Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

The revolution will be supervised.

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

American History and Black History can not be separated.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

This blog will pay for itself.

“Cheese and Kraken paired together for the appetizer trial.”

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

with the Kraken taking a plea, the Cheese stands alone.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Bless the Youths

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Bless the Youths

by | 152 Comments

This post is in: , ,


Rodrigo’s already been vaxx’d, which puts her visit ethically way in advance of the notorious Elvis-Nixon meeting:



Here, I sense the fine Maltese-American hand of a certain Transportation Secretary…

Okay, 32 isn’t especially young, except by legislative standards:

… Host Pete Hegseth was pressing Texas state Rep. James Talarico about his decision to flee Austin with dozens of other Democratic lawmakers this week — a procedural gambit intended to block Republicans from passing strict voting laws back home.

The on-screen graphic called the Democrats’ exodus to Washington, D.C., a “stunt,” and Hegseth’s interview with the 32-year-old lawmaker made it clear he agreed.

“We know you met with [Democratic Senate Majority Leader] Chuck Schumer and [Democratic House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi today,” the host told Talarico. “You’ve been told to say you’re protecting democracy, that Republicans are authoritarian and racist. … It kind of seems they’re using you as a prop, or a puppet.”

Talarico tried to argue his case — that former president Donald Trump’s false claims that the November election was rigged against him had inspired Republicans in Texas and other states to launch legislative attacks against voting rights. But all the while, Hegseth smirked, laughed into the camera and constantly interrupted his guest.

It was standard Fox opinion fare — until about six minutes into the interview, when Talarico turned the tables.

“You have made a lot of money personally and you’ve enriched a lot of corporations with advertising by getting on here and spewing lies and conspiracy theories to folks who trust you,” Talarico told Hegseth.

He then gave the host a challenge: “Tell your voters right now that Donald Trump lost the election.”…

Hegseth did not. The longtime Fox host had said in November that it was “premature to declare that Joe Biden is the president-elect,” even after his own network had called the race…

Reader Interactions

152Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    @Sanjeevs:

    The long game of embedding Snowden in Russia has paid off!

    Glad the leaker didn’t trust Greenwald with this information.

  5. 5.

    debbie

    I look forward to their authentication. Do we know when Putin first began grooming TFG? (ETA: I’d bet it was long before this plan was cooked up.)

  8. 8.

    Sanjeevs

    I wonder if this was deliberately leaked because Vlad thinks Trump is no longer useful.

  9. 9.

    sdhays

    @Sanjeevs: This was my question. But if it’s not and it’s a leak from a Western spy agency…I wonder if they have that appendix.

  10. 10.

    Cheryl Rofer

    I am waiting to hear from Russia experts before I spend much time on the Guardian report.

    There’s no hot take to be had if it’s true, since so many have suspected as much.

    I’m always careful when a report like this confirms my and others’ priors too neatly.

  11. 11.

    Argiope

    @Sanjeevs: I think Putin also is fine with letting us know, now that it’s over, that we’ve been played.  He’s a bit of a troll that way.

  13. 13.

    Racer X

    I just donated to James Talarico.  I don’t live in Texas.  I want to reward politicians willing to fight for the truth and liberal values anywhere they are.  Too often my representatives do not represent me and just expect my vote anyway because they have a D next to their name.  We’re on the side of truth and justice we need to start acting like it and stop cringing.

  18. 18.

    Spanky

    President Joe Biden has vowed to significantly reduce emissions by 2030,

    Uh oh, time to change my diet!

  23. 23.

    Nicole

    I tried toe grips on our aging dog last night (who is finding the hallway a bit slippy) and they worked great, but during the night she chewed the grips off and ate them. I can’t blame her, I guess; the first time I put them on she wriggled them off and left them and I put them back on so I guess she wanted to make sure I couldn’t do it a third time.  Sigh.  Like Arthur Dent, I, too, can never get the hang of Thursdays.

