Wow. What a shot. https://t.co/5wxMWwkPBs
— Charles Johnson (@Green_Footballs) April 27, 2020
Small d democratic, dammit. @thehill https://t.co/dVtq3xvtdH
— Bethany Albertson (@AlbertsonB2) April 26, 2020
Biden is up ~8 points nationally (in the two-party vote) today. Polls also have him up 1 in NC, 2 in NH, 3 in FL and WI, 4 in AZ and PA and 6 in MI. Things will change before November, but it's hard to reconcile that with anything other than a pretty large lead for the Democrats.
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) April 25, 2020
Biden's getting beat by Trump in media mentions by a ~9:1 margin over last month, & Biden's winning. (Clinton was getting beat 2:1 at this point.) Lesson from 2020 so far & 2016: Dem's pathway to win is to give Trump the media spotlight & stand back https://t.co/oDYwVgFhsb
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) April 26, 2020
NEW: Harvard Institute of Politics survey finds Joe Biden leading Trump 60% to 30% among voters 18-29.
Notably, that’s not much different than the 62% to 31% lead Bernie Sanders would have. pic.twitter.com/RgP6WribRy
— Kevin Robillard (@Robillard) April 23, 2020
I think polling showed Biden doing relatively well with 65+ voters before the pandemic crisis, but Trump pretty much adopting the posture that older people are expendable in this crisis has probably hurt Trump a lot in that demo. https://t.co/dewrGDT9Jq
— snow??anomics?? (@snowmanomics) April 22, 2020
While 2020 may very well defy historical patterns, in elections over the past five decades an incumbent president's approval rating at ~200 days out has been a remarkably strong predictor of his ultimate vote share. Trump's current rating puts him in Carter & GHW Bush territory. pic.twitter.com/pyvZA1q6St
— Patrick Egan (@Patrick_J_Egan) April 25, 2020
Biden says in tele-fundraiser: "the blinders have been taken off, because of this Covid crisis, I think people are realizing, 'My Lord. Look at what is possible. Look at the institutional changes we can make–without us becoming a 'socialist country,' or any of that malarkey"
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) April 22, 2020
A stronger, better, fairer nation sounds A+.
But I’d settle for less dead.
“Joe Biden: for a less dead nation.” https://t.co/nhb7bjUBbq
— Virginia Heffernan (@page88) April 25, 2020
Baud
So the lefty dead-enders are about 1-2% of the population, but about 45-55% of political Twitter.
SFAW
@Baud:
Careful, or you’ll have Briahna Joy Gray go all medieval-Twitter on your ass.
Baud
@SFAW:
You know how Hillary correctly got shit for associating with Mark Penn in 2008. Bernie’s people are bad in different ways, but they are just as bad.
Baud
I also commend Joe for not running away from the “malarkey.” Screw the haters.
Baud
One more down.
OzarkHillbilly
Look at the American reality
Ah, Fisher Island… You remember Fisher Island, don’t you? The rich MF’ers who headed straight to the head of the testing in air conditioned comfort line after one of their residents tested positive? While the rest of Florida sweltered in parking lots for hours on end just to be turned away because there weren’t enough tests for everyone? Yeah, that Fisher Island.
The reign of Ronald Reagan has been a plague upon this land, one we have never recovered from.
Long past time we “kill” the rich. Either thru a restructuring of the tax code and financial laws or guillotines. Their choice.
Patricia Kayden
OzarkHillbilly
Anybody know how this add ends? It goes silent at the end in the Hill’s embed.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
Four year old tweet.
Oops. My bad, we’re simply doing that again.
glory b
Come with us if you want to live.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Eagerly awaiting taking some of those hoarded spare black zeroes after commas off of their asset ledgers.
Just think of it as a special episode of “Hoarders”, where something that is useless to the collector’s daily life is taken off their hands and hauled away, all as they object in an emotional fashion.
SFAW
@Baud:
As much as I dislike Penn, I’d put Gray in a different classification altogether. Penn was/is somewhat of a moron, who more-or-less believed his bullshit, but I don’t view him as malicious. Briahna Joy Gray is malicious. She’s Kayleigh McEnany, but (possibly) with a “D” instead of an “R.”
Baud
@SFAW:
Fair point. Maybe I’ve forgotten, but I don’t remember him trying to ratfuck Obama after Hillary lost in 2008.
SFAW
@Baud:
Nor do I
danielx
Im@OzarkHillbilly:
If ever anything was worthy of a blech*….
*which was autocorrected to bleach, thankyewverymuch!
debbie
Now I know what my Mamaw meant when she said no news is good news. Stand back, Joe, and let the asshole do what he’s so good at doing.
Fair Economist
@Baud:
Partially, but more they weren’t even going to vote for Sanders either. They are Trump supporters masquerading as leftists.
glory b
@OzarkHillbilly: I listened to an interview with a guy (on npr, don’t hate me) who wrote a book called “Velvet Rope Nation” and said he was surprised at the extent to which the wealthy have removed themselves from contact with the rest of us.
He indicated that the lack of empathy many of them show is because they are really that ignorant of how the rest of us live.
glory b
@SFAW: She’s a Harvard grad too. That school has a lot to answer for.
PIGL
@Fair Economist: No, it’s really they’re all about the working class.
NotMax
FYI, coming to Netflix this Friday. Could be a period pearl, could tilt into the slough of soap opera and trite cliche. Hard to discern which from the trailer, however there appears enough potential energy to warrant an initial look-see.
glory b
@SFAW: She’s a Harvard grad too. That school has a lot to answer for.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@glory b:
Take Mnuchin, for instance. That disgusting photo with Linton and the sheet of money, followed by his idiot notion about the $1200 stim checks being good for about 10 weeks.
Clueless.
OzarkHillbilly
I think he got cause and effect backwards.
raven
@NotMax: Did you watch Unorthodox?
danielx
@glory b:
much like US senators that way, and for much the same reasons.
NotMax
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
Heck, remember G.H.W. Bush’s utter astonishment at a bar code scanner? Nixon having a picture taken of himself in full suit and tie, and wing tip shoes, walking through the edge of the surf on a beach to demonstrate he was just plain folks?
Or Thomas Dewey’s quote: “No man should be in public office who can’t make more money in private life.”
raven
Jeffro
Presidential re-election campaigns are, naturally, referendums on the incumbent.
It’s amazing to see how structural advantages, racism, and (until the pandemic) economic perceptions have kept it even this close, but trumpov is a goner. Six long months ahead, GOP. Too bad, so sad!
Baud
According to the ad I just saw on the TV, I can purchase a Lincoln Town car and they will deliver it to me at home.
NotMax
@raven
Nope. Aware of it, that’s all. Have heard mixed messages about the book the mini-series is based on from people in the past.
debbie
@raven:
Someone’s tune seems to have changed…
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Baud:
Some marketing sooperjenyus pitched that idea to execs whistling through the graveyard.
In a just world, Ford pays bills 120 days in arrears, and realizes it has to file for an 11 in August, before that ad gets paid for.
raven
@NotMax: We’re “enjoying” it with zero background knowledge. The young lady is really good.
raven
@debbie: foxhole conversion
JPL
@Baud: You also don’t have to pay interest for three years. Maybe that was for another auto.. hmmm
raven
@Baud: Sopranos joke, trigger warning.
Baud
@JPL:
I’m thinking of prank ordering a car for other people.
JPL
@NotMax: Thanks. A BBC cooking show is going to premier at the end of the week also, Nadiya’s time to eat.
danielx
@Baud:
Well, if you had the bad taste to WANT to drive such a land barge….
raven
@danielx: I’ve got me a car, it’s as big as a whale and it’s about to set sail. . .
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@danielx:
They don’t have any real style to them, do they?
I loved my late 90s Continental sedan. Had a fantastic ride, super comfortable-I drove it until the wheels fell off (AC and transmission took a shit within 3 days of each other – I wasn’t about to put 5K of work into a car worth maybe 3K at best, especially as it was still on its first water pump and starter assembly and as something was needed on the fuel injection).
Baud
@raven:
Thanks. As a Cadillac owner, I was offended.
WereBear
@glory b:
Not only that: they like it that way.
