Happy #PatriotsDay, Massachusetts — and good luck to all #BostonMarathon runners! pic.twitter.com/0t0oovIJo5
— Katherine Clark (@WhipKClark) April 17, 2023
"What we are hearing from our Republican colleagues is an absolute commitment to defaulting on our bills. This is a manufactured crisis." @WhipKClark on the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations #SundayShow pic.twitter.com/Z9n6NELRCL
— The Saturday/Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart (@weekendcapehart) April 16, 2023
White House says data does not indicate a US recession is on the horizon, rebuffing Federal Reserve staff economists who forecast a minor contraction starting later this year. https://t.co/AKVTrAhBWW
— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) April 13, 2023
… White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said job numbers and consumer spending are strong and chalked it up to President Joe Biden’s economic plans, waving off a recession risk.
“We’re seeing the success of his plans, and recent economic indicators are not consistent with a recession or even a pre-recession,” Jean-Pierre said Thursday when asked about the Fed forecast.
Federal Reserve minutes published Wednesday indicated that “the staff’s projection at the time of the March meeting included a mild recession starting later this year, with a recovery over the subsequent two years.”…
Our Very Respectable Mainstream Media is doing its best to gin up a recession, or at least scare people into acting as though one might be happening, because scare stories are good for *their* business. Please Murphy the Trickster God, we’ll have a short-lived scare later this year (possibly fueled by the GOP playing chicken with the national debt), and that will spur an ‘economic rebound’ counter-argument just as the Repubs and their enablers wrap themselves around the 2024 election axle.
These are the headlines when inflation is heading down and job market is still strong. (First NYT, second WaPo, both this week.)
Imagine the coverage when those trends are getting much worse. pic.twitter.com/H875sJxdBY
— James Fallows (@JamesFallows) April 16, 2023
Liberalism breeds prosperity. Sam Brownback turned Kansas into a third world country. Jerry Brown raised California out of insolvency. https://t.co/Ojylh6QMnP
— Slope Slipperer (@agraybee) April 13, 2023
On The Road – Albatrossity – Spring 2023 in Flyover Country – week 2
Baud
Are there actually negotiations going on or is the media lying to help the GOP again?
Baud
If you look at the Axios tweet, here’s their spin.
And the graph they have shows that Dem representation is simply more broad based than the GOP.
danielx
80 on Saturday, 36 this morning. Bah!
Kay
@Baud:
Median income is a dumb measure. All that shows is urban/rural split.
Nora
I really love the Washington Post spin — “Why, oh why doesn’t anyone notice that inflation is going down? We can’t imagine why people aren’t aware of something we’ve been deliberately hiding for months — how could they be so ignorant? If only someone had the responsibility to report on what’s actually going on!”
twbrandt
@danielx: same here (SE Michigan).
Baud
@Kay:
It’s Axios.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Republicans’ posture on the debt ceiling places them somewhere between the “Dine and Ditch” party, hostage takers, and active practitioners in a cold civil war.
Side note: reminded from the severely derailed Clarence Thomas thread last night my friends have been asking me to get on Discord.
LiminalOwl
The Traitor-“Patriots” are hard at work today too:
https://twitter.com/tizzyent/status/1647722450195562498?s=61&t=pWzjP64aFW1XM8w8pvtO5A
(is there a way to embed this properly?)
Kay
It just gets worse and worse for the credibility of the Supreme Court. Now Thomas sends some lackey to CNN to tell CNN he “intends” to amend his financial reports.
A Supreme Court justice is apparently incapable of hiring a competent lawyer who could fill out his financial discosure forms without breaking the law. Clarence Thomas hires morons who don’t read the rules as “aides”.
Geminid
Katherine Clark is a strong communicator. So are Jeffries and Aguilar, the Democrats’ other two House leaders. With a potentially fractious majority, the last team’s challenges were more inward. Now though, the opportunities are outward, blasting the radical Republican Majority and “shaping the battlefield” for 2024.
Soprano2
@danielx: Same kind of weather here. Luckily it’ll be warm again in another day or so.
Soprano2
@Nora: It’s yet another in the ongoing series “We have no agency in what we report, we are forced to report the news in the way we do it”. The press drives me crazy when they act like they have no agency at all in what they report and how they report it.
sdhays
@Kay: I’d like to thank Clarence Thomas for clarifying that “clerked for Clarence Thomas” is a mark of disqualifying incompetence in the legal profession.
Kay
Just a reminder- all of this “inadvertent” rule breaking and inability to fill out forms is coming from the office of a justice on the Supreme Court of the United States.
They’re all fucking wildly prestigious LAWYERS. They can’t fill out the forms tens of millions of other public employees fill out, apparently, even with aides– plural.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m happy to report that Mr DAW and I both tested negative for COVID this morning.
Soprano2
@Kay: It is pretty shocking, unless you know that his intention is probably to report as little as possible. Anyone else would hire an attorney to do this every year.
Tony Jay
@Kay:
“I didn’t so anything wrong. Someone else may have inadvertently failed to reach my high standards for probity, but what’s important is that I’m the victim here and my accusers are poopy-heads.”
Soprano2
@Kay: I wish the press would emphasize more that this person, who can’t seem to hire someone competent to fill out his mandatory disclosure forms, is on a court whose members decide what the laws mean for everyone!
Baud
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
👍
Soprano2
@Tony Jay: All the conservatives I’ve seen online are spinning this as “liberals think Thomas shouldn’t ever take a vacation or get gifts from anyone”. I always come back with no, the problem is him hiding it through of lack of disclosure. If he had reported all of this the way he should have there would be no story.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@LiminalOwl: You want to embed a tweet?
In the upper right hand corner of the tweet are three dots. Click there. Click embed tweet. A new window comes up. Click copy code. Come back to BJ. Click text in the upper right hand corner of the comment box. Right click in comment space. Paste. Post
Kay
@Tony Jay:
Right? You caught what you were intended to catch with the inclusion of “the aides”.
The aides did it. Literally the first thing you’re told when you start practicing law is that your signature means you’re responsible– not the clerk, not the aides, not the paralegal. Did he sign the form? Is he a lawyer? Then he’s responsible, 100%, for what the form contains.
twbrandt
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yay! How are you and Mr. DAW feeling?
Anne Laurie
My personal rep, too! Not saying Rep. Clark was the model for the Dropkick Murphys’ Queen of Suffolk County, but that was her native turf, and she has a reputation as a woman you don’t cross.
Shalimar
@Baud: There was a story Friday about McCarthy being upset with Jodey Arrington for failing to set out any agenda whatsoever in the Debt Ceiling preparations. So no, there haven’t been any negotiations yet because Biden has said he will only accept a clean bill and Republicans can’t agree on a counter-proposal.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@twbrandt: We both tested negative this morning, which is nice. I’d read that you can test positive for as long as 90 days even though you’re no longer capable of passing the disease on. And we feel good. We were lucky. Our cases were mild.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Anne Laurie: IMHO, the new leadership team looks good so far. But then, at the moment, they can sit back and laugh at the opposition.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Anne Laurie: I was really impressed. I hadn’t really heard her speak before, but I never heard someone lay out the individual consequences of a debt default like that before.
Hearing it this way may make it more real for some people; granted, not necessarily the people who need to hear it.
jonas
@sdhays:
Didn’t that crackpot Texas judge Kaszmaryk clerk for Thomas?
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yay!
PST
I Just can’t believe how much snow is falling in Chicago this morning, at least in my neck of the woods. Not all that much by winter standards, I suppose, but enough to require brushing off the dog before coming back inside from our morning walk. It should be warm by Wednesday, though.
Jeffro
It must be weird being an elected official in the GOP, at almost any level
You’re representing mostly less well-off (whether financially or health-wise or most any other measure) Americans, yet you’re taking money from billionaires and large corporations in order to stay in office and…not do anything for mostly less well-off Americans.
So you do that and just keep finding new ways to quietly (or loudly!) say “keep white America on top!”
It seems like a sad way to spend one’s life. Let’s help all of them get out of office and onto a better path, shall we?
Glidwrith
Why, with the mass shootings every single god damned day, does Boston think some guy standing around with a gun is a patriot?
Grrrr. Apologies if I’m harshing a mellow Monday.
Leto
Actual headline at the top of the WaPo right now. Did they intentionally frame that to show that House Rethuglicans are nothing more than petty mobsters? Probably not, but I’d like to think that’s why.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: def good news
sdhays
In other news, apparently there are rumors that Fox News really, really, really doesn’t want to go to trial in the Dominion lawsuit and is trying to negotiate a settlement.
