When all they have to write about is a Democratic government running smoothly and doing good things.
For almost six years they have had an endless gusher of outrage and horror to drive clicks and views. Der Drumpfenfuhrer was great for the bottom line. If he happened to only do ten terrible things in one day, the media could always dive into his tweets for fresh doses of red meat. Racism! Sexism! Fascism! Incitement to insurrection! Disturbing dictator love letters! They were all there, always there, 24-7, an endlessly regenerating perpetual motion machine of content to feed the perpetual news cycle.
But alas, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are only saving the country from coronavirus by increasing the amount of vaccines by 70% in one month. They are merely nominating the most diverse Cabinet of all time. They are simply holding informative and truthful press briefings every day, repairing the damage Drumpf did to our international relationships, re-entering the Paris Climate Accords, taking action to re-house migrant kids who have been separated from their families, reversing the transgender ban in the Army, creating space for us to mourn our 500,000 dead from COVID-19, and oh yes, live-streaming a dual press conference with Justin Trudeau. Sacre bleu! So, so…how you say…BOH-RING!
There is so little of value to report out of the Biden administration that CNN and all of the other major cable news networks are making sure to include the “other perspective” (aka alternate facts) from the reality they would have preferred: Donald didn’t do anything wrong on January 6!! In alternate fact, maybe he still won! Oh, wouldn’t that have been wonderful for them? Then they could get away with sympathetically reporting on all the Drumpf voters still voting for him despite all the racism, misogyny and fascism – without any pushback from anyone. Those were the days baby! So they keep booking people like Matt Schlapp, a festulent pustule on The Former Guy’s butt, in prime time. Every Sunday they make sure they have “balance.” Gotta somehow get that crazy Nazi itch scratched!
Now some of the media punditry is not playing ball and yearning for the glory days when the Mango Moron was gleefully destroying our democracy every second of every day. Some refuse to pretend they have amnesia and don’t remember that the majority of elected Republicans supported Trump throughout every second of his Reign of Error, including after he incited an insurrection at the Capitol. Some won’t play along with the endless yammering at, and criticizing of Democrats for not being “bipartisan” with people who TRIED TO KILL THEM!
Witness the beauty of Rachel Maddow taking the Thugs to task and calling out their general bad faith. She doesn’t seem to wish Drumpf was back, at all. Huh.
I don’t know what it will take for the media to quit Drumpf, but I will say this: Joe Biden is more popular than Donald ever was. And his policies, such as the American Rescue Plan, are more popular still, And I hope the Powers that Be eventually realize that those pundits and outlets that cater to the majority of Americans who like Biden and hate Donnie, will be proven to be on the right side of history.
Open thread, folks!
Lazy Weekend
Posted on: February 21, 2021
Happy Sunday Widdershins!
Another week down. And STILL MAGAts won’t admit Biden/Harris won the election fairly. This morning Steve Scalise was on ABC and he argued some states didn’t follow their election laws. That’s a lie, of course. But our media will continue to let Republicans spread it. There is also a fundraiser at Trump’s Florida hovel with all the usual Trump sucks-ups: Gaetz, Boebert, Lee. Oh and John Cornyn, Senator of Texas, instead of helping his state was golfing with Trump. Cruz, of course, was in Cancun. These are the Republican values. Oh and people in Texas are getting electricity bills for many thousands of dollars. Madness!
Anywho, I saw someone on Twitter ask an interesting question: what historical figure would have been great on twitter? Pithy and cutting comments tend to be the most popular on that platform. He suggested Dorothy Parker. I suggested Jane Austen and Mark Twain. BTW, Mark Twain hated Jane Austen’s books. He was an idiot.
This is an open thread.
- In: 2021 | Biden | Current Events
- 77 Comments
About how this pandemic is affecting their jobs.
The tumultuous year of 2020 may be over, but the coronavirus pandemic and the significant financial insecurity facing many women and their families are not. As the year closed out, the nation’s employment numbers for December revealed that the nonfarm payroll job losses for the month were entirely borne by women.2 This development, while unique to December, is emblematic of the disproportionate damage to women’s employment that occurred during the year: Women and their families, who were already treading water before the pandemic,3 are bearing the brunt of this crisis.
