Although I’ve been teaching for 20 years, I never feel like I have that much philosophical wisdom to impart to students about learning. There is one thing though. Sometimes students ask “what do I need to get on the final to get X grade”. I now tell them that they should try to get 100 on the exam, that they should try to get 100 on all exams. If you tell them they just need an 80 to get a B+, then they might do something dumb like only try eight out of the ten problems, figuring if they get those then should be about 80. No, try to master all the material, try all the problems! Students aren’t good at deciding which problems they will be able to do and only trying some is self-defeating.
I feel the same way about Congressional races. The DCCC and DNC aren’t that good at figuring out how to expend resources. Sure, you can look at Cook PVIs and so on, but blowing 10 million to give yourself a tiny edge in one race is dumb given that you could take a flyer on 20 other races with that 10 million and that you never know when a Republican Congressman is going go attack someone or get prosecuted for pedophilia.
So I’d like to see someone from the Democratic party say that their goal in 2018 is to win all 435 seats. All of them, Katie.
Anyhoo, glad to see the DNC is contesting the race in SC-5.
Interesting: @TomPerez + @MartinOMalley heading to SC tmrw to boost @Archie4Congress, whose race has so flown under radar.
— Alex Seitz-Wald (@aseitzwald) June 2, 2017
As I said, I think Archie Parnell is a good candidate. Let’s reach our fundraising goal for him.
Jewish Steel
I think you will get your wish for the next few cycles. I’ve never seen so many people ready to run for seats that usually went uncontested (and thereby to the Republican) here in the red part of Illinois.
Doug!
@Jewish Steel:
Yeah, I think you’re right.
Mnemosyne
I’m just barging with a kitty update — we took Annie to the animal dermatologist this morning and it’s looking quite likely that she has an autoimmune disease called pemphigus. They’re going to run a couple more tests but, in the meantime, we started her on a 2-week course of steroids to see if her appetite comes back since she’s lost a somewhat alarming amount of weight.
So, not great news, but at least it’s less likely to turn out to be lymphoma, though they’re still going to look into that and try to rule it out.
Hopefully there will be no kitty ‘roid rage in our future.
SatanicPanic
@Jewish Steel: Seeing this too. Good, committed candidates. Republicans really took a bat to the bee’s nest when they got on the Trump train.
Fred
White I’m not well versed in the inside baseball of the Democratic Party I recall the Howard Dean’s 50 state approach preceded the Dems taking control of Congress in ’06 and the White House in ’08. Granted there were many factors in that mix but still. You can’t win or lose if you don’t make a bet. I think Jerry Garcia said that. I’ll vote for a Democrat if one’s runnin’. I said that.
eric
Were I in charge of anything, I would do the one thing that could screw the GOP for generations: leverage the Trump-hatred among people 15 -30 so that the GOP brand is toxic in the same way the label “liberal” was toxic for years post-McGovern. This can be an extinction level event for hatred if we prepare ourselves to motivate and protect NEW voters. Young people KNOW that climate change is real and that homosexuality is not an abomination. You dont need impeachment or investigations to win in 2024 and beyond, you need to so taint the GOP brand that young people can never vote for it. This is true in the deepest blue states as much as the red states so that state governments can become (ETA “immune)) to the insidious policies preached by the more banal evil of the generic GOP politician.
Major Major Major Major
I absolutely agree.
I do find it funny that a lot of the people who hate the DNC for not contesting every race, who think it’s part of the party “abandoning
whiterural America”, are the same people who think we should be in the business of purging folks like Ben Nelson for impurity, or otherwise are unwilling to deal with the conservatives and assholes that come with casting a wide net.SatanicPanic
@Fred: It’s hard though- people need to want to run. The focus for Democrats should be building infrastructure at the local level, this means people at the local level getting up and doing it. We can’t expect the national party to do it all for us.
Chet
When my students ask me that, I remind them that the way grades are computed is on the syllabus, so this is now a math problem, and they are in a math class.
rikyrah
@Mnemosyne:
I hope all goes well with the kitty.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: Sending good kitty health vibes. Also check out some of the guides on Dr Kris’ blog. Reach out to him if you don’t feel satisfied with what you’ve learned. I’ve vetted him for publication and he’s very good with the sound behavioral science as well as the cat health focus. Sadly, he’s in Canada, but so will nearly every sensible America if it’s Trump in 2020.
@Major Major Major Major: The feature not a bug of useful idiots is their blithe, willful, obstinate insistence on useful stupidity.
I was signal boosting Archie’s fundraiser last night and I hope to post some links to FB for people who may be able to work his district for him. Plus Ossof. That GOTV message has to get around to everyone we can. I’d really like Ossof to win this district. Mostly because it’s demoralizing to keep getting within striking distance but failing at the end. I know it’s better than expected losses, but my gut told me we wouldn’t have too much time to fix the mess a Trump win would cause and I’ve learned that when I get a peculiar feeling on things, it’s best to listen.
germy
(from The Hill)
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Thanks! I was reading about pemphigus and it matches her symptoms, so I think it’s the right diagnosis, but I’ll still take a look at the blog in case he has additional advice.
germy
@Mnemosyne: Cats. They’re so beautiful and godlike and yet they get the same damn problems us humans get. Cancer, seizures, diabetes.
I hope Annie stays happy, healthy and comfortable for years to come.
That’s my wish for our cat. She’s had some health scares, and we just want her with us for a few more years. She’s sort of the heart of our house.