Oh, how I hope negotiations fail.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Not the first time I heard this, I believe these intra-Republican groups are referring to themselves that way.
prostratedragon
In DC, it’s Emancipation Day!
Soprano2
@Kay: I used to do payroll sheets for everyone at work. Even though it wasn’t required by the Finance department, I made everyone look at and sign their completed time sheet. I never wanted to hear “You didn’t get my time right” from someone, and if they didn’t sign it they could have said they didn’t know what I did.
WaterGirl
@LiminalOwl: You can click on “embed tweet” for that tweet (you find that in the 3 dots), copy it, then come to BJ and click on the TEXT tab (instead of visual) and then paste it in.
Photos and video are removed for everyone but front-pagers, but it keep the links and puts the box around it.
Leto
@jonas: I don’t believe he did. List of law clerks for the SC
jonas
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
The PCR tests they give you at the hospital detect viral DNA and are incredibly sensitive for months, which is why they were useful for detecting asymptomatic cases back when those were more common.
WaterGirl
@Kay:
Nope, the supreme court justice is just a liar.
Soprano2
@sdhays: They know they don’t have a leg to stand on and will lose with a fair jury.
Ken
I’ll guess Ventrue, Toreador, Brujah, Gangrel, and Nosferatu.
gene108
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
👏👏👏👏👏👍🎂🎈
Liminal Owl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Very glad to hear it!
And I’ve put “Tomorrow and Tomorrow” on my reading list, based on your recommendation.
Liminal Owl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks! I must have been half-asleep before. Here, hopefully, is the embedment:
(borked code removed) WG
Tony Jay
@Soprano2:
They’ve embedded self-serving dishonesty so deeply into their movement it’s no surprise, that’s just what they do. It’s the same with their defence of Crow’s altar of fascist saints.
“Oh, no, you’re misrepresenting the context. He’s just got statues of tyrants arranged on his estate so people can come and deeply ponder the evil that men do, that’s all.”
When in reality, they know full well that he’s got statues of Communist dictators on the grounds for his guests to tut-tut over, but the far-Right memorabilia he’s got inside his estate is there to be admired and basked in. They can’t defend that, so they lie about it.
It’s just who and what they are.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Clarence Thomas defenders are waging a multifront campaign to contain the scandal. The WSJ published a gross, fawning op-ed that contains this cringeworthy paragraph:
Leave Clarence allllloooooooone! Gift link here for anyone who wants to read that exercise in innovative turd polishing by former war blogger James Taranto. I do not recommend it!
Tony Jay
@Kay:
Yup. Just like any other field where the person ultimately responsible for the work has to put their name to it. If Thomas signed those declarations, he knowingly lied. If he didn’t sign those declarations, it was because he knew they were lies.
Either way, he’s a liar and a crook. We’d just like to know the details for posterity.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Betty Cracker: I don’t need to know the text of a law to know when I’m doing something wrong.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
“And when the Committee says to “report your income,” that could mean anything!
Omnes Omnibus
@Betty Cracker: The way I learned it was “When in doubt, err on the side of disclosure.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Liminal Owl: I think you were on “visual” rather than “text” in the comment box. See the upper right hand corner of the box? Choose “text” before you paste.
Kay
@Soprano2:
His aides don’t have access to his finances. They know only what he gave to them. He isn’t reporting “incorrectly”. He’s omitting whole transactions, assets and sources of income. He is the only person in control of that information- the aides aren’t investigators.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Baud: How could it be considered income if I have nothing to show for it, save for some
debauchedhappy memories?Tony Jay
@Ken:
Ha! Though I’d swap out Toreador for Tremere. MAGOP World has no interest in the Arts, but they sure do believe in the magical supremacy of very old men.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Glidwrith: Patriots’ day commemorates the start of the American Revolution. I say down with the gun fetishists too, but that picture is on brand.
Baud
@Kay:
Now I’m wondering about his tax returns.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Ah, the “judges must be held to a lower standard than lawyers” defense. Always persuasive. To idiots. Try that as a muni court judge before the state bar ethics board- see how far it gets you.
If his plan is to blame these other unnamed lawyers or aides or whatnot let’s hear from them directly instead of some GOP donor/PR person pushing Thomas’ bullshit out to CNN as a “source close to Thomas”
I want to hear from the Thomas aide who told Clarence Thomas he didn’t have to report a real estate transaction if he “lost money on it” – that doesn’t sound like legal advice to me- although I can’t tell which real estate transaction he’s talking about here, because there’s also a question about his wife’s family trust – also real estate- which he incorrectly reported.
JCJ
@Betty Cracker: That is so weak. I guess filling out financial disclosure forms as well as conflict of interest disclosures is for, as Leona Helmsley would have said, “the little people”.
Ken
@Tony Jay: I went with the five families they used in the short-lived TV series. Though Madison Cawthorn’s remarks about cocaine orgies in the Republican caucus sounds pretty Toreador to me.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@Betty Cracker: So we’re supposed to believe that those specialists advised Thomas he didn’t have to disclose a real estate deal because he lost money on it? Like it’s not supposed to matter to the rest of us whom he does deals with?
ETA: I see Kay also noticed this esoteric legal point.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
From the makers of “police should be held to a lower standard than the general public…”
jonas
The re-allignment isn’t so much between rich and poor as between rural and urban. A district’s population per square mile now correlates nearly directly with its political representation regardless of the state or region. That wasn’t always the case. Back when rural areas had more diverse economies and less wealth inequality, they were also more politically diverse. Consolidation of the ag sector over the past 30-40 years (making farming less profitable — for the farmer), the decline of manufacturing, and the growth of cities following the end of the 80’s–90’s crime wave has left many rural areas with an older, less healthy, and resentful population where LE or military work is really the only viable career option for the few young people who remain, and Fox or Sinclair are the only local media.
Kay
@Baud:
Exactly what my husband said. “(heavy sigh). Now they need to see his returns – it would really be another omission if they didn’t look at this point”
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: oh, yay! finally!
Tony Jay
@Ken:
I forgot they did a TV show! I’d also forgotten about Wheels McSleaze and his horrific tales of fat white asses pounding away amidst clouds of Colombia Prima.
Probably for the best.
Tony Jay
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Excellent news.
Kay
Is anyone from the Supreme Court itself ever going to speak to the public about this?
They have no one to blame but themselves for their credibility collapse. It’s the cluelessness that comes from arrogance. They were handed unearned institutional credibilty when they took those jobs and they have pissed it all away.
dww44
@Kay: The excuses that Thomas and his supporters offer up for his blatant corruption and lack of integrity are as non-sensical and laughable as the ones the whole movement proffers to justify not doing anything about gun violence.
I hope that Sen. Whitehouse keeps the pressure on the SC and on the Attorney General. There has to be some accountability for the powerful somewhere soon. I hope the Attorney General realizes this before it’s too late.
Kay
The SCOTUS response to this will be to audit all the employees but not the justices, much like their fake (and embarrassing ) “leak investigation”.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
I may be overthinking this, but it just occurred to me that there’s a clear correlation between his attitude toward stare decisis — i.e., it shouldn’t exist for any decision I don’t like — and his attitude toward ethical standards. In both cases, it’s only about what he wants.
Kay
@dww44:
The new standard on the Right is “it doesn’t matter if we take bribes from billionaires because we were going to vote with the billionaires anyway“.
This is from their lawyers. Their legal brain trust.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Ken: nice vampire: the masquerade reference!
played that a lot back in the day.
pretty sure the fascist gop is just a bunch of ventrues from stem-to-stern though.
cope
@danielx: 72 today but I’ll be 73 next month.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Liminal Owl: I hope you like Tomorrow, etc. It always surprises me, but people don’t always like what I do!
New Deal democrat
Without getting into all the gory detail here, because it would fill up pages and pages, while the White House is correct that the current data do not indicate a recession is here, the data series which tend to turn negative soon before a recession begins have, in fact, almost all turned negative.
A recession is defined as a sustained downturn in production, sales, income, and employment. People probably don’t care too much about the first two, but income and jobs are definitely important! Depending on what you measure, production peaked 6-12 months ago. Sales to consumers, by some measures, also peaked last year, although upstream sales by manufacturers and wholesalers have been increasing a little. Real income has turned flat for the past 2 reporting months. That leaves jobs, which have continued to show solid, if decelerating, gains.
