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You are here: Home / Politics / This and That Sunday Open Thread

This and That Sunday Open Thread

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My first thought on reading about this.  Holy shit, Pennsylvania!

So here’s my question to PA peeps.  Is this a pie-in-the-sky thing that Gov. Shapiro is saying he’d like to do – in the state equivalent of the State of the Union?  Or is he actually trying to make this happen?

If Republicans had to take a vote on this, and vote against it, could this proposal provide an opportunity for Dems to get a majority in both chambers in PA in November?  Or is that totally out of reach?

Also, totally unrelated.  Holy cow-ski, did everyone see this great news?  $Endorsements all around – Latino, Asian American, black communities – and $30 million dollars.

Also unrelated.  All over the thread last night in the comments, but so great that it deserves the front page.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

175Comments

  1. 1.

    Scout211

    Scarlett Johansson was *chef’s kiss.* I can’t even imagine the times she had to watch that horrible Britt video to get all the odd facial expressions, crazy mood swings and distorted affect exactly like Katie Britt’s.

    But let’s hand it to the SNL writers.  The script was really good and I think they had to have fun writing that parody.  So good.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Reposting front the late night thread for late risers.

    Via reddit

    The Pentagon released details Friday of its plans to construct a temporary pier off the Gaza Strip’s coast to help flow more than 2 million meals a day into the territory, using an established military capability that officials say can build and deploy the structure without having any American troops on the ground.

    Over the next 60 days, roughly 1,000 troops will deploy to the Mediterranean Sea to build a floating platform where cargo ships can offload aid onto smaller military vessels, which will transfer them to a causeway attached to the beach, where trucks can pick it up and distribute it within Gaza, Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters

  4. 4.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I’m in PA, and I can definitely say… no idea. Whatever this is, I hadn’t heard of it. But then we don’t have any kids in the education system any more.So I checked Gov. Shapiro’s website and found this.

    I suspect it’s part of the 2024-5 budget. Will keep reading.​

    Edit: It’s part of the Higher Education Blueprint. No idea how realistic it is, but we do now have a Democratic majority in the state house, so it may have a pretty good chance.​

    Edit 2: Unfortunately the State Senate is 28-22 Drooling Idiot Party

  7. 7.

    TomB5

    I’m in Pa as well. Shapiro wants to fully legalize cannabis and use the tax revenue associated therewith to fund education. No idea if that gets through the legislature. New maps are in place for this year’s election. The Democrats have a reasonable hope of retaining the house and getting the senate but I wouldn’t be surprised if both go R.

  8. 8.

    Josie

    Victor Shi’s news is indeed huge. It could make a big difference in Texas. Fingers crossed.

  9. 9.

    Ksmiami

    NM offers free tuition at state public colleges for all as  I long as the student maintains a 2.0

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    My sense of humor is way off the mean. TBH I didn’t find the SNL skit even mildly amusing. And what was the deal with the *teacup?

    FTR: I’m half deaf, my brain has always had difficulty processing audio information, and it gets worse when the sound is out of sync with the video (I lip read to help make up for my other deficiencies). All to say, I’m sure all that played into my take.

    edit: answered in the comments.

  12. 12.

    artem1s

    SNL was so lucky to have Scarlett on hand for this. She really brought it. I didn’t get the bit with the tea though. Anyone know what that was in reference too?

  13. 13.

    Scout211

    @artem1s: Anyone know what that was in reference too?

    I learned from the late night thread that it’s a scene from the movie, Get Out.  

  15. 15.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @artem1s: From what I’ve seen other commenters say, it was apparently a reference to the Jordan Peele horror film Get Out

    (Sorry for being an echo. I think it’s supposed to indicate Mrs. Britt’s resemblance to the body-snatching villains of that movie.)

  16. 16.

    laura

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: We Californios had a similar blue print for higher ed thanks to Jerry’s dad Edmund G “Pat” Brown and it worked great- as planned. Then Governor Ronald Reagan dismantled it

    The Get Out teacup reference was that the teacup was used to hypnotize the main character and send him down into the sunken place.

  22. 22.

    TBone

    @TomB5: I think (hope) most PA women are sick of the patriarchy’s shit.  Taylor Swift is from PA and she’ll rally the troops.

  25. 25.

    Scout211

    @OzarkHillbilly: OK, I never saw it. What’s it mean?

    I never saw the movie either but here is the scene if you’re interested.

    ETA: slow typing with one finger on an iPad.  Everyone gets there first.  🙄

  26. 26.

    zhena gogolia

    @OzarkHillbilly: I haven’t seen it, but from various reviews I gather there’s a perfect white family that hypnotizes Black men into captivity of some kind, and I guess the teacup is the hypnosis method. (This is probably wrong, but close enough.) That’s why you see Kenan Thompson sweating.

    ETA: Curses, late again!

  27. 27.

    Juice Box

    California provides free or very, very inexpensive higher education to a lot of kids already. Many of them just buy books, but there are grants for those too. There are 13 states with higher average taxes than California, despite what Fox says.

  28. 28.

    Starfish

    @OzarkHillbilly: Instead of watching the actual Britt thing, I have listened to people talk about it and read a bunch of quick analysis of the SNL piece so now I am an expert in telling you that the teacup thing was from a scene in the movie “Get Out,” that I have not watched.

