Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

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

We will not go back.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

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

One lie, alone, tears the fabric of reality.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

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

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

If you don’t believe freedom is for everybody, then the thing you love isn’t freedom, it is privilege.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

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

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

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

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

You are here: Home / Open Threads / TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Dems in Array!

TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: Dems in Array!

by | 126 Comments

This post is in: , ,


A half-hour podcast from last October, at the New Republic — “The Next Generation of House Leadership”:

… What drives the chair of the House Democratic Caucus, and what’s his vision for the next generation of leadership?

Jeffries, who grew up in a union family in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights, traces his political journey back to the 1992 Rodney King trial. “There was a shock at the injustice of an acquittal. And I remember saying to myself that … [I want] to fight for the principles of equal protection under the law, liberty, and justice for all in the purest possible way.” Three decades later—on the heels of what he calls “one of the most productive legislative sessions in the history of the country”—Jeffries discusses what implementation of clean energy investments will require, why solving the affordable housing crisis is one of his top priorities, and how progressives can better communicate their accomplishments and goals. “We’re going to have to do a better job moving forward, of recognizing that there’s a distinction between governing and messaging,” he said. “You govern in fine print. You message, you persuade, you communicate in headlines.” Later, Jeffries discusses the historic role of the Congressional Black Caucus, and what being middle-class actually means in today’s economy.

How to Save a Country is presented by the Roosevelt Institute, The New Republic, and PRX. Generous funding was provided by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and Omidyar Network. Views expressed do not necessarily reflect the opinions and beliefs of its funders…

======

On the other side: TFG has endorsed Gym Jordan for House Speaker, for what that’s worth, out of the mouth of a lifelong liar ‘supporting’ another professional liar…

Reader Interactions

126Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    House Republicans face a clear choice. Partner with House Democrats on a bipartisan path forward. Or continue to empower MAGA extremism.

    Oh, sure, foist your responsibility onto the majority party. How undemocratic.

  4. 4.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Re-upping from previous thread, for what it’s worth:

    Yesterday, the Pod Save America guys interviewed Cassidy Hutchison. At the end, they asked her to comment on the speaker’s race since she’d worked with these people, including having interned for Steve Scalise. She said Jordan was dishonest and would be a bad pick.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    So… A rapist backs a sexual predator’s enabler*. This is too good to be true, the headlines write themselves.

    *as far as we know, that’s all he was.

  6. 6.

    emmyelle

    I like how he says “we can’t continue to govern…”, like, you know, as if they are actually governing.

  8. 8.

    hueyplong

    One way to look at it is that Trump can turn on Jordan over the multiple rapes enabling (likely still dimly if at all perceived in the bubble) while the (kkk) skeleton in Scalise’s closet is a source of pride in GOP circles and therefore not something Trump can use to enforce squirm-inducing obeisance.

    So it’s a no-brainer for a born predator.

  9. 9.

    Betty Cracker

    Trump told Fox News he’d take a temp Speaker gig while Repubs sort out their shit:

    EXCLUSIVE: Former President Donald Trump told Fox News Digital that he would accept a short-term role as speaker of the House of Representatives to serve as a “unifier” for the Republican Party until lawmakers reach a decision on who should take on the post…

    “They have asked me if I would take it for a short period of time for the party, until they come to a conclusion — I’m not doing it because I want to — I will do it if necessary, should they not be able to make their decision,” Trump said…

    Trump stressed that if Republicans cannot come to a consensus, he would take the speakership for a short “30, 60, or 90-day period.”

    This was several hours before he endorsed Jordan.

  11. 11.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    [Cassidy Hutchison] said Jordan was dishonest and would be a bad pick.

    The question is, who among them is honest and would have been a good pick?

    I’m racking my brains and coming up empty.

  24. 24.

    bbleh

    Well, given the jobs report, a few weeks of shutdown might even be good.

    My question now is, how’s the MSM gonna handle it?  Are they gonna stick with the “ungovernable Republicans” narrative, or are they gonna move on (or back) to the “why won’t the White House meet them halfway?” whine.