    Sanjeevs, thanks for the link to the Guardian article; I look forward to reading it.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    He’s now promoting the critical race theory panic:

    “Glenn Greenwald
    @ggreenwald

    ·Aaron is a very smart, scrupulous and diligent reporter. As a result, this thread and the accompanying article is one of the few nuanced and thoughtful discussions you’ll find about the role of “critical race theory” and current political and cultural debates surrounding race”

    Which doesn’t surprise me. He latched onto the CRT panic’s predecessor, the “cancel culture” panic. The two panics have merged.
    They’re all trying to pretend this is some serious intellectual discussion but what’s really happening is white people are going to school board meetings and screaming about their whole tired list of incoherent grievances which they have decided to label either “cancel culture” or “critical race theory”.
    Masks, vaccines, funding for girls sports (they’re opposed), books about Martin Luther King, teachers unions- probably 50% of these screeching protests are no longer even about race.
    But none of them know that because none of them have been anywhere near a US public school in decades, if ever.

  26. 26.

    Spanky

    @Cheryl Rofer: I’ve always assumed we had heard from Russian experts, all the way back to the Steele Dossier. They couldn’t (and can’t) give public comment, but I assumed they’d laundered some info into the public sphere just to make sure it’s out there.

  28. 28.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: Tru dat!

    Kamala Harris was the Attorney General of the most populous state in the country. It’s a law office. And a prisecutors office. And a policy shop. With investigations into all sorts of critical things like consumer protection, taxation, civil rights, public corruption… And people working there are complaining about having to work hard, be prepared and be accurate? And what pen she uses?  Sheesh.

  29. 29.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax: ugh. At every July 4th party when I was a kid, my uncle would always say, “Well, summer’s over!” It made me crazy as a kid.

    Now as an old I know he was just truth telling.

  30. 30.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    It’s pretty clear he’s found a home within the right wing ecosystem.  My question is, what value does he bring them?  Is it to influence gullible progressives, or do his words have influence over the traditional Fox audience?

  31. 31.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    There was a clip of a local school board meeting where an African American former OSU football player testified that he wanted his 5-year-old to be able to play with her Barbies instead of being ashamed of her skin. ?

  32. 32.

    Immanentize

    @Nicole:

    she chewed the grips off and ate them. I can’t blame her, I guess;

    Perhaps next time you can try the ones that don’t have “real beef and bacon favor?”

  33. 33.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: GG is filling the necessary part of “liberal anti-trump civil liberties lawyer who sees how bad the left has become.”

    It’s a role that someone has to fill…. With benefits!

  35. 35.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Spanky: It’s hard to base analysis on stuff we don’t know.

    That’s all too often the refuge of grifters and disinformation pushers – we don’t know that SARS-CoV-2 didn’t leak from a lab, therefore it must have leaked from a lab.

    Logic and evidence don’t work like that.

  36. 36.

    Nicole

    @Immanentize:

    Perhaps next time you can try the ones that don’t have “real beef and bacon favor?”

    Damnit!  I should have known when I kept getting a message during the ordering process, “Are you SURE you don’t want the Bitter Apple flavor?”  And I thought, “Who wants to smell bitter apple on their nails when they can smell bacon?”

    I’m bummed because they definitely were helping her grip the floor better in the 4 hours she had them on. I do look forward to writing my Yelp review, “Briefly effective, and apparently delicious.”

  39. 39.

    JPL

    @NotMax: Happy indeed. My second grandson arrived a short while ago, and grandson number one, mentioned he didn’t want to be a big brother.

  42. 42.

    Geminid

    @debbie: I imagine the Russians have had their eyes and tentacles on trump since his visit to Moscow in 1985. And I bet U.S. intelligence has kept a file on trump that has gotten pretty thick since then. I remember how when former CIA Director John Brennan and ex-NSA Director Michael Hayden appeared on TV shows in 2017 and 18, they seemed to have a confident vibe, like they knew stuff they couldn’t say in public. And while trump’s minions would threaten retaliation against the two, nothing came of it.

  44. 44.

    Immanentize

    @NotMax: I was at the Boston MFA first time since the pandemic; sign in the Whistler room:

    Guides come in, guides go out. No one can explain it.

  45. 45.

    Baud

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    It’s hard to base analysis on stuff we don’t know.

    Disagree. It’s actually a lot easier.  Just less credible and less accurate.

  47. 47.

    Immanentize

    @raven: Is that just so the football team can get in two weeks of doubles before the season opener?

    Stay hydrated!

  51. 51.

