I didn’t watch the SOTU last night (haven’t for years) but I could tell that Biden did well by the Fox chyrons I saw at the gym.
First, it was Tish James supposedly getting booed by a bunch of NY Firefighters, thus obviously invalidating her extremely successful effort to put a hurt on DJT. As an aside, I really don’t know what’s up with firefighters being Trumpy. I mean, I get it, there are a lot of white middle-aged firefighters who are in Trump’s main demo, but what a way to shit all over your popularity by aligning yourself with that asshole. They should leave it to the cops.
Second, giant flatulating anus in human form Mark Penn appeared to flog RFK’s candidacy. It’s a three-man race, people! Nevermind that RFK would probably take more votes from Trump than Biden.
There was no mention of Katie Britt’s Stepford-wife-off-her-meds fast-cycling-bipolar performance in her rebuttal speech, and there certainly wasn’t any video of Biden’s actual speech.
So, I’d say they’re scared. And they should be, since last night was one of the few times that their audience steps out of their bubble to see what everyone else sees, and what their audience saw probably looked at least halfway decent to them.
Tim in SF
I haven’t watched a SoTU since Obama but I turned it on last night to have something on while I was doing other work. It was so good I ended up sitting down and watching it. He had excellent exchanges with the Republicans in the crowd. I know you’ll see the clips, but seeing the lead-up to the exchanges often gets edited out, which is a shame. Watch the whole thing!
Chat Noir
A couple of times I scared my sleeping cat because I exclaimed, “Yes!” to something Joe Biden said. I also love when he trolls the Republicans!
Eolirin
NYC’s Firefighters, as an organization, are notoriously racist and overtly white supremacist. It’s not at all surprising that they’d be pro-Trump.
twbrandt
The fact that they showed no clips of the actual speech is a tell.
Captain C
I’m not one for kink-shaming but does Fox News have to wideband their hang-ups to everybody? Work it out at a sex club or in your therapist’s office like a normal person!
Baud
Someone earlier suggested that that was a fake kitchen, and it sure looks like it in that screenshot.
mrmoshpotato
Had to see this again.
geg6
@Chat Noir:
Ha! We had the dogs and cat running around from shouting “Hell yeah!” and “Tell it!” to the great parts and “Shove it up your asses!” whenever they tried to heckle him or Pastor Mike rolled his eyes or made an I-just-farted face.
cain
The SOTU was a thing of beauty. Demolished the ‘sleepy joe’ characterizations. It was a brilliant performance that made our adversaries anxious and intimidated and boosted our side’s enthusiasm. We’re going to do a full sweep this year. The SOTU provided an additional wind at our backs.
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Hey Katie. Turn that faucet on. Let us see what’s in those cabinets.
Yeah. Looks like a grade school play backdrop. No offense to grade school play set designers.
ETA – actually, looking again, the cabinets remind me of a kid-size cardboard house my sister got for Christmas when she was about 3.
Scout211
Speaking of the other side’s response, seen on Memeorandum just now:
LMAO, the media has fallen back in love with Biden! That darned media, so fickle.
trollhattan
@Eolirin: I did love Rescue Me but never took it to be a documentary.
Let me add that New Yorkers are united in hatred of Trump, so those firefighters are no New Yorkers.
Bet they live in Jersey.
VFX Lurker
I’m halfway through Isabel Wilkerson’s Caste, and they have a powerful incentive to support Trump. Not a “good” or “moral” incentive, but a powerful one. They want to protect their dominant caste status in the United States.
Leto
@Baud: the lighting does look weird, so a set is a plausible explanation.
$8 blue check mistermix
@Baud: She pulled herself up using only her bootstraps as well as her parents’ money from their successful small businesses, so I’m guessing her modest 4000 sqft house has a kitchen that looks like it was taken out of a model home.
Also, I could only watch a couple of minutes of her young church lady performance. I await the scolds who will tell us that we don’t understand “real america” where she clearly lives.
Finally, using an Alabama senator is a pretty gutsy move. I wonder if her kids were conceived using IVF?
Parfigliano
Really liked when he threw St. Ronnie’s words compared to Trumps in their fascist faces.
geg6
@VFX Lurker:
I read that, too. I don’t quite buy her idea that caste is a primary motivator here in the US, not race, gender, etc. But it sure made me think.
ETA: I do, however, think her Warmth of Other Suns is brilliant. I love that book so much.
Ken
I didn’t realize RFK Jr was still campaigning. Has he managed to get on any state ballots yet?
Jackie
@Ken: The latest I heard, he was wrangling to join the Libertarian ticket? It doesn’t matter much; I still maintain he’ll rob TIFG of more votes than Biden.
oldster
I took this opportunity to make my big, one-time donation to Biden/Harris. I figure it’s a good way to say, “you done good, and we’re rooting for you.” I hope it will help them keep the momentum going.
Alce_e _ ardillo
@trollhattan: Or Staten Island.
CaseyL
@geg6:
Seems to me that Black Republicans are all about “caste” in that they perceive sucking up to White Supremacists will put them, and keep them, on a higher socio-economic rung than doing that whole equality thing.
Also, based on what I’ve seen of Black Republicans (the sample size being pretty small) they apparently harbor a particular hatred for women. Of any color.
