Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about it’s history.”

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

If you’re looking for someone who’s young and athletic, go watch a fucking movie.

I desperately hope that, yet again, I am wrong.

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

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

Tide comes in. Tide goes out. You can’t explain that.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The lights are all blinking red.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

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

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

We’re not going back!

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Books are my comfort food!

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Monday Morning Open Thread: New Week, Same Goals

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167Comments

  3. 3.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah: ​
     

    Good morning to you!

    We’ve got bright sunshine on the snow here in beautiful Calvert County. Looking forward to a pleasant day.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: Good-ish, anyway. The National Weather Service continues to ignore my request that they rename “Wintry Mix”, which sounds like a bag of Brach’s candies, to something more appropriate to the feelings it raises. Admittedly my suggestions are not suitable for a government agency or small children, but work with me, people.

  6. 6.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @rikyrah: Good morning, one and all!

    In the spirit of “sharing is caring,” here’s an excellent ad hitting the abortion issue, which was released by the Biden-Harris campaign yesterday. I expect this is just the beginning.

    ETA: Today’s “Letter from an American” by Heather Cox Richardson, with an intriguing historical take on the Dobbs decision and its political aftermath, with potential parallels to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

  7. 7.

    Shalimar

    Frost isn’t wrong about what they would do.  He is mocking them now, but read the inscription at the base of the Statue of Liberty on FoxNews and talk radio for a few weeks to generate outrage and I guarantee 90% of Republicans will support destroying it.

  8. 8.

    lowtechcyclist

    @matt: And the hammer-and-sickle after the ‘K’.  He might as well come out and say he’s a charter member of the Vladimir Putin Fan Club.

    Fuck him.

  9. 9.

    eclare

    Totally OT:  I finally left my house yesterday and got pet food!  The streets getting out of my neighborhood were still dicey, but the one main street was ok.

    My pets looked at me with relief with a bowl of normal kibble:  finally.

  10. 10.

    SFAW

    I love how the “earn my vote” crew doesn’t understand that this is what that looks like.

    It’s partly that, and partly “I want you to give me Policies A, B, C, D etc. through Z, but if you miss one of them — let’s say W — you haven’t earned my precious, pure vote.”

  11. 11.

    dm

    Not to take away from Rep. Frost’s point, but I recently learned that the Statue of Liberty was not originally a symbol of welcoming immigrants.

    The project began in 1865. She stands on broken chains. She’s the Statue of Abolition.

    Of course, his point, that they would like to repeal what she stands for, still stands.

  12. 12.

    SFAW

    @Ken:

    The National Weather Service continues to ignore my request that they rename “Wintry Mix”

    Glad to see I’m not the only one who hates the phrase.

  13. 13.

    Soprano2

    They sent out a department-wide text suggesting that people stay home, but I have to take off a lot the next two weeks so I came in anyway. The side streets are a 5 mph ice rink, but once you get to the main streets they’re just wet. Most ironic of all, by noon it’ll all be water because it’s going to warm up and keep raining. Plus, I’m old enough that I remember when they didn’t cancel things every time two snowflakes came out of the sky. And yeah, ice is different. I don’t blame anyone for staying home, but that’s just not how I’m made.

  16. 16.

    SFAW

    @Soprano2:

    Plus, I’m old enough that I remember when they didn’t cancel things every time two snowflakes came out of the sky.

    Hell, if it started raining MAGAts (from a high enough altitude, sans ‘chutes), I’d cancel school etc. in celebration.

    Or is that not what you meant by “snowflakes”?

  18. 18.

    Princess

    That top picture in Harris’s tweet — they’ve given them the same skin colour. Irl Biden has pasty old man white skin and they’ve given him a good tan. And I think they’ve lightened Harris a snick to match, though they’ve also given her some deeper shadow around the neck. It’s fascinating.

  20. 20.

    Scout211

    Good morning everyone.  VPOTUS is off and running.  And she will be front and center in the fight for abortion rights.  Thank you, VP Harris.

    WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris is taking center stage in the Democrats’ renewed push for abortion rights during this year’s election and she will mark the 51st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling on Monday in Wisconsin.

    It will be the first in a series of events hosted by Harris, and it comes one day before she joins President Joe Biden at another campaign event focused on abortion in Virginia. First lady Jill Biden and second gentleman Doug Emhoff are also expected to be there.

    In her speech in Wisconsin, Harris plans to hammer former President Donald Trump for saying he is “proud” to have helped overturn Roe v. Wade, which he enabled by nominating three conservative justices to the U.S. Supreme Court during his term.

  22. 22.

    New Deal democrat

    I’d love to see the Biden campaign make a series of commercials directly copying Monty Python’s “So what have the Romans ever done for us?” skit, and aim them directly at the “earn my vote” crowd.

  23. 23.

    Jeffro

    @Ken:Admittedly my suggestions are not suitable for a government agency or small children, but work with me, people.

    “$%#^ing $&%^& mix!!!1!”

    I like it.  Count me in!

  24. 24.

