It appears the consequences of your own racism and stupidity have a bite:
“Eddie Devine voted for [Trump] because he thought he would be good for American business. Now, he says, the Trump administration’s restrictions on seasonal foreign labor may put him out of business. ‘I feel like I’ve been tricked by the devil,’ said Devine, owner of … Devine Creations Landscaping. ‘I feel so stupid.’”
***That’s why Devine thinks the Trump administration’s stifling of guest-worker programs has more to do with racism than economics. ‘I think there’s a war on brown people,’ he said.
“But what makes him most angry is that Trump’s properties in Florida and New York have used 144 H-2B workers since 2016. ‘I want to know why it’s OK for him to get his workers, but supporters like me don’t get theirs,’ Devine said.”
No shit, Eddie? I guess you just missed the racism during the campaign. This one is great, too:
China buys 60 percent of all U.S. soybean exports, and growers of the crop could be pressed hard if the administration cannot cut a deal with Beijing. Soybean-producing counties went for Trump by a margin of more than 12 percent in 2016.
Dave Walton, who voted for Trump and tends soybeans, corn and livestock in eastern Iowa, is not sure his farm could take the added stress. “If this turns into a longer-term thing, we’re going to see friends and neighbors go out of business,” he told Caitlin Dewey last month. “If this stretches into years, we ourselves won’t be able to sustain it.”
Walton’s 800-acre farm, in his family for 118 years, has already been struggling to stay above water with falling crop prices, and tariffs could profitability difficult. “Right now, soybean growers in Iowa and across the nation are encouraging the administration to engage positively with China,” he said. And if that doesn’t happen, he added: “Iowa leads the nation in many things. The presidential election is one of them.”
Pound corn, prick. It was all fun and games when we were calling all Mexicans rapist, chanting “BUILD THAT WALL,” an d screaming about China. Deal with it.
(I’m fully aware that this post will one day be used to demonstrate my coastal elitism. From bumfuck, West Virginia.)
Jeffro
John, please stop disrespecting Trumpov voters. How can we win them over if you keep disrespecting them like this?
(Cole must be part of that “fringe 10% on BOTH SIDES” that I keep hearing about…)
Where’s my bat?
gene108
Too bad none of them will think voting for Democrats is a way to solve their problems. I go at no sympathy for these guys. They need to feel pain, before they realize what is good for them.
Yutsano
@Jeffro:
How does the saying go?
Oh yeah:
“Fuck their feelings.”
This is exactly what they voted for. Let them get it. Good and hard.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Coastal elites of the world unite!
That coming from East Anklescratch, Misery.
This. They’d die before they’d vote for a Dem and never think they are electorally responsible for this disaster. Assholes all of em.
schrodingers_cat
Why does living in the middle of the continent bestow you with more sense than living on the coast. Why is fucking Indiana more real America than Massachusetts. The fucking revolution started here.
guachi
Your link doesn’t link to anything.
This whining reminds me of NIMBYism. People want a thing but they don’t want the negative effects of the thing to affect them. Though in this case I can’t fathom how they thought it wouldn’t affect them.
jeffreyw
Lighting another candle for Mueller.
desertflower
This is why we can’t have nice things. Dumb shits. Read to the end….there’s a “shocker”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-s-visa-changes-are-clawing-famous-crab-town-they-n874041
Librarian
Ok, ready everybody? “I never thought the leopard would eat MY face!!!!!!”
lowtechcyclist
Link to the story Cole quoted
Betty Cracker
? [actual size]
Elizabelle
Corner Stone put up a great article, from Crain’s Business Detroit. How my president’s tariffs would cripple my company
Second generation business owner Mary Buchzeiger: oh noes. Trump’s tariffs gonna put me in big trouble. Her American employees inspect and repackage automotive components manufactured offshore. She works with seven Asian factories, and 50 USA employees inspect, repackage, and forward the components on when they return. Not much skilled labor with her company — the assembly is handled further up the food chain, which she brags is “thousands of American jobs,” implying they’re attributable to her. If you say so, Mary.
Best part of this article is the reader comments. Leopards, meet face, and so on.
lowtechcyclist
@Librarian:
Still the all-time best tweet.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@desertflower:
From the article:
This reminds me of Russian peasantry in the 19th century and their views on the monarchy. They overwhelmingly supported the Czar despite the fact the despotic Russian rules did nothing to help the peasantry. Their response was always “if he only knew about >insert pet plight here<"
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
When things get really bad, they actually will vote for Democrats who know how to fix it. Then, after the Democrats have fixed it, they will decide that it is now safe to vote for Republican demagogues again because they “like what he’s saying”. It was ever thus, and it shall ever be thus.
RSA
What are your countertops made of, Cole?
Yarrow
@Elizabelle: The comments on that article are priceless. I ate them with a spoon. Delicious.
I’m glad Trump’s policies are finally hurting his voters. It’s the only way to get their attention. Like all self-proclaimed conservatives, lack of empathy is their defining characteristic and they cannot understand why a policy might be bad until it hurts them personally.
Ryan
Eddie missed all the selfdealing too. Who could have guesse Trump did not want to be greedy for America?
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
Nah, I can see it without an electron microscope.
Frankensteinbeck
No, he just believed that punishing the Others would make his life magically better.
rp
@Amir Khalid: See, e.g., 1992, 2000, 2008, 2016
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Amir Khalid:
I live in the midst of an equivalent mindset of voters and the vast, vast majority of them would rather get their faces eaten by leopards than vote for a Dem. A couple might break from the pack and secretly vote Dem but only a few. Ack, I’ve lived in the middle of this for 2+ decades now, I’ve seen their voting patterns. Nothing’s gonna change it.
Mnemosyne
Hey, at least the first guy quoted says he feels like he was tricked and that he was stupid for believing Trump. That makes him smarter than the 90 percent of Trump supporters who are convinced that being hurt by Trump’s policies is some kind of horrible mistake that will be remedied once Trump finds out he’s hurting white people.
Leto
@gene108: We’re all going to feel the pain because of their racism and selfishness.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: This. As John so succinctly put it: “Go pound corn/fertilizer/XXX, pricks” – signed, Coastal Elite from Charleston, SC
Jim, Foolish Literalist
and she inherited that company based on nothing but her own smarts and grit and blood, sweat and the lucky sperm that spawned her!
Frankensteinbeck
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Yes, what happens is that they get a little depressed and we get more motivated. Nothing we ever do will peel off more than a shred of Republican voters. The American voting population is incredibly polarized, and now it’s all about motivation and voting access.
Tom Levenson
Hey! You’re on the coast of Buffalo Creek, amirite?
Tom Levenson
@schrodingers_cat: Preach it!
PPCLI
@Elizabelle: “Hey, I supported you! So slip me some payback.” It’s striking how the corruption is just assumed. The article is written for an audience of one, no doubt hoping that someone will read him the highlights and he’ll make an exception, because she was appropriately obsequious and reverential.
Lee Hartmann
But we’re the ones who aren’t smart! I know this from reading the NYT weekly review.
Duane
To all the Trump voters being hurt by his idiotic policies, from the hedgies to the farmers to the crabbers, boo-fucking-hoo. You voted for this, own it. Grab them boot straps and pull harder. And while you’re at it, go to hell.
kindness
Now we all have proof that West Virginians are the real Coastal Elitists.
We also see that many of Trumps voters are terminally stupid, but that’s besides the point.
Leto
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Live by the false populism, die by the false populism. F’em all.
Ruckus
@schrodingers_cat:
To be crude about it.
I’ve been told that the world always looks different when seen with your head up one’s ass. Or even up someone else’s.
rikyrah
LIPS PURSED.
Rauner pushes to reinstate death penalty for cop killers, mass murderers
| Tina Sfondeles/Sun-Times
Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday proposed reinstating the death penalty for mass murderers and those who kill police officers –– putting on record a package of public safety reforms that he can tout to voters ahead of a heated November election.
It was one of a series of sweeping changes the Republican governor attached to an amendatory veto. And a move deemed “political” by a key sponsor of the legislation.
With an election some six months away, the branding of a comprehensive package — even if it goes nowhere — shows voters that Rauner has a public safety plan.
Its evolution, however, is a little murky. Some legislators in the governor’s bipartisan Public Safety Working Group said just two of Rauner’s proposals were discussed within the group: the 72-hour holding period legislation for gun purchases and the use of revenue to add school resource officers or mental health workers.
The governor’s office said Rauner didn’t attend those meetings. His chief of staff Rodger Heaton, a former U.S. Attorney, attended instead.
There are six elements to the amendatory veto: reinstating the death penalty provided the suspects are found “guilty beyond any doubt”; extending the 72-hour period to all gun purchases; banning bump stocks and trigger cranks; using restraining orders to disarm dangerous individuals; making judges and prosecutors explain why charges are reduced in plea agreements for violent gun offenders; and the use of revenue to add school resource officers and mental health workers when needed.
lowtechcyclist
Poor Eddie Devine. What, no H-2B visa workers anymore? You were surprised by this, dude? IQ fail. Also:
Try paying more than $12/hour, bub. Maybe $15, maybe $20. Supply and demand. Charge your customers more.
Same to you. Raise your pay until they beat a path to your door. We don’t have wage/price controls, you know – that job doesn’t have to pay just $17/hour.
Guess they’re just slackers who feel entitled, feel the world owes them a living – in this case, the world owes them a supply of dependable workers who will work for the wages they set. Even when unemployment is 3.9%.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
I do prefer the “oh no!” articles to the ones about how they’re not really racists. So… progress?
delk
Penzey’s needs to come up with Leopard Brand Face Seasoning.
