Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

When we show up, we win.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

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

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: BIDEN. BOOM.

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: BIDEN. BOOM.

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214Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    A lot of wishy-washy people in the middle probably will be influenced by the Economist than by anything a liberal might say.  Hope many of them see that article.

  4. 4.

    narya

    Good morning!

    Krugman’s column yesterday noted the steps that Biden can take to avoid the debt limit crashing everything. Nothing new, but was glad to see it spelled out concisely, with a minimum of bullshit. I’m amused at how closely Biden & team are holding this to their vest; impressive discipline. And you know they have multiple plans.

  6. 6.

    Betty Cracker

    Thanks for the link to the WaMo piece on the feds funding municipalities directly — it’s a smart way to get around shitty red state governors who screw their own cities. It was infuriating when DeSantis hoarded the CARES funding that was supposed to help all of FL, including cities, during the pandemic and then to hear him brag later about a miraculous “budget surplus.” The Biden peeps shut that kind of shit down, and good for them!

  7. 7.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Paul Glastris@glastris
    Politicians like DeSantis have benefited politically by manhandling local governments. But that could be a problem for them nationally. Polls consistently show that local governments are the most trusted by liberals and conservatives alike./end

    That’s because if one has a problem, you can actually go and talk to them about it and more often than not get it resolved.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    Today is the day the Supreme Court is tested again.  Stay of 5th Circuit Mifepristone ruling expires at midnight.

  12. 12.

    narya

    @OzarkHillbilly: And they also know who/which agencies in the community can roll things out quickly. My old organization got tapped multiple times, for Covid, mpox, and, in previous years, meningitis that was affecting gay men. Some of those efforts have evolved and continued, in part because the city can work closely with the agency to go in specific directions. (Not all are successful, of course–smoking cessation I’m looking at you–but some are really great.)

  14. 14.

    rikyrah

    When I tell you that the MSM has a sad everytime these jobs reports have been coming. ….

     

    I mean, they just announce them and go on…no lingering analysis. Just bland reading them with no context.

  16. 16.

    narya

    @Baud: I’ve listened to multiple podcasts about this–Strict Scrutiny is among the best–and . . . I can actually see them rejecting the stay because of standing alone, but I’m betting they find a way to eliminate medication abortion. One possibility is the “off-label” usage–i.e., usage after a certain number of weeks of pregnancy–because docs will prescribe it even if someone is further along; to get the label to include those additional weeks would be a whole process. They are so hot to dismantle the administrative elements of the government that they might find a way to allow a judge in Texas to challenge the FDA’s knowledge and authority.

  17. 17.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @narya: ​ And they also know who/which agencies in the community can roll things out quickly.  

    Exactly. When I bought my house in the city I got on almost a first name basis with my alderman Marty Aboussie. If I needed something fixed, all I had to do was call him and it got done.

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    Fight fight fight! LOL

     

    Not my business..LOL

     

    Police called to Michigan GOP meeting as physical fight breaks out among attendees

     

    Bridge MI reports that a fight erupted on Friday night at the Doherty Hotel in Clare, Michigan between allies of current Michigan GOP Chairman Kristina Karamo and ally-turned-rival Matthew DePerno. “A video recording obtained by Bridge Michigan shows a confrontation between Kalamazoo Republican Party Chair Kelly Sackett and Macomb County GOP Secretary Melissa Pehlis,” the publication writes.

     

    “After they exchanged words, Sackett appeared to knock a cigarette and phone from the hand of Pehlis, who responded by thrusting an open hand at Sackett’s head.” In an interview with Bridge MI, Sackett revealed that she filed a police complaint against Pehlis over the incident, which was apparently a dispute about DePerno’s moves to purportedly purge people loyal to Karamo from the Kalamazoo Republican Party.

     

    https://www.rawstory.com/michigan-republican-party-2659878991/

  19. 19.

    Baud

    @narya:

     I can actually see them rejecting the stay because of standing alone

     
    Agree. This court normally hates loose standing rules. But I don’t put anything past them.

  21. 21.

    rikyrah

    That tweet by Glastris. It’s because, I believe, Joe Biden’s time in government actually means something. That maybe he’s learned things along the way?

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @narya: ​ They are so hot to dismantle the administrative elements of the government that they might find a way to allow a judge in Texas to challenge the FDA’s knowledge and authority.

    I’m not so sure. Most Republicans are in the pocket of big pharma and big pharma knows how to deal with the regulatory environment as it exists today. That idiot Texas judge has thrown a great big wrench into the works and I doubt they are happy about it.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    Imagine where we’d be if we still had the House. I hope people finally start internalizing this.

  24. 24.

    WereBear

    @Baud: One of the most absurd assertions of Republicans is how they are the “business party,” but under their sway we see corporations little more than pirates, like in the Monty Python sketch.

    No sense of innovation or customer satisfaction. Under Trump’s second term, one would have to spend a certain amount with certain favored corporations, per year, or it would be taken from taxes.

    I wasn’t kidding.

  25. 25.

    Baud

    @WereBear:

    Agree.  Republicans are better for corporations. Democrats are better for the economy.  But too many people see the first thing as the second thing.

  27. 27.

    Suzanne

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    When I bought my house in the city I got on almost a first name basis with my alderman Marty Aboussie. If I needed something fixed, all I had to do was call him and it got done. 

    I swear that half of my neighbors here in Pittsburgh have our councilman’s contact info saved in their phones. Holy cannoli. My neighborhood page is a litany of grievances.

    In PHX East Valley, though….. I doubt that even five percent of my neighbors knew who was on the city council.

  28. 28.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: Saw a tweet yesterday with video of the confrontation between the two GOP operatives. Reminded me of my college days, when I witnessed many a hilarious, embarrassing scrap between slurring, drunk, belligerent women (hey, I went to a football school!). Mobile phones were the only anachronism. 

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    In a pre-dawn session on Tuesday, the Iowa state senate voted to allow children to work longer hours and serve alcohol, the latest move by Republican-controlled statehouses to combat a labor shortage by loosening child labor laws. The Iowa bill would expand the number of hours that children under 16 can work from four to six a day, allow minors to work in previously prohibited industries if they are part of a training program, and allow 16- and 17-year–olds to serve alcohol with a parent’s permission.

    It passed the state senate by a vote of 32-17, two Republicans joining every Democrat in opposition. The vote took place just before 5am, after protests and delay tactics by Democrats.

    “We do know slavery existed in the past but one place it doesn’t exist, that’s in this bill,” said Adrian Dickey, the Republican responsible for shepherding the bill to passage, according to the Iowa Capital Dispatch.

    “It simply is providing our youth an opportunity to earn and learn, at the same timeframe as his classmates do, while participating in sports and other fine arts.”

