This month started off with New Year’s, of course. Then the State of the Union, and the Bundy takeover in eastern Oregon. And of course the ever-grinding election.
There was also Obama’s press conference on closing the gun show loophole, complete with some honest tears:
When a nation argues about whether tears are real, its polarization has become epistemological, not just philosophical or political.A few days later, he gave the State of the Union:
Anand Giridharadas
I'm done with the lies. Today's gun culture is NOT American tradition. A 1959 Gallup poll found 60% of Americans favored banning handguns. Today's gun culture is NOT American tradition. Wild West towns had incredibly restrictive gun laws. Including NO FIREARMS IN TOWN.
Victoria Dahl
Obama cried because he was thinking, "Do you understand who your president could be after me? I only have 1 year left to fix EVERYTHING."
W. Kamau Bell
Obama might as well take everyone's guns since Fox is acting like he is anyway.
Jamie Kilstein
He's not perfect by any means, but I am thankful every day that Barack Obama is our President.Meanwhile, the Bundy brothers and their friends took over the Malheur nature preserve in Oregon. The double standard of their treatment escaped no one:
Frank Conniff
I wish "fix our politics" could be about something other than civility. Campaign finance reform! Electoral college reform! Kill filibuster!
David Roberts
I dream of the day when our Congress isn't majority White men, but actually reflects the diversity of our country.
Linda Sarsour
Trite but true observation: Obama gets no credit for the near infinite number and variety of disasters that *didn’t* happen on his watch. And in the particular circumstances in which he took office, there were *all kinds* of mega-disasters possible. Like it’s easy to crap on him for a tepid recovery, but it looks a whole lot better than historic economic collapse, which was very possible.
David Roberts
Obama [should be] ridiculed for saying conflicts in the Middle East “date back millennia.” (Some don’t date back a decade.)
Ishaan Tharoor
This narrative – the Mideast is full of angry peoples eternally, irrationally at war – is a lie that serves an agenda. If you want to justify subjecting a region to your endless wars, depict it as a place that has never known peace.
Saladin Ahmed
It's like saying conflicts in Western Europe "date back millennia." Yeah, no shit - humans live there. Doesn't frame our view.
Cotton Mather's MBS @matt_boyd_smith
Frothing racists with guns aren't the "American Taliban." They're not "white ISIS." They've been around for centuries and they're 100% home-grown.And there were lots and lots of tweets about the election:
Saladin Ahmed
This is because we believe dignity to be a commodity and only the well-funded deserve it automatically. Wonder what the statistics are for militia members enlisting in the actual armed forces.
jelani cobb
Today I learned:
plural of armed black people is thugs
plural of armed brown people is terrorists
plural of armed white people is militia
koush
Armed white men in Oregon are mad at the same federal government that stole land from Native Americans and gifted it to their ancestors. Ungrateful bastards!
Stacey Patton
Americans will fight harder to defend native mascots than they will to defend the lives of actual native people whose land they live on.
Frank Waln
Freedom lovers' core demand is land handouts from the federal government.
Matthew Yglesias
#OregonUnderAttack #TamirRice:
Carlos Latuff
No reason for media to use the word "militia" in referring to armed criminals. In news, you don't get to go by your fantasy designation.
Mark Harris
Mike Brown was stealing, they say. Fine. The Bundys stole from ALL OF US FOR DECADES and now this nonsense. Ammon will live, I've no doubt. We wonder who's voting Trump: People who think we've done all right by "the blacks" but are willing to fucking KILL PEOPLE to avoid taxes.
Linda Tirado
The Oregon militia were asking for supplies, right? *sends 12 copies of Zinn's "A People's History of the United States"*
Zoé S. @ztsamudzi
Something like 200 families control half the money in america and we mock welfare ranchers and wonder if black protesters get food stamps.
Linda Tirado
Hillary says it's not practical to offer free college for everyone. You can't get more practical than the Germans – and they do it! Many do!As always, a passel of topics related to racism and white supremacy. First a general few:
Michael Moore
Republican candidates want the type of big government that isn't responsible for worker safety or public health but intervenes in a woman's medical decisions. They want the type of big government that isn't responsible for feeding hungry children but can regulate an individual's sex life
Bree Newsome
It’s weird to me that Republicans never pay any political price for their evident disgust & disdain for actually existing America.
David Roberts
SPOILER WARNING: The next President will be an old, white millionaire who's pretending to give a shit about the common folk.