Ghost of Fitzmas past
What are we fooling ourselves with today?
quakerinabasement
Like Sister Rosetta says, ninety-nine and a half won’t do.
germy
@eric:
Do we have our own Newt Gingrich who can write a memo and give us a list of words we can use?
Our disadvantage is that we’re more decent than they are, and so we’re poor at leveraging hate.
That’s why they win so often.
Robert Sneddon
Recently a Republican candidate for Congress attacked a Jewish reporter during a public event, pushed him to the ground and punched him. He got elected a week later by a comfortable majority. There are areas of the US where running a Democratic candidate for public office really is a waste of time and effort and money. Invoking the Magical Balance Fairy, there are other areas where any given Republican candidate has no chance.
We have an ongoing case here in the UK where a Conservative candidate in next week’s General Election has been formally charged with election fraud in respect of the previous election. It is very unlikely he will lose his seat since it is a safe right-wing constituency. His only real challenge might come from UKIP (the last election the Tories and UKIP took 70% of the vote between them).
cosima
And while they’re fighting the good fight, here’s part of the text of an email that I received from Democrats Abroad:
“Bernie’s event in Brixton has been sold out for days. But we’ve worked together with the Hay on Wye festival to keep back 100 tickets for the event this Friday. This is your last chance to see the Senator in the UK!
It’s at the Brixton Academy on Friday 2 June at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are £35, and full price tickets include a copy of Bernie’s book, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In.”
I received a copy of that book from one of my daughter’s friends in the xmas book swap that I did, that shite went straight to the library for some poor gullible fool to read. What a hack. That book tour of his sure isn’t getting much press on your side of the pond.
germy
@Robert Sneddon:
It really made me question the concept of early voting.
Major Major Major Major
@ruemara: Trump’s polls are going up a bit now too, I imagine it’s because voters are getting acclimated to the dumpster fire. We need wins now.
Glad your cat is diagnosed! First step to getting better.
germy
@cosima:
Is the paper biodegradable? I mean, will it clog my toilet?
Major Major Major Major
@cosima: why isn’t he going to Wisconsin? He’s so out of touch.
rikyrah
Donald Trump’s unhealthy preoccupation with being laughed at
06/02/17 11:33 AM—UPDATED 06/02/17 12:09 PM
By Steve Benen
When Donald Trump spoke yesterday about his decision to withdraw from the Paris climate accord, he seemed to ad-lib one of his broader concerns:
It’s hard to overstate the degree to which Trump obsesses over this point. In his mind, being laughed at appears to be the single worst reaction a person or a country can experience, and so he seems to evaluate decisions based less on merit and more on whether they’ll generate laughter from others.
A month ago, for example, Trump sat down with Time magazine, which asked about his decision to launch a strike on Assad forces in Syria, despite having promised to do the opposite before the election. “I think we have to be a strong nation,” he replied. “I think we were being laughed at by the world. They’re not laughing anymore.”
There’s no real-world reason to believe anyone was laughing at the United States over its reluctance to attack multiple sides in Syria’s civil war, just as there’s no evidence of laughter being curtailed in the wake of Trump’s strike. But it’s becoming increasingly obvious that it’s the lens through which this president sees the world: Trump is paranoid about ridicule that doesn’t exist, and he makes decisions based on his desire to stifle laughter that only he can hear.
This is a longstanding point of concern for him. In the Reagan era, Trump insisted that “bad guys” were “laughing at” the United States. In 2011, The Atlantic ran a piece noting Trump making the same argument about international laughter, at Americans’ expense, during the Clinton, Bush, and Obama eras.
“Everyone is always pointing and laughing at America, in Trump’s view,” The Atlantic piece noted. “A psychologist might have a field day with this.”
eric
@germy: my daughter is 12 and her class just wrote letters to Trump not to pull out of the Paris Accord, and then we she heard it had just happened, she was shocked and so disappointed. Her friends dont hate gay people. They think women are equal (and many times better than men). This is what we leverage….not the hate itself. We talk about hope and future, FAIRNESS and equality and kindness. Will this get everyone in the red states? unlikely, but kids get it … we need to go after the idealism before we tell them to get over that idealism in college and get a job.
Corner Stone
@germy: Would not have changed a thing. May have won with 8% instead of 6%, or 5% instead of 6%. Still going to win that seat. Nothing wrong with challenging it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: Fuck you, man. We got enough problems.
Capri
@Mnemosyne: Dermatologic disease is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it can be examined without specialized equipment. No need for imaging or a stethoscope you just look at the outside of the animal. On the other hand, a lot of skin diseases look alike, so even though they are easy to see they are often misdiagnosed. I once treated a goat with pemphagus that had been treated for mites for months (with no response obviously) because the owner found a picture on the internet of a goats with mites that looked sort of like her.
germy
@eric: I’m hopeful the current administration’s biggest achievement is to motivate a generation to vote against everything he stands for.
different-church-lady
Now you’ve done it!
Oh, wait, your name isn’t Hillary Clinton. Carry on.
eric
@germy: as the “olds” it is our job to fight the fight to keep Trump from burning it down, because the “youngs” are going to save themselves. For them we need to remain optimistic that America is not lost and cannot be lost by a brief moment of insanity. Yes, there will be damage done; but, from these ashes, America can arise, perhaps better than ever. We will do what we can and then they will take us to greater heights as a nation. That is my message to my daughter. Political incitement must be encouraged and fostered. Fatalism is our biggest enemy, not some crass idiot in the White House.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah:
November 8, 2016.
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: I, uh, ok.
