Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

Washington Post Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

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

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

She burned that motherfucker down, and I am so here for it. Thank you, Caroline Kennedy.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

A norm that restrains only one side really is not a norm – it is a trap.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Republicans do not trust women.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Chaos Agents Everywhere

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Chaos Agents Everywhere

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Lady, even if the bag *was* clearly name-tagged, the Secret Service is never giving it back.

(Yeah, like you didn’t have the same thought. Although Barbie Jacket there doesn’t look like a coke user to me… my first thought was that one of the pressroom Kewl Kidz put her up to it, knowing she no doubt has a lifetime history of being pranked this way.)

Genuinely good news — at least a first step:


Major Republican donors to the Arizona and Michigan Republican Parties, who have each donated tens of thousands of dollars to the parties over the last six years, have ceased supplying funding because of Republican leaders’ attempts to overturn 2020 election results, their support of losing candidates who tout Trump’s election conspiracy theories and what they consider extreme views on issues like abortion, six benefactors told Reuters. “I question whether the state party has the necessary expertise to spend the money well,” real estate mogul Ron Weiser, one of the Michigan party’s biggest donors and a former chair of the party, told the outlet.

Despite Republicans’ efforts to ramp up support in order to win back the battleground states that could determine whether they regain political power in the 2024 election, Arizona and Michigan’s parties have been bleeding money in recent years, according to the outlet’s review of financial filings and interviews with the donors and three election campaign experts. Arizona’s Republican Party on March 31 had less than $50,000 in cash reserves in its state and federal bank accounts to spend on overhead expenses, compared to the $770,000 it had at the same point four years ago. And as of March 31, the total in the Michigan party’s federal account amounted to $116,000, down from the nearly $867,000 it had two years ago. “They are effectively broke, and I don’t see the clouds parting and the sun coming out on their fundraising abilities,” Jason Roe, the former head of the Michigan GOP, told the outlet…

An update on my query from yesterday’s Morning Open Thread:

… The government team asked for a stay to be granted by July 10 until the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit rules on the Justice Department’s planned appeal of the injunction, or else that Doughty stay the order for a week to allow time for a faster emergency appeal.

The six-page motion argues that parts of the order contradict each other, such as a prohibition on some officials speaking publicly about false social media posts conflicting with a provision that nothing should stop officials from exercising their own right to free speech.

It also said that the government would suffer irreparable harm while the injunction remained in effect, while the plaintiffs were citing old conduct and would not.

“The potential breadth of the entities and employees covered by the injunction combined with the injunction’s sweeping substantive scope will chill a wide range of lawful government conduct relating to Defendants’ law enforcement responsibilities, obligations to protect the national security, and prerogative to speak on matters of public concern,” the Justice Department wrote.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that the State Department had canceled a regular meeting with Facebook parent Meta to discuss foreign influence campaigns that both sides track. The State Department confirmed the cancellation Thursday.

Reader Interactions

236Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    This is dumb advice.

    This is why Dems should be as liberal on immigration as they want. The right is always going to shriek about foreign hordes “invading” and how the U.S. border with Mexico is a fiction which needs to be actualized as some cross between the Great Wall of China and a WWI trench.

    It assumes everyone is the country is a pro-immigration lib or a right wing shrieker.

  3. 3.

    Layer8Problem

    How long has the birdsite been deigning to allow people to see tweets and their quotes?  It’s something, although I miss the smart-ass replies.  And the birdsite and its little Squire of Gothos cosplayer still stink.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    This is why the ratfucker “don’t vote Dem” accounts are out *A WHOLE-ASS YEAR BEFORE THE PRIMARIES

    This is consistent with my limited online experience. People are trying to resurrect the 2016 playbook to some degree.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The next time a reporter asks such an idiotic question, I want to see KJP have a head/podium moment. Then move on without even answering them.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    She should have said “Our working theory is that it was a member of the White House press corps, so we’ll be instituting mandatory drug testing.”

  9. 9.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Baud:

    It assumes everyone is the country is a pro-immigration lib or a right wing shrieker.

    Maybe I’m missing something here, but I submit most decent, open-minded folks are “pro-immigration”, in terms of not being xenophobic bigots.

    If you meant to illustrate the ridiculous “BOTHSIDES!!11!!” extremes, you probably should have said “open borders lib” instead.

  10. 10.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Immigration is a political stressor in Europe. The  Dutch government just fell over irreconcilable differences within its coalition over refugee policy. Now there will be snap election and this issue will likely play a large role.

    The issue has strengthened the German right-wing party so that it polls almost even with the Social Democrats.

    Immigration was a also big issue in Turkiye’s Presidential runoff. Opposition candidate Kemal Kilicdarogle had campaigned as a benign, liberal advocate for a “New Spring.” He made a hard right turn in the runoff though, going after the large nationalist vote by promising to send the country’s 3.5 million Syrian war refugees home ASAP. Turks complain that the Syrians take jobs and commit crime.

    The incumbent Erdogan maintained that his country had a moral duty to protect the Syrians from Bashar Assad’s murderous regime, putting him in the unusual position of being more liberal than his opponent.

  11. 11.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Baud:

    Asking about the incident is within bounds.

    Asking that goddamned stupid question illustrates exactly your point.

    ETA:  I don’t know why but that really made my blood boil this morning.  That was irresponsible, immature and trolling in the guise of “journalamismz”.

  13. 13.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: At a place I worked, one of the guys got one of the firm principals to prank a group of our senior-level colleagues who had gone to CO right after weed got legalized there. One of them actually posted pictures of all of them smoking a bong together. LMAO, ahhhhh, Boomers. So on Monday, an “official” notice went out about drug testing.

    Half of the group that went was freaking out. Half of them were like, “Fuck it, worth it“. One of the better pranks ever.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Interesting.  Turkey does have a lot more refugees as a percentage of their population than the US does, even counting other types of immigrants.

  15. 15.

    Baud

    @Nukular Biskits:

    It’s offensive.  They know the investigation is ongoing.  So a denial would have to be based on personal attestation of innocence. Which the media would then harp on as being naive and unreliable.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    From comes this absurdity inherent to our criminal “justice” system:

    Police referred to the teen in the release as a person of interest. He is charged as an adult, but police aren’t identifying him since he is a minor, according to a department spokesperson, detective Freddie Talbert.

    I got whiplash reading that.​

  19. 19.

    The Thin Black Duke

    OT, but the more I struggle with Mastodon, the more I hate what Muskrat did to Twitter. Anywho, I’m [email protected]. (don’t mind me, I’m a Grumpy Old Man arguing with his VCR…)

  20. 20.

    Another Scott

    @Nukular Biskits: Then it worked.

    They’re not going to get clicks by asking about Biden completing final destruction of the US chemical weapons stockpile.  They’re going to get clicks by having video of Biden or KJ-P getting angry and turning over the lectern and calling them all stupid gits.

    “Does the Biden Administration have the temperament to be cool and calm and collected when dealing with matters of life and death when they can’t even handle a simple question from the press?  These retired FBI agents at the Cracker Barrel in Wapokoneta aren’t so sure…”

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  21. 21.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: I think the tweet’s point is facts don’t matter; the anti-Immigrant (as in “my grandparents came over in steerage in the 1910s to doge the draft in our home country as REAL Americans should”)  will scream about how the damn libertards are letting the country is being invaded no matter what is going on.

