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HereAndGone2


				

				

				

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HereAndGone2


								

								

								
								
								

								
							
					
 
				


				

				
				
				

				

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					joined 2025 December 05 19:57:07 UTC
				


				
					

					
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				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Not CW as such, just that the Harris campaign keeps on giving us little nuggets of joy.


According to Josh Shapiro, she didn't reject him, he rejected her, so there!  Also allegations that the vetting process for potential VP involved asking if he was an Israeli agent or something. Duelling memoirs!


I don't know if he's ticked off that she passed over him for Walz, or if he's glad to have gotten out before the disaster campaign and is just rubbing it in, or if this is just revenge for hurt feelings and maybe the way she wrote about him in her memoir of the campaign, but it feels like scores being settled.




In Mr. Shapiro’s book, “Where We Keep the Light,” the governor is measured in describing his interactions with Ms. Harris herself. But Mr. Shapiro, who is Jewish, details a contentious vetting process in which Ms. Harris’s team focused intensely on his views on Israel — so much so that at one point, he wrote, he was asked if he had ever been an agent of the Israeli government.


...As he tells it, he also had reservations about the vice-presidential search process from the start, and says that he ultimately decided to withdraw himself, after meeting with Ms. Harris at the end of the process. He asked to be connected with Ms. Harris to share the decision, he wrote, but says he was told “the VP would not handle bad news well and that I shouldn’t push.”




Having read the memoir, I can well believe that she would scream at her staff for daring to deliver any bad news.  But this does contradict Harris' account of the selection process, where there's a distinct impression left that she thought him a bit too big for his boots (and poor Hubby yet again makes the wrong choice):




Storm had picked him up from the parking lot of an elementary school in Glover Park. At the last minute, Storm had traded her Jeep for a vehicle with tinted windows, since discretion in this process was so important to us. Josh went to get in the front seat, but Storm instructed that he needed to be in the back, so he could duck and not been seen. She thought he seemed a little disappointed by that.


When he learned she was the residence manager, he peppered her with questions about the house, from the number of bedrooms to how he might arrange to get Pennsylvania artists’ work on loan from the Smithsonian.


In our meeting he was, as always, poised, polished, and personable.


…Josh had been elected governor in 2022 and was popular in a state with nineteen electoral votes that we badly needed to win. We talked about how to handle the attacks he’d confronted on Gaza and what effect it might have on the enthusiasm we were trying to build. Big protests at the convention were a major concern. As a student, he’d written an op-ed stating that peace with Palestinians was impossible, and this decades-old article had been dragged out to smear him as “Genocide Josh.” He said he felt he’d been able to deal with critics by stating clearly that his youthful opinion had been misguided and that he was fully committed to a two-state solution. He had also publicly called Netanyahu “one of the worst leaders of all time.”


I asked him if he understood the job of vice president. “Because if you do, you’ll be good at it and our administration will be strong.”


He peppered me with questions, trying to nail down, in detail, what role I saw for my VP. At one point, he mused that he would want to be in the room for every decision. I told him bluntly that was an unrealistic expectation. A vice president is not a copresident. I had a nagging concern that he would be unable to settle for a role as number two and that it would wear on our partnership. I had to be able to completely trust the person in that role.


“Every day as president,” I said, “I’ll have ninety-nine problems, and my VP can’t be one.”


Apart from apprehensions for myself, I was also concerned for him. I thought his frustrations with the job might impact his performance in the role. And why take an effective Democratic governor out of a job he liked and was good at? But could I afford to turn my back on such a talented political athlete in such a critical state? Josh assured me he’d do everything to help me win Pennsylvania whether I chose him or not, “because this is the most important election we’ve faced.”


I had time to hash out these thoughts in a debrief with my team. Meanwhile, Storm returned Josh to the pickup location. Storm instructed the state trooper who was arranging transport on an alternate route that would avoid driving by the vice president’s residence on Massachusetts Avenue. She assumed that the press would notice official vehicles with Pennsylvania plates. She was disappointed, ten minutes later, to see those very cars on CNN, cruising right by the residence. That lack of discretion did not play well with her.