The good news is that the big decline in gas prices that started last June has continued to feed through into a lot of improving economic measures. And for reasons too long to get into here, the very large housing component of inflation should improve shortly. That leaves food and everything associated with vehicles as the remaining sources of inflation.
But the index of leading indicators is down sharply – in fact down so far that in the past such a decline has *always* meant that a recession is near or has already started. Here’s a quick link to an easy graph to see: https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2023/03/17/cb-lei-down-0-3-in-february-still-pointing-to-risk-of-recession
Paradoxically, the best reason to think that we will avoid a downturn in jobs and income is because so many people (including me) think it is about to happen.
Baud
@Kay:
SCOTUS is busy inventing new standing rules that apply only to abortion haters.
Kay
@cope:
We had some warm days so I once again jumped the gun and planted seedlings and now I have to cover them before it snows.
Every year since I was 8 years old I have been caught out by a late season cold snap
I WILL control the weather! :)
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Kay: they hounded the clintons for like, DECADES over whitewater, a deal the clintons “lost money on.”
that fascist hack thomas KNOWS that’s not an excuse.
jonas
@Leto:
You’re right — I misremembered: he clerked for Scalia, not Thomas.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
Huzzzah!
Lapassionara
I’m wondering about this “lost money on the transaction” comment. How do we know he lost money? Aren’t real estate transactions in public records somewhere?
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@dww44: Please tell us exactly what power the Attorney General has over a Supreme Court Justice.
As for “the powerful,” I think the special counsel appointed by the Attorney General is making them sweat right now. I’m sorry everyone hasn’t already been tried, convicted, and jailed, but everything Jack Smith is doing points in that direction.
Kay
@Baud:
I think it was a mistake by Thomas (or the mysterious and incompetent aides) to say he sold to the billionaire “at a loss”. All that does is inspire people to look more closely at the transaction. No one can let that just stand. It’s another lie.
Geminid
@New Deal democrat: If there is a recession, how deep and prolonged would you expect it to be? That’s what I am concerned about.
Baud
Not clear when he learned where the GOP stood on abortion.
Kathleen
@Ken: Charles Manson had a family too!
Kay
@strange visitor (from another planet):
I’ve wondered that myself- how our standards have slipped so since Clinton. We were such ethics sticklers as it applied to the Clintons.
The Washington Post once did a huge investigation into the Obama’s Chicago mortgage because it was a “jumbo mortgage” for a high value home and….black people can’t buy high value homes. I guess. It smelled fishy to them- the Obamas in a nice neighborhood with a big mortgage.
Just clownish people.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Kay: A nominal loss no doubt made back many times over because Thomas’s mother is living there rent-free and this
malefactor of great wealthbenefactor is planning on a Clarence Thomas goddamn museum.@Kay: IOKIYAR. All things, all the time.
Kay
@Baud:
The book bans part is interesting to me though- that’s Christopher Rufo. Most of the GOP’s (losing) culture war approach came from Rufo, nowhere more than in Florida. The NYTimes did a glowing piece on Rufo and Andrew Sullivan promoted him as a political genuis. He is the anti woke political superstar.
Outside of Florida, is there anywhere that Rufo’s approach of attacking “wokeness” has actually won?
Baud
@Kay:
Republicans love boom and bust cycles in politics as much as in the economy.
ETA: When Rufo falls, there’ll be another hate grifter to take his place.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Kay: iokiyar. it’s not just a MOTTO for the media, it’s a mission statement.
eta-beaten to the punch by the kropenhagen interpretation.
NotMax
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
Which law? See here.
Kay
@Baud:
The whole DeSantis/Florida thing is fascinating because the assumption was “as goes Florida, so goes the country” and actually Florida is turning out to be kind of a one-off for the anti woke crusaders.
Rather than the country moving Right and bringing Florida along with it, Florida just lurched Right alone so is now less representative of the country.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
It’s hard to believe now that I used to read his site every day. I explain it to myself that I caught him at the lifetime ebb of his insanity. At least he brought me here.
New Deal democrat
@Geminid: This business cycle is like a combination of two previous periods: (1) the immediate post-WW2 boom and bust cycle (lots of consumer money to spend, and supply chain bottlenecks), which featured several short and shallow recessions; and (2) the Volcker induced 1981-82 recession, which was sharp and deep.
Basically, the Fed waited too long to raise rates, and then has tried to make up for their failure by raising too fast and too long. How shallow or deep the recession (if there is one) is likely to be depends on how quickly and how sharply the Fed reverses course.
Hope that is helpful.
WaterGirl
@Liminal Owl: Almost!
You forgot to click the TEXT tab before you copied in the twitter code.
I deleted the code in that comment, but try again so you’ll know how to do it for next time! :-)
Ken
@Baud: “Wait, they want to do things other than cut taxes?”
Wag
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Agreed. Plus the rifle in question is a muzzle loading musket , which is the kind of gun that the 2nd amendment was meant to cover, not the obscene machines of war that are currently in vogue.
Geminid
@New Deal democrat: Thanks!
RAM
I remember Bill Clinton remarking: “If you want to live like a Republican, vote Democatic.”
Glidwrith
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Thank you for giving context for what it is supposed to commemorate. I was trying to think, do we actually have any imagery to immediately identify someone is a patriot without displaying a gun and came up dry, which is disturbing to say the least.
However, if Boston is referencing the Revolution, what better image than a depiction of the Boston Tea Party?
narya
@Dorothy A. Winsor: And there is great rejoicing!
W/r/t Thomas, maybe it’s useful to frame it in terms of the regular taxpayer: how do you think you’d be treated if you left something this large off your tax return? Would the IRS believe that you “forgot”? No? Then perhaps a SC justice shouldn’t be able to claim that either.
Geminid
@Kay: On March 24, Politico had an article about the DeSantis/Rufo partnership, titled:
It’s a Politico Magazine article, so it’s very long.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Ken: Selling a tax-cutting and deregulatory agenda to non-beneficiaries of said agenda by banging on culture war drums has been the Republican M.O. for the 40 years I can account for.
Republican leopards who eat faces only change their spots when their own face comes to harm or risk. So I assume this donor came to some material harm from DeSantis policies and, now that he’s out, is trying to sound reasonable.
Redshift
@Baud:
From what I’ve heard, Republicans are negotiating with themselves, which is a refreshing change from the old days when Democrats used to do that, and I sign that Biden’s strategy is working.
The thing to remember (that our political can never seem to learn) is that Republicans don’t care about debt or want to cut spending, they want Democrats to cut spending. Biden has them tied in knots by getting the media on board with framing it as a negotiation with proposals and counter-proposals, rather than “deficits bad!”
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker:
Hahaha. Same boat? It was the outing of his paid for yacht trips that started his troubles, which I sincerely hope last a few more news cycles.
Cameron
@Kay: Sort of a perfect storm here. A governor with zero understanding of human beings, hence his push for the most extreme slimy and cruel policies for any target who he thinks is weak enough to be destroyed and who is hated by his mouth-breathing followers PLUS a pet legislature and pet supreme court to OK any and all of his vileness. I suppose USA could wind up with a government like that; I hope I don’t live long enough to see it.
rikyrah
@danielx:
otherwise known as pneumonia weather.
you bundle up!
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: I went to a presentation by an expert at one of the banks where I have money invested. He thinks there will be a recession in January of 2024, and that it will be short and mild. He presented a lot of data to back that up, basically the same stuff you’re saying. He also had a slide showing that there has never been a recession in the 3rd year of a president’s first term. He said he doesn’t know why, there just hasn’t. Most of them seem to happen in the first and last years of a term.
NotMax
@Glidwrith
Boston Tea Party in 1773 predates the Revolution proper.
Soprano2
@Kay: I learned after the first time I did that, I never plant until May.
Redshift
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I had no idea he was once less insane. Though now that I think of it, he does seems like he’s not a true believer, but is rather someone who delights in figuring out strategy to manipulate people and “win”, like Karl Rove. (Which considering the massive number of people getting hurt in the process is arguably more evil than being a true believer.)
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊😊😊
prostratedragon
@sdhays: 🎶 Always look on the bright side of life! 🎶😁
Glidwrith
@NotMax: I actually do know that, but it just goes back to what images convey patriotism without a gun?
The Moar You Know
Took him far less than his first term to do it (I recall either two or three years) and did it without immiserating anyone, slashing programs, defunding schools, or breaking any unions. Still the best vote I have ever cast. Biden is on track to be the second.
