“There’s always a sunrise and always a sunset, and it’s up to you to choose to be there for it. Put yourself in the way of beauty.”
— Cheryl Strayed’s mom (Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail)
We were treated to a dramatic thunderstorm yesterday evening, which cleared up in time to reveal a spectacular sunset.
Sunrise should be along in an hour and a half or so. But there’s beauty aplenty already this morning in the hooting of the owls, singing of the frogs and trilling of innumerable insects.
***
Regarding the inescapable topic of the debate, I did not watch it, but my normie Dem-voting husband saw the first 20 minutes before tapping out. It scared him.
I won’t say I spent yesterday evening talking him off the ledge since the truth is I’m scared too. But I think I made a plausible case for us to occupy our perch above the precipice with something resembling serenity.
Open thread!
Baud
That’s a pretty picture.
NotMax
Whee whee whee.
:)
Daoud bin Daoud
I also tapped out after 15-20 minutes (although I did sneak a peek at ~30 minutes: still a shitshow with Biden looking old and Trump being … Trump.)
NotMax
@Daoud bin Daoud
It was what it was. Dwelling on it is counter-productive.
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on
.
WereBear
I have a whacky sleep schedule and glad I decided against it. It would have been agonizing in the moment.
Waking up to a variety of perspectives almost vaccinated me so that the toxic parts were swarmed.
Now I’m both calm and need more coffee.
JWR
@Baud: Yes, but swampy, too. (Actually, it’s a gorgeous picture!) But I’ve always had this weird fear of large bodies of water, especially lakes, or very wide, slow moving rivers.
And a word on the debate. I watched the rebroadcast of the PBS News Hour and most of Washington Week, and nobody, at least that I heard, said a thing about “Black jobs”. Great job, media!
raven
I did the same and went to bed at 10 and my wife’s phone blew up (it’s supposed to be muted after 10) with her pals in a panic. I don’t know what to think. I ave some really smart, really progressive friends who think he should bail.
WereBear
That is a gorgeous photo, that’s the moment I like best.
JPL
Gorgeous
Martin
I didn’t make it 15 minutes. 2nd answer and I was out. Not that there was much utility value in the debate – it was only going to be optics no matter what. Was hoping for more favorable optics. Didn’t get it.
Not sure what it’ll matter in the end, but part of what annoys me is the tendency for Democrats to talk about something being an existential fight and then not acting like it. It makes it very hard to take them seriously. In the 7th grade I was in an existential fight and I nearly killed 2 kids because they were trying to kill me. I got a real appreciation of performative vs visceral expression and action after that. If you think this is a matter of life or death, fucking act like it, because I can’t tell if you’re lying about that or you’re a coward or incompetent. None of those are good.
Look, I like Biden, but the first thing I was reminded of after that 2nd question was the time I had to remove a faculty member from his class because he was no longer effective at teaching, and he had that same sort of affect that Biden did. It had nothing to do with liking him or respect or his age or any of that – those students paid their tuition and they deserved an effective teacher. That was my only consideration, and this task is a hell of a lot more important than undergraduate Continuous Time Signal Analysis. That’s why I turned it off. I would have removed him from his job. That’s just my honest take. Maybe I’m an asshole. Maybe it’s unfair. I don’t care about fairness. This country is being dismantled from the inside right now and all Democrats can do is whine about it and express polite deference. I fucking hate whiners.
This’ll pass. Joe’s got my vote, and my donations and all that. Heaven help us if that’s not enough.
Tony Jay
This is what happens when two opposing energies try to occupy the same space at the same time.
1) A lot of people got themselves all caught up in something, like a debate, being the ‘One Kewl Trick’ that was going to see Smilin’ Joe totally blow Stench out of the water and settle everyone’s nerves 4 + months ahead of the Election, and when that didn’t happen they at least hoped the coverage would mention that Stench gave a 1931-style Bierkeller rant every ten minutes or so.
2) The corporate Media and the Professional Democratic Punditocracy and the Hench Party itself are all bad people who do bad things for bad reasons. They do them all the time and they will not stop doing them at any point, especially when good people want or need them to.
It won’t end up being too important in the long run. The corporate Media were always going to jump on anything available to reinvigorate their horse race and shield Stench from scrutiny (witness the FYF Guardian’s FRONT PAGE OMGATHON of the last couple of days), so that’s what they’ve done.
Chill. It’s just chaff. Fly through or around it and watch your intakes. Targets are coming up ahead.
satby
Will Rogers had it right almost a century ago. But I am sick of seeing the people I vote for/with constantly in a fetal position while the opposition loudly and proudly line up behind a psychopath fascist. If we lose, it will be because of that. We don’t demonstrate the courage of our own conviction. The best president with the most consequencial record since FDR had a bad night. So our response is to throw him overboard and bring out the binkies.
Edit: I don’t care how bad he did that night. The next day he was on fire and doing fine. And while he was out doing that half of his constituency was still freaking out about two off hours.
JCNZ
It’s mathematically and morally impossible for Trump to win. There won’t be a Democrat in America who will vote anything but D, and other than MAGA – a minority of a minority Party – hardly a Republican in the country will get out of bed on November 5. It will be yet another blue wave. And that’s not even taking into account Taylor Swift. Relax – we’ve got this.
eclare
Lovely photo!
