Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

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

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

The words do not have to be perfect.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Republicans in disarray!

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

The republican ‘Pastor’ of the House is an odious authoritarian little creep.

Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls 2 years from now.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

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

“But what about the lurkers?”

In after Baud. Damn.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Can’t Win for Losing Open Thread: ‘An Inconvenient Gift: Green Jobs’

Can’t Win for Losing Open Thread: ‘An Inconvenient Gift: Green Jobs’

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I can certainly see Repubs, given the chance, cutting off their constituents’ economic noses to spite President Biden… but I don’t see how this is bad news for *Biden*. Lots more at the link, from Bloomberg:

The single largest investment in the burgeoning US green energy supply chain involves a construction site the size of 121 football fields near Greensboro, North Carolina, and a check for $13.9 billion. By 2030, the Toyota Corp. facility could be employing more than 5,000 people cranking out enough batteries to power half-a-million new electric vehicles each year.

What’s not to like about that? This seemingly rhetorical question actually demands an answer given America’s partisan divide over climate change.

The Toyota project, which began with a $1.3 billion initial investment announced in 2021, massively expanded after passage the following year of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), President Joe Biden’s signature green legislation offering hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies for clean technology. The IRA was unanimously opposed by Republicans in Congress. Its cousin, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, containing a smaller set of cleantech subsidies, was nominally bipartisan but only drew 13 “yeas” from House Republicans when it passed in 2021.

One Republican critic of the IRA said, using fairly typical language, that it would “raise taxes” and “throw money at woke climate and social programs that won’t work.” That critic, Rep. Richard Hudson, represents North Carolina’s 9th district, which happens to be where Toyota is building that mammoth battery plant.

Hudson’s district epitomizes a peculiarity of the US energy transition — and a growing problem for Republicans. There is a certain luxury enjoyed by politicians who can be rhetorically against something while still quietly welcoming any dollars and jobs that it brings to their constituents. Looking ahead to November, if Republicans are empowered to a point where they actually could vote those dollars away, it would present a much thornier dilemma — and a moment of truth.

What’s more, factors such as abundant land and cheaper labor have drawn billions of dollars in cleantech investment not only to red districts but also to the swing states that will likely determine who prevails in the race for the White House.

Bloomberg Opinion teamed up with Jeff Davies, founder of EnerWrap, which specializes in data-driven insights on the US energy system, to follow the money and construct a granular map of where US cleantech factories announced on Biden’s watch are planned or being built. This encompasses hundreds of projects in more than 450 cities spread across 44 states plus Puerto Rico, backed by more than $200 billion of planned investment. They’re expected to generate 195,000 jobs, plus economic multiplier effects for local businesses, tax bases and infrastructure.

Whichever way you slice the numbers — spending, jobs, projects announced under Biden before or after the passage of the IRA — red districts garner an overwhelming proportion of the benefits…

…[A]s billions of dollars flow into red districts, the probability of a clash between ideological purity and economic pragmatism is growing. It is entirely possible, of course, that November 2024 reshapes the political landscape, including who holds power in Washington. A second term for former President Donald Trump may see a concerted effort to roll back Biden’s green agenda. But to do so, he would need a lot of House Republicans to vote away two things every district needs more of: Jobs and money, green or otherwise.

Reader Interactions

158Comments

  2. 2.

    smith

    It’s not really a dilemma for the GQP. They can vote against local projects and then take credit for them, as they always do,  and their voters will never know the difference. Of course, as the article says, it will be a problem if they get enough power to actually kill those projects, but I bet they’ll find a way to simply relabel them as Trump Economic Zones or something similar.

  3. 3.

    lollipopguild

    I remember an maga person being asked about solar power and he replied that solar power was “witchcraft”!

  4. 4.

    agorabum

    The key to winning in purple Midwest states is to i.prove margins in more conservative districts.  Getting 38% instead of 25% means much more of a cushion for more urban / traditionally Dem districts.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    5000 different voters is enough to change the characteristics of a rural district. Just sayin’.

  7. 7.

    Geminid

    It was July of 2022 when Chuck Schumer and Joe Manchin announced they had agreed on the package the they called the “Inflation Reduction Act.” The Senate had just passed the CHIPS+ bill by a bipartisan vote. Then, the two Democratic Senators revealed what they had been cooking.

    It was a slick tactical move that took McConnel & company by surprise. They complained mightely, but it was too late. The IRA passed on a 50-50 vote with VP Harris breaking the tie.