…When Kelly left, I got on a Zoom call with the selection committee and my chosen committee of advisers: Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, former Congressman Cedric Richmond, and Tony West. We reviewed what we’d heard from each of these exceptional men and weighed the pros and cons. Their concerns were how adeptly and passionately each of them would defend me. In short, who would be most loyal and effective at the job. The ambition must be for the job, not for the political future beyond.


…Doug and I went back and forth. He had known Josh longer and leaned that way.


…By the time I went to bed, I’d decided on Walz.




Seems there was just the tiniest smidgeon of non-agreement there:




“Her accounts are just blatant lies,” Mr. Shapiro told The Atlantic last year.


In his book, he acknowledged — more diplomatically — that he and Ms. Harris saw the role differently.


...When he returned home, he wrote, his teenage son observed, “It doesn’t seem like you want to do it.” Soon after, he wrote, he tried to communicate that view to Ms. Harris’s team.




				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


The UK government won and could've won harder at any time, if they were willing to use force more aggressively




They were hobbled by the pretence that the army was only there as a neutral peace-keeping force, that the North was nothing to do with them at all, and this was just the innocent Brits being nice, kind, good neighbours by helping out the Paddies with their little problem.


Under the hood, there were plenty of dirty tricks campaigns.


This is the main thing that continues to annoy me: the English will not take responsibility for their history.  Dawkins shooting off his ignorant mouth about religion being the problem in Northern Ireland, that it was (Irish) Catholics versus (Irish) Protestants, was just one example of the view there: the nice kind Brits had nothing to do with centuries of political manipulation and setting one side against the other and colonisation, it was just stupid Paddies with their ignorant tribalism.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I don't know how true this 6/6/6 thing is (I never heard of it until that stupid balloon popping ad for Kamala Harris) but even if so, it's the ideal, the same way that men want the blonde blue-eyed slim waist and big tits and shy coy virgin who's a nymphomaniac in the bedroom but for them only, yeah?


Then you find the ordinary person, man or woman, whom you settle down with.  Nobody gets to marry movie stars and models routinely, only a few people.  Ordinary people get with ordinary people.  And mostly they're happy.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Female sexuality is fundamentally stupid and evil in a way that male sexuality simply isn't.




Them's fightin' words, and we could get into a real fight over this.  Men have done stupid and evil things for sex, and so have women.  Male sexuality will happily fuck six year olds, is that fundamentally smart and good?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 19, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Slim/attractive (they're mostly the same thing): partially driven by genetics? But still, exercise and diet go a long way here.




You can diet and exercise to be slim and as toned as necessary, but if you're horse-faced or just don't have that 'current standards of what constitutes attractive' features, it won't help.  "Plain Jane" is a term, for a reason.  It doesn't necessarily mean "short, fat, otherwise objectionable", mostly "not hot".


Men and women do judge things differently; yeah you'll be 20-something for ten years, but then you turn 30 from 29 and now suddenly you're a hag?  Leo DiCaprio is probably the extreme here, but note his rotating list of girlfriends who get swapped out for a younger model when they age out of what he clearly deems an acceptable age range, while he continues to get older (seems he's been with the current squeeze a whole three years! Just another three years to go before she hits 30 and we'll see if the relationship continues or not).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Well dash my wig, sometimes things fall out so wonderfully it's almost like the universe was steering them that way.  Was he just doing "I'm a journalist, I'm reporting on this" or was he doing "Let me help document the Legal Observers peacefully protesting against the fascist bigots, since I too am part of La Résistance and wish to disseminate our goals to the wider public in order to encourage them to also peacefully protest"?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Thank you, I will cherish this kind word the next time I manage to get myself smacked down by the mods (no, Amadan, I'm not saying I'm deliberately going to do this, don't get twitchy just yet!) 😁


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I sort of believe that after all the mockery and criticism of his first term, Trump is now "to hell with it, I'm done trying to play nice, I'll do what the hell I want in my second term, what are they gonna do, vote for Kamala and Tampon Tim?"


