I was looking at the local TV station website to check on the weather and saw this, which I think perfectly encapsulates the whole Andrew Cuomo phenomenon. In the eyes of New York voters, he has the opposite of political Teflon: everything bad sticks to him, and everything good would have happened anyway–plus, fuck that guy. I would almost feel sorry for him if he weren’t Andrew Cuomo.
Open thread.
Anya
As a New Yorker, fuck that guy.
Roger Moore
@Anya:
As a human being who has paid vague attention to his political career, fuck that guy.
Betty Cracker
Thank you for your service, New Yorkers!
rikyrah
So true.
What a weasel.
HinTN
@Betty Cracker: ?
germy
Not for nothing they call him the Prince of Darkness.
Steeplejack
Just got in a little while ago from the grand expedition to take the housecat to the vet. Blood drawn—test results back late today—vitals checked (normal), claws trimmed. Weight up to 5 lb 15 oz from 5 lb 12 oz in January, but the vet cracked wise that she’s probably carrying 2-3 ounces of gnarly fur mats. Those will be shaved while she’s under anesthesia Thursday to get her teeth operated on (assuming her blood test results are okay).
All in all, not bad for a skinny old girl of 19. She is settling down now for a snooze at her (heated) workstation after breaking her fast with a hearty portion of tuna.
As for myself, I am exhausted. Everything takes too long and is inexplicably tiring. Had another lengthy shower with the Tokyokie Sleeve to start the day. I was able to get the housecat into the carrier one-handed (a miracle), and after that it was smooth sailing. I did bang my bad arm against a door jamb and let out a full Ned Flanders scream.
On the way home I stopped at Target and then CVS and got enough bandages, gauze and tape to start my own MASH unit. Don’t know exactly what my “sites” are going to look like, so I got various sizes. Pro tip: CVS much better than Target in this product category.
That’s it. I just had lunch and am considering a siesta. Maybe bandage play later.
rikyrah
@Steeplejack:
Whew.
Just tired reading that. Get some rest :)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: Got a good pic of your place, Steep.
trollhattan
Even as a Californian I can confidently say to New York–y’all are weird. I don’t understand Albany At All and the same goes for NYC.
trollhattan
@Steeplejack:
Guessing I missed something. Tattoo session gone bad? ;-)
Sorry to hear of your travails. Rest and bad teevee are my suggestions.
Nancy flanagan
And the Rent to too high.
germy
@trollhattan: Of course California is not weird at all.
(I think this whole country is weird)
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Needs more cute nurses.
TomatoQueen
@Steeplejack: 5 pounds and gaining for a 19 year old girl must be encouraging, esp as she’s behaved through it all well. She’s wearing you out tho’, take it easy.
rikyrah
Any FrontPager gonna do a post on China basically declaring war on the American Farmer?
Not that I feel sorry for them, but, I guess I sorta do.
They backed the wrong horse. And, he’s going to cost them what their families had built up for generations.
germy
@rikyrah: And their media will blame the Democrats.
catclub
also, are all those old(?) folks just lying?
Shorter: where there are no birth records, old codgers claim to be extra old.
Steeplejack
@trollhattan:
Skin cancer surgery.
The “Tokyokie sleeve” was a genius suggestion from valued commenter tokyokie that allows me to take a shower (and shave) without getting my arm dressing wet. Got it delivered Sunday and had my first shower since last Wednesday. Ecstasy!
catclub
@rikyrah:
If they do, I wonder how the unrest in Hong Kong complicates that matter.
I would like to see headlines that Trump is picking winners by socialist (government) support of farmers.
Ascap_scab
John Huntsman resigns as Russia Ambassador.
Taking another stab at Utah Gov.
Sorry, but that Trump stink don’t wash off.
Paul W.
This is the only part that matters. We are a super blue state that couldn’t manage to pass legalization of weed in 2019, because… reasons. To give him credit for the improvements I would have to see him not hedge every statement or be head deep up Amazon’s ass for the HQ that made no sense and gave nothing back to the state or the city.
germy
@Paul W.: What was the deal with the ethics investigation? Something was in there that he didn’t want coming out.
germy
‘New York Times’ Amends Recent ‘Hero Trump Disarms Would-Be Shooter’ Headline
(Onion headline)
Fair Economist
@catclub: Adding on to the association of bad records and extreme longevity, Jeanne Calment is suspected of being a fraud of her daughter assuming her identity, based on her childhood recollections matching the daughter and not Jeanne, her choice to live with the daughter’s husband until he died, and a host of similar life choices. Her life insurance company investigated and concluded it was fraud but decided not to sue for publicity reasons.
Mai Naem mobile
Guess I should not hold my breath waiting for this WH to make a statement on Toni Morrison’s passing.
catclub
@germy:
1. Other people are fundamentally mysterious.
2. Other people do not think of themselves as evil or crazy.
No matter what they do, if you ask them, they will probably say “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
catclub
@Mai Naem mobile: Or, vis a vis the flags at half staff discussion, lowering of any flags.