Frankensteinbeck
You don’t understand! My Depressive Betters have informed me that moving voting results by +15 points is meaningless, because the field is so stacked against us that ‘lose by a few points’ is the best we can possibly hope for.
ruemara
@Frankensteinbeck: I swear, it’s like jacking off with ghost pepper sauce as lube. I do not get the appeal of that narrative at all.
Omnes Omnibus
@Major Major Major Major: No offense was meant.*
*As far as you know.
hovercraft
@eric:
One of the great things about social media, is that the younguns are seeing what a buffoon he is every single day, and when they keep asking why everyone’s letting say and do all this dumb shit, I keep telling them that the he and his fellow republicans control everything right now, and they don’t want to stop him. To which they reply why, and I say he’s a republican just like them, and they say, republicans suck. Just look at those middle schoolers last week who refused to have their pictures taken with ZEGS on their field trip to DC, it’s getting through, Twitler’s taint is spreading. As someone said, everything he touches turns to shit.
Mnemosyne
@Capri:
Our regular vet treated her for both ear mites and tapeworms, but without much luck, so we went to an internist, who sent us to a dermatologist after the ultrasound didn’t show any tumors or other obvious issues.
They’re also testing her for ringworm and a couple other things, but pemphigus is the most likely culprit at this point.
Omnes Omnibus
@ruemara:
That is remarkably specific. One hesitates to ask….
different-church-lady
@hovercraft:
Uh… social media is why we have an idiot in the White House right now.
Doug R
@Fred: Yup. You want to call yourself a national party, you run in EVERY seat.
LurkerNoLonger
@Ghost of Fitzmas past: Go away.
different-church-lady
@Omnes Omnibus: I would have let it go as a metaphor, but then he swore by it.
eric
@different-church-lady: no, the regular media is why. See Times, New York.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Some people like drama, especially drama that doesn’t affect them personally.
And, of course, you also have the people who are absolutely convinced that Democrats are the enemy and prefer to see them fail.
hovercraft
@Mnemosyne:
Best of luck with the kitty, I hope the steroids work.
AMinNC
@SatanicPanic: I’m encouraged by all of the people-powered activity going on where I live, both inside and outside the Democratic Party. Now granted, I live in a very liberal part of NC, but the local Dem precincts meetings are seeing huge increases in participation. And most of those precincts are holding events like post-card writing parties, phone banks, etc to keep people engaged. We are not going away.
Plus we have an amazing community of energized progressive groups, from Rev. Barbour and the Moral Mondays Movement, to Moms Demand Action, to the League of Women Voters, Indivisible, etc., and they all have attracted large numbers.
Our issue here, of course, is the horribly gerrymandered districts that the Republicans have drawn. We won the court case, but we still won’t be balanced. I just hope that the new recruits don’t flee if we don’t have the glorious revolution of their dreams in one election. We must be in this for the long haul. I think people around here are beginning to realize that, and the response has been activism rather than cynicism. The horrible climate decision will just keep that going.
different-church-lady
@eric: Even the NYTs thinks social media will save their ass.
hovercraft
@germy:
I believe you meant that other tub of lard frank Luntz.
germy
headline
Ghost of Fitzmas past
@Frankensteinbeck: lose by 1 or 1,000: “Scoreboard” as we used to say. If you don’t move that needle to the win column it doesn’t matter if it moved at all.
germy
@hovercraft: I thought it was Newt’s creation. So Luntz wrote it and Newt signed it?
Omnes Omnibus
@Doug R: Really, who is going to give up a couple of years of his/her life to run in a true no-hoper? I am all for running hard in any district where there is a decent chance, but how do you talk someone into running in a R +25 district?
Major Major Major Major
@Omnes Omnibus: if you say so.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
In honor of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, let me quote Wayne Gretzky, seriously out of context:
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.
So it’s worth taking the shot…
eric
@different-church-lady: they are right if they aimed at younger consumers, but they wont because they dont have disposable income NOW. they cater to the class of people that spend money now and they want to avoid angry letters calling them “liberal” go big or go home. brand yourself to the young as the place they can learn about their world. they are use new marketing tools to go after people who did not grow up with those tools.
Gravenstone
@Ghost of Fitzmas past: Somewhere that wood chipper is still waiting to be introduced to your head. Get chopping there, sparky!
MomSense
@Mnemosyne:
Paws crossed for Annie.
Yutsano
@LurkerNoLonger: The troll should be ignored. Poor Russkie.
CONTEST. EVERY. SEAT.
Yes the national party can’t afford to support them all and some selective targeting will have to happen. Yes we won’t win them all. But the point is to be contesting. Think baseball. As long as you’re getting more wins than losses you’re good, because more wins means you keep the majority.
LurkerNoLonger
@hovercraft:
Children are the future. Teach them well and let them lead the way.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Sshh, don’t tell him he’s a laughing stock the word over, Der Spiegel literally used the words laughingstock and clown to describe him, or quoted people who used the words, the Norwegian PM mocked his picture with the glowing orb, Macron is trolling him appropriating his tag line. Late night comedians the world over are mocking him nightly, the worlds most hated and ridiculed man should get over it, that train left the station a long time ago. I know his fans think we are mocking and laughing at them too, we are, they fell for this con man and are sticking with him, what a bunch of fools.
Gravenstone
@Robert Sneddon:
He got elected a DAY later. Most of the votes had already been cast prior to the incident through early voting. Don’t try to draw a correlation with accepting political violence from this one incident.