It's genuinely bananas.  I couldn't believe Venezuela, especially as most of the complaining about it seems to be the usual white liberals and actual Venezuelans are going online to go "Thank you President Trump for getting my father out of jail!"  Maria Machado handing over her Nobel peace prize is just the twist nobody saw coming (is that jumping the shark yet? writers for the new season, take note!) though I am forced to admit the seething around that is immensely entertaining.


Are we not entertained, indeed!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Will Don Lemon have 34 FELONIES!!!! on his record? 🤣


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
That's the huge problem which leaves both sides open to charges of hypocrisy: some sectors of the American economy are reliant on cheap, disposable labour.  They can't/won't get the natives to do that anymore, so they need a constant flow of immigrants willing to take on hard, dirty, uncertain work.  This is going back decades, my teen years were blighted by every local talent show where someone with a guitar did Deportees (a song from 1948 by Woody Guthrie).


The hypocrisy of the right about economic exploitation is easy to see, the hypocrisy of the left less so: but they are de facto defending the permanence of a serf class for manual labour in order to keep their nice lifestyle of abundance going.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


So why the focus of the cities which voted Harris?




Like they say about robbing banks, because that's where the money is.  Blue-voting cities are the ones with the most visible levels of "we're a sanctuary city! we have all these activist organisations for undocumented persons!"  If I'm going to be looking for easy finding of illegal immigrants, where do you think I'll head to first?  Tom Johnson's produce farm out in the boondocks (where indeed there's likely to be undocumented workers, same in meat processing plants, but it's also probably going to be tougher to identify/arrest them), or the George Floyd Memorial Centre and Legal Aid Provision for Persons of Irregularity?




When ICE shot Good, Noem wasted no time to transparently slander her as a domestic terrorist.




Gosh, how very reassuring it is to know that the people who created the category of "domestic terrorist" never, ever, used it to slander people!  It's all a lie, yeah maybe sure something in the letter could be interpreted that way but really now, are you going to believe us or them?




U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said that he couldn't even "imagine a circumstance" where "parents complaining" at a school board meeting would be "labeled as domestic terrorism." Yet, several Republicans have continued to falsely claim Garland called such parents "terrorists."






The nugget of truth behind the political spin is that a letter from the National School Boards Association to Garland last fall argued some violent threats against school officials "could be the equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism" that would warrant the intervention of federal law enforcement. In his response, Garland directed his agency to review strategies to address violent threats and harassment against school boards, but he didn't use the NSBA's "terrorism" language, for which the group later apologized.




Was Good a domestic terrorist? Ask the people who created the term.  I don't think it was useful then or now, but it's been put into use and you really can't complain if the tools you created to bash your enemies then get used in turn to bash you when your enemies get their hands on them.  I think she was a damn fool who fucked around and found out, she didn't deserve to be killed, but neither did the ICE agent deserve to be put in that position by someone thinking she could larp as the Maquis and nothing would happen because she was one of the Good Guys fighting the fascist nazi tyrant's stormtroopers, and every movie assured her that bad things don't happen to the Good Guys fighting the nazi fascist stormtroopers.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
May I bring this banger to your notice?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
I have to admit, I did not have "USA versus EU over Greenland" on my bingo card (if I had bingo cards in the first place).  Reality sure is a very interesting place these days!


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
To be fair, Garland got savaged for not being quick enough, or plentiful enough, with the prosecutions.  So for the progs, you can very easily, very quickly, slip from Hero of the People to Counter-Revolutionary Wrecker Running Dog.  As, I suppose, we've seen before with Communist states.


(Okay, that linked article wasn't very savage in the savaging, but I did see online calls for heads on spikes, as it were).


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


Jennifer Welch is a divorced divorce attorney




That seems to be her co-host, Angie Sullivan.  Welch is (was?) an interior designer.  Both are divorced, though.


"By 2025, Welch scaled down her job as an interior designer and Sullivan had left her job as a divorce attorney in order to focus on the podcast."