MomSense
@Steeplejack:
Siesta sounds like the right thing to do. Hang in there.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: They were up with me on the helo pad.
cmorenc
An obvious possible speculation, but is CNN’s Chris Cuomo any close relation to Gov Andrew Cuomo? Pardon me if this info is in the well, duh category to some of y’all, but OTOH if it was in fact so, you’d think Chris Cuomo would need to more often mention this fact on-air in any story touching on NY political events, and I don’t recall any such mentions.
Barbara
@cmorenc: Well, it’s no secret that they are brothers but no one is willing to say it out loud on CNN.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cmorenc:
His brother, I believe.
chris
@Steeplejack: That’s quite the apparatus! When they took the divot out of my arm arm I just cut a bread bag to fit and taped it up.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: Not me. The only thing I’ve got to say about it is “you reap what you sow,” a sentiment that our God-fearing Great Patriot Farmers who voted for Trump should be familiar with. I begrudge every fucking dime they’re getting in Trump welfare bucks too and reserve 100% of my sympathy for farmers who didn’t help put an incompetent, buffoonish demagogue in power.
debit
@Steeplejack: You got a cat in carrier one handed? You are a rockstar.
Hoping for good news about the bloodwork and also that you’re feeling better soon.
jonas
Andrew Cuomo is what happens when the GOP in a state is essentially reduced to a small handful of amateurs and cranks and has no bench of serious pols who can take on an incumbent. FFS, they ran Carl Paladino against him a few years ago, a man so bugnuts crazy that when news broke that he had a habit of emailing bestiality porn clips to people in his office, it wasn’t even the worst thing about him. On the other hand, Cynthia Nixon gave him a brief scare from the left, but she basically ran on improving the NYC metro system and, afaik, didn’t even seriously campaign upstate.
debit
@Betty Cracker: Same. Maybe the farmers that voted for Trump should learn how to grow bullets.
Aleta
@Steeplejack: Cat of 19—that’s amazing. Weight gain seems to me reassuring at that age. My sympathy for your unexpected difficulty. It’s no small thing to lose even temporary use of a shoulder, or deal w awkward bandages over a spot that needs to heal well. #beslow
Aleta
@Steeplejack:
“Tokyokie sleeve” ha nice
Baud
Subtweet, anyone?
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Same. Not limited to farmers either.
TenguPhule
Somebody find me the world’s smallest violin.
tokyokie
@Steeplejack: I’m in awe of your being able to maneuver a cat into a carrier with one arm. That sleeve may be waterproof, but it’s not cat-proof. I don’t know whether I wrangle the corpulent Siamese sleeping on my desk into a carrier with two arms and the spousal unit handling the carrier, as the fat bastard weighs about 17 pounds.
Steeplejack (phone)
Thanks to all for the good wishes. Siesta time now. ??
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: I feel like trade wars for farmers are like Brexit for regional workers in England. They voted for promises that were vague enough to be given discrete shape in the minds of those voting for them that largely discounted the possibility of harm. In addition, most of the 2016 campaigning around trade really focused on old line industries, like steel, rather than farm policy. That farmers are in the middle of this because — doh! — they rely on exports almost more than any other sector, is a bit of a surprise for them. Yeah, they did vote for Trump, but I think tariffs are bad for all of us so I guess I would rather not sink their ship just to have a warm feeling of schadenfreude. Plus, I do know farmers who didn’t vote for him.
zhena gogolia
@TenguPhule:
Oh, the man who tweeted a humorous picture of tombstones with the names of his political opponent and the man who should be on the Supreme Court right now? That man?
StringOnAStick
I had a “damn, there may be more to this idea that some Hispanics are totally cool with Drumph” discussion at work yesterday with a patient. He’s a mild mannered late-50’s guy in a long term cog-in-the-wheel job, Hispanic and dark skinned, from NM originally and has an accent from growing up in a dominantly Hispanic area. He told me that the name for AOC is AOChe (as in Che’) in his opinion. It made me sad; this guy has a job that will be gone once he retires soon (has 40 years in so he started at age 16) and it required no education, just their training so it’s a job that automation will do away with soon. It would probably already be gone if he didn’t belong to a union and wasn’t already past that magic “fire me after age 50 and I’ll sue for age discrimination” point with an enormous corporation. I guarantee he voted for the Mango Menace and still thinks he’s a good president, but he figured out when I didn’t immediately agree with him about AOC and do the secret Fox-bot eye wink that I wasn’t a member of his club. You know, the club that doesn’t want a dark skinned ethnic guy like him in it except for when needed at photo ops.
My boss asked me yesterday if that OK hand sign was a white supremacist sign; I told him it was. He was playing hockey and two of the younger guys were talking, as one left the other one took off his hockey glove so they could exchange that signal. He said he suspected they were white supremacist meatheads but that signal really did it for him. He then said he’s thinking it’s time to give up playing hockey but not because he’s getting older and has a bad ankle, but because of the kinds of people who are playing now. Then again the old guard pitched in to help buy a wheelchair van when my boss’s 18 year old son became a quadraplegic 3 years ago; when they were all high fiving over Drumph winning my boss pointed out that the voted for someone who will take away his son’s health care. Their response was that they didn’t want “those lazy people” to get free health care (“those people” please note) but that his son was “one of the good ones” so he’d be OK (“good ones” = white).
