Monday, March 18, 2024

"Bloodbath?" Oh, really?

RantWoman is taking a little bit of a break from relentless ministry about matters of disability and inclusion. RantWoman has acquired a serious YouTube habit, and RantWoman sees no reason why readers of this blog should be deprived of RantWoman's insights just because they get splattered all over other venues.

(There are abundant videos about why US commentators are all hot about the word "bloodbath." RantWoman recalls all the Twitter trash talk early in #DonTheCon reign of error about nuclear weapons and fortunately no one got nuked. HOWEVER, RantWoman is still inclined, on top of all the lies and garbage EX PResident Gropesaurus has been spewing, to take the word seriously. Plus, the problem is not only #DonTheCon but also his Felon Choir.)

Enjoy?



The commentariat needs to get over their Trump Inevitability syndrome and start imagining and asking about other scenarios. What can / must voters do to ensure that Trump loses? How busy will his court calendar be when he does?

The #GOP needs to start loudly and publicly saying they WILL find another candidate. Hard to do if Trumplings have taken over the RNC, but surely lawyers and mental health professionals can find a way. This MUST come from the GOP. Can they or ordinary citizens petition Judge Chutkan? Can she revoke his release while the immunity case is pending? I assume there is no point in petitioning Judge Cannon, and I think it's too much to ask of Judge McAfee even though the scope of the cases before him would suggest it. Or should people just petition all the judges?

#DonThe Con is a danger to himself and to others. He is a danger to himself because he keeps blowing through lawyers and blowing lots of defenses. He is a danger to others because of death threats and swatting. Some of the time he appears to know right from wrong, but he is incapable of assisting in his own defense. Would a mental health hold sit better with MAGA than flat out pretrial detention? Worth trying.

How many hundreds of surveillance warrants and social media monitors would be needed to quash anything that might come up?

Thursday, March 14, 2024

Another set of videos. Another one woman perspective shameless rant

#SOTU #SOTU2024 #SOTUResponse
#WomensHistoryMonth
#NancyMace #EJeanCarroll

content warming: rap survivors

First, RantWoman appreciates these two videos from Joy Ann Reid 




RantWoman is still just fine with Sen. Britt doing her #GOP #SOTUResponse segment from her kitchen, if the kitchen looked like an actual kitchen. RantWoman means to redecorate the kitchen theme in a separate post. 

Sen. Britt is somehow trying to speak about family issues; that is important even for modern two-career families. She totally LOST IT, though, as far as real policy rather than fear mongering. And her nauseating segment overflowing with lies and misrepresentation about sex trafficking completely blew away the credibility of anything she might have been trying to say.

Another thing: right toward the end, not shown in this segment, Sen. Britt went all in on "the blood of patriots."  RantWoman just about threw something at the screen, Yeah, and displaced indigenous people, and enslaved people. Like Nikki Haley, Sen. Brit tis trying WAY too hard to make all happy about historical struggles, struggles we all need to draw strength from, not just whitewash or sweep under the rug.

And then there is Nancy Mace and George Stephanopolous.
The whole- George Stephanopolous interview is weird and cringey. Given the history of accusations against Bill Clinton, George Stephanopolous is about the LAST person RantWoman would assign to do interviews about E Jean Carroll Of COURSE the large legal judgment make Carroll a sexy interview topic. In general it's very nice that Carroll has the money to hire lawyers and the resources to stand up to the public onslaught she is enduring. NO one should minimize her experience but at a certain point the public immersion in her story makes one want to scream "You are NOT the only rape survivor on the planet." #DonTheCon is not going to stop defaming, denigrating, promoting further abuse of women and that is only one reason he belongs NOWHERE near any position of authorityLarge financial settlement or no, RantWoman also does not think it was appropriate for Nancy Mace to minimize Carroll's experience, but here we are.

EVERY supporter of #DonTheCon, not just outspoken rape survivors should be asked how they feel about the presumptive GOP nominee being a serial sex predator. That should not fall all on either Nancy Mace or E Jean Carroll.

The timing of this interview right after Sen. Britt's #SOTUResponse to me makes a perfect storm of ways to illustrate every #GOP weakness imaginable regarding women. But stay tuned. We are definitely not done with sexism and gender dynamics.


Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Sen. Britt SOTU Response Speech scorned from all sides.

