Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

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

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

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

I really should read my own blog.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

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

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Motown is Joe-Town!

The gop couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

“Why isn’t this Snickers bar only a nickel?”

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Foreign Affairs

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Foreign Affairs

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  4. 4.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Russia.  Because the vast right-wing conspiracy doesn’t end at the US border.

  5. 5.

    Soprano2

    I’ll say it again, I never thought I’d live to see a day when Republicans were more supportive of Russia than of their own government. It’s shocking to people who lived through the Cold War to hear them be so blase about Russia’s invasion of a European country.

  6. 6.

    Kay

    Ukrainians are amazing people. Republicans and Putin are kidding themselves – they can occupy their cities but they’ll never, ever be Russian.

    Russia will be expending people and treasure trying to hold them down for the next 500 years.

  8. 8.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Kay:

    Ukrainians are amazing people. Republicans and Putin are kidding themselves – they can occupy their cities but they’ll never, ever be Russian.

    Russia will be expending people and treasure trying to hold them down for the next 500 years.

    If Russia managed to occupy Ukraine, Putin would do what the USSR did in the past: move millions of Ukrainians elsewhere, and move millions of ethnic Russians into Ukraine.

    Not on the scale of tens of millions, but enough to get the point across that you, too, could be moved to the east end of Siberia.

  11. 11.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Yep. Meanwhile, Republicans are utterly destroying U.S. credibility on the international stage. How can any ally trust us ever again? I wouldn’t, knowing that a nihilistic cult controls one of the country’s two major parties.

    That loss of stature will have implications beyond foreign policy, IMO. We had an opportunity to pass Trump off as an aberration by consistently keeping the party that so irresponsibly elevated him out of power. We failed.

  12. 12.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2:

    I’ll say it again, I never thought I’d live to see a day when Republicans were more supportive of Russia than of their own government. 

    And it’s all for bullshit “culture war” reasons, just to piss off the Dems and be contrarian. The few GOP who have read any sort of history book know who Putin is, but they’re cravenly doing his bidding because it’s a way to support Christian patriarchy and TFG to their idiot voters.

  13. 13.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: They’re desperately trying to maintain what they believe should be their top dog status in a changing world. I think they’ll do literally anything to ensure that white Christian straight men are still always on top in everything. They hate having to stand in line behind other just as deserving people – when they were young they were told everything good would be given to them first, and by God they’re determined to keep the world that way!

    ETA – our paper does a “this day in history” feature every week. This week’s was about the board of leaders that was formed in 1948 to investigate the influence of comic books on our youth. They had a picture of the members – all older white men. I thought how you would never see anything like that now – at the very least there would be a couple of women there. This is the world they’re trying to “restore”, where all the “real leaders” are white men. It’s why they invite female university presidents to Congress to scold and trap them – they’re hoping to replace them with the “truly deserving” white men who they think should have those jobs.

  14. 14.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Soprano2:

    I’ll say it again, I never thought I’d live to see a day when Republicans were more supportive of Russia than of their own government. It’s shocking to people who lived through the Cold War to hear them be so blase about Russia’s invasion of a European country.

    It’s starting to make me wonder whether they really cared about the Cold War for its own sake, or whether they just felt like they could eternally accuse the Democrats of being “soft on Communism” as long as they were more overtly anti-Russia than the Dems were.

    Certainly now their foreign policy positions are limited to those that they either can rouse the base over or make the Dems look bad, usually over some transitory issue.

  15. 15.

    Yarrow

    @Soprano2:

    I’ll say it again, I never thought I’d live to see a day when Republicans were more supportive of Russia than of their own government. It’s shocking to people who lived through the Cold War to hear them be so blase about Russia’s invasion of a European country.

    Maybe it was shocking to think about this happening in the 1980s but by the mid-1990’s the evangelical churches were actively partnering with Russia in things like adoptions so the writing was on the wall. It seemed obvious to me Republicans were heading in this direction. Russia did well in coopting American groups like the NRA/gun nuts and evangelical churches. That’s where Republicans are.

  16. 16.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: I know, they love the Russian government because it persecutes gay and trans people and tries to keep women in their place while embracing Christianity as the true religion. It’s what they want to replicate here. I keep telling people they want what Oraban did in Hungary – elections, but in name only because they’re rigged so only one party can actually win.

  17. 17.

    Yarrow

    I mentioned this in the thread below, but would it have been better to keep Kevin McCarthy as Speaker? I think I remember that it took Dem votes to oust him. Could Dems have blackmailed gotten concessions from him to get funding for Ukraine in exchange for keeping his job?

  19. 19.

    Soprano2

    @lowtechcyclist: They really cared, although yeah they used it as a cudgel against Democrats too. Of course, most of those people are either dead or out of government now. You can tell, because it’s mostly the older Republicans in Congress who remember the USSR and the Cold War who are still supportive of aid to Ukraine and know that Russia and Putin are bad and need to be defeated so we don’t have to fight them when they invade a NATO country.

  20. 20.

    MagdaInBlack

    I’m listening to a clip of Preacher (speaker) Johnson talk about Ukraine and the border , and lord, what a chilling, banal liar. He terrifies me.

  25. 25.

    Soprano2

    @Yarrow: I think if he had kept his job with Democratic votes, the pressure on him to quit from his own side would have become unbearable, especially with the “one person can call a vote to replace the leader” rule he agreed to. McCarthy never would have agreed to lead a House that was basically controlled by Democrats.

  26. 26.