When I met my boss 10 years ago he was a classic moderate D; events are pushing him further along the leftward side, even though he’s a small businessman. His son suddenly becoming a guy who will need expensive health care for the remainder of his life was a shock no parent ever needs to face, but having your hockey buddies celebrate the rightward turn in the US that will make his son’s life even harder has been a wake up call.
TenguPhule
Trump campaign sues California over law requiring candidates release tax forms
The only career this regime has been good for is the legal one.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack (phone):
Will and Geordie have been at odds about some cases — I’m enjoying it. But I hope Leonard gets his s–t together soon.
TenguPhule
@zhena gogolia: Why yes, I do believe that is so.
Steeplejack (phone)
@tokyokie:
To be honest, I took her by surprise. Positioned the carrier out of sight, then picked her up and had her halfway into it before she realized what was going on.
The sleeve stays in the bathroom. Only for showers and shaving!
cmorenc
Saw a large banner hanging off a private boat dock along the Inland Waterway on the SE North Carolina coast that said:
I was out stand-up paddleboarding on the Inland Waterway when I passed about 50 feet off said boat-dock with the banner, and the homeowner-dude who was probably the one responsible for hanging the banner was standing out at the end of the boat-dock facing me. I was sorely tempted to yell “Trump’s the one spouting bullshit each and every day”, but didn’t – and not because I was afraid he might come after me – his boat was drydocked up by his house with no way to quickly launch it. Instead, I realized all that would accomplish is for both of us to think the other was a flaming asshole, instead of just me thinking that of him. Had there been any possibility of causing him to experience a “teaching moment” whereby his attitudes might change, it would have been worth it, but there’s zero possibility of productive engagement with anyone who’s that deeply intoxicated with the Trump MAGA kool-aid, and he’s likely a racist asshold to boot.
TenguPhule
Texas police apologise after officers on horseback led black man by rope
Is there something in the water in Texas that destroys common sense?
They were apparently doing this as a standard procedure. In 2019.
MisterForkbeard
@Aleta: I’ve got a 16 year old cat, and weight gain is her primary problem. She has an ongoing thyroid issue that’s kept easily under control, but getting her to be less skinny is basically a constant battle.
Barbara
@cmorenc: We see comparable signs when we drive to my husband’s southern county of origin. Many of these people have lived in the state for generations and it still rankles that it has become reliably blue in statewide elections.
dexwood
@StringOnAStick:
I’m not surprised. I’m an old, white New Mexican who knows quite a few Hispanics and Native Americans who support president Asshole. It’s fucking discouraging.
catclub
@tokyokie:
Our 17lb fat bastard is easy peasy – a total baby. The 9 pound pure muscle one, is tough. I have the scabs to prove it.
TenguPhule
They are shameless.
StringOnAStick
@cmorenc: Also, that guy is probably armed and I know I can’t SUP away fast enough to be out of range in time for him to go find his piece and I bet you’re just as fast as I am. You’re correct, there is no point engaging those that are that deep in the tank for this flaming pustule. Save your energy for the one’s that are not so far gone.
Betty Cracker
@Barbara: I support a return to sane policies that reduce harm on every front, including trade, even if it benefits people for whom I have nothing but contempt. That’s why I’m a Democrat.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
Been Reading..most of that welfare is going to Big AG, and not the family farmer. I have so many feelings about this. Because, they are gonna wind up either defaulting to the bank, or selling to Big AG for pennies on the dollar.
All because of their racism.
No, I don’t think it’s any more complicated than that.
Gotta hand it to the Chinese – their precision in deciding what to fight back with regards to tariffs was pretty precise. They went after Dolt45 voters.
MisterForkbeard
@TenguPhule: I’m interested to see how this goes. This might actually be a good argument, though I sort of doubt it.
On one hand, the Constitution doesn’t say these are the ‘sole’ requirements, it just lists requirements. The new requirement also doesn’t conflict or change the Constitutional requirements – it’s not like California is requiring that you be 40 years old.
I do think we’d run the risk of Republicans doing something like “In order to run for President in Texas you have to be a Republican” requirement, or something similar. Like, you have to be able to produce proof that you’ve supported ‘2nd amendment’ freedoms or something similar that’s designed purely to thwart Democrats.
JPL
@StringOnAStick: It’s not unusual for some folks to think that they are immune from trump’s wrath, because they are here legally. The most shocking discovery for me was that during the rise of Hitler in Berlin, some Jewish individuals were not concerned about the attacks on other Jewish people because they were only the Eastern Europeans. First they came for yadda, yadda. yadda is a real thing.
Steeplejack (phone)
@zhena gogolia:
We’ll have to discuss later. I have strong opinions!
Maybe that ? was a wake-up call for Leonard.
catclub
@TenguPhule:
you can run all you like, but if you want to get on the ballot, you need petition signers – which are a state requirement. So I think CA will have a good case. Unless we want to overturn all ballot access requirements.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: The season improved with the exit of Sydney and your right about Leonard.
FlipYrWhig
@TenguPhule: :O Jesus Christ.
TenguPhule
@catclub:
Candidate dilution of votes favors Republicans. Naturally the GOP judges will sign off on it.
debit
@catclub: I have missed vet appointments for Julian, who is 16 pounds of pure muscle. I get one shot to get him in the carrier. If I hesitate or miscalculate, it’s over.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Seconded. Fuckem.