    In the scene from the movie, a mom is hypnotizing his daughter’s boyfriend and locking him into his own brain. I never thought that teacup sounds could be scary; but apparently, they really are.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    As I mentioned in the last thread, I thought the QVC bit was funny and it’s something that isn’t going as viral as the other bits.

  31. 31.

    WaterGirl

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    State Senate is 28-22 Drooling Idiot Party

    That’s really helpful to know.  I did a cursory check for that before putting the post up, but didn’t easily find it so I tossed the question to you guys.

    At first glance, one might think, oh, we would have to win 6 seats just to get to a tie, not really possible or likely.

    Of course, we know that if it’s 28-22…

    1 seat change is 27-23
    2 seat changes is 26.24
    3 seat changes is 25-25

    So with 40 seats, trying for 4 seat changes doesn’t seem crazy at all.  Depending on who’s up for election / reelection, but you PA peeps will surely know that.

    Paging blueguistarist

    edit:  Good info at #7!

  33. 33.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly:  Yeah, the teacup might have been too much inside baseball.

    edit:  I took the liberty of adding an edit to your comment, saying that your question had been answered.  Otherwise, this will be a 100-comment thread with 75 of the comments answering about the teacup! :-)

    I can un-do that edit if you prefer.

  35. 35.

    Starfish

    @TomB5: I am not sure how public your state is about their state budget, but the math for this does not work out well in Colorado.

    “Education funding” ties something good that every state should do to vice. Think of all the money education was going to get out of lotteries in various states 🙄

    Colorado put some percentage of marijuana tax towards education, and the amount of tax dollars we get from marijuana is small compared to the education budget. “In 2020-21, the marijuana revenue for the Colorado Department of Education was $175.4 million. However, to put that into perspective, the marijuana tax revenue from 2017-18 was roughly 1.6 percent of the state’s K-12 education budget of $5.8 billion.” from here.

    So after this, when we continued to have education budget shortfalls, everyone was like “Didn’t we fund education with marijuana?” and refusing to raise taxes (remember all tax hikes go through voters here) for education.

    That was the K-12 education budget which is approximately the same as the higher ed education budget in our state.

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    @Scout211:   Why one finger?  Did I miss something?

    You are usually super fast with stuff.  I can’t tell you how many times i have put together a post with what I think is awesome news and before I can actually put it up, you have shared the news in the comments. :-)

    Not a criticism!  Just to say that I have always thought you are very quick at typing!

  42. 42.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    Otherwise, this will be a 100-comment thread with 75 of the comments answering about the teacup! :-)

     

    Yeah, that’s still going to happen.

  51. 51.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Oh, right!  I caught that she was hawking the necklace for sale, but I didn’t connect that with QVC, which I have never seen, and hope to never see.

    edit: watched the clip on my phone, didn’t take note that it was QVC specifically.

  54. 54.

    John S.

    Getting bagged on by ScarJo is the highlight of Katie Britt’s career — even if she doesn’t see it that way.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    Verily, I say unto thee, the constitution of the citizenry has become thus that nigh any soul seeks to engage productive and remunerative endeavors as undertaken by their ancestors.

  56. 56.

    Spanky

    Other than being a product of that PA state higher ed system I don’t have much to add, except he’s talking about reducing tuition from around $31K to $1K. And yeah, the “Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama in between” thing is real, so the odds of getting that out of the traditionally education-averse lege are slim.

    Geg6 is the one who will have the real take on this.

  58. 58.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    The thing that non-PA folx often don’t get is that there really aren’t very many “PA-owned” universities.

    There’s “State-related”, “State-assisted”, but those aren’t the same as “State-owned”.  Univ. of Penn? Private. They get some state assistance (for which they are VERY good at blackmailing the legislature to continue: ‘going to cut us off? Guess we’ll have to close the ONE veterinary school in the state…hope your farmers are okay with that’)

    Still, worth a try for the tuition.

  59. 59.

    John S.

    @trollhattan:

    Nancy Mace explodes at ABC host for rape ‘shaming’ her for supporting rapist Donald Trump

    And that ladies and gentlemen is how one plays a “card” to shield themselves from any criticism. You know, the very thing the MAGAts accuse everyone else of doing.

  60. 60.

    TBone

    Tiedrich nails it again.  Patriarchy edition:

    https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/heres-the-insidious-reason-the-gop

    everyone is entitled to my own opinion

    Upgrade

    Read in the Substack app

    Open app

    here’s the insidious reason the GOP put Katie Britt’s vapid face on TV
    why did the GOP pick a rookie like Britt to give an important speech?

    JEFF TIEDRICH

    MAR 10, 2024

    357

    59
    35

    by now, the whole world knows that Alabama Senator Katie Britt’s disastrous State of the Union reponse was built on a lie.

    Britt spun a horrific tale of a 12-year-old girl who was trafficked and raped by drug cartels, and blamed it on the policies of the Biden Administration. at its center is a true story — except for the part where the events took place in Mexico, almost 20 years ago, while George W. Bush was president.

    after days of issuing non-denial denials, Katie Britt’s spokesperson now admits she lied.

    it was a dumb unforced error that made an ineptly-delivered clownshoes catastrophe of a speech only worse.

    so why did the Republican Brain Trust — now there are three words that absolutely do not fucking belong together — pick an unproven rookie like Britt to give an important speech?

