no, i didn't know that the June 2019 US Politics thread was nasty

https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/e-jean-carroll-trump-rape.php

Why the low play? It could be a case of fatigue. We are hit so often with claims of Trump’s misconduct—and liberals, at least, have such low expectations of him—that horrifying allegations lose their shock value and slide off. Deeper forces are likely at work, too: as the writer Molly Jong-Fast asked on Twitter, “Is the misogyny so baked in that we no longer treat allegations of rape seriously?” It’s not a new question. Ahead of the 2016 election, CJR’s Pete Vernon interviewed Lucia Graves, a reporter with The Guardian, about the muted reaction to her interview with Jill Harth, who accused Trump of groping. Graves, who was “extremely frustrated” that other outlets did not pick up Harth’s claim, said it took the Access Hollywood tape for the allegations against Trump to dominate the news cycle. “I think it’s so remarkable that Trump had to literally say every single one of those things to another man, and people had to hear it recorded before people believed the story that has been out there for months,” Graves said.

Whatever the reason, it’s astonishing that Carroll’s allegation isn’t ubiquitous in our news media this morning. Its relative absence is doubly surprising when you consider that the #MeToo moment—with its brilliant reporting on Harvey Weinstein and so many other abusive men—has arguably been the biggest story of the Trump era not to centrally feature Trump. Somehow, Trump escaped accountability at the height of that moment. It looks like that’s happening again.

Trump escaped accountability, too, during his 2016 campaign. Over the weekend, Carroll told CNN that she didn’t come forward with her rape allegation back then because other women were already saying “similar things.” Besides, she added, “I picked up very quickly that it was helping him, not hurting him.” We all bear some responsibility for that.

Someone's gunning for Susan Collins.

Maine state House speaker Sara Gideon is running against Sen. Susan Collins, one of Senate Republicans’ most vulnerable incumbents in 2020.

The Democrat, who had long been expected to run but was waiting until the end of the legislative session, announced her candidacy in a video Monday morning.

“Susan Collins has been in the Senate for 22 years,” Gideon says, mentioning Collins for the first time nearly two minutes into the video. “And at one point, maybe she was different from some of the other folks in Washington. But she doesn’t seem that way anymore.”

Gideon highlights Collins’ vote for the GOP tax overhaul, and the video includes footage of President Donald Trump thanking Collins. The last thing Gideon mentions is Collins’ vote for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SEiNdtO7mE

small potatoes but I wish we could permanently ban all politicians from using the word "folks."

I like Sara Gideon

small potatoes but I wish we could permanently ban all politicians from using the word "folks."

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Monday, June 24, 2019

it especially grated when Obama used it.

as shitty as it is this grates a lot more when nonpoliticans use it in casual connversation instead of "people"

with pols it's as obligatory as lapel pin / weird thumb pointing

Friendsh...

small potatoes but I wish we could permanently ban all politicians from using the word "folks."

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Monday, June 24, 2019

it especially grated when Obama used it.

― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, June 24, 2019 11:27 AM (nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as shitty as it is this grates a lot more when nonpoliticans use it in casual connversation instead of "people"

― d'ILM for Murder (Hadrian VIII), Monday, June 24, 2019 11:29 AM (six minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

folks this is some bullshit I can’t get behind

Folks is a monosyllabic gender and nationally inclusive term it is the best word

also it sounds enough like "fucks" that you can use it with people you dislike and feel like you're getting away with something

folks this is another great point

disgusting savagery

I get more annoyed by pols dropping "The American People..." every other sentence

xp: I will grant you "savage"

i wish pols wd follow those Kids in the Hall characters who addressed everyone as "pricks"

I get more annoyed by pols dropping "The American People..." every other sentence

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Monday, June 24, 2019

I thank Bob Dole for teaching me to loathe this phrase.

"Sheeple"

"Humans of [insert geographic region]! I am a [gender classification] you can trust to support you in [government body]! Give me your vote!"