TenguPhule
@FlipYrWhig: Every time I think nothing will further surprise me in this godawful timeline, Texas, Florida or Alabama hold their beer.
catclub
@debit: I feel ya. Been there.
Duane
@Ascap_scab: Is that the same John Huntsman that turned down an Obama administration appointment. Judgement good that one.
geg6
@tokyokie:
I do not understand all these difficulties getting cats into cat carriers. Our Cleo seems to really like her carrier and the car rides that go with it. In fact, we were going to get a hard sided carrier now that she’s not so much a kitten any more and I’ve heard all these horror stories from so many Jackals about securing BJ cats in carriers. But we didn’t see the point of spending the money on it when we don’t seem to need it. She gets in, lays down and purrs.
Jay
StringOnAStick
To all who are interested, bonddad has a post up at GOS today about the warning signals in the economic indicators; the title is “It’s Time to Start Worrying about the Economy”. Link here. Tl:dr : read the title a few times, that’s a good summary.
chris
Paul Krugman on the Chinese tariffs and the Insane Person. The Chinese will not be too bothered.
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: Yep. I just have a hard time wishing harm on people who aren’t in power. Unlike people who are in power, for whom I have revenge fantasies on a daily if not hourly basis.
MomSense
@StringOnAStick:
I never fully recovered from the last one.
debit
@geg6: I’ve had cats who would go in on their own, or could be plopped in a carrier with little to no problems. But most of them, once they realized the carrier means a car ride, were difficult. And Julian especially, since I trapped him as a feral kitten, really hates the carrier.
trollhattan
@Steeplejack:
Ouch. Best of luck with your treatment and heal double-time fast. As to the shower thing, having had both legs in a cast at some point and carpal tunnel surgery on both wrists, I completely understand the sheer joy of the simple shower.
JPL
@Duane: He was Ambassador to China under President Obama.
Jay
geg6
@debit:
That’s why I thought Cleo would be awful at it, her being a feral and all when we found her. But she really loves it and car rides. We actually keep the carrier in her room (yes, she has her own room) because she likes it so much.
Barbara
@JPL: Which probably made him persona non grata in any national election as a Republican. Apparently Huntsman speaks Chinese with some fluency (I discount anyone not native as being actually fluent, according to the opinion of a good friend of mine who is Chinese).
Amir Khalid
@Mai Naem mobile:
Be glad that Trump, being oblivious to American culture, will not be sullying the passing of a literary giant with ignorant and bigoted comments.
Brachiator
@StringOnAStick:
Your boss sounds like an interesting guy. It sounds as if his views come from a sense of decency, not expediency or political or ethnic tribalism.
lamh36
OH HELL NAW!
The Dem party needs to get rid of this bitch!
Jay
Kay
So consistently disappointing and cowardly. I really thought for a moment he might gather his courage and rally, but no. Same old bullshit.
I just found out Donald Trump mentioned “involuntary commitment” in his half- ass speech. It is terrifying to think about Donald Trump and his low quality, ignorant hires “handling” mental health. Dear God, no. Just go back to the golf course. Do nothing. Please. It’ll be garbage.
debit
@geg6: Cleo is a lucky, lucky girl.
zhena gogolia
@JPL:
Yeah, I miss Norton but Sidney’s storyline was pretty played out. I’m always glad to see Nathaniel Parker, so that was a plus!
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
You mean something like, “I heard about Tony and send my sympathies to his family. More and more people are talking about him.”
zhena gogolia
@lamh36:
She scares the s–t out of me. I had a low-information friend gushing about how great it was that she attacked Harris at the debate. I’ve sent him a few links to educate him.
Jay
@lamh36:
JPL
@Barbara: Putin wasn’t overly fond of him, so trump might have been nudging him out.
StringOnAStick
[email protected]MomSense: Most other average people didn’t either. Current data shows that the current (and slowing) economic expansion is now being bouyed mostly by consumer spending, and that is happening because people are going deeper into debt. The bonddad piece shows that all the other sectors (like manufacturing) have been slowing for at least 6 months. An economy can totter along on just the consumer dollar until the consumers get a bit nervous and slow down their buying, then the other sectors better be recovering or else the last ball in the air is about to fall.
I live in the Denver area and entry level housing here is impossible to buy; there’s a good amount of the more expensive stuff, but that starter home is climbing further and further out of reach. Part of it is that builders prefer building the more profitable expensive stuff, but the main issue is that the moderately priced housing is what was slammed by foreclosures in 2008-9, and those properties got bought up by corporations for rental properties so they aren’t on the market to buy and thus the supply is constrained. This is one of the hottest economies in the country, and I’m starting to see cracks, like a piece of prime commercial property that is going into foreclosure auction; that wasn’t happening here even a year ago.
Brachiator
@StringOnAStick:
Okay. Let’s say we look at this the way we would look at a hurricane or tornado warning. The question becomes when and where, exactly, will it hit and what do we do about it?
Shana
@geg6: You’re lucky, as I assume you realize. Our cat hates the carrier and hates car rides. I suspect she gets car sick although she’s never thrown up and the vet is about a 5 minute drive from the house. I don’t have much trouble getting her in the carrier though. Back it up to a wall so it can’t scoot away, open the door. Pick up the cat with hands under her paws. Just before I come around the corner so she can see the carrier I grab both sets of paws in my hands and just shove her inside. She’s not happy but it works.