    Suzanne

    I have been luxuriating in the complete and total failure of Ron DeSantis. It’s really something special. I commented to Mr. Suzanne this morning that I hope Casey is standing in her closet, in front of a whole kaleidoscope of trashy dresses that she isn’t going to get to wear, weeping into her Kellogg’s All-Bran.

    Next, I hope for the same for the Florida Ferengi.

  25. 25.

    Another Scott

    @BellyCat: +1

    Something something opinions are like something.

    I was musing just now that it might be good if Tweets and similar things had non-spoofable general-area geolocation tags so one could see if someone spouting off was a bot at the IRA in St. Petersburg.  But, of course, everything is spoofable…

    Still, one should keep one’s wits about them while out and about on the intertubes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    God, I saw a clip of his endorsement of Trump this morning. It was so pathetic.

    Where does Ron DeSantis go to apologize to the rest of us?

  29. 29.

    New Deal democrat

    A follow up thought on yesterday’s discussion about Trump’s likely fading into senility…

    I saw a satirical clip this morning of Trump circa 2019. While what the man said was unbelievably stupid, it at least was coherent. As in stringing sentences together to make a point.

    The more recent clips suggest he can’t even do that anymore on a regular basis.

    Trump is probably going to wrap up the nomination this week, because Haley is probably smart enough not to want to be trounced in her home state. Which means the media will focus even more on Trump and his rallies.

    Now, Reagan supposedly was already sliding into senility in 1987-88, but he had enough self-awareness (and/or good handlers) not to get involved in public appearances that would show it.

    Trump has no such self-control. In fact, like all demagogues,  he relies on his rallies to road-test slogans and themes. Which means that his mental lapses are going to continue on full display. And they won’t get any better. They will become more frequent and probably worse.

    Which in turn means that the issue of his basic mental competence is not going to go away. In fact it will probably become more salient.

    This is the kind of issue that will give many independent or swing voters pause.

  31. 31.

    Caveatimperator

    @New Deal democrat:

    In particular, it’s going to blunt the Biden is Old talking point.

    Biden is old like your grandfather who tells great stories about his youth.

    Trump is old like your grandfather who you wish wouldn’t come to Thanksgiving dinner.

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: I checked it, no thanx. BillyJean went out and was just fine on the ice (4PawDrive) but poor Percy’s feet were all over the place.

  33. 33.

    Scout211

    Dean Phillips (who?) is looking to join the money train at no labels.

    This is one of the least surprising, easily predicted pieces of news from the presidential campaign.  I think several jackals have already predicted it.

    Phillips, who told the Times that he is in touch with Nancy Jacobson, No Labels’ chief executive, insisted that he would only join No Labels in an effort to stop Trump. “If they put someone at the top of the ticket who could actually drive votes from Donald Trump, every Democrat in the United States of America should be celebrating it,’ Phillips said. “They haven’t made that determination.

    The Biden campaign is not worried.

    At the end of the day, there’s only going to be two parties that have an ability to get to 270 electoral votes and that’s going to be Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee and whoever emerges from the extreme Republican primary that’s going on right now,” Quentin Fulks, the Biden campaign’s principal deputy manager, told ABC News “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz on Sunday.
     
    “So, you know, look, we’re gonna stay focused on the issues and make this about freedom and democracy,” Fulks continued. “The Americans that have the most at stake understand that and they’re not going to be fooled by anything else.”
     
    The Biden campaign’s projected confidence comes as Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who is mounting a long-shot primary challenge against the president, recently said for the first time that he would consider accepting No Labels’ nomination if the election becomes a rematch between Biden and former President Donald Trump and it looked like Biden was “almost certain to lose.”

  34. 34.

    Suzanne

    @Baud:

    Where does Ron DeSantis go to apologize to the rest of us? 

    The dustbin of history’s forgotten failures is acceptable.
    Trash taking itself out…..

  36. 36.

    Ksmiami

    When do we have the right to undo Trump’s Supreme Court nominees? Seriously, between Dobbs and Chevron, they’re out of control and we should be able to rein them in.

  41. 41.

    Suzanne

    It would be hilarious if the Biden campaign started handing out pudding cups at any events for a couple of weeks.

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: ​ Where does Ron DeSantis go to apologize to the rest of us?

    As far as I’m concerned he can just go straight to hell. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    @Ksmiami:

    Honestly, we’d need to have a more dominant position in Congress.  We had a near supermajority during the great days of the New Deal and the reforms of the 60s and 70s.

  45. 45.

    Geminid

    I see that former Rep. Adam Kinzinger made the scene in the Granite State. He’s tweeted out a 27-second clip of himself speaking before a snowy New Hampshire background, with the heading:

       There’s a bright future ahead, New Hampshire! It’s time to make history and turn Trump’s orange face red in the GOP primary. Your vote is powerful- it’s our chance to switch channels on 8 years of this dangerous, weak sniveling Trump show.

  50. 50.

    jonas

    @Ken: “Wintry Mix”, which sounds like a bag of Brach’s candies, to something more appropriate to the feelings it raises.

    Cold, wet, dreary shit?

  52. 52.

