Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

“Alexa, change the president.”

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

An almost top 10,000 blog!

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Hot air and ill-informed banter

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: President Joe Biden, Car Dude

Thursday Morning Open Thread: President Joe Biden, Car Dude

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Like Pete Buttigieg, Governor Whitmer is going places:

ETA: There’s a tentative agreement to avoid a potentially catastrophic rail strike:

Reader Interactions

213Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    This is a win for the economy and for the American people.

    Rail workers will get better pay, improved working conditions, and peace of mind around their health care costs.

    I thank both the unions and rail companies for negotiating in good faith. t.co/9JNtLynsch
    — President Biden (@POTUS) September 15, 2022

  4. 4.

    Baud

    MAGA forces are determined to take this country backwards.

    Backwards to an America where there is no right to choose, no right to privacy, no right to contraception, no right to marry who you love.
    — Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 15, 2022

  7. 7.

    Baud

    Since we came to office, we've created nearly 10 million jobs, a record for any presidency up to this point, and 3.7% unemployment—a nearly 50-year low in this country.— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) September 14, 2022

    Of course, no one cares about the employment rate anymore.

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    Love trolling Rick Scott.

    I think Fetterman has the right tenor for dealing with these unserious clowns: shitpost on them, over and over.

  12. 12.

    Mathguy

    They should search the White House to make sure that Voldemort didn’t hide a horcrux there when he stopped by.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    I hope everyone saying they wanted the Dems to campaign on these things are furiously spreading the news that Democrats are campaigning on these things.

  15. 15.

    satby

    My next, and last, car will be an EV.

    On a personal note, this is the first morning in over 20 years that I’ve had only 5 pets. My sweet (but salty) tortie Snuffy passed away yesterday gently in her sleep 18 years after her expected euthanasia date when I rescued her from animal control. She’s the last one who moved with me from Chicago. No condolences necessary, she had a great long life and a gentle release. May we all be graced with the good luck Snuffy had.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: So happy to read that the rail strike appears to have been diverted. Mostly because a strike would have been miserable for everyone, but also because the breakthrough disappoints douchebag Republicans who were openly rooting for a strike for political reasons.

  19. 19.

    gene108

    I’m trying to picture any current Republican as President trying to handle a looming railroad strike responsibly and I just can’t.

    Republicans just make problems worse, like Bush, Jr. taking advantage of post-9/11 public sentiment by invading Iraq or Frump fighting health experts in responding to COVID

    The number of things that President Biden’s handled with little fuss would go from bad to catastrophic in a hurry.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Just weeks ago, Irina was working in the Russian occupation administration in Kupiansk, a large town in northern Ukraine that had been captured days after Vladimir Putin launched his war against the country.

    But then, as Russian troops fled the city and the Ukrainian army retook occupied territories in the country’s north, she and her family fled what they expected would be swift punishment for collaborating with the Russian invasion force.

    Evidence emerging from the newly retaken territories indicates that Russian troops regularly used violence to put down any local dissent and maintain control. At the same time, some have said they welcomed and helped the Russians. Others listened to the insistence by Moscow-installed officials that they were there to stay for ever and decided to cooperate or simply try to live quietly under Russian rule.

    “Everyone had told us we’re here now, we’re here, you have nothing to be afraid of,” said Irina, recalling promises from officials sent by Moscow. She had taken a job in the accounting department of the new local administration installed by Russia, she said. “Five days ago they were telling us they would never leave. And three days later we were under shelling … And we don’t understand anything [about the offensive].

    “We don’t understand what the point of this is then,” she said of the Russian military operation.
    ………………………………….
    “We’ll never go back,” said Sergei, Irina’s boyfriend, who was carrying a small bag with shoes and sweaters from the aid centre. “There’s nothing for us to go back to.”

    I don’t think you’ll be missed Sergei.

  22. 22.

    Spanky

    @Baud: A tortie is a multicolored female cat.

    Satby, you have my condolences anyway. Our 19 yo tortie needed a trip to the vet to release her from suffering back in January. Glad you were spared all that.

  24. 24.

    satby

    @Baud: Tortoiseshell cat. The picture on the page looks just like her, but she was always a tiny thing. We assumed she was an older kitten, but she never got much bigger. So, she was almost 19 years old. And she ruled the roost. She preferred other animals to people though, probably for events previous to her rescue.

  25. 25.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Baud:

    Of course, no one cares about the employment rate anymore.

    Oh, the Beltway Press Corpse will care about it as soon as it reaches whatever level is deemed “bad” under a Democratic president.

  26. 26.

    gene108

    Saw a railroad workers union video on Twitter about their working conditions. They are on call 24/7 and spend up to 120 hours away from home either working or at rail stations on standby.

    Rail companies wanted to cut crews to 1 person driving a for 10-12 hour shift. The fact there’s no rules saying this should be illegal for safety reasons surprised me.

    The U.S. really needs to do better when it comes to both commercial and passenger rail.

  35. 35.

    gene108

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I know there’s going to be revenge against Russian collaborators, because of the crimes Russians committed, but I don’t see why someone in a clerical accounting job qualifies.

  36. 36.