Jay
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
This is one of the ceremonial roles of a head of state. It’s a damn shame that Trump isn’t up to the task.
StringOnAStick
@Brachiator: Good assessment; my boss is a completely decent guy, and his being a D is quite rare in dentists, a uniformly conservative profession. Every year for our Christmas lunch we invite the old fart hardcore R dentist he worked for and then bought the practice from, and I feel bad that my boss gets buttonholed by this guy, who rants like the Fox-bot he is. He often shows me the insane rage uncle emails full of RW lies this guy sends him; it’s all he can do to not tell the guy to go piss up a rope but hey, he’s a decent guy. Every year I find myself hoping this old guy and his wife don’t show up at our lunch so we can all celebrate like we’d rather and talk freely like we do at lunchtime. Of all the dentists I have worked for, he is the ONLY one who eats lunch with his staff and treats us like partners in the practice rather than like easily replaced widgets.
My boss knows I waste too much time reading politics so if he has a question about what is going on, he asks me for my take. Yesterday he asked me what I wanted to see with health care and insurance reform, I said “the Swiss system” and he asked for details. Of course he first said “you aren’t supporting what Bernie wants are you?” since I briefly made that mistake before. I can thank Anderson for making me better informed than any news resource I’ve ever seen.
Oh boy, time to go the PT for my every other day torture session. Soon I will walk down stairs normally again!
Jay
MisterForkbeard
@lamh36: Oh look, Tulsi Gabbard is terrible and lying. This is my surprised face.
lamh36
@lamh36: the next question is, why are Tulsi’s Russian handlers pushing so hard against Kamala Harris, when Liz Warren and Biden and in some polls Sanders is polling at least 1 or 2 spots ahead of her ?
Ella in New Mexico
@Ascap_scab:
Not sure how accurate this is but I read on the interwebs the other day that in a phone convo, Putin had given Trump a directive that they wanted a new ambassador…not just “discussed his replacement now that he was considering leaving”, as reported.
Must be he had a teensy semblance of decency left and that was just not gonna work for them.
Martin
@Barbara: He spent 2 years in Taipai in college and another 2 years, and that was before Obama appointed him. 4 years living in the community can get you quite fluent – depends on the person.
Duane
@JPL: I misremembered. Thank you.
rikyrah
‘A body blow’: farmers grow frustrated with Trump’s trade failures
08/06/19 10:50 AM—UPDATED 08/06/19 12:38 PM
By Steve Benen
When Donald Trump initially launched a series of trade tariffs, he seemed to realize that his agenda would hurt farmers who rely heavily on international markets. The president seemed convinced, however, that they wouldn’t mind shouldering the burden.
As regular readers know, the Republican conceded last year that his plan would cause “pain” for some farmers, but he assumed they were willing to take one for the team. “I tell you, our farmers are great patriots. These are great patriots,” the president said last spring.
…………………………
That’s probably because he’s not listening. If he were, Trump would hear all kinds of farmers “speak badly” about his trade policies and their effects. Indeed, after China said yesterday it’s suspending U.S. agricultural purchases, Yahoo Finance talked to dismayed America farmers.
A Ghost To Most
@StringOnAStick: That’s too bad about the local hockey crowd. I had been contemplating joining a geezers league, but not if they are full of wing nuts.
JPL
@Jay: It’s time to call out the president on his past time of retweeting white supremacists. Or as Beto says what the fuck MSM
SiubhanDuinne
@Mai Naem mobile:
@Amir Khalid:
By contrast, the last real POTUS on the passing of Toni Morrison.
Jay
Brachiator
@lamh36:
Neither Warren nor Sanders are particularly strong with black voters. Harris is not super strong with black voters, but the Moscow GOP fear that she might build momentum.
Brachiator
@StringOnAStick: Thanks for the detail and good luck with your PT.
Jay
Martin
@lamh36: Harris is the riskiest candidate for Trump. She’s the hardest to attack. Clinton was easy due to decades of prep work by the right-wing ragers, but Harris doesn’t have a familiar history to demonize. She’s generally pretty quick on her feet, and speaks more forcefully than any of the other candidates. She can build the maximal coalition of any of the dems running, and will run a 50 state strategy.
She’s also proposing the most radical plans, which seems to get lost on almost everyone. We’re too distracted with the health care plans and whatnot, but she’s the most opposite of Biden who is inherently an institutionalist to an institution that the GOP blew up after 2008. By comparison, Harris is offering to play by GOP rules. Pack USSC. Use executive power. Bypass the structural advantages that the GOP have built for themselves by creating advantages for the Dems, and then use that power to negotiate for a new normal.