Soprano2
@Baud: It would be easy enough to make your kitchen look like that with a tight shot. I have no doubt that’s her house, and not a set. What I noticed was that big ass faucet! I think it’s too “conspiracy theory” to believe it’s a set. They had to have a whole broadcast crew there to do it, so it wouldn’t be that hard to make it look that way and to have great lighting. There’s enough to criticize there without saying it’s not even her kitchen.
Another Scott
@Baud: It’s just the lighting. She probably has a giant video crew there with all kinds of lighting experts.
An earlier picture from her Twitter thing (via Google)
People going all “granite countertops!!1” on her should have better things to do. :-/
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
BellaPea
I loved it when Biden scolded the Supreme Court justices about the repeal of Roe. The look on “Beer Boy” Kavanaugh’s face and Roberts’ stunned expression told it all. Thomas, Alito, and Amy “Handmaid’s Tale” Barrett were too cowardly to show up. Hah!
Baud
@CaseyL:
If you’re going to be a Republican, you have to hate somebody.
MisterForkbeard
@oldster: yep. I did that last night.
I’ll donate some more later, but this was my first big donation since 2020. They’ll get more if they do some other things I want to signal approval of, and probably during the convention.
Jackie
@oldster: I dropped off my ballot this morning. One more vote for Biden and Harris!
randy khan
My sense from the MAGAs on my social media feed is that they think Biden was angry last night. Which of course makes me want to say that I thought that was a characteristic they liked in a politician.
But it’s definitely true that the media word of choice is “feisty,” which I like a lot as a characterization. And the numerous references to him going off script and ad libbing seem very helpful to me, as a doddering dementia patient wouldn’t be capable of that.
ArchTeryx
Considering that Katie Britt represents the Purity Ball evangelical set, I imagine her counterspeech played well in the rural Bible Belt but wasn’t gonna exactly do anything to win over independents. She was pitching to the constituency that matters in Alabama, not necessarily the nation… but it is one that, if they stay home, TFG loses in a thunderous landslide. They knew what they were doing putting a Handmaid’s Tale Wife out there. She wasn’t talking to us normies. She was talking to the ones that may well determine of TFG wins or loses the election.
I still want to talk more with @Sister Golden Bear. I wave the ally flag proudly, and if there is anything I can do to help or offer support or encouragement, I will. I’m one old cis-het dude, but I will fight to the death for my loved ones, and that includes a lot of LBGTQ+ people. And I’m not the only one in this 5-person rooming house that will.
randy khan
@Alce_e _ ardillo:
Oh, yeah. My wife lived on Staten Island for a while because she got a job there. And while there are some non-nutsos there, it’s the kind of place where there are prominent anti-abortion banners outside churches and where people still lamented the Verrazano Narrows Bridge into the 1990s because of the people who suddenly could invade the island from the rest of the city.
But it did have really good Italian food.
Sister Golden Bear
I totally stanned the speech. The only would’ve been better if Biden finished by putting on his aviator sunglasses and saying “Let’s fucking do this!”
That said, while I appreciate him saying that he has trans people’s back, it’s the third SOTU where he’s said that, with out mentioning anything concrete to do something to back that up. After three years the Biden administration has yet to make any substantial efforts to actually, ya know, protect us in the face of Republican efforts to genocide us. So it’s ringing a bit hollow. Hey Biden, how about showing us a bit of the fire you showed for so many other things.
I’m not Green Lanterning, but there are definitely things that could be done via executive action. I realize there’s the saying “I agree with you, now make me do it,” but what happens when we’re such a tiny minority that we’ll never be able to muster that sort of political power on our own.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still gonna fight like hell, and crawl over broken glass to get Biden re-elected. But I’m tired of words, we need to see some actions.
Roberto el oso
Biden’s occasional stutters are, as far as I’m concerned, utterly irrelevant. He’s always been pretty conversational in his delivery, with no pretense towards oration, and I think it works. He sounds like an intelligent, easygoing man for the most part, and so when he gets passionate or angry the change in tone is really effective.
El Cruzado
Besides what everyone has said, I’d add the wages of toxic masculinity.
topclimber
@Jackie: I really love that Biden has a bust of the real RFK in the Oval Office and that it appeared in some recent photos.
I am sure it has everything to do with admiring Bobby and nothing to do with his failed son, who he probably gives no thought at all. But I loved the put down nonetheless.
Sister Golden Bear
@mrmoshpotato:
With Katie’s performance, I don’t think she’s getting the lead in even a grade school play.
Nelle
@geg6: I so agree about Warmth of Other Suns.. I follow Wilkerson on FB and got a chance to laud her overall structure of the book (three dominant migration routes, three different time periods, each developed by stories of a particular family..aall beautifully interwoven). She responded! I’m a bit old for fangirl behavior, but was gratified.
Sean
@Ken: I believe Utah is the sole state he’s managed to qualify for (so far). If he ends up on the Libertarian ticket it will open up all of them, I suppose.
Sister Golden Bear
@trollhattan:
A lot of cops and firefighters live on Staten Island, which I’ve been informed might as well be New Jersey.
ArchTeryx
@Sister Golden Bear: And that’s why I’m doing my best as an individual. I don’t expect help even from a friendly federal government. Way too many veto points and way too many conservatives on our side to seriously put up roadblocks for the anti-trans pogrom that TFG wants to initiate (and some states already have). And God help us all of TFG is elected. That’s when my circle of friends goes into full protective mode.
