When Trump says immigrants are poisoning the blood of our country, maybe he means Elon
— I Smoked Rudy Giuliani (@BlackKnight10k) December 18, 2023
Immigrant John Oliver does a nice little job of summing up the current state of the Muskverse:
John Oliver taking down billonaire idiot Elon Musk for half an hour is a wonderful thing 🙌pic.twitter.com/owAwpUWScI
— dave ❄️ 🥕 🧻 (@mrdavemacleod) December 18, 2023
HumboldtBlue
Oliver is a Liverpudlian, supports the Reds.
Youse all don’t know it, but youse support the Reds too.
“Cept for any Toffees.
Baud
Narrator: He does not mean Elon.
Balconesfault
I was thinking Melania…
mrmoshpotato
@Balconesfault:
Same, because it’s true.
Tony Jay
@HumboldtBlue:
Brummie, though of good Liverpudlian stock, so I’ll allow it.
Another recipient of the Oxbridge Touch (he went to Cambridge with David Mitchell and Richard Ayoade) but, like them, he’s earned the smoother ride the Old Boys network afforded him.
HumboldtBlue
@Tony Jay:
Oliver is Brummie? I just asked my friend Brendan, Liverpool native, why Brummie?
I had no clue.
williamC
Am I the only person getting the Jon Steward vs Jim Cramer vibe from this clip? I actually think this might hurt Elon a bit?
He woke up in a Khole yesterday, smoked some weed, watched Last Week Tonight, and had a sad because John Oliver doesn’t like him.
Martin
@williamC: I think you underestimate just how self-unaware Musk is.
Brachiator
@Tony Jay:
Is there a law in the UK that you cannot be a comedian unless you were a member of Cambridge Footlights?
Tony Jay
@HumboldtBlue:
Dad was from Liverpool. Mum was from one of those semi-civilised tribes that roam the Wirral peninsula and trade seashells with sailors on the Mersey. God knows why they settled down in Birmingham, but chances are it was to align with one of those weird Messianic prophecies. Kind of like why Jared Kushner was born in New Jersey despite neither of his parents being officially Made Men in the Mafia.
As long as Oliver is a proper Red, though, he’s allowed to claim all attendant Scouse privileges.
Tony Jay
@Brachiator:
It was brought in around the late 90s under Defence Of The Realm Act statutes. Too many working class oiks were getting above themselves and banging on the Light Entertainment world’s doors and something simply had to be done to re-establish a proper balance.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
Open thread, eh…
Two weeks ago, I had the astrophotography night from hell. The low point was when I went to plug in my tracker to recharge the battery and the USB cable just went into the charging port without connecting to anything and I then heard something moving about in the tracker as it tilted it left and right. I disassembled the tracker and found the USB connector had detached from the logic board. So while the tracker still worked, there was no way to recharge the battery, so it was a brick, though a disassembled brick.
I’d planned on getting a new tracker in the upcoming year, since I’d had the old one for 6 years and I’ve been getting a lot of frames that I’ve had to reject due to star motion. I also wanted to get a tracker/mount that would have go-to functionality(you tell it you want to shoot the Rosette nebula and the mount will point to the Rosette nebula). The is really useful if I want to shoot here in light polluted Glendale(it took me a hour to find the Rosette last month). I also wanted something that was somewhat expandable(though If I won the lottery, I’d settle for the 2k ZWO AM5).
After a bit of research I decided to get the SkyWatcher Star Adventurer GTI, planning to get it around the beginning of the year. Sunday, I noticed that the price had dropped 13%, so I bought one. When I came home from work for lunch(or dinner), there was a box on my porch with “heavy” labels on it. I can’t go out to give it a trail run(I need an adaptor to attach the camera and it is raining), but hopefully have a chance to test it out in the next few days.
satby
JV Last at the Bulwark eviscerates the NYT. I think the nation owes a debt of gratitude to DougJ.
raven
@HumboldtBlue: Boy am I getting edumacted here!