    RevRick

    @Ben Cisco: A huge chunk of the GOP secretly wants a Russian victory, because they see the ethnonationalist, authoritarian regime ruling it as those of their own hearts. What Putin has done, they want to duplicate.

  27. 27.

    lowtechcyclist

    @BlueGuitarist:

    Kevin Mc lied about everything

    So what?  As I said back then, you vote to keep him as Speaker, but explain that if he doesn’t put a Ukraine aid bill on the House floor, the Dems will support the next Motion to Vacate.

    Worst that could have happened is that he didn’t put a Ukraine bill on the floor, and either we are where we are now, or maybe there never is another MtV and he’s still Speaker, which is certainly no worse than having Mike Johnson as Speaker.

    OTOH, maybe he lets a Ukraine bill come to a vote, thinking that that’ll keep him in the Speaker’s chair a little longer.

    Maybe someone can game out for me how dumping McCarthy was going to make it more likely to get Ukraine aid through Congress, but I sure can’t see it.

  29. 29.

    RevRick

    Gingerbread is great for decorating but hell on the teeth. I much prefer Pfeffernusse, a traditional, German Christmas cookie.

  30. 30.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax: I’ll check it out this evening, thx!

    Without watching it, the reasons all boil down to money. They can do cheap-ass wood construction, keep under 75’ height threshold for a high rise, use hydraulic elevators instead of electric. Do the minimum “architectural articulation” required by the municipality, and call it a day.

    And we’re short enough on housing that they can build this cheap shit and still charge high rents for it.

  31. 31.

    Soprano2

    @RevRick: Aldi has those, I got some once and they were pretty good. Aldi is German, so they have a lot of good traditional German Christmas foods.

  32. 32.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @zhena gogolia: These creeps aren’t worthy to lick Zelenskyy’s boots.

    I bet if he offered demanded, though, he may be able to flip more than a couple votes.

  34. 34.

    Nelle

    @Kay: If you haven’t, read The Red Famine, by Anne Applebaum.  Ukrainians have, in their bones and recent memory, the knowledge that Russia wants to extinguish them and tried in the 1930’s.  J. D. Vance should read it but then, nothing permeates that ego of his.  The Ukrainians know that there will be no negotiation with Putin; he wants to eradicate them.

    The Ukrainian soil is some of the best in the world and was the European breadbasket.  Oceans of Grain, a recent book on the grain trade and the building of empires, is a good look at how that agricultural region was and is a focus of both Hitler and Stalin.  Of course, now it is sowed with mines, not winter wheat.

  36. 36.

    jonas

    Well, it looks like the SCOTUS has decided that FDA drug approvals now have to undergo judicial review as well. Fantastic

    ETA — whoops, Dorothy A. Winsor was already on this. But still. Just…fuck.

  38. 38.

    oldster

    My hope is that Biden will show the same contempt for Congress that the Republicans did during Iran-Contra, and simply ship to Ukraine all of the arms that he feels like shipping.

    Bush was willing to do business with Iran in order to fund his lovely little war in Central America. And he then lied and stonewalled and pardoned his way out of accountability.

    If Biden borrows that precedent, it will be okay with me.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    Floridians are fighting back on reproductive rights, including some Republicans, according to NBC:

    PINECREST, Fla. — Jaymie Carter is a registered Republican.

    She has been named by two Republican governors — first Rick Scott, then Ron DeSantis — to sit on the Board of Trustees for the State College of Florida, and she says she voted for DeSantis in his 2022 campaign for governor.

    But when it comes to the issue of abortion, she’s breaking with her party.

    “Women are concerned about what’s happening with our bodies and our right to choose. And there’s a lot of people that you wouldn’t think would be the pro-choice advocates, but they are,” she said. “And the government overreach, it’s huge right now.”

    Carter is one of more than 150,000 registered Republican voters who have signed a petition in support of a ballot amendment that would bar the state from restricting abortion “before viability” — which is usually at 24 weeks — or “when necessary to protect the patient’s health.”

    That total comes from the Florida Women’s Freedom Coalition, one of several groups working to gather the 891,523 signatures necessary to get the measure on the ballot, working with Floridians Protecting Freedom, the campaign leading the ballot initiative. The group says it has gathered and submitted more than 1.3 million signatures so far. The website of the Florida Division of Elections says it has validated 687,699 signatures as of mid-December.

    The deadline to get the initiative on the ballot is February 1. I think we will make it. Voters have to approve by 60%. I think there’s a decent chance they will.

  40. 40.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @oldster: We must fight the lawless Republicans by becoming lawless ourselves. I see no flaws in this bulletproof plan.

  41. 41.

    Eolirin

    @jonas: They’ve done no such thing. Not yet at least. The 5th Circuit’s decision was problematic as well, so getting the whole thing tossed would be ideal. If they do go hard instead they’ll be doing so in the summer before an election on a topic that’s hurting their party very badly.

  42. 42.

    RaflW

    News: SCOTUS will hear an abortion pill case (NPR) this term.

    The timing, heading for the 2024 election, is fascinating. Really heightens the whole abortion access issue. And puts a flashing sign at who gets to appoint the next SCOTUS justice(s).

    eta: DAW got it first @28 upthread. But yeah, a big and potentially scary case.

  43. 43.

    Eolirin

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: I’m not sure whether Biden can do what Trump did for wall funding and declare a state of emergency and move funds around to keep things moving to Ukraine, but it’d be legal going by SCOTUS rulings.

    Does anyone know if Biden can force congress back into session?

  44. 44.

