Native American history is American history. This month we honor the gifts of our ancestors as we celebrate Indigenous knowledge, traditions, language and culture.
On behalf of @Interior, happy Native American Heritage Month, everyone! pic.twitter.com/PlQXNtEZ3N
— Secretary Deb Haaland (@SecDebHaaland) November 1, 2021
Asked if the House will vote this week on the economic package, Nancy Pelosi responds, "That is our hope."
— Laura Litvan (@LauraLitvan) November 1, 2021
this def seems like another Biden "crisis"…… https://t.co/4BeAKzYBfp
— Eric Boehlert (@EricBoehlert) November 1, 2021
President Biden on his approval rating: "The polls are going to go up and down…I didn't run to determine how well I'm going to do in the polls. I ran to make sure that I followed through on what I said I would do as president of the United States." pic.twitter.com/EiZW2otEQp
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 31, 2021
President Biden is unwinding Donald Trump’s energy and environmental policies, while forging his own.
The Post is chronicling every step. https://t.co/zQJBGHiIpq
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 1, 2021
Baud
So wages and the stock market are up?
I can see why Dems are struggling in the polls.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: No good DEM deed shall go unpunished.
lowtechcyclist
Dow 36,000!
Democrats made this happen!!
eclare
I continue to be impressed with the Secretary of the Interior.
Jeffro
@Baud: CRT has the magical power to invalidate the highest of wage gains, the loftiest of stock markets, etc.
As long as one American anywhere (particularly in a Midwestern diner, or a Loudoun County school board meeting) feels badly about our nation’s history, we can never be truly free. //
debbie
Plenty of Rethuglican outrage on last night’s local Fox news over Biden’s paying damages to parents whose children were ripped away from them. Gaetz’s head was exploding!
SFAW
@debbie:
Unless you meant it literally, it’s not nice of you to get my hopes up like that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Slate has a piece from a parent who laid out financial realities for their college-bound kid and said they weren’t going into eye-popping debt for fancy places. It’s not a decision I currently have to make, but we did more or less what the writer did. IMHO, Americans go nuts over college.
Spanky
@debbie:
I hope there’s video!
Oh, not literally
ETA: Slow typist, am I.
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
A mistake we made, unfortunately.
debbie
@SFAW:
Well, it was smile-inducing to see him so faux-angry.
germy
@Spanky:
He and Boebert joked about blowing up a government building.
What would happen if Omar had attempted a joke like that?
Baud
@Jeffro:
Dems are like the vaccine. You can offer it to people, but you can’t keep them from coming up with excuses for not taking it.
germy
How did I miss this?
I guess his popularity will slip among Ashli Babbitt fans.
SFAW
@debbie:
So you’re happy that you dashed my hopes?
Baud
@debbie:
I didn’t hear about that. Good on Biden.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
debbie
@Spanky:
?
germy
@Baud:
Fox News has been reporting the story to mean he’s giving money to every single person crossing the border.
SFAW
@germy:
Omar’s wouldna been a joke, because she’s a seekrit Mooooslim terrist.
Unlike those patriotic patriots who were patrioting.
debbie
@SFAW:
I try not to have overly high expectations about anything.
Baud
@germy:
That comment sounds suspiciously like CRT.
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: Dreams we’ll never see.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@debbie: Since Gaetz’s only contact with children is illegal (I hope), he doesn’t sympathize.
germy
@Baud:
I’ve already turned myself in.
Baud
@germy:
People aren’t going to replace white people for free.
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Very good piece. For my first two years of college, I went to a fancy private school. After those two years, with no clear idea what I wanted to major in, I transferred to a big in-state public university. Best decision I ever made.
SFAW
@germy:
You missed it because he 180ed a day or two later, after his lord-and-master talked with him at Mar-a-Grifto..
ETA: And you know that Graham-a Wormtongue will never turn on Serutan/TFG.
John S.
I wonder if the WaPo chronicled every step of TFG dismantling environmental policies (amongst other things), or if that is a feature they reserve for when a Democrat is in the White House.
That’s a rhetorical thought.
germy
Quick story:
My wife and I voted this morning. We arrived 6:00 am. No lines.
We filled out our ballot, and then when I approached the optical scanner, a poll worker told me it was not operational. They had lost the key.
We waited about a half hour, holding our ballots. They hunted everywhere for the key. Finally I heard someone yell “I found it!” They booted up the system, but the poll worker couldn’t get the machine to accept the code she had punched in. She said it was because of her long fingernails. Another poll worker entered the code, and the machine was finally on.
It was very satisfying to feel the machine tug and take the ballot. I feared we’d be there for hours.
Cameron
Not the most exciting Election Day here – only item on the ballot was a yes/no on extending some funding for Manatee County schools. They actually have a pretty good system for voting here (including free public transit on Election Day). What they do with the votes after they get them I don’t know, but I doubt there’s any skullduggery in a county in which Rs heavily outnumber Ds.
Baud
@germy:
Hmm. Seems like there should be a contingency if the machine is not operational.
zhena gogolia
@germy: These things never get the play they deserve.
germy
You gotta love the scare quotes around the word damages.
Jeffro
@Dorothy A. Winsor: we did a variation of this with kid #1: “here’s what Mom and I have saved for your 4 years of college…if you wanna go over that, you’ve gotta figure it out”
(it helps that VA has many really good/great public colleges & universities!)
Baud
@germy:
Is he lying about the amount? How much is the total settlement?
germy
@Baud:
I think they planned to call someone if they couldn’t find the key.
But then I heard one worker ask another “Did you call?” and she replied “No, should I?”
If they hadn’t found the key we would have waited for someone from miles away to show up. I’m glad they found it!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy: Thank goodness there weren’t a lot of people there yet.
Your story makes me laugh at the image of election workers as wily subversives though. They’re just people doing the best they can with something they don’t do every day.
OzarkHillbilly
Child labor laws in some states may be weakened as US industries look to hire teens
American capitalism in a nutshell: “Some people are no longer allowing us to exploit them. Let’s replace them with children. They never complain, and if they do we can spank them.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jeffro: Yeah, we felt lucky that our son could go to the University of Michigan just down the road. The most interesting line in that article was the one about the kid who wanted to go out of state somewhere for engineering (I think) when there was a school well-known for engineering right in the town he lived in.