It was already tough in America for women. Our alleged “liberation” notwithstanding, we remain the primary caregivers for children (not to mention being the ones who bear those little bundles of joy for nine months!), aging relatives and ailing spouses, causing us to take significant breaks in our careers that diminish our lifetime wealth exponentially.
This wealth gap is not news, but because it’s “just women” and as you know, we always have to pretend there’s no systemic misogyny in this country, the issue has failed to garner the attention it deserved. (The last 10 years of Republican legislative dominance made things even worse.)
But now that the good guys are in charge, something may actually get done. There’s a lot of help and hope in the American Rescue Plan for women and children. Neera Tanden, President of the Center for American Progress, will soon become the head of the Office of Management and Budget, and her organization has recently come out with several policy proposals to help achieve financial equality and security for women. Here’s the first set – this one is the newest and the most important, I believe.
Create a robust care infrastructure. Women need caregiving support if they are to return to the workforce and ensure the economic security of their families. Policymakers should:
* Establish high-quality, affordable child care and universal preschool by increasing federal assistance.69
* Guarantee all workers access to permanent, comprehensive paid family and medical leave and ensure employers provide all workers with earned paid sick leave.70
* Increase funding for long-term supports and services.71
* Ensure care workers and early educators have quality jobs with fair pay and workplace benefits and protections.72
I truly, truly hope we see some of this in our lifetimes, Widdershins. It is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, after all.
Tawk amongst yerselves!
Happy Weekend Widdershins!
Oh what a week. 2021 is looking to outdo 2020 in news and shenanigans. This past week we got the Trump trial in the Senate. Too many shenanigans to cover, but after the bombshell story from CNN – which actually first appeared in a local Florida newspaper back on January 17th – which detailed the phone call Kevin “Steve” McCarthy placed to Trump begging him to call off his insurrection militia and Trump replied “I guess they’re more upset about the election than you are,” (this is a long sentence!) Democrats just held a vote on calling witnesses. (The person who recounted that story was a Republican Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler from Florida, one of the few GOPs to vote to impeach Trump; McCarthy told her this story himself according to her. It’s a story she has told repeatedly and it only now has entered the national conversation…) Anyway, 5 Republicans voted for witnesses: Murkowski, Collins, Romney, Sasse and….Lindsey Graham! Actually Graham first voted Nay and then changed his vote to Yay. GOP are threatening to subpoena Nancy Pelosi. I say go for it! (Incidentally, after Romney voted Yay on witnesses, Russian propagandist from WI Ron Johnson yelled at him on the Senate floor.)
Also, Our Glorious Lady of the Light Madonna has been entered into the Senate trial record just as she was during impeachment: according to GOP Madonna’s speech at the Women’s March in 2017 is comparable to Trump inciting an insurrection. She is such a troublemaker, that Madge, bless her.
Anyway, the rollercoaster is continuing!
This is an open thread!
Movin’ on but not away
Posted on: February 7, 2021
A bouquet for all the shinners
Good Superbowl Sunday Widdershins!
I can only say with a bit of sadness that this is my last active post for The Widdershins. I didn’t come to this lightly and when I told my dear blog friends mb and DYB they understood. Think of it this way: I didn’t ask the Widdershins Board of Regents about it but I’m taking emeritus status.
For one thing I cannot tell you how many revisions if not absolute discards I do when writing a post. It takes me a lot of time but that’s just me.
Second can’t tell you how many times I’ve looked at the screen and wondered “what am I going to write about?” although there are plenty of topics these days.
I will be forever grateful to mb and our late chatblu when I submitted a sample post and they agreed to add me to our stable of writers. I learned a lot and not just on the composition page. I dug into all the background stuff in the admin section of a wordpress blog.
Also not to worry, I’ll still be around and mb has assured me I’ll still have the same privileges so if someone is stuck in spam I can get you out and I suppose I’ll still be the master of the sidebar. LOL
And lastly I’m going to ask all of our readers and commenters to p*l*e*a*s*e consider becoming a writer for this blog. You are a bunch of talented commenters and you can do it.
Oh and my strategy for the Super Bowl? Brady and the Bucs because that may persuade Drew Brees to stay with the Saints for another year. Patrick will be playing in more Super Bowls.
This is an open thread.
-30-
Comments