    Upgrade to paid

    let’s let that cautionary tale for why you shouldn’t play football without a helmet, Tommy Tuberville, lay it out.

    (content advisory: listening to Tub-of-shit’s mangled syntax may lower your IQ by several points. don’t say you weren’t warned.)

    TV bobblehead: “how do you think she did?”
    Tuberville: “well, considering the circumstances, I think, I thought she did very well. and you know, she’s a mom. she’s a housewife. she’s around people at a young age. and if you just see what the left is doing, they’re going after families. they’re going after separating families — taking the dad out of the family. they’re going after kids in the schools, not allowing them to learn to read and write and do arithmetic. they’re being indoctrinated with all these pronouns and all these books that are in the library about sexuality. I thought Katie was a very good choice, she did a very good job. it’s a hard job to do, to come out and criticize, but she’s had one point to make. you know, she didn’t have enough time to go and criticize everything Joe Biden had talked out. she had the narrative of talking about family — and that’s what Republicans are for, Democrats are against, the family.”

    there’s a fuckload of dipshittery to unpack here, but gist of T-Tube’s word salad is this: “she’s a housewife.”

    Katie Britt is meant to be a shining example.

    you see, it’s a world full of scary people out there — with pronouns — and if women watch Britt’s speech, they’ll be inspired to quit their jobs and get back in the kitchen and be a good mom to little Jimmy and Susie and stop having these crazy feminazi notions about having autonomy and choosing their destiny.

    yes, I know that doesn’t make one fucking lick of sense. don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger.

    it’s all about being a tradwife. seriously. check out this lethal dose of fucknuttery:

    Although she is responsible for cooking and cleaning their Virginia home, Williams doesn’t venture outside — not to the gym, to buy cleaning supplies or to meet a girlfriend for coffee — without calling her electrician husband Conner to ask for permission, nor does she leave the house after dark alone.

    Asking for permission “is a respectful thing,” Estee Williams tells TODAY.com. “I am happy to do it and he’s happy to usually grant it.”

  61. 61.

    Betty Cracker

    The real Britt speech is almost worth watching, at least in part, so you can see for yourself how indescribably terrible it is. Mind-boggling!

    @laura: Bet he’ll have stories!

  62. 62.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @TBone: UNtil this moment I had no idea of a “tradwife” much less what it meant. Call her husband and ask permission?

    BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    I don’t know a single woman who would go along with that BS.

  63. 63.

    John S.

    @Betty Cracker:

    The craziest part is that anyone who sees the SNL version of her monologue and seeks out the actual Britt monologue (curious as to WTF they just watched) will find the original to be even weirder than what ScarJo portrayed.

  65. 65.

    Jackie

    @Scout211: Much like Tina Fey portraying Sarah Palin. How many takes did it take to get through the filming w/o busting a gut thinking “is this really supposed to come out of my mouth?!??”

    I mean, they’re actresses and used to role-playing, but still…!!

  66. 66.

    Another Scott

    @Starfish: +1

    Vice taxes should never be sold as a primary revenue source.

     If they are a primary revenue source, then the state is being evil in encouraging addictions of various kinds.
     Vice taxes primarily come from the bottom XX% (zillionaires don’t spend a big fraction of their wealth or income on scratchers and booze and doobies).
     Primary revenue sources should be dependable and tied to progress in the economy as a whole, not to ephemeral things like recreation.

    They should be a small supplement.  They’re not One Weird Trick to generate free money, and people who sell them that way are lying or in the pocket of someone hoping to collect monopoly rents.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  68. 68.

    Spanky

    @Spanky: Lemme back up a minute. If Shapiro it’s talking solely about those schools in the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) then I’m not a product of those schools, nor do I think the tuition is as high at those schools as I said. My alma mater whose tuition I quoted is Penn State, a different entity. And I hope Shapiro is including PSU, because that seems to be a hell of a lot to pay at a state system

    ETA I still think it’s a damned heavy lift to get it past those Neanderthals in the PA legislature.

  69. 69.

    Starfish

    @OzarkHillbilly: Oh, this has been a thing. Anne Helen Peterson did an excellent substack piece on the topic.

    There are tradwife influencers out in this world making money off of attempting to convince women that all they have to do is sit at home take care of children and not worry their pretty little heads.

  71. 71.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

     

    @artem1s:  Not entirely luck, she’s married to a cast member – Colin Jost, one of the “Weekend Update” co-anchors.

  72. 72.

    WaterGirl

    @TBone: But she DOESN’T ADMIT that she lied.  This is what she said.  Nothing about lying, no apology.

    Katie Britt’s spokesperson ADMITS her sex trafficking story was about Karla Jacinto Romero

  73. 73.

    Lyrebird

    @Starfish: Great line, and thanks for clarifying.  I was also entirely ignorant of the tea stirring thing.

     

    For anyone who wants to wash any Tea Party or horror movie dregs out of their mind, there’s a great teacup plot element at the beginning of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon!

    Signed, Michelle Yeoh fan gurl

  75. 75.

    Scout211

    @WaterGirl: Why one finger?

    I dunno, but somehow I missed the ability to type on my phone or my iPad with two hands or even two thumbs. Maybe because I’m an old?  I am fairly quick with the one finger but my brain just never learned how to use the keyboard on my devices.

    I post mostly links to articles with a copy and paste excerpt in the quote box.  That isn’t hard to do with one finger.  

