(I know there is a yearly cost of living adjustment that is based on inflation and it's calculated by bureaucrats, not a Presidential decision, just thought it was a cute way to put it)
— Natasha Cougoule (@tashcoug) December 8, 2022
Under President Biden’s leadership, there is a manufacturing boom across the country:
??TSMC is investing $40 billion in Phoenix
??Micron is investing $100 billion in Syracuse
??Intel is investing $20 billion in Columbus
??IBM is investing $20 billion in Poughkeepsie— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 8, 2022
Biden's biggest advantage over the rest of the Dem field (and what helped him against Trump) was precisely that he was the likable, relaxed guy who yes, had a touch of blarney, but that made him a little more charming.
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) December 8, 2022
Biden announcing today that he is saving the pensions of more than 350,000 people across the country, who were facing cuts of up to 60% to benefits they paid into their whole lives. 40K in Michigan, 40K in Ohio, 28K in MO, 25K in IL, 22K in TX, 22K in WI…https://t.co/s71H6SBO8N
— Jesse Lee (@JesseLee46) December 8, 2022
Underfunded multi-employer pension funds (especially in the trucking industry) have been a problem for decades. Under this law insolvent or distressed funds will be able to pay out benefits until at least 2051. It’s a huge achievement. https://t.co/jk7XqRwa3r
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) December 8, 2022
Everyone remembers Joe Biden’s surprise support for gay marriage on “Meet the Press.” But his more prophetic comments came weeks earlier in Los Angeles. My retrospective as he prepares to sign marriage law. https://t.co/o7Qt5W7f4r
— Chris Megerian (@ChrisMegerian) December 10, 2022
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain said he expects that President Joe Biden will announce he’s running for re-election after the Christmas and New Year’s holidays https://t.co/fRSPKjlI1v
— Bloomberg Politics (@bpolitics) December 6, 2022
— Beastmode Liberal Takes (@BeastmodeLibs) December 6, 2022
BretH
Right President at the right time. Wishing there was a strong enough replacement but barring that will happily vote for another 4 years of competent governing.
Spanky
The geek in me applauds the photoshopped “REPUBLICAN TEARS” in that last tweet. Excellent replication of refraction through those bottles.
Mousebumples
Happy Sunday, everyone!
We made some holiday cookies and treats yesterday with one set of grandparents and are seeing my step-MIL today for holiday gift exchanges. She’ll be traveling out of state for the holidays, so while we’re ahead of Christmas by a few weeks, it should still be good to see her.
Toddler Mouse is calling her “my new grandma” – which, no, but we see her in person a little less often, so I guess she feels like a new grandma? 😅
Mousebumples
Attention postcarders –
Addresses were available a few minutes ago when I checked Abby the Address Bot. With (probably) a small district and list, they may not last long enough for us to get a postcard party planned.
My plan is to write some tonight for the retired Green Bay Packer.
To join #PostcardsToVoters email [email protected] or text JOIN to 484-275-2229. 😊
Geminid
@Mousebumples: Not only is Aaron Rouse a retired Packer, but in college he played for the Hokies. Virginia Tech has a strong alumni network all over Virginia. I’ll be interested to see if Rouse can utilize it in this election.
He’s running for the seat state Senator Jen Kiggans left open when she challenged Representative Elaine Luria. I believe this will be the last Virginia election on the map Republicans drew in 2011.
This fall’s General Assembly elections will be held on a map drawn by two special masters, under the auspices of the state’s supreme court. I think it is a neutral one, and the upcoming general election should give us a good idea of the direction Virginia’s electorate is headed.
stinger
@Spanky: Same here. I was just observing that the head was wrong, then noticed the words and *chef’s kiss* for the technique on those!
Aussie Sheila
God I hope that Biden’s announcement re re-election plans stops any attempt at a challenge. I am all for internal party democracy, but it would simple political malpractice to challenge him for 2024.
Quite simply, he is the only reason that me and the people I know and have worked with for years here, breath a bit easier. God help us if some anti China republican crazy gets elected and we are plunged into another war. We would be right in the firing line, and this time, throwing some Australian troops into the morass, and hoping to weather domestic political fallout won’t be enough.
This time we will be truly effed.