Amir Khalid
@rikyrah:
Maybe an Illinois lawyer can enlighten us: Is there even such a thing as a verdict of “guilty beyond any doubt”?
maura a hart
the sad fact is that the orange ferret wearing treason weasel was utterly clear on campaign about his racism, his sexism, his divorces and affairs have always been public, he “became” christian ” only for the zombie jeebus followers. they wanted what he was selling. poor poor pitiful frail white racists. wait till they get their food stamps taken away and hear the wailing then
LAO
@Betty Cracker: I’m spending too much time on twitter and Instagram, I just spent five minutes looking for the like button.
rikyrah
I hope all these muthaphuckas lose their shirts.
Elections have consequences.
TaMara (HFG)
It’s Tuesday…I’ve already had my fill of the GOP for the week. It’s gonna be real hard to remain optimistic the remainder of the week.
Ohio Mom
@Leto: Yeah, the idea that I’m going to suffer when the economy buckles because of Trump does take away some of my enjoyment of these turkeys’ anguish but I am still getting enough pleasure from it on this sunny morning.
Sign me,
Another coastal elite from southwest Ohio
dmsilev
Fringe benefit of global warming: Wait long enough, and eventually bumfuck, WV will _be_ coastal….
Roger Moore
@schrodingers_cat:
Because you* coastal elitists don’t understand Real Heartland Values®. Only in the middle part of the country- with the obvious exception of the big cities in the middle of the country- do people fully express the traditional virtues of sexism, white supremacy, and respect for the free market**.
*OK, we
**Naturally with the exception of farm subsidies, which don’t count
LAO
@Amir Khalid: I ain’t in Illinois but the concept of “guilty beyond any doubt” is foreign to me. And stupid, And really, really dumb. And maybe dangerous.
rikyrah
A bruising Democratic primary in Pennsylvania: Dark side of the blue wave?
The race to replace Charlie Dent: Democratic infighting may endanger a likely House pickup in Pennsylvania
MATTHEW ROZSA
MAY 15, 2018 10:00AM (UTC)
The recent un-gerrymandering of Pennsylvania’s congressional districts has terrified Republicans and some, like Rep. Charlie Dent, a relative moderate who was often critical of President Trump, have opted to retire rather than face their new constituency. While that has certainly invigorated the Democratic field in the Keystone State, it has also caused bruising intra-party fights that threaten the party’s chances to take advantage of an impending blue wave during this fall’s midterm elections.
As I attempted to sift through the mountain of campaign advertising in this Democratic race to replace Dent in Pennsylvania’s 7th congressional district — which will come to a head in Tuesday’s primary election — it became impossible to ignore how much of it was negative, adding to an already dirty race.
As someone who has resided in Pennsylvania’s Lehigh Valley for 20 years and held local party office, I have seen all manner of primary and general elections. Things get tough in this area, no question about it, but there is a reason why Pennsylvania has a mostly centrist reputation. There is an underlying civility toward our political process, a pragmatic recognition that pulling out all the stops against one’s opponents can also leave you vulnerable, that has at least partially stayed hands that might otherwise sling mud.
Not this time around.
Perhaps it’s because the recent and abrupt court-mandated redistricting of Pennsylvania’s congressional delegation has invigorated the Democratic field and terrified the Republicans. Or perhaps, given President Donald Trump’s abysmal approval ratings, Democrats are certain this is a ripe year for their party and Republicans are desperate to prove them wrong. The one thing that I know for sure, though, is that the state of Democratic politics in the Lehigh Valley reveals that things have changed in this once-sleepy district.
The race pits attorney Susan Wild against Northampton County District Attorney John Morganelli and Pastor Greg Edwards.
Considering that Wild would be the first woman ever to represent the Lehigh Valley in Congress, and Edwards would be the first person of color to do so (he identifies as both black and Latino), I figured it was appropriate to ask her about these possibly historic milestones.
dmsilev
@schrodingers_cat: Once, just once, I want some TV talking head to turn to a guest spouting “virtues of the heartland” stuff and ask “so, do you think people living in New York don’t love their families?” or whatever.
Planetpundit
They knowingly voted for a racist. I have no pity.
Yarrow
While I generally agree with the sentiment that nothing is going to change these idiots’ minds that Trump is a good president, one thing that is different this time is that people who didn’t vote for him are loudly blaming those that did for their votes. The comments on the article about the women who says she’s going to lose her business are outright blaming her for her vote. No sympathy. Just “you reap what you sow, bitch.” People are angry enough even to do it in person to their friends, neighbors and family.
Trump voters are shocked and upset that we aren’t respecting them because when Trump won we were all supposed to respect them. They demand we respect them and we refuse. We go one further and loudly blame them for the bad things he does. They voted for him and made us all suffer. We hold them responsible for their votes. They really don’t know what to do because we’re not taking their bullshit.
Trump making them suffer and people pointing out they’re getting what they voted for is not going to change all of their views or votes, but if it gets one person here and one person there to see, “Oh…elections have consequences” and recognize that voting is not a game and you’re not on a “team,” and think about what their elected officials are doing, then that’s a positive step.
When Parkland happened Betty wrote that post saying something felt different this time. Well, something feels different now to me. White people mostly vote Republican. Until they don’t. 2018 and 2020 may not be that time, but something feels different.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady): my personal favorite new genre is right wingers scolding out of touch lefties not to be scolds. It stinks even as cocern trolling. But I guess it is an infinitely useful right-wing equation:
“People who point out ________ are the real ___________.”
Racism/racists
Self-righteous scolding / scolds
Assholes/assholes
Etc./etc.
Roger Moore
@Frankensteinbeck:
Of course he believed that. Like all good conservatives, he believes the world is zero sum. If The Other is suffering, it must be good for Us. This is the core reason for Cleek’s Law. If you can’t think of any other response to the situation, opposing whatever the liberals do must be the right thing, because whenever the liberals lose conservatives automatically win. The concept of a win/win or lose/lose situation just goes completely over their heads.
Aleta
That’s the raw capitalism you voted for Bud. He just beat you.
Chilling how these interviewees can’t afford a caring word for ‘their’ workers.
FlipYrWhig
Ah, America’s ungovernable tribal regions.
Chyron HR
“They’re not racist! They’re not deplorable! They’re not gullible morons!” – Bernard S., Burlington, VT (probably)
Doug R
@desertflower: Oh noes, our cheap labor pool has dried up! We is doomed!
Maybe if you can’t pay a living wage, your business deserves to die.
ET
I am just a little bit spiteful. I don’t want all those companies and farms to fail because I ain’t that spiteful, but I wouldn’t be crying if some did. They need to understand that elections have consequences. That is something conservatives are fond of saying to city liberals when the GOP is running things so why shouldn’t it be said to their own supporters/voters.
Immanentize
@Amir Khalid:
This was a big Romney move in Massachusetts to get a death penalty when he was Governor. Conviction would still be on proof beyond a reasonable doubt but the death penalty had to be based on proof beyond any doubt. I wrote about it and testified against it. It never passed (also a crazy story of one changed vote of a legislator at the last moment)
Platonailedit
Shorter whiners – me, me, me.
Peale
@Amir Khalid: Unfortunately, it never works out that way. They’ll rage vote for a Democrat and then join the T-Party II complaining that a solution that doesn’t come down harder on the blacks is unfair. We thought we were over the hump after 2006 and finally 2008, and that they’d never vote GOP again. We were sorely mistaken on that front. It took them all of ten seconds after the election to decide that the reason we were in the recession was that black people had bought too many houses thanks to Jimmy Carter and Barney Frank. It took them all of 15 seconds to decide that the Gulf War II wasn’t as bad as they thought and that we should stay there forever. It doesn’t change and I don’t know what will make it change. From what I hear at work, they are all in on the bombing Iran will work this time if the liberals won’t force us to make the same mistake we make in Iraq in trying to put things back together again. That’s about as far as the lessons have gotten after 15 years. We weren’t allowed to take the gloves off in Iraq and by golly Iran will be different.
Chyron HR
@dmsilev:
Well, OK, but you’re going to have to replace your own TV when they answer, “Of course not, that’s why they get all those abortions.”
Immanentize
@LAO: LIKE?
rikyrah
@Amir Khalid:
Amir,
The reason why Illinois stopped the death penalty, was that it was proven that we had at least A DOZEN PEOPLE ON DEATH ROW THAT WERE INNOCENT.
Not, cases thrown out on a technicality.
BUT, THEY WERE INNOCENT OF THE CRIME THAT PUT THEM ON DEATH ROW.
Google Rolando Cruz-Jeanine Nicarico
Came within 48 hours TWICE
of being executed, and was COMPLETELY INNOCENT.
We are the state of Rolando Cruz.
We are the state of Police Commander Jon Burge.
There’s absolutely no reason for me to believe that Law Enforcement has been reformed to the point where I could believe in the Death Penalty being reinstated.
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:
Because, white.
rikyrah
@Elizabelle:
Someone on another blog said that the comments were pure gold..LOL
dmsilev
@Chyron HR: It’s OK, I probably need a new TV anyway.
LAO
@Immanentize: I can always count on you. lol
trollhattan
@RSA:
50% cat.
Those umpty-generation Midwest farmers should stop being sheep and try raising something besides the corn and soybeans Monsanto et al push them to. They’re mere links in an industrial chain, and only remotely “farmers” as the term is understood. And oh, their practices are slowly poisoning the land and water table. You expected Trump to fix any of that?
the Conster
@Chyron HR:
LOL. Didn’t he admit he’s “been there”? The idea that he would have won by appealing to Trump’s base AND hold onto the Dem base may be the dumbest idea of all the dumb ideas his base of gullible dipshits holds.