    Democtrats got their counter-cyclical spending in early. Th IRA was the last of 4 major bills* that pushed and are pushing trillions of dollars into the American economy. The money will help keep the US economy humming for the rest of the decade, and the judicious investments will pay dividends throughout the next.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    Some feel good media content, via reddit.

    Trump Could Actually Lose Florida. Here’s Why.

    After two years of Governor Ron DeSantis pushing his extremist agenda, there’s a case to be made that voters have had enough of the Republican Party’s obsession with culture wars.

    Dedicated to Betty C.

  9. 9.

    lollipopguild

    @Baud: I am really surprised that so far I have not seen any maga types calling the Dems witches and warlocks. A lot of these folks seem to be quite happy living in the 17th 18th and 19th centuries. Or any time period than the one we are currently in.

  10. 10.

    Josie

    @agorabum: ​
     Yes. This is what got Beto so close to catching Ted Cruz. He campaigned in red areas, not to win them, but to increase the percentage of votes from them. It came very close to working. I hope Allred plans to do the same.

  11. 11.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Part of what the red states hate about this specific green initiative is that it’s Toyota that’s involved, not Ford or Chevy (GM). Why? Because NASCAR rednecks hate, hate, hate that ‘Yoder is even allowed into NASCAR, much less that they beat the US manufacturers with some regularity.

    And there’s no NASCAR redneck like a Carolina NASCAR redneck.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    @Josie:

    Didn’t work for Tim Ryan in Ohio though.  Gotta find the right balance, I guess.  Total respect for what red state Dems have to put up with.

  13. 13.

    Citizen Alan

    But to do so, he would need a lot of House Republicans to vote away two things every district needs more of: Jobs and money, green or otherwise.

    Voters in red districts don’t jobs or money so long as they have an Other to blame for the lack of both.

  14. 14.

    bbleh

    … but I don’t see how this is bad news for *Biden* …

    Just wait for tomorrow’s Times.

    Biden’s ‘Green’ Investments
    Greatly Benefit Red States
    Many Residents Are Concerned

    The 9AM breakfast crowd gathers at this rural Kentucky diner …

  15. 15.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud: Ooh, that would be nice.

    I didn’t have the patience to read it, but a while back the NYT had a big story about a poor unfortunate town in Norway that was suffering so because Biden’s policies had taken all the green jobs back to the USA.

  16. 16.

    Kay

    Oh it’s infuriating. Best economy of my adult life in this 75% Trump county and Biden won’t get a single vote out of it.

    But Marcy Kaptur and Sherrod Brown will

  18. 18.

    Walker

    @Baud: The problem with this argument is that the demographics of Florida have changed a lot since the last election. Numerous MAGA have moved to Florida looking for the promised land. And there are many stories of more liberal Floridians being driven away from the state.

    We should absolutely fight for all states. But Florida is now a long shot on the order of Ohio.

  19. 19.

    Geminid

    @smith: I am not so fatalistic. I think those hypocritical Republicans’ voters will know the difference if Democrats tell them with say, billboards that attack the Republican incumbent as both a cheapskate and a liar. It’s one thing to explain why you voted against infrastructure investments, and it’s another to explain why you lied about it.

  20. 20.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Yep. I got no patience with it anymore. I accept that people are going to free ride on us, but I don’t have to respect it.

  21. 21.

    CaseyL

    @Citizen Alan: Hey, the Global Oligarch Project has, over the past 40 years, convinced its voters that government has no benefits to society, that “government has never created a single job,” and that’s the way things should be.

    That jobs magically appeared when a certain bill was passed is exactly that:  magic.  Got nothing to do with government, or Democrats, or Biden.

  22. 22.

    Kay

    I’m still waiting for the NYTimes political team to come out and do a story on the Biden revival in the rust belt

    it is absolutely journalistic malpractice that this has been ignored.

    I think they hate us and want us to fail and be poor.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    They PREFER when the rust belt is failing.

    They would much rather cover poverty porn in Detroit than the beautiful new Michigan Central Station in Detroit, or the Detroit mayor who succeeded because he welcomed immigrants.

  27. 27.

    Regnad Kcin

    @Walker:

    But Florida is now a long shot on the order of Ohio.

    Florida is now a pariah state which will, thankfully, tumble into the sea[sic], forthwith

  28. 28.

    dmsilev

    @Baud: Yeah, I agree. And if Biden can lose a red district by let’s say 15 points now when he lost that district by 20 points 4 years ago, that helps with the state as a whole.