Nicole
I remember so vividly (and not just because it wasn’t that long ago) Trump trying to make Hunter Biden’s addictions a thing in his debate with Biden and Biden using it as a moment to connect on a personal level with the millions of Americans who have dealt with addiction in their lives and families. It was one of the greatest moments I’ve ever seen in a Presidential debate. I can’t stand Trump, but after so many years on The Apprentice, even an absolute fool like him is going to learn how to be good TV (practice makes progress!), but he could never, in a million years, manage what the considerably less-TV savvy Biden did in that debate. And all because Biden is not afraid to be vulnerable in front of a crowd. That’s a lot.
Mousebumples
@Geminid: thanks for the added insight! 😊
OzarkHillbilly
Here’s hoping Rupert has a very very bad Tuesday.
indycat32
Demon spawn update: Kitten number 3 has been captured! It just took cat food that was so smelly it caused a gag reflex (in me, not the kitten). With luck kitten number 4 will be captured soon.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nicole: Trump was so offensive about Biden’s sons. Thinking about it even now makes my blood pressure rise.
OzarkHillbilly
@Geminid: I have to wonder if the RWNJ Supremes meddling might screw things up with Moore v. Harper. You know they want to.
Nicole
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ve babbled on here a few times about how I think the rise in teaching social-emotional learning as an actual curriculum in schools is one of the reasons the two youngest generations seem to be developing into a kinder crew than we all were, and one of the things they teach in the curriculum is about making a connection between you and someone else- someone will say something like, “I went to the park yesterday with my dog,” and someone else will say, “Oh! I have a connection, I have a dog, too!” or, “I have a connection; I love going to the park” or whatever links something about them to what the first person just said (in the real world, of course, dropping saying the, “I have a connection” part). That was what Biden did in that debate; he took something Trump said, but, rather than making a connection with Trump, he turned it and made a connection with the entire nation. F*cking brilliant, and I’m sure there wasn’t a bit of connivance about it; he was just doing what he does best, which is connect with other people. Incredibly high natural social intelligence. Trump… not so much.
Aussie Sheila
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hope Dominion’s lawyers fillet him. He is slippery. If you can find it on yt, look for ‘British phone hacking scandal’ clips. He was nauseous in front of the Inquiry. I wonder why they didn’t subpoena Lachlan? He is the real force behind Fox now.
I suppose they must have reason to know/think the old bastard still wields the power.
zhena gogolia
GREAT POST!
zhena gogolia
@Aussie Sheila:
QFT.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nicole: I hate the way movies and TV shows treat bullying and general mean girl behavior as normal land inevitable. It’s not.
p.a.
@OzarkHillbilly:
Tick-fucking-tock Rupert. (We hope)
I was Joe-gnostic, looking back at his crime bill and bankruptcy bill votes, but geez he’s been a great President, with a great support team (N. Smash a known quantity, but Chuck Schumer: who knew?)
Honus
@Geminid: that 2011 redistricting was a disaster. Until Youngkin, republicans had not won a statewide election in Virginia since 2009. Yet both house of the GA were republican and the congressional delegation was 9-2 Republican until 2019, because of that gerrymandering.
Soprano2
The housing market here has not cooled off at all. The realtor listed my mom’s house on Friday; yesterday I accepted an offer that was $5,000 above our asking price! We close on January 12th if everything goes well. The biggest possible issue is the roof. I’m not sure how old it is, there was no paperwork on it in among all the receipts my mom had, but the roofing guy thinks it’s 13+ years old, and there might be a leak in the kitchen that’s recent. If I have to replace it I work with a guy who does roofing on the side; he did our roof, I trust him to do it right, and he’s reasonable on price.
Suzanne
@Nicole: Agreed.
And it was all the more striking, because Trump had one good debate moment in 2016 that I still remember. It was when there was still 10,000 candidates in the field, and the question was posed to them….something like, “Are you too angry to be president?”. Basically trying to get them all to offer platitudes about “what’s RIGHT with America!”, all that chipper smarmy bullshit that we’ve all heard a thousand times. Most of them did it. And Trump took the opposite tack, and said something like, “I am angry, I think I’m proud to carry the mantle of anger”. At that moment, I turned to Mr. Suzanne and I said, “He’s going to win this thing”. Because he was really, really good at reading the mood of the room and the “marketing” side of the job.
I’m surprised (happily so) to see that he can’t figure out that the mood has shifted a bit. Considering how many of his voters have had their lives impacted by opioids, one might have realized that teasing a parent about their drug-using kid wouldn’t sit well with them.
Nicole
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I agree. Even when the bullies get their comeuppance at the end, it’s not enough to make up for what came before.
