Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you do not.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He really is that stupid.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

How stupid are these people?

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

Giving up is unforgivable.

No one could have predicted…

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

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Pastor Speaker Johnson Is A (More-or-Less) Human Speed Bump

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Pastor Speaker Johnson Is A (More-or-Less) Human Speed Bump

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… Mostly because Johnson is a small, scared little man. (I swear, VP Harris should’ve pulled a spin on the famous Dick Gregory routine, and threatened to kiss him right on the lips… )

The NYTimes is piously saddened for poor little Mr. Johnson — “As Spending Talks Intensify, Johnson’s Bind Grows Tighter” [gift link]:

At an intense meeting inside the Oval Office on Tuesday, Speaker Mike Johnson was the odd man out.

President Biden made clear that the speaker’s positions were out of step with other leaders in government, as did Vice President Kamala Harris. The top Democrats in the House and Senate did, too. Even Senator Mitch McConnell, his fellow G.O.P. leader on the other side of the Capitol, emphasized the need for the speaker to avoid a government shutdown and provide badly needed aid to Ukraine.

With time running out to respond to two crises — a partial government shutdown that is looming this weekend and the potential end to American aid to help Ukraine prevail in its war against Russia — Mr. Johnson, only months into his job, has found himself the last holdout at an increasingly agitated table of negotiators.

On the one side, he is feeling pressure from the president of the United States, both Senate leaders and the House minority leader — all demanding he cut a deal to fund the government and keep aid to Kyiv flowing. But on his right flank, he is facing a band of hard-line Republicans demanding that he hold out for conservative priorities and spurn Ukraine’s calls for help, or risk being booted from the speakership.

To put it succinctly, Mr. Johnson is in a bind.

“Boy, is it a tough one,” said former Representative Vin Weber, Republican of Minnesota, who helped advise Kevin McCarthy during his lengthy bid to secure the gavel. “There is not a solution that will make everyone happy and unite the Republican Party.”

Mr. Weber said the pressures on Mr. Johnson were coming not just from members of Congress, but also from a Republican electorate at war with itself.

“He has a divided Republican grass-roots base,” Mr. Weber said. “Isolationism has spread among the grass-roots base, but there’s also a lot of grass-roots Republicans who will be furious if we let the Russians win. He’s got problems multiple ways. But he’s got to figure out the right thing to do and do it. It may cost him his speakership.”

Mr. Johnson views himself as the last man in the room standing for conservative priorities, even as he has acknowledged he has scaled down some of the demands of the hard right. He has said he is hoping to hit singles and not home runs during the negotiations…

Johnson intern Haulsee sent out to test the waters, gets handbagged by Matty Y:

Makes it tough for Pastor Johnson to rebut ‘rumors’ about being a Putin puppet…

Reader Interactions

147Comments

  1. 1.

    Ken

    “There is not a solution that will make everyone happy and unite the Republican Party.”

    I just realized, historians are probably drooling at the possibility of observing the breakup of a major US political party first-hand.

  5. 5.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Read the room Johnson, if Republican senators are saying isolationism doesn’t cut it, that means it isolationism isn’t even popular with the Right.  Leave it to some God Bother to decided  to do his martyr cosplay on something serious like foreign policy.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    there’s also a lot of grass-roots Republicans who will be furious if we let the Russians win

    Haley voters?

  7. 7.

    New Deal democrat

    Dan Guild, whose polling analysis I very much respect, had an interesting Xeet yesterday.

    He showed how a variety of issues polled among undecided voters in the six States most commonly viewed as swing States.

    *By far,* the most important issue raised was the economy (jobs, inflation, and taxes), which was chosen by an average of 33% of all such voters. Second was housing, at 12%, and third was healthcare, at 11%. No other issue cracked 10%.

    Here’s the link:
     https://twitter.com/dcg1114/status/1762489604781858860

    I’m not sure what the healthcare issue is. It’s not abortion access, which was listed separately and only came in at an average of 7%.

    It’s really important for Biden to be perceived as having brought inflation under control. And he also needs to do the same thing with housing. Part of this is interest rates, where hopefully the Fed is going to cut rates in a few months; but just as big a part is house prices. Even if Congress won’t enact, or the Supreme Court will strike down, a housing costs program, Biden really should be offering one, and making sure that (especially younger voters) see him as attempting to solve their housing costs problem.

  8. 8.

    Frank Wilhoit

    For a while there, it was fashionable to use the loanword “Kabuki” to describe the American political habit of making feinting gestures that are not intended to land.  This was a gross national slander against Japan and perhaps that is why it fell out of use.  I always preferred “shadowboxing”.

    There is a prime piece of shadowboxing in the above report — can you spot it?  It is the trickle-trickle oppo dump against Mike Johnson.  So he has been getting Russian bribes; and, more quietly and more seriously, noises are being made about his adopted child and the inconsistent stories he has told about that situation down the years.  But it won’t hurt and it isn’t meant to: it is all a piece of posturing and that is why it is being done now instead of months ago, and why it is being done trickle-trickle.

