Programming note!
.@ChloeFlower & @DTHBallet join forces for a spellbinding tribute to #TaniaLeón on the 45th #KCHonors. 😍
Tune in Wednesday, Dec. 28 at 8/7c on @CBS & @ParamountPlus for more unforgettable #KennedyCenterHonors moments. pic.twitter.com/UbagI2KMwt
— The Kennedy Center (@kencen) December 27, 2022
Dream big:
2022 is going to go down like a reverse 2010 – democrats won enduring power in state legislatures that will be hard to undo. https://t.co/SKMePIZnJ3
— Galen Metzger (@GalenMetzger1) December 27, 2022
Democrats’ new strength on the state level could lead to a flurry of new liberal policies. https://t.co/gltGaOn9US
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) December 27, 2022
It's amazing that it took so long to reverse George W. Bush's intentional sabotage of the Post Office. https://t.co/7k6rf9H7LE
— Adam Kotsko (@adamkotsko) December 27, 2022
President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act lowers health care costs by extending $800 in annual savings on health insurance for 13 million Americans, a $2,000 annual cap on out-of-pocket prescription drug costs for seniors, and a $35 a month cap on insulin for seniors on Medicare. pic.twitter.com/uoYyDdgsbV
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) December 28, 2022
-American Rescue Plan
-Bipartisan Infrastructure Law
-Bipartisan Safer Communities Act
-PACT Act
-CHIPS and Science Act
-Inflation Reduction Act
-Respect for Marriage ActPresident Biden and I will continue to deliver more for the American people in 2023. pic.twitter.com/YQIroGutTL
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) December 27, 2022
Secretary Mayor Pete fixed it. Weird how all of the railroad labor law experts on here from the past few weeks aren't talking about this major development pic.twitter.com/AVkQCYYIpG
— The okayest poster there is (@ok_post_guy) December 19, 2022
Thousands are trapped on Pine Ridge Reservation. Here's how you can help https://t.co/UXjFYnPwkY via @mprnews
— Lalo Alcaraz (@laloalcaraz) December 27, 2022
Baud
Dems controlled government for one one other two year period, and they were busy with other priorities at that time.
Baud
Glad to see Dems selling their achievements.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Now to get rid of DeJoyless.
Amir Khalid
A question to the floor, á propos of you-know-who: what is the delicate nuance that distinguishes “resumé embellishment” from straight-up lying?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
OzarkHillbilly
Good on him and happy I am to hear it.
Eolirin
@Baud: We had more like six months. The no bipartisan bills tactic was, for some reason, far more strictly adhered to during that time period.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: Of all people in all places, Tulsi Gabbard, subbing for Tucker Carlson on Fox News last night, asked and answered that question. Here’s a link to a Daily Beast article with a lengthy clip of the buzz saw interview.
Baud
@Eolirin:
True. There was a short period when we had 60 in the Senate. Al Franken seating was delayed, and then you had the Scott Brown election. So most of that period we only had 59.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Funny on multiple levels. Love how Santos tries to call Biden a liar too.
WereBear
Let me guess. The opposing party will say it’s not fair that we deliver on our promises.
They do, too. They delivered on Roe v Wade assassination just lately after all the promising!
I think both parties should campaign on their promises. LOTS.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: I was surprised Gabbard shut the whataboutism down!
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: That would still be horribly unfair. All the D promises are popular with a majority of voters while all the R promises aren’t.
Ocotillo
Man, I went to forward the White House tweet from above to someone and glanced at the comments and it looked like a Breitbart cesspool.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: The fairest judges I know are toddlers watching me distribute a big treat into smaller packages.
If we replace the Republican side of the house with randomly selected toddlers, we’d be ahead. Spend a little more time and effort turning the floor into Sesame Street, but then…
Well, there’s no downside, is there?
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Most toddlers are more mature than your average GOP office holder.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Gabbard has no particular loyalty to the Republican party. She is positioning herself as an Independent.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: The amount of straight-up lying.
Betty Cracker
A couple of publications are tut-tutting about NYC Mayor Adams’ brief trip to the US Virgin Islands and Pres. Biden’s upcoming New Year’s trip to St. Croix. The media outlets seem to be implying that they should stay in the US because it’s cold.
I can maybe kinda see the point with Adams, whose city did get slammed with bad weather that caused some emergencies. But Biden is president of the entire country — including the warm parts! — so I’m not sure why he’s supposed to be obligated to stay in DC.
Geminid
@Geminid: I would add that Republicans now have no particular loyalty to George Santos. They would sweep their toxic colleague under the rug if they could.
NotMax
@Amir Khalid
Ability to independently confirm as factual basic data such as dates, places, degrees conferred, etc.
NotMax
@WereBear
Unsure if there’s physical space sufficient in the cloakroom for changing tables.