Geminid
@OzarkHillbilly: Moore v. Harper is a two edged sword. It could help Republicans hold on to a few stolen seats in states like Alabama, but it would clear the way for more gerrymandering in states controlled by Democrats. It would be a bad decision to uphold the state legislature in this matter, but in strictly political terms it could be a wash.
I don’t know how that result would be applied to Virginia. In 2020, voters passed a constitutional amendment for a second time that created an “independent” Redistricting Commission. The commission deadlocked, though and the decision was punted to the state’s highest court. They appointed two special masters to draw the Congressional and General Assembly maps.
Democrats controlled both General Assembly houses in 2020 and some wanted to ditch the commission format and give Republicans some of their own gerrymander medicine. When Democratic legislators joined their Republican counterparts to put the measure on the ballot the requisite second time some Democrats raised a howl.
The amendment passed by an almost 2 to 1 margin. The disgruntled Democrats complained mightily for a while. They are quieter now, perhaps because Virginia’s new Democratic champion is Senator L. Louise Lucas, whose “Brick Wall” in in the Senate has stopped cold the legislative efforts of the Governor and his 52-48 lower house majority. Senator Lucas was instrumental in putting the constitutional amendment on the ballot for a second time.
Nicole
@Suzanne:
So true. And I think it ties in to him viewing addiction as a failure of character. He can’t comprehend viewing addiction with compassion because his own family’s experience with addiction has left him so broken and his way of dealing with it is to view addicts with contempt. Which was also probably prevalent 30 years ago but you’re right; we’re in a different place now.
Jeffg166
What exactly are Joe’s flaws? After four years of TFG I don’t seem to be able to see any.
Suzanne
DAMN. Check this out.
Lockerbie bombing suspect is now in U.S. custody, authorities say
I still remember the day this happened. I was a kid and I lived with my grandparents. My grandfather worked for PanAm his whole career and had taken that London to New York flight hundreds of times. He was heartbroken that day.
Geminid
@Honus: Virginia also showed how demographic change and political shifts can erode the advantage given by gerrymandering. Republicans held the House of Delegates 65-35 going into the 2017 election and came out up only 51-49. A coin flip in a tied race prevented a 50-50 outcome.
The next year Democrats flipped 3 Congressional seats and in 2019 they picked up 7 more House of Delegates seats for a 55-45 majority. This was all done on a Republican-drawn map.
Uncle Cosmo
Wul, I kinda suspected – when the first time I typed his name in a text my phone autocorrected it to Schemer…;^D
geg6
@Suzanne:
There were several local victims on that flight. I’m glad they got him.
mrmoshpotato
@Nicole: Yup. Joe Biden is a good, caring, compassionate man. And Dump, well…
OzarkHillbilly
They deposed Lachlan a week or 2 ago.
ETA: from the above blockquote:
Amir Khalid
@Jeffg166:
Biden’s old and feeble, Republicans insist, even though he’s more vigorous now than TFG has ever been; he’s senile and out of it, even though he’s had a stronger record of accomplishments in office than most POTUSes, especially TFG; and worst of all, he’s a DEMONRAT!
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yes please.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Amir Khalid:
They got you on that one
OzarkHillbilly
Around here, the rise in interest rates have cooled things down a bit, but no where near what I was expecting.
Aussie Sheila
@OzarkHillbilly: I didn’t know that. Interesting. Looks like they are going whole hog on them
Excellent news. Murdoch controls 75% of Australia’s print media. Thanks to a deal Paul Keating (Aus PM 1992-1996) made to show he knew all about media moguls. Talented PM. Terrible judgement when it came to other very powerful men.
MattF
WRT Hunter Biden, I expect that after the Rs take control of the House, we’ll discover that having a son with a penis is an impeachable offense.
Also, with his attack on Fauci, Musk has gone too far. Sigh, Twitter was fun for a while.
brantl
@Mousebumples: Every one of us could use a “new grandma”.
BruceFromOhio
@Spanky: Right? Saved the best for last, a good chuckle to start the day.
Honus
@Geminid: yes, it was impressive that the dems flipped both houses with the old maps. The congressional delegation also flipped to 6-5 democrat during that time, all with the gerrymandered maps. I credit the demographics as well as Trump motivating democrats to GOTV. That democrats could do this with those 2011 districts is why I contend that despite Youngkin’s narrow win last year, Virginia is essentially a blue state.
