Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

If West Virginia and San Francisco had a love child.

There is one struggling party in US right now, and it’s not the Democrats.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / 2024 Primaries / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Release the Comet!

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Release the Comet!

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Oh, yeah?


… Members of the DNC’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted on Wednesday to set the application process for how states will be considered as candidates to lead off the presidential primaries, potentially expanding the roster from four to five states. The influential perch guarantees candidates, attention and money flow into those states during national campaigns — not to mention giving voters there an outsize say in picking presidents…

The DNC will require states looking to move up in the calendar to submit a letter of intent by May 6, then a formal application due on June 3. They will also make a presentation to the committee in late June. Then, the rules committee will have six weeks to make its recommendation on the new early-state lineup, which will likely be announced at their meeting in early July. Later this summer, the rules committee’s roster of states will go to the full DNC membership for a vote to lock in the calendar for the 2024 presidential cycle.

The vote comes after months of airing of grievances, with DNC members griping over the nominating process, blasting Iowa for its lack of diversity and rehashing frustrations about the caucuses.

To address these complaints, the resolution includes a framework that the committee will use as it considers new states, taking into account factors like racial, ethnic and regional diversity, including a mix of urban and rural voters; access to the ballot, like using primaries — state-run processes with robust absentee and early voting built into the law in most states — instead of caucuses; and states’ general election competitiveness.

Another key factor will be the feasibility of moving a state’s primary date, which is often dictated by which party controls the state legislature and governorship. Democrats currently have unified control of 14 state governments, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

A handful of states have already indicated they plan to apply. New Jersey Democrats sent a letter to DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison in mid-March arguing that they should go first, emphasizing the state’s racial and geographic diversity. Michigan, too, has indicated it’s interested. And Nevada, which currently goes third in nominating order, has also lobbied to jump to the front of the line…

But seriously, that comet:

Reader Interactions

234Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    All the whining about the 2016 primary has a only produced positive change. Good job to the DNC for flipping the script.

  4. 4.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I know the Iowa caucuses are undemocratic. I worked 90 miles from home and lived there during the week, so I was never home on Tuesday nights and was one of the people who couldn’t participate.

    But after I quit teaching, I went for the first time to the 2008 caucuses where we nominated Obama. It was one of the most thrilling events I’ve ever participated in. I remember standing in the hallway of a middle school while we waited for the Richardson people to decide what they were going to do. I was next to an African American woman who said her husband had been reluctant to come because it was beyond cold outside. And she told him, “Baby, you got to go. It’s history.”

    So yeah, the caucuses have to go. But I’m glad I didn’t miss that.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    The DNC could award calendar positions by the size of the check attached to the application. It seems to work for the IOC and FIFA.

  6. 6.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    On another topic, we’re packing for a trip to Europe, and space is at a premium. We packed collapsible umbrellas, but Mr DAW decided he also needed his rain jacket. God knows what else is going to burst out of that suitcase when it’s opened. We have a large bag that’s half his stuff and half mine. And we have two carryons, one is all his stuff and the other is half his stuff.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I gotta say I really don’t think it matters who goes first. Somebody is going to complain no matter what.

  11. 11.

    NotMax

    I haz a great big disappoint. Did not vote for him to treat being a Congressman as a supplemental paycheck.

    Has US Rep. Kai Kahele Given Up On Washington?

    The Hawaii congressman, who hasn’t been to the nation’s capital since January, has been having other members cast his votes for months.
    [snip]
    He skipped President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, was the only member of the state’s federal delegation to miss out on meetings with city officials who were in D.C. to talk to the Federal Transit Administration about the future of Honolulu’s $10 billion rail project and was a no-show for a House Armed Services Committee hearing last week to discuss the Department of Defense’s $773 billion budget request for fiscal year 2023.

    So far in 2022, Kahele has only cast five votes in person, all of them over the course of three days in January.

    His remaining 120 votes — including one on April 2 to decriminalize marijuana that he boasted about in a press release including photos of him at a Big Island dispensary — were cast via proxy, meaning he had asked a fellow member to vote on his behalf on the House floor while he stayed home in the islands.

    Since the beginning of the year, House voting records show Kahele voted by proxy more than all but three of his 429 colleagues.
    [snip]
    In letters filed with the House Clerk’s Office, including one dated April 4, Kahele wrote that he is voting by proxy “due to the ongoing public health emergency.”

    His social media accounts, however, have shown him traveling around Hawaii, including between islands, to meet with local officials and constituents and hold press events while courting a run for the governor’s office.

    Kahele, too, continues to work as a Hawaiian Airlines pilot, a job that paid him nearly $120,000 in 2020, according to his most recent House financial disclosure report. As a member of Congress he earns an annual salary of $174,000.
    [snip]
    [The] lobbyists used the same word to describe the response coming out of Kahele’s office when it comes to scheduling meetings or discussing major policy initiatives, such as the National Defense Authorization Act that sets the policy agenda for the U.S. military — “Crickets.”

    “This is a significant departure from how they operated in the past,” one of the lobbyists said. “The office always had a work ethic, but it’s obvious that they decided not to show up anymore.” Source

    Note that he continues active employment as a commercial airline pilot while at the same time a member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee (meetings of which at present he presumably no longer attends).

  12. 12.

    Jeffro

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: wow.  Good luck!

    I’m doing ok packing this morning, getting ready to head home from a conference in Nashville.  Mrs. Fro has been pretty helpful in getting me to reduce my ‘pack-everything’ ways. ?

  13. 13.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Reposting from downstairs:

    How worried she we be about this?

    Elon Musk Offers to Buy Twitter with $41 Billion Cash Offer:

    “Since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company,” Musk said in a letter to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor.

    Musk, who calls himself a free-speech absolutist, has been critical of the social media platform and its policies, and recently ran a poll on Twitter asking users if they believed the platform adheres to the principle of free speech.

    “My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk added.

    Twitter will review Musk’s offer with advice from Goldman Sachs & Co and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a source told Reuters.

    Twitter’s lower-than-expected user additions in recent months have raised doubts about its growth prospects, even as it pursues big projects such as audio chat rooms and newsletters to end long-running stagnation.

    “It would be hard for any other bidders/consortium to emerge and the Twitter board will be forced likely to accept this bid and/or run an active process to sell Twitter,” Wedbush Securities analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a client note.

    “There will be host of questions around financing, regulatory, balancing Musk’s time (Tesla, SpaceX) in the coming days but ultimately based on this filing it is a now or never bid for Twitter to accept,” Ives said.

    Musk said Morgan Stanley was the financial adviser for the offer.

    “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” Musk said in his letter.

