Warren

[Phoebe]

This Mitch McConnell quote, explaining why he chose in asinine, hypocritical fashion to officially silence Sen. Warren in the Senate debate, is everything. I need to know where people go for a custom T-shirt that isn't made of scratchy paper, cut for men only, or printed crookedly, so I can put this on it. Any recommendations?

Anyway, this is basically my life motto, the reason I have accomplished anything worthwhile, and why I can't always get along with people of a certain McConnellish sort:
“She had appeared to violate the rule. She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”

In fact, this literally happened at work recently, when I was trying to do basic maths in conversation with some champion mansplainers who to this day have no clue what I was talking about. Moral of the story: people react poorly to the public humiliation of being unable to follow simple math. Note for future politics efforts.

[Phoebe]

And today the internet is ablaze with comment on this very thing. Wow. Yes, there are t-shirts a-plenty. I think what really gets me about his comment is that most educated, accomplished women have heard exactly that same shit at some point when they were most certainly not doing anything wrong, but some smug man in a position of power wanted to let them know their place. I can't even count the number of times, honestly, it's more like a mode of being. So I think women all over the country are having a massive moment of recognition, like Mitch McConnell is that boss/teacher/friend/boyfriend/asshole we meet so many times, and we have had to kiss his ass even when we knew his nasty attempt to enforce something upon us was bullshit, and we PERSISTED ANYWAY, and hopefully we prevailed. My mind goes back to so many experiences, so many, and such experiences, to borrow my daughter's phrase. Like the guy who "warned me" not to keep making arguments against God's existence and then, when this "rules violation" persisted anyway, smacked me in the face. Or the guy who "warned me" not to bother applying for something because those just weren't the rules of the game, and I persisted anyway when I wasn't supposed to, and then prevailed. Everyone who has tried to shut me up for being out of order when heaven knows I am not speaking out of order... I'm raising a little toast to you today, in the spirit of Elizabeth Warren and Mitch McConnell. And yes, you too, sunshine - you know who you are and why this applies to you. She persisted, damn it, and now she can look back and laugh at y'all.

[akiva]

Apparently several of Warren's male colleagues read all or part of the same letter without incident.

[Phoebe]

Oh, we can have "you lie!" shouted at the President in the SoTU and Ted Cruz can accuse McConnell of being a liar, and other Senators can read the same letter, but please, no uppity women need attempt it.

[Mike]

It was a letter that had previously been read into the Senate record during his last confirmation hearings in 1986. However, reading it back then was not maligning a sitting Senator, as he was not one at that time.

The whole thing is stupid. And it was extra stupid on McConnell's part, because by striking her down, he's made her more powerful than he could possibly imagine.

[Phoebe]

Muahahahaha LOL that is exactly it.

[Phoebe]

Sen. Rubio made a fancy speech about how the Senators - including Warren - need to respect one another and engage in polite debate. Only small problem: massive dose of false equivalence. Where the fuck was the push back from Republicans when Warren was being called Pocahontas?

Little Marco who voted for Trump is mad now when people throughout this country attribute negative feelings or motives to their political opponents. Maybe if I didn't have to constantly see racist and sexist bullshit and people including members of Congress acting like poor citizens are scum on their boots, I wouldn't think they are not just wrong but personally immoral.

[bralbovsky]

Even a broken clock is right twice a day