OzarkHillbilly
Yes, but I am thinking along the lines of them finding a way to thread the gop favorable needle. This is a case that never should have reached the SC as the appeals court slapped it down in no uncertain terms and yet 4 of them wanted it to and they appear to think they can find a 5th. I know I am being a little paranoid here but they found a way to slap down Roe and their moral and judicial codes are very flexible.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jeffg166: He’s senile, you just don’t want to see it with your rose colored Demoncrat eyes.
Ksmiami
@OzarkHillbilly: if they rule the wrong way, I think Civil War is inevitable.
NorthLeft
What a happy uplifting article. Thanks Anne. Great way to start the day.
sab
@Nicole: Our ruling class, mostly a bunch of badly raised sociopaths, absolutely hate social learning. It is against everything they were raised with
ETA That behavior is what got them where they are.
NotMax
It’s 12 simians season once again!
:)
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Wondering if you might have seen my invitation for you to write something up telling us the ways that Gabe Vasquez is great? For our BJ version of Better Know a District – working title is Holy shit we have a lot of great Dems.
Gabe could come after our start with the Ohio House peeps we supported. Kathleen is going to do two of them, and in the comments I invited someone else to do the third Ohio rep, but I didn’t get an answer.
sab
OT Husband and I went for a drive yesterday and we were failing to remember all of twelve days of Christmas. Our main impression is that guy gave that girl a fuck of a lot of birds. Why? I would have dumped him after the first dozen or so.
WaterGirl
@indycat32: I applaud your efforts, especially your determination.
BruceFromOhio
MrsFromOhio and I have a running difference of opinion on sources of news. She is a regular consumer of NPR, and my parents are long-time FTFNYT subscribers. I despise both as normalizing monsters and enabling fascism, and we’ve agreed to disagree. So it was a welcome validation to read this essay from Paul Rosenberg, writing for Salon and posted at Rawstory, calling out the FTFNYT for doing what it does best.
Caught the little fuckers red-handed.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I was approved for Post Beta. I’m on there as Dorothy Winsor.
sab
I made a batch of bread dressing after dinner last night. My husband laughed at me until I told him bread dressing at the end of the day is what gets me through Thanksgiving, and you gave it all away as leftovers to the kids.
He was a bit shocked.
Citizen_X
Gawd, the replies to that Surowiecki Tweet! It’s a good example why I never got in Twitter. And I’m sure all of them would swear up and down that they’re “independents.” Sure.
Last one sneered at “all you globalists.” That’s enough of the Nazis!
WaterGirl
@Jeffg166: He says “not a joke”, “thank you thank you thank you”, and other phrases too often. That’s all I’ve got.
MomSense
@sab:
Ha! Speaking of Christmas songs, I saw a funny meme the other day that went something like
Mary, exhausted, having just got Jesus to sleep, is approached by a boy who thinks to himself, what this woman needs is a drum solo.
Mai Naem mobile
@sab: duh, its a guy. He was thinking of his stomach. He wanted her to cook them for him. She’s lucky he thought it inappropriate to sing about pigs.
sab
@BruceFromOhio: My favorite part of the NYT walkout is that was the first day in ages that Connie Schultz didn’t link to a paywalled NYT article. I love her and her columns, but I think she is doing major harm in teaching our latest generation of reporters to revere the FNYT.
mali muso
On the Xmas home-made gifting front, my beta-test of Chocolate Babka was given out to a few out of town friends who were visiting yesterday. If I say so myself, they looked pretty fabulous and were received to much acclaim. A follow up text this morning with a photo of my friend’s kid with chocolate smeared happy face would indicate that the recipe is a keeper.
Just signed up to write some postcards for Aaron Rouse. Still bitter that I got redistricted out of Jennifer Wexton’s territory. blech.
WaterGirl
@sab: Well, if bread dressing is the same thing as stuffing, I heartily agree with your sentiments. You could serve me only stuffing (and maybe some fresh cranberry relish to brighten up the table) for Thanksgiving and I would be perfectly happy.
edit: He gave it all away? He’s lucky he still gets to sleep in the house!
sab
@MomSense: Yikes, that made me burst out laughing.
Mai Naem mobile
@BruceFromOhio: i wonder if Sulzberger’s rag’s news coverage is affected by GOP tax cuts.
sab
@WaterGirl: Stuffing goes inside the bird. Dressing is cooked outside. Otherwise no difference.
WaterGirl
@MomSense:
Oh my god, that’s one of the best things I’ve ever seen.
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
And I’ve always liked that song – but now I can’t listen to it the same way.
