Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

People are complicated. Love is not.

“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

I was promised a recession.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Thanks for reminding me that Van Jones needs to be slapped.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

I really should read my own blog.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

A consequence of cucumbers

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Monday Morning Open Thread: Bread & Roses

Monday Morning Open Thread: Bread & Roses

by | 116 Comments

This post is in: , , , , , , ,

I still hope I won’t have to give up my senior Senator. But as a childhood survivor of the ‘duck’n’cover’ era (the nuns at our primary school didn’t bother, since — as they pointed out — Manhattan was most assuredly one of the primary Soviet targets, so the only preparation we needed was to keep our souls in a perpetual state of grace), I think Warren’s already found some damned good talking points. Per NYMag:

In a bold and controversial move, Elizabeth Warren introduced legislation this week that would revoke Donald Trump’s existing authority to trigger a nuclear holocaust whenever he feels like it. The “No First Use Act,” which Warren co-authored with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith, would legally establish that it is the policy of the United States to never be the first power to use nuclear weapons in an armed conflict…

Advocates of “no first use” believe the adoption of such a measure could spur more concrete changes in atomic policy, like putting our nuclear arsenal into a lower state of readiness (and thus reducing the probability of an accidental world war).

But leading Republicans believe that maintaining “calculated ambiguity” about whether America is a rogue, terrorist state that just might wipe a city off the face of the Earth at any moment is cool and good. Nebraska senator Deb Fischer said of Warren’s bill Wednesday, “With Russia and China increasingly attempting to intimidate their neighbors — some of whom are U.S. allies — this is the wrong message to send. It betrays a naïve and disturbed world view.”

Thank God our current leaders have a worldview that is sophisticated and sane.

Yeah, about that…

Reader Interactions

116Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    would legally establish that it is the policy of the United States to never be the first power to use nuclear weapons in an armed conflict

    Wouldn’t that just leave Trump free to use nuclear weapons first in an unarmed conflict?

  9. 9.

    hervevillechaizelounge

    Since this is an open thread, can anyone tell me if the DNC has a sore loser clause? I’ve been digging around all night and I can’t figure it out—some (but not all) states have them, but I can’t find anything about how these laws apply on a national level.

    Much obliged for your help!

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A new age guru is running for president? That’s 2019 in a nutshell

    Marianne Williamson is the author of new-age books such as A Woman’s Worth and A Course in Weight Loss: 21 Spiritual Lessons for Surrendering Your Weight Forever. She is Oprah Winfrey’s spiritual guide. She has called herself a “bitch for God.” Oh, and she also wants to be president of the United States. Her campaign for the 2020 Democratic nomination is, she says, for people who “want to dig deeper into the questions we face as a nation.”

    Please, somebody, just shoot me.

  14. 14.

    hervevillechaizelounge

    @Baud:

    So theoretically anyone who lost the dem nom could launch a third party run but would only be allowed ballot access on states without a sore loser law?

    I feel like I’m studying for an exam in election minutia and I’m definitely going to show up at the wrong time, in the wrong class room, buck-ass naked:(

    Thanks so much for your input!

  15. 15.

    David Evans

    I can see a moral case for using the threat of nuclear first use to deter a major non-nuclear attack, for instance with biological weapons. Also a nuclear torpedo might be the only way to stop a submarine from launching an attack against a city. I’m sure the legislation could be amended to allow for such cases.

  21. 21.

    raven

    The best thing about the Super Bowl was that a friend who is a retired ER doctor said the MRI readings I had with my stroke were absolutely normal. He said it is very common for a preliminary reading to miss the type of stroke I had and that getting a complete report takes time. He also said it was good that I had the pons stroke because the symptoms could have been for MS.

  26. 26.

    opiejeanne

    I saw a tweet about people standing outside a building in New York, protesting something or other, and cheering when the lights were turned on. Later I found a news item about a prison in New York that was without heat during the terrible cold. I think it’s the same building but I haven’t been able to find out much about this atrocity. Something about not being able to get parts for several days?

  27. 27.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I know that road. We used to drive up 395 in the summer to spend a week fishing at June Lake. Sometimes we’d stop at the parking lot at the bottom of the trail just to look around. Mr opiejeanne climbed Whitney when he was a young man. 21 years old, I think. My son-in-law hiked the entire Muir Trail with his twin brother a couple of years ago, a thing we wanted to do in stages but never got around to and now I probably can’t handle it.

  28. 28.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @opiejeanne:

    Sometimes we’d stop at the parking lot at the bottom of the trail just to look around.

    Then you’ve seen the waterfall in my second pic.