TheOtherHank
With respect to the esteemed Senator’s kitchen. Someone on Xitter or Bluesky searched out the realtor’s pictures from the last time that house sold (2019? 2018?). It’s an extremely tight shot of a truly gigantic kitchen, but it is definitely shot in the kitchen these photos showed.
ETA: Found it:her actual kitchen
Sister Golden Bear
@ArchTeryx: Thanks. Let me think about it for a bit. Maybe I can touch on it in the trans post I’ve been meaning to write.
ArchTeryx
@El Cruzado: There’s a shit-ton of toxic masculinity among firefighters.
The whole thing is bizarre to me. Their primary jobs are saving lives and protecting their fellow firefighters. Civil war would be an utter nightmare to most firefighters. But yet they want to support Trump and bring on the Boogaloo. There is no place for fascist firefighters. If I ran one of these departments and I found out my battalion was Trumpy, I’d be cleaning house so fast they wouldn’t have time to don their turnout gear. The ONLY unions I seriously want to bust are the police unions and (certain) firefighter unions. Firefighters who want to start civil wars and pick who, or whose property, they get to save? There’s fucking no room for such cretins, or shouldn’t be.
matt
Firefighters don’t have to have a college degree.
Jeffro
I think last night made it 7 straight SOTUs that I’ve skipped watching live. (Could be more; definitely isn’t less). It’s so much more efficient to just read the remarks and related responses the next day.
geg6
@Nelle:
Ooooo, I would be thrilled!
If BJ ever does another book club, I think Warmth of Other Suns would be a great one to do.
ArchTeryx
@Sister Golden Bear: I offer my allyship to you as well. I’m an oddball, but to hell with the fascist fucks. I believe in what an artist friend of mine calls “Radical Acceptance” and I hold zero truck with the idea of out-groups and castes.
Helps that I’m also in an out-group. I’m a cis-het white dude, but I’m also heavily disabled and sick, and the reactionary bigots have been trying to kill me since birth. That’s a good part of why I am an ally. The LBGTQ+ community accepted me when nobody else would. My turn to give back to them.
John S.
Their tears are salty and delicious.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@trollhattan: @Sister Golden Bear:
N. K. Jemisin’s the City We Became touches on the cultural differences of Staten Island vs. the rest of NYC. And [I’m avoiding spoilers here] a bit about parts of NJ.
prostratedragon
@Baud, @mrmoshpotato: Didn’t see it live, but those drawer pulls did have me wondering. Seemed awfully retro.
japa21
Actually, this surprises me. I mentioned last night that he did stumble a couple times, nothing major and basically irrelevant, and that it wouldn’t surprise me to see some of the media focus on that. Like Fox, in particular. I have a hunch they know too many of their viewers saw it in real time and would realize those little excerpts didn’t represent the whole thing.
ETA: My wife’s MAGA nephew-in-law was really rambling on FB. He didn’t have much to really go after except to say it was full of lies without stating what the lies were.
Sister Golden Bear
@VFX Lurker: @CaseyL: Haven’t read the book, so I can’t comment on it specifically. But caste in the States works differently that other countries, most notably India. Here it’s just one of several factors (race, religion, etc.) and often intertwined with them.
But clearly a big part of the reactionary push back is white (conservative, especially evangelical) cis het people losing their shit that they’re not longer centered as the default culturally and politically (to various degrees depending on location). Hence their efforts to eliminate anyone who isn’t exactly like them from being anywhere they can see “those” people.
Dunno if the book touches on it, but one big factor in cops, firefighters, and construction trades historically being hostile to women, BIPOC, etc. is that blue collar workers generally have full less generational wealth to give to their children. So a good paying union job is one of the most valuable things they can pass on, and they
wantfelt entitled to protect that for theirkidssons.frosty
@geg6: Warmth of Other Suns was a great book! Covered three different routes of the Great Migration. And the hazards of staying where you were.
John S.
@japa21:
If pounding the table were an Olympic event, there would be thousands of red hats lining up for a chance at the gold medal.
Miss Bianca
@randy khan: well, I like “feisty” better than “old” as a descriptor for Joe Biden, but I still don’t like it all that much. There’s a little whiff of condescension in there. Women who are passionate and angry about something get described as “feisty” all the time. It’s a minimizer term, to me. A way to make righteous anger seem somehow cuter and less threatening.
randy khan
@Sister Golden Bear:
And here I must defend my home state, which among other things has a Democratic trifecta in the state government and two Democratic Senators. Staten Island only wishes it could be New Jersey, or would if it had any sense. (That it doesn’t is part of the problem.)
frosty
@trollhattan: Jersey? Nah, Staten Island.
ETA of course I’m not the first with this thought.
stacib
@geg6: Co-signed. A fantastic and totally relatable book for anybody whose folks were a part of The Great Migration. I see my grandparents story and they were top of mind the entire reading.
Sister Golden Bear
@Roberto el oso:
I do think he missed an opportunity to do an aside, after a stumble, to remind people that he overcame a shutter, and also “like many of you, sometimes my brain gets ahead of my mouth when speaking.” Since I suspect most normies don’t know about the stutter, plus it makes him more relatable and defuses the dementia claims.
randy khan
@Miss Bianca:
i feel like that’s one of those words that gets applied differently to men and women. While there’s a tiny bit of a suggestion that someone who’s feisty is a bit of an underdog, on the whole I think it’s positive for a man.