The only sound here are my window units chugging along. Not complaining, the forecast high in Memphis is 96 today.
satby
And Betty, lovely photo. I always appreciate how you make an area I studiously avoid IRL look so beautiful. 💚
Chris Johnson
@satby: Well, they lined up behind the fascist and they lost.
So then they stormed the Capitol, literally broke in, but rather than murder our people they became literal poo-flinging monkeys, strutted, and went home.
It seems to me that I see more people calling out how Trump is still a complete asshole who also dropped numerous threads with which he can be unravelled, than people asserting this delivered the election to Trump.
The media outlets insisting this was great news for John McCain are the same ones that I think are openly partisan and/or run out of Russia, so that’s deeply unsurprising, and I think they are burning their credibility faster than the Supreme Court is.
The hardest part for me is remembering that just because someone trusts a traitor and a bad actor, that doesn’t mean they themselves are a traitor and a bad actor. People try to surround themselves with trustworthy sources of information, authentic people of good character who care about you and your family and truth, justice and the American way.
If you can fake that you’ve got it made ;)
Martin
@raven: The thing I keep returning to is a conversation I had with my black colleague I think after the Obama ’12 debate that he bombed.
Her take: black folks can’t afford to get caught up in optics, this shit is life and death.
My guess is it won’t matter in the end. I wanted the debate to help open the gap, and it won’t do that. Won’t sink it either.
satby
I’m off in a couple hours to a hectic day: helping a friend at the market this morning because their assistant has a funeral to go to, then driving into Chicago to have brunch with all my kids as #2 son is in town. Thank goodness for time zone adjustments 😆.
WereBear
@eclare: Our “monsoon season in the mountains” stage has passed, and properly placed fans, which look out on the shaded back, will suffice.
If we get an inversion with the humidity, we can usually go outside and get a break. But with active rain, it was like trying to breathe gauze. Turn on the a/c.
Dog Mom
That is a beautiful scene – Thank you for sharing. As for the debate, didn’t and couldn’t watch (no tv, at current temporary location – not missing it). One of the many things that should be made clear to people is that Biden assembled a really good, productive team that gets stuff done. Trump’s people – how many are felon’s now? How many have ethics scandals? How many are turned against him?
raven
@Martin: I read somewhere that if we lose it will call for more than pussy hats and silent demonstrations. I’ve been in a war and, if that’s what people think they want, I’m not sure how effective I would be since I can’t walk more than a block.
WereBear
This seems like a good thread to mention how I am upping my coffee game with “wetting the grounds” and a phone timer, total 4 minutes.
I order decaf/flavored from a local roaster, and Mr WereBear got me a double walled French Press to hold the heat in. A tap of sea salt and it is so smooth the cream (no sugar) just makes it better.
lowtechcyclist
@satby:
This. We know Biden can handle the Presidency because he’s been handling it, and has done easily the best job of any President in my 70-year lifetime. If he loses a step during his second term, he might drop down to the level of Obama or Clinton. And if the day comes when he needs to step down, I (like pretty much all the regulars here) have great confidence in Kamala Harris’ ability to pick up the torch and run with it.
(Minor quibble here: the President with the most consequential record since FDR was either LBJ or Reagan – just consequential in far from ideal ways. We’re still dealing with Reagan’s unfortunate legacy, of course, even as the GOP has moved so far right that they make Reagan look like a RINO. LBJ’s consequential legacy was more mixed, but a big part of it was his escalation of the war in Vietnam, so fuck LBJ.)
Martin
@satby: I think one of the more appealing things about Trump is his refusal to do the polite deference performative shit. Everything about the guy it shit, but he has a ‘lets get on with it’ aspect to him which is really appealing.
I’m not sure how it came to this, but for the most powerful country in the world, it kind of feels like the US government is purely ceremonial at this point. Nothing actually happens but every day there’s a set of scripted events that everyone goes through as a show for the camera. It’s goddamn terrifying. I really want a Dem who will roll in and knock all that shit off, dispense with the pleasantries, and get on with it.
Baud
@raven:
Why should I fight if people knew the danger and whiffed on it because the other guy was old?
satby
@lowtechcyclist: I love it when you mansplain, but consequencial is in the eye of the beholder. Neither LBJ nor Reagan came into office with a worldwide pandemic and the divisive results of a previous occupant’s attempt to provoke a coup.
Baud
@Martin:
That’s a really weird take since Trump accomplished nothing except tax cuts and Biden has had the most accomplishments since (fuck) LBJ.
ETA: Maybe you’re right that substance really is only for black folks.
NotMax
@Dog Mom
>
Obviously you have a computer and/or a smartphone capable of showing video..
Shalimar
I remain angry that I can’t watch or read much media anymore because it’s always so unrelentingly negative towards Democrats. They have been doing this with specific people for decades (the Clintons, Al Gore, Dukakis in his tank helmet) but it has gotten to the point where there is nothing else available.