    Soprano2

    @jonas: I’m hopeful they’ve done this to reject it. Allowing any drug’s approval to be challenged in the courts like this, over 20 years after the approval, would be catastrophic to our system of drug approvals, and you know the pharmaceutical companies would be appalled by it. I’m hoping they want to overturn this idiocy because it wouldn’t affect just the abortion pills, it would affect all drug approvals.

  48. 48.

    Eolirin

    @Yarrow: Adam would probably tell you that it wouldn’t have made a difference and there was no way any aid to Ukraine was going to pass through the house under any circumstances once they took the majority.

    There’s no way to know for sure of course.

  49. 49.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Eolirin: I’d consider this more acceptable, and a more legitimate emergency than Trump’s farce.

    I’m still tryna figure out what intrinsic link Ukraine aid and immigration policy share. Nothing obvious comes to mind.

  50. 50.

    cmorenc

    Russian bot farms are making sure that any X-threads regarding Ukraine are filled with posts hostile to continuing support for Ukraine, claiming we’re wasting money on an utterly corrupt regime in Ukraine (which it was, prior to the Ukrainians kicking out the Russian puppet regime and replacing it with Zelensky) etc.  Not sure what % of the posts arguing the money should stay home to defend the US border instead of wasted in Ukraine are from bots, vs domestic RW MAGAs, probably a mix of each.

  51. 51.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax: OK, I have a bone to pick with this. I just watched the video and I have seen this argument made elsewhere, that we should go down to one staircase. It ignores a major issue, which is that there are tens of thousands of small apartment buildings constructed all over the country every year that have two staircases and that aren’t these massive block-long things…. they just put the staircases outside. Sometimes combined with the access path to the front door and sometimes a little balcony space. The staircases are cheap, they’re pre-fabbed in a shop, and they can go directly to a sidewalk. This typology they’re talking about is fairly rare in North America for lots of reasons, mostly because we have most of our population growth in relatively low-density cities. It makes me nuts that they completely ignore these other types of buildings.

    My current project has scissor stairs.

  52. 52.

    RaflW

    @jonas: It is certainly possible the Wildly Overreaching Six will rule in favor of restricting mifepristone and f*king with longstanding FDA procedures. But it isn’t settled yet.

    If they do rule to restrict, I think we can look to Kansas and Ohio abortion votes to see how the Nov 5th election goes. Or it damn well should.

  53. 53.

    Yarrow

    @Soprano2:  Maybe they’ll somehow limit it to mifepristone and birth control pills and anything related to that needing judicial review. I could see them somehow figuring out how to do that in the name of “originalism,” of course. Birth control and mifepristone didn’t exist back when the Constitution was written so obviously they aren’t “original.”

  54. 54.

    Eolirin

    @The Kropenhagen Interpretation: How can we spend money keeping some foreign country safe when we aren’t even able to keep ourselves safe from these dangerous migrant criminals invading our borders?

    And don’t think about it too closely, because how insane that actually is will become very apparent.

  55. 55.

    Gvg

    @Yarrow: At the time, they thought they were co opting the Russians. They were trying to show off the benefits of capitalism and democracy. I think the problem was they were cultists then and not really educated. They didn’t understand the nuts and bolts of why things worked even then. Too many were coasting on momentum.

    First, it had been too long since the lessons of the Great Depression and real economics were learned.

    Second, it was too long since the value of alliances and huge society wide projects for the greater good were seen and understood. The second WW took a lot of planning to win. The peace took even more effort to win. The Republican era peace dividend cut taxes and regulations because we won shortsightedness just didn’t see any of that.

    Problem was obvious when they forced through a lot of bank and investment deregulation with some democratic support too. People in general didn’t remember or understand nuts and bolts.

    They tend to think if something has been true for around 30 years that it’s natural and just happens, with no maintenance needed. All people all countries. Only a few remember or learn more. That’s also why the religious think putting their beliefs into government is a good idea for them. They don’t know history. Sure, we have a problem right away, but it’s going to bite them too. And messing with alliances and our reputation and screwing with the debt ceiling and our budgets is wreaking our country and our money. The so called patriots don’t even know it, really. They think the US will still just be great even if they keep doing these things. Think of Brexit only bigger and stupider.

    I’d be sorry to hurt Englands feelings but it would help if our news covered how BAD that decision has been for Britain, I think, and pointed out the parallels to the MAGA idiots and Trump who think NATO and the US reputation doesn’t matter. Explain over and over why it helps us that our money is the choice of reserve currency and that it does not have to stay that way forever. Our past built our reputation. We can blow it away. I’d even go into the changes in the public perception of the Supreme Court based of hack partisan decisions that ignored president. Decades of trust eroded.

  56. 56.

    RaflW

    @Suzanne: I have another bone to pick: the pretty buildings he shows in Europe are by and large old buildings. The map of the laws about staircase regs & number of floors was interesting, and I don’t doubt that it plays some role in US developer decisions, but I travel a lot.

    Outside of the older core of Stockholm (one of the urban pretty places he shows), for example, most newer apartment developments are plenty large and blocky. Meanwhile, developers are building 3 and occasionally 4 floor walkups* in Minneapolis on infill lots as narrow as 50 feet.

    I think it’s all at least as much driven by what raw or re-purposable land is available as it is about fire egress.

    *4th floors are, I believe, bedrooms or penthouse-deck rooms of 3rd floor units, so skate around elevator rules. Or, perhaps, being in higher value neighborhoods, these compact buildings manage to have an elevator?