Eunicecycle
@sab: mt husband did the same thing one Thanksgiving. Didn’t make that mistake again!
WaterGirl
@sab: Well, unless he most sincerely apologized, I believe the handbook says you are free to divorce him as the result of his transgression.
Kristine
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m on Post as Kristine Smith (@ksmithsf)
WaterGirl
@MomSense: That’s not one of my absolute favorite Christmas songs, so I could live with that tradeoff.
sab
@mali muso: I showerd that recipe to my husband and he was wowed. I think it will be added to our Christmas traditions list. Thank you so much.
WaterGirl
Wonderful post to wake up to, Anne Laurie. I had totally missed the pensions move and the manufacturing update.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Ah yes, email!
I sometimes tell people that they might as well try emailing an emu.
I am interested, but you should first try West of the Cascades (if I’ve got the nym right). They live in Silver City, New Mexico and Gabe Vasquez will be their Representative.
There may be a volunteer living in Sharice Davids’ Kansas 3rd CD. If there’s not, I would be happy to work up an entry for her.
sab
@MattF: Having a son without a penis is also an impeachable offense (trans kid).
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Miss Bianca
@Nicole: I think it was you that I was replying to on a dying thread the other day – but that empathy for others that SEL teaches the youngest generations is precisely what’s driving reactionary old bats up the wall. The right-wing rag here in my town had an entire front-page article vomited up by one of their “correspondents” about how SEL was indoctrination either leading to or informed by critical race theory, oh noes!
It got so bad at one point that our former superintendent actually had to issue a “No, we are not indoctrinating children” statement. I wonder if the batshittery spawned by this crap and all the COVID reaction is one reason he decided to go back to Texas. My county makes Texas look positively progressive, sometimes….
moonbat
@mali muso: Thanks for the recipe! I’m going to try this after the semester ends.
Kristine
Great news about the pensions.
I get to spend the evening reading my draft estate plan in preparation for tomorrow’s online meeting with attorney. I will try to remain detached, but at some point I’m going to imagine vultures circling overhead and a hooded guy with a sickle reading over my shoulder and making comments.
“WHY AREN’T YOU LEAVING ANYTHING TO A CAT SHELTER?”
“I have animal welfare bequests.”
“I DON’T SEE THE WORD ‘CAT’ ANYWHERE. PERHAPS YOU SHOULD RECONSIDER.” ::sounds of whetstone scraping metal::
Miss Bianca
@zhena gogolia: I honestly don’t think we have to worry about a Democratic challenger to Biden. We have plenty of other actual threats from bad actors on the other side to worry about.
OK, I could sort of imagine Sinema being unhinged enough to try it, but hey…she’s not a Democrat anymore!
mrmoshpotato
@sab:
Everyone knows she had a basketball jones and wanted season tickets to her favorite team.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: oops. I went back and looked, and I had asked you if you could put something together about Ruben Galego.
Eyeroller
@sab: Birds are edible.
Spanky
@sab: Twenty three birds, but 50 (!) people all bouncing around.
And 5 gold rings.
mrmoshpotato
@MomSense:
LOL!
Bring us figgy pudding!
No! Get off of my porch before I call the police!
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: And I’ve always *hated* that song, and now I know why! LOL
mrmoshpotato
@sab:
I’ve been using Stove Top the wrong way my entire life!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MomSense: LOL.
Some company once sent us a drum with the marketing slogan, “Make some noise.” Our son was a toddler at the time. Fortunately, he was napping when the drum arrived. By the time he woke up, we had disposed of it.
Seriously. Who does that?
Geminid
@WaterGirl: Aha. Gallego is a very interesting politician. But would he not be outside the scope of this particular series?
Someone we would be very fortunate to have contribute to the series would be “Kay.” She is a very astute observer and now lives in Marcy Kaptur’s district.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Wholeheartedly agree.
Miss Bianca
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Who does that? Weird aunties and uncles, and grandparents seeking revenge *sinister laughter*.
Rileys Enabler
@Kristine: I’m on Post @rileysenabler, and Mastodon as the same.
My birdsite feed has become riddled with “promoted” posts by terrible people, and Elmo’s post today just ended my run there.
change is good, right?
sab
@mrmoshpotato: Calm down. It’s just labels.
Rileys Enabler
@MattF: agree. Today was the end of it for me. I’ve moved to Post and Mastodon, and will see what the future holds.