Marko Kloos
Anti-socialist media elites have living wage, healthcare, college kids. They already live in Bernie's America. Want to build a wall around it
Matt Karp
WaPo does name-calling,says Sanders is "facile,"dangerous word for paper that said Bush's case for WMD "irrefutable"
Dean Baker
Big question: when Sanders loses the primary (still likely) will he keep working on that political revolution? Will it swing behind Clinton?
David Roberts
Rubio "Isis is an existential threat to the U.S.”:
2015 deaths by
Lightning strike: 26
White extremists: 20
Jihadi extremists:19
Stop scaring people.
John Rogers
"Radical cleric with an apocalyptic vision of the future" is like half the GOP field, not just the Ayatollah.
Linda Tirado
Trump et al. keep talking about "the vets" the way American moms used to talk about children starving in Africa: a pitiable abstraction.
Christopher Hayes
I love the "stop Muslim immigration until we figure out what’s going on" bit. So perfectly captures the Trump crowd. "Stop everything until we figure out what’s going on" could be the official motto of White America.
David Roberts
'Hawkish' is a euphemism for 'willing to kill people for corporate profits.'
Saladin Ahmed
There’s an element to this year’s presidential race of lefties not really being willing to believe how awful things are going on the right. Lefties are so used to seeing the right as Machiavellian. They can’t shake the idea that some Bigger, Evil Plan is behind this chaos. But I think the most obvious explanation is the correct one: this whole election is a spectacular, unmitigated disaster for the right.
David Roberts
Instead of an angel and a devil, Donald Trump has a drama queen on one shoulder and a raging narcissist on the other. Who will win?!
Tom Tomorrow
Nothing says totally functional democracy like multiple N.Y. billionaires running for president.
Christopher Hayes
I wonder if the discussion about Clinton would be different if the whole US politico-media scene weren’t dominated by people w/ penises.
David Roberts
GOP Debate Drinking Game: Every time a candidate says the words "small government" they have to do a shot of Flint Michigan tap water.
Matt Christman
Michael Bloomberg has hired a polling firm to stop & frisk voters to test the viability of a presidential run.
Frank Conniff
I also think Trumpism, celebrity culture & dumbification are connected to our suburban, isolating, alienated, privatized way of life ...
Richard Florida
It is not a radical idea to say if a person works 40 hours a week that person should not live in poverty.
Bernie Sanders
Trump: "But always remember this: I never start anything. I simply counterpunch." Every thin-skinned a-hole thinks this.
David Roberts
Claiming to support social progress while foreswearing taxes on anyone but the rich is a doomed enterprise. Sooner or later, Dems will have to address the right’s incredibly successful, multi-decade campaign to demonize (all) taxes. Oh and also dethrone the absurd "the gov’t budget is like a household budget" nonsense.
David Roberts
Of all the reasons not to vote for Ted Cruz, the fact that he was born in Canada is way, way, way, way down on my list.
Frank Conniff
When MSNBC and CNN treat every stupid thing Trump says as the biggest news of the day, it's as if journalism is on a date with Bill Cosby.
Frank Conniff
Theory: A billion-dollar presidential race exists to distract you from the multi-trillion-dollar world of Wall St, where the real action is.
David Sirota
In a democracy, a free press is essential to hold celebrities accountable.
Chris Steller
Ugh, are we really talking about Bill Clinton’s sex life while his wife runs for president? We are a nation of gossipy prude little weiners.
Jamie Kilstein
It's too bad Trump didn't decide to dress like a bat and fight crime.
Tom Tomorrow
This campaign is starting to feel more and more like a long, national nervous breakdown.
Christopher Hayes
Racism isn't 'ignorance,' it's systematic exploitation.The poisoned water in Flint:
Saladin Ahmed
Referent of 'this' in "this is why we can't have nice things, America" in 90% cases = racism, aka "undeserving poor.” Gun control, universal health care, sick leave, maternity leave, univ daycare, good public transit…a long, sad list (USA! USA!).
Cassie Creswell
There is no such thing as "race relations." It's a non term. There's the relative presence or absence of racism.
jelani cobb
How many cases/videos/coverup attempts must one witness to understand that the entire criminal justice system has to be reformed?
Bree Newsome
Stop asking people of color why they are angry! The question is why are you not angry? Injustices are everywhere.
Linda Sarsour
We live in a world where saying #BlackLivesMatter and racism exists are considered attacks instead of facts. That's why we keep saying it.
malkia a. cyril @culturejedi
How about we ponder what Martin Luther King woulda thought about you poisoning Black brains, throwing them in substandard schools, then screaming bootstraps?