Jeffro
Btw I’m working the polls this morning, and the range of student voters’ attire has been quite something…everything from PJs to club attire.
germy
@Baud:
I don’t think they’ve worked out an exact amount yet.
OzarkHillbilly
Sounds like a hot bed of skullduggery to me.
debbie
@germy:
Yep, pro-family and pro-life all the way. //
Baud
@germy:
Thanks. Given how many children were kidnapped, it could be hundreds of millions.
germy
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
They were all elderly, and they were doing the best they could. I’m glad we had paper ballots to scan.
I miss the old days of the handle and curtain.
There was a line behind us when we finally fed the machine.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: “Who do these people think they are? White folks?”
germy
@Jeffro:
How is turnout?
Jeffro
@germy: in his trump-lite mind, it’s “damages” b/c anyone getting near the border much less attempting to cross deserves every last bit of “damage” they have coming to them (and their family)
‘The cruelty is the point’, etc etc.
O. Felix Culpa
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I haven’t read the article, but some “fancy” schools (e.g. Princeton) have financial aid policies that limit debt to a manageable amount. The difference is made up by scholarships from their more than substantial endowments. The problem comes with expensive private schools–looking at Boston University on behalf of my sister– who do not provide this kind of financial support, loading the students with ridiculous debt. Such institutions make a great case for public universities, and thankfully my sister transferred and got a comparable education at a state school. She still had to pay off her ridiculous debt for the year at BU of course.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
@eclare:
I was in some local university (SUNY Binghamton) classes when I was in High School. I applied to a few fancy schools for college and got accepted….
My Dad was smart and he said, “Look, college is expensive and you don’t want tons of debt, so why don’t you take two years at SUNY B and then go to one of the costly schools for your last two years — I’ll help pay for that.” But he was smart — not for suggesting the split — but for knowing college is way more a social event than a pure education experience. Of course I found my people at the local U. and was happy and did well. I ended up with only 1k in debt….
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: And I love how he forgets that by US law and international treaty, people have the right to come here and seek asylum.
Soprano2
@Baud: But all I see on FB is complaining about high gas prices and high prices for food in the store. Unfortunately, those are the things that affect people in their day-to-day lives. If you didn’t get a raise, and you don’t have stocks, this is what you know is happening with the economy.
sdhays
@Baud: I wish we could pipe it directly from TFG’s personal bank account.
germy
@OzarkHillbilly:
I found a longer version of the spider costume dog:
https://youtu.be/9fPGyAZA9gY?t=27
Jeffro
@germy: Nothing too crazy so far and probably 90% college kids (80% of which have been female)
Matt McIrvin
@germy: WHAT immigrants who legally immigrated? Trump effectively shut that down for years.
New Deal democrat
@Baud:
Basic behavioral Econ: being angry about something taken away is a much stronger motivator than being thankful for something received. It’s why the party out of power typically does better in off-year elections.
That being said, the State Democrats in VA really did deliver on most of their platform, but have failed to drive that home.
JWR
Here’s hoping Anonymous Senator is right about this. From CNN, (my bold.):
Baud
@Soprano2:
There’ll always be something. We lose if we have to achieve immediate perfection in everyone’s life.
Butter Emails!!!
@Soprano2:
You would think that by now people would have figured out that rising gas prices are correlated with a growing economy.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
Or maybe everything we think about politics is wrong and voters don’t care about what you have delivered for them. If so, then even if we pass the infrastructure and BBB bills, we won’t see much political benefit from it.
mrmoshpotato
@germy: Hahaha! So good!
Soprano2
Maybe he wanted to get away from his parents. I had four friends who went to the local state university and lived at home for their first two years of college. I went to a private college here, and moved to the dorm. I was counting the minutes until I could move away from home – my mother was in a black pit of depression, and she was trying to pull me down in it with her, which is not attractive when you’re an 18-year-old. I also think my college experience was more enriched than my friends was, because for the first year they all hung out together and took the same classes together, while I had to learn to make new friends from other places. We grew up in a small town where everyone was the same – white, Christian, mostly conservative. The first time I actually met a Jewish person was when I was a freshman in college! There is more to college than the classes IMHO.
Baud
@JWR:
I wish he wouldn’t destroy the Biden presidency more quickly.
Cameron
@OzarkHillbilly: With the high number of Trumpy knuckleheads, skullduggery is unneccessary.
Kathleen
@OzarkHillbilly: Newt Gingrich was pushing for that in the 90’s.
Quinerly
@Jeffro:
Thank you for my morning laugh. It woke up snoring JoJo las Orejas.
O. Felix Culpa
@Soprano2: Agreed. I felt like I’d died and gone to heaven when I went AWAY to college. First, no longer in a, shall we say, disordered home environment, and second, with lots of interesting smart people who liked reading and learning and stuff. My fancy private college, which I totally lucked into, saved my life. Literally.
Waves to Steve in WTF.
Soprano2
@Butter Emails!!!: No, they all say it’s because Biden shut down that pipeline (the one that never even carried any oil!) and can’t manage the economy (never mind that out of the other side of their mouth they say they worship the free market). It’s dumb, I always push back and say “No, it’s the free market. Demand is way up so the price is up. Hopefully, this will bring more production online and make the price go down”. No one likes capitalism or the free market when it means they have to pay more for stuff. I think a lot of people really thought their wages could go up two or three dollars an hour but prices would stay the same. At the pub we’re paying twice what we paid for a case of gloves before Covid, and a lot of food items are significantly higher than they were a year ago. We’re probably going to do new menus again in January or February – we have to, we can’t absorb the higher prices forever. Have you heard all the headlines about how this might be “THE MOST EXPENSIVE THANKSGIVING EVER!”? *sigh* This was inevitable, it would have happened if TFG had won the election, but you can’t convince them of that. They think he would have made everything perfect!