One of the reasons I read true crime is how the good authors build a picture of the local environment, since it so often explains the crime. And a recently read book on a murder in the investment banker community was such a disconcerting glimpse.
The men spend 80 hours a week working and lining up mistresses. The women spend 80 hours a week shopping, primping, lunching, and accusing the men of having mistresses. The children are spoiled by compliant employees and exist as displays of conspicuous consumption, which is the name of their only game.
Which was highly pertinent to how someone got murdered, because I think an average person would have caught on to the early, clumsy, attempts that the cheating partner was planning to kill them. Especially since low-ranked employees tried to warn the victim because of the screaming obvious.
But the victim dealt with the stress by purchasing a more expensive automobile. Because that IS their be-all and end-all and they literally think of nothing else but how much money they have and how much status that will buy.
Immanentize
This will help the GOP with seniors — DeSantis yesterday referred to Florida as “God’s waiting room.” I think he was trying to be compassionate about nursing homes??
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Carvan.com or some such has had billboards up on I-44 for quite some time now.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Head? Meet desk.
JeanneT
@WereBear: There is actually research that shows that folks with high income levels have less empathy than other people.
JPL
@Baud: Thinking is okay.
Immanentize
And in other unsurprising political news, Bernie Sanders is still very much running for president.
He just can’t quit himself….
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: The malar is key. I will see myself out.
Patricia Kayden
mrmoshpotato
Screw the polls. One poll – 270+ electoral college votes for Biden on the night of November 3rd.
“Don’t get happy” as Bob Cesca says.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
315+, I think, to deal with faithless electors.
John S.
@Baud:
Twitter is a horrible place. The Biden tweet posted up top is enough to make someone want to HULK SMASH. It’s wall to wall “Joe is rapist with dementia in the pocket of China.“ Meanwhile, DONALD F-ing TRUMP.
The remaining 55-45% of political Twitter must be bots and spoof accounts because nobody with a functioning brain can even think twice about Biden after the past few months of President ‘Drink Some Bleach’.
MagdaInBlack
@raven:
??
*new ear worm ?
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Baud: Haha, this is genius. Oh shit! Used my own bank account details!
debbie
@Immanentize:
I await Betty’s reaction with a certain amount of bemusement.
Sab
@Baud: We still have to get the kids to vote. Rumor ( i.e. NPR) is that turnout for mail-only primaries is down drastically.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Immanentize: He’s doin it rong
Betty Cracker
Twelve hours ago, Trump retweeted a bizarre “deep fake” video of Biden from what looks like an anti-Biden, pro-Sanders account called “Trump & Biden Are Rapey.” I’m going to assume for the sake of my own sanity that the account owner added “Trump” to his or her Twitter handle after the retweet, but it’s been up like that for dog knows how long. We knew this already, but it’s further evidence that Trump will wage the most grotesque and sleazy campaign in U.S. history.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: I will settle for 270 confirmed votes in January 6.
JMG
@Sab: Turnout for primaries figured to be down dramatically even if there was no virus and no mail-in. Game’s over. When it’s 15-2 in the seventh inning, fans get up and leave.
WereBear
@JeanneT: Yes, I’ve been reading those, too.
Personally, especially since their child rearing practices are so appalling, I think we have more than one cultural culprit leading to this finding.
Which means the rich really are different from the rest of us: they are much more likely to have psychopathic lack of empathy.
Tdjr
@Baud: That’s because Lincoln cares about you! /s
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Betty Cracker: There’s no question that he’s going to go scorched earth. It’s who he is, and after all that’s happened the last 3.5 years, he has nothing left. It was always going to be this.
He must go down, and he must go down hard.
evodevo
@raven: LOL I remember that episode…Uncle Jr got his nationalities mixed, however…It’s Japanese who supposedly have difficulty with the American “L” sound
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize: Pouty Asshole – Poutier Assholer
Baud
@Sab:
We need a majority in each applicable voting area. The composition of that majority matters less.
evodevo
@JeanneT: Well, it’s true enough of a billionaire banker I have personal knowledge of…he worked his way up from nothing, but if you listen to the anecdotes, it’s because he’s been a business shark from the get-go…seizing everything with both hands, and ignoring the consequences for other people as he does it….
WereBear
@evodevo: Which is what they get promoted FOR, no?
No question how the CEO/psychopath quotient keeps rising. It’s what they look for.
Pete Mack
Amazing long-form essay today, about the longest-serving innocent man. Left tears in my eyes–he is a decent man who was framed 3 times (including once work that got him fired in the first place) and came through with dignity.
Detroit DA office has a lot of years of false imprisonment to attone for. I don’t understand why he wasn’t rewarded compensation–as well as making real money selling his really spectacular watercolors.
https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/04/us/longest-wrongful-prison-sentence
raven
@evodevo: Think Coplas The Kingston Trio
Soprano2
@glory b: I think that interview was on Fresh Air. I haven’t listened to it yet. I did listen to an episode of “Hidden Brain” where they interviewed a wealth manager who worked for billionaires for years. It’s pretty shocking, what they required of her. She said she once got on a private plane, flew to another country, went to the client’s house, got back on the plane, and flew back to the original country, all without showing a passport or going through customs. That’s why I think it would still be pretty easy for a rich person to flee from charges. If you want to understand how billionaires think, that podcast helps. They do live in a completely different world than the rest of us. It explains some things about Trump and the people he surrounds himself with.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Good idea! It could be a new reality show. Hoarders: The Billionaire Edition
Ohio Mom
Raven: I didn’t see Unorthodox but years ago I read the book.
Parts of it were a little too much TMI but all in all, I thought it a good antidote to all the romanticizing of the Haredi one comes across: they are such a close knit community! They are keeping Judaism alive! Etc.
Though I don’t know of anyone has ever romanticized the Satmars, they are infamously mean MFers.
mrmoshpotato
Make sure your tray table is in the upright and locked position, and secure your damn crabs!
germy
Betty Cracker
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Agreed. I know the conventional wisdom is that there can be no such thing as a landslide election anymore because the country is so “polarized.” I hope that’s wrong because a country that doesn’t punt Trump out of office with extreme prejudice and turn over congressional control is a country that is too sick to remain a going concern in the long term.
PenAndKey
@germy: Stephen Bannon truly is an irredeemably despicable human being, isn’t he?
OzarkHillbilly
@Pete Mack: Damn, just damn. I am maybe a quarter thru it and it has me by the balls and won’t let go. Thanx.
germy
@PenAndKey:
Yes.
Cameron
@germy: A “wartime president?” I must have missed that history class where they explained that after Pearl Harbor, FDR went on the air and told Americans he was leaving it up to the individual states how they should respond to Japan.
raven
@Ohio Mom: Interesting, no clue over here.
germy
germy
satby
@Pete Mack: incredible story. Both because of his resilience and because of the horrible injustice.
satby
Too bad the war is on Americans.
A Ghost to Most
@germy: Michael Vick is happy to no longer be VaTech’s most notorious alumni.
germy
Frankensteinbeck
@germy:
Do not expect consistency from racists. Hate-filled assholes, being assholes, leave open exceptions for whatever makes them personally feel good.
mrmoshpotato
@Cameron: You forgot that FDR didn’t do shit to respond to Pearl Harbor until 7 weeks after. And his response was calling the attack a hoax.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Teams of tax collectors could first go to the office of whichever Koch brother is alive, and relieve him of 9 black zeroes in his ledger as he shrieks on video about losing his precious things like every other hoarder I’ve watched (you could even include some of the cleanup experts from regular Hoarders on the team to help talk them through it). Each week, a new rancid, political playing billionaire – Mercer, DeVos, Adelson, etc. could find himself getting a visit to help clean the clutter out of his life.
Trump, of course, would whine about not getting to appear, but each show could make a point about only doing it to REAL billionaires…..
germy
@Frankensteinbeck:
mrmoshpotato
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Dump couldn’t appear from his jail cell in between trials?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@mrmoshpotato:
Only real billionaires could appear. You could have a disclaimer at the end of each show, mention his name as not a real billionaire.
MattF
Hugh ‘RW sockpuppet’ Hewitt comments on McConnell’s suggestion that blue states should just declare bankruptcy to fix up their fiscal finances. He blames public-service employee unions, in case you were wondering.