    Also, it’s fun watching Republican Reps tie themselves up in rhetorical knots defending their vote against the funding bills and arguing why spending that money in their district is something they should get credit for.

  32. 32.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jeffg166: I watch those weekly videos by the Lincoln Project that show what the Republicans have been saying, and there’s some woman who’s definitely trying to drive out the demons.

  35. 35.

    JaneE

    The plants and production facilities will be built somewhere.  Just wait until they are employing hundreds or thousands of people with decent wages (I hope good, but decent will do) and then telling your constituents that you want to get rid of EV’s and their jobs at the battery plant.  With any luck the Biden campaign will be shouting how your congressman wants all those green jobs to just go away, to China or Europe most likely.

  36. 36.

    Captain C

    @Kay:

    I’m still waiting for the NYTimes political team to come out and do a story on the Biden revival in the rust belt

    “Biden’s policies have been great for the rust belt, and his support there has been increasing.  Here’s why that’s bad news for Biden and Democrats…” — The FTFNYT, probably

    (edited to add quote box)

  37. 37.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Regnad Kcin: 

    @Walker: But Florida is now a long shot on the order of Ohio.

    Florida is now a pariah state which will, thankfully, tumble into the sea[sic], forthwith
    ​

     It’s a long shot, yes – but abortion rights are on the November ballot, and Ohio voted resoundingly “yes” on abortion rights in 2023.

    Like many so-called “red” states, Florida is a voter-suppression state, not a pariah state.

    If you (this is the whole-audience plural you) would like to help un-suppress the Democratic vote in FL, sign up with Postcards To Voters at [email protected].

    In concert with the FL Democratic Party, they’re encouraging Democrats to enroll in Vote By Mail.

  39. 39.

    Captain C

    @Baud: “They say Biden is gaining popularity in the rust belt, but in this Ohio diner, three totally normal salt-of-the-earth workers, who are toooootallllly not Republican operatives and mid-size business owners who profit more when their workers suffer more, tell us why that might not be true…”

  40. 40.

    Bill Arnold

    @lollipopguild:

    Or any time period than the one we are currently in.

    Nearly all of these folks would be subject to one of the many mosaic law infractions[1] that mandate the death penalty if proved.
    “Thus you will exterminate such wickedness from Israel”

    [1] A long list from a Jesus-y site (i.e. the usual theology that Christians do not have to obey the mosaic law). A search for the passage id in google will get the text for each. (I usually prefer biblegateway.)

  41. 41.

    bbleh

    @Hoppie: true, neither does WV.  But that’s what a NY reporter would call the restaurant in town that serves breakfast in the morning to the, ah, 9am crowd

  42. 42.

    TBone

    The Biden plan to alleviate economic anxiety so as to prevent Civil War II is working perfectly.  Let Chump take credit at the debate and watch Joe throw a shark infested battery at him 🤣

  44. 44.

    MomSense

    Dispatch from CowTown: Well fuck.  I walked across the street to the hair salon and, even though I just wanted a trim, ended up with a Joan Jett circa 1982 “edgy” hairstyle that borders on mullet.  Good news is that the price (cash only) was also circa 1982.
    It’s too hot for leather. How would the jackaltariat suggest I style this disaster?

    I texted a selfie to my kids and the rock n roll musicians both responded with “sick”.  Middle child has remained silent.

  45. 45.

    TBone

    @MomSense: hair gel and rock the hairdo like you meant to do that!  Add some temporary purple or pink!

    Thank goodness it grows back.  Hubby got a Dumb and Dumber haircut here once.  Straight across the forehead bowl cut.

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Yes! They had a big Sherrod and Marcy (and JD Vance – ugh) event the other day – an Amtrak upgrade.

    The big whiny sad sack hillbilly was moping around taking credit for shit he didn’t do but I think the coverage was good for Marcy and Sherrod.

  50. 50.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @zhena gogolia: ​
     

    2023 Bolt EV owner here. The next-gen one will the EUV so slightly longer. Great car, *union* made.

    I mean sure, hurrah for green jobs but note it’s in a so-called fucking right-to-work (for less state). Fucking Toyota and every other foreign automaker that’s spent a generation building plants in the South for obvious, labor-hating reasons.

  53. 53.

    TBone

    @MomSense: 🤣😆🤣 he was almost in tears.  The fukn hairdressers were ROFL and I wasn’t paying enough attention to stop them in time!