Reading newspapers and magazines used to be a major part of my daily routine growing up. My parents were newspaper editors so I learned about journalistic ethics from a young age. It’s a major loss not to be able to trust any of them to be unbiased.
Barbara
@Martin: Like many other people — I suspect — I am exhausted by feeling like every election is so existential and I want a break — a feeling that is magnified because I never thought life would turn into such a sisyphean quest. I am not objectively worse off but it’s like we tricked ourselves that the top of the mountain is at the next turn, and no, it’s actually further than we thought. Whether it’s debt or some other burden, many people feel like this every day.
I have had some semblance of this feeling since 2010, and even more so since 2016. It’s bad enough that these ghouls are trying to spread chaos but I am not going to make their work easier for them.
Martin
@raven: I don’t think it’s a matter of what people want, but a matter of what becomes unavoidable. I think I’m on the same page as Adam on this. White nationalism isn’t going to go away quietly, not after 400 years of running the show.
Baud
@Barbara:
I agree. I think we’ve done ourselves a disservice by letting ourselves think progress would be something other than plodding and halting. When your expectation is revolutionary change, reality will be really frustrating.
raven
@Martin: Yea, I thought about that after I wrote it.
NotMax
@Baud
It’s been touch and go since the Yuppies’ abject failure to levitate the Pentagon.
:)
satby
@Baud: there are times when the white male privilege just screams. It’s been life or death for black people since they arrived on this continent; it took 100s of years and the attempts to suppress them now have increased.
It’s been life and death for LGTBQ+ people since forever, and attempts to legislate them out of existence have drastically increased after a small period of civil rights.
It’s been life and death for women all our lives, though there was a small respite from abject fear that pregnancy could kill you before the reversals picked up steam and finally triumphed.
White guys? They’ve been fine.
Barbara
@Baud: My daughter has ACA coverage. It is utterly self-indulgent and self-aggrandizing for us to see substance as only benefiting other people.
TBone
About Dotard referencing “Putin’s dream” during said debate, Heather Cox Richardson points out some chilling background:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/june-28-2024
Recommended reading today. Dotard always spills the (polonium) tea.
NotMax
Oh my. #34 fllub:
Yuppies’ = Yippies’
WereBear
@NotMax: The safe call, really.
p.a.
Of course the people have changed over time, but this is the same “media entity” that knew 2nd admin Reagan was falling deeper and deeper into Alzheimers and let his handlers cover it up. Fuck them.
Remember “Nancy consults her astrologer to help make government decisions?” Can’t remember if that slip came in real time or after Ronzo was out if office.
Dog Mom
@NotMax: I didn’t and don’t have the emotional or digital bandwidth for Trump.
satby
@satby: BTW, that was an answer to you but not directed at you.
Martin
@Baud: No, I agree there. His substance is complete garbage but there’s a sliver of the right affect there. I think Americans are really angry and I think there’s more agreement on the left and right about what we’re angry about than we admit – we just attribute the cause and remedy differently.
But Trump at least speaks to that anger in a way that Democrats don’t, because Democrats cannot help but say to rely on the system, while Trump says the system is corrupt. And it is corrupt, just not in the way he says. And I think Democrats assertion that the system is this self-correcting machine if only we vote right is lunacy. We’ve gotten fucking pants by USSC the last 2 days and I suspect Monday is going to put a cherry on that shit sundae. And we’re the ones that won. Checks and balances doesn’t work if you refuse to pick the goddamn stick up.
Here’s my theory on Biden not getting credit for the economy. It doesn’t matter if people are objectively better off than they were 4 years ago due to the economic measures if we’ve lost ground to the billionaires and corporations, because when that happens, it feels unfair. And it’s feeling that the system is unfair, even when you’re getting ahead, that we respond to. I mean, my house is now worth $1.7M and I’m legitimately angry about that because it’s wrong. It’s not remotely that nice of a house. It shouldn’t be literally impossible for the middle class to afford housing. And even though I won the lottery there, I’m pissed about it, because nobody is doing shit about it.
Yeah, Joe did a lot, but he didn’t change the sense of fairness. And I hate to say it but a lot of that goes back on Obama for not stringing up every banker after 2008. That just cemented this sense that you can’t get ahead from hard work because everyone else is cheating. You gotta cheat too. That’s a real strong current through the GOP, and it’s real similar to how a lot of Dems feel too.
TBone
@Baud: I understood your ETA as being high level snark.
I haven’t had my coffee yet though.
Martin
@satby: Yeah, I didn’t mean to suggest only black people have that view. I think a BIG part of the Democratic base does. It’s entitled white guys like me who don’t, but I’m the minority in the party (despite most of the nominees looking like me – that’s getting better)
Baud
@Martin:
The Supreme Court is because we didn’t win in 2016. That’s the lesson we should have learned but won’t.
I also think you’re dead wrong that people care about billionaires. People are upset about people beneath them in social status becoming more equal. Most people aren’t progressive and don’t have that outlook.
Baud
No Democrat will ever make people believe that the system is fair because the people are not united on what fairness means. They’re more united about taking out their anxiety on us.
Birdie
@Martin: To be honest, if you felt comfortable making that sort of judgement about someone’s career based on 15 minutes of observation, I feel sorry for the institution you worked for.