    ETA: I took these pics almost 6 years ago with a entry point and shoot Samsung camera that only shot jpg. I’m testing out a program that converts jpg to raw(or tiff) and uses AI(doesn’t everything nowdays) to bring out detail.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @opiejeanne: Same story. Unsure of the reasons but “Something about not being able to get parts for several days?” sounds like a reasonable sounding excuse. Not that I’m buying it.

  33. 33.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Yes. We’ve also hiked in a number of other canyons off of 395 and seen the cabin lived in by John Muir’s daughter in one of those, but I can’t remember the name of the canyon. I want to call it Sawmill but I think that’s wrong. We hiked to Lake Agnew, a horrendous climb in the wrong shoes, a switchback trail paved with large granite shards. There’s a funicular for Edison employees to get up to the dam but I don’t think it’s ever open to visitors. The offices are set up to house a crew if they get caught there during a bad snowstorm. We’ve hiked in to Walker Lake and Parker Lake, and one is a nasty hike with not much of a reward at the end, and the other one is a medium difficulty that takes you through gorgeous meadows and across big streams and past a large beaver pond. I can never remember which one is the nice hike. You look back from the shoulder of a hill and you can see across Mono Lake and beyond. I wish I had photos from all of those trips, exploring “dog towns” and Obsidian Dome, and visiting Mammoth Hot Springs to the east of Mammoth, on the airport road.

  37. 37.

    opiejeanne

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: You go a few miles north of Bishop and it’s just overwhelming. The June Lake Loop is four lakes created by Edison, and when you enter at the south end you see a sign that tells you that you are approaching Oh! Ridge. What a silly sign. Then you come to the ridge and look over into the valley and across June Lake and everyone in the car says OH! I mean, it’s pretty before you get there, but then it’s just gorgeous and we fell in love with the area in 1975, the first time we went there. There’s just a bit more rainfall in the area and you’re up around 7500 feet, and I need an aspirin and a nap to get past the grinding headache at that altitude. Gull Lake is small and not very interesting, but Silver Lake is a different kind of pretty, with a forest of aspens fluttering up the mountainsides and all around the lake. The last one is Grant Lake, and it’s just a huge pool of water in a dry landscape.

  40. 40.

    TS (the original)

    Imagine if Obama’s Press Secretary had said any of this sh!t – what do these people have to gain that would lie so much for him?

  43. 43.

    opiejeanne

    @raven: We have driven through Illinois a couple of times and we were underwhelmed by the way white people treated AAs and the way they behaved in general. It was instructive, visiting mr opiejeanns’s family in Robinson. We stayed with his mom’s aunt and met a bunch of the cousins. They couldn’t quite place his mother because she was raised by her aunt and uncle, and was treated as a bit of an outsider despite being related to all of these people. Her own mother died when she was 4, her dad couldn’t be bothered, so her teenaged uncle and his mother took her in. People kept asking us how soon we were moving there and if we planned to join the country club. I thought they were the rudest people I’d run across in my 28 years. (Now I know there are worse). All except Josephine, a great aunt who was wonderfully nice.

  45. 45.

    Immanentize

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: No one has to go to the House of White. But some will….

    Lucky for me, no classes Tuesday when the victory parade will bring the drunks to the streets so I can work from home!

  50. 50.

    Betty Cracker

    @Immanentize: The 9/11 first responders article currently up at the site is definitely fluffy, but I haven’t noticed any other similarly fluffy pieces there. Have you?

  56. 56.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Opiejeanne’s question about the NYC protests. The BBC was all over it last night. The real problem is that the jail authorities have had no sense of urgency in making the repairs to bring the prisoners — many who have not even been charged yet — heat (esp. when it was so cold last week), light, and water.

  58. 58.

    opiejeanne

    @debbie: Yes! The reason I couldn’t find anything for a while was that the reporting was mostly local when I started looking. Now several of the large media outlets have articles up. I linked to the one in the Guardian (I think).

  60. 60.

    debbie

    @opiejeanne:

    I’ve heard a number of references to the protests, but the BBC was the first to mention many of the prisoners hadn’t even been charged yet.

  61. 61.

    opiejeanne

    People are starting to do their taxes and are discovering to their horror that they owe considerably more than they did last year.
    We noticed in February there was an extra $300 in our paycheck, and we hadn’t gotten a raise. We figured out that the deduction amounts had been fiddled with so that less was taken out.
    Sleight of hand. A fake tax break for the suckers.
    We called our CPA to verify and had him change the withholding to the same amount of money as before. We told our kids and anyone else who would listen that they had not gotten a tax break, that they would owe a bunch of money this year if they didn’t make the necessary adjustments.
    In the spring I heard two guys in a parking lot outside Home Depot talking about how much better they were doing in 2018. I figured they were MAGAs and is it very wrong of me that I didn’t give them a heads up?

