Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

It’s the corruption, stupid.

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

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

Welcome to day five of every-bit-as-bad-as-you-thought-it-would-be.

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

They want us to be overwhelmed and exhausted. Focus. Resist. Oppose.

The lights are all blinking red.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Welcome to the ‘New’ Normal

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Welcome to the ‘New’ Normal

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228Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    It seems Jonathan Martin has decided on a career path that involves repeating GOP talking points to troll liberals.

    Maybe he’s looking for a job with the New York Times.

  4. 4.

    Suzanne

    Scott: The biggest winner of yesterday was President Biden

    Well, yeah, dude. That’s what we’ve been saying.
    I feel like we’ve been pointing this all out. For some time.

  5. 5.

    satby

    My reply tweet to Jonathan Martin:

    You’re a hack, and there are no smart Republicans if they think this. President Pro Tem of the Senate moves up in line with a vacancy in the Speaker role. Easily researched you twat.

  11. 11.

    Suzanne

    You know, it dawns on me that, if the party wasn’t in absolute thrall to the worst people in the country, their Long MAGA would have abated by now.

    They’ve really backed themselves into a corner. Please proceed, assholes.

  12. 12.

    Tony Jay

    @Baud:

    Repeating Republican talking-points to troll Liberals is already his job.

    To really break into the NYT Golden Circle you have to proactively make up your own Republican talking-points and get them out there before anyone else.

  15. 15.

    satby

    @Baud: other people were ably handling the “scant experiance” falsehood about the VP, so I went with the line of succession, which extends well past the Speaker.

  21. 21.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Apparently MAGAs see Biden’s “above my pay grade” comment as a sign of his dementia rather than his sharp wit. I saw someone who quoted it and then said Biden “shuffled off.”

  23. 23.

    New Deal democrat

    Two points on the ongoing Drama in the House:

    1. In his usual cogent analysis, Josh Marshall points out that “Any rules change requires 218 votes. Any new Speaker requires 218 votes.”

    Which seems to confirm something I already thought: the election of a new Speaker and the rules under which the House will operate are two separate matters, and might well be resolved separately. For example, the GOPers might coalesce around Scalise as the new Speaker, but then continue to fight like cats in a bag over the rules.(ETA: and there is plenty of evidence the majority of the GOP wants to defenestrate Gaetz et al by scrapping their ability to file a motion to vacate – but the GOP alone won’t have 218 votes for that).

    And that is the important distinction for Democrats as well. The identity of the new Speaker in these circumstances is much less important than the rules under which the House will operate. And it is on the issue of rules where Democrats might well exercise the most leverage.

    Again, for example, Democrats might ally with GOPers in scrapping the rule allowing one member to file a motion to vacate, in return for a relaxation of the Hastert Rule, say by mandating that any bill with 33% support by the majority party must be brought to the floor. That would allow things like Ukraine funding or a clean CR to be passed much more easily.

    And rank and file GOPers might be much more amenable to cooperating on a rules change than on the identity of the next Speaker.

    2. Marshall also notes that the scope of the “pro term Speaker” is very much at issue. Can he exercise *all* of the duties of Speaker until the next one is elected (in which case McHenry could continue for the remainder of the House term!), or only those duties as necessary to keep the House operating until then? With that in mind, I hope Pelosi and Hoyer tell McHenry that as the pro term Speaker he does not have any power to re-assign offices, so he can go pound sand.

  25. 25.

    Ocotillo

    @Baud:  Schumer is Majority leader, Murray is now President of the Senate.  I looked it up the other day fearing Grassley was but that was back when Moscow Mitch was Majority leader.

  26. 26.

    lowtechcyclist

    Tom Nichols: “the bigger problem is that the GOP is now a countercultural movement of sour and resentful people who don’t even know what the hell they’re mad about most of the time until Fox tells them why they’re angry.”

    Or to paraphrase Al Capp, “Stupidheads Wildly Indignant about Nearly Everything (S.W.I.N.E.)”

    There should be a feral hog joke in here somewhere…

  29. 29.

    Geminid

    The foreign leaders who met with Vice President Harris at the February, 2022 Munich Security Conference would guffaw at the assertion that she has “scant ” foreign policy experience.

    That conference was held right before Russia invaded Ukraine. In her address to the Conference and her many one-on-one meetings, Ms. Harris represented the U.S. forcefully and effectively, and at a critical time.

  31. 31.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Geminid: Thanks for pointing this out. I couldn’t have told you what she’d been doing, much as I like and trust her.

    ETA: To follow up on this and what Baud said above, one would hope that news stories quoting this include a paragraph about her experience.

  33. 33.

    hueyplong

    @New Deal democrat: Now that I see the “secret succession list” is a creation of our Fraidy Cat post-9/11 period, it’s a pretty good guess that the rule would be interpreted to give full powers to the interim successor because the intent of the rule would be to prevent the evil browns from incapacitating the House by hitting the Speaker.

  35. 35.

    satby

    So now the hot gossip is that the Rs will “Cawthorn” Gaetz, since he’s burned them by his motion to vacate. And Nancy Mace (R, Amoralville) is busily trying to reinvent herself as a more moderate supporter of women’s rights to birth control, but “the establishment” is out to get her.

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    I thought I remember some Dem long ago say that they thought they could work with Scalise better than McCarthy.  Maybe it was during the 15 votes for speaker the first time around.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @New Deal democrat: Drafting a House rule that modifies a rule of the Republican Caucus seems to me an iffy proposition. Liberalizing the House rule allowing Petitions of Discharge would work as well or better, I think.

  38. 38.

    hueyplong

    @Geminid: You can’t expect Harris to measure up to the foreign policy experience of prior GOP lions such as Agnew, Mr Potato(e) Head, and Pence.

  39. 39.

    Jeffro

    @New Deal democrat: Democrats might ally with GOPers in scrapping the rule allowing one member to file a motion to vacate, in return for a relaxation of the Hastert Rule, say by mandating that any bill with 33% support by the majority party must be brought to the floor. That would allow things like Ukraine funding or a clean CR to be passed much more easily.

    LOVE this idea, seriously.

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: Yeah, we saw a clip of Mace last night on CNN, and her attempt to parlay her 15-minutes of fame for shivving McCarthy into a strategic pivot toward Middleburg was jarring at best.

  41. 41.

    Jeffro

    @satby: Nancy Mace (R, Amoralville)

    so, sooo accurate.

    I don’t know how she has time to legislate/vote – she seems to be on every cable news show, every day of the week.

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: That’s my impression. He’s horrible — they all are! — but not as cartoonishly nuts as Jordan.

  44. 44.

    sab

    @satby: Mace is a generation behind in her Republicanism.