I’ll miss the local breaking news/info, though. The birdsite kept us apprised of gas, food, and power after several hurricanes.
Amir Khalid
@Rileys Enabler:
I’ve had the Twitter app on three different phones now, and never once been tempted to try it.
PaulB
Speaking of the 12 Days of Christmas, I’ve always loved this song about the aftermath: “The 12 Days After Christmas.” One of the more charming versions:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MgmT5pH5bc
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: Do you know how to get a singer-song writer off your porch?
Pay for the pizza.
(old joke from my musician brother)
Shalimar
@Amir Khalid: The old and feeble thing is funny. Biden is 25 years older than I am, and I couldn’t manage his bike rides in my current condition. Physical fitness becomes harder as you get older, but most of it is putting in the effort. Biden clearly does.
mrmoshpotato
@sab: So you’re saying you believe in No Labels? 😁
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Seriously. Who does that?
Tee hee hee… he says with an evil grin.
sab
@mrmoshpotato: In cooking yes, in politics absolutely not.
OzarkHillbilly
@Miss Bianca: I would say “Great minds” and all that, but in this case it might be an insult to you.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly: Haha. I’m reminded of other versions of that joke. (None of which I can correctly remember right now.)
Bupalos
@Spanky: disagree. I mean, those bottles look to be part of an original photo, so they are simply “real” not manipulated. However their source original photo clearly has a different color temperature than the warm yellow of the Oval. Needed to adjust their hue. Bigly.
Also IMO the sentiment is garbage. That’s not the business Biden or the D’s are in. Focusing on the misery of your opposition needs to remain a wingnut thing.
Bupalos
@Shalimar: most of it is getting lucky.
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: It’s a one size fits all insult joke: How do you get a GOP off your porch? How do you get an NYT reporter off your porch? Ad nauseum.
Ella in New Mexico
@MattF:
Yeah, I’m trying to wrap my head around what ever benefit that Tweet was today on Fauci. It was like a magnet drawing all the anti-vaxers and COVID deniers to the cesspool of comments underneath…
OzarkHillbilly
@Bupalos: And never being a carpenter.
Another Scott
Orion will splash down around 12:39 PM EST today. NASA has a live feed from the craft right now.
(via APOD)
Cheers,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: An insult? Never in life, my dear sir!
Geminid
@Bupalos: I’m not a big fan of this whole “enemy’s tears” thing either. But I think Joe Biden and most other elected Democrats are too shrewd to use it themselves. There are better ways to throw shade on the opposition and they know these ways and are good at them.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Hmm. The frame seems to be static.
Live NASA talking head coverage.
Cheers,
Scott.
karen marie
I do not understand why it’s not illegal to underfund pension funds.
MattF
@Another Scott: Works for me.
kindness
I thought the danger of Moore vs Harper wasn’t so much increased gerrrymandering it would allow so much as the Independent State Legislatures up and over-riding the citizens votes and giving the electoral count to their preferred nazi. Honestly we need to make the presidency a direct citizen vote and deep 6 the Electoral College.
Another Scott
Speaking of FIFA and Qatar…
Follow the money.
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@MattF: Here it says it’s live, but the Earth isn’t moving.
Dunno.
Cheers,
Scott.
oldgold
MTG giving helpful hints for Christmas stocking stuffers:
MagdaInBlack
@oldgold: WTF
(eta: she is so flippin” weird)
OzarkHillbilly
@karen marie: It is (I think it’s a civil thing, not criminal*) but a pension can become underfunded in many different ways. After the crash of ’08, the carpenter’s union pension got into the red zone due to losses in investments. The relevant federal authority (I forget their acronym) gave the union time to come up with a plan that would put it back in the black within a certain period of time. Those of us lucky enough to still be working ended up contributing an extra ($1/ hour)** until it returned to solvency. I was among the lucky ones and I never heard anybody complain about it.
* I know a number of corporations have raided/underfunded their employee’s pension funds, causing them to go into insolvency, but AFAIK nobody ever went to prison for it.
**I know it doesn’t sound like much but I personally contributed well north of $2,400 and glad I was to be able to..
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Khanna replies that this is a mischaracterization of his segment, so I hit play. He says was standing up for “Our Constitution and our First Amendment”, that it was “censorship” for a private company to not promote an article from the (I have been told in all this noise and screeching) the fifth largest newspaper in the country. I can’t get past the way they’re talking about Twitter as if were a Cabinet department, if not a branch of government.