#WomensHistoryMonth #WomensHistoryMonth2024
#SOTU #SOTU2024 #SOTUREsponse
Trigger warning:: #Rape. explicit mention of sex trafficking #Xenophobia
Editing warning: this post is even more raggedy than many RantWoman posts. RantWoman has decided to go ahead and post the raw material while she tries to comb several strands of thought into their own pieces.

Enjoy?


Urk. Update



Okay, okay, RantWoman has finally realized she should watch the whole entire Sen. Katie Britt #SOTU response before going off based only on almost universal scorn from commentators across the political spectrum. 

RantWoman is going to do the best she can to slide into the easy points and to salvage what themes she and hopefully others will pay attention to and not sink further into a disgusting swamp that makes RantWoman's head explode.

First the kitchen setting:RantWoman bucks the trend.

1. MANY comments focus on "tradwife" imagery and wonder why a US Senator offers a speech from a kitchen and even worse from a kitchen that looks like no one has ever cooked anything, spilled anything, or eaten anything in it. RantWoman is on the side of DO NOT devalue all the work that gets done in kitchens even if it is "traditional women's work" RantWoman took grave issue with the Hillary Clinton "well I could have stayed home and baked cookies" comment in 2008 when she and Laura Bush were exchanging chocolate chip cookie recipes There is NOTHING wrong with Senators being in the kitchen,especially when everyone knows full well that Senators are all kinds of places besides the kitchen

2. As long as everyone is complaining about the decor, RantWoman would: 
--add a potted plant
--add a pet wandering in in solidarity with all the pets people met on virtual meetings during the #pandemic
--Add a husband in the background DRYING DISHES. Real men CAN do household tasks. Sharing what makes a household work is one way LOTS of families cope with current economic stresses.

The speech does nothing to squelch RantWoman's fear that everyone everywhere who is concerned about women's bodily autonomy should run away from the #GOP as fast as possible.


With that as an intro: here is the full video and then links from the commentariat..

RantWoman notes: the pink theme of the CBS panel, note that Sen. Britt did not mention #DonTheCon even once.

Also NOT A WORD about gun violence

or strength in diversity.

Or, thankfully, #DragQueenStoryHour

Readers who prefer to avoid disgusting treatment of sexual violence should consider all of the commentaries linked below.



John Flugelsang "Cynical attempt to appeal to women and younger people they have no interest in."
John Flugelsang: "this will generate a lot of votes for the Democratic party."
Katie Britt is 100% anti-abortion so she would require a victim of sex trafficking to have her rapist's baby
observations about @SpeakerJohnson facial expressions, something RantWoman w0ould not even have looked for if someone had not pointed out the visuals.


Hyperbole "Career Goes down in Flames?"
breathy delivery and creepy camera work
Why the response is hard to do.
(Biden on shrinkflation and credit card fees have their limits as an economic strategy.)
They set her up for failure.
We don;t need America's mom. 
Be a Girl Boss
IVF vs abortion. Says she is for but 125 members of the house have signed onto a bill to ban it.
[Contrast with Tommy Tuberville?]
#GOP still not sure how to deal with women.
Swing voters vs MAGA base.




Hilarious

A chilling reminder...I cannot believe that is what most Americans want,






Saturday, March 2, 2024

More modest remembrance of Asia Bennett than this weeks farewells to Alexei Navalny

#WomensHistoryMonth #WomensHistoryMonth2024


Bus shelter with intact windows and almost NO GRAFFITTI.
This bus stop near Meeting was in remarkably good condition today,
especially compared to many past visits
documented in passing in this blog.
RantWomanblames cellphone oopses
for lack of a more topical photo



Today was Asia Bennett's memorial. 


Asia Bennett Seattle Times Obituary

Asia Bennett Seattle Times Obituary


Thematic comments:

1. For a faith tradition founded on the equality of Women, (see Margaret Fell) and credited historically with important connections to suffrage movements, only in the 20th century was Asia credited with being "the first woman to..." for a number of different Quaker organizations. Asia spent the early part of her career working in childcare. Her family's bio reported that she at some point noted how much dealing with toddlers--and their parents--prepared her for the many different leadership and personnel roles she took on within various Quaker organizations.

[RantWoman sometimes carries around in her head thoughts such as "a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle." When RantWoman observes long-lasting marriages where deep love is obvious, though, RantWoman also firmly believes in supporting the partnership behind leaders so special Light and appreciation for Lee, Asia's husband of almost 77 years.] 