But I understand what you’re saying.
hrprogressive
As a guy who consistently wishes Biden and others would plainly call the GOP the Fascists they are, and knowing that level of bluntness is unlikely to occur, the fact that he started off with a historical comparison to 1941 and the March of Hitler was pretty fucking close and a great lead off.
I am given a glimmer of hope that maybe he gets it.
I am given a glimmer of hope that maybe the Democratic Party gets it.
And if the Average Voter sees that speech and gets it too, the republic may well be saved yet again this year.
I think there’s a reasonable chance, at least.
He did way better than I thought he would. Not often I’ve felt compelled to say Biden “exceeded expectations” but, damn it, he did.
Let’s see how it translates into the campaign, and more importantly, action, down the line.
Miss Bianca
@randy khan: I get ya.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
A testament to well-managed expectations.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@The Kropenhagen Interpretation: it’s gratifying when your opponents walk into a trap, especially one they constructed themselves.
frosty
@Mr. Bemused Senior: The City We Became is an excellent story about NYC. Thanks to your warning I won’t drop in any spoilers.
Another good scifi about the city: New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson. All the streets are canals in this one thanks to sea level rise but there’s a mcGuffin so the buildings are still useable.
topclimber
@randy khan: Feisty is a big improvement over doddering old dude. I would be happy if the media ran with it until election day. But I am not counting on it.
Let Trump have ANGRY (YES I REALLY AM BECAUSE WHAT THEY ARE DOING TO ME THEY ARE DOING TO YOU BUT MOSTLY BECAUSE THEY ARE DOING IT TO ME) all to himself.
Nelle
@stacib: A guy in my gym is from California, but his family came from Louisiana. I told him about Warmth…, and the next time I saw him, he told me he got it that same night. I’m overseas now (it’s a sunny Saturday morning on the beach in New Zealand), but I’ll check in when I get back.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@topclimber: better “feisty” than “shrill” though Paul Krugman has adopted “shrill” as a well-earned badge of honor.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nelle: I love New Zealand!
geg6
Petri stikes again (gift link):
https://wapo.st/3TrSpw1
Dorothy A. Winsor
Trump posted the bond for the Carroll case.
Fair Economist
@TheOtherHank: She wouldn’t have the least trouble putting a LARGE camera crew in there! It’s bigger than a lot of stages!
Kent
The nature of fire-fighting is that you work long shifts. In many cities it is 24 hours on, 48 hours off. This sort of schedule is incredibly accommodating to living long distances away from the central city. And so firefighters (which already trend white male) often live way out in the suburban fringes or beyond since they aren’t commuting daily to jobs during rush hour.
I expect the same is true in NYC so the firefighters in typical NYC fire stations might well be all from New Jersey, Long Island and other parts of the red outer fringe of the NYC metro and not Manhattanites or even Brooklynites.
That is also probably why the fire fighters in LA opposed the recent measure to improve bike lanes and bus service in LA. Lots of them probably live in far flung parts of Orange County or points east and just selfishly want the streets to continue to prioritize single occupancy car traffic because that is how they do their long commutes. They gave the bogus reason of “response times” but I suspect it was just selfish suburbanites demanding that LA accommodate them rather than the actual residents of LA.
Captain C
@geg6: Exellent work on her part. Just needs a few inappropriately-placed ‘tee-hees’ sprinkled in random spots.
Harrison Wesley
@John S.: “Texas power grid forced to shut down.”
trollhattan
@Alce_e _ ardillo: BAT!
ewrunning
Re Britt’s “rebuttal,” I’d like to shake the hand(s) of the genius(es) who came up with this concept for broadening the Trumpublican’s appeal. Let’s take our youngest female senator, shove her in a kitchen and get her to chew the scenery like one of those extremely popular Moms for Liberty nutjobs.
piratedan
@Scout211: He’s just a President, standing in front of a country, telling them that he loves them……..
Redshift
@TheOtherHank:
Ah, that explains it. It looked really weird because they had to make a really rich person’s kitchen look like a “person like you” kitchen.
Miss Bianca
@ewrunning: I’m still wondering about the set-up. So, a sitting US Senator is…sitting in her *kitchen* in Alabama during the SOTU address? She’s not at the Capitol?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Miss Bianca: it was a careful plan devised by the same PR firm that handled Bobby Jindal.
Redshift
@ArchTeryx:
That’s plausible, but if that was the job they decided she needed to do, that doesn’t say great things about the state of the campaign for them. Yes, he needs the base, but he if he just gets the base, he loses. He’s doing nothing but appealing to the base every day; this was one of their best opportunities to reach normies and independents, so if they’re using it to juice the base, that doesn’t signal confidence.
Harrison Wesley
@Miss Bianca: I don’t see a problem. After all, Clarence and Ginni probably watched it in their RV at some Walmart parking lot.
CraigJ
@geg6: Exactly how I feel about the two books, highly recommend both but Warmth of Other Suns is an absolute must read for any American or anyone who wants to understand our particular problems.
Redshift
@Miss Bianca: Seems emblematic of the weirdness conservatives have trying to appeal to women — “look, we have a woman senator! but she’s in the kitchen, so she’s not threatening to you men!”
different-church-lady
Really seems like they think they can win this with only the evangelical vote.
Ksmiami
@piratedan: love the Notting Hill reference
different-church-lady
@ArchTeryx:
They already have the Bible Belt sown up Question is how does this play in Michigan and Arizona?
rikyrah
Veronica McDonald![]()
(@Purify_toast17) posted at 11:41 AM on Fri, Mar 08, 2024:
So let me get this straight…the political hoes in the press are big mad Joe Biden didn’t shuffle into the State of the Union on his walker with tennis balls at the bottom, wandering around the Senate floor but instead marched in there and gave an energetic speech? Is that right?