  11. 11.

    New Deal democrat

    BTW, now that Nitter is dead, here’s a tip for those who want to follow people on Xitter without having to create an account. Google as follows:

    [name of account] <space> twitter <double space>

    If the person has taken Xits recently, the most recent 6 will appear. If nothing appears, most likely the person has not posted anything.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    @Frank Wilhoit: We’ll know the anti-Johnson stories are meant to hurt when they’re about the bank account he doesn’t have.

    When the story about his financial (non-)disclosures came out, my first reaction was “Oh come on, reporters — does he wander over to the Treasury every two weeks and collect his congressional salary in cash? This isn’t hard to follow-up!”

  13. 13.

    dmsilev

    @Ken:

    I just realized, historians are probably drooling at the possibility of observing the breakup of a major US political party first-hand.

    Maybe some of them figured out a way to …help history happen? Those publications and lectures aren’t just going to write themselves, you know.

  15. 15.

    Ken

    @New Deal democrat: An alternate tip is to not follow on X-Twitter, hastening the decline of that wretched hive of scum, villainy, and Nazis.

    Hey, front-pagers — can we get a thread where we share non-X links for people we might like to follow? I just recently found Paul Krugman, and I’ve been following Popehat and Neil Gaiman since bluesky opened to non-members.

  17. 17.

    John S.

    @Ken:

    That would require some actual effort. It’s so much easier to keep writing “Biden is old” and “Biden struggles with Democrats” stories that require no effort or thought whatsoever.

  18. 18.

    lowtechcyclist

    To put it succinctly, Mr. Johnson is in a bind.

    Too fucking bad, so fucking sad.

    Since Mike Johnson apparently thinks he’s Moses, my mind is trying to come up with a latter-day Moses analogue to Herod’s “C’mon, King of the Jews” from J.C. Superstar.  With lyrics like

    Prove to me that you’re the boss, afflict the Dems with a plague of frogs

    Might need Tony Jay to step in for this one.

  19. 19.

    Marcopolo

    Realize this is slightly OT but ffs drop out Dean!  Dude came in behind Marianne “pulled out of the race after SC” Williamson.  Hope I never wind up in a situation where I double and double and double down on losing until it takes an electron microscope to see what’s left of my dignity.

    Not saying Johnson’s on the same glide path but there are similarities.

    Edited to add: Oops looks like I spoke too soon about Williamson.  What is it with these people!

  20. 20.

    gene108

    Johnson needs to do the right thing and fund the government and Ukraine. He’ll lose his job as Speaker, but he’s getting close to causing a lot more problems than losing a promotion.

    Either way, hopefully, the dysfunction among House Republicans starts to be noticed by normies and hurt them in November.

  21. 21.

    Scout211

    Boebert’s family is in the news again.  Link

    GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KJCT) – Lauren Boebert’s 18-year-old son was arrested in Garfield County February 27, 2024, and faces 22 charges.

    According to the Rifle Police Department’s Facebook page Tyler Boebert was arrested at around 2:30 in the afternoon. The arrest comes after a string of vehicle and property thefts in the area.

    I realize that this young man is now an adult but this has hit the national news and we are “just asking questions,” right?

  22. 22.

    gene108

    @Ken:

    Per FP’ers, Bluesky doesn’t allow embedding like X does. Plus, they’re doing this for free and providing a lot of information.

  23. 23.

    Marcopolo

    @Scout211: Hate to see it.  Honestly, a semi-competent congressperson would have found a way to employ/pay their offspring through either their campaign or their office so stuff like this wouldn’t happen.  It’s a time honored tradition.

  24. 24.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ken:

    Hey, front-pagers — can we get a thread where we share non-X links for people we might like to follow? I just recently found Paul Krugman, and I’ve been following Popehat and Neil Gaiman since bluesky opened to non-members.

    I think that’s a great idea for a thread!  There are others I miss being able to follow on Xitter (Josh Marshall comes to mind) but I’m just not going back there.  So a thread with a bunch of links to where we can find people a number of us would like to follow would be great.

    ETA:

    @gene108:

    Per FP’ers, Bluesky doesn’t allow embedding like X does. Plus, they’re doing this for free and providing a lot of information.

    OK, but the rest of us aren’t front-pagers, and many of us would like to follow people like Krugman and Popehat on our own.

  28. 28.

    artem1s

    In 2018, Johnson received campaign contributions from the company “American Ethane,” 88% of which is owned by three Russian nationals.