//
Betty
@Eolirin: The explanation I read is that there was no talk by Dems then about eliminating the filibuster. Going along with some bipartisanship now allowed the Republicans to give cover to Manchin and Sinema for refusing to nuke it. Makes sense.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Remember when Cokie Roberts criticized Obama’s trip to Hawaii because it was “exotic.”
The media sucks.
Baud
@Betty:
We’ve made progress, but there are too many Dem Senators who like the filibuster.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: So where then do GOPs go to get their diapers changed?
p.a.
@Betty Cracker:
She did? Will she be banned?
Baud
@WereBear:
Can you tell me how to get there?
Amir Khalid
@Geminid:
But it’s still fun to watch her confront little Georgie about his many fibs, and seeing him make like a gaffed fish is priceless.
And it strikes me that by airing that damaging interview, Fox News may be hinting at what line it thinks Kevin the Leader should take with little Georgie.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Also Ted Kennedy was too sick to show up after sometime in March, but he didn’t die until August, and his temporary replacement, Paul Kirk, only took office on September 24, 2009.
So the Dems only had 60 votes in the Senate between September 24, 2009 and when Scott Brown was elected in January. Less than four months.
And the Dems only had 60 seats even then because Arlen Specter had switched from R to D in the spring of 2009.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
If there is a hell, I hope to hell she’s residing there at present.
NotMax
@Baud
Second star to the right and straight on ’til pledge week.
:)
Amir Khalid
@WereBear:
Capital idea! This by itself would be a fantastic improvement.
Kristine
Read the good news for Dems tweets then strayed into the comments, which proved to be the usual mix of ‘not good enough’ naysayers and the occasional ‘go us!’ I seldom dip into Twitter these days and god I don’t miss it.
Ken
Getting caught.
EDIT: I see NotMax got there first, though with more facts and less cynicism.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty:
@Eolirin: The explanation I read is that there was no talk by Dems then about eliminating the filibuster.
Mitch only became the Senate Republican leader at the beginning of 2007, and he was the one who initiated the GOP ‘filibuster everything’ approach. In 2007-2008 it didn’t really matter, all he was doing was saving Shrubby the hassle of vetoing those bills. And then there were enough GOP defectors to get the 2009 stimulus bill through, and a couple other bills that had bipartisan support got through early on. And of course, after September, the Dems had 60 votes for a few months.
It was really only after Scott Brown got elected in January 2010 to fill the rest of Ted Kennedy’s term that Mitch fully slammed the door shut, and the Dems couldn’t get jack shit done, even with 59 votes. It was only then that the filibuster truly became the obstacle that it is now. But of course the GOP took the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014, so for quite a while in there, the Dems were saying the filibuster wasn’t so bad because they could block GOP legislation with it. So that’s why support for getting rid of the filibuster was rather muted until pretty recently.
Geminid
Last month PoliticoMagazine did a long and interesting article about Representative-elect Delia Ramirez of the Illinois 3rd CD. It’s titled, “Progressive Latina Thinks Democrats Are Blowing It with Hispanic Voters,” November 25, 2022. The subhead:
The article covers much more ground than general messaging questions and provides a good profile of one of the members of the incoming Democratic House class of 2022.
link needs fixing, repairs to follow shortly I hope.
Oh well. The article can be easily found by looking up “politico progressive latina.”
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: Sort of like Hawaii being too exotic for a US president to visit on vacation even if he was born there. I hate these people. It’s not just the hypocrisy and duplicity it’s how shallow and stupid they are. These are the same people who missed planet-sized lies being told by Santos.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: Oh Betty, you know they would tsk tsk no matter what Biden did, it’s part of their “brand”.
Betty Cracker
@p.a.: The fact that Gabbard was subbing for anti-LGBTQ terrorist inciter Tucker Carlson tells us everything we need to know about her. But she did call bullshit on Santos in no uncertain terms, so kudos for that.
OverTwistWillie
The CSX story is a bit of a reach. The VC aligned CEO got canned after he went up to the Hill and all but crapped himself. The Board replaced him with someone with “operational experience”, i.e. the rank and file don’t want to kill him on sight.
New guy rolled back the attendence b.s. and restored the Santa Train through Appalachia.
WereBear
@Baud: I’d like a team of trained child psychologists to do a blind evaluation.
See how the chips fall. We might weed the deplorables out of both groups.
OverTwistWillie
@Betty Cracker:
Damage control.
Somewhere in a lonely hotel room
there’s a guy starting to realize
that eternal fate has turned its back on him,
It’s two A.M…..
MattF
Santos takes a stab at explaining where the money came from. Fails.
Gin & Tonic
@Amir Khalid:
That’s easy. If I do it, it’s resumé embellishment; if you do it, you’re lying.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: Maybe TPTB wanted to ding him, but Tuckie balked and they brought in someone else to do the knife work.
