Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Let there be snark.

Ah, the different things are different argument.

So many bastards, so little time.

People are complicated. Love is not.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

He really is that stupid.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Hillary Nails It – Trump and His Supporters are Rooting Against America

Hillary Nails It – Trump and His Supporters are Rooting Against America

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Trump and his supporters are rooting against America.

How fucked up is that?

How fucked up is a campaign based on “I hate America, and here are the ways I intend to destroy democracy in America?

Even more fucked up is that some people listen to him and think “I’ll vote for that!  I’ll vote to destroy our country and everything it has always stood for!”

Hillary totally nails it.  h/t UncleEb 

And since it’s an open thread, here’s a picture of some of the peppers I just harvested.

Bonus point for naming all the kinds of peppers!

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

251Comments

  2. 2.

    Rusty

    They aren’t rooting against America,  they are rooting for an America where you and I don’t exist.  It’s not even rooting for the America of 1953 (pre-Brown v. Board of Ed.), it’s for a fantasy America where anything remotely progressive has been exterminated.

  3. 3.

    RaflW

    I’m that many of these folks (most recently Vivek) want to align with Putin, I’d say they really are rooting against America.

  4. 4.

    Pete Mack

    Ancho, Fresno, jalapeño, New Mexico/Hatch, and small blunt-tipped red ones I do not recognize.  The one in the upper right is unidentifiable.

  6. 6.

    gene108

    I think for some segment of Republican voters, they feel the country has already been destroyed by liberals, feminists, etc. Somehow the last sixty to seventy years of civil rights gains and acceptance of diversity has destroyed the country.

    They are battling the destroyers of America to make America great again. It’s in their rhetoric about waging a “war on woke” or how they are in war to preserve traditional American values, etc.

    They’re rooting for the death of “evil” multicultural tolerant America, and the restoration of the noble “real” America.

    If democracy is a casualty in this fight, it’s because it’s for the greater good.

  7. 7.

    wmd

    Exactly. Pwn the Libs. Cleek’s Law.

    They want to cancel people that respect people that do not conform to their ideal America. And that ideal America is not static or shared except in very broad strokes. If they were able to cancel the objects of their hatred they’d quickly start turning on each other.

  8. 8.

    waspuppet

    @gene108: That’s exactly right. They have to invent an already-destroyed America so they can pretend to be victims, which is critical to any dictatorship.

    And I’ll say it again: I had multiple conversations with “patriotic” conservatives back in the 1970s and 80s where they’d say “I WILL say ONE THING for the Soviet Union” followed by about five minutes of unstinting praise for the Soviet Union.

  9. 9.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Trump voters feel what Trump tells them is true over their own friends and family (71-63) and over their own religious leaders (71-42).

    I’m not sure why you would attend a church where you believe your pastor doesn’t tell the truth even half the time but I guess it’s not much different than being antiabortion and pro death penalty.

    https://nitter.net/MacFarlaneNews/status/1693260904874307668#m

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    @gene108: I agree. The GOP is feeling The Anger of the White Male Lie.

    Somebody needs to stop telling these white boys that they can be anything they put their mind to.

    I say that in jest. A lot. But I’m only half joking. Actually, I’m not joking at all. Somebody really does need to stop telling these white boys that they can be anything, and that they can have everything. Because it is not true, and it was never true, and we’re the ones who have to pay when they find that out.

    Angry black woman.

    I’m the angry black woman. I’m the shouting, take no shit, finger-wagging, side-eye giving black woman. I am angry about a lot of things. I’m angry about police brutality and systemic poverty and the school to prison pipeline. I’m angry because the community I love is threatened daily and has been for hundreds of years.

    There is righteous anger born of love. Born of the desire to protect those that you love and the life that you love. Anger born of the need to hold tight what little joy and beauty you’ve been able to find in a hostile world.

    I was never told by this society that I could be anything and I could have everything. I was always told to settle for less. And my anger and the anger of so many other marginalized people has always lied in that reality. The truth of the situation.

    But white male anger is steeped in a lie. It is fighting for what they were never going to have. For the promises that were never going to be fulfilled. White men are the only people allowed to fully believe in the American dream and perhaps that is the cruelest thing to have ever been done to them and the world that has to suffer their anger as they refuse to let go of a fantasy that we were never allowed to imagine ourselves in.

  11. 11.

    Mike in NC

    Trump will happily watch the country burn to the ground so that only he can rule the ashes.

  12. 12.

    Mike in Pasadena

    It has been clear for a long time that Rethuglicans hate America and want to make Amerikkka what it was 100 years ago: women barefoot,  pregnant, and in the kitchen; the vast majority of people dirt poor; blahs in their place or hanging from a noose; and male “homosexuals” in the closet and married to women. That will make Amerikkka great again. //ss

  13. 13.

    Bupalos

    @Rusty: I think this is mostly wrong. The backpeddalers want the hierarchical tiers they believe are beneath them to exist, but to be put back beneath them. They actually psychologically need the recognition and the hierarchy

    What has so destabilized and energized these folks is being put on the bottom tier, and others that were consensus “deplorables” for decades and centuries suddenly being offered social recognition.

  18. 18.

    Bupalos

    I don’t know anymore whether to react to Clinton as a politician or a pundit. As a pundit, I agree she’s mostly on target… although kind of dropping the shovel early. As a politician, I think this does more harm than good and recalls the political malpractice of the ‘deplorable’ comment.

  20. 20.

    M31

    @Ksmiami: crush these fuckers like Athens did to Sparta

    Sparta colluded with a foreign power (the hated Persians)  to beat Athens

    So, much like the repubs and their love for Russia, but Persia was at least a real empire with big $$$

  21. 21.

    M31

    I should add that Athens fatally weakened itself prior to that by launching ill-advised wars against its neighbors. (The Syracuse expedition)

  23. 23.

    jimmiraybob

    @Mike in Pasadena: ​
     

    “It has been clear for a long time that Rethuglicans hate America and want to make Amerikkka what it was 100 years ago…”

    I would say that the “again” in MAGA is more 17th century colonial America. Hell, they even codified Biblical law verbatim into the civil law. And witches, you could actually hunt witches and send then to the other side. And women……….

  24. 24.

    Ruckus

    @gene108:

    They’re rooting for the death of “evil” multicultural tolerant America, and the restoration of the noble “real” America.

    If democracy is a casualty in this fight, it’s because it’s for the greater good.

    They want simplicity and everyone else to be followers like them.

    They want the world to make sense in a very narrow context. And the context of the world is not narrow. The basis of this country is actually about not being 100000% followers. It is about doing your best to be part of the concept of government so that there ISN’T a forceful leader, there is a leader that shows the way, rather than kicks your ass down the trail, yelling at you to pay attention.