    It’s always projection with these assholes. They’re sure the Bidens’ took bribes from foreign nationals because they all do.
    Man it’s gotta chap his ass that he was called to down to the principals office White House like an errant school boy and then had to ‘negotiate’ with Kamala. He’s got that Pence “Mother says I’m not allowed to sit this close to another woman” vibes. He’s going to have a epic Newt Gingrich sized “IgotalousyseatonAF1” melt down when he realizes he’s no Moses in this picture. I give him 1.5 Scaramucci’s left in his speakership once he caves on keeping the government open and/or let’s the House do a straight up vote on the border/Ukraine funding bill. I’d love to see Biden invite Henry to a separate meeting. I’m assuming he’ll take the gavel again when Johnson’s ass is MTV’d. Why even deal with guy who’s getting fired next month?

  29. 29.

    geg6

    @gene108: ​
     
    If Bluesky or other such sites want to be the next best thing, they need to change this policy. I bet if they did, lots of people would sign up just so they don’t have to give views to Apartheid Nazi Boy.
    I was never on Twitter and I doubt I’ll ever be on one of the alternatives. But I did used to click on imbeds if they sounded interesting. I have stopped doing that and I never will again.

  31. 31.

    trnc

    I’m not sure what the hell Matt Yglesias was doing in Elonworld for a while, but he looks more like the old Matt. I don’t use shitbird, so I could be missing stupid stuff by Matt.

  33. 33.

    Jeffg166

    @Ken: It’s happened before. It’s the party of the rich that seems to fall apart periodically then regroup into a new version of me first.

  34. 34.

    Soprano2

    To me Johnson looks extremely uncomfortable in the picture of him with Kamala. I’m sure he is, since a woman with real power is against his world view.

    I don’t know what the Republican yahoos in the House are going to do, but I think shutting down the government has lost the shock value it used to have. Now it’s just “Oh, those assholes again”.

  35. 35.

    Caveatimperator

    @Soprano2:

    It’s not only lost its shock value, but the press and the public have been blaming Republicans for the dysfunction in the House.

    It worked in the past because Republicans were able to deflect blame onto the Democrats. But it’s not working now.

  36. 36.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @NotMax:

    I know that and similar statements are commonly accepted truths, but I have never done that. And it is clear that a lot of Republican voters don’t do that either.

  37. 37.

    lowtechcyclist

    @artem1s:

    Why even deal with guy who’s getting fired next month?

    For one thing, things aren’t going so well in Ukraine right now.  Their ammunition shortage is forcing them to give up ground, as Adam has been pointing out.

    If we can start replenishing their supplies now rather than a month down the road, it will make a big difference over there.

  38. 38.

    Ken

    @EarthWindFire: Oh, I thought the “delinquency of a minor” charges was because some of Boebert’s criminal gang were under 18. Maybe he was bringing the baby along when they went out smashing car windows to steal cellphones, purses, wallets, and anything else left on the seats.

    (BTW, that’s my reconstruction of the crime from the list of charges, and may have nothing to do with what he actually did. It’d be nice if it’s correct, if only to have a comeback when someone is grumbling about “urban” gangs breaking into parked cars.)

  39. 39.

    lowtechcyclist

    Johnson is on an island …

    Too bad the only people who can vote him off the island are his fellow House Republicans.

  41. 41.

    JWR

    @New Deal democrat:

    It’s really important for Biden to be perceived as having brought inflation under control.

    TBH, for people in my situation, (forced into early retirement back in 2005 by way of chronic Sciatica, meaning constant, grueling pain), he hasn’t. Oh sure, to the number crunchers he may have, but this corporate inflation, from the supermarkets to auto insurance to whatever industry, everything costs the same today as they did back when inflation hit it’s peak.

    I’m a solid D voter, always have been, but every “person on the street” voter I hear complaining about inflation, all I can think is “I hear you”. How does this get fixed? I dunno, but the economy for me still sucks pretty hard, and inflation is an easy target to hit.

  42. 42.

    Marcopolo

    @John S.: Or maybe the markets have been on a ridiculous tear for the past several months and they are just taking some off the table.  That’s just being prudent & not click bait doom & gloom.  I know my weightings are all out of whack atm & I need to rebalance.

  43. 43.

    Another Scott

    Cornyn’s take of “attach HR2 and send it back” is a lifeline for Johnson, but he probably can’t get it through the House without something for Democrats there.

    In a sensible negotiation they would:
    – Pass a new CR to prevent the 3/1 and 3/8 shut-downs.
    – The Appropriations bills would pass with no poison pills.
    – The House would attach something like HR2 to the Senate Supplemental bill, to make the bomb-throwers happy, and send it back.
    – There would be a Conference Committee to hash out the differences between the House and Senate versions. The resulting bill would look very much like Biden’s original Supplemental (with the border funding attached).
    – The compromise bill would pass both chambers and Biden would sign it and everyone would declare victory.