    Musk is going to probably give Trump his beloved megaphone back just in time for 2024. This billionaire dickhead doesn’t care who he hurts

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m not sure Iowa could have been so easily dislodged absent the massive technical fuckups in 2020. That was probably the final straw, though the state hasn’t been a good fit for a long time now.

    I’d like to see primary states rotate from here on out. There’s really no reason to have the same handful determine nominations in perpetuity. Maybe the DNC could define criteria for three out of the five: smaller media market to promote retail politicking, representative levels of diversity, competitiveness for Dems, etc., and throw in a couple of wildcards so everyone has a shot.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    There was a somewhat worrisome article about Nevada posted in today’s Politico Playbook. Recent polls show Senator Catherine Cortez-Masto trailing in matchups with the two leading Republican prospects.

    The article notes that while the blue trend in other purple states seems durable, purple Nevada may be in retrograde. Democratic intra-party strife may be a factor, but the state’s Republican party has it’s own problems. Democrats seem to be losing ground among working class Latino voters, and that could be a problem for Cortez-Masto in November.

  16. 16.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Geminid:

    Democrats seem to be losing ground among working class Latino voters, and that could be a problem for Cortez-Masto in November.

    Throwing in with a political party being infiltrated with white nationalists, I’m sure this won’t backfire for them

    I don’t understand what they see in the modern GOP. It’s become completely unhinged in the last few years

  18. 18.

    Nicole

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Ha!  Your packing sounds like our household, too.  My husband was late to the travel-is-awesome party, so he’s still learning how not to overpack, too.  Where are you going?

    He splurged last year on a Solgaard Carry-on Closet suitcase, though, and it has been a game-changer for him.  So much so that I splurged on one for me and one for our kid in anticipation of a trip this summer.  I adore my old battered carry-on that my brother bought for me 20 years ago, because it’s been all over the world with me, but it’s now considered too large to be a carry-on for international flights. :(

  19. 19.

    bbleh

    So re: incoming comet, my only question is, which grift of the rubes is best indicated?

    (1) Comet Insurance.  For the low, low price of $X per month (until comet is due), ensure financial security for your loved ones.  Don’t risk everything, yada yada, call NOW!

    (2) Comet Survival.  Only the prepared will survive.  Call now for your FREE survival guide, and be admitted to our Members Only buying club, where essential survival gear will be available.  But hurry! Supplies are limited!

    (3) Church of the Comet.  Pray for this and that and the other, and your loved ones, and send your love offering NOW so we can continue our essential good work!

    (4) Full-on Comet Eschaton.  The end is coming, nothing will survive except for those professionally prepared, give us all your stuff NOW and you will be admitted to our survival shelter in deepest Idaho or Alberta or Chile or whatever.

  21. 21.

    Betty Cracker

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m worried about it because I like Twitter a lot (especially Bird Twitter), and I’d have to bail if that dickhead takes it over and ruins it, which he likely would. He’s a walking argument for confiscatory tax rates.

  23. 23.

    germy

    A few years back my wife and I spent a week in Europe.  We brought only two carry on bags.

    When we returned to the U.S. the TSA guy was deeply suspicious and troubled by that fact.  He questioned us extensively.

  24. 24.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Nicole: We’re taking a Viking river cruise in Holland in time for the tulips, I hope. Then we’re spending two days on our own in Paris before joining a Viking Loire Valley tour and the a second Viking river cruise to Bordeau that’s called Wine and Chateaux. We’ll be gone about three weeks.

    I’ve been stressing out over COVID test requirements but I think it’s going to work out.

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    @Geminid: It’s a worrisome trend we’ve seen in FL and TX too. Not sure how we address it, but Latino outreach hasn’t been great, so maybe that’s a good place to start.

  27. 27.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    On social issues, they’re nuts too. Their most prominent members accuse Democrats, an entire political party, of being pedophiles. Absolutely insane claim

  29. 29.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It could be that they have fallen for the caricature that conservatives have painted of a radical-left Democratic party. “Negative partisanship” is one of the only dynamics Republicans have going for them now.

  33. 33.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    Of course not, but how can they not see the GOP’s racism? Latinos would likely be thrown under the bus as soon as it was convenient

    @Geminid:

    Perhaps. How can this be countered and effectively stopped? And why hasn’t the Democratic Party done this?

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: There seems to be a vibrant outreach by Latino Democrats in Arizona. Politico’ s Laura Barron-Lopez had a good article about the effort right before the 2020 election. It involved a whole lot of door knocking by labor and community groups (despite the pandemic). I wish they had done a post election follow up, but that’s not how Politico rolls.

  38. 38.

    JMG

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You will love the Loire Valley. The chateaux are memorable, and any place called “the garden of France” will have excellent scenery. Bordeaux is where my daughter lives. It’s a nice place. The wine chateaux and wine country around it are a fascinating study in contrasts. Famous wine names, magnificent chateaux and some of the highest-priced farmland on earth in between towns with their own famous names (Pauillac, St. Julien, etc.) that have houses with rusted cars and machinery in their front yards like farm towns everywhere.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    And why hasn’t the Democratic Party done this?

     
    Because it would require throwing LGBT and black people under the bus. We didn’t do it in response to Reagan’s landslide and we won’t do it now.

  40. 40.

    NotMax

    From moments ago, closed caption funnies encountered on a British program.

    Dialogue: “…use a cheap substitute and sell it as the posh stuff.”
    CC: “…use a cheap substitute and sell it as the Pashtun.”
    :)

  41. 41.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    Or the GOP’s anti-democratic fascist tendencies. Their willingness to trash things like Social Security/Medicare and raise taxes on everyone who’s not rich.

    I just want to scream this and other things into their faces

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In early 2017, Peter McIndoe, now 23, was studying psychology at the University of Arkansas, and visiting friends in Memphis, Tennessee. He tells me this over Zoom from the US west coast, and has the most arresting face – wide-eyed, curious and intense, like the lead singer of an indie band, or a young monk. “This was right after the Donald Trump election, and things were really tense. I remember people walking around saying they felt as if they were in a movie. Things felt so unstable.”

    It was the weekend of simultaneous Women’s Marches across the US (indeed, the world), and McIndoe looked out of the window and noticed “counterprotesters, who were older, bigger white men. They were clear aggravators. They were encroaching on something that was not their event, they had no business being there.” Added to that, “it felt like chaos, because the world felt like chaos”.

    McIndoe made a placard, and went out to join the march. “It’s not like I sat down and thought I’m going to make a satire. I just thought: ‘I should write a sign that has nothing to do with what is going on.’ An absurdist statement to bring to the equation.”