    The concept of this country is that yes we follow but that we acknowledge that we select the person to follow, not worship a leader. It isn’t actually all that subtle a difference. It does go against the status quo of humanity. And conservatives have never really understood that conserving that is not in any way freedom. But I look at this world over my lifetime and we live in an entirely different world than we did when I was born, in the first half of the prior century. And not all of it has changed all that much. But a big portion has. And it always will, because knowledge can be spread around and is. There is an old saying “Knowledge is Power.” And knowledge has been expanded more in the last 100 yrs, than likely in the 1000 years prior. And it is making a difference, to those that don’t have their heads stuffed up their exit orifice.

  26. 26.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Rusty:

    It’s not even rooting for the America of 1953 (pre-Brown v. Board of Ed.), it’s for a fantasy America where anything remotely progressive has been exterminated.

    They’re rooting for the 1850s.

  27. 27.

    Bupalos

    @jimmiraybob: The “again” speaks to each person differently and refers to whatever imaginary time they felt ascendant in power and recognition. The heart of that for the largest plurality of Trump voters is pulled from distorted memories of the 1950’s and 1960’s.

  28. 28.

    Miss Bianca

    @Bupalos: Have you heard any announcement that HRC is planning to run for anything again? Hmm, I think America – the asshole America she describes so vividly – has taken care of that, for her *and* for us. To our collective detriment as a society.

    As far as I’m concerned, she can fucking call it like she sees it any day of the week and twice on Sunday. If that makes her a “pundit” then all I can say is, we need more pundits like her.

  30. 30.

    Tony Jay

    They’re not rooting against America. They’re rooting against the United States of America.

    Now, the Confederate States of America, that’s a different matter…

  31. 31.

    smith

    @Miss Bianca: I agree. Hillary is retired from politics and has earned recognition as an elder stateswoman. She can say anything she likes, and people can accept it or not.

  32. 32.

    MagdaInBlack

    @Miss Bianca: Thank you for saying what I thinking. She’s not running for anything, that is why she is saying what she thinks. And I am happy to listen.

  36. 36.

    Ruckus

    @Bupalos:

    Hillary Clinton is ahead of her time. Or at least was. She is strong and smart, very smart. In her time, she’s less than 2 yrs older than me, and being that smart, being that publicly able was not allowed of woman. The world of my youth had a very specific pecking order. And woman were not in the first few categories. The world will be a better place when that is changed. As in we now have our first woman VP. And look at the consternation that caused. Humanity takes a very, very long time to change, some minds take longer than a lifetime.

  37. 37.

    eclare

    Hillary, 1000% right as always.

    Great looking harvest, WG.  What are you going to do with the peppers?

  38. 38.

    Subsole

    @Ksmiami:

    Uh… I agree with your sentiment, but Athens didn’t actually crush Sparta.

    In fact, they lost the war. By the end, their walls were pulled down, their fleets were sunk, and their democracy had been replaced by an exceptionally narrow and brutal oligarchy.

    What Athens did win, was the peace. They put themselves back together, and let the rest of Hellas marinate in the spectacle of swaggering, violent, corrupt, pigshit-ignorant Spartan overlords who sneered at the softness of effeminate intellectuality and mercantile culture…while happily raking in all the drachmae they could pry from their supposed lessers.

    They let the Greeks mull the fate of Ionia, handed back to the Persian Empire in exchange for the Persian silver that had funded Sparta’s war to Free the Greeks from Tyranny.

    Technically, it was Thebes that knocked the everliving shit out of those red-cloaked and richly-deserving assholes.

    And when they did, Athens was there: free, democratic, and prosperous.

     

     

     

    And then, sadly, Phillip. Followed very shortly by Alexandros. So it goes.

  41. 41.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    The short skinny red ones in the middle are serranos. The cracked reddish green one is a jalapeño. The bigger fat green one up top is a pasilla. The big red one at the side is an anaheim. I don’t think there’s a hatch in here. Hatch’s are usually lighter green and the skin doesn’t look as fleshy as these do. I don’t know why the hurricane naming commission couldn’t name a hurricane hitting Florida and the south ‘Hillary.’ Seriously you wait till a hurricane is supposed to hit California to use the name ‘Hillary’?

  42. 42.

    Bupalos

    @smith: I’d say I think it’s effective as MSNBC punditry, questionable though possibly effective as tactical Democratic politics, and not a good line as far as strategy or stateswomanship.

    But this all comes from my ongoing and understandably much detested series of takes that go under the heading “negative partisanship always works for authoritarians in the end.”

  44. 44.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @schrodingers_cat: THIS!  They only love the mythical America that is absent of those people.  This has always been who they are.  They have always resented any amount of movement towards equality or power for anyone who is: Native/Indigenous, Black, Chinese, Mexican, LGBTQ, Muslim, Immigrant and of course, Women.

  45. 45.

    gene108

    @Miss Bianca:

    If that makes her a “pundit” then all I can say is, we need more pundits like her.

    The traditional meaning of pundit is a learned person, a scholar, expert in a subject, and so on.

    Hillary very much is a pundit in the traditional sense.

  46. 46.

    oldgold

    The group currently practicing the paranoid style of politics, the Deplorables, is engaging in  a style of politics that has plagued us since the founding of our nation. It was given new life by the racist reaction to the election of Obama and the exploitation of this sinister energy by Trump.

    Decades ago the historian Richard Hofstadter defined this paranoid style of politics.

    The paranoid style of politics is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent.

    Let us now abstract the basic elements in the paranoid style. The central image is that of a vast and sinister conspiracy, a gigantic yet subtle machinery set in motion to undermine and destroy a way of life. …  The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of this conspiracy in apocalyptic terms — time is forever just running out.

    They fee dispossessed. America has been largely taken away from them and their kind, though they are determined to try to repossess it and to prevent the final destructive act of subversion. The old American virtues have already been eaten away by cosmopolitans and intellectuals; the old competitive capitalism has been gradually undermined by socialistic and communistic schemers; the old national security and independence have been destroyed by treasonous plots. (emphasis supplied)

    Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, the quality needed is not a willingness to compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Nothing but complete victory will do.

    The paranoid style is a common ingredient of fascism, and of frustrated nationalists.

  47. 47.

    WaterGirl

    @eclare: Well, tomorrow 3 jalapeño, 1 serrano and 1 hungarian hot wax will turn into salsa.

    I think I’m going to try my first Poblano in my cheddar jalapeño cornbread recipe.  That will help me figure out how hot those will be this year.  Last year my Poblanos were some of the hottest peppers, which is very unusual for Poblanos.

    The Krimzon Lee will go into a stir fry with onions and zucchini, to go with my cheese enchiladas.  That will tell me how hot the Krimzon Lee are this year.

    I haven’t thought much farther than that!

  48. 48.

    trollhattan

    Recognize serrano and jalapeno, the others qualify as vaguely familiar.

    Cloudy today in advance of the Hilary remnants, which will drop totally patriotic rain when they arrive.

    SoCal may get drenched in the meantime, so stay out of those arroyos, SoCal peeps! Let the coyotes frolic.

  50. 50.