    I am so old that I remember when Republican women started Planned Parenthood chapters in Ohio.

  46. 46.

    New Deal democrat

    @Geminid: I understand. Hence why I just tossed it out as an example.

    I really think Dems have a shot here. Even Mitch MConnell told House GOPers they should scrap the Motion to Vacate rule. And they will need the cooperation of Dems to do it. Dems should be thinking about their price.

  48. 48.

    Ken

    Did we ever determine if the Biden-Harris 2024 campaign has to pay Republicans like Tim Scott for all these endorsement videos, or whether as public speeches the footage is free? I recall it last came up when Greene made all those positive remarks about Biden continuing the work done by Roosevelt in the New Deal and Johnson in the Great Society.

  49. 49.

    p.a.

    @New Deal democrat: But why are the Dems to think that any agreements will be followed?  They’ve already been proved liars.  We’re in “all we want is Sudetenland”  territory with the House Republicans.

  50. 50.

    WV Blondie

    “We are not a party fit for governing. We are more fit for being a party in the minority.”

    That’s how it should be. This made me think of William F. Buckley’s famous quote, “A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop, at a time when no one is inclined to do so, or to have much patience with those who so urge it.”

    Since, after all, history is going to continue its forward progress no matter what “conservatives” do.

  51. 51.

    Roger Moore

    This is because the Democratic Party is an actual political party with all the messiness and compromise that entails whereas the Republican Party is fundamentally a bundle of loosely tied-together grievances looking for something to break.

    I think the bigger issue is that the Republican party is kept in power by extreme gerrymandering, so most of their elected officials are protected from ever having to worry about what the electorate thinks.  They’re mostly concerned with looking good internally, which means competing to hold the most extreme positions, and trying to win media attention with insane stunts.  It’s not a way to build a party interested in governing.

  52. 52.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker

    This guy agrees:
    Josh Marshall @joshtpm

    it’s been a while since i’ve seen a phony of Mace’s caliber

    Josh Marshall @joshtpm Oct 3

    Mace Says McCarthy ‘Misled’ Her In Her Attempts To ‘Help Women In The Post-Roe Era’ https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/mccarthy-speakership-motion-to-vacate?entry=1470473… via @TPM

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    btw, today’s installment of the Post’s series about declining American lifespans is up, and I’m sure there will be all kinds of GOP lying about it.

    but just like when you report accurately on trump’s insanity, or the House GOP’s inability to govern, it’s not partisan – just true.

    Red State Policies are Killing Americans Before Their Time

    Americans are more likely to die before age 65 than residents of similar nations, despite living in a country that spends substantially more per person on health care than its peers.

     

    Many of those early deaths can be traced to decisions made years ago by local and state lawmakers over whether to implement cigarette taxes, invest in public health or tighten seat-belt regulations, among other policies, an examination by The Washington Post found. States’ politics — and their resulting policies — are shaving years off American lives.

  54. 54.

    Geminid

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Mike Pence would have gotten much more attention had he performed overseas the way Kamala Harris has. Top diplomatic correspondents would would have gone on and on about the remarkable abilities Pence had been hiding for so long!

  56. 56.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: I’m still predicting that after fifteen rounds of voting — all of which have been roughly Jeffries 205, Scalise 105, Jordan 105, Trump 6 — pundits will be urging the Democrats to demonstrate bipartisanship and the ability to work with the Republicans, by throwing their support behind one of the Republican candidates to break the stalemate.

  57. 57.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud: ​

    Yeah, it’s a joke that any media person who doesn’t work for Fox would say or repeat the claim.

    I think a better way of saying it is that any media figure who would repeat the claim is declaring themselves to be part of the right wing media infrastructure. Yes, we expect that from Fox, but we should start expecting it from other places. Sadly, FTFNYT editorial page is now one of those places we should expect it, but people still don’t realize they’re now a right wing sewer.

  58. 58.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Jeffro: but just like when you report accurately on trump’s insanity, or the House GOP’s inability to govern, it’s not partisan – just true.

    The facts have a liberal bias. [h/t Paul Krugman]

  60. 60.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Anyway: I looked him up on Amazon. His latest books are a trilogy about a guy in his seventies looking back on his life. He’s an artist, and living near him is another artist with the same name. So it’s about different paths one could have taken through life.

    That sounded interesting, so I looked at the sample. Unfortunately for me, it’s written stream of consciousness. The first page is all the same paragraph and I don’t know when that paragraph ends because I didn’t look further. I just don’t have patience for that any more. I could listen to it on audiobook in the car if I were still doing a lot of driving, but not sit still and work my way through it. My loss.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @hueyplong:

    It’s part and parcel of the bigoted media campaign against the VP.  They don’t want to come right out and say she can’t be trusted because she’s a minority and a woman, but that’s really the core message.

  65. 65.

    Scout211

    A few days ago, I tried to explain California’s voting process next year for Senator.  Here is an explainer from a Sacramento news station.  It’s more clear than I was.

    TL;DR, we will have a primary for both Senate seats and a general election for both Senate seats.  So Senator Butler will have to run for the appointed Senate seat she is currently serving, in both the primary and the general.  And anyone else can file for that seat in the primary as well.  It’s not a slam dunk for her and there could be challengers from both parties.

    Voters will choose someone who will serve the standard full six-year term that begins in January 2025 and, in a special election, a senator to fill the seat from just after election day in November 2024 until the full term begins two months later.

    Both the partial and full-term races will be on the primary ballot on March 5 and on the general election ballot on November 5 next year.

    The same process occurred in 2022. After Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Alex Padilla to fill the seat formerly held by Vice President Kamala Harris, Padilla was elected to both the partial term as well as the full term.

    These special elections with their short lead time for campaigning tend to bring out Republicans.  Crazy Republicans.  So next March could be interesting.  Or wild and crazy.  Stay tuned.

  66. 66.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Watching “Shetland” the subject of “Finnegans Wake” came up. Perez’s daughter Cassie said “Nobody has actually read Finnegan’s Wake. They just say they have.”

    And I said to husband I have actually read “Finnegan’s Wake” and I cannot remember one thing about it. Stream of consciousness does that to me.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @hueyplong: Rep. Mace has her eye on Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat, I think. It will come up in 2026. So, she needs to maintain her credibility with conservatives. But Mace also has to keep an eye on a Voting Rights Act lawsuit that could change her district from red to purple in 2024. Mace could end up a cross-eyed chameleon.

  69. 69.

    teezyskeezy

    This public delusion that Republicans are somehow “good for the economy” is a serious problem, one that spans the political divide and is completely at odds with reality. It’s one of the main reasons they have any power at all (shaves them enough percentage points to keep hanging on), and could be the thing that helps them destroy democracy in the next few years.