  77. 77.

    Another Scott

    @Spanky: It looks like it was just shorthand.

    WHYY.org:

    The proposals are part of Shapiro administration’s reorganization of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education (PASSHE), which includes state-owned schools such as Bloomsburg Commonwealth University, Cheyney University and West Chester University, along with state-related schools, including Pennsylvania State University, Lincoln University and Temple University.

    State-related schools — those which are not owned by the Commonwealth — still receive a substantial amount of funding from the Pennsylvania government. The system also includes the state’s 15 community colleges.

    Cheney and Lincoln are Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

    The announcement, which Shapiro described as a new blueprint for higher education, will focus on “competitiveness, workforce development, access and affordability.” It comes just days from Feb. 6, when he will present his budget address. At that time, Shapiro said he will also propose “a significant investment” in the state-owned university system, community colleges and their students.

    Good, good.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  78. 78.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Scout211: it’s a generational thing.  Only millennials and zoomers were born with the new model thumbs; Us GenXers  and boomers all got the old model.  I watched these kids ( that’s anybody without gray hair) tapping away on their phones like hail on a car roof and it blows me away.

  80. 80.

    frosty

    @Jackie: ​One take. It’s Saturday Night LIVE. But your point is good regarding the rehearsals. That would have been fun to watch.

  82. 82.

    MagdaInBlack

    @OzarkHillbilly: That was my MIL, almost to a T.  When she expressed the belief that I too should follow that path, I am sure I had a combo confused Cocker Spaniel/Oh Hell No face

    Eta: in conversation with my husband about something I had done, shes asked ” you let her do that?”  He laughed ” Let? Do you know her at all?”

  83. 83.

    NotMax

    Wow. Wind suddenly howling like no one’s business outside. Temperature must have dropped 10 degrees in the past 15 minutes.

  85. 85.

    frosty

    @Scout211: I was one of three guys taking typing in summer school before my senior year in high school. Learning to touch type that early has really been helpful. Being in a class with (almost) nothing but cute girls was even better!

  86. 86.

    Spanky

    The Future Belongs To Me

    SETÚBAL, Portugal — The surprising voters driving the far right’s surge in Europe scrambled for selfies inside a suburban auditorium. Rita Matias, 25, an ultraconservative and social media influencer, had just called for migrant quotas and curbs on abortion in a political debate. Now, her more progressive opponents in staid blazers and pullovers watched like wallflowers as star-struck 18-year-olds jostled for photos with the young woman in a photogenic taupe cardigan.
    “Are you a party member?” she asked one fan, who shyly shook his head. “No? Don’t worry. We’ll get you signed up.”
    On a continent better known for left-wing youth activism a la Greta Thunberg, polls show that young Europeans are fueling the growth of the far right from France to Sweden to the Netherlands. And in a year when former president Donald Trump is making a bid to take back the White House, multiple European governments may be headed for a rightward shift, propelled by voters in their late teens, 20s and early 30s.

    WAPO gift link. 

  89. 89.

    BeautifulPlumage

    I’m amazed at how quickly SNL put that together, and it was well done. I liked the line about “hard conversations around the kitchen table like we’ll have tomorrow about how Mommy freaked out the whole country”
    (paraphrased).

    The Pelosi “Apologize, bitch” retort is also good. The Alabama woman’s response is a bit long but also worth it.

  92. 92.

    OlFroth

    I’m intrigued by the governor’s proposal.  My oldest will start college in five years.  Pennsylvania does not count pension payments as income for taxation purposes.  Don’t know if that will count for eligibility under this proposal.

  93. 93.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @John S.: That’s kind of how I felt about Tina Fey’s version (funny, very watchable) of Sarah Palin (completely unwatchable). Even though Fey was largely using verbatim quotes.

    I see that Jackie @ #65 already made pretty much the same comment.

  94. 94.

    HeartlandLiberal

    I going to the Indiana Mens basketball game vs Michigan State this afternoon. I will be the guest of someone I worked with in my last fifteen years of my computing career before retirement as director of computing at IU Athletics. She came out of retirement two years ago when Mike Woodson was hired, to be his special assistant. They became close friends when he was playing here as a student athlete, and have remained so. Woodson trusts her. I have not been to a game since I gave up my tickets five years ago, for both basketball and football. I am taking the bus from my retirement community, which is across the street north of the Athletics complex.

  95. 95.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    Vice taxes should never be sold as a primary revenue source.

    States tax cigarettes in part to discourage smoking. However, states are supposedly more neutral with respect to cannabis and are taxing a product that is in … high demand. ;)

    But I agree that states might want to find a steady revenue stream. In California, cannabis related tax revenue has been erratic, in part because the illegal cannabis market is still strong.

  96. 96.

    Scout211

    @frosty: Yeah, I took typing (now called keyboarding) in high school back in the ancient times and we learned on both a manual typewriter and that new-fangled thing called an electric typewriter.  LOL.

    I rarely read ballon-juice on my computer, though.  So the one-fingered typing will continue.  I’ve read that we olds are often called digital language learners and all learning associated with the digital world (even our eye hand coordination) is like learning a second language, unlike our kids and grandkids who learn it from an early age.

  97. 97.

    trollhattan

    @Brachiator: ​
    And the state lottery is essentially a tax on the mathematically illiterate. “And our kids win, too!” as the proposition’s advertising put it.