Cameron
@Glidwrith: Nononono. Evil “patriots” in Native American drag, trying to use CRT to make their honest English brethren feel bad about themselves. Or something. I need another cup of coffee. Or maybe a hit of acid.
Kay
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
I think they have to stop assuming the views of irritable middle aged male white pundits are “America”
This is a poll out of the Chicago mayoral race. It is true that crime was number one for voters. It is not true that they voted for 1990’s era “tough on crime” policy. They don’t want that:
Unlike middle aged elite white pundits, the voters of Chicago do not want Rudy Giuliani as mayor. They’re not all misty eyed and nostalgic for the Golden Age of America – the 1990s – which also happens to be the era where the middle aged white male pundits came up in.
Kay
@Soprano2:
There’s a whole subset of flowers I love that are cool season annuals or perennials though- they’re just not perennial here. That’s the 2 week window that drives me crazy because sometimes I don’t get spring! Sometimes I get winter then summer!
Sweet peas and snapdragons and perennials from seed.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Redshift: His better years include his disenchantment with the Iraq War through the Obama Presidency, right up until the moment his pre-existing Clinton derangement syndrome took back over.
Some of his awful views never left. He always had this gross habit of defending race based hierarchical science and a weird level of probity into the personal lives of female political candidates.
But I think his staff help keep most of that out of focus and they, as a whole, did a wonderful job aggregating different views and niche little news bits from around the internet.
That last bit is what I truly miss from reading his blog. I haven’t found a full replacement, though this blog comes closest.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Kay: You cant even begin to know how much it warms my heart to see an electorate whose primary concern is public safety not go immediately to “needs moar police.”
Prevention measures, anti-corruption, and ensuring the material well-being of the citizenry will bring us to a better place than a half century of tough on crime ever did; that being a police force militarized against the people it was purportedly protecting.
rikyrah
@Redshift:
This is true. They don’t give two shyts about the deficit.
eclare
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
I really liked The View From Your Window. And like you, I found this place through his blog.
Citizen Alan
@Ken: There are no Brujah in the republican party. Perhaps you meant Malkavians?
The Moar You Know
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: the new guy was obviously sent here to fuck the place up. I pied him after that stellar performance.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
That was a nice feature. I forgot about that. The little travel posts and Betty’s wildlife posts that get done here remind me of that in some ways.
Hell, maybe that’s a tradition we can pick up.
Soprano2
@Kay: That’s going to be a heavy lift for them, because they are absolutely stuck on the idea that middle aged white men just like them are the “regular, normal” voter, and whatever they want is what most voters want. It’s telling that some of them still mention “Reagan Democrats” from the 1980’s. Wouldn’t most of those people be in their 70’s, 80’s and even 90’s now – the ones that aren’t already dead? They aren’t relevant anymore, yet some of these pundits still talk about them.
Soprano2
@Kay: Sweet peas are perennials here. Pansies are a big cold season flower here – I once had some I planted in the pots at work last into December! I mostly plant impatiens or begonias on my porch, because it’s so much in the shade that those are the only flowers that will grow there.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@NotMax: I’m puzzled how this could have been a reply to me, because I originally had a question about what law in my comment but deleted it within the edit window, and it doesn’t appear in the comment as posted.
Anyway, thanks for the O’Donnell link, but I’ve seen O’Donnell do that before–read the words of a statute and proclaim it’s absolutely clear, which is not what lawyers do. No lawyer would ever say a statute is clear and unambiguous without first checking to see whether the courts have construed it, because if they have, their interpretations are part of the statute’s meaning. He did cite a lawyer, but she didn’t say outright that Thomas violated the law, and even Sheldon Whitehouse only called it a “potential” violation of the law.
Citizen Alan
@Tony Jay: Ah, but you forget about the division in the toriador between the artistes and the poseurs. Thomas kincaid would have been one of the Toreadors that all the legitimately talented Toreadors hated with a passion.
Geminid
@The Moar You Know: That polar PITA has been around since last fall.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@The Moar You Know: You think he was a Thomas Stan? What other agenda could he have had?
Unless he had a real chip on his shoulder about Discord and/or the military because his arguments were such thin gruel, laser-focused on one piece of what is really a broad social media problem.
Maybe he never heard of Nazis organizing online before the recent leaks.
This is great. Many likes.
scav
It’s not a closed book exam. Oh Go on, at least make a stab at obeying the rules.
and, apparently, random undisclosed bipeds wandering nearby if you wear a shapeless black dress to work. Come on. Not a closed book exam, show your work and your citations / sources properly. High School, not law school stuff.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I felt compelled to add that as a rotating tag.
It may not have a long shelf life, but I hope the shelf life is a hell of a lot longer than Clarence thinks/hopes it will be!
rikyrah
@Kay:
I dunno.
OT – The New School. Found out that they have a very large percentage of International Students. That means that’s their cash cow. Wonder how many are going to be willing to pay all that cash for their conservative garbage?
WaterGirl
@Kay: You can also “lose money” on shady real estate transactions!
Which i know you know. I’m yelling at the idiot who wrote the article.
Geminid
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I think the guy’s agenda is straightening out the rampant naivety he thinks he sees on this blog.
Glidwrith
@Cameron: Chocolate. Is there a rule against chocolate before noon?
Kay
@Soprano2:
I love the whole pansy family – Johnny Jump Ups were my first favorite flower. I get them coming up as volunteers now inside a brick patio. Spring flowers have clear colors that you just dont find in summer bloomers.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: My husband and I were talking about Florida’s massive lurch to the right the other day and if DeSantis’s overreach has not only soured wingnut investors on his 2024 presidential bid but might cause problems down the road for the FL GOP more generally. I have no idea.
Repubs have a lock on the statehouse, thanks to gerrymandering and a structural advantage that is similar to the genius framework that currently makes the U.S. Senate such a useless goddamn dysfunctional mess, even when the sane party is in charge. Repubs also have the support of the wingnuttiest Latino population in America, so that’s a problem.
The last several election cycles have basically extinguished any optimism I ever had for the state, which was scant to start with. But the overreach on unpopular policies is real.
On the other hand, DeSantis’s 2018 opponent, Andrew Gillum, is about to go on trial for corruption. From what I’ve read, he does seem to be corrupt as fuck, but in a small time way that is a drop in the ocean compared to the massive GOP grift machine that has been squeezing the life out of the state like an Everglades python for decades. It’ll make for a lot of “both sides” bullshit though, damn it.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: I imagine that he doesn’t care one way or the other about abortion laws or book burnings, But he is concerned that the way those topics are being dealt with will lead to more pro-tax, pro regulation democrats being elected.
Fake Irishman
@eclare:
Personal note: My sister took the photo that made the back cover of the book that came out of the back window series.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Sweet peasRepublican income reporting violations are perennials here.Redshift
@Soprano2:
It’s part of the fascination with people who have a party affiliation but switch (like the supposed “Obama-Trump voters.) They love the idea that they’re seriously considering their choices, unlike us mindless ideologies, when in fact they’re just idiots. (Or in the case of Obama-Trump voters, Republicans who got on the “historic” bandwagon and then were horrified by the occasions when he wouldn’t pretend he wasn’t Black.)
Baud
@Betty Cracker: God, I wish that woman had won the primary in 2018. Hindsight, and all that, but who knows how that might have changed the trajectory of the country?
Geminid
@Redshift: There were Obama-to-Romney voters in 2012. Obama still won though, so I think the bigger story was the new Obama voters
Ed. I see you are talking about the Obama-Trump voters.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Geminid: That reminds me, I never saw The Devil’s Advocate.
Fake Irishman
@Betty Cracker:
My read is that Florida has drifted right a bit, but that a lot of Dems stayed home in 2022.
Do you think Gwen Graham would have won the general in 2018 if she had gotten through the primary? Possibly lower black enthusiasm, but perhaps the family name is enough to keep an enough old Dems in the fold to compensate? An interesting what-if.
Gin & Tonic
Redshift
@Geminid: Yeah, the problem is that they never talk about R to D switchers, so they always characterize D to R switchers as disaffected Democrats rather than Republicans returning home after temporarily voting D.
MomSense
@Tony Jay:
I’m old enough to remember Republicans campaigning as the party to restore personal responsibility and against “activist judges”. Their accusations are always confessions.
I’d also like to say that [In]Justice Thomas is Exhibit A on the fallacy of moderate Republicans.