  23. 23.

    Layer8Problem

    @eclare:  Yup.  The past week’s Musk hijinks were login-related, and I never had one.  Boy I’d love to hear what the internal water cooler conversations were over there.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    I understand the tweet’s point. I disagree with it.  The fact that facts don’t matter to the right doesn’t mean there aren’t voters out there who care about the facts.  Dems need to take that into account in settling on policy, whether it’s immigration or something else.

  25. 25.

    Geminid

    @Baud: A lot of Turkiye’s refugee problems result from Bush’s stupid, destructive Iraq war. It left a power vacuum that helped destabilize Syria. Besides bringing 3.5 million refugees from Syria, that instability derailed the peace process with Turkish Kurds that Erdogan initiated in the early years of the last decade.

    Erdogan catches a lot of flak for his independent foreign policy. Americans complain that he just won’t do what the U.S. wants, to which he might reply, Well, George Bush never asked us if we wanted the U.S. to blow our neighborhood up.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Now I’m not sure how safe I should feel in buildings.

    If you’d ever met a carpenter, you’d know how to feel.

  27. 27.

    Ken

    @Layer8Problem: I’m sure Musk has removed all the water coolers. It’s not as big a savings as not paying rent for the offices, but every little bit helps.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    WH cocaine story is dumb.

    Billion dollar commercial news apparatus and this is the shit they churn out

  30. 30.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Another Scott: Or alternatively

    “Our reporter asked President Biden if the CIA has secret information that the late Queen Elizabeth II was nine foot tall shape shifting lizard person from the a planet circling the star Regulus, that she had lived on a diet of live Polish babies she swallowed whole and Biden laughed at the question.  Is Biden’s unwillingness to take such a serious topic a sign that Biden has dementia? Read about our discussion with four RJK Jr supporters in a roadside dinner in Iowa.” 

  31. 31.

    Kay

    Which police agency is investigating this and why are they all leaking to reporters?

    incredibly unprofessional. Lousy, low quality work. I wonder how many of them have sworn fealty to Donald Trump.

  32. 32.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud: I took it as: “Just create and execute on the best policies you can. Do what you think is right and what the country needs. No matter how good that is, the RW will always badmouth you and your work, so ignore them.”

  33. 33.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Baud:@OzarkHillbilly:

    She should have said “Our working theory is that it was a member of the White House press corps, so we’ll be instituting mandatory drug testing.”

    You win the intertoobes for the weekend, Baud!

    Use your newfound power wisely…

  34. 34.

    Kay

    A recently declassified intelligence community report on the origin of COVID-19 has taken a benign view of biosafety training that took place at a government lab in Wuhan, China, in November 2019, not long before the pandemic began there.
    The safety training for staff at the Wuhan Institute of Virology was an aspect of an interim report by the Republican oversight staff of a Senate committee that last year concluded the pandemic was “more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident.” Last October, ProPublica and Vanity Fair delved into the inner workings of the team that produced that interim report and some outside experts’ views of its findings.

    Embarassing for ProPublica. They relied on the conclusions of Republican staffers on the “lab leak theory”. Now they have to quietly walk back their own story.
    At this point, who in their right mind would rely on the work of Republican staffers for anything, but especially anything related to covid?

  35. 35.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    @OzarkHillbilly: since he’s 17 does that mean they’ll identify him when he turns 18 pre-trial or during the trial? I am assuming they’ll identify him if he’s convicted.

    Also, they announced the white supremacist  Texas wal mart killer got sentenced yesterday. The shooting happened in 2019. It took till 2023 to get a conviction? I am assuming part of reason is because of COVID but 4 years to get a mass killer convicted?

  36. 36.

    JWR

    Bet they asked the “whose is it, then” question in a veiled attempt to draw one particular name into this latest “scandal”.

  38. 38.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    a benign view of biosafety training

    @Kay: What’s a “benign” view of safety training?  Does it mean it’s a good thing the training happened? Or it was good training? Or what? Who wrote this?

  39. 39.

    narya

    With regard to the Rs lack of money–that’s because TIFG is hoovering up all of it with his ongoing grifts. His ongoing legal issues are going to drain money AND attention, and I am not mad about that.

  40. 40.

    rikyrah

    @Geminid:

    Those countries don’t have a history of immigration. We do.

     

    The take on immigration in that tweet is all surface

    Going to keep on pointing this out

     

    Yes, undergirding the GOP immigration shrieking is their usual racism.

     

    Every GOP candidate is on record as being willing to USE US TROOPS TO GO INTO MEXICO.

     

    The cover is immigration and the Cartels.

     

    The truth is the $700 BILLION DOLLARS OF LITHIUM DEPOSITS IN MEXICO THAT HAVE BEEN NATIONALIZED

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Mai Naem mobileI: If he is tried as an adult, I assume the trial will be attended by a reporter or 3.

    Texas wal mart killer got sentenced yesterday

    90 life sentences to be served consecutively. But of course that’s not good enough for Texas, they want to kill him. More absurdities.

  42. 42.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Another Scott:

    Oh, I don’t disagree with either you or Baud.

    It’s just beyond brain-dead stupid for members of the alleged Fourth Estates to play such sophomoric “GOTCHYA!” games.  It’s nothing more than trolling dressed up as journalism.

  44. 44.

    JWR

    Trevor McFadden strikes again: (From NBC)

    Trump-appointed judge gives a ‘break’ to Jan. 6 rioter who wants to be a police officer

    … U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden sentenced Tyler Bensch, who pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor counts in connection with the riot, to two years of probation and 60 days home incarceration. Prosecutors had requested nine months in federal prison.

    “You participated in a national embarrassment,” McFadden said before imposing the sentence. “You came ready for trouble.”

    But, he added, Bensch’s involvement was “pretty minor” when compared to others, while noting that his age was a mitigating factor. Bensch was 19 years old on Jan. 6, 2021.

    “I am giving you this break because of your age” at the time and a lack of criminal history, McFadden said. “This doesn’t need to define you or your life.”

    As a reminder, he was the first judge to outright  acquit a J6 defendant. (From NPR April 7, 2022)

    U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden issued the verdict from the bench after hearing testimony without a jury in the case against Matthew Martin. McFadden, who was nominated by former President Donald Trump, acquitted Martin of all four counts for which he was charged.

    McFadden said it was reasonable for Martin to believe that outnumbered police officers allowed him and others to enter the Capitol through the Rotunda doors on Jan. 6, 2021. The judge also said Martin’s actions were “about as minimal and non-serious” as anyone who was at the Capitol that day.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Who wrote this?

    No one wrote it. It’s “By ProPublica” because it’s an embarrassing walkback and no one would put their name on it.
    There was nothing wrong with asking about a lab leak. No one “silenced” the lab leak theorists. The Biden Administration investigated it so the idea these dopes were somehow silenced is ludicrous. It’s that they operate in completely bad faith- the lab leak theorists themselves have discredited the theory because they insist it’s some cloak and dagger cover up.
    That a respected news org would RELY on GOP staffers for covid information is embarrassing.