Torrey
@WereBear:
None. Especially not if it includes Statler and Waldorf as commenters.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Interesting article (maybe the link here will work). As always, my takeaway is pols have to frame messaging district by district, and the Latino vote is so not monolithic that I doubt it’s useful to discuss it as a bloc (sort of like women, also not a bloc in any real sense).
Ken
“Conjugation” (or whatever the game is called) traditionally has three versions, and the second-person “you” is not the worst. Something like: I embellished my resumé; you included some unverifiable claims; he lied.
Gin & Tonic
@Ken: I can’t do that fancy stuff before 9:00.
SFAW
@Torrey: Qevin (not Andrew*) McQarthy might consider having The Count as his Whip. It won’t help him make his numbers, but at least they’ll be accurate.
* I hope I learned my lesson from the other day.
Eolirin
@Betty: It’s entirely possible that’s helped, but given the nature of some of the bills we’ve gotten through I don’t find it compelling, especially since that shouldn’t be making a difference in the house. And Sinema and Manchin’s positions being extreme no exceptions ever hasn’t required much cover. No hints at wavering.
Now it’s true that the political environment has changed some too, but I think racism, and the lack of an obvious target for it in Biden, plays a massive role in why they can’t maintain party unity in a reflexive rejection of literally everything the Democratic president wants anymore.
Edit: Why would they want to give Manchin and Sinema cover anyway? Throwing them an anchor so they lose their seats puts McConnell back in control of the Senate.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: It’s a shame Florida’s legal system has been corrupted by hard-right authoritarians because an examination of that company’s books would be interesting.
mali muso
Anyone else following the saga of Southwest Airlines implosion this week? If I’m understanding correctly, while they’d like to blame it on “the weather”, in fact they have a scheduling software system from the 90s and have no idea where any of their personnel are located. And to make matters worse, the corporate geniuses had already been threatening their workforce in advance not to be sick (requiring an in-person doctor’s note not a telemedicine visit…sure, checks out during a crazy covid/flu season).
Did they not take millions of $$ from the US govt during the peak of the pandemic? What did all this funding go towards?
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Don’t worry, the GOP will get to the bottom of it. s//
OzarkHillbilly
Ski vacations and cruises.
mali muso
@OzarkHillbilly: Asked and answered. Here I was thinking it would be hookers and blow.
Ken
@SFAW: I like where this is going, except it appears that McCarthy will be in the Kermit role — the nominal leader, who shows up for the opening number but then loses all control of the troupe and chaos ensues. Which is I expect accurate, but I don’t like smearing Kermit with that association.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
I’m sure Pam Bondi would do a thorough investigation, but whoever is FL AG now is probably just as ethical .
SFAW
@Ken:
Maybe McQarthy will turn a lovely shade of Greene. So to speak.
SFAW
@mali muso:
Ozark’s and your suppositions are not mutually exclusive. Or, as they sometimes say: Por que no los cuatro?
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: They actually found someone worse than Bondi (Ashley Moody), in keeping with the general race-to-the-bottom trend of replacing the odious crook Rick Scott with the hyperactive authoritarian Ron DeSantis, etc.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Thank you for the good link. I bet you are a better cook than me. That also requires attentiveness, which is not one of my strong points.
I would be very interested in a panel discussion between Representative Ramirez and fellow Progressives Caucus member Veronica Escobar. Ms. Escobar is a long time political ally of Beto O’Rourke and succeeded him as Representive for the district centered on El Paso, Texas. Before that she was El Paso County Judge, which is a powerful position in Texas’s political structure.
Ramirez represents a suburban district with a large Latino presence. Escobar’s Rio Grand Valley district has a lot of Latinos, both multi-generational citizens as well as more recent immigrants.
Representative-elect Gabe Vasquez’s persperctive would be valuable as well. He was born in El Paso, and spent his childhood across the border in Juarez before returning to El Paso for high school. Vasquez was a Las Cruces City Councilman when he ran in the New Mexico 2nd CD and unseated the Republican incumbent last month.
Ken
No, I was watching Tesla/Twitter. Were I more conspiracy-minded, I’d start wondering whether Meta, Southwest, and perhaps others are paying Musk to be a distraction.
Brit in Chicago
“2022 is going to go down like a reverse 2010 – democrats won enduring power in state legislatures that will be hard to undo.”
But there’s a crucial difference: the state legislatures elected in 2010 oversaw redistricting (as, of course, did the ones elected in 2020). The (mostly Republican) gerrymandering put in place then (and increased after 2020) made a difference, which will persist until (at least) the redistricting after the 2030 election. So I hope for a big Dem wave in 2030. Does that mean that I have to hope that a Republican is elected in 2028? I’m not sure I’m capable of hoping for any Republican victory ever, but it might be worth it if a Dem wave in 2030 really did result. Redistricting and gerrymandering is really important. (What we really need is more ballot initiatives ensuring fair districts.)