    Bupalos

    @WaterGirl: My guess as to why Clinton wants to continue to have a public role is first, that she believes in Democratic policies and thinks she can help get them enacted. I don’t question her sincerity or good heart but I don’t question RBG’s either.

  53. 53.

    Scout211

    @Mai Naem mobileI: Seriously you wait till a hurricane is supposed to hit California to use the name ‘Hillary’?

     

    The hurricane is named Hilary.  That’s totally different.  😉

    The hurricane is moving faster than predicted.  Hopefully that will result in the rain being less catastrophic in the south. But it could mean that the storm will keep moving northward into Oregon and Idaho with heavy rain.

  55. 55.

    Alison Rose

    @Bupalos:

    not a good line as far as strategy or stateswomanship

    Is there a line you do think would be good, regarding how the GOP would receive it? You understand that any criticism of them whatsoever will be taken to the highest extremes. Why should we modulate and diminish our criticism of their horrendous behavior, when there is zero evidence that doing so would have any impact on said behavior?

  56. 56.

    Yarrow

    Hillary is right to say Republicans hate America. Democratic strategists should run with it. Point out that Republicans hate what America is and stands for. Make Republicans deny it. If you’re explaining you’re losing.

  59. 59.

    Yarrow

    @Mai Naem mobileI:
    @WaterGirl:
    Sheesh. There are separate name lists for hurricanes for the Atlantic and the Pacific regions. The name choices are from languages common to the regions and the lists are made years in advance. No one was “yucking it up” with this name choice. Names rotate and are used again unless they become associated with a particularly bad storm, in which case they are retired.

  60. 60.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @WaterGirl: “Sure she’s right about everything, but is she wrong for saying it?” is an absolute CLASSIC of the genre of Anti-Hillary Misogyny.

  61. 61.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Hillary is definitely on point. It really is fucked up that what Trump and his supporters are rooting for the destruction of everything we hold dear. Hopefully Trump’s convictions can blunt his influence as well as deliver justice for the crimes he has done

    Those are tasty looking peppers, WG! Are they hot peppers?

  64. 64.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yarrow: Agree.  How is rooting against the US team in a sport anything but unpatriotic?  How can they answer that question in away that doesn’t turn off normies?

  65. 65.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I need to go for a bike ride today, but since I have waited so long I think I should wait until the temp hits 90 not that silly 89 that if currently is.  Let’s do it right.

  67. 67.

    Yarrow

    @Omnes Omnibus:  Exactly. That’s why it’s good politics for Dems. Maybe candidates such as Biden shouldn’t be quite so blunt about it at this point, but other candidates sure could. And Dem pundits can push that line. Republicans hate America – example 1, 2, 3. Republicans are unpatriotic – example 1, 2 3. Make them deny it. Make them explain. Normies won’t pay attention to the details but they’ll sure wonder why Republicans love Putin and hate US teams.

  68. 68.

    Bupalos

    @Omnes Omnibus: Actually yes, that’s one way to put it. I know that’s actually popular and valuable in politics as entertainment.

    But “triggering” also means activating, and yes, I think she probably both activates opponents more than supporters (though this might not be the case anymore) and even if not, seems to center on negative partisanship, which will never be capable of saving democracy. This approach may well have practically  been determined for her, but this is the rough opposite of Biden’s approach.

  71. 71.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    @Yarrow: your wrong. The deep state wanted to use the name Hilary for a storm to distract from TFG’s indicatements. They even mispelled it Hilary to give it plausible deniability. They even used the Obama time machine to make sure of this.

  73. 73.

    Alison Rose

    @Bupalos: Okay, but you do realize that she would “activate” opponents no matter what she said? Obama pissed them off by saying he likes spicy mustard, for God’s sake. Hillary could have sat there with Maddow talking about vegetable gardening tips and the GOP would screech about how she doesn’t want to support local grocers. Being nice to the GOP doesn’t get us anywhere. It never has. So why should we continue to do so?

  76. 76.

    Yarrow

    @Bupalos:  There’s plenty of room for a wide variety of approaches. She’s not running for anything so her role is mostly as a elder statesperson. It’s hardly a major drama that she has an opinion and expressed it.

  79. 79.

    Dan B

    @Scout211: Wish we’d get some rain from Hilary in WA.  We’ve had less than a tenth of an inch since mid June with Temps in the 80’s and 90’s.  And there are big fires in Eastern Washington.

  80. 80.

    cope

    @WaterGirl: The NHC has lists of names already created that are recycled every six years and the lists are established six years in advance so you can go to the NHC website and see what, for example, the seventh named Atlantic storm of 2028 will be (Gaston) or the tenth named Eastern Pacific storm in 2024 (John). Names of especially destructive storms are retired.  Also, the actual lists are not compiled in this country alone but by a committee of the World Meteorological Organization.

    Thus ends today’s pedantic meteorology lesson.

  81. 81.

    Kent

    I used to teach a unit on hurricanes.

    Hurricanes, Typhoons, and Cyclones are all the same exact storm.  We just call the ones that originate in the Atlantic or Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico Hurricanes (also those that originate in the eastern Pacific near North America and that strike the west coast or Hawaii), those that originate in the western Pacific (the Asian side of the Pacific) we call Typhoons, and those that originate in the Indian Ocean are called Cyclones.  And down in the southern hemisphere, those that strike Australia are called willy-willy (or officially also cyclones).

    For the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, the World Meteorological Association has a rotating 10-year list of names and if they run out of alphabetical names in any given year they move on to the Greek alphabet  (hurricane alpha, hurricane beta, etc.).  https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/aboutnames.shtml Once a hurricane becomes deadly that name is retired, just like hall of fame athletes get their numbers retired.  So we will never have another hurricane Katrina or Sandy, those names are retired.  For the Western Pacific and Indian oceans they also have name lists but those tend to be named after things like flowers and animals and not so much human names and the names are contributed by the countries affected by them.

  82. 82.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Bupalos: It’s actually a really really bad idea for politicians in functional complex democracies to just say what they’re thinking.

    Ah, the definition of a “gaffe.”

  83. 83.

    Mai Naem mobileI

    @WaterGirl: poblanos taste really good roasted with cream cheese. I think tradionally they use cotijo cheese. You could probably use feta cheese.

  84. 84.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Is there a good entry-level “buy it for life” bicycle you’d personally recommend? I’m thinking more like a hybrid/casual bike for paved bike trails

    ETA: Budget $500-1000

  86. 86.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Yarrow: it’s odd come to think of it.  “The force has a strong effect on the weak-minded.”  Can you think of a better description of Mark Meadows?

    [to make the snark explicit, I would expect Trump’s mental prowess to have fully hypnotized him.]

  87. 87.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I have a Cannondale Quick.  They come in different levels with more or fewer features at different price points.  Trek has something similar.  My bike is 10 years old, so I am not sure if the model line is still the same.