Lots of people mistake decisiveness for effectiveness. They aren’t the same thing.
HinTN
We had a fleeting Red Sky in the Morning here, which I hope presages rain. It’s desperately needed to counter this heat dome. Which I think has got a lot of salience for this bedwetting over one bad (but very public) night. Joe’s next day in NC was fine. He’s a smart guy. He’s too loyal by half to some crap advisors, he’s slow to ditch them, but HE learned from that shitshow. We should learn from him! Let it rain.
Baud
@TBone:
Yeah. Of course.
TBone
Tangential morning thought. Bees dance to convey detailed, precise information to each other. I can’t help wondering what all these birds are saying with their songs…
I would give up the ability to speak human language if I could fly on feathered wings. My songs would be ballads.
TBone
@Baud: thank you, coffee will kick in soon and I will be more confident in my reading comprehension. Confirmation appreciated.
NotMax
@TBone
Categorized as is the baroque (2:49 – 3:45).
;)
Betty Cracker
@TBone:
“Hey baybee, check ME out.”
satby
Sharing is caring 🙂:
@CavalierJohnson
On Tuesday November 5th, 2024, my birthday, I will have left for the day from my “Black job” as mayor of the largest, most populous, most diverse, most economically powerful city in the entire state of Wisconsin having voted in my fifth consecutive presidential election. I will have had voted for a man who is older, yes, but a man who is decent. Man who has character. A man who has spent his entire life in service to our country. A man who is a good role model to my son. A man who respects my wife and daughters. A man who won’t threaten democracy. A man who sees a future for all Americans. Joe Biden has never given up on the idea of America and, Joe Biden has never given up on us. Instead, Joe has constantly reminded us of how good we are as a people and as nation and that there is nothing beyond our capacity when we come together as one country. That’s the sort of leadership that we need for four more years. Let’s go, President @JoeBiden
Baud
@satby:
👍
Spanky
@raven: Us invisible old white guys become the intelligence arm.
HinTN
@TBone: Check out David Haskell, Sounds Wild and Broken. He’s a biologist whose research is really fascinating. Plus, he writes well.
https://dghaskell.com/
TBone
@NotMax: the filthy baroque is my style! 🤣❤️ PDQ
Ramalama
Betty, do you guys wear hats when outside at night? I’ve been finding myself getting worried about an owl attack to my scalp because…the thought just came to me and won’t leave? Maybe just seeing birds in my yard doing slow swoops as though they have built a nest nearby and I haven’t spotted it yet.
I know nothing about owls. I don’t know that I’ve heard them hoot here.
NotMax
@TBone
Marvelous German word coined by Karl von Frisch, who first described the honeybee rhumba: Schwänzeltanz.
HinTN
@Betty Cracker: That’s the gist of it!😎
TBone
@Betty Cracker: 🤣
I’m past the age of mating but still able to sing (I sound best in my own mind). I frequently ask hubby “What DID you do with the money your mom gave you for singing lessons?”
sab
@Betty Cracker: So true. LOL.
OT I love robins as sensible unassuming good parent birds. But at 5 am they are just loud birds who like to sing. Bird karoake. No particular talent except for volume.
TBone
@HinTN: thank you!
Winner, Acoustical Society of America’s 2023 Science Communication Award
HinTN
@Ramalama: They’re looking for something small and tasty not you. Their call is designed to put that small critter on edge enough to move. They see it and swoop in. You might accidentally get in the way but you’d have to be moving really fast for them not to vector off.
TBone
@NotMax: oh that’s a lovely word 💃
HinTN
@TBone: Enjoy! The Forest Unseen is a really nice read.
satby
Honestly, it’s a shame so many people bailed on Twitter; it’s just awash with resistance and Biden voters, and I think it would be a good balance to the panicking reactions. Plus the Black Twitter response to “Black jobs” is fantastic.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: Ds won in 2012, but couldn’t fill a SCOTUS vacancy in early 2016, well before the election, due to R filibuster. However, few people in the establishment, whether among D politicians, MSM, or think tank world really treated it as the dire challenge to Constitutional order that it represented, because everyone mistakenly believed HRC was going to win, anyway.
That missed the point.
TBone
@HinTN: 💚
sab
Closed on our new house and now we have to move.
Yikes! I used to move every few years. This time I haven’t moved for twenty five years and I have acquired a lot of stuff.
Fortunately the Humane Society thrift store is nearby
ETA OT Biden has been the best president of my lifetime. I am sorry he underperformed in his first debate. But since both of them have been in office as president that is what I judge. Biden blew TFG away in actual presidenting.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
There was too much confidence about Hillary winning, which is why people felt comfortable with a protest vote or staying home. Maybe Biden’s poor debate performance will help focus the collective mind.
TBone
@satby: 💙❤️💙
Ramalama
@Betty Cracker: swear to all things wholly but last month while I was putting away lawn beautification objects, the branch chopper, the wheelbarrow, the newly emptied grass catcher thing, the long fucking extension cord because we have an idiotic electric lawn mower which slows me the fck down but I hate gas lawn mowers because they’re always needing repairs and the repair guys around here have all shuttered their doors….I heard the early evening bird sing out like usual…only on really hot days, a part in the Dylan song, “Not Dark Yet but It’s Getting There,” which made me wonder if he, Bob Dylan, had lifted that part if the tune from a bird near him. What it would entail in terms of copyrights.