  57. 57.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Eolirin: I have a compromise. A not insignificant amount of Dems don’t want us funding Israel. How about both or neither

    ETA: Also worth pointing out there is no greater obstacle to border security, a functional immgration system, and generally knowing who is in this country than the contemporary Republican Party.

  58. 58.

    Suzanne

    @Gvg:

    I’d be sorry to hurt Englands feelings but it would help if our news covered how BAD that decision has been for Britain 

    Yes, thank you. That was dumb as hell, and it has led to nothing but trouble and lack of prosperity for them. They really have taken themselves back 75 years, and it’s staggering.

  59. 59.

    NotMax

    @Suzanne

    Fair point. But also has to take into account fitting in with the style and tenor of the surrounding neighborhood as well as exterior staircases eating up square footage when a plot of land may be constrictive.,

  60. 60.

    Barbara

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    @jonas:

    Did you read the article?

    Back in August, a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals panel reluctantly ruled that the initial approval was too old to challenge, but gave the greenlight to reimpose restrictions — including a shorter on-label gestational window, requiring multiple in-person visits to providers, barring the pills from being mailed — that the agency had lifted since 2016, finding them to be unnecessarily onerous.

    The Biden administration and a drug manufacturer asked the Supreme Court to review the 5th Circuit ruling. In the meantime, the high court had stayed the lower court orders, keeping mifepristone available as usual until the case is resolved (Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas dissented from granting the stay).

    In a possible sign of where this is headed, the Supreme Court also on Wednesday rejected a related cross-petition from the anti-abortion doctors, which asked it to revisit that initial approval.

    The risk of getting review is outweighed by the risk of keeping a restrictive existing appeals decision in place.  Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

  61. 61.

    Soprano2

    @Yarrow: Well, about 99% of the drugs we have now didn’t exist in the late 1700’s, so I think they’d have a hard time restricting it in that way. Not saying they won’t try that, Alito twisted himself into a pretzel to vacate Roe so they can do that.

  62. 62.

    Captain C

    @Yarrow: Tom Clancy always portrayed Soviets as worthy opponents (except for KGB-types and as necessary for whatever he was calling a plot that book), and the Russians as outright noble allies.  IIRC, before he died and the ghostwriters took over the franchise, he wrote a doorstopper in which China invaded Russia and the USA sponsored the instant accession of Russia to NATO member.  It’s all about Russians being manly (white) men and True Christians; the funny thing is that for centuries, Europeans have regarded Russians as their equivalent of not-white (I believe ‘Asiatic’ was the term used)

    ETA:  So it’s thus not that surprising that the party which looks to Clancy as one of their role models has gone all in on Russia love.  They would rather be literal Quisling puppets of an outside power that lets them kick down on and exploit women, minorities, and non-Christians than stand up for their own country if that means sharing power with Those People.

  65. 65.

    Captain C

    @Soprano2:

    I keep telling people they want what Oraban did in Hungary – elections, but in name only because they’re rigged so only one party can actually win.

    Karl Rove was pretty open about that during the Shrubya/Cheney Administration.

  66. 66.

    RaflW

    @Suzanne: I do get really tired of the endless vista of five story and five-over-ones (concrete ground floor commercial space, 5 stick-built) on the major redeveloped arteries in south Minneapolis. At least the halo/Christ’s thorns corner embellishment phase is over. Man was that bad.

  67. 67.

    NotMax

    Coding fail. Fix.

    @RaflW

    in Mom’s town on Long Island a deliberate plan has been instituted to build/re-build along the main commercial streets with shops on the ground floor and apartments (no more than three floors high, if memory serves) above. Exterior staircases simply not feasible.

  68. 68.

    RaflW

    @Captain C: Heck, CPAC has events in Budapest regularly now. And, oh, lordy, what’s that messed up prat’s name who used to blog as ‘crunchy con’ — the guy who’s wife divorced him and he’s just so bonkers about what other consenting adults get up to — practically lives up Orban’s digestive canal.

  69. 69.

    Suzanne

    @RaflW:

    I think it’s all at least as much driven by what raw or re-purposable land is available as it is about fire egress.

    Yes. It is also worth noting that lots of the European countries/cities now require two or more stairs. Development is like everything else, there’s an economy of scale. Building a little building on a high-value dense urban lot is usually not “highest and best use”.

    4th floors are, I believe, bedrooms or penthouse-deck rooms of 3rd floor units, so skate around elevator rules. Or, perhaps, being in higher value neighborhoods, these compact buildings manage to have an elevator?

     
    Other than buildings that are required to have fire access elevators (which is a smaller subset)….. elevators aren’t required. They’re usually desired because people don’t wanna schlep up the stairs, and elevator service is expected. I lived in a couple of three-story apartment buildings with multiple outdoor stairs and no elevator. One was in a somewhat dense urban neighborhood, too.

  72. 72.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Yarrow:

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Doesn’t matter. We have what we have.

    Agree.
    re alternate scenarios, most are we’re in the same position.

    Not much to gain from speculating, but imagine Ds vote to keep Kevin as speaker and then he falsely announces agreement that Schiff and Swalwell will resign their seats in exchange for him bringing up Ukraine vote. And then says he won’t bring up the bill because Dems have reneged because they care only about their own power not Ukraine. We wouldn’t be better off.

  74. 74.

    NotMax

    @RaflW

    A leisurely drive down Grand Avenue in St. Paul is an aesthetic palliative.
    ;)

    Marveled at the intelligent design of Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis many years ago. How it holds up today I dunno.

  75. 75.