  98. 98.

    Redshift

    @WaterGirl:

    Yeah, the teacup might have been too much inside baseball.

    Maybe. I got it, and I’d seen several Get Out comments about the speech on social media, but it was pretty subtle. Until the cutaway to Kenan Thompson, it didn’t register when with me.

  100. 100.

    John S.

    @Redshift:

    It was very inside baseball, but also really on point. Katie Britt and the Republicans would love to send anyone who isn’t like them to the “sunken place” (essentially made to disappear and cease to exist).

  101. 101.

    frosty

    @OlFroth: ​ A little too late for me. My older son graduated in 2016, my younger next year. Both at PA state schools. Oh well.

    I thought our income was too high but if pension and SS aren’t counted our income is ~$0 now.

  102. 102.

    wjca

    @laura: We Californios had a similar blue print for higher ed thanks to Jerry’s dad Edmund G “Pat” Brown and it worked great- as planned. Then Governor Ronald Reagan dismantled it.

    I keep waiting for one of our Democratic governors, and our Democratic supermajority in the legislature, to put it back in place.  But so far, no sign that they are even considering it.  I guess the high speed rail boondoggle is absorbing too much of the budget.  (But all by itself?!?!?)

  103. 103.

    Brachiator

    Loved the SNL skit, including the Get Out reference.

    ScarJo was great, and conveyed all the creepiness of the original speech.

  104. 104.

    trollhattan

    @wjca:

    Resolution likely revolves around reforming Prop 13 and that remains political plutonium, as dictated by Howard Jarvis’ desiccated corpse.

    HSR and education live in different universes.

  105. 105.

    RaflW

    I think it’s as much chaff as all the other speculation about Donnie Dinglehand’s VP choice, but the latest scuttlebutt is that Britt, Rubio and Vance are all on his short list.

    And Romney — of all people — defended Britt on Xitter and claimed that Dems are afraid of her as a VP choice.  LOLwhat

    eta: Rubio doing the Chris Christie total submission souless-eyes would be quite something.

  107. 107.

    Brachiator

    @trollhattan:

    And the state lottery is essentially a tax on the mathematically illiterate. “And our kids win, too!” as the proposition’s advertising put it.

    Yeah. The state lottery has not delivered as much as was advertised.

  108. 108.

    OlFroth

    @frosty: Yeah, if pension income doesn’t count, my wife and I combined only make about 40K.  PA also doesn’t include the state stipend we receive to help care for our 2 adopted kids as income.

  109. 109.

    wjca

    @trollhattan: Resolution likely revolves around reforming Prop 13 and that remains political plutonium, as dictated by Howard Jarvis’ desiccated corpse.

    But Prop 13 limits property taxes, which are funding for K-12 education and other local government stuff.  The state colleges/universities are funded by the state.  Which mostly means income taxes.

  110. 110.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    Just finally woke up, feels like I lost something, like an hour or so.

    Don’t let the others fool you. Neither DST nor standard time actually gives you more sunlight. It just changes the numbers when the sunlight happens.

  111. 111.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Just saw a post claiming Trump’s 3 top VP choices are Britt, Vance, and Rubio. Apologies for not linking. It’s on BlueSky and I can’t figure out how to make it work.

  113. 113.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @Baud: Rubio is also from Florida. They can’t be that stupid.

    That sounds like a challenge…

  114. 114.

    H.E.Wolf

    Ramadan Kareem to all who observe it, with warm recollections of beloved commenter Amir Khalid (who hasn’t been heard from in a long time).

  118. 118.

    Jackie

    @Baud: Agreed. TIFG’s VP choice will be done ala beauty pageant – similar to when he had the three finalists for SCOTUS parading down the walkway before crowning Gorsuch with the tiara and bouquet of roses.

  119. 119.

    artem1s

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR:

    reference to the Jordan Peele horror film Get Out

    thx. I got that it was related to something Black people would be horrified by. I saw Get Out but still didn’t get the reference. I’m slow. A big Nope would done it – yea, not the same movie – but White PP Tea > Nope > Jordan Peale > Get Out would have definitely gotten me there.

  120. 120.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott: Ideally, any tax instituted to discourage something (like a vice tax, gasoline tax or carbon tax) should be rebated directly to the people instead of being used for government revenue, to forestall perverse political incentives. But in practice this almost never happens. All the political incentives are against that from the beginning.

  122. 122.

    TBone

    March roaring with blizzard-like snow squalls and a power outage.  Woke me up from napping and cut off Cat On A Hot Tin Roof 😕 dang it.  North winds blow!

  123. 123.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @Chetan Murthy: Similar here. I can’t do thumb typing; I hold my phone in my left hand and use the forefinger and middle finger of my right hand to type. Unfortunately, sometimes that registers as a two-finger gesture of some sort that my phone thinks means I want to do something very different.

  124. 124.

    emjayay

    @TomB5: PA is surrounded by legal weed states other than a bit of West Virginia. The loss of all that tax money from their citizens going to all those other states is going to get the opponents to fold eventually.

  126. 126.

    cain

    shit, I thought Scarlet looks exactly like Britt. I thought Britt was being a good sport and coming to SNL and repeating her performance – of course, I knew it was not true when she said crazy bitch haha!

  127. 127.