(https://x.com/Purify_toast17/status/1766157316632567931?t=SS4ZnTpVNCOW5nEaAPFNIg&s=03)
Old School
@Miss Bianca:
I wouldn’t expect anybody giving the response to the SOTU would be at the SOTU.
rikyrah
Brian Baez (@MentallyDivine) posted at 11:31 AM on Fri, Mar 08, 2024:![]()
![]()
![]()
https://t.co/Yo4fJoAjNm
Joe Biden called out the Supreme Court and Republicans to their face about the power of women and abortion, last night!!!!
(https://x.com/MentallyDivine/status/1766154781096059102?t=wYTWlv3QMayZA2yRTHHbXA&s=03)
rikyrah
Go Kenny!
2RawTooReal (@2RawTooReal) posted at 10:06 PM on Thu, Mar 07, 2024:
My thoughts on Biden’s SOTU address #bidenharris2024 https://t.co/gpmAqT1FOl
(https://x.com/2RawTooReal/status/1765952224503414941?t=hYe0H3cszOCQ68DpyJK2ZA&s=03)
Sure Lurkalot
@Nelle: @Dorothy A. Winsor:
I love New Zealand! Too!
Enjoy your vacation, Nelle. You’re a lucky duck to call New Zealand home.
...now I try to be amused
@Redshift:
My dark thought: The GOP isn’t just juicing the base to vote for them in the election; they’re juicing the base to fight for them after they lose the election.
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: LOL, OMG – yes! Nailed it!
different-church-lady
@Redshift: “Hi! I’m Katie, a mom, a senator and a food blogger. If you like these recipes be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel…”
Miss Bianca
@Old School: Why not? There’s got to be a room somewhere in that big ol’ building they can go to fairly quickly.
Not that it matters. Just seems weird. I guess I’ve never actually thought about it before.
Marcopolo
OT to the SOTU but politics related: Matt Rosendale, the wingnut maga ass who represents MT in the House (and who had been considering a run against Tester for the Senate (before opting out under pressure) just announced he isn’t even running for re-election. So much for putting to rest the rumors he impregnated a 20 yr old legislative aide. Good to see him go, was a total asshole.
HumboldtBlue
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: Hahahaha! “tennis balls”
different-church-lady
@HumboldtBlue: why are they wasting money on a guy who will be dead next week?
trollhattan
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
Nerd Descending Staircase will never get old.
HumboldtBlue
@different-church-lady:
Crazy, innit?
What is not-so-crazy is Tommy Tuberville, the stupidest man in Congress, explains why they chose the breathless Britt for the SOTU response.
Tuberville says Britt’s delivery was good:
trollhattan
You hate to see it.
twbrandt
Just noting that a huge Biden/Harris banner ad is running at the top of the Detroit Free Press’s website. It starts by slamming Trump for focusing on revenge and ending Roe, then says Biden is working on lowering drug costs, protecting access to women’s health, and restoring Roe. If this is the messaging strategy going forward, I like it.
trollhattan
@HumboldtBlue: “And shucks, she’s just as purdy as a “Bama cheerleader, right fellas?”
Baud
@rikyrah:
Now I wish he had started with that, then thrown the walker into the crowd and danced his way to the podium
ETA: Old Man Throws Down Crutches to DANCE *FULL VIDEO* (youtube.com)
Baud
@trollhattan: Especially with the Chris Matthews commentary.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Six Flags is open!!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: That would have been great.
HumboldtBlue
@trollhattan:
Tuberville is certainly dim enough to have said this because he spent his years in Alabama coaching (and being bang fucking average if not just plainly poor) at the Tide’s vicious rival, Auburn.
Redshift
@Old School:
Not at the SOTU, but on Capitol Hill if they’re a senator or congressperson. Past responses have generally had the person in their office (especially if they’re a federal office holder) or at a podium. Occasionally with a group of supporters if it’s someone not currently in office. This one was a clear outlier.
Matt McIrvin
@…now I try to be amused:
Of course they are. But if that happens, they won’t have something they had in January 2021: control of the federal government and the ability to pull back law enforcement. Or, any reason to believe that people performing acts of violence would be immune from punishment.
Redshift
@trollhattan: Putin effectively compared himself to Hitler in the Tucker interview, so why would he be annoyed? 😛
Ruckus
SOME firefighters and cops see themselves as above every other part of society. They do very dangerous jobs, sometimes they give their lives for their jobs. Not many other jobs have that as a quite common part of going to work every day. Many jobs have a level of danger above a scratch or being annoyed at work. I’ve had to be rushed to a doc to keep from losing my thumb from a work situation. Cops and firefighters often have to put themselves in worse positions. It may be never – it may be in the next 20 seconds. I’ve watched a you tube of a fireman rescuing a semi driver from her truck because it was hanging off of a bridge with the trailer about 60% over the edge of the bridge and the truck hanging straight down. Few people get into that level of risk, although I’ve been over 60 ft up the mast and all the way out the yardarm over the edge of the ship, the safety harness was a rope around my waist (that I tied!) to fix a piece of equipment on a US Navy ship. Safety harness? No got. Safety line? No got. I’ve been in situations that could have very easily gone very, very wrong. But cops and firefighters do that often. (I was also an entry man on ships fire crew – that’s the guy that gets the door open and goes in first. And no, that wasn’t my normal job – firefighter. On a ship, EVERYONE is on fire crew. If it isn’t put out the best that can happen is it sinks before you are burned to death. You might be able to swim away. You may still drown very easily and never be seen again. You really, really do not want that. Really.)
