democratic nominee “baseless” and praised her co-parenting. In an Instagram story, Harris’s step-daughter Ella Emhoff posted: “I love my three parents.”
From back in July. Funny how this kinda thing barely sees the light of day.
VP nominee pushed baseless warning in 2022 that George Soros would pack planes of Black women to get abortions
JD Vance, the Ohio senator and Donald Trump’s running mate, promoted a baseless rightwing talking point in 2022 when he warned of George Soros-funded planes transporting Black women across state lines for abortions.
“I’m sympathetic to the view that like, okay, look here, here’s a situation – let’s say Roe v Wade is overruled,” Vance said in a recently resurfaced podcast interview. “Ohio bans abortion in 2022, or let’s say 2024. And then, you know, every day George Soros sends a 747 to Columbus to load up disproportionately Black women to get them to go have abortions in California. And of course, the left will celebrate this as a victory for diversity – uh, that’s kind of creepy.”
The US supreme court overturned Roe in 2022. Vance’s statements echo a common anti-abortion talking point accusing abortion providers and their supporters of targeting people of color.
Black women did seek abortions at a higher rate before Roe fell, but public health experts say that this is far from proof of a racist conspiracy. They point to a number systemic factors – for example, Black women are more likely to live in areas where it’s harder to access contraception. They are also disproportionately harmed by abortion bans.
Vance continued: “And, and it’s like, if that happens, do you need some federal response to prevent it from happening? Because it’s really creepy. And I’m pretty sympathetic to that actually. So, you know, how hopefully we get to a point where Ohio bans abortion in California and the Soroses of the world respect it.”
While Open Society Foundations, which was founded by Soros, does support reproductive rights, the billionaire philanthropist is not directing planes to swoop up Black women for abortions. He has been the target of antisemitic conspiracy theories for years.
Vance’s comments were reported by CNN. On Thursday evening, Kamala Harris’s campaign posted audio of the remarks on X.
Vance’s record on abortion has come under national scrutiny since Trump picked the Hillbilly Elegy author as his vice-presidential running mate. In 2022, Vance suggested he would support a national 15-week abortion ban with exceptions. But, like other Republicans wary of the political fallout of Roe’s demise, Vance has more recently sought to soften his position and said in an interview that “we have to accept people do not want abortion bans”. He has also expressed support for the availability of mifepristone, a common abortion pill, and said he agrees with Trump’s position that states should decide their own abortion laws. (Trump has flip-flopped on this stance.)
But in January 2023, Vance signed ont o a letter urging the Department of Justice to use the Comstock Act, a 19th-century anti-obscenity law, to ban the mailing of abortion pills nationwide. Since Roe’s fall, anti-abortion activists have begun claiming that the Comstock Act remains good law and can be used to enforce a federal abortion ban. Project 2025, a wish list for a conservative administration written by the influential thinktank Heritage Foundation, reiterates this argument.
“Senator Vance has made his position clear: he agrees with President Trump that each state should have the chance to individually set their own abortion laws,” Taylor Van Kirk, a spokeswoman for Vance, said in a statement. “Desperate attacks from Democrats will not distract voters from the deadly effects of Kamala’s wide-open border, the untenable cost of living caused by her inflationary spending or any other aspect of her far-left, radical agenda.”
JD Vance: from 'never-Trump guy' to vice-presidential candidate – video profile
Vance’s vice-presidential run is off to a rocky start, and he has spent the last week haunted by other resurfaced remarks. In a 2021 interview with Tucker Carlson, Vance said that the United States and the Democratic party wwere run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies, who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too”.
He then named Harris, who has two step-children, as an example, along with Pete Buttigieg (who has since had children) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. “The entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said. “And how does it make sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?”
Those comments have provoked an uproar, drawing condemnation even from relatively apolitical celebrities like Jennifer Aniston. Kerstin Emhoff, the ex-wife of Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff, called the attacks on the presumptive Democratic nominee “baseless” and praised her co-parenting. In an Instagram story, Harris’s step-daughter Ella Emhoff posted: “I love my three parents.”
Oct 31, 2024
I Hate A Bully
You stand in front of him. You look him in the eye. And usually, that's enough - he'll wilt.
But sometimes - you may have to kick him right in the nuts.
Be ready.
