Schumer in his opening Senate floor remarks: "In no time at all, the House Republicans are off to the rockiest start of any new majority in recent memory. I've never seen anything like this." https://t.co/cbr7GJTtUO pic.twitter.com/uAi7l08rHV
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) January 24, 2023
Schumer: "I think many within the Republicans’ own ranks recognize a national sales tax is especially a dim-witted idea. Grover Norquist, whose ideas on tax are far away from most Americans, and he’s one of the most conservative voices out there. He called it a 'terrible idea'.”
— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) January 24, 2023
The December Omnibus Bill’s Little Secret: It Was Also a Giant Health Bill @NYTimes: “Congress passed legislation on mental health, drugs, pandemic preparedness, new Medicare benefits and Medicaid expansion — all before the arrival of the new House.” https://t.co/2JVAF7FSTw
— Sahil Kapur (@sahilkapur) January 22, 2023
It wasn’t secret, so much as overlooked by Repubs squabbling for a chunk of the spotlight. Gift link:
The giant spending bill passed by Congress last month kept the government open. But it also quietly rewrote huge areas of health policy: Hundreds of pages of legislation were devoted to new health care programs.
The legislation included major policy areas that committees had been hammering away at all year behind the scenes — like a big package designed to improve the nation’s readiness for the next big pandemic. It also included items that Republicans had been championing during the election season — like an extension of telemedicine coverage in Medicare. And it included small policy measures that some legislators have wanted to pass for years, like requiring Medicare to cover compression garments for patients with lymphedema…
Big, “must-pass” bills like the $1.7 trillion omnibus often attract unrelated policy measures that would be hard to pass alone. But the scope of the health care legislation in last month’s bill is unusual. At the end of 2022, congressional leaders decided to do something that staffers call “clearing the decks,” adding all the potentially bipartisan health policy legislation that was ready and written. There turned out to be a lot to clear…
The coming change made the omnibus bill a critical opportunity to pass pieces of legislation that might have withered in the new Congress. Many of the health measures weren’t controversial enough to stop the omnibus from passing as one big bill. They might not have all succeeded on their own, however…
Crucially, most of the bill’s health measures had bipartisan support in Congress. Even though Democrats held majorities in both the House and Senate, the bill needed 10 Republican Senate votes to overcome a legislative filibuster. It got far more — the omnibus passed the Senate by a 68–29 margin. (In the House, where Republicans were less involved in negotiations over the bill since their votes were not needed, a greater share voted against it. The final vote was 225–201.)
The consequence of all this deck clearing is that it may be a quiet Congress for new health legislation. There are a few health funding programs that will need to be renewed, including funding for programs to combat opioid addiction and overdoses, and one to subsidize hospitals that treat uninsured patients…
The remaining wish list for Democrats includes measures to broaden Medicare benefits and to expand abortion rights — things they could not pass even when they controlled the House. As part of concessions with right-wing lawmakers to secure the speakership, Mr. McCarthy has promised Republicans in the House will propose substantial spending cuts to balance the budget in a decade, a goal that would be impossible without cuts to some or all of the major health programs — Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare. But those would never advance with Democrats controlling the Senate and White House…
Analysis: A poll asked Republicans and Democrats their views on whether the two leaders handled documents appropriately. Rarely do we have situations that are analogous enough to provide a direct comparison of how much partisans defend their leaders. https://t.co/0Tr4npp3wr
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 25, 2023
… After former president Donald Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago was searched in August, congressional Republicans almost instantly circled the wagons. They attacked the search despite knowing very little about it and despite Trump’s demonstrated failure to return the documents when asked to over several months. And they have said relatively little about Trump’s underlying conduct.
Many top Democrats, by contrast, have actually ventured rather sharp criticisms of President Biden.
And that’s reflective of how the American people view these cases more broadly, with Republicans shrugging at the conduct of one of their own in a way Democrats don’t.
A Quinnipiac University poll released last week showed Democrats were about evenly split when it comes to whether Biden acted “appropriately” with regard to the documents; 41 percent said he did, and 38 percent said he didn’t. A majority (55 percent) called the situation at least “somewhat serious.”
But Republicans were far less likely to view Trump as having acted inappropriately or his situation being serious. The same poll in August showed 61 percent of the GOP said Trump had acted appropriately, while just 19 percent said he hadn’t. And just 27 percent regarded the situation as at least “somewhat serious” — about half the percentage of Democrats that say the same of Biden today.
That divide exists even though what’s known about the Trump case is pretty objectively more severe: Trump had many more known classified documents, he held on to them over a longer period even when the authorities came calling, and his lawyers asserted, to their knowledge, that all such documents had been returned. (The FBI search revealed that there were, indeed, more such documents at Mar-a-Lago.)…
It’s notable but not shocking that Republicans would rally to Trump’s cause here. Partisans are naturally more likely to give one of their own the benefit of the doubt, and the GOP’s partisans in particular have stuck with Trump through many other controversies.