    “It simply is providing our business communities an opportunity to exploit our youth for profit, while at the same time stunting our children’s educational opportunities.” FTFH.

    Funny how the GOP is so against letting the “free” market set wages. I keep waiting for them to bring back indentured servitude.

  30. 30.

    WereBear

    @Baud: Well put!

    Sadly, I’ve found Brain Parts Not Touching Each Other, or BPNTEO, rampant among certain elements of the populace.

    Perhaps, in the case of MAGA, an envy that corporate jobs come with benefits?

    Beyond that, we get into Freud. They should graduate to Jung, but rarely do.

  31. 31.

    NotMax

    @narya

    They are so hot to dismantle the administrative elements of the government that they might find a way to allow a judge in Texas to challenge the FDA’s knowledge and authority.

    “Our ancestors relished a tittle of cocaine in their soda pop. Why can’t we?”
    //

  32. 32.

    Leto

    @narya: honestly team Biden could have a half a plan written in crayon, on the back of a soggy napkin, and it’d still be more comprehensive than anything McCarthy will produce. But as Burns said, competency is a good thing.

  34. 34.

    WereBear

    Woke up to the Dominion news and don’t see a thread? It’s still a win. And maybe the next one would be televised if it’s not in Delaware, as this one would have been.

    I like my revenge served nicely chilled, and poetically.

  35. 35.

    rikyrah

    @OzarkHillbilly:

     

    I’m not so sure. Most Republicans are in the pocket of big pharma and big pharma knows how to deal with the regulatory environment as it exists today. That idiot Texas judge has thrown a great big wrench into the works and I doubt they are happy about it.

     

    This is true. Big Pharma oddly enough, is our ally in this. Crazy, but true.

  36. 36.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: Sackett revealed that she filed a police complaint against Pehlis

    I thought Republicans settled these things by pulling a gun and putting two bullets into the other guy’s center of mass.

  38. 38.

    Kay

    It’s the best I’ve ever seen it here in the rust belt. The best. And I was here for the much-hyped Clinton Economy. I also drive the rust belt. Gretchen Whitmer and DeWine are fixing the damn roads like crazy. They just finished a huge modernization project on the Ohio turnpike. If “America” is in a recession you can’t tell in NW Ohio.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    Really broad based gains, too:

    April 7 (Reuters) – The Black unemployment rate hit a record low in March, a milestone for a U.S. labor market that most policymakers and economists expect to begin cooling in the face of higher interest rates, jeopardizing those historic gains.

    If this is a weak economy, I’ll take it over 10% unemployment and 20 years of wage stagnation. You-all should take it too. The people who are bullish on this economy have been right more than the sad sacks who keep predicting doom.

    I think the powers that be are pissed wages went up an workers had some leverage. The “wrong people” benefitted from Biden’s economy.

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I do say it. It’s nutty. No one can find a contractor – they’re all fucking swamped- yet the NYTimes tells me middle class people can’t afford a gallon of milk. The median income in this town is low 40s. They’re my clients. They’re all buying new trucks and putting in concrete driveways. This money has to be coming from somewhere!

  47. 47.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    But think about how wealthy they’d be if they didn’t have Democratic boots on their necks and Democratic hands shoving things down their throats!

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Plutocrats are hopping mad about the rise in wages and that workers are demanding more flexibility, support and acknowledgement of their contributions. Fat cats are more than willing to endure a recession to make things go back to the way they were.

  50. 50.

    narya

    @OzarkHillbilly: @rikyrah: I’m really torn on this one. They are HOT to dismantle the administrative state–it’s been a project (not least because of Gorsuch’s mother) for this RW crew, and they are creating opportunities to do that–tacking things into opinions that are unrelated to the subject so they can refer back to it as though it were settled precedent. It’s really a dismantling of the whole system they have in mind, because that’s what their big-money donors want. OTOH, this would merely create chaos, which, as you’ve noted, Pharma does not want.

  52. 52.

    Suzanne

    @Kay: The PA Turnpike looks great. They widened the whole part up and over the mountains. It feels so much better to drive it.

    A good friend of mine who is a divorced-childfree educated liberal type just moved to Cleveland this week. She had been living in SF, then Portland, then Miami, then in a coastal area of Oregon for the last couple of years. She got sick of the cost of living issues in those places, but still wants an urban lifestyle and, uhhhhh, an educated dating pool (how to say that politely…..she’s one of the friends always laughing about fish pictures on Tinder). I have another friend from my professional circle (divorced-with-kid) who recently moved to Milwaukee and is loving it, in large part because she can be financially successful. I have a feeling that the Rust Belt cities are about to get fairly well infiltrated by professional types who get priced out of other parts of the country.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @narya: ​ I think if they can find a way to set this idiocy aside while laying a map to accomplish what they want in a non-chaotic way, they will. I just don’t think this is the way.

  61. 61.

    rikyrah

    Not surprising in the least.

     

    More Perfect Union (@MorePerfectUS) tweeted at 7:16 PM on Tue, Apr 18, 2023:
    BREAKING: The Texas House has approved a bill outlawing virtually all city and county worker protections.

    Under the bill, any local measures that go beyond state law—i.e., sick benefits, wage protections, even water breaks for construction workers—will be overturned and barred.
    (https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1648480612888752133?s=02)

  62. 62.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    I have always liked Cleveland. There are parts (around the universities and the “main campus” of the Cleveland Clinic in addition to the traditional ‘fancy neighborhoods’ ) that are already priced out for a lot of people but there’s tons of room for growth and they’ll welcome it. There aren’t going to be any NIMBY’S in Cleveland. We’re GRATEFUL in the rust belt. We want to be your friends. Desperately. Kind of pathetically  :)

  64. 64.

    rikyrah

    Yep

     

    Justin Jones & Justin Pearson Support Account (@Needle_of_Arya) tweeted at 5:50 AM on Wed, Apr 19, 2023:
    (especially white) TERFs hate being told that their anti-trans stance is a socially conservative framing that resonates very well with similarly conservative social framing of  patriarchy, white supremacy & extremist white Christianity

    TERFism does the dirty work for all of it
    (https://twitter.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1648640295201042432?t=3FSn9jvqS1LfI5b1BxEnoQ&s=03)

  65. 65.

    narya

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, I think you’re probably right on this case. Their intent to dismantle is absolutely breathtaking, though, and below the radar. That, plus the Independent State Legislature Fan Fiction, is a massive danger.

