Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Elections aren’t won by handwringing, cowering, and/or bashing your own candidates.

Be a traveling stable for those who can’t find room at the inn.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

The revolution will be supervised.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Evening/Early Morning Open Thread: Updated Regarding the Kalamazoo Spree Shootings

Late Evening/Early Morning Open Thread: Updated Regarding the Kalamazoo Spree Shootings

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This post is in: 

———Update: Kalamazoo Spree Shootings/Murders———-

Here’s the link to the live stream:

They’re reporting that the suspect is in his 50s and is driving a navy blue HHR – no model year specified.

The WOOD TV Channel 8 Live stream is reporting that Michigan State Police indicated at 1:30 AM that they have what they believe is a strong suspect in custody and that the situation is now contained.

———————————————————————————-

Here’s a nice, shiny, and new open thread to get you through the wee hours.

Reader Interactions

116Comments

  4. 4.

    Adam L Silverman

    @different-church-lady: While its not from the Christmas Album, since Jack Frost and the Hooded Crow is about Christmas, is that also off limits?

    I’m saving “I Am Your Gun” for the next topically appropriate event.

  7. 7.

    Mike in NC

    Wife’s cousin is going to back-to-back funerals this weekend, and we fly into JFK tomorrow for another on Long Island.

    But still loving JEBzzz rejection by the lunatic fringe in South Carolina.

  21. 21.

    beth

    6 people dead in multiple shootings in Kalamazoo. Some guy driving around shooting people. When is this going to fucking stop?

  22. 22.

    Adam L Silverman

    @benw: It was better than the original Batmetal. This time they picked a song they could actually match the animation to.

  31. 31.

    Wag

    Here’s an old SNL clip if the B-52’s. I came home after a evening out with my parents and grandparents and turned on SNL. Everybody settled in to watch. When the music started everyone but me and my grandpa disparaged the band. I was already a die hard fan. Grandpa was a 70 year old rancher from southern AZ, and he dug it. I think that he thought Cindy was hot. http://www.kiffingish.com/2015/01/dance-this-mess-around.html. He was right.

  33. 33.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Adam L Silverman: Dude’s still out and about. I know the feeling, I was around when Manson and the Family were out and about(turns out they were holed up for a while pretty close to where I lived).

    ETA: That’s about the time we first started locking out doors at night.

  34. 34.

    Adam L Silverman

    @BillinGlendaleCA: They have a description of him and his vehicle. I’m sure they’ve laid on everything they have and have borrowed assets from neighboring communities and the state. Going to ground is his only chance of not getting picked up in short order. If he’s out and about, they’ll get him. But spree killings don’t just happen. And while the targeted sites and victims may seem random now, once they identify the guy or arrest him, we’ll begin to see what actually was the instigator for this.

    And the word is out now. So people in Kalamazoo will be on guard. Folks with guns, whether we want to discuss it or not, we’ll have them at the ready, be they hunters, sport shooters, and/or those who own for self defense. The question is whether he’s now running for one of the borders of Michigan. If he gets out of the net, he could run for a bit before they could get him.

  35. 35.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Wag: Back between my first and second year of college I went to Europe. A couple of years ago I scanned the slides I took on that trip, and at the bottom of this slide from Munich I noticed a sign with an ad for a performance by a band whose name I recognized.

  36. 36.

    seaboogie

    Adam, I think that you might be the one to answer this question – and probably did in the last thread – but weariness is making me lazy tonight.

    So…we just had the IA and NH primaries that are both Dem and Repub at the same time. How is it that SC is only holding a GOP primary, and NV is only holding a Dem primary?

  37. 37.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    South Carolina, too? seeing it on Gawker, nowhere else

    While the primary votes rolled in and presidential candidate and gun advocate Donald Trump soared to victory, an active shooter was reported at a mall in Harbison, South Carolina.
    According to local WLTX News, the incident occurred around 7 p.m. on Saturday night, and the mall was quickly evacuated.

  38. 38.