But rarely do we have situations that are analogous enough to provide such a direct comparison of how much partisans on each side are doing sticking by their leaders. And this suggests Republicans are much more willing to do so, while Democrats take a more nuanced view of their party leaders’ missteps.
Either that or it suggests that many people simply don’t have an accurate sense of the details of each of the situations because of their media diet. Another recent poll, from Marquette University, asked people whether they believed Trump “had top secret and other classified material or national security documents at his home in Mar-a-Lago this summer.”
He, of course, did. But two-thirds of Republicans — 66 percent — said they believed he didn’t.
There is an antique Catholic doctrine (I have not been able to find a good explainer) called ‘custody of the eyes’. As I understood it, from my parochial-school education, it was incumbent upon good Catholics not to look at ‘worldly’ things that might disturb our spiritual purity; we were abjured to avoid not just ‘vulgar’ books and movies, but even glancing at advertisements for such filth. Pious saints were described as avoiding so much as looking directly at another person, for fear of some instinctive, unGodly impulse of human connection.
As progressives have never ceased complaining — look at George Orwell — custody of the eyes is more correctly understood as custody of the mind… and today’s Repubs practice a political form of such ‘custody’ which would shame a cloistered Carmelite. They refuse to expose their beautiful minds to any media that might inadvertantly sway their attention from the One True Republican Path (as adjusted by this week’s divine revelations from Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, et al). What kind of catastrophe will it take to jolt such wilful blindness?
On The Road – MollyS – The Streets of Lyon France (2)
Baud
Like Balloon Juice?
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
Unfortunately, our political media takes that to mean that it’s safe to hammer Dem missteps and not safe to address GOP misfeasance.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
gene108
@rikyrah:
Good morning 🌞☀️
I think the biggest takeaway from Republicans rallying behind Trump is they don’t give a damn how corrupt their guy is, as long as their guy does things they like.
Democrats have actual ethical standards.
Baud
@gene108:
I’m doomed.
Benw
I just wish they’d keep the government outta my classified documents!
different-church-lady
@Benw: If they can fail to arrest Trump for keeping classified documents, they can fail to arrest you.
lowtechcyclist
I sure hope that’s not Catholic doctrine anymore, because that is one screwed-up doctrine.
PST
However messy the streets and sidewalks becomes later, it was sublimely beautiful here in Chicago at 5:30. We were out early because I missed Bernie’s usual bedtime walk last night. I was struck by the shadows cast in still air by big fluffy snowflakes falling under bright streetlights on undisturbed snow. Where’s Claude Monet when you need him? It was one of those times when you suddenly feel what a miracle it is to be a sentient being in the world.
different-church-lady
Because the modern GOP is a cult of personality instead of a political party.
mrmoshpotato
Wow! This 30% sales tax crap is too batshit insane for Grover “My goal is to cut government in half in twenty-five years, to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.” Norquist!
Hilariously, I copied that quote from BrainyQuote. I guess someone is squatting on DumbfuckQuote.
Baud
I just saw a news clip about the Senate hearing on Ticketmaster and the Taylor Swift fiasco.
I love me some Dem Senators, but none of you are cool enough to quote Taylor Swift lyrics to make a point. Please stop.
bbleh
What kind of catastrophe will it take to jolt such wilful blindness?
A fatal one, I fear.
They’re too scared to do anything else. Scared of the things they might see (immigrants speaking their own language! men kissing!), scared of admitting to themselves such things are parts of normal everyday life, and perhaps worst of all, scared of their friends and family finding out that they saw and thought these things.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
His problem is probably with the 30% than the idea of a national sales tax.
Anne Laurie
@Baud: Last Mass I attended was part of my (mandatory) high school graduation ceremony, and that’s coming up on fifty years ago.
To be fair, I doubt ‘the Church’ has missed me any more than I’ve missed them!
MagdaInBlack
@PST: Looking out from my balcony in the nw suburbs, I agree it’s beautiful. In few I will be driving in it and I suspect I’ll need to focus on the beauty, rather than the fact the roads are crap even with just this inch or 2 ( so far.)
Wvng
About that poll on partisan attitudes, this pattern repeats itself on virtually every issue, reflecting the stark difference between the two parties. For Republicans its all about tribe, for democrats it’s about good governance. This is reflected both in the legislature and the public at large. It is both Democrats strength and weakness, weakness because it limits the range of behavior acceptable to the party, while Republicans don’t care about the hurt they cause.
Snarki, child of Loki
Amazing.
Grover Norquist isn’t a “stopped clock”, he’s a “stopped calendar”.
Stuck on 29 Feb.
rikyrah
😠😠😠
Tommy Vietor (@TVietor08) tweeted at 7:35 PM on Tue, Jan 24, 2023:
Youtube and “free-speech absolutist” @elonmusk cave to the Indian government’s demand that they remove links to a documentary critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. What else is @Twitter censoring for Modi’s government? https://t.co/BTebDjdwzA
(https://twitter.com/TVietor08/status/1618060018687049728?s=02)
mrmoshpotato
@PST: Oh, it isn’t much snow, but it will still be sloppy today.