  55. 55.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I should probably disclose that I have very thick but also incredibly fine, straight hair.  Tousle may require a perm and long banned, ozone-destroying aqua net.

  57. 57.

    TBone

    @MomSense: once in Switzerland I bought what I thought was a mini jar of hair gel.  It turned out to be some kind of wax!  Who in the heck waxes their hair?  Maybe George Clooney in O Brother Where Art Thou?

  59. 59.

    CaseyL

    @MomSense: I LOVE spiky black rock star hair.  Wear it with pride, some heavy eyeliner, and – if leather is out – a tight-fitting T-shirt (preferably with a band’s name or logo) and multiple, extra long chain necklaces.

    Rock it. Own it.  Strut yo stuff.

  60. 60.

    TBone

    I have the perfect Stones Tongue t-shirt for that look.

    Dark grayish black, big red tongue, says something about 1970something or other.

    I also have a jet black T-shirt with diamond studs spelling out WE WILL ROCK YOU

    I couldn’t remember the word rhinestone just now 😣

  61. 61.

    Fake Irishman

    @Josie:

    Texan here: Beto did indeed campaign hard in all 254 Texas counties, but he really didn’t close the margins or percentages there from 2016. Where he made big gains was in traditionally Republican rapidly growing  suburban counties, as well as less dense areas in the big urban counties. He flipped Tarrant county (Fort Worth) and two suburban counties around Austin (Williamson and Hayes) consolidated control in Harris ((Houston) and Fort Bend (near Houston) — both of which flipped control of their county governments,as well as narrowing the gaps greatly north of Dallas (Denton and Collin).

    If Dems can win those north Dallas burbs at all consistently, life is going to get a lot more fun here in the Lone Star state, and probably nationally.

  63. 63.

    MomSense

    @CaseyL:

    Say you are a divorced woman of a certain age without saying you are a divorced woman of a certain age!

    Hell it beats succumbing to the Chico’s residential real estate broker look ;)

  67. 67.

    Melancholy Jaques

    My congressman, the odious election denier Ken Calvert (CA-41), has ads all over taking credit for the infrastructure projects that he voted against. I do not know if it would be decisive in this R+3 district, but it wouldn’t hurt if the voters were better informed.

  69. 69.

    TBone

    Justice Kennedy’s “retirement” was a gift from Trump to anti-choice religious fanatics like Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life whose board has included SCOTUS puppeteer Leonard Leo. Hawkins said at the time that Kennedy’s retirement was “a day that we’ve been waiting… Show more

    https://t.co/cEQWQwFq9O

  72. 72.

    TBone

    @MomSense: FUCKIN A

    I went to college near Ardmore.  She’s an Honorary DelConian!

    Her birthplace.  We went to the Ardmore fireworks show every year

    Residents of Wynnewood cooperate with those of adjacent Ardmore in many ways, one of which is the ArdWood Civic Association. South Ardmore Park is partly in Wynnewood, and partly in Ardmore.

    The ultimate IMO 🎶

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LeYn_W14zTU

  75. 75.

    Anoniminous

    @MomSense:

    I have been given to understand that, in the vernacular of today’s ex-suburban youth, “sick” is an expression of extreme a

    pproval.

  76. 76.

    Matt McIrvin

    I was just looking at graphs of the gradual decarbonization of the US economy. Most people may not know it, but the peak of US carbon emission (both per capita and in absolute numbers) was back in the George W. Bush administration. It’s been generally going down ever since, though there’s a lot of noise in the trend and the COVID pandemic caused a steep temporary drop that there was a bounce back from.

    (You might wonder whether we just outsourced the emission to our trading partners. That definitely happened to some extent, but it doesn’t erase the trend entirely–a chart further down on this page covers that.)

    The thing that’s always struck me about this trend that Trump was not able to reverse it, despite his open contempt for mitigation efforts. You could maybe argue that he slowed it down, if you exclude the COVID drop, but it’s hard to say for sure–he was only in office for 4 years and the line is very bumpy.

    https://ourworldindata.org/co2/country/united-states

  78. 78.

    MomSense

    @Anoniminous:

    Yes!  Musician spawn who are connected to the underground/weird arts and music scene in Portland, Maine love it.  Son (boss) financial advisor is not sure about it.

  79. 79.

    wjca

    @Anoniminous: I have been given to understand that, in the vernacular of today’s ex-suburban youth, “sick” is an expression of extreme approval.