  65. 65.

    Kay

    @opiejeanne:

    The thing that worries me is the shortfall between tax revenues and spending. They’ve ballooned the deficit and that’s during a GOOD economy, and that projected shortfall will increase every year. The effect of these Trump tax cuts hasn’t even started to be real yet- it took several years for the tax cuts in Ohio and Kansas to be realized in shortfalls. Kasich lied. He didn’t “balance” anything. The miracle where lower rates are made up by increased revenue in every bracket never happened. Within a state that can be made up- cities and townships raised taxes to repair (some of) the damage but that’s not true for national programs. They are creating an emergency, and the damage will continue to accrue long past Trump and it will accrue every single day unless and until the next President raises taxes.

    All the discussion of increasing taxes on very high income and assets is being conducted as if we don’t need it- we do need it. We need it just to meet current projected expenses.

    Trump is making a mess but he’s also created the conditions to ensure it gets worse – there will be an economic downturn- that’s guaranteed. When that occurs the full scope of the disaster of the Trump tax cuts will come clear.

  66. 66.

    NotMaxn

    @opiejeanne

    is it very wrong of me that I didn’t give them a heads up?

    On the one hand, no, it wasn’t.

    On the other hand, no, it wasn’t.

    ;)

  68. 68.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Kay: A lot of folk gave Jerry Brown a hard time for keeping a rainy day fund and not expanding programs with all the surplus funds, now when he left a surplus after his first 2 terms as Governor, they next guy(a Republican) made a big deal of giving folk tax rebates and when the economy hit the skids, no money.

  70. 70.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Gov. Bevin’s lawyers say Kim Davis failed to do her job as clerk, must pay the bill

    Citing “conduct that violates civil rights,” lawyers for Gov. Matt Bevin say former Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis should be held responsible for nearly $225,000 in legal fees and court costs incurred by couples who sued her in 2015 when she refused to issue marriage licenses because of her religious opposition to same-sex marriage.

    Although Bevin, a Republican, publicly has praised Davis as “an inspiration … to the children of America,” his attorneys are taking a more critical tone in court briefs, blaming the ex-clerk for failing to do her job following the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2015 decision legalizing gay marriage.
    …………………………………
    Bevin appealed that ruling, hoping to hand the bill instead to the Rowan County clerk’s office. Davis acted alone, without any state support, the governor’s lawyers told the 6th Circuit in briefs ahead of the oral arguments.

    “Her local policy stood in direct conflict with her statutory obligation to issue marriage licenses to qualified Kentucky couples. The local policy also undermined the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s interest in upholding the rule of law,” Bevin attorney Palmer G. Vance II wrote in one brief.

    Heh. Proof that God is a standup comedian.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @opiejeanne:

    John Kasich is down the road- I think he lives in New Hampshire now- and, lo and behold, come to discover that Ohio doesn’t have funds for road construction or repair. This is after FIVE YEARS of a hot economy where they should be swimming in tax revenue. If you don’t build and repair and invest during a 5% unemployment economy then when, pray tell, do you build and repair and invest?

    Never. The damage continues LONG after they out of office. It doesn’t even really KICK IN until they’re gone.

  73. 73.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Anna Merlan first reported for Jezebel that briefing documents the FBI gave to local law enforcement agencies in 2017 warned officials about a potential domestic terrorism threat purportedly posed by “pro-abortion extremists.” The documents, acquired by the nonprofit government transparency group Property of the People, issued this warning while also conceding that “pro-abortion” extremists don’t exist in a violent capacity, save for one person who acted independently of any advocacy group.

    “Both pro-life and pro-choice abortion extremists engage in criminal activity and seek to further their ideology, wholly or in part through force or violence,” the training material dated January 4, 2017, states. However, the document does clarify: “Pro-choice extremism is not considered a movement to the extent of pro-life extremism. Only one pro-choice extremist has been prosecuted, and that person acted independently and without any direct affiliation to a pro-choice group.”

  74. 74.

    Kay

    @opiejeanne:

    If I were a centrist Democrat I would run an actual debt and deficit campaign. Not this bullshit they pull out only when there’s a Democratic President and use to lobby to cut or privatize Social Security. A real one.