  88. 88.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne:

    Ms. Oluo:

    Actually, I’m not joking at all. Somebody really does need to stop telling these white boys that they can be anything, and that they can have everything. Because it is not true, and it was never true, and we’re the ones who have to pay when they find that out.

    It may have never been true, but as long as the reason why they couldn’t be anything they wanted to be was that some other white boy was better, that was OK with them. It stopped being OK when blacks and women, and more recently openly gay and trans persons, could be better than them.

    That’s why Obama’s election caused the reaction it did among them: it cemented that reality. Here he was, in the highest office in the land. And they couldn’t even console themselves by blaming it on the bogeyman of affirmative action.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lowtechcyclist: And they couldn’t even console themselves by blaming it on the bogeyman of affirmative action.

    They did.  They questioned his undergrad grades, his Harvard Law admission, and his law school grades.

  91. 91.

    realbtl

    I’m thinking someone in the naming committee had the forsight to nix Hillary for Atlantic storms.  Can you imagine the howling if it hit TIFG’s place?

  94. 94.

    p.a.

    We have 3 fucking documented examples of Republican anti-Americanism (I would say treason) in the lifetimes of lots of living Americans, and 2 are memory-holed.  Nixon promising North Vietnam a better deal to delay the Paris Peace Talks to aid his ’68 election, Reagan/Iran hostages, same fucking reason as Nixon, and the Orange Shitstain 2020.

    They should all be mentioned by Dems as a piece: the face-eating leopard doesn’t change its spots.  Mention them together every opportunity the media sticks a mike in their face.

  95. 95.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    But it could mean that the storm will keep moving northward into Oregon and Idaho with heavy rain.

    Idaho has it coming, and my understanding is that eastern Oregon isn’t much different.

  96. 96.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Mr. Bemused Senior: You just don’t understand.  All those people who claim that Hillary forced them to support Trump with her “Deplorables” Women’s World Cup rant, are totally sincere, not-at-all operating in bad faith and a substantial portion of the Electorate /sarcasm (in case it wasn’t obvious)

  97. 97.

    kalakal

    If these assholes got their and created their horrible fantasy of an Amerikkka from a 100 years ago they’d be in for the shock of their lives as, amongst many other things, their science denialism came up to bite them. The rest of the world is in the 21st century and they’d rapidly find technologically “backward”,  resource rich countries are treated by their competitors.

    They wouldn’t Make America Great Again, they’d make it the a continent sized version of the all those nations exploited by Western multinationals in the first half of the last century.

  98. 98.

    sab

    @trollhattan: Goku is on the eastern border of Ohio. Whatever else his road conditions are, they do have lots of hills. Technically I believe he is in Appalachia.

  99. 99.

    Kent

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):Is there a good entry-level “buy it for life” bicycle you’d personally recommend? I’m thinking more like a hybrid/casual bike for paved bike trails

    Hard core cyclist here with a garage full of bikes.

    That answer depends on a lot of things including where you are going to park it.  No point in riding any kind of nice bike in any kind or urban area where you are going to lock it up in public because there is literally no kind of bike lock that is safe against urban bike thieves.  None.

    But if you are going to mostly keep it in your garage or apartment or locked briefly outside relatively safe public places like bakeries or whatever, then any sort of lightweight road bike with flat bars will probably suit you well.  The newest fad is “gravel bikes” which are more or less designed for riding on gravel logging roads.  But with slick road tires (instead of knobby tires) they make good casual road bikes as well.

    Features I would look for in a casual bike for fair weather fitness and bike path use?

    Upright handlebars

    Relaxed frame geometry so there is plenty of space between the frame and tires for putting on larger size tires.  High end racing bikes have really tight tolerances where you can barely squeeze a card between the tire and frame in some cases.

    Attachment points for things like a front and rear rack.  On lots of racing bikes there are no attachment points for any accessories.

    And then it is just a question of price.  For what you describe, something like either of these would probably do nicely: https://www.rei.com/product/197842/co-op-cycles-cty-11-bike or  https://www.rei.com/product/198728/co-op-cycles-cty-22-bike

    And then spend some extra $$$ to get a really nice saddle as that is where they usually cheap out.

    In the past I would have said Craigslist or online.  But if you aren’t a bike person already it is hard to evaluate a used bike, and the other problem is that those online marketplaces have basically turned into places where addicts and thieves launder stolen bikes.

  102. 102.

    smith

    @UncleEbeneezer: Yep, and compared to what Republicans routinely call us (without a single gasp or pearl clutch from our betters in the media), “deplorables” sounds like a term you’d use at a genteel tea party with the minister’s wife.

  103. 103.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Alison Rose: And FFS, what Hillary said wasn’t even that harsh.  But some people just addicted to performative pearl-clutching every time she opens her mouth.

  104. 104.

    kalakal

    @realbtl: We have had Hurricane Donald this year. It just wandered in circles aimlessly around the Atlantic for a week troubling Haddock. A vast blob of hot air, spinning aimlessly.

    Quite well named really.

  105. 105.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @lowtechcyclist:

    That’s why Obama’s election caused the reaction it did among them: it cemented that reality.

    Then he won reelection.  A lot of white people who had been able – barely – to support a black president saw a black president win when the White Establishment specifically was throwing its full effort into taking him down.  They cracked.  It made it real to them that a black man was actually in charge, not merely graciously allowed to drive.

    ‘Not racist when the minority is a sidekick’ is a very common mental setting, I saw.

  106. 106.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Bupalos:

    negative partisanship, which will never be capable of saving democracy.

    You keep saying that, as if it is something to be eschewed.  On what basis?

  107. 107.

    sab

    OT and shallow comment. Went to the grocery today and they had chocolate Twizzlers! I don’t much like chocolate (tastes good but gives me headaches) but spouse loves it. I hope it lasts as a third choice after strawberry and licorice. I love licorice but spouse hates it. It would be nice for both of us to have a second mutual choice beyond strawberry.

  109. 109.

    zhena gogolia

    I’m sorry I’m not going to make it to the zoom. My work has spilled over into this afternoon. I hope everyone has fun!

  110. 110.

    Alison Rose

    @sab: Someone else who likes licorice??? I’m not the only one???

    Oh but wait — red or black? Or both? I won’t tell you my preference until you say yours :P

  111. 111.

    sab

    @UncleEbeneezer: And now she is able to say whatever the fuck she wants to within the limitations of her basic Methodist decency. Hillary unbound isn’t Trump unhinged.

  117. 117.

    Bupalos

     

    @Alison Rose:

    I think there is a bog-standard political way to use these kind of issues and slip the knife while offering a counter.  You say “That shocked me, that they would let their political theories or ideas about how a person has to live or the opinions they have overwhelm the basic idea that we’re all Americans and we root for the United States. The American people don’t believe in taking our differences outside our borders. [Pivot] That’s not what they’re about, because America above all other counties is about different people, all nationalities, all walks of life coming together etc etc.”