  66. 66.

    rikyrah

    Hmmmmmm

     

    Justin Jones & Justin Pearson Support Account (@Needle_of_Arya) tweeted at 6:00 AM on Wed, Apr 19, 2023:
    we’ve been arguing with white Millennial men for so long since 2010 or so, that we’ve maybe sometimes not looked at the big picture and seen how that cohort has rejected Obama and Clinton and then MVP Harris and with it, the entire concept of intersectional center-left liberalism
    (https://twitter.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1648642631466123265?t=uJmPiv6m5I0s4qGdlKfZeA&s=03)

  67. 67.

    WereBear

    I savored the Washington Monthly article about helping local government. We can do smart things and, increasingly, the opposition cannot.

  68. 68.

    Roger Moore

    @WereBear:

    One of the most absurd assertions of Republicans is how they are the “business party,” but under their sway we see corporations little more than pirates, like in the Monty Python sketch.

    It shows the difference between being in favor of generic business versus being in favor of specific businesses.  Republicans tend to be the latter, and their business cronies love them because of it.

  70. 70.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I think the nepo babies all appoint relatives because they know they didn’t get where they are on merit so they install spies, because they’re paranoid and not really confident in their abilities.

    He’s there to spy on the other appointees and report back on disloyalty. That was always my problem with nepotism in the private sector. They sucked as bosses because they’re not actually confident so you get all this weird passive aggressive below the radar stuff.

  73. 73.

    tobie

    I’d love to see Baltimore City get some hefty funding through the infrastructure bill and Inflation Reduction Act. We are the only county in the state that has to pay for the upkeep of its roads and bridges.

    The city is Maryland’s only jurisdiction that shoulders the full burden of paying to maintain all of its roads and bridges. Literally every other jurisdiction has at least some of its roads maintained by the State Highway Administration (SHA).

  74. 74.

    eclare

    @Kay:   A friend of mine from exurban Atlanta moved to Cleveland for a while when her husband had a residency.  She loved it, house close to downtown but near a nature preserve, playing in the snow, etc.  She also said people were genuinely nice, unlike the Atlanta exurbs.

  75. 75.

    Ruckus

    @rikyrah:

    Biden is a steady hand. He’s seen and has the experience to do the work. He didn’t come from a wealthy “I’ve got everything” life and he been doing this well for a long time. He’s old school democrat, he wants better and knows how to get there. I wasn’t as sold on him when he started running but I WAS WRONG. I thought he was good and I was wrong.

    He’s a hell of a lot better than just good.

    And we have quite a number of national dems who are also good and not at all focused upon their bank accounts, like most of the rethuglican party.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    I wish professors would stop writing this formula:

    Carl@HistoryBoomer

    ·On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh set off a bomb killing 168 people in Oklahoma City. He was inspired by the white supremacist novel “The Turner Diaries” which advocated a race war. Purely coincidentally, I taught about the attack yesterday—only one student had heard of it.

    That they don’t know history before they take history is not really an indictment of them. Wouldn’t you be “I’m a history professor, obviously my services are needed here and that’s super!”

    Thsi whole genre where people are supposed to know things no one has taught them is just a loser for teachers, IMO.

  77. 77.

    NotMax

    Right on time, as predicted, storm rolling in. Banshee winds blowing rain against the windows. Supposed to peter out by Friday.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @tobie: I don’t know about other Baltimore projects, but there will be a lot of Infrastructure money spent improving a big rail tunnel that has been a bottleneck for decades. The benefits of the project will be more widely distributed, but the money spent will benefit workers and businesses in your area..

  79. 79.

    Suzanne

    @WereBear: @Kay: I like Cleveland, too. I could totally see living there.

    I think professionals will change the character of the cities a bit, tho. Prices will go up, the character of the businesses will shift. I already see it in my neighborhood, which was historically working-class Italian. The newcomers have more education, a little bit more money, and expect a slightly different social norm around things like yard maintenance and parking and barking dogs and the like.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @eclare:

    They are nice in Cleveland but it’s urban so benefits from diversity and lots of young people.

    Not all midwesterners are nice. My part of the midwest is German/Scandinavian. Cold people. We’re sort of stiff and awkward, really. People from outside comment on it – “so mean!” – and I always agree with them :)

  81. 81.

    sdhays

    @Kay: I wonder how many years before professors start ringing their hands about students never hearing of the 9/11 attacks.

  82. 82.

    Betty Cracker

    There was an art school intern from Punta Gorda at my last corporate gig. After graduation, he got a job in Cleveland, moved up there and LOVED it. Then winter came for that poor sweet summer child. ;-)

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Suzanne:

    Cleveland’s little italy is a little theme parkish at this point. The Italians remaining in the neighborhood look a little baffled, like they ended up as extras in a movie. Although pleased at their (new, higher) property values, I bet!

  86. 86.

    Barbara

    @narya: I don’t follow.  Doctors can prescribe anything they want on or off-label.  So long as mifepristone remains on the market for any use it can be prescribed for any use.  Doctors do this all the time.  I say this with all seriousness, fucking with the FDA approval process in a way that threatens the continuing approval of drugs would be such a punch in the gut to manufacturers (I mean, if anti-choice zealots can do it, why not other people who are aggrieved by the approval of other products?) that it’s hard for me to imagine the push back.  There are Republicans in Congress whose main financial backing comes from pharmaceutical manufacturers.

    I mean, I am not getting this at all — whether it’s DeSantis with Disney or pharmaceutical manufacturers or even big tech — how much mileage can there be in going after business interests with such ferocity?

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @sdhays:

    My youngest was here with with a group of his friends- he’s 20 now and they were probably 10. Talking about 9/11 and one of them said “when the rockets hit the buildings….” and I winced. I get it. I could see how a very small child could get “rockets” out of that.

  88. 88.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH

     

    Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts) tweeted at 0:51 AM on Wed, Apr 19, 2023:
    Payton Washington is in the ICU after she was shot for getting in the wrong car in Texas

    Kaylin Gillis was shot to death for driving into the wrong driveway in New York

    Ralph Yarl was shot in the head for ringing the doorbell at the wrong house in Missouri

    It’s the guns https://t.co/ZpJZ0sr3wQ
    (https://twitter.com/shannonrwatts/status/1648564920798019588?t=wW6hIGfmu3aUlTRbvuCjzA&s=03)

  90. 90.

    tobie

    @Geminid: The big talk in Baltimore is about finally getting rid of the so-called “highway to nowhere.” It was a highway project in largely black West Baltimore. Land was claimed for it; houses were demolished; folks were uprooted. And then the project was never finished.

    Once Baltimore has completed an initial $3.2 million planning study, which is funded by the federal grant and a mix of city, state and Baltimore Development Corporation input, it may apply for grants out of an up to $1 billion pool established under President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act aimed at bridging divides created by developments like the Highway to Nowhere.

    I don’t mean to sound greedy. But Baltimore has been neglected for so long that it really does need large-scale investments.