    Nicole

    @raven: They’re teeny tiny (little plastic rings that slip over their nails) and so I’m sure she’ll be fine; I’ll just be seeing them in a couple of days when I clean up her business.  And then I can get annoyed with her all over again.   She’s gobbled down worse (and eliminated it later) in the almost 8 years we’ve had her.  Sigh.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think both Greenwald and Taibbi act completely out of self interest- a desire to be important and relevant, not so much money (although both make plenty of money off the ‘Leftist contrarian’ pose).
    They need to reinvent the pose with each new President so it looks fresh and they can continue to be “contrarians”.
    Taibbi is just as dishonest as Greenwald. His evaluation of Obama’s response to the financial crisis wasn’t just dumb, it was wildly inaccurate- the numbers were wrong. I was embarrassed at how many liberals swallowed it whole.
    They’re both older now, they both came out of the Bush era, so it was time to switch it up a little and become MAGA curious to remain relevant. There were a glut of anti-Trump people. “Pro Trump Lefty” was the lane with no one in it.

  53. 53.

    germy

    Open thread?

     

    When one has carpenter ants, and one visits Bob Vila’s website to learn which ant bait brands are best, and Bob recommends a brand that kills carpenter ants (and puts it at the top of his list as “best overall), and one visits the product’s official website, and the product’s website admits that the baits don’t kill carpenter ants, one is left with the conclusion that we live in a bullshit society.

  54. 54.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: Right wingers on Fox. But GG still has a gang of autocratic pro-Assange and Snowden — and anti-drone — fan Bois who still follow him from his days raking Bush and Obama.

    By the way, Ou sont les neige-den d’antan?

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Greenwald was really popular with liberals during the Bush era. I’m a liberal and that’s what we were reading so I read him too. I just wasn’t impressed. He was newly politically engaged, he didn’t really understand US politics or the various histories and factions and he was able to get away with that because his audience were newly politically engaged, often very young, and they didn’t know better.

    I maintain that one cannot read Greenwald carefully and still believe he’s an honest actor. He just isn’t. It’s all manipulation.

  56. 56.

    Immanentize

    Well my edit capacity has been suspended, it seems…. Sorry for typos and auto-correct errors.

    ETA Then, to my surprise, it reappeared!

  58. 58.

    oldgold

    Yesterday an acquaintance told me he was not getting vaccinated for Covid -19 because  “God would protect him.”

    This evangelical anti-vaccination nonsense reminded of an old joke about the man stranded on his roof during a flood. A Man in a canoe comes to rescue him and he says “No, God will save me.” A motorboat comes by and the man rejects the motorboat because “God will save me.” A helicopter hoovers overhead and the man refuses to climb the ladder because “God will save me.” The waters rise and he drowns.

    Later, in heaven the man says to God, “I was a good person, why didn’t you save me?” God says, “Well, I sent two boats and a helicopter.”

  60. 60.

    A Ghost to Most

    Boy, I’m sure glad that all our problems disappeared on November 4th. All those postcards, and “Defund the Police!” really put us over the top.

    It would have sucked if anything like an insurrection or coup would have happened.

  63. 63.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: i didn’t! I am dropping in and out these days. Still reeling from all the clustered deaths and infirmities in my world -+ or am I just noticing them more these days?

    I will tell the Immp about all the good thoughts, although he hates me talking about him…. Too bad! Every time we go for the scans and tests, it is a very stressful week or so for each of us. Nothing makes me weep like good news after bracing for bad.

  65. 65.

    Geminid

    Electric buses are a great thing to push. People in cities will love the cleaner air. And kids everywhere ride school buses. Once parents see the benefits to children’s health, every school district will want them. There will be hybrid drive trains for rural districts with long routes.

    Electric buses cost more up front, but their life-cycle costs are lower. So transitioning to electric buses is a matter of financing, not actual cost. Cummings Engines has an electric power package that can be retrofitted to buses and medium trucks, so we wouldn’t even have to scrap the entire fleet of diesel buses.

  67. 67.

    Gin & Tonic

    Last week my dear wife had occasion to travel through Geneva, NY, and brought home 4 quarts of tart cherries. Yesterday I used a quart to make a quick jam, which is excellent on my toast right now. Life is pretty good.

  69. 69.

    Jeffro

    Glanced at the late night thread, did a little Googling, and now I know what “groyper” means.  Blech.

  71. 71.

    VOR

    @Cheryl Rofer: Agree completely. It’s like the leaked documents about GW Bush’s military service back in the 2004 election. It makes sense, confirms your suspicions, but all a little too neat.