Baud
@Soprano2:
Those people are permanently lost and unreachable. Really no different than people who think the election was fraudulent.
gene108
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I went to the big public university in town.
I would have benefited greatly from getting further away from home. Out of state would’ve been nice.
I can understand wanting to get away.
Soprano2
@O. Felix Culpa: Same here. Some people who never lived in a small town have a way too rosy view of what it’s like. Everyone knows your business. There aren’t that many kids in class, so not everyone can find their ‘group’ (there were between 30-35 kids in my class for K-12). I was an outlier in my school – my best friend pointed out to me that my father was probably the only dad in the whole class who was a college graduate! There was one other, and his dad was our principal for 4 years, but other than that she was probably right. It was such a relief for me to find out there were more people like me.
OzarkHillbilly
@germy: Great!
Soprano2
@Baud: I disagree. Quite a few of them are not that political – they aren’t MAGA’s, just people who have noticed that last year gas was $1.87 and now it’s $3.19, so it costs $60 to fill up the big gas-hogging SUV they bought when gas was cheap. They aren’t that economically literate. Some are MAGA’s, though, and yeah they are lost.
jonas
@O. Felix Culpa: This is right — if you get into Harvard or Princeton and your family makes less than something like $150k a year, you’ve basically got a full ride. Or at least a virtually debt-free one. The problem, like you say, is with the elite schools that don’t offer that kind of support. They may be pretty generous with lower-income students, but middle-and-upper-income families who can’t pay the full fare, but also don’t qualify for much financial aid are screwed. Don’t do it. Head to a decent state school. Avoid the gut classes and you’ll get a perfectly fine education. Better yet, do the 2-years at CC and then transfer to a state school. Just as good and cheaper still.
frosty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Good article. Neither of my kids were academic stars so both went to (are going to) public colleges and we can cover the cost.
As far as the out-of-state engineering school? Yeah, I would have bailed on staying local too. I went the whole way across the country. In retrospect, 300-500 miles would have been enough, but in any case I was going to get the hell out of town.
Steeplejack
@JWR:
This fits with what I was reading on political Twitter earlier this morning (not blowhard pundits but people who have had good insights in the past). Their take is that Manchin was counting on the progressives to blow up the reconciliation bill when he demanded compromises, but when they agreed to compromise he found himself boxed in a corner. So now he’s going through all these gyrations to avoid the (correct) impression that he’s the one blocking things.
lowtechcyclist
“I was praying the pieces wouldn’t fall on me.” – Dylan
OzarkHillbilly
@Cameron: You don’t have to convince me, you have to convince them. If there is one thing I have learned it is that if they think they can get away with something, they will try to even if it is unnecessary, sometimes especially if it is unnecessary.
Who’s gonna stop them?
Kathleen
Election Day in Cincinnati. We’re electing a new mayor and City Council which currently has only one incumbent. Biggest issues on both campaigns are safety and affordable housing. We’ve had shootings every day and it’s count of control. African American neighborhoods have been trying to stop the violence for years and have partnered with police in that effort. Their latest campaign is to encourage citizens to speak up if they witness a crime. I’ve lived and run in most city neighborhoods for 35+ years and I’ve never been afraid to go anywhere but now I think twice because I’m afraid to get caught in crossfire. That includes my neighborhood. YR
O. Felix Culpa
@Soprano2: Oh yes! I grew up in a small town and was an “outlier” (great word!) too. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
Jeffro
It’s true about folks noticing gas and grocery prices, and it’s not like most (even non-MAGA) folks are going to stop and think, “Well yeah, gas prices are up, but back in March 2020 they were X and then back in Sept 2019 they were Y”. I bet most people’s perception of gas prices extends back maybe 3-4 months at most.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: I guess they don’t remember him tossing toilet paper rolls into the desperate crowds. Wait a minute, he never did that. We just had to do without.
Baud
@Soprano2:
I think a lot of people who aren’t vocal MAGA still always accept MAGA framing that everything is hunky dory when a Republican in in charge while everything is falling apart when a Dem is in charge.
jonas
@gene108: Out-of-state tuition at public universities is often on par with that of a private institution, so it’s a big financial decision. That said, a lot of families simply opt for whatever’s closest to home, which might *not* be the best deal, either in terms of what the kid wants to do or who has the best financial aid.
Jeffro
@Quinerly: You’re welcome!
I think I stole that added “Loudoun County school board meeting” from DougJ but I’m not sure. =)
Low Key Swagger
@Soprano2:
THIS. Juicers and political junkies read and get opinions/news from all manner of sources. Most Americans aren’t watching, don’t read, and largely scroll by any post on FB that requires reading to understand. In my little town, working parents spend free time ferrying kids to/from sports or other activities, and church. They have no clue what is happening or how it happens. But they know how much gas/food costs. That’s a huge challenge for us.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: In the 2010 cycle, a popular meme going around noted how wonderfully low the price of gasoline was in January 2009 right before Obama got in–he’d ruined everything! Of course, that was a temporary dip from a previous all-time high that was caused by the entire world economy collapsing, but you were supposed to not remember that.
Jeffro
@Baud: this is 110% true. My stepmom tried to tell me in the spring of 2017 how tfg had miraculously turned around the ‘lousy’ Obama economy. ?
Just. Like. That. Sure he did!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@O. Felix Culpa: @Soprano2: By and large, I think it’s good for kids to get away from home for college. People choose schools for a lot of different reasons. I just think that cost should be one of the reasons and “fancy” probably shouldn’t be.
I have to admit that I hesitated over the girl in that Slate article because she was interested in art, and you can’t do that everywhere.
OzarkHillbilly
Point out to them that before it was $1.87 it was $3.87. I can’t be the only person who remembers paying more than I do now.
JML
working at a university for the past 6 years, I’m increasingly convinced that “fit” is more important than anything else. Doesn’t matter as much what the academic reputation is or any of that, the school has to be the right fit for you. You have to match the size up to what you need, and it’s a huge factor. Some people are going to get lost at a bigger school, whereas others are going to feel too exposed at a smaller one (or struggle to find their tribe).