    So, I have been extremely approved [of?] for the past week and a half?  Good to know.  But frankly, I’ll be happy to get back to healthy…

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    In scarlet Oklahoma, there remain some things beyond the pale.

    Officials in Oklahoma tried to approve the nation’s first publicly funded religious charter school. The state Supreme Court had other ideas.
    [snip]
    The vote on the state high court wasn’t especially close: This was a 7-1 ruling, with one justice recusing himself. Source

  81. 81.

    Salty Sam

    @TBone: Thank goodness it grows back…

    My favorite name for a hair-cut shop (salon? Barber shop? Dunno) was back in the 80’s, in a little town just south of Austin:

    ”It’ll Grow Back!”

  82. 82.

    smith

    @NotMax: Of course, this will likely be appealed to the Supreme Court, and we’ll all have to start holding our breath again.

  83. 83.

    West of the Rockies

    OT, but why is there evidently only one damn photo of Ailene Cannon that is used in every single article about her?  The smiling doe eyes thing is clearly utterly phony.  Someone needs a shot of her snarling or picking her nose.

  91. 91.

    Josie

    @Fake Irishman: ​
     Do you think Allred has a chance? I’m in Houston and have not seen him making inroads here. When I bring his name up, people don’t seem familiar him.

  94. 94.

    smith

    @West of the Rockies: It seems that most of the high profile judges in the Felon’s cases are usually portrayed in the news using just one standard photo. However, if you do an image search, you’ll find a few different ones of her, most of them where she’s playing judge, but also her wedding pictures and baby pictures. Not that any of it is at all illuminating. She’s rather repugnant regardless of what she looks like.

  95. 95.

    Matt McIrvin

    @NotMax: The basic concept of this mission was very much like Apollo, but without astronauts: lunar orbit rendezvous. There was an orbiter and a lander that went together to lunar orbit, then the lander went alone down to the surface. The lander had an ascent stage that took off from the Moon and docked with it to transfer the samples to a reentry module in the orbiter, and that was the part of the spacecraft that came back to Earth.

    It’s kind of remarkable how much of this it’s now possible to do automatically. The Soviet missions that did uncrewed sample return in the 1970s used a direct-ascent profile, in which the lander had to carry the return module with it, which meant they could bring back far less mass than Chang’e 6.

  98. 98.

    Marc

    @Melancholy Jaques:  My congressman, the odious election denier Ken Calvert (CA-41), has ads all over taking credit for the infrastructure projects that he voted against. I do not know if it would be decisive in this R+3 district, but it wouldn’t hurt if the voters were better informed.

    So, I took a look at the Will Rollins for Congress website, with a few minutes of digging I could only find one relevant quote: “Calvert was caught directing federal tax dollars to benefit his own real-estate investments, and his assets increased up to twenty million dollars since taking office. The FBI has investigated Ken Calvert twice, and he has been named one of the most corrupt members of Congress”.  I’d put stuff like that on the front page rather than make people search for it, but I’m not a Democratic candidate.

  100. 100.

    TBone

    Hit dogs holler 😆 in response to a group of expert economists warning the American public about Dotard’s policies:

    “The American people don’t need worthless out of touch Nobel peace prize winners to tell them which president put more money in their pockets,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to CNBC.

    https://digbysblog.net/2024/06/25/oh-what-do-they-know/

    🤣🤣🤣🤣

    Sixteen Nobel Prize-winning economists signed a joint letter Tuesday warning of what they see as economic risks if former President Donald Trump were to serve a second term, including reheated inflation.

  102. 102.

    Lyrebird

    @TBone: Ugh.  Didn’t think there could be worse people (other than their boss) than Flores and McEnany, but Leavitt is giving them a run for their money.  Yuck.  Evil.

  103. 103.

    West of the Rockies

    @smith:

    I agree that Cannon (despite being conventionally attractive) is repugnant because of her inner being.

  104. 104.

    TBone

    @Lyrebird: “peace prize” is the icing on that poop sandwich 😆 remember when when he couldn’t spell Nobel?  The Noble Peace Prize!

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-team-misspells-nobel-in-campaign-ad-celebrating-meaningless-peace-prize-nomination

    The unintentionally hilarious Facebook advert falsely claimed that the president “has achieved PEACE in the MIDDLE EAST,” and attached a graphic of a grinning Trump with the caption: “President Trump was nominated for the Noble Peace Prize.”