    That’s the way it’s supposed to work. The bomb-throwers get to gum up the works, and get to fight, fight, fight for their poison pills and pound of flesh for a while, but they don’t pass. The rest of the pols who know how elections work get the job done in time for passions to fade before the election.

    We’ll see if Johnson is smart enough to realize – as Fritscher said months ago – that this is the only path forward.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  44. 44.

    Salty Sam .

    Mr. Johnson…On the one side, he is feeling pressure from the president of the United States, both Senate leaders and the House minority leader — all demanding he cut a deal to fund the government and keep aid to Kyiv flowing. But on his right flank, he is facing a band of hard-line Republicans demanding that he hold out for conservative priorities  fascists who are intent on destroying democracy.

    FIFY

  45. 45.

    Soprano2

    @JWR: There is no way to really fix it, because most companies aren’t going to lower their prices to pre-Covid levels. I can give you one instance – the price of rubber/vinyl gloves doubled almost overnight during Covid, and as far as I know the prices haven’t gone back down. If they haven’t gone down by now they’re not going to go down. I do notice “price drop” signs in WalMart, but I think I’m the only one who sees them, because when I bring it up people laugh at me. I think the best we can hope for is that prices level off or in some instances go down.

  46. 46.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Soprano2:

    I don’t know what the Republican yahoos in the House are going to do, but I think shutting down the government has lost the shock value it used to have. Now it’s just “Oh, those assholes again”.

    Maybe the threat of shutting down the government has little shock value.  Actually doing it hasn’t been done in five years, and the time before that was in the fall of 2014.  It would still carry some shock value.

    Don’t know how many people would notice Friday night’s partial shutdown even if it extends into next week*, given the handful of agencies that would be closed.  But if the rest of the government shuts down a week later, people are going to notice that if we wake up on Monday, March 11, and things are still shut down.

    *Hardly anyone notices when the government shuts down on Friday night but gets reopened in time to pay government employees to go to work Monday morning.

  47. 47.

    Soprano2

    @Another Scott: Things like this are why it’s bad to hire inexperienced people for a job like Speaker. Johnson is terrible at this job but shows no indication of being aware of this fact.

  52. 52.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    Prices almost never go down, and the economy is in real trouble if they do across the board.

    I understand the problems with deflation on an ongoing basis, but someone would have to give a cause-and-effect description to explain to me how a one-shot deal where all prices to magically return to their 2019 levels plus, say, 10% would be a problem.

    I say people would spend more, buy more stuff, and keep the economy humming.  The people who would be getting less money would mostly be large corporations.

    What about small businesses, you ask. OK, their prices go to 2019+10%, but so do the prices of their suppliers.  Most of them should do just fine.

  53. 53.

    Ken

    @Soprano2:  Johnson is terrible at this job but shows no indication of being aware of this fact.

    In fairness, you have to go back quite a few years to find a Republican Speaker where that’s not true.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    @lowtechcyclist:

    how a one-shot deal where all prices to magically return to their 2019 levels plus, say, 10% would be a problem.

     
    It would be magic because there’s no such thing as pricing just decreasing by a fixed about without an external market cause, usually a bad one. Not even communist countries control prices like that anymore.

  56. 56.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Soprano2:

    There is no way to really fix it, because most companies aren’t going to lower their prices to pre-Covid levels. I can give you one instance – the price of rubber/vinyl gloves doubled almost overnight during Covid, and as far as I know the prices haven’t gone back down. If they haven’t gone down by now they’re not going to go down.

    Yeah, it’s been called ‘greedflation’ – the problems that caused these companies costs to suddenly increase have gone away, but they’ve kept prices up anyway.

    My WAG is that it’s one of the effects of our moribund antitrust enforcement: too many industries have too few players, and the lack of competition allows everyone to keep their prices high.

  57. 57.

    Ken

    @lowtechcyclist: a one-shot deal where all prices and wages to magically return to their 2019 levels plus, say, 10% would be a problem.

    I hope you see the problem with my revised version. I’m not sure how you get one but not the other; though admittedly, studies show somewhere around half of the 2020-2021 price increases were going straight into increased corporate profits.

  58. 58.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @lowtechcyclist: I understand the problems with deflation on an ongoing basis, but someone would have to give a cause-and-effect description to explain to me how a one-shot deal where all prices to magically return to their 2019 levels plus, say, 10% would be a problem.

    How do you do that without negating all the wage increases at the same time?

  59. 59.

    WaterGirl

    Can someone with an running Chrome tell me if you are able to get to Balloon Juice at the moment?

    Ideally an iPhone 14, but I think any current iPhone will probably do.

  60. 60.

    Another Scott

    @lowtechcyclist: Counter-factuals are fun.