    And for all the good efforts, it’s such a difficult delusion to pop.

  72. 72.

    Timill

    If only McCarthy had thought to nominate King Charles as First-Speaker-In-Waiting we could have solved both Brexit and the Republican desire fora King at one blow…

  73. 73.

    Steeplejack

    @satby:

    Nancy Mace can fuck all the way off. In the first week of this Congress last January, she appeared on Morning Joe bemoaning the threat to reproductive freedom posed by “extreme” Republicans, then went into the Capitol and voted along with all of them for whatever asinine restrictive bill the GQP put forward as its “first order of business.” She is a colossal liar and hypocrite.

  74. 74.

    Salty Sam .

    @Scout211: So Senator Butler will have to run for the appointed Senate seat she is currently serving, in both the primary and the general

    It was my understanding that she is declining to run for the seat, only taking the appointment as a caretaker.  Am I wrong about this?

  75. 75.

    New Deal democrat

    @p.a.: “But why are the Dems to think that any agreements will be followed?”

    That would be part of their negotiations – to build in a mechanism in the rules themselves to be sure the agreement on the rules are followed.

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @New Deal democrat: Speaking of petitions to discharge, I am reminded of an interview Rep. Ruben Gallego gave in January to a defense-related news site. Gallego was asked about the prospects for further military aid to Ukraine now that Republicans had a House majority. He said that this made things tougher, but he believed Ukraine’s supporter would find a way around the group of anti-Ukraine Republicans. Gallego mentioned a petition to discharge as one possible way.

  78. 78.

    sab

    @Salty Sam .: We don’t know. Newsome had said he would only appoint a caretaker, but when he announced he said there wasn’t any such restriction on her.

  79. 79.

    marklar

    @Baud: “I thought I remember some Dem long ago say that they thought they could work with Scalise better than McCarthy.”

    Are you saying that Scalise has a shot?

  80. 80.

    Ken

    @sab: My only question about Finnegans Wake is whether there’s a cabal of English literature professors who are seeing how long they can keep up the joke, or whether it’s entirely an “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation.

    I did slog through Ulysses, and only understood later why it was a slog, when I read commentary explaining that to really grasp episode 8, you had to know that in 1904 the interior of a shop on O’Connell Street — sadly torn down in 1953 — had a sign in Gaelic over the men’s room door with a quote from a 12th century Irish king. Slightly exaggerated for effect, but basically what I heard was “unless you are James Joyce and standing in 1904 Dublin, you will not understand this book.”

  83. 83.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Anyway: My son gave me Fosse’s Septology for Christmas. I had never heard of him either. But I started the book in March when I was recovering from surgery, and finished it on vacation in May. It’s a really remarkable, excellent work. But a challenge.

  84. 84.

    sab

    @Ken: I know. I wasted my adolescence trying to be sophisticated.

    ETA I am a notorious packrat, but James Joyce long books went to recycling. I still like “Portrait”.

  85. 85.

    Ken

    @New Deal democrat: That would be part of their negotiations – to build in a mechanism in the rules themselves to be sure the agreement on the rules are followed.

    “Handshake agreement? Have you met Kevin McCarthy? No, you will be wearing the explosive collar. Just don’t get more than 50% of the Democratic Caucus mad at you, and you’ll be fine.”

  86. 86.

    schrodingers_cat

    The press treats Ds and Rs as a dysfunctional family unit. Rs represent the husband and Ds the wife. Like the traditionalists (basically misogynist and racist) they are they want Ds to be the understanding wife and cover up for her husband’s mistakes even if he lies and cheats and hits her

    Bipartisanship means Ds covering up R mistakes and egregiousness. It is never reciprocal though. When Obama was President I read 100’s of think pieces advising him to be bipartisan but I don’t remember a single such piece when the Orange Error was President.

    Despite an attempted coup they haven’t changed much.

  87. 87.

    Betty Cracker

    @Scout211: It seems really dumb, wasteful and confusing to ask voters to participate in a primary to confirm the governor’s temp replacement for…two months. Am I missing something?

  93. 93.

    MisterDancer

    @Geminid: Drafting a House rule that modifies a rule of the Republican Caucus seems to me an iffy proposition. Liberalizing the House rule allowing Petitions of Discharge would work as well or better, I think.

    Yep! First, because I 100% agree we should not allow the GOP to put their Party Purity internal “rule” (“It’s more like a guideline”) into anything like a real House Rule. We need to really underline that the Hastert Rule is nothing like the Rules that are voted on by the House, and we should avoid conflating the two, and risk making it into a “real” thing.

    Second: if we can get a good threshold for enabling Discharge petitions, we can drive forward legislation, because of our cohesion as a Caucus, that the GOP right now cannot, especially the Freedom a-holes. Even without, if we can craft stuff that we can peel a few GOP votes off on to get discharges going, that might just work.

  98. 98.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker: It seems really dumb, wasteful and confusing to ask voters to participate in a primary to confirm the governor’s temp replacement for…two months. Am I missing something?

    Nope, you missed nothing and you are correct.  We did this for Senator Padilla, too. Definitely a waste.

    @Geminid: It seems like Senator Butler can choose to run or not to run, in either or both of these Senate elections.

    Yes, you are correct.

    I had to post this information again here, because many jackals did not believe me when I posted that Senator Butler would have to run for the appointed Senate seat she is currently serving, in both the primary and the general election next year.

    Again, the Senate elections in California will be very interesting next year.

  101. 101.

    sab

    I know William Faulkner got a Nobel Prize in literature, but otherwise I don’t think much of their selections. I started a Gunter Grass novel once and left it on a train seat.

    MacArthur grants mean more to me.

  102. 102.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @sab:

    I read Finnegans Wake aloud to my father — at his request, I hasten to add! — during the last two years of his life. I’m older now than he was when he died, but I will cherish that memory until my own final days.

  103. 103.

    Ken

    @sab: You just mean the Literature selections, right? Because this year’s Medicine prize was spot-on.

    I started a Gunter Grass novel once and left it on a train seat.

    This sounds like the setup for a joke. “When I rode the same train two years later, it was still there.”

  104. 104.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @New Deal democrat:

    mandating that any bill with 33% support by the majority party must be brought to the floor.

    While this would be great, how would it be implemented without bringing it to the floor in the first place?  An unofficial poll of Republicans will be too unofficial to be part of the rules and too easily gamed to be accurate.  I also can’t imagine Republicans ever, ever agreeing to it, as it essentially puts them back in the minority.  You might as well ask for a voting rights or universal lifting of abortion bans bill.  It’s totally counter to their ethos.

  106. 106.

    Salty Sam .

    @sab: Newsome had said he would only appoint a caretaker, but when he announced he said there wasn’t any such restriction on her.

