DL Open Thread: Saturday, March 2, 2024
NC Rethugs About To Choose A RWNJ For Governor. Man, this guy:
Surrounded by fans at a beach town bar, Mark Robinson addressed his absent critics. “Mark Robinson is not running to be governor to be a bully over anybody,” he said.
Left unmentioned: The deluge of offensive comments that made such a declaration necessary. There was the time he called school shooting survivors “media prosti-tots” for advocating for gun-control policies. The meme mocking a Harvey Weinstein accuser, and the other meme mocking actresses for wearing “whore dresses to protest sexual harassment.” The prediction that rising acceptance of homosexuality would lead to pedophilia and “the END of civilization as we know it”; the talk of arresting transgender people for their bathroom choice; the use of antisemitic tropes; the Facebook posts calling Hillary Clinton a “heifer” and Michelle Obama a man.
“Accelerating Dementia”. The story the NYTimes hasn’t covered while obsessing over Biden’s age:
I had to speak out now because the 2024 election might turn on this issue of who is cognitively capable: Biden or Trump? It’s a major issue that will affect some people’s votes. Not enough people are sounding the alarm, that based on his behavior, and in my opinion, Donald Trump is dangerously demented. In fact, we are seeing the opposite among too many in the news media, the political leaders and among the public. There is also this focus on Biden’s gaffes or other things that are well within the normal limits of aging. By comparison, Trump appears to be showing gross signs of dementia. This is a tale of two brains. Biden’s brain is aging. Trump’s brain is dementing.
This weekend, Trump showed more evidence of his accelerating dementia. Trump named the wrong month for the primary, said that Putin would rather see Biden as president and he agreed with him, and that he made Israel the capital of Israel. But most important are the fundamental breakdowns in his ability to use language. Once you become aware of a symptom, you start to notice it, whereas before you might have overlooked it.
Trump manifested a number of phonemic paraphasias. He was trying to say evangelist, for example, but haltingly said “evangelish.” He was trying to say “three years later,” but said, “three years, lady, lady, lady.” Trying to spit out the word “lately,” he sounded like a car with a bad battery struggling to turn over. When Trump can’t find a word his whole demeanor changes. It’s almost like someone pulled the metaphorical plug. Trump looks blank, stops in mid-sentence (or mid-word), his jaw goes a little slack, and when he starts to talk again, he slurs, speaks haltingly, and often looks confused. Trying to get the word out, he shifts to a non-word that is easier to pronounce. When people are losing their ability to use language they use non-words. They start with the stem of the real word, and then they improvise from there.
Sen. Tommy Tuber–Mr. PotatoHead:
“And you’re exactly right, we live in a constitutional republic that’s trying to do things without our judo-Christian values. And that’s how this country was built.”
“And it goes back to one thing, God is not in this building. We’ve gotta get God back in this building. We’ve got to get God back in our country. We’ve gotta get God back in the nuclear family. We have to get moral values back into our country.”
“You can’t do that when you have a million people every couple of months coming to this country that know nothing about God. That know nothing about our laws and Constitution.”
Satire is dead. Although I could see an SNL skit featuring judo-Christians…
MLB Players Object To See-Through Pants. Sexualization has no place in sports–unless it’s women’s gymnastics, I suppose:
When spring training opened last month, there was great anticipation to clap eyes on Shohei Ohtani in an LA Dodgers uniform for the first time since the Japanese star scored a historic 10-year, $700m contract from the club. But his official team portrait made it appear as if prying the two-way star away from the “crosstown” Angels had come at the expense of the Dodgers’ clothing budget. “Why is Shohei Ohtani wearing see-through pants?” was the Japanese press’ snap reaction, news that was only recently topped by Ohtani announcing his surprise marriage to “a normal Japanese woman”. Action shots from spring training games showed what else players risked showing off in the trousers if they bent over or attempted more technical baseball moves. On the Tonight Show, host Jimmy Fallon cracked: “I get the feeling this year we’re going to see a lot more dingers.”
What do you want to talk about?
“Why is Shohei Ohtani wearing see-through pants?”
Ohtani is a pitcher AND a DH (very unusual), so maybe those are his pitching pants. Those pants will be in shreds the first time he has to make a hard slide in the dirt.
For a sport that is played in increasingly brutal heat waves, they will probably eventully all be wearing shorts.
Sliding on dirt in shorts? Not likely. The Chicago White Sox tried it for one season in 1976. The laughter has barely died down to this day
https://news.sportslogos.net/2016/08/08/a-short-experiment-the-story-of-the-chicago-white-sox-shorts/baseball/.
Was that the Bill Veeck era?
Yes
Hard to top Disco Demolition Night:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disco_Demolition_Night
Women’s Volleyball shorts would like to have a word with you.
On another note, Rep. Yearick is trying to do an end run around HB 281, maintaining medical benefits for retired Delaware State Employees, after we paid in advance for these services. He also sponsored a bill to lower the top bracket of state income taxes from 6.6% to 5%. Pure evil Reagan.
RISE Delaware Update: Alert! Amendment 2 to HB 281 needs your strong opposition!
From Sen. Karen Peterson (ret.), Legislative Liaison for RISE:
Representative Yearick has proposed Amendment 2 to HB 281 which would allow Medicare Advantage to be offered to State employees who RETIRE on or after January 1, 2028. We all know how such “offers” work. WE NEED TO OPPOSE THIS AMENDMENT 2!
Rep. Paul Baumbach – who drafted HB281 to carry out a key recommendation of the RHBAS (#6) that any changes to plan design (so that certainly includes Medicare Advantage which represents a massive change in plan design) should be limited to employees HIRED on or after January 1, 2025 – has told us that Amendment 2 “directly violates RHBAS recommendations.” We expect that Rep. Baumbach will not support Amendment 2.
The Synopsis of Amendment 2 states:
“This Amendment allows a plan under Medicare part C, a Medicare Advantage Plan, as an option for eligible pensioners who retire on or after January 1, 2028.”
NOT AN OPTION, A THEFT!