    That statement was “birds aren’t real”. As he stood with the counterprotesters, and they asked what his sign meant, he improvised. He said he was part of a movement that had been around for 50 years, and was originally started to save American birds, but had failed. The “deep state” had destroyed them all, and replaced them with surveillance drones. Every bird you see is actually a tiny feathered robot watching you.

    Someone was filming him and put it on Facebook; it went viral, and Memphis is still the centre of the Birds Aren’t Real movement. Or is it a movement? You could call it a situationist spectacle, a piece of rolling performance art or a collective satire. MSNBC called it a “mass coping mechanism” for generation Z, and as it has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, “mass”, at least, is on the money.

    It’s the most perfect, playful distillation of where we are in relation to the media landscape we’ve built but can’t control, and which only half of us can find our way around. It’s a made-up conspiracy theory that is just realistic enough, as conspiracies go, to convince QAnon supporters that birds aren’t real, but has just enough satirical flags that generation Z recognises immediately what is going on. It’s a conspiracy-within-a-conspiracy, a little aneurysm of reality and mockery in the bloodstream of the mad pizzagate-style theories that animate the “alt-right”.

    At least now we know who to blame.

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    @Gin & Tonic: I have a friend from Rhode Island, and when he was a teen and going out for the evening, his parents always told him, “Don’t leave the state!”

  46. 46.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud:  It’s not that they don’t see it. It’s just that they don’t care. The benefits they receive from white supremacy combined with those they get from supporting the patriarchy outweigh what they think they could get under a feminist, egalitarian society.

  47. 47.

    Kropacetic

    @Baud: If the GOP wins enough elections legitimately, maybe they’ll be less anti-democratic.

    I estimate it would require them to first win enough elections to turn American back to the antebellum days.

  52. 52.

    germy

    WASHINGTON — When a California Democrat in Congress recently engaged in an extended conversation with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, they prepared for a rigorous policy discussion like those they’d had with her many times over the last 15 years.

    Instead, the lawmaker said, they had to reintroduce themselves to Feinstein multiple times during an interaction that lasted several hours.

    Rather than delve into policy, Feinstein, 88, repeated the same small-talk questions, like asking the lawmaker what mattered to voters in their district, they said, with no apparent recognition the two had already had a similar conversation.

  53. 53.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Nicole: I don’t think Holland requires a test but Viking does. We have to have a PCR test within 72 hours of boarding our flight, or an antigen test within 24 hours. Then they test us on board as often as daily.

    Of necessity then, this is a last minute thing and I HATE last minute things. I was one of those people who always had the term paper finished a week ahead of time.

  54. 54.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Baud:

    I just feel like GOP voters are threatening to ruin my life with their idiocy because they threaten the stability of the country as well as their asinine policies that favor only the very rich. And I despise them for it. Not to mention for all of the other shit they do to the vulnerable people they hurt

  56. 56.

    SFAW

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): 
    Maybe we can rename it Comet Elon, and hope a very small, highly-targeted chunk of it breaks off and “earns its name.”
    FSM spare us from the super-wealthy who think their asses should be perpetually kissed.

  60. 60.

    Kropacetic

    Pretty annoyed with Rhode Island always being used to measure things.

    @Baud:Maybe it’s because RI kind of looks like a football field.

    It’s not that small. I live near the MA/RI border and would consider any trip to CT quite out of the way, a special occasion.

  63. 63.

    mrmoshpotato

    DNC just voted to invite every state Dem party in the country to apply for the chance to displace Iowa, NH, Nevada and South Carolina in 2024. Those states must reapply.

    I’m all for throwing Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina out of the Union.

  64. 64.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @WaterGirl:

    Odds are pretty good we could lose Congress in the midterms, as Geminid’s comment above indicates. I’d say we should worry. Not let it paralyze us of course

  67. 67.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    If the GOP wins enough elections legitimately, maybe they’ll be less anti-democratic.

    And if I wake up tomorrow being six-foot-one, in great shape, with all my hair grown back*, maybe I’ll have a chance with Gal Gadot.

    * No, I didn’t write “back hair,” wise guy.

  73. 73.

    Baud

    To sum up this thread: it’s too bad the Rhode Island sized comet will be too far away for a direct hit.

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: If only they’d all vote for the party that serves their interests as a bloc, damn it! Some of the worst wingnuts I know are women, but Dems’ gains with college educated white women is encouraging.

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If you are wondering about practical ways to counter this trend I suggest you look up the Politico article I referenceed above. It’s titled, “Inside the effort to turn out Arizona’s Latinos- and flip the state blue” November 1, 2020. Basically it describes a lot of hard work by Arizona’s Latino Democrats, but the details of how they did it may be important.

    I do not think I’ve ever talked politics with a Latino person. I used to work alongside some of cenral Virginia’s Mexican immigrants, and they live all around me.

    I would make a general observation that Democratic outreach is most effectively done by fellow Latinos, we don’t have to pick some ethnic lock when it comes to policy and message. The immigrants I see want what any thoughtful working class person wants: good jobs at good pay, decent health care, and educational opportunity and upward mobility for themselves and their children.

  77. 77.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Betty Cracker: Racism isn’t just for whites – working class Latinos and working class blacks hate each other. See the unreported race war that’s been going on in South Oakland for the last two decades.

  78. 78.

    Kropacetic

    @NotMax: It only seems smaller since they lopped of the Providence Plantations part of the name.

    Well the road signs had to fit within state borders.

  80. 80.

    lowtechcyclist

    I’ve been saying it since 2007, and I’ll say it again: start the primaries the year before – in this case, 2023.

    Look at last cycle: even though there weren’t any primaries or caucuses until 2020, the campaign was in full swing by January 2019.

    We had over two dozen candidates, an abundance of debates where they could all show up for, and no real mechanism to force the hopeless cases out and narrow it down to the genuine contenders.

    A few small-state primaries scattered over 2019 would have accomplished that.  Maybe Iowa in June, NH in September, Nevada and SC in October and November, would have weeded the field down before the real action began in 2020, in the big states with the surviving contenders.

    Obviously it’s not going to be nearly as important to do this in 2023, since Biden will be running to be renominated (and nobody seems to be chomping at the bit to contest it – I don’t think even Bernie’s interested, thank Bog.).  And of course we’ll have a different lineup of early states.  But let’s do it anyway: this will be a shakedown year for the new system in the absence of a meaningful contest.  So might as well test out some new things

    ETA: The fact that the primaries don’t start until election year has obviously not kept the race from starting a whole year earlier.  Primaries, in addition to weeding out candidates who have no chance but are just running a publicity campaign, would add some structure to that long campaign of the year before.