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
The realtime tracking automation is interesting. It takes a while to load so be patient.
6413 miles to go, 15,216 MPH…
It’s over Antarctica now.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@oldgold: boy, that’s pulling back the curtain on Marge’s brain.
OzarkHillbilly
@kindness: 2 good pieces about it, from the Brennan Center and the CAP.
MomSense
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Well my then toddler was once gifted a slide trombone and a fire truck with action sound effects! So I decided to send a lovely craft kit with glitter as a thank you!
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato:
Stove Top is an abomination! ( compared to my mom’s dressing recipe)
MagdaInBlack
@MomSense: I love your evil brain 😊
Another Scott
@Another Scott: Er, animation. :-/
Neato, it’s turning around right this minute.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@Geminid:
With a title of Holy shit we have a lot of great Dems. I think not! :-)
Yes, I was originally thinking elected at the national level, but I think it also fits for the next Gabe Vasquez, etc.
Geminid
@Geminid: Upcoming Democratic House Leader Hakeem Jeffries can throw shade well. A tweet from today:
And one from yesterday:
I love the common structure here. They remind me of Haiku poems. I guess I would call this form “Hakeemku.”
OzarkHillbilly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Anything or anyone who doesn’t scream from the rooftops the latest GOP fantasy message is engaged in censorship and they are evil.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Yes, you are right about that!
SuzieC was talking about Marcy in a post, so I invited her to do it. Maybe there are others in OH that Kay could contribute to?
Also, I am envisioning conversation in the threads, and others who are familiar with with the person joining in, and others asking questions and suggesting other names for future posts.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MomSense: Glitter is the gift that lasts forever.
Geminid
@kindness: If we were to go the direct election route we would certainly need a runoff, like in France.
kindness
@OzarkHillbilly: Good stuff there. Thanks.
After what we have seen post 2020, There’s no question some states would just give their Electoral College votes to their own party, regardless of who won the actual vote in that state. I don’t think Moore vs Harper is going to win but am still distressed there seem to be 4 sitting Supreme Court Justices that think it’s just fine. We really need to add seats to that court.
WaterGirl
@PaulB: That was so good!
WaterGirl
@karen marie: I know! How is this not the businesses pocketing the fund contribution from employees???
mrmoshpotato
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Pay no attention to the void behind the curtain.
WaterGirl
@oldgold: That’s not for real, right? That’s parody?
chrome agnomen
@oldgold: that’s MTG’s idea of both sides!
(I’ll see myself out)
lowtechcyclist
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I agree, but it was very much the norm a couple generations ago, when the people who decide what we see on the big and small screens grew up. It’s still what’s in their heads. I know it’s hard for me to register that it’s not like that anymore, and I have a son in high school.
OverTimeWillie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I think most of the Central States obligations are from companies that went belly-up after trucking dereg.
Though it was probably never fiscally viable, being created and run as a mob slush fund. Many of the players went to jail, or met untimely ends.
Good on Joe for cleaning out that stable.
oldgold
@WaterGirl: No. It is real, but somewhat decontextualized.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100217454309
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: Oh, my – I sense a “Christmas Wars” movie script in your future!
WaterGirl
@oldgold: Wow. She is a real class act.
Brit in Chicago
@Miss Bianca: If Sinema were to challenge Biden for the nomination that would be very good because it would mean that she wasn’t running as a spoiler-independent for the Arizona Senate seat. Of course she’d lose in whatever comes after landslide in the scale of losses.
oldgold
@WaterGirl: Without question, as Yoda would say, “an act she is.“
There a lot of bad jokes I could make about this, but for once, I am going to pass as this subject matter is out of my depth.
Steeplejack
Has anyone seen any information about how successful the NYT boycott was on Thursday? Clicks, traffic volume, etc
Geminid
Ken
@oldgold: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Citizen Alan
@mrmoshpotato: As a born and bred Southerner, just the sight of a Stovetop Stuffing makes me nauseous. Good southern dressing is a carefully balanced blend of homemade biscuits and homemade cornbread, along with all the other necessary ingredients. Stovetop, IMO, tastes like stale croutons heavily dusted with sage and parsley. Blech.
Citizen Alan
@PaulB: Pedantic nit: The 12 Days of Christmas already are after Christmas. It’s supposed to the gap between Christmas Day and Epiphany (Jan 6).