    That hides some complexity under the glittering generality and time-tested trope of telling the American people what they believe. But what it does not do is feed the growing beast that says “a bunch of the country is like us and a bunch is like them and hopefully they’ll be defeated or we’re doomed.” Which is good because democracy can’t survive that beast.

  119. 119.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @Bupalos: hey, I have an idea! Why not go to comments on Red State or Daily Wire and let them know you think what they do ALL THE TIME is a bad idea. You might even then be useful.

  120. 120.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’m in an even worse position than Omnes to offer advice. I bought my current bike somewhere around 2000. It replaced a bike I’d bought ca. 1980.  If my current bike got stolen or was damaged beyond repair, I’ve got absolutely no idea what I’d buy to replace it.

  125. 125.

    JoyceH

    Various comments:

    One thing that strikes me about the GOP is how they admire the very things about authoritarian regimes that traditional Americans have always mocked. The militaristic parades with the heavy equipment rumbling down the streets and the marching troops with steps so identical they look like CGI. The ranting leader who gives speeches that go on for hours, and whose face is plastered all over the place. They look at those things and they see Power, never considering that all those authoritarians in history have been defeated and destroyed by shambolic democracies.

    Also – I’ve seen several mentions of ‘legal Zooms’ and am not sure what that is. Is it a group discussion of the legal issues involved in all the Trump indictments, or some sort of get your own legal advice deal?

    And lastly – has anyone else dealt with technology procrastination? My TV is on its last legs, part of the screen has gone noticeably dim. The replacement TV is HERE, already purchased, sitting boxed in the living room. And I keep putting off and putting off replacing the old TV with the new one. It’s going to be a physical challenge, replacing one 50″ with another and scrambling around behind the cabinet it sits on, and as for hooking it up, sometimes I think it will be difficult and sometimes I assure myself that it will be easy, but regardless… there it sits. Any encouragement or advice? Or should I just hire someone to get it done for me?

  126. 126.

    sab

    @Alison Rose: Black! even though it raises my blood pressure. I like red but that’s not licorice it’s strawberry.  I also love black jellybeans. My spouse detests them.

  127. 127.

    Roger Moore

    @waspuppet:

    That’s exactly right. They have to invent an already-destroyed America so they can pretend to be victims, which is critical to any dictatorship.

    I don’t think this is really made up.  They have a vision of America that they see as the great country they want to return to, and they see diversity and wokeness (or whatever synonym they’re using at the moment) as the evils that took away the great country that used to be.  They aren’t 100% correct in the details- the country was never quite the way they imagine it was- but I think their big picture is more true than a lot of people give it credit for.  The country used to be run largely by and for rich cis het White Christian Men, and most of the changes since the beginning of the New Deal, and especially since Brown v. Board of Education, have undercut that hegemony.  They want their rule back.  They’re happy to overturn democracy to do it because what they want is fundamentally anti-democratic.

  128. 128.

    Alison Rose

    @Bupalos: But the Democratic Party tried this nice, gentle way of criticizing the GOP for years and years, and look where we are now. You seem to think that if we’re nice enough, we’ll win their voters over. But their voters aren’t nice and don’t give a shit about nice. And their elected officials sure as shit don’t, either. If their side is going to paint ours as being 98% pedophiles, why do they deserve niceness? What Hillary and others are trying to do is wake up the portion of the electorate that isn’t completely consumed by Trumpism to see that the party they’ve supported doesn’t give a flying fuck about them, about their kids, about their futures, and also pretty clearly does not actually care about America. And some of this electorate is, sadly, really dumb, so we have to be pretty forthright about it.

  129. 129.

    Scout211

    @Dan B: Wish we’d get some rain from Hilary in WA.

    I looks like you might get your wish. Link

    Heavy rainfall enhanced by leftover moisture from Hilary will douse portions of the northwestern US and southwestern Canada dealing with destructive fires.

    Enough rainfall to cause flooding is expected to begin late Sunday across portions of Oregon, Idaho and Montana. Heavy rainfall will continue across these states and expand into Washington for Monday and southern British Columbia, Canada, Tuesday.

  130. 130.

    kalakal

    @Kent: I believe they gave up on the Greek alphabet after 2020 because a) you have a very limited set before any get retired, b) people found it confusing “what do you mean Zeta isn’t the end of the alphabet?”, and c) endless arguments over pronunciation.  Mind you, as 2020 drew on I was waiting for names from the NGC* or it’s later variants to be adopted.

    *New General Catalogue of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars

  131. 131.

    sab

    @Alison Rose: Vermont Country Store might still sell that. I think they still sell blackjack.

    OT : Do you, like me,  have a thing about cows being okay?

  132. 132.

    Another Scott

    @Bupalos: She did that in the whole comment, of course.

    “I know there are only 60 days left to make our case — and don’t get complacent, don’t see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think well he’s done this time. We are living in a volatile political environment.

    “You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America.

    “But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.”

    The only thing I would have changed, if I was tasked with changing anything, was instead of saying “half” I would have suggested “far too many”.

    There was nothing wrong with her comments.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  134. 134.

    lowtechcyclist

    @p.a.:

    Can’t forget Covid.  (Always good to have more current examples.) They were on the side of the virus from the get-go, opposing every effort to contain its spread.

    If we defined Covid-19 as an ‘Enemy’ in the meaning of Article III, Section 3 (no technical reason why enemies have to be human, though it would be a tough sell), the Rethugs aided it and took its side, acting as a fifth column that undermined our efforts to defend against it.  IOW, committing treason.

  135. 135.

    Bupalos

    @BeautifulPlumage: From the point of view of regressive goals- to tear modern America apart at the seams, take it backwards, and elect regressive freaks, they are probably taking the right strategy by hyping negative partisanship and “destroy the other side” rhetoric. We are taking the wrong strategy when we feed that.

  137. 137.

    Alison Rose

    @sab: Cows being okay? I do love cows. I was always that person, back when I could like, go places, who would yell out HI COWS whenever I drove past any cows, which around here was often.

  138. 138.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Another Scott: The problem many had with her comment is that she said it.  They would also have had issues if she said, “It’s raining. Don’t forget your umbrella.”

  139. 139.

    Miss Bianca

    @Bupalos: Hilary Clinton has a right to say ANYTHING SHE GODDAMN WANTS TO. It’s always on point, which counts for a hell of a lot more than “civility.” Sorry it appears to be so triggering to *you*, dude.

  142. 142.

    BeautifulPlumage

    @Bupalos: again, only Democrats have agency. We make the GOP do horrible things. Why not try preaching to their choir for a while about partisanship being bad. Sheesh.

  143. 143.

    cope

    @JoyceH: Regarding your TV, generally they are pretty straightforward to install and get going these days. Personally, I am the kind who dives into those things and see how far I can get with them. Good luck, whatever you decide.

  144. 144.