Giverny Church Cemetery
Giverny, Departement de l’Eure, Haute-Normandie, France
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
True. Norquist would probably prefer 3000% sales tax.
Amir Khalid
Democrats hold their own, especially their leaders, to a high ethical and legal standard. Republicans, as they are now, prize loyalty to the group above observance of ethics or the law. The Republicans of today would have circled the wagons around Nixon during the Watergate scandal simply because he was one of their own, just as they did for TFG. Republicans are for party above country, simple as that.
Cameron
@Benw: The only thing that will stop a bad guy with a classified document……
Cameron
@Wvng: Best example, Ron DeSantis.
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@gene108: The thing is Trump never actually DID any of the things they like. The big tax cut bill was Mitch’s wet dream and not that popular amongst Trump’s base. All Trump did was mouth the right words and I guess that’s enough for them. Oh and he put kids in cages which they apparently saw as a win.
Baud
@Wvng:
Also a weakness because we tend to get disheartened by the slightest imperfection or mistake.
Baud
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Supreme Court. Although any GOP president would have done the same.
Leto
A 23-Year-Old Mayor Tried Trump’s Stolen Election Playbook. Only It Worked.
Elizabelle
@PST: That sounds wonderful. Love fresh snow, especially when it is still falling.
Happy winter to you and Bernie.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@PST: Snow quiets everything down. Maybe it quiets us too
different-church-lady
@Baud:
There is one thing Democrats and Republicans have in common: blaming Democrats for everything.
Baud
@Leto:
The guy looks 10 years old.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I blame Democrats for that attitude.
Bupalos
An orthagonal thought – catastrophes don’t generally tend to cure blindness. The assumption that catastrophe or collapse tends to make the moral landscape better rather than worse is where “heighten the contradictions” gets its deformed legs.
different-church-lady
@Leto:
That was not Trump’s playbook. Trump’s playbook was to use stochastic terrorism to get people killed.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
Well, as we should.
gene108
@Amir Khalid:
I think one of the lessons Republicans learned from Watergate is to circle the wagons and protect their own. They did this with Reagan and Iran-Contra, and they did this with Bush, Jr. not having to testify under oath to the 9/11 Committee, as well as backing everything Bush, Jr. did – from the Iraq War to his handling of Katrina- until he became too unpopular to support.
For a certain set of Republicans, they view the accountability that came after Watergate as a negative outcome and have worked to undo it.
Baud
@gene108:
I think getting Republican voters to see themselves as Republicans first and Americans second was one of Reagan’s lasting legacy.
Kay
Love AL’s political commentary. It’s a lot of work so we’re not getting it every day (understandably) but I do love when she sits down and writes one like this.
Baud
@Bupalos:
Agreed.
Baud
@Kay:
Also agreed.
Kay
@rikyrah:
I love it because why did they all think he was a “free speech absolutist”?
Because he’s rich and he said so. There’s no evidence for it.
gene108
@What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?:
Banning immigration is extremely popular with Republicans. It’s much more popular than any negative feelings about tax cuts for rich people.
Second, Republicans love politicians who say the right things, in the right tone, with a certain look they find manly. They loved Mike Pence staring down North Korea, for example.
Spanky
Oh boy. Dick Durbin coming up on Morning Joe.
Van Buren
Two of my students tested positive for COVID yday, and my coteacher tested positive this morning. Can’t say I’m very motivated to do any teaching right now.
SFAW
@Baud:
Not Balloon Juice as an entity. I think it more applies to “pantsless commenters.” But I could be worng.
Betty Cracker
@PST:
Those are the best moments!
Baud
@gene108:
See also McNaughton paintings.
Baud
@SFAW:
If so, I can’t say the Church was wrong there.
Wvng
@Baud: There is also the craven weakness thing like when Obama’s opening act trying to close Gimp and Dems ran away because if craven GOP lies about it. Also strength when holding the line to vote for the ACA, knowing it would cost seats.
Betty Cracker
We now know that hundreds of thousands of needless deaths due to pandemic politicization don’t rate high enough on the catastrophe scale. Ditto a POTUS attempting to shake down a vulnerable ally for political dirt, a brazen coup plot at the highest levels of government and a related violent assault on our national capitol building.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Baud: You could always try to secure the nomination of the National Radical Meadow Party. As I understand it, they’re always on the hunt for a good candidate.
Amir Khalid
@Baud:
No, don’t see McNaughton paintings. All of them are cringe, as the young people say.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think the Republicans come at this from a more Evangelical mindset. To them Trump is God’s chosen instrument, so if Trump does a crime God is okay with it.
Kay
@Van Buren:
Oh, I’m sorry. One of my sisters has it right now – she’s a nurse- and she says the cough is rough – really painful.
trnc
@mrmoshpotato:
Don’t overlook the distinct possibility that Norquist is lying publicly while privately working behind the scenes to support it.