The policies aren’t really the battleground. Nobody is really weighing Harris health care vs Trump health care or Warren health care. The battleground is how much of the political stalemate are you willing to break through to get things done. That’s a big part of Trumps appeal, and Harris seems willing to go there while at the same time knowing what the fuck she’s talking about, being difficult for Trump to attack without it backfiring, and being able to pull dems to the polls in a way that Biden really can’t.
cain
@rikyrah:
Fuckem
jonas
@Barbara: The trade practices by China that supposedly set all this off — forced technology and IP transfers to Chinese partner firms — largely affected big tech and manufacturing businesses trying to access the Chinese market. Farmers were benefiting hugely from trade with China, but Trump decided to screw them over in order to win concessions that will largely benefit huge, multinational software and hi-tech businesses. If China ever does fold on this, which it’s no looking like they will. Oh, well. Trump apparently thinks he can keep this up as long as he can shovel subsidies at them. So far, there have been a lot of furrowed brows and expressions of “concern,” but no signs of an outright revolt.
StringOnAStick
[email protected]Brachiator: First, please read what bonddad has written; lots of supportive charts and data there. I don’t have any idea what we “do” about it; I wasn’t successful stopping the last big recession and I doubt anyone else can this time either. Nor do I have an exactly when this occurs; if I could do that consistently I’d be rich enough to buy my way into citizenship in a saner country. The point is that the current expansion is extremely long in the tooth and part of how long it has lasted has to do with the deep hole that Obama’s economic policy dug us out of, all the way through the sugar high of the Drumph tax give away to the exact entities that didn’t need it. So, it’s way past a typical length for an expansion, Drumph’s trade policies are rocking the boat very hard, Brexit will hit Europe hard, stock valuations are extremely rich, and the Fed doesn’t have much ammunition because the interest rate they control is already bumping along at a seriously low rate. What bonddad expects is quarterly growth rates in the 0 to 0.7% rate, and that’s lower than it is now and that suggests consumers will be cutting back but still in debt at a very, very high level; not a good place to be. Economically this means the risk that an “oops” event (Strait of Hormuz blocked, Brexit goes even worse than expected, etc) triggers a fight for the exits in the world stock markets and then lack of confidence spreads to other industries as well who already are slowing. China’s sudden overnight currency devaluation so far has gone over pretty badly today as well.
As for what we are doing about it, my husband and I carry zero debt, live well within our means and have no mortgage. We are once again out of the stock market and I’m good with that; too many lights on the world dashboard are flashing yellow and we’ve got erratic narcissists in charge here and in Britain, another rather large financial center, with Putin doing all he can to crash the western world so he can rule over the rubble. It’s not Y2K, yet, but it bears closer watching. If none of that works for you, just go with the old market maxim of “sell in May and go away” paired with “buy in October”; modeling of past results (yeah, I know) show this to be a consistently winning strategy that beats buy and hold quite well in the long run (yeah, I know about “long runs” too).
cain
@Betty Cracker:
Apparently, only the big farms are getting most of that. The small mom and pop type farms are getting a golden shower treatment.
Martin
@Brachiator: If Harris can convince black voters she can beat Trump – they’ll turn out for her like nobody’s business. She’s got to win them over as Obama did.
Betty Cracker
Mike in NC
We’re heading to Edinburgh this evening. Last visit was (I think) about 32 years ago when I was traveling solo, so it should be an eye-opener.
Mandalay
@Kay:
This made me think of what President Bolsonaro is trying to do in Brazil:
It’s strange how these right wing leaders are in favor of reduced government, yet they also want to increase the power of the state to control the citizenry.
Martin
@Jay: Good. Kavanaugh should be impeached for lying to Congress.
JPL
@Ella in New Mexico: I read something similar. The agreement must be, that trump will support his run for Governor if he leaves quietly. Republicans tend to be good soldiers, so I’m sure he will stay silent.
Roger Moore
@MisterForkbeard:
Very importantly, nothing in the Constitution requires a state to assign its electoral votes based on the outcome of a popular vote in that state. The only thing the Constitution says about the appointment of electors is:
There is nothing in the Constitution forbidding the California legislature from passing a law appointing a list of electors without bothering with a statewide election. It wouldn’t be the first time that a state had decided to appoint its electors that way. If that would be constitutional, I don’t see why requiring candidates to reveal their taxes would be any less constitutional.
cain
@Barbara:
The thing is we can pick any demographic, any sector, any community, and we are always going to find statistically someone who didn’t vote for Trump. But overall, across the rural divide these folks as a group choose to side with Trump for whatever reason and now they have to figure things out. The fact that we continue to see them being defensive about their vote makes me lose any sense of feeling empathy. (eg they are willing to vote for him again for re-election or not regret their votes) When most of them are part of a cult, it doesn’t matter that we should feel sympathy for the minority, it is this majority that is dictating the terms.
I don’t think the feeling is schadenfreude. Nobody is taking precise pleasure in their pain, only that they need to feel it if we are going to get anywhere. Pain is how we change things.
Tariffs are bad, but we elected a govt that is continue to use them while promoting a white racist nationalism agenda.
Mike in NC
@Martin: I’m perfectly OK with a Biden/Warren or Biden/Harris ticket if that’s what it takes to get rid of Putin’s shitbird puppet.
Jay
Kay
I just find it deeply and simply satisfying when people hold him accountable for his own actions. Other people should NOT have to explain Donald Trump. Donald Trump has to account for Donald Trump. This isn’t a presidential standard, it’s an adult standard. It’s not her fucking job to figure him out.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Second night of debate was mutually assured destruction.
low-tech cyclist
Andrew Cuomo: not quite as awful as Rahm Emmanuel.
hueyplong
@Martin: Could simply be that Trump himself is afraid to hover too close to Harris on any stage. We shouldn’t overlook stupid reasons based on Trump’s many personal failings.