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Talk to Bernadette Devlin about that 😁 Or for paramilitary activity, the Price sisters.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					


this appears to be like a kind of resistance-within-the-resistance of severely disaffected former Obama style liberals / progressives who have decided to go full Provisional IRA.




Please.  This means they're not the Provos*, they're the Continuity IRA, as distinct from the Real IRA, another split-off grouping who were/are more effective or at least have survived longer (allegedly they got the nickname the Cokes because, like Coca-Cola, they were The Real Thing).  I think the blow your whistle types are more prone to the splitting and lack of effectiveness of the Continuity than the Real.


*Genealogy equivalents: If the traditional Democratic party is the Official IRA/Sinn Féin, the Obama liberals were the Provisional IRA/Sinn Féin, the progressives/DSA affiliates were the INLA/IRSP and offshoots, the SJW wing of that were the Real IRA and the ICE ICE baby lot are the Continuity.  Fissioning like an amoeba on Ritalin seems to be a hallmark of Marxist-Leninist groups.


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
Star Wars was never my fandom, so I haven't watched any of the movies since "The Phantom Menace" (and that was primarily for Liam Neeson), and none of the TV spinoffs.


But I've seen reasonably good things about "Andor".  Can they possibly manage to pull the rabbit out of the hat with "don't fuff this up, and try writing something decent" or is all hope lost, like the Lesbian Space Witches Am-Dram Choir And Interpretive Dance Troupe?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
So it's really happening at long, long last?


I imagine because they've tanked Star Wars as a property so comprehensively, there isn't even enough of the bones left to squeeze anything more out of, so Kennedy can be cut loose. Nobody is going to bat for her and she can't promise one more big, sure thing to grab viewing figures.


Star Trek is going the same way, with the latest disaster.  This Guardian review is something else; "Grange Hill but with phasers" is not immediately enticing.  I'm burned out on Trek.  You can't keep insulting legacy fans for being legacy fans and not supporting New Thing when you aren't grabbing replacement new fans in sufficient numbers.  Same with Doctor Who as well, seems like.  The First Big Black Gay Woke Doctor was, somehow or other, bafflingly, not a huge ratings success.  What unfathomable reason could possibly explain all this?




The lows are that you’ve got a very, very small percentage of the fan base that has enormous expectations and basically they want to continue to see pretty much the same thing.




Miniscule. Tiny. Too negligible to even bother counting.  If they all disappeared, we wouldn't even notice, that's how unimportant they are.  Wait, why are our ratings tanking and nobody is purchasing our merch?


				

				

						

							

								
							

						


						
					

				
			


			

	


			
			
				

			
		

	






		

			
			
				Culture War Roundup for the week of January 12, 2026
			
		

	

	

	

		
			

			

				

			

		

			


				

					
TIL that not going out to do stupid shit that gets you killed is "cowering in your home".  Drunk drivers everywhere raise a glass in salute!


I'm probably burned out because of one too many goddamn stupid online posts from keyboard warriors doing their best to encourage people like Good to go out and get themselves into real trouble.  Allegedly, a list of ICE and border agents identities was made public, and one such "let's you and him fight" was posting very thinly veiled hints about "go out and find these nazis and make their lives hell".  (This is why ICE agents are now all masked up, and probably why they are regarding members of the public with paranoia - that idiot blowing the whistle in your ear may only mean to deafen you, or they could be planning to show up at your home and do who knows what?)


And people like Good, who seem to believe that a fake title ('I'm a Legal Observer! Can't touch me!') is going to protect them from any consequences, so they can stroll right up to the line of "I can hit you but you can't do a thing to me", including "try and use your car as a getaway vehicle, get treated like a criminal fleeing the scene" , and that the usual result of that won't somehow, miraculously, happen to them  - they read and listen to all this encouragement, and go and do stupid shit, and get hurt or killed.


Yeah.  "Cowering in her home" would have kept this woman alive and her child not an orphan, but gee, let's all pretend that Trump is the exact same as Kim Jong Un and that we are bold brave French Maquis resistance fighters.  Then we'll go home after the protest that defeated the jackbooted stormtroopers and post about it online and everything will be beer and skittles.