Amir Khalid
@gene108:
Hmm. Aren’t the vast majority of Republicans themselves descended from immigrants?
(I know you know that, of course; I’m wondering if they understand that.)
Betty Cracker
@Amir Khalid: McNaughton paintings are so over-the-top awful that sometimes I think the artist is a cynic who’s just milking the rubes. A dude down the road from us had a McNaughton print prominently displayed in his living room. It was a reproduction of the painting of Trump riding a Harley in front of the White House with the Third Lady on the back of the bike, so apparently there’s a market for this crap. (I know this because when someone lists a house in the area, I check it out on Zillow due to nosiness!)
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: That was the worst bit for me. In my 5-shot vaccinated state, COVID in its current form was basically a bad cold, except that for one day (Saturday) I had a sore throat so intense that it was painful to talk or swallow. It was this raging irritation more like what you expect from strep throat. Led to horrible coughing fits because I have a pretty intense gag reflex. And then it cleared to the more normal type of post-cold throat crud.
Nicole
Oh my god, I’m so tired of a political party trying to sell a national sales tax as a good idea for anyone other than the wealthy. It’s just as dumb an idea as a flat income tax. I wish it were possible to drum into people’s heads:
mrmoshpotato
@Leto: Bravo to that Daily Beast writer for going all British and calling Matt Schlapp an “accused sex pest.”
Soprano2
Yes, this explains so much of their behavior. The cult leader can never do anything wrong, no matter what it is. If only the press had the guts to start treating the Republican Party like the cult it’s become. That would help the American people understand it better.
Speaking of, the state of MO finally closed the Agape Boarding School down, so what do you think happened? A former Agape principle and his wife registered a new name and said they’re opening a “new” school at the same place, using the same facilities and many of the same employees!!! And they’ll get away with it too, because way too many religious people think the way to get kids to behave better is to abuse them. This guy says many of the complaints against Agape were overblown and exaggerated, so that tells you what his philosophy is.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud:
You need to calm down.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: I’m sure all the Twitter “free speech warriors” will get right on that /s/s/s/s/s/s/s
Soprano2
@Kay: In fact, there’s lots of evidence that Musk is anything but a “free speech warrior”, starting with how he banned anyone who said anything critical about him! This is just more evidence that when the requests of countries with different laws run up against his supposed “free speech ideals”, the other country’s laws will win every time.
mrmoshpotato
@Amir Khalid:
Haha. Great response.
Soprano2
There is none. Studies have shown that contrary to what common sense would tell you, cult members just double down when their cult leader is shown to be wrong about something. So there is no catastrophe that will part them from their love of TFG. I think what would do it is the continuing perception that he’s a loser. I think we’ll find that the midterm results are going to hurt him quite a bit.
mrmoshpotato
@trnc:
My mistake.
Soprano2
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Evangelicals have finally shown the world what I’ve known about them for a long time – many of them don’t really believe in a lot of that pious crap they spout as soon as it becomes inconvenient for them to believe it. The minute they saw a candidate who they believed could give them the Supreme Court of their dreams, they dropped all pretense of believing that only a person of exemplary character should be president – something they have been saying since Bill Clinton was president. They practice “situational ethics” just as much as everyone else does.
prostratedragon
@Betty Cracker: I can’t quiet that suspicion either. They’re not merely bad. They’re spectaclarly awful.
Soprano2
They’ll tell you that their ancestors came here the “right way”, and assimilated, unlike this current crop of immigrants. What they conveniently leave out is that for most of our history there wasn’t really a “correct” way to immigrate here. Every generation here always believes that the current group of immigrants is somehow different, don’t want to assimilate and want to completely change the U.S., as opposed to every other wave of immigrants who came here previously. It’s stupid. All you have to do is look at how the immigrants who came here between 1900 – 1920 were talked about at the time – it was the exact same rhetoric from the anti-immigrant people. Same with the Irish in the 1850’s, and the Italians later. It’s always fear of the “other” “different” immigrant.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker:
I check them out to see if the house is on fire, or if it has a sex dungeon in the basement.
(For the record, both conditions are a definite No for me.)
Soprano2
I do the same thing – I want to know what it looks like on the inside, and how much they’re trying to sell it for.
Ken
Since Norquist started his “shrink government” crusade back in the 1980s, the Federal government has gone from about 600 billion dollars in outlays, to over 6,000 billion dollars. So he can look back on his life’s work as a huge failure.
(Source, which also shows that the biggest bump in outlays — nearly 50% in one year — was in 2020 under you-know-who. Pandemic, of course.)
Soprano2
So the snow is over, and the freakout turned out to be over about 4″ here in the city. The local state university cancelled classes today! I know this is “old woman yells at clouds” stuff, but when I was in college the only time they cancelled classes was when it snowed over 10″. Sometimes I wonder if current students start their working life believing that their work will be cancelled if it snows a few inches; they’re going to be disappointed, that’s for sure.