TaMara (HFG)
@Elizabelle: Well those comments fed my soul. I may be able to face today now.
rachel
I guess if China boycotts our agricultural exports, the farms won’t need workers to pick and process them.
rikyrah
This article by Evan Osnos in the New Yorker about the razing of the federal workforce at all levels is an eye opener:
Duane
@Ruckus: The world always looks different when your head is on a pike, too. Just a friendly piece of advice. Looking at you republicans.
Barbara
@Yarrow: Holding people accountable for their mistakes is a form of respect. Holding people accountable for the craziness unleashed by voting their “feelings” over their economic welfare is the least we can show as a form of respect. Based on these articles, what they really seem to want isn’t respect at all, it’s validation or appeasement that no, their feelings weren’t wrong, that it was okay to break something because losing privilege held for generations over brown people really is wrong and something to be very sad about.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@trollhattan: Also, many of them have multi-generation farms because of the Land Grant Program. Farming is hard, uncertain work. But they started with a govt handout.
Immanentize
@rikyrah:
Yes they are. They all read like a BJ thread. Favorite one? “Thoughts and prayers.”
That just never gets old….
Jager
@Elizabelle: Polished jewels my ass, stock Wrangler hinges are painted, you can buy “polished jewels” for Wranglers in the after market and they are expensive. Like triple the price of the stock parts and Lucerne doesn’t make them.
Yutsano
@rikyrah: You and I are in the same boat. And no fucking bailing these people out. Let them declare bankruptcy and deal with the consequences facing there.
Ohio Mom
Lots of irony in the members of the party of so-called personal responsibility not being able to tolerate anyone explaining to them that they screwed up. I guess being responsible means never having to say you’re sorry.
@Yarrow: I said this the other day, I was very heartened by the comments reaming the woman with the business comprised primarily of importing hinges from China. I didn’t read all of them but in the first part of the thread there was not a single comment agreeing with her or showing her any sympathy.
Schlemazel
Dispatch from the eliet coast of Twin Lakes on the frozen tundra:
I understand I am not allowed to point out that Tronald Dump was a lying sack of shit when you voted for him. That he fully exposed his true nature as a misogynist, racist, bigoted bully whose only concern was his own self interest for over a year BEFORE you voted for him so you should not now expect sympathy. Doing so as I have been told by my betters in the media will convince them to vote for someone as bad or worse. I guess I just have to sit quietly and nod compassionately while they set fire to my world and then act all surprised they got burnt.
rikyrah
@Yarrow:
THIS is the difference.
And, the RW isn’t used to it, because our side used to try and be ‘understanding’.
They counted on it.
The MSM counted on it.
But, November 2016, snapped the collective last nerve and folks don’t give a phuck.
That’s why we have been drowned in articles about the Dolt45 voter, and instead of beating us into submission…we have gotten even harder in our stance of PHUCK THEM STUPID AZZ MUTHAPHUCKAS.
The Moar You Know
WRONG
MUCH BETTER
rikyrah
@Immanentize:
No, it doesn’t…
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
She’s a ‘ job creator’, ya know…so, we’re supposed to have all this respect….
Phuck.Outta.Here.
trollhattan
@Schlemazel:
Spent a chunk of Sunday at the home of my spouse’s running buddy, where the assembled bunch (parents, friends, etc.) are all satisfied Trumpers. Because tax bill has lined their pockets and to the youngs, his belligerence is the gift that keeps giving. They’d all vote for him again, gladly.
Schlemazel
@trollhattan:
Todays farmers have an economic similarity to the slavers of the 1800s.
The slavers had all their money tied up in humans, they borrowed against them in order to have money to plant and their were only 2 crops (cotton#1 and Tobacco #2) that paid well enough to pay off the bank and keep them clothed & fed in the style society expected of them.
Todays farmer has all their money tied up in land & equipment, they have borrowed heavily in order to get that and to afford to plant. The two surest ways to pay are corn & soybeans. They are locked into a death struggle and I don’t see how they get out of it.
WaterGirl
@TaMara (HFG): Is Bixby still doing well with his meds?
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat:
Or for that matter, why do the feelings of the minority that voted for Trumpov matter more than the majority who voted for Clinton?
Why do miners’ votes count more than baristas’ votes (per Robinson’s column today in the WaPo)?
And on and on and on…
Jeffro
@delk:
If no one else has sent this idea to their marketing team I’m gonna…that’s awesome!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
OT: turned on MSNBC to see a bunch of dingbats talking about “Nancy Pelosi” as the most important question in Dem politics. Conor Lamb refused to endorse her, you know! PA House candidate says she literally (and she hits the word like she’s knows what it means) only gets that question from DC reporters. Hallie Jackson indignantly responds “Well, you’re gonna have to make a decision!”
Conor Lamb won by talking about Social Security. Fuck all you Brodeorist nitwits.
Brachiator
The easiest people to con are those who see the con, but think that they can get in and out before other suckers get taken.
I keep hearing morons on talk radio say, “Trump is a businessman. It is only natural that he make money while he is in the White House.” The assumption is that Trump is going to make his supporters rich even as he himself rolls in the dough. But in the real world, Trump makes a deal with China that will benefit a Trump hotel in Indonesia, but leaves farmers choking in soybean dust.
And there are still fools who excuse what Trump has done, or believe that he will help them out the next time.
And anyone who believes that believes that Trump will bring peace to the Middle East.
Neldob
I have an “I shoulda voted for Hillary” I could give him. For a donation.
Mike in NC
Every Trump cultist can fuck off and die in a giant sinkhole.
Jeffro
@The Moar You Know:
I dunno…like I mentioned yesterday, it’s hard not to think “hey maybe there is something to this Revelations stuff” considering what we’re dealing with here. I blame it on my Sunday school upbringing and also Trumpov & Co’s Cruelty First! agenda, which dovetails quite nicely with what Ol’ Nick would want.
r€nato
shorter Devine: I was fine voting for Trump because surely he wouldn’t screw *me* over, I have a white privilege card.
GFY sideways with a rusty ebola-coated chainsaw, shitbag.
Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady)
@trollhattan: How can you do that? I’d stroke out at that kind of gathering. You’re a stronger person than I am.
Barbara
@Ohio Mom: The irony is that so many of these people would say that they were voting for Trump because he would “shake things up.” What did they think that would mean? If they really were in economic distress, maybe i could understand that. But anyone who was running a successful business, farming or non-farming, that involved some kind of importing or exporting of goods, has to be soft in the head to think that “shaking things up” could not possibly have significant negative consequences for them.
Dave
Well John, Bumfuck rural Wisconsin agrees with you. Bunch of damned idiots.
randy khan
I’m going to guess he’s not converted to voting for Dems, but honestly I’ll take any convert and even anyone who voted for Trump who just decides not to vote again (even though I really do think everyone should vote). I’m not going to worry too much about people’s pasts if they find their way to our side.
No Drought No More
“Iowa leads the nation in many things. The presidential election is one of them.”
That wasn’t the full quote.. The man added, “For Trump to win here again, he’ll need to bring at least three helicopters with him to the state fair next time. Man was that a blast! If he does that, it’s do-able”.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: They don’t. We just need to tune out the media. Including the Nazi cheerleader, Vichy Times, Atlantic, Snooze Hour. They are not our friends, they are R enablers because either they are Rs themselves or for career reasons. I judge them by their actions. There are a few notable exceptions but by and large they are in the R corner.
r€nato
@Barbara:
That was part of the exact logic underlying the Iraq war. “Throw the chessboard up in the air and see what happens.” How did that work out? And we’re getting ready to make the exact same mistakes again, only with a nation 3 times larger.
Chaos is not a plan, it’s the exact opposite of a plan. We are ruled by idiots, in turn chosen by even bigger idiots.
Immanentize
@r€nato:
I wonder if we made some clever versions of this — laminated to protect against swamp gasses! — we could make a fair amount for animal rescue?
Leto
@Brachiator: The idea of “public service”, of doing actions for the “public good” that don’t result in self-enrichment, is just so completely foreign to these assholes. Gordon Gekko is so proud.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@Yarrow: Co-sign.
/coastal elite from Colorado
LAO
Tom Wolfe died today.
Leto
@r€nato: Indeed, we do live in the dumbest possible time line. (“Community” reference)
mozzerb
@Jager: Do they actually make the regular parts? From the article, the chain seemed to be that Lucerne are subcontractors to some (vaguely described) company that are the actual contracted suppliers to Wrangler, and in turn Lucerne subcontract the actual manufacture to various Chinese factories. Their value-add seemed to be simply quality control and packaging (and possibly changing the point-of-origin designation from China to the US). A legitimate business, but not really a leader of industry.
schrodingers_cat
@dmsilev: I wish that would happen. People like Mark Shields and E. J. Dionne who supposedly represent the liberal/D POV in the media are usually so mealy-mouthed, I doubt they will say something so in your face.
Villago Delenda Est
@Betty Cracker: APPLAUSE!
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodingers_cat: They are Villagers first and foremost.
The usual catchphrase stolen from Darth Sidious here.
terraformer
Being subsequently proved right has some level of schadenfreude to it.
But it sure would be nice if we didn’t have to wait until the shit hits the fan, like all of us said it inevitably would, before disaffected Republicans recognize that the shit has, indeed, hit the fan.
The Other Chuck
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Well thank goodness that all ended well :-/
The Moar You Know
@Jeffro: Without diving into dubious theology, I’ve been reading Caro’s Johnson autobiographies and the GOP has been acting and legislating like this since the turn of the century (most of the time with the help of complicit Southern Democrats). The last century, not this one. Donald Trump’s bellicosity and idiocy would not have raised an eyebrow with GOP voters and pols until after WWII, and then only for a couple of decades (as most of us have seen) before they returned to form.