Chief Oshkosh
@WereBear: Unfettered capitalism rewards those those who lack empathy. The entire system is set up that way. Heck, all the way back to Smith (who, if anyone took the time to actually read, would be known today as a deep-state administrative type of person, intent on strangling “free enterprise” with rules) this was understood .
Immanentize
Well, what else to do for exercise?
Walk your chicken!
Frankensteinbeck
@germy:
No. Money is only one of the things that makes them feel good. Assuming greed wins over other evil motivations has been the defining trait of liberals being surprised by the last 12 years. This time, maybe it’s money, but by and large they’ll spend money to enjoy hurting others.
Barbara
@germy: In Bannon’s world, bigotry is is basically the only thing that unites people. Enraging, but also incredibly sad.
Barbara
Just another day and another dollar earned by deluding the rubes.
Sab
@germy: Wisconsin, Mississippi, Georgia. I would love to know her family’s backstory.
Ben Cisco
@germy:
If this is true, and profiteering during wartime is still a capital offense…
germy
@Frankensteinbeck: I meant Bannon specifically.
Ben Cisco
@germy: That’s gonna chap some asses. Dude that New England picked up is either 1) a 3% representing w/his tattoo or 2) a clueless kid that picked the tattoo not knowing what it represents and ALSO not knowing that the 3%ers aren’t really down with perpetrators.
Decisions, decisions…
germy
@Sab:
This is the brief wikipedia version:
germy
@Immanentize:
Betty
@OzarkHillbilly: Someone had a plan for that.
Betty Cracker
@germy: I was on the Abrams train until I read somewhere that she named “Atlas Shrugged” as one of her three favorite books. Now I have questions…
WaterGirl
@germy:
That made me chuckle out loud, in a good way.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: If she can truthfully admit she read the whole thing, I’d give her an “A” for endurance.
germy
@Betty Cracker: I’ve only seen that quoted on reddit. Not saying it isn’t true, I’d just like to see a better source.
Has she said why?
EDIT:
Okay, I found something:
https://www.rollcall.com/2016/02/01/stacey-abrams-pragmatic-democrat-in-a-red-state-2/
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
The morning has been a blur. I actually got back to sleep ??? this morning.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Yeah, that shocked me, too. Knowing what I do about Abrams, I would not be surprised if it’s one of her favorite books because it spells out that terrible mindset that does so much damage
I hope they ask her about that next time she is on Pod Save America.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty: If only I could have voted for her.
jonas
Bannon knows the rubes will believe what he tells them to believe. And that means believing Hunter Biden is a huge liability because he was associated with a company that was associated with a Chinese company, while all the Chinese agents he actually pals around with are totally fine. Case closed. And that will work, of course.
I forget where I saw the reporting, but back in 15-16, someone was writing that the worst of the Trump/Kushner corruption was not in Russia, but China. The more they talk up Biden’s China connections, the more we can be sure that they’re flailing wildly to distract from their own corruption there. It’s always projection with these people. Always.
germy
@WaterGirl:
https://www.rollcall.com/2016/02/01/stacey-abrams-pragmatic-democrat-in-a-red-state-2/
Immanentize
@germy: she says, “Ducky.”
Does Tamara know about this?
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I actually read and liked all of the Ayn Rand books at one time in my life.
The only positive takeaway that I have now was the concept that if you were building a bridge with a new kind of raw material, then you shouldn’t keep the design of the bridge that was based on the old raw material.
I also loved Malcom X at around the same time. Young people are complex as they are figuring out who they are and what they believe.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: Source here, via Wayback. An interview from 2011.
Jeffro
@germy: Um yes…because there are so few books out there that celebrate innovation and genius and creativity…gosh, I can’t think of a one! (eyeroll)
Ugh. What’s ‘genius’ about “IGMFU” at severely-bloated-novel length?
Nevertheless, in the spirit of not administering purity tests (or letting bad taste in ‘literature’ d.q. a promising future candidate)…let’s hear what she eventually has to say about it. Her actual work and words already speak quite well to her progressive values.
WaterGirl
@germy: Thanks. I’m okay with her answer. When I think about it, her answer isn’t all that different from my takeaway that I listed above.
MattF
@WaterGirl: Also, Abrams has been surrounded and challenged all her life by avid Rand fans. So reading the books and understanding their appeal isn’t optional for her.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: I love it when people use old-fashioned words.
Preet Bharara does it, too.
WaterGirl
@MattF: Interesting!
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: It fails so hard as both philosophy and literature — all of the Rand books do. I used to roll my eyes when teens and very young adults sang Rand’s praises (thankfully less prevalent these days than in the 20th century). But when a fully formed grown-up says something positive about those master-race bodice-rippers, it arouses my suspicions.
OzarkHillbilly
@WaterGirl: I only read one, The Fountainhead, and forced myself to read it all only so I could tell my friend who recommended it, what a load of codswallop it was, reciting chapter and verse.
trollhattan
@WaterGirl:
Thank bog for HS Thompson and Vonnegut. They diverted my attention pretty effectively and I never encountered that crazy, smoking, Beethoven-hating cult leader or her vastly too-long books.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m surprised CA is a wash, I would’ve figured them for a donor state. I also would’ve thought TX was a donor state.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: But then you would have a Lincoln Town Car.
Ben Cisco
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s no level of hypocrisy they won’t stoop to – pretty sure Scott knew where FL stood on that matter
MattF
@WaterGirl: New short book about Rand and her cult, reviewed a couple of weeks ago in the NYRB. I hadn’t really realized how crazy and cultish Randian fever really is. Should note that I haven’t read any of Rand’s books or anything more than review-length about her.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Huh. A while back (year or 2) I looked it up and I thought I remembered Misery as being much closer to the “it’s a wash” territory (slightly on the taker side). Not in the least surprised that I remembered it wrong.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ben Cisco: I’ll bet he bragged about it frequently, even took credit for it.
trollhattan
@MattF:
Subaru Diane has mentioned a couple of times being in the Rand circle back in the day. She 1. luckily got away unscathed and 2. verifies the wackiness. Her story, I’d love to read someday.
Ben Cisco
@OzarkHillbilly: I will gladly add my quatloo pile to yours in making that bet.
Wapiti
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: My gut feeling is that whether a state is a donor or a taker is closely related to the military basing there. CA has a ton of Navy in the south, and a couple of major USAF bases. TX has lots and lots of Army and USAF bases; some Navy
(looking at the map, I’m way off. I can’t name a base in OR, for example.)
Bupalos
Hey I’m sitting here with my Ohio ballot, any jackals know if a vote for Liz will get counted?
FelonyGovt
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: How about we remind the Senator of that next time Florida experiences a major hurricane and is looking for assistance from FEMA.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@MattF: As a teenager I read and liked some things in Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. But even at that young age, I remember doing a lot of eye-rolling. I liked the idea that you should try to be good at whatever you do (industrialists in Atlas Shrugged being the best darned burger-flippers you ever saw). The idea of feeling proud to be human resonated with me at a time when I was really struggling with the Catholic mass and all the “we are worthless worms” rhetoric.
But the idea, repeated ad nauseam, that if you help others it means you want to make them weak and you’d hate it if they actually got a chance in life, I found idiotic. And I also skipped 49 pages out of John Galt’s epic 50-page speech at the end of Atlas Shrugged. “OK, I get it” I said to myself after the first couple of paragraphs.
Also, let’s just ponder the reality of what would happen if you actually gave a spatula to a 1 percenter Master of the Universe and asked him to flip burgers.
OzarkHillbilly
@FelonyGovt: Why wait? Cut them off from the tit now.
Subsole
@OzarkHillbilly:
I mean…what do they DO with all that money??? Maybe I’m just silly, but I wouldn’t be quite as furious about this shit if I could just picture what they spend all of it on.
If you’re gonna lift my wallet, clean my savings, loot my 401 and yank my fillings at least have the goddam decency to spend the money on SOMEthing, y’know? Don’t just let it rot in a mattress out back.
OzarkHillbilly
Kitchen fire.
Sab
@Bupalos: Liz endorsed Biden, so that’s how I went.
hueyplong
@germy: Trump is the opposite of a wartime leader. He is as small as his smallest, most vile follower.