    I thought I had read that she herself ruled out running.  Maybe I just made that up?

  107. 107.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:

    I think the thing you’re missing is that it’s a coincidence that Feinstein died in the last election cycle of her term.  The way California law works is that the governor’s appointed replacement only serves until the next general election, at which point there is an election to fill out the remainder of the term.  It just happens that in this case the remainder of the term is only the lame duck session rather than one or two Congressional terms.

  108. 108.

    Steeplejack

    @Ken:

    It’s sad that James Joyce has such a bad reputation for his two big doorstops, because Dubliners is a sublime collection of short stories.

  110. 110.

    sab

    @schrodingers_cat: It’s weird. My family has been 300 years in North America. We never thought of ourselves as white, but we very much were. Now the next generation down is anything but.  African-American, Chinese, Japanese.

    And to us they are still just our kids. Such an easy transition. Easier for us than for them.

  111. 111.

    Roger Moore

    @sab:

    Winston Churchill won a Nobel Prize for Literature.  Having read his hagiography biography of the first Duke of Marlborough, I have a hard time believing the committee will ever make a worse selection.

  112. 112.

    sab

    @Salty Sam .: One of the jackals some night said she was running. I was surprised. She has such a long history that if she wanted public office I would have thought she’d have run already.

    So, who knows?

  114. 114.

    Roger Moore

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    While this would be great, how would it be implemented without bringing it to the floor in the first place?

    A discharge petition.  You get the required number of members to sign the petition to prove the level of support.

  116. 116.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Ken:

    whether there’s a cabal of English literature professors who are seeing how long they can keep up the joke, or whether it’s entirely an “Emperor’s New Clothes” situation.

    The Classics is a category defined by academics whose experience is in analyzing writing.  They are looking for books you can attach vast numbers of footnotes to rather than one written with skill.  Bluntly, the Classics are picked for how pretentious they are.

  119. 119.

    Salty Sam .

    @SiubhanDuinne: I read Finnegans Wake aloud to my father… I will cherish that memory until my own final days.

    Wow. Powerful memory.  Got even me choked up a bit.

  120. 120.

    sab

    @SiubhanDuinne: Thank you. That is lovely. I had a college classmate with a father born in Dublin and he loved all of Joyce. Must be an Irish or Celtic thing.

    I do love Portrait and Dubliners. His long books are at best doorstops to me.

  121. 121.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Roger Moore:

    Okay, but that won’t help much.  Republicans won’t sign one even if they would vote for the legislation.  It’s Siding With Democrats.  I guess it would get us through budget votes, which is an advantage worth having!

  122. 122.

    Scout211

    @Salty Sam .: It was my understanding that she is declining to run for the seat, only taking the appointment as a caretaker.  Am I wrong about this?

    If she is to complete the current term of Senator Feinstein’s seat, she will have to run for it next year in the primary and the general.

    AFAIK, she has not yet made an announcement what her plans are.  She could run to complete the final few months of the appointed term she is currently serving and she could run for the full term that begins in 2025.  She is free to do either, both or neither.

  124. 124.

    schrodingers_cat

    @sab: You are aware of your privilege and that’s good. In the Indian context many upper caste people say and I was among them not so long ago that I don’t see caste. That’s how privilege works

    ETA: Most upper caste Indians are in denial of their privilege compared to white people. This is anecdata though not a scientific opinion. RSS’s ascension is largely the backlash of the haves in India against the have-nots.

  129. 129.

    eclare

    @sab:

    We read Faulkner’s The Sound and The Fury in my high school English class, the teacher read the Benjy section to us, explaining the changes in time and place.  I think it’s brilliant, and I still read the Quentin section occasionally, but I never could have read and understood it without a classroom setting.

  130. 130.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @sab:

    There is definitely a music, a poetry, a cadence to Joyce’s writing, which I think does appeal to many of us with Celtic ancestry. I’ll admit it was pretty daunting for me at first, but within a few days I managed to settle in and enjoy the rhythm and the sound of the Wake. I’m of the opinion that Joyce intended it to be read aloud.

  131. 131.

    RaflW

    Yeah, when that jmart thing popped up a day or two ago, I was incensed. He just dismisses a career that spans 20 years of holding elective office, more than 30 years of government service, winning two terms as the A.G. of the state that would have the 6th largest global economy if counted separately, and then serving in the Senate and now 2.5 years as VP.

    It’s a horrific dismissal of a robust resume and a long record of work. I wonder why he’s so quick to do that … hmmm. Gosh, it’s gonna come to me…

  132. 132.

    sab

    @schrodingers_cat: Absolutely that is how privilege works.

    We send them out into the world thinking things will be okay, and they don’t tell us when they are not.

    My Black grand-daughter gets harrassed all the time when she is out with her white boyfriend. She never told us because that is just part of her world. Annoying, sometimes scary, but not at all unusual.

  133. 133.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker: Seems like a big fat waste of time and money as is.

    There already is a primary and a general scheduled for next year and the ballots aren’t printed yet, so the waste of time and money would be for the candidates’ campaigns, not to the state.  But yeah, I see this as a potential for a big mess.  Senator Padilla was one the top two elected in the jungle primary for both his appointed term and the full term he is now serving.  He was more well known in California than Senator Butler is, so it could be interesting for her.  I look forward to hearing what she decides to do.

  134. 134.

    Brit in Chicago

    @satby: I had to look up “Cawthorn” (so innocent am I), and found a Politico page with pics of him in women’s underwear. (That’s fine by me, but not, I gather, by his constituents—or by him, given a lot of what he’s said.)

    I only hope someone has similar pics of Gaetz and is willing to make them publicly available. But I fear that that’s not so—that if it were we’d already have seen them. (Besides, he would have to a sense of shame, however diminished, to take their becoming public as a reason to resign.)

  138. 138.

    Geminid

    @Salty Sam .: I don’t think Senator Butler has said anything about her elections. Her appointment was not conditional and could not be so. My guess, though, is that she will not run in either election and concentrate on her job as Senator. Ms. Butler is young and has plenty of time to enter the world of elective politics.

    In ways, Senator Butler reminds me of Rep. Nikki Budzinski, WaterGirl’s new Congresswoman. Budzinski was one of the few members of the Democratic Class of 2022 never to have held elective before. Budzinski’s campaign for the redrawn* 13th Illinios CD was her first election run ever. But like the 45 year-old Senator Butler, the 46 year-old Rep. Budzinski knows the political world well. She has been an active player in state and national politics for over two decades, as a labor union official and then a key operative for Illinois Governor Pritzger. Before she started her campaign for Congress, Budzinski was working for the Biden administration as Chief of Staff for the Director of the OMB.