    Even if true, the MAGAts will never accept it. Hell, they don’t accept the reality of an election loss by someone who never broke 50% favorability in any major poll.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    What Greenwald is proposing, an alliance with Right wing racist reactionaries on economic issues where Democrats jettison “social issues” (civil rights) and join hands with Trumpists on their (supposedly) populist economic beliefs isn’t new at all. That’s the Dixiecrats. That was the alliance.

    Because Democrats have a history and know their own history they’re really wary of alliances with Right wing racist reactionaries on populist economic issues. They already made that catastrophic error once. Older white Democrats in leadership and especially older AA Democrats in leadership are not going there. They know where that goes. There isn’t going to be a New Dixiecrat Party, on the Democratic side anyway.

  73. 73.

    Gin & Tonic

    IMO, that Grauniad story is relatively pointless. Most of us on this side have long assumed those allegations to be true, and those on the other side will not believe them no matter what evidence is provided as to their veracity or the chain of custody. Why bother?

  74. 74.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    With regard to alliances on economic issues, nothing is stopping the Republicans from working with us on infrastructure or other economic populist measures. It’s not like Biden hasn’t bent over backwards to get them on board.

    Here’s my question:  What’s the theory that says that we have to abandon social issues to form an economic alliance with them, but they don’t have to abandon their social issues to form an economic alliance with us?  Is it simply an assumption that we have less bargaining power, so we need to give up more?

  75. 75.

    Baud

    @Gin & Tonic:

    If the papers can be authenticated, then it’s a legit story to have out there, even if it’s not “new” information for those of us in the know.

  76. 76.

    Soprano2

    @oldgold: Yesterday an acquaintance told me he was not getting vaccinated for Covid -19 because  “God would protect him.”

    I bet he has guns. You should ask why he feels the need to have guns, since God will protect him. Does he lock his car? The front door? This is such a bullshit excuse.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: What’s the theory that says that we have to abandon social issues to form an economic alliance with them, but they don’t have to abandon their social issues to form an economic alliance with us?

    We’re not real Americans.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: Ever notice how God gets all the credit for the good things that happen but none of the blame for the bad things?

    It’s never, “God is such a piece of shit.” when a child dies. It’s always, “God has a plan.”

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    It’s a belief that if we abandon “social issues” (civil rights) we’ll be able to attract white working class men who will then become liberal on economics and isolationist on foreign policy. Their votes and support count for more, for some reason. Like the gold standard of voters.
    Even if it worked, which it won’t, you get the whole package with these beliefs. You get the racism with the economic populism and you get the xenophobia with the isolationism on foreign policy. These are whole people. They hold whole views. You can’t say “I’ll TAKE the support for Social Security but REJECT your membership in the Proud Boys”. They’re actual human beings. A whole set.

  82. 82.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Their votes and support count for more, for some reason. Like the gold standard of voters.

    That’s essentially what Ozark said.  Their whole theory is that our side consists of less worthy people, so we should sacrifice our values rather than asking them to sacrifice theirs.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    And a LOT of people know this. They know the history of the Democratic Party and the various alliances. They know if you take a Trumper on protecting (their own) Social Security you also get the Trumper views on race.  Many of them lived it. The Democratic Party has been thru all this and back again.

    But Greenwald thinks it’s a new and innovative idea because he’s a dope who wasn’t even politically engaged until George W Bush. He actually did the exact same thing during Obama. Remember how we were supposed to ally with Grover Norquist? This stupid thing gets recycled every 5 years.

  84. 84.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: agreed.  Keep it in the news (because it IS news!) any and every way we can.  Rub the RWNJs’ noses in it.  The former guy was and is a Russian asset, and we told them that, and they still fell for it in order to own the libs.  Suckers.

  85. 85.

    Elizabelle

    Linda Ronstadt is 75 years old today.  She was “trending” on twitter.  Relieved to see it’s a birthday.  Wish her many more.

    I never hear “You’re No Good” without chills.  I think it is one of the perfect singles, and the orchestration is imaginative.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I don’t remember the Norquist alliance push.  I remember a lot of progressives thought they could ally with libertarians generally.

  87. 87.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    I still want to know who was on that 2014 Pulitzer committee.  We really need to review his Snowjob work.

     

    It would be a real shame if some faction of Anonymous were to dig into his emails and messages…..

  88. 88.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:   Besides which, rightwing repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats.  It’s how they drum fake news into anyone in the vicinity.

    Some repetition of stories like this, particularly when investigators are poring over Trump financial records.  All good.