Not to dunk on Alon, but "the only thing this 28 year old Freshman legislator has accomplished is totally changing the national conversation on a half dozen occasions" is a weird criticism https://t.co/Df5IGtVfwJ

— Michael T Sweeney (@mtsw) June 24, 2019

trump just announced sanctions on “ayatollah khOmeini” not sure how effective this will be

Um.

So when is this incredibly fucking stupid timeline supposed to end?

all I know is trump better get those hostages out of the embassy

yikes

the '70s revival is out of hand

i'm hearing about him more and more in all the same places that are talking about Frederick Douglass.

small potatoes but I wish we could permanently ban all politicians from using the word "folks."

― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Monday, June 24, 2019

it especially grated when Obama used it.

I diametrically disagree with this; I never really heard it used before Obama and I liked it coming from him so much that now I use it all the time.

We’re not folks. We’re consumers.

Dubya used "folks" constantly, which along with the Forever Wars and surveillance expansion is why i called O George W Obama.

Sanctioning khomeini makes sense if the recent incidents in Iran happened at the order of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard which is basically his own army and doesn't report into the rest of the Iranian government. So it's better than sanctioning the rest of the country. But they're already doing that too which is probably what caused these incidents to happen in the first place. Trump apparently said yesterday he just doesn't want Iran to pursue nuclear weapons. They're like "WTF that's exactly what we were doing under the agreement that you fucking pulled out of you retard."

An Oct. 30, 2014, analysis of President Obama’s diction by Buzzfeed found that the Commander-in-Chief used the word at least 348 times during presidential news conferences. That’s 7.3 times per 10,000 words. George W. Bush used it about 2.5 times per 10,000 words during his presidency, and Bill Clinton only once per 10,000 words.

https://randomnerds.com/are-politicians-folking-with-us-the-overuse-of-folks-in-todays-political-rhetoric/

xp

akm it's not khomeini

but points taken

v. radical

Slavery reparations is a far-left favorite because it does a number of things.

It reinforces the radical belief that the United States was founded by racist white men who installed a system whereby white guys would run everything and blacks, women and others would be exploited.

— Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) June 24, 2019

billy "stopped clock" o'reilly

the best thing about that is that it positions radicals as the ones who actually know US history

Way cool, rad even, for him to admit this.

Championing traffic lights is a far-left favorite because it does a number of things.

It reinforces the radical belief that automobiles can wreak grievous harm upon people and property if measures aren't taken to control the flow of vehicular traffic.

I mean we're literally at the point where the right is describing observable, measurable constituent reality as 'radical belief'.

slavery reparations is a far-left falafel loofah favorite

re "folks", I have a theory that this is a word black people in America use more often than white people but it is near-impossible to find info on this using the Google searches I've come up with so far

it's a word that was mostly used in Greenwich Village in the '60s iirc

Both of my parents referred to visits with my grandparents as "going to see the folks". It was applied equally to either set of grandparents.

I did find this in my googling adventure which made me go o_O: https://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2019/feb/21/robert-mckinzie/fact-checking-myth-word-picnic-racist/

re "folks", I have a theory that this is a word black people in America use more often than white people but it is near-impossible to find info on this using the Google searches I've come up with so far

― brigadier pudding (DJP), Monday, June 24, 2019 4:22 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

it became the new "guys" in tech in literally the last 6-18 months. went from never hearing it to hearing it exclusively, and "guys" sounding like a mild curse word some time then. e.g. at my boring enterprise it is the standard term in (relatively woke) engineering, but has not made it over to sales yet (golf nazis)

at the risk of stating the obvious it's an attempt at "folksiness" which shouldn't be made except in the vernacular around a region or discrete community—neighborhood, church, bingo parlor etc., else (to my ears) it just sounds cloying, pandering/patronizing

we already have a word for people

Folks just makes me think of Ben Vereen in All That Jazz.

I'd happily adopt 'mofos' as a substitution if y'all wanna help me get that off the ground.

I use folks, gang, people, and family to address my staff, for better or worse. fwiw I enjoy this digression considerably more than the news of the day

Some folk'll never eat a skunk
But then again some folk'll