    Geminid

    @emjayay: My Atlanta friend thinks similarly, that once Florida legalizes recreational cannabis Georgia will fall in a couple of years. Georgia’s has allowed medical use for a while now but only for a pretty short list of diagnosed diseases. Florida is less restrictive and I understand there is a booming medical cannabis industry there.

  128. 128.

    NotMax

    Watched the Britt debacle live on Thursday. Finally got around to watching the SNL bit (am decidedly not in the audience, age-wise, they aim for), which I found undercooked and extremely average. Gumming rather than biting satire.

  129. 129.

    StringOnAStick

    @Starfish: One of the reasons we moved away from Colorado to retire is just how insane the budget process is.  The tax payers bill of rights becoming law has guaranteed decades of bad things, and good luck ever getting it repealed.  Douglas Bruce the felon slumlord has a lot to answer for.

  130. 130.

    pabadger

    I do not think it likely that Shapiro’s higher ed proposal will get through the state senate. I actually think it is more of a political marker to expand the majority in the House and take the 3 seats necessary to get the Senate. We are already going to win the Harrisburg Senate seat so need two more. The likely targets are in Erie and Allegheny counties.

  133. 133.

    cain

    The more you read about that woman that Sen. Britt referenced and lied about, Karla Jacinto – https://www.cnn.com/2015/11/10/americas/freedom-project-mexico-trafficking-survivor/index.html

    raped 43,200 times  – to use that experience for your personal and your parties gain to create a completely different conclusion. I’m just flabbergasted that they would be so disgustingly tone deaf. Lying and exploiting.

    Britt needs to apologize to everyone for that. I understand that she did acknowledge that it was untrue – she needs to make a press release and apologize. If I was Karla jacinto, I would be livid for having her story used as a prop for political gain.

  134. 134.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @trollhattan: And the state lottery is essentially a tax on the mathematically illiterate those inept at probabilities.

    FTFY. OTOH…

    I taught an evening-school section of Statistics 101 for a few semesters at a local community college. We’d use the MD lottery for expected-value computations & it would turn out that the EV of a lottery ticket was on the order of -$0.85. So, I’d ask the class if they’d buy a lottery ticket, and they’d chorus No.

    Funny, I’d continue, but I buy a lottery ticket every week.** Why do you think I’d do that?

    Someone in the back would usually call out, Because you’re stupid? And then I’d explain:

    I have a pretty remunerative day job, and if I lose a dollar a week on a lottery ticket i I’ll never even notice it.

    But what happens if I win? I get about the same income as my day job for the next 20 years, which takes me to retirement age. And what does that mean?

    The day after I cash that ticket and get my first check, I walk into my current employer’s office and tell them where they can stick their job. And I have 20 years to do nothing but what I want, or to find another job that might pay a lot less but is much more satisfying.

    In other words, I’d conclude, the numbers don’t mean anything by themselves – you also need to consider what the possible outcomes mean for whoever buys a ticket. In my case, a winning ticket would mean a qualitative change in my life, whereas a losing ticket means almost nothing.

    Some semesters I’d offer a different scenario:

    Let’s suppose I’ve done something very foolish – I borrowed half a million dollars from a loan shark and bought stock in a company that went bankrupt – and my, uh, creditor wants his money back by the weekend or else he’ll have me, my wife and kids murdered. I’ve got $10,000 in the bank, no other resources, and no collateral to obtain another loan in time. What should I do?

    In such dire straits, buying 10,000 lottery tickets in hopes of a $1M winner that will allow me to pay my debt and keep me and my family alive doesn’t look like such a terrible move, does it?

    And I would conclude by harping on one of my favorite subjects:

    We use probability and statistics to help make sense of an imperfect, incomplete and confusing reality. The numbers in isolation are not important. What is important is what those numbers tell us about how reality works.

    (OK, rant over. Enjoy your day.)

    ** In fact I rarely did, but only because I’d forget to – adult ADHD is a pain.

  135. 135.

    Miss Bianca

    @Starfish: My understanding was that the MJ tax was supposed to be specifically targeted at K-12 school construction projects.

    $175 million is still pretty small even for that, though.

  136. 136.

    trollhattan

    Having discussed power grids in the climate posts will note CAISO’s present generation:

    Demand
    17.4 GW
    Supply
    14GW renewables 72% (solar 11.6GW, wind 0.9GW)
    2GW natural gas 10%
    2.3GW nuclear 12%
    1.3GW large hydro 7%
    Exports 1.4GW
    Charging batteries 3.6GW
    I don’t often see >70% on the renewables side, much less exporting at the same time.

    Oh hai Texas.
    Demand 40GW.
    Is it A/C season already?

  137. 137.

    Miss Bianca

    @StringOnAStick: And the funnest thing of all is that Bruce is in prison for tax evasion (surprise, surprise) so now he’s living on the taxpayers’ dimes.

    You can’t make this shit up.

  138. 138.

    Tony G

    Katie Britt really should auction off that bling — I mean that crucifix — and donate the money to Trump’s legal defense fund.  It would be the Godly thing to do.

  139. 139.

    EthylEster

    @Spanky: I was thinking it was PASSHE, too. Which has fallen on hard times wrt enrollment. So this would be a lifeline for them.

    I doubt the many PSU alums in the PA government want their vaunted uni attended by the great unwashed, which describes a lot of PASSHE students. Many are the first ones in their family to attend college. Appalachia is a real thing in PA.