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: I’m sure they’ll get right on it after they finish their investigation of the Big Pharma COVID Conspiracy.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
I’m not sure I understand how FL went from being a semi-rational electorate to being batshit insane in such a short time. I mean, at some level I do (e.g., racism in full flower due to Obama breaking their “brains”), but It’s still somewhat disconcerting.
Paul in KY
@Gin & Tonic: That’s the truest answer yet.
OzarkHillbilly
@mali muso: The hookers and blow are part of the package deals.
Starfish
@mali muso: My mom has been stranded for a couple of days. Her flight from Dec. 26 has been rescheduled for tomorrow. Unclear if it is going to happen.
Geminid
@Brit in Chicago: Gerrymanders can lose effectiveness over time due to demographic changes and political shifts.
This happened in Virginia in 2018 when three Democrats flipped seats on a Republican drawn map. That same year Lucy McBath did this in Georgia and Libby Fletcher and Colin Allred flipped seats in Texas. All were running in mostly suburban districts.
All that is to say that Democrats may have opportunities later this decade to flip some state legislative districts as well some Congressional districts, even though the maps will be static.
WereBear
@SFAW: I agreed with Betty Cracker when she pointed out the retiree flow shifted from the Tri-State area to Midwesterners drawn by gated communities and DisneyWorld.
And how much the line was blurred, frankly. So we get redder Republicans as they age and rage.
mali muso
@Starfish: How infuriating. I hope she makes it home soon.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I’d definitely tune in for that panel discussion!
@Cameron: Apart from being demonstrably dangerous in a public health sense, DeSantis’s anti-vax “investigation” seems like a loser politically, at least outside of hard-right states like Florida. I’m not sure what the strategy is there. Seems like any gain from outflanking Trump on the right would be more than erased by alienating moderates/indies who aren’t on the COVID denial cuckoo train.
Cameron
@SFAW: I think it’s mostly the influx of expired -warranty Yankees like me.
WereBear
@Cameron: I talked several bug-phobic people on Long Island out of retiring to Florida. I did them a favor. But that’s how popular it once was to NYers, as a cheap place with lots of sunshine and golf courses.
Now, it’s people who want to live in DisneyWorld. In a sense, that’s how DeSantis is selling himself to these voters. While the parks themselves are running low on maintenance while skimping on trained workers as they ruthlessly cut costs.
Geminid
@SFAW: A 5 point shift can be interpreted as a state’s electorate going from semi-rational to batshit insane. However you characterize this, it’s a mattter of 11 voters choosing the Republican for every 9 choosing the Democrat instead of 10 and 10 making that choice.
Eolirin
@Brit in Chicago: We can solve gerrymandering with a Supreme Court majority, so it’s better if we just hold the presidency forever.
mrmoshpotato
@OzarkHillbilly:
Wasn’t he rendered powerless a couple months ago? Or do we still have to shitslap that shitstain to the sewer?
WereBear
Florida has always had its own kind of Southern Gothic. Like California, it attracted more than its share of people looking for things or running away from them. If anything, the circus summering there for so many years only improved matters.
Unlike California, it’s only acceptable to be two religions, god and money. The legacy continues.
I’m glad I lived there. But as a transplant… I could never live there.
Betty Cracker
@WereBear: Yep. We also have the Latino populations that tend to skew right, i.e., those from Cuba, Venezuela, etc., and a native-born white population that is part of the rural South. When you put all that together, the question becomes “how did Obama manage to win the state twice,” not “why do Republicans keep winning.”
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid:
The delicate nuance is that most of the American media enjoys masturbating rather than reporting actual facts.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
To be fair, masturbating is fun!
frosty
@Amir Khalid: “resume embellishment” is lying about the fact that you’re lying.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: A quick look at his timeline shows that this Adam person likes to blame neoliberalism for everything and obviously does not understand how the government works.
mrmoshpotato
@Ocotillo: Surprised? 😁
Jeffro
This, exactly.
They know they’re going to get killed when info about Santos’ funding comes out, so they’re trying to get ahead of it now.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: I suspect that POCs tend to be invisible, doing things and leaving behind various ‘mysterious’ effects on politics and culture. Oddly, as your skin color gets darker, you become more invisible.
WereBear
@mrmoshpotato: Went down a rabbit hole and came up with two books on Caril Ann Fugate, the teen who accompanied Starkweather on his murder spree.
For 18 years her original defense attorney and then his son tried to have her seen fairly, until she was released from a life sentence. Knowing what we do in an age of greater transparency and eroding institutions, it’s no surprise to me that her lawyers claimed she was set up and railroaded by the press and law enforcement.
The Bonnie and Clyde format was too easy to pin on a fourteen year old, in the midst of a juvenile delinquency panic. I’m interested to see what the other side was.