Kay
Good article on the abortion pill lawsuit in Texas:
The “crisis pregnancy centers” really do dress their religious fanatic employees in medical gear to deceive/ trick women. The practice was subject to lawsuits in both NY and CA and the crisis pregnancy centers did not deny they were doing this.
The constant lying is a big part of this “movement” and their goal of pushing US women back 100 years.
Geminid
@trnc: Norquist might like the principle of a national sales tax. I think his objections are based on practical politics. This sales tax is a loser electorally and could lead to a Republican wipeout in the 2024 House elections, and a Democratic majority that could raise taxes.
I don’t think McCarthy can get a majority for this bill, but he agreed to try in order to win his Speaker elections. Democrats will still make it a line of attack in 2024, even against Republicans who voted against the tax.
prostratedragon
@Soprano2: 10 inches?! The first systemwide snow day I recall in Chicago was when I wad in high school. With great reluctance classes were cancelled for maybe 2 days after over 21 inches in as many hours had unexpectedly fallen.
Geminid
@Ken: Norquist also was a pioneer of direct mail political fundraising, both for his own and for other people’s causes. He was much more successful in that area.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: What year are you talking about?
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: It’s all relative, we have the plowing capacity to make anything under 8″ not that big of a deal, but once we get to a foot or more we have a harder time. It doesn’t snow enough here to support the kind of street clearing capacity a place like Chicago has. It’s why 1″ paralyzes a place like Dallas.
mrmoshpotato
@Soprano2:
Also, Chicago’s mayor loses re-election if they botch snow removal during a blizzard.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: I got into the habit when we were house-hunting several years back and I had a legit interest in poring over listings. The stuff people choose to display in listings always amazes me. I mean, they could choose to temporarily MOVE that painting! I’m capable of looking past crap decor or we’d have never bought this place, which went heavy on the hunting theme, complete with deer heads, gun racks and camo upholstery, lol!
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato: 1967. Just refreshed my memory at wpedia when I realized the anniversary is this week. Type “1967 Chicago” and you’ll get it.
prostratedragon
@Soprano2: Oh, we were good and flatfooted in 1967. I remember well that it had been unseasonally warm, with a cold front expected to bring freezing rain and a few inches of snow. By about 8am you could hardly see down the street through the falling snow.
gene108
@Soprano2:
I seriously doubt India has any laws banning criticism of the government on social media. This is like the Trump administration trying bully Twitter in 2020. Back then Twitter held firm.
Link
Jinchi
Custody of the Mind sounds like a pretty good description of what’s going on in DeSantises Florida education policy, most recently criminalizing teachers having books in their classrooms.
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: Ah. Things got shut down by a blizzard in 1999 too. My brother and I made it to school just to find out it was closed. Getting back home via the CTA was fun.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: Shake it off. Shake it off.
Amir Khalid
@Betty Cracker:
Eew…
Omnes Omnibus
@Matt McIrvin: I remember it all too well.
Jay
@Amir Khalid:
Its so when you throw the couch out curbside, the HOA never notices the bylaw infraction.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: I take it they didn’t leave any guns behind in those racks.
One must be properly camouflaged while playing Duck Hunt on NES.
Jinchi
I remember being a kid in Boston, listening for the school cancellation announcements on snowy days. City after city would shut down, but ours remained stubbornly open. During one storm we went trudging through the snow to the train station only to find that the entire system was impassible, and we were thrilled to discover we could legitimately skip school and enjoy the unauthorized snow day.
Kosh III
I would support a 30% tax IF it included ALL sales like STOCKS and bonds, services like lawyers and accountants etc.
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato: I managed to catch a couple on visits home while I was living elsewhere. That might have been one. The ’67 one happened on Records Day, i.e. teachers only, so we CPS kids were at home, but my mother, for instance, made almost a U-turn. Took her only about 4 hours for a 40-minute trip.
Side note: this was a couple of weeks after McCormick Place burned down. Made for some haunting views driving past. (Didn’t realize Beschloss is from Chicago.)
Layer8Problem
@Soprano2: I worked at a state college many a year ago, and woke up one morning to twenty inches of snow from a big storm in the Northeast, very Dr. Zhivago-looking out my window, and no phone chain call saying don’t come in. I called my manager to ask “WTF?” and the answer was “Administration says ‘Buffalo’s still open, Plattsburgh’s still open, so we get to stay open'”. She however was a sane human being and said to use your best judgement. Which I did.
narya
@Betty Cracker: My all-time favorite was a house that had Dale Earnhardt stuff EVERYWHERE. complete set of Wheaties boxes. Several stand-up cardboard images. Every possible thing you can imagine.
narya
Also, for you Chicago peeps who were fans of Lin Brehmer, they did a radio “wake,” basically, on Monday, and it’s up, in pieces, on Audacy, til Sunday. It was really remarkable–I don’t remember anything remotely like it in my radio-listening life.
jeffreyw
Bah! Five inches of heavy, wet snow has led to a couple of power outages that are more annoying than serious. I see some downed branches in the yard.
soapdish
Has anyone seen any further information about Florida rolling back Medicaid coverage starting April 1? Since this is Florida I’m assuming it’s a terrible idea based almost entirely on meanness and punching down but I’d like to verify.
https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2023/01/24/medicaid-benefits–unwinding-
The Moar You Know
Nothing. As human history amply shows, zealots always choose going down with the ship.