    Adam L Silverman

    @seaboogie: I didn’t. As I understand it, SC is one of the GOP’s carve out primaries. It was originally created by Lee Atwater and another highly influential and notable SC politico as a GOP establishment firebreak. Atwater originally intended it as a firebreak for President Bush 41. After the 2012 GOP primary mess, the RNC redid their primary calendar. Iowa, NH, and SC all had to happen in 1, 2, 3 order. First caucus, first primary, and then the SC primary. The Democrats didn’t adjust their schedule the same way.

  43. 43.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @beth:
    @BillinGlendaleCA:

    Yeah, I came back to post it and then saw that you both did. I have several friends who either currently live or formerly lived in Kalamazoo. BJ front-pager Hillary Rettig is among them. These events are awful whenever and wherever they take place, but when they are in places one knows — or impact people one knows (efgoldman’s SIL) — they are especially jarring.

    If I could go back in history and change anything, it would be the Second Amendment.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Yeah, I made it happen.

    EDIT: Apologies, Adam, that came across much snarkier than I intended. In fact, I didn’t intend snark at all, so total fail. Sorry.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    If only Jeb had 86-ed the ! and put the apostrophe back into Brink’s, he could’ve had it all.

    Or not.

    ——————————

    driving a blue HHR

    I give up – what the heck is an HHR?

    Harry Houdini’s Rolls? Hal Holbrook’s Rambler?

  58. 58.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Adam L Silverman: Hell, that’s FUGLY, driving around in that would make me almost want to shoot someone. Maybe the ass who sold it to me. One of the shooting locations was a car dealer wasn’t it?

  62. 62.

    PurpleGirl

    @Omnes Omnibus: That’s because Key limes aren’t actually grown in the Florida Keys anymore. At least I remember reading something to that effect when reading about the Keys. The citrus groves were wiped out by the hurricane in 1926 which ravaged the Keys.

  63. 63.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @Adam L Silverman:
    @Adam L Silverman:

    No problems at all.

    —-

    To go back to South Carolina, I watched a few minutes of Ted Cruz’s speech (victory or concession, I could not tell). His wife and daughters were on stage with him and I was powerfully struck at how terribly unhappy the older daughter looks in every video I’ve seen of her. She seemed utterly miserable tonight, and I think we all remember the way she tried to avoid being kissed by her father. There were a couple of other clips in their home where she just looked as though she’d rather be anywhere else. Poor kid.

  70. 70.

    SiubhanDuinne, Annoying Scoundrel

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It was hard to tell. There were a lot of preachers there with him, but whether their job was to gives thanks, intercession, or supplication, I could not say.

    I was, however, amused that apparently one of Cruz’s supporters in SC is former governor, now congressman, and forever Appalachian-Trail-hiker Mark Sanford.

  71. 71.

    GregB

    If the shooter is a white guy we can all rest easy because there is nothing that can be one to stop it.

    If it is a Muslim though we should probably round his family and torture everyone.

  73. 73.

    Ruckus

    @BillinGlendaleCA:
    I’d think someone would want to kill themselves if they just drove one of those, let alone owned one. But if they have so little shame they were able to buy it in the first place maybe, I’m wrong. I mean I have little pride and almost no shame and I wouldn’t even test drive one of those.

  78. 78.

    Anne Laurie

    @Ruckus:

    I mean I have little pride and almost no shame and I wouldn’t even test drive one of those.

    Extremely niche market, but apparently they are still popular with people who want more capacity than a compact and better fuel efficiency than a minivan. At least according to my dog-activity-hobby friends back in Michigan, where people notify their network when one comes up on the used-car market.

  81. 81.

    BillinGlendaleCA

    @Ruckus:

    I mean I have little pride and almost no shame and I wouldn’t even test drive one of those.

    Heh, remember I’ve met you.

  82. 82.

    Origuy

    Well, since I posted about this first, I guess I should post an update. It looks like the story about Sanders supporters shouting “English Only” isn’t really what happened. Snopes

    As [Susan] Sarandon correctly stated, the segment in dispute started around the 53:30 mark, when parties called for a Spanish-language translator. As she indicated, at 55:18 the caucus moderator (not Sanders’ supporters) simply stated that the inability to locate a neutral translator meant the caucus would continue in “English only.” At no point did any Sanders supporters appear to have refused a translator based on the fact that translation was objectionable to them; nor was “English only” used in a pejorative fashion. The term was invoked a single time, during the moderator’s assertion that no suitable translator was located to provide Spanish-language translations:

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    @Anne Laurie:
    Had a friend who purchased the original, the PT. Rode in it a couple of times. Never saw the rational for that vehicle or understood it’s appeal and I owned a Honda Element. A copy of it or a cross between the PT and the Element it didn’t improve the PT at all. The Element itself is a bit weird but very useful and roomy. The PT and the HHR, just weird.