    And given how much attention normies pay to politics during the holidays (approximately none, or for dmsilev 𝛆 ), how long is it gonna go on?  The MAGAts aren’t gonna come back to the dinner table until they’ve had a good long sulk …

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    Politico explains Trump’s decision to endorse Jordan with a TRUE “Sir” story:

    Rep. TROY NEHLS, the leader of the “draft Trump” movement, told Playbook last night that he had originally pitched Trump on the speaker idea the same day McCarthy was ousted. “I called him and I said, ‘Sir, I’m nominating you for the Speaker of the House,’” the Texas Republican recalled. “I said, ‘I think that you would do a great job fixing the brokenness we see in the Congress.”

    Nehls said he even researched the question of whether Trump’s criminal indictments would be a problem and assured the former president that an internal House GOP rule about that could be easily smoothed over. Trump, who was busy at his civil fraud trial in Manhattan this week, was non-committal.

    In the next two days, as the Trump-as-speaker idea took off, Trump leaned into it. He told Fox News’ Brooke Singman he was coming to town. But behind the scenes, House GOP sources told Playbook, Trump allies on the Hill talked him out of it, arguing that he would not succeed in the secret ballot election, that the embarrassing loss would damage his political brand and that the way for him to have influence was to make an endorsement instead.

    Nehls tried to talk Trump into it one more time last night: “I said, ‘You know, you made America great again. You can come in and make Congress great again.” But the former president instead listened to the other House members urging him that it would be a catastrophic mistake.

    Nehls gives sycophancy a bad name! But it’s interesting that Trump supporters in the GOP don’t think their colleagues would fall in line behind the shitgibbon.

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    From Dead lawns, dry wells: Texas drought persists after summer heat dome, comes this little tidbit:

    The events in the hill country are “just a microcosm of the global situation”, said Dr Zong-Liang Yang, a professor in the earth and planetary sciences department at the University of Texas at Austin.

    Without human-induced climate change, the heatwaves that swept across the US, Mexico and southern Europe this summer would have been virtually impossible, Yang said: “The probability is less than 1%.”

    While climate scientists have a high degree of confidence in connecting extreme temperatures to climate change, droughts are trickier. “Temperature is directly related to the greenhouse effect. If you have more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they will lead to more greenhouse warming,” Yang said.

    Drought, however, is influenced by a host of factors, including wind patterns, cloud formations, and pollutants. Although he cautioned that further study is needed, he said: “For current ongoing droughts, I would think that human-induced climate change would play a very high role.”

    Welcome to our new normal

  28. 28.

    New Deal democrat

    Again to summarize:

    1. There is no majority support for a single-Member Motion to Vacate.

    2. But to do away with that, GOPers will need Democratic votes.

    3. Meaning Democrats have leverage in establishing the House Rules, regardless of who is ultimately chosen as speaker.

  30. 30.

    bbleh

    @OzarkHillbilly: oh come on, Dr Zong-Liang Yang?  Obviously just another agent of the Chinese Climate Hoax

    @New Deal democrat: I dunno.  Making deals with Demon-crats is anathema.  It’s what brought Qevin down. And it’s gonna be even more so with Jimmy J. in the chair. Even if 95% of the Republicans want it gone, if any of the other 5% are likely to squeal “compromise! treason!,” they’ll suck it up and live with it.

  31. 31.

    Warblewarble

    Jordan as speaker is like giving the proud boys control over legislation in  Congress.

  32. 32.

    waspuppet

    It’s “funny” (rhetorically) how Trump insists he’s far too busy to be put on trial for the crimes he’s admitted to on TV, but he could drop in and be Speaker of the House for a while.

    And for every “journalist” who thinks the Democrats should have propped McCarthy up:

    WHAT

    DID

    HE

    OFFER

    THEM

    ?

    FFS

  33. 33.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @lowtechcyclist: The question is, who among them is honest and would have been a good pick?

    Dan Crenshaw. Maybe. I see him in hearings once in a while and he, at a minimum, seems professional and not embedded deep in the Republican crazy cycle.

    But he’s relatively new and doesn’t seem to draw a lot of attention.

  34. 34.

    Warblewarble

    tRUMP enabler Jordan as Speaker would be like giving the proud boys control over legislation in the House.

  35. 35.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @New Deal democrat: Again to summarize:

    1. There is no majority support for a single-Member Motion to Vacate.

    2. But to do away with that, GOPers will need Democratic votes.

    3. Meaning Democrats have leverage in establishing the House Rules, regardless of who is ultimately chosen as speaker.

    I like that logic.

    @HakeemJeffries: You govern in fine print. You message, you persuade, you communicate in headlines.

    I like this approach.

