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Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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An almost top 10,000 blog!

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Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

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This is dead girl, live boy, a goat, two wetsuits and a dildo territory.  oh, and pink furry handcuffs.

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He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

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

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

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You are here: Home / Politics / Open Thread: Jasmine Crockett Is a Force to be Reckoned With

Open Thread: Jasmine Crockett Is a Force to be Reckoned With

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Open Thread: Jasmine Crockett Is a Force to be Reckoned With
Photography by Annabelle Gordon / CNP/Sipa USA via REUTERS

I think we’ve all seen the clips of Jasmine Crockett giving the Republicans “what for”, and talking about classified documents in the shitter at MAL.

The Texas Tribune tells the story of how she distinguished herself from the other 50 or so Democrats.

A few excerpts.

WASHINGTON — In summer 2021, about 50 Democrats from the Texas House arrived at the nation’s capital — absconding from Austin in a plot to block Republicans from passing a bill that would impose tighter restrictions on voting access.

Buzzing with excitement, the lawmakers took their places in front of reporters, with senior members and leadership moving toward the center to field questions. But Jasmine Crockett — a freshman from Dallas — stepped away from the group to take a call. She held up her phone to film her own live interview with a TV station, the dome of the Capitol building peeking out behind her.

That interview would be one of many that Crockett would take while camped out in Washington to discuss the Democrats’ quorum break, in a move that would raise the little-known lawmaker’s profile as she became an unofficial spokesperson for the dramatic political spectacle.

“There were people in leadership from my understanding that were not a fan of a freshman being a bit of a face of some of this,” Crockett said in an interview with The Texas Tribune.

Nonetheless, she accepted as many interviews as she could fit into her schedule, carrying two phones and a laptop to handle the crush of inquiries she received.

“I did not expect the world to pay attention,” Crockett said.

But she wanted them to.

Crockett, 42, didn’t get into politics to wait her turn. While she says she may have ruffled some feathers among her caucus peers at the time, her decision to grab the spotlight catapulted her career and provided the foundation for her to run for Congress the following year.

Crockett got her first taste of going viral during a September hearing of the House Oversight Committee, which garnered media attention because of the Republican impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden. Crockett took aim at former President Donald Trump’s mishandling of classified documents, holding up printed photos from his indictment showing boxes of classified documents in the Mar-a-Lago bathroom.

“These are our national secrets, looks like, in the shitter to me,” Crockett said in a clip that was shared on Reddit and Tiktok. One fan edit of the moment set to music, created by a 16-year-old fan, raked in over 8 million views on TikTok.

It’s a fun and interesting article, so if you have a few minutes, read the whole thing.  h/t Mousebumples

What else is going on today?   (Besides the Biden-Harris live event on reproductive rights that’s coming up around lunchtime.  Looks like TaMara has a post ready to go for that!)

I keep thinking we’ll hear from the appeals court about immunity and jurisdiction.  I alternate between thinking it’s taking so much longer than the predictions because 1) there is disagreement between the conservative judge and the other two, and 2) they are all in agreement, but they want their ruling to be really tight and not leave any strings for the Supreme Court to tug at.

Can I just say that the world was better when we had a supreme court that we could at least sort of trust?

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

145Comments

  2. 2.

    Ken

    What else is going on today?

    Controversy over the Hugo award nominations, which left out R. F. Kuang’s Babel and a few other expected nominations, with no explanations. Politics is suspected; both Babel and some of Kuang’s earlier works do not portray (19th-century alternate-history) China in a favorable light. John Scalzi has links to write-ups from several people.

  4. 4.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Ken:

    Man, that Hugo thing is a mess.  It revealed that the Hugo organization is  by design powerless, just some science fiction fan buddies who can’t do anything but rubber stamp whatever the current group running WorldCon want.  Also that WorldCons are run by groups of science fiction buddies who are usually buddies of the Hugo staff.  The Hugo awards themselves are just the votes of a few thousand fans who pay for the privilege and have no other qualification.  There are no oversight mechanisms, no enforcement mechanisms, no transparency.

    Anyone who knows anything about science fiction fandom, or humanity for that matter, should now be recoiling in horror at what a pile of bullshit that is.  The reputation of the award just took a huge hit.

  5. 5.

    topclimber

    The panel no doubt prefers a 3-0 ruling, so there is negotiation at work. Let them take a bit more time  to haggle and avoid losing MORE time over an appeal to a split ruling. (Unanimous would also be appealed to the entire court, but probably wouldn’t take as much time to blow off as a split one).

  6. 6.

    Suzanne

    Since it’s an open thread, I will share that I have been musing in one of the funniest mansplaining moments I experienced in my career. I was in a meeting with a group of clinical staff (nurses, physicians, techs), working through their floor plan. One of the doctors informed me that “some walls are load-bearing”.

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    @Suzanne: Did the room get really, really quiet after he said that??

    [ rofl ]

    Engineers have a (deserved) reputation, but I’ve come across MDs that are worse – even about things they should know about.

    Like confusing life expectancy at 85 with life expectancy at birth…

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    I will note that I am also listening to Gavin Newsom on the most recent episode of Pod Save America, and I would absolutely vote for him if he was the Dem nominee in 2028. I don’t get some of the Dem hate for him.

  11. 11.

    Ken

    @Suzanne: One of the doctors informed me that “some walls are load-bearing”.

    Were you tempted to turn to the doctor and say “Did you know that the pumping action of the heart causes blood to circulate through the body?”

  14. 14.

    WaterGirl

    @Suzanne: I would think the pace of getting things done as President would be much slower than the pace as governor.  I think he’s a “get it done” kind of guy, which I confess to, myself, and I think that would make him crazy.

