The First Girl Emerges. Tabs, Fri., July 26, 2024
Morning news roundup!
Kamala met with Netanyahu and demanded a ceasefire. Even if you believe Israel had a right to go after Hamas after October 7, as I do, it is well and truly past time. (NBC)
No, the complaints that Kamala is “stealing” Joe Biden’s election funds are “horseshit.” It’s from our Liz and some guy, so you know that it’s good. (Law and Chaos Pod)
Army of childless cat lady Swifties coming for JD Vance. You done fucked up, son. (USA Today)
This is awful. Why does JD Vance look at his grandmother, pregnant from 13 on, never finishing middle school, with a violent husband and piles of miscarriages, and want that for the rest of us? (New Yorker)
Elon Musk’s daughter, who’s trans, is lovely, smart, and has had entirely enough of him defaming her with what she says and I believe her is made up shit! (NBC News)
Shyyyyyy, sign up for Dads for Kamala, Shyyyyy. (Garrett Bucks’s White Pages)
Look at this fucking ad LOOOK AT ITTTTTT.
Robyn in the chatcave is very much enjoying that their whole attack on her is “she laughs!!” and can remember previous eras of Democrats who might have agreed in terror, OH NO, SHE LAUGHS! Don’t worry, the Republicans are following up “she laughs!!” with “she is a SEXY LADY.” Well, it’s all over for us!!!!
Judge kicks Gateway Pundit out of defamation-bankruptcy for “bad faith.” But if it wasn’t for bad faith, Jim Hoft wouldn’t have no faith at all! Whooooops what’s this? “The proceedings had also revealed that the company may have been operating in Florida for three years without a proper business license and could owe back taxes to the state, Mora wrote in her 28-page ruling.” LOL :) (Guardian) Sounds like defamation-bankruptcy isn’t working out for Rudy Giuliani neither! (Order)
Man, where were these “economy” headlines the last three years? “The US economy is pulling off something historic.” (CNN) Joe Biden’s true legacy? It’s the jobs, Ma! (Slate)
Whom is Kim Davis suing today? Guess you’ll just have to wait for Marcie to tell you! Or, you know, read this filing. (Filing)
Whose salary is Lauren Boebert trying to cut to $1 today? (Newsweek has so many popup ads so I’ll tell you: It’s Deb Haaland’s comms director.)
Speaking in the House about the Interior Appropriations Act, Boebert said: "Melissa Schwartz is yet another horrendous and miserable use of taxpayer dollars. She is a mask-wearing, quadruple-vaxed, Green New Deal extremist and, unfortunately, a liberal troll who has harassed me even in committee hearing rooms.
[…] "She shouldn't be employed at the Department of [the] Interior. Melissa Schwartz belongs under a bridge. Melissa has the nerve and lack of respect to confront me in the halls of Congress following a Department of Interior meeting. In this hearing, she had the audacity to come and personally attack a member of Congress."
Mask-wearing and quadruple-vaxxed? How is that legal? IT’S NOT! (Newsweek)
The other day Donald Trump said that AI requires twice as much electricity as the US currently has. That seemed, to me, like a knock against AI and not so much against “wind,” and we should probably vote against the party that is trying to prioritize it under the law. Now AI is using more electricity in Ireland than every home in the country put together. This seems … unwise! (Guardian)
EVAN POPS IN! Back with a new regular dispatch this week at my Friday joint! This week I’m digging deeper on a subject Wonkette’s been talking about this week, about what JD Vance really means when he starts attacking “childless cat ladies.” Surprise, it’s pretty much the same white conservative Christian man tantrum we talk about all the time! Come by, share, subscribe! [The Moral High Ground]
TOMORROW! Sat., July 27! Atlanta and Portland, OR, WONKMEETS!
I will not be there! I still have a headache, and also we just got home!
But join your comrades in JOY and LAUGHTER and SNACKS! Atlanta! You are 4-7 p.m. Eastern, at Manuel’s Tavern, 602 North Highland Ave! I forgot to send tattoos for Thalia to give away! I am sorry!
Portland, OR, you are noon-4 p.m.-ish Pacific, at the Nighthawk Cafe & Lounge, 6423 N Interstate Ave., with Uncle Milton and Dr. Jen! Bring your own cash money for drinks!