  85. 85.

    Applejinx

    @Origuy: Thank you. I’m not sure who exactly started this going around, but you’d better believe me and probably a lot of other Sanders supporters noticed a sudden random partisan attempt to make us look like Trump-like racist fuckheads.

    Please, please, don’t do that, okay? It is quite challenging enough, and quite grueling enough dealing with some of the Clinton people, without some of ’em outright making stuff up and then others running with it.

    Horrible and dishonest and risks attracting racist fucknuts over TO our side on the strength of what antiestablishment cred Sanders and Trump share, and I don’t know about anybody else but I feel that if Trump people wanted to come over to the Bernie side, they should have to leave their nationalist racist baggage behind. Is that too much to ask? Is it too much to ask that people not outright make up racist shit about Sanders and his people? We already have to cover a lot of ground and it would be courteous to not need to fall back on ‘the other side lies, so give us a chance to prove that our lesser promises still count for something’.

    I hate that we (the Bernie side) are making lesser and tonedeaf promises, but there’s not a lot we can do about it when our candidate straight up WILL NOT lie to you. If he doesn’t think something will work he won’t lie to you, or even stall, he’ll say that. It’s a form of respect in its way.

  87. 87.

    Elizabelle

    Went to sleep shortly after Cruz’s “victory” speech; woke up to find there had been a mass spree shooting in Kalamazoo overnight. Chuckled a little to see Siubhan’s pre-shootings comment near top of thread; wondered how Hillary R was taking the news.

    A fitting coda to the day. Scalia — who decided for Heller and against reasonable gun controls — was buried Saturday. And Trump won the SC primary, pledging at the end of his remarks/family photo op to protect the Second Amendment.

    Protect the Second Amendment, but we cannot protect a father and son on the premises of an auto dealership, or a nine year old child, sitting in a car in a parking lot.

  88. 88.

    Applejinx

    @Botsplainer: I won’t argue that. We in Vermont love him anyway. Try to look at it as an ‘issues spoiler candidate’ who discovered that his issues were a super giant big deal.

    Bernie isn’t made for this. I think a lot of us would be happy to welcome him back to Vermont, mission accomplished, if we felt that the issues he consistently raises had made an impact on the Democratic Party.

    I think what drives Bernie supporters batshit insane is the notion that we get dishonestly maneuvered in order to have our issues discarded and disposed of. To my perhaps over-cynical mind, if say Clinton wanted to dishonestly maneuver in order to CO-OPT the same issues and take them over, that would be just fine.

    The guy is just an old white codger from Vermont who’s been super lefty since the early 60s and has done lots of effective work, both as a Governor and a Senator. It’s his ideas that really matter at this point.

  89. 89.

    different-church-lady

    @Applejinx:

    if Trump people wanted to come over to the Bernie side, they should have to leave their nationalist racist baggage behind.

    If that is the condition, then there won’t be any Trump people coming over to Bernie’s side.

    PS: we know exactly who started it going around. It ain’t nothing like a secret ratfuck, her name’s right on the tweet.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    @Applejinx:

    But, I want you to think about this.
    It can’t be just about what we’re going to give to you, it has to be what we’re going to build together. Your generation is the most tolerant, and connected our country has ever seen. In the days ahead we will propose new ways for more Americans to get involved in national service and give back to our communities because everyone of us has a role to play in building the future we want.

    Democrats really need to get away from the idea that young people are whiners who want free stuff when the primary is over. I hope this idea of the “affluent youth who should be more grateful” doesn’t solidify into “truth”.

    Were prior generations better at “giving back” to their communities? I don’t recall that in my own generation, not now and not when we were younger, and we got a fair amount of “free stuff”. I actually got free community college.

  92. 92.

    satby

    @Kay: I’m older than you then, because things like the Peace Corps and Vista were very popular in my generation.

    Full disclosure, I’m a Vista alum.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @satby:

    The Peace Corps and Vista address a tiny portion of young people. We still have those programs. Americorps, the inside the US program, is actually much bigger than it was. It pays next to nothing.

    They’re saying they can’t afford college debt and there are a lack of entry level jobs. This is not whining. It is true. They need to go to work to pay their loans. I’m not sure they’re in a position to “give back”.

    I just someone has to address the fact that they actually have it harder – they’re not making this up. I’m sure they’ll accommodate the changes in the economy because they have no choice, but pretending it’s 1967 or 1993 and it’s just a matter of more bootstrapping or a lack of gratitude might not be responsive to their lived experience.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @satby:

    This is not fringe, the notion that they face a different economy. Larry Summers admits it:

    “There’s a view that I think was a plausible view to hold in 1995, which I would call ‘preserve my carried-interest tax break, the market’s great, yes, there are a lot of people left behind, we need to give them better education, I’m really involved in a charter school, it’s all going to be okay,'” Summers said. “That is not a credible response to the challenges of the American economy in 2015.“

  95. 95.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay:

    They need to go to work to pay their loans. I’m not sure they’re in a position to “give back”.

    Debt forgiveness based on public service? This ain’t exactly rocket science.

    There’s no question the student loan/tuition gouging feedback loop has them screwed, and sadistic HR trends stick the knife in even further. The questions are how did it happen, and how does it get dismantled?

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    You mean Larry “All That Is Evil About The Establishment” Summers?

    Is that referring to Bernie Sanders supporters? Because I’m talking about a Clinton speech and Clinton’s policy plans. The person who will be the nominee.

    Democrats did the “ladders of opportunity!” theme from 2010 thru 2015. It wasn’t real successful. The Party might want to retool it for ’16 rather than depend on turnout going up in a Presidential year. It’s not just Hillary Clinton. The Democratic Party is not responsive with this theme.

  98. 98.

    Applejinx

    @Kay: That’s a weirdly insightful way to put it, that Americans need to ‘give back to our communities’. As if the communities weren’t already American people.

    This sort of starved, rootless, unstable-hours existence truly doesn’t allow you to be part of a community. It’s qualitatively different.

    I’m all for community, somewhat less enthused by ‘do community service for our gated community if you want national health care or anything resembling a job’. Depending on how it’s implemented you might as well go to jail and put on an orange jumpsuit. What communities are these exactly that must be given back to, and give back from who? Are we talking ‘make sure to balance the budget and never ever run deficits, by making the lower classes do labor for their welfare they no longer have’?

    She’s right about one thing, they’re terrifyingly tolerant. Comes of growing up hopeless. Affluent? I don’t see nearly so much of that.

  99. 99.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Origuy: Thanks for the Snopes link. J was furious about this last night, yelling about “Hillary’s dirty tricks!!”, etc. Optics like this matter a lot for a lot of people. Everyone should take a breath before making inflammatory charges.

    Huerta should have expected that her offer to translate would be rejected since she was (apparently) wearing a Hillary T-shirt. She’s 85 and I’m sure it was noisy and raucous there (though I haven’t watched the video). Maybe she misinterpreted what she saw and heard – that seems to be the case. The organizer should have had an impartial translator there, so that this didn’t happen.

    Here’s hoping Team D doesn’t have too many more “own goal”s like this in the months ahead. The process and the outcome are too important for emotional responses based on misunderstandings to spiral out of control.

    Hey, I can dream can’t I??! :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  101. 101.

    Applejinx

    @NotMax: Hang on, that’s right. What was it, Manchester? Burlington? He was Mayor, and did quite well. WISH he was Governor. Bit late for that now. I knew he ran one of our biggest cities (which isn’t saying very much, as we are a very small state, but it does count as city size and he ran it well)

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @Applejinx:

    It’s not Hillary Clinton specifically. This has been the go-to message of Democrats for the last 5 years, that it’s simply a matter of “leveling opportunity” on the individual level. Grab a rung on the ladder and start climbing.

    This is convenient for them. It allows them to ignore that the economy and workplace has changed for young people. It isn’t that they have fewer skills or are less well educated or are less “gritty” than people my age. It’s the employers have raised the bar for what is an “entry level” job. They don’t get the “first job”. They get internships and low wage jobs and contract work they have to piece together. Saying “you can pay your student loans later, after your public service, or with a longer term” doesn’t make the reality of the debt go away. In fact, with a longer term (lower payments) they may be paying a lot more towards interest.

  103. 103.

    Luthe

    @Kay: I looked into signing up for Americorps once upon a time. Between the poverty-level stipend and the meager pittance it would have taken off my student loan, it wasn’t worth the effort.

    @different-church-lady: There is, in fact, a program tied to public-service that helps people pay off their loans faster. It takes ten years and requires employment at a government or qualified non-profit. The difficulty is getting a foot in the door at said government or qualified non-profit…

    But seriously, if there were a public service program that paid decent wages (or at least provided food, shelter, and a bit of spending money) and took a nice chunk off my loans, I would sign up in a heartbeat.

  104. 104.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay:

    Is that referring to Bernie Sanders supporters?

    No, that’s referring to the cartoon Larry Summers that serves as one of the many Emmanuel Goldsteins of the rabid left. I’m having a hard time squaring that name with someone who would actually care about people or have an accurate view of economic challenges facing young people, since I’ve been told he’s an establishment monster so many times. I don’t really care if any of the people who do that are in Bernie’s camp or not.

  105. 105.

    Kay

    @Luthe:

    But seriously, if there were a public service program that paid decent wages (or at least provided food, shelter, and a bit of spending money) and took a nice chunk off my loans, I would sign up in a heartbeat.

    A lot of people would. My daughter in law is in the public service loan forgiveness program. Two years ago they threatened to cut it back and she was freaking out, because she has planned her entire financial future around it. She and my son bought an apartment they couldn’t have afforded had she had to to pay for grad school. We paid for my son’s college. It’s not a hugely expensive apartment- it’s the modern version of a “starter” because they’re in an urban area and property values and rents are high.

    The complaint I hear from younger people is not “I’m too lazy to work” it’s “I can’t find a job with enough hours and some kind of opportunity for advancement”.

    If this pitch wasn’t successful in ’10 and ’14 (and it wasn’t) why are they trying it again? They better hope she’s running against Mitt Romney or someone who can be portrayed as out of touch in the same way he was.

  107. 107.

    different-church-lady

    @Luthe:

    But seriously, if there were a public service program that paid decent wages (or at least provided food, shelter, and a bit of spending money) and took a nice chunk off my loans, I would sign up in a heartbeat.

    Maybe we should get to work on that instead of screaming about banksters and revolution.

  108. 108.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay:

    “I can’t find a job with enough hours and some kind of opportunity for advancement”.

    Yeah, well, you know something? Neither can fuckin’ I. And I’m twice their age.

  110. 110.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay:

    It’s the employers have raised the bar for what is an “entry level” job. They don’t get the “first job”. They get internships and low wage jobs and contract work they have to piece together.

    Exactly. Employers have become professional bastards and sadists. They believe they exist to squeeze every bit of free labor they can out of the market, and they’ve become ruthlessly efficient about it. The question is what can we do about that.

    Saying “you can pay your student loans later, after your public service, or with a longer term” doesn’t make the reality of the debt go away. In fact, with a longer term (lower payments) they may be paying a lot more towards interest.

    If the public service doesn’t make the debt go away, then it’s ought to be no deal.

  111. 111.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    Yeah, well, you know something? Neither can fuckin’ I. And I’m twice their age.

    Okay but you’re not running on “solutions” and then offering a 70 year old patchwork of public service programs that already exists and doesn’t address the problems they’re reciting, or even reach those problems.

    If the idea is they’re replacing “entry level jobs” that were provided by the private sector with a government program they’re probably going to have to pay people, or they’ll end up with 100% affluent people who don’t need the help anyway.

    Hillary Clinton is really smart and she reads and talks about this stuff constantly. She knows darn well that a longer term for student loans and “giving back” is not the issue. It’s fine if this is a slam at Sanders, it’s a campaign, it’s all fair play, but I’m a little uncomfortable with Democrats repeating the “free stuff” line Mitt Romney used in 2012. Where are they going with this? People should NOT vote their economic interests or what they perceive to be their economic interests? What should they vote on, then? Abortion? The Supreme Court? Democrats are just the mirror image of Republicans who vote on banning abortion and putting lunatics on the Supreme Court? That isn’t the Democratic “brand”, or it isn’t my understanding of it. This is CENTRAL to Democrats- “we’re better for most people on the economy”. It’s what Obama ran on in Ohio in 2012. He won.

  112. 112.

    Luthe

    @different-church-lady: Ensure that every intern out there knows their rights (either you get school credit or wages or if you’re lucky, both). Ensure the DOL and IRS crack down on employers who break the rules and whistle-blowers are allowed to be anonymous (especially in creative fields where black-listing is the kiss of death). Incentivize the hiring of workers for full-time, living wage jobs and pro-rate the incentive if the worker is laid off or fired without cause within the first three years.

    As I said above, public service does make the loan go away, but it takes ten years of employment (subject to the whims of the market and the tax payer). Public service with guaranteed employment (even if you’re digging ditches) would help a lot more people.

  113. 113.

    Applejinx

    @different-church-lady: It’s not about the guy. It’s about his ideas.

    I can tell you for hours about why democratic socialism or Universal Basic Income would be a lifeline and get our GDP right back onto the trend line it fell out of, I can tell you about the errors of austerity economics or the ratios to which the banks are leveraged, and what’s inevitably going to happen due to that horrible looming problem that affects all the world, Europe even worse than us.

    I can’t tell you what city Bernie was mayor of, or the name of his wife or kids etc. because it’s not about the personality, it’s about the ideas. All I care about Bernie’s mayorship is that he did a good job, which to all accounts he totally did.

  114. 114.

    Applejinx

    @different-church-lady: As somebody who in other circumstances would be an employer, I can answer that.

    They become professional bastards because nearly everything is an unregulated free market without rules now, and regulations exist for a reason. They establish the laws under which people compete. Without law and regulation, the professional bastards stomp all over everybody else, and pro tip: competing on quality or customer loyalty to how nice you’ve been doesn’t protect you.

    What it gets you is better odds at being heard for your next product release. If you’re lucky, you can get in a fight with somebody and have some drama to keep you in the public eye, and if you’re smart you can use your quality or niceness as a positioning opportunity… but the professional bastards WILL ruin you if they can, just like people will steal music or software if they can.

    I would happily work at minimum wage for my community, especially if it was $15 an hour, doing things like rebuilding bridges or fixing roads. The professional-bastard-sphere is pretty soul-destroying when you have to stay relevant in it to survive. You end up competing against straight-up lies and scams, and in the absence of regulation and law there’s not a lot you can do to make headway against that.

    A lie is always a better promise than the truth, otherwise what’s the point of lying at all?

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @Luthe:

    This is what happened to the US Senate food service workers:

    Finally, after months of negotiations with the legislative agency that handles procurement at the Capitol, the company that runs the cafeteria agreed to a new contract giving its employees a sizable raise. It wasn’t everything the workers wanted, but it was still a big win. Some workers who had seen their pay stagnate for years would get a bump of about $5 per hour.
    A round of self-congratulations commenced.
    “I am thankful for the employees that do so much for the Senate day in and day out, and I am glad their concerns were heard and taken into consideration in the new contract,” crowed Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), chairman of the Senate Rules and Administration Committee, which oversees Capitol campus matters.
    But it appears some workers were shortchanged, right under the noses of their Senate champions.
    Days after the new contract was signed, a cafeteria manager quietly began calling some workers into his office. He demanded they sign paperwork acknowledging new job titles.

    Sherrod Brown boycotted the place until they got the concessions- he sat in there to show support to the people who work there but he wouldn’t buy.

    The minute the concessions went in and the cameras moved on, the contractor screwed them. This is happening right under their noses. They privatized food service and they cannot regulate it properly.

  116. 116.

    fuckwit

    @Kay: It’s true. I have a teenager. I’m absolutely terrified of the future. There isn’t one, in this country at least.

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