    “Hey, my prices just dropped to 2019+10%!  They can’t stay that way, so I better buy now!  Whoops??!  Prices a month from now are higher than they were last week because my suppliers can’t meet demand??!!” and things go nuts because there’s not enough elasticity.  Instead a drop in inflation, there’s another spike from the sugar-high.

    or

    “Hey, my prices just dropped to 2019+10%!  But things are weird now and my customers are still nervous and won’t commit to new contracts because they think prices may drop some more.  Better not buy that stuff for next month until I have more clarity on what the future might bring…”  And money stops flowing.

    The real economy doesn’t like shocks, because real people don’t like change.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  61. 61.

    The Thin Black Duke

    Ye Olde Joke comes to mind:

    “Hey, Johnson! Get yer sanctimonious ass down from the cross, we need the wood!”

    As with most hollow creatures who live unexamined lives, Mark Johnson never expected martyrdom to hurt so much.

    “Ow! Gosh darn it, I got a splinter!”

    End scene.

    (Man, this sequel to The Last Temptation of Christ sucks balls)

  62. 62.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Ken:

    I suppose the original wave of House Clowns led by Gingrich might have been “good at their jobs” but damned if I have a good metric for what that might mean.  I mean just look at (R) speakers since Newt got the gavel, jeeeesusfuckingkeeeristonabike what a parade of godawful people.

  64. 64.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    I suppose in well functioning economy, higher profits precede higher wages. I don’t see how labor bargains for higher wages if the company isn’t that profitable to begin with.

  65. 65.

    New Deal democrat

    @JWR:

    TBH, for people in my situation, (forced into early retirement back in 2005 by way of chronic Sciatica, meaning constant, grueling pain), he hasn’t. Oh sure, to the number crunchers he may have, but this corporate inflation, from the supermarkets to auto insurance to whatever industry, everything costs the same today as they did back when inflation hit it’s peak.

    This goes back to something I’ve discussed in the past week in my economic writings. Here’s the most relevant part:

     

    Although we’ve seen improvement recently across measures of consumer confidence, I suspect there appear to be several reasons for the persistence in the beliefs that inflation has made people in general worse off.

    The first goes back to a principle of psychology: to be more effective, reinforcement has to be more frequent and more recent. When it comes to prices and incomes, prices of things like gas and groceries are encountered almost every day. Thus there is constant reinforcement of that data. But paychecks (and social security payments for retired people) are typically only received biweekly or even monthly, and they typically don’t increase except for once a year. Thus the reinforcement of the price data is far more powerful than the reinforcement of income data. And we also know that actual losses are perceived far more sharply than similar gains….

  66. 66.

    smith

    @Ken: studies show somewhere around half of the 2020-2021 price increases were going straight into increased corporate profits.

    A lot of corporations took advantage of covid-driven inflation to indulge in a bit of price gouging on top of it. I’m at a loss as to what a president would be able to do about this. People who think Biden has a magic wand to keep these companies in line have a childish understanding of presidential powers.

  67. 67.

    JWR

    @Soprano2:
    @Baud:

    Gee, you guys always make me feel so much better. ;) But I hear you both. Unfortunately, some people, sensing inflation as I do, as still day-to-day miserable, will think, “Biden = inflation; Repubs = something different, and vote accordingly. That’s a really hard nut to crack.

  69. 69.

    Baud

    I’m saddened that so many liberals are rebelling against the consequences of liberal economics.  Conservative economics means keeping prices low through low wages, including out sourcing and reduced quality of goods and of life. That’s supply side. Maybe in the end, that’s what most Americans prefer.

  70. 70.

    New Deal democrat

    @Soprano2:

    I think the best we can hope for is that prices level off or in some instances go down.

    Precisely. Let me cut to the chase: consumer prices in general are *never* going down. What we need is for wages and incomes to go up even more (and recently they have, but it takes awhile for perceptions to catch up).

  71. 71.

    Ken

    @smith: I’m at a loss as to what a president would be able to do about this.

    I’m sure after a few corporate CEOs are executed, and a lot more are sent to work in the re-opened West Virginia coal mines, the others will be more cooperative. And if not, their companies can always be nationalized.

    @smith: People who think Biden has a magic wand to keep these companies in line have a childish understanding of presidential powers.

    I feel seen.

  74. 74.

    Brachiator

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Yeah, it’s been called ‘greedflation’ – the problems that caused these companies costs to suddenly increase have gone away, but they’ve kept prices up anyway.

    For a number of companies, costs for supplies, rents, etc, have also risen or stayed at higher levels. Other companies are still trying to recoup revenue which declined or disappeared during the pandemic.

    Also, when it comes to food and other goods, I hate “shrinkflation.” I noted to a friend that cans of soda that used to be 8 ounces are now 7.5 ounces, with a bump in price as well.

  75. 75.

    Torrey

    @JWR: ​
      I have some faith in the value of an effective slogan, and I like the term “corporate inflation.” It’s neat, sweet, and has a certain explanatory vibe about it.

  76. 76.