    Is this what winning feels like?

  37. 37.

    Matt McIrvin

    Why were Democrats the villains here because they were supposed to have voted for the Republicans’ guy, instead of some Republicans voting for our guy? If Democrats were supposed to vote for McCarthy, why not Republicans voting for Jeffries? Because they’re the majority? But a majority who can’t vote together isn’t even a majority.

    It’d probably take fewer people voting for the other party to elect Jeffries. But nobody can imagine it, because it’s accepted that they’d never do that. We’re just supposed to be the ones who fold without even being asked.

  39. 39.

    Eunicecycle

    @waspuppet: that’s because he really doesn’t know what the job entails. Just like he thought the job of president was to be the boss of everyone and make speeches. You just tell people what you want done and they do it. Remember when he said he could be President and still run his companies? Being President was just going to be part-time.

  41. 41.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Eunicecycle: Being President was just going to be part-time.

    He spent 90 percent of his presidency on the golf course or in front of the TV and that was far too little. We would have been better off if he did nothing.

  42. 42.

    Scout211

    CNN  has a new article posted this morning about the pressure now on Senator Butler to make a decision on whether she wants to run for the Senate seat she now holds.  TL;DR: No one knows yet what she will decide, but everyone is interested and most have opinions.

    Butler had a meeting with a small group of advisers the day after being sworn in to do a preliminary review of polling data as part of what people familiar say is a push to make a decision by next week.

    Every day that goes by, many people in California political circles agree, is a day that Butler is even further behind politically if she’s going to go for it.

    Butler’s new temporary spokesperson keeps providing the same statement about how she has not made a decision yet. But Butler is well-known among California insiders, with top Democrats in the state telling CNN, “She does not do things that she cannot be successful at – so my guess is she would not have put herself in this spot if she didn’t think she had a shot at winning an election.”
    . . .

    Butler has multiple clocks ticking on her at once: She has to build a new staff out of the people who had stayed on as caretakers for the long-ailing Feinstein; she has to start making public appearances in the hopes of getting attention in a big state where her name ID is effectively zero; and she has to do it all while learning a complicated job in the middle of what could grow into a full-blown congressional crisis in the aftermath of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s defenestration, all without any prior experience in office.

    If Butler does run, she faces a soft deadline of October 13 to submit her name to the state Democratic Party to be considered a candidate for its endorsement, as well as a mid-November state Democratic convention. Those come before the December 8 deadline to officially declare herself a candidate for the ballot. And then, on top of everything else, she would have to start building up political outreach and planning fundraising events to put together many millions of dollars she is already behind on.

  43. 43.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Eunicecycle:

     It’s funny. I birthed a male and a female engineer. The female is pretty humble about it.

    My father was a chemical engineer, and my older sister was a civil engineer. (Well, she was civil most of the time. ;-)

    I don’t recall a lot of humility in either one.

  44. 44.

    Righteous Hazard

    LOL McClintock.

    Friends and I made a calls to his office this week just to point out that people in his district don’t take kindly to being governed by assclowns.

    Today I think it is time for calls  to point out that if Ukraine support isn’t a top priority, being governed by assclowns who are weak on national security is an intolerable situation for his constituents.

  45. 45.

    bbleh

    @Matt McIrvin: aw all this “Dems shoulda saved McQarthy!” nonsense is ridiculous.  I’ve said this elsewhere, but consider if, say, AOC and “the Squad” had made a MTV when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker and had a majority of, what, 4 votes?  Would Republicans have done “the responsible thing” and voted to keep her in?  Hell no!  They’d have whistled and stomped and jeered and thrown a party!

    This “Dems have to be responsible and clean up Republicans’ messes” thing is bordering on abuser “logic.”

  46. 46.

    Immanentize

    I remember, when the McCarthy vote-a-thon was going on that Hakeem J. gave gun violence victim Scalise a big public wet kiss saying that they had a good relationship and that Scalise was honest and nice to work with (not a transcript).

    I wondered at the time if that was clever poison delivery. I wonder how much that set off the crazies who, like elephants in tales, have long memories….

    Right up there with, “don’t you think she look tired?”

  47. 47.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @bbleh: This “Dems have to be responsible and clean up Republicans’ messes” thing is bordering on abuser “logic.”

    Don’t sugar-coat it. This is abuser logic, as is most unsolicited advice and criticism the media provides Democrats. Even when it seems innocuous or even positive.