    RaflW

    @NotMax: What I don’t understand is the change in how builders approach this. South Minneapolis has 100s and 100s of older 4-plexes (2×2) that have a front interior staircase and the back stairs are outdoors but roofed over – so no center hall since all 4 units use a common entrance and have rear egress. And we have shitty (or lovely, IMO) winters.

    I suppose only going up to a second floor doesn’t earn enough net income to cover the land and foundation costs. Sadly.

  78. 78.

    Captain C

    @RaflW:

    crunchy con

    Google search says Rod Dreher wrote a book with that title.  That dude has serious issues.  I wish he wouldn’t inflict them on the rest of us.

  80. 80.

    Eolirin

    @WaterGirl: We did that. They chose neither.

    In unrelated news NY will have new maps in time for 2024. That should do a lot, even if it’ll be far too late for Ukraine.

  82. 82.

    Yarrow

    @Soprano2:  They have no problem carving out exceptions to punish women regarding anything related to pregnancy. I’m sure they can figure out a reason for why this group of medications should be treated differently.

  83. 83.

    Chris Johnson

    @zhena gogolia: You mean ‘will not cease to help them’.

    I picture Biden and Harris with Zelenskyy being like ‘as you know, Russia attacked our country before yours, and we are still fighting their takeover here domestically. So it’s not like we’re in any way ambiguous on this. Looks like we’re in the same war’

  84. 84.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Eolirin: They’ve clearely sided with neither. They will leave Israel to twist if it means Putin can erradicate Ukraine.

    Israel isn’t actually twisting, though. I wish there was a way we cpuld claw back all the weapons we gave them and send them to Ukraine

    In unrelated news NY will have new maps in time for 2024. That should do a lot, even if it’ll be far too late for Ukraine.

    Ukraine seemed to have the better of the conflict with global support. Global support less the US is still not nothing. We aren’t the only ones who matter.

  87. 87.

    rikyrah

    @Soprano2:

    They’re desperately trying to maintain what they believe should be their top dog status in a changing world. I think they’ll do literally anything to ensure that white Christian straight men are still always on top in everything. They hate having to stand in line behind other just as deserving people – when they were young they were told everything good would be given to them first, and by God they’re determined to keep the world that way!

     

    This is absolutely on point.

  88. 88.

    Suzanne

    @RaflW: I agree that they’re boring and ugly, usually. About 15-20 years ago, urban planners pointed out that vibrant urban places don’t segregate commercial and residential uses….. and people actually listened. Which…. great. But then it led to dumb requirements from cities to require a percentage of the building, or a whole level, to be dedicated to commercial use, because they were trying to stimulate that mix. A good intention, but just somewhat clunky implementation. And the five-story thing comes from that being the max height you can build out of wood in most places.

    The other reason you don’t see lots of 3-bedroom apartments being built is because usually new apartment developers want to rent to DINKs and younger people who have more $$$. There’s less demand for those apartments at the price point they’re looking to lease at. No developer wants to build “affordable” apartments on high-value land.

  89. 89.

    NotMax

    @RaflW

    Been there, done that. Got the down outerwear.

    Winters in Minnesota aren’t so much a season as an era. The high temp for the entire month of January ’77 (when was residing in St. Paul) was zero degrees F.
    ;)

  90. 90.

    Suzanne

    @Captain C:

    Google search says Rod Dreher wrote a book with that title.  That dude has serious issues.  I wish he wouldn’t inflict them on the rest of us.

    Rod Dreher is so fucken weird. Hungary can have him.

  92. 92.

    Yarrow

    @Jackie:  Absolutely no moves to get those things banned or even limited have ever succeeded. Women lawmakers have tried but nope. Controlling women is always on the agenda, however.

  96. 96.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Eolirin: Because of course.  Well, until the doom as fallen, I insist on continuing like it can be prevented. We have many of our best in Congress and I plan on continuing to do what I can to support the forces of good.

    We’re undoubtedly at a tipping point. They have some advantages, as do we. What’s important is we maintain our footing until they give.

  97. 97.

    Jackie

    This is a provocative article. Basically if, as the RWNJ’s claim, Biden’s DOJ is corrupt, why is he allowing his son to be indicted?

    “To the anti-anti-Trump right, it is absolutely necessary to believe Biden is corrupting the Justice Department. Conservatives who can’t defend certain Trump actions rely on the belief that Biden is just as bad.”

    “A huge portion of anti-anti-Trump commentary is simply reverse engineering all the bad things Trump did as accusations against his Democratic rivals. If they have no evidence for this view, they’ll just say it anyway.”

    https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/12/bidens-justice-department-merrick-garland-independent-hunter-trump.html

  98. 98.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @NotMax: “They have to click their teeth together to create heat in their heads.”

    ;)

    Hysterical Hilarious. Now I’m considering a language conveyed entirely by chattering teeth. Such a thing would likely resemble Morse code.

  99. 99.

    Thor Heyerdahl

    @Barbara: Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

    What was the comment recently about “your positive news is getting in the way of my doomscrolling.”

  100. 100.

    jonas

    @cmorenc: Russian bot farms are making sure that any X-threads regarding Ukraine are filled with posts hostile to continuing support for Ukraine

    Didn’t Musk say one of the reasons he had to buy Twitter was to go after all the bots he claimed were driving its traffic?

  101. 101.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @RaflW:

    A basic primer on the Market Urbanist Turd (pitched by the same people who want to deregulate local control, aka inflict blanket upzoning everywhere) known as 5-over-1 Mixed Use (or as developers here call them “Mixed Vacancy”):

    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-13/why-america-s-new-apartment-buildings-all-look-the-same

    The FTFNYT did a piece earlier this year that’s really good on “gentrification buildings” like the Mixed Vacancy Market Urbanist Turd:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/realestate/housing-developments-city-architecture.html

    I know several of the people in the article.

    Finally, given where you’re at:

    https://myburbank.com/guest-column-looking-at-minnesota-should-give-california-pause-in-new-housing-bills/

    Remember, it’s always a yimby “tell” when they leave out “affordable” when shrieking about a so-called “housing crisis”.  It’s an affordable housing crisis.

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    @Soprano2:

     I know, they love the Russian government because it persecutes gay and trans people and tries to keep women in their place while embracing Christianity as the true religion. It’s what they want to replicate here.

     

    No lie told

  103. 103.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: At least where I live, there probably is no alternative to requiring a certain percentage or at least a ground level floor being devoted to retail, otherwise it will not happen at all.  A retail location has different requirements and cannot really be shoehorned into something that was built as residential.

    Again where I live, it turns out that the bigger impediment to renting these spaces arises out of how the locality defines “retail” to exclude many commercial activities that would otherwise locate in such spaces (professional services, fitness studios, etc.).  Relaxing those rules has helped populate the space but don’t fulfill the desire for “cute little shops” that one of my neighbors recently expressed at a community meeting.   She was gobsmacked to learn that when the building was in its planning stages, neighbors demanded that the building only consider “low volume” retail activities.  In this case, they got a Mattress Warehouse.  Which she loathes.  She wants the right to veto any retail tenant that does not satisfy her criteria for being a cute little shop.  It took everything I had not to ask her what kind of dream world she is inhabiting.

    I know it takes all kinds, but sometimes, the stupid, it burns a hole in my brain.

  104. 104.

    jonas

    @Soprano2: I certainly hope they’ll reject it, too. But given how seriously this particular court takes precedent and all that, you’ll forgive me for being a little nervous.

  105. 105.

    Suzanne

    @NotMax: I keep saying — and then someone calls me a neoliberal Reaganite shill, LAWL — but short of just absolutely massive governmental incentives and mandates (which there is incredibly little appetite for)…. the only way to get “affordable” housing is to build a lot of housing. It’s like cars…. when there are enough opportunities for multiple competitors in the market, some builders will go for the high-end bespoke consumer, some will get good at building cheaper, simpler buildings and doing so profitably (but this will probably require relaxing rules around setbacks and “character” and that shit). And buildings depreciate like everything else, so even if we build a shit-ton of only high-end stuff, our existing houses would become more affordable. But this only happens if we build enough to keep that cycle moving. Which we are not.

  106. 106.

    rikyrah

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    SCOTUS will take up two cases related to availability of mifepristone.

     

    From the article:

     

    There are also timeliness and exhaustion questions, concerning whether the groups brought their complaints soon enough and whether they went through the proper agency channels first. The high court might be more than happy to home in on the procedural issues and sidestep another (highly electorally motivating) abortion bombshell. Pharmaceutical companies, advocates and experts have also warned that upending the FDA’s approval of mifepristone could open the floodgates to an enormous tranche of drugs and medical devices being challenged too.

     

    For me, this is the saving grace….it’s tied to Big Pharma. Knock this down, and Big Pharma is exposed.

     

    That rejection coupled with the serious procedural issues with the case, may, depending on the bloodlust of the right-wing Supreme Court justices, keep the case from being a direct attack on abortion access. It’s far from clear that the anti-abortion doctors who brought the initial lawsuit had standing to do so. Their claimed injuries are of a hypothetical nature, including that some women might experience adverse reactions from the (very safe) drug and need treatment in their emergency rooms.

     

    Once again..how do these muthaphuckas have STANDING to even bring this case?

  108. 108.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: Amen, AMEN AMEN!!

    When people in my neighborhood bleat that the “new apartments” are not affordable, that’s exactly what I say.  We need more housing and new housing is always going to be relatively more expensive without subsidies.

  109. 109.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: Thanks, it’s not hard to figure this out when you live among them. Just listening to them complain about how “those people” get everything now, as if somehow “those people” are undeserving of anything and they deserve to get everything, tells you what they think. I can’t prove it, but I believe that the reason our office stopped adopting a Share Your Christmas family was because one year we got a black family. I noticed that the participation was less enthusiastic that year; I guess it had never occurred to them before that we might be helping black people. I think we did it one more year and then stopped. The “official” reason I heard was that too many of the employees felt they weren’t highly-paid enough to do this, even though in previous years the employees were always enthusiastic about doing it.

  111. 111.

    Barbara

    @Soprano2: I mean, just consider what the default rule would be if the FDA’s approval process is not valid: either nothing can be approved or nothing needs to be approved.  Does that mean I can independently challenge super expensive drugs based on the fact that the FDA hasn’t appropriately considered their adverse effects?  The willingness of people to burn down the modern civilized state solely in order to keep women in chains is revolting.

  112. 112.

    Suzanne

    @Barbara: GOD. That’s the kind of dumb shit that sends me up a tree. Honestly, we give residents too much say-so about this stuff. I’m sure the residents wanted “low-volume” retail because they didn’t want to deal with traffic or noise from a large loading dock.

    One of the things I like about my neighborhood in PGH is that we have a walkable business district and it is very practical. We have a couple of “cute little shops”, but more of it is drug store, coffee shop, dry cleaner, Chinese food, smoke shop (not for me, but for others), bakery, barbershop, nail place, post office, library branch, etc. Stuff we actually need regularly.