    Kristine

    @satby: Snuffy was comfortable and at home. I wish all pets could have that when their time comes; sometimes it’s not possible. As others have said, condolences anyway.

  41. 41.

    Soprano2

    @gene108: Any Republican administration would have encouraged the owners to break the union. I’m glad it was averted, a railroad strike would have been catastrophic for the economy and pretty much everyone.

  42. 42.

    Jesse

    apropos cars: in the news in Germany, it’s announced that Tesla’s giant factory in Germany has been paused owing to the lack of competitiveness of Germany thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, as well as bananas energy prices in Germany.

    A clear win for the US.

  43. 43.

    sdhays

    @OzarkHillbilly: I wonder where he thinks they’re going to go. Is he aware that their shiny new Russian passports aren’t real and don’t allow him to cross into Russia? What are they going to do when the (now clearly) temporary occupation ends for the rest of the occupied territories?

  44. 44.

    C Stars

    Ugh, woke up at 4:30 here on the west coast. I scheduled a large outdoor event this Sunday and now as of yesterday it turns out we’re getting a typhoon this weekend.

  45. 45.

    Brit in Chicago

    @gene108: Yes!

    Only problem is that it’s very hard for a President (or lower-level government person) to get credit for the bad stuff that doesn’t happen on their watch (or members of their campaign or administration not being investigated for crimes, and so on).

  48. 48.

    Soprano2

    @satby: I’m so sorry, even with it being a peaceful passing it’s hard to lose a family member. I had a 20-year-old almost-tortie (she had some white on her face and paws, but not much) do the same thing. We had been talking about needing to make that trip to the vet, then came home on Thanksgiving to find she had laid down on the rug by the back door and passed. Honestly, I was relieved, it was her time to go.

  49. 49.

    WereBear

    That GQP bill by Graham/Rubio exploded all over their faces. LESS than 24 hours? I don’t think these people ever talk to anyone not in their bubble, and it’s chewing their butts off now.

    It’s like my dream Cronenberg/Orwell mashup as a streaming series.

  50. 50.

    C Stars

    @gene108: yes, it’s really kind of boring, all this competence and efficacy and general good governance in the face of unprecedented challenges. TFG could have turned this into a petty and venal reality TV style existential collapse and had us all well entertained

  51. 51.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @gene108: I would reply that she wasn’t “simply try(ing) to live quietly” with the Russians but was in fact aiding and abetting them.

    Would that mean being shot as a traitor? I think not. Being forced to live in Russia for the rest of her days is punishment enough. Regardless, the Ukrainian govt is trying to get on top of this to insure that extrajudicial reprisals don’t get out of control.

  55. 55.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: I’m sure you’ve noticed that the press and Republicans never talk about the debt or deficit anymore, because both are going down.

    I hope Val Demings and Charlie Crist can make hay out of DeSantis sending Venezuelans who were seeking asylum away to MA. I know there are lots of conservative Venezuelans in FL who fled the Chavez and Maduro governments who might not look favorably on this. What a butthole move, to fly them from TX to FL and then MA. It sounds like they were lured onto the plane with the promise of jobs.

  61. 61.

    Geminid

    @WereBear: And impressive women like Propane Jane, Magdi Semrau, Marcy Wheeler and many others are making the most this equality

    And I would add, Cheryl Rofer and Betty Cracker!

  62. 62.

    Soprano2

    Today is the 10th anniversary of my sister’s death in a small plane crash, along with her boyfriend and his three children aged 16, 15, and 10. I’m not sure if I hope local press does stories about the anniversary or not. I want her to be remembered, but it’s hard to see stuff about it. I’m taking off work at noon to spend time with several of her friends – we all need to be together today. I’m not even sure I’ll visit her grave today, because she’s not there, she’s wherever people who loved and cared about her are remembering her.  One weird thing – my sister’s boyfriend’s estranged wife (they were legally separated but not divorced when he died) hangs out at my pub! She says we’re part of a strange family, which is kind of true. She’s a decent person who tragically lost her only child – he was the 10-year-old.

  65. 65.

    Soprano2

    @Kristine: I think this isn’t making the impression on people that they think it is, unless they intend to make sure these people are taken care of. I think it makes them look like huge assholes to normal people.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @C Stars:

    It’s funny. If a liberal tried to use government to regulate sexual activity along liberal lines, there would be made riots and media outrage.  But it’s just accepted as reasonable for conservatives to go all in with using government in this way.

  68. 68.

    Robert Sneddon

    @OzarkHillbilly: How do you feel about Afghans who collaborated with the NATO forces that invaded their country? You know, the translators and others working for the US Army who were in trouble after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan again?

    There’s already evidence that locals accused of collaborating with the Russian invaders in Ukranian areas are being arrested, tortured and, it appears even killed out-of-hand. This is not a good thing and the Ukranians doing such things to fellow Ukranians shouldn’t get a pass on this. I don’t think there’s any real way of stopping it happening though, not until some central government organisations can get proper control in those areas.

  71. 71.

    Kristine

    @Soprano2: From what I read, it looks like the buses were expected at Union Station, but I guess someone decided to turn it into more of a stunt than it was already.