    * The new 13th CD is a fine example of the art of gerrymandering. It is anchored in the west by eastern St. Louis metropolitan area, and runs mostly one-county wide through Springfield to Champagne-Urbanna and Champagne County. The mostly rural 11th(?) CD surrounds it on three sides, like a horse shoe running from the Mississippi to the Indiana line and then back.

  139. 139.

    RaflW

    Also, despite my frequent anger at the Times, did folks read the lengthy piece yesterday about Rudy’s long simmering alcoholism? And how it’s come to a boil since, roughly, J6?

  140. 140.

    kalakal

    And today in criming we have news of more Fl voter fraud

    Villages voter faud

     

    This must be about the 5th case of GOP voter fraud in The Villages.

    Fortunately I’m sure Fl’s esteemed governor is even now taking steps to ensure that the purity of Florida’s electoral system is not further sullied by the pernicious reprobates of the out of control, lawless hive of scum and villany that is The Villages

  141. 141.

    hueyplong

    @Brit in Chicago: Not sure we saw odd photos of Cawthorn before the party decided his time was up.

    These people can’t govern but they’re good at preening, internet trolling and blackmail.  If there truly is a will to dump Gaetz, best guess is they have the material to do it.  Prosecutors hitting a dead end due to witness issues isn’t the same thing as GOPers themselves being unable to flay him.

  144. 144.

    moonbat

    @SiubhanDuinne: I agree!

    And while I realize that stream of consciousness is not everyone’s cup of tea it doesn’t necessarily follow that it has no value except as a doorstop. I was raised on Faulkner and it requires some letting go of expectations and going with the flow of the narrative. It’s like getting drunk on language.

    YMMV and all that.

  145. 145.

    Roger Moore

    @Betty Cracker:

    It’s not a big waste of time and money as far as the state is concerned, because it doesn’t cost that much to add one more race to an existing election.  It usually won’t even add that much to the cost for candidates, since the same candidates who run for the next full term can just run for the lame duck term, too, and ask voters to vote for them in both elections.

  146. 146.

    lowtechcyclist

    @New Deal democrat:

    Again, for example, Democrats might ally with GOPers in scrapping the rule allowing one member to file a motion to vacate, in return for a relaxation of the Hastert Rule, say by mandating that any bill with 33% support by the majority party must be brought to the floor. That would allow things like Ukraine funding or a clean CR to be passed much more easily.

    I’m pretty sure the Hastert Rule isn’t a House of Representatives rule, but rather a rule of the House GOP Caucus.

    Also, if the Dems are united or nearly so in supporting a bill, there’s the Discharge Petition.  I know there are time-consuming hoops to jump through in order to use the Discharge Petition to bring a bill to the floor, but the Dems, if united, would only need five Rethugs to jump ship, rather than 1/3 of the GOP caucus.

    So this ought to be do-able with the Ukraine bill.

  147. 147.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Roger Moore: I was tempted to say “a wall-eyed chameleon,” but I wanted the alliterative effect of “cross-eyed chameleon.”

    But your point is well taken.

  148. 148.

    catclub

    @Roger Moore: ​
     

    I think the bigger issue is that the Republican party is kept in power by extreme gerrymandering, so most of their elected officials are protected from ever having to worry about what the electorate thinks.

    I think you do not understand ‘extreme gerrymandering’.
    Alabama had extreme gerrymandering because it has 6 congressional seats and only one is held by a democrat.
    The Democratic seat has ~90% democrats. The problem therefore is all the other seats all have 53% republican majorities. So those seats are not particularly conducive to extreme crazy Republicans. Wyoming on the other hand, has 1 seat and the Republicans have 70% of the voters. But no gerrymander. California seats that are won by republicans are in seats that have large republican majorities – and I suspect that is not extreme gerrymandering that got them that way.

  149. 149.

    jonas

    @Geminid: I was just going say pretty much the same thing. WTF kind of foreign policy experience did Mike Pence have? He was widely regarded as a kind of pious doofus and failed governor before Trump tapped him and his major mark on the international scene was turning up in Korea one time to stare menacingly at the DMZ.

    Reminds me of the old line about Ginger Rogers having to dance as well as Fred Astair, only backwards and in high heels. For the MSM, Harris has to have 2x the foreign policy experience of any male candidate in order to be seen as having the same amount.

  150. 150.

    RaflW

    @Gin & Tonic: Glass is one of those composers/musicians who (assuming one has heard their work) people rarely have neutral opinions!

    I don’t love all his stuff. Some of it is certainly tedious. But other pieces I just really dig. I can’t imagine reading a book, though, that is Glass-like (the audio book idea is interesting, however).

  151. 151.

    Roger Moore

    @RaflW:

    It’s a stupid complaint anyway, because the transition from any job to the presidency is going to involve a huge expansion in responsibility.  Even the best possible resume, with stints as Secretary of State for foreign policy experience and as a legislator for domestic policy experience*, wouldn’t prepare a candidate for being the ultimate authority.  It’s especially galling to hear complaints about Harris’s experience coming from a party that recently nominated a candidate with zero experience in any capacity at any level of government.

    *Like a certain candidate we can all name.

  152. 152.

    catclub

    I think Patrick McHenry handled ‘ let’s boot Pelosi out of her office’ really badly.
    if he had said, ‘a hideaway office is made available for the most recent ex- Speaker of the House,
    that is now Kevin McQarthy so Pelosi will be asked to move out.’

    I am not sad he mishandled it and is getting reamed for being petty.

  154. 154.

    Scout211

    @catclub: California seats that are won by republicans are in seats that have large republican majorities – and I suspect that is not extreme gerrymandering that got them that way.

    California has an independent redistricting commission. So you are correct.

    Link

    Who redraws district lines? The independent California Citizens Redistricting Commission (CCRC) uses the new census data to redraw the Congressional, State Senate, State Assembly, and State Board of Equalization district boundaries. CCRC certified final district maps and delivered them to the Secretary of State on December 27th, 2021. For more information on CCRC activities, see: wedrawthelinesca.org.

  155. 155.

    New Deal democrat

    @Ken: *PLEASE* stop getting hung up on the particular example zi used.

    The point is that rank and file GOPers *really* want to make sure this motion to vacate nonsense doesn’t happen again, and they will need the help of House Democrats to make it so. Democrats can negotiate their price. Another commenter has suggested liberalizing the rules on Discharge Petitions. That would be an alternative.

  156. 156.

    catclub

    I had the impression that previously the motion to vacate was allowed for one person, the Minority Leader. Which seems sensible.

  158. 158.

    Citizen Alan

    @sab: I never understood how that would work in a legally binding way anyway. I don’t think a governor has the legal authority to prevent someone he appoints as an interim post from running for it in a later election.