Did you join Wonkette a year ago like thousands of your compatriots? If you’re coming up on renewal and need to change your credit card info, just click on your name in the upper right hand corner of this here website, then click “manage subscription” in the dropdown menu and there you can update your credit card numbers. Easy peasy!
If you are shopping on Amazon anyway, using this link gives us a small commission on everything you buy until you check out (unless you close the tab first, obviously).
We are partnered with Martie, for two good purposes: keeping overstock out of landfills, and also saving hella money. We get a commission when you buy, and I wouldn’t have it here if I didn’t like it.
Already a subscriber? Yay you! Feel the itch to give us money anyway? YAY YOU!
Summer corn: even porcupines love the stuff (it’s your hed gif source info link)-https://open.substack.com/pub/martiniambassador/p/porcupine-porkin-out?r=angu9&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
“Why does JD Vance look at his grandmother, pregnant from 13 on, never finishing middle school, with a violent husband and piles of miscarriages, and want that for the rest of us?”
I’m going to discuss something I’ve never publicly revealed. A couple of years back, as part of regular screenings of movies in my home theater with friends, we watched “The Banshees of Inisherin”.
As we sat and watched the movie, I realized, about half-way through it, that I was having a panic attack.
I grew up in Appalachia, in an isolated hill community in northwest NC, went to college, and wound up having a 30 year career at two nationally ranked universities as a staff member. My brother and I were the first in our family to move away and leave that community.
“The Banshees” set off many terrible, deep set memories of trauma from my childhood that I had just buried and not thought about in many years. I got through the entire film (having to step away a couple of times to compose myself). But it made me realize something very fundamental about my own hometown in Appalachia, but isolated rural communities in general.
My father’s side of the family originally came from Scotland; my mother’s from Germany. Both families came to these shores in the early 1700s. What I saw in “Banshees” were all the archetypes of our families - the feuds between families and branches that would be handed down and perpetuated from generation to generation, the senseless acts of revenge or acting out that would turn violent, the deep-set mistrust of outsiders and any kind of change, the constant gossip and misunderstandings, the senseless and selfish ideas about “personal honor” or the roles of men and and women. Mostly, it was the feeling of helplessness that “it’s the way things are and you can never change anything”.
The character of the sister in the movie was me - the bookish lady who looked to the outside world who finally said, “Fuck it - I’m out of here. You people are crazy and can wallow in your bullshit forever, but I want no part of it,” as she caught the next boat off the island for a job in the city.
There are basically two kinds of families in every isolated rural community I’ve visited or lived in since. There are parents, like my dad or uncle, who were forced to leave because things got so bad with the poverty or family dysfunction, that they left for work and another life or were drafted into the military. They saw the outside world and understood that their kids could have a better life and encouraged them to get an education and have a better life. Then there were others who remained, perpetuating the same problems, and usually wound up getting mired in domestic violence, crime, alcohol or drug abuse. Kids of some of these dysfunctional families would wind up getting exposed to the outside world through the improved schools that sprang up there in the 1960s and 70s who left the cycle to have a normal life.
“The Banshees of Inisherin” takes place a century ago in an isolated community in Ireland. And I realized, thinking back of my father telling stories about family feuds and hate that dated back to the Civil War or Revolutionary era or my mom’s side of the family relating similar stories, that the two families carried all this trauma and way of thinking with them a couple hundred years ago when they came from Europe.
That’s the central thing that pissed me off about “Hillbilly Elegy”.
JD Vance took all the wrong lessons from his experience. He’s still the little boy, wallowing in the misery of generations of trauma, probably passed from his ancestors that lived three hundred years ago that came from isolated rural communities in Europe.
And, really, the two views of the “American Experiment” on the right and left reflect this. Liberals understand that the leaders of the Revolution came to America for a new and better life to break this cycle of ignorance, religious tradition, and infighting. Conservatives see the leaders of the Revolution as the people who escaped change in Europe to go hide themselves in corners of the New World, to wallow in the same dysfunction they always had.
That’s why JD Vance wants the same for everyone else. He has no real sense of self reflection and it’s all he understands.