  91. 91.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: Dude, I remember when I was a kid on Long Island, we would get snow and it would stay cold enough that it wouldn’t melt, and it would build up all winter. This year in Pittsburgh — which is colder than Long Island but not as cold as Buffalo or Cleveland — we had that one cold front, but not one snow that required a shovel. Everything melted quickly. Climate change is visible. My neighbors have commented that it is nothing like when they were kids.

  92. 92.

    narya

    @Barbara: IIUC, they want to make it illegal to prescribe it off-label somehow. But honestly, I’m more fuzzy on this; I’d have to relisten to the podcast.

  93. 93.

    Josie

    @Kay: ​
     I don’t know about other states, but in Texas there is a tendency to spend massive amounts of time on pre Civil War history and to gloss over more recent history. This leads to ignoring events that should be covered in middle school and high school history classes.

  94. 94.

    Kay

    I knew the murder rates in red states were higher, but I didn’t know it was this stark:

    Even when murders in the largest cities in red states are removed, overall murder rates in Trump-voting states were 12% higher than Biden-voting states across this 21-year period and were higher in 18 of the 21 years observed.

    Boy, media have really sold people a bunch of bullshit about Democrats and violent crime. It’s just ALL WRONG. It’s not even a difference of opinion were media are conservatives and so oppose liberals. It’s INCORRECT.
    Read the link. You’ll be surprised at the extent of the bullshit they have promoted.

  95. 95.

    tobie

    @sdhays: I’m not entirely sure how this situation developed but it seems that city streets are not managed by the State Highway Administration. I imagine that in suburban rural areas many of the streets also function as state routes but that’s a guess on my part.

  96. 96.

    New Deal democrat

    I don’t want to be Debbie Downer here, and I have nothing significant to add to my comment several days ago about whether a recession is likely in the near future, so let me just note two things:

    1. If you happen to have any $ sitting around in one of those no-yield bank accounts, now is a *really, REALLY* good time to call them up and ask if they have any specials. Let them know you are shopping around. Odds are, if you call around to 3 or 6 banks, you will find at least one offering close to 4% on a money market or short term maturity CD. And because your bank also knows that, you are likely to get an offer of a good interest rate on your existing cash. That’s because banks are absolutely in a panic about losing depositors at the moment, and they know damn well they can still make money after offering you a much better rate.

    2. It was very nice of Dean Baker to boost a “toot” of mine at Mastodon yesterday, pointing out how well the middle/working class has done under Biden:

    @[email protected]

  97. 97.

    Kay

    @Josie:

    That was true in my public school experience too. I sort of recognized it by high school. It’s just that there’s a lot of history. One of the reasons one continues their education is because they can’t learn everything in K-12. I think students buy into it too, unfortunately. Two of my kids were really good students – they had that anxiety that good students have- and I had to tell them “you’re allowed not to know something- you’re not expected to know algebra until you take it”. I wanted them to be comfortable not knowing and admitting that.

  98. 98.

    JMG

    @Kay: Media are all based in cities, and even in rural areas based in the largest town. Local TV news, by far the most watched and influential news media of them all, have used crime to build their audiences for over half a century. Crimes nearest station headquarters get more play because they’re easier to cover.

    Another thing. Yesterday in Maine there was a quadruple homicide and a multiple victim shooting on an interstate, crimes linked by authorities. This received much coverage on Boston local news. It’s 100 miles away, but if a, say, Malden resident got the impression crime is rampant all around them, their error would be understandable.

  99. 99.

    OverTwistWillie

    There are interests that are overextended in commercial real estate that are flogging the lazy workers/get back to work narrative.

    COVID seems to have accelerated urban core land use trending away from the 9-5 office.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @tobie: I think I read that at some point in the 1850s Baltimore was the most populous city in the nation. It certainly has been left behind now. Cities to the North and west have been revitalizing, and things are jumping from DC to Atlanta.

    Maybe your new Governor will help some. Wes Moore impresses me.

  103. 103.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne:

    The PA Turnpike looks great. They widened the whole part up and over the mountains. It feels so much better to drive it.

    That’s good to know! A good friend of mine lives in Pittsburgh, but I haven’t been up to visit her since the Before Times.  I remember that the drive just seemed a lot harder than it should have been, given the distance.

  104. 104.

    Josie

    @Kay: ​
     Of course. Students should not be blamed for not knowing something that hasn’t been taught. I’ve often wondered if, instead of dividing history into two parts–pre and post Civil War, it should be in three parts–pre to post Civil War, post Civil War to WW2, and post WW2 to present. There is some wasted time in public education (at least in my experience) that could be filled with teaching more history.

  105. 105.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah:

    “Everybody knows” Millennials got screwed by the economy and will never own homes. Surprised to find that’s not true: Millennials actually make *more* money than Gen X & Boomers did at the same age. More in the excerpt of my new book, Generations, out in The Atlantic today:

    OK, but how does that compare with what (inflation-adjusted) housing prices have done over the same span, in the places where the jobs are?

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @JMG:

    I don’t think that explains national media. Crime is higher in Jacksonville FL than NYC. So why the exclusive focus on NYC? They’re presenting an inaccurate picture to the public across the board, not an urban/rural split.

    If you’re a naional media outlet who is concerned about informing on crime you would cover “crime”, not “blue state crime”. I suspect the difference is going to be guns, which is why the Right have to scream constantly about crime in San Francisco and ignore Memphis. It’s the guns. That’s why the murder rate is higher.

  109. 109.

    Kay

    @Josie:

    You would know more than about it then me but one of the things that struck me when I was on a school committee was how litte TIME teachers seemed to have. Every minute was scheduled. I felt like they had been given this huge list of shit to cover and they had to cram it all in.

    Everyone should be on a public school board. Your whole take on it changes. It’s hard to run a strong public school. There’s all these competing interests and when it’s 50% low income like mine is, there’s all these factors outside of the schools control.

  111. 111.

    Geminid

    @OverTwistWillie: A customer of mine had a long career in high level management consulting. He’s almost totally retired now, but he keeps in touch with trends. He was telling me two summers ago that brick and mortar corporate headquarters were on their way out, and the pandemic was an accelerator of this trend. Bob said that for one thing, top management realized that with aggregating so many people in one location, there was a lot of time spent on preparing for and holding meetings that they found they could do without.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    lol. I still remember mispronouncing “Chicago” in reading group. Shik-A-Go. The SHAME. I read a lot but no one talked to me about what I read! I had whole lists of words I didn’t know how to pronounce. I still see it in my juvenile clients. I correct them, but kindly.

  115. 115.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Kay:   Bet they haven’t heard of the Feb 26, 1993 World Trade Center bombing either.  Bet the teacher forgot about it as well.

