URLs du Jour

2022-09-21

  • Whoa. So Cathy Young tweeted:

    This is the kind of thing you see on Twitter all the time. No big deal. But it drew a response:

    Which caused Cathy to reply:

    Which seemed, well, an odd argument to make. I made a not-at-all snarky tweet:

    And, as noted above: whoa. Look at those likes! This was literally unprecedented for me. (You want to make fun of me? It's easy: after 12 years on Twitter, I've accumulated 21 followers.)

    I should mention that I like Cathy Young. Although her current primary perch is at the Bulwark, she's been a feature of a bunch of publications I read, like Reason. I didn't tweet out of hostility.

    But I guess I learned two things about getting Twitter likes:

    1. Be quick. In this case: 6 minutes. Otherwise someone else is gonna make your completely obvious point first.
    2. Be brief.
    3. No insults. (Some of the people in the thread… sigh.)
    4. Most important: reply to someone who has a lot of followers (Cathy has 67.6K of 'em) and (apparently) draws a lot of flak from them.


  • This is Joe's brain. This is Joe's brain on "replay". People are starting to notice some recurring themes. President Biden in April of this year, as quoted in this C-Span tweet:

    "This ain't you [sic] father's Republican Party. Not a joke, all you gotta do is look what's being played this morning about the tape that was released. Anyway, but all kidding aside, this is a MAGA party now...These guys are a different breed of cat."

    President Biden just a few days ago:

    "This is not your father’s Republican Party. This is a different breed of cat we’re dealing with."

    President Biden ten years ago, as reported by ABC News.

    PORTSMOUTH, Ohio - Vice President Joe Biden often proclaims how different the Republican Party is from generations ago, but in Portsmouth, Ohio, today, he had a new way to describe them - a "different breed of cat."

    "They're not bad guys. It's just a different, as my brother would say, different breed of cat," Biden said at Portsmouth High School.

    In nearly every speech, Biden cites the transformation of the GOP with Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan now at the helm of the party, telling audiences "This is not your father's Republican Party."

    But as it turns out, the Huffington Post noticed this a couple years ago:

    “This is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said campaigning for a Senate candidate in 2018. “They are not who we are. They are not who America is.” Not with their “phony populism” or “fake nationalism.”

    “This is not your father’s Republican Party,” he said in 2011. “This is a different breed of cat.”

    “Today’s Republican Party is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said in 2010. “It’s the party of the tea party. … I’m not questioning their integrity. I’m questioning their judgment.”

    “I don’t get it,” Biden said during the close of the 2008 election with Sarah Palin his GOP opponent. “This is not your father’s Republican Party. This is a different deal. This is a different outfit.”

    “This is not your father’s Republican Party,” Biden said in 2006, his first recorded utterance. Republicans are “bright, patriotic people,” he added, who, sadly, “want to radically change the social structure that has nurtured a thriving middle class.”

    I know this isn't classy at all, but… just sayin'.