CraigM
4129
Once you realize the people saying this are not Christian in the religious sense, but for whom Christian is espousing a political identity it makes more sense.
Papageno
4130
Particularly (if I’m thinking of the one whose pics I’ve seen in recent reports) if she’s young, blonde, pretty and photogenic.
Timex
4131
I think folks are reaching if they think the only thing about the case that makes folks notice is that the girl was white.
The story was WEIRD. That’s why it got so much attention.
rowe33
4132
She’s a cute white woman - it’s red meat for Fox viewers.
It’s not really that weird, is it? She went missing while on a trip with her fiance’ - he killed her for some reason and it’s ALL right wing media can talk about.
I mean it’s been the headline Fox story for a while and even tonight it’s all they’re showing on the site:
Papageno
4133
BTW, re: immigration, I wish the older white boomers who are anti-immigration could be made to understand that if their fantasy came true and there were no more immigration from places other than Norway and Sweden etc., this country would become an even sadder, shittier place than late capitalism, neo-liberal economics and racism have made it already. Our birthrate would not even replace the people who die due to age, disease and accidents. We’d turn into a somewhat more ethnically/culturally diverse Japan, with a recession that’s lasted about 30 years now, right? It’s never going to be the 1950s and 1960s again ffs, at least in terms of the country’s ethnic mix.
Timex
4134
The past that was weird was that she disappeared, and her fiance was like, “yeah, I dunno what happened to her.”
His reaction was weird, and pretty much everyone assumes he killed her because of it.
Strollen
4135
Guys make kill girls disappear all the time, and say stupid thing. The only reason she is special is because, she had zillion instragram followers. Why did she have a zillion instagram followers?, cause she’s bubbly and cute and they were visiting scenic places. There are also pictures of her looking scared, in cute shorts, that cops took. It’s a scene right out of the Friday 13th movie,
The reason the story is media sensation, even on CNN, is because she is young, pretty, white, girl, with lots of visuals. Take away any of those adjectives and its one day story.
On the issue of immigration…
It really makes me angry that even the mostly-responsible media like NBC, CBS, ABC, etc. are framing the situation in Texas as “President Biden’s Humanitarian Crisis at the Border” rather than “The Humanitarian Crisis at the Border”. They know damn well that the Biden Administration did not send out radio broadcasts or distribute flyers all over Central and South America urging displaced Haitians and others to flock to the U.S. because the “doors are wide open”. Yet the media acts as if all of these folks are here on Biden’s personal invitation, and now he’s responsible for what happens to every single one of them. That’s bullshit. All he’s responsible for is allocating additional emergency resources so that the proper agencies can dispatch enough people and supplies to help these poor people while we process them all and decide who can stay and who must leave under our existing immigration policies, and that is exactly what he has done. The rest is all politicized bullshit, and it is dangerous because it gives the GOP red meat to feed to their base.
I see all this immigration talk happening in parallel with all the talk about how there are 10 million jobs unfilled in the United States and only 7 million people unemployed and I think to myself why doesn’t anyone in a position to do something about it see that the solution to one problem goes hand-in-hand with the other? America was built by immigrants, it has a long-standing history of people coming here from elsewhere, with little to nothing, and that first generation do whatever it took to get by while raising the next generation to have more advantages than they did, then repeat, until American dream is achieved. Why would we move away from a system that has worked for 120+ years? Oh right, because these immigrants are black/brown, that’s why. If only Haiti was full of white people we’d have taken in the whole country by now.
Is this where we’ve been putting infrastructure bill stuff?
This is an unabashedly leftist opinion piece (with a dash of Dems In Disarray to boot), so disregard it if you’re not interested in that perspective, but it sums up how I feel about all our hand-wringing over Manchin and Sinema, and I think he reaches the correct conclusion in the end.
One problem, of course, is that the range of political beliefs present in the Democratic Party is only very slightly more narrow than the range of political beliefs in all of humanity. In the Senate alone, you have some Democrats, like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who believe that now is the time to push hard for better health care, stronger corporate regulation, and more economic equality. And you have other Democrats, like Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, who believe that now is the time to whip off their masks, Scooby Doo-style, and reveal that they were Old Man McConnell the whole time. This tends to lead to conflict.