Barbara
@Martin: Sure. I live in a comparable location. The nub of housing issues is local. I show up to neighborhood meetings and make allies with people who think approximately the same way you do. We support local government candidates who think like we do. We need to see some successful examples of progress for it to start taking hold but no one is going to wave a magic wand.
Martin
@Birdie: Perhaps I wasn’t clear. I didn’t remove the instructor based on 15 minute evaluation, but after 4 months. My observation is that Biden’s affect put me right in that moment when I had to walk to the front of the classroom and escort him out because he’d just explained the same slide 3 times and didn’t realize it. It was not remotely his first slip that way. I wasn’t comparing their cognitive state, just that Biden transported me directly to that moment which made me sad and changed my perspective in a way that wasn’t making watching the debate helpful. I wasn’t expecting that to happen, it really caught me off guard. But it also reminded me that even though it was sad (I really liked him), that was my job and it was the necessary thing to do.
To be further clear, I’m not calling on Joe to be replaced. If that happens so be it. That’s not my job. If I had my druthers, I’d have him choose to not run for reelection, and throw his weight behind Kamala. That didn’t happen, can’t wind the clock back, we push through with Joe.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
This is wrong. Rs controlled the Senate. It wasn’t a filibuster.
Ramalama
@satby: the response by black ppl on Threads about their black jobs is pretty good, too.
rikyrah
@satby:
No lie told
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
sab
@Baud: On my bad person days I revel in the fact that all those silly young new voter women stuck it to the old bat Hillary and stayed home instead of voting. And now their lives are at risk when they decide to reproduce. Sucks to be you. Although you chose this.
rikyrah
@sab:
Glad to hear about the house. But, time to downsize🤗🤗
TBone
Am I the lonely debate watcher who never had a single thought about President Biden stepping down? I was cheering him on the whole time, praying that he would calm down, hit his stride, and land some jaw-breaking jabs. I was in utter shock that Dems & MSM reacted thusly – my shock turned quickly to rage. I’m still pretty het up about it. Turn tail and run? GTFOH!
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Raven
@Spanky: I’ll give you some intel, we’re fuckin surrounded here!
sab
@rikyrah: YES so much on downsizing! How did I acquire so much stuff I don’t need?
TBone
@sab: WTF, over.
Revelry at the cost of death. I don’t see it, even on bad person days.
Ramalama
@HinTN: so if I ever hear an owl hoot, the best course of action is to not move?
Only relevant for those times when I’m in a gremlin state standing two feet off the ground and weighing ten pounds, that is. Sometimes on a harvest moon, I turn myself into 2d.
Baud
@sab:
100% of my empathy is reserved for innocent Dem voters. Protecting them protects the free riders, but I don’t have to waste emotional resources on the free riders.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
“Assume a stick.”
Seriously, what stick have we had available to use on SCOTUS? While we had sorta complete control of Congress but with a 50-50 Senate that included Manchinema, what stick did we have then? How about now? Hearings, I suppose, but that’s more a Nerf bat than a stick.
And yesterday ArchTeryx was going on about how Biden just needs to tell the Supremes that he’s ignoring their decision, but the Federal government relies on the courts as the enforcement mechanism for any action it takes against private sector entities, or against states and localities. So that doesn’t work.
So what’s the stick? What am I missing here?
Martin
@Barbara: We don’t have to wait for the invisible hand to solve this. Public housing is a thing. HUD exists. Just fucking build housing. Before Reagan that’s what Democrats would have done. Hell, that’s that Republicans would have done.
Alternate plan, ban short term rentals in markets <insert metric for housing unaffordabilty> to start the process.
And fair warning, my city is building thousands of units per year – has added 170,000 people in the last 20 years – is as YIMBY as anywhere, and my house has still gone from $400K to $1.7M in that time. It is very possible that you couldn’t build enough local housing to make a dent. We sure haven’t. It helps, sure, but this problem is a lot bigger than people realize. And even with that, commercial vacancy is plummeting – new businesses are flying in which will demand even more housing. My city in their master plan is looking at no-car neighborhoods just to increase density enough to try and get ahead of things.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
The stick exists because it needs to exist to beat Dems over the head for not using it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: My mistake, but the R Senate refused to consider a SCOTUS nominee selected by a D president to fill a sudden vacancy, citing an non-sensible justification that no vacancy should be filled shortly before an election. & Obama did not select a radical firebrand, but a milquetoast moderate. That was a glaring sign that there was no norm the reactionaries would not breach in order to seize power wherever possible.
Then there were the efforts by R dominated state legislatures neutering the powers of governors as soon Ds won.