    You’re absolutely right. The tone deaf individuals that are doing this are playing to the few and losing more and more.

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    @WereBear: There’s a guy on Twitter who is a nature photographer and caregiver to a desert tortoise named Eddie. Desert tortoises are protected now but used to sold as pets. They can’t be released back into the wild, so there’s a network of people who care for them in their yards. Fascinating critters who can live to be 80 years old!

  74. 74.

    Baud

    Our island jumped into action putting together 50 beds, giving everyone a good meal, providing a play area for the children, making sure people have the healthcare and support they need. We are a community that comes together to support immigrants. pic.twitter.com/kG5bglhbLe
    — Dylan Fernandes (@RepDylan) September 15, 2022

  76. 76.

    jonas

    @gene108: ​

    Rail companies wanted to cut crews to 1 person driving a for 10-12 hour shift. The fact there’s no rules saying this should be illegal for safety reasons surprised me.

    There was a terrible accident on the Metro North in NYC a few years ago caused, iirc, by an operator falling asleep at the wheel, so to speak. How that didn’t lead to changes in the law on how many hours engineers can spend driving, I don’t know. Railroads are powerful lobbies, I guess.​

  78. 78.

    eclare

    @Soprano2:   Oh I’m so sorry, what a tragedy.  Not weird at all to me about the ex, you are bound together by loss.  I hope you have a comforting afternoon.

  79. 79.

    Doug R

    @gene108: I don’t know why rail companies can’t do what Greyhound used to-have a driver drive about 4 hours, swap and drive back for a shift.

  80. 80.

    Kristine

    @geg6: I can’t imagine being one of those migrants. Being lied to, then loaded onto a bus or plane and sent to a place where you don’t know anyone. How can this be legal?

  81. 81.

    J R in WV

    @Soprano2:

    I think it makes them look like huge assholes to normal people.

    Yes! Yes, it does! Ginormous evil assholes!!

    Rounding up people who don’t speak much English and shipping them across country to nowhere!!!

    Shouldn’t these state government assholes be liable for federal kidnapping charges?

  82. 82.

    p.a.

    @Soprano2: words fail…

     

    In other news, human dumpster seepages DeathSantis and Abbot have shipped some undocumenteds to Martha’s Vineyard & the street in front of VP Harris’ home without telling the people where they were going or informing anyone at the destination points.

    At least the poor bastards are out of the Red State shitholes.

     

    ETA: see above

  83. 83.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: What an awful tragedy. It must be difficult to see media accounts of it. Better to spend time with mutual friends and fond remembrances.

  84. 84.

    Betty

    @gene108: The greed is insatiable. Consider the load these trains carry and want one person to handle it. Compare that to the cargo load of a semi driven by one person.

  85. 85.

    topclimber

    @Soprano2: Under the Taft Hartley Act, Biden could have gotten an injunction for a 60-day cooling off period, at end of which parties would supposedly be compelled to reach a solution. That would have kept the strike from hitting before the mid-terms.

    A lifeline for the country, and less of a political problem for Dems, but still far from an ideal solution. It is better this way.

  88. 88.

    jonas

    @Baud: ​
      Abbot and DeSantis think they’re totally pwning the libs by sending asylum seekers to blue cities and then pointing and haw-hawing at it. Except all the pictures show the people being treated with compassion, given clothes, food, and shelter — things denied them in these asshole border states.

    I am reminded of the verse in the Gospels where Jesus praises those who, when he was cold and hungry, packed him up on a cart and sent him hundreds of miles away to get rid of him. Oh, wait. It may have gone differently….

  89. 89.

    Fraud Guy

    Great, now that Biden is making sure that the trains run on time, Republicans will start calling him a fascist.

  93. 93.

    bbleh

    @Baud: @schrodingers_cat: Oh but they do!  If someone says it might be a little too low, then INFLATION MONSTER COMING TO EEEET US!! And if someone says it might be a little too high, then WILL RECESSION WILL DESTROY AMERICAN FAMILIES?!?

    The hysteria-entertainment media complex is becoming more than a bit of a problem …

  96. 96.

    Betty Cracker

    Regarding DeSantis’s human trafficking stunt: the more details come out, the more depraved the story becomes. Some of the immigrants said they boarded the plane in Texas, not Florida. They were told there would be jobs and housing, but they were dumped at the airport and had to walk miles to find assistance. Small children included!

    Also, DeSantis gave Fox News an exclusive and engineered the dumping so he could crow about it on prime time. No one bothered to give the communities where the people were dumped a heads-up. God love those communities for stepping up and and finding food, shelter, medical care, etc., with zero notice.

    But what kind of festering asshole would do such a thing for a cheap political stunt? (Rhetorical question: a soulless monster, that’s who.) Also, the stunt was cheap only in the sense of being a grotesque political play: chartering planes to Martha’s Vineyard isn’t cheap from either FL or TX.

    That’s MY money the bloated little fascist is using to create MAGA hate-boners.

  97. 97.

    narya

    @Soprano2: Sending good thoughts your way. I know from my own experience that those anniversaries evolve, but don’t go away. It’s actually a good thing that you can share with others who knew her; there are very few people left in my life who knew my sister.