    Some day, I would like to see an update on the Steele Dossier, and which of its points have been borne out.  (Also, which did not pan out.). Rightwing and GQP politicians spend so much time telling us it was all disproven.

    But no.  They just say that.  Deflection from a real problem for them.

  89. 89.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I was thinking about getting some cherries to make a kind of savory chutney for pork or beef.  I’m guessing that tart cherries would be ideal.

  90. 90.

    geg6

    @Gin & Tonic: 
    I simply cannot agree with this idea that it doesn’t matter any more. Getting facts out, even on an old story, is always a good thing. And, in this case, there is the historical record to consider. Facts are always good. I look forward to this information being vetted, but have seen a few reliable people saying it looks, at first review, to be truthful. I’m always a skeptic, but it’s going to be interesting to see if the report can be confirmed or, if it has, who has confirmed it.

  91. 91.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kay:

    I’ve been reaching the recent conclusion that rural electrification was a mistake, that TVA was a mistake and that rural broadband would be an unmitigated disaster.

    Seriously, if you want to truly see the cesspool of ruraltania, look at any small town’s Topix feeds.

  94. 94.

    Geminid

    This infrastructure package is the best kind of outreach to white working class voters I can think of. It will end up benefitting working class people of all colors. And the middle class will prosper also. So what if some white people persist in running down culture war rabbit holes? These folks are noisy beyond their numbers. Most people will vote their pocketbook.

  96. 96.

    Nicole

    @Elizabelle:

    Linda Ronstadt is 75 years old today.  She was “trending” on twitter.  Relieved to see it’s a birthday.  Wish her many more.

    I never hear “You’re No Good” without chills.  I think it is one of the perfect singles, and the orchestration is imaginative.

    So funny you mentioned her- I just started teaching myself “Different Drum” on guitar, although I told my husband I don’t see the point as I’ll never sound like Linda Ronstadt singing it.  He reassured me that NO ONE will ever sound like Linda Ronstadt singing it. ;)  (I like the song; Michael Nesmith wrote some clever lyrics.)

    I just watched a CBS Sunday Morning interview (on YouTube) with her from a couple of years ago and she was really funny and self-deprecating.

    You did, of course, read the entry for “You’re No Good” on the The Number Ones,  yes?

    https://www.stereogum.com/2049309/the-number-ones-linda-ronstadts-youre-no-good/columns/the-number-ones/

  97. 97.

    Elizabelle

    @Gin & Tonic:   You are too cynical.

    Some people might be following the story more closely now.  What may have seemed outrageous or “partisan” now follows an insurrection at the Capitol and many arrests.

    Not everyone takes in every bit of news when it first appears.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Your view is very much in the minority on this issue (not that there is neccessarily anything wrong with that). Expanding broadband access has as much support across the board as any issue I’ve seen. And a lot of this funding will go to underserved urban communities.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    @Nicole:   Damn you, Nicole!  I have some work to accomplish outdoors while it’s cool.  So:  will read up on the wonderful Linda tonight.  Not a moment before.

    Good luck with the guitar.  Fun.

  100. 100.

    satby

    @rikyrah: @O. Felix Culpa: Yes it is:

    You start out in 1954 by saying, “Nigger, nigger, nigger”. By 1968 you can’t say “nigger”—that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me—because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this”, is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Nigger, nigger”. So, any way you look at it, race is coming on the back-burner.

  102. 102.

    Elizabelle

    I think Glemm gets entirely too much attention on this blog.

    Do you ever think:  my day was a failure.  I didn’t hear anything about Glenn Greenwald.

    Thought not.

    Why amplify his ridiculousness?  To dispell it, sure.

    Do you ever hear anyone mention GG in the course of your daily events?  Really?

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Nicole: I don’t see the point as I’ll never sound like Linda Ronstadt singing it.

    I would hope not. If I want to hear her sing it I’ll put it up on youtube, and personally, I’d rather hear you sing it in your own way.

  104. 104.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @oldgold: Right there with you!  My niece (a nurse!) in Mississippi downplayed the pandemic for months as “they’re over dramatizing it, it’s not that bad” I warned her it was just delayed getting to her area because it hit the big coastal cities first.  And then she gets it and gets a bad case of it. Recovered but damn how can a nurse be this stupid.   My other niece and her husband have decided that they are not getting vaccinated because “it hasn’t been tested enough, we don’t know the side effects”   They live in Tennessee, she is a Physical Therapist.  Why, why, why…

  105. 105.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Geminid:

    It was a little tongue in cheek, but there’s an element of truth here – all it will really do is enable rural wingers to spread their stupid shit more efficiently. They won’t be impressed by the breadth of other knowledge available because they’re resistant to it from the onset (the sentiment expressed will be “look at this crap them goldurn n*****s and them dummy n*****-lovin’ libruls  are a’thinkin’ and a’doin’ now”).