    I thought the same thing when people wanted Stacey Abrams to run for senate.  She would spontaneously combust in the senate.

  15. 15.

    Suzanne

    @WaterGirl: I responded by showing him the columns on the floor plan (shown in dark gray), and also pointed out which walls were load-bearing (the thicker ones, also shown in dark gray).

    In most non-residential buildings, load-bearing walls are pretty limited. Elevator and stair shafts, shear walls, and only a few others.

  16. 16.

    Mr. Bemused Senior

    @Ken: I was thinking along the same lines.

    It is a relief, though, to know that there’s something holding up the building.

    [ETA this brings to mind a Monty Python sketch, my memory isn’t 100% clear, I will look for it… ah, yes, Mystico and Janet.]

  17. 17.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Housing justice people in CA hate Newsom for a myriad of good reasons.  He would be a “hold your nose and vote for the Dem” vote for a ton of us.

  19. 19.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Suzanne:

    I was in a meeting with a group of clinical staff (nurses, physicians, techs), working through their floor plan. One of the doctors informed me that “some walls are load-bearing”.

    The only question in my mind is, how hard did you laugh? Hopefully loud, long, and gleefully enough to make him feel appropriately embarrassed.

  20. 20.

    Suzanne

    @Ken: I was sorely tempted to be snarky. It’s fucking insulting. Especially because their plan had no load-bearing walls. There are a few in the building, but none in their area.

    The bigger issue in a healthcare building is fire-rated walls, but that wasn’t on the agenda that day.

  26. 26.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Can I just say that the world was better when we had a supreme court that we could at least sort of trust?

    I recall reading that a trustworthy Supreme Court is the exception, not the norm: that people got used to the Warren Court and forgot about the awful courts from times before. Basically, they were saying that the norm was cases like Dred Scott and Plessy v. Ferguson, not Brown v. Board of Education or Roe v. Wade.

  29. 29.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    And Ms. Crockett is a breath of fresh air.  It’s fantastic seeing a black female in that role and not being afraid to speak out.

    During covid, I walked at the ungodly hour of 3am each morning around City Park and the City Park golf course with two, retired African American women (long story of how that came about).  One in her 70s from Louisiana originally, is, and I shit you not, a Trump voter.

    The other, in her mid-80s, is basically Ms Crockett 40 years down the line, still feisty, still liberal.  I’m hoping Ms Crockett lasts as long as Miss Betty has.

    I learned early on to confine our political talks to Denver-only issues. ;)

  31. 31.

    catclub

    @WaterGirl: *Not all Democrats. See Manchin, Joe.

     

    Manchin may be the last inheritor of ‘vote for the Democrats since the GOP was the side of the Union and Lincoln’.

    Similarly there were black voters up through the 70’s who were republicans for just this reason.

     

    Which is particularly crazy in West VA, which seceded from VA because of the Civil war.

  32. 32.

    karen marie

    @Ken: I love John Scalzi as a person but he needs a much better editor. Starter Villain and Kaiju Preservation Society are embarrassing messes that should have never seen the light of day. The Hugo Awards are likewise an embarrassment and always have been

     

    @Frankensteinbeck: It’s always been obvious that the Hugos were ridiculous 5th-grade nonsense. I’m stunned that anyone is surprised by it.

  33. 33.

    catclub

    @Suzanne: unless you are the architect or engineer, I don’t have much a of a problem with that.  If you are the engineer…. then yes.

  34. 34.

    Almost Retired

    So I was sort of half-watching MSNBC’s interviews with stunningly ignorant New Hampshire Republicans when I was surprised to see back to back commercials for Adam Schiff and Katie Porter – the first I’ve seen in this cycle.

    Schiff’s ad was much better, although he appeared to be addressing voters in a winery, which is probably ok in California but would scream elitism elsewhere.

    Porter’s ad prominently featured that fucking whiteboard and seemed somewhat amateurish.  But I’m not objective insofar as I’m irritated with her for vacating a swingy Orange County seat that was won at great cost.

  38. 38.

    Sure Lurkalot

    OT, decent take:

    https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2024/01/no-one-hates-america-more-than-trump.html

    Believe it or not, the election of 2020, up to and through Election Day, was pretty much a triumph of the American electoral system at all levels. At the height of a global pandemic, with hospitals overwhelmed, with corpses being kept in trailers, with supply chains fucked, we held a presidential election and that motherfucker was run amazingly well. Yes, there were the usual, preventable, bullshit problems of long lines at polling stations, especially in poor and non-white majority areas in Republican states. That’s a huge bastard of a problem that needs fixing. But the combination of early voting and mail-in ballots, along with Election Day voting, worked. It should have been one of the great civic celebrations in US history, as in “Holy shit, we really did that. We really made it work. And it was the most secure election in this country possibly ever.” We should have been cheering for election workers and officials at the local, state, and federal level like we cheered for essential workers. We should have been patting ourselves on the back for coming through and voting at the highest rate since 1900. We should have been beaming with pride at how awesome this country can be when it wants to be.

    But we were not allowed that pride. We were not allowed that celebration. Instead, we were treated to an entire movement, led by the goddamn President of the United States, beating that triumph to death. They went after everyone with their lies about the “stolen” election. They fucked up the lives of those election workers and officials who had busted their asses to make sure they got the job done. And that’s across the political board. They fucked up Republicans and Democrats in positions to run elections or count votes. They took this great moment and shit all over it. And then they took it further to shit all over the entire system, outlawing the things that made the election work, disenfranchising voters, shifting responsibility for elections to politicians who would undermine them…

    They’re running the same playbook that they’ve run since I can remember: they’re the “real Americans” and we’re the assholes who hate America. What’s different this time is that they are using it to undermine our institutions. They love the country, but our election system is corrupt and must be destroyed because they didn’t win in 2020. They love the country, but they they want to dismantle the federal government because something something Deep State. They love the country, but the justice system won’t let Trump get away with rampant criminality and so it must be filled with cronies and hacks who will do his bidding. They love the country, but they want to throw out people who came here because they love this country.