  98. 98.

    WereBear

    @eclare: I don’t watch reality TV, but I do watch the Youtubers who make fun of it.

    It’s like a snark channel for Daytime Television, and when I need recovery time that’s my goto :)

  100. 100.

    JWR

    @WereBear:

    That GQP bill by Graham/Rubio exploded all over their faces.

    I saw a new ad from Katie Porter last night. She doesn’t call those two out by name, but her message was very clear: the GOP wants to ban abortion nationwide,

  103. 103.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    anu Raju @mkraju 11h

    Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows has complied with a subpoena from DOJ over its Jan. 6 probe, making him the highest-ranking Trump official known to have responded to a subpoena in the federal investigation.

    apparently we’re waiting to find out how far he went in complying, but this could be big

  104. 104.

    topclimber

    @Betty Cracker: I keep on waiting to see  DeSantis show signs that he is anywhere near as politically savvy as Politico et. al. would have us believe. Does he really need to be any more of a dick to impress the base? Because he sure ain’t impressing anyone else.

  105. 105.

    bbleh

    @Betty Cracker: But what kind of festering asshole would do such a thing for a cheap political stunt? Sadly, one who has the support of a lot of other festering assholes.

    “The cruelty is the point,” etc.  And they are righteous about it.

  107. 107.

    bbleh

    @topclimber: @Betty Cracker:  I’m reminded of how brilliant and unstoppable a force was Governor Chris Christie.  Turned out his schtick didn’t play outside a particular region.  I think DeSantis has a little bit broader appeal — the entire Confederacy, say — but nationally …?

  108. 108.

    Baud

    @bbleh:

    Hopefully, Crist can pull it out in November and then we may not need to find out.

    ETA: I remember when we were supposed to be afraid of Scott Walker.

  109. 109.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: Yes. I saw criticism of the woman who recently took to a Reddit forum to tell people that her dad who succumbed to the Q craziness killed her mother, sister and dog. People wondered how on earth she could do that so soon. I wanted to post hey people, I had to race to Facebook to post the news of my sister’s death so that her friends wouldn’t find out about it first on TV!!! Once they inform the family, the press starts reporting on it. I was getting DM’s from her friends asking “is this true, I’m hearing rumours about it” even before the press started reporting it! (I dread the day that post comes up on my FB memories.) Things move really fast now, you don’t have a day to tell everyone before it hits the news. She and her boyfriend were both prominent business owners here, plus the deaths of those three kids would have made the news anyway. It was a big deal here, coverage every day for a week – it even made the news in some international papers. I went to four memorial events in four days, I hope to never repeat that again.

    One good thing on this day in my family is that one of my nephews got married on this day. He and his now wife met literally on the day my sister died. It’s a weird thing, how can something like that be true and yet it is.

  110. 110.

    Zzyzx

    Orange male cats are good starter cats but if you really want the full feline experience, that’s what torties are for.

    I miss my First Cous but boy could she be ornery and she never would acknowledge any being who wasn’t there when she moved in.

  111. 111.

    eclare

    @WereBear:   A friend of mine and I watch and text through our shows, making fun of the people and their horrible decisions the whole time.

    I do not want that from my government.

  112. 112.

    Soprano2

    @jonas: I am reminded of the verse in the Gospels where Jesus praises those who, when he was cold and hungry, packed him up on a cart and sent him hundreds of miles away to get rid of him. Oh, wait. It may have gone differently….

    I swear, none of those people have actually read that book they wave around and thump so vigorously.

  114. 114.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: I hope the D’s in Florida can make some hay out of this, how DeSantis spent taxpayer dollars to send people fleeing from Maduro’s horrible government to MA rather than helping them in Florida. These are the kind of people Republicans used to say they supported.

  115. 115.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: There was one woman in particular who the immigrants said was lying to induce them to take the flights.They knew her only by the first name she used, but I hope she is identified. I hope Florida reporters get to the bottom of this story, and find out who the woman is and who pays her.

  116. 116.

    Soprano2

    @narya: That’s been my experience too. I’m glad I was able to stay in contact with her friends; I didn’t know some of them before she died.

  118. 118.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @gene108: Rail companies have cut 45000 jobs over the last six years (to be more competitive whatever the fuck that means) while COVID meant millions of people were ordering things online that needed to be shipped. There’s a point system where you get 30 points. If they call you in and you don’t report with in 2 hours you get docked points how many depends if it’s a priority day or not. If you zero out it’s a 10 day suspension and you then get 15 points. If you zero out again you get a 20 day suspension. 3 third time gets you fired.  Last I heard not all the Rail unions accepted the deal.

  121. 121.

    prostratedragon

    @Soprano2:  For what it’s worth I’m sure not impressed. Even though these people might wind up in a better situation, they are owed an apology.

  122. 122.

    O. Felix Culpa

    Hmm, DeSantis might not have endeared himself to the Venezuelan community in Florida with his cruel stunt:

    Outraged Venezuelans in Florida

    Late Wednesday, Venezuelan-American leaders in Florida denounced the “flights of asylum seekers” to Martha’s Vineyard, blasting DeSantis.