This has some rather potentially dire consequences as regards the political situation in America and the political and military situation in Russia. One can and should always hope for the best.
Anyway
@Geminid:
Richard Viguerie is credited as the true pioneer and revolutionary in harnessing direct mail strategies for conservative causes.
sdhays
@different-church-lady: Yeah, this almost certainly just involved bribing the entire city council.
...now I try to be amused
@Baud:
With the implication that Republicans are the only Americans.
raven
@prostratedragon: I was in AIT at Ft Knox and had “volunteered” to be a fireman. Little did I know that that was trudging from one wood barracks to another shoveling coal into the furnaces to keep the “fires” burning. In Villa Park my old man had to climb out a second story window to get out!
raven
@Anyway: There’s a good bit of that in Mrs America about Schlafly.
Kay
I love to think about the people who went along with this ridiculous “woke” panic on Fox and in the NYTimes and on Substack seeing “wokeness” everywhere :)
“The panel on my fuse box – woke!”
It has to be like WASTEFUL of energy in order to be “not woke”.
“Turn up the heat and open all the windows! That’ll show the Woke Mob!”
gvg
@gene108: It’s not completely unpopular among all normie democrats. What I mean is a lot of them have these exceptions they don’t think about. They like people and want to be nice but they think that American farms and manufacturing can be brought back and protected and that immigration should be slowed down. They don’t realize that immigration has been slowed down to a historical trickle and manipulated so that it benefits already wealthy companies instead of America as a whole or just humanity. Their emotions also get manipulated in ways that make them fall for republican lies at awkward political moments. The ones I know tend to be old and/or not trained in economics. And it’s not like we wouldn’t all like to also bring back all those jobs too and aren’t trying in other ways.
Baud
@Kay:
As is God, judging by the crazy weather.
catclub
Mark Twain’s “The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyville” had something to say about ‘lead us not into temptation’. Essentially, you need to have temptations in order to know how to resist them.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
The pride of Stanford, Scamperin’ Josh, wants people who aren’t Sean Hannity junkies to think Nancy Pelosi’s valedictory political act was banning stock trading by Congresscritters
artem1s
@Soprano2:
I for one am relieved that municipalities, schools and universities have come to their senses regarding calling snow emergencies. The best thing that can happen is everyone stays home during the height of the event so the city can focus on clearing major routes and dealing with downed power lines instead of battling with commuters stuck in the snow. The last thing they need is major grid lock while having to deal with white outs, freezing rain, wind and more snow coming. Non-emergency businesses that demand their employees show up in the middle of a blizzard are no different than those who won’t pay their staff a living wage.
gvg
@soapdish: I don’t think this is quite as big a deal as you are implying and is probably going to happen nationwide. All it is, is some extra people were put on medicaid during the pandemic and the official pandemic period has to end someday and go back to normal. Those people will be encouraged to sign up for different coverage that Florida offers for them, probably not quite as good and not covered by the Feds, which actually means Florida has to pay not the US by the way.
Of course all programs that help anyone in Florida will get attacked by Desantis sooner or later anyway….
mrmoshpotato
@prostratedragon: 7 cents for the paper. How random.
mrmoshpotato
@narya: Thank you.
RIP Lin.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hawley apparently has a bunch of mutual funds and pension plans, and a ranch! He gets most of his money from book sales.
Josh Hawley Financial Disclosure Shows $467k Book Royalties (businessinsider.com)
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: I think we got hit with a big snow down here that year, too. My mom had pictures of me playing in over a foot of snow in our driveway, and the pics were developed in 1967.
Geminid
@Anyway: I might have got them confused. I know Norquist did it too.
I remember driving by his outfit in the1980s, in Loudon County, Virginia. Loudon County was a favorite place to live for “New Right” political operators back in the day. Close enough to DC, but both rural and genteel
I had a high school friend I’d lost track of. A couple years ago I looked at an online, ultra conservative Virginia political blog and saw that the editor, “the Lovettesville Lady,” was my friend Jeanine. I wasn’t too surprised she was living in Loudon and publishing right wing stuff.
Soprano2
@gene108: I don’t know, maybe schrodinger’s cat knows about that.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: Ronny Jackson recently tweeted that the green woke fanatics had ruined NASA–they were wasting money on making airliners more efficient instead of going to space!! As if this kind of research hadn’t been part of their remit since they were founded.
Scott Manley made a video where he just underlined the word “Aeronautics” in “National Aeronautics and Space Administration”.
Soprano2
@Kay: I got punked by a story I saw yesterday that trans activists were trying to get the song “Natural Woman” banned on Spotify. Turns out that was satire, but in these days when right wingers are complaining about M&M cartoon characters and the power saving setting on a game console, why would you publish a satire like that? Plus, it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that someone could actually lodge a complaint like that, when some holler at anyone using the words “pregnant woman” because that’s not inclusive.