  40. 40.

    Betty Cracker

    @karen marie: He’s terrible and will probably be governor one day if we can’t turn things around in this state. I couldn’t believe the press release his office put out about funding Trump’s defense with taxpayer dollars. I’ll credit DeSantis for once for squashing that stupid idea.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

     

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Housing justice people in CA hate Newsom for a myriad of good reasons.

    I don’t get that. To my mind, he has navigated fairly well though local opposition to more affordable housing to make some modest gains.

    He would be a “hold your nose and vote for the Dem” vote for a ton of us.

    I would be an enthusiastic Newsom supporter. He’s done much better than I had hoped. I’m looking to see how he deals with the swing from budget surplus to budget deficit. This will be a challenge.

    Homelessness and pockets of deep poverty in some areas are the biggest issues facing the governor and state and local government.

  43. 43.

    WaterGirl

    @TBone: Nice!

    She’s really doing this her own way, clearly not listening to the old guard who never would have dared to be that sassy on camera (I mean that in a good way) and say the word “shitter” on camera.

    I love her style!

  44. 44.

    Brachiator

    Crockett, 42, didn’t get into politics to wait her turn. While she says she may have ruffled some feathers among her caucus peers at the time, her decision to grab the spotlight catapulted her career and provided the foundation for her to run for Congress the following year.

    Good profile. I hope she goes far in politics. Texas and the country need more representatives like her.

  48. 48.

    Brachiator

    Bipartisanship. It’s a thing.

    It’s weird how Congress can be bipartisan when they want to be.

    On January 19, 2024, the House Ways and Means Committee approved a broad tax bill that provides relief for businesses and individuals alike. It’s called The Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act of 2024.

    The bill is the product of a deal between House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith, R-Mo., and Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who announced it last week after months of negotiations.

    I think that the breaks for business are too generous. However, the bill would also include a modest expansion of the child tax credit. So it’s a good compromise, because hardliners on both sides are unhappy with the bill for stupid reasons.

    The crazy thing is that there is not a lot of time to get this done, since sponsors want some provisions to be retroactive to 2023, and people are starting to do their 2023 taxes.

  49. 49.

    Geminid

    Jasmine Crockett is one of 15 members of the Democratic House Class of 2022 to have served in their state’s legislature. That’s nearly half of the class of 32 Representatives.

    Magaziner (RI) was elected General Treasurer of Rhode Island.

    Garcia (CA) was Long Beach Mayor. Moscowitz (FL) was Broward County Supervisor, Vasquez (NM) was Las Cruces City Councilman, and Landsman (OH) served on the Cincinatti City Council. Two(?)  Reps. were elected state’s attorney, Ivey (MD) Scholten (?) (MI). Besides running a car repair business, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez was an elected supervisor on her local Soil and Water Conservation Board.

    By my count, 7 members never held elective office before, including 3 from Illinois: Jackson, head of a community organization and business school teacher; Sorenson, a Quad Cities weatherman, and Budzinski, former Chief of Staff for the OMB Director and long time political operative.

    Maxwell Frost (FL) was a community organizer before being elected.; Dan Goldman (NY) was an Assistant U.S. Attorney; Deluzio (PA) was an attorney and law professor; and Rob Menendez Junior served on the New Jersey Port Authority Board.

    At 41, Rep. Crockett is one of 14 freshman Democrats age 40-49. There are 7 age 50-59 and 2 are age 61 and 68.

    Younger Reps. include 8 age 30-39 and Maxwell Frost, age 26.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    @Almost Retired:

    Porter’s ad prominently featured that fucking whiteboard and seemed somewhat amateurish.  But I’m not objective insofar as I’m irritated with her for vacating a swingy Orange County seat that was won at great cost.

    I like Porter. I also want to see a younger Senate.

  51. 51.

    AM in NC

    @Suzanne:  Did you face him, blink slowly a couple of times while staring lasers at him and say “thank you for that”, or were you slightly more obvious and go straight for kicking him in the junk?

  52. 52.

    Geminid

    @Brachiator: Did you watch the California Senate debate last night? I have not seen any reporting yet. It was Reps. Porter, Schiff and Lee, plus former basball guy Garvey.

  53. 53.

    Jeffro

    @Sure Lurkalot: great take! (thanks for the link btw)

    favorite part:

     

    They love the country, but our election system is corrupt and must be destroyed because they didn’t win in 2020. They love the country, but they they want to dismantle the federal government because something something Deep State. They love the country, but the justice system won’t let Trump get away with rampant criminality and so it must be filled with cronies and hacks who will do his bidding. They love the country, but they want to throw out people who came here because they love this country.

    The MAGA cretins don’t love the United States. They love themselves and they love Trump. And that’s it. Fuck everything else. Fuck your rights. Fuck your compassion. Fuck your laws. Fuck you if you don’t love them and Trump, too. They hate us. They hate the country we want. They hate the present. They hate the future.

  54. 54.

    prostratedragon

    @Suzanne:
    @Another Scott:
    * snap! 😆*
    I saw that happen to a man once at a field trip session to a DC agency that shall remain nameless. The walls throbbed from the pressure of supressed guffaws as a newly minted junior official explained comparative advantage, using small words slowly enunciated, to one of the developers of the Michigan Model of World Production and Trade. I’ll bet that dude became a legend.

