Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

The lights are all blinking red.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

“woke” is the new caravan.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

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

You cannot shame the shameless.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Thursday Morning Open Thread: We’re Still Moving Forward

Thursday Morning Open Thread: We’re Still Moving Forward

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Thursday Morning Open Thread 20

(Jack Ohman via GoComics.com)

 
Thursday Morning Open Thread: We're Still Moving Forward



 
May 22 is National Maritime Day:

*Sigh*…

Reader Interactions

311Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    Thanks, AL. I’ve been waiting for the morning thread.  You are a ray of sunshine.

  2. 2.

    Baud

    The move brings the total college debt canceled by the administration to $167 billion

    This is about a third quarter 38% of the amount originally cancelled, which the Supreme Court Republicans struck down.
    ETA: Did the math.

    ETA 2: Did the math again

  3. 3.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud: Seconded. What a relief. Not all is perfect in Biden-world, but there’s a heckuva lot good about it. For me, that’s important to keep in mind, lest we give up hope.

  5. 5.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: Yes, but it’s ’blackmail’ to make the argument that who appoints judges is important, so thbbbbt.

  6. 6.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Baud: Thanks, AL. I’ve been waiting for the morning thread. You are a ray of sunshine.​

     Quoted for truth. Thank you, AL!

  7. 7.

    Scout211

    Good news about all the judges.  I posted last night that there is also 5 more nominations in committee.

    This also from the Senate: The Shadow Docket Sunlight Act

    [WASHINGTON, D.C.] — Today, U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and U.S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) were joined by U.S. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Cory Booker (D-NJ), Alex Padilla (D-CA), Peter Welch (D-VT), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tina Smith (D-MN), Ron Wyden (D-OR), Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Dick Durbin (D-IL) in introducing new legislation to bring transparency to decisions on the Supreme Court’s emergency docket, also called the “shadow docket.”

    The Shadow Docket Sunlight Act requires a written explanation and vote count for any decision concerning injunctive relief, including decisions on the Supreme Court’s shadow docket, to provide clarity and consistency to judicial decision-making. In addition to requiring the Supreme Court to provide a written explanation for shadow docket decisions and to indicate how each Justice voted on the decision by providing a vote count, the Shadow Docket Sunlight Act also requires the Federal Judicial Center to report to Congress annually on the Court’s compliance with the law.

    Hoping for a Dem majority next year to get this passed and signed into law.  One can hope.  😊

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The better question is what are Democrats doing, or plan to do about project 2025? This comes up on social media all the time, but I haven’t heard one legislative initiative, or anything Democrats are doing to fight against it.

    Everything we propose is a legislative initiative against it, everything we do is fighting against it, but we don’t have a Project 2024 we can hype?

    Grow the F up.

  12. 12.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    Hi everyone! Slept for more than three hours last night for the first time in weeks. Now I feel irrationally happy.

    Or maybe it’s all that good news that AL posted :)

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    Did y’all see anything about Rep Moskowitz gently disagreeing with his fellow Dem, Rep Crockett, about this being the most do-nothing Congress in history?

    Moskowitz: I have disagree with Ms. Crockett who claimed this is the least productive congress in modern history.

    First of all, this Congress: removed its Speaker… took 15 rounds to elect its speaker… removed a member of their party… had a failed impeachment of a President… impeached a secretary without a constitutional threshold… wants to hold Garland in contempt and possibly arrest him… had a failed motion to vacate to remove a second Speaker… saved gas stoves, ovens, toasters, blenders, dishwashers from the communist grip of energy standards

    L to the OL, Rep Moskowitz!  They’re all my favorites (him, Crockett, Raskin) but for today’s he’s my favorite-favorite.

    Btw folks, direct text-quote from Froette, now in her second week of her Hill internship: “Working on the committee hearing (I love this stuff) and holy cow I did not understand the full depth of some of these people’s nuttiness”

    TRUTH

  16. 16.

    The Red Pen

    Off Topic: Any commenters have experience with a cat that is FELV positive?

    A month or so ago, we took in a small, wet, cold, unhappy kitty that was in our backyard. We isolated him and took him to the vet. He wasn’t chipped, neutered, or anything, so we got him all taken care of. The bad news is that he’s FELV positive. Our other 2 cats are not and we don’t want to expose them. PlagueBeast (not his name, we call him “Murphy”) is a wonderful cat, probably about 9 months old. We can’t bear to part with him especially knowing that he might not find another home. We’re able to keep him separated from the other cats, but the one thing that’s missing in his life is socialization with them. He doesn’t have anyone to play with. I’m not really sure what to do about that. Obviously, we play with him, but it’s not the same as playing with another cat. He gets up in a window with another cat on the other side and does play behavior. The other cat half-heartedly reciprocates, but there’s a pane of glass so it’s just frustrating for both of them.

    Maybe there’s nothing we can do (short of getting a second FELV-positive cat, but that’s not really an option). Anyway, we’re going to try to keep him healthy and happy as long as the Cat Gods will it.

  17. 17.

    Soprano2

    @dmsilev: By my calculations, that’s 22% of all federal judgeships. If he could get a second term, that might become 40-50%. Just think if Biden appointed 40% of federal judges, plus the ones appointed by Obama and Clinton. That could go a long way toward mitigating the damage done by McConnell the last year of Obama’s presidency. Of course, there’s still the fucking Supreme Court……

    I was listening to a podcast the other day where they said if TFG got in office again Thomas and Alito would probably retire to allow him to replace them with 40 year olds, which could cement the MAGA dominance of the court for 40 years. That would be a catastrophe for the U.S. We can’t let that happen.

  20. 20.

    Scout211

    Also some news from NBC. No matter what Trump blathers on and on about as he changes his positions regularly, the “Trump team” is behind the scenes of the RNC to soften the stance on abortion and marriage. I am doubtful this will work and I hope it doesn’t.

    Donald Trump’s allies are quietly getting involved in little-noticed fights over who will serve on the committee to set the Republican Party’s national platform.
    NBC News spoke with nine people familiar with what’s happening in states across the country, including Arizona, South Carolina, Kansas and Iowa, among others, who said that the campaign’s involvement is intended to stop those on the party’s right flank from trying to push the official Republican National Committee platform too far to the right on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage headed into the general election.

    A Trump campaign official acknowledged to NBC News that there are conversations throughout the party about culture war-infused policies and that they have been watching and engaged in some state-level races for spots on the RNC’s Platform Committee, which is the body that will play a significant role in shaping platform changes.

  21. 21.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: I get it, though. Emotionally. It feels like what we need to combat this is some equally tyrannical master stroke–a plan to outlaw the Republican Party and throw them all in jail, etc. etc.

    But we can’t do that and remain who we are. This is the central problem of liberalism.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    We’ll do what we can. I think we have underestimated the number and types of people out there that consciously or subconsciously do not want us to succeed.

  26. 26.

    TBone

    @Matt McIrvin: it’s not that complex.  But we have to win the election by trifecta in order to legislate enforcement of criminal statutes to prevent future treasonous behavior from getting a pass.  It’s not that hard to not commit crimes while in public office!

  27. 27.

    H.E.Wolf

    I’ve been ramping up my volunteer hours with our state Democratic party, and as usual, I’m thrilled by the concrete expression of faith in democracy that is intrinsic to being a volunteer.

    My task is updating addresses of campaign volunteers. I sit at my computer at home, stylishly adorned with my Velcro wrist braces, and type my way down a long, long list.

    Doesn’t sound like much, does it. But behind every address, I see a person who’s spending an hour or two to preserve, protect, and improve our country. I get a little verklempt about it!

  29. 29.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The Ashley Stevenses of the world threaten to exhaust my political soul. I’m waiting for the poll that shows 62% of those whose student loans were forgiven believe Trump did it. I want to scream, but an old man screaming is not a good look.

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    My power came back on around an hour ago after being out since 8:30 Tuesday night.   I have yet to work up the courage to look inside my fridge.

  34. 34.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Matt McIrvin: I guess people are hardwired differently,  emotionally. For me,  none of the actions you mention are even appealing,  other than applying existing law and winning the goddam election. Plus reforming the Supreme Court after winning the necessary elections.  That motivates me!

  36. 36.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: So the other thing is, we’ve been in a world for decades in which this really predatory capitalism basically rules everything (including almost all of the remaining “Communist” world, which to me is the most farcical thing about it!) and is destroying the biosphere, exploiting people generally, funding awful bigot politics, basically being the worst it can be. And it really feels like the bad guys are winning because of all of this. All over the world.

    People under 40 have not known the world in which we were fighting a possibly even shittier alternative, and in which that fight also sometimes led capitalism to curb its worst excesses.

    So I hear a lot of “nothing is going to happen until we eliminate capitalism”. Democrats sure as hell aren’t trying to eliminate capitalism. But also radicals don’t have a lot to replace it other than this regurgitated Marxist-Leninism that I am super skeptical of. It’s not as if they can leverage technological progress to do better; the only people talking about that are the worst kinds of predatory capitalists themselves.

    So we fall into this sort of apocalyptic funk. That maybe the best we can do is something like the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement–wind down our species with some dignity. Or preserve a tiny remnant for after the collapse, or whatever.

    It’s not a good time to be a “progressive” who likes “progress”, that’s for sure.

  37. 37.