    TBone

    Sniveling fealty has been the theme for the cowards for far too long now.  May it hang the millstone of failure around their necks like an overly long, red necktie.

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    @New Deal democrat:Trump has no such self-control. In fact, like all demagogues,  he relies on his rallies to road-test slogans and themes. Which means that his mental lapses are going to continue on full display. And they won’t get any better. They will become more frequent and probably worse.

    And it’s over nine months from now ’til the election, too!

  57. 57.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid:weak, sniveling Trump show.

    Kinzinger has been doing a great job of going right at trumpov’s weak spots: namely, that’s he’s a fake, he’s a loser, he’s vain, he’s pathetic, and he’s needy as hell.

    In other words…what trumpov’s GOP primary opponents should have been doing all along.

  61. 61.

    jonas

    @Jeffro:  And they won’t get any better. They will become more frequent and probably worse.

    Trump could stroke out and have his staffers campaign with his corpse on marionette strings a la Weekend at Bernie’s and it wouldn’t matter to his base. Plus, having a criminally-indicted, authoritarian loon mentally decompensating every day on camera on a major party ticket pisses off the libs, so it’s just gravy.

  64. 64.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @twbrandt:  Excellent suggestion — done!

    @Kathleen:  Agreed! I’m also a huge fan of Joyce White Vance and Teri Kanefield. They have become must-reads for me, along with HCR.

  65. 65.

    trnc

    @Ksmiami: They haven’t ruled on Chevron yet, they’ve only heard arguments. Not terribly hopeful, but maybe ACB and Roberts will see the attempts to demolish for what they are.

  66. 66.

    lowtechcyclist

    @vbreakwater:

    Apropos of almost nothing, both Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are 80 years old.

    Who would have believed, that summer when “Satisfaction” was all over the airwaves, that they’d still be touring and playing rock n’ roll at age 80?

  67. 67.

    Another Scott

    @jonas: President Turnip is resting and preparing for bigly campaign rallies in the fall!!  Donate now to President Turnip’s bigly campaign!11

    It would be the usual tyrant/wanna-be tyrant playbook – they’ll pretend everything is fine until they have to pull back the curtain at the last possible moment.  And then, they’ll try to turn anything he touched into a bloody shirt.

    Eyes on the prizes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  68. 68.

    Balconesfault

    @TBone: yeah, the problem is the corporate media in the future will be happy to frame it that the Republicans had to accept authoritarianism as a tool to blunt the Democrats trying to turn the country into a  communist hellhole

  72. 72.

    Soprano2

    @New Deal democrat: You are correct. While I can still have a conversation with my husband, I cannot imagine him going out and doing speeches in any way, or trying to answer questions or talk to a reporter for any length of time. If TFG does have some kind of dementia, it will become more and more obvious to people as he gives more speeches and does more public appearances. In 1988 Reagan wasn’t running for re-election; a candidate can’t hide away from people. Those around TFG probably know about his problem, but I’m sure TFG doesn’t think he has a problem (just like my husband would tell you he’s the same as always although he’s clearly not). It’s going to be a shitshow for sure. ETA – think how it would lead every news channel if Biden mixed up Haley and Pelosi, yet they’re making excuses for TFG.

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: I understand if people don’t want to get out because ice is nothing to mess around with; I had to go out and help one of my dogs get up and come in the house before I came to work. I have to take a lot of time off for hubby the next couple of weeks, and one co-worker is going to be gone this week which will add to my work load, so I felt that if I could come in today I should.

  74. 74.

    Another Scott

    @lowtechcyclist: Didn’t Mick say once that he wants to be like Muddy Waters and never retire?  Something about getting better with age?  He had a plan and stuck with it. Like a whole bunch of those UK rocker guys. (Ian Anderson, Pete and Roger, etc, etc.)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  75. 75.

    Balconesfault

    @trnc: has someone who works in a regulated industry, I’m amazed nobody’s talking about how ending Chevron would also mean that every permit issued suddenly becomes challengeable by Environmental and worker rights groups who want to contend that the agency was far too lenient.

    Which means with proper Court shopping, they can be tying up industries hands for long periods of time, wasting lots of time and capital.

  76. 76.

    Soprano2

    @Balconesfault: I’m hopeful that Roberts can see what a shitshow this would become in the courts, and gets them to rule narrowly in some way. I don’t think the courts could handle the tsunami that would descend on them if Chevron goes away.

  77. 77.

    Balconesfault

    @Soprano2:  Reagan, for all his flaws, did have a ounce of humility within him.

    With that, someone slipping into dementia can maintain some level of dignity.

    Without that, they’re pretty much going to turn into King Lear, which is where Trump is heading.

  79. 79.

    Balconesfault

    @Another Scott: I’m just always amused when it seems someone who uses the term Boomer derisively also has a playlist full of songs that I danced to in my teens.

    It’s like if the flower power generation had been grooving out to Glenn Miller and Rudy Valley (and not in an ironic way).

  82. 82.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken:

    The National Weather Service continues to ignore my request that they rename “Wintry Mix” 

    “Sir, we can’t call it ‘Cold Wet Shit’.”