  159. 159.

    Betty Cracker

    @Frankensteinbeck: Did the teaching provide value by allowing receptive students to enjoy lit that would have been otherwise inaccessible to them? Seems like @eclare believes it did.

  160. 160.

    catclub

    @lowtechcyclist: ​
      The effective hastert rule under mcQarthy was that unless 100% of the GOP favored a bill, it was not brought to the floor. So the GOP crazies controlled the agenda. kneecapping the ability of the GOP crazies to block Ukraine support would be an improvement.

  161. 161.

    Jeffro

    All of this Gaetz payback isn’t designed to shame him (impossible) or get him to resign (also impossible)…it’s designed to dirty him up for a possible run as FL Gov.

    As if FL GOP voters care.

  162. 162.

    RaflW

    From today’s “Hot Dish” (Minnesotan for casserole, btw) Star Trib newsletter. If we want to talk about Dems who actually aren’t qualified for the Presidency (italics added):

    “U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips has drawn a potential Democratic challenger as he continues to consider a bid for the White House. Ron Harris, a Democratic National Committee Executive Committee member, said he’s putting together a team for a possible run in Minnesota’s suburban Third District. Harris is eying a bid for an open seat if Phillips runs for president, but he didn’t rule out challenging him in a primary in 2024.”

    Seriously. I don’t get how he has the freakin’ hubris to not just squash these rumors. He’s a third term, milqetoast guy with inherited wealth who, yeah, flipped an R seat and has now held it for 5 years. But as I’ve ranted before, House members tilting at a potus run have a poor track record if they don’t get some other executive elected experience added to the resume.

    He just comes off as an asshole for wanting to topple the head of the party. I’m glad someone is at least rattling Dean’s cage with a possible primary run.

  163. 163.

    jonas

    @catclub:California seats that are won by republicans are in seats that have large republican majorities – and I suspect that is not extreme gerrymandering that got them that way.

    That’s right — California has an independent, bipartisan commission that draws up its Congressional map and R’s are almost exclusively concentrated in parts of the Central Valley and rural northern CA that are, not surprisingly, heavily Republican. What CA doesn’t do is draw a district, say, for Nancy Pelosi that includes San Francisco, but which then has this narrow arm that extends across the bay and into the Central Valley and Sierra foothills ensuring that those areas will never get to elect a Republican

    ETA — sorry, I missed Scout211’s comment at 154 above. What they said.

  164. 164.

    mrmoshpotato

    Wow. Former advisor for Paul Ryan and John Boehner lays out the electoral case against Republicans.

    “We are not a party fit for governing. We are more fit for being a party in the minority.”

    Oh, we know.  We. Know.

  166. 166.

    catclub

    OT:

    Drones laden with explosives hit a military college graduation ceremony in Syria’s western city of Homs on Wednesday, leading to dozens of causalities, Syria’s defense ministry said in a statement.

    WTF.

    So the question is: Israelis or Islamic state?

  167. 167.

    Geminid

    @New Deal democrat: One advantage Democrats have here is that their rules experts will be studying these questions in the midst of a calm and united Caucus.

    Republican rules drafters, on the other hand, be more like rural Justices of the Peace trying to study the law in the midst of the Hatfields and McCoys blasting away at each other.

  168. 168.

    Citizen Alan

    @eclare: My 11th grade English teacher utterly destroyed any desire I ever had to read William Faulkner by spending two weeks on The Bear and relentlessly beating every tiny bit of symbolism and metaphor into the ground.

  170. 170.

    RaflW

    @catclub: I doubt he can avoid being reamed for being petty. Because showy, stupid, tit-for-tat retribution and tantruming IS the GOP brand.

  171. 171.

    mrmoshpotato

    McCONNELL says House Republicans should get rid of the motion to vacate, saying it makes the speaker’s job “impossible.”

    Wow.  The asshole who stole a United States Supreme Court seat is say telling the House GOP to stop being assholes.

    Amazing on so many levels.

  172. 172.

    sab

    @sab: I love Faulkner, but I grew up in the South and his language is music to me. Irishness isn’t.

    Maybe some of the best literature is very local, and keyed into the local language. And inaccessible to the rest of us.

  173. 173.

    Citizen Alan

    @RaflW: My feeling is that the best 25% of any given Philip Glass work is amazing, and the remaining 75% is just tedious droning.

  176. 176.

    japa21

    @mrmoshpotato:

     

    “We are not a party fit for governing. We are more fit for being a party in the minority.”

    Actually, more fit for being a party scheduled for extermination.

  177. 177.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    TL;DR, we will have a primary for both Senate seats and a general election for both Senate seats.  So Senator Butler will have to run for the appointed Senate seat she is currently serving, in both the primary and the general.

    Your cite disagrees with you. It says:

    Voters will choose someone who will serve the standard full six-year term that begins in January 2025 and, in a special election, a senator to fill the seat from just after election day in November 2024 until the full term begins two months later.

    IOW, Butler need only run for the seat she’s just been appointed to IF she wants to hold her Senate seat from November 6, 2024 to January 3, 2025.  Her appointment is good for the next 13 months, until the general election.

    (Would make more sense for her to stand aside and let Schiff, Porter, and Lee run in both elections at once.  The same person would likely win both and get an extra two months’ seniority, which can be advantageous in the U.S. Senate.  She can certainly choose to run for those extra two months, but who would do all that’s involved in getting a statewide campaign going in a big state like California, just to stay in the Senate for an additional two months? They’d have to be crazy.)

  178. 178.

    eclare

    @Citizen Alan:

    Understandable.  We read The Bear I think in ninth grade and had to write an essay in class about it.  We maybe spent two days on it in class?  Two weeks?  Sheesh.

    I had a teacher who kind of did that with The Old Man and the Sea.  I am not a big Hemingway fan to this day, even though his literature is easy to read.

  179. 179.

    Alison Rose

    Interesting, though unsurprising (from Heather Cox Richardson’s letter last night):

    Yesterday, eight extremist members of the Republican congressional conference demonstrated that they could stop their party, and the government, from functioning. Indeed, that’s about all those members have ever managed to do. Political scientist Lindsey Cormack noted on social media that Representatives Andy Biggs (R-AZ) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) have managed only to name a single facility each; Representatives Ken Buck (R-CO), Tim Burchett (R-TN), Eli Crane (R-AZ), Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and Matt Rosendale (R-MT) have each sponsored no successful bills; and Bob Good (R-VA) has sent one thing to the president, who vetoed it.

    As she notes, “They are not interested in governing; they are interested in stopping the government.” Yup. And you know, Republican strategists and consultants and advisers and whatnot can all say the right things about what a shitshow their party has become…but if they continue to vote for Republican candidates, then they can shove their concerns.