  116. 116.

    Josie

    @Kay: ​
     Yes, teachers are way over scheduled and expected to solve all society’s problems. Much of what they are expected to do has nothing to do with actual education. I remember when my one of my sons was in middle school, he begged me to home school him. He said he could cover the material in half a day that took a whole day due to extraneous crap that was not really educational. I was working as the librarian in his middle school, so I couldn’t home school him, but I agreed with his assessment.

  117. 117.

    Delk

    If a history professor grew up when mass shootings are an everyday occurrence I doubt they would know or care about some bombing that happened a decade before they were born.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @Manyakitty:

    Desperate for fun, maybe!

    It reminds me of how desperate we are for Democrats, here in Trump 75% land. I nabbed this sheriff’s deputy for the team and even I was embarrassed at how thrilled we were that he joined us. Jesus. Enough already. Rex is not that great. He actually immediately went Left and started criticizing us, so there you go. He’s a huge pain the ass.

  122. 122.

    Kay

    @Manyakitty:

    I love former Republicans – converts- but have you noticed them come onboard and immediately start trying to run everything? They’re “okay, LIB LOSERS, let me show you how it’s done” because they still have that GOP male mindset. Ugh.

  123. 123.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    Zhena gogolia and I had a conversation a while back about the curse of the precocious reader. For a long time when I was a kid I thought misled was the past tense of the verb misle (MY-sul), which I never seemed to see anywhere. I got the meaning from context, but . . . I think zhena’s involved reading something about Jesus aloud in Sunday school.

  124. 124.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Talk about bravery.  To be able to stand up and say this to the Montana legislature…Bravo!

    “If you are denying gender-affirming care and forcing a trans child to go through puberty, that is tantamount to torture, and this body should be ashamed. If you vote yes on this bill, I hope the next time you bow your heads in prayer, you see the blood on your hands.”

  126. 126.

    rikyrah

    @narya:

    I’ve listened to multiple podcasts about this–Strict Scrutiny is among the best–and . . . I can actually see them rejecting the stay because of standing alone, but I’m betting they find a way to eliminate medication abortion

     

    The standing alone was always the fraud in this case. Never mind the junk anti-science from a phucking judge.

  127. 127.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    I’m so glad it’s universal. I so recall that feeling of being right outside really understanding what I read and plowing ahead anyway, pulling in context and just really not getting some of it. I think it helps you down the road because you’re accustomed to feeling a little out of your depth, out of a comfort zone. I think the “I must get all A’s or I take to my bed” people can struggle with that.

  129. 129.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: Especially ones from marginalized groups.  Sure she has the privilege of being white, but being a woman and Transgender…she’s got some serious courage for standing up to her bullies so publicly.

  130. 130.

    Kay

    Mike Lee
    @BasedMikeLee
    ·12h
    Make no mistake: this is defamation. The media gets away with it only because Justice Thomas is a public figure, and under a Supreme Court ruling from 1964, public figures have essentially no recourse when they’re defamed by the media.

    The free speech warriors are trying to shut down all critics and inquiry again. They really succeeded at stopping any dissent at law school events. Law schools are now a “safe space” for far Right judges. The ninnies fighting “cancel culture” drove everyone but careerist ass kissers and Righties away.

  131. 131.

    Princess

    I’m more optimistic about the country than I have been in a decade. And I’m still one of those who thinks we’ll have a recession.

  132. 132.

    Barbara

    @narya: Restricting the prescribing of “off-label” drugs would turn the FDA into a default regulator of not just drugs but medical practice.  I can’t even begin to describe what that would be like, and how many toes they would be stepping on.

    When FDA has tried to limit the extent to which manufacturers can skirt product labeling limitations it has been sued by conservative groups under first amendment theories. Basically, manufacturers fund “research” by whoever showing how approved products can also be used for X.  It subverts FDA oversight, but it’s really hard to stop.

    Ditto, Congress tried to limit coverage under Part D to “on-label uses” of products and quickly had to walk it back because of the impact on beneficiaries of not being able to get drugs that their doctors had prescribed in good faith.

    It would be better if manufacturers had more of an incentive to do real studies when a drug’s use expands, but the system is literally not set up to deal with that except in very limited circumstances (e.g., orphan drugs).  Unfortunately, it is way too driven by IP rights — and once your patent is on the downslope, the return of doing studies to expand the scope of a product goes way down as the horizon for generic competition gets closer.

  133. 133.

    Manyakitty

    @Kay: like it’s genetic or something. Even the never Trumpers do it. Like, dudes–welcome! We have cookies and all, but now is the time for you to sit back and watch.

  136. 136.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

     

    Boy, media have really sold people a bunch of bullshit about Democrats and violent crime. It’s just ALL WRONG. It’s not even a difference of opinion were media are conservatives and so oppose liberals. It’s INCORRECT.
    Read the link. You’ll be surprised at the extent of the bullshit they have promoted.

     

    One of the reasons why it bothers me as an Urban person..

    is because, I know the stats of the history of the overwhelming majority of the guns confiscated after crimes here…

     

    THEY ARE BOUGHT IN OTHER STATES WITH NO GUN LAWS AND SHIPPED HERE.

  137. 137.

    Kay

    @Manyakitty:

    They do. It’s all “Democrats aren’t STRONG enough!” Say the people who let a ridiculous real estate scammer take over their entire movement.

    Trump wouldn’t happen on the D side. There would be a vigorous and loud anti Trump faction immediately – a big fight. They had some weak whining and they all fell in line.

  138. 138.

    eclare

    @Kay:   Don’t get me started about Memphis.  Gun crimes are awful here, and the gerrymandered state leg keeps making it worse.  I keep wondering when business will speak up, I don’t go anywhere after dark, which has to influence the bottom line.  I know the leg won’t do anything.

  140. 140.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Geminid:

    there was a lot of time spent on preparing for and holding meetings that they found they could do without.

    Much of on-site work is wasteful in terms of time and resources. Commuting, work clothes, fractional building use, parking lots. I think back on my career… how I prized my first office, high level meetings, business trips. Technology changes the way things are done and sometimes even for the better!

    I know there are large hurdles to convert these spaces to human use that is more efficient and needed but I do hope we get there.

  142. 142.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    Yes! There were was the rich, sometimes confusing jungle of language that I was reading in books, but I was aware that a lot of that did not show up in everyday conversation. Did I dare to introduce such words? “Thank you, Dad. This allowance is munificent indeed.” Nope.