Birmingham Dialect Words (Brummie) [Korean Billy]
R-Jud
@raven: Tories lie, bab!
Birmingham’s not bad. I’ve lived in it more or less tolerably for 18 years. I’d probably be less well-disposed toward it if my daughter had picked up the local accent, though (she sounds American, like me).
RevRick
The 1920s (anti) Immigration laws were designed to keep “those” people from the sh1thole countries of Eastern and Southern Europe out. America, it was asserted, was meant for the people of proper Anglo-Saxon stock, not inferior breeds like Italians, Poles and Jews, who brought crime, disease, low intelligence, and the inability to assimilate to the noble, elevated American way. Nevermind the fact that these self-same inferior breeds were promptly herded into the dangerous, dirty jobs that no self-respecting A-mer-I-can would deign to do.
Fascism will find a ready home on our soil, because historically we have flirted with it time and again. The obliteration and displacement of indigenous populations, the institution of slavery, and the war against Mexico were all done based in the fascistic assumptions of white supremacy. Jim Crow was a fascist regime, greatly admired by none other than one A. Hitler. Lately, MSNBC has been banging the drum about how close a thing it was countering fascist sentiments in the United States in the late 1930s, right up to Pearl Harbor.
Sinclair Lewis completely understood the undercurrents of our society in which fascism would flourish.
Are we headed for a crackup?
kalakal
@raven: one a bad day Brummies all sound as if they have terminal depression, which is unfair, Brums an ok place. Then again, if I feel like it, I sound like a part of the Four Yorkshiremen sketch
JML
@R-Jud: I lived in Birmingham for a year when I was a kid and came back to the US with the accent. took most of the summer for it to fade out. Still very fond of that place and been an Aston Villa fan ever since.
satby
LiminalOwl
@satby: Thank you. I was trying to decide whether to link to the astoundingly bad FTFNYT piece last night, and then I fell asleep. (Another teaser, for those who haven’t clicked through: Trump’s appeal isn’t authoritarianism; it’s that he’s a moderate. Yes, the ragebait opinion piece actually says that in so many words.)
Kay
The NYTimes should really make more an effort not to gloat – Trump hasn’t come near to winning this yet. Political media calling this race for Trump 11 months out will be up there with their last terrible call – where they announced women didn’t care about bodily autonomy and would never vote on it.
David 🌈 ☘The Establishments☘🌈 Koch
He’s obviously referring to his mother who was an immigrant from Scotland and his paternal grandfather who was an immigrant from Germany.
Spanky
Here’s a free wapo article, which I offer just for the late afternoon picture of Great Falls.
cmorenc
The crew who efficiently cleaned the gutters yesterday from our steep-slope rood yesterday spoke no English- just Spanish. They were employees of the same company we have hired for the 17 years we’ve owned this house – used to be white blue-collar crews, but last few years predominately hispanic ESL (barely) crews, probably because the company can’t keep workers willing to walk steep roofs in detachable cork-bottoms – work is too dangerous. Most houses in our neighborhood have roofs too steep and difficult-to-access for their WASP owners (like us) to not need outside help with more dangerous maintenance work like that. When we had the roof replaced 3 years ago, the crew was strictly ESL, and the outfit we contracted the roof job with is the oldest, most reputable in the area.
My own paternal-side grandparents were immigrants (from Germany c. 1910-16) – grandmother was literally an indentured servant paying off her passage working dirty jobs on a dairy farm. Grandfather was an orphan who was a low-level merchant ship crewman who got stranded in the US by the start of WW1 and also had to start out doing low-level dirty machine maintenance work. Both landed in this country without a penny in their pocket at a time when Germany was a very unpopular country here in the US, and had to work their way up from jobs too dirty to be attractive to most US citizens.
Baud
Trump has obviously been a virulent xenophobe for a long time, but I wonder how much of his recent rant is directed at Nickie Haley (for the minds of GOP voters).
Baud
@Kay:
They don’t care. Their subscriptions will only go up.