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @Almost Retired: My Representative, Abigail Spanberger is also vacating a swingy seat in order to run for Governor in 2025. She won last year by 4 points, while Porter won by 3.

    My feeling is that Porter and Spanberger should try to move up if they want to. They each won those seats in 2018 and defended them twice. They’ve done the work and now it’s time for district Democrats to do theirs.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    As noted several times previously, the Biden/Harris team is just quoting trumpov’s own garbled quotes back as their campaign ads.

    They have one on Twitter right now with trumpov’s “we are an institute now in a powerful death penalty” and the quote from Biden is, “Yeah, we don’t know what he’s saying either.” LOLOL

    DO IT, BRANDON!!!1!

  58. 58.

    CliosFanBoy

    The “shitter”?  wince.  Well, if she’s going to follow in the footsteps of previous Texas Democrats, LBJ isn’t a bad role model, especially when it comes to beating up republicans.

  59. 59.

    wjca

    I’m thinking there’s one aspect of this election that we aren’t paying enough attention to: who ends up as the Republican VP candidate.  Yes, there’s speculation about who TIFG will pick.  But very little discussion (that I’ve seen) about how that individual would perform as President.

    Take one entirely possible (God forbid!) scenario.  TIFG wins in November.  But, sometime before Inauguration Day (maybe even before Election Day**), he dies.  Presto! We’ve got the VP pick for 4 years.  My personal view is that he would be less bad then TIFG himself — but that’s a very low bar.

    So, what can we expect in that case?  With, obviously, variations depending on just who it is.

    ** His cult tends to be low enough information that a lot of them might not even be aware.  Especially with someone else cranking out social media posts and emails in his name.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    List of jackals who haven’t posted recently

    Le Compte

    James Powell

    Roger Moore

    BillinGlendale

    Any others?

  64. 64.

    Another Scott

    @wjca: I speculated downstairs that it would either be a strongman like Mike Flynn (someone that he thinks can make the DoD do his bidding this time – unlike “his” generals that wimped out last time), or someone like Ivanka to make it clear that he’s starting his dynasty no matter the norms and traditions.

    I don’t honestly expect it to be either one, but I think that’s his thought process.  It won’t be someone like Pence, because he figures he has the “evangelicals” now and he didn’t like Pence from the beginning.

    We’ll see.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  66. 66.

    wjca

    @Another Scott:

    I get the speculation about who it might be and why.  What I’m missing is discussion of what the individual might do if/when they get dropped into the top slot.  Without, note, TIFG’s death grip on the party base.

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @Baud: BillinGlendale has been here recently. Roger Moore was going strong until a few weeks into the Gaza war. He has very strong feelings about that conflict and that may be why he is hanging back now

    James Powell was commenting fairly regularly through the summer. I think he teaches high school, so I’m hoping he just decided to concentrate on his work.

  69. 69.

    Almost Retired

    @Geminid: Shoot I forgot about the debate.  This race has been beyond low key, which is why I was somewhat surprised to see commercials this morning.  LA Times poll showed Schiff with a lead, but it seems like few are paying much attention yet.

  73. 73.

    Ken

    @wjca: But, sometime before Inauguration Day (maybe even before Election Day**), he dies.  Presto! We’ve got the VP pick for 4 years.

    I was going to quibble, then found that the writers of the 20th Amendment did include this case.  It also says

     “If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified”

    which is interesting, in these accursedly interesting times where we’re discussing the 14th amendment.

  74. 74.

    Brachiator

    @Geminid:

    Did you watch the California Senate debate last night? I have not seen any reporting yet. It was Reps. Porter, Schiff and Lee, plus former basball guy Garvey.

    I’ve only seen clips and one pundit analysis. I didn’t have time to watch the actual debate. In clips, everyone rightfully went at Garvey, an easy target, who claimed to be a moderate, but voted for Trump.

  77. 77.

    Brachiator

    @wjca:

    I’m thinking there’s one aspect of this election that we aren’t paying enough attention to: who ends up as the Republican VP candidate.

    The press may start speculating harder about this if Trump wraps up the nomination early, but I don’t see much point in early guessing.

    Yes, there’s speculation about who TIFG will pick.  But very little discussion (that I’ve seen) about how that individual would perform as President.

    Again, too much could change between now and inauguration day, and much depends on what Congress looks like.

    Right now, the GOP is fully in the grip of Trumpism. I don’t know if this will change.

    Also, I expect Biden to win, so I don’t think much about Trump’s chances.

  79. 79.

    Another Scott

    @wjca: As you say, it’s hard to speculate without knowing who the person is.

    I think one can assume that the GQP will try to stampede the country into some sort of grand period of mourning and deification and “rally around the new leader” the way that W went from the “My Pet Goat” laughing stock to the Colossus of Rhodes.  I’d like to think that we won’t get fooled again…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  80. 80.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    I feel like Republicans get a free pass when they claim to be moderate, and the burden falls on others to disprove it.

    There is some of that. Also, the political press get stuck on old conventional wisdom. There are still some pundits waiting for Trump to “swing to the middle.”

  81. 81.

    frosty

    @Suzanne: I read this out loud to Ms F and she howled. If you managed not to get fired for your response you have much better composure than I do.

  82. 82.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I have MSNBC on in the background — for noise rather than news right now — so I don’t know who this guy is, but there’s some loud, screaming Nikki Haley surrogate on right now who just completely PWNED Andrea Mitchell for her lies. Loved that moment.

    ETA: Oh, LOL, it’s Chris Sununu 😀

  84. 84.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Suzanne:

    The amount of crappy male behavior in design/development/construction is, like, horrifying.