It’s really difficult not to think ill of a fairly large population of Americans whose only problem with Trump is that at times he’s not aggressive enough.
Subsole
@MattF: I remember reading a somewhat tongue-in-cheek argument a few years ago that Randianism was actually a very malign branch of Satanism marketed to Rvangelicals. While I am no Satanist (nor rvangelical), the tenets actually seem to line up pretty well from the outside…
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Why, at this time, do you want to vote for her? What will it accomplish?
joel hanes
@germy:
Fuck Ari Fleischer.
Subsole
@germy: Due respect, but most racists I’ve known were happy to take a loss on their ledger if it made them feel superior.
Racism is an emotional tapeworm. It doesn’t care about the holder’s well-being any more than the victim’s.
Ruviana
@WereBear: Ooh, what book? I read a lot of true crime also for similar reasons and this sounds right up my alley!
kindness
I’m reading that Bernie is objecting to being removed from the NY state primaries. While there may be merit to what Bernie says (he wants to keep racking up delegates to have more power when the nominating convention happens), it’s still an unforced ‘Oh Shit Dude!’ error. Why Bernie doesn’t see that he hurts the Democratic Party acting in this manner is beyond reason. It’s blind on Bernie and his supporters part. Damn dude….I thought you said you were going to try to help Democrats (this time).
Recall
@Immanentize: Is it a bad thing that he still wants to influence the party’s platform?
Subsole
@Frankensteinbeck: Exactly. Part of what doomed the left, for me anyway, is they could never figure out that if you give bigots more money, they just find more expensive ways to hurt people.
It boils down to hoping Archie Bunker can buy his way out of his delusions.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl: I am struggling with the fact a particular friend of mine really, really wanted me to sit through all three parts of the “Atlas Shrugged” movie. (Partly because some of it was filmed in the Royal Gorge, which is local for us). I have put him off for a couple of years, but I now have sat through the first part. I am not sure how much I am going to need to drink to get through the next two parts. If only the filmmakers could have approached it as high camp, a la “Starship Troopers”. As it is, I think I have offended him by alternately laughing, rolling my eyes, and exploding in outrage.
joel hanes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m surprised CA is a wash
CA’s metro areas are donors, but the state has vast hinterlands that depend heavily on government largesse to agriculture, logging, and mining. Also, like many Western states, the feds do huge water projects to move California’s water from where it is to where people think they want it.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@kindness: I hate Bermie’s guts, but at this point I think the damage is more likely to come from riling up his supporters
very on-brand that he’s more concerned with the internal party politics than with, I don’t know, winning the Senate? But then I let my mind wander around the electoral map and wonder which candidates, if any would want him around. I suppose he could concentrate his energy on vote-by-mail.
tokyokie
I picked up one of the Rand novels (I don’t remember which) my brother left behind when he went to college and flipped through it, stopping a few times to read a page or two, and every time I stopped on a random page, my 13-year-old mind was thinking, “Gawd! What horribly turgid prose!” I put it back on the bookshelf and haven’t picked one up since.
TS (the original)
Watching Gov Cuomo discuss a reopen procedure. The comparison with trump & his administration is all light/dark top/bottom right/wrong.
And he still has to thank trump for what he did re facilities. it really is frightening that governors have to plead to this impeached imbecile who cannot, under any circumstances do his job.
joel hanes
@MattF:
Rand and her cult
Horrifying to me that one of the most-deluded cultists, Alan Greenspan, helped determine US economic policy for decades. He was one of Rand’s inner circle; you may remember that when the crisis came in 2009, he said he was astonished that the rational self-interest of the banks had not prevented them from taking crazy risks nor kept them honest.
Baud
@kindness:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Is NY doing that because it is follow its rules for suspended campaign or is it an ad hoc decision?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
as terrifying as this moment in history is, as sick as it is that this is where his focus is as we approach 60,000 dead, my initial reaction to this was to laugh that The Beast is fixated on the NYT image of him “angrily” eating a hamberder alone in his bedroom
Omnes Omnibus
@Recall: I would bet that there are other less divisive ways to influence the Democratic Party platform. One of them might be, um let’s see, joining the Democratic Party. Just an idea off the top of my head. I bet, if Sanders put his mind to it, he could think of others.
MattF
@joel hanes: And that Greenspan couldn’t just look around Rand’s inner circle and think ‘There’s something hinky going on around here.’ Maybe we’re sensitized to cultish behaviors, but it seems obvious now.
Recall
@Omnes Omnibus: He did that back in March.
Subsole
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Woof. All I can say is I respect your tenacity. I read Anthem when I was 17, said “I’ve already read Animal Farm, and that was actually fun,” and kept walking. Tried Atlas at 22, made it like maaaybe a third of the way and ditched. Just. could. not.
Like you said, imagine the casualties if you gave Eric Trump a deep-fryer.
Zelma
I live among aspiring billionaires, at least during the summer. 37 years ago, my husband and I bought a cottage in Avalon, NJ. I started coming here in the 1960s when it was a town of small homes, mostly built after WWII. Most were pretty small – three tiny bedrooms, one bath, a small living area. The upscale folks had Cape Codes with an half bath. The upper end people had “upside down” houses , usually with a concrete block foundation and aluminum siding. Some had five bedrooms and two baths. Height of luxury.
I imagine you can guess what has happened here: huge McMansions with six bedrooms and baths a swimming pool (you have to have a swimming pool) with the cheapest selling for about $2 million. Ocean block go for closer to $ 3 million; ocean front, no less than $5 million.
I describe all this in detail as in introduction to how horrible these people are, how entitled, how rude, etc. For one, many of them are here now, when the governor asked them to stay away. But as an example, my friend’s neighbor thought a tree was leaning too much and called the police on her. This kind of attitude is rampant.
Fortunately, they are only here during the summer and often only on the weekends. But they are not nice people.
SFAW
On a cheerier note: according to TPM, “the Supreme Court on Monday signaled that it was not even sure whether the judicial branch had the authority to settle disputes over congressional subpoenas issued for President Trump’s financial documents.”
Out-fucking-standing. Do those fascists decide anything other than how much/little the powerless can be fucked over, and the powerful can consolidate their power?
Fuck Mitch McConnell. I hope he suffers the same fate as Vorbis in Small Gods.
SFAW
@Subsole:
FSM doesn’t love me that much.
Subsole
@Barbara: Fucker probably mocks blacks who say “brother”, while expecting me to think he’s my caucasian cousin…
Omnes Omnibus
@Recall: Link? And again, there are other less divisive methods or retaining influence than effectively continuing to seek votes in primaries.
trollhattan
@Zelma:
Am picturing Tony Soprano padding down to the front gate in his robe and slippers to fetch the paper. IDK if he would have called the cops on the neighbor’s tree, but Carm would have.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan: I loved Vonnegut. Devoured everything he wrote. It’s been decades, I’m guessing they hold up better than most. Has anyone here read them recently?
Recall
@Omnes Omnibus: Google it. Or just put your emotions aside for a second and think about whether the Democratic Party allows independents to run in their primaries.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: You couldn’t pay me enough to sit through any of the movies, or read the books again.
Omnes Omnibus
@Recall: So it’s a bullshit claim. Got it.
Zelma
@Miss Bianca:
Re the Atlas Shrugged movie, a high school classmate of mine financed that monstrosity. I don’t know what happened to Jon. He was really a very nice kid and when I’ve met him at reunions, seemed sane. But spending $100 million to film Atlas Shrugged is proof positive that he has more money than sense. (Also, he has an ocean front property in Avalon. See my post above.).
I admit to watching a bit of the movie just because Jon financed it. Didn’t make it past the first half hour.
I read The Fountainhead as a teen after seeing the movie. Even at 15 I knew its ideology was crap. Never even thought of reading Atlas.
Feathers
Took a sociology course on white collar crime (it had a fancy sociology title, but that was the actual topic). One of the takeaways was that the huge salaries are to attract sociopaths. Sane people see the huge money as an obvious bribe to do horrible things and are repulsed. Sociopaths see it as a just and righteous reward for the bold actions that only they have the moral clarity to take. Prof was actually hopeful because the fact that the money was so enormous showed that there actually was a shortage of people who were that cruel and could also serve as the front for a corporation. Wonder what he would make of Trump.