Nelle
@Kay: NBC had a piece on how Biden is losing the youth vote. They mostly interviewed young men and the discussion was focused on Gaza and Israel. Just think…Trump will be Gaza’s savior!?! Anyway, nary a mention of reproductive health care. Poof, hone, such a boring topic from yesteryear.
kalakal
Every time Florida tries this crap agriculture in the state collapses. I remember a few years back seeing signs that said basically “come in, pick it yourself, take it for free” not even ” Pick it yourself it’s cheaper” but they were giving it away. Florida already having labor force problems thank to governor pudding boots , there are answer is legalize child labour.
Quinerly
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishments☘🌈 Koch:
I came here to add that. So glad I saw your comment first.
Kay
I suspected this about Thomas because you hear it a lot from people who are in a nonprofit or public job and think they would make much more in the private sector – partly it depends on how much time they spend around wealthy people – the more time they spend around rich people the more they resent not being one. Of course, no one actually knows if they would make more in the private sector, but they all believe they would.
But this is interesting:
Excuse me? How did they get that mortgage? The only thing I can think of is the lender looked at the lifetime appointment and thought “there is virtualy no chance this peson ever loses this job no matter what he does, so at least 174k annually, for life” – maybe, because it’s true.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Wow! While I’ve seen Great Falls from that angle a number of times, I’ve never seen it with quite so dramatic a sky in the background.
Kay
@Nelle:
OTOH the biggest drag on Biden’s polling right now is disapproval on Gaza. It’s very unpopular. I don’t know what he could or should do about it, but it is unpopular and broadly so. Netanyahu is opposed to Biden politically – he’s a Trump supporter. He has absolutely no incentive to limit civilian casualties, especially because they harm Biden politically. It’s win/win for Bibi.
What a mess.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Tony Jay: It uses the words and takes the form of English, yet…
Perhaps I’ll be able to decipher it after I read the Silmarillion.
Geminid
This morning’s Politico Playbook links to a long interview with former Rep. Deborah Mucarsal-Powell, by Mel Leonor of The 19th*. Mucarsel-Powell is the Democrat who will likely face Senator Rick Scott next year.
In 2018, Mucarsel-Powell defeated Republican incumbent Carlos Curbelo in an inland Dade County district. Then, she was among several Florida Democrats swept from office in 2020.
In 1985, Mucarsel-Powell immigrated to the US from Ecuador with her mom and four sisters. She is 52 years old.
I had not heard of The 19th*. The site is staffed by woman journalists including a couple from The Texas Tribune. It’s named after the 19th Amendment by which women won the right to vote, and concentrates on women’s political participation. The asterisk is intended to signify that the work begun by the 19th Amendment is incomplete.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
I sure wish Thomas would hurry up and find out.
My guess is that chances are good that he could sign a long-term contract with Faux News as a senior legal commentator or some such. But better there than on SCOTUS. Give Biden a chance to make it a little less bogus!
Chief Oshkosh
@David 🌈 ☘The Establishments☘🌈 Koch:
Regardless of where his ancestors originated, their sexy-time activities definitely resulted in the poisoning of the blood of our country.
Of course, Trump may be referring to his own children, since 4 of his 5 poisonous spawn were birthed by immigrants (whose legal status has always been murky — do I have the tone right?).
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@kalakal:
@JML:
Fans of the Great British Bake Off know they got a new host this year, Alison Hammond. As soon as she opened her mouth I was struck / riveted / amazed / charmed by her accent.
A little research taught me of the existence of Brummies, of which she is one. Who resisted attempts early in her career to give her the “BBC accent.”
Kay
@Geminid:
It’s a nonprofit backed (in part) by the Murdoch son who is not horrible. So that family is not 100% awful.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
Perhaps the rigors of a political campaign will demonstrate to enough of the American public that some things are out of the American President’s hands. Perhaps a strong push on Congress (eta: and on issues important to home) despite the Presidential race will help in this regard
EATA: Congress is just rife with examples of Republican irresponsibility. Trump is just the greatest pinnacle such irresponsibility has yet reached.
