That’s what they tell themselves when they look in the mirror. But whatever “toughness” they supposedly show is always, at best, situational. When the alleged perps are the downtrodden, most definitely. When they’re radical leftists, certainly.
But when it’s powerful people whose politics align with their own, they whine about “witch hunts” and “the Deep State” whatever the hell that is.
Watch Fox News tonight to see the Right’s reaction to today’s news. Not so tough after all.
“The protests in Iran, now in their third month, are a historic battle pitting two powerful and irreconcilable forces: a predominantly young and modern population, proud of its 2,500-year-old civilization and desperate for change, versus an aging and isolated theocratic regime, committed to preserving its power and steeped in 43 years of brutality.”
“The Question Is No Longer Whether Iranians Will Topple the Ayatollah”
You would think inciting a violent insurrection designed to overturn a fair and free election would disqualify one from running for office again.
And if not that, then calling for a shorter, more election conspiracy-friendly Constitution.
And if not that, the Former Guy’s capitalization and quotation errors seal the deal. In fact, they are enough by themselves to lock him up and throw away the keyboards.
Georgia Senate race edition.
“The winner in Tuesday’s election will serve in an institution that has been overwhelmingly white throughout its history: Nearly 2,000 people have served in the U.S. Senate, and only 11 of them have been Black.”
“DeSantis would launch any charm offensive unarmed.”
Try, if you can, to imagine the most extreme covid restrictions you experienced in 2020 lasting for over 2.5 years. Until now, China’s citizens have decided life in lockdown is preferable to being caught protesting the restrictions.
Except for North Korea, every populace, Iran and China included, has their limits. The reporting and pictures coming out of China are riveting.
I especially like how they’re using sarcasm. From the New York Times:
“When a police officer told people to stop chanting for an end to lockdowns, the crowd quickly pivoted. ‘Continue lockdowns!’ they chanted, in an echo of the sarcasm that had spread online in recent days, as people shared overblown praise for the government to protest censorship. ‘I want to do Covid tests!'”
People like me, with a built-in bias for democracy, are almost always disappointed by flickers of popular protest that are routinely squelched by the state.
That history won’t stop me from rooting for the underdogs, for sarcasm, and radical political change.
This insider perspective is one of the things I’ll miss most about Twitter if it crashes and burns. Yudin is Head of Political Philosophy at The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences
Update. “The House Race That Shows Why Republicans Collapsed in the Midterms“.
“Kent’s weaknesses don’t take away from Gluesenkamp Perez’s accomplishment. She seems to have been the perfect Democrat to win the district. She has a bit of the magic John Fetterman dust many in her party will soon be seeking: She’s young (in her mid-30s) and owns an auto-body shop with her husband. She ran in large part on abortion rights, but is also a gun owner who opposes an assault-weapons ban.
Soon she’ll be a U.S. representative, too. That profile probably wouldn’t have been enough to unseat Herrera Beutler, but voters turned out to be so repulsed by MAGA candidates who question elections and pal around with racists that they were willing to give a chance to the right alternative. Democrats alone couldn’t flip seats like Washington’s Third, but with the help of Trump and the most extreme primary voters in the area, they were finally able to make it happen.”
“The reckoning has been coming; now it’s a moment where the reckoning can’t be denied. Trump has been a very unsuccessful politician compared with other people in the party. He lost the popular vote in 2016, and he lost the House in 2018. He lost both the popular vote and the Electoral College in 2020. His interventions cost Republicans two Senate seats in 2021, and with them control of the U.S. Senate. Now you have the 2022 underperformance by Republicans. And yet, Republicans convinced themselves that this guy was a big winner. The reckoning was always waiting to happen, but now it’s unavoidable. There’s no escape.”
“Much of the nation’s transportation infrastructure is in need of rehab or replacement, and bridges are a top concern. An annual infrastructure report card by the American Society of Civil Engineers last year calculated the nation’s bridge repair backlog at $125 billion with 46,000 U.S. bridges in poor condition.”
And in the Upper Left Hand Corner. . .
“Officials in Oregon and Washington have been working together since 2019 on a revived Interstate (Columbia River) Bridge replacement plan, after a previous effort failed in 2013. Cost estimates have ballooned from $3.4 billion almost a decade ago to closer to $5 billion today.”
Inertia-inspired inflation makes it harder to work through the backlog.
Pressing Pause 