  180. 180.

    rikyrah

    @satby:

     

    You’re a hack, and there are no smart Republicans if they think this. President Pro Tem of the Senate moves up in line with a vacancy in the Speaker role. Easily researched you twat.

     

    clap clap clap.

    Like the TV show host and the Governor of Indiana had such extensive foreign policy experience.

    Phuck outta here.

  182. 182.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    allegedly the kids are calling the Republicans “my stupid stepdad’s party”

    When people get into mommy/daddy party territory, I tell them that the Dems are both of those, and the Rethugs are the drunken-uncle party.

    If the GOP is the ‘daddy party,’ it’s the daddy of Springsteen’s “I’ve got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack, went out for a ride and I never went back.”  Or maybe the daddy the mommy divorced because he couldn’t hold a job and was staying home molesting the kids while she worked two jobs.

  183. 183.

    Anyway

    All these “GQP have no policy agenda” etc remind me that the extreme RW has made many many gains in the last 10+ years – reduction of corporate tax rates, deregulation of many industries, relaxation of clean air, water … not to mention Dobbs and other obstructions in improving health care access for poor Americans.  Control of the house is only one of their tools – they have so many others – what I am getting at is that they are effective even though the GQP reps are pretty awful and unserious.

  184. 184.

    Ken

    @lowtechcyclist: the daddy of Springsteen’s “I’ve got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack, went out for a ride and I never went back.”

    A reminder, as if “Born in the USA” wasn’t enough, that no one actually listens to Springsteen’s lyrics.

  185. 185.

    Subsole

    @teezyskeezy:

    A lot of that is on the media, which refuses to tell the truth because they know that if they start holding the GOP to a standard, they’ll never book another Republican as long as they live.

    For a certain segment of the public, that has nothing to do with “They’re good with money,” and everything to do with “they don’t give my money to poors, thieves, hippies, whoresluts, and browns. In fact, they use my money to punish those wastrels, which is what I’d be doing with it if I had the means.”

    I mean, I am a Millennial. My entire experience with the GOP has been Reagan blowing a hole in the budget, Bush Prime holding the bag for that, MiniBush blowing a hole in the economy, and Trump blowing a hole in the economy. I have not once in my life experienced a fiscally competent, let alone responsible, GOP.

  186. 186.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    I had to post this information again here, because many jackals did not believe me when I posted that Senator Butler would have to run for the appointed Senate seat she is currently serving, in both the primary and the general election next year.

    And you’re still wrong.  She only ‘has to’ run if she wants to serve between 11/6/24 and 1/3/25.  And it only makes sense to do so if she’s running for the full term starting 1/3/25.  Which was the situation Padilla was in, and that’s why he ran in both.

    But if Butler doesn’t plan to run for the full term starting 1/3/25, she doesn’t have to run for anything.  She just stands aside while the people who are running for that full term simultaneously run for the two months of lame-duck time.  She will be in office through 11/5/24 either way, and doesn’t have to lift a finger, campaign-wise, for that to happen.

  187. 187.

    wjca

    @Jeffro: I don’t know how she has time to legislate/vote – she seems to be on every cable news show, every day of the week. 

    Why would she need time to legislate?  It’s not like any legislation is going to get brought to the floor anyway.  All that’s going to be voted on are repeated attempts to elect a new Speaker.  Which doesn’t take a whole lot of time each day.

  188. 188.

    rikyrah

    @satby:

    And Nancy Mace (R, Amoralville) is busily trying to reinvent herself as a more moderate supporter of women’s rights to birth control, but “the establishment” is out to get her.

     

    right wing phony. she is no moderate and does not support women’s rights.

  189. 189.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    Senator Padilla was one the top two elected in the jungle primary for both his appointed term and the full term he is now serving.

    He did not run for his appointed term.  His appointed term ended on November 8, 2022, and he never had to run for any part of his term between 1/20/21 and 11/8/22.

    He simultaneously ran for the period between 11/8/22 and 1/3/23 and the full term starting 1/3/23.  His appointment covered neither of the above; it ended on Election Day in November of last year.

  190. 190.

    Kathleen

    @satby: I reminded him that GOP supported terrorists assaulting police on 1/6, overturning an election and supporting a candidate who’s been indicted and therefore these were the people he’s copying, pasting and publishing their emails without question.

  191. 191.

    Kathleen

    @Tony Jay: Making up talking points is too much work for them. Rethugs know this which is why they just supply the talking points with the knowledge they will be published without question.

  193. 193.

    wjca

    @Ken: I did slog through Ulysses, and only understood later why it was a slog.

    As I pointed out to my Comparative Literature professor, the problem with Ulysses is simple and obvious: Joyce didn’t know how to handle the English language.  (He didn’t take it well.)

  194. 194.

    Geminid

    @catclub: Almost certainly not the Israelis. They do a lot of bombing in Syria, but it’s almost exclusively aimed at Iranian assets.

    Maybe not ISIS either (or Daesh, as Syrians call that group). The Syrian oppposition based in Idlib Province has some very ruthless elements and would regard any concentration of Syran government forces as fair game. They Assad government has stepped up its attacks on the rebels in Idlib, and they are probably the ones responsible for the attack..

    Syria has been heating up and could get hotter. Yesterday, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan warned “3rd parties” to stay clear of facilties of the YPK in Northeastern Syria. Turkiye holds the PKK and its YPK affiliate responsible for Sunday’s attack in Ankara and intends to retaliate. The “3rd parties” Fidan is warning would be the U.S. troops that have been working with the YPK in suppressing Daesh since 2014.

    The 2,000-strong American force in eastern in Syria is based near the Euphrates basin city of Deir Ezzor. Fighting broke out there last month between Arab militias and YPK forces. Both groups are U.S.allies. The Americans have tried to calm things down, while Syrian government forces and Iran’s proxy militias are biding their time nearby.

    Meanwhile in the Southwest near the Golan Heights, Syrian Druze been demonstrating against the Assad government for at least 5 weeks now. It’s a very tense situation.

    The Druze are a tough mountain people whose homeland spans from northern Israel to central Lebanon. They are known as the kind of folks one really shouldn’t piss off, so Assad has to tread carefully there.

  195. 195.

    Kathleen

    @Baud:

     

    @Geminid: Yup. It’s not just the Fox MAGATS. The so called “liberal media” at WaPoop, NY Slimes, Obscene NN, MSNBROC and all the platformed astroturfed spawn all pile on and malign her.

  196. 196.

    wjca

    @New Deal democrat: mandating that any bill with 33% support by the majority party must be brought to the floor.