Kay
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
I don’t think we can tell people foreign policy is “out of the President’s hands”. I just don’t find this persuasive.
We’re not talking about Biden micromanaging battle plans. We’re talking about him insisting they follow international law and norms. They have to stop bombing hospitals with people in them. You can’t both say he’s doing a great job on foreign policy and also say he’s powerless to influence any of it.
My hope is it ends soon, both for Biden and for the sake of the people there, but of course there’s no incentive for Netanyahu to end it either since we made continuing it a condition of his remaining in power. I don’t see any way to extert any leverage on Netanyahu from any direction, which is a really bad place for the US to be.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
He has influenced it already. He, alongside the international community, pushed for a ceasefire. It held for a few days, longer than I recall was first anticipated.
But when Biden insists on something and is refused anyway, what then? Joe Biden is not the President of Israel.
Timill
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: He should, as is traditional, send a gunboat…
Or in this case a carrier group…
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Timill: Greater military involvement is certainly one decision that might be made. I question it’s value as a preventative with an American public that has a lopsided, but deeply polarized, view of which side needs to be reined in.
trnc
If we’re talking bloodlines, it’s too early to know how Barron will turn out, but we know for sure that Ivana did.
evodevo
@Kay: Bibi is using this as an excuse to eliminate the Palestinian “problem” and he won’t be pulling back anytime soon…he doesn’t care how he is polling among Israelis, because he holds all the cards right now. I have NO idea how this situation will sort out, but it won’t be pretty, and the only way the US can exert any influence is to cut off his military aid, and I doubt that can be accomplished…
Geminid
@Kay: The US did not make continuing the war a condition of Netanyahu staying in power. That’s a matter of Israel’s internal political dynamic.
As a practical matter, Israel will have a hard time prolonging this war beyond January. There are three external parties with leverage over Israel: the US, Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and the EU and its members. Right now, these countries do not lean hard on Israel because they back Israel’s goal of removing Hamas from power in Gaza.
Israel has about four more weeks to succeed or fail at this. Then the pressure to stop will be intense. Israel may not want to stop fighting, but they did not want to stop in 1967 or 1973 either. They were made to stop.
Anyway
@Kay:
I agree. We keep seeing statements from Biden, Blinken, Sec Austin asking the Israeli government /IDF to “do more to reduce civilian deaths” – and they just ignore the message. Biden and the admin believe they can influence the Israeli govt through backchannels but Bibi and his team seem to be impervious.
Anyway
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation:
Stop rushing more weapons? (I mean Israel has tons of weapons -= this is not a Ukraine situation) — maybe stay neutral in the UN?
Shalimar
@HumboldtBlue: As someone who got into football by ordering Championship Manager from England in 1994 (it wasn’t sold in the US then), I still have a fondness for Everton. The original creators of the game were Everton fans and an easy way to get good in early versions was to sign a lot of overrated Everton youth players.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Anyway: He’s walking a tightrope. I don’t follow closely enough to know every move they made, but from the moves I’ve seen I think he is balancing the demands on him and humanitarian considerations fairly well.
Decisions will continue to be made. I’m distressed at our history of Israel policy, not Biden personally.
Paul in KY
@HumboldtBlue: Think Liverpool is going to take the PL this year. Klopp has his ‘mentality monsters’ back. Plus, my team has been missing our best player for awhile.
wjca
In this case, the voters short memories may be a plus. Gaza will be settled, one way or the other**, by summer. So more current considerations will be far more significant for them.
** Whether by cleansing the strip of all Palestinians, or by Israel stopping somewhere short of that, remains to be seen. The former probably being the preference of Netanyahu’s government.
Ruckus
@Martin:
His unawareness is likely due to living in Elonland. It’s not a separate world, it’s a separate universe. There are likely other inhabitants than himself but because they all live in their own ______land, while they may be one species they all have their own noticeable traits and unlikeable concepts.
Emily B.
@Balconesfault: Rupert Murdoch! For real.