  48. 48.

    Ken

    @bbleh: In the alternate universe where the Democrats did decide to save McCarthy, I hope they did it by having AOC, Ilhan Omar, and other “squad” members provide the five or six votes needed. Just to squeeze a little lemon juice on the paper cut.

  49. 49.

    frosty

    @Scout211: I’m looking at that list and thinking that it’s too damn much work in too little time. But then, I’m retired and I have Maynard G. Krebs’s opinion on it (0:20)

    Work!

  50. 50.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Eunicecycle:

    It’s funny. I birthed a male and a female engineer. The female is pretty humble about it.
     

    You mean your son is proud of being birthed by you, but not your daughter?

    ;)

  51. 51.

    Scout211

    @Righteous Hazard: Friends and I made a calls to his office this week just to point out that people in his district don’t take kindly to being governed by assclowns.

    Thank you for your service, Righteous Hazard.

    We need more Democrats to be loud here in McClintock’s district.  The  idiot has been in the news this past week more often than in all of his years he has previously served in the House.  Too many years . . .

  53. 53.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Scout211:

    the pressure now on Senator Butler to make a decision on whether she wants to run for the Senate seat she now holds.

    Good grief, it’s only been a few days since she found out she’d be in this position!  (And it wasn’t like she could have seen it coming.) She obviously doesn’t have unlimited time to make this decision, but it’s not the sort of choice one can make that fast.  People should back off for another week or so, anyway.

  54. 54.

    catclub

    @bbleh: ​
     

    Well, given the jobs report, a few weeks of shutdown might even be good.

    I think the GOP would like to balance getting the blame for a shutdown versus the election year effects of a worse economy due to a shutdown. The president will get blamed for a bad economy in 2024, no matter who causes it.

  55. 55.

    Kristine

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    Don’t sugar-coat it. This is abuser logic, as is most unsolicited advice and criticism the media provides Democrats. Even when it seems innocuous or even positive.

    Well now, the MSM knuckled under to it ages ago and look how well they’re doing. Can’t be all bad now, can it? /s

    aka Misery loves company

  56. 56.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ken:

    In the alternate universe where the Democrats did decide to save McCarthy, I hope they did it by having AOC, Ilhan Omar, and other “squad” members provide the five or six votes needed. Just to squeeze a little lemon juice on the paper cut.

    And in that alternate universe, s_c would be reminding us of this for years.

  58. 58.

    Frankensteinbeck

    You’re a smart man, Jeffries, but Republicans have a third option.  They can run around in circles waving their arms over their heads and shouting, “WOO WOO WOO WOO!”  My best guess is that we’ll see a lot of that until they get tired.  I’m still putting “Maybe all we need is an acting Speaker,” as a serious possibility, especially if the votes get embarrassing.

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation:

    This is abuser logic, as is most unsolicited advice and criticism the media provides Democrats.

    God damn right.  The pervasiveness of abuser logic in the national press is horrifying, and not just in advice they give Democrats.

    In Republicans, abuser logic is foundational.

  59. 59.

    Betty Cracker

    @Immanentize:

    Right up there with, “don’t you think she look tired?”

    LOL! Sort of on topic, in the squishable thread below this one, commenter Fake Irishman made a great point about (paraphrasing) Jordan being a performance artist during his tenure while Scalise was doing the coalition-building, horse-trading scutwork behind the scenes as a whip and majority leader. We’ll soon see if that sort of thing can still matter at the margins or if the Trump circus is the only show in town.

  60. 60.

    JoyceH

    @Eunicecycle: Trump has no notion on earth what the nuclear triad is. Seriously. On some occasion an interviewer asked him a question about the triad and he want on this vague ramble about the importance of The Nuclear, making it pretty clear he totally didn’t understand the question.

  61. 61.

    Ken

    @Betty Cracker: That raises the interesting question, who will take over as whip and majority leader if Scalise becomes Speaker?  And the related question, who will take over those positions if Jordan becomes Speaker, and pushes out Scalise?

  62. 62.

    Suzanne

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    A rapist backs a sexual predator’s enabler*. This is too good to be true, the headlines write themselves. 

    On my Book of Faces page, I saw that, six years ago, I had posted Artemisia Gentileschi’s Judith and her Maidservant, which depicts them shoving Holofernes’ head into a bag. I reshared it today, as it seemed relevant, again.