  141. 141.

    Geminid

    @trollhattan: California used to import electricity from Washington. I wonder if they still do. Cali is definitely producing more wind and solar energy now, and SunZia will add more from New Mexico in a couple years.

    What with EV-charging requirements and other uses California demand will still grow, and the state may need back-up natural gas-generation for a while. But maybe it won’t; hydrogen might pick up the slack, and adoption of home batterirs could have an impact too.

  142. 142.

    cain

    @RaflW: oh man.. please let it be Vance!

    Why would you pick Britt especially after that disastrous SOTU response. Of course, Rubio also had a weird one.

    That said if he picks Rubio FL Senate seat would be open. Of course, Rubio might try the run for it again after he loses.

  143. 143.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Spanky: Well that sucks. Obviously for the Portuguese, but Portugal has been my leading destination if I need to flee the States

    Interesting that the article noted that one reason for the rise in right wing politics among European youth is that they have no experience living under authoritarian regimes, and those who do are become fewer and fewer.

    It’s same thing as the anti-vaxxers  I wasn’t old enough to know my grandfather who died young, but I know he had a withered arm because of polio

  144. 144.

    Steeplejack

    @cain:

    I don’t think Trump can pick Rubio. They’re both from Florida. I guess Marco could move to, say, Wyoming? Maybe Dick Cheney could rent him a house.

  145. 145.

    Dangerman

    I didn’t watch Britt’s response; I heard it was Jindahl level crash and burn. But I have better things to do. Alphabetize my CDs. After cleaning every disk. No, not alphabetize; how about by genre? Then by alphabet. Also, gender and album art. Well, shit, where does that put Dread Zeppelin. Plus, I have to strip and wax the bathroom floors. Fuck, who has the time to watch any worthless responses?

    So WTF is up with that tea cup? What am I missing?

  146. 146.

    TBone

    Dangerman: Dunno, don’t watch horror movies (enough horror IRL) but someone explained above (teacup horror?) – I rented Confessions of a Dangerous Mind because I haven’t seen it for 20 years and it’s holding up pretty well.  Kooky, goofy entertainment that may, or may not, be true.  Chuck Barris life story, maybe.

  149. 149.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, …

    southpaw
    @nycsouthpaw
    55m

    Fmr Transport Secretary Elaine Chao’s sister Angela died after making a mistake with a Tesla’s gearshift. She found herself sinking in a pond, w enough time to call for help, but no responder could break the Model X’s window or free her from the vehicle. wsj.com/real-estate/angela-c…

    [ Why is this story in the Real Estate section?? ]

    [ image ]

    A Mistake in a Tesla and a Panicked Final Call: The Death of Angela Chao
    What happened on a remote Texas ranch in a billionaire shipping scion’s final hours.

    wsj.com
    Mar 10, 2024 · 7:42 PM UTC

    Unbreakable windows on cars are a very bad idea – one that’s been known for, what, about 100 years now??

    :-(

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  150. 150.

    geg6

    @Snarki, child of Loki:

    Actually, not quite right.  There are the state system schools, otherwise known as the PASSHE (PA State System of Higher Education) schools.  These include Slippery Rock U, Indiana U of PA, Shippensburg, Millersville, Cheney, etc.  Then there are the state-related schools, which are Pitt, Penn State, Temple and Lincoln.  There are the community colleges.  And the privates such as Penn and CMU.  The current proposal includes only the community colleges and the state schools.  It does not include state-related or private schools.  State-related schools get just small portion of state funding.  For instance, PSU gets about 10-12% of its budget from the state.  Privates don’t get much of anything except through students who get PA State Grants, which are available to all PA residents at any college or university if they financially qualify.

  151. 151.

    Another Scott

    @RaflW:

    L O L G O P
    @lolgop.bsky.social

    It’ll be Vance. The only one with pure Obergruppenführer vibes.

    Mar 10, 2024 at 4:23 PM

    Maybe?

    Dunno.

    Doesn’t really matter in the presidential race.

    But if it helps increase the Democratic Senate margin (even eventually, via looooser stink) then that would be helpful.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  152. 152.

    Stacy

    I know of two prominent Tradwife influencers on TikTok/insta. One is daughter of the CEO of JetBlue who is young, Mormon, has 5+ children, lives on a giant, beautiful property and makes/does everything effortlessly from scratch. The other one is Emily Mariko who is also from a wealthy family and is charging $100 for a standard canvas tote bag with her name on it. Very relatable.

  154. 154.

    Scout211

    @Another Scott: Vance is my guess.  He could be bringing with him all the Peter Thiel money which Trump needs and Vance is much more like Trump than the others. They both fake the MAGA nonsense but are more comfortable around billionaires.

    I read an article (I tried to find it just now) with some Trump insider whispering into a reporter’s ear that the choice was already made and it was a well-respected male Republican.  Or was that well-connected?

    ETA:  Hoping for a Senate special election in Ohio, too.

    ETA2:  Or maybe not if Ohio lets him keep his Senate seat while running for VP. Because Trump/Vance will definitely be losers.

  155. 155.

    Jeffro

    @cain: Why would you pick Britt especially after that disastrous SOTU response?

    “they” see things differently than us rational folks, is my guess.

    She sends all the right signals to the fundie base, and that’s all that they care about.  I’m sure they think it’ll also – somehow – help them swim against the post-Dobbs tide.

  156. 156.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Spanky: While it wasn’t the only thing, one of the major contributors in the US’s hard right turn circa 1980 was that after the civil rights revolution, a herrenvolk socialism for whites only wasn’t allowed any more, and rather than share the benefits of a generous welfare state with people of different colors, we tore it up. It was the closure of the public swimming pool writ large.

    It feels like it’s their turn. Europeans were never less racist than we were, they were just whiter. The postwar European welfare states were in part predicated on the idea that people felt the benefits were going to people like them. These are states born of 19th-century ethnic nationalism; most of them don’t even have jus soli birthright citizenship. I can easily see a wave of brown immigrants driving them to tear themselves apart.

  158. 158.

    geg6

    @EthylEster:

    About 60% of the students at my PSU campus are first-gen.  About 60% of those spend two years at my campus and finish up at University Park (or Behrend).  The rest finish where they start.  So they get the great unwashed at UP whether or not they want them.

  160. 160.

    Matt McIrvin

    @frosty: I took a night class in typing in high school in the 80s. We were using IBM Selectrics for most of it. I recall the teacher told us to use the lower-case l instead of the digit 1, even though they didn’t actually look the same on the Selectric–I told her computers cared about the difference, but she’d never heard of that.

    But I think it was the single most useful class I took in high school. I didn’t get really good in that class but it taught me the basics, and messing around on Usenet (nascent social media) while I was goofing off in grad school in the 1990s gave me the practice. I think it’s remarkable how many programmers don’t touch-type even though they’re on a keyboard all day long.

    And, yes, a girl I had a giant crush on was in the class. Never went anywhere, I’m afraid.

  161. 161.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Another Scott:

    Doesn’t really matter in the presidential race.

    Unless Trump wins and then dies. J. D. Vance is one of the very few people I might be more scared of than Trump in the White House. Close to having, say, Milo Yiannopoulos or Theodore Beale as President.

  164. 164.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Stacy:

    The Tradwife Lifestyle is just camouflage. What they are actually selling is the Plantation Mistress Lifestyle.

  167. 167.

    Scout211

    IMO, Trump’s VP pick won’t be a female.  He is just not comfortable with women who have power and competency, unless they are under his control. The Republican women talked about as candidates for VP all have their own power competencies and I really don’t think Trump would be comfortable with that.  I think also that Trump will make the choice this time.

    We should have a Veepstakes contest here and ballon-juice.  LOL

  168. 168.

    RevRick

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: I’m in PA as well, and that 28-22 split is a hill too high, especially since only half the seats are up at any election, unlike the State House, where all are up every two years. The population shifts from the rural center of the state to the southeast corner help, but we failed to pick up the new Senate seat in western Lehigh County last election.

    The only way Shapiro’s proposal could get through the legislature is if he bargains away a GOP wish, like charter schools or worse.

  169. 169.

    Scout211

    @Jackie: I thought TIFG had the fundies tightly in his grasp. It’s the suburban women he needs in his corner.

    True, but as one conservative male tweeted out, “women don’t trust other women.  In fact they hate other women.  What they want to see is a competent manly man who makes them feel safe and protected.” (Paraphrased).

    Ugh.  Now I need to go take a shower.

  170. 170.

    jonas

    @Matt McIrvin:The postwar European welfare states were in part predicated on the idea that people felt the benefits were going to people like them. These are states born of 19th-century ethnic nationalism; most of them don’t even have jus soli birthright citizenship. I can easily see a wave of brown immigrants driving them to tear themselves apart.

    I just think this bears repeating because it’s an absolutely spot-on description of what’s going on in Europe right now. Think of it as Davis X. Machina’s famous dictum about American politics (underpasses, sparrows, curtain rods, etc.)  in a European key.

  171. 171.

    JML

    2 things to watch out for with a proposal like Shapiro’s: 1) will they actually fund it adequately to cover the promises, and 2) is this first-dollar money or last dollar money? Because MN did something similar last session (“North Star Promise”) but they made in “last dollar in”, so the additional state aid would come in after other state and federal aid, but also after all other institutional aid was calculated. So if the school would normally give you a $1000 scholarship out of its budget, that gets deducted first. If you got $2500 in scholarships from the school’s foundation…that too is deducted before the additional state aid is calculated.

    So what can happen is the program ends up being a big ol’ PR program but doesn’t actually impact that many students, and doesn’t do anything to help the universities budgets.

  172. 172.

    pabadger

    @geg6: I’d like to add to this that many PASSHE schools have seen decreasing enrollment and are under a lot of financial strain. This would  increase enrollment at the schools.

  173. 173.

    EthylEster

    @geg6: You left Bloomsburg U off your list of PASSHE schools! There used to be 13 but maybe one or two have finally succumbed. Lock Haven?

    And I’m sure starting at a real PSU gets the stink off.

  174. 174.

    geg6

    @EthylEster:

    I left a bunch of schools off my list because there are quite a few.  Less lately, now that Edinboro, Clarion and Cal U of PA have been merged and are now collectively called Penn West University.

  175. 175.

    tomB5

    @Starfish: I agree w/your point. I think politicians use taxes on vices to partially fund all kinds of things because it’s easier to get through the legislature even if the ultimate funding is inadequate.

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