Propane Jane @docrocktex26
It's good to have a holiday devoted to someone who never held power. 'Just' an organizer. 'Just' an activist. 'Just' a preacher.
Bill McKibben
Do you really appreciate the level of violence that has accompanied every attempt to achieve equal rights for blacks in US? The federal government had to send national guard into the south just to keep order as a handful of black students integrated the schools.
Bree Newsome
Reminder: Flint switched its water source *back* to its old safe source in October. These new results reflect damage done to Flint's pipes.Lesser-known, there were tweets about a cancelled children’s book that made it look like George Washington’s slaves were happy to serve him, tying in with other issues:
Rachel Maddow
It's frustrating that with what's going on in Flint nobody is asking questions about fracking, which most candidates support.
LinkedIn Park
Disappointed that PEN American saw fit to call Scholastic's editorial decision to pull the Cake book "censorship.” The statement was quite clear about why it was pulled. And if we're going to start critiquing editorial decisions as "censorship" let's talk about the effect the 89% white publishing industry has on stories of color and how many books about slavery don't even make it to publication because they discomfort the narrative of white innocence. One day I hope the Freedom of Speech crowd learns that caping for white supremacy doesn't equal defending free speech. And that valuing Black life and unraveling the ongoing dishonesty in literature is not censorship.Ta-Nehisi Coates had a conversation going about reparations to African Americans, following reaction to his most recent Atlantic article on the topic. Some other tweets helped to make one of his main points:
Daniel José Older
I'm thinking/tweeting about #BlackLivesMatter #FlintWaterCrisis #OscarsSoWhite #SlaveryWithASmile because they are dangerously intertwined. #SlaveryWithASmile #OscarsSoWhite are about representation. You better believe how we're represented affects biases which affect our lives. #SlaveryWithASmile books/representations are really about challenging black peoples right to testify on their own behalf. And if blacks can't be trusted to tell the truth about slavery, why would any believe them when they said their water is poisoning them?
Yolanda @YoliWriter
It's the same basic idea as a nation's public debt. No American alive is "responsible" for the debt accumulated in 19th century. But that doesn't mean we don't have to pay our creditors for it. "Listen, my family wasn't here when the government spent that cash!"And then there are the rest of my favorite topics (education, new urbanism, immigration, guns, climate change and energy…) and lighter moments.
Jamelle Bouie
Who benefitted? The nation. Who pays? The nation. Should justice be done because it's right, or be damned because it's hard?
stephen matlock
It's a simple matter of restorative justice. Payments from Germany to Israel never framed as "solving" Anti-Semitism.
Zach Dorfman
My phone's spell check recognizes "Sharknado" but not "Roosevelt" and that really tells you everything you need to know about America.And finally, a cluster of tweets on a topic I don’t usually note:
Exploding Unicorn
The only people we should deport are people who chant USA.
Jamie Kilstein
Practice makes perfect, but it doesn’t make new.
Adam Grant
Having no plan is better than having a 20-year stroad plan:
Strong Towns [A stroad is a combination of a street and a road. It serves neither purpose well.]
I'm looking at "how to choose your health plan" guides, and they're all like, "Well, how sick do you plan to be?" I think we can INFLUENCE our health, but so many things are out of our control, and we all ultimately fall apart. "Choosing" health care plans and "managing" them plays into our nationwide delusion that we can control our health.
Rainbow Rowell
Affluence makes even mediocre teaching look good and poverty can make masterful teaching appear mediocre.
Tim Fournier
The letter "s" is the only difference between deadlines and deadliness.
Pat Thompson @pattho
We should do away with 'correctional' as a term as well; a badly distorted usage officially used in the age of mass incarceration.
Kathleen Culhane
Can someone, in some kind of reasonably rigorous way, explain the difference between being politically incorrect and being an asshole?
David Roberts
So-called "rail bias" exists in inter-city travel too, right? People prefer trains to planes and cars as long as the time difference isn't too large. It's because flying sucks and trains are nice to be on. "Rail bias" should just be called "valuing your experience" bias.
William Lindeke
The larger a man is perceived to be, the more likely he is to be searched by police.
Pacific Standard
Sign of the Beasts:
Chris Steller
Whatever you think of single payer health care, you got to grapple with 30 million uninsured and millions of others on plans they can't afford to use.
Matt Bruenig
The Wounded Warrior Project is looking a little bit like a scam meant to hoover money from elderly white people. Then again, you could say the same of virtually every conservative organization.
David Roberts
"What better reason to risk your own freedom than to fight for the freedom of others?"