    SuzieC

    @H.E.Wolf: Same.  I’m writing Vote Forward letters to overseas voters.  There are millions of overseas US voters and they don’t receive regular contact from the Dem party.  It gives me hope that thousands of us are quietly doing our thing to save democracy.

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @H.E.Wolf: I believe your state is Washington. Got any inside dope on Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s election campaign?

    I’m a little anxious about that one. They say the first reelection is usually the toughest.

  39. 39.

    Belafon

    @Matt McIrvin: They’re trying to destroy and we’re trying to not have things get destroyed. You don’t preserve something by destroying it.

  40. 40.

    Scout211

    @Jeffro: Btw folks, direct text-quote from Froette, now in her second week of her Hill internship

    Call me super cautious, but did Froette okay you posting that here? I thought they were supposed to keep that stuff out of social media.

  41. 41.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Matt McIrvin: Perhaps dial back on the places where you are hearing/reading those things? I’m not sure they’re as universal or widespread as they may seem to be.

  44. 44.

    TBone

    @Matt McIrvin: well I’m sure as hell not gonna obey in advance.  Regulation and restraint of capitalism is what gives me life and hope.  President Biden IS ON IT.

  47. 47.

    jonas

    The story about FLOW and the Baltimore bridge accident is such a great example of what normal, competent government does. Too bad it ends up buried in an obscure industry trade mag instead of on the evening news (outside Baltimore, I presume).

  48. 48.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Excuse making by people who prefer the staus quo to progress that takes a different direction than what they’d like to see.

    People hate change for just this reason. It’s never perfect.

  49. 49.

    TBone

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: can confirm.  Removed ALL clocks from bedrooms.  No alarms for anything.  If I oversleep, GOOD, I’ll reschedule.  Clocks in bathrooms only, where I can see if I’m running late after I wake up naturally.  It helps but is not a cure.  Lack of sleep for ten days in a row once sent me round the bend.

  50. 50.

    Another Scott

    @Scout211: These TIFG party process stories are tiresome to me.

    He has a history.  TIFG took out a party platform plank on aid to Ukraine in 2016.  It didn’t matter that the platform committee majority didn’t like it.

    The GQP is TIFG’s party.  It’s all on him, not on whoever shows up with a blue jacket and red tie.  The cutouts don’t matter – he’s going to do what he wants and dare people to stop him.  That’s the whole point of him trying to get into office again.

    Grr..,
    Scott.

  51. 51.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @SuzieC: A friend and I are planning a postcard party for September. We have 75 Wisconsin postcards, with instruction to mail them on October 17. So that’s what we’re aiming for.

    OT: The little theater in my building ran the first half of The Eras Tour yesterday and will run the second half tomorrow. What a fun thing to watch! If you have access, it will lift your spirits. I think it’s Disney.

  54. 54.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I guess I’m more optimistic than you are. We, the good ones, are winning, little by little. But every significant step forward provokes a vicious backlash. History shows that this is almost always what happens

    I don’t favor using the term capitalism to describe our economics because it is too simplistic. We have a mixture of market or price systems and other government funded and mandated systems. The approach of the Democratic Party since the New Deal has been to ameliorate or remove the rough edges of a market system so as to prevent mass suffering. I am down with that.

  56. 56.

    jonas

    @Matt McIrvin: MAGA doesn’t want capitalism. They want National Socialism for the Herrenvolk. I have no problem with Dems/Progressives taking up the mantle, and fight for, Fair, Well-Regulated Capitalism that Works for Everyone.

  57. 57.

    Belafon

    @H.E.Wolf: My wife has volunteered with a group to do research to help get Democrats elected this fall. My dad is considering doing postcard writing to help get people out to vote.

  60. 60.

    Baud

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    This is what I’m still working on internalizing. In real life, I’ve learned the hard way that there’s nothing I can do to earn the respect of certain people.  Intellectually, I know the same is true of liberal politics, but I haven’t fully emotionally accepted it yet.  But I’m getting there.

  62. 62.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: A friend and I are planning a postcard party for September. We have 75 Wisconsin postcards, with instruction to mail them on October 17. So that’s what we’re aiming for.​

      Yes!

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @jonas:

    Half the fight is over terminology. I would classify 100% of Western Europe as capitalist countries. Including Scandinavia. Others don’t.

  64. 64.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Omnes Omnibus: the sooner you look at it, the less likely you are to lose the whole  fridge to icky smells. Put your left over covid masks to good use and put one on before you open the door.

  65. 65.

    Anyway

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    ’m waiting for the poll that shows 62% of those whose student loans were forgiven believe Trump did it.

    My friend Greg had his student loans forgiven last week – he said  “Biden-Harris administration” was mentioned 2-3 times in the message saying he was done. I was psyched there was none of the mealy-mouthed bipartisan shit – straight up Biden-Harris administration did this.

    Shrill, who me?

  66. 66.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Belafon: My wife has volunteered with a group to do research to help get Democrats elected this fall. My dad is considering doing postcard writing to help get people out to vote.​

     Yes Yes! :)

  68. 68.

    Scout211

    Ali Abbasi, the Iranian-Danish directorof the new Donald Trump biopic “The Apprentice,” had a mocking response when a journalist asked if he was “scared” of the Trump 2024 campaign’s threat to sue over the movie.

    “I mean, everybody talks about him suing a lot of people,” Abassi replied during a press conference after a screening at the Cannes Film Festival this week.

    Then he added: “They don’t talk about his success rate though, you know?”

    The remark prompted applause and laughter from the audience.

    LOL

  69. 69.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: It really is.

    Here’s the weird part: By the time my mom was in her mid-40s, her mental and physical health had declined to the point where she was only sleeping 3-4 hours a night. She was approved for social security disability because she could no longer work by the time she was 55. My sister went through the same thing in her 40s and has now been on disability since she was 49.

    I’ll be 46 in July and I just applied for disability. Autism, bipolar II disorder (untreated for years before Obamacare became possible), and complex PTSD have ruined my mental health. The three degenerative discs in my back certainly don’t help. I haven’t been able to work full-time since 2021 (third nervous breakdown with autistic burnout) and part-time since last summer (back pain).

    The parallels between our three experiences are spooky.

  70. 70.

    Another Scott

    @Matt McIrvin: @O. Felix Culpa:

    Agreed on being careful about what you invest the time in consuming.  There are only so many hours in the day, and we only have so many days on this planet.  Doomers don’t do anyone any good.

    At Mastodon/Explore today I came across this. And I thought, maybe that would be a useful book to get. But then I thought better of it. I don’t need to get riled up about the “evils of neoliberalism” (I still hate that term). I’ve got enough distractions in my life, enough books I haven’t read yet, and need to keep a sharper focus on things that I can help make better. I don’t need a polemicists’ screed on that topic now. So, it’s a nope for me.

    Hang in there. Eyes on the prizes.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  72. 72.

    Citizen Dave

    @MattF: I like seeing your comment.  Maybe it’s just hope, but I’ve thought all along Orange Man will collapse before November, either him physically, or the movement in general.  It’s weird to me that the media is mostly treating 2024 like it is 2016.  To me the wheels have fallen off the maga truck.

  73. 73.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    @TBone: This sounds ideal for me, but my natural sleep pattern is to fall asleep 6-7am and wake up around 2pm. That makes it really difficult to get to doctor’s appointments and so forth.

    Like today- I have a doctor’s appointment at 1:20pm. I applied for emergency SNAP so the county scheduled my phone interview for anytime between 8am-4:15pm. If I miss this call, they deny my application. Meanwhile I’ve got about 4 days worth of food in the house. It had to be an act of God for me to get sleep last night with that kind of pressure on top of my baseline anxiety.

  74. 74.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mai Naem mobile: ​
      It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. I am tossing some fish, but the veggies seem fine. Stuff in the freezer is partially thawed, but I’ll just move it to the fridge and use it this week. I didn’t open the fridge or freezer once the power went out; I think that helped.

  75. 75.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Geminid: ​

    @H.E.Wolf: I believe your state is Washington. Got any inside dope on Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez’s election campaign?

    I’m a little anxious about that one. They say the first reelection is usually the toughest.

     No inside dope; but in my opinion, first-term Rep. G-P has done a capable job of representing her purple district… and the US House’s Democratic leadership has followed the Pelosi playbook and allowed her to vote judiciously to support her constituents’ preferences.

    The likely Republican candidate is the same wacko ultra-right-winger who lost to Rep. G-P in 2022. I doubt he’s going to tack leftward. :)

    How’s the landscape in Virginia?

  76. 76.

    O. Felix Culpa

    I have never been an outspoken anti-eeyore, but the recent ramping up of negativity in some corners of this blog have a depressing effect, on me at least.  Yes, we need to acknowledge that terrible things are (always) happening in the world,  and that our leaders do not always respond as well as we would like. It’s fine to voice criticism, and even better to lobby the decision-makers for better policies.  So,  I would always want this to be a place where different viewpoints can be expressed.

    However,  there comes a time when the incessant drumbeat of negativity on our side plays into what Adam describes as war through politics: It fosters hopelessness and despair, and depresses the will to fight, which can be debilitating,  especially in an election year.

    How can we tell when we have crossed the line from legitimate criticism into doing harm (to ourselves and others)? Fuckifiknow. But, for myself,  I have to skip over some of the predictably negative corners and turn to action, as H.E. Wolf and others have suggested. Too much intake of doomerism (or whatever one chooses to call it) saps my will, and I prefer to continue fighting in whatever way I can.

