Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

This fight is for everything.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

Republicans do not trust women.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

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

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

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

T R E 4 5 O N

People are complicated. Love is not.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You are here: Home / Elections / 2022 Elections / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Staying on Course

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Staying on Course

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Couple more notes about Tuesday’s primaries:

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110Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Despite Because of the overwhelming #KansasVoteNo, House and Senate Republicans still plan to introduce a National Abortion Ban if they win in November.

    Fixed.

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    It started raining yestereve. It was till raining when I woke up on the couch about 1:30. The thunder and lightning was so bad, poor Percy was up my butt with every move I made so I decided to spend the rest of the night on the couch where he could snuggle with me whenever he needed it. I woke up this AM and it’s still raining.

    I helped my wife out to her car as I do everyday she goes to work (I swear, I was a carpenter and I didn’t need half the stuff she takes with her every day) (//s but not by much). While I was waiting for her to come out, I checked the rain gauge: 4″ and still coming down.

    There are a couple stretches of road between here and town that go under in heavy rain, especially if the culverts get clogged. I wonder if she will be able to get to work. I know she won’t be stupid and push anything that is questionable (a true scaredy cat when it comes to driving thru water), but last night she mentioned the number of trees down on the road and as bad she is at backing up, I can see her dropping a tire into the ditch and getting stuck while trying to turn around.

    If that happens when she’s in a cell hole, it might be a long wet walk for her.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Yeah well, my meatbird chicks are at the post office so I have to leave. If I find her on the side of the road, I’ll let you know later on today.

    eta: I thought the PO opened at 7:30. Nope! 8;30. If she doesn’t call me by 7:30, she made it.

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Floriduh woman arrested for driving golf cart on highway while drunk, police say

    According to a Florida highway patrol report, a semi-truck driver spotted the woman driving in the golf cart in the center lane of Interstate 95 in Brevard county, which is the heart of Florida’s Space Coast.

    The truck driver said she “observed the driver of the golf cart passing out while driving”, the report said. The truck driver used her semi to steer the golf cart to the shoulder of the interstate, troopers said.

    Once on the shoulder, the truck driver grabbed the keys to the golf cart as the woman tried to drive away. Once troopers arrived at the scene, the woman started arguing with them and insisted she needed her bag. Inside the bag, troopers found an open bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Fire Whiskey, authorities said.

    I don’t think I have anywhere near as much kindness in my heart as that truck driver does.

  11. 11.

    Geminid

    A new “anaytical” fad is to talk about the political “Vibe.” This can be silly, but if there is a core of truth to it we may have seen evidence in the last eight days. First the Senate passed the CHIPS+ Act, and later that afternoon Schumer and Manchin announced agreement on a good Reconciliation bill. The House passed the Chip bill the day after, and on Friday passed the assault weapons ban. Sunday, Joe Biden’s people killed the Al Quaeda chief in Kabul and vindicated his Afghanistan withdrawel.

    This week Speaker Pelosi brushed Chinese threats off her shoulder and flew to Taiwan. Then Kansas voters supported abortion rights by over 60% to 40%.

    I don’t know about the “Vibe,” but my vibe is doing pretty darn well!

  13. 13.

    Jeffro

    It must be very weird to have one’s name on a very important SCOTUS decision.  But then being involved in litigation that goes all the way to SCOTUS would have been stranger and stranger at each step along the way, so perhaps Obergefell is used to it (and hopefully, proud of it).

  16. 16.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Geminid: I think even we have difficulty realizing the Ds are doing well. But this week we sure did.

    OT: It was my turn to read at my writer group last night. They mostly said they liked the chapters, but now their written suggestions are coming in and holy cow. This is going to take a while.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Usually pretty good. I’ve never lost any birds in transit (they have enough nutrients and fluids to go 3 days in the box) tho I know a few people who lost a number of birds the last couple years with what’s his fck at the head of the PO. I haven’t been taking any chances and pay the extra for express shipping. These birds got here in 24 hours from Des Moines Iowa.

  22. 22.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: I thought you’d be getting rain. We’re getting rain here too, around an inch so far. I hope you don’t have too much flooding there, 4″ is a lot especially when it’s been dry and the ground is hard.

    I got a call on my cell last night from my state representative! I talked to her for about 10 minutes about abortion and the Medicaid expansion. Evidently she and a bunch of her volunteers were calling voters in the district. I’m new to her district; before I was in the district of our minority leader. I’ve never had that happen before.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    In all seriousness, momentum (ot vibe) is a thing in politics just as it is in sports.  People who don’t want us to succeed put a lot of work into disrupting our flow whenever we start to get traction.

  26. 26.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: Have you seen any Republicans praising Pelosi for standing up to Chinese bullying? Nah, me neither. LOL

    In baseball they call that “momentum”. It’s the idea that winning begats more winning, or losing begats more losing. What the R’s did to themselves on the PACT act was mega-stupid. They looked petty and small, and had to crawl back and vote for something that a week ago they voted against.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I heard.  Don’t really care. Like with Manchin and Sinema, all I want to see are the votes.

    If he wants to sink this and prove you right about everything, that’s his prerogative.

  30. 30.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: So what is he whining about? Maybe Schumer told him he can whine as much as he wants as long as he votes for it in the end. To me that’s the biggest weakness of the Bernie coalition – they don’t know how to build on success. They insist on getting everything, so instead they get nothing and they’re seen as losers.

  33. 33.

    germy shoemangler

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Do you have a link to any of those tweets?  I didn’t see any.

    I saw this:

    Sanders’ vote will be critical to advancing the legislation in the evenly divided Senate — and he did not threaten to oppose it. But he did call on the Senate to thoroughly vet and amend the bill, which leadership hopes to fast-track this week. Sanders’ office did not immediately respond Wednesday morning to an inquiry about how he would vote if the legislation were not amended. A spokesperson for Vermont’s other U.S. senator, Democrat Patrick Leahy, said he did not know how his boss would vote on the bill.  In his floor speech, Sanders said the bill should be beefed up before it passes, to include elements of Build Back Better that did not make it into the Manchin deal — including measures to address homelessness, student debt, child care and Medicare.

  34. 34.

    satby

    @Soprano2: Actually Kinzinger tweeted out a kudos to Pelosi. He’s the only one I saw, but I don’t follow Republicans. Besides, yesterday was all about Alex Jones’ phone texts.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    True, but I think if progressive votes prevent the bill from succeeding, they’re done for. Unlike Manchin and Sinema, progressives care about their credibility with voters.

  36. 36.

    Josie

    @Baud: I’m pretty sure the senators are used to Sanders’ bloviating by now. I doubt their votes will be affected by anything he says.​
      ETA: I’m hoping he won’t want to be the one who sinks the bill.

  37. 37.

    Baud

    @Josie:

    Oh sure.  But he’s able to kill this by his lonesome. Like I said, I’ll wait to see what happens before casting judgment.  If his posturing improves the bill, I’m not going to complain.

  39. 39.

    Josie

    @Baud: ​
      The trouble is that, if he causes changes in the bill, then Manchin could back out. I’ll bet Schumer will need a vacation after this is over.

  41. 41.

    Leto

    (WaPo): Georgia says ‘unborn child’ counts as dependent on taxes after 6 weeks

    The state’s department of revenue said Monday that it would begin recognizing “any unborn child with a detectable human heartbeat … as eligible for the Georgia individual income tax dependent exemption” — amounting to $3,000. Taxpayers must be prepared to provide relevant medical records and documents if requested by the department.

    The tax benefit is a byproduct of a law that went into effect July 20 banning abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. Georgia House Bill 481 was initially approved in 2019 but was deemed unconstitutional, given the protections granted by Roe v. Wade. Once that long-standing precedent was overturned in June, a federal appeals court cleared the way for Georgia’s abortion ban to become law. The court also agreed that “personhood” could be redefined to include fetuses.

    The concept of enshrining personhood into antiabortion policy isn’t new. Among the states that consider embryos as distinct people are Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Kansas and Missouri, the Associated Press reported. Others states — including Colorado, Mississippi and North Dakota — have tried to follow suit, but the proposed pieces of legislation have so far failed, according to the AP.
    Georgia’s personhood provision is, for now, the most expansive. Not only does it grant tax breaks for fetuses, but it also requires that they be included in some population counts. It also imposes child support “on the father of an unborn child” — amounting to the “direct medical and pregnancy related expenses of the mother.”

    But considering the prevalence of miscarriages and stillbirths, some wondered what the implications of the new tax policy could mean for those who experience pregnancy loss. Georgia State University law professor Anthony Michael Kreis speculated on Twitter that the state’s treasury could end up “handing out a lot of cash for pregnancies that would never come to term.”

    Lauren Groh-Wargo, campaign manager for Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, questioned whether pregnancy loss could trigger an investigation. “So what happens when you claim your fetus as a dependent and then miscarry later in the pregnancy, you get investigated both for tax fraud and an illegal abortion?” she tweeted.

    Neither the bill nor the guidance issued by the Georgia Department of Revenue addresses what would happen in the event of a miscarriage.

    The law also creates other gray areas. For instance, what are the implications for couples using a surrogate? And when it comes to sperm donors or instances of uncertain paternity, who would be responsible for providing child support?

    Details are for little people… as Kay says, nobody thought through anything regarding this beyond: punish women! That’s it

    Edit: another reason to keep R’s out of federal office is that not only will they pass a federal ban on abortion, but they’ll probably rewrite the tax code to include lumps of cells as a tax write off.

  42. 42.

    sab

    Home nurse for a partner is fucking hard.

    You don’t actually know what you are doing, but consequences are as bad as for a real nurse.

    You never get a break. No eight hours off to catch up on sleep.

    Your partner is in either pain or actual agony.

    ETA Sorry  OT

  43. 43.

    Danielx

    Yep. Seeing Dems get a bunch of stuff done and seeing Mitch McConnell get euchred in the bargain. Warms my heart and puts a spring in my step.

  44. 44.

    germy shoemangler

    I wonder if Manchin will be sitting on the Republican side during the next SOTU.   He’s made so many good friends on that side of the aisle that he sat with them during Biden’s last SOTU speech and then criticized Biden’s remarks.  But now his Republican pals are somewhat disappointed with him.  Maybe he’ll sit with Democrats next time?

  48. 48.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah well, my meatbird chicks are at the post office

    I see you explained that sentence downthread.

    My question is about the USPS. Is it considered safe again to ship poultry by mail? I remember all the stories of chicks arriving dead because of deliberate postal delays. I know DeJoy is still the Postmaster, burrowed in like a particularly nasty tick.

  49. 49.

    germy shoemangler

    One section Sanders is targeting is the requirement that millions of acres of public lands be offered for oil drilling as a condition for new solar and wind development. He also warned that the measure in its current form would give the oil and gas industry “billions of dollars in new tax breaks and subsidies over the next 10 years.”

    https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/08/04/sanders-announces-amendment-strip-all-fossil-fuel-handouts-manchin-deal

    How dare he.

  50. 50.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: I saw somewhere that 24(?) GOP senators supported her visit to Taiwan. Didn’t look any deeper into it, so no idea who they were or even if they were. It just sounded about right for the NatSec wing of the GOP. They would see it as a “manly” thing to do.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    @Leto: I don’t see why it would be any different than the normal dependency tax credit — if the person dies, you don’t get to keep claiming them, but the IRS doesn’t go back and remove the deduction for previous years.

    I am wondering if it will be necessary to get the six-week-old fetus a Social Security Number to claim them. “Sorry, we can’t fill out the whole form since we haven’t named it yet, and we don’t know the gender — we want that to be a surprise! — but can’t you just issue one and we’ll send you the details in eight months?”

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Leto:

    With federal it gets much more complicated because it implicates just about every federal program – is the birthdate at 6 weeks of conception or the birthdate? Imagine how thorny for something like immigration. So Georgia fetuses will be “persons” for federal purposes but NY fetuses will not?

    It’s huge even at state level. Does 6 week old fetus count a household member? Just the concept of “birthdate” has to change- we’ll need weeks until birth and then birth. What about probate? Is the fetus a child who is included?

    Incredibly radical stuff. Years and years and years of litigation and individual judicial decisions without any guidance from these vague, sloppily constucted laws. We won’t be able to define “person” nationally. 50 states will have 50 different definitions.

  56. 56.

    lowtechcyclist

    @sab:

    Home nurse for a partner is fucking hard.

    You don’t actually know what you are doing, but consequences are as bad as for a real nurse.

    You never get a break. No eight hours off to catch up on sleep.

    Your partner is in either pain or actual agony.

    ETA Sorry  OT

    Can’t imagine how difficult and stressful that would be.  Take care of yourself as best you can, given the circumstances.

  57. 57.

    schrodingers_cat

    The so-called progressive Senator from Vt is using Republican talking points to attack the bill that goes through the committee he chairs. He is not a legislator he is a bloviator.

    The 700-page so-called Inflation Reduction Act, after months of secret negotiations, became public late last week. Now is the time for every member of the Senate to study this bill thoroughly and to come up with amendments and suggestions as to how we can improve it.

    And his fellow senators know it

    BTW many economists agree that the bill does reduce inflation. I am sure it is not perfect. Incremental progress is better than no progress.

  58. 58.

    lowtechcyclist

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    @Soprano2: I saw somewhere that 24(?) GOP senators supported her visit to Taiwan. Didn’t look any deeper into it, so no idea who they were or even if they were. It just sounded about right for the NatSec wing of the GOP. They would see it as a “manly” thing to do.

    Increasingly, the GOP changes even its foreign policy daily, to keep it in line with what will own the libs on any given day.  But there’s still some old-school Republicans in the Senate that (fortunately!) haven’t gotten there yet.

  59. 59.

    Kay

    @Leto:

    Even I didn’t think they would redefine “person” to include 6 week after conception. It’s unprecendented anywhere. It is as radical as I can imagine. It once again makes the United States an absolute far Right outlier. 

    Let the lawsuits begin! They’re either going to have to rewrite every bit of GA state code or let each county judge write it, on a case by case basis, because they flipped the whole code on its head.

  61. 61.

    Kay

    Edward-Isaac Dovere
    @IsaacDovere
    · Aug 2
    The political fallout from the Dobbs decision continues to be bigger and longer lasting than pretty much anyone in politics expected — and this result reflects an impact on Republicans based off this issue that is showing up in many internal polls and focus groups.

    Because the entire media discounts womens issues as unimportant. They have barely covered “the fall out” although “the fall out” has included grave threats to womens lives and reductions in the standards of medical care women receive in the United States. They now receive substandard care for conditions related to pregnancy.
    Laws ripple. They impact cultural norms. No one in politics “expected” blowback because the culture has already shifted to make womens lives less important and worthy of serious, dedicated coverage that media outlets invest in. They spend way more time and money covering Donald Trump’s antics than any of them have spent on coverage of this.

  62. 62.

    brendancalling

    Fucking Bernie being his typical Bernie self. I swear, most Vermont Democrats I’ve met during my time up here aren’t like him.

    And speaking of Vermont, I leave on Saturday. Got my hitch put on yesterday, and confirming my trailer today (they have the pickup scheduled for 4:00 PM, I need it at noon. It’s a bittersweet departure—I met a gal, finally, and have a good band going. But teacher pay in Philly starts at about $4000-$5000 more than Vermont, there’s housing, and it’s affordable too. You generally can’t find a 1 bedroom in Vermont for less than $1500, unless you want to live in the middle of nowhere, and the quality is likely to be pretty janky anyway.

    I’ll be back on the regular—my kid is in Montreal, so it’ll be nice to have friends I can stay with close by. Vermont is a lovely place to visit, and once they get a handle on their housing crisis; their aging crisis; their population crisis; their abysmal cell phone service, and get broadband going, it will be a nice place to live too. (I’d link everything but then I’d go to the mods.

    Hopefully, I’ll test negative tomorrow. I wound up with the omicron this past Saturday, been quarantining ever since.

  64. 64.

    Kay

    Since they all got the impact wrong (discounted it out of hand because it relates to women) now that they have some information out of Kansas will the coverage change? Will media orgs start investing some money and people into covering this issue? Now that they are behind – trailing- the public because they arrogantly assumed no one cared because they don’t care?

    Or do we just find out what’s happening with these laws from random reports of individuals on Twitter?

    Maybe they could reassign one or two members of the Donald Trump team or the Hunter Biden team to real coverage of this radical change in US law and culture that has been imposed on this country by that court?

  65. 65.

    kindness

    Bernie isn’t going to sink the bill.  But I think sometimes he can’t help himself.  He likes playing David against the machine’s Goliath.  Really it all makes me feel better about Schumer as leader.  Schumer can thread a needle.  Bernie would never be able to.

  66. 66.

    The Moar You Know

    The GOP will never put reproductive rights to a public vote again.

    Nor anything else if they can help it.

  67. 67.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Soprano2: Apparently both The National Review and Fox News noted her courage and said China was completely responsible for the escalation. Somewhat surprising from those sources, but you also have to wonder whether they did this to de-emphasize their culpability for the escalation of tensions.

  68. 68.

    Betty Cracker

    Pushaw, the person who’s teasing this “major announcement,” is paid $120K per year by Florida taxpayers to be a full-time internet troll. Following in the footsteps of his mentor Trump, DeSantis doesn’t pretend to be the governor for anyone but the MAGA base. I hope everyone who’s not part of that base wakes up and votes his ass out.

  70. 70.

    MisterDancer

    @Kay: No one in politics “expected” blowback because the culture has already shifted to make womens lives less important and worthy of serious, dedicated coverage that media outlets invest in.

    Media outlets could barely be arsed to cover SB8 in any meaningful way. The decades of neglect and erosion created Reproductive Heath deserts, just as we see in many poorer regions, with nary a finger raised to type a story about the brutal issues with getting an Abortion in states that had decimated clinics.

    That’s the world Chief Injustice Roberts wanted, I have opined — he was/is part of the “death by a thousand cuts” approach that just kept eliminating these rights (and so many others) for the least of us. That the “Federalist” Society and the lying/cheating Conservatives were able to build a majority to run past him on this is horrific on it’s own; but either way, none of these assholes gave a damn about people without a voice in our body politic; they could crow and claim to be against Abortions, but really it amounted to “only for poor people who can’t travel under these stupid ‘wait a day or two’ laws”.

    Now? Well, we see now. It’s just been like this, for a lot of people we don’t talk about, for a long-assed time.

    And the media couldn’t be arsed to care then, and was shocked into caring now.

  71. 71.

    Soprano2

    @germy shoemangler: Like I said, these people don’t know how to take a win. This bill is the best we’re going to get, and it has a lot of good things in it. Rather than highlight that, though, he seems to be trying to tank it. You never get everything you want in a bill. It’s counterproductive.

  72. 72.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: Yes. I thought “vibe” was a Bro Media ploy to distract people from lack of concrete accomplishments (eg Sanders, Bernie and many of his Astroturfed Spawn).

  73. 73.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Geminid: Don’t forget the double whammy of the Rethuglicans own-goal on their PACT-delaying hissy fit and the passage of same without a single change in wording. And though not on the national level, the KS “No” win clearly is seen a nationally significant. Also, the Infowars sociopath had 3 years of phone data accidentally handed over to opposing counsel, who then promptly hinted at perjury being the next step and at handing over anything requested to the J6 Committee (this clown was at the Insurrection and is thought to have been communicating with Republican assholes up and down the line). Also too, though viewed with trepidation by many on the left, I think that the wins for the Trump-backed freaks in AZ are actually freaking out the true power players in the GOP. And also too finally, Mitch and Ted are still Mitching and Tedding — and everyone, everywhere, hates them and that  (even if they won’t admit it).

  74. 74.

    phdesmond

    @sab:

    maybe he’s just taking advantage of the name recognition, which must be unusual for anyone with a tetrasyllabic name?

  75. 75.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MisterDancer:

    with nary a finger raised to type a story about the brutal issues with getting an Abortion in states that had decimated clinics

    I used to see stories like that occasionally when I used to subscribe to the dead-trees WaPo.  They’d usually have a map showing which states had only one abortion clinic in the entire state, and where it was.

  76. 76.

    Kropacetic

    @Soprano2: The statements from Sanders I’ve seen posted here all suggest he’s asking for improvements during the amendment process, nothing suggesting he won’t support it in its current form.

    And opening up millions of acres of federal land isn’t something we should take lightly. Which lands or what would the criteria be?

    We’ve been urged patience with these duplicitous, greedy so-called moderates like Manchin. Sounds like the same crowd just jumping at any opportunity to slam the left.

  80. 80.

    Eunicecycle

    @Kay: I think one of the justices actually said he thought the Dobbs decision would calm things down around abortion. “Tell me you’re clueless without saying you are clueless.”

  81. 81.

    Baud

    @Kropacetic:

    The problem with amendments is that the GOP could ratfuck us by voting for Bernie’s amendments, which could cause Manchin to withdraw.  This needs to be worked out beforehand.

  82. 82.

    stinger

    @Kay: I’ve wondered for years if it would mean kids could get their driver’s license at (post-birth) age 15y3mo instead of age 16y. Scary.

  83. 83.

    Kristine

    @Baud:

    Manchin put in some crappy stuff for fossil fuels. It’s a legitimate criticism, not a reason to sink the bill.

    Given the number of leases already outstanding and the fact that capital is moving into renewables more and more, I wonder if those new leases would ever be exploited. I know it looks crummy on paper, but are they going to go anywhere?

  84. 84.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Typically, after all the amendments offered in the hours-long “Votarama,” a “wraparound amendment” is offered that overrides any amendment that has been passed. That will be the key vote.

  85. 85.

    Kelly

    @Jeffro:It must be very weird to have one’s name on a very important SCOTUS decision.

    I always thought Loving v Virginia was an incredibly apt name to attach to interracial marriage

  86. 86.

    Ken

    @stinger:

    DMV CLERK: “This child is only eight.”

    PARENT MAKING A POINT: “We used in-vitro fertilization. They were conceived 16 years ago, but spent the first eight years of their life in liquid nitrogen.”

  90. 90.

    Fourmorewars

    Obergefell’s opponent is named Swearingen?  I…I…I got nuthin.’

    Well, actually, I got somethin’, but I got someplace to be.

  91. 91.

    Kropacetic

    @Baud: The problem with amendments is that the GOP could ratfuck us by voting for Bernie’s amendments, which could cause Manchin to withdraw.  This needs to be worked out beforehand.

    Well, for now it looks like he’s staking out a position. No amendments have passed yet and we know the Dems are planners. Hell, Bernie’s kvetching may help Manchin sell this at home.

    But suppose whatever amendments pass and Manchin does back out again. Is that the fault of people able to successfully draw support to amend the bill? Assuming sincere support among the voting Senators, that’s where the votes were. Manchin needs to know how to play with others.

    If Synemanchin are allowed to sink huge chunks of our agenda, the left is allowed to have an opinion. Bernie is part of our voting majority too. He supports our judges too. He does this all as nominally an independent.

    He hasn’t sunk one of our initiatives yet. Maybe we can wait and see how this plays out. Manchin had a year and a half fucking around.

  94. 94.

    Kropacetic

    @Baud: I doubt, in the end, that Bernie will vote against this bill. If it does, I’ll be pissed off at him then.

    If an amendment results in Manchin backing out and the left is blamed, that’s engaging in the same type of abuser logic Republicans use, “Look what you made me do.”

  95. 95.

    Baud

    @Kropacetic:

    No, because the amendment would be passed with the help of the GOP.  You can’t partner with the GOP to “improve” the bill and then wash your hands when a shitty Dem backs out.

  97. 97.

    Kropacetic

    @Baud: No, because the amendment would be passed with the help of the GOP.

    That’s why I said apparent sincerity needs to be considered. If such an amendment is passed, is it consistent with the votes of whatever Republican crossed the aisle?

    An attempt at ratfucking doesn’t prevent Dems from further responses. Right now it’s just words. Give it time.

  99. 99.

    Kropacetic

    @Eunicecycle: I think one of the justices actually said he thought the Dobbs decision would calm things down around abortion.

    Maybe anticipating fewer terrorist attacks at abortion clinics? Do we have relevant statistics on this yet?

  100. 100.

    Another Scott

    @Kristine: Marketplace did a kinda Ok piece on the oil leases recently.  The points from the oil guys they talked to:

    • The leases are on federal land and only a tiny fraction of US production is on federal land
    • What’s holding up increased production is lack of workers, availability of equipment, time that it takes to get all the property rights addressed, build the roads, etc.
    • They want to make money but can’t because of these production issues – not because they’re an evil conspiring cabal.

    That’s fine as far as it goes.  It doesn’t explain why they are sitting on federal leases though.  (E.g. on federal land they don’t have to chase down all the surface vs subsurface property owners.)

    FWIW.

    Cheers,

    Scott.

  103. 103.

    stinger

    @Chief Oshkosh: I believe Biden complained about that in a speech during the worst of the gas price hikes. They already have leases they’re not using. (Of course, it would take a while to get drilling at a new site up and running, which would not help to bring down gas prices now, but still….)

  104. 104.

    Kropacetic

    @columbusqueen: I often find it useful to make a wrong idea “work.”

    I also felt a need to point out, in a roundabout way, that the tension and extreme tactics surrounding abortion has traditionally been on the right.

  105. 105.

    Helen

    I noticed that all the stories about Kansas featured film clips of college aged women celebrating. Easy and cheap reporting. No mention of the middle aged and older Republican women who voted to maintain abortion. But in order to get the numbers they did, it wasn’t just young women. Maybe even a few Boomers!

  106. 106.

    Helen

    All the stories about Kansas feature young women. But heavily Republican counties also defeated the amendment. To me that means Republican women voted against it. That’s the real story.

  108. 108.

    SamIAm

    @Baud: 

     

    Baud

    August 4, 2022 at 8:41 am

    @Soprano2:

    Manchin put in some crappy stuff for fossil fuels. It’s a legitimate criticism, not a reason to sink the bill.

    Oh, important information that SC left out.

    I’m becoming more and more convinced that SC is a Republican troll trying to divide the Democratic coalition

  109. 109.

    J R in WV

    @sab: ​
     

    Home nurse for a partner is fucking hard.

    Before Wife was discharged from Hospital back when she had part of her lung scraped off, it was totally necrotic, I got a crash course in sucking chest wounds and the treatment of same. I had some first aid courses in the USN, 40 years ago, but the nurses at the hospital were totally aware of how to treat these problems, and went over it with me a whole lot.

    Because, you see, Wife still had her chest tubes implanted when they sent her home. The RNs with home health care were shocked, I was their go to on how to maintain those chest tubes, they hadn’t seen a chest tube in many years.

    But the hospital feared Wife would pick up a hospital infection, and wanted her home with the dogs and cats ASAP. It all worked out for the best. Tense for me, tho.

    So you have all my sympathy! It is really hard!

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