    Democrats have to cover the whole field of substantive issues because the Republican Party consists of one person- Donald Trump. Tell people the Trump tax cuts will ENSURE a crisis down the road. We have 41 candidates or something. One of them can focus on that. Run on one thing re: taxes. “I will reverse the Trump tax cuts because they are a rolling disaster”

  75. 75.

    Kay

    If Schultz were really a “centrist” he would have taken that lane. Warren on the Left w/tax increases on rich people leaves a middle lane, where a person could just focus exclusively on Donald Trump’s reckless economic policy. Reverse the tax cuts. At least get us back to where we were when bankrupt asshole fake businessman took office. At least cover current projected expenses. That’s the “centrist” lane on taxes. It has the added benefit of forcing every Republican to admit that they’re running up huge debt and deficits.

    It would be a good debate and it won’t come from the Right because there is no Right, other than Donald Trump.

  77. 77.

    Citizen_X

    With Russia and China increasingly attempting to intimidate their neighbors — some of whom are U.S. allies

    Oh, Russia is a problem now? And we have allies? If only a Republican Senator could do something about this. Maybe you should talk to your President about it.

  78. 78.

    germy

    @Kay:

    The damage continues LONG after they out of office. It doesn’t even really KICK IN until they’re gone.

    And then their hatetalk radio, tv & internet blame Democratic politicians and liberals in general.

  79. 79.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @raven: Good. I guess. Though any “good news” that includes it’s a good thing you had a stroke seems a little Pollyanna-ish.

    I have already wrestled with my domain name provider this morning and also with my video card threatening to fail. Now I have coffee. The day will get better.

  80. 80.

    opiejeanne

    @Kay: I think the personal disasters of those income taxes I described above will do more to damage the Republicans, and especially Trump. All but the very dumbest of the worshipful cohort will know who is to blame and they will be very angry. He’s hitting people where it will hurt and I’m seeing the howls on various social media as people start doing their own taxes. It will get louder as more people discover the sleight of hand/fake tax break.

  81. 81.

    germy

    I still remember my tiny W Bush-era tax rebate check. It had “texas bank” in big letters on it.

  82. 82.

    raven

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I don’t think that’s the case at all. This dude is a no-nonsense ER MD and doesn’t do Pollyanna. Something happened to me and there certainly is a range of possibilities and this is a hell of a lot better than MS.

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker:
    There was some positive thing back when Gillibrand announced, but no other candidate has yet been given front page fluff from TPM. Also, the deed was 8 years ago and the article basically backhand’s Hilary’s leadership on that issue before she went to State. We shall see….

  85. 85.

    opiejeanne

    It’s nearly 5:30am. I haven’t been asleep. I need to give up all caffeine, I guess. I had a small glass of Coke at 2pm and it’s still affecting me, although I did not whiz around the room on a caffeine/sugar high at the time. I’m just not sleepy.

    We got about 5 inches of snow yesterday and last night. It looks pretty in the dark, with the birches and pines lacy with snow. .

  92. 92.

    opiejeanne

    @raven: Good for you.
    We always get about $1500 back but we had to adjust our deductions a bit to stay there just for the cap on the deduction for property taxes. We are a little bit over the maximum. People in Orange County knew who to blame last November. That’s why it suddenly turned blue, as well as no longer being able to deduct state income taxes.

  95. 95.

    Immanentize

    @Betty Cracker:
    I’m not saying they are in the tank for Gillibrand. Maybe more like favorably disposed? The NYT has made me hypersensitive to the style of fluff.

  97. 97.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @NotMax: A video card failed a few weeks ago. Mr DAW took it out and there were things burned out in there. He had this one lying around in an unopened package but god knows how old it is really. He used to build computers as a hobby. He ordered a new one, but probably he won it on e-bay and the seller is slow to ship. Mr DAW will fix it (good) but he orders the damn part on e-bay (bad).

    @Immanentize: This is very true, and is good to think about.

  99. 99.

    Immanentize

    @raven: @opiejeanne:
    The inability to exclude state taxes is going to hit hard up here. Also the property tax limits may kick in on me. I won’t know for a couple of months, but this year is going to be hugely different anyway as a one income household. I am actually eager to find out what it all will look like going forward.

  104. 104.

    kindness

    I would take some comfort were Sarah Huckabee turned into a statue of salt. It would be appropriate.