    (I could do without the meth heads, tho.)

  113. 113.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Trickle-down housing as pitched by yimbys is a grift, just like the economic “theory” that it’s based on.  Still no supporting data to justify the claims.

    One of the more cogent take downs of that:

    https://thewalrus.ca/there-is-no-housing-crisis/

    A couple of related analyses to the “build/build/build” yimby mantra:

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/housing-crisis-build-more-homes-1342c24f

    https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/affordable-housing-crisis

    Bear in mind I’m not here to actually debate yimbys. Taking a page from the late, great Steve Gilliard’s classic statement from back in the day: I’m not writing to make yimbys happy. I want them to hate my opinions. I’m not interested in debating them. I want to stop them.

    Admittedly, I’m not succeeding.  But talk to any housing justice advocate nationally, particularly POC, and you’ll get an earful on this neoliberal crap that they see as simply 21st century urban renewal w/o the condemnation and eminent domain approach.

  114. 114.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Soprano2: When the feds required that public swimming pools be integrated, some white communities closed their pools and filled them with concrete. The only good thing I can say about neo-Nazis is they’re honest about being bigoted assholes.

  115. 115.

    jonas

    @rikyrah: And all that political authoritarianism and Slavic-Orthodox ethno-nationalism has produced such great results for them, too. When you think of Russia, don’t you think of a place where people thrive and lead happy, fulfilling lives?

  116. 116.

    Suzanne

    @Barbara:

    When people in my neighborhood bleat that the “new apartments” are not affordable, that’s exactly what I say.  We need more housing and new housing is always going to be relatively more expensive without subsidies. 

    There is so much stupidity I see on this issue. On the edge of my neighborhood, a site that used to be a Deaf school is being scraped and new apartments are being built there. At least some of the apartments are “affordable” (City requirement). My neighbors are not happy about having those people nearby. But in two other city neighborhoods…. projects got shot down by the City Council. One because it was a high-end project and residents complained that it would block their view of the park. Another was to replace a shitty one-story building (currently holding a grocery store) and a big parking lot around it with a taller building with a space for the grocery store on the ground floor. It would “change the character” of the neighborhood, apparently.

    And then people complain that housing is expensive! No fucken shit! You don’t want to build any for poor people, you don’t want to build any for rich people.

  117. 117.

    Barbara

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Okay, no debate then.  As a yimby I am looking solely at my own neighborhood and the fact that we already have many four story apartment buildings and wondering honestly why having six story apartment buildings is the end of our status as a suburban heaven, but having a super giant single house that takes up the same square footage ground space but only houses two people is not.  Yeah, sure, whatever, you are probably very comfortably ensconced in your own little Eden.  So am I, but my kids are definitely not.

  119. 119.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: One good thing about Virginia is that any effort to enact a use decision based on impeding people’s views is not legally viable.  You do not have a property interest in your view that would be recognized as curtailing someone else’s interest in developing their property.  Likewise “character” of the neighborhood doesn’t count.  We get a little frustrated with the “by right” nature of Virginia property laws, but in some cases they provide clear unambiguous guidance that makes life a lot easier for municipal decision makers.

  120. 120.

    evodevo

    @NotMax:   Hey! I remember that winter…wasn’t much better here in KY…if I recall correctly, our high temp for at least 3 weeks was 15..and it got down to 20 below several times.  City water lines all over KY froze up – we had never had such a debacle…

    We were living on a farm in the country in a mobile home…didn’t have running water for 2 months – interesting times!!

  121. 121.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Eolirin: That’s what we have the winners of last election around for. Our best are on it. I expect they’ll find a way to get support to Ukraine. 

    We can’t do much more than pressure and provide what small support we can for Ukraine and our own communities.

    We aren’t dead yet and neither is Ukraine.

  123. 123.

    Eolirin

    @Suzanne: We need those massive government incentives and mandates just to build the housing stock we need, never mind whether it’s specifically made to be affordable. If we’re going to have to get them anyway, we may as well also try to do them in ways that makes more affordable housing happen sooner rather than waiting for the market to correct. This is a global crisis though, and it absolutely needs to be addressed in some fashion, ideally before we’re left with a solution that involves a massive drop off in demand.

  124. 124.

    Juju

    @RevRick: I usually make pfefferneuse for Christmas, but I haven’t yet this year. For a really good pfefferneuse it has to age at least two weeks to have that snappy pfefferneuse flavor. It also takes more black pepper than one would expect. If you need a good recipe I have one.

  125. 125.

    Barbara

    @rikyrah: My mother suffered an actual, known adverse reaction from a drug that is considered much safer than alternatives and she died as a result.  Do I have a right to sue to get it taken off the market?  These people are insane, I mean, objectively insane, living within a closed loop brain circuitry that tells them that only they can protect women, even women who don’t want their protection.

  126. 126.

    Suzanne

    @Barbara: It blows my mind that we can have a growing population (the US gained roughly around 50 million people since 2000) and not keep up with that pace of growth (added only approximately 20 million housing units during that time)….. and not think that scarcity underlies that issue.

    Of course landlords are driving up the costs of rent. They’re doing it because they can do it. We’re helping them do that by having more people fighting over relatively fewer places to live.

  127. 127.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Eolirin:

    Patrick Condon for years was a leading pusher (in Vancouver) of the neoliberal, market-rate approach. He’s seen what’s happened when that exact agenda is enacted, as has been done in Vancouver, and that it’s had the exact opposite effect of what it’s proponents say.