    New Deal democrat

    @Ken:

    An alternate tip is to not follow on X-Twitter, hastening the decline of that wretched hive of scum, villainy, and Nazis.

    The whole point of my suggestion is that you’re *not* following on Xitter, you’re landing on Google.

     

    Hope that is helpful.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: The problem is not the GOP speakers*, it’s their nutjobcrazy caucus.

    *mind you their speakers post Gingrich have been somewhere between bad and gawdawful, but nobody could look good trying to herd house republicans

  78. 78.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl: iPhone 13 and iPad Pro both running 17.3.1 and Chrome.  Both working fine on balloon-juice.

    ETA: I don’t have any idea if this makes a difference, but I use Chrome on my devices logged out of Google.

  79. 79.

    TBone

    @WaterGirl:  I was in the supermarket a few months ago, and I grumpily tossed a box of tea into my cart from a few feet away, drawing the attention of a nice couple (both masked up, a rarity). Then a loudspeaker announcement from the CEO came on and we all started talking back (kinda yelling together ) in very unflattering terms about price gouging and greedflation.  It was in stark contrast to my usual experience there!  Oops, subject was not this. Back to drawing board for me.

  80. 80.

    Barbara

    @Baud: You make assumptions based on experience, and when those assumptions prove wrong you cannot easily undo decisions you made that were based on those assumptions.

  82. 82.

    Marcopolo

    @OzarkHillbilly: Bingo!  For folks still in the labor market, they’ve hopefully seen a large enough uptick in their wages that the price increases are manageable.  And, according to the number crunchers at the Bureau of Labor Statistics 📈 wages have risen fastest at the lower end of the scale.

    For folks on fixed incomes, very different story unless they have enough investments to benefit from the recent rise in the markets.  I guess SS is also tied to inflation but not sure exactly how that’s played out.

  87. 87.

    TBone

    @Marcopolo: hubby got nice SS raises the past 2 years in a row.  My only income is annual RMDs from inherited IRAs and I’m therefore stuck playing the odds.  Most days, I can’t look since it’s a roll of the dice…

  88. 88.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Brachiator: Construction materials shot thru the roof during covid. I was so shocked by the out of this world price increases for lumber, I did some research for an explanation. Turned out that sawmills had laid off a whole bunch of people and reduced output by as much as 50% expecting Covid would reduce construction. It didn’t. Supply/demand and all that. The same dynamic applied through out the industry, and I just stopped building anything around here.

    Since 2022 or so, prices have dropped back to normal range, but I suspect a few percentage points higher.

  91. 91.

    Ohio Mom

    @Ken: Your comment that historians must be eagerly awaiting having ringside seats to the breakup of the Republican Party is akin to my old observation that scholars in all sorts of fields have to be excited to track and research the effect of the pandemic on their area of study.

    Edicational scholars on the effect on schooling and childhood development, business professors on work-from-home trends and their effect on productivity, the list goes on and on, and then you get to all the areas of study in medicine.

    Or, as the well-known old Chinese curse says, May you live in interesting times.

  95. 95.

    JWR

    @Torrey: I heard, or probably read here, a scrunching up of the words corporate and inflation, (corpflation?), but just erred on not sounding stupid. ;)

  96. 96.

    Ohio Mom

    @WaterGirl: I’m on Safari on an oldish iPhone and I had a bear of a time getting this post to open.

    it kept flashing and  crashing until I took advantage of the moment before the crash to click on Comments. Then everything was fine.

  97. 97.

    lowtechcyclist

    @New Deal democrat:

    The whole point of my suggestion is that you’re *not* following on Xitter, you’re landing on Google.

    But one of the benefits of Ken’s suggestion is that one could put together a folder on one’s toolbar of bookmarks to the people we used to follow on Twitter, rather than having to do something that’s halfway to typing in URLs.

  98. 98.

    schrodingers_cat

    @smith: @Baud: Biden is reversing decades of macroeconomic policy from Milton Friedman back to Keynes. Its not going to be achieved in one presidential term. The online left complains too much. They want a dictator too just from the left

    They will blame every microeconomic problem they face on the President. Like housing prices for example.

  99. 99.

    Ohio Mom

    @TBone: Don’t you get spousal benefits on Hubby’s SS retirement account? As a spouse, you are entitled to payments equaling half of what he gets (if he dies first, your payment goes up to 75%).

  100. 100.

    Barbara

    @OzarkHillbilly: Those who are now getting higher wages are not necessarily the same people who are using the services of people whose wages are going up.  In our household, my husband had started using Uber after the cab driver he used moved back to New York City (my husband works late a lot).  Over the last two years he has been stunned at how much the cost of those services have gone up, but especially the plus factors for rain, game nights, etc.  His “wages” are unaffected by these types of increases (we aren’t complaining).  He now uses metro plus the bus line home, although he will also use the rental scooters and bikes.  Depending on your access to alternatives, you see increasing Uber prices as a real problem or not. Same with a lot of delivery based services.