What we have is a classic game of chicken. If the progressives sink the infrastructure bill or the moderates sink the reconciliation bill, there is a very good chance that both bills get sunk, and we all end up with nothing. This is clearly bad for everyone. What normally happens in these situations is that the progressives end up eating shit, and the smaller bill that moderates want gets passed, and the neediest people in America end up with nothing. This is also bad. Ideally both bills would pass at their full size, because this is a political moment of opportunity that is unlikely to come around again any time soon. But assuming Manchin and Sinema are serious, the very best case scenario now would seem to be the passage of the infrastructure bill, and then a vastly cut-down version of the reconciliation bill that leaves out enormous parts of the progressive agenda. This, you may notice, does entail the progressives eating a certain amount of shit.
In fact, it’s wrong to say that this is a conflict between “progressives” and “moderates.” The real divide here is between “people who care about people” and “utter political nihilists.” The reason why it seems so easy for Manchin and Sinema to needlessly trash this golden opportunity to transform our nation for the better is the same reason why progressives usually end up caving for half a loaf in these negotiations. The reason is that, if you got into politics in order to help people, you are always forced to recognize that something that helps people is better than nothing that helps people, whereas if you got into politics just to be a power-loving political creature, it is easy to do something that hurts 100 million people you don’t know in order to help you and your friends.
Even if we end up with some of what is in the full reconciliation bill, that could mean winning things like universal pre‑K, paid family leave, free community college, and expanded Medicare. Those are meaningful accomplishments that will change lives. It is hard to argue that we should abandon those gains on principle. I would prefer to take them on principle, and then turn our attention to burning and pillaging the political careers of Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and making it impossible for them to walk among polite society ever again.
Alstein
4138
There’s a huge difference between Manchin and Sinema. Manchin I have some sympathy for and understand where he’s coming from, whereas I consider Sinema to be nothing more than a grifter and is someone I respect less than even Mitt Romney.
This is why I don’t suppport primarying Manchin, but Sinema should be primaried out.
JoshL
4139
That is a good article, thanks. I also like the linked article about getting rid of the Electoral College and the Senate.
You know, in the U.K. (if I understand it correctly), they did severely reduce the power of their Senate (the House of Lords), which is even less democratic than ours. The House of Lords now has no legislative power at all, they only vote on appointments. I’d be down for something like that here, although getting rid of the Senate entirely would be even better.
Timex
4140
This is the correct take.
Especially since the Democrats’ fundamental argument for why they should be allowed to govern, is because government can work and they will make it work.
If they actually implement stuff, and it improves peoples’ lives, then they are in a dramatically better position to win reelection, expand their power, and do more stuff.
ShivaX
4141
I think it would still be an ongoing story, but it would be one of those sidebar stories you got updated on ever so often.
I mostly knew about it because Law Twitter was slapping down idiots saying that talking to the cops is a good idea and that people who don’t talk to cops are de facto guilty of something. I mean, I always assumed the dude was guilty because of his actions, not the not cooperating with the police part.
He stole her car and drove across the country after basically losing her and then doing nothing about it. And mind you that’s his side of the story. The best he could hope for is a position that there was a terrible accident, but if there is a terrible accident, you don’t steal the victim’s car and drive away without telling anyone unless you want everyone to think you killed the person.
138
4142
lordkosc
4143
Probably cheaper to set up than the wall!
Not if they sit there with their A/C running all day!
ShivaX
4145
He’s not wrong. Most people don’t understand intra-party dynamics. They just know the Democrats have 50 and the VP “so that means they get to do stuff”.
A more engaged electorate would see through this, but we could also hope for unicorns that shit platinum and honestly the unicorns seem more plausible to me these days.
Timex
4146
At this point, the democrats are dumb for preserving the filibuster.
There is literally no reason to keep it any longer.
Once they lose control of the Senate, the GOP will kill the filibuster as soon as they have 50 votes for something.
JoshL
4147
52 Senators would rather destroy the economy than allow the elected majority to rule, including two who are in that majority; 48 Senators would rather not do that.
I know who I’d blame, but yeah, we’re not talking about me.
RichVR
4148
Shout this from the mountain!