    But realizing that there were areas of un-knowing there made it easier to accept not knowing in other areas. I think that’s one of the biggest barriers to learning—the feeling that you should already know something or that you’re not learning it fast enough. That’s why kids are such quick learners; they don’t have that baggage. “Of course I don’t know this—I’m a kid.” Next thing you know they’re speaking pretty good Spanish (my niece and nephew in bilingual grade school this year).

  144. 144.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay: because our side actually cares about policies over performance. The GOP has nothing to offer but tax cuts for the .01 percent and hate.

  145. 145.

    Dr. Fungus

    @Steeplejack: Me too. I suspected “misle” was in the ballpark of “misfit” but never bothered to check. I think I finally learned the true meaning via an Encyclopedia Brown story, where some kid was pretending to use the dictionary and cited “misled” as past tense of “misle.”

  146. 146.

    Kay

    @Steeplejack:

    Next thing you know they’re speaking pretty good Spanish (my niece and nephew in bilingual grade school this year).

    I envy them. I worked so hard at Spanish in college and I did well enough at brute memorizing to get good grades but I still can’t speak it.

  149. 149.

    Kathleen

    @OzarkHillbilly: GQP’s new branding initiative- “Freedom From Childhood! Free to marry! Free to give birth! Free to support granny after Rethugs gut her Social Security and Medicare! Win!!!

  150. 150.

    Steeplejack

    @Kay:

    Same. I took Spanish in high school and even some in college. I could read it pretty well and hear it somewhat, but I was dreadful at speaking it. Should have done that semester abroad.

  151. 151.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think it’s like everything else, some places are booming and some aren’t. The Times chooses to look only at the places where things aren’t good. I think people are still comparing prices to what they were before Covid, thinking somehow that without Covid those prices would be exactly the same.

    Last night my manager told me that she’s had people come in looking for jobs, which hasn’t happened since before Covid. So that tells me the the local economy might be cooling off a little bit.

  154. 154.

    Suzanne

    @Tdjr:

    You need a sense of humor and nerves of steel to drive the PA turnpike from Pittsburgh to Breezewood. 

    I drove that stretch twice last week. It’s fine. The widening is almost done and it feels great.

    I remember getting stuck for hours in the heat on the I-10 between Phoenix and Tucson when there was a multi-car accident. No way to pull over, running out of water, nowhere to pee, turning the cars off to avoid running out of gas, so no AC. Bugs and sand everywhere. Terrible.

  155. 155.

    Jeffro

    @Kay:It’s hard to run a strong public school. There’s all these competing interests and when it’s 50% low income like mine is, there’s all these factors outside of the schools control.

    This, this, and this.

    It’s hard enough at the best of times.  Throw in pandemic burnout, GOP-ignited culture wars, and a decade-long teacher shortage and it’s no wonder that K-12 turnover at all levels is skyrocketing.

  156. 156.

    Chris

    @WereBear:

    @Baud: One of the most absurd assertions of Republicans is how they are the “business party,” but under their sway we see corporations little more than pirates, like in the Monty Python sketch.

    Republicans are the party of businessmen, i.e. The Rich, which is different from being the party of business as in a party under whom business (or even individual corporations) do well.

    One of the things I increasingly noticed in a decade and a half of listening to them since the Great Recession is that rich people, including most CEOs, don’t really understand how the economy works.  An alarming number don’t even really understand how their own businesses work.  CEOs have been getting increasingly detached from their actual companies for years; from the failsons like Trump and Dubya that just go business to business because they keep running the last one into the ground, to the vultures like Romney that turn “running businesses into the ground” into an actual business model, to the general fact that CEOs are rewarded pretty much regardless of performance to, in milder form, the musical chairs game where CEOs just change businesses every few years before they could possibly have had a chance to really get to know the company… the rich are increasingly a class apart not just from the public but even from the businesses whose good functioning allegedly generates and even justifies their wealth.

    A lot of the disconnect comes from that.

  159. 159.

    Steeplejack

    @eclare:

    Huh. Didn’t know that. I also saw this. Apparently misle is so common that it has given a name to similarly misapprehended words.

    I wish zhena gogolia would show up. I think her Jesus one was be- something, but I can’t remember. It was hilarious.

  160. 160.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kay: I guess we think maybe they should learn something in high school before they get here? We’re willing to teach more, but when they think that North Carolina and South Carolina were on opposite sides in the Civil War, we wonder what’s going on.

  162. 162.

    Burnspbesq

    @sdhays:

    Why is Baltimore singled out?

    It’s a quirk of Maryland local government law. Baltimore City isn’t part of Baltimore County, and it’s not a county at all, so it doesn’t get things that happen at the county level. In contrast, Annapolis is part of Anne Arundel County, so it gets its share of all the goodies.

  163. 163.

    Jeffro

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:When I hear a mispronounced word like that, I know the speaker has probably learned it from reading. And good for them!

    I try to keep that in mind/always be kind whenever I hear someone mispronounce a word, no matter how old they are.

    I’d say it’s awfully big of me, but the fact is that I was on the receiving end of those kinds of chuckles not all that long ago.  I mispronounced “emeritus” (publicly, at work) to my lasting professional shame.  =)

    (“em-ur-eye-tis”) LOL

  166. 166.

    Jeffro

    @Ksmiami:because our side actually cares about policies over performance. The GOP has nothing to offer but tax cuts for the .01 percent and hate.

    Exactly.

    They expect their Reps to act out and we expect ours to act.

  167. 167.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Baud: I’m distrustful of the abstract noun, “the economy”. It’s not a thing, it’s just us people, and the institutions we have set up, and our manifold financial/economic relations to each other. Most things that happen are not good for all of us and all institutions, or bad for all. So rather than saying “the economy is good/bad” tell me who exactly is going better financially than they were, and who is doing worse.

    Was it Paine who said that abstract nouns just make for mystification? Bentham? Cf. also Marx on ideology.

  168. 168.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    Inorite! 🧙‍♂️ If only I could control this power somehow instead of it shooting out randomly.

  172. 172.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Jeffro: Yes, and it used to seem as if the tax-cutters were in charge and just stirring up the hate to get the tax-cuts through. Now it’s starting to seem as if the haters have taken over. That’s scary, but I think there is reason to hope that as the hate becomes predominant and obvious it will put off enough people that there’ll be more of us than of them. I sure hope so, or else….

  174. 174.

    eclare

    About pronunciation, I don’t really listen to any news, so I’m sure I sound awful in public.  I read tons, I just don’t like podcasts or TV for the most part.

    ETA>  TV for news.

  175. 175.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Baud: Well people talk all the time about the economy improving or deteriorating, meaning that  it’s better or worse than it was last quarter or year or decade or…. Usually the context makes it reasonably clear. Giving up the abstract noun doesn’t affect that at all, still the same context-dependence, and sometimes unclarity, about the time-frame intended.