    Frankensteinbeck

    Better: mandating that any bill with 50% support by the membership of the either party must be brought to the floor.  If something is sufficiently bipartisan to get half of each party to support it, it passes.  If it can’t get half of one party, there’s no reason to waste time on it.

  197. 197.

    Kathleen

    @Ken: “If Joe Biden were serious about reaching across the aisle he’d appoint Ronald Reagan’s hologram as Speaker of the House.”

  201. 201.

    wjca

    @Frankensteinbeck: Republicans won’t sign one even if they would vote for the legislation.  It’s Siding With Democrats.

    Probably.  But if Republicans started the petition, and then some Democrats sided with them?  That might be acceptable.

  202. 202.

    Comrade Scrutinizer

    @Subsole:  I have not once in my life experienced a fiscally competent, let alone responsible, GOP.

    I’m a Boomer. Eisenhower maybe? Not sure about Tricky Dick’s fiscal responsibility, he was such an asshole in general. But “the GOP is better at it than the Dems, donchaknow?

  203. 203.

    Kathleen

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Makes you wonder what kind of childhoods they had. Media accept it’s OK for Republicans to throw the dinner plate at America because Democrats didn’t nicely ask them what kind of day they had.

    The press treats Ds and Rs as a dysfunctional family unit. Rs represent the husband and Ds the wife. Like the traditionalists (basically misogynist and racist) they are they want Ds to be the understanding wife and cover up for her husband’s mistakes even if he lies and cheats and hits her

  206. 206.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ken:

    A reminder, as if “Born in the USA” wasn’t enough, that no one actually listens to Springsteen’s lyrics.

    OK, I just Googled the “Hungry Heart” lyrics to make sure there wasn’t something I’d missed in them.  I’m still going ‘huh?’

  209. 209.

    Kathleen

    @sab: I love Portrait. The same year I had that lit class I took a Black Literature class and had read Black Boy at the same time I read Portrait and I was struck by similarities between the 2 books in terms of what each character endured and how they reacted even though the external circumstances were different. If I had pursued an advanced degree in literature I would have written a paper about it.

    Though it’s been over 50 years I still remember the experience of reading those two books and finding that synergy.

  210. 210.

    Scout211

    @lowtechcyclist: And you’re still wrong.  She only ‘has to’ run if she wants to serve between 11/6/24 and 1/3/25.

    That is indeed what I meant but apparently I am not that clear when I post comments and you said it more clearly. But we don’t disagree.

    If she decides not to run to finish out her term from November until January, it seems like it would make her Senate job easier.  But for the Democrats here in California, it all depends on who else runs for the 2 months left of that term.  A Republican in that seat could be a big problem in the Senate.

  211. 211.

    ArchTeryx

    @lowtechcyclist: Except Al Capp was talking about lefties when he created that group. He liked to take frequent potshots at liberals.

    Now it’s come full circle. It’s the righties who are the S.W.I.N.E. now.

  212. 212.

    Kathleen

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I wrote a paper about The Dead in which I expressed a perspective that was 180 from my professor’s explanation. He gave me an A and noted that while I disagreed with him I made a good case! I wasn’t expecting a trip down Memory Lane in this thread but I am enjoying my memories of reading that story and writing that paper back in 1970.

  215. 215.

    WaterGirl

    @p.a.: The things that are being proposed would have to be written into the House rules, in such a way that they couldn’t just be changed unilaterally by the Rs.

  216. 216.

    Geminid

    @lowtechcyclist: There is a very sad story about comedian Jacky Gleason’s childhood that is much like the Springsteen lyric.

    Gleason’s familiy lived on Chauncey Street in the Bedford-Stuyvisent district of Brooklyn. He became an only child when his brother died of meningitis at age 14. That was in 1919, when Gleason was four.

    Gleason’s mother Mae was a homemaker and his father Herbert worked for an insurance company. Gleason remembers watching his father writing policies in the evenings at the family dinner table, and how fine his father’s handwriting was.

        On the night of December 14, 1925, Gleason’s father disposed of any family photos in which he appeared; just after noon on December 15 he collected his hat, coat, and paycheck, and permanently left his family and job at the insurance company. When it became apparent that he was not coming back, Mae went to work as a subway attendant.

    From Wikipedia.

  220. 220.

    topclimber

    @rikyrah: I am waiting for Mace to start promoting Elise Stefanik as speaker if there is a standoff between cancer-suffering Scalise and stupidity-suffering Jordan.

    A mere eight years ago, Stefanik was a “moderate” pushing for a 20-week abortion bill with exceptions for rape, incest and the physical well being of the mother, as well as access to over the counter birth control methods funded by health insurance.

    That has now morphed into a 15-week ban and concern for the mother only if her life, not “Just” her health, is at risk.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if she does a chameleon thing of her own and gives Mace more cover for hers. Natural allies, it would seem…for the moment, at least.

  221. 221.

    wjca

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Former advisor for Paul Ryan and John Boehner lays out the electoral case against Republicans.

    “We are not a party fit for governing. We are more fit for being a party in the minority.”

    Although their fitness to be the minority party, rather than a fringe party, is open to question.

  222. 222.

    rikyrah

    @Ken:

    I’m still predicting that after fifteen rounds of voting — all of which have been roughly Jeffries 205, Scalise 105, Jordan 105, Trump 6 — pundits will be urging the Democrats to demonstrate bipartisanship and the ability to work with the Republicans, by throwing their support behind one of the Republican candidates to break the stalemate.

     

    the Democrats should do no such thing.

  224. 224.

    H-Bob

    @rikyrah: “Like the TV show host and the Governor of Indiana had such extensive foreign policy experience.”  PABOTUS had extensive experience performing money laundering for Russian mobsters!  Plus relations with the pee hookers!  That’s an illustrative portfolio!

  225. 225.

    wjca

    @Ken: I’m still predicting that after fifteen rounds of voting — all of which have been roughly Jeffries 205, Scalise 105, Jordan 105, Trump 6 — pundits will be urging the Democrats to demonstrate bipartisanship and the ability to work with the Republicans, by throwing their support behind one of the Republican candidates to break the stalemate.

    At least as likely, TIFG gets so pissed that he is only getting 6 votes that he orders his people to vote for Jeffries.  Just as revenge, you understand.  But those 6 votes get Jeffries over the top.

  226. 226.

    Mart

    “Its crazy that with new polling the GOP with its biggest lead on economic issues in 32 year…” Yea, with an amazing economic reco ery, full employment, and rising wages that truely is crazy as fuck.

  227. 227.

    Groucho48

    @sab: I used to have a copy of Wake on my nightstand. Every so often, I’d open it randomly and read a bit. Probably ending reading about half, all told, but understood mayby 5%, if that.

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