  46. 46.

    Layer8Problem

    @narya:  And you do too!  :-)

    Check my follows list for more B-J people, some more obviously named than others.  There are tens of us!

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @JWR:

    Nine months is a lot for  misdemeanor with no priors though. The US is a nutty outlier on sentencing- our sentences are MUCH LONGER than nearly anywhere else. Plus, probation is horrible. It’s nitpicky hoop-jumping and feels futile to most people. The more experienced criminals won’t take probation deals and ask for “straight time” instead so they can just be done with it and get cut loose.

  48. 48.

    Mike in NC

    Pretty sure Fat Bastard’s worthless spawn had a dedicated room in the West Wing where they hung out and snorted nose candy to their heart’s content because their daddy didn’t love them. Where did they get that feeling, we can wonder?

  49. 49.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Plus, probation is horrible.

    Yes it is, constantly looking over your shoulder or worrying about getting caught in the most minor of transgressions sucks donkey D.

  50. 50.

    Brit in Chicago

    @Baud: I liked the answer she gave because it enabled me to formulate exactly why some questions are are irresponsible (or worse)—as opposed to the apparently reasonable position “How could just asking a question be a bad thing?”.

    The answer I came up with was: It is a question to which you already know the answer, or at least facts you know clearly imply the answer. By asking the question you are suggesting—insinuating the idea—that those facts do not imply the answer, or that they are not facts at all. And that is irresponsible, because you know those things are false but are trying to get the presumably less well-informed people listening to you to take them as serious possibilities. (I assume that members of the WH Press Corps are well aware of location of POTUS & FLOTUS at any given time, but the dopey woman who asked the question might be an exception.)

  52. 52.

    JWR

    BREAKING!!1! (From Politico)

    Cornel West, philosopher/actor/political activist/spoken word artist, is running for president — and his bid already looks markedly different than it did when he launched less than a month ago.

    After a brief dalliance with the People’s Party — an upstart progressive organization that’s drawn ire from fellow leftists following an accusation of sexual assault against its founder, as well as their agitating against Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) — West is now seeking the nomination on the Green Party ticket.

    And he’s got some help. Two-time Green Party presidential nominee (and favorite liberal punching bag) Jill Stein is assisting West as a “transition coordinator” in order to help him build campaign infrastructure and secure the Green Party’s nomination at their national convention next summer.

    ;)

  54. 54.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    they want to kill him

    One of the most morally loathsome acts of the Trump administration was when at the end they rushed to kill everyone on death row so Biden couldn’t put the executions on hold like every other president has.  They made damn sure to kill the prisoners whose guilt was being legally questioned.  It was sick.  Murder.  There was no political value to it, no practical or ideological reason.  The people at the top of the Trump team just wanted to kill.

  59. 59.

    CaseyL

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I just followed you there :)

    You need to curate your feed on Mastodon more thoroughly than on Twitter. I use the Federated and Explore  tools to see what the wider community is talking about, and have found a lot of people to follow that way.  My feed is pretty extensive at this point! – But it is a more sedate place, which I have grown to appreciate.

  60. 60.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: Isn’t it funny how no matter the country, it’s always the immigrants who natives believe are committing most of the crimes. Do Turks really believe deporting all the Syrians will make crime disappear? 🙄

  62. 62.

    Soprano2

    @Nukular Biskits: When they ask a question like that I always wonder what kind of answer they think they’re going to get? Baud is right, all they want is to be able to say “White House spokesperson doesn’t deny cocaine belonged to the president or someone in his family”. As if they would put it where visitors come in. 🙄 🙄🙄

  63. 63.

    Soprano2

    @Nukular Biskits: When they ask a question like that I always wonder what kind of answer they think they’re going to get. Baud is right, all they want is to be able to say “White House spokesperson doesn’t deny cocaine belonged to the president or someone in his family”. As if they would put it where visitors come if it did belong to one of them.  🙄 🙄🙄

  64. 64.

    Fair Economist

    @Ksmiami: If Threads wins, and follows through on it promise to Federate, that will be a big boost to Mastodon because Mastodon will then allow you to read your Threads in chronological order and without ads. The most desirable situation at that point would be to have an account on Mastodon and use Threads as an alternative Federated feed. The main restriction would be the less convenient Mastodon interface.

    Which brings up something else: it would be nice to have discovery feeds on Mastodon. Currently certain high-boost accounts serve that purpose, but algorithms would be nice if they were voluntary.

  65. 65.

    JWR

    This is a good explanation of that truly weird video: (From Politico)

    A Definitive Guide to All the Weird Internet Memes in Ron DesSantis’ Anti-LGBTQ Rights Ad

    […] To the average voter, this rapid-fire mishmash of images might seem like a political fever dream. But the video fits squarely within an emergent strain of an online conservative subset that focuses on LGBTQ issues and masculinity. This discourse, which emerged from an obscure corner of the internet sometimes called the “manosphere,” relies on a heavily self-referential set of memes to convey its message, a message that is almost always drenched in irony. It can be hard to discern which images are supposed to be taken seriously and which are just designed to provoke outrage and troll the viewer. Yet beneath the irony lies a coherent — if deeply intolerant — argument: The embrace of LGBTQ people is part of a broader plot in society to destroy traditional masculinity.

    Is Casey DeSantis Ron’s Ginni Thomas? Inquiring minds and all that.

  66. 66.

    narya

    @The Thin Black Duke: I’m not completely loving it, but I want nothing to do w a Zuck product, and it does seem that folks are slowing moving to mastodon. It turns out that I don’t actually want all that much from it–what I liked about the bird site is the livetweeting, especially things like J6 trials; we’ll see what emerges as an alternative.

  67. 67.

    Ken

    @Cameron: ’twas MAGA left the Qoke.

    “The cocaine was found in a box labeled ‘My Secret Documints 18/73 Property of DJT’, along with some classified documents, faked Time ‘Man of the Year’ covers, golf clothing, and a bottle of spray tan. We don’t like to jump to conclusions, but…”

  68. 68.

    mvr

    @JWR: ​
     I was once in a reading group with Cornell West. He’s a nice enough person in person. But this is positively unproductive and not smart politics or protest.

    I think it is interesting that for the most part the forces that drove left wing intellectual politics to favor shism and faction, have largely dissipated. Some of that, I think, was the Nader debacle. But another part of it is that mainstream Democrats have moved left as the average D voter has also moved left a bit. (I think we can partly credit Obamacare for that.) Given where we’re starting from, the politically possible good changes are stuff that all even mildly left wing folks should and largely do favor.

    Unfortunately Cornell West has not gotten the message. Not that I expect him to pull off many votes in the states that will determine this election.

  69. 69.

    LiminalOwl

    @Baud: How can you say that, when Lara Trump has assured the populace that there was never any illegal drug use in the Trump White House? (Bird site link, sorry.)

  70. 70.

    CaseyL

    @BR: Thanks, just followed her :)

    Also, there is a tool – bird.makeup – that allows you to see (but not respond to) people who post on Twitter.  I don’t know if anyone can create a bird.makeup for someone they used to follow there, or if the person in question has to do it, but I’ve added (f’rex) Tom Nichols and David Simon to my feed that way.