Nexus Youth Summit
"Being poor is bad, but being poor in a more unequal place is worse.” - Pacific Standard
Thriving Cities
I shouldn't have to be in the military or the CIA to show that I'm a "good" Muslim. I would like to just be ordinary. – Linda Sarsour
Eric Ward
A defining feature of our age is wealthy and/or powerful people who propose to save us from the wealthy and/or powerful.
Anand Giridharadas
This whole “government is the cause of all our woes” idea that Reagan preached is false. In fact, government on several occasions has been the only entity large enough to save us from economic disasters caused by unchecked capitalism.
Bree Newsome
America demonizes whomever it wants to rob. Before U.S. oil peaked in 1970, Islam was just another religion.
Free Public Transit
Tasers are torture devices and everyone should stop treating them like a source of slapstick humor.
David Roberts
What is the conservative obsession with things being rammed down throats? Amazingly common motif.
Alexandra Jaffe
One reason the safety net is more expansive in Europe is beliefs about the poor:
sean @SeanMcElwee
I wonder how many Americans realize that the Star Spangled Banner is actually a question, not a statement.
Son of Baldwin
Every politician with responsibility for prisons, every judge who gives custodial sentences, should have to visit prisons regularly. Talk to prisoners, talk to staff, and talk to visitors. See and smell the places they're making decisions about.
Else Marie Knudsen
Humans have a tough time controlling their own behavior. Why would we think we can actually control other people's behavior?
John Miller
American exceptionalism is a propagandist lie from the pit of the original Wall Street Slave Market's stomach.
Bree Newsome
Ten bucks says the hack involves being born rich:
Anand Giridharadas
No one can do everything. But everyone can do something. Figure out what your something is, and do it.
Ebony Elizabeth
The reality of politics is that you invariably get less than you ask for, so ask for a great deal.
jelani cobb
Another one-letter-off word pair: hopeless and homeless.
Pat Thompson @pattho
Example of the smarmy condescension often lurking in praise: speakers who preface their answers with “Great question!” (Gee, thanks...)
Alfie Kohn
We're taught to view western imperialism as being the forward progress of humanity, deliberately ignoring lots of history in the process. But actually there were a multitude of cultures and ways of social organization that were wiped out via colonization and forced assimilation. We've simply been taught to adopt Eurocentrism as the only valid world perspective there ever was
Bree Newsome
"If your vote wasn't important they wouldn't be trying to take it from you." – Linda Sarsour
joe getty
It's apparently Penguin Awareness Day. Here's what a penguin's mouth looks like inside:
Saladin Ahmed
Weird that we call the earned income tax credit a means-tested benefit, but not every other tax deduction/credit that is subject to a phaseout (which is a bunch). Though I guess "means-tested" may just be coded as "for the poor.”
Matt Bruenig
“I prayed for freedom for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.” – Frederick Douglass
Camika Royal
“To put it in its starkest form, capitalism is perfectly compatible with slavery. Democracy is not." – Lester Thurow
Nikhil Goyal
"When people talk about throwing things away, I always make sure to ask them, 'Where is away? Please explain.'" – WinonaLaduke
Justin Klassen
"I like gingerbread, but it's definitely the dessert of a culture that hasn't discovered chocolate." – @izzygrinspan
Andy Selsberg
“Beware of Artists” — an actual poster issued by Senator Joseph McCarthy in 1950s:
Nina Malone
Did anyone ever say "I'd like to do a podcast, but I have terrible elocution, droning delivery and a whiny voice"? No, I didn't think so.
Doug Saunders
Periodic bursts of passion and enthusiasm are how children learn — not slow, steady, school-imposed schedules.
Bruce L. Smith
Insanity is when you can lease 1 ton of coal from public land for about $1, which later costs the public over $70 in carbon pollution.
Sen. Maria Cantwell
Liberty…except for decisions about when to have children, who to love, or when to die. Other than that, liberty.
David Roberts
So important to remember as we mourn David Bowie and Alan Rickman: both were products of government-funded arts programs.
coldplums
If I had one wish, it would be to banish the phrase "keep us safe." Pull your f’ing pants up, Americans. You are not children.
David Roberts
Probably the best public educational institution we have is the public library. Can't get anymore democratic and noncoercive.
Nikhil Goyal
Vesting schedules for retirement benefits continue to boggle the mind. Why isn't this outlawed? We want to encourage you to save for retirement, so we make it such that a chunk of your savings can evaporate at the whims of your employer
Matt Bruenig
Retired NYPD cop on disability pension for injured knee runs half-marathons, works as sheriff's deputy in Florida. Oh, and he blames the president for the culture of people trying to get "free shit" from the government.