Kay
@Baud:
I think of them as on the hunt. Rooting out wokeness both real and imagined.
One of them was all het up about a school lesson that used “salad bowl” rather than “melting pot”. My junior high textbook had both “melting pot” AND “salad bowl” as an alternative, many, MANY years ago. It means each ethnic group retains some group traditions, beliefs, etc. It’s not new at all.
Baud
@Kay: I would have gone with potpourri.
Another Scott
@raven: I recently heard a good, new to me, word for that – voluntold.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I feel sorry for them sometimes. I’m evangelical on electric mowers – thrilled with mine- and my Righty neighbor went out of his way to tell me he’s “keeping” gas. His cold dead hands….
Like I give a shit. He can keep his loud, blatting gas mower – the electric is the superior tool. Ha ha. He can’t have one. Too woke!
Cameron
Governor DeSantis got his award from the Union League last night. No word yet on whether or not white boots were involved.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: They’d publish a satire like that because they want to drum up resentment of trans people, and obfuscate the fact that contrary to all stereotypes, the bigot right are the KINGS of politically-correct whining and bellyaching about popular culture.
GibberJack
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Lyin’ for the Lord.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: We got a battery-powered snowblower last year. I haven’t busted it out yet this time around though the last snowfall was almost enough to make it worthwhile.
It’s fantastic. I will say it’s not quite enough for the very biggest snowfalls we get, but they make a model one size bigger than that one that would be. And one of the things I absolutely hate most in this world is maintaining small internal combustion engines. When the lawn mower dies I’m inclined to replace it with an electric one. Maybe one that runs on the same batteries we got.
narya
@mrmoshpotato: yeah, it affected me way more than I would have expected. I talked to him many times over the years and always had fun. Once he was doing an event at some small bar, and I showed up; he was going to do some kind of trivia thing. He knew I’d been a philosophy major, so we basically set up a question ahead of time that was DEEP in the weeds on philosophy because he knew I DID in fact know the answer. I won a Leinie’s t-shirt, IIRC, so it wasn’t exactly a huge payout.
Soprano2
@artem1s: But what I’m talking about isn’t “in the middle of a blizzard”. Believe you me, I’ve heard plenty of stories about people doing crazy things during a snowstorm from our people who drive snow plows. What I’m talking about is the week-long fearmongering the weather people do about stuff like this – “It’s coming, the Storm of the Century, it might snow 10 or 12 inches, be very very afraid” when they don’t know any such thing. I agree that if it’s the middle of a heavy storm people should stay home, although that’s often governed by when the snow starts; hard to stay home when it starts at 10:00 in the morning and you’re at work. What happened here was a week-long freak out about what turned out to be a completely ordinary 4″ of wet snow that will probably be melted away by Friday. The city streets were well-cleared this morning at 7:00 a.m. when I went to work. The local state university closed down for 4″ of snow!!!! It’s ridiculous.
delphinium
@Matt McIrvin: @Kay: Yeah, I have a battery-powered snow blower and lawn mower and love them both. Quieter, lighter, easier to handle, extremely low maintenance, and no gas.
Even have a push reel mower for when I want to go extremely ‘woke’.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Agree. They all (Dem and GQP) looked so lame trying that shit.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: If we ever get another mower, I want it to be electric. My husband wants to buy the cheapest gas mower he can find because he’s stuck in 1980 where an expensive gas mower cost $150. They don’t last more than a season; then they become impossible to start because they have carburetor problems and have to be fixed. How cheap is it really if I have to have it fixed every year? *rolleyes
Paul in KY
@prostratedragon: UK only closed during the great blizzard of January 1978. That was first time they had ever closed.
trnc
@Geminid: Sounds right to me.
WaterGirl
@Matt McIrvin: Do you have a link to the model you purchased?
UncleEbeneezer
What “woke” looked like in 1950. This video “The Brotherhood of Man” upset white Pasadenans so much that it was one of the justifications for the brutal smear campaign that eventually pushed out Superintendent of Schools, Willard Goslin. Goslin also supported ending zoning laws that allowed white residents of NW Pasadena (very racially diverse) to bus their children to schools in nearby, Lilly-white La Canada.
Here we are seventy-two years later and white voters in America are STILL freaking out about their children seeing advocating racial equality, equal opportunity and treating all people with dignity and respect. Some things never change.
Citizen Alan
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: So, divine right of kings?
Kay
@delphinium:
I had a reel mower when I had a little city lot 30 years ago but I got too obessive about whether the blades were sharp. I do love the sound though- whirrrr whirrrr, click click :)
I have two tools I love – the electric mower and my sawzall.
cain
@gene108: Banning immigration might play for the base but they absolutely need illegal immigration for cheap labor. Those fields and orchids need that.