    Having worked supporting a civil engineering gubmint agency for decades, this is one area of which we can agree on.

  85. 85.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Sure Lurkalot: There was definitely celebration.  People were literally dancing in the streets when AZ was called.  And in my very Blue neighborhood, a lot of people were thanking poll-workers.  The bigger issue is that the media refused to celebrate along with us.

  86. 86.

    jimmiraybob

    Speaking of TV show to watch, PBS (American Experience) is airing a show tonight: Nazi Town, USA. It’s about the popularity of Fascism in the 1930s. There’s preview material at the website.

  87. 87.

    Soprano2

    Found this article on Twitter thru Tom Nichols – it’s yet another one about a TFG voter in New Hampshire, but it’s interesting nonetheless. He’s a retired Army veteran with a job as a senior IT person and a house that’s increased a quarter million dollars in value in the past four years, yet he thinks TFG should be elected so he can tear the whole government apart and make everyone’s lives miserable for the next four years. Nichols says the reason these people like TFG is they like the chaos because it makes their lives seem exciting and meaningful, that otherwise they feel like their lives are too boring. I don’t know about that, but this guy seems to have everything yet he’s unhappy about everything. It seems that partly he has “Fox News Brain”.

  93. 93.

    Paul in KY

    @Brachiator:  I would like to see Ms. Porter in the Senate. To me, she has that ‘thing’ that Sen. Fetterman has and would be a great advocate for the Democratic Party and bring Hell to the GQP (and get that on TV).

  94. 94.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @wjca: Take one entirely possible (God forbid!) scenario.  TIFG wins in November.  But, sometime before Inauguration Day (maybe even before Election Day**), he dies.  Presto! We’ve got the VP pick for 4 years.  My personal view is that he would be less bad then TIFG himself — but that’s a very low bar.

    I’ve got an ever more dogforbidding scenario for you: Sometime before Inauguration Day (maybe even before Election Day) the God-Emperor of Dung gets arielsharonned. Not only do we “get the VP pick” assuming the duties of the office, per Amendment 20, but he does not become POTUS since the President-elect is not dead and could (in theory) awaken from the coma to assume the office. And so long as that’s possible, no matter how unlikely the docs say it is**, the Trumpista electorate would not stand for his removal (by impeachment and conviction) and he would be physically unable to resign. We’d be continuously in 25th Amendment Section 4 territory for as long as four years (remember it took Sharon eight years to die) during which the “acting President” could never ever be sure that the President-elect would not return to consciousness that day to pass judgment on how well the Acting POTUS had carried out his wishes. Yeesh!

    ** (1) What Trumpista trusts MDs anyway? (2) It’s happened before: Many years ago one of my many WV cousins driving in western MD had a horrific accident – his passenger was killed & he ended up in a coma – which he came out of a couple months later and eventually resumed a moreorless normal life til we lost him to COVID in late ’22.

  96. 96.

    cain

    @Suzanne: lol – to an architect. That’s some next level shit.

     

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Housing justice people apparently why we haven’t doing a lot of work going forward in the homeless issue here in Portland. The folks in /r/portland are angry. I don’t know enough about the situation but so far no money has been spent and the state took the money back.

    I think comprehensive plan needs to address the gig economy and foreigners coming in and buying up homes and not living in them. The thing is even if you open up new housing, I strongly suspect that the hedge funds are going to come in and fuck shit up.

    Unless you’re a boomer or a older Gen Xer, it’s really difficult to own a house if you didn’t come in when housing prices / work income was reasonable.

  98. 98.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Betty Cracker: With a ‘woke, woke’ here and a ‘woke, woke’ there/Here a ‘woke’/There a ‘woke’/Everywhere a ‘woke, woke’/Ron DeSantis had no charm/ee-aye, ee-aye, oh.

  101. 101.

    Paul in KY

    @Another Scott: I can tell you (and I’m sure you already know) that the Joint Chiefs don’t give a shit who the Veep is. They don’t report to the Veep. He/she is not in their chain-of-command.

  102. 102.

    Suzanne

    @cain: The only problem I have with a lot of people who are interested in housing justice is that many of them seem to think that land is limited. It isn’t. There’s undeveloped land in a lot of cities, even expensive ones. There’s underdeveloped land that is often just a too-large parking lot. And there’s land in suburbs and exurbs and perimeter to use. So much of what I read from them — even when I agree with the goal of not displacing anybody — is written from this viewpoint that “we can’t make more land”. Well, yeah, that’s true, but it’s not like we used it all up or anything. The best way to not displace existing residents is to add housing to keep up with population growth.

  103. 103.

    Hoodie

    @Soprano2: Eh, just another Trump meathead.  I have relatives like this guy.  He lives on a DoD pension, gets Tricare, etc., and wants to blow the system up because of some supposed conspiracy?  That’s pure nihilism.  No wonder his brother doesn’t talk to him.   My brother in law used to say shit like this and alienated pretty much everyone in the family.  He didn’t straighten out until his wife got very sick.  I think a lot of these guys are just bored, disconnected and narrowly educated (sounds like he was an IT guy in the service) and thus are particularly susceptible to the type of propaganda that gets pumped out by the right wing media.

  104. 104.

    zhena gogolia

    @Paul in KY: He just did a front-page post about two days ago.

    I’ve seen Martin and BillinGlendale lately, but not Roger Moore or the others. Certainly not Amir or debbie.

  105. 105.

    hells littlest angel

    Jasmine Crockett is my latest favorite Congressperson. A stateswoman and a honey badger.

  106. 106.