New Deal democrat
@Soprano2: Thanks. But in re: “there has never been a recession in the 3rd year of a president’s first term,” George H.W. Bush, who failed to get re-reflected after the jobless recovery from the recession that ended in March 1991, might quibble.
Redshift
@The Moar You Know: Now I’m glad I never got back to that thread after being there for the beginning of that.
Cameron
@Glidwrith: You’re not one of those cocoa groomers, are you?
Cameron
@Betty Cracker: It’s a shame that he appears to be guilty as hell. I really liked him, and still think he’d have made a better governor than that white-booted horror-film creature with pudding dripping from its claws.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
From my own experience, with older, non-college white ethnics, I always thought it was more accurate to refer to them at “Nixon Democrats”. I remember my uncle’s best friend in ’92 fulminating about that hippie Bill Clinton. He was a “lifelong Democrat” for Buchanan (and he has long gone to his reward)
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker: I’m still bitter that Andrew Gillum won the democratic primary over Gwen Graham by a narrow margin after the Bernie Bros helped drag him across the finish line, only for him to lose in the general election. All of those ethical clouds were floating around at the time, but he was just so gosh darn progressive. And gwen graham was just so gosh darn female.
Ksmiami
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Biden should follow Krugman and Mint the Coin. I mean allowing reps to crash the economy would be fatal.
eclare
@Fake Irishman: Cool ! I have that book.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Ksmiami: “One weird trick” is how Republicans feint at attempting to govern. No thanks.
Just declare this enormous power, damn the consequences. Do we need to augment a financial meltdown with a Constitutional crisis?
Gin & Tonic
New Deal democrat
@Kay: “Outside of Florida, is there anywhere that Rufo’s approach of attacking “wokeness” has actually won?”
Youngkin in Virginia, with a massive assist from McAulliffe’s gaffe, that he never even tried to walk back.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Glidwrith: I hope not!
Nora
@Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride: Gee, I wonder why that rule didn’t apply to Whitewater.
WaterGirl
@eclare: did you get the email I sent you?
Ksmiami
@Kay: the Court will find itself reduced in jurisdiction and respect. Like we won’t even need to burn it down considering they’re doing such a bang up job at arson.
Brachiator
There are jackals who almost reflexively want to accuse the media of simply writing scare stories about inflation, recession and other bad economic news. And yeah, maybe headline news stories hit too hard.
But the Federal Reserve and other agencies who have responsibility for tracking the economy see a very high likelihood of recession. There are also signs that the UK and other European countries will also see a mild recession.
Poster New Deal democrat at Comment 79 here, gives an excellent explanation of why a number of important indicators may be pointing to a recession.
Ksmiami
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: but it isn’t a one weird trick. The debt ceiling itself is a manufactured fiction at odds with national governance.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yeah, I’ve had that thought many times over the past four interminable years. It was a pivotal election like 2000 or 2016 except a state-sized rather than a nationwide catastrophe, though obviously there are national implications and will be for years.
trollhattan
@New Deal democrat: Nixon dicking around in 1971–including wage and price freezes and eliminating the gold standard–came in a time of stagflation. IDK if recession were in play as well but the oil crisis of ’73 would make everybody forget what he did a couple years before.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Agreed. Two bad policies don’t amount to a good one.
Skepticat
@Glidwrith: That’s a member of a true well-regulated militia, and it’s a musket rather than an AK-15, so I’m fine with it.
It’s Patriots Day in Maine too.
The Moar You Know
@New Deal democrat: Been reading your site for 15 years or so now. Your track record is impressive and saved my 401k in the 2008 crash.
Does Hale still post there AT ALL anymore?
Jackie
@Gin & Tonic: Oooooh! Hopefully it’s bad news for GQP! Or Justice Thomas!
(rubbing hands gleefully)
eclare
@WaterGirl: Just checked and replied. Sometimes I go days without checking.
Betty Cracker
@Fake Irishman: No idea. I voted for Graham in the primary but thought Gillum had a chance in the general, and it was close.
@Citizen Alan: I think the Sanders angle is overplayed. Gillum endorsed Clinton in 2016, and he was allegedly on her short list for VP. She campaigned hard for him in FL in 2018. A Bernie faction exists in FL, but it never had a lot of juice.
New Deal democrat
@The Moar You Know: Hale last wrote for Seeking Alpha, doing “technical analysis” of the financial markets. He signed off a year ago, citing a new job that required him to give up outside writing.
dnfree
From an article in The New Republic about a charter school grift.
This is the pledge taken by students and staff at the Roger Bacon academies in North Carolina. They’re going to “guard against the stains of falsehood”, including from “fascination with experts”, “equivocation and compromise”, and “over-reliance on rational argument”. But they are going to be obedient and loyal to those in authority.
I pledge to keep myself healthy in body, mind, and spirit,
staying physically fit,
mentally awake,
and morally straight.
I pledge to be truthful in all my works,
guarding against the stains of falsehood from
the fascination with experts,
the temptation of vanity,
the comfort of popular opinion and custom,
the ease of equivocation and compromise, and
from over-reliance on rational argument.
I pledge to be virtuous in all my deeds,
with the courage to exemplify
faith in my beliefs,
hope for a better future, and
charity towards my neighbor –
with prudence in new undertakings,
with justice when called on to judge,
with fortitude in the face of adversity, and
with temperance toward temptation.
I pledge to be obedient and loyal to those in authority,
in my family,
in my school, and
in my community and country,
So long as I shall live.
https://newrepublic.com/article/171824/charter-school-north-carolina-requires-girls-wear-skirts
The Moar You Know
@New Deal democrat: ahhh, thank you. And thank you for keeping on at your corner of the internet; always good stuff.
cmorenc
@Soprano2:
The problem isn’t just lack of public accounting/disclosure by Thomas, but taking such expensive largesse from a donor who is positioned to be so potentially benefitted (including financially) by supreme court rulings, even though not a party of immediate connection to particular cases. Real estate developers are generally benefitted by SCOTUS rulings on when regulations require government compensation for “takings” for example.
Eolirin
@Citizen Alan: Don’t slander the Malkavians. Their insanity didn’t rob them of deep wisdom.and insight.
Tzimisce maybe.
Jackie
Good news!
”A Delaware judge presiding over the landmark defamation case between Dominion Voting Systems and Fox News said Monday that the delayed trial will now begin Tuesday at 9am ET,” Axios reports.”
No settlement!
Steeplejack
I’m sad today because Ahmad Jamal has died. I’ll be listening to his music all day. RIP to an extraordinary musician. New York Times obituary (free link).
My favorite album: The Awakening (1970).
One song: “Stolen Moments.”
rikyrah
@Glidwrith:
Nope. Just had me a chocolate bar this morning to complete my breakfast :)
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
I’m going to say this again…when you disenfranchise 1.7 million former felons. That’s not just a gerrymandered state, that’s prime Voter Suppression.
Steeplejack
@Leto:
The “five families” thing has been around for a while.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
Been screaming recession every chance they get.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
yeah!!!
eclare
@Steeplejack: Nice. I like chord heavy songs.
eclare
@Jackie: Excellent!
Gvg
@Soprano2: I pretty much have a problem with him getting gifts too. Gifts worth that kind of money from anyone. Gifts from non relatives. Those should not be happening disclosed or not. All of it should be disclosed even the robe Ginny gives him at Christmas if it’s above about $20. Every year. Investments that lose money as well as gain. Does he remember the Clinton impeachment? Everything gets reported. His excuses are not believable and his aides didn’t put these things on the form or tell him to because he didn’t tell them about it in the first place IMO.
karen marie
@Kay: How did he lose money? His mother still lives there and Crow spent $35,000 to fix her house.
The Moar You Know
@Jackie: there is still time for one until tomorrow morning but like you, I am really hoping that they don’t. Fox needs to be exposed for the lie factory that they are.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah. While I hope they get hit with a big judgment, the public trial itself may be more important in the long run.
Eolirin
@New Deal democrat: One factor that is very different from past situations is that we still have a labor shortage in a number of sectors.
That changes things in important ways, I would think.
Not that the fed can’t tank the economy by pushing interest rates too high, but there may be a disconnect between traditional markers of an oncoming recession and actual contraction in the jobs market because this situation is genuinely unique.
Geminid
@Cameron: I heard an excerpt from one of Trump’s anti-DeSantis ads: …and now Ron DeSantis wants to put his dirty fingers on your Social Security…”
Politico had an article last month on the Trump campaign’s oppo research on DeSantis and the lines of attack generated from it. The reporter noted that several campaign operatives had worked with DeSantis, including Susie Wiles and Tony Fabrizio. The pudding story must have come from one of them.