  71. 71.

    CaseyL

    @mvr: West isn’t interested in the message.  He’s a disruptor at best, and by allying with Stein has decided to be a ratfucker.

  72. 72.

    Anyway

    @rikyrah:

    Every $$ the rubes send Dolt45 is money not going to the GOP

    Meh. Color me cynical. Rubes money may not go to the GOP but that’s chump change compared to the $$$$ coming in from billionaire sugar daddies to various PACs, R-aligned think tanks, fed socs etc all working furiously to undermine Dem priorities.

  73. 73.

    BR

    @CaseyL: I think after the recent Twitter drama the birdside mirrors got disabled. But twitter’s days seem numbered at this point.

  74. 74.

    Bugboy

    This incident with the bag of cocaine is of a piece with the typical Republican’t MO.  Occam’s Razor requires that a Republican’t operative dropped it in the WH intentionally, hoping to get the sour dough mix going in the press.  See also: yellow cake uranium, aluminum tubes, buttery mails, and more recently, Hunter Biden’s laptop.  Skewed timelines, parallel events and circumstances that might easily be confused by low information voters, and bald-face lying to the press.  Because there’s nothing illegal about lying to the press…

  75. 75.

    JWR

    @mvr:

    I was once in a reading group with Cornell West. He’s a nice enough person in person.

    I can see that. Matter of fact, years ago, I could listen to him and not be completely put off by his “my dear brother/sister” routine, but no more! And too bad about the U.S. Green Party. The EU branch could teach our numbskulls a thing or two.

  76. 76.

    Geminid

    Another Scott posted some great video in the Ukraine thread, at #39.

    It shows President Zelenskyy taking a dawn boat ride to Snake Island, on the Black Sea, and laying a wreath there to honor its brave defenders and commemorate the 500th day of this war.

    It was a gutsy move.

  77. 77.

    moonbat

    Here’s my take on why this cocaine story is so stupid. First off, if anyone in the WH family WERE snorting coke on the regular, then the SS would likely know that. Ergo no building lock down, test this white powder to make sure it isn’t ricin, anthrax, or whatever. And you would never have heard about it, Barbie.

    Does anyone have critical thinking skills anymore?

  78. 78.

    MomSense

    Maine also expanded access to “late term” abortion.  It was a good week locally.

  83. 83.

    Steeplejack

    @montanareddog:

    I believe Threads is app-only at this time, so you’d have to have the app installed and also, I presume, create an account. Plus you have to have an Instagram account to create a Threads account.

  84. 84.

    Renie

    The reporter who asked the question,Caitlin Doornbos of the NY Post (surprised?) double-downed on the issue by posting on Twitter that KJP called her irresponsible.  99% of the replies to her tweet bashed her.

  85. 85.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: The 3.5 million Syrian refugees impose a strain on resources, but Turkiye’s a big country of 85 million people. They could afford to build temporary housing near the border, and I think the UN provides food and medical services.

    About 250,000 thousand Syrians have been naturalized and that led to charges that Erdogan was cultivating their votes. And from what I’ve seen on social media, a lot of Turks look down on Arabs, and consider them backwards and troublesome.

    But it’s only some Turks who are really agitated about the refugees. Kilicdoroglu’s strident rhetoric on this question did not seem to move the electoral needle, and he lost the runoff by close to the same margin by which he lost the 1st round. It seems like a lot of Turks said, “It’s a problem alright, but Erdogan has a better chance of solving it the right way than anyone else.”

  87. 87.

    dc

    @Fair Economist: You can use the “Live feeds” function to find more accounts. Once there you can choose “this server” or “other servers”, or “all”. I have my preferences set to “slow mode” so I have to click to move the feed forward, this slows fast feeds, like these options, down. Also, the “explore” function allows you to see posts, hastags, people and news that are getting traction on the site. Finally, keep an eye out for hashtags to follow in posts on your feed or just search hashtags. For example I follow #NAFO to get some good Ukraine posts.​​​​

  88. 88.

    narya

    Since it’s an open thread: Yesterday I listened to Al Franken’s interview with John Mayer (it’s an old episode but recently re-upped in Franken’s thread). For those who haven’t heard it, it’s pretty entertaining, and it also reaffirmed why I don’t quite “count” as a Deadhead, despite having seen them multiple times (including once w/ Jerry in 1980) and in multiple iterations, and despite having a lot of their music/shows (thank you, Deadhead friend). That is, Franken calls out specific versions of specific songs by date/location–something that Deadhead friends, both back in college (late 70s/early 80s) and now, (used to) do as well. Similarly, before the Soldier Field shows (Fare Thee Well), we ran into other Deadheads in a bar, and my friend and them immediately started wondering which songs would be played, what they’d open with, etc. At this point in my life, it amuses me, but, as noted, it also reminds me that I simply do not listen to the Dead, or any other band, that way.

  89. 89.

    JWR

    One more link (Politico):

    A Washington, D.C.-based bar discipline committee concluded Friday that Rudy Giuliani should be disbarred for “frivolous” and “destructive” efforts to derail the 2020 presidential election in support of former President Donald Trump.

    “He claimed massive election fraud but had no evidence of it,” the three-member panel declared in a 38-page decision. “By prosecuting that destructive case Mr. Giuliani, a sworn officer of the Court, forfeited his right to practice law.”

  91. 91.

    eclare

    @dc:

    Yep.  I think The Thin Black Duke posted that late last night.  As long as that is Zuck’s position, I will never be on any of his platforms.

    Not on FB or Insta.  I guess if Twitter goes under, I’ll have to find something productive to do.

  95. 95.

    Another Scott

    @narya: You and my J must be long-lost sisters.  :-)

    She loved them, loved Jerry, saw them at Cornell in the late ’70s and at RFK just before Jerry died.

    But she had no time for the “space” improvisation in the shows, no time for the traveling DeadHeads who took up all the parking spaces in the event lots with their trailers and selling stuff, no time for the rude people who throw “don’t harsh my mellow” at her when she calls them out on it, etc., etc.

    She loved the music and the dancing.  The rest, well, she’s not a fan.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  97. 97.

    Anyway

    Angela Merkel’s administration took in a lot of Syrian refugees — she stuck with it though the decision was hugely unpopular at the time.

    Pisses me off that the decisions leading to the Iraq war aren’t hung around the heads of the Blob and the GQP more … catastrophe is the only word for it. R misdeeds are conveniently memory-holed by the lamestream media.

  98. 98.

    Citizen Alan

    Off topic, but the movers are finally here 2 days late. And I am growing alarmed at how much packing materials they are using for stuff I would otherwise have just thrown in the back of a truck. For some items. I think the packing material costs more than what they’re taping up.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    Nothing but ratfuckers 😡

     

    Damn. Not ratphuckers? I hope Cornell West is far from Chicago today, because he doesn’t want to cross paths with rikyrah.

  101. 101.