  83. 83.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: ​ A few years back they were predicting rain turning to snow with temps dropping precipitously. I went to work figuring I’d get a few hours in at least. Sure enough, things went to hell in a handbasket at 11 or so. Rolled everything up and headed for home Knowing my normal 1 1/2 hour drive was going to take at least 2.

    I was just a mile away from my exit when I hit a patch of black ice and started a slide towards the cable barrier in the median. Somehow some way I managed to change my course and headed for the right side, breathing a sigh of relief knowing that at least I wasn’t going to hit anybody. Next thing I knew my whole world turned topsy turvy as my van rolled, finally stopping upside down. The doors were jammed shut and I had to kick out the windshield to get out of it.

    Other than a broken thumbnail and a jammed neck (I knew releasing the seatbelt while upside down wasn’t a good idea but I didn’t see as I had much choice)(don’t know how I didn’t get brained by flying tools) I was unhurt. Unfortunately could not say the same for my van. It was totaled.

    And you know what? The contractor I was working for didn’t offer to compensate me for my losses at all! The nerve of them guys! After all I had done for them!

    So yeah, never again.

  84. 84.

    Rusty

    @Baud: I’ve been out of state for a family emergency but with luck I will be back tonight so I can write in Joe tomorrow.   I hoping Phillips gets stomped and drops out.  My biggest hope is Phillips gets less votes than Paperboy Love Prince, an actual candidate on the ballot.  That would deliver the right level of humiliation.   (It only costs $1,000 to get on the NH primary ballot, I’m a bit disappointed there is no Baud.  In 4 years I may need to crowd source so I can put my own name on the ballot).

  86. 86.

    Soprano2

    @Balconesfault: Sometimes they turn into that anyway. You should read some of the stuff in my FB Alzheimer’s spouse support group. People sometimes become someone you don’t know because of the disease. And yeah, a huge narcissist like TFG who has never been held to account for anything getting dementia *shiver* I do feel sorry for those who eventually have to care for him.

  88. 88.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: I get it, that sucks. Another factor for me is that I’m 5 minutes from work. If I had to drive 30 minutes it’s a completely different calculation. Our forecast is for temps to rise, and by noon it’s supposed to be just rain.

  89. 89.

    RevRick

    @O. Felix Culpa: The connection of Dobbs to the Kansas-Nebraska Act goes to where the heart of each party’s base lies. Both have deep roots in the white male supremacy of Southern white Evangelicalism. Add in the secessionist impulse that motivates a lot of the gun nut culture, and the circle is complete.

  91. 91.

    ArchTeryx

    @matt: And he marks himself as one of the Extremely Online Left – or a Pied Piper agent – by immediately pivoting to Palestine when called out for his pro-Trump behavior. Completely independent of actual arguments, the “Israeli genocide” thread is very persistent with these people. They *KNOW* they have the mother of all wedge issues and are pile-driving it for all they’re worth to split the anti-Trump vote. Whatever you feel about the Hamas war, it’s an incumbent’s nightmare, because whatever happens, it slides right off Trump and sticks to Biden. And they know it.

  94. 94.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: Didn’t Mick say once that he wants to be like Muddy Waters and never retire?

    And Satan / the genie / the monkey’s paw chortled with glee and granted Mick’s wish, before vanishing in a puff of smoke and a final “check out Tithonus, sucker!”

  96. 96.

    Ken

    @zhena gogolia: The same thing has happened to a lot of older comedians. “People don’t laugh at the jokes I’ve been telling for 40 years” becomes “because of a conspiracy against me”.

  97. 97.

    balconesfault

    @zhena gogolia: He’s also as anti-Trump as anyone could get.

    I think there’s always going to be an “anti-woke” tendency among older comedians who have made a living doing skits that the woke crowd would have gone apoplectic over.

  98. 98.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: Nobody has to care for him, not now, not ever. They can always get a better job, like cleaning outhouses at music festivals.

  100. 100.

    Jackie

    Political AI shenanigans has begun. It’s scary to think about the mayhem that could happen.

    A prominent New Hampshire Democrat plans to file a complaint with the state attorney general over an apparent robocall that appears to encourage supporters of President Joe Biden not to vote in Tuesday’s presidential primary,” NBC News reports.

    “The voice in the message is familiar — even presidential — as it’s an apparent imitation or digital manipulation of Biden’s voice.”

  103. 103.

    Rusty

    @Soprano2: I listened to most of the oral arguments.  One item that came through is the multi-step process of how and when to invoke Chevron.  I wouldn’t be surprised if Robert’s pulls one of his favorite tricks of effectively gutting Chevron by changing the standards and steps so it can never apply, but not explicitly over ruling it so he can claim they haven’t really changed anything.  It the weaselly  way he likes to work.  The other 4 conservative guys were just salivating to stomp Chevron into the ground and Barrett at least seemed to be considering that the change to inundate the court with challenges from all sides.  I don’t expect a good outcome at all, and forum shopping for conservative judges and circuits will gut most of the EPA, OSHA, IRS and more.  It won’t be until they gut the FAA and planes start falling g from the sky that any conservatives will complain.