Him, I understand. I am curious about her side of the story.
Jeffro
@mali muso:
they did not take millions…they took BILLIONS.
AWOL
@Baud: According to husband Steve, she didn’t suck. Just a limp hand job on the menu now and then before she could find some Negroes to talk down to . . .
Ken
I’ll assume you don’t mean literally, though since the Russians seem to be involved….
It will also be fun to see who, if anyone, defends him. I don’t suppose we’ll be lucky enough to have some other Republican representative say “I don’t see the problem here, I got even more money from Putin’s bagman, and no one’s questioning the legality of that.”
Brit in Chicago
@OzarkHillbilly: Hookers and blow is traditional, I believe
(ETA: I see others got there before me; sorry to waste your time.)
OzarkHillbilly
@mrmoshpotato: I don’t know. I haven’t read anything pertaining to him in quite a while. Just this AM I did read of a bill (Infrastructure?) that reestablished 6 working days at the USPS. I don’t know the details tho. Maybe that is what you are referring to.
OzarkHillbilly
@Brit in Chicago: I’d say great minds and all that but considering the company you are keeping… ;-)
Brit in Chicago
@Geminid: “Gerrymanders can lose effectiveness over time due to demographic changes and political shifts.”
Yes, this is the hopeful spin and I join with you in hoping for it. But I’d still sooner have a fair map (or, since turnabout is fair play, one gerry mandered the other way). Hope feels good but seldom comes to pass on a sufficient scale….
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: What would really be fun would be a fly-on-the-wall podcast of a Congressional Hispanic Caucus meeting. Republican Representative Salazar debating policy with DemocraticRepresentative Ocasio-Cortez! Veteran Henry Cuellar and freshman Representative Greg Casar discussing electoral strategy! Maybe Representatives Ritchie Torrez and Delia Rodriguez could compare notes on their metropolitan districts.
The podcast would have to include a warning, though for parents with small children to turn the volume down when Ruben Gallego speaks.
lowtechcyclist
@mali muso:
Oh yeah. If my wife and I hadn’t gotten Covid, we and the kiddo would have been scheduled to fly BWI-Tampa on the 22nd, and back tomorrow the 29th. I don’t know how bad things were on the 22nd when the weather was actually bad, but no question that if we’d been healthy, we might’ve been in Florida for way longer that we planned. Silver lining.
Betty Cracker
@MattF: Not sure what you’re saying here.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: The man is definitely blunt! ;-)
Geminid
@Brit in Chicago: I would also prefer neutrally drawn congressional districts. But I’ll point out that Democrats did not just hope to flip those Republican-drawn districts in 2018; they made it happen.
Faithful Lurker
This may be too far down the thread to be noticed. If it is I’ll put it up again. I looked for the email links to Water Girl but didn’t find one. Can we put up a fundraiser for the Pine Ridge Reservation? We raised a lot of money for Ukraine and the organization to get First People to the polls. I think we could get some help to the First Nations burning their clothes to not freeze to death. I don’t know what organizations would be best but I’m sure there’s a jackal who does.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: If DeSantis wants to be President, he needs to beat Trump in the primary race first, which still means going hard into the fever swamps. There’s no point in worrying about the general election until he does that–and then there’s always the chance that the electorate will simply go just insane enough for him to eke out a win, like in 2016. Biden’s low approval and the general media preference for Republicans give him an opening regardless.
Edmund Dantes
@Baud: a lot of bad Dems and “dem” pundits were all in on helping with that postal bill that W did. A lot of Dems were still in the thrall of private is better than public back then.
MattF
@Betty Cracker: I’m ignorant about FL politics, so I’m also not sure what I’m talking about. Looking for things outside your field-of-view is going to be frustrating.
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: My thought is that this cunning plan involves setting up his committee or star chamber or WTF ever to meet regularly but only release a report at the end of 2023. Announcements of meetings will make local news and happy Florida wingnuts, but be ignored nationally except by the faithful. Then, after the election, there will be a big reveal and the report will be performed live for the Christmas circus special at the Asolo.
Gin & Tonic
@WereBear: Barely fictionalized, Terrence Malick’s Badlands (perhaps my favorite film) is about that. Sissy Spacek plays the Fugate character.
Edmund Dantes
@Brit in Chicago: really? Have you not paid attention? In GOP states with redistricting had limits the GOP just ran out the clock with some GOP judge assists to ignore the laws (see Ohio). In Dem states the laws were used to stop Dems from doing like Red states.
So these bills aren’t going to solve the problem you think it does.
Omnes Omnibus
@Faithful Lurker: That’s a very good idea, and I will certainly donate through a Balloon-Juice link as opposed to a different one if one is available.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
What in the actual fuck?
sounds an awful lot like Meadows was passing intel to friendly journalists, and even dumbass McCarthy didn’t want his fingerprints on the stuff. I keep wondering if the relative silence from and about Meadows in recent months means he’s talking to the DoJ, and neither side wants much attention.