Kay
@New Deal democrat:
IMO people overplay the national import of the VA governor’s race. As they did in this case. It’s really tempting because of the timing so they always over interpret it.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Not saying it won’t happen, but it’s the boy that cried wolf at this point.
Steeplejack
@eclare:
He sounds like his piano is 30 feet long!
Kay
@Soprano2:
Are they? Because there is a perennial sweet pea that grows here as a wild flower. It’s a muddy, beigy pink with a pea stem and leaves. I’m sorry- I’m a sweet pea obsessive. This year I am growing NINE different kinds :)
karen marie
@Baud: The gift-giver is responsible for paying the tax on gifts. I’d like to see Crow’s tax returns. Did he report the millions of dollars’ worth of trips gifted to Thomas and pay the tax? I’m going to guess not.
Gin & Tonic
@Steeplejack: Oh, man, sorry to hear. I think the first jazz album I bought was one of his.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: I think it was that no recession had ever started in the 3rd year of a president’s term.
Kay
@Soprano2:
Annuals, what I grow, are Lathyrus odoratus. Perennial are Lathyrus latifolius – they’re not fragrant.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
Might not have been abortion per se, just the six-week ban?
Baud
@karen marie:
I’d be more interested in whether he claimed the gifts as a business expense.
karen marie
@New Deal democrat: What decline in gas prices? It’s $4.49 here in AZ. That’s higher than December by over a dollar.
Redshift
@New Deal democrat:
Hmm, it was in the same vicinity, but I wouldn’t agree that Youngkin was running on the DeSantis/Rufo direct attacks. Until he was elected, it was all dog whistle to preserve his “nice guy” image. (Did his campaign come up with the idea of saying “parents rights” as a smokescreen for “conservative activists can get things banned for all kids”? It’s certainly the first place I heard it.)
Another Scott
3 seems unusual…
(via nycsouthpaw)
Cheers,
Scott.
New Deal democrat
@Kay: “IMO people overplay the national import of the VA governor’s race.”
Oh I agree. McAulliffe was winning handily until that gaffe. And unbelievably, he failed to walk it back. As soon as that happened, I knew he was toast.
Eolirin
@karen marie: It’s 3.50ish here in my part of NY, which is down almost two dollars from peak.
New Deal democrat
@karen marie: GasBuddy national and AZ chart:
https://www.gasbuddy.com/charts
You’re definitely worse than the national average, but still $.80 less than what you were paying last June, according to the chart.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Who knows? When has the GOP ever preached moderation on abortion?
Soprano2
@Kay: I didn’t know there were different kinds of sweet peas. And yes, they seem to grow wild everywhere. No I know has ever actually planted them. They are pretty, I don’t take them off my fence like I do the morning glories. I love the way morning glories look, but I hate what their vines do to my chain link fence.
I got myself a weed flamethrower! I didn’t even know there was such a thing until I heard about it on an NPR gardening show that they broadcast here at noon on Sunday. I haven’t tried it yet, I hope to look at it this week. I’m hoping it will make it easy for me to keep the fence row cleaned out.
Kay
@New Deal democrat:
This is horrible to say and won’t win me any elections, but I pretty much agreed with him on parents and school. I think parents are often not objective or rational about their children and we really could use another opinion from someone who is less emotionally invested, like that of a teacher.
This wil be part of my losing platform – “parents DON’T actually know what’s best, ALWAYS” where I also zero out farm subsidies and tell small business people to stop whining :)
New Deal democrat
@Eolirin: “this situation is genuinely unique [different].”
As you probably know, those are dangerous words!
We did have 3 recessions in the 1970s where payrolls kept increasing for months into the general downturn. That could happen again this time. Time will tell.
Eolirin
@Baud: Pre-70s? It’s not like it became an issue for them until some Evangelical leaders decided to turn it into one to create a wedge issue to politicize their base with.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Pre-1970s, abortion was almost universally banned.
Geminid
@New Deal democrat: McAuliffe definitely laid an egg in that debate, and it fed into Youngkin’s campaign themes. I’m not sure Youngkin’s centering the “menace” of CRT as an issue affected many votes, though. I thought it had value mainly is that it gave the base an issue to rally around without the blowback created by the abortion and gun rights issues.
That election certainly was a bite in the butt for Virginia Democrats, but I would not read to much into it. The Republicans had an attractive and energetic candidate, a political newcomer with a “blank canvas” that he painted in to his advantage, as one reporter put it. Youngkin also had well focused campaign managers who understood his narrow path to victory and made the most of it.
The Democratic candidate, on the other hand, did not especially inspire Democrats, or attract Independents either. I think McAuliffe was still good enough to win if he’d run a good enough campaign, but he didn’t.
Kay
@Soprano2:
The weed flamethrower sounds fun. I use a sawzall to take down weedy trees and shrubs and I enoy wacking away at them.
I grow the big cutting snapdragons too and they’re a tender perennial so can go out early. Right now they’re lightly dusted with snow :)
Redshift
@Kay:
I agree. I think the main thing is TFG being in office was the only thing that broke the usual pattern of the VA governor’s race going against the party that won the presidential election, and we didn’t get the unusually high turnout we’d been getting because people who aren’t political junkies thought getting rid of TFG meant things were back to normal.
(I feel McAuliffe still might have pulled it out if he’d run hard instead of treating it as “I was a popular governor, of course people will vote me back in.”
LiminalOwl
@WaterGirl: Thank you. Trying again, sorry for incompetence.
https://twitter.com/tizzyent/status/1647722450195562498?s=12&t=pWzjP64aFW1XM8w8pvtO5A
Eolirin
@New Deal democrat: It’s just very difficult to imagine something like the tech sector layoffs happening in say, the restaurant industry, when that sector is already struggling to get enough workers.
And yeah, it could happen anyway, but we’ve had a labor supply contraction bigger than anything we’ve seen since at least WW2, and possibly since 1918. Assuming things will hold to historical trends given that seems about as bad of an idea as thinking they won’t, at least.
AlaskaReader
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation, Yeah, no, …that was someone who isn’t inclined to give air to extremists.
Geminid
@Kay: McAuliffe had a good point, but he made it in an impolitic way. I thought Tim Kaine, Mark Warner, or Ralph Northam would have made the same point in a better way. But they are accomplished retail politicians who’ve learned how to talk to voters. I don’t think McAuliffe ever did.
Baud
@Baud:
Wiki
206inKY
Don’t see why the Democrats shouldn’t lean in on being the party of Wall Street. An awful lot of boomers in FL and AZ will be feeling the pain in their retirement accounts if McCarthy and his lunatics refuse to raise the debt ceiling. Don’t have to do anything crazy like the 2017 handout to big businesses—just show that they care about protecting the markets from economic terrorism.
Meanwhile the Republicans will be furiously looking for a snarky AOC tweet when everything crashes.
Ultimately we need Warren center stage as the only senator who understands capitalism enough to reform it, but for now “party that doesn’t break things” could be enough to sweep the table in 2024.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@dnfree: imean, why would you rely on rational arguments? they’ve been pulling shit straight out of their asses and just making stuff up since st. reagan. they doubled down in ‘96 with the dawn of faux news.
who the fuck needs “rational arguments” or fucking EXPERTISE in a subject matter when you have a puke funnel that leads you to “the base camp of bullshit mountain”?
Baud
@Geminid: Republicans swept all the state level elections. Does the governor’s race usually drive turnout like that.
AlaskaReader
@Geminid: Well, no. I’ve been around much much longer than that…
Baud
@206inKY:
Dems should be the party of the economy, which includes Wall Street and corporations, but does not center on them like the GOP does.
Geminid
@New Deal democrat: McAuliffe’s statement certainly got the attention of Youngkin’s campaign managers. The had a digital ad featuring it by midnight, and had a similar ad ready for TV the next day.
Baud
@206inKY:
If you mean in 2028, I doubt she’ll run again given the push to go younger after Biden (we seem to past the “instead of” stage with Biden).
AlaskaReader
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:Simple courtesy used to lead one to ask the ask the person you wish to know something about.