TriassicSands
@Suzanne:
I don’t think it was so much a case of Trump correctly reading the room as it was that the mood fit who Trump is. It should be pretty obvious by now that Trump is Trump. He’s not adaptable. As attitudes toward him change, he remains the same bitter, nasty, vengeful whiner he’s always been.
Since power is what the GOP is all about, if the party increasingly sees Trump as a burden, they may gradually shift their attention to other candidates. One great hope I have for 2024 is that if the tide goes against Trump, his need to get even with anyone he perceives as insufficiently worshipful will inspire him to run as a third party candidate, ensuring a Democratic victory.
GibberJack
@OzarkHillbilly: Murdoch’s has been using kompromat for a long time.
Consider the compromised not as news sources but as assets, because Murdoch actually runs an intelligence organization that specializes in psychological warfare operations, especially disinformation.
Jackie
@MomSense: My at that time childless sister and husband gave my 3 yr old son a police car with screaming sirens and flashing lights. Ten years later I was happy to gift their 3 yr old with a screeching flashing laser gun…😂
Captain C
@oldgold: Of course she would know this. Or she’s very creative with what she called a butt plug or dildo.
TriassicSands
Yep, but there is almost nothing that is less likely to happen.
Okay, Trump acting presidential is less likely. In fact, pick anything positive and try to apply it to the 2022 Republican Party and it will almost certainly be less likely than our ditching the Electoral College.
About the only thing I can think of that would make getting rid of the EC possible would be for Democratic presidential candidates to start losing the popular vote and being elected by the EC. But how likely is that?
It is important to never stop criticizing the Electoral College; to keep its unfairness and perversity always at the forefront of things that need to change. The short route to making the EC irrelevant is by universal or near universal adoption of the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact. As of June 2022, fifteen states and D.C. had joined.
Already in:
Maryland, New Jersey, Illinois, Hawaii, Washington, Massachusetts, D.C., Vermont, California, Rhode Island, New York, Connecticutt, Colorado, Delaware, New Mexico, and Oregon.
If you notice something about that list, it will further emphasize how difficult this task is. How many of those states (195 Electoral votes) are red/Republican or even swing states? However, there are still states that could join and help create more momentum. Anyone who lives in a non-NPVIC state, should do whatever they can to get that state to join. It could be done where ballot initiatives are permissible, but the governor will have to sign on
Off the top of my head, currently Kansas, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and North Carolina have Democratic governors. They would add something like another 40 EC votes. Inching closer to a majority.
GibberJack
@sab: I always wondered if she got the pear tree with the partridge as a combo, or just the bird.
Seems like a lot of work to dig up so many pear trees though. Maybe the ground doesn’t freeze there?
The Lodger
@Kristine: somewhere in my Sandman collection there is an image of Death as a cat. It’s the perfect illustration for your private terror.
dnfree
@Spanky: I interpret the twelve days as repeating the entire list every day and adding something new. Hence, by the end of the 12th day there are 12 partridges in pear trees, 22 turtle doves, 30 French hens, and so on. She gets 40 gold rings, but what is she going to do with all the milkmaids and cows?
TriassicSands
@Ken: “To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
Does that mean, by extension, that to a person who is an asshole, everything looks like a butt plug?
GibberJack
@Captain C: Where else but on this blog can one read in the same thread about stuffing vs bread dressing, Little Drummer Boy, and buttplugs and dildoes.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: I was wondering about that, too, earlier when I did my Wordle for today.
WaterGirl
@Citizen Alan: I thought it was the 12 days before.
WaterGirl
@GibberJack: And you thought full-service blog was just a joke! :-)
GibberJack
@dnfree: Maybe the lords a leaping are like that era’s pool boys?
Still a lot of them. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
dnfree
@WaterGirl: The 12 days of Christmas start after Christmas and end on Epiphany, January 6. Epiphany is traditionally when the Wise Men arrive, but of course the whole assignment of dates is arbitrary.
Mai Naem mobile
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Khanna’s a Yale Law School grad no less. The elite law schools aren’t sending us their best! I didn’t realize Khanna had turned into such a putz. And on Maria Bartiromo’s show no less.
BenCisco 🇺🇸🎖️🖥️♦️
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: What an asshole!!
J R in WV
@Geminid:
OMG, that’s such beautiful countryside around Silver City. And the Gila National Forest has such a great tiny stone Cliff Dwelling village. I understand there are hot springs galore but haven’t gotten wet in them. yet…
Geminid
@J R in WV: I hope to make it back to New Mexico someday before too long. When I do, Silver City will be on my list.