  82. 82.

    Anyway

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Bon Voyage! Visited Chenonceau 3 years (?) ago – it was like something out of a fantasy. Never taken a cruise but drove from Atlantic France to Paris a couple of times and the countryside is beautiful.

    Wonder if you’ll meet many totebaggers on your trip – tell them to FTFNYT…

  86. 86.

    Betty Cracker

    @schrodingers_cat: You’re right, and I don’t think that’s an unobtainable goal. Propensity to vote Dem is correlated with education. When I graduated from college in 1988, only about 17% of American women had degrees. Now it’s 38%. No wonder Republicans are trying to destroy our education system!

  87. 87.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Anyway: The cruises will doubtless be filled with Republicans, making it even more embarrassing to be an old white person. Mr DAW comforts me by saying that if I want embarrassment, I should try being an old white man

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Actually, I like our chances to hold the House this November. And I described the article about Nevada as “somewhat” worrisome. That just means I’m dropping Senator Cortez-Masto into the “now 50-50 bin” that I already have Senators Warnock and Kelly in. Hassan of New Hampshire is still in my “fairly safe” bin. And I think that when all is said and done, all four Senators will be reurned to the next Congress.

  93. 93.

    Baud

    @NotMax: Yes, but as a whole, I think the Jewish vote for Dems is somewhere in the 60-70% range, in line with non-white minority groups.

  94. 94.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Pretty annoyed with Rhode Island always being used to measure things. 

    Then they shouldn’t have made it a comet-sized state!  Duh!

  95. 95.

    VOR

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): “My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk added.

    IOW, either sell to me or I’ll dump my sizable share of Twitter and drive your stock price down. I’m struggling with the idea of spending $41B, even if it is just overpriced Tesla stock, just because your fee-fees are hurt by people criticizing you. Owning Twitter won’t stop the scrutiny of his tweets by Tesla stockholders or the SEC.

  97. 97.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):Of course not, but how can they not see the GOP’s racism? Latinos would likely be thrown under the bus as soon as it was convenient

    You do understand the reason why Latin America is a third world hell hole and not fat, dumb and happy is because of rampart racism?

  100. 100.

    Betty

    @Geminid: Republicans use the charge of socialism a lot, the Venezuela and Cuba bogeymen. Abortion also seems to be an issue for many Latinos. Maria Hinojosa did a good review of this in 2020.

  101. 101.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @schrodingers_cat: Oh yes.

    Other East Asians and the mainland Chines hate each other with a passion. As near as I can tell they need whites to act as moderators just so they can work together.

    Northern California Latinos and Southern California Latinos hate each other. Both groups hate Mexicans. Other Central Americans hate Mexicans. The Cubans, as others have noted noted, hate the rest of Latin America.

  102. 102.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @schrodingers_cat: Very true. For example, there’s a HUUUGE difference in New Mexico between the Hispanic descendants of the conquistadors and more recent arrivals from Mexico and Central America. The former are not uniformly welcoming to immigrants (or to the Anglos who’ve been moving in, for that matter), and some have aligned with the GQP, in part because of hardcore anti-abortion views.

  103. 103.

    WaterGirl

    This is a most excellent move by the DNC.

    It’s like when there are budget cuts at the University, sometimes a unit will announce that NO CONTRACTS OF TYPE X WILL BE RENEWED and that everyone is welcome to apply for the open positions.  Happily, they never did that in the college I worked for.

    “This is simply a policy change, it’s nothing personal, we’re not taking anything away from YOU”.

    Although truth be told, i wasn’t fond of that practice at the University, so I’m sure the big 4, especially Iowa and New Hampshire are not pleased.

  104. 104.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Yep, and even people who make a living doing it can screw it up royally. I think that’s one reason Florida is such a basket case. Our Latino population is large and diverse, and there is tension between various groups and competing priorities.

  106. 106.

    Betty Cracker

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You have nothing to apologize for — your statement isn’t even remotely controversial outside of this highly curated bubble, and you weren’t doomy at all. Of course you’re worried. Anybody with sense is. The stakes are stratospheric.

  108. 108.

    Kropacetic

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Possible suggestions for things that may help.  Find something you can do to help Democrats win elections; donate, campaign, etc. Or otherwise help people; food drives, human rights campaigns, blood donation, a wisely selected new job…

    Barring any of that, might be considered self-help to put on some Netflix and just tune the rest out.

  109. 109.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Other East Asians and the mainland Chines hate each other with a passion. As near as I can tell they need whites to act as moderators just so they can work together.

    Northern California Latinos and Southern California Latinos hate each other. Both groups hate Mexicans. Other Central Americans hate Mexicans. The Cubans, as others have noted noted, hate the rest of Latin America.

    But during National Brotherhood Week, National Brotherhood Week…

  111. 111.

    different-church-lady

    Look, I’m glad they’re changing something that always gives the candidate with the most white appeal an early lead, but I don’t know what this is going to do about all the states who are never going to vote for a non-white in the general.

  112. 112.

    Kropacetic

    @Baud: I worried more when I was Goku’s age. The fast-approaching locomotive of death has calmed by nerves about the future of politics.

    For me it was spending less time on politics in favor of more entertaining endeavors and cancelling my NY Times subscription.  Way less anxiety about the state of the world as long as I don’t leave my room to the ambient Fox Noise.

  113. 113.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: This may come as a shock to some, but I am not really a worrier.  Plan, prepare, act, and then it is out of one’s hands.

  117. 117.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    That’s a good way to be. My mother was a worrier, so I inherited the gene.  I know not to waste time worrying, but it’s like trying to will yourself out of a depression.  You’re brain won’t let you do it.  One thing that helps is @Kropacetic‘s suggestion to eliminate the things in your life that live to trigger the worry mechanism.

    ETA:  I have learned not to feel helpless just because I can’t control everything and everyone. People gonna be who they be.

  119. 119.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: Who could have known that a Democratic Party organization being taken over by faction that hates Democrats could be problematic to election of Democrats?

  121. 121.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud: In other words, one can do things to reduce the inclination to worry that aren’t trying to get other people to join you in worrying.

  125. 125.

    Taken4Granite

    As a New Hampshire resident, I will point out that there is a good reason for NH to have its presidential primary on the second Tuesday in March. Most towns and school districts here have local elections that day (the traditional Town Meeting day), so it would be cheaper for the towns (who run elections in this state, unlike most states where that is done at the county level) to combine the elections, as well as helping to boost turnout for those local elections. The reason NH ended up with the first-in-the-nation primary is because of this scheduling quirk.

    That is not an argument for NH going first in an era where many states hold primaries earlier than the second Tuesday in March. I would be willing to let some other state go first as long as NH was allowed to hold a combined local and presidential primary election.

  131. 131.

    Kosh III

    @germy:

    We need a mandatory retirement age for elected officials. IMHO 75 as the final age one can serve. E.g. 6 year Senate mean one cannot run after age 69 so that age 75 is attained in the final year in office.
    I also think candidates can ONLY get donations from those in the constituency; no more outside money.

  133. 133.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I definitely hear you on the testing anxiety. I visited my sweetie in the US over Christmas and New Year’s and had to be tested going both ways. The US-bound test had to be done the day before – it still does – but luckily, Greece has the infrastructure to get turnaround on rapid tests that quickly. The return trip was the problem – Greece demanded a PCR test within 72 hours before arrival, or a rapid test within 24 hours before arrival, and the only way I managed to get the latter was to go to a testing center at BWI Airport. (I’d gotten a PCR test at a CVS just as the three-day window opened, but the results didn’t arrive until I’d already been back in Greece for several days.)

    Matter of fact, you may want to check and see if there’s a rapid testing center at your departure airport.

  134. 134.

    zhena gogolia

    @Omnes Omnibus: I’m not very good at avoiding worry. The one time in my life when I did what you prescribe was during the tenure process. This guy who was going through it at the same time kept asking me questions like, “Do you know who’s on [the university tenure committee]?” I’d say, “No, why would I need to know that? I did what could to meet the standards, so what good would it do me to know the names of the people deciding my fate? So I could bribe one of them or something?”

  135. 135.

    James E Powell

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I gotta say I really don’t think it matters who goes first. Somebody is going to complain no matter what.

    You may be right, but I believe the Iowa caucuses is where the press/media’s obsession with white people in diners was born. I want a state or region that looks like America, not like the FTFNYT’s RealAmerica®.

  137. 137.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kathleen: Heh. We have had to struggle with that faction in local and state Dem politics. I can personally attest to how destructive…and vicious…they are. Almost as if their mission were to destroy the Democratic Party from within.

  140. 140.

    Nelle

    @germy: We took a two month trip around the world, each of us having a carry-on and a small day pack.  It was grand to have everything reduced that much.  Since we did a number of walking segments , walking clothes were our priority. No fancy occasions.

  142. 142.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy:

    Four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffers and the California Democratic member of Congress told The Chronicle in recent interviews that her memory is rapidly deteriorating

    Those are some careful and intentional leaks. You can say that I’m a Democratic Senator and….

  143. 143.

    JML

    I’m in on changing up the primary calendar. And while I’ve often felt that caucuses are a profound statement of democracy and a wonderful expression of grassroots politics…they’re also exclusionary, potentially discriminatory, incredibly difficult to run effectively, and a consistent source of frustration. Probably time for them to go.

    Ideally, we would have primaries taking place in smaller states early in the calendar with representation from different regions of the country on the same day. So you start out with the “first in the nation” being somewhere northwest, south, west, and midwest (maybe…delaware, south carolina, arizona, and wisconsin?) and then grow it out from there. That way a candidate can’t get disproportionate coverage and success by camping out in Iowa or NH for 6 months leading up to an election. You’d pick early states that are blue/purple so that you’re being representative of the party, ones that represent our diversity as well and go from there…

  145. 145.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Omnes Omnibus:  This may come as a shock to some, but I am not really a worrier.  Plan, prepare, act, and then it is out of one’s hands.

    I haven’t figured out how to ‘act’ about global warming.  It really is out of my hands, regardless of how often I call my Congresspersons.

    I also haven’t figured out how to stop worrying about it.

  147. 147.

    germy

    @Nelle:

    Yes, that was us as well.  But the TSA guy was suspicious we didn’t have giant rolling luggage with us. He seemed to suspect we were either criminals or terrorists.

  149. 149.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Geminid: Democrats seem to be losing ground among working class Latino voters, and that could be a problem for Cortez-Masto in November.

    Why does this not surprise me at all?

    Pursuing the Latino vote as if it would save democracy is a losing tactic for Democrats. Well-to-do Hispanics vote for tax cuts like upper-class everyone else. And from a purely cultural standpoint their working-class brethren, at most a generation or two distant from banana republics and machismo culture, are overwhelmingly conservative. (E.g., when Latinos abandon Catholicism it’s usually to join one or another of the fundanazi sects even less interested in “social justice” and less tolerant of “aberrant lifestyles,” i.e., LGBTQ+.)

    Pre-Trump, the Bushes (Dubya and Jeb) were pushing hard for an immigration compromise in hopes of drawing Latinos decisively toward the GOP, which would cement their hold on national politics for decades if not centuries hence. (I don’t think they were wrong about the possibility, though they managed to botch the process – otherwise we’d be doomed already.)

    Personally, I am happy to support efforts to increase voter turnout in groups like Native Americans, who are reliable Democratic voters, but I won’t contribute to similar projects with Latinos, who IMO would be perfectly happy to thank our people for their work and then vote for the vilest of Republicans – exactly as my own (Italian-American) people went from reliable Democrats to solid GOP once they’d been “godfathered” into “whiteness” after WW2 and gotten a taste of 1950s prosperity and higher tax brackets.

  150. 150.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: Try looking up “Clean Energy News” every now and then. It cheers me up, makes me think that when Democrats can intensify current efforts we’ll be working from a good base of knowledge and accomplishment.

  151. 151.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @schrodingers_cat: I should have included snark tags. :)

    As a left-leaning person, I was initially inclined to be sympathetic because I agreed with many of their stated causes. However, I have seen them act in bad faith repeatedly, attacking effective individuals in the party (their preferred targets are women and LGBTQ people, so make of that what you will) and consuming inordinate personal and organizational energy to manage their attacks, which could otherwise be used for productive purposes.

    Shorter: I agree with you.

  153. 153.

    Joe from Lowell

    One feature of the current calendar I like is having one small state from each region of the country hold the first four contests. There is no good reason for having the midwestern and northeastern state lead off, though. They should rotate between the northeast, south, midwest, and west.

  154. 154.

    taumaturgo

    Here’s a look at car insurance rates based on averages nationwide among the largest insurance companies.

    Type of driver
    Average annual rate

    For good drivers
    $1,569

    Driver who caused an accident with property damage
    $2,272

    Driver who caused an accident with an injury
    $2,304

    Driver with one DUI
    $2,623

    Driver with one speeding ticket
    $1,947

    Driver with poor credit
    $2,876**

    Driver caught without insurance
    $1,822

    Rates are based on a female driver, age 30, insuring a Toyota RAV4 with liability coverage of 100/300/100 and collision and comprehensive insurance. Averages are based on rates from 11 large auto insurance companies.

    **I understand think before drinking and driving, avoid accidents by defensive driving, never drive w/o insurance, never speed, but, never be poor? Making a buck by penalizing poverty is shameful.

  155. 155.

    Kropacetic

    @Geminid: I recently saw a video by Beau of the Fifth Column talking about a study showing that our energy sector specifically is on track to reduce carbon emissions enough to make keep warming to (I think it was) 1.5 C.

    There are still emissions factors like transportation that need to be caught up, but that’s a good sign. Retaining or expanding D majorities in Congress would help.  These are societal investments paying off and we need to be willing to keep making such investments.

  158. 158.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    Personally, I am happy to support efforts to increase voter turnout in groups like Native Americans, who are reliable Democratic voters, but I won’t contribute to similar projects with Latinos, who IMO would be perfectly happy to thank our people for their work and then vote for the vilest of Republicans

    Oh wait:

    The analysis of votes cast in 13 states is the most comprehensive look at how Latinos voted in the 2020 general election. In 12 of those states, Latinos supported Biden over President Donald Trump by a margin of at least 2 to 1. And in nine of the 13 — including the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania —  the margin was at least 3 to 1. Only in Florida was Biden’s margin among Latino voters less than 2 to 1.

    No question that over time, Latinos as a whole will be less Democratic than they are now.  They will get more wealthy, they will identify more as white, etc.

    But it’s definitely worth doing what we can to keep them voting Dem as much as possible for as long as possible.

    I think the key things are (a) not to treat Latinos like a monolith, and (b) make sure Latinos from different parts of Latin America are involved in figuring out how Dems should appeal to them.

  159. 159.

    gvg

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: How can anyone get her to retire if she can’t remember the conversation? She will just keep running out of habit. I guess if her staffers chose not to remember the deadline to file to run? Someone will have to beat her in a primary. I guess it’s up to her voters.

  161. 161.

    Joe from Lowell

    @lowtechcyclist: Good comment. For all the crowing about the Republicans’ gains among Latin voters in 2020, they still lost them by 40 points.

    And that was with Biden making the decision not to invest heavily in Texas and Florida, in order to concentrate on the upper midwest states that Clinton lost. It’s tough to criticize the guy for making that strategic decision, since he won and she didn’t, but it came with a cost in that cycle.

  162. 162.

    ian

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Other East Asians and the mainland Chines hate each other with a passion. As near as I can tell they need whites to act as moderators just so they can work together.

    Turn down your racial assumptions dial chief.  You keep making sweeping claims about large non-monolithic groups

  163. 163.

    Nora

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Don’t bet on that. I just took the Viking Basel to Amsterdam cruise, and, other than contracting covid just before we reached Amsterdam, it waa a wonderful experience and I would highly recommend it. Not the covid part, of course.

  164. 164.

    Heidi Mom

    I don’t want to be a downer on this beautiful morning, but since this is an open thread I want to let you know that we said goodbye to our dog Heidi on Monday.  If the original estimate of her age was correct, she was at least 14 (a medium-to-large dog, about 65 pounds), and I think she was just worn out–joints, appetite, spirit.  (The first of those was especially significant given that we live in a third-floor apartment without an elevator.)  In 2010 she was a pregnant, heartworm-positive stray in GA; taken to a shelter, where she gave birth to 10 pups, 8 of whom lived; she and they were brought to south-central PA by a wonderful rescue group called Homeward Bound, whose mission is to rescue pregnant and nursing moms and their litters from southern shelters.  In some ways she was an ordinary dog–the black/brown/white coat that could indicate rottie, dobie, black and tan coonhound, Bernese mountain dog, so many possibilities.  But in her sweet nature, she was extraordinary.  The director of the rescue group, who’s saved hundreds of dogs, as well as one of her fosterers still remember Heidi with great fondness, 11 years after we adopted her.  Everyone’s dog is the best dog ever, but Heidi really was the sweetest.  I’ll keep the name Heidi Mom in her honor.

  166. 166.

    Betty Cracker

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Read that earlier and had the same thought. Poor thing. She has annoyed me greatly over the years, but she really was a trailblazer in her day. Some people just don’t know when to quit, and that’s sad.

  167. 167.

    brendancalling

    Honestly, with the horrors of climate change that are coming for us, I’d just as soon have it end quickly. Getting wiped out by a comet won’t be any fun, but it’s preferable to starvation, dying of thirst, or the wet-bulb effect.

    Bring on the comet. Fuck it.

  173. 173.

    guachi

    There’s no reason that, for an early primary, a state must embody some diversity criteria entirely within itself. You could have multiple states vote with very different demographics vote on the same day. For example, you could have primaries in MT and DC on the same day. Any candidate that could win both DC and MT on the same day is probably a good candidate. And MT has had at least one Democratic Senator for 111 years in a row.

  174. 174.

    brendancalling

    @Betty Cracker: I grew up in Newport RI (no, I’m not rich), and I know people there that won’t leave Aquidneck Island to go see a show in Providence, which is 45 minutes (or less) away. My mom used to call it “RI Gravity.” No one leaves.

  175. 175.

    Brachiator

    Just getting my morning started and I see this…

    “NASA says it won’t come any closer to Earth than Saturn” seems important to mention here

    What if the comet hits Saturn and then like balls on a pool table, Saturn crashes into Earth? Yeah, some say that it can’t happen. But I was also told the pandemic was no big deal. I was told that Trump would never be elected president.

     

    ETA: I’m not really worried, but my worst fantasies scream alarm.

  177. 177.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Tell him I’m in Europe right now and I feel like I overpacked (plus, I didn’t do a raincoat).

    Its pretty warm north of Paris right now – 70+ days.

  178. 178.

    brendancalling

    @Baud: If the Bernie people spent any time in Vermont, they might be surprised at how UN-socialist it really is here. Yes, the healthcare is better than many states (although there’s a nursing/doctor crisis, and costs are going up again), but there’s also a decades-long (and worsening) housing crisis that’s never been addressed, homelessness is rampant, there’s a HUGE income gap, especially between white people and the 2% of the population that’s BIPOC (white people make about double what Black people make here), cell service is a disgrace, huge chunks of the state have no broadband, and despite all the happy talk about being anti-war, we have F-35s doing test flights over Burlington 4-5X a day and sometimes at night.

    The man talks a good game though.

  180. 180.

    taumaturgo

    @Kropacetic:

    Making a buck by penalizing poverty is shameful the capitalist way.

    Could it be, maybe, perhaps, that the capitalist constant discrimination and financial punishment of poverty be a source of resentment and anger for the working poor voters? Everywhere one looks democracy is coupled with capitalism and as the income and wealth disparity increase, we find democracy receding. The working poor voters seem to be catching on.

  183. 183.

    Baud

    @brendancalling:

    It’s hard to look at other wealthy countries and no feel like the U.S. can do better in a number of socioeconomic areas the Bernie people care about.  That said, I think very few places really want, much less live up to, “socialism” where that word is used in its traditional sense.  Just like “boomer” has come to mean all old people, “socialism,” to the extent it’s attractive to people, really just means something better than what we have.

  184. 184.

    Brachiator

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I know the Iowa caucuses are undemocratic. I worked 90 miles from home and lived there during the week, so I was never home on Tuesday nights and was one of the people who couldn’t participate.

    But after I quit teaching, I went for the first time to the 2008 caucuses where we nominated Obama.

    I confess that I don’t care about changing the Iowa caucuses. And yeah, it may not be perfectly democratic, but having people talk about what they want, and having candidates have to come out and meet with them is part of what democracy can be.

    And I can imagine how great it was to be part of nominating Obama. And here Iowa helped other Democratic Party voters see Obama as a viable candidate. What is wrong with that?

  185. 185.

    Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Tell your hubs that Tauck cleans your stuff for abut 7 euros for each pairtrousers, 6 euros for shirts.  Underwear is like 2.50.

    I get some laundry done each trip.

    It’s a good deal.

    I’m on the Seine right now, in Rouen.

  186. 186.

    Baud

    @Brachiator:

    A good king doesn’t make monarchy a good system, and Obama’s election doesn’t make caucuses democratic.  Perhaps we’re influenced by GOP voter suppression, but caucuses cannot compete with primaries in giving people a say in who should win.

  188. 188.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I don’t understand what they see in the modern GOP. It’s become completely unhinged in the last few years

    A lot of Latinos/as are Catholic traditionalists who are anti-abortion and believe very strongly that gender is binary with men and women having defined roles in the natural order of the universe. I sometimes feel like people on my side of the political world don’t really get just how strongly these issues matter to religious traditionalists. It is HUGE to them. Our embrace of trans rights as a party was the right thing to do, no question. However, it will hurt us politically for the next 10 years, minimum.

  189. 189.

    James E Powell

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    And from a purely cultural standpoint their working-class brethren, at most a generation or two distant from banana republics and machismo culture, are overwhelmingly conservative.

    That’s been my experience with my students’ parents for the last 16 years in Los Angeles. Anecdotal, I concede, but I’ve found them to be as conservative as my Trumpista brother.

  190. 190.

    Kropacetic

    @taumaturgo: Everywhere one looks democracy is coupled with capitalism and as the income and wealth disparity increase, we find democracy receding. The working poor voters seem to be catching on.

    As a member of the working poor, you have more faith than I do.

  192. 192.

    Geminid

    @Kropacetic: Decarbonizing the electric grid is not that heavy a lift. Wind and solar power are now dependable low cost sources, and storage technology is catching up.

    Heavy transport and industrial* carbon emissions are a tougher problem. The EU and others are  starting to plan on a partially hydrogen based energy economy. There are a lot of doubters but this may be part of the solution.

    British climate scientist Myles Allen wrote a really good article for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists titled “The Green New Deal- a View from Across the Atlantic,” February 2019. Allen gives a good overview of the challenge of meeting the goal stated by the October, 2018 IPCC report: a carbon neutral world economy by 2050. Allen worked on that report.

    He states the need to reduce the current 42 gigatons of carbon emmissions by 2 gigatons year over year. He also makes an interesting comment, that he did not think this will be done without investments by wealthier countries in carbon negative technologies. He doesn’t say specifically which ones.

    * Cement production is the  largest single source of industrial carbon emissions, accounting for as much as 8% of emissions worldwide.

  193. 193.

    CaseyL

    @gvg: Her staffers don’t want her to retire: their employment would end.  Senate staffer is a plum job, and there is no guarantee that DiFi’s successor would hire them.  IIRC, DiFi’s staffers are the ones really running everything.

  194. 194.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    It’s hard to look at other wealthy countries and no feel like the U.S. can do better in a number of socioeconomic areas the Bernie people care about.

    This is one of the reasons that Bernie and his crew tire me out. Bernie says stuff like “we should have this and that like they have in Europe,” but he is too lazy or stupid to explain the steps and changes in society and government to get there. And he also falsely implies that all “progressive” societies work the same way.

    That said, I think very few places really want, much less live up to, “socialism” where that word is used in its traditional sense.

    One of the key things in, for example, some of the Nordic countries was that there was a broad consensus about changes that people wanted, and many of the changes to government and society still conformed in some ways to cultural practice and tradition. The US is more boisterously diverse, confused and contentious.

  199. 199.

    Elizabelle

    @Brachiator: um, that anyone who has an evening job, family or other responsibilities that will not allow them to attend, is sick, or out of town, or has transportation troubles, cannot attend?

    Wholly unrepresentative sample.

    No more caucuses.  No more Iowa.

  202. 202.

    taumaturgo

    @NotMax:  Having a less than stellar credit score does not ipso facto translate to impoverished.

    That is correct. It doesn’t translate to impoverishment, yet it makes for those tethering on the edge of poverty a steeper hill to climb.

  203. 203.

    Kropacetic

    @Elizabelle: No more Iowa.

    That’s a little extreme.  Maybe let’s keep Iowa but not give them such a dominant role in the nominating calendar.

  206. 206.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Elizabelle: thank you. How is something that requires you have to take time off work. You have to find transportation to it. You have to find childcare, remotely fair or representative. Caucuses need to go.

  209. 209.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Chris Hayes had Jennifer Granholm on his program a couple weeks back, and they were talking about the challenges of getting environmental policy passed, and she said one important thing that survived the BIF-BBB folderol was a program for weather-proofing existing construction, which Hayes said is the most effective below-the-radar program going.

    Under the “This Is Too Important To Wait For Politics” heading, Elevate is a non-profit organization that, among other things, promotes clean energy by bringing it to low cost housing.

  210. 210.

    NotMax

    @Geminid

    Knew a very high up engineer who worked at a Portland cement plant (this was in the 1970s, he was pushing retirement age by then) who was intractably convinced that regulations underway regarding installing scrubbers would irrevocably lead to the erosion of civilization and we’d all be foraging for berries and nuts when not huddled within a rickety lean-to within five years.

  211. 211.

    Martin

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Yep. There was a lesson in California which Obama won handily in 2008 and which also voted for Prop 8, banning gay marriage.

    Mostly crossover votes from religious black and latino voters.

    Democrats shouldn’t stop what they’re doing because they should be able to keep these voters, but they can’t take them for granted.

  212. 212.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: I keep meaning to learn to hunt squirrels with a pointy stick, or study Hemingway on pigeon hunting

  213. 213.

    Brachiator

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    A lot of Latinos/as are Catholic traditionalists who are anti-abortion and believe very strongly that gender is binary with men and women having defined roles in the natural order of the universe.

    Despite being strongly Catholic, the Mexican national government ruled that birth control and family planning services had to be provided in all public clinics. I think this was in the 70s. The Mexican Supreme Court ruled unanimously in 2021 that abortion was constitutional.

    And our Supreme Court?

    Both in Mexico and in the US and elsewhere, attitudes towards gay, lesbian and transgender people are changing among Hispanic people. There has been a long tradition of a vibrant gay culture, even if it was often as underground as it was in the US.

    Hispanic people are not a monolith.

    And macho culture is interesting. Some of the most macho people I know are Latina lesbians.

    But macho without the need to abuse anyone to prove anything.

  214. 214.

    Kropacetic

    @Martin: Yep. There was a lesson in California which Obama won handily in 2008 and which also voted for Prop 8, banning gay marriage.

    Mostly crossover votes from religious black and latino voters.

    Democrats shouldn’t stop what they’re doing because they should be able to keep these voters, but they can’t take them for granted.

    It’s almost like more than one thing can be important to any given person.

  215. 215.

    opiejeanne

    @Kropacetic: Also, a lot of money flowed into California from Utah Mormons, to promote Prop 8. It was extremely annoying, watching it happen.

  216. 216.

    Geminid

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: The increased weatherproofing funding is part of the “Bipartisan Infrastructure” bill. The Washington Post did an article on this a couple weeks ago. The new funds, the article says, will enable a tenfold increase in weatherization of low income people’s homes.

    The Infrastructure bill also reinstated funding for SuperFund site cleanup, by renewing excise taxes on production of chemicals and mandating that this revenue be spent on clean ups. The EPA announced 42 sites that will be targeted, with an emphasis on those harming low income communities.

  217. 217.

    Kropacetic

    @opiejeanne: We had a similar measure in MA.  When I looked through the lists of voters who signed the initiative petition, I saw my Dad’s elderly aunt and uncle.  I was upset at them for this.

    Then a couple years later, I went to visit this uncle in a nursing home during Obama’s reelection.  Obama had already come out as pro-gay marriage, yet here I see ample Obama campaign shwag in his room.

    People can be moved, people can prioritize one policy goal over another.  We just have to do the right thing the best we see and hope enough other people either come along or ultimately get things right in their own way.

  218. 218.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    A good king doesn’t make monarchy a good system, and Obama’s election doesn’t make caucuses democratic.

    I certainly would not want every state to be a caucus state. I just don’t care that Iowa has one. Nor do I care that Iowa is an early state. Having people meet and talk about candidates is as democratic as people simply going out to vote. Iowa caucuses were not perfect democracy, but it still was democracy.

    And I would caucus for Baud!

  219. 219.

    Baud

    @Kropacetic:

    We just have to do the right thing the best we see and hope enough other people either come along or ultimately get things right.

     
    Word.

  221. 221.

    Gravenstone

    @Gin & Tonic: Pretty annoyed with Rhode Island always being used to measure things.

    True, if you’re going to get into a dick measuring contest, America’s Wang (FL) would be the obvious choice.

  223. 223.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    RE:

    Four U.S. senators, including three Democrats, as well as three former Feinstein staffers and the California Democratic member of Congress told The Chronicle in recent interviews that her memory is rapidly deteriorating

    Those are some careful and intentional leaks. You can say that I’m a Democratic Senator and….

    This story is covered in the most recent edition of the “Fifth and Mission” podcast, from the San Francisco Chronicle.

    The discussion is interesting and fair. The reporters claim that some of the politicians who came forward are friends of the senator and were pained to discuss Feinstein’s supposed decline.

    Still, doubts and cautions about the story are understandable and reasonable.

    ETA: I remember once attending a dinner where some political reporters claimed that President Reagan’s mental decline was apparent to some who covered the Beltway, and yet the “gentleman’s agreement” was not to push it or investigate it.

  224. 224.

    Betty Cracker

    @Brachiator: Reagan’s mental decline during his presidency was evident to me, at the time a stoned teenager in a Florida high school. :-)

  225. 225.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Heidi Mom:

    Heidi was a lucky girl, and you were a lucky mom, that you had each other. I’m so sorry for your loss. She sounds like a great dog.

  227. 227.

    cain

    @OzarkHillbilly: 
    I for one would like to see a closer grouping. By the time, Oregon does its primary it’s pretty much decided and we have no chance to make any difference.

  228. 228.

    cain

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Many latinos identify as white. Some can pass for white – so they dont’ really care. They are strongly Catholic and things like abortion issues ring with them. As President Baud said, social issues > economic issues.

    Religion is pretty good crack for some.

  229. 229.

    lowtechcyclist

    @opiejeanne: @lowtechcyclist: Plant trees.

    I would if I had anywhere to plant them.  This was a wooded lot when we moved in 24 years ago, and I’ve basically let the woods gradually encroach on such lawn as we have.  So I’ve been doing my bit that way.

  230. 230.

    cain

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    @Betty Cracker: Racism isn’t just for whites – working class Latinos and working class blacks hate each other. See the unreported race war that’s been going on in South Oakland for the last two decades.

    My ex-gf (who is black) told me the same thing. She told me that a number of black folks think that hispanics are beneath them. When latino immigrants moved into a black majority neighborhood – a number of them left.

  232. 232.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Well, I certainly hope the GOP winning elections is as unlikely as that happening.

    They’ll win a ton of them. But the key word was “legitimately,” which won’t be the case. Well, I guess I’m being a bit of a stick-in-the-mud on that; if we assume that Blacks, students, wimmens, and Lie-berals (in general) won’t have the “right” to vote, then I guess the elections will be “legitimate.”

  234. 234.

    anynameleft

    Hawaii.

    Go from a conservative state(s) that reflect the population of the US from the 19th century, Iowa – New Hampshire, with a state that looks like the US this century and forward.

    Small enough for “retail” politics, with a mixed economy (tourism, an agriculture sector, acedemic innovation) with necessary infrastructure ( hotels, rent a cars etc) to host a national primary. Solid D state.

    Plus where would one prefer to be out in the cold or warm in early primary system.

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