Looking for a more complete write-up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Good idea. I wouldn’t know where to start, myself.
Barbara
@Faithful Lurker: If you link to the article that she posted there are multiple organizations that say they are using current donations to fund emergency relief. This seems like something that has to be very, very local, given the need to get actual things to people right now. It might be helpful to have someone give any information they have on which groups they have worked with in the past.
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “Looking for a more complete writeup” is good. The reporting by Lowell is too wink-and-nod for my taste.
E.g. “private sector” people can have clearance to see classified information (if they have a “need to know”).
“Wanted” seems to be doing a lot of heavy lifting, also too.
It smells, bad, but the reporting seems too breathless and too much is elided for my taste.
Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Faithful Lurker
@Barbara: I just found WaterGirl’s email address and sent a request to her. She is so very good at organizing these things. I don’t know where to start either. I thought the Four Directions folks might have a connection to the orgs on the Pine Ridge Res.
This indeed needs to be local, but I’m sure some help from all over would be welcome.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Another Scott: right, Meadows had copies approved by WH Counsel, and not. It’s not clear which he wanted to pass out. Still, I find Hutchinson credible and if McCarthy was saying, “I don’t want that”, and MM was burning shit in his fireplace (which is almost too gothic to be believed)… I get the sense Meadows is between a rock and a hard place.
Barbara
@Faithful Lurker: Actual donations of food and blankets have to come from nearby to get to people who need them now. Money can come from anywhere, but it has to get to where it can do good right now
ETA: I donated to First Families Now, which is using current donations to fund relief efforts to Pine Ridge.
Faithful Lurker
@Barbara: Yeah, I get your point but blankets, food, firewood, etc. don’t appear from thin air or wishes. They need backing.
First families is a good start. Maybe send that link, suggestion to WaterGirl?
zhena gogolia
@Faithful Lurker: Last night WaterGirl was having trouble with her e-mail. I think she might be a little overloaded right now.
Kirk Spencer
@mali muso:
So part of the cause is legit. Southwest works on a serial route model, while most everyone else uses hub and spoke. Each has advantages but the route method breaks when one of the stops breaks.
Route model example. Plane starts in LA, stops at salt lake city, Denver, Kansas City, Philadelphia, Boston. Crews change through flight. Advantage is overall passenger trip times are less. But if slc shuts down everything downstream is a major issue to recover.
Hub and spoke may be frustrating but each hub has lots of planes and is home for several flight crews, so you’re not stuck because pilot x is delayed en route due to the blizzard.
Not to say there aren’t problems when the hub shuts down – see United and American at Denver for examples. But it’s 20% vs 70% of passengers having problems
Faithful Lurker
This is interesting, as always but I have to go to work now. Later.
Barbara
@Faithful Lurker: It just seems like asking WG to reinvent the wheel when links have already been posted to the organizations that are on the ground. Which doesn’t mean we couldn’t keep track of donations or host a matching drive for those who are interested.
Suzanne
EHHHHH.
Construction (sewer line and other infrastructure) has been going on in the alley behind our house for weeks, if not months. It’s been loud and disruptive, has required detours, and messed with parking. We thought they finally finished about two weeks ago. I wake up this morning, and there’s no water. We thought maybe the pipes froze….but it’s warmed up since that “bomb cyclone” storm o 12/23-24. Turns out there’s a leak with the work they just did, so the water will be off for most of the day.
Barbara
@Kirk Spencer: That’s useful information. Thanks. I totally know what you mean — I used to fly SW from BWI to Albany, NY to visit one of my kids at school, and the plane that I was on was usually going to Atlanta next — So BWI to Albany to Atlanta. Atlanta passengers got on in both places. If Albany got plastered (a good bet) then the whole model is kaput. The other thing is, hubs being the way they are, they tend to get high levels of immediate attention to restore function — but if you have the SW model, you have to get a lot of places cleared out to bring it back to normal. Much harder to quickly concentrate resources where they are needed that way.
zhena gogolia
@Suzanne: Ugh, I hate that.
Barbara
@Suzanne: This is my entire county. One mammoth construction project after another, with seemingly endless detours.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
They whine when POTUS goes to Delaware.
They can go and sit down and STFU.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
That’s a newly carved out district for a Latino representative.
She wouldn’t have won in the OLD 3rd Congressional District.
Once again, people need to stay in their lanes and read the room.
She is a from a newly carved out BLUE district in a BLUE state.
What works in Illinois might not work elsewhere.