One other takeaway from that class was to ask people what they know to be true, but cannot prove. His was that the real glass ceiling for women is that men don’t trust them to do bad things and to keep shut up about the wrongdoings they witness. Also that the percentage of maleness in an organization is usually a pretty good gauge of the corruption level.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I love this guy
@Recall: well, that certainly makes you look more credible
A Ghost to Most
@trollhattan: Me as well. I devoured all the Vonnegut as a yoot, and the Duke in the military.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: I watched Cats recently, and I wouldn’t touch the Rand stuff with a ten foot pole.
A Ghost to Most
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Sad trombone for the desparate BSbro.
There go two miscreants
An interesting, and not friendly to the book, multi-part review of Atlas is here:
https://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/series/atlas-shrugged/
The pithiest implicit putdown of libertatians that I’ve seen was in Appelbaum’s Economist’s Hour, describing Milton Friedman: “He celebrated drivers, and took roads for granted.”
Recall
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@Omnes Omnibus:
if you guys want to argue from personal ignorance, I’m not going to stop you.
WaterGirl
Thought I would share this information in case anyone is still looking for a pulse oximeter.
The one I ordered from these guys about a week ago has now shipped, which is a good sign.
https://yoximeters.com/collections/shop
The one I “ordered” from Amazon comes up with a 404 page not found error.
Barbara
Many of us have been thinking about this for years. I don’t know whether the party would allow other independents to run, but it allowed Sanders because he reliably caucused with the party in the Senate and they did not want to spur him to run third party. The party should not have given Sanders outsize influence in the platform.
Haroldo
I was a lad of 18 and had just read Atlas Shrugged (I think). I was a brand spankin’ new freshman at the Univ of Wisc – Madison and went to check up on her Objectivists – it was at the height of the Rand-Braden split. The level of vitriol and illogic at that semester’s first meeting convinced me that Rand and her alcolytes were not for me. One of many lessons eventually leaarned.
Barbara
@WaterGirl: I tried a bunch of vendors and I did manage to get one from Amazon. I don’t normally order through Amazon but I ran out of luck in nearly every other place I looked.
WaterGirl
@Feathers: I LOVED the criminology class I took in college. I would still take a course in criminology or white collar crime – in a hot minute – if it didn’t cost a million dollars.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Recall: I’m not “arguing”. I really don’t care about this tiny, tiny aspect of Bernie’s larger divisive personality. I’m just saying you’re bad at arguing.
khead
Stacey Abrams should play Bioshock.
Baud
Ok I googled and found this explanation.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
I had no idea your standards were so low! :-)
germy
I hope Larry Summers has no influence on the platform.
Miss Bianca
@Zelma: Movie is bad. I just wish it was hilariously bad, rather than teeth-grindingly bad.
“Who’s John Galt?” – “DRINK!” – is going to end in blackout territory if I decide to go there.
WaterGirl
In the wise words of the Thin Black Duke:
germy
@Baud: I think I read here that Warren was doing the same thing.
I’m not as worried about divisiveness as I was in 2016. Maybe I’m being naive. I think this time around, Dems are in Array.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: 1. I would watch Francesca Hayward in almost anything – as shown by my watching the aforementioned film. 2. I went into it with a “how bad can it really be?” attitude. The answer is yes.
Recall
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Projecting much?
germy
A Ghost to Most
@germy:
Will Rogers is rolling over
Baud
@germy: I’m not worried. Just curious.
Gin & Tonic
@Recall: Joined the Democratic Party? I must have missed that, got a link?
germy
@A Ghost to Most: Easy to herd cats when they’re faced with a rabid dog.
EthylEster
@trollhattan: Your mention of Vonnegut inspires me to mention that during the shutdown I have been revisiting lots of my childhood and young person reads. And Cat’s Cradle is in my Libby reader right now. I also went back to a bunch of Heinlein YA novels. And Asimov and Arthur C Clarke. I am about to embark on a Huxley binge and have scheduled several Orwell masterpieces. Last week Jane Eyre. If you wait long enough it’s almost like a fresh read. ;=)
I did read the Fountainhead right before college and was unimpressed. Turgid. Galt’s zillion page screed in AS put me right off.
Feathers
On Ayn Rand, I like to paraphrase a quip I read about Jane Austen: Her genius lies in convincing the reader that they are Howard Roark or Dagny Taggart and not popular architects or railway workers.
The original was that the genius of Austen is that everyone reads Pride and Prejudice thinking they are Eliza Bennet and not her younger sisters. I don’t know Rand well enough to know what to call the “younger sisters” of her novels. Never made it through the books, saw the films Fountainhead and We the Living, did watch a very interesting documentary about her. Can any jackals help with a better term for the losers of the Rand world? Also had a boss once who had to interact with her. Said she was completely nuts.
Subsole
@WaterGirl: Just a few of his short stories. Still incredible.
“If you die in the 21st century, your death will not be in vain – you will have entertained us.”
Gin & Tonic
@Recall: https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/416/201903049145600416/201903049145600416.pdf
Fair Economist
@Miss Bianca:
Oh, it gets worse. There’s a complete cast changeover in every movie, and the budget shrinks because the movies were such flops. The problems with the underlying material and the incoherency of a failed update to the modern world stay about the same.
They couldn’t have treated it as high camp, because the Randroid Ayn Rand Institute, which holds the rights, had script approval authority (a requirement to sell rights). I’m surprised your friend is so eager, because even Randroids recognize it’s a trainwreck.
PenAndKey
I can’t actually criticize that. When I was a teenager I enjoyed the first couple Sword of Truth books by Terry Goodkind. At least I did until I realized that I originally missed the strong hyper-Islamophobic plotline in the first book, the the proto-fascist morality of the protagonist, and the anti-socialist moral cudgel that was practically pulled right out of Atlas Shrugged that was Faith of the Fallen. And let’s not even get into the misogyny inherent in Goodkind’s portrayal of the emperor’s chief interrogators. They were, from what I remember, magic nullifying dominatrixes brainwashed into loving pain, essentially. Even as a healthy teenage boy that crossed a line into the “I’ll put up with this for the rest of the story” zone.
Faith is where I finally washed my hands of the series, but looking back on it the whole series was… bad. But to a fast-reading teenager who loved fantasy novels it was a big series with a main hero who wielded a cool sword that imbued him with the skills of all previous holders and who could do magic in a world where magic was dying. It had an appeal. Too bad it was essentially badly written propaganda. (which, incidentally, is likely why Randoids push Atlas Shrugged so heavily onto high schoolers and even offer scholarships for kids willing to read it and write an essay about it).
As for Atlas Shrugged? I never got into it. I tried, which is why I recognized what Goodkind was pulling, but I just couldn’t finish it. If I’m going to tolerate that story I’ll stick with Bioshock. It’s a far better take on the same story, because at least the game developers treated it, and guys like Galt, with the scorn they deserve.
Recall
@Gin & Tonic:
https://lmgtfy.com/?q=sanders%20join%20democratic
Bex
@Sab: Read her book, Lead From the Outside. She also has written romance novels to finance her education.
Omnes Omnibus
@Recall: Hmmm… Official document vs Google search headlines.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: Glad you were able to find one! Do you have a link for the one that shipped from Amazon?
Central Planning
We were just out getting bird food and bird feeder. I saw a covid of idiots protesting in front of the Wegmans in Pittsford, NY (Rochester suburb). All without masks but with stupid signs.
I’m sorry they were so inconvenienced because people were dying. //
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Fair enough! There are bad movies I would definitely watch just for the people in them.
Is Cats really as bad as they say?
Gin & Tonic
@Recall: The FEC page for Sanders, Bernard, accessed two minutes ago, says IND.
https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/can_detail/S4VT00033/
Maybe it’s just an oversight on his part. I’m sure he’ll change it to DEM soon.
Feathers
@WaterGirl: John Rogers (of the 27% crazification fame) twitter feed is a veritable syllabus of books on white collar crime (and con artists, which is much the same thing, but in a different context).