  106. 106.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Anotherlurker:

    I am no longer pessimistic about unions in the South. After all, the UAW organized VW in Nashville. I can’t see them slacking off on their organizing efforts.

    Agreed.  It helps that we have the most union-friendly president of my lifetime helping overcome the systemic anti-unionness of the South.

    It’s Reason #3,655.7 to reelect Biden.

  107. 107.

    CaseyL

    @MomSense: Heh.  You’re wrong on at least one count: Never married; never divorced.  (I did live with Significant Others for a few years a couple times, though.)

    @Josie: That’s upsetting to hear, because Allred seemed to be really enthused and energetic about running back when he entered the race.  Is he having bad luck with funding?

  109. 109.

    brantl

    I hope Biden attends the groundbreaking for all of these places, gets to speak at the opening, and rolls these people in broken glass for voting against these initiatives, and then makes campaign ads from it.

  110. 110.

    TBone

    Has everyone seen the new photos of classified docs storage released by Jack Smith?  Jiminy Cricket! 😳

    https://crooksandliars.com/2024/06/new-pics-released-showing-shocking-way

    Ya gotta see it to believe it.

    The court filing from special counsel Jack Smith is a clear counter argument to Trump’s legal team, who claimed that the government’s failure to log the precise order of the boxes’ contents should be grounds to throw out the classified documents case completely.

  111. 111.

    Quadrillipede

    @lollipopguild: I remember an maga person being asked about solar power and he replied that solar power was “witchcraft”!

    I’d imagine there were probably Neolithic reactionaries who said that about the hand axe…

  112. 112.

    Fake Irishman

    @Josie:

    he is as strong of a candidate as we could have fielded — and were competitive enough in Texas that that’s not damming with faint praise.

    He has money and has been out raising Cruz.  Polls I’ve seen (not many) suggest he’s about 5-7 points down.  Probably not a win, but he has a real chance if the national environment drifts a bit Dem.

    Also, you and I are neighbors. I promise to wave on the bus  next time I see a person who looks like a Josie.

  113. 113.

    Kay

    All three gone:

    LEXINGTON — The last of the “sister senators” who fought to preserve abortion rights in South Carolina has conceded defeat in her Republican primary runoff.
    Veteran state Sen. Katrina Shealy conceded her loss about an hour after polls closed to challenger Carlisle Kennedy, who she was trailing by about 20 percent of the vote.
    It ends a more than decade-long career in the Statehouse.
    Her loss assures the South Carolina will once again rank among the worst states for female representation in its state senate. She joins state Sen. Sandy Senn of Charleston and Sen. Penry Gustafson of Camden, as Republican women who had tried to slow down the abortion rights crackdown in the Statehouse.

    Shealy said her political career is not over. If possible, she said she would consider a run for governor or even for congressman Joe Wilson’s seat should he ever retire.
    But first, she said she wants to unseat the two men she blamed for leading the charge against her and her fellow sister senators: Greenwood Republican Rep. John McCravy, and Anderson Republican Sen. Richard Cash.
    I’m going after them with all I’ve got,” Shealy told reporters. “If it takes two years on McCravy or four years on Cash… I’m hunting them down like the animals they are.”

    Glad to see there are no hard feelings

  114. 114.

    mrmoshpotato

    @lollipopguild:

    I remember an maga person being asked about solar power and he replied that solar power was “witchcraft”! 

    Growing trees!  Maturing plants!  Overgrown grass!

    WITCHCRAFT!  Screamin’ Jay Hawkins put a spell on them all!

  115. 115.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think it goes against what they want to be true, so they ignore it. Kind of like how they still pretend all the working class voters are white men.

    There was an editorial in the local paper complaining about how the Inflation Reduction Act is helping wind and solar farms in KS build transmission lines through MO to the East Coast. It was written by the head of the MO Farm Bureau. They think wind and solar are taking all the good farmland.

  116. 116.

    Fake Irishman

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Yep. That decline is almost all reflected by the massive drop in emissions from the power sector, generally coal plants closing and being replaced first by gas and then, more and more, by renewables. (And now we’re starting to get  a handle on transport and industry. There are actually days I wake up, look at my kids and think “You know, we can actually DO this.”)