  63. 63.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
    My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin —
    (They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)

  64. 64.

    jonas

    Over at TPM, they have a great read this morning about where that $500,000 George Santos loaned his campaign came from: his ass. As in, nowhere. He (and his campaign treasurer) made it up — apparently in order to fool the RNCC into giving him more money.

    If this guy’s dishonesty and fraud get any worse…he could end up being Republican presidential material.

  66. 66.

    Leto

    @waspuppet: Morning Blow was saying this shit this morning, basically for the “good of the House”. No, you stupid fuckstick. Democrats have no responsibility to save Republicans from their decades long poor choices. And MuhKevin had nothing to offer as he was a known liar, backstabber, and shitstain. There was nothing he COULD offer.

  67. 67.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Eunicecycle: I coach kids tennis.  It’s amazing the difference between how boys act when they win vs. how girls do, even as early as 4 years old but especially once they are 8-10 years old.  The gendered differences are really notable.  Boys are already bragging, taunting everyone else and patting themselves on the back etc.  Girls cheer themselves but are way less aggressive about it and imo, much better winners.  And boy (pun intended) when it comes to losing…I’ve never had to tell a girl (not once in 7+ years) not to throw/smash her racket, whereas I have to do that all the time for boys.

  68. 68.

    jonas

    @JoyceH: I think it was Fran Liebowitz who observed “Trust me. You don’t know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump.” His entire presidency and after, it was clear that various advisers and briefers would tell him things and then he would try to bandy about certain terms with reporters to act like he knew what he was doing, but obviously didn’t have a clue. That’s how we got his brilliant discourse on how Covid could be cured by injecting bleach and somehow inserting ultraviolet lights in your body.

    It was like listening to someone blind from birth and from a non-Commonwealth country, trying to call a cricket match.

  70. 70.

    lowtechcyclist

    @catclub:

    I think the GOP would like to balance getting the blame for a shutdown versus the election year effects of a worse economy due to a shutdown. The president will get blamed for a bad economy in 2024, no matter who causes it.

    How much effect did the shutdowns of 2013 and 2018-19 have on the economy? I know they didn’t help, but in neither case did they seem to bring it down all that much.

  72. 72.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I had a thought.  Bear with me, sometimes they happen.  McCarthy dared Gaetz, with profanity, to evict him.  McCarthy has declared he won’t run again.  Despite how desperate as he was to get the job, maybe McCarthy did get sick of it after all.  So, being a dishonest prick, he shit on absolutely everyone on the way out.

  74. 74.

    Scout211

    @Ken:That raises the interesting question, who will take over as whip and majority leader if Scalise becomes Speaker?

    So far, Emmer has announced for majority leader.

  76. 76.

    HumboldtBlue

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: ​

    Dan Crenshaw.

    Snort, he’s only a half-step from outright bugfuck crazy GOPer, don’t let his past service fool you, he’s a shitbag through and through.​
     

    @Scout211: ​ 

    Outside of California political insiders and major players, no one knows who she is and a run, in my opinion, would be a waste of time. Six months as a caretaker in a Senate seat isn’t going to be enough to raise her profile above three far more well-known candidates.

  79. 79.

    RaflW

    Huge employment news today — Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 336,000 in September, double expectations, and the prior two months got revised upwards.

    So the Dow took a nosedive in early trading. “Wall St eyes steep losses at open after jobs data” -Reuters

    Yeah, investors, nothing says “bad news” quite like people finding jobs and earning a living!! The incentives in predatory capitalism are f**kd.

  80. 80.

    RaflW

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: My would-be step-mom (dad didn’t ever tie the knot that second time) lives in Crenshaw’s district. He’s a hardliner, but yeah maybe not eyes-bulging full loon.

    But that is an extremely safe (and gerrymandered, of course) district. Ted Poe was in the seat previously, and while more of a doorstop than an activist, was also very conservative.

  82. 82.

    Baud

    @RaflW:

    We’ve gone from “It’s the economy, stupid” to “The economy is great but those people being in charge gives me anxiety that I will express as economic in nature.”

  85. 85.

    bbleh

    @lowtechcyclist:

    In 2013, the gross domestic product in the third quarter was reduced by 0.3 percentage points because of the shutdown, the Office of Management and Budget estimated in 2014, when 850,000 federal workers were furloughed. The Congressional Budget Office also found a similarly-sized hit in 2018-2019 during a partial government shutdown.

    The 2013 shutdown was two-weeks-plus, and 2018-19 was about double that.

    According to research from Goldman Sachs, “A government-wide shutdown would directly reduce growth by around 0.15 percentage point for each week it lasted, or about 0.2 percentage point per week once private sector effects were included, and growth would rise by the same cumulative amount in the quarter following reopening.”

    The issue I’ve seen discussed is whether or not Teh Economee is already poised for a recession today, in which case a shutdown might be a “tipping point.”  Some point out the recent slowdown in growth, but others say that’s actually not a bad thing (“soft landing”) and point out all the other comparatively healthy measures (employment, income).

    About all I can figure is, it probably wouldn’t be an immediate problem, it probably would ease the jitters at the Fed in the near term, and if it were short enough any loss likely would be made up quickly as in past shutdowns.  But if the MAGAts dig in their heels, and then everybody goes home for the holidays, and it stretches out 2 months or more, I’d say we got a problem going into ’24, which would mean Joe has one too.

    @RaflW: this also, too.

  87. 87.

    Righteous Hazard

    @Scout211: I don’t think that anything short of a complete collapsed of the GOP will be sufficient to remove McClintock. He’s a very professional politician in a R+(infinity) district.

    But he is a McCarthy wingman, and that makes him weak in both appearance and fact. If he appears weak on national security, things can go south for him in a hurry.

  94. 94.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Nukular Biskits: It depends on where in the south you come from. If you are from one of the states along or west of the Mississippi, it’s “mah”. Appalachian states say “muh”. Tennessee and Kentucky are just cornfused.

    (a play on the old MissourEE or MissouRUH joke/observation)

  98. 98.

    Scout211

    @HumboldtBlue: Outside of California political insiders and major players, no one knows who she is and a run, in my opinion, would be a waste of time. Six months as a caretaker in a Senate seat isn’t going to be enough to raise her profile above three far more well-known candidates.

    I agree.  She has a monumental task to raise her profile with voters if she chooses to run.  From the linked CNN article:

    A private poll of the California Senate race conducted on Sunday and Monday has been working its way through the inboxes of state Democratic operatives trying to gauge Butler’s support. It shows many people undecided about whom to support and open to Butler when they learn more about her.

    The pollster, Christian Grose, told CNN he isn’t working for Butler or any of the other candidates, and that when he conducted it, he was assuming Butler wouldn’t run. But when he asked people to pick a candidate from a list of names, the number of people who said they would go with her was so low it amounted to statistical “noise.”

  99. 99.

    Geminid

    @HumboldtBlue: Crenshaw is also regarded as a Ukraine hawk, at least for a Republican, and would be unacceptable to anti-Ukraine elements in his caucus.

    Ukraine has become a wedge issue for Republicans, and this could fuel primary challenges next year.

  101. 101.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    Look, I know lots of people were worried that by not backing Kevin, the Dems had empowered Gaetz. Here’s the thing.. Kevin kept running to and bending over backwards for the far right because he wasn’t afraid of the Dems. He figured he could lie and betray the Dems with impunity, because they’d back him out of fear of someone worse. The members of the house who are pretending to be more extreme than they are may be furiously angry that the Dems didn’t save McCarthy (and by extension them), but they’ve learned they can’t be taken for granted. If they want something, they are going to have to give something. Vague threats aren’t going to be enough anymore.

  102. 102.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Geminid: ​

    Ukraine has become a wedge issue for Republicans, and this could fuel primary challenges next year.

    I’m not sure about that. My loose impression is that hardly any of the voters, even the crazy primary voting base, really care about Ukraine no matter what their opinion is. Not like the corrupt elected performance artists do. If it’s relevant at all, I think it will be one part of ‘the crazier and more extreme you are, the better your odds in a Republican primary.’

  103. 103.

    RSA

    @kalakal:  As an ex Chemical and then software engineer I take great pride in my humility

    One of my friends (undergrad degree in electrical engineering), tells me he’s the most modest person he knows.  “I’ve won awards for my modesty!” he’ll say.

  104. 104.

    Eunicecycle

    @UncleEbeneezer: my daughter had to learn to be tough because she was in charge of making sure environmental regs were followed at construction sites and she was given a hard time at times. But she did learn!

  106. 106.

    Shalimar

    Trump being “all-in” Jordan seems like a poor choice of words to describe an adjudicated rapist’s endorsement.