    And like I said, the breadth of the intellect is fully revealed on Topix, which is like bingeing Jerry Springer.

  107. 107.

    OzarkHillbilly

    As if St Louis didn’t have enough problems already: Sharks in the Mississippi? Researches Say It’s Possible Near St. Louis

    All sorts of surprises lie beneath the the surface of the Mississippi River. Refrigerators, cars, even the occasional body have been found lurking in the depths of The Big Muddy. Now, two researchers suspect there may be something even wilder — bull sharks.

    Dr. Ryan Shell, a research associate at the Cincinnati Museum Center, and Nicholas Gardner, a WVU Potomac State College librarian, affirmed the legitimacy of two St. Louis-area bull shark sightings in the 20th century in “Movement of the bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) in the upper Mississippi River Basin, North America,” published in the July issue of the journal, Marine and Fishery Sciences.

    Bull sharks are aggressive and many experts consider them to be the most dangerous shark species, according to National Geographic.

    The first sighting happened in Alton, Illinois, in 1937, when two fishermen caught a five-foot long shark, the study says. This is the farthest inland a bull shark has been sighted up the Mississippi, according to a press release.
    ………………………..
    The second sighting occurred in 1995 just south of St. Louis near the Rush Island Power Station in Festus. This time, a shark was found stuck in a grate.

    Bull sharks are well-known for their ability to move between freshwater and saltwater ecosystems, the study says. The researchers found that temperatures in the Mississippi are tolerable for the sharks as far north as Alton for most of the year.

  109. 109.

    Central Planning

    @germy: I’ve used the Terro brand to get rid of ants. It’s worked great.

    One other thing you can do is get one of the ant/bug sprays and spray it around the outside of your house. They don’t like crossing that barrier.

  111. 111.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: Just FTR, at Netroots Nation in 2008 there was a guy there with some influence in leftish circles (can’t dredge up his name, sorry) pushing school buses as the absolutely ideal application for electrification of motor vehicles: Frequent starts & stops with ample opportunity for high efficiency via regenerative braking, plus kids don’t end up waiting next to buses belching diesel fumes before the ride home.

    Since then it’s become pretty clear that electric is the way to go for urban buses as well. Most of the Maryland Transportation Authority’s Baltimore metro fleet is now hybrid. When last I visited Denver, a long time back, they had a fleet of free-to-use hybrid hop-on-hop-off buses plying the main downtown business district; Baltimore persuaded local commerce to fund the four lines of our Charm City Circulator hybrids just a few years later.

  114. 114.

    Anne Laurie

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s never, “God is such a piece of shit.” when a child dies. It’s always, “God has a plan.”

    Well, theirs is a vengeful and monomaniacal god, so of course they daren’t offend him!

    (As a devout animist, I believe there are infinite gods, some of them better at planning than others, and all of them working on their own agendas, which are frequently in conflict…

    Which for working purposes means I trust Sekhmet, Goddess of Consequences, to keep this branch of the multiverse mostly running along predictable lines.  While always remembering that Murphy the Trickster God loves chaos, but fortunately he’s very distractable.)

  116. 116.

    Central Planning

    @germy: Seems like you need Ant Killer Plus:

    https://www.terro.com/terro-ant-killer-plus-t901-6

    Ants: Argentine ants, Southern ants, Allegheny Mound ants, Florida Carpenter ants, Black Carpenter ants, Cornfield ants, Red Imported Fire ants and Nuisance ants Other Insects: Cockroaches (German and American), Crickets, Earwigs, Fleas, Millipedes, Mites, Palmetto Bugs, Silverfish, Sowbugs (Pillbugs) and Waterbugs

    And, TIL that Pillbugs are also called Sowbugs.

    ETA: Archer on ants

  117. 117.

    Anne Laurie

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’ve been reaching the recent conclusion that rural electrification was a mistake, that TVA was a mistake and that rural broadband would be an unmitigated disaster.