The system of governance in the US is falling apart because at least half of the people in positions of power are only interested in subverting & undermining governance, & are only interested in leveraging government institutions as means to suppress their enemies & advance their reactionary goals & interests. Too many of the other half would rather maintain their own institutional (parochial) prerogatives than treat the contest as a life or death struggle. That dynamic won’t change just because Ds win elections here & there. Ds have to stop being beholding to institutions that no longer function, but instead be willing do everything w/in the bounds of law to foil & constrain the reactionaries. Ds winning is not enough, we need more of the better Ds winning, too. That is the only way to defeat the reactionaries w/in the current Constitutional order.
If that still fails, we are going to face civil war. Even if it succeeds, we might still face civil war, because the reactionaries are not going quietly (just like they didn’t in 1861).
TBone
Lighten up, Francis mood music. Monday’s gonna SUCK, I’m having my weekend first!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge3s3QvRqco
I spent last night unexpectedly crying over my comfort food supper. Salty tears splashed on crab stuffed portobello mushroom caps.
I’m so glad I didn’t get shit faced drunk or drive to D.C. with a bullhorn on the Supremacists Courthouse steps.
Geminid
@TBone: A lot of Democrats stampeded, like they were Horses. Others understood that we’re Donkeys, and Donkeys hold their ground.
rikyrah
LarryO on the debate
https://youtu.be/GgjyHwQOUoo
Martin
@lowtechcyclist: Well, the Senate can exercise their subpoena authority to get Roberts into address the ethics and recusal issues, and can haul Thomas in to explain the $4M. They don’t have to accept ‘no’ as an answer, because USSC sure as fuck isn’t. Garland can indict the motherfucker too. It’s not like the GOP wouldn’t if the situation were reversed.
Back in 2016 I was the guy that said that Obama should just tell Garland to put on his robe and show up – the senate abdicated their advice and consent responsibility. What was USSC going to do about it?
Given the choice between a constitutional crisis and simply rolling over for the GOP, let’s try the constitutional crisis path and see how that works out? Because we’ve seen the alternative and it’s bullshit.
And the federal courts don’t generally have jurisdiction over state matters, so start working with blue states to implement this shit at the state level where you do have courts that can enforce, and make the Supreme Court waste their time on supremacy clause issues for every single one of them. In the years before those cases get there, we at least get something done.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
I think our elected Ds have gotten a lot better over the last 15 years. God willing, if we hold the Senate, it’ll be the best Senate in decades. The big problem is the filibuster. If we have trifecta, it has to go. Congress needs to be more active given the reactionary Supreme Court, which obstructioniat Republican Senators are more than happy to hide behind to accomplish their policy goals.
Betty Cracker
@Ramalama: We don’t worry about owls attacking us, but when Pete was a puppy and I was taking him outside at night for potty training, I worried a lot about an owl swooping in to carry him off. He was so tiny then.
TBone
@Geminid: I fukn love that, I am a stubborn, old mule! I bray! 😍
sab
OT Moving next month. New yard is chock full of poison ivy and I am extremely allergic. Should be fun.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: we have osprey, large hawks, and bald eagles. The small birds shout songs of warning to each other, and I get any outside cats indoors in a hurry!
Once, a huge hawk came barrelling down into our yard a few feet away (missed his intended squirrel) and Rumpy neighbors’ then teenaged son face went white and he immediately turned tail and went home 😆
Th wingspan was seriously impressive.
sab
@TBone: They didn’t care when they didn’t realize they were the ones at risk.
Suzanne
@Martin:
This is where I am. We have to push through now.
I do think there’s value in recognizing that this is a terrible situation for the party — and America — to be in, and that this is a cautionary tale. I wish Joe had opted, say, six months ago to decline to run again.
I think all the “do you have Biden’s back?!” rhetoric is ridiculous. I don’t owe him anything. Stop it. I think there’s also a fair amount of gaslighting and projection happening, trying to assure me that he’s sharp as a tack. I find the whole line of argument about, “You think he’s frail? You must never have spent time around old people!” absolutely ridiculous.
I grew up living in the same house with my grandparents, while my mom cared for them in their old age. (Neither of them made it to Joe’s age, or my 18th birthday.) They both developed health problems for years. They had good days and bad days, and the bad days became more frequent. Joe is older than my uncle, who has Lewy body dementia. Older than my aunt, who is struggling to regain mobility after a fall on the stairs. Older than SuzMom, who has some aphasia after a bout with encephalitis. It is precisely because I have seen aging that this pisses me off. Look, Joe had a bad day on Thursday, yeah? Because of a cold? Holy shit. If you are that thrown for a loop by a cold, then yes, I think you’re probably not in a great position for the rigors of the most difficult job in the world. If the argument is that Kamala is ready to step in at any moment, then we should have had her step in now.
TBone
@sab: that’s why I have sympathy – like I would for any “dumb” animal. But I suppose that’s because I have lady parts and was once young and dumb myself.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
How do people have any idea whether they’re gaining or losing ground compared to billionaires? How many people look at the Forbes 400 and have any idea of how those numbers compare to those of last year or a few years ago? And even if one did, comparing that to one’s own life would be like evaluating a hike through the mountains in terms of your distance from the space station.