2. LOTS of people talked about Asia's capacity to listen. RantWoman meant particularly to note Vanessa Julye's comment about Asia's role in supporting Vanessa's early steps in the work of addressing racism within the Society of Friends. These thoughts did not make it out of RantWoman's mouth as a message in worship. They WILL be part of thoughts in another post only hinted at here.


3. LOTS of people commented about how Asia asking a question helped direct them toward or away from different forms of witness: aiming for revolution vs getting married, accepting AFSC staff vote to unionize consideration that the organization had a decades-long commitment to supporting unions, engagement about diversity with out LGBT Friends.


4. RantWoman admits to a little bit of frustration about mention of issues in days of yore with scant thought that some of those same issues are very much still throbbing, sometimes in new, highly mutated forms in the life of the world. One of Asia's gifts to the world is to plant seeds for helping new generations find paths among these challenging realities.


5. Inclosing,possibly weird advice to young people new to Friends: GO TO MEMORIALS. Even if you barely know the deceased and are afraid of not knowing a soul from your own generation, GO TO MEMORIALS. Learn. Okay, Asia famously told someone awed by Quaker weddings "oh wait until you see the memorials."




Techie notes.

1. RantWoman has special tirades related to memorials and visits UFM intermittently. Today aside from the bus shelter in LOVELY condition, . the visit revealed QR codes???? RantWoman loves the pblishers of Truth in whatever is the medium of the day. RantWoman is just not sure about QR codes on info sheets on a bulletin . board.RantWoman hopes the QR codes do what is intended. She also hopes the bar codes do not scare away people annoyed by bar codes or by the implication that one must be fluent in particular technologies to be a good Quaker.


2. Even at in-person events, RantWoman LOVES, LOVES, Loves signing into Zoom on her phone with audio disconnected in order not to interfere with room sound. RantWoman just LOVES knowing who all is on the Zoom. (RantWoman kind of means to experiment about these issues on other video conferencing platforms. 


3. RantWoman definitely appreciates evolution and continuing revelation about the world of movable mics and Room amplification in the world of hybrid / blended Zoom meetings. RantWoman also tartly remembers the first incarnation of a UFM committee on disabilities: there was a survey. There were minimal requests of the surveyors in Meeting for Business from anyone, alas including RantWoman. But great success was noted because of the next iteration of efforts to ensure that people, such as Asia, with hearing loss, could hear better. RantWoman has no desire to minimize these efforts. However, RantWoman CONTINUES TO TAKE SERIOUS ISSUE with the limitations of that as an approach to addressing matters of disability.

Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Purest Propaganda BS

 Youtube is full of posters, INCLUDING Putin himself, excoriating Tucker Carlson after his interview of Vladimir Putin.

This item is typical ranting about all kinds of things but does mention Alexei Navalny

TYT re Lex Friedman on Tucker Carlson


RantWoman popcorn Kernel about He of The Terrible Fake Tan and Alarming Hair Thingie claiming he is being persecuted LIKE NAVALNY.


Dude, 


STOP pretending you have ANYTHING in common with Alexie Navalny.


Your cheeseburge and ketchup diet is not that good either for you or for the planet but you have not been poisoned and nearly died. 


Sorry not sorry you have no time to golf right now because of all your court dates, but no matter how many voices would be happy to send you to prison, NOTHING the US prison system can dish out will equal Russian arctice prison. And for better or worse, you at least are PROBABLY too old to get routed into Russian mobilization for the STUPID "special military operation" meat grinder in Ukraine. 


So COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS.


Sincerely,


RantWoman.


PS: RantWoman feels obliged to hold you somewhere in the Light and RantWoman will do the best she can not to singe that hair thingie on your head.


PPS. May God have mercy on all our souls.




Macron rules out nothing; range of options in broader discussions

#Ukraine #Russia #France #Macron #NATO

Posting without comment.

Bravo strategic ambiguity?









Comments on combatting Russian propaganda.
Note from other sources: Russia has declared Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty a hostile influence.


Russian growth rate on war economy


YouTube algorithms offer much more.

Monday, February 19, 2024

Denmark, people Denmark!

#Ukraine #GOPClownShow

RantWoman leans toward Dial-a-Tirade about many things to do with weapons shipments to many different places. It's too late at night to be coherent so RantWoman simply offers two videos, along with this tart comment: RantWoman hates a whole bunch of things about the current foreign aid bill. HOWEVER, RantWoman can see the point of a discharge petition to get it moving in the House. And if getting the bill moving accidentally results in yet ANOTHER Vacate the Chair motion, oh well.