    Kirk

    @OzarkHillbilly: Add to that short notice calls that require leaving the job site, even though keeping a job is part of the requirements. And the interesting conflicts if you have to go to the emergency room – reports, drug controls, rtc

  102. 102.

    narya

    @Another Scott: Okay, the other thing I do not tolerate (e.g., when we’re listening to a show while on a long road trip) is caterwauling, particularly Pigpen’s caterwauling. Drums/space can vary–I didn’t mind it at Fare Thee Well–but can also get the “skip” treatment. I’ve seen Mickey several times, and I think his stuff can be quite fascinating (even w/o any substance ingestion), so I have more tolerance for that than for caterwauling

    ETA: I have some Cornell shows in my collection (from my friend) I think . . .

  105. 105.

    Ken

    The once-liberal NYT editorial board

    @mrmoshpotato: When?

    They had some nice things to say about socialism in the 1930s.

    I’m sorry, I’ve been informed that was National socialism….

  106. 106.

    trollhattan

    Hardy har, more Republican “humor.”

    July 8, 2023 at 7:26 am EDT By Taegan Goddard

    “I probably shouldn’t say this, but if my record was as bad as this White House’s record, I’d probably give my staff blow too.”

    — Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA), on Fox News.

    Conflicted on whether he’s the worst or second-worst Kennedy.

  107. 107.

    eclare

    @Another Scott:

    It has always surprised me that Andy Cohen is a huge fan.  It does not compute that the guy who started all of the Real Housewives franchises, who is very high energy, is a Deadhead.

  113. 113.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    Yes!! By the way I highly recommend the book In Other Words, Leadership by Shannon Mullen.  It’s the correspondence between our governor and a woman in Farmington who wrote to her for a year during the pandemic.  The governor also opened up her private journals and it’s an amazing book.

    ETA autocorrect changed the authors name

  116. 116.

    Ruckus

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I opened accounts at spoutable and mastodon to “replace” my twit account and really I now check all 3 of them about maybe 5 min a week. Total. Sometimes. I used to be on twit a lot. Somehow I’ve managed not to really miss spending time on any of them. Strange isn’t it, that they really don’t mean as much to us as we think.

  118. 118.

    Bill Arnold

    @Kay:
    Re “lab leak theory” (which you quoted, so assuming you know the following):
    A reminder to all that the alliterative term “lab leak” was not used prior to the politicization of speculation about the origins of SARS-CoV-2.
    The term prior to the COVID-19 emergence, easily confirmed with scholar.google.com, was “lab escape”. No alliteration.
    The word “theory” is also abused by these propagandists.

  119. 119.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Ruckus:

    I’m on Twitter more frequently than I should be, but it’s really the only platform (other than BookFace) that allows immediate feedback to my elected officials (US Rep & Senators, governor, etc.)

    Plus, I follow a couple of state media outlets that do pretty damn good journalism:

    MS Free Press

    MS Today

    To get news and analysis that I can’t get from the corporate-owned local mullet wrapper, The Sun Herald.

  120. 120.

    Geminid

    @Anyway: Part of the problem is that Americans are not very aware of what goes on overseas. We think of that war as ending about 2010, but in a real sense it still goes on in that region.

  122. 122.

    Citizen Alan

    @eclare: I know,  I know.  But I just watched a kid box, then duct tape, then shrink wrap,  then tape again a piece of furniture I got from a thrift store for 30 bucks. Every time I hear the sound of duct tape being pulled, I hear a cash register ringing in my head.

  125. 125.

    eclare

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Only going up to 89 today, not bad.  But yes, I am familiar with air you can scoop with your hand.

    I thought you were on the coast.  I’ve been to Gulfport, once for work and once as a stopover on the way to NOLA.

  130. 130.

    CaseyL

    @Citizen Alan: Some of the extra-care, extra-wrapping is indeed padding the bill, but I suspect most of it is they don’t want to be sued for damaging the goods in transit.

    I also suspect that you’re extra antsy because Today is the Day you Get Out of That Hellhole.  (And I’m very much looking forward to hearing you’ve arrived at your new place!)

  131. 131.

    Ruckus

    @Mai Naem mobileI:

    It always takes a lot longer than one might imagine. There are most often a lot of pieces to put together to get everything gathered up and tie all the pieces together, and it’s not like all the bits and pieces of government that it takes to do that have nothing to do. It’s not like a jury has to be called up. It’s a process and all the T’s have to be crossed and I’s dotted. And really, you want it to take time, to get it right. And then a fair amount of the time the person will accept a plea at the last moment. I’ve been called for jury duty, showed up for several days waiting and then at the last minute, after jury selection, after all of us spending our time, the court’s time, lawyer’s time, etc, etc the person pleas out to avoid the trial and a possible worse outcome. And it starts all over for the next case. Now possibly it’s because I live in a county with a population of more than 40 of the states but it is not a fast process, nor should it be.

  133. 133.

    Citizen Alan

    @CaseyL: well, my furniture gets out at least.  My flight doesn’t leave until next Friday.

    Oh, and it just started raining. After 2 days of sunny weather when the movers were supposed to be here.

  134. 134.

    Bill Arnold

    @CaseyL:

    West isn’t interested in the message. He’s a disruptor at best, and by allying with Stein has decided to be a ratfucker.

    Yes. He should be treated as such. Those who help Republicans get elected are Republicans, or worse.

  135. 135.

    MomSense

    This cocaine thing is a bunch of bullshit. The media love stories like this because it’s accessible and interesting to low information consumers of newsertainment.

    it is pathetic how fucking inconsequential the issues the press and some politicians spend their time discussing.

    Meanwhile this record heat we are experiencing this summer on planet earth is probably the coolest summer of the rest of our lives.

  137. 137.

    mvr

    @CaseyL: Right. He’s not. What is interesting is that people who play this role on the left are now more fringe than they used to be. (I’m not talking about their views – I mean with respect to how seriously actual lefty voters and activists will take them.)​

  140. 140.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    Are there not cameras recording every second in the White House?  A few of the mutants I know on the book of faces haven’t had much to troll about recently.  This cocaine story got them back together for a nice circle jerk.

  141. 141.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Been a Mississippian nearly all my almost 60 years.

    This year is my 50th year living in Colorado. Part of me longs to live somewhere else (not really in the US but I’m pretty much stuck here)

    What state other than your own would you move to, given the way they are now, in terms of politics, climate and economics? Coasts are too expensive and precarious, upper Midwest is too cold, New Mexico, too warm. Argh.

  142. 142.

    Kent

    @Baud:It assumes everyone is the country is a pro-immigration lib or a right wing shrieker.

    Agreed.

    What it means is that the Biden Administration should do the RIGHT thing not anything.  Since there will be an invented political shitstorm no matter what.

  144. 144.

    cain

    @Geminid: Truth. a lot of those refugees around the world is the consequence of bad foreign, short sighted foreign policy from a number of country.

    In this way, the Chinese is much more subtle than the stupid ham fisted policies that GOP Presidents have done. The shit going on in the Latin world is directly because of bad foreign policy.

    We need about 3-4 Democratic presidential terms to unfuck everything.

    Don’t want an influx of refugees  – have better foreign policy that has actual long term policy. This whole bullshit started with Reagan/Nixon.

  145. 145.