  107. 107.

    Soprano2

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I work with a bunch of them. Occasionally there is one who understands that they know a lot about engineering, but not a lot about other things, but that’s the exception. LOL

  110. 110.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Nukular Biskits:

    Thet maht b behcuss Ah is one.

    But I still can’t understand a word of whatever the fuck they speak in the mountains. I once sat in a NE Alabama tarpaper shack for a half hour and 2 beers trying to get directions to a pit that we wanted to drop. I never did catch a single word he uttered. The fruitless 2 hour search we made for it after told me nobody else did either.

  111. 111.

    Geminid

    @Frankensteinbeck: You are right that voters typically do not care much about matters in foreign countries (unless Americans are being killed or held hostage in large numbers).

    Ukraine has become a loaded symbol to many “populist,” anti-establishment Republicans though, and I think the issue will be raised next year by Republican primary challengers. Maybe not successfully, but there the course of that war over the next months will play a big part.

  113. 113.

    Nukular Biskits

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It never ceases to amaze me to hear my own voice on a recording or video.  My Southern drawl, or what I call “hicknissety”, is very pronounced. And, whenever I would visit with friends/family back in BFE, MS, I’d also come back worse for a few days.

    Interestingly enough, earlier in my career, most folks could still understand me (probably that college ed-you-mah-kay-shun) with the exception of first-generation Asian-Americans.  They had a very difficult time parsing my words.

  114. 114.

    catclub

    @Geminid: ​
      The best way we avoid sending our own troops to the Ukraine war is massively supplying Ukraine so they can fight and win. I think the US people pretty much agree. Except Trump and russiaphiles like Tucker Carlson.

  115. 115.

    Matt McIrvin

    @bbleh:

    but consider if, say, AOC and “the Squad” had made a MTV when Nancy Pelosi was Speaker and had a majority of, what, 4 votes?  Would Republicans have done “the responsible thing” and voted to keep her in?  Hell no!  They’d have whistled and stomped and jeered and thrown a party!

    And it’s also relevant to note that the Squad didn’t do that because we’re not a bunch of fools. (I also think it may not have been possible under House rules at the time? because we’re not a bunch of fools?)

  116. 116.

    Eolirin

    @Geminid: I think there’s more concern about being anti-Russia and pro-democracy than there is directly about Ukrainians, except to the Ukrainian Americans, and maybe other Eastern European descended groups.

    But the strength of that sentiment definitely wains over time as the situation loses its novelty and people tune out.

    This is as much a media failing as anything else though. A large part of the population is pretty strongly anti-genocide, especially of white people and are pretty incensed by the targeted murder of children or systematic rape of young girls, but it needs to be in their faces for them to notice enough for those sentiments to rise to the surface.

  117. 117.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Nukular Biskits: I always hear this super-hard Midwestern accent when I listen to my own voice, and I kind of hate it. I’ve been told by Northeastern prep-school kids that I talk exactly like all the Minnesotan characters in Fargo, though I’ve never even been to Minnesota and have lived most of my life on the East Coast (it’s because I spent my accent-formative toddler years in the Kansas City and Cleveland metro areas, with Midwestern parents–I suspect my accent is really more Cleveland than anything else).

  118. 118.

    RaflW

    Melanie Zanona
    @MZanona

    NEW: Multiple House Republicans tell me they’re infuriated by the decision for speaker candidates to participate in a televised debate w/ Fox News Host Bret Baier from the Capitol on Monday, & several of them have already communicated those frustrations to the speaker candidates.

  120. 120.

    Geminid

    @RaflW: I’d be mad too. House Republicans need to confine this fight to their caucus as much as possible. Right now, not that many people actually care who the Speaker is. Republican are better off making the sausage behind closed doors, not on national TV.

  121. 121.

    Brit in Chicago

    @jonas: I think it’s not so much corporations have a sad as the fact that if you can get good yields on bonds you’re less likely to buy stocks. They’re both competing to be the most attractive place for investors to put their $$, and if yields go up stocks are less attractive. It’s not rocket science.

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    @JoyceH:

    SFB does not understand any question that is not directly related to him. And most of the ones that are…..

    SFB is an extremely self-centered asshole who stinks but thinks it’s everyone else but HIM that stinks. He has mistaken the smell of his own _ _ _ _.

Comments are closed.