    Hoodie

    @Suzanne: I think most of them think “there’s not enough land to build single family houses on half-acre lots like they did in the late 20th century.”   Most don’t understand that was a post-war aberration.  My parents grew up in the 20’s and 30’s in a flat in north St. Louis.  Most people lived like that.   A lot of that housing stock was abandoned after the war in favor of tract houses in what were previously corn fields.

  108. 108.

    Brachiator

    @cain:

    In California, there is simply not enough low and moderate income housing being built. In the cities where I do business and travel, the NIMBY crowd fight hard to oppose more housing. They cite increased traffic and quality of life issues, which is largely bull crap.

    There is also the homelessness dilemma. Unemployment is low, but I see more homeless people than I have ever seen before, including children and families.

  109. 109.

    Suzanne

    @Hoodie: We can build plenty of new housing without doing so on half-acre lots. We can also build plenty of new houses without driving people out of their neighborhoods — which will happen anyway if we don’t build new housing and the population continues to grow. It’s bonkers to me that the issue comes down to this stupid binary.

  110. 110.

    Another Scott

    @Paul in KY: Yes, yes.

    But Ollie North wasn’t in the chain of command either.

    And the various monsters trying to break into the Capitol weren’t in the chain of command either.

    If someone is being screamed at by a person claiming they were directed by the POTUS, then it can be hard to say “NO”.

    If we have monsters in office, they will try to seize power and bend the system (and the good people in it) to their will, no matter what the rules and laws and norms are.  And part of the way they try to do that is via the media and molding public opinion.

    It’s a not-so-interesting thought experiment.  TIFG is going to pick who he wants, for whatever reason, and his minions are probably going to say it’s a genius move – whoever it is.

    We’ll see, but with any luck it won’t matter.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  111. 111.

    Geminid

    @Suzanne: That’s basically what’s happening in Charlottesville. I was riding around town with a friend driving last month and got my first good look in a few years. There are 4-story buildings popping up in commercial districts where people only used to build one or two story businesses, and pockets where small single-family homes got built 100 years ago that are now skinny two-story rowhouses or three and four story condo buildings.

    My friend’s house is one of 10 small houses on a street south of downtown. They were all built in the 1950s. The street ends on a wide, narrow lot that’s been sitting unused for generations. It overlooks the railroad tracks. It’s one of those oddball lots that never get touched until demand for housing becomes great enough. Now, someone is about to build a 32 unit condo building there.

  112. 112.

    cain

    @Suzanne: There is plenty of land here to develop within the Urban growth boundary. Large parcels in the western suburbs of Portland and they are all trying to be more dense.

    I think the problem again is that it needs to be affordable and we have a lot of folks and I again will point to hedge funds that are trying to buy up the houses to drive up the prices and have high rent prices.

    https://www.koin.com/news/politics/oregon-washington-lawmakers-want-to-ban-hedge-funds-from-buying-single-family-homes/

    Hedge funds are also behind trying to get tech companies to shed employees.

    https://www.marketwatch.com/story/hedge-fund-billionaire-google-owner-alphabet-needs-to-cut-more-than-12-000-overpaid-jobs-11674484497

    This guy wants to see a 20% staff reduction saying we are all being paid too much.

  114. 114.

    Paul in KY

    @Another Scott: These are 4 star generals we’re talking about. They ain’t going to 5 star or Field Marshal.  That’s it for them. Chairman of the JCS is the only thing they can aspire to (for those who are not the Chairman). I just can’t see these guys/girls buckling to some lickspittle of TFG’s telling them this or that. It’s going to have to come from him or Sec Def. Then it would be analyzed to see if lawful or not, etc. etc.

  115. 115.

    cain

    @Brachiator:

    Right – but our wages are not keeping up with real estate anyways. Even with low unemployment – the housing is just way too high.

    My house of 1100 sq fti is worth $550k in a blue collar neighborhood. I mean it’s insane. I bought the house for $155k in 1998.

    The house I’m living in – I paid 830k, 2 years ago, it’s probably going to go for $920k. I mean, nearly a million dollars. I mean it’s wild. The house I think previously was only $340k when it was built.

  120. 120.

    frosty

    @zhena gogolia: Mwahhh!!!!

    One of the references on their Wikipedia page is a Doctoral dissertation from Australia. Downloadable as a PDF. I’m reading it. The author digs into the male rock critics in the 70s who invented the genre of Girl Groups then sidelined them as not real rockers. Bastards!

  121. 121.

    WaterGirl

    @Ken:

     “If a President shall not have been chosen before the time fixed for the beginning of his term, or if the President elect shall have failed to qualify, then the Vice President elect shall act as President until a President shall have qualified”

    which is interesting, in these accursedly interesting times where we’re discussing the 14th amendment.

    Oh, yes!  That seems quite important.

  123. 123.

    Another Scott

    @Paul in KY: I’m no expert on this stuff, but we may be talking past each other.

    The JCS decide policy and similar things.  They aren’t combatant commanders and won’t be calling out the Big Red 1 to crush protests. At least the way things normally work…

    Remember Ollie North was the 5 Star Lt. Colonel:

    GUTS AND GLORY The Rise and Fall of Oliver North. By Ben Bradlee Jr. Illustrated. 572 pp. New York: Donald I. Fine. $21.95.

    HOW’S this for a Hollywood plot? In the presence of the President, a gung-ho Marine lieutenant colonel tries to pressure the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff into committing a supersecret Stealth bomber, capable of evading enemy radar, to the task of assassinating a notorious Arab leader caught masterminding terrorist attacks against innocent Americans. The admiral, believing the Stealth too precious a plane to risk, urges instead that the strike be mounted by F-111 fighter-bombers based in England, 2,800 miles from the target. The President sides with the admiral. The air raid goes forward, causing mayhem and destruction and killing the Arab leader’s 15-month-old adopted daughter. Yet the leader, asleep in a tent near his command post, escapes injury.