If I were fixing the world, a pull back from the current, violent methods of policing (which probably causes as much crime as they solve) with one focused on white collar and non-violent crime. There was a real opportunity lost with the financial crisis to hire all the mortgage people who lost their jobs to solve financial crimes.
There is a real cost to not ridding our financial and business systems of these people.
Maybe a BJ white collar crime book club? or weekly thread. It could include murder true crime as long as there was a financial/business angle involved. There are so many podcasts out there now, too.
WaterGirl
@germy: That’s smart. Everybody but Biden has suspended, so I think this is definitely the right public health move. It will save lives.
mrmoshpotato
@Central Planning: Ugh. Inconsiderate asshole morons.
Yes – asshole morons.
Barbara
@WaterGirl: I don’t have a link. My husband has a prime membership, so the “ship dates” are normally how you figure it out. But I just searched for the whole category, and the results indicated which products were already in the U.S., that is, not awaiting importation and likely to take one to two weeks more. Obviously, demand is spiking, along with prices.
japa21
@PenAndKey: Add to all that that Goodkind is really an awful writer.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you! From your link – I guess that settles that.
Central Planning
@mrmoshpotato: Yup. I was trying to think what we could write on a sign and drive by, honk the horn, and flip them off. Something simple like “MORONS” or (not sure if I had the space to be big enough to read easily) “DEATH IS INCONVENIENT TOO”
WaterGirl
@Central Planning:
I really hope that catches on!
WaterGirl
@Feathers:
Interesting idea!
Central Planning
@WaterGirl: Me too! It’s not mine though :)
Barbara
@WaterGirl: I am told that he registers D for the presidential and I for Senate. Clearly, he has never intended to and does not now intend to join the Democratic party on a permanent basis.
Recall
@Gin & Tonic:
SANDERS, BERNARD
ID: S4VT00033
INCUMBENT
Office Sought:
Senate
State:
Vermont
Party:
IND (Independent)
Huh, could have sworn he was running for president.
EthylEster
@joel hanes: Hi. You mentioned “rational market”. My current obsession is with Daniel Kahneman’s Thinking Fast and Slow, which (among many other things) carefully explains how people make economic decisions. And it is NOT a rational process. TF&S absolutely destroys the assumptions of the “rational actors” econs.
The book is a tour de force and I am someone who hates reading psychology (probably because I am a physical scientist). But this work is quantitative, thorough, and REALLY important IMO. Michael Lewis (of Moneyball fame) wrote an entertaining book (The Undoing Project) about the two guys, Kahneman and Tversky, who did this work, talking about the ideas behind it and their friendship. Very worthwhile reading (or listening in may case).
Miss Bianca
@Fair Economist: Yeah, I saw that Rand Institute acknowledgement at the end, so I realized that we were going to get a straight and dreary tribute.
I am surprised too – D is a really smart guy, but man, has he drunk the Libertarian Kool-Aid. I consider it one of the tasks of our relationship to ride his ass about that. ; )
The Thin Black Duke
Are some people here serious about dismissing Abrams because of a book she likes? Really?
EthylEster
@WaterGirl: a covid of idiots
Yesterday I saw my first occurrence of covidiot. But evidently that term has been around since the middle of March.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: ah. okay, not that important.
For future reference, if you use the box “Search All Orders” you only get what you’ve actually ordered, not what’s for sale.
WaterGirl
@The Thin Black Duke: I am certainly not dismissing Stacey Abrams because of it.
My ears perked up at the book choice, but everything I have seen or read about her actions and her life choices leaves me firmly in the Stacey for VP camp.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: It’s just all wrong. The cat/people managed to hit the uncanny valley. There was a scene with singing and dancing cockroaches who were not helpful like the ones in Joe’s Apartment. I kept wondering why. Why it was made. Why people like Judy Dench and Idris Elba signed on. Why the idea wasn’t strangled at birth. And so on.
ETA: Have you ever seen Hayward dance?
germy
@WaterGirl:
mrmoshpotato
@Central Planning: NO UNLIMITED BREADSTICKS FROM DEATH
ETA – NO SOUP, NO SALAD, ONLY DEATH
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: Some things are inexplicable. It’s like Ishtar. I cannot fathom why some really talented people chose to be associated with that terrible movie.
Barbara
@WaterGirl: I went back and tried that. It is sold by “forAmerica” but I couldn’t link to the product page. It told me that it wasn’t available.
The Thin Black Duke
Exactly. I don’t need to approve of every book in her library to recognize that Abrams is a good person.
germy
@WaterGirl: I remember the Far Side cartoon where a guy finds himself in hell, and there’s a video rental place down there. Of course, shelves are full of Ishtar. The only movie available.
WaterGirl
@Barbara: Thanks for trying! Glad you got yours, anyway. I will feel better when mine arrives.
WaterGirl
@germy: I see your point. Let’s hope there aren’t a lot of contested congressional and state level primaries. But there probably are, aren’t there?
WaterGirl
@germy: I laughed out loud! I had never seen that cartoon.
I even saw Ishtar at the dollar theater (do they still even have those?) and thought it was not worth the money.
pluky
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: California gets a lot of Defense Sector pork.
germy
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/thomas-piketty-capital-and-ideology-coronavirus-inequality.html
interview with Thomas Piketty. He’s locked down in his apartment.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
he had the Noble Prize nutty in a fit of rage over being mocked/criticized for his calls for Lysol injections, and not he needs to throw another one to get himself out of the Noble toilet-swirl
I had Thursday at the outside, and I thought he’d make at least till tomorrow
Central Planning
@mrmoshpotato: That last one makes me think of the line from Ghostbusters “There is no Dana, only Zuul” which could now be “There is no inconvenience, only death”
Feathers
@WaterGirl: I actually went to an early, way before release audience preview screening for Ishtar. Remember those? You saw the movie and got a questionnaire afterwards about which parts you did and didn’t like. I guess the internet and social media were the end of those. I remember thinking that Beatty and Hoffman were terribly miscast, but that I laughed a lot.
There was a much better reaction at the early screening than there was when I went again to see the version that was released. My memory is too bad to have any recollection of the differences between the two.
There is a strong Ishtar fandom within film twitter. They get shit about it, but stand strong. I’m curious to see it again. Saw bits of Clue back when it came out. Disliked them and never saw the whole movie. Watched it recently and hated it. Murder by Death was one of my favorite movies as a kid and I couldn’t make it fifteen minutes in when I tried watching it as an adult. Some of the difference may be that I have now read/seen all of the detective novels and movies being spoofed. I hadn’t as a kid, just Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and The Famous Five.
Feathers
@Central Planning: I once got an email from zuul@ domainname. Turned out to be a woman named Dana. Brilliant.
sdhays
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Lincoln’s definitely have a style, although it’s not something I would have recommended. I remember first seeing the new Lincoln SUV’s a few years ago. It took me a while to realize it was an SUV and not a fancy hearse.
“Come on kids, get into your seats next to the coffin rack.”
The Lodger
@Wapiti: Oregon doesn’t have any military bases. I think it’s because Mark Hatfield never pushed for any.
Walking Dune
@Zelma: Avalon had the court case about the woman who refused to cut the Boston creeper vine on her house and actually won after a protracted battle. My father took us on a “Sunday drive” through Avalon in the Fifties, and I remember many undeveloped areas and sand “streets.” As you say, now it’s all about the multi-million dollar mansions.
mrmoshpotato
@Central Planning: “What a lovely singing voice you must have.”
J R in WV
@Recall:
Not necessarily a bad thing, but in this case he a) isn’t going to gain more influence over anything because b) his actions damage the acknowledged candidate of the party.
How can he and his team not see that in order to gain influence in the Democratic party, one must be a member of the Democratic party, and work to advance the cause of the Democratic party? I think the answer is some stupidity, and some evil, I can’t know which is which from here.
Just Chuck
Hot damn, that meteor is my new wallpaper.
Just Chuck
@Omnes Omnibus: I’d say Love Death and Robots is climbing up the other side of the uncanny valley. The motions of CG characters look a little off (especially hands) but they have absolutely nailed facial expressions, which AIUI they can pull off without motion capture nowadays.
It’s close to no longer being a matter of how realistic you can get with CG, it’s what you can deliberately stylize to get back to artistic.
Just Chuck
@PenAndKey:
As for Atlas Shrugged? I never got into it.
It’s really not worth it. I read it, the Fountainhead, and Anthem. Anthem was all right at the beginning, but quickly turned into a rant (it’s a short story anyway). Atlas Shrugged starts off pretty intriguing (Who is John Galt?) but holy cow are the characters one-dimensional archetypes to begin with, who eventually drop the pretense of being characters and just start making speeches at the drop of a hat. Galt’s own pontification is something like 70 pages long.
And The Fountainhead? The worst. Quite possibly worse than L. Ron Hubbard. That’s all I need say.
J R in WV
@Gin & Tonic:
OK, folks. Now we know Recall is a troll, a bernie bro with no regard for the truth. If he actually believes that Sen Sanders actually joined the Democratic Party, he’s an ignorant fool. I choose to believe he just doesn’t care about the truth at all.
Sen Sanders is running for the US Senate in 2022 as an Independent from VT. End of discussion regarding his “membership” in the Democratic Party.
I am a Democrat. I have been registered as a Democrat for 45 years or so, and have voted in Democratic primaries all my voting life. Bernie Sanders HAS NOT, and neither has Recall, who is now in the pie safe, because we know he is a lying troll BernieBot. Or perhaps a Russian employee of the GRU in St Petersburg…
Just Chuck
@J R in WV: A lot of online Berniebros are Russian trolls. Not saying they all are (I’ve met ’em in meatspace too!) but it it points to the obvious fact: trolls are just making noise in bad faith to stir shit up. In other words, who the fuck cares what he believes? He probably believes in nothing. Say what you will about the tenets…
ETA: Aaaand after actually paying attention to your post, looks like we’re in violent agreement. Folks, please do not feed the trolls, and stay at least six feet away.
Kelly
Yep. At 16 as one of the smart kids at a small town high school, 500 students, I was sure I’d be Howard Roark. 30ish older brother of a high school buddy gently straightened me out on that,
J R in WV
@Recall:
And you would be WRONG again
J R in WV
@The Thin Black Duke:
No, they are just taking advantage of the opportunity to put Ayn Rand right where they think she belongs. I’ve donated to Abrams’ campaigns in the past and will support her again in the future.
Kent
Exactly. Sanders has two separate web sites. His Presidential Campaign web site, and his Senate and Senate Campaign web site.
His Senate web site specifically mentions that he is an independent and has been an independent for 40 years or whatever. They make it part of his profile.
His Presidential Campaign web site did not mention that he was an independent. But NOWHERE did it mention he was a Democrat. And nowhere did it mention the Democratic Party or that he was running for the DEMOCRATIC nomination. You can contrast that to any of the other candidate’s web sites which freely mentioned Democrats and the Democratic Party.
Fuck him and his clever attempt to thread the needle and run as a non-Democrat in the Democratic Primary.
Just Chuck
@Kelly: Like any decent demagogue/cult leader, Rand would scatter her philosophy far and wide — across economics, religion, ethics, ontology, even aesthetics — in order to find something you’d agree with.
I was a bitter born-again atheist at the time and resonated with her take on religion. But looking back (still as an atheist) I can see she was the type that gives atheism a bad name.
The zen buddhist in me still likes “A = A”. You just don’t get to fucking define what A is.
anarchoRex
lol, so much outrage when the RNC rigged the primary for Trump, and now just shoulder shrugs when NY cancels a whole election. Just absolutely hollow political principles.
Omnes Omnibus
@anarchoRex: The last primary that mattered for presidential selection purposes was in Wisconsin. Sanders suspended his campaign and endorsed Biden the next day. Please tell me what democratic purpose it would serve to put people’s lives at risk to have a presidential primary in NY.
Another Scott
@OzarkHillbilly: I enjoyed The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and the biography of her and a few other things, when I read them several decades ago. She was a product of her upbringing (growing up in Stalin’s USSR).
Of course, it doesn’t work as a philosophy to run a country, and can be pushed way, way, way too far, (and she does so), but the idea that you should be true to yourself and be willing to do so in spite of adversity. is a decent one.
The best short counterpoint I’ve seen is:
Who cleans the toilets in Galt’s Gulch?
Cheers,
Scott.
Kent
It’s older history than that. Oregon doesn’t have any militarily significant deep water ports in which to establish Navy bases. Those are all in LA/San Diego, San Francisco, and Puget Sound. During WW2 the Pacific War was largely fought at sea. Even the land-based Army (as well as the Marines) shipped out via sea rather than air so military bases needed to be near ports like Camp Pendleton in Southern California or Fort Lewis near Tacoma WA.
Oregon had a couple of minor Army training depots and such during WW2 mainly to train local troops bound for units elsewhere. But they were all quickly closed in the wake of WW2 when the military demobilized. This all happened long before Hatfield. Cold War installations like the Strategic Air Command were mostly built up in the 1950s before Hatfield as well.
Oregon’s biggest problem is that it’s major port, Portland is 100 miles up the Columbia River with a wicked bar and quirky tides and currents and much less convenient and quick to deploy out of compared to San Francisco or Puget Sound.
By contrast, WA has a ton of military bases due to its proximity to the North Pacific and the fact that Puget Sound is one of the top natural harbors on earth.
A Ghost to Most
@Feathers: I’ve been using “Randian assholes” for decades.
Matt McIrvin
@Feathers: Clue turned into a cult hit on video release when they included all three endings, in place of the original theatrical gimmick of having different endings in different theaters.
That gimmick was just a mistake–one of the endings is vastly better and funnier than the other two (the most famous scene in the movie appears in it), there was no way most people were actually going to watch it multiple times just to collect them all, and the mere fact that there ARE different endings is a sign that the movie isn’t even trying to be a real murder mystery, which I think drove a lot of people away.
I think it’s amusing now but I remember hating it when I originally saw it in the theater.
Just Chuck
@Another Scott:
Obligatory Bob the Angry Flower Link
Kent
Are there no other candidates/issues on the ballot? Here in OR the primary is scheduled for May 19 (it is 100% mail-in balloting). But there are lots of local candidates and ballot measures and tax levies on the ballot as well as the presidential primary.
Matt McIrvin
@Feathers: …as for Ishtar, I remember actually thinking it was funny. There was, however, a bunch of lazy comic Arab stereotyping in it that has probably aged very poorly. But Beatty and Hoffman as a pair of terrible Dunning-Kruger-victim songwriters were funny. It was basically a Hope-Crosby Road movie, nothing great but there were laughs. What made it such a disaster was mostly that it went so far over budget.
Omnes Omnibus
Yeah, that was great advice from even before Polonius gave it. As it turns out, you can get that without all of Rand’s baggage elsewhere. Plus she is a terrible writer.
anarchoRex
@Omnes Omnibus: it’s almost as if there’s a way to hold an election without putting anyone in danger. Something having to do with the post office? That’s what I’ve heard anyway, probably too complicated for the state of New York to figure out. Oh well, too bad for the people that wanted to vote, it’s not like their votes mattered anyway.
Just Chuck
@Omnes Omnibus: Angular Planes, dude. Angular Planes. Admit it, you love those Angular Planes. Maybe if I keep saying Angular Planes?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: I specifically noted that I was talking about presidential selection primaries. FFS, I live in Wisconsin where we had a supreme court election at the same time as the primary.
Another Scott
@Recall: Um, you made a claim. You should back it up. That’s the way it works.
Cheers,
Scott.
J R in WV
@anarchoRex:
Apples to rotten eggs comparison here, again.
Actually, the RNC rigged their primaries nationally for Trump even though there were other potential candidates, who couldn’t even file to run in cancelled primaries nationwide.
The DNC cancelled their NY state primary for the presidential race because the race is over, Biden won flying away! Bernie Bros can’t believe it, but there it is, he lost, again, worse than he lost last time through.
And you too are in the pie safe, have been for quite a while now. Lying in plain old black and white by comparing actual election rigging with an electoral race over and done with.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: @Omnes Omnibus: FWIW the down ballot election will still take place.
J R in WV
@Kent:
Yes, there are, and the NY primary election for those races will proceed as scheduled, but with no presidential candidates on the ballots.
Kent
I was just asking if there were any other races or issues on the ballot that also got canceled in NY. Or was it simply a presidential primary with nothing else on the ballot? I don’t know the answer.
Kent
@Omnes Omnibus: So what is the logic to scrubbing the presidential primary off the ballot if they are still going to have a primary with all the down-ballot races? Are they deliberately trying to depress turnout? If so, that seems rather undemocratic. Is this something they would do anyway in a non-pandemic year?
anarchoRex
@J R in WV: lmao, why do you bother to pie me? It’s clear you click on my comments everytime. lol, so consumed with me that you go out of your way to tell me your ignoring me.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: There is one candidate still running.
anarchoRex
@Omnes Omnibus: there are two candidates seeking to win delegates.
Another Scott
@Just Chuck: :-D
Thanks!
Cheers,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@anarchoRex: So Sanders is still running?
Another Scott
@Omnes Omnibus: He’s the quantum candidate. His wave-function hasn’t collapsed yet.
HTH!!
Cheers,
Scott.
anarchoRex
@Omnes Omnibus: he “suspended” his campaign but he’s still seeking delegates to influence the party platform.
Omnes Omnibus
@anarchoRex: Is he running or not?
eddie blake
@danielx:
dude. i’m quite tall. i’m all in on barge for livin’ large.
anarchoRex
@Omnes Omnibus: this would all be much simpler if you just admitted you don’t care about disenfranchisement if it doesn’t affect you or people you support.
It’s a simple standard, should people be able to exercise their franchise or not?
smedley the uncertain
@kindness: Looks like we (NY) ain’t gonna have no Primaries. So Bernies play becomes moot. I still think it was a sour grapes play.
planetjanet
@Kent:
Not every jurisdiction has a contested primary. Therefore, you have fewer locations where active voting may be needed.
James E Powell
@Zelma:
I think Fitzgerald pretty much nailed it in The Great Gatsby.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: I loved The Fountainhead when I first read it because I thought it was all about artists doing what they want and not letting critics change their vision. I didn’t didn’t even really see the politics of it. Then I read Atlas Shrugged and was like ok, fuck this bullshit when I saw Rand’s odious ideology.
Miss Bianca
@Another Scott: Ha, ha, I was thinking of that last point myself – specifically, “OK, so who cooks and cleans at Galt’s Gulch? Do all the self-styled MOTUs like, take *turns* or something? How cooperative and downright *socialist* of them!”
Kent
Which is, of course, the most pointless performative exercise ever. No one but the Bernie folks themselves is even going to read or care about what is in the Dem party platform after the convention. And it is going to sway exactly zero votes in the fall. The Obama alums on Pod Save America admitted that when they walked into office in January 2009 no one ever looked at the 2008 party platform as any kind of guide or to-do list when in office. It was completely irrelevant.
Does anyone remember a single news story in the fall of 2016 that compared and contrasted the actual Dem and GOP platforms as a reason for voting for Trump or Clinton? I don’t. It was all about emailz and building the wall and other inane bullshit not the actual platforms.
Back when I worked for NOAA in the 1990s I was sent to DC for about a week to help draft the NOAA strategic plan and mission statement. It was an endless torture session in a big conference room with agency representatives from around the country. After we were done and it was finally signed off on by the head of NOAA and Secretary of Commerce I don’t think anyone ever looked at it again, much less used it for a any kind of funding or operational guide. The party platforms amount to the same thing in this day and age.
eddie blake
guys. FFS.
yeah. we’re smaat here in ny. everyone’s gonna be able to vote by mail.
geez.
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/494512-cuomo-says-he-will-sign-an-executive-order-sending-absentee-ballot
anarchoRex
@Kent: lemme clarify, when I say “platform” I mean the party rules, such as how superdelegates work. He wants to have an influence on how the DNC functions. And if you don’t like that, that’s fine! But it should be up to the voters of NY to tell him no, not the New York State Board of Elections.
eddie blake
“i have suspended my campaign” is the new “i will release my full medical records.”
FFS.
Kent
New York is still going to send delegates to the national convention in August (or virtual convention if that is what we have). The New York Democratic party will still have influence. But I guess that doesn’t help if Sander’s objective is to tear down the party rather than support it.
yellowdog
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It isn’t just payouts to states or individuals, I think. It must also include the pay of federal employees. I think Virginia and Maryland are ‘takers’ because so much of the federal workforce is in those states (NIH, FDA, SSA, and the Pentagon, etc.).
Robert Sneddon
@Another Scott:
The best answer I ever heard to that question was the guy who turned up at Galt’s Gulch with fourteen assault rifles and no ammo.
I’m pretty sure there’s a Bob the Angry Flower cartoon along the same lines — cities are in flames, civilisation has collapsed, the Galt’s Gulch mob are safe behind their walls of Reardon metal and the question now is “what’s for dinner?” Cut to a couple of months later with Flower, Rand and co. digging in the fields with hand implements under a blazing sun.
Dahlia
@Feathers: Cherryl Brooks and Eddie Willers.
Kent
I think they count ALL Federal spending, even things like military bases. TX has some big military bases that get billions of dollars, plus all the border spending.
In addition to the military, CA has a LOT of Federal lands and national parks that absorb a lot of funding. Also all the national forests in the northern half of the state that are federally managed with forest service offices all over the place.
Alaska is always a big recipient state because it has so much federal lands that require staff and management and spending by the various Federal parks and lands management agencies. Plus it has the largest coastline in the country so lots of spending on maritime agencies like the Coast Guard and NOAA. Alaskans would say. “Turn all the Federal lands and waters over to the state and we will be happy to stop taking Federal dollars”
anarchoRex
@Kent: with the presidential primary cancelled who will be choosing those delegates? And is that even a given? The DNC threatened to penalize states for just delaying primaries, you don’t think there will be any repercussions for outright cancelling one?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@anarchoRex: yes, at the top of most people’s minds these days is //checks notes, rolls eye// allocation of delegates in a state primary that is one part of an already decided contest in order to determine the precise wording of a vague non-binding statement of policy goals that no one will read in the run up to an election that is about the continuation of the reign of a corrupt white nationalist with at least two Supreme Court seats almost certainly at stake, and with control of the Senate to be determined by voters who think Bernie and his followers are shouty, screechy cranks, and candidates who do not want to talk about things like BernieCare
Recall
@J R in WV: How? How is he damaging anything? I spend most of my day reading about politics, and this is the only place I hear about what Sanders is or isn’t doing.
I can understand if you want to keep shitting on him, but it’s absurd to think anything he does at this point matters one way or another.
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: Love that description.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I might call that one gorgeous run-on sentence, but can it truly be called a sentence if there is no punctuation at the end? :-)
Recall
@Kent: This, I assume?
ftp://ftp.library.noaa.gov/noaa_documents.lib/Reports/NOAA_strategic_plan/1995-Sept.pdf
They didn’t want too much on climate change, I take it?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@WaterGirl: you’re assuming I’m done, and not just taking a breather
Kent
Bingo! I don’t think I’ve seen that document since 2005. I think the party platforms are about equally relevant.
I don’t remember climate change as a topic. Mostly because there was no office of climate (other than the weather service) at that time. Not for partisan political reasons. There was just no line agency pushing to include climate stuff in the strategic plan. Each line agency was pushing to get its own agenda and mission written into the plan so they could claim more dollars in the budget. That was the game. About like how the Bernie-folks want to influence the Dem platform.
Yutsano
@anarchoRex:
This is possibly a stupid question but: indulge me. Why should Sanders get a say in the rules of the Democratic party when he’s not a current member, has never been a member, has no interest in joining, and will not be a candidate in any further Democratic elections ever? Please show your work. I’ll wait.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: hahahahaha
anarchoRex
@Yutsano: because he won delegates in the DNC’s nomination process? If you don’t like it, take it up with the DNC.
Delegates go on to shape the party at the state and national level, and he’s won ~40% of them, so unless you want to tell all those delegates to fuck off…
chopper
@Recall:
clearly, he’s running for senate as an independent and president as a democrat, doy
Another Scott
@Just Chuck: Made me look.
He’s obviously got a great eye.
https://www.prasenjeetyadav.com/#explore
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.