    Another Scott

    @Another Scott: I forgot:

    DeLong points us to some history that might be a a decent counterpoint (or amplification??) to Hillary’s comments…

    In some ways, Karl Marx was very much a normal Victorian Gentleman:

    The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels contains a substantial disquisition on the precipitation of all the members of society into the two main classes: bourgeoisie and proletariat. The disquisition ends:

    The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight… [to preserve] their existence…. Reactionary… they try to roll back the wheel of history…. They are revolutionary… only… in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat…

    And then the flow is broken by a strange digression:

    The “dangerous class”, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue…

    […]

    Everything old is new again, eh??

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  145. 145.

    Juice Box

    As much as I love Hillary, Hilary has been a bust so far. In coastal San Diego, we’re to the west of the storm and we’re having on and off gentle rain with “wind gusts” of up to four miles per hour.  It’s supposed to be blowier tonight, I guess. My yard looks really nice with everything picked up and stowed away though. For the first time ever, I cleaned out my back yard drains before it started raining. I hope that the rain heads up to BC to put out those fires

  146. 146.

    AWOL

    @p.a.: Are the two examples memory-holed or the two examples official “non-history,” even if they did happen?

    LBJ didn’t run around screaming that he discovered the Paris Peace Talks were sabotaged when he was spying on Nixon’s 1968 campaign.

    Iran releasing the hostages while that chunk of shit, Reagan, was sworn in, was viewed as Iran tweaking an impotent Carter.

    Democratic candidates will be treated like QAnon loons by normies if they spoke about this.

  148. 148.

    Kelly

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): When I lived in inner SE Portland I had a used $15 Sears 3 speed that was great. Low gear got me over the bridges. It already had fenders and a chain guard. An ordinary padlock and cable was enough to secure it.

  149. 149.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Bupalos:

    on the basis that a house divided cannot stand.

    Oh gimme a fucking break. We’re divided no matter how positive a vision the Dems offer.  In fact, what do you think we’ve been doing during Biden’s Presidency? Has it made us any less divided?

    We can’t save the Republic if we lose elections. Negative partisanship gets people to the polls. It’s not like we have to tell damned lies about the Rethugs to do that; all we have to do is point out what they’ve already done and what they’ve made clear they intend to do.  Yes, that’s negative partisanship. And your problem is??

  151. 151.

    Yarrow

    @JoyceH:  A 50″ TV is going to be awkward to lift and put into place by yourself. At the very least, can you get someone to help you get it out of the box and put where you want it? You really don’t want to drop or knock over your new TV while you’re fiddling with the power cable.

    The rest of it – getting it to see the internet and your TV provider (if you have one) and whatever other things you have (Roku, Fire stick, etc.) is another step. Do you feel up to doing that? If not, hire someone. Or get a teenager to help.

  152. 152.

    Almost Retired

    @Juice Box:  Yup, I’m in coastal Los Angeles County, and it’s been kinda rainy, nothing more.  Maybe HIlary got stuck on the 405 and turned around in disgust.

  153. 153.

    Cameron

    Having been a well-known figure in American political life for many years, Hillary Clinton should certainly feel free to offer opinions on TV or run for office if she’s so moved.  Shoot, she should feel free to comment on blogs, for that matter.

  157. 157.

    zhena gogolia

    Okay, now I finished my work task (learning a lot of Ukrainian while correcting a translation), but I’m too exhausted to get on a Zoom. Oh well.

  158. 158.

    Alison Rose

    @Juice Box: And of course there are comments on the governor’s posts like “LOL Gavin is an idiot this is nothing” as though they don’t understand that weather can, like, change. Also, if he had underprepared and it was really bad, then they would be screaming to recall him again.

  159. 159.

    Another Scott

    @Omnes Omnibus: Indeed.  Their MO is to try to change anything in the news about our candidates into something bad.   Twisting quotes, taking stuff out of context, making stuff up (“what she means is…”).

    We need to run our campaigns doing what we think is the best way to succeed.  Worrying about how the other guys are going to twist what we’re doing is natural, and gaming things out is important, but ultimately we have to make our case for ourselves.  They’re going to do what they do anyway.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  160. 160.

    sab

    @Juice Box: Sorry your hurricane is a bust ///s

    I know you don’t mean that. My sister just retired to San Diego and we grew up in Florida in the 1960s  when hurricanes were fierce. Donna then Betsy.

    My Ohio husband asked me if my older sister knew what to do to prepare. Seriously?! We grew up in Florida when there were hurricanes.

  161. 161.

    Alison Rose

    @Cameron: What if she is already here???? HILLS IS THAT YOU???? I mean…Clinton, 7-letter name starting with C and ending with N. Cameron, 7-letter name starting with C and ending with N. A-HA!

  163. 163.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    They would also have had issues if she said, “It’s raining. Don’t forget your umbrella.”

     

    “Some of us wear ponchos when it’s raining, Hillary. Not that you would understand that.”

  165. 165.

    BeautifulPlumage

    Hillary is the perfect Dem to call out the magat shit: she’s articulate, funny, and has no fucks left to give. They’ve already said all the shit to her & about her, which neutralizes the affect of any attacks. I’d love to see her out truth-telling and riling up incels.

  173. 173.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @BeautifulPlumage: Well said.  She’s a Former Senator, SecState, was Time’s Most Admired Woman for like 15 years in a row and won the popular vote by several Million votes.  She was right about Trump and was sounding the alarm about Putin when most of us weren’t even paying attention to Russia.  She’s never claimed to be perfect and has always been willing to change her positions based on new information or mistakes.  She’s still one of the smartest people in politics, period.

  174. 174.

    japa21

    It always gets me that people say she should shut up and just retire quietly, but Kissinger speaks and everybody runs to get the wisdom that dribbles from his mouth. (Or Barr, for that matter.)

  178. 178.

    Geminid

    @Bupalos: Negative partisanship as employed by Democrats now is more of a tactic than a strategy, much less an ideology. I doubt if any Democratic candidate uses it exclusively, at least not those running in the purple states or districts where majorities are won or lost.

    The negative partisanship dynamic has worked well for Republicans. Sometimes it seems like it’s the only tool that works for them at all. So I’m fine with Democrats using it themselves. They usually use it alongside more inclusive messaging as well.

  181. 181.

    Fair Economist

    @Juice Box: Hilary went inland a little earlier than expected so she’s not throwing as much as expected at us. Here in OC the projections were only for something equivalent to a strong winter storm even before this shift. I’ve also noticed the rainfall predictions for the inland deserts (which had been predicted to be getting the worst) have been reduced somewhat. But the core of the system isn’t here quite yet and tropical systems can be quite small, so not quite time to cheer. Also, some parts of Baja got it pretty rough.

  182. 182.

    kalakal

    @Alison Rose: That’s so accurate.

    A few years ago our city manager got hauled over the coals when he shut the place down as Charley* was barrelling in. In the event Charley swerved a bit south and caused a ton of damage all the way up to Orlando but we were hardly touched. Thereafter for years Krakatoa could have been erupting in the parking lot and he’d insist we stayed open. It was not good.

    After all everyone wants to go to the library when a Cat 5 is due in 6 hours, right?

    *Charley (2004) was a monster, 150mph winds

  183. 183.

    Doc Sardonic

    @JoyceH: Have a TV install party. Invite some friends over have some food and drinks and the TV goes on the wall. Just a suggestion since a 50” TV can be a bunglesome lift unless you have long arms, not to mention being able to see over, under, sideways, down to get the thing on the wall.

  184. 184.

    ColoradoGuy

    Remember GW Bush lecturing us about: “They hate us for our freedoms!”

    Well, it was a dumb way of discussing Al Qaeda or ISIS, but it is the right way to describe T****, his cult followers, the theofascists on the Supreme Court, Putin, or any of the other tinpot dictators around the world. They hate free people and free societies. It’s what defines them.

    Think about what unites Kim Jong Un, the mullahs of Iran, or Putin. They all think they are God’s Chosen, and the rest of us are so much cattle.

  185. 185.

    El Muneco

    @Yarrow: I got a 50-inch TV last year and two distinct takeaways from my experience:

    • It is definitely a two-person lift. I’m pretty athletic, and there was a lot of sliding and tilting involved to avoid dead-lifting the thing onto my table. A wall mount would have been impossible
    • The stand it comes with is likely to be crap. If you plan to have it freestanding, consider buying a highly rated third-party stand at the same time.
  186. 186.

    wjca

    @Tony Jay:

    They’re not rooting against America. They’re rooting against the United States of America.

    Now, the Confederate States of America, that’s a different matter…

    And they no longer bother to hide their enthusiasm for the Confederacy.

    That’s my enthusiasm for the 1950s.  Give the Dixiecrats back to the Democrats.  They at least managed, for a century, to keep them from taking over their party.  Nixon’s Southern Strategy, more than anything else, destroyed the GOP and has put the whole nation at risk.

  187. 187.

    zhena gogolia

    @JoyceH: If you mean here on BJ, the “legal Zooms” are conversations with Immanentize about the legal issues surrounding Trump. I was hoping to join today, but I had work and then I was exhausted. I already had one Zoom today, and even though the BJ one is fun, Zoom is work regardless.

  188. 188.

    West of the Rockies

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I’ve been mountain/trail riding for 30 years.  Finally got shock forks.  I’d recommend a hard tail mountain bike (I loved my Bianchi Osprey) with shock absorbing front forks.  Get a good gel seat.  Your keister and prostate will thank you! All that is doable in your price range.  I ride a Giant now.

  189. 189.

    sab

    @sab: I have an actual  waterpainting of cows that I adore. I have the painting. I would love to copy it. I  believe the painter would be entitled to a cut of moving it on. This is why our art market is so fucked up. Sell it on and fuck the artist. But t iis mine and I want to to sell it and move it on with regard to the srtist. But I want a copy because I wouldn’t have bought it if I didn’t love it.

    Just the idiots side of art collection. The morons who actually love the art. Chumps.

  190. 190.

    ColoradoGuy

    About TV’s: Yes, they are big, heavy, awkward, and fragile. And expensive if you drop it … preferably not on your foot. Then it gets really expensive. So get somebody who’s reasonably agile and strong to help you.

    There are two ways to get streaming (Internet) content into the TV. The first is to use the built-in apps in the TV, so the only connection needed is household Ethernet or WiFi. The only downside is the apps don’t get updated after a few years.

    The second approach is use an external “streamer” box, which would be from Roku, AppleTV, Google, or several others. The streamer holds the apps, which are updated frequently, and there’s an app store where you can get more. (It’s a bit like owning a smartphone, but the user interface is much more restricted than a phone.)

    The Internet goes into the streaming box via Ethernet or WiFi, and the box is connected to the TV via a single HDMI cable. (There is no benefit to buying an expensive aftermarket cable; they are all the same.) The TV is then used as a “dumb” monitor, but replacing a streaming box is much cheaper than a new TV, so the TV never needs to be updated or replaced.

  191. 191.

    Roger Moore

    @kalakal:

    If these assholes got their and created their horrible fantasy of an Amerikkka from a 100 years ago they’d be in for the shock of their lives as, amongst many other things, their science denialism came up to bite them.

    I think a bigger shock for a lot of them would be their own status.  Many people who see themselves as part of White society today would not have been accepted 100 years ago.  The Klan was targeting Catholics as much as Blacks, and “Catholic” meant anyone whose ancestors came from a predominantly Catholic country.  Jews were absolutely not accepted, and neither was anyone from Southern or Eastern Europe, no matter what their religious background.

  193. 193.

    West of the Rockies

    @Kent:

    My bike is in the garage or under my keister.  Bike theft is far more prevalent than most folks imagine.

  194. 194.

    Alison Rose

    @sab: If that’s a nudge-nudge to me, unfortunately I have basically zero wall space remaining. My apartment is small and the walls are covered. Too bad, because a painting of cows would be fun to look at. Maybe you could auction it off here to raise money for Ukraine or something? :D

  197. 197.

    Alison Rose

    Should I slip an apology note under my neighbor’s door for singing too loudly when both our windows were open? I’m 100% sure they could hear me, and no one deserves to hear me singing. Maybe putin. Ahhh that’s how the war ends!! I’ll record myself singing and someone can drive a truck round and round outside the kremlin blasting it through speakers mounted on the roof. He’ll do anything to make it stop.

  201. 201.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Miss Bianca:

    As far as I’m concerned, she can fucking call it like she sees it any day of the week and twice on Sunday. 

    Thrice on Sunday!  Fuck the haters!

  202. 202.

    kalakal

    @Alison Rose:

    I’ll record myself singing and someone can drive a truck round and round outside the kremlin blasting it through speakers mounted on the roof. He’ll do anything to make it stop.

    Excellent!

    The old Noriega ploy

  203. 203.

    bbleh

    Wulll, LIBRULS are hating America TOO, by being all black and brown and gay and trans and Muslim and immigrant and whatever, and THEY did it FIRST, so we HAD to and it’s all THEIR fault!!

  207. 207.

    luc

    Not the best day for a headline “Hillary nails it!”.

    Hopefully the Hillary in Southern California is less vehement.

  209. 209.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I have a 2016 Trek FX3 which is not a current model but was on the lower end of your budget when I purchased it. It is a fine hybrid “fitness” bike and I’ve ridden it many many miles and hope many many more once the heat goes away.

  210. 210.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Alison Rose:

    @Baud: Jack Smith gonna drag me to The Hague.

    Can he drag Kissinger there instead? Henry the K is waaaaay overdue for being charged with war crimes, and since he insists on continuing to live, Smith might should take advantage of that!

  214. 214.

    bbleh

    @luc: Having grown up with Caribbean hurricanes, Hillary is a yawn, but for that part of the country — not used to it and vulnerable to flooding, especially the desert-side stuff — it’s potentially catastrophic.  They’re gonna get like 2 inches in 6 hours in Bakersfield!  And San Diego’s getting 40mph wind.  Yow!