I went to a regional public university (in-state tuition) and have no regrets. I had an excellent experience and was far enough away from home to get the reboot I needed after a difficult high school (getting bullied, etc) but not so far that I still had a little bit of a safety net. I’m also a huge supporter of people living on campus to get the full college experience. The people I knew who lived at home…college was much more transactional for them and they simply didn’t get as much out of the deal.
Jeffro
@Matt McIrvin: Yup. And on and on it goes…benefits of having a paid Republican Noise Machine up and running full-throttle 24/7.
Cameron
@JWR: That’s mighty white of him.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
If gas prices fell tomorrow, all those right-wingers would become instant economic majors and explain to you how the president doesn’t have that much influence over gas prices. We’ve gone through this same cycle many times. It’s not new.
OzarkHillbilly
But make sure the courses you take at CC are transferable to the state U you want to go to.
Betty
@Soprano2: Oh, is that why I am suddenly seeing Facebook posts about opening the Keystone Pipeline? I was puzzled. They think it would bring down gas prices. Ha ha.
Elizabelle
The nicest call a moment ago. My neighbor turns 21 today (happy birthday, B!!). A busy day for her, and she was noncommittal about voting when I spoke to her yesterday. (Mainly, because she has a lot planned for today.)
She just phoned to see if I wanted to ride to the polls with her. I’ve already voted, but totally riding along. To see what turnout looks like, and maybe even take her little dog along. We’re going in about half an hour.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2:@O. Felix Culpa:
Speaking as a fellow outlier, I remember sitting in the stands at my HS graduation rehearsal thinking, “2 more days, just 2 more days and I am out of here!”
Baud
@Elizabelle:
?
jonas
@OzarkHillbilly: Our local CC has a whole program in place just for people looking to transfer to a state school after 2 years. We’re in NY so all the CCs are also part of the SUNY system — everything guaranteed to transfer.
mali muso
@JML: Working at a university for the past 15 years (good grief, time flies), I cosign this observation. Fit is really important; what works for one student will not work for another. And for the kids of staff/faculty who get the free tuition benefit here, they do much better if they spend the $ to live on campus and gain some independence.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle: Oh excellent.
When my son turned 18, he was volunteering at the local D party a part of a requirement for his Civics class. On the first election day, he went to work and his boss asked him if he voted yet. He hadn’t, and she bundled him into her car and drove him. She sat in the car while he went in, but she made it clear that it was his privilege and duty to vote. The lesson stuck and he’s been a voter ever since.
O. Felix Culpa
@jonas: Agreed on all counts. I’ve studied at all the types of schools mentioned–ivy, state university, and community college–and can recommend each of them for different purposes and circumstances. I had great teachers in all of them. There was a higher concentration of bright, motivated students in the first type, which was invaluable for me as an undergraduate, but one could find compatriots in all institutions.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: There definitely are people like that, and they’re called “Republicans,” but I believe S2 is correct to note that there are apolitical people who blame whoever is in charge when prices on food and gas go up. It bites Republicans on the ass sometimes too. It’s like musical chairs.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Here’s a friend of mine voting in Iowa today
Butter Emails!!!
@Soprano2:
The restaurant and hospitality sector as well as it’s suppliers were hit hard by the change in consumption patterns caused by the pandemic. For awhile I was purchasing a box of restaurant quality fruits and veggies every week. I’d never seen sweet potatoes the size of my head before.
So we’ve lost suppliers and vendors and those left aren’t necessarily in the position several months ago to gamble things will come roaring back and then some by Thanksgiving. So lower supplies coupled with higher demand leads to spiking prices for food. This seems predictable and self apparent to me, but I don’t expect the average American to think so.
I’m just surprised that they haven’t figured out the gas prices yet.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Like Soprano, I’m not talking about RWers because as you said, they are unreachable. Still, it is fun to watch them stop and stutter when they can’t deny a truth.
Gin & Tonic
Due to Ukraine’s anemic vaccination rate, Kyiv is now a “red zone” – meaning you need to show a vax cert for a variety of normal, mundane things, like getting on the metro. Pictures I’m seeing from morning rush hour show empty cars. I wonder how long this will hold.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
While unreasonable, at least that’s a fair rule. I’m having difficultly remembering when a Republican has been blamed for anything short of a global economic collapse, but I’ll take your word for it that it has happened.
OzarkHillbilly
@jonas: Cool, it should be that way everywhere. It isn’t here. My wife found that out the hard way.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: Yes. I mean, if you don’t have a lot of money, if you’re not seeing the rising wages yourself, rises in food and gasoline prices are going to sock you hard. It makes perfect sense that that will make you dissatisfied with politicians.
JML
@jonas: There’s problems with the “do 2 years at CC and transfer to the 4 year state school” plan, unfortunately.
Gin & Tonic
I know the dumb Twitter “I’d like to report a murder” meme is way overdone, but, man….
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: during the Bush years, a popular pastime was to chart Bush’s approval rating versus gasoline prices–for years one went down when the other went up, with a pretty close correlation. Of course, that may have just been because for most of that time they were both varying almost monotonically.
JWR
@Steeplejack:
Yep. I heard a pretty good podcast with Dean Baker yesterday afternoon, and he quoted Manchin as complaining that “the political games must stop”.
So stop it already, Joe!
O. Felix Culpa
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, I agree that “fancy” is a terrible criterion for college selection. I’m appalled at the pressure on some kids to get into Ivy or equivalent schools, and how much unnecessary debt is racked up. As others have mentioned, fit is a much better measurement. That said, a college education is–or can be–more than a financial transaction and I hate for it to be reduced to that.
Kathleen
Sigh.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: In my town, you can vote for up to three candidates for the School Committee, there are four people running, and one of the incumbents is obviously MAGA, so my choice is pretty easy to make.
Butter Emails!!!
@Betty Cracker:
It bites Republicans less often because they have a tend to have slower growing economies and their presidential terms end in recessions which tend to mean low prices. Democrats tend to start out their teams in a recession and achieve better economic growth so prices tend to go up.