Barbara
@rikyrah: Whining about Delaware is especially laughable because I actually know people who commute between Delaware and DC every day. It’s not exactly a normal “Joe” thing to do, but it’s not unusual for certain types of workers (e.g., construction workers or secretaries). Leave it to journalists not to actually know that about the people who work in their very own city.
rikyrah
Any Jackals from Buffalo checked in? How are they doing?
I have been watching the TikToks made from Buffalo, and I don’t think the national media has quite grasped the situation in Buffalo.
I look the pictures, and I get Chicago Storm 1967 from them. I wasn’t born, but, that storm lingered long in the memories of my family for DECADES. All starts the same way:
Two days before, it was 65 degrees.
And 48 hours later, the city was paralyzed by snow.
The abandoned vehicles…the drifts….it came so hard and so fast, and I don’t they were warned properly about it. It’s the loss of power that frightens me.
A snowstorm is a snowstorm, as long as you are inside, and have power. Eventually, it will stop, and you can go about beginning to dig out. But, that loss of power…terrifying.
Barbara
@rikyrah: I think it will be a long learning curve before we accept that for both cold weather and warm weather storms there is a new normal that exceeds our usual expectations for severe weather. You live in Buffalo, you are told of an impending big storm and you just kind of shrug your shoulders. Same with hurricanes in many places. “No, really, this is something beyond normal” can sometimes have a hard time penetrating your actual experience, plus, you probably can summon lots of examples of being “overwarned” in the past. If I lived in Buffalo, as soon as November 1 hits, I would stock up on canned goods and powdered milk and make sure I have a supply of propane for a gas grill, and a camping stove ready to go if necessary.
Ohio Mom
@WereBear: My (totally unsubstantiated) theory is the the number of retired East Coast Jews moving to Florida shrunk and the ones already in Florida started dying off (or, in their final years, moving north to be closer to their adult chikdten). There went a reliable group of Democratic voters.
Maybe not the whole story but could be a contributing factor.
Barbara
@Ohio Mom: Well, here is my Occam’s Razor view: Senior citizens rely on government programs that are funded and protected by the federal government. They no longer have a stake in state funded goods, like schools. They vote accordingly.
Jackie
Too delicious!
“Shooters Grill, the gun-themed restaurant owned by far-right Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.), has closed down and will soon be replaced by Tapatios Family Mexican Restaurant.”
https://www.rawstory.com/gop-rep-lauren-boeberts-gun-themed-eatery-will-be-replaced-by-a-mexican-restaurant/
Article links to the NYT.
Ohio Mom
@Barbara: Makes sense. I remember going door-to-door for a school levy and often heard from oldsters, “Nope, I don’t have kids in the district anymore.”
Just once, a smarter one said he knew his property values depended on the schools so what choice did he have? He’d be voting yes, reluctantly.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ohio Mom: one of my mom’s closest friends was a school district employee, and voted against every increase in funding. When they had to bring trailers in to the school she worked at because of overcrowding, she told my mom it was a stunt.
CaseyL
@SFAW:
I wonder if the huge influx of criminals and the drug trade in the 1980s also made a difference, though not in the way you might think. More along the lines of Florida’s social and financial systems being shaped even more than they already are by scammers, grifters, and members of semi-organized gangs.
The 1980s were the era of Miami Vice. The drug trade with its millions of dollars, and the gang wars over it, was everywhere, all the time. I lived in the area during the 80s and it defies description how utterly corrupted the entire area became.
(One small example: I dated a criminal defense attorney. His client routinely showed up after working hours and paid their legal fees with suitcases full of cash. This was normal. It was also normal, when he and I went out on the town, for him to warn me off from his many friends who came up to say Hi: they were clients, and dangerous, and he didn’t want me getting mixed up with them.)
Those who weren’t murdered, prospered and aged and had families. Their kids are now in their 30s-40s. They grew up in a lawless, corrupt culture: “lawless and corrupt” are the norms they understand. Not to mention authoritarian, as many/most of them came from despot-ruled countries in Central and South America. (That’s even before the folks came fleeing from Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela.)
Barbara
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: People wring their hands over trailers, but newer trailers that have soundproofing are actually pretty decent, and they can moderate the need for expensive capital investment that might not be needed long-term, or that can be undertaken more efficiently over a longer period of time.
rikyrah
@mali muso:
I am stunned and confused watching this. It makes no sense.
Geminid
@rikyrah: You are right that someone who just won a safe blue district is not an authority on campaign messaging strategy. I described that article despite its headline because I think it’s good to know more about the incoming freshman.
And it was kind of a slow morning here.
When it comes to winning campaigns, I pay attention more to Democrats who flip red districts, like Lauren Underwood and Sharice Davids. In this upcoming class, I would tend value the opinions of say, Mary Peltola (AL), Gabe Vasquez (NM) and Marie Gluesencamp Perez (WA) more than Representative Ramirez’s.