Trump ain’t nothing new. By historic GOP standards, he’s not even particularly awful, which is something to think about.
schrodingers_cat
@Villago Delenda Est: The discourse allowed in the media is very narrow and assumes the following.
Ds and Rs are both bad but somehow Ds are worse. Always. That’s what both-sides-do-it really means.
Also, everything is binary.
There are Rs and Ds.
There is white and black.
There is no room for shades of grey or nuance.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
true that.
The Other Chuck
@r€nato:
My problem with Idiocracy is that it’s a rather gentle satire. Real idiocracies are not stupid and goofy, they’re stupid and mean.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
Man, I’m glad I live in deep blue So Cal, where Trumpers keep their heads down lest their houses get egged. Again.
catclub
@Frankensteinbeck:
The NPR reporting on PA Congressional races still missed the forest: In 2016, Republicans got a (minority/ very slight majority) of house votes but sent 13 of 18 representatives. If the present redistricting works, Democrats will have a majority of votes and get 10 seats out of 18 – maybe. But NOT 13 out of 18.
schrodingers_cat
@Mnemosyne: We had one house about a mile from where I live which had elebenty T signs before the elections. After the elections he took down all the signs. Now the house has a For Sale sign in the front yard.
Mnemosyne
@Jeffro:
Because they’re white and middle-class/upper middle-class, just like most MSM reporters. SATSQ.
catclub
@schrodingers_cat:
Even that is more than NPR allows. For political commentary they put Karen Tumulty – who is never partisan, with Erick Erickson. Balance.
kd bart
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: These people are Linus in the pumpkin patch waiting for The Great Pumpkin to show and shower them with Halloween gifts.
rikyrah
Conservatives’ ludicrous new excuse: Liberals made us vote for Donald Trump!
Despite the whining of Bari Weiss and others, conservatives are adults. The left didn’t force them to support Trump
AMANDA MARCOTTE
MAY 15, 2018 9:00AM (UTC)
It’s hard to believe it’s come to this point, but apparently this needs to be said: Republican voters are adults, not children. They are responsible for their own choices. Liberals did not force them to vote for Donald Trump or support his policies.
One would think none of that needs to be said, especially since conservatives like to style themselves as the defenders of “personal responsibility.” But apparently the idea is really taking root among the chattering classes that liberals practically held conservatives down and tormented them into voting for Trump. The argument is, I guess, that those who publicly decry racism and sexism are so obnoxious about it that they make conservatives double down on these bigoted beliefs. So progressives and liberals have more responsibility for electing Trump than the people who, you know, actually voted for him.
This bewildering thesis started spreading like a contagion after the resident troll at the New York Times, Bari Weiss, wrote yet another article arguing that well-compensated bigots with enormous audiences are being oppressed because liberals won’t pretend to be impressed with their bad arguments. Weiss was laughed at online, which is what you get when you say silly things in public. And as trolls are wont to do, she then had a tantrum on Twitter.
Weiss’ premise that liberals are somehow forcing conservatives to act like fools and bigots should be self-evident nonsense, but it appears to be an attractive proposition to many in mainstream media spaces. Andrew Sullivan argued in New York magazine that while he understands that Kanye West’s praise of Trump is foolish, he found himself “instinctually siding” with West because the critics are just so gosh-darned critical. Then Gerard Alexander wrote yet another piece for the New York Times arguing that the “backlash against liberals” — a backlash he openly declares liberals are causing with their supposed self-righteousness — “is going to get President Trump re-elected.”
schrodingers_cat
@catclub: I listen to music or nothing in the car. NPR irritates me, especially Market Watch.
catclub
@r€nato:
I think so far there has been zero effective drumbeat for war against Iran. Whether this is because Cheney and his team were much better at that than Trump, or because the US public has learned a smidgin about unnecessary wars, I cannot tell for sure. I learn towards Cheney and company were overall better salesmen than Trump and Bolton.
catclub
@schrodingers_cat: bach violin partitas and sonatas, most of the time.
Ruviana
Southern Tier of New York here. Fuck ’em.
opiejeanne
@r€nato: We already saw this type of lament a year ago when a woman who voted for Trump was wailing about them deporting her husband. She didn’t think they meant HIM, even though he’s undocumented, because he’s one of the “good” ones. They were only supposed to deport the bad ones. etc.
Aleta
opiejeanne
@No Drought No More: Three helicopters? That will get him re-elected?
OK, that’s such a level of stupidity that there’s no dealing with.
rikyrah
Stop Comparing the Resistance to the Tea Party
by Nancy LeTourneau
May 14, 2018
gene108
@lowtechcyclist:
From the link:
I find it interesting how both liberals and conservatives blame Bill Clinton for outsourcing.
Peale
@opiejeanne: Yep. It never really sunk in that the numbers of “criminal alien rapists” they kept talking about were in the millions – so high that the numbers included pretty much everyone who is here legally, illegally, temporarily and is still in line awaiting approval.
Schlemazel
@catclub:
That seems a safe assumption since the American public has shown zero interest in self-reflection and little ability to learn from previous mistakes.
NorthLeft12
@desertflower: Of course they would say that. They all say that. These ignorant, uncaring, and mean bags of shyte always expect the hammer to come down on those others; people they don’t know who can be easily hated and punished from a distance.
A little different when you end up facing the consequences of your cruelty and stupidity.
Lapassionara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This! If ordinary Americans don’t realize that the Republicans want to do away with SS and Medicare as we know them, they have not been paying attention! When the pundits tut tut about Dems not having anything to run on, I shake my head in disgust. Strengthening SS and Medicare/ Medicaid should be the number one issue for the fall elections. I mean really strengthening, not pretend strengthening by voucherizing.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat: I think we need to do more than tune them out, ’cause while we’re tuning out, the Goopers are continuing to work the refs. When we see b.s. like this, we have to email, write, call the media outlet and tell them it’s a crap narrative with no basis in reality.
Schlemazel
@opiejeanne:
See, this is what happens in a world gone mad. I assumed that was sarcasm
The Other Chuck
@rikyrah:
The new cowardly milquetoast term for racism, I guess.
Mnemosyne
@schrodingers_cat:
My coworker went across the street to her Trumper neighbor’s house the morning after the election and flipped off every one of their stupid security cameras. Their pro-Trump stuff vanished almost immediately, too.
Jeffro
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah I dunno about the ‘new’ and ‘not particularly awful’ parts, the latter most especially. I don’t think we’ve ever had a leader so willing to sell out our country to hostile foreign powers and/or to line his own pockets, nor one so willing to openly embrace the worst elements in our country (i.e., neo-nazis are ‘very fine people’)
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Quiz of the day:
You’ve been married 30+ years and earn three times the pay of your former wife, into the low 6 figures. You’ve been separated since mid January and are living in Bumfuck Egypt with some woman you recently met, and know absolutely nothing about your household finances because she took care of all those details, including the name of the mortgage company and amount of the mortgage. When your lawyer realizes that you have turned over the task of completing financial disclosures to the girlfriend (who is living with you, rent and expense free) for completion and your lawyer yells at you for turning it over for a brand new girlfriend to do, do you:
1. Say “goddamn it, I’m such an idiot and I’ll get on the stick about my financial life”, or
2. Blink stupidly while saying “but I didn’t know much about this stuff”.
He’s a fishing obsessive – he may as well have wandered in while wearing a MAGA hat.
scuffletuffle
@Betty Cracker: Betty, I laugh every time…
NorthLeft12
@opiejeanne: I’m sure there are examples from every state in the union, but the one I saw in Michigan [from the LG&M blog] was almost word for word what these privileged whiners [not surprisingly they are pretty much all whites] said.
“Why can’t I get an exemption?” said every over-entitled douchebag ever.
schrodingers_cat
@Jeffro: Yes of course, when I say tune them out. I meant we need to not let this stuff get to us, because depressing the turnout and enthusiasm for Ds seems to be one of the motivations behind all these both-sides stories.
Jeffro
@schrodingers_cat: “Ds are worse” is what Trumpov supporters say when cornered with the evidence of whatever his latest outrage is.
“Both sides do it/are horrible” is meant to pull Dems down/pull Reps up – also used by Trumpov supporters, but mostly used by lazy media types and airquote “independent” voters.
Mnemosyne
@catclub:
Also, they were able to gin up the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to go after Saddam for supposedly sponsoring or supporting that attack. Iran is too smart to attack American interests directly, so there’s not even a fake reason — though Israel seems to be trying their damnedest to goad Iran into one.
O. Felix Culpa
Proud coastal elite in northern New Mexico here! Wait – doesn’t coast imply water? We got none of that here, thanks to the climate change that isn’t happening.
SFBayAreaGal
@Elizabelle: My favorite comment
“Mary, I have a lot of questions.
Did you know what tariffs were when Trump was campaigning or are you learning on the fly here?
Do you actually think Trump should carve out an exception for your business, most of which is apparently in Asia? That’s called crony capitalism, as I’m sure you’ve learned from the hours you’ve obviously logged watching Fox News. Assuming, of course, your brain isn’t just a bowl of oatmeal by now.
Actually, let’s assume your brain is just a bowl oatmeal. All signs would indicate it. Do you have to physically stir the oatmeal to get going first thing in the morning? Or is it more like, once the sun hits your head you can start thinking the big thoughts?
I’m just asking questions.”
Also another favorite is “Thoughts and prayers”
Kelly
Oh my you jackals are in top form today.
