President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Economy and Lowering Prices for the American People at 2 pm Eastern.
“We will begin shortly.”
Open Thread.
This post is in: Biden Administration in Action, Open Threads, Politics
President Biden Delivers Remarks on the Economy and Lowering Prices for the American People at 2 pm Eastern.
“We will begin shortly.”
Open Thread.
Comments are closed.
Old School
Lowering prices? But Dollar Tree is raising prices to $1.25!
SiubhanDuinne
Yeah, ha-ha, heard that one before.
trollhattan
@Old School: Drove past a Motel 6 yesterday and the current price displayed as $83.99. “Biden!!!” ?
Soprano2
Since this is an open thread, I wanted to share this bit of good news. A judge freed Kevin Strickland here in MO after 43 years in prison! Activists have been trying to get our worthless governor to pardon him, but no dice. It took passing a law that allowed the judge to do this for it to happen.
JoyceH
Just saw a CNN headline that autopsy rules Brian Laundrie’s death a suicide. Anyone else kinda disappointed it wasn’t death by gator chomp?
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH: I’m disappointed he didn’t face justice. But I think Betty or somebody told us it must have been suicide because they don’t attack adult humans.
opiejeanne
@JoyceH: I am pissed off that we will never know why he killed her or did any of the other things he did
And yes, I wanted wildlife to be the cause of his death.
JoyceH
@zhena gogolia: Well, on the bright side, he probably saved the state about a million for a trial, and saved us from having huge swaths of our news coverage being about his trial for weeks, so there’s that.
JoyceH
@opiejeanne: Some people don’t have REASONS, they just do stuff.
zhena gogolia
@JoyceH: I have a friend who is OBSESSED with the whole thing, and I am not displeased that it isn’t really a topic of conversation any more.
JoyceH
@zhena gogolia: I guess the news media knows what they’re doing. MSNBC is more political, but for months, the first half hour of just about every CNN prime time show has been the Controversy Du Jour. First it was Gabby Petito, and then it was the shooting on the Rust set, and then it was Rittenhouse-Aubrey. I’ll often read or stream something till the half-hour mark and then tune in for the rest of the news.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
The concept of Motel 6 wasn’t that the price was $6/night it was that the value of staying there
wasmight reach $6/night. I’m not sure it ever has…..Kent
Gas prices should be double or triple or quadruple what they are now. So people will burn less carbon and stop clogging the highways. I hate that we have to coddle to the most climate damaging SUV and F250 driving segment of the population like this.
JoyceH
Hey, anyone else find this encouraging?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/interactive/2021/nasa-rams-an-asteroid-planetary-defense/?itid=hp-top-table-main
It’s nice to know that people are actually thinking about the issue…
TheTruffle
Question:
I stumbled onto some horseshoe-Greenwaldian Twitter accounts claiming that BLM/antifa protestors killed people during protests/riots. Where are the statistics to back this up? Are these murders due to BLM/Antifa or are they just…general scumbags not connected to anything? (I should add one account was someone who followed Steve Sailer, speaking of horseshoe theory.)
Brachiator
@JoyceH:
RE: Hey, anyone else find this encouraging?
i have a slight fear that shifting the trajectory of the asteroid causes it to crash into another inhabited planet, setting off an interstellar war between them and Earth.
Sure Lurkalot
@JoyceH: Reported that CNN’s viewership has dropped some 70% since the beginning of the year, i.e. since Trump left office. He made their jobs so easy for them, 3 or 4 outrages a day. Controversy du jour journalism, trying to follow that same playbook. It doesn’t look like it’s working, but who knows. But it illustrates how broken the model is. They read like Politico these days. Propaganda for market share.
trollhattan
@Ruckus: It may be a product of my age but Motel 6 really was launched based on that being the rate/night. It was central to their bidnez model.
Kids dragged around the country in the family car on “vacation” know you could go even cheaper. [shudder]
Cameron
@Kent: Talk to the President about that.
Old School
Recap of remarks:
trollhattan
@Sure Lurkalot: How much coverage of the Republican primaries was there in 2016 before the escalator caper? Ratings gold, Trump was, and they’ve been living off it symbiotically up to Biden taking office. Bastards handed him the election and nearly did so twice.
lowtechcyclist
If we don’t deal with global warming, I think I’d prefer that we get hit by an asteroid. Just get it over with, and leave a still largely habitable planet to whatever fragment of humanity survives.
ETA: I know, I’m a real ray of sunshine.
Benw
@Brachiator: like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qORYO0atB6g
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
So, an $84 room in 2021 would have cost about $9.25 in 1962. Not too bad.
WaterGirl
@Old School: I had a work meeting that started at exactly 2pm eastern, so I am just getting back to this.
How was the speech?
Omnes Omnibus
@Kent: Good luck with that.
Roger Moore
@Old School:
The investigation will go nowhere, but the oil companies will get the message and stop gouging quite so much. It’s highly predictable.
oatler
@JoyceH:
You can’t redirect asteroids with laser beams. I know because i saw it on Star Trek.
Old School
@WaterGirl:
I missed the usual sign language interpreter.
Biden was in soft-spoken mode today, so it seemed to lack energy to me. Most of it was a recap of how the economy has improved this year, so it lacked new stuff, but I know there is a value in repeating it over and over again to get that news out to the public.
Betty Cracker
@trollhattan: And may try to hand it to Trump again, if the Beltway gossip rags have it right. Mary Trump says she doesn’t think he’ll run the risk of incurring another existential blow to his fragile ego unless he’s 100% convinced he will win and/or can steal the election.
Geminid
@TheTruffle: I can think of only case, the killing of Aaron(?) Donaldson in Portland late August or early September. A person associated with antifa named Michael Reinoehl was charged with the murder and then killed by law enforcement officers. Pro Publica published a very good article about this affair, “When the Political Divide Turned Deadly,” Nov. 15 2020.
A right wing protester named Lee Keltner was shot and killed at a Denver protest last fall. The shooter, Matthew Dallof, was a security guard for a local TV reporter, and was charged with (I believe) 2nd degree murder. He’ll probably go on trial early next year, and will claim self defense.
Two young people were killed at Portland’s temporary liberated zone last year, killers unknown I believe. That’s all I know of, except for a Bay Area cop killed by a sniper who turned out to be a right wing, active duty Air Force Sergeant who evidently hoped the murder would be attributed to anti fascist forces.
JoyceH
@Sure Lurkalot: I’ve heard several times on the news that the 1/6 committee plans to gather massive info from the small fry, and come 2022, start televised hearings focusing on the big names. That ought to be a ratings boost for the news nets. And hopefully pound home the message ‘these people cannot be trusted with power!’
Kay
@TheTruffle:
You can read this breakdown and try to determine. I only count one:
JoyceH
@Betty Cracker:
Michael Cohen says the same thing, and he probably knows Trump better than anyone.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kent:
The owners of recently built gas stations in my area expect 20 years of life out of them.
I know on the r/cars subreddit there will often be posts complaining about the death of sedans and small sporty fuel efficient cars. Detractors often come back with:
I just think it’s such a shame that reliable, relatively cheap, fun cars like the Ford Focus etc are going the way of the dodo. Plus for all the reasons you mentioned
Roger Moore
@TheTruffle:
They don’t need numbers. What they’re saying has truthiness, which is all they really need.
Fair Economist
@Sure Lurkalot: The fake controversies and pumping RW framings are the reasons I *don’t* watch CNN. If they had decent discussions about when the Fed should taper QE or what CRT actually says I’d watch.
TheTruffle
@Geminid and @Kay: Thanks! I was curious about this. I should add the one following Sailer was a Native American woman, but she wasn’t the only “anti-woke” lefty sharing this. Do any really qualify as lefties anymore?
My brother was at a BLM protest in Boston. It was in the daytime and he says it was totally peaceful.
After dark, he claims a bunch of kids came out and started starting fires. Basically, people looking for trouble.
Roger Moore
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Funny, because part of the reason those vehicles are so popular is because there are all kinds of government incentives to make them rather than sedans.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kent: I’m on a committee working with city planners to envision what my neighborhood wants to look like in 20 years. Everyone wants more walkability, multi-modal connections, less traffic, fewer cars. The city has long range plans to which our plan must conform, which include such laudable but laughable goals as “zero pedestrian traffic fatalities”.
In the 40 years I’ve lived here, the major interstate has gone from 4 to 16 lanes, like pretty much every metro area. The traffic is just as bad the minute the tape cutting ceremony on the latest expansion is complete.
We are never going to quit the car and I’ve given up on the gas guzzler argument too. Poor mileage and expensive fuel changes behavior not so much as far as I can see. If we build the roads bigger and faster, we will drive. Electric cars are the current less than stellar solution and I hope better ones come soon.
Betty
Biden talked about releasing oil reserves and coordinating with other countries to do the same. We can hope that will reduce some of the bad press. The crew yelled at him as he left to go to a food kitchen with one shouting, “Why won’t you answer our questions?” They’ll never change.
El Fug
@Sure Lurkalot: Cable news is entirely awful. The model is unnecessary, gratuitous, whack.
Roger Moore
@TheTruffle:
They probably do. They’re lefties on economics but not on social issues. I don’t know how big this group is, but they certainly exist, and I can understand why people still think of them as being on the left. I don’t think Bernie falls in that group, but a lot of Berniebots do.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JoyceH: Another factor might be which way TFG can make and keep more money–running or not running.
JoyceH
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Oh, he’ll never SAY he’s not going to run, that’s for sure! As soon as he says that, his power is gone.
Kent
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I drive a used Prius with 90,000 miles on it. It is a perfectly decent, comfortable, and functional car and does everything I need and gets 52 mpg without even trying. Very few people actually need to drive an Escalade or F250, especially in the suburbs where you see so many of them.
On the plus side, I’m a HS teacher and kids these days are most definitely not into cars the same way that boomers were. Most don’t really give much of a shit about what they drive or don’t drive, and an astounding number of kids in my suburban area don’t hardly bother to get drivers licenses. So car culture is something else that might die out with the boomers. When I was in HS in the late 70s and early 80s what you drove was your entire identity. It really isn’t anymore for most kids
I was thinking of trying to find a used electric car for the youngest kid when she turns 16 but I don’t think I’m even going to do that. Instead I think I’m going to buy a nice e-bike for myself to commute with and let the kid use the Prius when she needs to drive somewhere. She isn’t really asking for her own car anyway.
Origuy
The jury has reached a verdict in the Charlottesville rally lawsuit, Sines v Kessler. From the AP News:
Subsole
@Sure Lurkalot:
See, I don’t think it’s ratings qt all.
If it was ratings they would’ve pulled Trump apart instead of gobbling his taint while simpering about That Woman’s e-mail server management practices.
I think mostly the beltway is a bunch of snot nosed misogynistic bigots.
If it was just lust for ratings, they’d actually serve democracy on occasion, if only by accident.
Roger Moore
@Sure Lurkalot:
I saw an interesting YouTube video on this topic. The underlying point is that nobody likes cars near them. The difference is that the suburban model is NIMBY- cars are fine as long as they aren’t driving through our neighborhood- while new urbanists want to make cars generally unnecessary.
It’s a very interesting POV that helps to make suburbs make more sense. Post-war suburbs are really designed to make it practical to drive in and out but not through, which shows just how much they are built around the idea that cars are bad. It’s just that the designers see them as a necessary evil, so the neighborhood needs to be capable of letting people who live there get in and out with their cars. It’s also interesting to see how much more walkable some suburban neighborhoods would be if the designers had really designed them with walking rather than driving in mind.
Kent
@Sure Lurkalot: Yep, even here in the Portland metro, which should be one of the most progressive cities in the country when it comes to planning. But we are rushing forward with a I-5 freeway bridge replacement project across the Columbia that is actually a ginormous freeway widening project in disguise that will double the width of freeways from downtown Portland all the way to north of Vancouver. And with the new infrastructure bill there is even more rush to jam it through. At probably an ultimate cost of $5-10 BILLION. Just to bring lots more suburban single occupancy cars into Portland.
Geminid
@TheTruffle: The Pro Publica article about Donaldson and Reinoehl is long and detailed, and worth a read.
The Keltner shooting cannot be classified as coming from antifa forces. The shooter’s social media posts can be interpreted to show animus towards the right. This may be brought out by the prosecution, but they may just stick to provable evidence. The TV station he worked for says they had no idea he was carrying, but that probably won’t shield them from liability in a civil suit.
A Denver newspaper photographer took a series of pictures the seconds before and after Keltner’s shooting. They’ll certainly be entered at trial. The two men’s altercation was on a sidewalk with regular control joints that give a good idea of the participants’ motions, stepping forward or back.
Subsole
@Betty:
They remind me so much of Kavanaugh. Spoiled little frat-brats who cannot fathom that not everyone is impressed with their daddy’s dealership.
I have come to loathe them far more than I ever loathed Trump.
Geminid
@Origuy: Charlottesville activist Molly Conger has been live tweeting this trial in detail, so a lot of information about this verdict can likely be found at her account @SocialistDogMom.
frosty
@Ruckus: Funny. I’m so old I remember staying at Motel 6 for $12.00.
Kent
@Roger Moore: They are the white folks who think everything is about class and not race. So if we address the top 1% we fix everything that is wrong in this country.
Most Black folks know better.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
I’m pleasantly surprised that LA county seems to be giving up on big freeway projects. Completion of I-710, which had been effectively blocked for about 50 years but was still nominally part of the plan, has been dropped. There has been a freeway widening project on I-405, but it’s been so slow and expensive that it seems likely to be the last. Meanwhile, the public has approved a series of sales tax measures to fund both construction and ongoing operation of public transit. The ongoing operation is a big deal; it’s usually far easier to get funding to build stuff than to keep it going.
Gbbalto
@Kent: Vancouver BC has avoided building freeways. There were big plans in 1972 but the people whose neighborhoods would be wiped out got the ear of the federal government. A few short raised sections did get built but that was it. Traffic can get congested but no worse than it would have been with freeways.
Subsole
@Kent:
Hell, most white folks who spend time around other white folks know better…
Betty Cracker
@Kent: The current bridge is kinda terrifying though. I can understand the urge to replace it! :)
Kay
@TheTruffle:
Oh, I think there was real violence at the protests. It’s just hard to determine what was looting and general mayhem and what was antifa. The article I linked to tried to slot into “direct” and “indirect” but it’s difficult to do. I don’t think it’s correct to attribute all looting to BLM or antifa. That’s just not true.
The general complaint seems to be that media and liberals didn’t or wouldn’t admit that there was violence- real disorder- but I don’t agree with that. I remember a whole lot of speculation on whether the violence would help Trump. It was almost the conventional wisdom- voters will retreat to law and order like they did in the 1960s. Trump himself pushed that and it was all over the place. The fact is it didn’t win it for him. It might have, and it wasn’t for lack of trying, but it didn’t.
The whole thing has such a scolding tone- both the “horseshoe” people and the people who are Right wing essayists. To me, they just keep creating these strawmen of (alleged) “woke” dominance and then knocking them down. These are the people who say that “cancel culture” is the greatest threat facing this country. Give me a fucking break. It’s not even in the top ten.
I don’t think of them as sincere. If you’re interested in self defense in criminal cases then you follow self defense in criminal cases. You don’t pick ONE case that supposedly proves your whole fucking world view and make that The Case.
I look at the commonality between Zimmerman, Rittenhouse and the three Arbery defendants and I see some connections in an area that concerns me- a kind of authoritarian “right” claimed by people who carry weapons that I don’t think exists or should exist. But I don’t attribute “my analysis” to the whole country or insist it’s the one way to look at this. This isn’t good thinking, what they do. The most amusing thing about it is how it isn’t even unique as to each one. They all analyze the same way, in the context of the Great Threat of Wokeness. Since I don’t buy the Great Threat of Wokeness I don’t put events into that frame, and that’s permitted. I’m allowed not to.
JoyceH
The car I’m probably going to sell is a used Prius. I utterly love it, but even when it was my one car and pre-pandemic, I felt almost guilty having such a fuel efficient car and driving so little. I suspect the greatest contribution to the environment I could make would be to get the Prius into the hands of a worker with a long commute. In fact, some environmental group should set up a program to match used hybrids to people who drive a lot but can’t afford the new electrics.
JMG
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Some of the SUVs are really just updated versions of the old family station wagon. Some of the bigger ones, though, are just gentrified trucks. We had a lot of luggage traveling to a wedding in Ohio so at the airport we rented the biggest Toyota SUV (forget the model name). Getting into it was NOT easy. It was like mounting a horse.
Roger Moore
@Kent:
Yeah, and they contradict themselves every time they talk about the need to appeal to White Working Class as a separate group from non-White Working Class, and they’re completely oblivious to it.
Dan B
@Kent: Higher gas prices hurt poor people who often live far from pricey cities. Electric vehicles and effective transit would begin to address this issue. Also carbon taxes given equally to everyone would be another method. Think Manchinema would allow these?
Darkrose
@Kent: I’m paying $4.50/gallon to fill up my 2008 Jetta. I’m fortunate to be able to WFH 2 days a week so I only have to make the commute three days, but it’s still a big hit to fill up my tank, especially now that my landlord raised my rent by 8% and my student loan payments are about to resume. While I understand your point, in practice, gas taxes are regressive and disproportionately affect those who can least afford it.
hueyplong
@Dan B: “Think Manchinema would allow these?”
Pretty tempting to guess “no” regardless of what is being referenced by the word “these.” Once you’re in thrall to RW donors, bad faith is a foundational element of your makeup.
Darkrose
@trollhattan: When my wife and I drove from Salem, MA to Sacramento in 2004 with my 20-pound Maine Coon in a laundry basket in the back of the Bug, our slogan was “Motel 6: They take pets!”
Kay
@TheTruffle:
Some of it is just ridiculous. They’re saying this case is somehow “like” Rittenhouse:
The SWAT team shot and killed his girlfriend and then he was charged him with felony murder. The only thing this has in common with Rittenhouse is self defense and the (useful to them) fact that Coffee is AA.
I read this junk and I think “really? These are the “thinkers”? It’s the level of “let me google self defense and see if I can turn up a black person”.
Roger Moore
@Kay:
I think it failed for a couple of reasons. The most obvious is that the violence was happening under Trump’s watch and it seemed obvious that part of the reason for it was a reaction to Trumpism. It’s a lot harder to sell yourself as the answer to a problem that happens on your watch and for which you are a partial cause. The less obvious reason is that the kind of people who were going to get excited by that kind of thing were already in Trump’s camp. There simply aren’t a lot of fence-sitters waiting for the parties to clarify their positions on race.
Wolvesvalley
OT but the Unite the Right organizers have been found liable for punitive damages to the tune of $1.5+ million. Let’s hope there is other good news today! ETA That $1.5 million was per the Washington Post; CNN says more than $26 million.
Geminid
@Dan B: I don’t think Joe Biden or most Congressional Democrats want a carbon tax, at least not this year. That’s a measure that economists love and politicians hate. Mandates and tax credits can effect much of what a carbon tax does without as much political blowback. Or at least that’s what the administration is hoping. Fossil fuel prices are high enough already that businesses are already planning to shift to electric vehicles.
Solar and wind power achieved cost parity with natural gas several years ago. And the price of gas has risen substantially since then. Now it’s a matter of building out renewable energy generation. The infrastructure bill will fund at least some of the improvements in the electrical grid. There is still a lot of debt tied up in fossil fuel generating stations, so that is a medium term impediment to decarbonizing electricity generation.
Roger Moore
@JMG:
This is especially true of the “crossover” vehicles. They’re basically station wagons, but nobody wants to call their vehicle that so they have to come up with some new name for the same basic concept. I also suspect that part of the popularity of that style of vehicle is that cars are a lot lower than they used to be, and plenty of people just don’t like a car that sits that low. They want something a bit higher, which tends to come with worse gas mileage. Of course improving aerodynamics is exactly why the cars were made so low in the first place.
James E Powell
@JoyceH:
I drive a Prius with 202K miles on it. If it weren’t for the scarcity & 12% over MSRP of new ones, I’d have already replaced it.
It’s almost worthless as a trade-in, so I’d be willing to give it to some one who needs a car that runs. No idea how to find such people, though.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Josh Marshall says the neo-reactionary anti-“woke” essayists operate in the “Substack Cinematic Universe,” which is pretty on the nose.
Kent
@Roger Moore: Exactly. The Honda Covid and CRV are basically the same platform and engine. The CRV is just the station wagon version. Same for the RAV4 which used to be same as the Corolla but I think the new larger one is based on the Camry platform.
They aren’t remotely like the SUVs of old like the Ford Bronco or Chevy Blazer which were basically their body on frame work trucks converted to wagons
But small compact SUVs aren’t really the problem. It is the Ford Expeditions and Escalades and such that you see populating the drop off zones at suburban elementary schools. Those are truly monstrous cars.
hueyplong
@Kent: Either you’ve got an autocorrect issue or someone in Honda’s product naming division is fixing to get fired.
Bill Arnold
@TheTruffle:
The other answers are fine, but it’s worth noting that (very) about 20M Americans participated in BLM protests. [1]
Several thousand in an Trump-ordered insurgent mob ended up with 5 dead (one definitely by violence, shot dead) and a bunch more injured. That’s a factor of at least 1000 size difference; scale up that 5 and equivalently deadly BLM protests would have ended up with roughly 5000 dead. Which obviously did not happen, else Fox News would have told us.
[1] https://carrcenter.hks.harvard.edu/news/black-lives-matter-may-be-largest-movement-us-history
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
But there is a big chunk of unused, maybe unusable, space where freeway construction just halted. And aren’t there still a bunch of abandoned houses that were bought via eminent domain.
The 710 was a victim of “NIMBY” syndrome. South Pasadena and other cities fought it hard, and the result is often choked city streets in Alhambra and other communities.
And yet Metro has cut service on many routes. And ridership is down, and has been slow to recover. This is obviously pandemic related, but transit agencies have incurred additional costs in having to clean and sanitize buses and trains more often.
One wild card has been an explosion of homeless people. Most of these folks are harmless. Being homeless is hard work, and most of the time I just see people sleeping. However, they still sometimes make commutes unpleasant, and, in the case of a few people, unpleasant. On one bus, the driver could not persuaded a homeless man to leave, and was not about to get into a fight. So he warned the riders that this guy might expose himself, and if he did he would call the cops.
Also note that Metro has not been collecting fares since the beginning of the pandemic and will not do so again until January. Strangely, the city council wants to reduce the presence of police and sheriff deputies. This will probably further drive ridership down.
Meanwhile, used car sales increased during the pandemic. Even lower income riders try to avoid public transit if they can.
Kent
@Dan B: Oh, I entirely understand that our built environment is not conducive to transitioning to a carbon neutral future. I understand this completely. But adopting policies that exacerbate the situation doesn’t help, it just exacerbates it.
My wife is Chilean and we spend much time in Chile which is a middle class and relatively modern country but lower income than the US. Plenty of cars there too, and plenty of people living in rural areas. But gas is expensive especially relative to income and people just naturally drive small economical cars and do things like carpool, share cars, use transit, etc. You see practically zero big SUVs or American pickups. Life goes on. There are tons more rural buses everywhere because not everyone has cars or drives. Many are being electrified.
eclare
@Roger Moore: As my dad got older, he had a harder and harder time getting out of my mom’s Nissan sedan. He ended up buying a small pickup truck which, as he put it, he could just fall out of.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
I do understand the original price of Motel 6. Back around that time my grandparents managed/ran a small out of the way motel. It was cheaper than Motel 6. It was clean. It didn’t feel like you were staying in a prison. OK that’s about it. I haven’t checked in several decades if it’s still there but I seriously doubt it. And to be honest I can’t remember exactly where it was, the last time I was there I was a teenager. And that’s been more than a couple of weeks ago…..
evodevo
@Geminid: Thanks for this – have an annoying right winger on Book of Faces who spouts off about this all the time…
ATLRobert
@Roger Moore: Both like a station wagon but taller. My wife wanted a mid-sized SUV in large part due to “keeping up with the Jone’s” in terms of height. When large numbers of your fellow commuters are surrounding you in tall SUV frames the shorter sedans can feel a bit visually blocked in. Of course a number of the initial wave of SUV may have been pushed by the overly broad tax credits, etc.. Gas mileage isn’t great, but it’s not horrible either. Regardless we plan our next vehicle to be electric.
Kent
@hueyplong: Yep…civic. Don’t know what happened there.
hueyplong
@Kent: Gotta admit, it would be a cutting edge marketing move.
For all we know, a hit with the anti-vaxxers or, at least, the ones who haven’t yet gotten COVID.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
It’s almost worthless as a trade-in, so I’d be willing to give it to some one who needs a car that runs. No idea how to find such people, though.
I heard about organizations like the Buy Nothing Project on the November 18, 9am segment of the Bill Handel talk radio program.
Don’t know if this or a similar organization is in your area or might work for you. But the basic idea is to make usable products available for free to people who might want them.
oatler
Alex Jones, taking the fifth:
“I have to take depressants like alcohol to suppress how empowered I am, because I’m into freedom.”
Almost Retired
@hueyplong: The Honda Covid was an attempt to complete with the Nissan Ebola.
Brachiator
@oatler:
More like Alex Jones, drinking a fifth.
Geminid
@evodevo: Throw him a bone and link him to the Pro Publica article. He can certainly hate on Michael Reinoehl, but the article puts Reinoehl in a larger context. He was a very atypical protester. And the circumstances of Reinoehl’s killing by law enforcement may give your interlocutor pause.
gvg
@zhena gogolia:
It may have been me. Gators do rarely attack adults, but it is pretty darn rare. Most of the fear people have is over hype.
My father told me the first documented “attack” was in the 50’s. A long distance swimmer was doing her morning workout in the crystal river and concentrating on her strokes. She hit the gator in the face with her arm. It bit her arm, then let go and she swam back to her house. she lived on the river.
There were earlier reported attacks going back to the Spanish, but not apparently documented to modern standards.
They go after dogs with single minded intensity and can go after children too. Otherwise it usually happens when some idiot has been feeding them….Most problems are idiots. This guy knew too much about wildlife and Florida. I didn’t think there was any chance the gator got him.
Nelle
@James E Powell: We donated one car to the domestic violence center in the town we lived at then. Figured that someone would come along who just needed their own transportation.
WaterGirl
@Wolvesvalley: I saw something that said “mixed verdict”. No idea what that was about.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I use the MetroLink and the Metro system semi regularly and it works pretty good. It can take longer than driving across town, but it is just as often actually faster. My regular trip is 45 miles across LA, the transit system takes between 1hr 45 min and 2 hr. The fastest I ever driven that is an hour and the slowest was 2 1/2 hr. Also as a senior the cost is less than the cost of gas, now that it’s over $4.25/gal, even at the cheap places. The Unocal on the corner is $4.67 cash for regular this morning.
Kent
@James E Powell: A couple of years ago I “donated” my clapped out Toyota Sienna to NPR when it was no longer of any use to me and it was too worn out to comfortably sell on the used market to a private buyer. There were too many things going wrong with it. They sent out a tow truck, I signed some papers, and they hauled it away and I got a paper with a $1000 charitable donation receipt. I suspect they just sold it at auction. But it wasn’t my problem anymore.
WaterGirl
@Almost Retired: Ha! I was trying to figure out what the Honda Covid was. It was in the same sentence as my Honda CRV, so I’m glad I didn’t get the Covid when I was looking for vehicles.
Mallard Filmore
@JoyceH:
I think actions like this, releasing preliminary reports, and actions by the DOJ before next year’s elections will be required to keep the GQP out of power and crashing the country.
hueyplong
@Kent: I did exactly the same thing with a 12 year old Sienna.
As you guessed, the amount you get to claim is generally what they get at auction.
Wolvesvalley
@WaterGirl: The jury deadlocked on the federal issues but found the defendants liable on the state issues.
debbie
@JoyceH:
It will be interesting to see how his cult takes that news.
sab
So we have had three critters from my irresponsible stepdaughter. Two dogs and a cat. I am about to send a scathing letter to her landlord, who let her get a new puppy. She thinks it will be small. It’s two months old and bigger than our cocker. It will grow up to be as big as a sofa.
debbie
@Betty:
Neither will the GOP. They’re blaming everything — pandemic, inflation, gas prices — on Biden and Biden only.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
I like the Metro system, even though it has problems. MetroLink is unreliable. I used to take an Orange County train as part of my commute. But they eliminated one morning train. And trains went out of service so often that they ended up giving riders a Uber voucher so that they could continue their trips. This was good customer service, but expensive. Other times they had to substitute buses for the trains, a big pain.
Afternoon trains sometimes had to yield to freight traffic using the same tracks. Sometimes a trip would just be canceled with little explanation.
And Metrolink has never really recovered from the massive payouts they had to make due to that big derailment they had a few years ago. They are trying, and some routes are better, but I had to give up using them, even though my employer paid for the transit pass.
opiejeanne
In other news, I just dry-brined our turkey for the day after, because we’re visiting family in Portland, going on Amtrak, so we won’t have any leftovers for sandwiches. My son has driven up from SoCal and will join us on both days; we haven’t seen him in more than two years.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I just caught the Charlottesville WINA radio newscast, and what I remember is that 6-8 individuals were found liable for $500,000 each. These included Richard Spencer and Jason Kessler. The driver who killed Heather Heyer and injured others was found liable for $6 million in damages. Five or more organizations were found liable for $1 million each. The lawsuit was brought in federal court, and it’s basis was an 1871 anti-Klan statute.
Footdragging and obstruction by the defendents delayed this trial, but it finally started October 25th.
JML
I went to a crossover when I replaced my 2005 Vibe, and I’m liking it quite a bit. the AWD cuts down the mileage a little but we have weather here and AWD plus a little extra clearance has made it nicer to get around. I expect this will be my last gas car, however. (I’m back to working from home 3 days a week, so I’m not feeling the gas crunch as much, and frankly prices here are still lower than they hit 6 1/2 years ago)
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Almost Retired: The Honda Covid has really taken off. Its now more popular than the Subaru Influenza.
Ken
Rare that they attack, or rare that they get caught? Some people claim the rarity of recorded attacks by dolphins or wolves is because they’re smart enough not to try it unless they’re pretty sure of success.
Dan B
@Kent: On one trip to Costa Rica we rented a Toyota SUV on a truck frame. It had almost no room for luggage, or us. Another time we got one on a car frame, lots of room. Much better mileage although CR is a tiny country with only one stretch of freeway when we were last there.
sab
@Geminid: So bankruptcies all around saves everyone and ruins their already bad credit ratings. And everyone else in America is still up to their eyeballs in student debt. Sounds fair to me.
//.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Especially if you get the Delta version.
Dan B
@Kent: The issues with equity in the US are different than elsewhere in the world. I wonder if the lack of decent mass transit is the people in power, typically white, don’t want a penny going to the poor, mostly non white. I loved the transit in Europe. And a get agitated that many Americans love the Disneylands but cannot imagine that their communities could be walkable and the only vehicles be mass transit. In addition my city, Seattle, is between two metro, Portland and Vancouver, B.C., that have had excellent transit for decades and Seattle’s power brokers fought it forever.
Miss Bianca
@JoyceH:
I like this idea! I miss my little hybrid Civic terribly – but where I live, I would need a hybrid 4-wheel-drive. I know they make them, but even a used one seems to cost the earth. I looked into it when I was debating whether to replace my current car’s engine or just get a replacement vehicle.
(I ended up replacing the engine, because even with the parts and labor it was going to cost less than trying to find a comparable used car. That’s how nuts used car prices have become.)
LadySuzy
@Sure Lurkalot: President Biden and his team should give the media one controversy a week about all the shenanigans, the mal-administration, the corruption of the Trump administration that is discovered within the different agencies.
The media needs controversy. Give it to them. But from a REAL source of controversy. So maybe the media will get off the President’s back ?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Dan B: There is a lack of decent mass transit because white people in affluent neighborhoods believe that poor people not having reliable transportation keeps affluent neighborhoods safe from crime.
Kent
@Dan B: The equity issues really aren’t that different. Much of the world is rural and poor. There are just extensive networks of buses and such that don’t exist any longer in the US. Poor Americans think they are entitled to drive gas guzzling trucks subsidized with cheap gas. Eventually they will need to be disabused of that notion. Putting off the date of reckoning won’t change that fact. If we are to survive as a planet.
LadySuzy
@Betty: President Biden should give a press conference soon. Not today because he wanted to control the message and it’s perfectly normal. But he has to appease them from time to time. Choose a week where there’s nothing too big on the agenda so the media can’t divert your message on something trivial.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
The only MetroLink route I take is the Union Station to San Bernardino and that has very little freight traffic, as in I’ve never seen any, but there are obvious early bits of it that could be a freight route. So my experience is different for that reason and second I’ve not had any experiences with equipment, but then not long ago they did get new engine cars. I have ridden before the pandemic and the east bound afternoon trains were often standing room only. The are far less crowed now but ridership is going back up.
Dan B
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Our majority minority neighborhood has a lower crime rate than many majority white neighborhoods. Unfortunately many whites have figured this out and it’s gone from 10% white to 25% white in the twelve years we’ve lived here. The crime rate is half what it is in our old neughborhood. Small houses in that neighborhood start at over one million. My old three bedroom is appraised at $1.5 million.
Geminid
@sab: The plaintiffs and Integrity for America, the outfit that sponsored the lawsuit, also intended to deter other people from organizing violent demonstrations.
Of course, some people have nothing to lose. On the other hand, Proud Boys founder Gavin McInness(sp?) had a pile of money from some punk culture magazine he sold. When he saw where he was headed, he washed his hands of his creation.
The Pagans’ motorcycle gang was smart enough to order it’s local affiliate to stay away from the Unite the Right rally. They had furnished a “security force” for one of the organizer’s press conference. But a few days before the event, the chapter head said they wouldn’t attend, and would be expelled from the Pagans’ if they did.
Kent
@Miss Bianca: We already have that. It’s called Craigslist.
trollhattan
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I hear those are really catching on.
Geminid
@Geminid:
@WaterGirl: I think the damages awarded totaled $25 million, so my numbers for individuals and organizations found liable must be low.
Molly Conger, aka @SocialistDogMom, has followed the trial in detail and tweeted about it throughout. She is a member of the local anti-fascist community and has a bias, but I think she’s been pretty straight in her reporting. It’s interspersed with pictures of and comments on her two dachsunds.
Almost Retired
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Exactly. Pick a city, any city, and the opposition to extending MARTA or the LA Metro, etc., into affluent white areas is that the “wrong people” will commute to commit crimes. As if cities with decent public transportation into affluent areas like New York or Boston are plagued by criminals looting big screen TVs and carrying them home on the subway.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: I appreciate all the details. thanks.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Dan B: I don’t doubt it. I would bet money the white people who have moved into your neighborhood roll their eyes at relatives who are certain they have made a mistake moving there and will be victimized any minute.
Steve in the ATL
@Kent: and I assume that Portland area drivers will continue to drive 10 mph under the speed limit in the left lane on said freeway.
God forbid anyone should actually get anywhere!
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
De[ends on time of day. Freight has priority on the tracks. Amtrak uses the tracks as well, but this is less of a problem. Sometimes if a MetroLink train is suspended, riders can continue from some stations via Amtrak.
When it runs well, MetroLink is a valuable service. I like how some of the trains that stop at beach cities accommodate surfers.
But there are service problems that can make travel a nightmare.
Gvg
@Kent: I have never lived anywhere with reliable mass transit. I have always HAD to have a car to have a job. Therefore to me and much of our population, mass transits benefits are sort of fairytailish. In economic terms and world news, I know it would be good, but I also understand why you just can’t convince many people.
When I was poor, with a low paying job, I also worked night shifts in a big city where the mass transit took even longer than the awful commute and it didn’t start early enough or go late enough to ever be useful. In addition, as a woman I would not have felt safe waiting for a bus. Jobs were way out of town sometimes where no bus ran. Not to mention, one long term job was deliveries. When I got a better job and bought a house, the places I could afford were at the edge of town. I am 58 and just recently for the first time ever has a bus route come near enough to my house that I could theoretically use it.
Kent
@Steve in the ATL: would that still be the case. Street racing by idiots going 80 on surface streets is a bigger problem these days
Kent
@Gvg: sure. I get it. But there are a bazillion cheap economical cars that get 50 mpg. Many that never even get imported because people here won’t buy them. Here there are too many poor folks who think they need a giant F250 that gets 12 mpg.
Brachiator
@Almost Retired:
The Los Angeles regional Metro Rail system is largely a success, despite various routes being opposed by various interests, including taxi drivers and others.
There was one proposal to have the Red Line run directly up to Universal Studios. This was opposed big time. Now it stops short of the place, and shuttles take people from the train station to the gates. Fears of problems never materialized.
The Green Line is still strange. White racists made sure that the line stops well short of the beach cities (Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach, etc). But other interests also made sure that a leg of the Green Line did not run directly to the airport. Instead, it stops a few miles short and, again, shuttles take people on to the airport. About the only people who use the shuttles are people who work at LAX and a few confused tourists.
The recently completed Expo Line has some stops at affluent West Side areas and continues to Santa Monica and the beach. Again, few problems despite decades of opposition.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Some of this is more due to quirks in dealer networks and marketing.
There was increased demand for used cars during the pandemic. Lower income people were able to use stimulus checks to assist in car purchases.
In California, preferences were somewhat surprising. From an OC Register story.
Almost Retired
@Brachiator: yup, totally agree. I remember the vapors people were getting about extending these lines to the Westside years ago. My law office in Manhattan Beach is on the Green Line, but it is such a strange route with so many stops on it and the awful Blue Line transfer that I could get downtown more quickly by mule. But I do park sometimes near one of the Expo Stations and go downtown that way.
ETA technically the station across the street is El Segundo not MB.
NotMax
@Brachiator
If shopping around for used cars, brown is the best value for the buyer.
Steve in the ATL
@Almost Retired:
Ugh—I left my wallet there
NotMax
@Steve in the ATL
Flip side of a Tony Bennett single?
I left my purse
In El Segundo
:)
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I don’t disagree all that much, just my experience. I’ve taken Amtrak from LA to northern CA twice now. And back. LA to Bakersfield by bus, Amtrak to Martinez, Martinez to the north bay by bus. Trip takes about 12 hrs. And sometimes you sit waiting on the freight passage and sometimes the freight waits for the passenger train. Still one can drive it in less than 8 hrs total even if you leave the nascar numbers off the car. A plane ride is just under twice the cost of the train but takes 1 1/2hr from LAX to norcal.
Almost Retired
@Steve in the ATL: well ya gotta get it, got got ta get it.
And now I feel like Ari Melber trying too hard to prove I am totally hip-hop cool for an aging white guy.
Steve in the ATL
@Almost Retired: IIRC, Ali had the fruit punch
dnfree
@trollhattan: Super 8 was the luxury equivalent, $8 a night.
TheTruffle
@Kay: I would like to read the ProPublica article. I should add that the anti-woke folks are actually a mix of different ethnicities, and include both men and women. The main thing is that they are anti-left (or at least their caricature of the left). I’d post some links to Twitter accounts but my brain broke from reading some of this stuff.