  105. 105.

    opiejeanne

    @raven: We have a tiny cabin in SoCal, near Lake Arrowhead. The property taxes there are out of proportion with the value of the place because of the school district. Not enough people live on the mountain to cover the number of kids with what would be normal taxes in the flatlands. That is what has put us over the cap a little.
    We’re listing it for sale in April because we’ve owned it for 10 years and after watching the fires that took out chunks of cities we’re familiar with, like Santa Rosa last year and Redding, we realized that there is no way that this cabin will be spared in the next fire on the mountain. We were always told that it’s so close to town, to Blue Jay, that. the firefighters would always protect it, but we see that they will not be able to do so next time. They’ve always stopped the fire at least half a mile from our place, the closest it ever came was in 2003.
    I’m too old to sift through the ashes and fight with our crappy insurance company. There’s only one insurer on the mountain now, thanks to the arsonist in 2003.

  106. 106.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @OzarkHillbilly: Will this involved a hammer?

    @NotMax: Yes. He has a program installed that does that I think. I am instructed to check the task manager every time the things freezes, but ya know, it’s frozen!

    There’s a new thread up. I miss the most recent comment list because that was how I knew where people were.

  108. 108.

    Kay

    The tax debate on the D side is interesting. I was an Overton Window skeptic but I was wrong. Floating the 70% tax on income over 10 million make reversing the Trump tax cuts the reasonable center-Right position

    Democrats could own the whole rational tax debate, Left to Center, like they currently own health care Left to center.

    I think you have to give Lefties credit for that expansion of the debate. It seems clear to me they did it. And, because of the sorry state of the GOP, the whole middle is now open to Democrats. If you look at it like a line, L to R, Democratic candidates could occupy all but the Right quadrant. 75%.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Well R’s did move hard Right. The problem is they didn’t cover the center. Democrats should just take the opening and conduct the whole Left to center debate on their own terms and within their Party.

    Our base hates Trump. A candidate who specifically went after the Trump tax law would be both useful and popular. Just forget about what political media say. They’re not who we’re trying to reach.

    Make the furthest Right position on the D side “repeal the Trump tax cuts” – the taxes on income over 10 million makes that possible as the center. I actually want that repealed. I think it’s reckless and unrealistic and also unfair.

    Centrist Democrats should be thrilled there’s a Left. That makes them the default center, not just of Democrats, but of the whole field.

  111. 111.

    PST

    @Betty Cracker: The TPM story on Gillibrand is favorable, all right, but I don’t read it as fluff, especially given the site’s good reputation. I thought it was informative on the issue of how Gillibrand, among other junior senators, made a reputation early and got herself into the public eye. She did it by single-mindedly devoting herself to this issue. I didn’t read it as a slam on Clinton, who had many other irons in the fire. We deserve to learn favorable things about a candidate as well as unfavorable, and here we learned that Gillibrand can be pretty effective with her legislative peers. That is a power that can be used as easily for bad purposes as good, so it does little to answer the question of what Gillibrand stands for.

  112. 112.

    tokyokie

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    And pundits will still talk about Rs moving to the extreme right and Ds moving to the extreme left. I wind up yelling at the TV.

    Every time I hear some wank refer to progressive Democrats as the “far left,” I ask, rhetorically, what prominent Democrat is calling for workers owning the means of production.

  113. 113.

    Betty Cracker

    @PST: Fair enough. The title and placement of the story (top feature at the time Imm and I were discussing it) was the fluffiest thing about it. I like Gillibrand fine, but her campaign launch strikes me as somewhat tepid. It’s early days, though, so perhaps that’s unfair. We’ll see how it goes.

  114. 114.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I came here for school in 1972 and it’s shocking to see all the information about 1966.

    The article makes me wonder about the late night place we would goto eat after a late night out, named Sambo’s.

  115. 115.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: Every 12-year-old girl I have ever seen is giddy. I guess only 12-year-old white girls are allowed to be giddy. This makes me want to bang my head against the wall.

  116. 116.

    J R in WV

    I guess some people, once they have power [ like a school principal who is essentially like the captain of a ship, sometimes including the ball bearings and strawberries! ] can not withstand the temptation to use that power when ever they have a chance.

    In this case, a school dictator principal decided that happy, excited, giddy little girls in school must be on drugs, and of course they probably hid the remaining drugs under their clothes!!

    It says something that most or all of the girls in his school aren’t happy most of the time, learning interesting new things, having new experiences every day. Hahahah! I fool myself again!!

    Here’s hoping that these school officials lose their jobs AND their teaching certificates, and that the other school officials in the district actually learn something from the experiences of these monsters! As in try to help all the kids be giddy and happy and excited most all day, every day in their schools. And don’t strip search kids unless they’re positive a crime has been committed, with evidence of the crime having occurred in hand BEFORE any searching begins!

    With parents present as well ~!!!~

Comments are closed.