Mnemosyne
@LurkerNoLonger:
Don’t talk to it. Any acknowledgement only encourages it.
ruemara
@Omnes Omnibus: I learned swearing from older Marines and added my own creative streak.
TenguPhule
@Frankensteinbeck:
Were they Tories by any chance?
Mnemosyne
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
So you’re saying we should not throw away our shot? ?
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne: We’ll let it go this time.
different-church-lady
@Ghost of Fitzmas past: Of course, the best way to move the needle to the win column is to just give up and walk off the court.
Has anyone dope slapped you today? Or were you waiting for us to do it?
Jeffro
I’m donating!
I’m also hoping we see some good outreach by the Dems this year, next year, and every year.
“Never voted? It’s time.”
“Republicans disgusted by Trump/Russia – it’s time to make the switch.”
“Democratic voters – don’t let it happen again. Vote.”
different-church-lady
@Mnemosyne: Any acknowledgement of what?
TenguPhule
@eric:
Uh no. You’d have to motivate hate to extinguish the haters. That’s how they fueled the anti-liberal labeling, pure spite and raw hatred. You can change the direction of the flow, but don’t mistake what’s fueling it.
hovercraft
@different-church-lady:
True, but it’s here and it aint going anywhere, and the kids live on it, so we may as well celebrate the fact that even though they don’t watch the news, they do watch all the clips of the dumbest shit he says and does, and the late night guys. I don’t tweet or book of faces, but the kids do. You live by the sword, you die by it.
TenguPhule
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
You will also miss 100% of the shots you do take when there’s a fucking wall in the way.
/Demotivators, the Series!
SatanicPanic
@AMinNC: That’s awesome! I know everything isn’t rosy and perfect, and it’s going to be a slog, but I’m encouraged by everything I’m seeing.
Doug R
@Omnes Omnibus: No race is a true no hoper. By running and establishing offices and staff, you’re building for the future. Here’s a list of 12 upsets to chew on.
different-church-lady
@TenguPhule: “You can’t spell FAILURE without U-R-A!”
hovercraft
@germy:
Yup, Luntz has been the focus group guru for them for years. You know all the bullshit about the Clinton’s and Obama’s every utterance being poll tested was projection. Their talking points and their vaunted “message discipline” has always been because Luntz tested word combinations for maximum effectiveness. our problem is/was we have thinking smart people who can articulate for themselves what they stand for, they need to lie and distort their policies so they have them scripted, and the constant repetition sticks better.
Mnemosyne
@different-church-lady:
Exactly.
TenguPhule
@different-church-lady: “Sometimes your only role in life is to serve as a warning to others.”
/What the hell, we could all use some humor in these bleak times.
Mnemosyne
@MomSense:
I think she hasn’t been eating as much not because she’s not hungry, but because her feetsies hurt since her paw pads are affected. She certainly wolfed down the tuna I put in front of her last night.
germy
@different-church-lady:
It’s a common theme from the trolls. “Give up, it’s hopeless, comrades, uh, I mean fellow americans. No point in voting.”
cosima
@germy: Probably not — I didn’t keep it long enough to find out. If you have a hamster/gerbil/rabbit, you could maybe shred it & use as bedding? But not worth buying to do that — my copy was free (ish. I sent a decent book and got that shite in exchange. i’ll never let my daughter talk me into that again).
@Major Major Major Major: Perhaps that’s the next stop of his tour. Flogging tickets (books) to sell socialism to socialists? That man is a fraud. Did not know I could feel more contempt for him until I saw that email. Now I know that it’s possible, and more than likely will happen again, given his me-first venal b.s.
SatanicPanic
@cosima:
Would have to be one big hamster
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne: They have checked her thyroid, right?
hovercraft
Twitler sure has improved his stature around the world.
Stan
T
OK, but neither is it good strategy to just expend strength everywhere regardless of the circumstances.
There are only so much money, time and volunteers. They can’t be squandered. I agree we haven’t competed in nearly enough areas, but, going for 435 is a needless risk, because we don’t need 435 and we aren’t going to get anywhere near that number, so why expend finite resources?
The conventional wisdom, I suppose, is to really compete in 30-40 races where the Wise men think we can win, and that’s stupid too, but going for, say, another 100 seats is damned ambitious too.
germy
hovercraft
@eric:
I guess republican/conservative “thinkers” are becoming concerned about the possible taint that the orange pustule is going to leave behind.
Bobo is apparently trying to differentiate between the orange menace ond the GOP.
Via Crooks and Liars
Mnemosyne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Yep, and it came back clean, as did all of her other levels (kidney, liver, etc). They also ruled out a tumor for now, which was a relief.
There’s still one more really serious thing it could be (a form of lymphoma), but everything I’m reading about pemphigus fits so far. That’s been what the previous two doctors suspected as well, but we needed the dermatologist to confirm it.
Matt McIrvin
@hovercraft: A lot of the kids in my daughter’s elementary school are pro-Trump, and obnoxious about it. I’m not convinced that the white kids are all right; it’s just that they’re a smaller fraction of kids in general.
D58826
ok you can’t make this up. Even the Onion would give up trying ‘
The square named after that Marquis de LaFayette, who died in (drum roll please) Paris France. We may be a nation of immigrants but 11 out 72 of Gen. Washington’s generals were foreigners, most from France. France was our first ally and w/o their help there would be no America – first last or ever.
Haroldo
@quakerinabasement: Also says the Wicked One.
Gravenstone
@germy: Gee, yet another example of FTFNYT being used to further the goals of a Republican administration. And they wonder why people don’t trust them?