    Such a scene might tax the imagination of an audacious scriptwriter. Still, there it is, presented as fact, smack in the midst of ”Guts and Glory,” Ben Bradlee Jr.’s full-scale biography of Oliver North. The colonel, as we know, is a central figure in the Iran-contra affair, a scandal that engrossed much of official Washington for nearly a year and succeeded in mesmerizing tens of millions of viewers during televised Congressional hearings.

    Not content merely to examine what is by now familiar territory, Mr. Bradlee plunges into several heretofore unmapped thickets. For example, he presents persuasive evidence that Mr. North knew that some contra leaders were dealing drugs to finance their military efforts against the Sandinistas. ”Guts and Glory” also reports that in 1985, with Mr. North’s approval, H. Ross Perot, the Texas entrepreneur, bankrolled a successful diplomatic initiative by the Rev. Jesse Jackson to win the release of a hostage, Jeremy Levin, then being held in Lebanon.

    One of the more fascinating sideshows deals with the Administration’s so-called Operations Sub-Group, a shadowy unit Mr. North headed, which, as Mr. Bradlee makes quite clear, sought, with the President’s concurrence, to assassinate Libya’s Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Did Adm. William Crowe, in his capacity as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, actually persuade President Reagan to scuttle Mr. North’s idea of employing Stealth bombers in that 1986 raid? The author reports that Mr. North told his associates Admiral Crowe had done so. Furthermore, those associates told Mr. Bradlee that the admiral also confronted Mr. North beyond the President’s earshot and, standing nose to nose with him, said: ”Young man, you’d better watch your step.”

    Mr. Bradlee says his book draws on 312 interviews, including, presumably, a session with Admiral Crowe (the author doesn’t make it clear whether he himself interviewed the admiral). In any event, Admiral Crowe, Mr. Bradlee informs us, denies that the confrontation with Mr. North ever took place or, for that matter, that Mr. North had even proposed using the Stealth on the Libya raid.

    […]

    The chain of command and the rules and the norms are only as good as the people in them.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  124. 124.

    Suzanne

    @cain:

    I think the problem again is that it needs to be affordable and we have a lot of folks and I again will point to hedge funds that are trying to buy up the houses to drive up the prices and have high rent prices. 

    Absolutely. But hedge funds are also buying up existing housing stock in many cities, so opposing the construction altogether isn’t a solution, either. Agreed that this shouldn’t be allowed.

    The need for it to be affordable is a different question. Lots of municipalities have specifically adopted rules that are designed to make houses expensive (minimum lot sizes and large setbacks and minimum floor-area ratios). Back in the mid-2000s, there were a shit-ton of starter-home tract houses being built. The market was absolutely saturated, because lots of cities were allowing a huge amount of development. And the market naturally differentiated because there were so many builders. After 2008, new home starts went into the crapper and are only now getting back to a normal pace. Short of just ginormous incentives from municipalities, which are difficult to see happening, this is what it’s gonna take.

  125. 125.

    ...now I try to be amused

    @Mr. Bemused Senior:

    [ETA this brings to mind a Monty Python sketch, my memory isn’t 100% clear, I will look for it… ah, yes, Mystico and Janet.]

    “They’re safe, provided people believe in them.” That’s the best metaphor for a modern economy I’ve ever seen.

  127. 127.

    Paul in KY

    @Another Scott: The members of the JCS are the CINCs of each service and then the Chairman. The non-chairman ones are line officers (the top ones). They are ‘the buck stops here’ for each branch of the Armed Forces.

  128. 128.

    Soprano2

    @Elizabelle: I know, that’s what’s crazy – he has everything going for him, yet he’s miserably unhappy and thinks everything needs to be “blown up” in the government.

  130. 130.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: Like the parking lot around our mall. The only time most of those spots were filled was during the week before Christmas. Right now I guarantee you they could develop half that land easily and have enough parking for the mall on almost every day of the year.

  131. 131.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    Olly olly oxen free…

    This stuff with Oliver North reminds me of some of the characters and plotting in the movie A Clear and Present Danger.
    North was on the National Security staff and given too much free rein. No VP required. It’s about how much the people in charge let things happen.
    North also was wrapped up in interesting issues regarding immunity.

    North was granted limited immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying before Congress about the scheme. He was initially convicted on three felony charges, but the convictions were vacated and reversed and all charges against him dismissed in 1991, on the grounds of immunity.

    I wonder what Trump would make of this.

  132. 132.

    Another Scott

    @Suzanne: Made me look…

    NBER.org – The 1920s American Real Estate Boom and the Downturn of the Great Depression: Evidence from City Cross-Sections (42 page .pdf) (from 2014):

    From 1920 to 1930, home ownership rates and home owners’ estimates of house values rose more in cities that issued especially large numbers of single- family house building permits in the boom years of the mid- 1920s. But these cities did not experience especially high growth in the number of census families. In the early years of the Great Depression, these cities saw bigger declines in home ownership rates and in home owners’ estimates of house values. They saw higher rates of foreclosure.

    Our interpretation is that in the early 1920s some set of fundamental shocks, perhaps including the development of automobiles and new mortgage finance institutions, tended to raise house prices and construction in some cities more than others. By the mid- 1920s differences between cities were being reinforced by a feedback mechanism of irrational expectations in a bubble. After 1925 the bubble burst. Prices and construction began to fall. In cities where prices and construction had most outrun fundamentals, prices had the farthest to fall, and many building permits were abandoned (which helps account for the absence of a relation between mid- 1920s permits and growth in census families).