    “Venezuelan leaders are rightfully outraged,” five Venezuelan-American groups said in a joint statement. They planned a news conference for Thursday morning in South Florida. Karla Hernández, Crist’s running mate, will join them.

    The group called the governor’s move a “blatant disregard for human life,” and accused him of lying to Cuban and Venezuelan communities earlier this month, when they said he pledged not to sent migrants from either country out of state.

  123. 123.

    Geminid

    @Baud: There was a story some weeks ago that word had been put out among trump loyalists to stop talking to Meadows.

    Meadows threw away a secure Congressional career when his ambition led him to take trump’s Chief of Staff job. Now Meadows is in the shit, but he still may have a lot to gain by flipping. He knows a lot.

  124. 124.

    Matt McIrvin

    @jonas: The compassion of blue-state liberals is limited and contingent. It makes for a great PR opportunity if it’s 50 people, but if DeSantis starts shipping thousands at once he can probably get the result he wants.

  127. 127.

    Ken

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone: Rail companies have cut 45000 jobs over the last six years (to be more competitive whatever the fuck that means)

    With all the many alternatives for multi-kiloton mixed freight shipment, like, um…

    I suspect what they really mean is to make their stock performance competitive with the rest of the market.

  128. 128.

    Jackie

    @Baud: As I said replying to you in the earlier thread, the GQP are gashing their teeth in frustration. Thwarted by Dark Brandon AGAIN!<evil laugh>

  130. 130.

    bbleh

    @Steeplejack: The debt is a perennial.  Does your brother have a mortgage? How many times his annual income does he owe?  (US debt fluctuates but is around 100% of annual GDP.  And no, the Chinese don’t hold it; Americans own 2/3 of it, and the Japanese hold more than the Chinese.)

  134. 134.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: The way they credited Trump with Obama’s recovery was simple: they just insisted that all of the economic statistics were fake until Trump got in, and then they became real like Pinocchio becoming a real boy.

  135. 135.

    rikyrah

    DARK BRANDON WINS AGAIN!!

     

    When I tell you that the MSM had the stories ready to go to BLAME 46 FOR THE RAIL STRIKE?

     

    They had them ready to go. Along with all the things going wrong in America because of the strike.

     

    Stories.ALREADY.WRITTEN.

     

    And now…they has a sad…. awe…….

  137. 137.

    rikyrah

    I love President Biden’s TRUE love of cars. I think it’s adorable. He cracks me up when he’s  in the cars. It just oozes from him- cars are one of his happy places.

  139. 139.

    Soprano2

    @Matt McIrvin: You mean how they all howled about U6 being the “real” unemployment rate when Obama was president, and saying that anyway the government was lying about the “real” rate, then suddenly forgetting about U6 and saying the numbers the government put out were correct once TFG became president because reasons?

  141. 141.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: Tbf liberals did this during the George W. Bush administration too, and I think I heard it from radical lefties as a complaint about Bill Clinton. The thing that gets lost in all such complaints is that the unemployment measures tend to just move in parallel–if U3 is up or down, U6 is too by a commensurate amount. It’s not as if one ever gets worse while the other gets better, so you can use one to hide a change in the other.

    During the Great Recession there was a website called ShadowStats that fooled a bunch of people, that claimed to have a better measure of true unemployment, and I think a lot of people thought it was U6, or whatever they thought the good measure was. What it really was was some cooked thing that followed traditional unemployment measures up to Obama’s inauguration and then went completely haywire, so as to deny that any recovery from the recession had happened. They claimed “true” unemployment was worse in 2012 than in 2009, which was just contrary to what I could see with my eyes.

  143. 143.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @jonas:

    I am reminded of the verse in the Gospels where Jesus praises those who, when he was cold and hungry, packed him up on a cart and sent him hundreds of miles away to get rid of him.

    The evangelicals have an answer for that, and I am being entirely serious that this is one of the major official explanations:  The charity instructions only apply to other evangelicals.  It was Jesus talking to his people about his people, you see.  No one else is owed kindness, or deserves it.

  145. 145.

    Gin & Tonic

    Speaking of railroads, the Ukrainian national railways have restarted passenger service from Kharkiv to Balakliya, a week after the armed forces retook that city. Railway workers de-mined and rebuilt the portion of the line that had been destroyed by the occupiers.

  147. 147.

    lowtechcyclist

    My FIL, now nearly 20 years retired, worked as an electrician for commercial food refrigeration facilities.  One of them had one of these point systems like what the railroad workers were describing, where you get docked so many points for this or that.  They had a certain number of hours of sick leave, but they’d get points taken off for actually using it.  Just crazy.

    So when are the Dems going to pass a law giving sick leave to ALL workers, and of course making sure that a worker can’t be penalized for using it unless it’s pretty flagrant abuse?  Seems like making the Rethugs vote against this would be a no-brainer.

  149. 149.