    His latest on a way to work toward *affordable* housing solutions and not simply the market-rate build-at-all-costs crap:

    Patrick Condon: Behold Vancouver, where there are housing solutions to be found – Economy, Law & Politics | Business in Vancouver (biv.com)

    If you don’t want to deal with all the background (it’s good reading and informs one about the stuff pitched here by some commentators), search for the word “Vienna”.

  128. 128.

    Eolirin

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Dude, the US and Canadian housing markets are not the same and we’re talking about the US one. We have an actual housing unit shortfall in this country.

    That other things are also necessary doesn’t mean you can make any of those work when you have a scarcity of housing units.

  129. 129.

    Suzanne

    @Eolirin:

    We need those massive government incentives and mandates just to build the housing stock we need, never mind whether it’s specifically made to be affordable. 

    I’m…. not sure of that? Up until 2008, private development worked like gangbusters in the Sun Belt. I don’t think anyone wants a return to drive-til-you-qualify…..but there was an absolutely massive amount of construction for years, and there wasn’t a lot of direct incentive.

  130. 130.

    Barbara

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: I cannot speak for every community in America, but calling where I live a “build at all costs” market strategy is pretty insane and does not acknowledge the incredible non-market impediments to building anything that has any hope of creating housing for more people.

  131. 131.

    Barbara

    @Suzanne: The incentive was the misbegotten monetization of real estate.  The same thing happened in Spain.  The results were not favorable, but there has probably been a fair amount of reversion to the norm so that at least some of these communities are livable and maybe affordable.

  132. 132.

    Eolirin

    @Suzanne: And then it stopped and it still hasn’t fully restarted, and there’s a bigger shortfall that needs to get filled. And now interest rates are higher and it’s harder to finance things. What causes construction rates to go back up to the necessary levels under these conditions?

  133. 133.

    Suzanne

    @Eolirin: The other thing to remember when we talk about a scarcity of units is that the US population is growing older on average and the age of first marriage is also climbing, so we need more and different types of homes than we have had historically. Probably more studios than we have been building. And people are having fewer kids on average. All of which leads to needing more units than we have.

  134. 134.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: Our pub is in one of those planned developments that  mimics the old time look and feel of downtowns – brick two and three story buildings, that kind of thing. It was originally platted in 1992, but didn’t really take off until about the last five years or so. There are several three and four story apartment buildings and loft buildings with office/retail on the bottom of them. There are a lot of restrictive covenants – we cannot have a drive-thru window, for example. It’s kind of a cool place.

  135. 135.

    Suzanne

    @Eolirin: We’ve had some amount of restart of construction. We’re actually back to something normal now (per year). But we had a few years of just nothing….. and houses are durable, so a shortage of houses built 15- 20 years ago continues to hurt us today.

    I can buy your argument about the financing being a form of incentive. That’s sensible.

    A important aspect of building affordably today is economy of scale, which allows for prefabrication. Lots of simple, boxy buildings, made up of standard, shop-made pieces. Roof trusses, partitions, etc.

  136. 136.

    Ruckus

    @Yarrow:

    Could Dems have blackmailedgotten concessions from him to get funding for Ukraine in exchange for keeping his job?

    Likely not. From the rethuglican side Kevin had to be one of them to keep his job and from the democrat side he has to at least be in the middle. IOW he wasn’t good at the job because the difference between the sides today is as wide as the Grand Canyon is deep, and everyone around him knew it. So the rethuglicans put in a guy who is only on their side and will only ever be completely on their side. And it shows, in both his personality and in his abilities.

    We are at a point, in this country that with much better communications, where all aspects of conservatism is visible and only those either deep in it or those thinking this is a realistic governing position will support their concepts of not actual governing but actual ownership of everything. Every concept, every under the table payout, every totally undemocratic concept that they can get away with to line their pockets. It’s about control and money. That’s why SFB is their leader, it’s ALL about the money.

  139. 139.

    wjca

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Here’s scary news. SCOTUS will take up two cases related to availability of mifepristone.

    Amazingly enough, that’s actually good news.  Because, if they hadn’t, the lower court decision making it illegal to send the drug thru the mail would stand.  Granted, they may uphold that.  But if they hadn’t taken the case, there would be no chance.

  141. 141.

    Subsole

    @jonas:

    All these people know about Russia is  ‘Russia stronk!’ memeshittery gleaned from Fox News quislings, internet botnets (digital and meat), and Taibbi’s sexual exploitation brag rag.

    Yes. Yes, they absolutely think Russia is heaven. I wish they’d move there.

  144. 144.

    Ruckus

    @jonas:

    When you think of Russia, don’t you think of a place where people thrive and lead happy, fulfilling lives?

    Well if you only consider the top of the shit pile then it can be appropriate to think that it is a place where people thrive and lead somewhat happy lives. Russia is a place where the very tip top of the pile is billionaires and much/most of the rest is families averaging around $24K/year. The top of the pile have large yachts, multiple homes, most everyone else are relatively rather poor. Yes we have poor people here as well, we also have at least a relatively well off middle class.

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

    @WaterGirl:

    Ukraine was going to go until November 2024.

    Not sure what you are saying here.

     

    I realized a couple of months ago, when all the bad news for Russia was coming out, that Vlad is going to burn and bomb through November 2024. He’s betting on the Orange one winning.

    I honestly believe if Biden wins, he will try and find a way to end his Ukraine folly.

     

    But, nothing will be resolved before November 2024

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