@Sister Golden Bear:
In such a divided country one still has to lead everyone, even those that don’t want you to lead them. In an open democracy you will always have devision among the populace. It may not be all that logical, it may make a lot of things worse, it will still be there.
Jay C
What I found most-satisfying in this SOTU, is that not only did Joe deliver a good and forceful address, he (IMHO) absolutely OWNED the optics: the sight of Democrats jumping up and cheering while the GOPers in their little Trump costumes just sat there grumping was worth a metric sh*t-ton of campaign advertising in itself. And Kitchen Table Katie’s hostage-video “rebuttal” was just the icing on the cake…
Dan B
@ArchTeryx: Years ago I rented a room to a guy from Gaza. So he got to know some gay people. We git to know the hell of Gaza. No one else would rent to a Muslim. He moved to Canada and the only ones who would rent to him were gay. It’s something about deeply understanding the content of a person’s character instead of the lies spread by bigots.
rikyrah
Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) posted at 10:34 PM on Thu, Mar 07, 2024:
No joke. I choked up thinking about this guy w a stutter—so serious that even before he was POTUS his photo hung in offices of speech pathologists, bc his story is so inspiring—this guy w a stutter delivered this speech. It was like a QB w an injured arm winning the Super Bowl
(https://x.com/DanaHoule/status/1765959302487892027?t=Fn2qmE0c4kIUx5STGtBorA&s=03)
rikyrah
Portia![]()
McGonagal Same On ![]()
(@PortiaMcGonagal) posted at 11:46 AM on Fri, Mar 08, 2024:
Reminder that Trump’s already on record to the court that he’d have to sell properties to cover the bigger bond for the case that AG James brought and won. I hope we have at least one actual journalist prepared to dive in if he “suddenly” has the $$.
(https://x.com/PortiaMcGonagal/status/1766158440488161720?t=qCKyqoJSlDlzJHl15vDcfQ&s=03)
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Haha.
ORIGINAL Mr. Six It’s Playtime Six Flags Amusement Park Television Commercial (2004) (youtube.com)
ArchTeryx
@Redshift: @different-church-lady: They think they can repeat 2016 by pitching to the evangelicals. “Worked then! Trump didn’t even need to campaign! Why wouldn’t it work in 2024?” is their thinking.
stacib
@rikyrah: Is there a love button here? :-) That was fantastic! Thanks.
rikyrah
Kenny BooYah!![]()
(@KwikWarren) posted at 2:11 PM on Fri, Mar 08, 2024:
A supposedly senile old man has been and is America’s most effective and dynamic President since LBJ…and he’s handing Republicans their hateful&treasonous asses in the process. And he capped it off with a brilliant #SOTU Address last night!
(https://x.com/KwikWarren/status/1766195086616899635?t=vOSGUeyjM0ifPwQpOMEwlQ&s=03)
rikyrah
I think they know it on some level. After all, that’s why their azzes never seem to be protesting GOPers in their home red states. The most they’ll do is some half-hearted bullshyt outside their offices in Washington, DC
2RawTooReal (@2RawTooReal) posted at 8:10 PM on Thu, Mar 07, 2024: I hope these folks understand that under a Biden-Harris Administration u have the power to peacefully protest. Under a Trump presidency he would’ve called in the National Guard & sprayed the crowd with rubber bullets just like he did in 2020 with Black Lives Matter protesters https://t.co/Ve4xPkkcqC (https://x.com/2RawTooReal/status/1765923129178624493?t=_2lXmhClj8KCX-AEN710DQ&s=03)
RaflW
I didn’t see the speech either, but I saw the pearl clutching about “partisanship” and other tone policing, and my first thought was: Biden nailed it.
If the usual suspects are grasping for those critiques then Joe 1) didn’t stumble, and 2) played at least partly on the turf usually occupied by Republicans without out engendering civility complaints.
Good for him. Good for America.
Shalimar
Went to Twitter to see reactions to the SOTU. Almost everything Twitter showed me was anti-Biden. Almost everyone I follow is pro-Biden or a good journalist. I’m not saying Twitter was ever good, but at least it used to show you what you said you liked. When did it cross over into total cesspool? I swear it was still tolerable 3-4 months ago when I was there last.
Old School
I missed this one yesterday. In case anyone else did too, it’s worth a click:
rikyrah
Artist Carole J McCoy![]()
![]()
FineArtist (@CJtheFineArtist) posted at 0:29 AM on Fri, Mar 08, 2024:
Democray is always important.
Black people will suffer in an autocracy.
If our Civil Rights are being challenged now, we wouldn’t fair well in a White Christian Nationalist country.
Both things are important. Citizenship & Democracy.
(https://x.com/CJtheFineArtist/status/1765988209291673808?t=EcM1GKBpCYDS_9BerqtVug&s=03)
Jay C
@HumboldtBlue:
And as a lot of AL commentators have noted in various places, lame-ass as Katie Britt might be, she is still likely the smarter of Alabama’s two Senators.
rikyrah
Michelle_BYoung (@michelle_byoung) posted at 10:02 PM on Thu, Mar 07, 2024:
The GOP response is WW tears! PROTECT ME FROM THE ILLEGALS she’s giving Carolyn Bryant for real.