    In 1929, house markets in the cities that had boomed in the mid- 1920s were still in disequilibrium. In these cities vacancy rates were high (which also helps account for our results on census families) and home owners’ estimates of potential sale prices were high relative to actual sale prices (so they were still high relative to 1920 prices, whether or not actual sale prices were still high relative to 1920 prices). Home owners in these cities may have had more mortgage debt, on average, and more balloon mortgages about to come due.

    Then the Depression hit. As home owners’ overestimated values were corrected, perceived values fell more in former boom cities. Actual sale prices may have fallen more, too, as sticky asking prices became unstuck and a backlog of sellers who had been holding out for above- market prices gave in. As the general decline in income interacted with relatively high leverage, rates of foreclosure and distress sales were higher in former boom cities, and home ownership rates fell more.

    This story fits the evidence, but we admit it is long on speculation. We have hopeful, perhaps irrational expectations that it will be validated by future research. In any case, our evidence shows that cities more affected by the residential real estate boom of the mid- 1920s suffered greater declines in perceived house values and higher foreclosure rates during the Great Depression. Thus, they tend to support a view that the 1920s real estate boom contributed to the Great Depression through wealth and financial channels.

    The more things change…

    IOW, more supply won’t necessarily fix the problem and might actually make it worse. It has to be done smartly (even beyond the NIMBY issues).

    I think the lesson here is that the banksters, realtors, and politicians who depend on them for campaign donations have to be watched carefully to keep them from going hog-wild in boom-and-bust cycles. The “free market” isn’t, and pretending it is is very damaging.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  133. 133.

    geg6

    @Paul in KY: ​
     
    Don’t get me wrong, I like Rep. Porter. But she does not click the same “thing” button for me as my junior senator does. At all. Maybe she has her own “thing,” (I have no idea because I haven’t paid much attention to her except for the whiteboard thing that I am not enamored of) but it’s nothing like Fetterman.

  134. 134.

    Another Scott

    @Paul in KY:

    But, again as I understand it, they’re not combatant commanders.

    Wikipedia.org:

    Following the Goldwater–Nichols Act in 1986, the Joint Chiefs of Staff do not have operational command authority, either individually or collectively, as the chain of command goes from the president to the secretary of defense, and from the secretary to the regional combatant commanders.[7] Goldwater–Nichols also created the office of vice chairman, and the chairman is now designated as the principal military adviser to the secretary of defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the president.[8]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @geg6: I did not name any of the former 15 state legislators besides Rep. Crockett. It was gonna a long enough comment as it was. But they included a former Ohio House Minority Leader, Emilia Sykes, former Kentucky Senate Minority Leader Morgan McGarvey; and Vermont Senate Majority Leader Becca Balint.

    I also left out Mary Peltola of Alaska and Jeniffer McLellan of Richmond, Virginia. Both of them entered the last Congress in special elections and this is their first full term.

  136. 136.

    WaterGirl

    @geg6:  Fetterman is authentic.

    Porter has been great in the House., but it’s starting to feel like he is reducing herself to a caricature.  I hope she can turn that around.

  137. 137.

    geg6

    @WaterGirl:

    The whiteboard thing feels condescending to me, like a particularly annoying high school teacher I once had.  Maybe that’s just me.

  138. 138.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl: shitter is a universal, descriptive expletive IME.  Like ‘The Head’ and where I wish we could dunk cowards.  In an outhouse, head first.

  139. 139.

    Princess

    @Ken: Dead thread but I couldn’t finish Babel and I’m glad it was left off. I have no objection to the politics, in fact I’ve published on these issues. I do object to being lectured to for 400 pages in a novel with no plot and paper thin characters .

  141. 141.

    Eduardo

    @Suzanne: I will vote for him if it comes to him and a Sanders type, or if the other top contestant is less electable or something like that.

    I can’t forgive his show “legalizing” gay marriage in San Francisco in 2004.   First, it was blatantly illegal.  Second, the couples “wedded” would of  course have their certificates nullified.  Third, it would make gay marriage more salient in a year in which you wanted to make it less salient.   In fact, he “legalized” gay marriage in San Fran in February 12, 2004 and Bush called for a gay marriage ban amendment to the constitution 12 days later.  11 states would have gay marriage bans in the ballot that year in order to increase Republican turnout.

    Second, he gives me strong John Edwards vibes.  I hated his guts way before the scandal.  Someone put it very well:  “Bill Clinton without the books”.

    Thirdly, Kimberly Guilfoyle.  I’m sorry I am shallow like that.

  142. 142.

    Paul in KY

    @Another Scott: Thank you for the correction on their command status, or lack thereof. I would still hope they have the robust sense of duty that someone who gets to that rank/station should & would laugh them out of the room.

  143. 143.

    Paul in KY

    @geg6: His thing is singular! She mostly rates a ‘thing’ because she has a good way of telling-it-like-it-is (more so than the average Democratic senator).

  144. 144.

    KrackenJack

    @wjca: I think he is going to pick a total lick spittle with no relevant experience or independent powerbase. Pence was a catastrophic choice from his perspective. He doesn’t intend to ever relinquish the presidency and if America is f**ked when he’s dead, so much the better. Would he trust Haley or any other political player not to join in to a 25th amendment challenge?

    It’s something we have absolutely no visibility into or control over. I trust the Dem leadership to handle it, if it comes to that.

  145. 145.

    Mo MacArbie

    I can see the side of the Doctor in Suzanne’s story. He probably went all Samson on his own house demolishing the kitchen and learned about load-bearing walls the hard way.

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