Have you checked out the new Illinois 13th CD Representative, Nikki Budzinski? She has a lot of political experience despite this being the first public office she’s ever run for. Budzinski’s Wikipedia biography is an interesting read. She’ll be Watergirl’s Representative in six days and I bet Watergirl can’t wait to finally be rid of Rodney Davis.
piratedan
@Faithful Lurker: I believe one of the local outfits goes by the name of First Families Now
https://www.1stfamiliesnow.org/
Rebel’s Dad
@Betty Cracker: Shorter Cokie Roberts: “America has so many wonderful warm places to vacation, why is the President going to some place exotic like St. Croix?”
Anyway
I, for one, am glad that POTUS and family are taking some time for a vacation. His schedule is so stressful and jam-packed — he definitely needs time to decompress and recharge …
trollhattan
@rikyrah: My “Onion” headline would be “Texas Corporation Discovers Existence of Snow.”
IIUC from an operations standpoint, many of their pilots have to deadhead long distances to begin their workday–unlike airlines organized around major hubs–and that meant only a relative handful of them were able to report to work during this weather event.
They’re also a leading reason Boeing gave the world the 737 Max, a story for another day.
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: Does anybody maintain a “Days Biden spent playing golf” webpage?
Gin & Tonic
@Ohio Mom: Here’s the thing, though. I’ve lived in my town a long time, and I’ve served on both school and municipal budget committees, so I know a little about this. The cost to the district of my three kids going through 12 years of public school is (in very round numbers) about a hundred years’ worth of the median home’s property tax. People tend to think “my property taxes pay for my kids to go to school.” Bullshit. They are a small fraction of what it costs.
Ksmiami
@Barbara: at least people in Buffalo have the gear: warm clothes, blankets, shovels, etc… I lived through the Dallas freeze and hundreds died due to lack of appropriate attire and inadequate insulation. Not to mention a state government that just dgaf
Soprano2
@rikyrah: Yeah, what I’ve been hearing horrifies me. The death toll will climb once people start actually digging out. I heard one man say that when driving it was like having a sheet of white paper on your windshield. I cannot imagine driving in that kind of conditions, and then the fear that if you stop your car will be buried in the snow……horrifying!
Soprano2
@Ohio Mom: That’s such a dumb attitude. I’ve never had kids, but I have nieces and nephews and now grand-nieces and nephews who will be using those schools, so I want them to be as good as they can be. Such a small, pinched attitude – “I don’t directly benefit, so I don’t want it”.
trollhattan
@Ksmiami: Am curious, has Texas done thing one to improve the power grid since that freeze debacle? I remain stupefied they consider being physically disconnected from the rest of the country to be “a good thing.”
Kathleen
@Ohio Mom: That’s sad. When I owned condos I always supported levies for Cincinnati Public Schools because I believed in importance of good education for my neighborhood and my city and because my daughter benefitted from her experience in Cincinnati Public school (she attended School for Creative and Performing Arts). I rent now but still support levies even though my landlord might increase rent as a result.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: My husband is from Buffalo and has family who still live there. We talked to his sister on Christmas, and she said this was worse than the 1977 blizzard.
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: They use the same logic as the conservative woman I argued with about this a long time ago. She wanted the government to pay all the money it cost for her child to go to school to her in a voucher so she could pay for private school tuition with it. She saw all of that as “her” money. I pointed out to her that “her” money was only a fraction of the amount it cost for her child to be educated; everyone’s money was pooled, including that of people like me who don’t have children in the school at all. I told her I was glad to give her the money *she* actually paid in, but she couldn’t have everyone else’s money, because they paid it in the expectation that all children would benefit. She finally grudgingly admitted that yes, the amount of money that she alone paid in wouldn’t come close to paying for a private or religious school’s tuition, so I had a point. They really see your money as “theirs”.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: I remember that blizzard and how hard Buffalo was hit. Cincy had a big one in 1978 but it was not nearly as bad as Buffalo. I know they are a hardy people up there and it’s so sad to hear how hard they were hit and the horror stories. ETA I hope your husband’s family is safe, warm and well.
smedley the uncertain
@rikyrah: No Mail delivery since Friday here in western province of NY. Trucks are just arriving today from Buffalo.
James E Powell
@SFAW:
Same thing happened to my home state of Ohio. The racism was always there, just not the only thing they cared about.
Can’t understand how Mahoning & Trumbull turned against Tim Ryan.
J R in WV
@Baud:
What he said !!!
eachother
@mali muso:
“Here I was thinking it would be hookers and blow.”
https://nypost.com/2012/04/18/new-low-blow-coke-eyed-at-secret-service-ho-down/
“At least 11 Secret Service members and 10 US military personnel partied with as many as 21 hookers at the hotel, according to Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), chair of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.”
Did they sniff out the offenders?
WaterGirl
@Geminid:
You need to use his full name. :-) Rodney. Fucking. Davis.