Agreed, and I don’t hate to say it at all, because I was on Team Atrios about this in real time. ‘Negotiating with himself’ or being snowed by Larry Summers to propose a stimulus that was already too small before Susan Collins et al. shrunk it even further, resulting in a recovery that was too slow (and reached its fruition just in time for Trump to be the beneficiary, dammitall), combined with “look forward, not back” and making no attempt to find anything to prosecute the banksters over, while millions of homeowners were being foreclosed on, and all too little attempt to get them any relief. Had the banksters dead to rights on robosigning, but Obama’s DoJ engineered a multi-state settlement that pretty much took them off the hook. Hopey changey transformational talk, but too much of the same old same old.
Yeah, I can still get pissed off over that. Compared to that, Biden looks great because he really IS helping the bottom 50%. Yeah, it would be nice if he could tax the rich the way they ought to be taxed, but again, see Manchinema. If we still have Biden and 50 Senators in January, maybe we can do something about that, but first we gotta get there.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
LOL!
Yeah, pretty much.
Another Scott
@raven: Didn’t we recently go through a pandemic where the world saw the power of people staying home??
There are lots and lots of ways to fight the monsters. Voting the monsters out is an important one.
Hang in there, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
HinTN
@Ramalama: Not at all. Once I was out at the edge of my open field at dusk. I looked up at the mountainside and just picked out the owl skimming down toward the field. It went right over my head to cruise for supper. Perfectly silent!
My reference to speed and getting in the way: Mrs H and I were driving with the windows open on a summer day. Going about 50 mph. THUMP !?!? Stopped and discovered a hawk stunned dead in the back seat. Determined that we had intersected his stoop on something in the swamp on the far side of the road and he came in the rear passenger window and impacted the inside of the rear window because laws of motion. We were REALLY glad to be lucky that it was the rear passenger window that was where the time/space coordinates lined up the two bodies. He just couldn’t vector away even if he saw us, which he probably didn’t, being focused on prey.
Baud
@TBone:
I would like us to start treating adults like adults with adult responsibilities and adult agency.
HinTN
@Baud: Dreamer! You don’t get out much, do you?
Suzanne
@Martin:
This is true.
I read one estimate from a think-tank that suggested that — in order to have a genuinely well-functioning housing market — America would need 75 million more housing units.
I can only assume that this involves a fairly high assumption for a vacancy rate, in order to have enough slack in the market in order to allow people to easily move across locations, trade up and downsize, allow for more single-person households, replace aging housing stock, etc.
satby
@sab: yeah, I had been telling young women for more than 20 years the reactionaries would roll back abortion AND birth control as soon as they could, and got a “sure, crazy old hippie lady” for my efforts. Almost universally.
FAFO is an equal opportunity bitch. But I wasn’t happy to be proven correct. Just frustrated that in spite of that OBVIOUS historical lesson, people still are refusing to learn the other lessons history is waiting to teach us, good and hard.
Baud
@HinTN:
Yeah, I know. Liberal infrastructure policy is all about manufacturing excuses for people.
lowtechcyclist
@YY_Sima Qian:
It sure did. McTurtle openly said in 2016 that he wasn’t going to let Hillary put anyone on SCOTUS while she was President, and that really was a straight-up challenge to the Constitutional order. And there was no media outrage over this.
If Hillary had won in 2016, whoever won the 2020 election was going to inherit a Supreme Court with a 4-3 Republican majority (Anthony Kennedy would not have retired), and the media would have shrugged.
satby
@Baud: yeah, exactly. These are adults, with agency. Not dumb animals. How patronizing is that?
@TBone: please spare me a response. Don’t want to hear it.
Another Scott
@Martin: You can’t fix a problem if you don’t understand the problem. You know this.
Nice rant, but what does the federal government and a Democrat in the White House have to do with local zoning and California’s broken property tax rules??
(Of course there are a few things that the FED and the federal government can do to help a little, but it’s fundamentally not a federal issue.)
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: It’s not just Sinemanchin among Dems that wanted to keep the filibuster, they were just fronting for at least half a dozen others.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
No lie told, as rikyrah would say.
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
Lots of people — including myself — can see that we are working hard, getting raises, and yet not really making significant advances in lifestyle.
In March 2010, Mr. Suzanne and I bought a house and right around that time, I got my first job in architecture. As on March 2024, I have tripled first my salary (Mr. Suzanne, as a public educator, has had a much less steep upward slope).. The house is worth almost 6x what we paid for it. I have lost ground.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
There were others resisting complete elimination of the filibuster. I think we could have gotten carve outs for democracy or abortion bills if it wasn’t for those two.
Even in the next Congress, I’m concerned about people like Angus King, who is an independent.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: In the name of lightening up, courtesy Hal Sparks, trump sharts on live tv.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpFOg8sn8eQ
kalakal
@TBone: There’s at least 2 of us.
It’s a ridiculous idea that would hand TFG and the GQP the election on a silver platter. As for the bobble heads on TV I’ve always considered them to be the sort of people who talk very loudly in restaurants.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: I don’t give a shit about anything but Democrats beating Trump and Republicans in November. If Biden gives us the best shot at that (and right now, I still think he does), I’m for Biden. If I thought someone else gave us a better shot, I’d be for that person. I’m unsentimental that way.