But I expect some, with a history of such proclivities, will continue to feed each other’s presuppositions and presumptions, …
Eolirin
@Baud: It being illegal certainly made it much easier to have a more moderate position on it. :p
Steeplejack
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
No, he just chose that thread to run his sea-lion game. Last night it was Discord. A week or so ago a commenter mentioned that he (commenter) asked a right-leaning customer what she thought of Mike Pompeo, and the polar PITA (h/t) ragged him through an entire thread about “putting forward” and “proposing” Pompeo as a “viable candidate.”
Sea lion reminder.
AWOL
@RAM: That was mobster and Hitler-coward Joe Kennedy.
japa21
@New Deal democrat:
There was talk about Rufo’s anti-CRT campaign playing a role, but no evidence it did. If anything, the evidence seemed to say that it didn’t have any impact.
Geminid
@Baud: Votes for Lt. Governor and AG usually track the Governor’s tally closely. Virginians don’t seem to pay that much attention to those candidates as individuals.
AlaskaReader
@Geminid: Always some dismay watching otherwise grown adults getting so much joy out of their virtual jr high lunch table hierarchy.
JML
Economists have been predicting “imminent” bagel ( you’re not supposed to say the “R” word out loud, according to the West Wing) for what….18 months now? they wouldn’t be attempting to undermine consumer confidence to be proven right, would they? They’ve certainly been playing the Fed for suckers.
Kay
@Baud:
She also did really poorly. I love her but if she’s smart she’ll let someone else run nationally. She’s never going to win a primary let alone a general.
Steeplejack
@Geminid:
See above.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: Well, the price of gas here has gone up at least thirty cents a gallon since OPEC announced that they are reducing their output a million barrels a day.
Baud
@Kay: Maybe it’s just my bubble, but I also don’t hear about her as much as I used to. She doesn’t seem to be doing much to keep her ideas or her name out there in people’s minds.
StringOnAStick
@Kay: As far as sweet peas go, even master gardener Monty Don of cool weather England starts his indoors in pots he can direct plant, so no root disturbances. They are about a foot long by the time he plants them outdoors. I love sweet peas too but if I direct seed them then they are just starting to bloom well when the heat hits. I have seen them for sale along with other greenhouse grown annuals; I don’t have enough space under my grow lights to start them myself with the other things I have going.
BR
@New Deal democrat:
Does that mean that you expect existing housing sale prices in real terms (not just YoY) to start coming down? When might that start, and how long will the prices likely go down before they bottom out?
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Kay: teachers study for YEARS how to best educate their students. they are expected (in ny) to keep ABREAST of advancements in their fields and better techniques to reach the students in their classrooms
mcauliffe was RIGHT proof in the pudding is all the fucking book bans, the CRT and trans panic as well as the lurch away from LGBTQ rights
the parents allready HAD access to syllabusses; they ALWAYS knew EXACTLY what their kids were reading and learning, now the states’ biggest flaming fucking MORONS can veto and apply choke points for every fucking kid’s education in entire districts soon, state-wide
we don’t let that anti-expertise/ luddite hatred of knowledge in ANY other field not pilots, not plumbers, not fucking pastry chefs
why the fuck do we allow it for teachers? aren’t kids supposed to be our most VALUABLE asset in a “culture of life”?!?
the fascist gop is SO full of shit they won’t trust teachers to EDUCATE, but they WILL trust them with FIREARMS?!?
gtfo with that weak-ass logic, republicans FFS
AlaskaReader
@Steeplejack: Joining the junior high table for lunch, I see.
Jim Appleton
@strange visitor (from another planet): How did Clarence “lose money” selling property he inherited?
Baud
@Jim Appleton: Stepped up basis?
Or straight out lying.
Eolirin
@BR: Any economist who answers that question with any specificity is lying to you.
rikyrah
@Redshift:
Yep…he was doing the Frank Luntz-approved language until he got elected. Then, he showed what we all knew was bullshyt.
BR
@Eolirin:
Not helpful, I know that. But NDD has a good track record of reading the tea leaves of the data and getting a general impression of where things are headed.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
The Democrats didn’t let their primary system play out. They pushed McAuliffe, and I think that also lent to the lack of enthusiasm for him.
Uncle Cosmo
Isn’t that kindasorta the modus operandi of money laundering? Overpay for some asset with a form of value that’s difficult or impossible to utilize in the general marketplace, then sell it at a loss in a form of value that is usable? The resultant “loss” is effectively the vigorish for converting the value into something more widely negotiable.
206inKY
@Baud: I doubt she’ll run but we need her expertise. All Dems agree on better funding for the IRS, but she seems to be the only one pushing for strengthening the SEC. She’d also be taking a harder line on what Powell and the Fed are doing with their idiotic and cruel strategy of fighting inflation by trying to increase unemployment.
Overall I’m just frustrated with how Kaptur’s strategy is described in that Axios piece.
The shift in white working class voting is very obviously driven by fascism—a final acceleration of the post-1965 flight to the GOP in response to successes of the black freedom movement—and Democrats should be tending to the voters they have (including any post-Dobbs latecomers) instead of forever chasing FDR’s coalition, which united around animus toward Wall Street but was compromised by southern Democrats who loved Jim Crow.
Eolirin
@AlaskaReader: Are you okay?
NotMax
@karen marie
Back up to $4.89 in my neck of the woods.
New Deal democrat
@BR: Take a look at the first two graphs here:
https://bonddad.blogspot.com/2023/04/properly-measured-consumer-inflation-is.html
Housing prices as measured by two different national indexes have already declined since last summer. “Official” CPI for housing has historically lagged them by about a year, as shown on the graphs.
I was saying over a year ago that house prices were going to drag the official measure of CPI higher into this spring, and even suggested about 8% as their peak YoY gain. And here we are.
StringOnAStick
@cmorenc: The media is getting away with not pointing out the Harlan Crow is the head of the Board for the American Enterprise Institute, which has directly had 8 cases before the USSC; Thomas decided in their favour on every one of those cases. This needs to get more media attention; Crow is not just some wealthy individual, he’s part of the governance for a huge and influential think tank that is quite litigious, and bought himself a USSC judge for just that reason. If course, Thomas wanted to be bought because he agrees, so those hands certainly wash each other.
BR
@New Deal democrat:
Thanks. Just like you saw the trend change last year, are housing prices likely to keep going down this year or are they already nearing a bottom?
New Deal democrat
@Eolirin: Or has studied the situation more than you have.
I forecast the increase in Owners’ Equivalent Rent to this level beginning over a year ago. Receipts: http://bonddad.blogspot.com/2022/10/september-consumer-inflation-primarily.html
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Median is a better measure for central tendency than mean which is skewed towards extremes.
Kristine
@Soprano2: @New Deal democrat:
OPEC production cuts + transition to summer blend.
Steeplejack
@The Moar You Know:
What is New Deal democrat’s site?
New Deal democrat
@BR: Prices follow sales, which in turn follow mortgage interest rates.
Mortgage interest rates probably peaked last October. Housing sales may be bottoming now (stay tuned for tomorrow’s housing permits and starts report).
*If* housing sales were to bottom now (don’t know if that’s the case), I would expect prices to bottom, on a seasonally adjusted basis, by about sometime this summer.
Hope that is helpful.
StringOnAStick
@Kay: There is a difference between the perennial sweet peas and the ones you love that are annuals, not the same at all. The perennial one is less water hungry by a long shot, almost hard to get rid of once it gets established. There is a white version with just a touch of pink, but most plants and up being that muddy pink that fades to blah blue; no scent either. Start your seeds in paper pots now if you can, a month ago was optimal.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
You get this from some business pundits, many of whom have sketchy business credentials.
But you do not get this from the business sections of the media.
Even public radio gets it right with programs like the Indicator, Marketplace and Make Me Smart.
BR
@New Deal democrat: Thanks!
StringOnAStick
@Soprano2: Those flame weeders are great, it really works. Just be careful when there’s dry tinder around!
AlaskaReader
@Eolirin: With being a punching bag for the local ill-mannered pretentious coterie ?
Meh.
I’ve watched the many unmannerly yobs here work ever so hard at filtering and maintaining their self determined social order through their intergroup signaling for many a year.
They’ll continue to fall all over each other to assuage their compunctions, that’s nothing new.
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: You have to be a twisted person to do that, IMO.
Geminid
@rikyrah: I think McAulliffe seemed like a sure thing to Democrats, and that’s why McAuliffe’s support was so broad. .
Joe Biden’s 10 point win the year before may have made Democrats overconfident also. In retrospect, it seems that in 2020 the Trump factor added a few points to the core Democratic vote. That may also have been true for some of the districts Democrats lost last year in New York and California.