I’m not too worried about the fate of the soybean farmers. Soybeans sell on a global market. I expect China will buy more soybeans from Brazil and the US farmers will sell more soybeans to whoever was gonna buy from Brazil.
On the labor front I continue to be astonished at how hostile to unions all the local very right wing blue collar logger, sawmill and construction workers are. Most private sector jobs around here are working for essentially feudal family business.
Thanks for all the insights and snark. I’m off for a nice walk.
https://oregonstateparks.org/index.cfm?do=main.loadFile&load=_siteFiles%2Fpublications%2FSilver_FallsTrail_of_10_Falls_LOW_RES022639.pdf
cain
It’s only going to get worse. Trump’s threatening his European allies with sanctions if they don’t also withdraw from the Iran deal. If that happens, you can bet there will be a retaliation. That means even a smaller market for American exports. Soon the only trading partners we’llhave is Russia, North Korea, and the Phillipines.
It’s just unbelievable to me that we have completely put every foreign policy into great upheaval. I highly suspect that Trump is doing this for personal enrichment by putting every one of these things up for sale. The corruption is breathtaking. We’ve gone to third country levels of corruption.
rikyrah
Don’t Expect White Evangelicals to Be Troubled By Violence in Gaza
by Nancy LeTourneau
May 15, 2018
Yesterday we witnessed why so many Republicans have talked about moving the Israeli embassy to Jerusalem, but none of them ever actually did it. While Jared and Ivanka celebrated the move with Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli military killed dozens of protesting Palestinians and wounded thousands. The situation in Gaza was so horrifying that they put out this called for help.
Trump’s secretary of state wouldn’t even address a question about the violence.
…………………….
Paul Waldman had the right take on what this all means.
The Moar You Know
@Jeffro: Shit, just read up on Prescott Bush and his merry band of Senate traitors. The ones who were doing business with Nazi Germany and tried to forment a violent overthrow of FDRs government. There’s other examples. If we’d executed that sack of crap (who really did commit several acts of for-real treason, trying to have the president assassinated for his own personal gain while we were fighting a war with the people he was doing business with) things might be a lot different today.
J R in WV
@trollhattan:
If you grow the “industrial crops” like corn, soy, wheat, there are a few others, you can do the majority of the work from the seat of the air conditioned tractor, and hire the harvest done by giant combines that come just as thing get ripe as the season of your crop at your location comes.
If you diversify into vegetables, table fruit, greens, root crops, unless you specialize in JUST CARROTS or such, you need humans to work the crops at various times during the growing season. Instead of paying thousands to Monsanto, you pay it to employees, and those tiny farm towns in Kansas and Nebraska don’t have humans left to hire. That’s a shame, because parts of both states are really beautiful, and stone empty.
Even the old beer joints are abandoned and dilapidated. There’s no grocery stores, no health care left, nowhere to live even. I’m not sure where the people who own and operate the huge industrial farms live anymore. My neighbor’s in-laws still have the family winter wheat farm in South Dakota. When they visit, Dick gets to help run giant farm equipment, and I do mean giant.
One day of their visit, he disked a quarter section — a section is 640 acres, a square mile — before lunch. So two days to disk a square mile. Which wasn’t all of the farm by any means!
They have a photo of the farm, from an aircraft, and there’s a big windbreak of trees around the house and buildings, for winter protection, and rolling low hills plowed and planted all around the farmstead. In it’s own way it’s gorgeous, to a farmer from a narrow valley like me. But you can’t even off-load a tractor like theirs in our hollow! Much less turn it around.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: LOL, Betty!
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: I find it extremely difficult to listen to NPR, especially when they purport to report on something in my sphere of expertise. I remember listening to them provide the “X for Dummies” version of something I know a lot about but they weren’t even passing that extremely low bar. I had to turn it off. They simply had no clue what they were talking about.
catclub
useless Europeans:
Europe should be proposing sanctions on US firms for breaking the deal.
raven
@LAO: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test will always be my favorite, “your either on the bus or off the bus”!
Further
rikyrah
@SFBayAreaGal:
Those comments are pure gold!
BWA HA HA HA AH HA AH AH HA
CliosFanBoy nee Woodrowfan
@gene108: remember, Herbert Hoover still got 40% of the vote in 1932. some people never learn.
danielx
Why yes, yes it will. Probably sooner than you think.
Ohio Mom
@gene108: Well, Bill Clinton did arrange for China to be granted Most Favored Nation status.
I think there would have been outsourcing anyway because labor costs so much less in other countries but there wouldn’t have been anything as easy to point to, and it certainly didn’t help to make China a MFN. I’m also still mad about Clinton’s Welfare Reform.
geg6
@Yutsano:
This.
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
Who was worse?
Jager
@mozzerb: The parts are made in China, Lucerne probably cleans them up, maybe assembles them, puts them in a bin and sends them to Toledo where Wranglers are built.. Mrs J was the marketing director for a furniture manufacturer, supposedly “Made in the USA” They bought metal fasteners, hinges, etc made in China from a local company here in SoCal. They finished the parts and re-branded them as USA. WalMarts American brand is assembled in the US from Chinese parts.
GregB
John Cole. Stop making Nazis!
CliosFanBoy ne Woodrowfan
@gene108: I had no idea NAFTA sent jobs to Asia. huh.
Jeffro
@The Moar You Know: Ok, will do some readin’…I had been thinking of presidents, not senators and what not, but I’ll check it out.
Mel
@Dave: Also in agreement: square state farm girl.
It truly is a leopard / “other faces but never MY face!!” situation with T voters. A relative-in-law who relied on unemployment insurance and medicaid to save her husband’s life and keep her family afloat when he was unable to work for a decade due to a brain tumor and ensuing surgeries and treatments, voted for the orange menace with full knowledge that the Affordable Care Act, Medicare, Social Security, organized labor, CHIP, Medicaid, etc. were targets.
Did I mention that she enjoyed the protections and benefits of a labor union for 25 years, and is able to live comfortably b/c of her union negotiated pension and her Social Security incime?
Or that she has a grandchild who is profoundly disabled due to brain damage from a seizure disorder and that the child’s parents would be bankrupt and homeless due to the little girl’s enormous medical bills without Social Security and Medicare for the little one?
But relative-in-law takes it a step further. She gave the old, “Well, I thought they’d take it [pensions, workers’ rights, Social Security, Medicare, etc] away from other people, not people like me!!” (which is, of course, code for white, christian, middle class).
When I confronted her about the fact that she damn well knew it would affect EVERYONE, including her children’s safety and health when they retire, and including her little granddaughter and that child’s parents and siblings now, she actually laughed and said, “Well, I’m almost 80. I’ll be dead before it can hurt ME, so what do I care, anyway? He’s gonna go after those other people and ALL the feminists so I’m glad.”
That last part “All the feminists!” was said because she hates the idea of women fighting for (or getting / having gotten) better working conditions, reproductive rights, and any workplace protections against discrimination. If she didn’t have it, then women now shouldn’t have it either, in her mind.
She cast her vote knowing full well that it would hurt millions of people. It was the thought of getting to hurt people who she thinks are “not like” her that made it, to her, worth putting her own children and grandchildren at immediate risk of losing everything: home, jobs, health, safety…
And there are countless others just like her out there.
This. This is the mindset that we’re up against.
raven
@raven: you’re
raven
“There are going to be times when we can’t wait for somebody. Now, you’re either on the bus or off the bus. If you’re on the bus, and you get left behind, then you’ll find it again. If you’re off the bus in the first place — then it won’t make a damn.”
―Ken Kesey
Villago Delenda Est
@schrodingers_cat: Everything in that implies “we are lazy motherfuckers who would rather eat tiger shrimp than engage in our nominal craft.”
Tilda Swintons Bald Cap
@raven: The bus came by, and I got on, that’s when it all began…
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
What can I say? We have a Democratic mayor, state assemblyman, state senator and congresswoman and our city councilman is openly gay. And yet the Trumpers are well represented among the better off. They know on which side their artisanal bread is buttered and if there’s a little hippie-punching on the path to that butter, well, das ist schade. The Trumper son I truly don’t get, maybe too many soccer concussions but the daughter is friends with mine and so there’s hope she’ll become their little commie since she’s more than slightly rebellious and probably the subject of a few “where did we go wrong?” conversations. Know hope.
Barbara
@catclub: They don’t want to give Putin another victory. They know what’s going on here. Probably their best bet is to cultivate American companies that are heavily dependent on exports to or from Europe and when Trump tries to bring the hammer down for calling his bluff on Iran (something he actually might not do because, basically, he’s a big chicken when it comes time to actually follow through on these things) they would engage in a full court press to make it clear what that will mean for U.S. companies and their employees.
schrodingers_cat
@Villago Delenda Est: More than one “reporter” has said that Rs have better snacks and other catered food in comparison what Gore and HRC had. So you may have something there.
donnah
Forgive me if this has been discussed already, but ffs:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/5/15/1764440/-Trump-s-record-pay-to-play-He-saves-ZTE-China-rewards-Trump-Organization-with-500m
James Powell
@Planetpundit:
This, but not just this. They knowingly voted for a person who was clearly and unquestionably unsuited for the job. They voted out of spite for a person who promised to inflict suffering on people they do not like. They voted for evil.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: “Incredibly guilty”
J R in WV
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah, the Bush group is actually far worse than Trump (so far) but just way more discrete about their treason. Millions killed by the Bush family, already, so Trump has a ways to go to get ahead of them. The newest generation of Bushes actually seem to be as dumb and ignorant as Trump, though — so we had best not give them a chance to pass Trump up, no matter how many people he kills.