  77. 77.

    TBone

    @rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun): I’ve learned to place my highest priority on SLEEP. I don’t care what I may be missing – if I don’t sleep whenever I’m able to, nothing else really matters because I can’t be fully present for it anyway.  Schedule things for late afternoon when you’re most likely to be naturally, not artificially, awake.  If they can’t accommodate that, find someone who can.  Make sleep your highest priority. I’ve found that, if people truly want to get paid, they accommodate MY schedule.

    Of course, that emergency phone appointment is an exception to the priority rule!!!

  78. 78.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Citizen Dave:

    Maybe it’s just hope, but I’ve thought all along Orange Man will collapse before November, either him physically, or the movement in general.  It’s weird to me that the media is mostly treating 2024 like it is 2016.  To me the wheels have fallen off the maga truck.

    I’d believe that if I hadn’t heard exactly the same things being said by the same people in 2016. There was no way Trump was even going to stay in until the convention. Then there was no way Trump was going to stay in until the election. He’d lose interest, melt down somehow. Nope.

  79. 79.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Omnes Omnibus: Stuff in the freezer is partially thawed,

    My mother had a rule that if something was still partially frozen it could be refrozen w/o a problem. In my experience that has been true.

    YMMV.

  81. 81.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    @Omnes Omnibus: A refrigerator is basically a giant Coleman ice chest when it’s unplugged. When Irene hit CT in 2011, I filled every pot we had with ice and set them in the fridge part. I then kept another three bags of ice in the freezer. We were out of power for four days but we didn’t lose anything. It was just an experiment but it worked great.

  82. 82.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Its pretty simple actually, there is no horseshoe, just privileged people (mostly white, mostly men and mostly Christian) who do not want to share power in this country with those they deem inferior.

  83. 83.

    Trivia Man

    @Scout211: My favorite party platform was GOP 2020. They knew there would be fights over specific policy decisions, and slippery orange man hates going in the record about ANYTHING, so they adopted the 2016 platform in its entirety.

    Including about 20 references to “the current president has failed at X Y or Z”. Current president was indeed a failure.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @O. Felix Culpa: but the recent ramping up of negativity in some corners of this blog have a depressing effect, on me at least.

    Do what I do, skip over those posts, comments, etc.

  85. 85.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    @TBone: You’re right, and I do my best with it. Unfortunately, when you’re reliant on our social safety net, you have to dance to their drum a lot of the time.

  86. 86.

    jonas

    @Baud: ​
    The Swedes and Norwegians get rather prickly if you claim they’re just a bunch of “socialists”. They have high taxes and a robust social safety net, but their economies are regulated a lot less than some others.

  88. 88.

    narya

    @Matt McIrvin: BUT! I think this time, there are a lot of people, including Jackals, who are saying, yeah, that’d be nice, but we are not counting on that and we ARE going to do whatever each of us can do to win as many elections as possible–local, state, national. I think the past 8 years have really moved more folks to adopt the Ben Wickler strategy of just plugging along, doing the everyday work. And I think we’re helped by having an administration that is doing the same.

  90. 90.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    @schrodingers_cat: In Houston we would often have neighborhood BBQs after a hurricane so everyone could clean out their thawing foods instead of letting them go to waste. Plus you get to know your neighbors!

  92. 92.

    Jackie

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    @Omnes Omnibus: the sooner you look at it, the less likely you are to lose the whole  fridge to icky smells. Put your left over covid masks to good use and put one on before you open the door.

    Don’t forget to dab Vick’s vapor rub under your nose!🫣

  94. 94.

    Trivia Man

    @Omnes Omnibus: I keep 2 or 3 milk jugs with water 💦 n my freezer. Plan for a power outage is put them in the fridge immediately on losing power. Luckily this one only interrupted us for about 5 seconds.
    A very large branch fell and blocked my street but i was able to saw enough of it to move it myself. Old school hand saw FTW! Still waiting for the city to remove it but i know they are busy.

  97. 97.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
      It doesn’t matter what Trump does. It doesn’t matter what MAGAs do. It doesn’t matter what leftists. The only thing that matters is what we as individuals do. We can’t control anyone else. At best, we can have some influence.

  99. 99.

    TBone

    @rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun): carve out me time as often as possible.  Use the me time as productively as you can for sleep and calm.  I’m sure you know the list of rules for good sleep hygiene – take it to the next level and put a permanent fence around it.  Let the exceptions where you must be awake be just blips on your overall radar screen and use every trick in the book to encourage yourself to sleep and not care if you “miss” anything.  I use weed, hot cocoa, valerian, and the occasional very low dose clonopin if I know falling asleep before midnight will be a problem.  But I never take any drugs after midnight.

  102. 102.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: Some of the more vehement discontents of liberalism I’ve been reading lately are Black progressives who are just sick of white liberals hectoring them to remain on side in a high-handed manner, when they’re already as on side as they’re going to be. (I don’t blame them for that. But these people are not gonna not vote for Biden, they’re just cranky about it.)

  103. 103.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​The only thing that matters is what we as individuals do.

     Amen.

    “I grasp the hands of those next me, and take my place in the ring to suffer and to work….”
    – Ralph Waldo Emerson, quoted by Wendell Berry in his book of essays

      What Are People For?
  105. 105.

    H.E.Wolf

    @narya: I think the past 8 years have really moved more folks to adopt the Ben Wickler strategy of just plugging along, doing the everyday work. ​

     Amen to this, too!

    And now I’m logging off for a while. Time to wrist-brace up, and continue plugging along for victory. :)

  107. 107.

    trnc

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
     

    So I hear a lot of “nothing is going to happen until we eliminate capitalism”. Democrats sure as hell aren’t trying to eliminate capitalism.

    Put me down as 100% pro-capitalism. It needs to be more highly regulated, which would bring it more in line with whatever some people imagine communism to be.

  109. 109.

    Trivia Man

    @OzarkHillbilly: Huge difference between safe to eat and attractive enough to sell on a store shelf without customer quality complaints. I agree personal consumption is fine for that rule of thumb. If it never or just only briefly got over 40 degrees at the edges i would have no hesitation eating partially thawed food from MY freezer.

    I seem to be much less sensitive to “spoiled” food in my house so anything doubtful i eat it and let mrs trivia have fresh stuff.

  111. 111.

    suzanne

    I was happy to read this piece, about how Arab Americans are waking up to the fact that Trump will be a disaster for them.

    But this person also mentioned that Kushner’s comments about turning Gaza’s waterfront property into world-class beaches fell flat.

    “This is either too naive or too stupid of him to say something like this. Even the Israeli press made fun of Kushner when he said that,” this source said.

    “Frankly, the guy — I don’t want to say bad stuff — is clueless on the Middle East,” this person added.

  114. 114.

    TBone

    @TBone:

    A federal judge, Carlton Reeves, just issued a powerful ruling urging the Supreme Court to acknowledge its mistake and repeal the doctrine of qualified immunity.

  115. 115.

    Matt McIrvin

    @suzanne: A while back I was hearing about people in alarmingly mainstream political media grasping for reasons to believe that Trump would be tougher on Israel than Biden, which was just completely depressing, that these supposed political analysts would be that blatantly stupid.

    It’s as if on some deep level, after all this time, they really still believe that Trump’s tough-guy bluster is actual “toughness”. Trump folded in the face of every two-bit tyrant he ever met. He LOVES that shit. He thinks being a bloody-minded authoritarian makes you cool. He’s kind of more a fanboy and toady to them than instinctively being one of them.

  117. 117.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Trivia Man: I seem to be much less sensitive to “spoiled” food in my house so anything doubtful i eat it and let mrs trivia have fresh stuff.

    Heh. The same rule applies in our house. “I ain’t askeered!”

    The one time I got food poisoning was from a Lebanon BBQ joint. Pretty sure it was the beans that did me in, they were WAYYYY over spiced. I had to go to the hospital while sitting on a five gallon bucket and holding a pot in my arms. Miserable, that was.

  118. 118.

    RedDirtGirl

    @SuzieC: Thanks for mentioning that. I’ve been sending postcards through Activate America, but sending letters to ExPat Americans sounds like a new angle I’d like to explore. Just signed up for 20 letters with Vote Forward!

  119. 119.

    Josie

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​
     Oh, my. That brought back memories of me after eating some salmon in a restaurant. To this day, I will only eat salmon that I have prepared myself.

  122. 122.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: I got food poisoning from a couple of different joints in Harvard Square back when I lived around there. One of them was Bartley’s Burgers, which, you know, it should have been obvious I was walking on the edge with that place, they’re selling blatantly undercooked ground beef.

  123. 123.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @The Red Pen:

    Her answer:

    Not advisable.  FeLV is just soooo contagious and as you see in the link, vaccinated cats can still get it.  I can personally attest to this from our days back in Central Misery.  Vaccinated all the cats for FeLV and still had some get it.

    Sooooooo, if you bring them all in, they need to stay apart.  FeLV is just so virulent and fatal…

  124. 124.

    Matt McIrvin

    @schrodingers_cat: I’m kind of realizing that I’ve come to feel about Communism the way I used to feel about God, that I can’t make myself believe in it but I’ve internalized from outspoken peers this idea that if I were a better person I would be able to believe in it.