  104. 104.

    Jackie

    TIFG’s defamation trial has been postponed for at least a day. Alina Habba is claiming a headache and said her parents came down with Covid over the weekend, and a jurist felt nauseous while driving to the courthouse. Per MSNBC.

  106. 106.

    Another Scott

    @Balconesfault: It’s amazing the staying power of that mid-late ’60s, early ’70s music, isn’t it?

    My MIL’s nickname was “Jada” because she danced to it as a toddler.  It’s from 1918. There’s a mountain of stuff from the ’60s and ’70s that has that kind of staying power, but it seemed rare before then – one didn’t have 25% of the radio stations in the ’60s playing pre-WWI standards all the time…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Baud:

    Honestly, we’d need to have a more dominant position in Congress.

    Ain’t that the truth and given the inherent structural issues and how gerrymandering has been put on steroids, it’s a heavy lift and thus, tougher to bring about a more dominant position in Congress.

  109. 109.

    balconesfault

    @Rusty:  Again … the thing that conservatives and libertarians tend to ignore is that an agency granting a Permit then “permits” a company to do something that creates some level of public harm.

    For example, a company is “permitted” to discharge or emit some amount of carcinogens into the water or air because the USEPA has done the research and determined that this level of pollution won’t result in excessive harm to human health and the environment.

    If  Chevron goes away … it not only gives industry the ability to challenge the EPA standard as being too restrictive.  It also gives NRDC/Sierra/Greenpeace/et al the ability to challenge the EPA standard, and any permits written based on the standard, as not being restrictive enough to really protect human health and the environment.

    Without Chevron, in essence the EPA will be forced to relitigate every standard on a continuing basis, with attacks coming from both sides.  This will result in major uncertainties for industries trying to make billion dollar decisions on construction and operation of new facilities, and cause huge problems for planning and financing.

  110. 110.

    Ksmiami

    @trnc: a pos insurrectionist traitor should not be allowed to retain his appointees. And they grow less legitimate by the day.

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jackie: ​ a jurist felt nauseous while driving to the courthouse

    Just the thought of having to be in the same room as trump makes me nauseous.

  115. 115.

    Miss Bianca

    @Balconesfault:  ‘Tis an odious comparison, Trump and Lear. King Lear had more than an ounce of humanity in him as well. Or don’t you remember the whole scene with the Fool and “Mad Tom”?

  116. 116.

    Ken

    @Rusty: In a karmically-run world, the Supreme Court Six would be receiving phone calls 24/7 from doctors: “I have a 35-year-old woman, four months pregnant, bleeding heavily from an 85% placental abruption, fetal heartbeat detectable but arrhythmic. What do I do?”

    (Actually in a karmic world, those questions would be beamed directly into their brains, so they can’t smash their phones to avoid the consequences of their decision. And it would include every lower court judge, legislator, and district attorney who’ve also decided they know more about medicine than doctors.)

  119. 119.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Shalimar: Also, the Statue of Liberty was originally designed to have broken shackles representing a celebration of Emancipation of the Enslaved.  But of course, America being America, white people lost their g*ddamn minds over it (because, ya know Critical Race Theory or something) and pressured the govt to modify the design.

  120. 120.

    Another Scott

    @Rusty: It’s crazy that they want to gut this stuff.

    It’s clear that Congress has too many things to do that it can’t get done on time as it is.  Budgets; approving cabinet and ambassador and judge nominees; addressing genuine problems like immigration, treaties, obsolete laws; providing sufficient oversight; etc. etc.  And it takes years for anything to get through the courts.

    The RWNJs on the SCOTUS really want to make everyone’s workloads 10x worse?  Because they have too much free time?

    It’s crazypants.  These monsters don’t live in the same reality we inhabit.

    And they don’t care.  It’s somebody else’s problem.

    Fight for 15!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  121. 121.

    Gin & Tonic

    Serhiy Nigoyan was killed ten years ago today, becoming the first protestor to be shot dead by Yanukovych’s thugs during the Revolution of Dignity.

    A proud Armenian-Ukrainian, his parents had moved to Ukraine to escape the first Nagorno-Karabakh War. He was an only child. pic.twitter.com/vX7w7NKB8d
    — Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) January 22, 2024

  124. 124.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @balconesfault: He has Old, White Man (Person of Privilege) Syndrome.  It’s pretty much the norm, sadly, especially among comics.  Marc Maron is about the only older, white, male comedian I can think of who defies the trend.

  125. 125.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @OzarkHillbilly: Nothing as scary as rolling a van but in the middle of my work years I had a measly 10 mile commute that was often treacherous, sliding through red lights with one hand on the horn because stopping was not possible.

  128. 128.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @catclub: Actually the White-lash part I mentioned might not be right (though I’m pretty sure I read about it somewhere) but you can read the main backstory here:

    With the help of sculptor Frédéric-Auguste Bartholdi, the original idea for the statue was revealed in 1870. In this version, the statue keeps Lady Liberty’s right hand in the familiar position we see today — raised high in the air holding the infamous illuminated torch. Her left hand however, carried broken shackles, paying tribute to the end of slavery. This original idea was said to be a nod to Libertas, the Roman goddess who wore a Phrygian cap similar to what a freed Roman slave wore.