On top of that Republicans seem to be credited as being economic whiz kids by the general population despite all evidence to the contrary so they get a huge benefit of the doubt on this type of stuff. I’m assuming it’s another Democratic mom vs Republican dad where dad getting credit for being good with money when it’s actually mom who manages the finances.
Subsole
@debbie: At least he didn’t lose anything he uses regularly…
Baud
The best way to reduce the price of gas is to reduce the demand by converting to electric cars more quickly.
Matt McIrvin
@Butter Emails!!!: I’ve always assumed that among the older crowd it’s the persistent (and increasingly distorted) memory of the Carter and Reagan administrations. Carter was the one who actually failed at the economic cleanup. He inherited the 1970s stagflation from Nixon and Ford, but he couldn’t stop it and ended up identified with it–and his term ended in a recession.
Then Reagan came in and, well, things got even worse for a while, but the high inflation ended and by the 1984 election cycle there was actually a boom happening. Unemployment was actually still pretty high at that point, but people had hope. And Republicans have been coasting on the glow from this for almost 40 years now, even though they’ve been responsible for many worse economic disasters since then.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic: Wow. Murder indeed.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Is the uptake rate low due to lack of supply or is anti-vax madness a thing there too?
Subsole
@JWR: Well, bless the overflowing magnanimity of Baron Blacklung’s heart…
Gin & Tonic
@Matt McIrvin:
My job transferred me in the summer of 1984. One of the only reasons I went along is that they had a mortgage subsidy program, because 30-year fixed rates were ~14% at the time.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
We have done a poor job marketing ourselves as good economic stewards.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: There were supply issues earlier, but anti-vax sentiment is a very significant factor now.
It’s amusing to see monolingual Americans up in arms about Facebook and disinformation. You have no idea what it’s like in non-English-speaking countries where FB has neither local expertise nor sufficient language knowledge to monitor anything. I believe schrodingers_cat has written about this in India, but it’s everywhere.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Yep, and they say “That was when Obama was president”. I’m not kidding. They honestly think the president controls the price of gasoline – unless it’s high when their guy is in office, then it’s what is he supposed to do? It’s crazy.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
@Gin & Tonic:
Things like this make me feel we’ve become too soft.
Soprano2
I agree with this 1,000 times. My classmates who lived at home seemed to treat college more like a job than anything else. They didn’t attend many of the events like games and concerts like people on campus did.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Yep, I couldn’t wait either. I feel sorry for people who feel like high school was the peak time of their life. I’d actually like to forget a lot of it.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: When you go from spending $40/week to fill up the tank to $60/week, that’s a big hit for most people. I’ve already had one guy ask me about my mother’s Honda CRV and if I’m ready to sell it yet, because he’s got a buddy looking for a smaller vehicle than his massive pickup to drive to work. Unfortunately too many people have to learn over and over that the massive SUV they love might not be affordable when gas is over $3.00/gal. The parking lot at my work is full of big pickups, because most of these guys live outside the city and just love their pickup trucks.
lowtechcyclist
Fuck yeah. I still think everyone involved in the child separations ought to be arrested, convicted, and imprisoned for the role they played in several thousand cases of child abuse.
And I wish someone would run ads based on DeSantis’ tweet saying that DeSantis is pro-child abuse. Because that’s the side he’s just taken.
Betty Cracker
@lowtechcyclist: I wonder if there’s any ongoing effort to hold child abusers accountable or if that’s even possible since they were at the time following the orders of the child abuser in the White House. On a related note, paying damages is the right thing to do, but it has a massive potential for political blowback, IMO. DeSantis is first in line for demagoguery, but he won’t be the last.
Baud
@Soprano2:
I feel like a lot of the modern anti-tax sentiment stems from the fact that people today have become convinced to take on a lot of credit card and other private debt, which makes them more sensitive to taxes even if the tax increase is relatively small.
lowtechcyclist
@Butter Emails!!!:
You’d also think they’d remember that the reason gas was so cheap last year was that for awhile, hardly anyone was driving.
Now that traffic’s back to normal, gas prices have done the same.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
It’s hard to come up with anything we want to do that won’t have that effect. Maybe the bipartisan infrastructure bill.
Soprano2
@Baud: And that happened because wages didn’t go up enough, so people went into debt to buy the things they wanted. One problem we’ve having currently is that we’ve crammed what should have been 5-10 years’ worth of wage increases into one year. Of course that was going to cause some inflation – how could it not?
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: Huh. I remember selling my ’72 Chevy gas hog p/u because gas prices were going up, up, up, when…
W was president.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: I wasn’t driving much last year, so for me these seem like normal gas prices. The few times I filled up with gas under $2 seemed weird
ETA I am so old that I remember reading a newspaper story in college that announced that gas prices would be up over $.50 (fifty cents) for the foreseeable future.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: Fuck the blowback and the blowbackers. As we know, the RWNJs will screech about anything and everything, whether it’s real or not. What we did as a nation was criminal harm to children that can never be fully rectified. The least we can do is pay damages and know that we did the right thing, regardless of the RW, aka evil, screechers. We’re going to have to fight for democracy’s survival no matter what.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I vas just followingk orders.” didn’t work for the Nazis.
JMG
If the civil suits aren’t settled, the government will wind up paying much more than Biden is proposing.
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa: I think the RW will be especially resentful in this case because most of them would eagerly sell their children for that amount of money.
Soprano2
@OzarkHillbilly: Remember, these are the same people who think the economy crashed when Obama was president! They misremember a lot of things, and when you challenge it they’ll insist you’re wrong. A lot of it is how they feel about things, rather than what the truth is. They feel like gas prices were cheaper when Republicans were president regardless of whether that’s actually true or not.
James E Powell
@Baud:
I can’t recall Republicans getting the blame for negative economic factors. Maybe 2008? But within a few months the world wide economic crisis was all because of African Americans not paying their mortgages & the bank bailouts were Obama’s idea.
sab
@OzarkHillbilly: Those nazis. We’ll see about ours. I am still optomistic.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Hehe. Given the ease with which they counsel other people to give up their babies for adoption, you might be right.
Soprano2
@O. Felix Culpa: I’m pretty sure they’re trying to head off lawsuits, too, which would be a lot more expensive than just paying damages upfront.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: I just paid a premium for a car that, well, it still runs on gasoline, but it gets about 46-50 miles a gallon depending on conditions. But it cost significantly more up front, and most of the market is still things that get half that.
Ksmiami
@Baud: it’s all false narrative and bs controversy. See CRT
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: Like I said, they pulled the same rhetorical trick with the 2008 recession. Gas prices temporarily fell into the basement for several months and that period happened to coincide with Obama’s inauguration, so they could complain that Obama made gasoline double in price.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: I know. I sold that truck in ’03 or 4, iirc. Long before Obama was president.
O. Felix Culpa
@JMG: @Soprano2: Yes, that rationale too. Not quite as noble, but motivating and fiscally responsible, a fact that the RWNJs will never recognize nor understand. So we just have to do the right thing and know that screechers will screech.
Steeplejack
I’m somewhat grumpy after watching part of Morning Joe earlier. Very unsatisfying today—more unsatisfying than usual, I mean. I don’t watch it every day, but sometimes I like to catch the half-hour “open,” either at 6:00 a.m. or when they rerun it at 8:00, to get a sense of the day’s pundit weather.
But at 8:00 today they went live to a long segment with New York Mayor Bill de Blasio. Nope. I muted that. Then they had a segment on the election, which consisted of four reporters “live” in various cities, basically reporting that, yes, it’s election day and at roughly 8:30 a.m. we don’t know jack yet. Pointless. Then they finished the hour with Mika’s long interview with Huma Abedin. WTF?! Turns out Abedin has a new memoir to push, which is okay, I guess. Very much a “my spiritual journey” thing, sounds like. Just kind of grated on me. I don’t blame her for much, but I do blame her for sharing a work laptop with her worthless husband. Pure stupidity. That got Hillary Clinton and her “email problems” ensnarled with Anthony Weiner’s dick-pic scandal. Ugh. Just another factor in the perfect storm of shit that beset Clinton in the 2016 election.
Politico, 2017 (yeah, I know):
Thus the slightly grumpy mood for the morning. I am going to vote in a bit, and I am grumpy about that, too. I cannot believe that the race between Glenn Youngkin and Terry McAuliffe is close (if it really is—who knows with polling these days?). And it feels like voting will not be satisfying enough. I want the results to send a “you fucked around and found out” message to Republicans, but we won’t know about that until tonight (at the earliest). Grr.
Mike in NC
The old conventional wisdom was that 12 years of Reagan/Bush made the DC Beltway media “wired for Republican rule” and it was true. But 4 years of Trump means that the Beltway media is now wired for chaos, confusion, and punching people in the face.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: Some companies have almost quit selling sedans and went all-in on big pickups and SUV’s, because that’s where they make money. I hate that, because I don’t want a big SUV or a pickup no matter what the price of gasoline is! I hate the way SUV’s handle, and much prefer a sedan to anything else.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
‘Just following orders’ doesn’t absolve anyone of a crime, even if they’re following the President’s orders. For that matter, even the President isn’t above the law. And while maybe he can’t be prosecuted while he’s in office, he can surely be prosecuted afterwards.
After the Dems took the House in 2018, this is one of the things they could have and should have investigated, and AFAICT they didn’t. But now DOJ should be doing that. And I doubt they are: maybe they’d be trying to play it low-key, but they’d have to interview Stephen Miller, and the news people wouldn’t have overlooked that.
Tru dat. The response should be, “so you’re pro child abuse if the children are brown, is that it?” Hit ’em with child abuse and racism.
hueyplong
@Steeplejack: Encourage friends to vote as well and, if all goes well, it will be a California recall situation in which the networks suddenly forget Virginia exists and return to Congressional Dems in Disarray.
Steeplejack
@hueyplong:
All of my friends and family here in Virginia are faithful (Democratic) voters, so I’m not worried about that. And I have been optimistic about McAuliffe’s chances all along, although the negative polling lately has shaken me a little bit. Here’s hoping that the election does go like the California recall!
Geminid
@Steeplejack: Chris Saxman had a good article in Bearing Drift. Most of it was about an outdoor Halloween party he threw in his western Henrico subdivision. But he closed with a review of election results in a particular locality that has almost eerily mirrored the statewide result. Saxman reviewed results in Governor, Senate and Presidential elections since 2009. There were a lot of swings, but this locality matched Virginia totals within a point or two each time. It’s the city of Staunton, in the Shenandoah Valley.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: When I was shopping for a hybrid car, I noticed that a large part of the hybrid market is now big hybrid SUVs that use the tech to get the efficiency up to about that of a conventional sedan. Seems a waste but, on the other hand, your biggest gain across the whole fleet is to bring up the efficiency of the worst vehicles, so I guess that’s something.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
Interesting piece. Here’s the link for anyone who’s interested.
Jeffro
@Geminid: I’ll have to check that out!
Just had a recent discussion in the office about the proper (ie, local) pronunciation of “Staunton”. A college friend of mine from Covington was able to settle it definitively for us
I’ll leave the non-Virginians in suspense…oh wait, they don’t care…
…it’s “Stan-ten”, peeps. =
ETA: thanks Steeplejack for the link. And I see that the BD writer even noted the whole pronunciation thing, too, LOL
zhena gogolia
Board of Education and Planning and Zoning election today in my little town. It’s a heavily Democratic town but there’s “minority representation” rules so only two Dems can be elected for 4 openings on the B of E. (only one Dem for several seats on P&Z) Unfortunately all the Repubs are nutjobs who want to unmask our kids. Our country is in deep trouble.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Honestly, kids are going to go unmasked once the kids vaccine is approved.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: You think these nutjobs are going to vaccinate them?
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
No. But no one is going to wait around for that.
WaterGirl
I love seeing Deb Haaland in this role. Such a great choice, such a great thing Biden has done.
I didn’t realize that November was Native American Heritage month. I wonder if that’s why our double-match person wanted this fundraiser to start on Nov 1 and end on Nov 30?
Speaking of which, we have $475 left of the $5,000 match money, if anyone still wants to get in on that match for Four Directions – AZ.
FOUR DIRECTIONS – AZ
If you donate through the thermometer, please remember to add that in the comments so your donation can be part of the $5k angel match money
Up to $50 of any donation amount can be matched with the 5k angel match money.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I never would have guessed! Never spent any time in Staunton, but used to pass through there on the way to the caves in Highland and Bath counties. Beautiful country back there.
Miss Bianca
@JML: Your story could be my story. Agreed on all points.
Baud
@Geminid:
Seems like a waste of money to hold the election state wide.
WaterGirl
@JWR:
Has Manchin been struck by lightning yet?
bluegirlfromwyo
@OzarkHillbilly: Or just say no kidding, no one was going anywhere last year so gas prices dropped. Or what lowtechcyclist said at 140.
Suzanne
Josh Hawley says:
“Can we be surprised that after years of being told that they are the problem, that their manhood is the problem, more and more men are withdrawing into the enclave of idleness and pornography and video games?”
The bitchez makin’ all the good men watch porn!
Suzanne
Someone should give Josh Hawley some lady flowers in an ancient Greek urn with smut on it. They took their porn seriously! They carved it by hand!
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: “Can anybody really be surprised that men, when told they need to step up their game because just being male is no longer enough to guarantee their success in life, decide to sulk in their rooms and retreat to fantasy instead?”
FTFY, Josh.
Baud
@Suzanne: I’m not surprised. Just disappointed.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca: What kills me is that by making this statement, the implication is that men are not as fit to lead as women. If feminism destroys their will to power…. then maybe your will to power is weak?
schrodingers_cat
@Suzanne: He also needs to look at temple carvings from India from over a 1000 years ago.
schrodingers_cat
To those who celebrate, Happy Dhanteras (Diwali eve)
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: @Baud: (best Darth Vader voice): “I find your lack of will…disappointing.”
Geminid
I just cast my straight Democratic ballot, at the Dyke Volunteer Fire Department. No joke; Dyke is a small community in western Greene County, at the foot of the Blue Ridge. The fire house has a spacious room upstairs for community events.
On my way out I picked up literature from a Republican lady set up outside. It included a membership card for “The Youngkin Election Integrity TASK FORCE.” The lady explained that it could be a good souvenir for when Youngkin becomes Governor, “and maybe President.”
dopey-o
but the beauty of TFG’s kidnapping racket was that they purposely didn’t keep records, in order to maximize the suffering. even tho every children’s hospital uses COTS software to avoid such problems, TFG and Miller catapulted the misery.
Barbara
@Suzanne: “It’s never my fault” — part the infinity. The irony is that pornography thrives where gender roles are most rigidly enforced, assuming men have access to the technology that gives them the ability to reach porn sites.
lowtechcyclist
Not to be confused with Dyke Marsh, just south of Alexandria!
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: A friend of mine had a classmate in Dallas named Dyke Fagg. No lie.
Suzanne
@Barbara: Right-wing men are looking for excuses for their failures. That WSJ piece a few weeks ago about how white dudes are failing at college and life really freaked them out, I think. I have seen a lot of discussion about it on the crazy-people sites I occasionally patrol. I can’t link to the piece because I don’t have a subscription and I already used my free article or something, but it’s very Google-able.
Essentially: increasingly, dudes are either not going or are flunking out of college because they can’t get their shit together, but women are succeeding and earning most of the degrees.
Ruminate on why so many dudes are now trying to huff and puff about how a college degree is worthless and dumb.
WhatsMyNym
@Soprano2:
We’re just under $4 per gallon for gas. $1.87 was a long, long time ago.
Local to go only Thai restaurant tacked on $1/entree to cover recent cost increases. Seems as busy as ever.
Baud
@Geminid:
And we thought they were committed to TFG.
Ben Cisco
@Baud: They’re committed to supremacy, at any and all costs, including consistency.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I’ve sometimes wondered if some kids want to go far away to college for a good reason that has nothing to do with a local school’s educational quality, but the being able to live at home.
Ruckus
@WhatsMyNym:
Gas prices in my area of SoCal is $4 is cheapest, runs up to about $4.50. I’ve seen over $5.
WhatsMyNym
@Ruckus: Ouch
Geminid
@Baud: Youngkin is very attractive to a certain kind of Republican. A lot of Republicans still are devoted to trump. The more discerning see his limitations as a candidate. Hew Hewitt spoke of a dinner party he attended, where almost all favored DeSantis, and none favored trump. If he wins Virginia, Youngkin will be the new flavor of the month for these people.
Maybe for more than a month. Virginia is a prosperous, well run state that would be a good springboard for higher office. A Democratic State Senate would keep Youngkin from having to sign anything too toxic legislation-wise. Youngkin is a shrewd communicator, has money and has connections to money. I would not low-rate Youngkin; he’s a slick motherf$$ker.
Spanky
@Ruckus: A substantial fraction, certainly of my generation a half-century ago. One fellow Pittsburgher’s decision to go to U of Alaska in Fairbanks was “as far from home as possible and still speak English”. One assumes he didn’t want to mess with visas and passports.
Spanky
A cool, dank day here in the Tidewater. Hopefully will keep fair weather GOP voters at home.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne:
Hmmm, are we seeing the latest iteration of the societal tendency to devalue a profession or calling when it gets primarily associated with women? Bank tellers used to get promoted to management as a matter of course. Teachers…let’s not even get started on that. Is having a college degree going to become one of those reverse-discrimination things as a matter of course? Suddenly a whole generation of women will automatically be “overqualified” by virtue of having a college degree.
I wish I couldn’t see that actually becoming a thing.
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Voting is a fabulous habit. Early and always.
J R in WV
@sab:
I’m so old I remember my dad filling up on a vacation driving trip for $0.19/gallon — after we left, he told us there was a gas war, competition on price, going on between two stations across the street from one another. Was pretty funny, neither station was asking enough to pay their wholesaler for the gas they were selling at below cost…
Ruckus
@J R in WV:
I worked in a gas station first semester of senior yr HS at a Union Oil station and gas was $.30/gallon. The non brand named stations were 2-3 cents less
I do remember those gas war prices, and yes they were selling for less than the wholesale price.
Geminid
@Spanky: Yeah, it’s a cool rainy day over here in Greene County. It’s supposed to clear up tonight and get cold. There’s a freeze warning in the Valley; Harrisonburg is projected to hit a low of 27°. We’ll probably freeze on this side too. I need to pick a some persimmons before they get nipped. My friend Debbie wants to make persimmon chutney.
Brachiator
@Miss Bianca:
I had not thought about this before. A very provocative possibility.
There might also be a measurable decrease in the number of white people with college degrees.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Will that make them whiter?
Or just hungrier?
J R in WV
I had a cousin who enrolled at U of Washington out on the west coast, telling everyone he wanted to study oceanography (left unsaid, “of the Pacific ocean!”) but once emplaced out there majored in music.
He wanted to be across the continent from his parents, who, honestly, were on the squirrely side.
I was good with an all-day drive away up in central PA in Carlisle. Once my mom and grandma showed up “Surprise!” — so maybe a longer drive would have been best?
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
Yep. College was a gateway step to travel far from home. I did not even apply to any of the good colleges in my city and metropolitan area. I only applied to one college in my home state, and that was in Northern California.
Cameron
@J R in WV: Dickinson?
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
Oldest sister went to San Jose for I think that same reason.
I joined the Navy. OK the draft had something to do with that. They announced the draft lottery a couple days after I signed up, my number was 15. Going either way.
Barbara
@Suzanne: In all seriousness, I do think that men are failed when their role models inculcate habits and attitudes that are likely to undermine their success as adults in the world as it is. E.g., promoting the attitude of rugged individualism isn’t likely to help you gain traction in a field where everything gets done through teamwork. Or insisting that success requires you to support a non-working spouse — which is suboptimal when housing is really expensive or contract work and lay-offs are a matter of routine. And so on.
Mostly, I am just tired of the culture wars.
Brachiator
@Matt McIrvin:
Didn’t the SUV pretty much replace station wagons? People now have a general purpose vehicle if they have a family or want to travel with friends, etc?
Barbara
@Miss Bianca: Right, except that businesses seem to be more and more committed to the idea that you show up with as many of the necessary skills as possible, thus reducing the need for you to be trained. I read a fascinating article about a textile factory that is still operating in a fairly rural part of North Carolina. The owner said that in times past, he could hire just about anyone and train them within a reasonable period of time to work machinery, but the advent of technology in manufacturing means that he needs people with significant computer experience, which means at least a two-year degree that will allow them to learn the applicable software programs used in the manufacturing process. He was lamenting the scarcity of such people where the factory has been located for a long, long time. There is no way he is going to let an unqualified person loose on major capital equipment. It does not surprise me that politicians are completely unaware that even blue collar jobs increasingly require technology know how.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I never seriously considered the military.
Never joked about it either.
Once I got to college, when the lottery came around, my number was 200 and something. There were a couple of classmates who got low numbers. At least one enlisted, served and came back and later continued with his academic career.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: I just had VA persimmons yesterday! I didn’t even know this country *had* native persimmons!
Barbara
@Miss Bianca: We have two persimmon trees (at least) on our property in rural Virginia. The birds and squirrels got all of them, which was fine with me. We also have black walnut trees, and I am still trying to figure out how to harvest them.
Suzanne
@Ruckus: Absolutely. I, and some on my friends, were looking forward more to the hard-break-from-parents and hard-break-from-bigots part of “going away to college”.
I haven’t seen data on this, but I have a firm suspicion that women and LGBT people and other marginalized people use college in this way, as a way to gain that foothold outside their immediate families and communities when those structures are oppressive.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: Yes, persimmons are around in forests. This is some kind of cultivar, though. The fruit are a little plumper than the native, and much less astringent. The tenants before the last tenant here planted the tree.
Suzanne
@Barbara:
Absolutely. Zero argument here.
But it’s their responsibility to listen when people tell them stuff, even if they don’t want to hear it. Like, for example, “that industry that supported your dad when you were growing up is going away and that job will not exist for you”. And it’s their responsibility to accept others as role models, like, GASP, a woman or a gay person might have something to teach you!
This cohort of dudes seems to have not a whole lot else besides resentment.
Gravenstone
@germy: No commentary on the state of Lindsey’s pants at the moment of his little panic attack?
Ben Cisco
@Gravenstone: Hall & Oates have the appropriate response to your query.
Bill Arnold
@Cameron:
Why would you doubt the possibility of skullduggery for state-level races (if there were any?) in counties where the election personnel/leadership are heavily dominated by Republicans? Such places are ideal for state-level cheating, both for local state races and Federal Senators.
Not saying this is true, just that the possibility should be thrown in Republicans faces every; time they accuse urban voting election officials of cheating. I’m sure Democrats in such Republican-dominated areas can offer anecdotes (at risk of harassment/threats of violence/real violence, sadly), if needed. What is the probability of Republican cheating vs the probability of Democratic cheating? Given the history of in-person voting fraud being primarily Republican, perhaps large scale fraud if it exists is similarly Republican.
So would go such a counter-narrative.
Barbara
@Suzanne: Sometimes I look at my kids and think that this must be what it feels like if you emigrated to the U.S., where your kids are growing up in a completely different country. Sometimes I am glad and other times I am sad (a lot less time spent outdoors) but there has never been a time when I wanted to be like Sisyphus trying to push that stone back up the hill to recreate yesterday.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
A good friend, who was sitting in the same room listening to the draft numbers, his number was over 300, I recall 315 but that’s 52 yrs ago so….. I believe that I formed the word asshole in the pre-speech area of my brain.
evodevo
I donated $25 right after the thermometer went up…sorry, forgot to announce it…
sab
@Ruckus: My husband was something in the 50s in 1970. Fortunately he enlisted in the Coast Guard the year before. My RWNJ brother was 347 three years later.