    Remember that the wind is the most dangerous part of a tropical storm.  Best to stay inside.

  215. 215.

    Tony Jay

    @wjca:

    I don’t think that’s remotely possible. The Dixiecrat shift over into the GOP camp (Dixiepublicans? That sounds daft) allowed the Democratic Party to establish its base of black voters and white people who think it’s a good thing that black people have the vote.

    That’s a majority, most of the time.

    OTOH it would be simply super if that coalition was able to suck up enough outraged Independents in southern states to pull them out of the MAGOP orbit for long enough to give their inhabitants a taste of sensible government and nice things. They might even find that they like it more than low corporate taxes and culture war bullshit, and wouldn’t that be a thing?

  217. 217.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @p.a.: Let’s throw in Bush Jr. Never adequately investigated how a bunch of Saudis flew out of the country immediately after 9/11 when American air space was shut down tight.

  218. 218.

    Roger Moore

    @bbleh:

    and don’t forget the Irish, who were non-White even into the early 20th Century.

    They fall into the category of coming from a predominantly Catholic country.  But yeah, to be fully accepted in the early 20th Century, you pretty much needed to be a WASP or able to convince people you were one.  Maybe you would be accepted if you were from the right part of Germany or Scandinavia, but that was still a crapshoot.

  219. 219.

    kalakal

    I’m glad to hear that Hilary seems to be less intense than predicted.

    The Atlantic is a bit crazy at the moment. There are 5 systems bimbling about including Emily and Franklin but fortunately it looks like most of them will not impact land. Sadly Haiti/Dominican Republic and  northern Mexico/western Texas could be in for some nasty stuff in a few days. 

    https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/gtwo.php?basin=atlc&fdays=7

  221. 221.

    prostratedragon

    @JoyceH:  No, I’ve never dealt with technological procrastination  — excellent term, that. In other words, I too have a boxed tv in the spare room and also will soon be two releases behind in linux versions if I don’t get motivated soon.

  225. 225.

    patrick II

    @Alison Rose:

    Roberta Flack and John Lennon were next-door neighbors in their New York condominiums. They could hear each other’s music through their shared wall. As far as neighbors playing music, that would have to be about the peak.

  226. 226.

    NotMax

    @zhena gogolia

    Hurricane Strzok?   ;)

    Regardless, Hilary is no longer hurricane-level, it’s now a tropical storm. Still dangerous (it’s a large storm) but less so than before.

  230. 230.

    prostratedragon

    @Roger Moore:  I remember an acquaintance from Marquette Park (one-time very Slavic neighborhood of Chicago) laughing at the Klan for thinking to recruit there because of consensus anti-Black racism: “Don’t they know we’re all Catholics out here? We know their shit.”

  234. 234.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @bbleh: It depends on how you look at it.  While White People absolutely looked down on them as lesser-than members of the Whiteness (along with Italian-Americans) and discriminated against them, Irish-Americans were never legally prohibited from White Only spaces based on their race.  For the purposes of who they could marry, whether they could vote, whether they could serve on a jury, where they could live etc., whether they could get govt programs like the GI Bill etc., Irish-Americans were always considered White.  There were anti-Irish laws based on them being Irish or being Immigrants or being Catholic, but never for not being White.  I follow a Historian on Twitter (forget her name) who did a long thread about this recently.  White-Only neighborhoods/programs/laws meant: No Black, No Chinese, and sometimes No Jews but they never excluded Irish-Americans.

  240. 240.

    Brachiator

    @🐾BillinGlendaleCA:

    Oh great, a hurricane and an earthquake.

    Wild. I got a Google warning on my phone about 5 seconds before feeling a mild shake.

    Then later a notification about a 5.6 quake about 65 miles away.

    A crazy Sunday afternoon.

    On the news I see people driving through areas with considerable water in the streets. I guess they really need to get somewhere.

  241. 241.

    Jackie

    @Scout211: The map shows my neighborhood in southeastern WA will catch the outer west bands on Tue. I’m hoping the combo of winds and rain will help relieve us from the wildfires smoke we’re currently socked in with. It’s been horrible these last couple of days.

  243. 243.

    Jackie

    @Dan B: You’re on the wrong side of the Cascades 😉 We (southeastern WA) are currently forecast to get some of what’s left of Hilary on Tue. Fingers crossed we get enough to tamper down some of the fires and smoke!

  244. 244.

    karen marie

    @sab: Wow!  I’m not clear whether you actually tasted the chocolate twizzlers.  Did you?  What’s your verdict?  Do they taste like chocolate?

  245. 245.

    karen marie

    @Doc Sardonic:   That sounds like fun!  Everyone get drunk, then “help” install a very expensive 50″ TV!

    I’ll bring the greasy snacks so we know at the end who “helped” the most.

  246. 246.

    Brachiator

    @UncleEbeneezer:

     It depends on how you look at it.  While White People absolutely looked down on them as lesser-than members of the Whiteness (along with Italian-Americans) and discriminated against them, Irish-Americans were never legally prohibited from White Only spaces based on their race.

    There were often plenty of “No Irish Need Apply” signs at businesses even if there were no laws banning the Irish in the US. And especially after Charles Darwin’s works became more known, the Irish were sometimes depicted as subhuman and declared to be the possible missing link between nonhumans and humans. White Anglo Saxons were at the top of the phony Social Darwin tree of humanity.

    There is a short, but fascinating video about this from a young woman who discovered that her great grandmother moved out of Louisiana to live as a white woman.

    One way to look at this is to note that whiteness was not a defined, broad category. The first immigration law allowed citizenship to free white persons. The Civil War amendments let black people be citizens but did not end racism. This led to the perverse result that other prohibited groups had to fight to be recognized as white in order to become citizens.

    In Louisiana, Italians were lynched for being Catholic, too uppity and for associating with black people.

  247. 247.

    NotMax

    @<a href=”https://balloon-juice.com/2023/08/20/hillary-nails-it-trump-and-his-supporters-are-rooting-against-america/#comment-8935687″>karen marie</a>

    Chocolate Twizzlers have been around for decades. The taste if like a vaguely chocolate scent from across the room.

    Better than grape flavor, though.

  249. 249.

    Geminid

    @Sure Lurkalot: What I get from thst article was that the flights were discussed by administration officials and authorized at the White House level (my guess is by Darth Cheney). Former security advisor Richard Clarke is quoted on this. The writer points out that they were improper as a matter of law enforcement, not transparent, and that the 9/11 Commission needed to get to the bottom of this matter.

    It sounds like Bush knew about the flights at the time but he never acknowledged or explained them to the public.

  251. 251.

    Chris T.

    @Kent:

    Once a hurricane becomes deadly that name is retired, just like hall of fame athletes get their numbers retired.

    Will they do this with the Greek letters?  “Hurricane β of 2036 was so bad, we skip that letter now…”

    Also, what happens after omega?

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