    MomSense

    @MomSense:

    Case in point Cruz and Blackburn are all worked up over the Barbie movie.  Something about a line she draws with pink crayon is some kind of Chinese map conspiracy.

  146. 146.

    cain

    @Kay: ​
     
    It fits well with their “both sides!” story line – the press loves stories that poke holes into a non-existent story about virtuous Democrats doing bad things.

  150. 150.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MomSense:

    Case in point Cruz and Blackburn are all worked up over the Barbie movie. Something about a line she draws with pink crayon is some kind of Chinese map conspiracy. 

    🍆🖐️💦

  151. 151.

    trollhattan

    @MomSense: I remember when Gerald and Betty Ford’s kids acted like kids and that upset a lot of folks. IIRC they even smoked the Devil Weed in the White House, and lord know what else kids tend to do.

  153. 153.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @MomSense:

    it is pathetic how fucking inconsequential the issues the press and some politicians spend their time discussing.

    Somewhere along the line we decided to push the purpose of education as a path to jobs and specifically not for its own sake. I think that’s contributed to a general lack of intellectual vigor and that void has been backfilled with propagating incurious rumors and  clickbait. Also, we glorified a variety of tech bros to be our overlords and come to find out they really are no friends to democracy.

  154. 154.

    MomSense

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    We worship money in our culture.  I also think as Reagan’s letthemeatcakeonomics progressed and the average person’s financial situation became more precarious, people wanted to scapegoat and believe that if something catastrophic happened to someone it was because they did something wrong.  Poor shaming really went into overdrive.  I don’t know if you used to hear this but often in a news article or charity bulletin/fundraiser for a family that needed assistance because of cancer or a fire or something, you would often find the through no fault of their own language. I remember hearing people say about financial fallout from illness that they had done everything right and it still happened to them.
    The prosperity gospel may also be a factor.  The flip side to god wants you to be rich is that if you are poor you must have pissed off god somehow.

  156. 156.

    Citizen Alan

    @Sure Lurkalot: I am looking forward to Fresno, but I am also sad that I didn’t get the job in Newark that would have let me live in NYC. My time in Queens was the best 9 months of my life

  157. 157.

    Citizen Alan

    @Juju: no house yet. A 2 BR apartment for the first year at least. I am probably taking too much furniture for the space,  but I couldn’t bear the thought of letting my sister sell my mother’s Mid-century American furniture at a yard sale.

  159. 159.

    NotMax

    Decluttering pays off.

    In 1824, a pair of portraits by the Dutch master Rembrandt were sold at Christie’s auction house. The tiny paintings were then lost to history, their existence completely unknown to art scholars, an unusual oversight for an artist of Rembrandt’s status.

    Now, nearly two centuries later, they’ve been sold by the same auction house for over €13 million, surpassing Christie’s estimates, set between seven and nine million euros.

    Christie’s International Deputy Chairman of Old Master Paintings Henry Pettifer discovered the portraits sitting quietly in a British family’s collection. The family had no idea the paintings were done by Rembrandt. Source

  160. 160.

    Citizen Alan

    @Geminid: I wouldn’t really mind except that they are now telling me that packing materials are not included in the total price, and they are using a lot of packing materials.  Makes me wonder what the “estimate” was for. The thought of dropping an extra grand for cardboard boxes is triggering my skin flint.

  161. 161.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @MomSense: What’s funny is that according to some studies, the best predictor of future success is…being born wealthy. Wealth not education is the best predictor of future success  which makes sense when you realize that having access to all those networks of wealthy, influential people gives those born into money a leg up in almost any career they decide to pursue.  Look at Elizabeth Holmes, before she blew away her chances by being a con-artist.  Her dad was a VP at Enron, she mom was  a congressional committee staffer.  She blew off Stanford at 19, in her sophomore year, and convinced her parents to give her the money they had saved for her college, so she could start her own company.

  162. 162.

    MomSense

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:

    It’s also a real struggle to be able to afford/attend a four year college or university without adequate financial assistance.  If your family does not have enough money to support you through college it is very difficult to finish or to finish in four years.

  163. 163.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Citizen Alan: In Cali, you should find some great dealers and/or auction houses for that furniture.  Just resign yourself to the fact that you probably get 1/4 of what the piece finally sells for, which is still better than a yard sale.  And if it doesn’t work out, there’s donating to Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore stores, which gives me peace of mind that an upstanding charity is handling the furniture.  I had to clean out my mother-in-law’s apartment fast — Habitat came, took everything away that I couldn’t deal with and sold/placed it for me.

  164. 164.

    trollhattan

    @Citizen Alan: ​Renting to begin is prudent, as nobody can know a city until they live there.

    I probably mentioned also parsing the flood maps before choosing an area in which to buy. The San Joaquin Valley is quite floodprone, especially along the SJ River. Buying outside the 100-year zone eliminates mandatory flood insurance dictated by the mortgage holder, and also makes that optional flood insurance quite a bit more affordable.

  165. 165.

    Citizen Alan

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    Oh, no fears on that. I have refurbished 2/3of it and will do the rest in Fresno. When I die, I expect to leave behind a house full of 75 yo furniture in tip top shape.

  166. 166.

    scav

    @NotMax: Careful decluttering mind — unless it was a very observant passerby picking up stuff on an unknowing British family’s  kerb.

  167. 167.

    Soprano2

    @Mai Naem mobileI: Here there was a murder case from 2016 tried the first week of June. It took 7 years, partly due to Covid but also the defendant has mental problems. TV shows make us think these things happen quickly when they don’t.

  168. 168.

    JMG

    @Kay: The Secret Service is conducting the investigation into the cocaine at the White House. The leak that no culprit is likely to ever be found leads me to believe that one of its own agents is the likeliest suspect.

  169. 169.

    Sister Golden Bear

    6th Circuit Appeals Court reinstates TN’s anti-trans law prohibiting doctors from providing medical care such as puberty-blockers and gender affirming surgery for transgender minors can, citing Dobbs.

    The panel of three judges voted 2-1 to reverse a lower court’s decision that had blocked Tennessee from enforcing the law while it was being challenged. Federal judges have blocked five laws similar to Tennessee’s from taking effect. Those judges found the laws violated the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection under the law.

    More details from Erin in the Morning:

    Relying on the Glucksburg Test, named after the precedent set in Dobbs, will likely scare many people seeking constitutional protections. This test focuses on whether rights are “deeply rooted in this nation’s history and traditions” to determine constitutional protections. However, many fundamental rights we recognize today, such as privacy, intimate relations at home, access to contraception, interracial and same-sex marriage, are not deeply ingrained in American history. Conversely, practices like the usurpation of indigenous lands, school segregation, stringent gender-specific dress codes, and Jim Crow laws are deeply embedded in our past. The Dobbs decision and the application of the Glucksburg Test could result in significant backtracking on numerous rights under this reasoning – transgender rights appear to be next on the chopping block if this rationale holds up.

    And it won’t be just trans rights on the chopping block.

  171. 171.

    Nukular Biskits

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Good question.  My business travel has taken me mostly to Southern CA and up/down east coast and HI.  I love the South … but a large part of it (or, more correctly, the people) refuse to move beyond the 1850s.