    The statue we see today is a bit different. Instead of broken shackles held in her left hand, Lady Liberty now holds a massive tablet that measures more than 23 feet long with the Roman numerals for July 4, 1776, inscribed on the front signifying American Independence Day.

    Bartholdi didn’t remove the broken shackles completely from the statue. They can now be found at Lady Liberty’s feet under the drapery but are hidden for most to see.

  129. 129.

    prostratedragon

    @catclub:  The poet Emma Lazarus was from a Sephardic family long established in NYC.  She was inspired by community work with the Russian Jewish immigrants running away from the pogroms. I wonder whether the young readers’ bio of her that I got from the public library mbdRyujgty years ago would survive the anti-woke mob these days.

  130. 130.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Jeffro: Kinzinger has the advantage that he’s not running for an office that would require him to fluff the Trumpist core of the modern GOP. If he were talking that talk in a Republican primary, the Trumpists would kill him, maybe not even metaphorically.

  131. 131.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @RevRick: Another link is states like Texas trying to police women who travel out of state; such activities parallel the Fugitive Slave Act, which enjoined those in non-slave states to act as slave-catchers.  Outrage at the Kansas-Nebraska and the Fugitive Slave Act fueled Lincoln’s rise.  Which for me is another reason why Nikki Haley is unfit for political office; a major component of the Civil War was pro-slavery and don’t care Congressman forcing those in the free states to actively support slavery.  The parallels to Dobbs, Don’t Say Gay, book bans, etc. Is all too close.

  132. 132.

    Soprano2

    Wow, did anyone else listen to On Point this morning?  They had Batya Ungar-Sargon on to talk about what Republican elites don’t understand about Trump voters. I can’t even describe how crazy what she said was, you’d have to hear it for yourself. She said Trump voters are liberal, they mostly support gay people and don’t want abortion bans. They think Joe Biden took Trump off the ballot in Colorado. Just INSANE stuff. They had Heather Cox Richardson on during the last 20 minutes; she finally mentioned Trump’s appeal to white nationalists and talked about January 6th. There was zero mention of Trump’s multiple court cases, either.

  137. 137.

    gwangung

    @balconesfault:

    If  Chevron goes away … it not only gives industry the ability to challenge the EPA standard as being too restrictive.  It also gives NRDC/Sierra/Greenpeace/et al the ability to challenge the EPA standard, and any permits written based on the standard, as not being restrictive enough to really protect human health and the environment.

    Oh, they’ll solve that by ruling that the environmentalists and the people affected do not have standing to sue–only the companies involved do.

  138. 138.

    Hoodie

    @New Deal democrat: Watching his discourse on Nikki Haley running Capitol security, he occupied that fugue state for quite a while. It appears that he also did not eventually catch and correct himself, which I’ve seen him do in the past. I’ve been around sundowning elderly folks quite a bit over the last few years, and it resembled that. It particularly looked like folks I’ve known who are still pretty functional but are showing early signs of dementia. They can be coherent most of the time but when they get tired you’ll see this kind of thing happen. Sure, he’s always been nuts, but seemed to do a better job of hiding it until recently.

    Haley jumped on that immediately because it plays into her age-based campaign rhetoric.  I doubt it will help her defeat Trump, but there’s a chance that taking about Trump’s mental capacity could be a double edged sword for Biden, as any talk of mental incapacity will inevitably be tied to his own age.  I’d worry more about third-party candidates from that aspect than anything relating to policy.

  139. 139.

    vbreakwater

    @lowtechcyclist: And doing a bang-up job doing it. I mention their ages only to suggest the arbitrariness of condemning Biden to the scrap heap while others of his age are still kicking it!

  141. 141.

    CliosFanBoy

    @dm:

      Originally it was to be standing at the south end of the Suez Canal (which was built by the French, not the English). The original design was a bit different though, as you can imagine.

  142. 142.

    Jeffro

    Michelle Cottle on Ron DeSantis:

    (OUCH!)