WW tears are dangerous they uphold W Supremacy & FASCISM under the GUISE of PROTECTION
(https://x.com/michelle_byoung/status/1765951119128138046?t=fYA2rbEgc82h_FEmDvHreg&s=03)
Attempted Chemistry
@trollhattan: Senator Potatotown wouldn’t say that.
He coached at Auburn.
RaflW
@ewrunning: Britt’s very relatable Subzero “panel ready” fridge (MSRP $11,000+) will go over great in her home state, where the average worker earned less than $30K per year.
Barbara
I watched one minute of Katie Britt’s speech. It’s hard for me to separate her delivery style from the obviously canned and bullshit messaging, but I guess demented and/or drunk nursery school teacher is as close as I can get to describing it.
ArchTeryx
@rikyrah: If he gets re-elected, it won’t be rubber bullets he’s telling the Guard to spray into the crowd. It will be real ones. Just like totalitarian dictators do to protesters around the world.
RaflW
@Shalimar: One wonders if Musty has realized that a second Biden Admin might be forced to nationalize StarLink for Nat Sec reasons.
I’m sure he also is worried about tax rates.
rikyrah
Joe Biden really IS the man for this moment in time. This existential fight for America. It’s like, all the time he’s spent in government has been leading him up to this.
cain
@HumboldtBlue: Hopes he keeps talking.
Hilarious that he said that they picked her because for the housewife persona not the senator. Given her delivery, looks like at Christian white males.
rikyrah
Bärí A. Williams, Esq. (@BariAWilliams) posted at 10:04 PM on Thu, Mar 07, 2024:
This woman is a whole Senator living in Alabama (pretty low cost of living), married to an ex-NFL player who is now a lobbyist… talking about her kids not living the American dream and how her dollar doesn’t go far, and doing this in her living room for staging.
Can this end…
(https://x.com/BariAWilliams/status/1765951749062574080?t=JRVTVXsDFGbzOHJznF6lNw&s=03)
ArchTeryx
@Barbara: Evangelical Little Girl delivery is how I heard it described. Childlike, the way the Purity Ball set likes to see their wimmin. She knew just who she was pitching to. But I don’t think this is 2016 any more. Pitching to the Bible Belt alone won’t win you the election.
scav
So, Mr Tuber- “She was picked as a housewife, not just a senator, somebody who sees it from a different perspective” -ville, would you care to elaborate on how you vetted her housewife status during the selection process? Tested the cleanliness of her toilet bowls, run a few white gloves for improperly dusted blinds, looked for those ever-so-damning rings-around-the-color and what about the fresh-baked cookie evaluation? I mean, being a housewife is more than just sporting a vagina and a husband. Because honestly, that different perspective you lot were supposedly aiming to get did seem to consist of the usual stale mantra of talking points.
Miss Bianca
@Baud: Ha ha – reminds me of the first gig I ever played with The Strolling Scones – one of my fellow bandmates met her future husband that night. He *was* on crutches because he’d been in a really horrific mining accident several months before. Nevertheless, he was so smitten with Caroline in her admittedly adorable Mimi Manchester get-up that he *did* end up dancing!
Leading to the following immortal quip from a mutual friend: “You made that man throw down his crutches and dance – not even *God* does that anymore!”
zhena gogolia
@Old School: That was very nice.
geg6
@Redshift:
No doubt in my mind that they thought that suburban women would totally relate to having the little woman in the kitchen. Too bad she wasn’t pregnant and we couldn’t see her feet.
I’m joking there, but I’m not. They think suburban women will forget all about losing their bodily autonomy by seeing this tradwife influencer in her kitchen.
Dan B
@rikyrah: Fierce! Wahoo!
Ruckus
@Shalimar:
When that guy that pays people to make something he has no idea how to make – cars, bought it. I used to wear out my keyboard on twit. Now that it’s spelled shit, I only go one there when someone, mostly here, shows a great post. I first went on twit I believe in 2007. Since the current owner bought it and it’s name was changed I’ve been on it I’d say less than 10 hrs total at most, likely less.
Miss Bianca
@Old School: Oh, that was charming!
prostratedragon
@RaflW: If he hasn’t figured that out he’s more of a thumb than I think he is, though I’m not sure what legal hoops a President would need to jump thtough for that.
Ken
Especially effective considering the topics he was calling out. What sort of people don’t cheer for ending cancer?
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: Awesome!
Sister Golden Bear
@Ruckus: Not sure what you point was. Not being snarky, while I agree I just genuinely don’t understand how it related to what I said.
Baud
@Old School: Someone needs to tell Morgan Freeman that hope is not a strategy.
Redshift
@Shalimar:
You have to stay on the “Following” tab to see the people you follow. The “For You” tab (which it will constantly switch you to if you’re not careful) is the algorithm, and exposes you to the steadily-worsening cesspool.
Ruckus
@Barbara:
Drunk nursery school teacher doesn’t seem like it would be a positive.
Of course the students may like to see an adult that walks and falls down like they might. Or that an old fart may do on occasion.
Geminid
@Jay C: Britt likely is smarter than Tubervill. She was class valedictorian in her Alabama high school. There were a dozen or so others which says something, I’m not sure what.