    Even though the cost of living is high, I think I would prefer the San Diego area.  In an hour, you can go from the beaches, to the mountains, to the deserts.

  173. 173.

    Origuy

    Non-English speakers on Threads having trouble with the name of the app. The TH sound is not in many languages, particularly Romance languages.

  174. 174.

    MomSense

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    GD MOTHERFUCKERS!  I feel like I keep asking if there is anything we can do when the situation is at crisis and it is definitely too little too late.  Still I want to know if there is anything we can do to help the people affected in TN.
    There is an organization in TN called Southern Equality.  Any TN jackals know if this is a good organization to support?

    https://southernequality.org/tnresources/

  176. 176.

    Captain C

    @Baud:

    She should have said “Our working theory is that it was a member of the White House press corps, so we’ll be instituting mandatory drug testing.”

    “…but only for cocaine.  If y’all were stoned, or tripping, your reporting would be better.”

  177. 177.

    patrick II

    What caused the search in the first place? Were they looking specifically for cocaine? Was there a tip? Was it anonymous? Did it come from Roger Stone’s phone number?

  178. 178.

    trollhattan

    California seems to be creeping towards Florida status WRT homeowners insurance.

    Farmers Insurance saw a spike in applications for homeowners insurance in California when State Farm and Allstate stopped writing new policies in the state, but the insurer told The Sacramento Bee on Friday that it won’t be accepting any more new business than it had previously planned for 2023. “We are working diligently with the California Department of Insurance and others interested in improving the availability of property insurance in the state,” Farmers leaders said in a statement shared by spokesman Luis Sahagun.

    “With record-breaking inflation, severe weather events and reconstruction costs continuing to climb, we are focused on serving our customers while effectively managing our business.” While State Farm and Allstate have said they will not write new homeowners policies in California, Michael Soller, a spokesman for Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara, stressed that Farmers — the state’s second-largest insurer — and more than 100 other companies continue to accept new homeowners business.

    “The Department of Insurance understands Farmers has been writing 7,000 monthly new homeowners policies on average,” Soller said, “We do not expect their footprint in the state to change significantly one way or another. By maintaining its historic average of new homeowners policies in California, Farmers is showing its continued commitment to the Golden State for the long haul.” The announcement from Farmers does, however, show that there is a great deal of consumer demand for policies and that the capacity to handle all that new business will be tested.

    All insurers have to maintain a certain amount of capital to back the policies they write, said Rex Frazier, president of the Personal Insurance Federation of California, and if they don’t have that capital, they can’t accept new business. That’s why State Farm and Allstate stopped writing new policies, he said.

    Testing capacity in CA home insurance market In the area of homeowners insurance, 12 carriers write 84% of policies in California, Frazier said. State Farm, the state’s largest home insurer, held 21.2% of policies to Farmers’ 14.9%. But, he said, then there’s a pretty big drop in market share before you get to the next carrier, CSAA with 6.87% of the pie.

    “If Farmers writing almost 15% is saying they can’t take a single new policy beyond what they were doing, do we really think CSAA or Liberty Mutual or Mercury or these other companies that are at around 6% market share, are they going to have the capacity to do it?” Frazier asked. He said he feels like much of that business will go to the California FAIR Plan, a kind of insurer of last resort for people who can’t get coverage from a commercial insurer. Created by California law, the FAIR Plan is operated by an association of state-licensed commercial carriers such as State Farm, Farmers and Allstate.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/business/article277118013.html#storylink=cpy

    Friends in the Sierra foothills had their fire insurance dropped and the replacement plan is a whopping $7k/yr. In-laws also in the Sierra foothills pay $1200. Per month.

  179. 179.

    Captain C

    @JWR:

    secure the Green Party’s nomination at their national convention next summer.

    Better a big howling brawl at their convention (in full view of a thousand TikTok and YouTube accounts) than at the DNC.

  180. 180.

    trollhattan

    @Captain C: Finally, an answer to, “What if they threw a convention and nobody noticed?”

    Greens have as much traction in the States as a car on ice with Teflon tires.

  181. 181.

    Jay

    One of the Jackal’s last night said they had a mouse problem, and the mice were avoiding the traps.

    #1. Set the traps along their “runways”, mice stick close to walls when moving around.

    #2. Bait the traps, live or kill, peanut butter seems to work best, but don’t set them. Live traps are trickier, as they rely on doors, but the door can be propped open, so it doesn’t close.

    #3. once the mice get used to a free meal with no consequences, 4 to 5 days, set the traps.

    Hopefully, they see this.

  183. 183.

    lowtechcyclist

    @MomSense:

    Case in point Cruz and Blackburn are all worked up over the Barbie movie.  Something about a line she draws with pink crayon is some kind of Chinese map conspiracy.

    I hope someone at the DNC is putting together a commercial of all the silly stuff like this that Rethugs get worked up over.

  188. 188.

    scav

    @Jay: No wonder the GOP can’t comprehend it.  The mere concept of moving from make believe to reality is anathema to them.

  189. 189.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m really feeling the loss of Twitter when bj has the same post up all day long

  190. 190.

    BruceFromOhio

    On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that the State Department had canceled a regular meeting with Facebook parent Meta to discuss foreign influence campaigns that both sides track. The State Department confirmed the cancellation Thursday.

    Emphasis mine, that once again some asshole move by an empowered fascist has a visible chilling effect, stay or no.

  191. 191.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @zhena gogolia: Especially if the post is about twitte

    ETA: I’m finding TikTok addictive. When I first looked at it, I hated every single thing it suggested. Then I search for booktok. Also Fowlerville Library. Also, Ted Lasso. And TimrBlackett.

  194. 194.

    zhena gogolia

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I don’t want to sign up for anything. I was addicted to those YouTube shorts, but now all I seem to get are shouting Russian men. Or shouting Ukrainian men.

  196. 196.

    Another Scott

    @patrick II:

    As usual, the first reports were a garbled mess. It’s still early in the investigation, and the reported details may still be wrong.

    GovExec.com:

    The White House was evacuated on Sunday evening when the president and his family were out of town after the Secret Service discovered what was later confirmed to be cocaine, The Associated Press reported. It was found in a cubby near the White House West Executive entrance over the weekend which was a different location from where it was originally reported to be, NBC News reported on Thursday. This was still a “heavily trafficked area” like the first one, according to the report.

    I haven’t found a map indicating exactly where this “West Executive Entrance” is. There is a “West Executive Avenue”, which runs N/S between the West Wing and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, so presumably it’s on or around there. IOW, it’s inside the White House complex, and it’s a path that government employees, people with non-ceremonial business, etc., take – it’s not where family and tourists are going to be milling around, I don’t think.

    Presumably we’ll find out more eventually.

    HTH!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  198. 198.

    different-church-lady

    @Another Scott:

    It’s still early in the investigation, and the reported details may still be wrong.

    “A white powder reported to be cocaine has turned out to be anthrax. We apologize for the error.”

  201. 201.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, for those worried about a recession… CalculatedRiskBlog.com:

    The BEA released their estimate of vehicle sales for June yesterday.

    This graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the June 2023 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR).

    Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand SAAR in May 2009. Then heavy truck sales increased to a new all-time high of 570 thousand SAAR in April 2019.

    [ Heavy Truck SalesClick on graph for larger image. ]

    Note: “Heavy trucks – trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight.”

    Heavy truck sales declined sharply at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 308 thousand SAAR in May 2020.

    Heavy truck sales were at 547 thousand SAAR in June, down from 566 thousand in May, and up 15% from 475 thousand SAAR in June 2022.

    Usually, heavy truck sales decline sharply prior to a recession. Sales were strong in June.

    IOW, no sign of a recession yet.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  206. 206.

    Kent

    @trollhattan: Is it just the high fire hazard areas where CA insurance is hard to get?  Or the entire state?  If you live in some ordinary city not in a fire zone are you that affected?

  209. 209.

    Another Scott

    @different-church-lady: @Baud:

    [ snort! ]

    Made me look… UNODC.org (48 page .pdf):

    It must be stressed that positive results to colour tests are only a presumptive indication of the possible presence of cocaine. The colour tests for cocaine are especially prone to produce false positives. Many other materials, often harmless and uncontrolled by national legislation or international treaties, may give similar colours with the test reagents. A number of these are either other controlled drugs, often encountered as white powders (e.g. methaqualone), or the synthetic local anaesthetics which are often substituted for cocaine in the illicit traffic. It is mandatory for analysts to confirm such results by the use of alternative techniques.

    I mean, it kinda doesn’t pass the smell test, does it? Junky government employee is going to one of the most secure places in the world, with cameras and law enforcement everywhere, and they are spilling their cocaine in a cubby where they’re stashing their stuff? And nobody saw it happen?
    And cameras can’t identify who it was??

    Stranger things have happened, I guess, but still…

    We’ll find out eventually, I guess. But beware of narratives constructed from what “everyone knows” when there’s nothing official reported.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  212. 212.

    Another Scott

    @Jackie: “Bag of Cocaine!”

    [ snort! ]

    Wait, that doesn’t sound right.  I meant:

    [ HaHa! ]

    It’ll be a dozen kilo bricks wrapped up in banana leaves next.

    (groucho-roll-eyes.gif0

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  214. 214.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jay: Have you heard about cornmeal (or cornbread mix (same thing?)) and baking soda?

    Something popped up in my YouTube feed about it.  Supposedly, mice can’t burp or fart, so I guess it causes me internal distress leading to death.

  216. 216.

    Jackie

    @Jinchi: Of course! Although since the SS seem to think their investigation will be completed early next week, there’s speculation it belonged to one of them 🤔

  219. 219.

    Jackie

    Anybody else getting a chuckle out of MTG’s apparent ghosting of the HFC?

    “Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has not responded to calls by top members of the House Freedom Caucus aimed at notifying her that she has been ousted from the influential conservative group,” Axios reports.

    😂🤭😁

  221. 221.

    Subsole

    @zhena gogolia:

    Yeah.

    If nothing else, seeing just how deeply embedded social media has become in my daily routine has been…disturbingly illuminating.

    I may never go back, frankly.

  223. 223.

    Jay

    @mrmoshpotato:

    I don’t like poisons, even natural ones for rodents.

    A snap trap kills quickly and you have the body. A live trap, ( if you monitor them carefully), allows their release in a natural environment.

    None of the poisons, kill quickly, and quite often, the rodent finds a safe place to die, like under the fridge, in your walls, attic.

    When I worked in commercial bakeries, they started with poison traps, I got them to switch to live traps and a regular trap patrol, after over 2 dozen rats and mice were found inside food equipment and ingredient storage areas.

    Using live traps and have someone check them every shift, was a lot cheaper that having to sterilize a dozen pieces of equipment and go through 50 pallets of flours, grains and other ingredients, looking for penetrations and bodies, and throwing out the contaminated supplies.

    With loading doors and access doors having to be open at times, we couldn’t keep them out, but we could relocate them to the cut and various wild parks they come from.

  224. 224.

    Subsole

    @rikyrah:

    If we didn’t all have to suffer along with them, it would be grimly amusing watching these people discover that their Hwiteness(tm) is always – ALWAYS – provisional.

     

    I cannot imagine how Ginni and Tommy are gonna react when Loving gets repealed…

  226. 226.

    trollhattan

    @Kent: ​IIUC (am unsophisticated when it comes to how the industry functions) it’s driven in part by the megafires, and other weather extremes, in part by the new housing push into rural–fireprone–areas, and the much higher prices for repairing damaged homes.

    The cost of rebuilding homes and businesses has skyrocketed because of inflation, Frazier said, and the reinsurance companies that many commercial carriers contract with to share the financial risk are charging higher prices and negotiating tougher terms. And, because California has placed controls on premium increases, he said, insurers cannot simply raise rates to quickly recoup these additional costs.

  227. 227.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @moonbat: Does anyone have critical thinking skills anymore?

    Critical thinking leads to reason which leads to calm which leads to fewer clicks and less money.

    Even if a reporter has critical thinking skills, they are generally discouraged from applying them in political reporting.

  228. 228.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Subsole: Ginny and Clarence will have no problem because as any faux conservative will happily remind you, whether the point is relevant or not, these issues are being remanded back to the states.

    The Thomas marriage will be as safe as their personal relationship dictates.

  229. 229.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Renie: 99% of the replies to her tweet bashed her.

    I will expect a full accounting.

  230. 230.

    Citizen Alan

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    I said the day Dobbs was handed down that Brown v Board of Ed would be on the chopping block before they were done.  I absolutely believe there are 5+ votes to bring back separate but equal.  And Thomas will write the opinion.

  231. 231.

    Ruckus

    @Eunicecycle:

    It makes sense to do this every day no matter where it is. If you are trying to keep an area safe and it isn’t a locked area with absolute knowledge that it has stayed locked, you have to check every day. IOW it has to locked and alarmed.

  232. 232.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    what “everyone knows”

    That is an extremely short list and might not even include “Stop breathing over 2 minutes and you are dead.”

  233. 233.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Ruckus: what “everyone knows”

    That is an extremely short list and might not even include “Stop breathing over 2 minutes and you are dead

    Everyone knows that list is actually very long and comprised of anything the speaker wants to assert without proof.

  234. 234.

    El Muneco

    @Bill Arnold: the US Green Party’s only taks is making sure the Democrats don’t win Presidential elections.

    They don’t run local candidates. They don’t run downballot candidates. They don’t offer coalition against the fascists.

    All they do is steal Presidential votes from leftists who aren’t paying attention. In 2016 it was – along with all the other things that happened – one of the sufficient causes of Clinton losing.

  235. 235.

    El Muneco

    @Citizen Alan: the joke is that Thomas wants to divorce Ginny but his church won’t let him. So he’s going to kill Loving and say to her “Sorry, honey – my hands are tied, it’s the law now”

  236. 236.

    Layer8Problem

    @LiminalOwl:  I see Acyn, at least @[email protected] anyway.    I thought I had accepted your follow request here. When I look at your profile on vmst.id I see my follow is pending, so you may have to accept my follow request on your side.  Either that or vmst.id and mastodon.online have mutual communication issues.

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