These guys aren’t master villains. They just play them on TV.
Jay
cain
@rikyrah:
While Trump kisses their asses. Has that fact escaped these farmers? He literally admires the power they have.
TenguPhule
@rikyrah: Fuck the Communist Farmers.
joel hanes
@dexwood:
quite a few Hispanics and Native Americans who support president Asshole.
In my experience, this disease is produced by the intersection of two factors:
1. “All politicians are the same”, compromised, corrupt, so only an “outsider” is acceptable
2. Low-information but convinced, based on media image that Trump is a successful businessman
The same people tend to favor term limits, for reason 1.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Agreed. I enjoyed the first night’s debate and thought the second was an unrelentingly negative shit show. Looks like I wasn’t the only one.
cain
@StringOnAStick:
That’s interesting as my ex-wife who is also a dentist is also conservative but it could also be her upbringing but definitely has some anti immigrant sentiment when it comes to say the Oregon health plan what not. She feels that these people are entitled and of course she doesn’t get paid enough from them.
I’ve always been the liberal one in our relationship, but with her boyfriend he tends to be also of the same cloth. It’s really irritating and I have a hard time dealing with their unified lack of sympathy considering that my ex is a immigrant just like I.
joel hanes
@Barbara:
I discount anyone not native as being actually fluent
I’d be content if I could just swear in Chinese as the characters in Firefly appeared to do.
cain
@lamh36:
Cull the weakest of the herd.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: That’s funny. Valdivia has been way behind on GrantChester, and she almost caught up over the weekend but for Sunday’s episode. She is feeling bad about Leonard, and I’ve had to bite my tongue to avoid spoilers. Gah!
Brachiator
@Barbara:
Trump told a simple lie that his base could relate to: that he was going to bring back lost jobs and hurt the countries that stole the jobs.
This has actually created some white grievance solidarity. I read some farmers say that they would be willing to endure some pain if it would other people’s jobs back. And of course Trump keeps promising that the pain will be temporary.
This reminds me of misguided no deal BREXIT supporters who evoke memories of Britain’s wartime austerity (which they never actually lived through) as they declare themselves willing put up with short term pain because BoJo has convinced them of a glorious future free from the clutches of the EU.
Duane
@Kay: Involuntary commitment and the death penalty. Trumpov’s history on that is there to be seen. Blithering idiot is less than useless.
Even worse, the groveling media portraying his stupidity as anything except horseshit.
Martin
@Mike in NC: So am I. I happen to be in the camp that believes that Biden can’t beat Trump, but Harris can.
cain
@rikyrah:
Curious.. do those ranchers, the bundys.. are they going to lose their ranch? Inquiring minds want to know.
cain
@jonas:
Outright revolt will lead to a culling of Republican senators and house membership across the midwest. Even McConnell will fear that greatly. Giving money to the large industrial farms won’t help them either since it is a much smaller demographic and all those big farms hire Mexicans.
J R in WV
I see that Trump, as a moron, intends to attend some sort of ceremony in both Dayton and El Paso. I think this is really stupid on his part, which is no surprise, as he is really stupid.
I hope that everyone turns their back on him at both occasions, silently. Perhaps even walks away, quickly, quietly. I think that would be an impressive rebuke of Trump. Peaceful, unmistakable.
But there will probably be plenty of Trump fans there, who else would attend? So people showing their disrespect of Trump may even be harmed by trumpettes in the crowd. So sad, this whole situation. A shame we still haven’t gotten the con artist out of his illegally obtained office.
joel hanes
@cain:
all those big farms hire Mexicans.
I suspect you’re thinking of fruit and vegetable farms, which need tremendous quantities of hand labor.
This is not true of the large-scale grain farms I know from the upper midwest, where Latinx immigrants tend to be concentrated in slaughterhouse work.
Yutsano
@Martin:
His mission? Mainland China is verboten but Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macao are all wide open.
Martin
@Brachiator: There’s a somewhat larger arch to that. We can classify economies based on how advanced they are – we can conceive of 5 tiers – primary (extraction, ag), secondary (manufacturing), tertiary (services), quaternary (information systems), and quinary (policy, innovation, science, etc.)
You can’t start in tier 5 without going through 1-4, unless you are very small and therefore have no real economic impact. Only about 20% of the US economy is the first two tiers. Most of it is the last 3, with the US dominating the world in 4 and 5. US graduate schools remain the most attractive in the world for a reason (tier 5). China is certainly pushing into those tiers, but their economy is still mostly tiers 1 and 2. GDP per worker generally increases as you move up the tiers, though there are exceptions around resource scarcity where tier 1 can punch above their weight.
What we’re really seeing is either solidarity among the 20% of workers in the first two tiers to see a degradation of the US economy in order to make it more like Chinas, or a broader romantic notion that pulling plants out of dirt or hitting metal with hammers is somehow economically beneficial. Societies advance by addressing the opportunity cost of a tier 1 job preventing a tier 2 job from being filled, and so on. So we domesticate animals, invent tractors, and eventually automate away as much of the lower tiers as we can to make space for the population to move into higher tiers. Economically, engineers > farmers every day of the week, so it’s good for the US to invest in the former and either outsource or better yet automate the latter. If we want both, then we have to create more people – either by birthing them, or importing them.