Ramalama
@rikyrah: Thank you. I feel better.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I agree with you and I’m also unsentimental in that way, but the one caveat is that you have to take account of the disruption of a transition. It’s not as if most of these people are clamoring for the obvious replacement, which is Kamala.
If there were an universally agreed on stand in who clearly polled better than Biden against Trump, the conversation would be different. But as it is, it’s all abstract griping.
TBone
@Baud: eighteen year old “women” are still girls, in many cases. I was one of those cases.
I have the pictures to prove it.
TBone
@kalakal: 💙❤️💙
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: my inner 18 y o. thanks you! 😆
Joe musta been struggling with the stench! I hope he slathered Vicks under his nostrils!
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: If you are talking about eliminating the filibuster entirely, I wouldn’t be surprised if 10 or 12 Democratic Senators would be opposed.
Filibuster carve-outs are a different matter, and Democrats in the next Congress ought to be able to muster 50 votes for carve- outs in areas like abortion rights and voting rights. That’s assuming we have 50 Senators in the next Congress.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
Roberts would have instructed his secretary to inform the security guards to not let Garland into the parts of the Supreme Court building that are for Justices only, and that would have been that.
How does the ‘haul Thomas in’ part work? Do you think the Senate cops are going to fight the Supreme Court cops in order to get to Thomas so they can grab him and haul him in?
On what grounds? The bribery statutes haven’t meant much since McDonnell, and they mean even less after this week.
I hate to say this, because you’re an intelligent commenter that I’ve got a lot of respect for, but you’re approaching ‘one weird trick’ territory here.
stacib
@TBone: I’m still so mad at all of the “liberal” journalists, this morning is the first time I’ve looked at MSNBC since about 20 minutes after the debate ended. Every single person on their panel jumped right to Biden must resign. Alex Wagner (who I generally like), Rachel Maddow, Nicole Wallace and Joy-Ann Reid were the absolute worst! It took Michael Steele, flippin’ Michael Steele, to say to Democrats to get their shit together that made me tune in this morning. Biden had a horrible 30 minutes, and folks are ready to bail (even though not a single one has a viable person to replace him). I just can’t do them right now – probably never.
TBone
🎶 😘 it’s weekending here
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eeWtjx4XAJk
narya
@satby: IF–and that is a huge damn IF–we get through the next year or two, with various states enshrining choice, ideally with nationwide legislation and repealing Comstock at minimum, then we will have improved on what our status was under Roe. It’s not just that Roe was always a bit of a patchwork; it’s also that a lot of people thought abortion was icky and not to be mentioned in polite company. The past two years have radicalized a lot of folks AND helped many people see the myriad problems with legislating pregnancy, etc.. Also, when Roe was decided, women still had so many limits on their agency (getting credit, getting into many professions); that has changed. Not enough, but changed. We could come out of this better than we were under Roe.
It’s a mighty big IF, and given the USSC power grab, I’m not confident, but I’m gonna do what I can.
MagdaInBlack
@stacib: I’m with you. Biden had one bad debate vs trump is a raving lunatic convicted criminal, lets bail on Biden. WTF is that bs?
Chief Oshkosh
@Martin:
Same here. The thing is, I think we are facing existential threats – e.g., global weather change and the rise of authoritarianism/fascism (included here are MAGA/Trump/GOP/Federalist Society, Putin, China, many others).
Biden has been making seismic changes while coloring within the lines. That’s great for the long-term. He has been amazing in that regard. But will we make it to the long-term? He has people in key positions who are simply too cautious. They’re great, but they’re wrong for the times. Overall, though, the Executive is punching way above its weight. Biden et al. can only do so much. We don’t have the House and over in the Senate…we have Dick Durbin wringing his hands. Schumer’s been better than I’d predicted, but then, I had low expectations for him.
But none if this matters now. We’re down to the last 4 months. That’s it. We have to be ALL IN with the team we have right now.
H.E. Wolf, if you’re out there, please post your list of activities again! You’ve even got my wife writing postcards – and that is NOT her thing! :)
And I’ve sent posts from this site to friends and family, and have gotten at least three sets of them to give more money to Democrats and to start to explore volunteering at some level.
We ARE facing existential threats and we DO have some team leaders that recognize this, but don’t always know what to do about it. We have to HELP them help us.
I don’t see other options.
TBone
@stacib: I hear you! I’m not able to listen to any of it, or I’d be throwing shoes like they were Dubya speechifying at a podium!
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: If members of the Senate (especially the Rs) are going to behave as Parliamentary parties, then institutional rules should reflect that reality.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: 👍
Grow a pair!
(of ovaries as someone said here yesterday)
💙😆
No one is getting a pony!
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: EXCELLENT! THANK YOU!
Rileys Enabler
I’m tired and worried sick as any woman in America has cause to be. Abortion and no-fault divorce saved my life. The ACA saved my life. The regulations that the EPA and other entities have enforced have all contributed to making my life livable. Losing these- or the imminent threat of losing them- is devastating.
The debate wasn’t what I’d hoped, but the number of people here and in the world who want to turn tail and do anything! Anything else! Right now! