Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

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

Usually wrong but never in doubt

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

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

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Let me file that under fuck it.

The choice is between normal and crazy.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / (This Week, Monday Falls on) Tuesday Morning Open Thread

(This Week, Monday Falls on) Tuesday Morning Open Thread

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… “In Congress and state houses across our nation, extremist so-called leaders are fighting to turn back the clock to a time before workers had the freedom to organize,” Harris said. “To a time before women had the freedom to make decisions about their own bodies. To a time before all Americans had the freedom to vote.”

Harris delivered the crowd-pleasing speech at the Greater Boston Labor Council’s annual Labor Day breakfast, as she visited the city to tout the Biden administration’s support for workers and join in a roundtable discussion with local labor leaders.

“President Joe Biden and I are determined to lead the most pro-union administration in America’s history,” Harris told the crowd of about 1,000 who packed the ballroom of the Park Plaza Hotel in downtown Boston.

Harris, who leads the White House Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment, cited the Biden administration’s accomplishments in job creation, reducing child poverty, and expanding the Child Tax Credit.

In her 20-minute speech, she also spoke about the importance of teachers, firefighters, health care workers, and others who provide services essential to society, around the country and here in Boston…

Unions, Harris said, protect not just their members but all workers.

“Today on picket lines, in union halls, and on job sites, in hospitals, schools, and grocery stores union workers fight for better wages and safer working conditions,” she said. “Our whole nation, whether they are a member of a union or not, benefits from your work. Because when union wages go up, everybody’s wages go up. When union workplaces are safer, all workplaces are safer. … When unions are strong, America is strong.”

Throughout the breakfast, labor leaders and elected officials spoke about Boston’s history as a center of the labor movement, the recent resurgence of organized labor as new workplaces form or join unions, and about the contributions that working people make to society…

President Biden is set to visit the city next Monday to tout the administration’s massive infrastructure bill…

“Today in America, so many working families are struggling to get by, but instead of standing with working people to lower the price of health care, education, child care, these extremist so-called leaders prioritize breaks for big corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent,” she said.

“But together, we are fighting back,” she added, and the crowd burst into applause.

Well worth reading the whole thing:

… The progress of labor is never simply about the actions of presidents and vice presidents. It is determined by multiple factors, including the maelstrom of the times that confront an administration and a country. Harris understands this. Indeed, when I asked about the latest Gallup poll, which found Americans are more supportive of unions than at any time since the 1960s, she pointed to a factor that gets insufficient notice: the coronavirus pandemic.

“There’s so much about the pandemic that, I think, really highlighted for all to see what some of us have known to be the fractures and the fissures and the failures of systems—including the systems that should support working people but don’t,” she said. “We saw, for example, at the height of the pandemic, that 2 million women had to leave the workforce because a real issue for all workers is child care. How many people had to leave the workforce because they didn’t have paid sick leave? Or paid family leave? We saw how many workers were taking so much risk into their hands—especially those frontline health care workers who, through their sheer commitment, were going to work because they care about saving lives. Think about what that meant in terms of a workplace that may not be safe. Think about it in terms of teachers and other frontline workers.”

The term “essential worker” was a catchphrase for the media as the pandemic unfolded. But it resonated with the people who were putting their lives on the line. “Workers started realizing their value and started demanding that the dignity of their work would be respected in every way, including through their wages and benefits,” Harris said…

Ultimately, said Harris, “we need to pass the PRO Act,” a reference to a sweeping set of labor law reforms contained in the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which passed the US House with bipartisan support in 2021, but then stalled in the Senate. To do that, Harris explained, Democrats must hold the House and increase their Senate majority in the November midterm elections. “I’m saying everywhere, [and] the president’s saying it: We need to hold on to our numbers in the Senate, and then we need two more. Then there are a number of things that we could do, including [approving the PRO Act and], as a related issue, pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act and the Freedom to Vote Act. There’s a direct nexus and connection between everything you and I are discussing and that issue.” …

Readership capture!

Reader Interactions

110Comments

  1. 1.

    Gin & Tonic

    I’m disappointed in Marty Walsh. Perfect opportunity to say “wicked awesome” and he whiffed.

  6. 6.

    Scout211

    It’s nice to read all these positive things about our Democratic leaders.  Such a nice contrast from all crazy, negative news from the GOP. Thanks, AL.

    In local news, those of us in California are in for the hottest day (statewide) in California history just as people go back to work and students return to school. The CAISO has warned that if we don’t conserve even more energy today, they will have to start the rolling blackouts. In our little corner of California, the overnight low temperature (typically in the low to mid 60s),  was 88. Today’s high is predicted to be 117.  This heat wave will last until the weekend but today should be the worst of it.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    One bonus about Obama winning an Emmy: It’ll really really piss off Trump, since he always wanted one and felt that his TV show was perpetually discriminated against because it never won one.

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    We saw how many workers were taking so much risk into their hands—especially those frontline health care workers who, through their sheer commitment, were going to work because they care about saving lives. Think about what that meant in terms of a workplace that may not be safe. Think about it in terms of teachers and other frontline workers.”

    The term “essential worker” was a catchphrase for the media as the pandemic unfolded. But it resonated with the people who were putting their lives on the line. “Workers started realizing their value and started demanding that the dignity of their work would be respected in every way, including through their wages and benefits,” Harris said…

    What??? You mean calling them heroes wasn’t enough?? They want higher wages and better benefits too? They want to be able to work all day without injury or even death?

    Boy, some people are never satisfied.

  10. 10.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Scout211: Here on the other coast, we got more rain in the last 24 hours than we did between Memorial Day and Labor Day. 7” and counting.

  12. 12.

    PAM Dirac

    @dmsilev:

     

    felt that his TV show was perpetually discriminated against because it never won one.

    Maybe the orange fart cloud can get one of Federalist judges to order the Academy to give him one.

  13. 13.

    Ken

    @dmsilev: He does have a point. The production staff should have received some recognition. It’s not easy working with animals, children, and not-very-bright narcissists who can’t stay on script.

  15. 15.

    Kay

    Simon Rosenberg
    @SimonWDC
    ·54m
    The President’s plan for student debt relief appears broadly popular. It’s 57-36 with independents in a new @NavigatorSurvey poll.

    I’m surprised it’s this popular. It’s always polled pretty well but as a hypothetical, where a lot of things poll well. This question was “Biden Administration will be cancelling up to 10k ..” and it’s still popular.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    After a nice day (all but perfect weather) at the bike races, I actually got a night’s worth of sleep. Hooray. I’ll celebrate my victories no matter how small, or infrequent they may be.

  19. 19.

    Geminid

    Last year leaders of the Teamsters union pledged to mount a major drive to unionize Amazon facilities. They planned to start in Canada, and are now trying to organize five Ontario  “fullfillment centers” in Ontario as well as other facilities across Canada.

    In the US, Teamsters are negotiating new contracts with UPS in major hubs including Atlanta. Once these contracts are behind them, I expect the Teamsters to lean in to organizing Amazon warehouses and drivers in this country.

    Amazon is a huge organization, a Goliath. The Teamsters are more like David, who was a very muscular, smaller man who really knew how to use a sling.

  20. 20.

    brendancalling

    “you better believe he’s doing a one man broadway monologue show at some point!”

    Is there such a thing as a multi-person monologue?

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I suspect that most people, even if they themselves are not, know somebody laboring under the burden of student debt. Have pollsters ever asked that question?

  22. 22.

    eversor

    @rikyrah:

    I think that optics matter.   One of the good things about the “new Democrats” like Fetterman is they stupidly look like working class people.   Bald, carhart clothes, and not polished (I know he actually is polished and went to Harvard) that works.  You also have Gallego out of Arizona who’s a former Marine and hurls f-bombs at people constantly.  AOC is classier but also isn’t afraid to throw elbows and sucker punches when she sees a target, also a former bar tender!

    These people work as advocates of the working class.  Biden does as well.  There’s a certain level of grit they all have and also the willingness to get into the gutter and fight dirty that connects with people.

    I think it also helps for Biden and Fetterman that they are from PA which is a complicated place that’s largely blue collar and lives in the shadow of DC and NY.

    It’s not just about being for someone, it’s showing you understand them.

  23. 23.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I agree. That most people know someone. Maybe that’s it.

    I had a lots of conversation with the parents of high school seniors (when I had a high school senior two years ago) and they were all careful with debt- scared of loading kids up. Public schools, IMO, have done a much better job with focusing on quality/price to that student rather than prestige or a big name so that helped.

    But even if yours don’t have student loan debt you can’t control who they marry and their spouse can have debt, which is then, of course, theirs :)

  25. 25.

    SFAW

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Huh, Baud must be sleeping in or something.

    More likely he was going through his clothes closet, and couldn’t make up his mind which pants he’s not going to wear today.​

  30. 30.

    Geminid

    @Kay: A few weeks ago Magdi Semrau (aka Mangy Jay) discussed her personal student loan situation. Semrau managed to get through undergraduate and graduate sckool without much debt (she did some elementary school teaching along the way). Semrau’s husband, on the other hand, finished earning his Ph.D in Philosophy with a ton of debt.

    After the President announced his student debt initiative, Semrau said that the liberalization of the Income Based Repayment program could be “life changing” for her and others.

    Semrau also noted that her husband, who teaches Ethics, told her that he thought funding Universal Pre-K had a higher claim on resources than did relieving his own debt. But we can do both, and I believe we will.

  32. 32.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Jennifer Rubin (WaPo) continues to be en fuego. Snippets from her article today on the political effect of Dobbs and the wrongheaded predictions (shocking, I know) of the pundits:

    Afflicted by a combination of arrogance, insularity and shortsightedness, political analysts for months prematurely declared that Republicans would sail into power on a red wave, that abortion would be a nonissue and that President Biden would drag down his party. Just as they entirely missed the rise of MAGA voters in 2016 (only to then fixate on Rust Belt diners for the next four years), their prognostication appears to have gone haywire again.

    [snip]

    Abortion is a — if not the — motivating issue for millions of voters, as the Journal [WSJ] poll respondents proved: “When offered a choice of five issues and asked which made them most likely to vote, they put the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade ahead of inflation.” Moreover, state abortion bans are grossly unpopular (e.g., 62 percent oppose a six-week ban), as are Republicans’ stances on prosecuting doctors (70 percent oppose) and limiting some forms of contraception (78 percent oppose).

    It should have come as no surprise that taking away a fundamental right women have held for nearly 50 years is not just another issue, let alone a “wash” that would equally motivate angry abortion rights and delighted antiabortion forces, as many pundits announced. If you deny women’s autonomy as adult decision-makers and subject them to increased risk of trauma, grave health complications and death, they get mad. Very mad.

    More at the link.

    May that mad turn into votes. Lots and lots of them.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    @eversor:

    Well, but if youre in the same household with your spouse some portion of the household’s earnings are going to debt. A 100k household with 20k annual in debt payments means the 100k household only has 80k available for other things.

    I suppose if you never need a mortgage or other large loan one spouse can act as a separate financial entity but even that is inequitable, right? Then the spouse with no student loan takes on all debt of the marriage since they qualify and the spouse with student loan debt does not, with debt payments as a proportion of income.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m amazed at how hard the most anti-choice Republicans are back-pedaling on abortion rights. Even forced-birthers like Blake Masters are scrubbing their websites and rewriting stump speeches. Masters was for fetal personhood just a few weeks ago. Now he’s in a defensive crouch and mouthing platitudes that basically align with Roe’s former protections. Is anyone supposed to believe this bullshit? Come on!

    ETA: Charlie Crist gets how potent this issue is, thank dog:

    “The reason why DeSantis remains silent on whether he’ll ban abortion is because his stance is unpopular. Since he’s got no spine, I’ll say it for him: DeSantis WILL ban your right to reproductive freedom.

    That’s exactly why I plan to defeat him this November.”

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I vaguely recall a typhoon/monsoon/flood in Pakistan (or maybe India), back in the 1970s or 1980s, which resulted in something like 400,000 deaths. [Although Wikipedia indicates my memory is faulty, so who knows?]

    [Either way, that picture is pretty bad. So whenever I’m thinking “blech,” I guess I should be grateful.}

  38. 38.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SFAW: My dear wife was planning to go to Providence after lunch yesterday. Once it started pouring, she said yeah, maybe not. I’m very glad she changed her mind.

    Some areas of RI have gotten 10-11” so far. It’s amazing.

  39. 39.

    SFAW

    @Betty Cracker:

    Is anyone supposed to believe this bullshit? Come on!

    One hopes Mark Kelly (and other Dems, e.g., Josh Shapiro) hammer the shit out of them for pretending they’re not fully on-board with Dobbs.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @Geminid:

    We have public prek here (amazingly in such a red county) and I was all for it, especially because higher income parents also use it and I think economic diversity in schools is really important and benefits all kids BUT I don’t think the results from Head Start indicate that universal public preK is a “gamechanger”. I think people expected more of an impact. It’s good- it’s just not the equity cure-all it was promoted to be.

    But it’s broadly popular here, even among higher income parents  and we had to pass a tax levy to get it so they know they’re all paying for it.

    I think the general approach should be to expand public education on both ends– prek and college or trade schools.

  41. 41.

    Nelle

    @Kay:

    Yes, we worked hard to make sure our kids had no debt.  Both their spouses have debt.  My DIL is a treasure, but she didn’t get a dime from her family.  She managed to get her degree in three years, but still.  The debt relief will make a huge difference.  Not sure how much yet.  She got a Pell grant but only one year.  We paid off her private loan (interest rate was at 8%).

  43. 43.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Geminid:

    It is very important that an experienced and large union in the supply chain take on Amazon. I am not particularly enthused about the recent ‘victory’ over an Amazon warehouse in New York, albeit it was an heroic effort under the circumstances.

    The shambolic nature of having to organise shop by shop in the US is hard enough, and then each little union in each little shop has to try and bargain. It is brutal. It also requires a lot less romantics than the young enthusiasts in the US understand. The Biden administration is laying down the most important marker for the future of US democracy imho, in its focus on unions and on working people generally. I am pleased the teamsters are taking this on.

    US liberalism has always had a bit of a sniff of ‘moralistic middle class’ about it, and unless and until the US working class is able to recover its ability to reorganise and reshape US politics and the face of US liberalism, the backsliding of democracy there will have very bad effects everywhere. I have lots of arguments with friends and comrades here in Oz about this matter. Anti Americanism has a long and proud tradition in the Oz left, but I spend a lot of time explaining that if democracy starts to go under there, we won’t be far off, despite just electing a Labor government.

    To tell the truth I have never been so anxious about the general political future in my life. I have spent over forty years in the union and Labor movement, organising and advocating, and I am just flabbergasted at the general political fecklessness of much of the political class in the English speaking world.

    Everyone bloviates about democracy, until it comes to working people reclaiming power at work, and then the middle class relapses into bromides about ‘freedom’ and ‘opportunity’ and ‘equity’ to people who have little of any of that particularly the minute they set foot into their workplace.

    Once again, despite his age and (relatively)conservative history, Biden seems to finally get it. Now the US Dems need to toss their gerontocratic leadership class and start to get leaders in their thirties and forties. And I mean leaders, at all levels, particularly in Congress. I am retired, and I am younger than every Dem leader in Congress. It is madness.

  44. 44.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: The same thing is happening in Virginia Congressional races. The Republican challengers to Abigail Spanberger (VA-7) and Elaine Luria (VA-2) have scrubbed extreme anti-abortion positions from their websites and modified their positions in public. They took a hard line to win their primaries, though, and their radical positions are on public record. Both Spanberger and Luria are making this a major issue

    I think Spanberger is almost certain to win reelection, but Luria has a real fight on her hands in the redrawn 2nd District. It’s on the coast, and the new map takes out Norfolk and adds more Republican voters in other areas.

  45. 45.

    SFAW

    @Betty Cracker:

    Since he’s got no spine, I’ll say it for him: DeSantis WILL ban your right to reproductive freedom.

    “Politifact gives this statement 37 Pinocchios, because there’s a one-in-10,000,000 chance that DeSantis won’t do that within the first week.”

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    It makes me mad. The Susan B Anthony Right wing lobby group are going door to door telling people their candidates don’t want to ban abortion. It’s a lie.

    I’ve been following this really closely and the more you read the more you see that anti-choice people are liars. Their whole movement rests on a completely dishonest presentation to the public. They were exposed by the Supreme Court and now rather than admit they have sold their “movement” dishonestly for 50 years they are just doubling down on the lies. There’s an arrogance to it. They’re religous crusaders so they seem to feel they’re not obligated to tell the truth. That tricking people is somehow cleansed because of their Holy Crusade.

  52. 52.

    pluky

    @Kay: Don’t recall exactly where I read it, but something like 40 million people are affected by this. Add to that those related to the beneficiaries, and the popularity margin becomes believable.

  54. 54.

    oldgold

    Jason Stanley:

    “Once you have the courts you can pretty much do whatever you want.”

    Laurence Tribe:

    “Sadly true. And the MAGA types understood that precept. All too well.”

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @SFAW: That terrible cyclone hit Bangladesh, on the eastern side of India. A few years later Bangladesh revolted and India helped it win independence from Pakistan.

  57. 57.

    Honus

    @rikyrah: i was looking at that top photo and thinking what a great idea it would be for a reporter could go to a diner and interview some of those working class voters.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @Nelle:

    There’s a lot of us :)

    Unless you’re planning on running a credit check and then arranging a marriage based on the results you shouldn’t assume student loan debt won’t impact your family. Adults form their own households.

    A lot of the commentary just seems doumb to me- it makes so many assumptions and has no connection to how people actually live and who borrows.

    The “plumber” maybe won’t be mad at 10k forgiven if the plumbers grown children hold the debt. The whole “plumber” conversation ignores that a LOT of working people aspire to sent their children to college. It’s weirdly insulting and patronizing. It assumes some kind of old fashioned model, where no one aspires to anything, economic brackets don’t change, and people live alone. The plumbers children are probably not plumbers!

  61. 61.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: I did post it.  Did you miss it???

    So after I put blood, sweat and tears into putting up that post, you never even read it? Well, I never!

    Edited to try to go toe-to-toe with your guilt trip. :-)

  62. 62.

    eversor

    @Kay:

    You can legally rig it so you aren’t responsible for other persons debts but you’re correct it’s a drain regardless.  For us at least both families are well off so there isn’t external stress (that’s a whole nother shit show nobody talks about) and internally we are OK.   She has two graduate degrees and does OK, I’m a vet with the type of clearance that got Trump in trouble and we live outside of DC in the land of defense contractors so we are doing OK.

    Our home loan was through the VA as I qualify as I got a great rate from it and it’s under my name.  She gets it when I croak (hopefully later rather than sooner but I’ve been sick for a while).   I bought all our vehicles in cash, I pay the entire mortgage, I pay all the bills.  So she’s been crushing her loan payments.  We have zero credit card debt.  I float about 1500 a month and it’s always paid off before the interest hits, this is our food and stuff money.

    Either of us could float us on a single income and we aimed for that just in case an issue happened, we are very lucky we can do this.  Our biggest cost is the fucking damn HOA fees for the condo.  The old place was OK at like 800 but moving to a pet friendly place spiked us to 1300, though we do get free gas, electric, and water.

    If it came to it and I lost a job she could pay for all this.   Average income here is about 120k.

    I don’t view it as a drain on me that I eat most of the bills because I always already doing that before she moved in.   The money she saves by me paying for things gets socked away in savings that we can both access and we have a nice nest egg.

    Debt is an issue but we also don’t teach people basic finances because once you see that and you realize how you are getting raw dogged people go bonkers.

    And on debt, I’m stupidly eyeballing a VA small business loan to set up a food truck.  She’d love it and she could run it with her sisters and it just might work!

  66. 66.

    Geminid

    @Aussie Sheila: Democrats are making a good start on developing younger leaders in the House. They have many talented Reps in their thirties and early and mid forties. Some of the good ones came in the Class of 2018, including the two women I mentioned above, Ms. Spanberger and Ms. Luria.

    I’m hoping Gabe Vasquez can flip New Mexico’s 2nd CD. Vasquez is in his early thirties.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @Nelle:

    I think of families as big extended debts and asset sheets in my work, because that’s how families work.

    I think of it in terms of generations, not isolated economic units of individuals, and I think tis way for a very good reason – that’s how it works in real life.

    So if you can give your kid a 25K bump the whole extended family will benefit over time because “your kid” or “your generation” is not an isolated event. The 25k bump is an asset that ripples just like the 25k debt with student loans is a debt that ripples.

  69. 69.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: They are liars, and as we’ve seen, the U.S. electorate has a ridiculously high tolerance for lies, so maybe it will work. But I do wonder if this is a bridge too far. These people have spent decades branding themselves, and now they’re gonna wipe the slate clean and hope nobody notices? Not sure that’s gonna fly, hence the panic and new lies.

  72. 72.

    eversor

    @Kay:

    My plumber is a former Marine who used his GI bill for a trade school and racks in a few hundred grand a year running his own business (it takes skill to deal with massive apartment buildings).  He’s not pissed that his kid got his loans partly forgiven.

    Most people in the skilled trades are fairly swift because these aren’t simple jobs to do.  They tend to pay pretty well.  Hell I work in IT and I have no degree i have CISSP, MCSE, LPIC.

  73. 73.

    Geminid

    @Aussie Sheila: I think the older Democratic House leaders will make way for younger leadership soon. I have a hunch this will hapoen after the midterms.

    Despite their age, Speaker Pelosi and Whip Clyburn played very valuable, maybe essential roles before and since the 2018 midterms. They have mentored some good younger leaders to take their place, although any caucus elections this November will be hotly debated.

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: It is encouraging. Crist resigned from his seat in Congress so he can focus on the campaign for governor, which is another sign that he’s dead serious about this — and maybe also a recognition that the current governor has been campaigning for president full time for a couple of years now.

    Crist is making hay of DeSantis’s presidential ambitions, which are also a vulnerability, I think. DeSantis has something like ten times as much money as Crist, and it will be an uphill battle. But I think Crist can win if he works his ass off and things break his way.

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @Honus: I recall one of our commenters collected all the things reporters have to do — or rather, do wrong — for those interviews. I recall “don’t check backgrounds” was at the top, because of the times that it’s turned out the people interviewed all turned out to be members of the local Republican county committee.

    But surely treating a bunch of people who can sit all afternoon in a diner sipping coffee as typical workers, while ignoring the waitress who’s refilling the cups, should rank pretty high.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    @Nelle:

    Early in my career I had a really lovely farmer as a client. His grown son, also a farmer, commited suicide and he said what was to me the strangest thing at that time- he said “we had two generations without mothers and it hurt us”

    His own mother had died when he was young and then his wife died when his son was young. These essential people were missing. He thinks in terms of generations and extended families, and how it ripples. I think that way too, now.

  77. 77.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:

    We call it pro union because we are used to the term but I feel, both as someone who’s been a business owner/boss and as an employee that the people that actually do physical work are the real power of this country. Many/most of them are not in unions because for many of them there is no union. I think we have to insure that, yes, unions are a backbone of our labor market, they really do not speak for a hell of a lot of workers in this country. Yes they help lift all labor but when push comes to shove they work for the people that belong to the union. We as a country need more, even though the unions do help. We need a government that is actually of, by and for all the people. Not just the ones who give them political money, not just union people. Not just the wealthy who think they are better. We need this country to come back to it’s roots, what I call the every person concept. Not the big business interests, they do far more than just fine on their own. Not just the employer interests, they have the abilities and organizations that singular people/workers do not. The rethuglican party is attempting the takeover of this country for the big business/con man/pocketbook screwers rather than every human. The premise of this country was that it is supposed to be different, it is supposed to be about all the individuals, no matter their color or gender, their usefulness to a big business tycoon, their profit potential.

    I believe that Joe Biden is showing us this, Kamala Harris is showing us this. I believe that this is a turning point in our country and we have to make the most of that, do the most with it, if we want a future  as a country for and by the people. Many of the citizens of this country have lost sight of what this country is supposed to be about. It is up to all of us to shout that from the rooftops.

  79. 79.

    Ruckus

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    And may a majority of the men back them up and help throw the bums out. One of the hardest things I had to try to understand as a young male in a supposed democracy was how crappy women were treated, almost as if they existed for one reason, to support men’s desires. It was bullshit when I wasn’t really old enough to understand the whole context and it’s still bullshit after another 60 yrs of living.

  80. 80.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Betty Cracker: Holding my nose to vote for the Republican bastard(Christ, not DeSantis, he needs needs several tours through finishing school to make it to bastard) but he needs to follow the Lawton Chiles Campaign Blueprint. Get out and stay out meeting and talking to people, the state is too populated now to walk it like Chiles did, but drive around talk to people and do the retail politics.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    That “Students for Life” leader, who seems to be in her thirties, insists that an exception for the life of the mother are based on the best judgement of the treating physician is a liar. That’s not how these statutes were written and it’s not how they operate. They MANDATE a non-medical review of all exceptions.

    They have 100% replaced the role of the physician along with the role of the woman and inserted their co-religionists in there to make all decisions. They are snooping around in every pregnant womans personal life, whch has resulted in substandard, low quality, medical care.

    People need legal protections from these people. They do not have the right to manage every pregnancy. I should be permitted to tell them to get the hell OUT of my examining room.

  83. 83.

    Nelle

    @Kay: Neither my son-in-law nor my daughter-in-law have biological mothers in their lives (one through death when the person was seven, one through abandonment when the child was three) and neither are close to their stepmothers.  It has ripples.

  84. 84.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    Over all of my working life, education has become far more important. Far fewer of us do manual labor than when I started working. Even jobs that are manual labor have changed. An example might be putting the wheels on new cars on a production line. A person did that, with some help with the lifting. Now it’s a machine that lifts, places and screws on the wheels. In the job I did most of my working life, machining, computers have changed everything. My last boss had 10 manual machines and 2 computerized machines when I started there 10 yrs ago. Today he still has those 10 machines but he now has 9 computerized machines and those manual machines sit idle a good deal of the time. Workers very often do not do the same things that they did 20 or 50 yrs ago. Yes there is still manual labor, dirty hands galore, but the concepts of the actual work of so many jobs has changed significantly, especially in the last 30 yrs.

  85. 85.

    Bill Arnold

    @Betty Cracker:

    Even forced-birthers like Blake Masters are scrubbing their websites and rewriting stump speeches.

    Fundamental changes in one’s positions between winning a primary and the general election mean that the candidate is a liar:
    (1) the candidate was lying during the lead up to the primary
    or
    (2) the candidate is currently lying about their positions.
    They are fundamentally dishonest and should not be trusted.
    (Blocking the wayback machine is even worse; Blake Masters reversed his blockage, to his credit.)

  86. 86.

    UncleEbeneezer

    SANTA FE — A New Mexico judge ordered Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin be removed from office, effective immediately, ruling that the attack on the Capitol was an insurrection and that Griffin’s participation in it disqualified him under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment. This decision marks the first time since 1869 that a court has disqualified a public official under Section 3, and the first time that any court has ruled the events of January 6, 2021 an insurrection.

    Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, also known as the Disqualification Clause, bars any person from holding federal or state office who took an “oath…to support the Constitution of the United States” as an “officer of any State” and then “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort” to insurrectionists. Griffin, as an Otero County Commissioner since January 2019, took an oath to “support and uphold the Constitution and laws of the State of New Mexico, and the Constitution of the United States.”

  88. 88.

    Amir Khalid

    I have finally completed the most fraught guitar acquisition of my life. A cherry-red Epiphone Les Paul Standard 50s now sits in my guitar rack.

    To cut a rather long story short, I wanted a slightly cheaper model in a different colour, sometime next year. But cheaper model in preferred colour was out of stock all over Singapore and Malaysia: Gibson had for some reason sacked its distributor. Dealers here were clearing out their remaining stock. I had to buy now or miss out. So I went online and ordered a Standard 50s in a soothing honey burst.

    Just my luck: the next day, the vendor rang me up to say that they had found a cracked neck on the very last such guitar they had, sorry sir. With no other choice, I accepted the same model in cherry red. I unboxed her today. She looks really nice, and is barely distinguishable from an echte Gibson in feel, playability and sound. I’m happy enough.

  90. 90.

    eversor

    @Ruckus:

    I own a milling machine, it’s a CNC we have it because reasons.  I feed it CAD/CAM files via autodesk and out comes what I want.  The machine was about 30k though they make nicer onces in the six figure range.  The software is about 3k a year on license.  The computer to actually run it I built which as an AMD EPYC based 128 core (this is 8k just for a CPU) with 256gb of RAM and gobs of storage.   We machine parts for projects with it.  No humans really needed.  You can just pull the files and punt them off to the machine and then whatever you need comes out, great system!

    We have it because a buddy of mine runs an underwater welding business and he and I build odd things out of brass off and on.  You can’t get all of it off the shelf.  So I produce copper, brass, and alu parts for him and sell them on the side.  Could do gold and silver as well if someone wanted that.  If I ever get to sick to go into the office I’d like to do this for a living.  You can make good money machning things and it’s honest work.

  92. 92.

    Geminid

    @UncleEbeneezer: Couy Griffin is a county supervisor for Otero County, centered on Alamagordo. It’s in New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District. The 2nd CD elected Democrat Xochitl Torres-Small in 2018, then Republican Yvette Harrrel won their rematch in 2020. Last year the New Mexico legislature redraw the 2nd to be more Democratic, so now it is a key pick up opportunity for Democrats. Their candidate is Gabe Vasquez, a young City Councilman from Los Cruces.

    Ms. Torres-Small is now Assistant Agriculture Secretary for Rural Development.

  93. 93.

    Betty Cracker

    @Doc Sardonic: Yep — an ex-Repub is better than the current fascist MAGA dope. Crist and Demings both seem to be doing a lot of events and in places that aren’t exactly Democratic strongholds, so it sounds like they are following the Chiles blueprint at least to some extent.

    Another thing: both Dem candidates are nationalizing their races, which is something Republicans have always done. Seems like a smart move for Dems now since MAGA dopes like DeSantis and craven hangers-on like Rubio are far to the right of the electorate.

    The only question is whether the electorate that isn’t in favor of this bullshit shows up. The MAGA dope voters definitely will.

  94. 94.

    Bill Arnold

    @The Lodger:

    Giving Blake Masters credit for not blocking the Wayback Machine is as bogus as giving Kyle Rittenhouse credit for only shooting three people.

    Well, he did block it for a while, then the blockage was reversed. He took some heat for blocking web.archive.org. Since I’d commented previously about the blockage, was just noting that he/his team reversed himself on that. (I always assume people or their staff are lurking.)

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @Ruckus:

    True. My middle son is an electrician and he’s gotten two additional certifications since becoming a journeyman, one for work on nuclear power plants and one for data lines in applications like hospitals. It was classroom work – allows him to get on the list for those jobs in Ohio and Michigan. There were only three people in his data certification class although it’s free through his union. I know from personal experience how hard it is to go to class after work but he is not married and has no children so has “extra” time in the evenings.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    @Betty Cracker:

    Crist resigned from his seat in Congress so he can focus on the campaign for governor, which is another sign that he’s dead serious about this 

    Interesting. Thanks for that.

    Donated.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  98. 98.

    Old School

    @Baud: If you missed last evening’s posts, we should make sure you saw the “Pants Exempt Card” in Adam’s Ukraine update.

  99. 99.

    StringOnAStick

    Another thing about supporting more unions is the union wage brings up the wages of nonunion employees.  We have a good friend who supervises a paving crew; when the workers complain that they think unions are “communist” or whatever crap their RW radio sources are telling them this week, he points out that they are getting the same wages as a union shop because the corporate guys know they’d lose their workers and HQ likes those federal contracts that require those wage rates.  The usual sullen reply is “well I don’t want to pay dues in order to work”.  Short sighted idiots.

    One of the same short sighted idiots is a guy who refuses to marry his girlfriend and mother of his child because then he’d have to pay for her and the baby’s health insurance; immigrants are lazy but its just fine that his girlfriend and child are on Medicaid and SNAP and he takes unemployment all winter when they can’t pave.

  100. 100.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: “We’re lying to you for your own good, we know what’s best but we know you won’t agree”. It’s condescending. They always put pleasing, fast-talking women out there as the voice of the movement. They can be pretty slick when they lie about this stuff but yeah the Dobbs decision has finally exposed them – they have no more excuses for not doing what they’ve always said they want to do, which is ban abortion completely.

  101. 101.

    SFAW

    @Soprano2:

    what they’ve always said they want to do, which is ban abortion completely.

    Even that is not the whole truth: they want to ban unapproved sex by wimmins, and “barefoot and pregnant” is (probably) the ultimate goal.

  102. 102.

    Soprano2

    @SFAW: I listened to a “1A” show this morning about a new law just signed by Newsom in CA re: fast food workers. It creates a council that would set wages and working conditions in the industry. There was, of course, one commenter who said those aren’t meant to be real jobs, they are starter jobs, why should you make that much money for them? My reply was that there are no jobs where people should be subjected to shitty working conditions and wage theft, no matter who they are or what industry they are in. Where did this idea come from that it’s OK to abuse workers in some industries because those aren’t “real” jobs? Was I working when I was a teenager at a fast food restaurant, or was I just pretending to work?

  103. 103.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Scout211: In our little corner of California, the overnight low temperature (typically in the low to mid 60s), was 88.

    Any time you run into a climate change denier who says that summer days aren’t any hotter than when s/he was a kid (like 30-70 years ago), shut them down by pointing to the overnight lows.

    I grew up in the 50s and 60s in a row-house working-class suburb just beyond the Baltimore City limits. Without A/C, just fans drafting through, we slept comfortably all humid summer but for 7-10 days when the overnight temperatures would hang in the upper 70s. Now, my row-house working-class section of the City might get 7-10 days of overnight lows below 80 F, with the same high humidity. The planet needs to cool off after sundown, and it doesn’t.​

  104. 104.

    Soprano2

    @StringOnAStick: One of the same short sighted idiots is a guy who refuses to marry his girlfriend and mother of his child because then he’d have to pay for her and the baby’s health insurance; immigrants are lazy but its just fine that his girlfriend and child are on Medicaid and SNAP and he takes unemployment all winter when they can’t pave.

    Of course he’s a white guy who totally believes he has earned the right to all of this, while those immigrants are lazy moochers who shouldn’t get anything at all. *rolleyes* I’ve known people like that my whole life; they don’t see what they do as mooching or getting benefits, they say they earned it all.

  105. 105.

    Soprano2

    @SFAW: Yeah, I’ll give you that, because it’s also true, just more under the radar than wanting to ban abortion. It’s as if they know nothing about who actually gets abortions; many of them seem to believe it’s mostly white women in their teens and 20’s who want to use it as birth control.

  106. 106.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @oldgold:

    Jason Stanley:
    “Once you have the courts you can pretty much do whatever you want.”
    Laurence Tribe:
    “Sadly true. And the MAGA types understood that precept. All too well.”

    This is only true because, generally, Democrats respect “the courts” (I guess shorthand for the Constitution, separation of powers, and rule of law). Republicans and rich people do not, as evidenced by how Trump and Shrub (and many others) behaved and continue to behave. Even without having “the courts,” they do whatever they want, and so far, haven’t paid a price with regards to conviction and punishment. That said, clearly they prefer having “the courts” since this makes it easier to make whatever they choose to do today the new law that rules tomorrow.

  107. 107.

    Emmyelle

    @Kay: I am relieved, and humbled. While I am 100% supportive of Biden’s plan, I worried that it might hurt the dems because of all of the “Where’s MY debt relief/live within your means/if you can pick your gender, you can pay your loans” bullshit I have been listening to.
    Very happy to be wrong on this.

  108. 108.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Doc Sardonic: Get out and stay out meeting and talking to people…drive around talk to people and do the retail politics.

    Amen. Same for Fetterman, Shapiro, Tim Ryan, Mark Kelly, Mandela Barnes. I get so sick of e-mail after e-mail whining for $$$ when you know most of it would go to ads thrown together by “consultants” skimming off 40 cents on the dollar. We Democrats can’t go dollar-for-dollar with assholes like (b)Oz(o) and J.D. Redneck whose bazillionaire backers can toss them tens of millions of $$$ without a thought. We’re gonna win it with our ground game. Ads are like lawn signs and workers at polling places: The candidate needs enough of them to establish viability in voters’ minds (i.e., a vote for them is NOT wasted) – and that’s all. Everything else should go into meet&greet. Show up, be real, tell the truth, and work your asses off.

  109. 109.

    JAFD

    @Soprano2: ​There’s a McD’s a few blocks from my home, on the highway to EWR and the docks, open 24/7. I seriously doubt there’s any high school kids working the graveyard shift.

  110. 110.

    SFAW

    @Uncle Cosmo: ​
     
    I get tired of the e-mails saying “Give to Democrat A,” but the e-mail comes from Democrat Z’s campaign, meaning they’ll take their cut before giving it to Dem A. I delete those e-mails.

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