Imagine comparing the adequacy of presidential terms by the relative death toll ~!!!!~ But here we are!
schrodingers_cat
@James Powell:
Word.
trollhattan
@J R in WV:
Pollan’s “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” outlines the divisions wonderfully–I learned lots that buttressed what I saw on my many Iowa trips to see grannie. Who lived in Steve King’s district of all places.
Here’s the ironic bit. While as you note the corn and soy operations are remarkably mechanized, and you can tell which farmers are overextended by the size and newness of their equipment–the fancier, the broker they are, the hog farms, chicken factories, slaughterhouses, meat packing plants and canneries rely heavily on, wait for it, immigrant labor. The casual observer won’t see them at work but there they are, shopping the Storm Lake WalMart. Cantaloupe Calf King is actively working against the best interests of his most wealthy constituents and glides to reelection every two years. Some gig.
MagdaInBlack
@mozzerb:
She says “for Jeep” but it sure sounds aftermarket to me. 20 years in the collision industry makes me curious .
Matt McIrvin
@J R in WV: My dad’s hometown in the NE panhandle is being kept alive by an ethanol plant.
Mel
@James Powell: There it is.
rikyrah
@James Powell:
Kay was the first one to forcefully put this out there.
He NEVER HID WHO HE WAS.
So, if you KNOW who they are .
And, You vote for them anyway.
THEN WHATEVER THEY DO IS ON YOU.
I think the matter of him SHOWING who he was is a BIG reason that folks on our side are like, ‘ PHUCK YOU’, when we see the articles telling us what we should ‘ understand’ Dolt45 voters.
What’s to understand?
They voted for this AWFUL HUMAN BEING..
When there was a far superior choice.
That WE KNOW there was a far superior choice..
Only adds to our bitterness as to why we have absolutely no phucks to give.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@lowtechcyclist:
Not to mention, what is the point of drug testing someone who mows lawns?
trollhattan
@Dorothy A. Winsor (formerly Iowa Old Lady):
Think I can sum the day up with, “Hey, how about those Warriors?” The west coast IPA helped, the spouse chose bubbly.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
From out here in California, where registered Independents continue to increase, the complaint is not that “both sides do it,” which I absolutely agree is lazy media spin bullshit, but that too often neither party has given Independents what they want. However, included in this group are purity ponies who can never be satisfied. Also, independents here continue to vote for Democrats and to punish the Republicans, who are continue to be an irrelevant, nasty, lunatic fringe.
trollhattan
Shit, Tom Wolfe has died. :-(
Mnemosyne
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
One of the reasons my late brother’s finances were such a mess when he died was that his estranged wife (the malignant narcissist) had handled all of the money and she just didn’t know where it all went!
ruemara
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’m rooting for his ex-wife.
rikyrah
This is Meghan’s Biggest Royal Wedding Nightmare
Diane Clehane
With less than a week until Meghan Markle weds Prince Harry at St. George’s Chapel on the grounds of Windsor Castle, it’s understandable that she’d be suffering from pre-wedding jitters, but the source of her anxiety is worrying royal watchers who have commended the former actress for adapting so quickly to royal life.
But today’s news that her father, Thomas Markle, has backed out of the wedding amid reports he secretly cooperated with Los Angeles photographer Jeff Rayner, is deeply upsetting news the to the bride-to-be.
TMZ is reporting Thomas Markle told them he suffered a heart attack six days ago, but checked himself out of the hospital so he could attend the wedding. According to the website, he’s now decided not to go because he doesn’t want to embarrass the royal family or his daughter. He also said admits the staged photos look “stupid and hammy.” Markle told the site he was just going along with the paparazzi agency, which he now deeply regrets. He is now planning to stay away from the wedding
Ceci n est pas mon nym
I voted.
Primary day here in the newly gerry-un-mandered congressional district PA-5. Turnout among the voters seems to be light (when we voted at 10 am the poll workers were estimating that they’d seen 10% of the eligible voters in the precinct). But turnout among the candidates is amazing. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the race other than the bare fact that Pat Meehan (*ptui*) was gone. Doubly gone. Redistricted out of existence AND resigned on a scandal.
I was surprised to learn over the weekend that we had 10(!) strong Democratic candidates for the new Congressional seat, so I quick had to do some research to sort out that and other races. And a full slate of candidates on the local and state races as well.
So from this corner of PA, I would say the energy is still looking good heading into November. That will almost keep me going past the latest appalling news over the last couple days.
rikyrah
The Royal Family Was Reportedly ‘Blindsided’ When Meghan Markle’s Dad Dropped Out of the Wedding
Tess Koman
Just one day after confirming he would not attend the royal wedding, TMZ reports Kensington Palace and all of its residents were completely taken aback by his announcement.
The royal family was reportedly all set with Markle Sr.’s accommodations for later this week. He was scheduled to have a security detail, as well as access to many of the weekend’s private events.
The site also reports now that Meghan’s father isn’t coming, her Meghan’s mother – with whom the soon-to-be Duchess is extremely close – will be the one to walk her down the aisle on Saturday.
realbtl
@raven: I figured you would be one of the people to comment on Tom Wolfe’s passing. When he was on he was great. I saw Furthur at Monterrey.
Brachiator
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Someone who shows up for a job drunk, stoned, hungover, or who takes long breaks to drink beer or to smoke some weed, is not going to be dependable. Probably cannot mow a straight line. You don’t have to do formal drug testing to observe some of this self-defeating behavior.
Barbara
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I have read this fact being expressed in multiple articles, about businesses that operate in locations where opioid abuse is concentrated, regardless of the pay scale. It’s hard to find any employees to pass a drug test, at whatever hourly wage is being offered. And while I realize that $12 an hour might sound pitiful, it might not be all that low in rural Kentucky. The Politico article that focused on Johnstown, PA included an interview with a guy who owned a manufacturing operation that paid well and who wanted to hire more people, but said that people didn’t want to learn the skills he needed, people who had those skills moved away long ago, and in any event a high percentage of applicants couldn’t pass a drug test. Scratch the surface in these rural places and you find a level of social dysfunction that matches just about anything found in a poor urban location. The unwillingness to accept responsibility for any of it is why it is hard to see how it gets better any time soon.
Barbara
@Brachiator: Mowing lawns involves handling heavy machinery, especially large lawns that require tractors. In addition to doing a poor job, it would lead to high claims for workers compensation. Plus, for many jobs of this nature, driving might be required.
Immanentize
@rikyrah:
She had always wanted her mother to walk her down the aisle. Maybe now that can happen?
I know, no way, but a boy can dream….
catclub
@trollhattan: he lived 87 years. you would like that he lives forever?
Mnemosyne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Avoiding workplace accidents when they show up drunk or high, probably.
Leto
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Howdy neighbor! District 6 here. Apparently our R-lizardbrain decided not to run for re-election so we have a chance to start fresh. Leaving work a bit early so I can vote, hopefully before the thunderstorms hit.
Gex
@Barbara: Because we all know, the classical definition of conservatism is, first and foremost, about breaking shit just because you can!
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
I’m not a huge royal watcher, but it is a nice antidote to the political madness going on, and I kept waiting to see if the Obamas would get an invite to some private celebration, because this would steam Trump bigly.
Still, it’s sad to see Markle Sr spoil the event with his spotty behavior. And unlike some of the crappier Markle relations, his actions seem to be less mean-spirited than just self-sabotaging.
.
Mnemosyne
@Immanentize:
There’s no reason her mom couldn’t walk her down the aisle. It’s a custom, not a religious requirement. And the royal family has been pretty accommodating so far.
I do feel for her, though. Weddings can bring out the worst in even a reasonably functional family, and it sounds like she has some dysfunction going on.
Capri
@dmsilev: Bill Maher did this to Mike Huckabee. He did a complete take-down of the “real Merica” trope.
The link is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jBknm3HgBVU
raven
@realbtl: Aw that must have been great!
ruemara
I don’t even understand these conversations you have with Trumpers. I put up with a lot of abusive assholes in my life. Tons of users, but I don’t allow trump voters in my acceptance circle.
The Other Chuck
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Mowers are dangerous equipment. Not saying that necessitates the intrusion of testing them like they were airline pilots, but it’s not completely unjustified.
James Powell
@Brachiator:
The consumer model of political affiliation is defective because it encourages voters – the citizens who are supposed to be self-governing – to sit on their asses and make demands on parties and candidates as if they were competing restaurants.
The consumer mentality also discourages cooperation and coalition-building. Far too many people make far too many demands on parties and candidates.
El Caganer
Hawhawhaw. Suck it, libtards: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/the-most-famous-pro-trump-artist-in-the-us-has-moved-into-his-mueller-phase/2018/05/15/6363a92e-552c-11e8-a551-5b648abe29ef_story.html
Death Panel Truck
This is why I like you, Cole.
catclub
Haven’t they heard of straw buyers? Get some other Chinese company to buy those chips from the US. Problem worked around.
El Caganer
@James Powell: Some people assume that we live in a country with proportional representation/approval voting or other means by which a wide variety of opinions can make their way into a national discussion. We don’t.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Usually, we’re related to them. But I did notice that my one Trumper cousin just happened to schedule another trip at the same time as the family reunion last year so that she missed it. Too bad, so sad. ?
El Caganer
@catclub: Trump Telecomm is incorporating even as we are commenting on this blog.
Brachiator
@Barbara:
Yep. All good points.
Humdog
@ruemara: I am trying to exorcise my Trumper family from my life. They are master gas lighters, tho, so when I told them off the first time, they backed away and then started calling a year later as if nothing had ever been said about it between us. Now, I am the bad guy who won’t chit chat with them about their lives. I just cannot get past how their votes and attitudes are really hurting my friends who are vulnerable in different ways. I feel like I am betraying my disabled, undocumented, people of color friends by being pleasant with the people whose votes and values hurt them. The R policies are variations of cruelty to the vulnerable. I am not here for that and I will not socialize with my friends’ tormentors.