That ain’t happening, so the steady replacement of tier 1 and 2 workers with 3-5 will continue apace. If all you know is tier 1 and 2 work, that’s scary as shit, and we could do things to address that (mainly by distributing the benefits of output from the more productive tiers downward). But we really don’t. At the same time, there should be a national move to encourage young people to aim for the higher tiers. We used to do that in the cold war, when scientists and engineers and advanced degrees were seen as national security imperatives. The messaging now seems to be to skip college and dig rocks out of the ground.
This is like a massively watered down version of Pol Pots vision – he wanted an agrarian socialist society, Trump seems to want an agrarian capitalist one. They’re equally misguided.
To be clear, we don’t want to eliminate tier 1 and 2 independence. We want food independence for national security reasons, but we’ve moved from 95% of the US population meeting that need to 2%, in a century. 2% of Americans meet 100% of our national food needs. That’s good! We don’t want more than 2%! We want growth to instead be in engineers building robotic tractors guided by satellites to maximize yield and minimize labor. Farmers can only sell carrots to China. Engineers can sell robotic tractors. There’s way the fuck more money to be made in the latter than the former.
US agricultural exports to China is about $16B per year, which sounds like a lot. Apple alone sells that much in iPhones in China every 3 months with over 50% of those revenues returning to the US. A lot of those rural voters are upset that their industry is taking a back seat to others, but that’s how it works. It’s how it’s always worked.
Martin
@Yutsano: Taiwan in college. They still speak Mandarin there, from what I hear.
Another Scott
@cmorenc: I passed a huge traitor flag put up by the Virginia Flaggers on a recent trip on I-95. It’s horrible. They want to put them everywhere. Similarly with the MAGAts (there’s a lot of overlap, obviously).
Grrr….
Cheers,
Scott.
Yutsano
@Martin: Right, but then you mention two other years. Mission sparked the most obvious answer there to me. I don’t have any particular knowledge there and TBH I’m too lazy to look it up right now.
Barbara
@Martin: They speak Mandarin, which is notionally easier for westerners to learn than Cantonese (fewer tones). No doubt Huntsman speaks it well enough to converse socially, and all official events would include a translator. My friend’s observation was that learning different tones was really difficult if you weren’t exposed to them early in life. He was a Mandarin speaker and he said he found it hard to understand other spoken dialects. He also felt like his skills degraded from non-use even though it was his first language.
Barbara
@cain: Yes, agreed. The people I know are outliers in multiple ways, but they are definitely being hurt.
@jonas: That’s the kicker. They are being cannibalized for the kind of people they hate and they don’t care enough to really figure it out.
Brachiator
@Martin:
None of this is relevant to Trump’s use of populist rhetoric or how farmers respond to it. You’re talking about economics when the issue here is political.
This is also why I mentioned BREXIT. No deal BREXIT supporters understand and yearn for a return to Britain’s supposedly glorious past, and so they are voting against reality and their own economic interests. This is why they discount all the experts who warn them of the potential negative impact of BREXIT.
Also, my anecdote was about farmers in solidarity with other workers, willing to take a hit because they believe in Trump, and believe that he is going to bring jobs back to industrial workers in the rust belt. These farmers are not simply trying to save their own jobs.
But coming back to part of your point. It is easy to sell the lie that the government can bring jobs back. People know what those old jobs were and how much they paid. It is much harder to sell the future, because it feels intangible and uncertain. This makes it tough for any politician who tells a nuanced truth.
And what you suggest can sound like a horrible dead end.
Sounds like: “If you ain’t smart enough to become an engineer, your life is over. Maybe we got some unemployment compensation for you or a minimum wage job. And yeah, we will flip a switch and outsource all the engineering jobs to India and China. So, all the work will be automated, all the brainpower will be in Asia and a few shareholders will be richer than fuck while you grovel in the dirt. Ain’t progress wonderful?”
Omnes Omnibus
@Mike in NC: Why would Harris or Warren want to be VP? Either would be more consequential staying in the Senate if they don’t get the nomination
Roger Moore
@joel hanes:
Their cursing wouldn’t fool anyone who spent much time listening to Mandarin, much less someone who speaks it. I’m in the first category rather than the second, and I can easily tell that they haven’t listened to much Mandarin and didn’t get any voice coaching. They aren’t speaking with tones at all, which is just incredibly obvious. The sound like people who have seen the words written but never heard them spoken by a fluent speaker, which I’m sure is the case.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
They actually speak a mix. Most people speak Mandarin, but many also speak Taiwanese. IIRC, a majority of the country is fluent in both, but there is a substantial minority that doesn’t speak Mandarin. Also, both the local Mandarin dialect and Taiwanese use more Japanese loanwords than the Chinese spoken on the mainland. There are also some other forms of Chinese (like Hakka) and aboriginal Taiwanese languages (which are Austronesian rather than Chinese).
Martin
@Brachiator:
Everyone is smart enough to become an engineer.
frosty
@Mike in NC: You are having a great trip!!!