    There’s a great article from 2015 in Politico, of all places, by Michael Grunwald called “the real war on coal” It’s an amazing story of the Sierra Club teaming up with a whole bunch of local activists to stop the Bush adminstration’s energy plan in its tracks, one planned coal plant at a time, then closing hundreds of coal units. Whenever I get depressed, I go back and read it, reflecting that we’ve retired 200 more coal plants since the article was written.

    the piece is worth it alone for the account of a random lunch a Sierra club activist had with his ex-college roommate who happened to be on Michael Bloomberg’s chief of staff just after Bloomberg threw a massive tantrum about needing something to do after his last term as mayor of New York….

  118. 118.

    wjca

    @TBone:  “peace prize” is the icing on that poop sandwich 😆 remember when when he couldn’t spell Nobel?  The Noble Peace Prize!

    He’s been obsessing over the Peace Prize ever since Obama got it.  The fact that nobody serious (i.e. outside his cult**) would do anything but laugh at the idea of him winning it?  That cuts deep into his racist soul.

    It’s not obvious he’s clear that there is more than one Nobel Prize.  Me, I’d bet he has no clue.  But betting that he’s clueless is generally the safe course.  About anything.

    ** He hardly cares about the opinions of the marks.  So long as they keep sending money.

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Fake Irishman: I realized after I posted that that one statement was actually slightly wrong–the absolute peak in *per capita* carbon emissions was all the way back in the 1970s, but there was a dip and then a second, lower peak later on. And that surely had to do with the power sector. A lot of the US grid was coal- and oil-powered in the 70s. I’ve noticed that the people who chortle about electric cars being “coal-powered cars” don’t seem to know that anything changed.

  120. 120.

    Jay

    @Soprano2:

    It was written by the head of the MO Farm Bureau. They think wind and solar are taking all the good farmland.

    So, basically written by a moron.

    Most wind and solar operations don’t “buy” land, they lease it’s use, providing an additional source of stable income to the farmer/agribusiness/conglomerate.

    The land can still be “farmed”, only a tiny amount of land is taken out of production. In the case of solar, in the case of pasturage, grasses and other pasture plants exposed to partial shade have 40% more protein than plants in full sun, and that’s what you want for pasturage, silage or hay.

    The only studies I have seen involve pasturage.

  126. 126.

    emjayay

    @MomSense:

    I texted a selfie to my kids and the rock n roll musicians both responded with “sick”.  Middle child has remained silent.

    Sadly along with all the other shortcomings of this format you can’t post that photo, apparently.

  128. 128.

    BruceFromOhio

    But to do so, he would need a lot of House Republicans to vote away two things every district needs more of: Jobs and money, green or otherwise.

    They will climb over each other to do exactly this. And their constituents will love them for it, and vote them back in power every time.

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @Jackie:ABC reports the NY16 primary numbers as: Latimer 55.7%, Bowman 44.2%. That’s with 90% of the vote in the Bronx portion of the district reported, and 67% of the Westchester County vote counted.

  136. 136.

    Citizen Alan

    @West of the Rockies: I wouldn’t even grant “conventionally attractive.” First time I saw her, her eyes made me think she was Michele Bachman for a second. Crazy is never attractive.

  139. 139.

    like a metaphor

    @Tony G:

    @TBone: When I was a teenager (long, long ago) I solved the hair problem by just never cutting my hair!

    and I solved the grooming problem by just never brushing it

  141. 141.

    Ruckus

    @TBone:

    First of all shitforbrains is, or at least sounds/looks like he’s rapidly decompensating. Which means that he is aging out of pretty much everything – other than pompous arrogance. But then he’s got that in massive overabundance. Joe Biden is old but not that much older than me. My sister would be about 6 months younger than Joe if she hadn’t had cancer and she was more normal, intelligent, human on her last day than SFB has ever been in his entire life. SFB is the proof that money can never buy a personality, a sense of humor, or a brain that works better than a 60 yr old garbage disposal with a burned out motor.

  143. 143.

    Ruckus

    @Fake Irishman: One of the things I’ve done in my apt is to use LED light bulbs whenever possible. A 4 watt bulb replaces an 80-100 watt bulb in my table lamps. The bulbs last far longer, have good light output and because they last far, far longer than a standard filament bulb the cost is better than old style filament bulbs. I get the bulbs at IKEA and the one’s I use are 2 for $2.

  144. 144.

    Geminid

    @Jackie: I feel sad for Jamaal Bowman because I don’t think he’s a bad person; he’s just not a very good politician

    NY16 will stay in Democratic hands. The district next door that Republican Mike Lawler flipped will be a battleground. Former Rep. Mondaire Jones will contest it on the Dem side. Over on Long Island, Republican Nick faces a tough race against Democratic primary winner John Avlon

    Upstate, Republican Brandon Williams may be the most vulnersble Republican Representative in New York. Now that the Dems have picked their candidate they will go after Williams hard.