Everything we’ve prevented and if it were allowed would have created an economic disaster. God knows, what the state of the country would have been if we had not had our Democratic wins – but it would not be what MAGA types would think – if they had won on all the fronts that they’ve been cheering on – I guarantee they would have not liked victory for themselves.
delphinium
@Kay: When I moved into my house, had a very sweet elderly couple living next door. They too had a reel mower and we bonded a bit over that : ). Agree, keeping the blades sharp can become an obsession. My neighbors would always offer to take my mower in for sharpening whenever they took theirs so that was 1 thing I didn’t have to think about.
Kirk Spencer
@raven: wait.
In AIT, which follows basic, and you still volunteered for something the sergeants brought up?
Heh.
Soprano2
I listened to “On Point” this morning because they interviewed Bruno Lozano, who until recently was the mayor of Del Rio, TX, which is a border town. The “hook” for the interview was that he’s a Democrat who is critical of Biden’s border policy. I was hoping it would be a good discussion of the problems at the border and what practical solutions this former mayor thought would work best. It was not that, though. Instead, the interview emphasized (several times) that even though he is a Democrat he’s extremely critical of the Biden “border policy”. He used some words that are Republican “trigger words”, like saying that when you see all of those people coming it looks like “an invasion”. He said that when Covid happened and the Trump people put Rule 42 in place, it was a relief because they could finally turn people back. He said he was glad when Biden finally visited the border so he could see for himself what they are dealing with (this is such a dumb Republican talking point, as if being there is person is the only way to know about the problem). He talked about how the convenience store where the Border Patrol drops people off so they can buy bus tickets has banned them from waiting inside the store because they sit there for hours and impede the ability of “regular people” (he caught himself and didn’t say this completely) who live in the town to use the store. We also found out about 2/3 of the way into the interview that his brother is a Border Patrol agent! Perhaps that would have been a good thing to reveal upfront, huh? The thing is, during the last 15 minutes when they actually started talking about what things he thought would help the problem, they were all things that Democrats in Congress have already proposed doing. He kept saying that the federal government needed to spend more money in his city to help them cope with the influx of asylum seekers, but then later said that he doesn’t really like big government. The interviewer never asked him about this seeming contradiction, which I noticed right away and would have immediately asked him about! I think it could have been a good, informative interview, but NPR is so hung up on the “this is a Democrat who criticizes Biden” hook that the interviewer couldn’t let go of it. She never pointed out, for example, that many of the things he said he wanted were the job of Congress to do since they hold the purse strings, rather than blaming the Biden administration for everything. What a wasted opportunity
I wonder when he’ll start being a person interviewed on Fox News because he’s critical of Biden. Because he’s a Hispanic gay man that would be a huge attraction for them.
Bill Arnold
@rikyrah:
This could be interesting; large company is in tight with Modi/BJP, so there may be some ruthlessness; worth watching. Not censored yet on twitter, at least not an hour ago.
(Caveat; haven’t parsed this/dug into details, and influence operations are very common in/related to India. This, too, may be agenda-driven beyond shorts (Hindenburg research) downtalking the company. (Grousing from US shorts that it was not about Tesla can be ignored.))
Long long article. Business practices that look really really seedy even by the seediest American standards. I saved it as a PDF.
Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History (January 24, 2023)
Bill Arnold
@rikyrah:
This could be interesting; large company is in tight with Modi/BJP, so there may be some ruthlessness; worth watching. Not censored yet on twitter, at least not an hour ago.
(Caveat; haven’t parsed this/dug into details, and influence operations are very common in/related to India. This, too, may be agenda-driven beyond shorts (Hindenburg research) downtalking the company. (Grousing from US shorts that it was not about Tesla can be ignored.))
Long long article. Descriptions of business practices that look really really seedy even by the seediest American standards. I saved it as a PDF.
Adani Group: How The World’s 3rd Richest Man Is Pulling The Largest Con In Corporate History (January 24, 2023)
J R in WV
Regarding winter weather and school closings. I attended Marshall U from 1980-84… was my third pass at college, and the school was just under 90 minutes each way, no matter which of 3 main routes into town you pick. So one day it was frozen, ice under snow. It took me over 2 hours to get to town, I missed my first morning class completely. The drive was way more death-defying than usual as well.
I parked in a way more empty than usual lot, walked to the nearest door into the College my next class was in — IT WAS LOCKED!!! I couldn’t even get in out of the really cold weather!! I hit that locked building door so hard I hurt my hands.
Now I needed to get back home, which was the opposite of gong to town, where the roads improve every mile you get closer to town. I live in the boonies, and the hill I have to slide down to get into the neighborhood is impassible if they haven’t plowed and sprinkled grit on the hill, which is WAY STEEP!!!
I was furious. Many students live right there on campus, for crying out loud — they were afraid they would fall down on a slick sidewalk going the block from the dorms to the classes??? Furious. I did get home OK, which was good as the animals need to be fed eventually. Grrr. I can still get worked up over it 40 years later on. I was a non-standard student, I was 30 when I enrolled and 34 when I got my degree. Grrr.