  127. 127.

    TBone

    @TBone:

    …Reeves refused to let the doctrine devour the Constitution. He concluded that there is sufficient on-point precedent to show that Thomas’ malicious prosecution, if proved, violated Green’s “clearly established” rights. So the case may go to trial. That, however, was not the end of his analysis—because, as he pointed out, the concept of qualified immunity is unlawful, unworkable, and indefensible.
    The first problem is that judges made up the doctrine as a special favor to other employees of the government. Congress, as Reeves explained, gave individuals the power to sue state officials in federal court through the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, enacted after the Civil War so newly freed Black Americans could sue racist and abusive local police. Congress did not establish anything like “qualified immunity” in the statute. Rather, the Supreme Court invented the doctrine in 1967, purporting to protect cops who commit illegal arrests in “good faith,” and imposed it unilaterally on the nation. It then crept, kudzu-like, into other areas of law.

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/05/supreme-court-judge-carlton-reeves-warning-abortion-police-civil-rights.html

  128. 128.

    JWR

    A few weeks ago I heard that at the end of the day, those in the courtroom gallery are instructed to remain in their seats until [DEFENDENT] finishes his stupid press availabilities. That’s how he manages to have so many “guests” around for moral support in such a small space, while us Haterz are kept at bay. Is this true, and if so, how in the wild wild world of courts does a criminal defendant have any role over courtroom arrangements?

  132. 132.

    Barbara

    @Matt McIrvin: Karl Marx had a theory, but in terms of what would replace capitalism when capitalism became unendurable — It was sort of like, blow up a fully constructed puzzle and watch all the pieces magically fall into place, making a prettier and better picture. More to the point, Karl Marx was German, and his work was really based on a German social construct that was very different from where the actual revolution happened, which was Russia. The thinkers and philosophers of communism were German like Marx, and when the post WWI civil war or unrest ended essentially with their defeat, they never got the chance to put their ideas into practice. Some were assassinated, like Rosa Luxembourg.

    It’s hard to convince some people that progress almost always has to be gradual if you want it to be permanent.  Otherwise, backlash is a real and omnipresent force.  I don’t see how anyone who has a living memory of the sixties could think differently, but what do I know.

    ETA: Every time I listen to the song “Volunteers of America” I want to scream into the radio “You deluded fucks!”

  133. 133.

    smith

    @JWR: It’s been obvious all along that there are special favors being given to the Toady Scout troop.  Tickets to get in to see the trial are scarce; people line up for hours before dawn to get them. If a dozen or so of the toadies swan in later, they necessarily are displacing spectators who put a lot of time and effort into being  there. It may be that  the Defendant has some tickets reserved somehow, but I bet it’s not as many as the two dozen seats his sycophants have taken on some days.

  135. 135.

    The Red Pen

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: That’s what I thought. From the link you posted, it looks like keeping Murphy happy, well-nourished and monitored regularly by a vet will be the best plan to keep him healthy. We do have a catio that he can live on until the winter. We’re working on an alternate space for when it’s too cold for him to be outside.

    @pat:: I had googled, but the advice was pretty general. I guess the important thing is to keep Murphy separate from my other cats. Also, we wash our hands after visiting with him (and sometimes face because he’s a licker). It’s a lot like COVID lockdown. For cats.

  137. 137.

    Ken

    @Another Scott: The fun part is, you can’t un-train an AI unless you start from scratch. So now that someone at Google, desperate for more human-created text for training, has had their AI ingest the whole of reddit, it will forever be regurgitating such bits of nonsense.

    It will get worse as the desperation continues, and they start using the AIs’ own output to train them further. This leads to what is technically called “model collapse” but what Jathan Sadowski calls “Habsburg AI”.

  139. 139.

    Anyway

    @Matt McIrvin:

    You live in some bizarro-world from me – I’ve never heard people saying anything close to the things you post here.

    Or this is some high-level trollery.

  140. 140.

    kalakal

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Goddam Nigel Farage has decided not to run in the upcoming U.K. elections. Instead, he’s … wait for it … putting all his energy into electing TIFG. What an infuriating little meddler he is.

    Let us hope he brings his personal record of electoral triumph to TFG. He’s failed to win a election to be an MP 7 times out of 7. Last time he tried he came 5th. In 4th place was a guy dressed as a dolphin

  141. 141.

    TBone

    I’m not letting this go.  The Christofascists think they’re gonna make MY COUNTRY into a theocracy?  Not on my watch, motherfuckers.

    Nicolle Wallace followed up that observation with a rhetorical question of her own.

    “What are the odds that two of nine justices would be this closely associated with the first ever violent transfer of power in the United States of America? One, by sending emails to participants in the fake electors plot in various state legislatures and the other, by flying two flags over his house, both of them carried by the insurrectionists themselves on January 6th. What are the odds? Two of nine.”

    Pete Stzrok:

    Putting an exclamation point on it, he went on. “And when you have a Supreme Court justice, the highest justice in the land, flying flags that not only are associated with January 6th insurrectionists, but really with people who have extraordinarily extreme views of what role Christianity should have in America.”

    “And when you back that out and you think about Alito’s commentary on decisions like Dobbs and elsewhere, it paints a very concerning picture of what, one, this Supreme Court justice believes, and two, that he simply doesn’t care about the appearances he’s creating by flying these flags upside down or with certain causes in his various homes.”

    https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/justice-alito-christian-nationalist-battle-flag-vacation-home-1235025962/

    (Quotes are from different article than the one linked)

  142. 142.

    cmorenc

    @Soprano2:

    I was listening to a podcast the other day where they said if TFG got in office again Thomas and Alito would probably retire to allow him to replace them with 40 year olds, which could cement the MAGA dominance of the court for 40 years.

    Say hello to SCOTUS Justices Matthew Kacsmaryk an Aileen Cannon.

  143. 143.

    rikyrah

     

     

    @Scout211:

    Also some news from NBC. No matter what Trump blathers on and on about as he changes his positions regularly, the “Trump team” is behind the scenes of the RNC to soften the stance on abortion and marriage. I am doubtful this will work and I hope it doesn’t.

     

    I am doubtful too. Not just because it’s all a phucking lie, but we have the hundreds of anti-abortion , anti LGBTQIA+ legislation from those Red States.  They have shown us who they are. And, we have too many examples of  it for a sudden 180 to be believed.

  144. 144.

    Barbara

    @Matt McIrvin: Yes, I suppose I can understand that.  I was just a little kid.  But the idea that if just shake things up enough good things will happen without too much further effort on your part has been around for a long time and as far as I can tell has never produced fruits.  Or if it did, it was totally unintentional.  Like WWI helped fuel the great migration because the U.S. government paid soldiers in cash, which is what you needed to pay for a bus ticket.

  145. 145.

    rikyrah

    @Baud:

    We’ll do what we can. I think we have underestimated the number and types of people out there that consciously or subconsciously do not want us to succeed.

     

    I think we’re all most disappointed in coming to the realization that the MSM would most definitely sacrifice democracy for phucking clicks and books.

    The leftists- they showed their azzes in 2016. I do appreciate the more confrontational that we have gotten with them in 2024. They no longer will be given the benefit of the doubt, and I am glad.

  146. 146.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Barbara:
     

    Rosa Luxembourg

    Who was an answer in the 12/31/2018 New Yorker crossword puzzle!

    Very helpful, I know. Also, spoiler alert!

  147. 147.

    smith

    @Barbara: I was in college in the sixties, and remember the time well. There were lasting changes from the civil rights movement, which was one that did just keep plugging away over a long time. Recent on-campus abominations notwithstanding, the student rights movement also achieved some lasting changes. Students today can’t imagine the restrictions we dealt with in the sixties.

    On the other hand, the anti-war movement accomplished very little long-term, or even short term, considering how long the war lasted after its inception. The energy dissipated with the end of the draft, as well as when some segments of the movement turned to violence. The backlash was real, and had a significant role in bringing us Nixon and then Reagan. And to this day, it’s laughably easy to get Americans enthused over each new stupid international adventure.

  148. 148.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Ken: ​
     

    someone at Google … has had their AI ingest the whole of reddit

    This is how the world ends.

  149. 149.

    rikyrah

    @Quinerly:

    The only surprise here is I didn’t know Tiffany’s husband is Lebanese and he is the son of a very wealthy family with businesses in Nigeria. Looks like he wants in on the grift with Grenell and Jared.

    Funniest line from the story was that they were assured that there would be no new Muslim Ban.

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

  150. 150.

    Geminid

    @H.E.Wolf: Virginia’s looking pretty good, at least as far as I can tell. We have a chance to pick up the coastal 2nd CD. Two decent Democratic candidates are running in the primary to face first term Rep. Jen Kiggans. The winner ought to have a good shot in a Presidential year.

    In 2022, Abigail Spanberger carried the 7th CD by only 4 percentage points, so Democrats here need to work hard to hold the seat since she is retiring to run for Governor next year. Retired Army colonel Eugene Vindman will probably win that primary if only because he is a prodigious fundraiser.

    One primary I’m interested in is the 10th CD. Democrats there need to replace Jennifer Wexton, who sadly must retire for health reasons. Wexton has endorsed a very promising candidate to succeed her. That would be 37 year-old Suhas Surabramyan, a state Senator and Obama White House veteran.

    Virginia’s primaries are on June 25.