  146. 146.

    MomSense

    I fell asleep earlier and now I’m wide awake and laughing that the fashion advice is what I wore in high school!

  147. 147.

    Eolirin

    @Yutsano: Yeah which is why they hate it when their own economies do well and actively sabotage them. A proper boom in rural economies and communities would be the end of the Republican party. If the kids stay it’ll change the voting patterns, if good jobs exist people will move in and do the same, and their power bases will get weaker. Less resentment to fuel policies of cruelty too.

    We could get a lock on the Senate if we could improve conditions enough to convince a few hundred thousand college educated people to move to the Dakotas and Wyoming. It wouldn’t take too much.

  150. 150.

    brantl

    @Baud: No shit. Isn’t it remarkable how stupid any Republican position looks, 10 years later. “Look, Grogg has hot food, I got cold rocks.”

  151. 151.

    satby

    @Eolirin: HA! Have you been to the Dakotas or Wyoming?

    Edit: ok, that’s harsh, but good jobs lacking any other things people would like in amenities isn’t enough. The college educated Native American kids staying to help and improve their communities though, that’s when things change.

  152. 152.

    jonas

    @Yutsano: That’s what I’m seeing here, too. Those reps feel free to rag on renewable energy now, but let’s see what tune they’re singing in a few years when several thousand of their constituents have come to depend on those jobs. “Oh, well, I didn’t mean *this* solar panel facility when I made those comments…”

    It’s not going to pay political dividends now, but in five or ten years?

  153. 153.

    jonas

    @Geminid:Upstate, Republican Brandon Williams may be the most vulnersble Republican Representative in New York. Now that the Dems have picked their candidate they will go after Williams hard.

    The money the GOP pours into upstate to save this seat will be eye-watering. NY-22 is a complex district, though — heavily-Democratic Syracuse surrounded by a sea of MAGA red rural areas. On paper it looks like a pretty safe blue district, but that’s where we ran into trouble in 22. The Dem candidate basically stayed holed up in Syracuse while Brandon Williams was out glad-handing the dairy farmers and pressing the flesh at gun shows and other “I’m one of you fellas” events, although he’s actually a rich businessman from Texas and doesn’t even live in the district. You can’t win with the city alone — you need Dem/Independent turnout in rural areas, too. The primary winner last night, John Mannion, a local state senator, has a bit more name recognition than Francis Conole did last time (who was a complete noob), but I’m worried he’s going to follow a similar strategy: he pulled out the win with a lot of endorsements from unions and political groups centered on Syracuse while not doing much to raise his profile in the outlying areas. Driving around parts of Oneida or Madison county, you didn’t see a single Mannion sign in anyone’s yard, while you’d spot ones for his opponent, Sarah Klee-Hood, here and there and she did a lot of campaigning out there, too. I think she would have been a stronger candidate against Williams, who has turned out, unsurprisingly, to be a complete MAGA choad. If I get a chance to contact Mannion’s campaign, I’m going to tell him to get his ass out on those country roads now.

  154. 154.

    jonas

    @Eolirin:  We could get a lock on the Senate if we could improve conditions enough to convince a few hundred thousand college educated people to move to the Dakotas and Wyoming. It wouldn’t take too much.

    The problem with those states isn’t a lack of education, it’s that they’ve been completely bought and paid for politically by extraction industries, who also provide the only viable jobs at the moment. To get college grads to move to/stay in a place like Wyoming, you have to offer more than cattle ranching or gas well maintenance jobs.

  155. 155.

    evodevo

    @NotMax: ​
      Well, it WAS a Catholic school, after all…talibangelicals might have drawn a line at that…all of them that I know are very anti-Catholic…

  156. 156.

    wjca

    @jonas:  To get college grads to move to/stay in a place like Wyoming, you have to offer more than cattle ranching or gas well maintenance jobs.

    “Come for the scenery and the skiing.  You can work from home, just like anywhere else.”

  158. 158.

    Chris T.

    @TBone: Did you know Joan Jett went to Wheaton HS, in Monkey (Montgomery) County MD? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joan_Jett has details. I went to a different Monkey County HS (and enough years later that we wouldn’t have been in the school at the same time). Wheaton used to beat us all at the college academic games, but I did pretty good with some of the physics and math ones…

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