    Citizen Alan

    @topclimber:

    In 2016, trump ran on a platform of “I hate all the same people you do, and if you give me power, I will hurt them on your behalf.” And that got him close enough to steal  it in the electoral college.  In terms of political savvy, the crap that Desantis is pulling is not necessarily a deal breaker in a country where is free where a least 40% of the electorate considers cruelty to be the highest virtue.

  150. 150.

    rikyrah

    Good read. Interesting thread. See what happens when you have a party actually interested in GOVERNING and GOOD GOVERNMENT.

     

    Vik – A Dark Brandon Fan 🇺🇸🇮🇳🇫🇷🇬🇧🇪🇺🇺🇦 (@Athenas_Son_V) tweeted at 6:58 PM on Tue, Sep 13, 2022: So Democrats played some amazing hardball against the federal courts very quietly in the Inflation Reduction Act. And no one is really paying attention to it. I kind of love it. They preemptively stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to throw out the drug pricing portion.🧵 (twitter.com/Athenas_Son_V/status/1569837834592305153?t=NU4zQ9H6d6lz41v9xWIPRQ&s=03)

  151. 151.

    Baud

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Seems like making the Rethugs vote against this would be a no-brainer.

    I’m old enough to have learned that things that seem like no-brainers often hit the wall when it comes to people with no brains.

  152. 152.

    SFAW

    @Baud: ​
     

    Or if a Republican wins while employment is low, he’ll get all the credit.

    It’s worse than that. Rethug preznits have the “halo effect” (so to speak), wherein anything good that happens in the first 3.5 years of a subsequent Dem admin is due to the efforts of the previous prez. Similarly, anything bad which happens in the first 3.5 years of a Rethug maladmin is due to the leftover something-or-other from the evil Demon-craps.

    It’s just science!

  154. 154.

    Citizen Alan

    @Baud:   We’re afraid of all these guys and are wise to be. Because every Republican of any national prominence, without exception, is a fucking psychopath who aspires to be the  Dictator of America.  That doesn’t mean we give in or ever stop fighting, but a wise man would recognize that the psychopaths only need to win once to inflict immeasurable harm on us.

  155. 155.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Frankensteinbeck: When I heard Pat Robertson give that interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan, my jaw hit the floor. Can a preacher really tell you the words say the opposite of the words you can read with your own eyes, and have you believe it?

    Obviously the answer is yes, but there’s a psychology I just don’t understand here.

  157. 157.

    Soprano2

    @Frankensteinbeck: The evangelicals have an answer for that, and I am being entirely serious that this is one of the major official explanations:  The charity instructions only apply to other evangelicals.  It was Jesus talking to his people about his people, you see.  No one else is owed kindness, or deserves it.

    One good thing TFG’s ascent did was expose some of these people for the horrible people they really are.

  159. 159.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The charity instructions only apply to other evangelicals.  It was Jesus talking to his people about his people, you see.

    I realize you’re just passing this on, and I have heard variations on this before, but that’s bullshit.

    “Love your enemies” seems hard to ignore, unless evangelicals regard each other as enemies.  But realistically anyone they view as an enemy, they also view as a fake Christian if that person claims to be one.  So that workaround fails.

    Also, there’s the bit in Luke where, after Jesus’ telling him to love his neighbor as himself, a lawyer asks him, “but who is my neighbor?”  Jesus’ response is the well-known Parable of the Good Samaritan, with the coda: “now who was neighbor to this man?”  As a math geek like me would say, Jesus’ point is that the set of neighbors isn’t a bounded set.  And the efforts of conservative Christians of various stripes to contend otherwise is entirely about their hardness of heart.

  161. 161.

    Soprano2

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Obviously the answer is yes, but there’s a psychology I just don’t understand here.

    Many people want to help those who they believe have earned help, or who are like them, and don’t want to help those who they feel are unlike them or haven’t earned it. I had the police rotation of my monthly Camp class at work yesterday. After the chief did the opening presentation, one woman asked about the crime problem and homelessness. You could tell he’s been asked this question a lot, and to his credit the first words out of his mouth were “Being homeless is not a crime. Walking down the street or sidewalk, or being outside a business, is not a crime. The truth is that homeless people are the victims of crime more often than they are the cause of crime”. Way too many people automatically believe all homeless people are criminals.

  164. 164.

    PAM Dirac

    @rikyrah:

     

    They preemptively stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to throw out the drug pricing portion

    I was wondering when that power would be used. It’s in the Constitution:

    In all Cases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party, the supreme Court shall have original Jurisdiction. In all the other Cases before mentioned, the supreme Court shall have appellate Jurisdiction, both as to Law and Fact, with such Exceptions, and under such Regulations as the Congress shall make.

    It will be interesting to see what happens.

  165. 165.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    When I heard Pat Robertson give that interpretation of the parable of the Good Samaritan, my jaw hit the floor. Can a preacher really tell you the words say the opposite of the words you can read with your own eyes, and have you believe it?

    As the Book of Orwell says, the highest command of the Party was to believe the Party over the evidence of your eyes and ears.

    But yeah, I’m going: how the everloving fuck can someone twist that one?  Jesus meaning is perfectly clear.

    Or Matthew 5:48: “there must be no limit to your goodness, as your heavenly Father’s goodness knows no bounds.”  Saying your goodness is reserved only for fellow believers is a limit.

    Jesus had more than a few words to say about hardheartedness, and none of them were good.

  166. 166.

    Brachiator

    @Soprano2:

    You mean how they all howled about U6 being the “real” unemployment rate when Obama was president, and saying that anyway the government was lying about the “real” rate, then suddenly forgetting about U6 and saying the numbers the government put out were correct once TFG became president because reasons?

    More and more, I see conservatives asserting that things were better under Trump simply because Trump is Trump and by definition,  must be able to perform economic miracles. And of course, conservative pundits also lie about his record.

    And as others have noted, these dopes will reject or embrace government statistics as needed.

  168. 168.

    Citizen Alan

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Most evangelicals interpret that parable  to mean that they have an absolutw obligation to help any injured people they happen to find in in a ditch iwhile they happen to be visiting the region of Samaria.  It has no application outside that narrow situation.

  169. 169.

    SFAW

    @Baud: ​
     

    I’m old enough to have learned that things that seem like no-brainers often hit the wall when it comes to people with no brains.

    It’s too long for a rotating tag, but this is one of the truest things you’ve ever written.

  170. 170.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @lowtechcyclist: Exactly. Also too, it’s a good thing we haven’t burned down all the churches yet, since one of them provided shelter for the Venezuelans who DeSantis dumped in Martha’s Vineyard.

  171. 171.

    cain

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: They’ll switch to crime rate – but that’s falling as well.

    To be honest, these assholes obsess about it even under a GOP president. It’s a timeless filler article to be used. It doesn’t take much effort to write such things and has all the both sides shit they love.

  172. 172.

    BC in Illinois

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The charity instructions only apply to other evangelicals.  It was Jesus talking to his people about his people, you see.  No one else is owed kindness, or deserves it.

    Yes. I have heard that. And it requires:

    1. ignoring everything said about “love the neighbor”
    2. ignoring everything said about “love the enemy”
    3. (most important) recasting the verse about “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” into “I was a stranger and you set up a vetting procedure to examine whether I was the good king of stranger, to be welcomed, or one of the other kinds of stranger, to be sent away”
  173. 173.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    The charity instructions only apply to other evangelicals.

    How do they square their hostility with the fact that nearly all of the South and Central American immigrants are Christians and some of them are Evangelicals? I mean they make these excuses, but at the end of the day, they just hate ‘ferreners’. That is the only thing this is about.

  175. 175.

    Ken

    @Citizen Alan: Which is why I want nothing to do with their evil Satan-worshipping religion.

    I saw a poll, I think quoted on Popehat, that about 30% of people believe that tens of thousands of children are victims of satanic ritual abuse each year. Combined with the figures for child abuse by denomination, they may have a point.

  176. 176.

    cain

    @Soprano2: He spent 12 million dollars on that with no positive outcome for Florida. How do you justify that expense. Plus you’re saying he took them from Texas -> MA??? Is he high? WTF…

  177. 177.

    Ken

    @Brachiator: I see conservatives asserting that things were better under Trump

    I have found “We were lining up to buy toilet paper” effective. Well, effective in getting them to shut up for a while; I haven’t noticed that it gets them to change their minds.

  178. 178.

    jonas

    @Matt McIrvin: That’s pretty much what Abbot has done to NYC — I think the number he’s bussed up there is well over a thousand at this point and it’s a real crisis. NYC was already in the throes of a homelessness crisis and then Abbot decided to purposely add fuel to the fire to embarrass Adams and Biden.

    I understand that the Biden administration doesn’t want to draw attention to the migrant crisis by announcing some big program to tackle it, but it is a crisis. Tens of thousands of people are fleeing violence and poverty in Central and South America and while just building a wall or taking their children from them is certainly no solution, neither is just letting them come here and then throwing them out on the street.

  181. 181.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Well, when your right-hand person turns on you, and publicly, it probably gives you pause.  Do you (Meadows) want to be the person left holding the bag?

    I think not!

  184. 184.

    Geminid

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I was listening to the local Baptist radio station once when some preacher explained what Jesus really meant when he said, “and the meek shall inherit the Earth.” He went through a convoluted interpretation complete with references to hot buttons like “free stuff.” His conclusion was that what Jesus really meant was, “the meek shall be happy WITH WHAT THEY HAVE!” I  laughed out loud at that one.

    The station’s preachers don’t talk that much about the Sermon on the Mount, though. That’s the Squish Jesus. They like to talk about the Stern Jesus who knocked over the money changers’ tables, or the Scary Jesus of the fever dream titled “Revelations.”

    But most of all they like to talk about their cranky forerunner, Paul.

  194. 194.

    Scout211

    I’m not sure if this has been posted yet but an Insider report this morning says that an FBI counterintelligence guy who investigated Russia’s interference in the 2016 election is now being investigated for his own ties to Russia.  If true, the 2016 election interference is getting even more murky.

    Late last year, according to internal court documents obtained by Insider, US attorneys secretly convened a grand jury that examined the conduct of Charles McGonigal, the former head of counterintelligence at the FBI field office in New York City. The Justice Department declined to comment on what the grand jury was investigating or whether it remained ongoing. But a witness subpoena obtained by Insider seems to indicate that the government, in part, was looking into McGonigal’s business dealings with a top aide to Oleg Deripaska, the billionaire Russian oligarch who was at the center of allegations that Russia colluded with the Trump campaign to interfere in the 2016 election.

     

    The subpoena, issued in November, requests records relating to McGonigal and a shadowy consulting firm called Spectrum Risk Solutions. A week after the subpoena was issued, a Soviet-born immigrant named Sergey Shestakov said in a separate filing that McGonigal had helped him “facilitate” an introduction between Spectrum and Deripaska’s aide. The filing also states that McGonigal helped introduce the aide to Kobre & Kim, a New York law firm that specializes in representing clients who are being investigated on suspicion of “fraud and misconduct.” Shestakov, who has been identified on TV panels as a former Soviet foreign ministry officialand former chief of staff to the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, reported receiving $33,000 for the referrals.

  197. 197.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl: (Not that I have any special knowledge about this) but I was referring to this definition of murky:

    not fully explained or understood, especially with concealed dishonesty or immorality.

    “the murky world of espionage”

  202. 202.

    topclimber

    @Fake Irishman: Thanks, I did not know that, obviously. Although when we debated this topic way back in high school, there was a school of thought that the injunction could be renewed indefinitely.

     

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: In The Day Christ Died by Jim Bishop, the one O’Reilly ripped off a few years ago, there is reference to an interpretation that the “Eye of the Needle” was an actual gate in Jerusalem. It was quite narrow, so tough on camels. The point being that it is hard but not impossible for the wealthy to get into heaven. Vs. the Prosperity Gospel that seems to make that argument for the poor.

  203. 203.

    Geminid

    @Ramona Rosario: There are still a few thousand Samaritans living in Israel and across the Green Line in the northern West Bank. They have their own version of the Torah and celebrate Passover.

    The Jerusalem Post had an article last fall about a Samaritan lady who’d just published a Samaritan cookbook.

  204. 204.

    C Stars

     

    @cain:  Thanks. We need the rain, and there are worse things that could happen for sure. Just means I’ll be making a lot of phone calls today…

  209. 209.

    StringOnAStick

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:  I recall friends getting much coveted railroad jobs in the 1970’s because the pay and retirement was excellent, so when I first heard about a potential railroad strike over pay and working conditions, I was wondering what had changed.  Looks like the usual: slash staffing, increase workloads.  Then I read about their labor conditions and it’s horrible.

  210. 210.

    StringOnAStick

    @Soprano2: I met an investment find manager who believed exactly that.  The comment I recall was “tRump is kind of an idiot but he’s been great for the economy” .  It was 6 months after the idiot took office, so yeah “great for the economy” when it was still rolling along mostly under the effects from Obama’s terms.

    Just because they can get people to give them money to invest doesn’t mean they don’t suffer from motivated reasoning, though every Wall Street hotshot will tell you they are completely the opposite because running money requires cold, hard clarity.

  211. 211.

    TriassicSands

    Transportation Sec. Pete Buttigieg says EVs are going to be the future, the only questions are: 1. Will it happen quickly enough to address climate change? 2. Will it be affordable enough? 3. Will it be a made in America EV revolution?

    Buttigieg left out one critical question. Can we build up the infrastructure sufficiently to support widespread use of EVs. That’s not a given.

    It reminds me of what we used to joke about when camping deep in the mountains as we ran out of food: “If we had spaghetti, we could have spaghetti and meat balls, if we had meat balls.”

  212. 212.

    Geminid

    @TriassicSands: I think we’ll know if we’re going to build out the charging infrastructure well enough in a year, when planned and funded construction starts to kick in. It’s a challenge, but not that big a one.

  213. 213.

    J R in WV

    @Frankensteinbeck

    @jonas:

    I am reminded of the verse in the Gospels where Jesus praises those who, when he was cold and hungry, packed him up on a cart and sent him hundreds of miles away to get rid of him.

    The evangelicals have an answer for that, and I am being entirely serious that this is one of the major official explanations:  The charity instructions only apply to other evangelicals.  It was Jesus talking to his people about his people, you see.  No one else is owed kindness, or deserves it.

    I have heard false christians telling this kind of lie, but it just isn’t so. I can’t cite chapter and verse and don’t care to go searching around in what is a really big set of documents, but I’m gonna preach!
    Time after time in the actions and speechs of Jesus, he either personally helps the hated leper, or tells of the good samaritan who helps an injured victim of assault ling in a ditch. [For ditch, think sewer back then! Ditches were sewers for the next 1700+ years and still are some places!]

    If you want to go there, he fed multitudes with a handful of loaves and fishes, a crowd who were NOT members of the Jesus Christ Messiah Traveling Band at all. He ministered to prostitutes and low life criminals, and turned over the tables of the money changers down at the “National Bank”…

    Jesus was and is not a Republican, and will not accept any of these small-minded little greasy Theocratic Patriarchal dictators as any part of his teaching. Not unless they change a whole lot, really quickly.

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