Josh Barro
Safe Routes to School is a nice program, but Schools on Safe Routes would shift a paradigm at no cost.
Charles Marohn
It would take over 20 bowls of Oversensitive Social Justice Warrior Flakes to equal the whiny crybaby bullshit in just one bowl of Right Wing Twitter Crunch.
Saladin Ahmed
The lobby in a typical high school: evidence that its students defeated those from other schools and lists of which students here are better than others.
Alfie Kohn
Public employees in states that have banned fair-share fees earn 9% less than their private-sector counterparts.
Economic Policy Inst
White men with acoustic guitars will always have power over me and that is something I have to live with every damn day
Aparna Nancherla
It's weird when someone calls someone else a "creature.”
Chris Steller
Okay, so here's the thing I'm starting to think: people are as oppressed as those in power can get away with.
Linda Tirado
Susan Sontag, born 83 years ago today, on storytelling and her advice to writers:
Maria Popova
Imagine strangers pooping on your lawn and swearing at you, then acting surprised that you won't debate them. That's twitter for minorities.
Saladin Ahmed
1 in 4 poor families with kids receive TANF [formerly AFDC], compared to more than 8 in 10 in 1996.
TalkPoverty.org
Everything would make more sense, especially in the social sciences, if "cause" were replaced by "raise the probability of."
David Roberts
Parents and teachers are often considered "good" based on their ability to control their children.
Sisyphus38
Stand Your Ground laws makes murder legal. Period.
Dee @DAbitty
Public education advocates need to be more nuanced on charters. Yes, some are terrible, but many are amazing schools that need to be expanded.
Nikhil Goyal
[After listening to the musical Hamilton.] Basically I don't trust any work which leaves intact the hero narrative of the American Revolution, even if it 'complicates' it. "I have criticisms regarding this work" does not mean "I think you're an idiot for liking this." Don't react as if it does. (Fun fact: the American Revolution was a war between two genocidal regimes that used poor people as cannon fodder and Africans as slaves.)
Saladin Ahmed
As the value of a college degree went up and prisons failed to clearly reduce crime, somehow we chose prison.
Bruce Western
Why isn't underwriting the opposite of overwriting?
Chris Steller
At its height, California’s huge methane leak equaled the daily climate impact of 7 million cars. Won't be fixed for months.
Bill McKibben
Twitter: What do our users want?
Users: An edit button and relief from spam/abuse.
Twitter: Novella-length Tweets it is!
Derrick Snyder
"Today, cars are people’s second-largest household expenditure, and they sit unused 23 hours a day."
Tom Vanderbilt
Those who want to stop low-earning women from having children are typically OK with adult poverty but very troubled by child poverty. Since you can't make an adult poor without making their kids poor, you must either stop all poverty or sterilize poor adults. They go for latter.
Matt Bruenig
I'm socially liberal but economically conservative. I think gay people should be able to marry, but they shouldn't be able to retire.
LOLGOP
One thing modernity has revealed is that there’s a large class of people who are not well-suited to peace and prosperity. Doesn’t suit them.
David Roberts
Winter cycling:
jennifer keesmaat
73% of whites get angry once per day vs. 66% Hispanics & 56% blacks.
SurveyMonkey
It would be nice to be a renewable energy nation that didn't have to listen to Saudi Arabia about much of anything.
Bill McKibben
Folk only feel the need to have a gun when they know deep down they'd be laughed at without one.
Tim Minchin
Education reporters are generally so incredibly uneducated about schools, how children learn, and the history of public education.
Nikhil Goyal
In my 20+ years of being a professor, I saw many more students wanting to be challenged than coddled.
Jon Foley
If you remove just 1% of the commuters off the road during rush hour traffic, congestion is reduced by 18%.
jennifer keesmaat
Saying religion is very important:
Ethiopia 98%
India 80
US 53
Canada 27
Australia 18
France 14
Japan 11
China 3
Conrad Hackett
When you really understand how race, gender, and class work in our society, you can't go about your life in the same way again.
Nikhil Goyal
Is there a single movie in existence in which two men do NOT talk to each other about something other than a woman?
Sarah Mackey
Oh fun, a show about rich white dudes. I hope there's a scene where scantily clad women gyra-ZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ
Julieanne Smolinski
If a movie CAN have a scene in a strip club, it will have AT LEAST THREE.
Rainbow Rowell
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