  177. 177.

    Baud

    @Brit in Chicago:

    Sure, it’s a complex topic.  But many topics are.  We have to be able to talk about the aggregate as well as specifics, if we’re going to talk about it at all.

  178. 178.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    the overwhelming majority of the guns confiscated after crimes here…

     

    THEY ARE BOUGHT IN OTHER STATES WITH NO GUN LAWS AND SHIPPED HERE.

    ::Mexico has entered the chat::

  179. 179.

    Capri

    @Kay:  It’s worse than that. My 20-year-old nephew asked me the difference between 9/11 and a cow.

     

    The answer: You can’t milk a cow for 20 years.

  180. 180.

    Jeffro

    @Steeplejack: LOL

    Mrs. Fro and I use the term in place of ‘arthritis’ all the time now.

    Except in reference to our 13-year-old dog.  She has ‘arf-ritis’.  =)

  187. 187.

    Chris

    @Kay:

    Trump wouldn’t happen on the D side. There would be a vigorous and loud anti Trump faction immediately – a big fight. They had some weak whining and they all fell in line.

    “But what if Trump was a Democrat?” was a game certain types of people adored during/after 2016 that was always preposterous.

    A Democratic version of Trump, whatever the hell that means but let’s just assume we’re talking the amount of open criminality and authoritarianism he’s displayed, would first have to actually get through a Democratic primary.  Which is kind of difficult as it’s stacked full of voters who actually care about things like criminality and authoritarian tendencies.  You can pull it off at the local level in a deep blue state under the right conditions, but at the national level, it’s basically impossible.

    Then he’d have to win over the swing voters, which would be harder given how many of these people’s tendencies tends to run towards “gosh I really wish we could elect Republicans, but when I do they keep fucking up;” give them a reason to stay away from Democrats and they can’t wait to do it.

    Then he’d have to compete with the Republican candidate for the swing voters in the media which would be incredibly difficult since the media, which spent all of 2016 with its finger on the scales for Trump, would absolutely not show Democratic!Trump the same courtesy: every single crime and faux pas would be on repeat on every channel until the end of time.

    Then he’d also have to weather every legal and investigative challenge mounted against him by the FBI and courts, the other institutions that completely ignored Trump’s open criminality for the entire time he was running.  Heck, it’s completely possible that Democratic!Trump simply wouldn’t be allowed to win; criminal charges would lead to trials that’d be fast-tracked all the way to the Supreme Court so they could weigh in and also rule, while they’re at it, that a convicted felon can’t be President actually even if he wins the election.

    And if he could somehow weather all that and make it to the Presidency, he’d find himself completely unable to govern, because half the Democrats in Congress would align with Republicans to prevent him from governing.  And if given evidence of the kind of malfeasance Trump pulled that he was impeached for twice, enough of them would actually join Republicans that that president would be gone by week’s end.  (And then serve jail time: there’d be none of that “the country needs to heal” shit for a Democrat).

    For that matter, Democrat!Trump winning the primary in the first place would have been virtually guaranteed to cause a third party challenge by other Democrats who would take a shit ton of their voters with them and guarantee a Republican win in the general.  And that’s assuming the party hierarchy doesn’t just decide to change its rules at the last minute and say “fuck it, we know this is wrong but we simply can’t allow this guy to make it to the top.  Not with our help anyway.”  Which for someone as dangerous as Trump, they totally might, even if it was organizational suicide.

    There’s no point asking what would happen if a Democratic President tried to stage something like 1/6 after losing an election, either, because a Democratic President almost certainly couldn’t rally that kind of violent mob in the first place, and if he did the police would have Tienanmened their ass before anything even got off the ground.

  188. 188.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    @The Moar You Know: I liked this quote in particular.

    The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser.

  190. 190.

    eversor

    I’m still lost on attacking The House Of Mouse.  It’s one of the most ruthless and beloved corporations on the planet.  They have an army of lawyers, it’s where every kid wants to go, their products are beloved by all, they are the largest employer in Florida.  Sure, they are evil, but they deliver a ton of joy to people and everyone likes Disney movies and products.  There’s no upside to this.  It’s picking a fight you cannot win with a foe that enjoys amazingly positive feelings by just about everyone on the planet.  Who picks a fight on a cartoon mouse, the little mermaid, frozen, mulan, donald duck, and pochahontas?

    For a pro business party this is not remotely pro business.  They are attacking captain fucking america, which I don’t even.  They are attacking star wars.  I’d wager more people would vote for baby yoda than ron desantis.  This is not remotely pro business and economic growth.

    The entire situation is fucking insane.  Just as when Sarah Palin came up here to NOVA, land of the CIA Pentagon FBI Quantico the NRO and more, and called us commie pinko faggots.  Which was met by a lot of odd looks as you know, this is DOD land.  When you are in Arlington VA land of said Pentagon calling people traitors and cowards doesn’t fly.

    I’m pro capitalism and pro national security it’s why I vote for Democrats.  Oddly where all the spies and military uniformed and contractors live is blue!

    @Chris:

    I’m a mid level IT manager currently but I worked for a few top consulting firms.  Our senior executives mostly went to crap like TED talks or flew out people like Michele Obama to talk about more women in CEO positions while freaking the hell out on lower level staff making more.  More female CEOs, but do not a a damn thing about income inequality.  I’m still not sure what these people did other than go to events as we on the lower levels pretty much ran the show that hauled in 60 billion plus in profits a year.

    It was made very clear to me that given that I’m a white guy I’d need to have an ivy league to get further ahead and this was not negotiable on any level.  I didn’t want to as I’m deathly combative over paper work and I prefer being a technical manager rather than a manager manager so I noped right out of that to a non profit and took a pay cut but my life is a lot better.

    Not all places are like this but you work for a couple top firms and all the people at the top all went to the same schools came from the same places send their kids to the same schools and it’s sort of scary.  Everyone of them is convinced that they won off meritocracy and god damn it they earned that stupid paycheck and those who didn’t shouldn’t get it.

  191. 191.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @eclare: I have family from Shaker Heights – my aunt and uncle still live there but their kids have all moved away – one cousin still owns a house in Cleveland Heights that she’s renting out because she took a job in New Hampshire (Dartmouth Hospital) and couldn’t sell for what she bought it for. Her long time boyfriend is living in the place and covering the mortgage payments.  She’s moving back to Cleveland when she’s ready for retirement because she says the New Englanders aren’t very friendly. I do hope things turn around for the city as large portions of it are pretty grim but it does have its high points too. The 30 Rock Cleveland! episode is great if you haven’t seen it.