It is disconcerting, as a former Christian, to be more in tuned with Christ’s teachings than professing Christians.
Mnemosyne
Also, random thought: my (step)mom is a racist conservative who was raised in the pre-Civil Rights days, and yet she’s not on board the Trump Train and hates him. Because, while she may be racist, she’s not motivated by spite and is disgusted by the mean things he does.
(She didn’t vote for him, because she doesn’t vote at all. That was kind of a relief in 2016.)
trollhattan
@catclub:
Is this a trick question?
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
How do they explain away people who don’t live anywhere near the coasts who hate their guts and don’t give them the respect they (feel) they deserve?
El Caganer
I’m sure this is only a coincidence.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-china-zte_us_5af9f701e4b0200bcab7fa66
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
All the Trumpers in our lives need to have this rubbed in their faces at every opportunity available. If they won’t feel guilt/shame then they could at least be tormented.
Stan
I was on the coast of West Virginia last week. Ohio was dimly visible on the other side of the water. I think i may have even been on the left coast.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@El Caganer: Nope. Staying in the boat.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@El Caganer:
Why can’t these people ever get the comeuppance they so richly deserve? Don’t fall for it China. You can’t trust these vipers; they’re bad actors.
James Powell
@Humdog:
I’m in the exact situation you describe, so I feel your pain. I’m sure there are quite a few people like us.
I wonder why the NYT doesn’t do any articles about us?
TenguPhule
Belgian clown accused of murder livestreams rooftop police standoff
Brachiator
@James Powell:
California voters are mildly experimental. They like to tinker with the system, even if the results are not revolutionary or consistently successful.
Doesn’t seeking co-operation and coalition-building put more demands on parties and candidates?
Stan
A missive difference, though, is that slave-produced cotton and tobacco were gigantically profitable. Indeed, once neglected aspect of our (US) history is that the exports of slavery provided the excess capital to start up the economic rise of the USA. The entire country was in on it, not just the ‘slave states’. We are truly a nation created by slavery and genocide.
Humdog
@James Powell: I am sorry you are stuck like this, too. I would even click a NYT link if they had an article about it just to see how others cope.
Citizen Alan
@lowtechcyclist:
As far as I’m concerned, every business owner who whines that he can’t get American workers for what he’s willing to pay would probably be happy to see slavery reinstituted.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: pff. I found one of the elder cousins is a (black) trumper. We do not talk to her in general.
@Humdog: My deepest condolences on the madness of those friends & family. On the other, you’re on the right side & we have pie.
@James Powell: see above
catclub
@trollhattan: …maybe
MisterForkbeard
@hedgehog the occasional commenter: The best part of the article is when the artist says “I can’t figure out who’s actually wants these.” He thinks his own paintings are kind of hideous.
catclub
@Citizen Alan:
only on the assumption that he joins the slave owning class, rather than the slave being class.
raven
@James Powell: I haven’t communicated with my half brother and his fascist wife for 5 years after they jumped my ass when I celebrated that asshole Alan West’s defeat. It’s funny because I clearly remember asking him to stop arguing with my friends on Facebook and that I wanted to talk to him about sports and his family. On nine thing about the Facebook hysteria is that they made it simple to download all your messages and I was glad to see it was exactly as I remembered. The only difficulty is that my stepmom is ok and, as she ages, I want to stay in touch with her. So far she has never mentioned the situation and it may be because the chickshit motherfucker KNOWS he was wrong so he just hides. Fuck em.
TenguPhule
Well yeah, Global Warming and all will leave WV as the new Florida.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
White skin, black heart yo. //
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@MisterForkbeard: Yikes. And yet he continues producing them….TPM actually had a pretty good article about a month ago on the artist. He doesn’t quite make Thomas Kinkade look like Picasso, but it’s close.
Stan
Thank you for raising this. Not to hijack but…..death penalty cases generally get a higher level of legal scrutiny *because* they are capital casea. And yet it’s been proven dozens of times just in your state that the system simply doesn’t work well at its stated goal of convicting actually-guilty people (we know that’s not the real goal but bear with me here…..)
So imagine how sloppy the system is with lesser crimes that meet even lower standards. That old saying that “the jails are full of innocent people” has lost its ironic humor. It’s just a fact.
Omnes Omnibus
@TenguPhule: Trigger warnings next time please. And I am sure there will be a next time.
trollhattan
@Stan:
Our happy-n-dumb secretary of energy let an innocent man be executed on his watch. Count on Republicans to be ghouls.
TenguPhule
@Peale:
Well yes, Iran will quite throughly kick our ass.
TenguPhule
@Omnes Omnibus:
Seeing as there are only five clowns total in that country, I think the odds of that happening again are rather low.
schrodingers_cat
@TenguPhule: Massachusetts has plenty of white people that don’t vote R. MSM is only interested in Republican voters.
schrodingers_cat
Have all the FPers been raptured after the opening of the Embassy, yesterday.
a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)
@Mike in NC: For heaven’s sake, think of the groundwater pollution!
The Moar You Know
@El Caganer: I love Jon McNaughton. He really does paint what’s inside the head of every conservative.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah:
Vandals. Fucking Vandals.
TenguPhule
@schrodingers_cat:
Yes, And therefore they’re considered coastal elites by the *real* white people who are the common clay of the west.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@El Caganer:
Utter delusional scum.
TenguPhule
@Citizen Alan:
No lie told.
My Truth Hurts
“You will pay the price for your lack of vision!”
– Emperor Palpatine, Return of the Jedi
Citizen Alan
@catclub:
Dick Cheney and his fellow ghouls had the benefit of 9/11. They did everything but flat-out accuse Saddam Hussein of having been allied with Al-Qaeda, even though that was transparent nonsense to anyone who knew anything about the politics of the region. And the complicit whore media went along with it and sold a gullible public on it.
danielx
@The Moar You Know:
Policy-wise, maybe, insofar as he has policies, which he really doesn’t – he has impulses. But for out-and-out corruption, there hasn’t been anybody close since Warren G. Harding.
Captain C
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I suspect many of them ignored the rejoinder: “The Cossacks work for the Czar.”
Booger
@Matt McIrvin: Ethanol is keeping a lot of us alive in these trying times.
TenguPhule
@The Moar You Know:
I can’t recall the Federal government’s civil service being this fucked up since the Pendleton Act.
Mary G
I think Trump is worse because he’s gutting the government. If he can’t find a toady for a position, he leaves it open. Most good civil servants are saying “Fuck it, I can make more money in the private sector, or retire early,” and the repercussions of losing all that experience will last for decades.
TenguPhule
@Citizen Alan:
Actually they did that too.
Remember the “Al Queda is basing itself in Iraq!” hysteria?
TenguPhule
@Barbara:
That he would reverse 50 years of hard fought progress and bring back Jim Crow, Apple Pie and make the complicated reality of being part of a whole world go away.
They are lizard brains that just want their immediate needs satisfied and fuck everyone else who gets in the way of that.
Mary G
I wish these pundits who complain that Democrats don’t have ideas and are just running on an anti-Trump platform would do some reading:
This is great. We need to talk more about corporate welfare than we do.
danielx
@rikyrah:
Platinum, I say. A lot of very small violins playing in the comments.
TenguPhule
@Mary G:
This could be tricky.
You’d have to tie it to some threshold of gross revenue to avoid capturing unexpected businesses that aren’t the intended targets and this could be considered violating established minimum wage laws by penalizing an employer for offering a legal wage. IANAL but I don’t think this will be as simple as it sounds.
Corner Stone
@Mary G:
We do need to discuss that. But this proposed measure is not the way to start that discussion. How about we just talk about raising the minimum wage first?
LAO
Have we discussed this yet? I can’t take much more of this.
Citizen Alan
@? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:
It’s like a parody of Leni Riefenstahl.
Barbara
@Brachiator: One of the best things about my daughter’s commencement ceremony requiring me to get up at O Dark Thirty Saturday morning is that I will miss the royal wedding in its entirety. Not even a chance I could watch it for even a minute. The couple seem like nice people, I wish them well, but I am so tired of worshiping ordinary, not to say mediocre people just because they won the ovarian lottery.
trollhattan
@Citizen Alan:
“Triumph of the Won’t”
trollhattan
@Barbara:
I sure as heck won’t be but this, OTOH could be an epic take.
MisterForkbeard
@Mary G: Atrios was referencing that this morning, and complaining that it was too complicated and that Dems should just raise the minimum wage instead of doing these weird things.
I say, do both: Raise the minimum wage AND institute a free-loader tax on businesses.
FlipYrWhig
@Citizen Alan: At least a third of Americans think all Arabs are Muslims and that all Arab Muslims are terrorists or at least would be if they had the chance. Probably more than a third.
TenguPhule
@LAO:
Oliver Twist is supposed to be fiction, damnit.
FlipYrWhig
@MisterForkbeard: Atrios dourly complaining about something? Really, you don’t say. How many words were in the sentence, seven? Fuck that guy.
trollhattan
@LAO: @TenguPhule:
Are there no workhouses?
TenguPhule
The woman is a liar and completely unqualified for this position.
We got JACK SHIT intelligence from torture.
Fuck her weasel ass.
TenguPhule
@FlipYrWhig: He has a point. Raising the minimum wage is simpler and easier.
geg6
@Leto:
New 17th here! Going to be placing a vote for Conor Lamb today. I want him to beat Rothfus so badly!