  151. 151.

    Jackie

    @rikyrah: BUT…. RFK jr might:

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has hit the threshold for inclusion in next month’s presidential debate in two of the four polls needed for an invitation, ABC News reports.

    This might get crazy! TIFG might feel he has to debate if RFK jr wins a spot.

  153. 153.

    Barbara

    @smith: The Civil Rights movement only seemed “sudden” to people in the 1960s — Thurgood Marshall and others had been laying the groundwork for legal challenges to Jim Crow and other vestiges of slavery for decades.  I suppose in every generation there are change makers and there are performance artists pretending to themselves and others to be the same.

  154. 154.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jackie: ​
      When I was driving around Madison yesterday to survey the storm damage, I saw my first RFK yard sign.

  155. 155.

    smith

    @Barbara: Yes, that’s what I meant when I said they’d been plugging away for a long time. People focus on the upheavals of the sixties and forget, for instance, that Brown v Board of Education was decided in the mid-fifties.

  156. 156.

    JWR

    @smith: It’s so pathetic, the perks he receives. I’d tell him to hold his little press events outside on the courthouse steps like everyone else. Of course the Secret Service might have something to say about that.

  164. 164.

    moonbat

    Too many people confuse depressing takes with realism. In a “news” environment saturated with propaganda, both foreign and domestic, sometimes more often than not depressing takes are just an attempt to paralyze the opposition with hopelessness.

    I’ll just keep fighting, because, like Cyrano said, “The fight is the victory.”

    Thanks, AL, for bringing these rays of real sunshine into the conversation. I was literally getting excited by that mini documentary on the progress of high speed rail in the U.S. :)

  165. 165.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Omnes Omnibus: ​
     

    I didn’t open the fridge or freezer once the power went out; I think that helped.

    Oh yeah, that makes a HUGE difference. Once you open those doors, the cold air inside basically falls out onto the floor. Keep the doors shut, and there will be gradual warming because no insulation is perfect, but it’ll take a while.

    Also, fwiw, most veggies can deal with a day and a half at room temperature before going bad, unless they were already on the way there.

  168. 168.

    Barbara

    @Ksmiami: Yeah, I know, that one sign for Ron Paul in my true blue county in Virginia really changed the tide of history.  FFS.

  169. 169.

    catclub

    @Another Scott: He has a history. TIFG took out a party platform plank on aid to Ukraine in 2016.

     

    and that was the ONLY plank he had any interest in. Thanks Putin.

  170. 170.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: My weird cousin moved back to central Wisconsin to help take care of his mom who isn’t doing well.  I am sure he would appreciate your concern though.

  175. 175.

    Ksmiami

    @Barbara: it’s not the one sign, it’s that the Democratic Party has to deal with so much factionalism that while we should be running away with this election, so many ppl will let their personal views of perfection be the enemy of the good.

  177. 177.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    @rikyrah: I (figuratively) punch down on them with great zeal. Those coddled quarterwits are every bit as dangerous as the goons with Moron Labe stickers on their trucks.

  178. 178.

    geg6

    @Anyway: ​
     

    You live in some bizarro-world from me – I’ve never heard people saying anything close to the things you post here.

    Yes! And I work on a college campus where you might expect to hear such things. But I never have. I keep hearing Kay say similar things and, again, I’m flummoxed as to who she is hearing this from.

  180. 180.

    Leto

    @rikyrah: You mean Tiffany’s husband isn’t that Nigerian prince who just needs a bit of financial help to unlock his vast wealth, that he’ll then in turn share with you? Color me shocked!

    In other shit news: (WaPo) Supreme Court allows disputed South Carolina voting map

    The Supreme Court on Thursday allowed the use of a South Carolina congressional map that a lower court said “exiled” thousands of Black voters to carve out a district safer for a White Republican incumbent.

    At issue for the court was whether South Carolina’s new map, which was created by the GOP-led state legislature and moved Black voters from one district to another, was permitted to bolster the Republican majority or was an unconstitutional effort to divvy up voters by race. The 6-3 conservative majority sent the case back to the lower court, giving Republicans a victory by finding that it erred when it determined race predominated the map-drawing process.

    Writing for the majority, Justice Samuel A. Alito noted many predominantly Black precincts in Charleston were moved out of one district and into another. But “because of the tight correlation between race and partisan preferences, this fact does little to show that race, not politics drove the legislature’s choice,” he wrote.
    He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

    Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the justices nominated by Democrats, said the majority got it “seriously wrong.”
    “Perhaps most dispiriting is what lies behind the court’s new approach — its special rules to specifically disadvantage suits to remedy race-based redistricting,” Kagan wrote in an opinion joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

    Kagan warned that the majority opinion sends a message to lawmakers and mapmakers to use race as a proxy to achieve partisan ends.

    “And so this ‘odious’ practice of sorting citizens, built on racial generalizations and exploiting racial divisions, will continue,” she wrote. “In the electoral sphere especially, where ‘ugly patterns of pervasive racial discrimination’ have so long governed, we should demand better — of ourselves, of our political representatives, and most of all of this Court.”

    The case is one of several redistricting cases that has been closely watched because the U.S. House is so narrowly divided. Some of them won’t be conclusively decided until after this year’s elections and will determine districts for 2026 and beyond.

    In essence the lower federal court ruled that ofc SC state officials used race to redistrict parts of SC, whereas the USSC said nope; SC officials said they used race partisanship to determine the districts. And because race and partisanship run so closely together, fuck those Ni-CLANGS. I guess Louisiana, which was overruled on the same thing last month, didn’t use the, “we totally did this out of partisanship motives” in their defense. I’m sure they, and every other state, will now use this moving forward.

  181. 181.

    Old School

    The Supreme Court upheld a pro-Republican South Carolina congressional map Thursday, rejecting the argument raised by civil rights groups that lawmakers impermissibly used race as a proxy to bolster the GOP’s chances.

    But the high court also said that the civil rights groups that challenged the maps could continue to pursue one part of their claim, a move that will likely delay the battle over the districts for months.

    With state election deadlines approaching, a federal court in March had already ruled that South Carolina could use the contested map in this year’s election.

    The decision was 6-3 along conservative-liberal lines.

    “The circumstantial evidence falls far short of showing that race, not partisan preferences, drove the districting process, and none of the expert reports offered by the Challengers provides any significant support for their position,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.

  182. 182.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Josie: There are different organizations that will send you the addresses and suggested  messages. These came from Postcards to Swing States, but I’ve also use Postcards to Voters.

    You use only your first name and no return address.

    ETA: You supply the postage

  183. 183.

    catclub

    @Matt McIrvin:

    that if I were a better person I would be able to believe in it.

    Like the early Christians who had everything in common == communism.  It apparently did not last.

  187. 187.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    @TBone: thanks for the tips. I will ask my psych if valerian is ok with my current meds.

    Please also know that you aren’t fighting the Christofascists alone. I am a devout Christian but I am against ours being the only voice in the room. I’m queer and autistic, and I am from the South. I have firsthand experience of their fascist ways. African American and Southern US history are also two of my special interests as well.

    I refuse to let them make the United States the Confederacy 2.0.

  188. 188.

    rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun)

    @geg6: They’re pretty common among the students here at Rutgers, but every university has its own ecosystem.

  191. 191.

    TBone

    @moonbat: I always view with the skeptical, jaundiced eye of cynicism unless I know the source is above board. Ultimately important:  Remembering to keep in mind the source for any story and what their agenda entails (money, clicks, or power: Pooty is everywhere stirring the shit pot).  Who published and why, and where do profits go…

  192. 192.

    catclub

    @rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun): everyone could clean out their thawing foods instead of letting them go to waste. Plus you get to know your neighbors!

     

    With any luck no neighbors named Dahmer with a full freezer of ‘delectibles’.

  196. 196.

    rikyrah

    @Jackie:

    Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has hit the threshold for inclusion in next month’s presidential debate in two of the four polls needed for an invitation, ABC News reports.

     

    I call absolute bullshyt on this.

  197. 197.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Another Scott:

    TIFG took out a party platform plank on aid to Ukraine in 2016.

    That was the hand of Paul Fucking Manafort. I’m not sure how much input TFG had on the platform, as that would require an ability and willingness to read. Manafort, who’d been on Viktor Yanukovych’s payroll for several years, may have been soloing on this, or soloing with an eye to what he thought TFG would want. Recall that the failed attempt to extort Zelensky was still a couple of years away.

  198. 198.

    TBone

    @rebelsdad (aka texasboyshaun): 👍

    I’m glowing with rage at the majority opinion of the Supremacists Court right now.  My thoughts on that subject will get me banhammered so I will find a positive, productive outlet to work against the urge to smash things.

  199. 199.

    RaflW

    @Old School: A f*cking travesty.

    I’ll farm my outrage to a few skeets for now, but this is a g.d. klaxon going off. That mister J6 flag-unfurler wrote the offending p.o.s. opinion is {chefs kiss} for our toxic politics.

    Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social
    I hope people understand that what we are seeing is the systematic destruction of the civil war amendments by the Supreme Court, which are what made America and actual democracy and upon which all minority rights in the United States rely

    Michael @fleerultra.bsky.social
    court reform is not some niche issue for activists, it’s the policy precondition that unlocks every other policy goal the Democratic Party has. it’s that or decades of right wing theocracy; no in-betweens

  200. 200.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Some of the more vehement discontents of liberalism I’ve been reading lately are Black progressives

    Which ones are you reading? As I recall from 2016, there were several Black (mostly male) progressives who are idiots. I prefer to take my cues from folks like rikyrah and the Kamala-stans.

  201. 201.

    AM in NC

    @SuzieC:  I am writing postcards to newly registered voters in my precinct who registered as Democrat or Unaffiliated. Almost all of these new registrants are 18-year-olds voting for the first time.

    The message is:  Thank you for registering to vote!; where to vote in our precinct; and that DEMOCRATS are fighting for Climate action; reproductive freedom; human rights for ALL Americans; and gun safety legislation.

    If we get ’em young, we generally hold onto them!

  202. 202.

    Belafon

    @Leto: “If blacks would vote for Republicans more often, we wouldn’t have to be biased in favor of Republicans.”

  204. 204.

    RaflW

    @TBone: My thought on seeing the new Alito (and, to be clear, concurred by the other five White Christian Nationalists) opinion was: They’re laying the groundwork for a new civil war. And not just a march-protest-lobby-elect civil war. A hot one.

    I don’t think these six radicals are unaware that a people who feel that all avenues to peaceful reform are closed will just submit. Yes the presumption is that it’s the right that are armed in this 400,000,000 gun country.

  205. 205.

    Geminid

    @Old School: The Congressional District at issue is South Carolina’s 1st CD, currently represented by Nancy Mace. The district was Republican for decades before Democrat Joe Cunningham flipped it in 2018. Mace won it back in 2020, and then Republicans redrew it to make it more Republican

    The 1st CD runs along the coast from the Charleston suburbs southwest to Hilton Head Island, and includes interior counties as well.

  206. 206.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Anyway:

    Here’s hoping it sinks in. I am just overreacting to the various polls showing that many voters are clueless or deluded.

    I’m not sure how to counter the misconceptions. I have seen articles about studies (didn’t read the studies themselves) that show that when deluded people are given the facts, they cling more closely to their delusions.

    The biggest one is the belief, in a poll this week, that Trump is better at governing than Biden. Does no one recall the chaos and discord of 2020?

  208. 208.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anyway: I follow a lot of artists and scientists and creative/thinker types. When they talk about politics they are usually WAY way out of normie world.

    And I used to dismiss that stuff. But the whole War on Terror/Iraq debacle convinced me that all of normie world can be wrong while those weirdos were right.

    But now, a lot of them are just talking about the end of the world and losing hope. An old physicist friend I know just started quoting a biologist he knows, who is saying we’ve basically run out of chances for preserving our civilization over the next few decades, it IS going to collapse very soon (from global warming), and what we need to do is work on preserving some modicum of human knowledge for the few survivors remaining after the collapse.

    This isn’t happy stuff.

  210. 210.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’ve noticed environmental doomerism has increased as Dems have started to take noticably more green friendly actions.

    I just don’t trust anyone’s sincerity anymore. It may be subconscious, but I view it all as dishonest.

  212. 212.

    TBone

    @RaflW: a clear-eyed analysis.  They’re spoiling for it.  Good thing the Supremacists Court doesn’t have an actual enforcement arm of its own.  They’re WAY over the line.

  213. 213.

    oldgold

    Alito wrote an asinine gerrymandering opinion that was released today.

    It appears in her dissent that Kagan took a shot at Alito.

    “But as with its upside-down application of clear-error review, the majority is intent on changing the usual rules when it comes to addressing racial-gerrymandering claims,” Kagan added.

  216. 216.

    RaflW

    @Soprano2: I was not kidding on bsky last night when I said that DJT would probably elevate Matthew Kacsmaryk to at least to a Circuit seat. The entire courts system will be a hellscape for my niece’s lifetime if the Project 2025 people get into power.

    I don’t say this to just wallow in doom. We have to be clear what the stakes are, and work our butts off. (eta: Like @H.E.Wolf. Thanks for being a keyboard butt-kicker!)

  217. 217.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    True fact. Each of us has more influence than we think. We can and should reach out to every like-minded person we know. Make sure they can vote, make sure they do. If someone is a Trumpster, walk on by. We only need to get our own people to vote. If we do, we win. Just like 2020. Just like 2012.

    The polls will move when we move them.

  219. 219.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Melancholy Jaques: I basically dismiss any and all specific “Trump vs. Biden on subject X” polls because for most of the respondents, they’re just proxies for “do you support Trump or Biden?” and they’re probably MORE that for Trump people, who answer automatically, than for Biden people.

    So you ask “is Trump or Biden more trustworthy on ham sandwich construction?” and 45% of the respondents will say “damn straight, Donald Trump is the superior ham sandwich constructor” and among the rest you have a fair bit of “don’t know/not sure” so of course Trump wins.

  222. 222.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @moonbat:

    Too many people confuse depressing takes with realism. In a “news” environment saturated with propaganda, both foreign and domestic, sometimes more often than not depressing takes are just an attempt to paralyze the opposition with hopelessness.

    I’ll just keep fighting, because, like Cyrano said, “The fight is the victory.”

    QFT. Better said than I was able to.

  226. 226.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    “T. S. Eliot,” ex-P.F.C. Wintergreen said in his mail-sorting cubicle at Twenty-seventh Air Force Headquarters, and slammed down the telephone without identifying himself

    ETA – Fire & Ice?

  227. 227.

    RaflW

    @rikyrah: Stephen Miller definitely has other plans. My favorite part was where participants afterwards noted that Grenell seemed to want more from the guests than a future Trump admin appeared to be offering them. Welcome to Trumpism! You detected the defining rule.

  230. 230.

    Anyway

    @Matt McIrvin:

     But the whole War on Terror/Iraq debacle

    hey I was right about the the Iraq war all along -even marched against it (that was memory-holed by the FTFNYT). In the runup to the war I worked with a bunch of RWers and they would gang up against me at lunch but I stood firm – for all the good it did …

  232. 232.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Matt McIrvin: There is making yourself aware of the variety of opinions out there and there is wallowing in doom to the detriment of your mental health.  Everyone needs to be able to draw that line.  And it is different for everyone.

  233. 233.

    Another Scott

    @Gin & Tonic: My recollection is that TIFG was still hoping for a Trump Tower in Moscow around this time.  And he has that history going back to the ’90s with trying to be Moscow’s friend. He wanted to butter up VVP in an obvious way.

    NPR.org (from December 2017):

    President Trump may have been involved with a change to the Republican Party campaign platform last year that watered down support for U.S. assistance to Ukraine, according to new information from someone who was involved.

    Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming U.S. allies in Ukraine, has told people that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform.

    […]

    BusinessInsider.com (from March 2017):

    It looks like another Trump adviser has significantly changed his story about the GOP’s dramatic shift on Ukraine

    Natasha Bertrand Mar 3, 2017, 8:34 AM EST

    The Trump campaign’s national-security policy representative for the Republican National Convention, J.D. Gordon, told CNN on Thursday that he pushed to alter an amendment to the GOP’s draft policy on Ukraine at the Republican National Convention last year to further align it with President Donald Trump’s views.

    Gordon’s remarks represent a dramatic shift from previous comments, and they come as Attorney General Jeff Sessions faces intense scrutiny over two previously undisclosed meetings with Russia’s ambassador to the US — one of which was timed to the convention.

    In January, Gordon told Business Insider that he “never left” his “assigned side table” nor spoke publicly at the GOP national security subcommittee meeting, where the amendment — which originally called for “providing lethal defense weapons” to the Ukrainian army to fend off Russian-backed separatists — was read aloud, debated, and ultimately watered down to “providing appropriate assistance” to Ukraine.

    According to CNN’s Jim Acosta, however, Gordon said that at the RNC he and others “advocated for the GOP platform to include language against arming Ukrainians against pro-Russian rebels” because “this was in line with Trump’s views, expressed at a March national security meeting at the unfinished Trump hotel” in Washington, DC.

    “Gordon says Trump said at the meeting … that he didn’t want to go to ‘World War Three’ over Ukraine,” Acosta said.

    Trump’s apparent involvement in steering the language change — Gordon reportedly told CNN that “this was the language Donald Trump himself wanted and advocated for back in March [2016]” — is also at odds with what Gordon told Business Insider in January, when he said “neither Mr. Trump nor Mr. Manafort were involved in those sort of details, as they’ve made clear.”

    When asked why he told Acosta that Trump did weigh in on the subject, when he told BI in January that neither Trump nor Manafort were involved, Gordon emphasized that he had told BI that Trump was not involved “in the details” of the platform.

    “Meaning they weren’t part of the process to write, draft, edit the document, or weigh in with the delegates at all,” Gordon said in an email. “That said, the overarching thought of better relations with Russia was certainly their strategic position.”

    Paul Manafort was Trump’s campaign manager from April through August. He served as a top adviser to a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine from 2004 to 2012 and helped the Russia-friendly strongman Viktor Yanukovych win the Ukrainian presidency in 2010.

    An unverified dossier presented to Trump in January by top US intelligence officials alleges that Trump “agreed to sideline” the issue of Russian intervention in Ukraine during his campaign after Russia promised to feed the emails it stole from prominent Democrats’ inboxes to WikiLeaks. The dossier also claims Manafort was receiving “kickback payments” from Yanukovych’s associates in Ukraine, where Manafort “had been commercially active … right up to the time (in March 2016) when he joined campaign team.”

    Manafort and Trump later denied having anything to do with softening the language of the GOP’s platform on Ukraine.

    Liars all around TIFG. Shock, shocking.

    Manafort was and is a monster. But I can easily believe that this was TIFG’s idea, for several reasons.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  234. 234.

    smith

    Seems the cicadas have finally arrived in Chicago. I saw an abandoned exoskeleton a few days ago and wondered where they were, but now I’ve been watching them buzz around all morning.

    Now just waiting for the seagulls to arrive. I’m a few miles from Lake Michigan, and don’t normally see them here, but when cicadas bloom they come out in force. Between the buzz of the bugs and squawks of the birds, it’s a festival of noise and gluttony.

  235. 235.

    Eolirin

    @Matt McIrvin: Anyone saying we need to get rid of capitalism is a moron or lacks any kind of even rudimentary understanding of the regulatory state and economics.

    Capitalism is like water, and will always find it’s level, based on the cultural and regulatory environment it exists in.it’s an optimizing function and works just as well if there’s a strong set of controls on managing negative externalities and if labor is given an adequate share of the profits. The norms and incentives we have allowed the system to be based on do not need to be the norms and incentives that the system uses. The problem is not the existence of market economies, it’s the extent to which societies allow wealth to dominate politics. The problem is the culture. The celebration of sociopathy and greed over shared common humanity and protecting our world.

    There are plenty of real world examples of the effects of better cultural pressures successfully curbing those negative impulses. There are even some in the US. But addressing this in the US requires that we actually own up to the effects of racism and misogyny on our political and social choices and even the (white) leftists don’t really want to do that. And we won’t make enduring progress until we start. Without that racism motivating white voters there’s no Republican party. Without solidarity across races and gender there will always be wedges breaking down the power of labor and undermining the regulatory state.

    We need a better electorate first and foremost. And that means people not throwing up their hands because they’ve backed themselves into a stupid utopianist corner where the impossible needs to happen in order for things to improve. All of which is bullshit to begin with.

  236. 236.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @smith: I remember one hatch in the Chicago area when I was a kid.  It must have been the 1970 one.  Exoskeletons clinging to trees.  It was cool.  I turned six that summer.

  237. 237.

    RaflW

    @Anyway: Yeah, I went to two protests in Albuquerque in the winter of 2003, at least one of them was by my eye (having been to a variety of protests, rallies and demonstrations on multiple topics by then) quite well attended. IIRC it was coordinated with protests around the nation.

    I remember how deafening the silence of the media was in re covering those protests. The publishers, editors and even many of the reporters wanted American retribution, right along with a large majority of citizens, and went willfully blind.

    I think they knew deep down that invading Iraq was unjust, and ‘amplifying’ (aka plain reporting) our messages might have opened some cracks in the wall of “We gotta smash something” anger – anger that to me inexplicably had not been assuaged by our already having bombed & neutered the Taliban in Afghanistan in the autumn of 2001.

  238. 238.

    Trivia Man

    @smith: Utahs state bird for just that reason! Fun trivia question: which state has the California Seagull as their state bird?

    Bonus question: why doesn’t San Francisco have any seagulls?

     

    Because out there they call them Baygulls!

  239. 239.

    Captain C

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Voluntary Human Extinction Movement

    I’m a real fan of people pushing this unironically being the first ones to provide proof-of-concept.

  240. 240.

    Scout211

     NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF)

    Tennessee Congressman Andy Ogles filed 11 amendments to his campaign finance reports Wednesday, acknowledging that his claims for the last two years to have loaned $320,000 to his campaign were not true.

    This comes less than six months after an exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation that questioned whether the Maury County Republican’s campaign reports were accurate. Despite having reported making the $320,000 personal loan, Ogles’ personal financial disclosures did not show any substantial investments — not even a savings account.

    On the 11 amendments filed Wednesday with the Federal Election Commission, revising reports dating back to April 2022, Ogles says that he actually loaned his campaign $20,000, instead of the $320,000 that he had previously claimed.

    Ogles’ GOP opponent, Metro Council member Courtney Johnston, issued a statement Thursday condemning the incumbent’s actions.

    “Andy Ogles lied to the federal government and got caught. Normal folks get in big trouble for lying to the feds about money, but Andy is a politician who thinks he deserves a free pass and two more years of a taxpayer salary,” Johnston said.

    “If Andy Ogles is willing to lie about his own money, what won’t he lie about? We deserve a representative we can trust.”

    Democratic candidate Maryam Abolfazli tweeted: “I can’t imagine the hubris one possesses to lie on those documents. You’ve got to be living in a different reality to think you can say you have $300,000 and then come back later and say you don’t.”

    She concluded, “It reminds me of the new extremist GOP in general: like dictators, they believe the law is simply a tool to manipulate for their own personal gain.”

    Bold added, because it is the truth.

  241. 241.

    lowtechcyclist

    @TBone:

    I use weed, hot cocoa, valerian, and the occasional very low dose clonopin if I know falling asleep before midnight will be a problem.  But I never take any drugs after midnight.

    As an early a.m. insomniac, a drug with generic name Zaleplon has been my friend. (Used to be sold under the brand name Sonata, my doc said that fwiw, it’s now only available in generic.)

    What it does is gets you to sleep by making all those thoughts that are keeping you awake break up and fragment into tiny pieces too small to bother you before they blow away and you fall asleep.  (You can practically watch it happen.)  And then it gives you about four hours’ sleep.

    Apparently it’s one of the more controlled prescription medicines, so I just use it to break the cycle of insomnia: I’ll put up with two bad nights in a row, but if I have a third bad night where I’ve woken up at 1am and am still wide awake at 2am, I pop one of those babies.

    And I find that just knowing that I have something to break a streak of bad nights with, helps me need it less in the first place.  It takes away the dread of being in a seemingly endless sequence of bad nights.

  242. 242.

    Captain C

    @rikyrah:

    I think we’re all most disappointed in coming to the realization that the MSM would most definitely sacrifice democracy for phucking clicks and books.

    I think many of them imagine they’d be the brave ones standing up to power, when most of them (based on their current and past actions) would be happy, craven apologists for it.  The rest would just get disappeared without even a chance to write one angry Xeet.

  243. 243.

    Ohio Mom

    @Omnes Omnibus: It very often is the weird family member who moves back to take care of the declining elder (that is, if they ever left home to begin with).

    All the other relations have lives full of commitments that can’t be easily jettisoned — jobs, mortgages, families, including children busy with their school days, sports and clubs, and all sorts of other ties and responsibilities.

    So hooray for the indispensable weirdos.

  244. 244.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Ohio Mom: ​
      In this case, he is an only child and part of the reason he is the way he is is because his mother, my dad’s younger sister, centered her whole life around him to the extent that it ruined her marriage. It is good that he is caring for her, but their relationship has always been a little unhealthy.

  245. 245.

    Captain C

    @RaflW:

    Stephen Miller

    I am not advocating some actually do this, mind you, but Stephen Miller deserves to have KAPO tattooed on his forehead in large, clear letters.

  247. 247.

    Captain C

    @Eolirin: I suspect that many who advocate for Communism don’t understand just how exhausting and demanding it is, like an ideological, especially bossy HOA that’s in your face 24/7.  I suspect that a significant number of the rest want to be the party officials who get to be in everybody else’s face telling them they’re Doing Life Wrong and are about to get sent to a reeducation camp if they don’t act better (some of this set, of course, also having fantasies about what they will do to the people in the camps).

  249. 249.

    smith

    @Captain C: Another one who imagines he won’t be on the cattle cars with the rest of us when the nazis take over. “One of the Good Ones” who hasn’t figured out that they might let you attend the rallies, but they’ll never let you wear the robes.

  252. 252.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Omnes Omnibus: I don’t know what is “very fringe” any more. It feels to me like every position that is not very fringe has been failing for the past 20-odd years and some things we thought of as too fringe to pay attention to are actually now mainstream. So maybe some extreme positions need a second look.

  253. 253.

    Bill Arnold

    @Matt McIrvin:

    So I hear a lot of “nothing is going to happen until we eliminate capitalism”.

    People saying this online are literally communicating using mechanisms created by capitalism.
    The reason we have phones that are millions of times more powerful than room-filling computers were 60 years ago is six decades of competition among hardware vendors, and in the last several decades, competitive software and services industries to use that hardware.

  256. 256.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Anyway: The OG Communists always insisted they hadn’t achieved Communism yet–they were inching their way toward it through the dictatorship of the proletariat, or whatever. So I don’t think we ever had any examples.

  259. 259.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I think Communism is used in rhetoric on the left today as a euphemism for Utopia, where everything is perfect and everyone is happy. Saying Communism rather than Utopia makes the idea seem more intellectually rigorous and provides a basis for critiquing capitalist economies (often validly), but Communism is not something that should be examined closely as a positive theory.

  260. 260.

    Jackie

    @oldgold: Heh! Was going to post this but you beat me! Worth seeing again, IMO!

    “But as with its upside-down application of clear-error review, the majority is intent on changing the usual rules when it comes to addressing racial-gerrymandering claims,” Kagan added.

  261. 261.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Baud: communism is like libertarianism and many other things: an honorable concept, but incapable of working in the real world.  And thus not to be taken seriously.

  262. 262.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: The fact that the biggest and most successful “Communist” country in the world is clearly just another right-wing capitalist authoritarian state at this point… doesn’t speak well for the ideology.

  264. 264.

    smith

    @Anyway: Communism has so far been found to be unworkable because it hasn’t devised effective ways to rein in individuals who arrogated to themselves so much power they had no need to respond to the wishes of the community.  Same goes for capitalism when it has become rampant and unaccountable. Same goes for any economic or political system that doesn’t include workable checks on authoritarianism or oligarchy. We’re still trying in this country, but we’re struggling.

  266. 266.

    Baud

    @topclimber:

    True,  I was looking at the population of humans.

    Anywho, world population is expected to go into decline. Eighties are freaking out about it.

  267. 267.

    Geminid

    @Matt McIrvin: I think the advice to spend some time on what I would call “mainstream” Black Twitter is sound. Not the well known media figures, but citizen advocates like Propane Jane, Blue Steel in DC, and Candidly Tiff. You’ll eventually run into most of them if you follow Ragnarok Lobster. I think these people have their feet on the ground in a way some white liberals might not, and are generally more confident and undeterred.

  268. 268.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I wish there were a better capitalism movement rather than an attempt to reimagine socialism.  But I don’t control these things.

  272. 272.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: I mean, some of what is going on is that our young left spent so many years hearing hundreds of benign social-democratic ideas trashed as “socialism” that they decided that was, in fact, socialism and they liked the idea.

  276. 276.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It feels to me like every position that is not very fringe has been failing for the past 20-odd years

    As President Joe might say, “C’mon man!” We are the mainstream.

    We elected Obama twice and neither one was close. Joe Biden beat an incumbent president by Seven Million votes. We not only won Georgia (GEORGIA!!!) but somehow managed, in that same state, to elect two (TWO!!!) Democratic senators, one African-American, the other Jewish.

    We are the mainstream! Resistance in futile!

  278. 278.

    Josie

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​
     Okay, I went to the Postcards to Swing States and am signed up to write post cards for Nevada. I read somewhere that Biden was slipping there so chose that one. They will send me the post cards with instructions. I already have stamps and am ready to get started. Thanks for the tip.

  280. 280.

    Roberto el oso

    @Barbara: you mean the Jefferson Airplane tune? Out of curiosity, how often do you actually hear it? (not being sarcastic, just genuinely curious).

    The Airplane are possibly my favorite band, and so, as a loyal fan, I have to say that they’d pretty much moved on from delusions of a revolution by the year after the LP came out. (Well, Paul Kantner developed his own sci-fi mythology to take its place, but the others were pretty aware of what was going on in the country/world).

  283. 283.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Roberto el oso: ​
     

    The Airplane are possibly my favorite band

    I assume you are excluding the Starship atrocity, otherwise I will have to pie you!

  288. 288.

    Ruckus

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    Perfect is a falsehood. It doesn’t exist, in nature, in humanity, anywhere.

    Now CLOSE to perfect is very obtainable and is done fairly regularly. I was a machinist and the last job I worked on my tolerance was +/- .00025 That is a pretty damn small number but it is not all that difficult to met in this day and age.

    On the other hand nature’s idea of perfect has a larger tolerance – thankfully, otherwise the world would likely be very boring, with everything looking/being the same – humans, animals, geography, etc, etc, etc, all of it. IOW perfection is overrated. As should be.

  289. 289.

    Ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Some think (such as it is…) that having a deranged sack of shit as president would improve something, something. All it really does is show us that deranged sacks of shit exist everywhere and have to be called out for being deranged sacks of shit.

  290. 290.

    rikyrah

    Nida Khan (@NidaKhanNY) posted at 6:32 PM on Mon, May 20, 2024:
    Once again, if Biden loses in Nov., don’t blame voters

     

    👑 Mr. Weeks 👑 (@WonderKing82) posted at 10:34 PM on Tue, May 21, 2024:
    Who else are we going to blame? Y’all gotta be the most ungrateful spoiled privileged motherafuckers. Fucking with people healthcare, jobs, education, liberties, civil rights and so much more on purpsoe is disgusting work. This is a selfish act of humanity. Karma is quick.
    (https://x.com/WonderKing82/status/1793123214861729989?t=eTo8dUwCYDVUZMiTBBHCNw&s=03)

  295. 295.

    rikyrah

    Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) posted at 10:11 AM on Thu, May 23, 2024:
    “It sounds sinister. And it is” — Mike Johnson on Fox News pushes the great replacement conspiracy theory that has motivated mass shooters

     

     

     

    Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) posted at 10:34 AM on Thu, May 23, 2024:
    The white supremacist great replacement theory went from the pages of terrorist manifestos to Tucker Carlson’s primetime show to Musk’s Twitter feed to Trump’s stump speech to mainstream GOP messaging.

    It’s a sinister cycle of rhetoric and violence that fuels white supremacy.
    (https://x.com/AhmedBaba_/status/1793666936007516486?t=BIGa0JUSral1B8h99FNDFA&s=03)

  296. 296.

    Captain C

    @Ksmiami: NO IT DOES NOT AND IF YOU SAY THAT AGAIN I’LL HAVE YOU SENT TO A FORCED LABOR REEDUCATION CAMP!!!

    I think I did that right, if not, here’s a /s

  298. 298.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @rikyrah: It’s disgusting.  I hope that Biden gets to replace at least 2 of the Supremacist 6 in his next term,  and all this shyte gets overturned.

  299. 299.

    rikyrah

    @Anyway:

    My friend Greg had his student loans forgiven last week – he said  “Biden-Harris administration” was mentioned 2-3 times in the message saying he was done. I was psyched there was none of the mealy-mouthed bipartisan shit – straight up Biden-Harris administration did this.

     

    That’s how you do it

  300. 300.

    Old School

    The Senate voted down the bipartisan border bill Thursday, marking the second time it has been blocked in a matter of months as Democrats look to shore up their political troubles and give President Biden and incumbent senators a boost in the process.

    In a widely expected outcome, senators voted 43-50 to take down the proposal, which was negotiated over the fall and winter by Sens. James Lankford (R-Okla.), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.). The bill lost support compared to the previous vote in February, which fell in a 49-50 tally.

    Headlining those who flipped their votes this time around was Lankford, who was the lead GOP member throughout negotiations before the border bill met an unceremonious death.

    …

    Joining Lankford in flipping their votes to no were Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Sinema.

    Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) voted against the bill in February, but was absent Thursday.

  301. 301.

    rikyrah

    Little Ronnie D in Florida, with his anti-immigrant stance, has cost the rich the access to people who can clean their mansions.
    Law of supply and demand.
    Making 6 figures cleaning rich people’s toilets?
    Now happening in Florida..

    BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA

    https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLGmh7gG/

  302. 302.

    Citizen Alan

    @Matt McIrvin: I don’t understand how intelligent 21st century.Americans can possibly be attracted to communism. Setting aside for the moment it’s proven consistent failure when applied in the real world, believing that communism would ever work in principle requires you to ignore fundamental aspects of basic human nature. A well raised toddler can be persuaded to share his toys. But take away a two year old child’s favorite toy without his consent and  with only the explanation that some other child needs it more and that child will scream until he is blue in the face. That is how deeply ingrained the instinct to say “this is mine” is within the human psyche.

  303. 303.

    Captain C

    @Citizen Alan: I suspect that some of those few loudly pushing Communism think that they will be (or are planning to be) the ones who decide everyone’s toy distribution after The Revolution™.

  304. 304.

    Baud

    @Citizen Alan:

    I think some of it is performative. The idea that you take an extreme position in the hopes that the final outcome from the process ia closer to optimal.

  305. 305.

    narya

    @Citizen Alan: My favorite exploration of this is Ursula LeGuin’s The Dispossessed. She explores the organization of a society without private property, in the sense we’re used to it, and with a scheme for distributing the grunt work as well as enabling people to imagine and create. What makes it useful in the context of this thread is that she explores the tendency of at least some people to nevertheless acquire and hold on to resources/power; she doesn’t imagine that that tendency goes away. It captured my imagination when I first read it in the early 1980s, and it has remained a touchstone in some important ways.

  306. 306.

    karen marie

    @TBone: The content of that post – or lack thereof – is why I have long ignored Susie Madrak.

    @OzarkHillbilly:   I had an issue with beans the one and only time I tried cooking dried beans.  Apparently they have to cook above a certain temperature for a set amount of time or they make you violently ill.  #BeenThereDoneThat

  308. 308.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Omnes Omnibus: So Robert Frost was wrong?

    ROTFLMAO! He who by his screen name purports to know Everything About Everything mistook a quote from T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men” for something by Robert Frost. Even this physics/astronomy/math/statistics student knew better!

    News flash, Oh-Oh: You ain’t anywhere near as much as you pretend to be, no matter how many hifalutin’ credentials you might claim.​

    (ETA: H/t to O. Felix Culpa @211 and Melancholy Jacques @226 supra for pointing this out more politely,)

  309. 309.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    But see

    Fire and Ice

    By Robert Frost

    Some say the world will end in fire,
    Some say in ice.
    From what I’ve tasted of desire
    I hold with those who favor fire.
    But if it had to perish twice,
    I think I know enough of hate
    To say that for destruction ice
    Is also great
    And would suffice.

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