    I was in Detroit about a half decade ago and things definitely seemed on the upswing there. I’ve always loved those rust belt cities – they have  more to offer than people give them credit for and the cost of living is manageable. I came to the DC area for work and it’s fine but it lacks a certain undefinable something that I find in rust belt cities – it’s a lack of civic pride or maybe sense of place. I can’t really put my finger on it but it feels like a place where I work rather than where I’m from or where I live, even though I’ve been here for 20 years. Everyone I meet is reasonably nice and friendly but I have more of a sense of belongingness attached to Grand Rapids, MI where I grew up, or Champaign, IL where I lived for a couple years, or Springfield, OH where I went to college.

    I think it’s that the entire focus of the area from the political establishment to the media to the jobs a lot of people have (working for federal Agencies and such) is focused on the country at large instead of the local area. In that sense Baltimore offers a greater sense of place. It’s like it’s America’s city, and doesn’t really belong us people who live here…It has plenty of amenities and yeah, some real obnoxious stuck on themselves bastards but also plenty of good down to earth people but there’s something missing that makes it hard to love as a place. Maybe I’d feel different if I grew up here but there are plenty of places I’ve lived or visited that I feel right at home, large cities like Philly, NYC and Chicago. There’s just a vibe missing here that other places have.

  192. 192.

    Chris

    @zhena gogolia:

    We’re willing to teach more, but when they think that North Carolina and South Carolina were on opposite sides in the Civil War, we wonder what’s going on.

    My aunt’s a career schoolteacher in Tennessee.  She had a kid come crying to her once that some recent transplant from Yankee-land insulted him by telling him that the South… lost the Civil War.

    “Well…  I mean…  We did!“

  195. 195.

    Chris

    @eversor:

    There’s no upside to this.

    From their point of view, sure there is.  If you can take a corporation as absurdly rich, popular, and connected in all the right places as Disney, and make it bend the knee, you’ve conclusively sent the signal to the entire corporate world that none of them are safe from you and they’d better start towing the line.

    It’s a ridiculously heavy lift, but with an out-of-control 6-3 Supreme Court and Federalist Society cronies dug into every part of the judiciary, they probably figure they’ve got a better chance of success than they would under any normal circumstances.

    The entire situation is fucking insane.  Just as when Sarah Palin came up here to NOVA, land of the CIA Pentagon FBI Quantico the NRO and more, and called us commie pinko faggots.  Which was met by a lot of odd looks as you know, this is DOD land.  When you are in Arlington VA land of said Pentagon calling people traitors and cowards doesn’t fly.

    Honestly, if they manage to alienate the military, I’m happy.

  196. 196.

    eversor

    @karen marie:

    Atlanta.  Even if you travel up to the North East parts of NY or PA are red as hell.  But the urban centers clobbers them on raw population.  Most of PA by land is red, but then the Philly vote comes in and boom!

  198. 198.

    What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @Suzanne: Oh yeah this is true. This past year was the first white Christmas in Grand Rapids, MI that I’ve experienced in the last half decade. I didn’t go back for the pandemic Christmas though that was apparently white. And what did we get – that frigid hyper-cold air brought a blizzard on Christmas Eve but by New Year’s Eve most of the snow that hadn’t been plowed into piles…was gone. In a week!

    My dad grew up in Jamestown, NY and we would visit there every Christmas with a stop in Cleveland both ways to visit my mom’s sister’s family. That drive was white every single year from Grand Rapids, through Ann Arbor and Toledo to Cleveland through Conneaut and to Jamestown. Now I drive from DC to Grand Rapids so the route from Cleveland to GR is the same as when I was a kid. There is rarely snow in Cleveland at Christmas anymore. Toledo and Ann Arbor are usually bare. Even Grand Rapids, if it gets snow, gets it just a few days before Christmas at best, and often it melts again. I don’t remember a winter there growing up when there wasn’t snow with a little melting but not enough to produce bare ground, from round about the start of December through February. Now they get regular thaws in January and February. Yes…things have changed.

  202. 202.

    karen marie

    @eversor: Sure, except Republicans hold the entire state government.  That makes it a red state for purposes of assigning responsibility for crime rates.

  203. 203.

    Geminid

    @Steeplejack: I think that Amir commented on one of the first days of this Ramadan. I believe it’s a time of spiritual reflection though, and even so unworldly a forum as this blog could present a distraction.

    The one I’m worried about is our colleague from Wuhan. He was commenting at length on Ukraine threads up until a a few weeks ago but I think he stopped totally. I have not been checking the Covid threads though.

  205. 205.

    wenchacha

    @Steeplejack: Mizled! Me too! I don’t think I ever said it aloud to anyone.

    My husband, on the other hand, stumbled over the country of “Ass-uh- REE- uh” in Sunday school, once. Once only, I think.

  206. 206.

    Citizen Alan

    @OzarkHillbilly: If they’re not stopped, I genuinely believe there will be a serious effort to bring back slavery within 10 years. Mike Huckabee has already floated the idea on his radio show that because the 13th Amendment has an exception for criminal convicts, it should be legal to sell convicted criminals to the highest bidder for the duration of their sentences.

  208. 208.

    Manyakitty

    @Geminid: haven’t heard from him in a while, either. Or Alison Rose, but I think I remember something about her taking a breather.

  209. 209.

    Manyakitty

    @Citizen Alan: it’s been their plan for at least the last 50 years. Grow a class of people who are so poor, sick, and ignorant that they won’t have time to realize how badly they’re getting screwed. They’ll only have the energy and capacity to numbly push their buttons and pump out their widgets.

  210. 210.

    Chris

    @Citizen Alan:

    Isn’t this practically the case already?  We have a whole prison-work-industrial-complex set up that basically does this, minus, I suppose, the whole assigning one person to a specific household (which they probably wouldn’t want anyway, because, eww, criminals.  They might hurt me.  I want them slaving for me in a highly controlled setting, like prison).

  211. 211.

    stinger

    Dead thread, but I must comment on the graphs in the Rattner tweet up top. Love that the graphic designer displayed Customer Calls Answered (a good thing) in Democratic blue, and Time On Hold (a bad thing) in Republican red!

  212. 212.

    evodevo

    @Steeplejack: ​
      Yep…that was me and French…I can get along with a phrasebook, but as far as an actual conversation, not gonna happen, and I had several semesters of French…

  214. 214.

    sab

    @evodevo: I had six years of French in middle and high school and four years in college. I used to be able to speak it badly with an appalling accent and worse grammar. Before that I had four years of elementary school Spanish. My first French teacher up north was Madame Garcia. She used to laugh when I answered her French question with a Spanish answer.

    My older sister speaks three languages fluently and a couple of others not so well. She thinks the only way to really learn a language is total immersion for quite a while.

    The traditional year abroad is a necessity.

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