Britt was Governor at Girls State and then student government president at Alabama. She worked a few years after college, including a couple as press secretary for Senator Shelby, and then returned to the University of Alabama Law School where she participated in Tax Moot Court. After a few years in private practice Britt drifted back to Shelby’s office and served as Chief of Staff from 2016 until she began her run for Senator.
hueyplong
@Geminid: She could have been in the bottom half of her class and be smarter than that other AL Senator. The bar ain’t high.
Baud
@Ken:
People who are cancer.
piratedan
@Baud: next time I run into him and Andy Dufrene in Xihuantanejo, I’ll be sure to mention it :-)
prostratedragon
@Sister Golden Bear:
Just picked up Warmth on kindle; early on, Wlkerson refers to “caste” when she describes the life prospects of one of the people depicted, so that broader and more American notion of caste is already there in her work. The idea of caste also fits in with the generational nature of those trades you speak of, which is loudly evident in police and fire departments in the two cities I know, Chicago and NYC.
HumboldtBlue
Trump is getting to ready to steal every fucking dollar donated to the RNC, and it couldn’t happen to a shittier group of people,
lowtechcyclist
@randy khan:
And he spoke for an hour and eight minutes, which is a long time to be speaking! I’d be hard pressed to do that.
Another Scott
@Baud:
Willy Wonka’sJoe Biden’s Grand EntranceCheers,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@HumboldtBlue:
Excellent! At most, in Trump’s hands, it’ll help pay his shitty lawyers, since no competent lawyer wants him as a client anymore since he’s uncontrollable. Rather than being in the hands of the RNC where that money might actually make the difference in some Congressional races.
Jackie
@ewrunning:
I don’t recall if he was the youngest Dem senator, but I’ll never forget our introduction to the young, charismatic, inspiring Barack Obama…
schrodingers_cat
Has anyone given her green shirt/dress the green screen treatment?
Jackie
@Jackie: Correction: Obama’s introduction speech to the nation was as keynote speaker at the 2004 Democratic Convention.
WaterGirl
@lowtechcyclist: I’m kind of surprised they didn’t go with “angry Joe Biden”. Very pleased about feisty!
rikyrah
@matt:
And, can easily earn six figures in a major city. Can earn their firefighter salary in jobs that they get for their days off from firefighting.
rikyrah
@hrprogressive:
I view Ukraine as England 1940.
Not gonna change my view on that.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I remember how headline writers called Biden “defiant” after the Afghanistan evacuation. I thought at the time that many people regard defiance as a positive quality, especially when their President’s defiance is directed at reporters hectoring him about what was, under the circumstances, a successful operation.
rikyrah
@Kent:
I never had much use for Boss Richard Daley, but, I completely agreed with him on this:
You get a paycheck from the City of Chicago, your ass has to live within the boundaries of the City of Chicago.
Both the police and firefighters whine about this rule all the time.
Phuck them. You get paid a six-figure salary, you can spend that shyt within the City of Chicago limits.
Geminid
@hueyplong: Yeah, Tuberville is in fact an idiot. Britt certainly sounded like an idiot last night, but I would not underestimate her because of that.
I remember saying here that Britt would better than Shelby and Tuberville, but an Alabama jackal who would know set me straight: Britt was worse, he said. He did not elaborate, but I think he meant that she was smart, ambitious and mean.
SFBayAreaGal
@Old School: I love this
redoubt
@rikyrah: All of this. Everybody from precinct captain (my dad was one, briefly) on up. That money stayed in the city.
(One of the neighborhoods mentioned in Warmth Of Other Suns–South Shore–is the neighborhood I grew up in.)
LiminalOwl
@Mr. Bemused Senior: oh, you got there before I did. YES, perfect recommendation. These rwo native New Yorkers loved the book.
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
Just got back inside, we have some construction going on outside my apartment and one of the workers hit the gas line coming into the building I live in and the gas company has been here for hours fixing everything back to normal and insuring that it is far less likely that we will blow up. Which I rather appreciate. So on to clarification if I can.
We have one president, and that person has to lead everyone. At least everyone that will allow the president to do that. Not everyone likes the president. At times many people do not like the president. But that person has to lead all of us, that’s the job. Some people make doing that almost impossible, because they are shit. It’s the way of humanity. Not everyone always gets along. But some make it worse, some fight because the leader was not their choice or style or because they think they are being led down a very bad path. Take DJDump. Please! An absolutely fucked up human being who doesn’t have 2 decent, normal brain cells to rub together, and who continues to prove it over and over. And he has followers who think he’s the real deal. As the old saying goes “It takes all kinds.” Think about his personal life of the last few years. Think about his family, think about his lies, think about him as a concept of leadership, think about him winning the presidency again, think about the people that will vote for him because of exactly what he is. Sufficiently close to throwing up? I thought so… My point is that our president has to lead everyone, not just his/her friend/relatives, and sometimes it’s a difficult, almost impossible job. In SFB case it is because of him, who/what he is, and worst, who/what he wants to be.
But. We have only one president at a time, we have a leader, not a group of leaders. Or far, far worse. If he/she is shit, we are as well. And many of us do not like shit. At least not to follow politically.
In this time we have a segment of the population that seemingly wants to (at least figuratively) burn it all down. And replace it with? Them? Life should be better than that. Life can easily be better than that. But the segment we are talking about still wants everything, including them being in charge, and they do not want us to be anything but dead.