    And just like that, Ron DeSantis’s quest for the presidency is kaput. In a short video on Sunday, the Florida governor looked natty in a blue suit and red tie, every hair perfectly in place as he papered over his deeply imperfect campaign. He touted his own leadership and, perhaps with an eye toward running again in 2028, endorsed the Republican kingmaker, Donald Trump. It wasn’t a terrible performance, especially under the circumstances. But watching DeSantis’s now-famous awkward smile and listening to his unnatural cadence, it was hard not to think: Yeah. I can see why this guy’s candidacy is deader than disco.
    I am not being mean here. OK, I am being a little bit mean, but in the service of a serious point. Mr. DeSantis is a successful governor of a major state and a smart guy with a picture-perfect family. But he is also one of those unfortunate political creatures who do not wear well, whose early promise and poll numbers fade over time: The more people saw him, the less they seemed to like him. On the presidential campaign trail, he was robotic and awkward, rude and arrogant, with the interpersonal skills of poorly designed A.I. He struck people as an all-around odd duck, and not in a good way.
    For a modern presidential contender, this is the kiss of death. Popular policies, a savvy campaign strategy, a message that speaks to the moment — these things matter. And DeSantis had much to offer a conservative Republican base: his angry populism, his vilification of all the right people (Dr. Anthony Fauci, George Soros, migrants, teachers’ unions), his record of achievement in Florida. Let us grant him all that, and more. But if the messenger has a likability problem, the rest tends to get overshadowed.
    For all of DeSantis’s apparent G.O.P. pluses, he was constantly tripping over his personal minuses. His tone-deaf remarks, like when he told a kid in Iowa that his Icee probably had a lot of sugar in it. His inability to hide his discomfort when interacting with regular Americans. The creepy smile that popped up in pretty much every debate. That quickie lip lick, where the tip of his tongue would suddenly burst into view. His visible impatience. His trouble making eye contact. His fidgeting. His explosive, gaping laugh. The peculiar rhythm of his speech — sometimes too fast, sometimes stilted, and never quite right. It was … a lot. But also not enough, lacking a certain quality that says, “I am human.”

  143. 143.

    balconesfault

    @Jeffro: But also not enough, lacking a certain quality that says, “I am human.”

    Yeah … well, that lack of humanity also has a lot to do with all those positions that Cottle seems so enamored of.

    Basically you ended up with 3 GOP candidates who either screamed out their inhumanity (Trump), tried to hide their inhumanity (Haley), or thought that they could buttress their inhumanity with technocratic language and thus sounded even more inhumane (DeSantis).

    No surprise that the Republican favorite is the one who screams the message.

  144. 144.

    JML

    @Jeffro: DeSatan really did just have that weird campaign vibe. I mean, to anyone on the left, he’s dreadful with horrific ideas for the country and destructive policies…but for basically anyone he barely seemed human. His spouse seemed far more interested in running and was certainly more camera-ready (regardless of what you think of her and how she packaged herself, she fit in just fine for GOP Campaign Spouse).

    It’s hard to understand how he could have gotten elected Governor. But then I’m reminded MN elected Mark Dayton governor twice after electing him Senator and previously as State Auditor, and Mark is the King of Awkward and perpetually uncomfortable, with weird grins and garbled sentences and many a gaffe over the years. A lot of that was because he’d been around forever, I think, so the gaffes just slid off and people just went “yeah, but it’s MARK. we know what he MEANS.”

    Maybe FL let it go with DeSantis because he was republican and that was good enough at the time because all the right people endorsed him? Did it just get worse under the national spotlight?

  145. 145.

    dirge

    @New Deal democrat: commercials directly copying Monty Python’s “So what have the Romans ever done for us?” skit

    Absolutely.  And not just Biden’s accomplishments, but Democratic accomplishments.  Commit to the brand by taking credit for everything going back to Social Security.

    I like to call this the you’re welcome, you caviling ingrates campaign.

    Enjoying your weekend?  You’re welcome.  The 40 hour work week, brought to you by FDR, Democrat.

    Relieved your parents’ hospital bills are covered?  You’re welcome.  Medicare, brought to you by LBJ, Democrat.

    You wanted the moon?  Fine.  THE MOON, brought to you by JFK, Democrat.

    Satisfied?  No?  Ended the Great Depression, won WWII, civil rights act, economic expansion, deficit reduction, FMLA, ARRA, ACA, all before we even get to Biden.

    And you know what?  Al Gore damned well did invent the internet.  Sure, we’re having second thoughts too.  No, I will not debate you.  We’re taking credit for it.  You’re welcome.

  148. 148.

    Another Scott

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    a Phrygian cap

    Reminds me of the battles over the Statue of Freedom on top of the US Capitol.

    Thomas Crawford’s Statue of Freedom (figure 1), the colossal bronze statue atop the U.S. Capitol dome, dominates the Capitol and the city of Washington, D. C., by virtue of its size and placement so far above the ground. Yet this symbol of freedom is often misidentified as an Indian. Thomas Crawford’s Statue of Freedom is, in fact, a difficult monument to discern because of its location far above the viewer’s eye, but also because the artist was forced to make a number of compositional and iconographic changes to satisfy his patron, the U. S. government as represented by Secretary of War Jefferson Davis, who was in charge of the construction of the Capitol Extension between 1853 and 1857. Crawford’s Statue of Freedom, begun after the heat of the Fugitive Slave Act (1850) and the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1851), and completed in 1863 in the midst of the Civil War, is not only a case study in the role played by patrons in shaping and compromising the ideological content of public art, but also a monument that embodies and contributed to the intricacies of race and racism in the United States. The Statue of Freedom, in fact, participated in the battle between the North and South when Jefferson Davis used his position as the Secretary of War to eliminate any references to slavery in a public building that belonged to both regions.