  102. 102.

    Miss Bianca

    @Percysowner: Yeah, but still never manages to crack more than 5% of the primary vote anywhere.

    “I edged out Vanilla Iceberg Dean Phillips by a couple fractions of a percentage point in Michigan? GAME ON! THE PEOPLE HAVE SPOKEN!”

    I wonder if her farts are patchouli-scented, and that’s why she keeps huffing them.

  103. 103.

    SFAW

    @Baud: ​
     
    I remember Krugman saying/writing years ago that, although inflation can be bad, deflation would be much worse.
    Even before that, Mrs. SFAW was lamenting the run-up in house prices around the time we bought our first home, and wishing prices would drop significantly. I said something like
    “You really don’t want that.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because the economy would probably be in a bad recession for that to happen.”

  104. 104.

    Soprano2

    @Ken: I guarantee you that all our price increases go directly to expenses. We had to increase prices because all our expenses increased by a lot pretty suddenly.

  105. 105.

    New Deal democrat

    @lowtechcyclist: Oh I agree as to people who have switched over to, or are cross-posting on threads or bluesky. My suggestion is as to those who are still posting exclusively on the Xit place.

  106. 106.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty:

    Not true. Anyone can file a Motion to Vacate. Call the bluff of the Freedom Caucus, Dems.

    NO. All that would mean if we succeeded would be another round of GOP attempts to choose a new Speaker, tying up the House for weeks while WE effectively cause the government to shut down, and delay further any prospect of finally getting Ukraine some badly needed munitions.

    Besides, we Dems are the one thing that can unify the House GOP caucus.  If we were the party that initiated a MtV, I’d be prepared to bet nontrivial money that they’d all vote against it.

    I still think we should have saved Spineless Qevin’s ass, at least for long enough to say, “put Ukraine aid on the floor, or we’ll let your crazies know that was a one-off.”

  107. 107.

    Mike in NC

    The freedom of 40 million Ukrainians is in the hands of this sniveling MAGA wimp who worships Putin’s bloated puppet.

  108. 108.

    SFAW

    @JWR:
    I see your Max Strus, and raise you a Jerry West.

    I remember seeing that shot “live” (TV, not in person), and seeing Dave DeBusschere falling down in disbelief. [Minor item: I used to have DeBusschere’s baseball card from when he pitched for the White Sox.]

  109. 109.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Glynn Simmons had been in Oklahoma for six days when he was arrested on suspicion of robbery. He was 22, he didn’t have a criminal record and the police had no obvious reason to pick him up that day in 1975.

    The robbery victim didn’t recognise him; Simmons was told he was free to leave. Just as he was about to be released, however, the police told him that they were short of men for a lineup and asked him to take part. Simmons didn’t know that it was within his rights to refuse. His mother had taught him the importance of respecting officialdom. So, dutifully, he took part. It cost him dearly.

    Simmons was later charged with the murder of a 30-year-old liquor store worker, Carolyn Sue Rogers, who had been shot in the head during a separate robbery. Along with Don Roberts, he was convicted and sentenced to death, later reduced to life imprisonment. In July 2023, he was released, before being exonerated in September. In December, he was legally declared innocent of the crime. Simmons, now 70, had spent 48 years, five months and 13 days in prison – the longest time anyone in the US has been jailed before being cleared.

    “You used the term miscarriage of justice,” Simmons says in his sonorous voice. “But what happened to me wasn’t a miscarriage of justice where they simply got it wrong. What happened to me was deliberate. There’s another title for that.” Is there a term he prefers? “Yes. Attempted murder.” Simmons says it is attempted murder because the police knew he would receive the death penalty if found guilty.

    Attempted murder indeed:

    Told that he had been identified in the case, Simmons assumed it was a mistake that would quickly be rectified. After all, the police were there to uphold the law, not to abuse it. But then he was charged. Again, he assumed he would be cleared, because he hadn’t even been in Oklahoma at the time. Rogers had been killed on 30 December 1974; Simmons had flown from Louisiana to Oklahoma on 5 January 1975. Twelve witnesses testified that they had seen him on the day of the murder in Harvey, Louisiana; a number of them said they saw him playing pool in the evening, when the killing took place.

    There was a lot more criminal misuse of the law against him than that. The kicker?

    Just before his release, Simmons was diagnosed with stage four liver cancer. To add insult to injury, he was given no money to ease his rehabilitation into the community. People wrongfully convicted in Oklahoma are eligible for up to $175,000 in compensation. This would work out at a paltry $3,645 for every year Simmons was jailed. So far, though, he has received nothing. He relies on a GoFundMe campaign, which has raised nearly $350,000.

    I salute his strength, courage, honesty, and most of all his simple joy at being alive.