LAO
@trollhattan: @TenguPhule:
Patricia Kayden
@desertflower:
Quelle Surprise!! They’re sticking with the Orange Bigot.
geg6
@Stan:
Depends on whether you are going up river or down river. ;-)
HeleninEire
I read Twitter, but I don’t twit. John Cole, I am single too and I love the single life, but your last twit was TMI, goddamn it!
Yeah, y’all go look.
Mary G
Chris Barnett, a Republican candidate for governor of Oklahoma, has pulled a Trump and said out loud what many Republicans believe: that disabled people like me should be euthanized. He’s taken down his social media, but screenshots survive.
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule: He’s an assface.
LAO
@HeleninEire: I saw it. Made me laugh (and then, cry a little).
LAO
@Mary G: Let me guess, he’s a good christian, right?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Barbara:
Or this guy is just some douch who churns threw employees using a temp agency -the agency screens for drugs, criminal records and bad credit history so the Douch doesn’t have to think to hard about his expendable employees , then after six months the Douch fires them so he doesn’t have to give them a raise or benifits, sends for the next batch.
Annie
@Barbara:
Trump voters wear T-shirts that say “TRUMP F*** YOUR FEELINGS.”
Didn’t it occur to them that Trump opponents could say “f*** your feelings” right back at them?
Leto
@geg6: I’m new to the 6th! Howdy neighbor to the north! We have a single Dem running in the primary and she seems pretty good: Chrissy Houlahan.
TenguPhule
@LAO:
From the Ministry of Love, no doubt.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Mary G:
Oh my god. They really are Nazis. It’s not just hyperbole.
TenguPhule
@Annie:
“When they go low, we go high” didn’t age well.
TenguPhule
@FlipYrWhig:
Even assfaces can be correct.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Annie:
Probably not. They just thought the libtards would curl up into a ball on the floor. Hence all of the articles describing them feeling “disrespected”.
Leto
@LAO: I feel this is quite tame after the nakkid mustard mopping tale. That was TMI.
TenguPhule
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Doesn’t work like that for temp services. They get paid a fixed wage by the agency.
Amir Khalid
@El Caganer:
He’s no Norman Rockwell, that’s for sure. Rockwell never saw himself as anything more than a magazine illustrator, but some of his images are as resonant and iconic as those of more “serious” artists. Jon McNaughton’s images are crudely literal depictions of right-wing thinking. They are not in themselves beautiful, and there’s nothing in them that resonates with people outside his audience.
LAO
@Leto: I had actually managed to forget that. Damn you! *shaking fists*
Mike in NC
@Mary G: I spent a terrible night in Oklahoma City one time. If I had to stay longer I’d be looking to be euthanized, too.
? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?
@Amir Khalid:
I don’t think his art style is bad. It’s very realistic, which isn’t in vogue these days (and hasn’t been for over a hundred years). He has talent to me, as a non-artist, but his content is certainly propaganda. What a waste.
Brachiator
@Mary G:
Wow. More of his statement.
There definitely is a Trump Effect. He encourages the deplorable and the despicable to spew hatred. More mess to cleanup.
LAO
@Brachiator:
I actually think the Trump Effect is worse: he showed them, that they could win elections by spewing hatred.
TenguPhule
@Brachiator: Wow, euthanizing children and standing by his comments.
We are so far through the looking glass we’re coming out the other side of the 1920s.
catclub
@Brachiator: wow, somebody forgot about all the white senior poor in nursing homes paid for by medicaid.
Those people cannot support themselves, either.
rikyrah
@Mary G:
Screenshot link please.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
THIS is who they are.
SgrAstar
@raven: that is such a great book. I went to Berkeley but was a tad too young to catch all of the Merry Pranksters’ shenannigans. Kesey was a wonderful writer in his own right- I thought Sometimes A Great Notion was every bit as good as One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. The exhilarating sense of possibility that emerged in the sixties was destroyed by the assassinations. My grief lingers still.
LAO
@rikyrah:
Aleta
@rikyrah: Wow, the tabloids in concert are really doing a number on that family. It’s like the tabloids are the most dysfunctional member of a wedding party that the world has ever known. The bad fairy uninvited to the christening who then puts a spell on the next half of a woman’s life.
Collectively… first the tabloids arrange to take photos of the father, then they slowly publish them, then they condemn him for those photos. Then they report that the photos caused a royal crisis and have upset the elderly top member (like they would know). Then they attack the father for the supposed crisis!
Then they say he’s not coming because of the crisis! Then they announce that, by not coming, he has blindsided the poor royals, caught them flatfooted! And the words “blindsided” “flatfooted” are fraudulently derived from a single obvious fact … “plans included a security detail for Thomas Markle, along with accommodations.”
And like a world-class, interfering, drama-perpetuating family member, they’ll keep phoning up the dysfunctional sisters and brother to fan the flames for the rest of time.
WaterGirl
@LAO: All I saw was something about drip drying after a shower. That can’t be what you are talking about, can it?
moops
@desertflower:
ha! great punchline
nope. was never going to happen, you losers. You voted for an evil lying grifter, and stuck us all with this monster.
WaterGirl
@Brachiator: Holy fucking fuck. I cannot believe someone thinks like that, let alone says it while running for office. As long as we’re euthanizing, how about including people with no heart and no soul?
TenguPhule
@WaterGirl:
John Cole bare as a babe, drying out in the open. Yes, that’s what it was.
moops
@TenguPhule: It is all complicated for seasonal workers. They only work a portion of the year. In that portion of the year they make a good wage usually. Over the course of a year though they are below the poverty line. Many also send money back to their home country, further impoverishing themselves.
We could raise their wages higher, but small business fishermen are already low margin. The old model of seasonal workers going home in the off-season works OK. Not perfect, but it hobbled along. It shouldn’t be up to the crabbers to pay their workers a year of wages for two months of work. That’s not fair to them. They would have to sell off their business to larger industries and consolidate….like has already happened in Big Agriculture.
Brachiator
@Aleta:
The British tabloids are absolute masters of this kind of thing. They make American media look like babies. And some of the TV stations are not far behind. One station supposedly has booked some of the Markle relatives to be “guest commentators” during the wedding, hoping that they will dish some dirt.
Also, there are some racist media people, with the blessing of some of the nastier bigot aristocrats and upper class people of importance, who are working every trick they know to sow dissension. On the other side, the Queen is clearly demonstrating that she just don’t give a fuck. She may love William and Harry more than she does Charles and she is not amused with the bullshit that some people are trying to pull, and she is shutting the most blatant shit down.
Ruckus
@terraformer:
The shit doesn’t just have to hit the fan, it then has to smother them. Which requires that they stand in front of the fan. They are just smart enough to not stand there. Would be nice for them to be just a bit smarter.
Brachiator
@moops:
Great point. And the fetish for border security has made it harder for seasonal workers to return home and come back when there is work. Added to this are problems with people who try to exploit workers when they return, economic problems in the home countries, etc.
James Powell
@Brachiator:
I’m talking from the perspective of the single voter who complains that neither party and no candidate meets his/her requirements for political consumer choice. The “too many demands” are the collective and varied demands of many voters who each insist on near 100% issue agreement.
lollipopguild
@moops: If only the Tsar knew about our problems! I am sure he would fix them for us!
Mnemosyne
@LAO:
I will bet you cash money paid to Planned Parenthood that this dude claims to be “pro-life” and wants abortion to be made illegal.
Cash. Money.
Aleta
@Brachiator: They pretend that the few mild, actually quaint, photos of the father could shock and ‘displease the queen,’ who’s been treated to much much worse via their efforts.
And the whole circus of pomp is riddled with enough insane gestures to begin with, swords, scepters, tiaras that might fall apart from age, jewels with names and personal histories of their own, the ceremonial entering and exiting of titles, regalia, big hats, corsages, trains and cherubs.
Aleta
This is quite a hoot (9 minutes, 1953 coronation).
Ruckus
@James Powell:
Evil is as evil does.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@moops: If only the Tsar knew….
eta lollipopguild got there first
Aleta
Procession of the Ceremony of the English Silly Hat
Jay
@The Other Chuck:
Drug and Alcohol testing, simply records if, in the past 30 days you used certain drugs or drank alcohol, in some cases, above a certain level, in some cases at all.
Drug and alcohol testing rarely can tell the difference between an addict, a drunk, or a recreational user.
Drug and alcohol testing is used by businesses most often to reduce insurance costs, and is often contracted out to the cheapest provider. Often, the “testing labs” are anything but accurate or scientific.
Few American workers are willing to forgo, ( or have the opportunity in the apply/ interview/ offer stage) drug and alcohol use for 38 days, in order to “beat” a hair sample test, or 21 days to beat a urine test.
BruceFromOhio
Because you are a mark, and you got conned, dumbass. And the prez ain’t there for his ‘supporters,’ you fucking idiot.
AliceBlue
@Aleta:
Personally I’m tired of Ms. Markle and all the melodrama surrounding her wedding and her family. I’ll be glad when it’s over.
Yutsano
@Brachiator:
May? If she could name William her successor she would have done it yesterday.
burnspbesq
@FlipYrWhig:
North Waltonistan? Kandaheartland?
DissidentFish
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The companies and government agencies that the lawns belong to won’t hire a contractor who doesn’t certify that their workforce is drug free. Very common state and municipal law in the south; probably not so common now in recreational marijuana states. But even there, driving a mower is driving. There’s probably a federal regulation about driving and requiring drug tests…
phein58
@BruceFromOhio: There is a central truth that these Trump voters aren’t in touch with:
Anyone who will steal for you, will steal from you.
I learned that running towboat crews on the Upper back in the 1970’s: Anyone who offers to steal equipment for you is probably already stealing from you.