A Dying Business
And maybe it's time for us to help at least some of them usher themselves out.
But that's a really scary-sounding proposition. If we help kill off WaPo and NYTimes (eg), will there be others who'll step up to bolster the 4th Estate, or are we pounding nails into our own coffin lids?
I don't know. It feels like it, but I don't know.
What I do know is that the money will go somewhere. It used to go to the big players because they owned the market. But now, everybody who thinks they have good opinions or other content worth sharing - and every jagoff "nuisance streamer" - has a platform. And with relatively little effort or investment, they can all create a profit niche.
Plus, there are no ethical boundaries. No standards. No constraints at all. In fact, with literally millions of content creators chasing a share of billions of consumers, cutting through the clutter is becoming pretty much the only thing that matters. So you have to be extraordinarily accurate and meticulous (ie: what too many of us would consider boring), or you have to be more and more outrageous to keep the herd happy, and placated, and willing to sit through your ads.
So anyway, here's AP giving us a bit of a glance at what's happening to old school newspapering.
- And BTW, by not endorsing Harris, WaPo has left the field wide open for Trump to claim that the non-endorsement of Harris actually means they endorse him but they're afraid to say it out in the open.
- Don't expect to win with assholes like Trump by playing fair. You have to meet people where they are, and where these dickheads are is in gutter. See y'all down there.
(it's up around 300K as of 10-31-2024)
The Washington Post has lost at least 250,000 subscribers since announcing last Friday that it would not endorse a candidate for president — roughly 10 percent of its digital following, the newspaper reported Wednesday.
The Post would not officially confirm that figure, saying it was a private company, but it was reported in a story in the newspaper that cited documents and two unnamed sources who were familiar with the figures. Another non-endorsement last week has caused thousands of Los Angeles Times readers to cancel subscriptions, although not nearly at the Post’s level.
One journalism historian, Jon Marshall at Northwestern University, said he had a hard time recalling a comparable response, although a boycott of the Arkansas Gazette when it supported the integration of Little Rock schools in 1957 cost that newspaper more than $20 million in today’s dollars.
The Post’s owner, Jeff Bezos, said presidential endorsements create a perception of bias at the newspaper while having little real influence on how readers vote. His said his only regret was making the decision known when passions are heated so close to Election Day; the paper’s editorial staff had reportedly prepared an endorsement of Democrat Kamala Harris.
“A lot of people would have forgotten about the Harris endorsement slated to run in the newspaper,” the Post’s media critic, Erik Wemple, wrote. “Few will forget about the decision not to publish it.”
The Post’s executive editor, Matt Murray, told employees in a staff meeting that there were “several positive days” of new subscribers signing up, although he didn’t mention any numbers, the newspaper reported.
Some of the Post’s angry digital readers have also already paid for a year’s access, and will retain that until their subscriptions expire.
“After another month or so, the election will have ended, and there may be people who say that ‘I need the Post more than they need me’ and come back,” said Rick Edmonds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute.
The Post also saw a big increase in subscribers during Donald Trump’s presidency from people attracted to the newspaper’s aggressive coverage, raising the possibility of a repeat if the man that the newspaper wasn’t prepared to endorse is returned to office.
In the meantime, Edmonds said, “it’s very bad.” After losing readers during the Biden administration, the Post had reportedly seen positive signs of growth — until this week.
Oct 30, 2024
These Bros
These idiots are not 'alpha'.
And I'm not sure they qualify as beta - unless you look at it as a contest to see who can be more beta than all the others. The Alpha Beta?
They seem to be striving to prove and re-affirm their beta-ness by constantly supplicating at Trump's feet, and even more - they're always trying to out-suck-up each other by showing how far they're willing to crawl to lick Trump's boots.
Today's MAGA Convulsion
I think I've opined on this before, but in case I haven't, here's my crystal-gazing for today.
It's likely we'll see more of these incidents. Probably occurring just here and there sporadically on and around Election Day (although, I think stretching "election day" out over a few weeks blunts some of the potential impact of direct fuckery).
So far, they're actually been pretty mild - not that any of it is excusable, but "the big one" hasn't happened.
Yet.
But we 're going to see more of this stochastic shit played out - specifically in Michigan, and Arizona, and North Carolina - between now and Inauguration Day in January.
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