    I ask how he is coping with the outside world. He grins the widest of grins. “Look at me! Look at me! You can tell. I’m so happy.” What is life like? “Life is beautiful, man. It’s so beautiful.” He tells me about the importance of his faith, his relationship with Glen, now 52, with whom he has been living, the exhilaration of driving for the first time in almost half a century.

    I have talked to many people who have been wrongfully imprisoned and most are raging with anger, post-traumatic stress disorder or both. But Simmons is luminous with hope. He is even convinced he can beat cancer. “That’s receding, too. I came out of jail with stage four cancer. This thing’s down to stage two now.” He stops to take it all in. “Remarkable,” he says.

    A longish read but well worth it.

  110. 110.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty: If a democrat called for a motion to vacate – before we hit the upcoming deadline – the Dems would be held responsible for not getting the necessary bills passed, because i believe everything would stop in order to deal with electing the new speaker.  Or even putting in a new placeholder speaker.

  114. 114.

    Ken

    @TBone: This headline 🤣 maybe Johnson can buy a clue.

    HEADLINE: “Chlamydia is More Popular than Trump Among White Women”

    JOHNSON: “Hmmm… we need to keep white women from voting….”

    (At least, that’s the clue I’m afraid he’ll take away from this.)

  116. 116.

    TBone

    @Ohio Mom: we’re not legally married on paper.  A tornado blew down our wedding venue (at the residence of our Best Man and Matron of Honor, they had to be chainsawed out of their house because so many trees came down), and hubby’s mother, sister, brother, and uncle died.  We took those events as a sign that we should slide in when the devil wasn’t looking and never found a good time 🤣

  122. 122.

    JWR

    @SFAW: Damn, and that was all net, whereas the new one was a bank shot! Thanks for that!  Ah, Jerry West and the Lakers of my yoot!

  123. 123.

    moonbat

    @geg6: ​
     Spoutible allows embedding and you can cross-post from Bluesky to Spoutible and vice versa at the same time. In fact Spoutible has more features than either Xitter or Bluesky or any of the other microblog sites. They recently held a live event with Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett that was awesome (unlike Elon’s “launch” of the shame of the Kennedy clan) .

  125. 125.

    moonbat

    @New Deal democrat: I read a news story just yesterday that said name brand food manufacturers are in fact bringing prices down because people started buying store brands that are a lot cheaper after they got sick of all the gouging. Market pressures and all that.

    I have no problem with advocating for higher wages, but put enough pressure on the gougers and lo and behold they’ll discover their higher price tags won’t make up for a loss of market share.

  128. 128.

    Gretchen

    I’m betting Pastor Mike doesn’t know what to make of VP Harris since he’s never met a woman who doesn’t speak in the fundie baby voice that his wife and all the women in his church use

  130. 130.

    Tony G

    It’s the oldest, and truest saying in the world: A bully is a coward.  But since he has no shame, he sleeps like a baby every night.

  134. 134.

    moops

    At this point, just pass a budget and Ukraine aid and tell your Lunatic Caucus to pound sand.    If they vote to vacate you then they were going to do that eventually anyways for the next crisis, or the next crisis, etc.

     

    I think the only person he fears is Trump.  So just keep the border issue hot and terrible and Trump will be happy.

  135. 135.

    gvg

    @Soprano2: Walmart has always had “procedrop” signs. It just means a sale, or they got a better deal from someone. It’s usually not very much. By always, I mean I remember it from the 90’s and all the time since.

  136. 136.

    moops

    @Gretchen:  He is in the House with Boebert and MTG.  He knows what an assertive and loud female politician sounds like.

     

    What he never has to deal with is a competent woman with actual power.

  138. 138.

    Geminid

    @moops: If Johnson wants to bring the supplemental aid package on the floor, a hostile Rules Committee majority might stymie him. The Rules Committee can’t block a Discharge Petition though, and that could be how this matter is resolved.

  141. 141.

    Ironcity

    @lowtechcyclist: maybe I’m myopic/ target fixated on aviation but if the FAA shut down everything starting at midwatch (midnight to 8am) Friday this BS would be largely done by Saturday noon.

  143. 143.

    The Pale Scot

    @New Deal democrat:

    And he also needs to do the same thing with housing.

    The thing he could do immediately about housing is stop private equity from buying up all the starter homes and renting them to people who could of afforded starter homes before they cornered the market on them.

    How, to it permanently? I’m not sure. Regulate the use of debt to capital for that specific market. Really, PE needs to be barred from getting monopoly-like control of vitally needed markets that buy a company sell the capital and lease back to them Bullshit. PE is a cancer with very little, if any positive effects on the economy.

  144. 144.

    brantl

    @smith:

    People who think Biden has a magic wand to keep these companies in line have a childish understanding of presidential powers.

    They don’t understand capitalism, either! (Pirates of the Caribbean, in better suits.)

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