    Thomas U. Walter, the architect of the U.S. Capitol, had first suggested in a preliminary drawing of 1855 (figure 2) that a monumental statue decorate the new dome of the U.S. Capitol building. In creating an allegorical female figure holding a pole surmounted by a cap, Walter appropriated the well-known iconography of “Libertas” first codified in eighteenth-century emblem books. During the French and American Revolutions, “Libertas” symbolized freedom from tyranny as is evident in the Paul Revere masthead for the Massachusetts Spy in 1781. Crawford followed Walter’s concept in his second version for Statue of Freedom in which the female figure in long robes with sword and wreath stands on a globe, wearing the “Phrygian” cap (figure 3).

    Secretary of War Davis considered the liberty cap that Crawford included in his proposal for the dome statue as problematic, however, arguing that the cap’s “history renders it inappropriate to a people who were born free and would not be enslaved.” He recommended that “armed Liberty” instead “wear a helmet,” given “that her conflict [is] over, her cause triumphant.” A plantation slave owner from Mississippi who argued vehemently in behalf of the slave system and the extension of slavery into newly acquired lands as a congressman, senator, and secretary of war, Davis (who would become the President of the Confederacy during the Civil War) understood the original meaning of slavery in ancient Rome and he employed semantics to argue that this ancient model was different from the southern economic system. The supervising engineer of the Capitol Extension, Montgomery C. Meigs, explained the situation to Crawford in relation to the design for another sculpture for the Capitol Building: “Mr. Davis says that he does not like the cap of Liberty introduced into the composition [because] American Liberty is original & not the liberty of the free slave.” According to Davis, Meigs explained, the cap that became a revolutionary symbol in France derived from “the Roman custom of liberating slaves thence called freedmen & allowed to wear this cap.” Davis clearly understood the practice of manumission in ancient Rome, in which freed slaves covered their newly shorn heads with the pileus cap while magistrates touched them with a rod (the vindicta). He made this argument to deny that the slaves on his plantation also desired the same type of freedom. He refused to allow any work in the U.S. Capitol Building that alluded to slavery either overtly or covertly via the cap. Such maneuvers aimed to elide the tensions between the North and the South over this volatile issue during a period of regional differences.

    That “peculiar institution” [ spit! ] had its tendrils everywhere, and the effects are still visible in DC, and elsewhere, today…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  155. 155.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @dmsilev: Treppenwitz and Weltanschauung aren’t far behind…and there’s a soft spot in my heart for Gesichtsvorsprung…(see my post in one of yesterday’s threads)

    FTR there is a wonderful riff in Cassells’ Colloquial German re the Teutonic predilection for constructing massive compound words to represent a specific concept.** It’s fascinating to see fern (faraway), sehen (to see) and Gerãt (apparatus) become Fernsehgerät (TV set) and then proceed to exfoliate to the point where “a person in charge of an exhibition of color TVs” is expressed in Succinct Rococo as

    ein Farbfernsehgeräteschauleiter​

    ** Also FTR the Germans post-WW2 finally learned from their English-speaking occupiers and are now more likely to abandon compound-word-construction in favor of straightforward theft from other languages, primarily English…

  156. 156.

    Paul in KY

    @balconesfault: His problem basically was that he’s only comfortable and relaxed when he’s actively hurting people or animals. Out on the campaign trail, you don’t get to do alot of that, so he was always stressed.

    I heard his campaign would get him to unwind by throwing baby chicks into a wood chipper.

  157. 157.

    Ken

    @Paul in KY: TFG has Melanoma…

    “I felt I had to call this national press conference today to give the sad news that my husband has been diagnosed with dementia, and I am invoking paragraph 37 of our pre-nuptual agreement giving me sole power of attorney….”

  159. 159.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Baud: ​Where does Ron DeSantis go to apologize to the rest of us?

    To Moshie’s preferred destination, the Sun. Fit him for a Halloween-costume spacesuit & tell him not to worry, they’ll schedule him to touch down at night, then faaaaahr his wuthless tukhis off…;^D

  162. 162.

    dirge

    @Steeplejack: snowtorum

    Adopted.

    I’ve generally found “wintry mix” acceptable, if delivered in a suitable tone of disgusted sarcasm, but not everybody can pull that off, or cares to.

    Here, I think, we have a winner.

  165. 165.

    Origuy

    @UncleEbeneezer: I saw Eric Idle last week at the Castro Theater in San Francisco. There wasn’t much about politics, but I think he’s still pretty far left. He lives in LA. Cleese wants to be a Tory, but he can’t stand the current lot.

  166. 166.

    RevRick

    @Cheryl from Maryland: The nails in the coffin were Bleeding Kansas and Dred Scott, which made it absolutely clear what the stakes involved were. The Republican Party originally was made up of Northern Whigs and Northern Democrats appalled by Southern militancy and unwilling to submit to what was termed “slave power.”
    Lincoln, interestingly enough, was not considered the most radical Republican candidate in the 1860 race. Both Seward and Chase filled that position.

  167. 167.

    kalakal

    @Origuy: I saw Cleese about 12 years. It was awful, he just whined on about how he didn’t want to be doing the show but he needed the money because of all his alimony payments.

    He’s a mixed bag these days, he can be brilliantly cutting about things but then he’ll start up complaining that the world has changed since his day. I think in his heart he wants the 80s back

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