Kay
@StringOnAStick:
I start them indoors too. It’s the only way I’ve ever had success with them. I set them out when they’re about 6 inches so before they put out the curly vines. I no longer grow them but that’s how I grew snap peas too, when I had children to feed them to -indoor starts.
Johnny’s Selected Seeds has so many Sweet Pea varities that I go a little crazy. They sell to “market gardeners” so sweet peas must be popular cut flowers somewhere- not where I live :)
Paul in KY
@Tony Jay: Hadn’t heard ‘Wheels McSleaze’. Good one! Will use it if his punk ass ever makes the news again.
barbequebob
@Glidwrith: the origins of Patriots Day have to do with commemorating the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which occurred on April 19, 1775.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriots%27_Day
Paul in KY
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I think I’d rather go see the fake ark than a effing Clarence Thomas Museum!!!
At least with the fake ark, you can see some good woodworking.
karen marie
@Sure Lurkalot: The claim is “aides” filled out the forms? So not “clerks.” Who pays these aides? Do they handle other personal business – like dry cleaning, dinner reservations, bringing him snacks?
I’m trying to wrap my head around the idea that an elite lawyer who went to an elite law school, who agreed to the reporting as part of his employment, who is employed to decide cases based on a document so complex it requires its own court that cannot be appealed, cannot figure out how to comply with simple reporting requirements.
As others have suggested, his income tax returns should be reviewed.
Paul in KY
@AlaskaReader: Oh! You’re that guy they were talking about…
Kay
I’ll need to see where the “far far Left stated that those who use a gun nothing should happen, no repercussion”.
Baud
@Kay:
I think there should be no repercussions for those who use a gun.
I got your back, Mayor Adams.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
If one were to distort the distortion about defund the police then squint real hard through the wrong end of some smudgy binoculars, maybe they’d see it too.
Ken
If it’s any consolation, I strongly suspect that Harlan Crow will not be wasting his money on a Clarence Thomas museum. In fact, I’d give odds that if Thomas pre-deceases his mother, she’ll be booted onto the street faster than you can say “redevelopment project”.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@AlaskaReader: Bruh, maybe get a little perspective on the scope of social media sites. Maybe try to understand why singling one out for behavior that happens on all of them, all on an unrelated thread, didn’t get the response you wanted.
We have good faith disagreements here all the time. If you left it at “neither Discord nor the military are doing enough to combat extremism in their communities,” I doubt anyone here would disagree.
Problem is you took your claims about three steps further than the available facts demonstrate.
Cameron
@Kay: Doesn’t it depend on what they’re using the gun for?
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Cameron: Dessert and floor cleaner both.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
innovative turd polishing
Now that is some great writing.
I’ve heard a lot of this kind of talk but never seen this one. Bravo!
Paul in KY
@Kay: Is Mayor Adams on drugs?
Ruckus
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Not a pusher of limits, are you?
Or is it more of a not run over with a loaded semi limits pusher?
Paul in KY
@Ken: Will not take that bet!
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
I can empathize. I go through the same thing. At the pharmacy, I consult my personal team of lawyers before every step with any legal or ethical ramifications, like whether it’s OK to discuss medications with a patient after they confirmed their personal info.
My boss says it’s too cumbersome a process, but sometimes my lawyers still get it wrong. What’s an elite to do?
Ruckus
@Kay:
This.
A billion times this. Rethuglicans like to blame everyone else for their fuckups and bullshit. And because they are trying to fuck over everyone else they have a lot of those/that.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Ruckus: Safety > Ethics > Law> My personal wishes
I push only where it’s the right thing to do or the safety of others is at stake. More so the former. Not a lot of life and death decisions on my plate.
Don’t understand your second sentence there.
The Moar You Know
@strange visitor (from another planet): he was, but that’s just plain one of Those Things You Can’t Say, like:
you’re a bad parent
your kid is a moron, but we need people to work fast food too
your child is a danger to everyone around him/her
you should have to have a license to breed
christ those kids are annoying
that shit stopped being funny in 77
etc
It was fucking stupid on his part and he deserved to lose the election because of it. Doesn’t mean he was wrong. HE WAS RIGHT.
The Moar You Know
@Kay: i’ve been called a commie this year, more than once, and my position on what should happen is (extremely unconstitutional): possession of, use of, or sale of a firearm is an automatic sentence of life without parole.
I write this as a gun owner, who will be very happy to get rid of them once this country is disarmed.
sdhays
@Kay: Personally, whatever the faults of the McAullife campaign or the strengths of the Youngkin campaign, I think that if the Afghan government had held on to November, McAuliffe would have pulled it out. The polls started to really tighten when the media went all in on how terrible and stupid Biden and his team were for letting Afghanistan fall to the Taliban.
A better Democratic campaign might have overcome those headwinds, but without them, I don’t think Youngkin would have won.
Miss Bianca
@scav:
Did Alexandra Petri write this? It’s hilarious!
Oh, wait? It was one of the right-wing WaPo gasbags? Still hilarious, but in a very dark fucked-up way.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
Coming late to the party, so apologies if this has already been covered, but I read that excerpt as meaning that he has aides, as in USSC aides, helping him with his financial declaration forms. It is another example of Thomas being the ultimate “welfare queen” (as he’s called in an MSNBC article today). However, if those aides help him with his tax preparation, then that might be yet ANOTHER ethics lapse by this shitheel.
Steeplejack
@Miss Bianca:
Wall Street Journal gasbag. Editorial position to the right of Attila the Hun.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
You mean government employees shouldn’t make their subordinates take care of their personal business?
Quick, someone tell Sinema.
TerryC
@Kay: I have a fence row that still produces them every even nine years after my initial and only sowing.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Me too..cause,that’s phucking bullshyt.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@rikyrah: Adams is a liar and a fool, like most authoritarians.
Bill Arnold
@eclare:
Oh, yes, that series was fun.
The first time I did one of those I reversed engineered methods for geolocation through a single image. (A image where a mile or so away, air force one was sitting on a runway.) I got the apartment building; one or more of the winners got the exact apartment.
Anyway
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Is that what he was getting at? Couldn’t figure out what the far, far left meant in Adams’ quote – wouldn’t parse at all.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Anyway: Eric Adams; liar, fool, authoritarian
Eta: And disparager of a fine first name.
Ruckus
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Sort of a pun on the concept of being run over. One can be run over by a bicycle/rider, one can be hit by a truck (this is my favorite because I have been hit by a truck, literally head on) and one can be run over by a semi. Generally there is a resultant difference between the 3 kinds of being run over. A steamroller is worse than the above 3, as a matter of comparison.
Gravenstone
@Leto: Oh, it’s 110% intentional. They think they’re fucking Mafiosi.
Glidwrith
@Cameron: I’d make a joke, but I just can’t parody that shit. Too close to the bone.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Paul in KY: mayor cop is a fucking moron. he’s really fucking dumb. i mean, he was smart enough to change his registration and run as a democrat but everything else he’s done since implies a timid imagination and a tiny intellect.
strange visitor (from another planet)
@Anyway: he means that liberal/ leftist prosecutors who are using discretion instead of hauling every motherfucking jaywalker or pot smoker off to rikers is a harbinger of the coming apocalypse when liberals let even violent criminals off the hook and out without bail.
it’s a bullshit right wing meme they’ve been pumping on hard since the floyd murder and subsequent protests. mayor cop is just aping the propaganda because he’s an idiot.
i mean, it’s not at ALL how the law works now or how the prosecutors are dealing with it…. as far as i know, violent criminals are NOT released without bail.
Glidwrith
@rikyrah: Mmmm, that’s really tempting.
{smacks hand} No, Glidwrith, bad dragon! Red meat first, THEN chocolate!
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: One way to see it is that they’re representing only their white constituents, in their struggle against the non-white people in the same district. Anything to benefit the less-well-off is actually going to play badly if that’s how their supporters are thinking. People will voluntarily hurt themselves for less.
Chris T.
@Geminid:
Everything points to a pretty shallow one—sort of an “in name only” recession (2 quarters of GDP shrinkage)—provided the Fed react quickly. Unfortunately that’s a big proviso, but they now have room to maneuver.
Geminid
@Chris T.: I like to think Democrats got some countercyclical spending in early with the Infrastructure, CHIPS+ and IRA bills. I guess we’ll see.
AlaskaReader
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: Good faith, you say, …you betcha, …that’s what I saw.