D58826
@germy: rats leave sinking ship they don’t join it?????
Gravenstone
@Matt McIrvin: You mean they’re mirroring their parents beliefs and attitudes about Trump. At that age, they’re really unlikely to have their own opinions about him.
Aleta
@Mnemosyne: Sorry your cat and you are going through this.
For anyone interested, the corrupt NYT had an article about cat wasting caused by thyroid abnormalities, with some links to high PDBE levels. (Which one cause the other is not clear.). PDBEs are in house dust from flame retardants and electronics; also “Birnbaum and Dye, who reported their results in a 2007 paper, also found relatively large quantities of PBDEs in several types of cat food, particularly seafood-flavored canned foods.”
Major Major Major Major
@D58826: I guess Pittsburgh was booked.
joel hanes
@Robert Sneddon:
Recently a Republican candidate for Congress attacked a Jewish reporter during a public event, pushed him to the ground and punched him. He got elected a week later by a comfortable majority.
A substantial fraction of the votes in that election were already cast before the incident took place.
This is one drawback of early voting.
James Powell
@Fred:
I recall that too, and I remember how all the cool people thought he was a big stupid asshole and couldn’t wait to get rid of him once Obama won the election. I’m not saying he was some genius or political messiah, but the Democratic PTB totally misunderstood why he became so popular despite being a DNC Democrat: it was because he called bullshit on Bush when the rest of them were licking his boots.
We have to face the fact that they are not that good at winning elections. Ds won in 2006 because people finally saw that Bush was a disaster and the greatest political talent of our generation won the White House in 2008 and 2012 but the party lost practically everything else.
The DCCC and DNC and Democrats generally do not seem to be devoted to the long term. It’s always this election cycle, this candidate.
zhena gogolia
@Mnemosyne:
I hope she feels better!
TenguPhule
@D58826:
The Onion’s grave is restless.
germy
The 2017 Hurricane season has started, but Trump hasn’t appointed a FEMA or NOAA director.
germy
@Aleta: I generally avoid seafood catfood, but it seems they put fish in the chicken and turkey varieties.
Patricia Kayden
@Mnemosyne: Hope kitty gets better soon.
@Robert Sneddon:
Too bad the UK didn’t simply prohibit him from running altogether until the election fraud case was over. But I suppose he’s being given the benefit of the doubt and will step down if found liable.
Mnemosyne
@Aleta:
The poor baby definitely has icky crusting on her ears and paws, and a few lesions on her head. I think she’s losing weight because it hurts too much for her to walk over to the food bowl, so I’ve been placing the food next to her so she can eat it without having to walk. When I do that, she eats pretty readily.
Patricia Kayden
@germy: Republicans aren’t better than “this” so good luck to Biden on that. I cannot imagine that Republicans can get any worse than they are now with all their Trump protectionism. But I’m sure they’ll surprise me and go even lower.
D58826
@germy: Hurricanes are just liberal lies published by the fake media
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Mnemosyne: We have more than one bullet! There are, in fact, 438 of them…
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Mnemosyne: Plus the 100 in the Senate.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Republicans understood this 30-40 years ago. That’s why they found people to run for shit jobs like township commissioner and school boards and county party offices. They understood that among all the losers would be a few good ones who would make their way up into higher and higher offices. They were patient. They didn’t get complacent after one good year or give up after one bad year. We haven’t gotten that for years. We need to learn it again.
James Powell
@hovercraft:
Luntz gave them the words, but the strategy works because the Republicans all agree to use it. They all say the same words, same time. It works. Good luck getting the Democrats to work together like that.
zhena gogolia
Okay, guys: “I Covfefe the Waterfront.”
Peale
@James Powell: I will agree. Fucker Menendez going down to Miami to celebrate the end of obamas Cuba policy. I know he’s going nowhere but anyone caught embracing trump will be dead quickly. I don’t think “reached acrossed the aisle” will get much blessing from voters after four years of trump.
D58826
@James Powell: Will Rogers and organized political party!!!!!!!!!!
? Martin
For those outside of California, a little insight to how seriously we take this environmental shit here:
This is a major corporation going to significant effort not only for ecological preservation, but also for sustainability.
To be clear, this is a stupidly expensive way to do this. There is no fucking way that it’s cost effective for Apple to run it’s own orchard, but if it’s appropriate to the local ecology, then they’re choosing to do it anyway because they believe it’s the right thing to do. And you see a lot of similar examples all around the state.
Conservation is not a new concept here in CA. It’s been formal policy since the 70s. A lot of the credit goes back to Art Rosenfeld who died a few months ago.
Back to the new Apple Park campus, they insisted on developing a water recycling program with the city. The land is 90% green space, and only 10% developed/paved. 17 MW of solar generated by the roof, and another 3.5MW or so biogas powered fuel cell – 100% renewable on-site. Virtually every building being built by the state is similar. I have yet to see a school here – elementary, middle, high, or public college/university that is not primarily powered by solar installed on-site. My institution has cut power usage by 60% in the last decade while doubling in size. The remaining 40% is almost all renewable, and should be 100% within a year or two.
To a large extent, the single greatest advantage the US already has going into dealing with climate change comes directly from Art. The ‘convincing utilities and policymakers’ is especially important. Earth Day was born in CA in 1970 – after we had already started tackling emissions – and it’s co-chair until 2015 was a California Republican Congressman. We’ve been doing this, in a bipartisan way, for almost half a century. The debate here was settled around the time I was born. People here are livid about Paris.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
@Mnemosyne: I’m late to this, but sending good thoughts for little kitty.
SatanicPanic
@Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.): This isn’t entirely true. There are plenty of no-hope areas where they barely make an effort. They just gerrymander more shamelessly than we do.
bupalos
@eric: Hear hear.
Pretty much wake up every day with something Trump has done to try and suck up the limelight and turn it puke green. We need to worry a little less about how upset we are with all the stupid little tantrum acts and worry a little more about how to get that nuclear glow to spread over their whole toxic patch-work party.
Voter suppression very much needs to be in the mix of things they are stuck with too. Asian, Hispanic, and African Americans need to get mad now and remember forever, this is a basic level of fundamental denial of dignity that goes beyond policy concerns.
Camembert
@Major Major Major Major: The problem with this is that Obama’s destruction of the DNC and hiring of so many Republican Daddies made folks very reasonably concerned that every Dem who doesn’t declare fealty to the One True Progressivism also plans to trash the Party’s electoral prospects and allow his underlings to bat for their teams on our dollar.
Both/and
ruemara
@bupalos:
Dude. Really? Hey, I think POC are pretty good with a level of anger and remembrance. There’s a whole other demo that needs to be reminded every generation that America the Beautiful is pretty ugly to certain populations.
@Camembert: I’m guessing this is a parody because nothing you’re saying is sensible.
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Hope the steroids help return Annie’s appetite soon, hope whatever it turns out to be something that can be treated/controlled, and that she has many more years with you and G.
Omnes Omnibus
@Camembert: Could you translate that into English for me?
? Martin
@joel hanes:
It was the next day. And that’s not a drawback of early voting. Had the assault happened the day after the election, we’d be faced with the same problem. You always vote with imperfect information. The real issue is can to remediate a problem like that once you learn about it. The answer is no – there’s no recall process for a member of Congress.
Camembert
@different-church-lady: It’s worthy of note that HRC hired the one-time-ago DNC Chair who was personally responsible for ending the 50-State Strategy as her VP.
Not that she’s at all wrong. I’ve been beating this drum for years. Just that yeah.
Origuy
@Robert Sneddon:
Are you talking about Gianforte and Jacobs? That was the night before, not a week later. Most of the early votes had already been cast. It may still not have changed the results, but the assault could only have affected the vote on the day.
Camembert
@Omnes Omnibus: ??? Obama kicked Dean out and hired Tim Kaine to eviscerate the 50-State Strategy. He also was on overwatch when DWS took us to new levels of incompetence.
Obama also hired a series of Republican Daddies to implement defense, law enforcement, and economic policy (Gates, Comey, Bernanke). Gates was passable, but Comey then threw the election to Tr45.
And Bernanke refused to enforce black letter law w/r/t robosigning and made it clear that “jobless recovery” was kind of his explicit goal.
These aren’t trivial violations of our trust. If any Democrat is better than any Republican (I’m willing to go there), then what do you do with a Democrat who hires Republicans to administer who then revert to type?
tobie
Someone upthread mentioned Trump’s poll numbers are going up so I checked fivethirtyeight and it looks like there are three new polls in: two place Trump over 40% approval (Rasmussen, SurveyMonkey) and one places him at 39% (Gallup). House of Ras has him going up a point from the last poll, Gallup has him down one. So not much movement on these three. I wouldn’t conclude from this that his poll numbers are going up. Seems pretty stagnant in the three-day samples from polls Silver approves.
SatanicPanic
@Camembert: oh groan.
moops
@germy:
Yes, Hate is an acceptable motivation for voting. The GOP has held on far longer with worsening demographics while only paying lip-service to Hope. What gets the up and out to the polls is Hate. There is plenty of distress and anger on the Left that is legitimate and should be tapped. That also means competing in districts you might not have good odds of winning, since that engages the angry people on your own side and get them active and voting and that means they are a viable thing for reporters to talk to and write stories about. It is pretty cheap to run a campaign in a lot of these areas. It is also important to fill the ticket in ever place to have a Party presence and a proper ecosystem for state and municipal elections.
moops
For a President that was on a TV show and should know about ratings I’m amazed Trump would not have foreseen the terrible PR that pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement would create for himself and the USA. This is almost the opposite of MAGA.
Brachiator
@Camembert:
This is some seriously cheesy commentary.
Ruckus
@? Martin:
I don’t think it’s just the state. Two of the local VA locations that I use have extensive solar fields. One has about 2/3 of the parking area using covered parking with the awnings all solar topped. Another is an entire city block, and about a third of that is a solar field. On back of envelope figuring, I’d bet both of these have energy output near or above their needs.
SiubhanDuinne
Quick, unrelated question for the hive mind of BJ: I need a simple, cheap (free) iCrap app that will allow me to block out or scribble over text so I can post a photo or screenshot without violating privacy. Any suggestions? (I see this kind of thing all the time, I just don’t know what it’s called or what to look for in the Apple Store.)
Thanks!
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
J’ai vu ce que vous avez fait là-bas.
BCHS Class of 1980
@Corner Stone: Two big wins in contesting every seat:
– Occasionally taking advantage of scandal like Dollar Bill Jefferson,
– More importantly building party infrastructure in underserved areas.
dww44
@moops: Thank you for this. As one who lives in a red district configured in 2010 to be even more red, it would be nice for there to be a somewhat viable candidate in our Congressional district. Perhaps we might even begin putting up candidates in state wide races, albeit that 2 good ones lost in 2014 for Senator and governor.
raven
My old friend Tino Insana passed away. He, John Belushi and Steve Beshekas were in Second City together. Funny dudes all.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne: Mais oui !
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Ruckus: I’ve often wondered about parking lot solar, and why a utility company with an ounce of ingenuity (well, maybe there’s the first problem with that idea) wasn’t offering to cover parking lots coast to coast with solar-generating awnings and roofs–the business gets covered parking and the utility gets a solar field it doesn’t have to pay rent for, and an advantageous rate for the power could be negotiated by the business.
It might not work in Minnesota in January but there’s a lot of territory south of the 40th meridian with parking lots available…
And even if they’re only really reliably productive in the summer north of there, that’s a peak usage period, if only because of air conditioning use commercially.
Camembert
@BCHS Class of 1980: +1. State legislative districts don’t follow Congressional districts, and an area that might obviously lose a Congressfolk might elect 20-30% more State legislative folk.
EthylEster
DougJ channels BCracker
Marcopolo
@Peale: I find it a bit odd how low profile Menendez has been since Trump was elected. Most, if not all D senators have gone on the record as being pissed about something that has happened. Am actually proud of the positions McCaskill (my sen) has staked out and she’s only a few steps left of Manchin much of the time. Can’t say I am all that impressed w/ Booker either. Maybe it’s just NJ.
Marcopolo
@Peale: I find it a bit odd how low profile Menendez has been since Trump was elected. Most, if not all D senators have gone on the record as being pissed about something that has happened. Am actually proud of the positions McCaskill (my sen) has staked out and she’s only a few steps left of Manchin much of the time. Can’t say I am all that impressed w/ Booker either. Maybe it’s just NJ.@Stan:
raven
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio): Maybe the dude in Fargo will us it.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
Sacre bleu!
Aussi aussi, Zut alors!
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Sixty-nine is too fucking young.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
Sacre bleu cheese.
Roquefort, aussi.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Well, he lived 35 years longer than Belushi. His father, Maestro Silvio Insana, assistant conductor of the Chicago Opera company also died at 69.
ruemara
@raven: My condolences. He was someone who’s name I didn’t know but who’s work I enjoyed.
Teddys Person
@D58826: And Pittsburgh told Dolt45 to kindly fuck off.
raven
@ruemara: I haven’t seen him in 50 years, just an old buddy.
NotSaying
The chair of the Democratic congressional district organization where I live can regularly be found on social media saying that it is more or less an unwinnable seat – which has never struck me as constructive in terms of building up the sort of movement that would be required to change that.
Brachiator
@raven:
Didn’t know his work well. But it looks as though he was loved and respected.
Peace.
raven
@Brachiator: I always thought I’d look him up when I was in LA.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
Chances are better than 50-50 that my father played cello under Insana’s baton. Would have to know dates, but it’s quite likely.
SiubhanDuinne
@Brachiator:
Fromage, dommage.
Patricia Kayden
@moops: I get the feeling that Trump and his sycophants don’t care too much about backlash from the “elite” which includes those on the left and scientists who share the consensus that global warming is a real phenomena. Trump appears to be okay as long as his base adores him and most of them still do. Until there are consequences for his lies and missteps, he’ll just keep tweeting, making awful speeches, calling his opponents derogatory names, etc., through his first (and hopefully only) term.
Brachiator
OT (but heading out soon for my weekend). Interesting political results in Ireland. From the Guardian and other reports.
trollhattan
Hot economist on “economist” action.
I was accustomed to just seeing Moore’s punchable mug on Maher but since Trump’s ascendance he’s fvcking everywhere. A more shameless propagandist I’ve never encountered.
Yutsano
@D58826: Irony is beyond dead. Irony has been ground down to its fundamental particles and even that is testing the limits of quantum physics.
Yutsano
@germy: Their actings fortunately are competent bureaucrats. And Dolt45 so far seems completely uninterested in selecting
croniesdonors to fill those positions.mai naem mobile
@trollhattan: Jeffrey Sachs was one of those pundits blaming Obama for not schmoozing the GOP and meeting them halfway. Lolol
tobie
@mai naem mobile: Didn’t he also engineer Wilmer’s trip to the Vatican, sold as an audience with the Pope?
D58826
@Camembert: and it’s the legislatures that control redistricting. Change the flip the legislature which then can change the congressional boundaries and now maybe you have a winnable Congressional seat. It all adds up
mai naem mobile
MSNBC saying Mueller explanding investigation to include Jeff Sessions. Please please please let Lil Jeffy go to a prison with a bunch of non white prisoners in on minimum sentencing rules.
zhena gogolia
@mai naem mobile:
Don’t get my hopes up, please.
Mnemosyne
@raven:
There can be a weird family thing like that. My dad, his father, and his grandfather all died at 74. My older brother is now nervous, especially since he only recently stopped smoking.
Camembert
@D58826: …which is why those of us who watched Obama dismantle the 50-State Strategy in ’09 have been less than stoked for quite some time now.
The one good thing that Tr45 will do is put a nail in the coffin of Obama Democrat cultural indifference to winning.
Mnemosyne
@Camembert:
Wow. You sure are delusional. Fascinating.
Brachiator
@Camembert:
Obama won the big presidential prize twice. Strange that little shits like you can’t seem to learn from his example.
hovercraft
@Camembert:
I want to just ignore you, but before I do, I’d like to tell you to fuck yourself with a rusty pitch fork.
Patricia Kayden
@Brachiator: Wow. That’s quite an accomplishment and milestone.
Patricia Kayden
@mai naem mobile: Mueller looks like he’s going to be investigating pretty much everyone affiliated with Trump by the time this is all over. I don’t get how Trump supporters can not see that something is seriously wrong with their man in the White House. He’s only been in office for a few months and look at all the scandals that he has generated so far.
What a mess!
SiubhanDuinne
@Mnemosyne:
Yup, it’s called “patterning.” In my family it’s cardiovascular stuff.
My maternal grandfather died of a heart attack at age 58.
My mother died of a cerebral haemorrhage at age 58.
I approached my 58th birthday with trepidation (had already had a smallish heart attack 8 years earlier). Fifty-eighth birthday came and went. Six months later, boom! Into the hospital for quadruple bypass surgery.
Four years later, my younger brother, then 58, had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery.
(Edited to add a word and clarify the relationship.)
Chyron HR
@Camembert:
You guys laid off this “Obama was a false god! Worship the true Bernssiah or be destroyed!” stuff for a couple weeks. I almost thought you’d come to your senses, but naaaaah.
Yutsano
@Camembert:
Honest question: Barack Obama is one of the most popular Democratic politicians in our lifetime. What kind of success do you think you will get running against him? Please show your work.
patroclus
@different-church-lady: It’s just as bad as when Wilmer does it, when Doug! does it or when Hillary does it. I think the goal should be to get people to think well of the Democrats and their organizations so that they will vote for Democrats. Constantly criticizing the DNC and the DCCC doesn’t make people think well of them and is counter-productive. It feeds the both-sides-do-it narrative. It furthers the idea that Dems are well-meaning nincompoops who shouldn’t be trusted with power. And then it creates a feedback loop in which even Dem voters are conditioned to trash the party and respond favorably to politicians that trash the party. And then that incentivizes candidates that aren’t even Democrats to run for the Dem nomination. The only thing it really accomplishes is making whoever says it or writes it feel like they’re so smart and that if everyone just followed their advice, then everything would be SO better.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
His … unique sense of American English also makes me wonder if we’ve finally earned our very own Russian troll. Should we call him Boris or Misha?
Ruckus
@a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio):
When I lived in Columbus, OH back in 2004ish British Petroleum built a new gas station with solar on the roof over the pumps. I asked the BP guy there how’d it happen that BP would pay for solar installation. He said it pays for itself, they recovered more than the electric cost to run the station. Free Power! A world wide petroleum company getting free electrical. Hmmmmmm……..
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
No kidding, raven and I are just about that age…………..
Ruckus
@Patricia Kayden:
dumpf doesn’t do consequences. He has lawyers for that. Think how much more wealth he might have if he understood them. Think how much better a human he might be if he understood them. And heeded them. Oh well, we’ll never know.
Ruckus
@SiubhanDuinne:
My grandfather died in his mid 40s from congenital heart failure. So did one of his 4 daughters.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ruckus: As a brief employee of the Great Satan(bp), they put quite alot into solar. They say bp means beyond petroleum*.
*No, I never bought it either.
Matt McIrvin
@ruemara: Speaking as someone who’s been accused here of theatrical pessimism… It’s not so much that hopelessness is appealing–in fact the less appealing, the better.
It’s more… the desire to not feel like a sucker, to be the smartest one in the room who can say “I told you so” when the bomb goes off, instead of one of the fools who has to listen to it.
Or to not be surprised by terrible things happening in the future. We pessimists prepare ourselves mentally for the pain so it’s less shocking if it arrives. I think with me part of it comes from having had a terrible, overwhelming startle reflex when I was a kid. I’d go to enormous lengths to prepare myself mentally for something that might startle me, or to avoid it entirely. And I’d scare myself with the fear of being scared.
Camembert
@Yutsano: Not sure what you mean — Obama’s not running for anything, so we don’t have to put up with his “Republican daddies rule”, “look forward not back”, “if a rich person does it that means it isn’t a felony”, & “party building is for luzers” bs any more. To some degree, it was self-limiting; because he didn’t have an organizing philosophy besides obsessively shanking the folks who wanted him to succeed, the moment he left office, he didn’t leave any meaningful organized faction behind.
I’d care more, but I’m seeing the hopeful signs of an entire generation of Democrats saying “Obama who?” in a year or two. People understand that the shitgibbon is Obama’s legacy, and they don’t dig it.
Camembert
@Chyron HR: It’s always the St. Obama memefolk who accuse the other side of worship whenever their idol is questioned in any way.
@Mnemosyne: The Russians made Obama hire Comey. I read it on the internet.
Jacel
@hovercraft: Here is the list of words that Gingrich sent out in the 1990s.
Redleg
I can relate to your example. I have been a college professor for 16 years now and I still get annoyed when students ask me what they need to get on the final exam. First, they should be able to do that simple math on their own. Second, as you said, they should try to learn as much as they can and do the best they can do on all their classwork. If you focus on learning, the good grades will follow. I do try to give them advice on learning and very few of them seem to take it. In their defense, many of them are working 30-40 hours per week and taking a full load of classes, so my class is only a small portion of their overall work.
I agree with the second point too. Democrats need to compete everywhere that they can, even in those heavily gerrymandered districts. We need to instill a fighting spirit in our Democratic politicians so that they can seize the opportunities that will arise when the Republicans fuck everything up. And no more relying on a single Democratic presidential candidate as we’ve done in the past. We need a deep bench of qualified and effective candidates instead of anointing the person who has been around the longest.