    Look at it this way:  We’re giving the best of the next generation a chance to escape the prison confines of racist sexist rural conformity and ‘get above their raising.’  Just as you did yours!

  119. 119.

    germy

    @Elizabelle:

    I like the original version by Dee Dee Warwick:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xUisVuPt8M

     

    Delia Juanita Warrick (September 25, 1942 – October 18, 2008), known professionally as Dee Dee Warwick, was an American soul singer. Born in Newark, New Jersey, she was the sister of Dionne Warwick, the niece of Cissy Houston, and the first cousin of Whitney Houston.

  120. 120.

    Geminid

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Yes, I can see the irony now. But the emphasis on rural right wingers may be unwarranted. These particular people are very, very noisy, and they excite a visceral reaction in others. But I’ve lived among rural white people for decades now, and my experience is that the majority of them are relatively non-political. Many are not civically engaged at all. Most of those who are just want things to work.

    The rise of political evangelicals changed this somewhat. But that strain seems strongest in the big suburban and city churches. I don’t know many rural churchgoers (at least not white ones), but my impression is that they are not as interested in political preaching as congregants of the big Baptist churches around Culpepper and Lynchburg.

    And there is some educational upward mobility among rural whites. A lot of parents want their kids to advance in life, and see rural broadband as a means to this end. The higher educated high school and college graduates are likely to end up in the suburbs, not the rural counties they came from. But this may be one of the reasons Democrats have made gains in suburban Congressional districts from Virginia to Georgia to Texas.

  126. 126.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah:  @Baud: you always see some commentary on this phenomenon when a big “blockbuster” revelation comes out, but it seems like it’s much more pronounced this time. I think the Milley stories are scaring people. I snark on Chris Hayes’ grad-student tendencies, but this would be a good topic for him to get wonky on. Bring on people like Eric Boehlert and Jay Rosen. Make Rucker and Loennig a little uncomfortable….

  127. 127.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @rikyrah: reminds me of an early job I had as a gopher at an art gallery.  Owner told me I should wear makeup.  Replied that he didn’t pay me enough (also I dislike it).  Was sure I was going to be fired.  But not, because he realized he needed my organizational skills.

  129. 129.

    Geminid

    @Benno: There was a slow afternoon one Sunday this winter, and I decided to check out some BJ posts from around the 2012 Democratic Convention. There was one where jackals were barking and snarling at Greenwald for his latest attack on the the Democratic President. Then I checked out that Sunday’s thread, and jackals were barking and snarling at Greenwald for his latest attack on the new Democratic President.

    It was deja vu all over again.

  131. 131.

    The Moar You Know

    It would be a real shame if some faction of Anonymous were to dig into his emails and messages…..

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: Can’t let a fundamental misunderstanding of Anonymous this bad stand. They are the original Trump assets, the ones that paved the way on the internet for someone like him to come. Because they knew someone like him would. They are racist, misogynistic to the last degree and wholly fascist. They adore Greenwald (he’s the OG useful idiot) and Snowden (same) and think he’s a hero and they are literally the last people any person of decency or morality or liberal inclinations should be looking to for help. They hate us all. Their heroes are Snowden, Elliot Rodgers and Donald Trump, because all three make the people they hate with every fiber of their beings cry, and they love that.

    I spent two years on their message boards, all long shut down. The last remnants were being hosted in some godforsaken shithole like Kiribati back in 2007. I don’t have a computer I’m willing to risk to go looking for them now. They burned most of their stateside assets a long time ago because they’d gotten far better avenues of influence. I should have wondered more what those were.

    They have no reason to burn Greenwald.   He’s going to extreme lengths to help them.

  133. 133.

    Another Scott

    @Baud: Jane Hamsher went nuts and joined up with him on FireDogLake to go after Rahm and other stuff.

    It was a crazy time.  I stopped reading FDL around then.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  134. 134.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    @Immanentize: is greemewald that much younger than turdley & derpowitz that he’ll be able to fill the role for awhile? or is this a charles eventually succeeding elizabeth scenario?

    (i would suggest kkklay travis — he’s a lawyer — as eventual ex-liberal* heir to greemwald, but outkuckthecoverage isn’t theintercept, & kkklay hasn’t been able to be viewed as a lib, or even a moderate, since at least 2005.)

    (*he served in some low to mid level role in the gore2000 campaign.)

  135. 135.

    Tony Jay

    @Kay:

    What Greenwald is proposing, an alliance with Right wing racist reactionaries on economic issues where Democrats jettison “social issues” (civil rights) and join hands with Trumpists on their (supposedly) populist economic beliefs isn’t new at all. That’s the Dixiecrats. That was the alliance.

    Heh. I’m sure it’s just a completely unpredictable coincidence that that’s almost word for word the same alliance of interests certain influential elements of the Labour Right are promoting as the future of the Labour Party.

    Dump the ‘Woke nonsense’, distance the Party from ‘identity politics’, steer away from the ‘justified belief’ that Labour wants to waste white people’s money on minority concerns, concentrate on the economic interests of the WWC and wrap the whole thing up in a ‘progressive patriotism’ that utilises flag waving, poppy-wearing, law n’ order fluffing symbolism to out-Tory the Tories.

    You’d almost think that they were getting their policy positions and behind-the-scenes funding from the same sources, wouldn’t you?

  136. 136.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    @Kay: will glemm or taibz displace michael tracey as chief of staff to vp tulsi gabbard in the future josh hawley american reich?

  137. 137.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Scott: I remember getting ALL CAPS emails from “Glenn, Howie and Jane”, I forget now who Howie was, with the message “STOP RAHM!”

  138. 138.

    Tony Jay

    @sab:

    I frigging hate needles but I’ve allowed them to stab me with them twice. Have you seen the size of those vac-needles? They’re tiny. Barely even a sting.

    My arm fell off, like, but before then I didn’t feel a thing.

  141. 141.

    Geminid

    @rikyrah: I saw some interesting analysis of voting patterns in the June, 2018 NY14 primary, in which Ocasio-Cortez famously ousted Joe Crowley. Crowley ran even or ahead in Black and Latino neighborhoods. The difference for Ocasio-Cortez was her performance in more white, gentrified neighborhoods in Queens.

    This was a very low turnout affair. Ocasio-Cortez beat Crowley by four thousand votes out of 31,000 cast. By contrast, that same month Abigail Spanberger won the VA7 primary with 35,000 votes; the next among four other candidates had 20,000 votes. But Ocasio-Cortez was in the right place at the right time, and 17,000 votes made her easily the most famous of the very talented Democratic Class of 2018.

  142. 142.

    Another Scott

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: OTOH, if people can work remotely anywhere in the world, then lots of people will be happy to buy a 150 year old brick home on 10 acres outside Smalltown, Ohio for $50k and start turning things around.

    Neighborhoods, towns, cities, need turnover and new blood over time.  We can’t just write people off and expect that things will be better.  Letting people wallow in bigotry and ignorance has never worked out well.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid: that was the point Conor Lamb made when AOC(!), for some reason that I’m sure made sense to her, singled him out as a moderate who should have come to her for campaign advice. Lamb, who had just held in the ’18 mid-term the reddish-purple seat he had flipped in a special election, low-key snarked that he was very glad to get advice from his colleague who had won a low turn-out primary in a D+(a lot) district

  144. 144.

    Kathleen

    @Nicole: I highly recommend her memoir Simple Dreams. Her soul’s voice is every bit as elegant and graceful as her singing voice.

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I think both Greenwald and Taibbi act completely out of self interest

     

    Taibbi has a women problem. A Russian women problem. He’s a slimeball.

     

    Greenwald has always been that muthaphucka. Racist to the phucking core.

  146. 146.

    Kathleen

    @germy:  Yes! Not too many people know about that. Her version was the first I heard in a college hangout in New Orleans in 1969.

  148. 148.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Tony Jay: Have you seen the size of those vac-needles? They’re tiny. Barely even a sting.

    Dunno what you got, Limey, but the guy who delivered my first Moderna dose (about 3x the vol of Pfizer IIRC) slammed the needle in so deep the injection site bled – and I never bleed from jabs.

  150. 150.

    germy

    "Lockdowns and other pandemic restrictions isolated those with drug addictions and made treatment harder to get." It also exacerbated the sense of loneliness and disconnection from community that drives drug use.

    Urging a return to normalcy isn't denialism but compassion.

    — Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) July 15, 2021

    He does all his media appearances from a safe and remote location in a gated community.

  152. 152.

    sab

    @Scuffletuffle: Just be careful not to put borax anywhere your pets will get into it or walk or sit on it.

    I have had a lot of luck with cinnamon at places wjere the ants come in. They really don’t like walking across it.

Comments are closed.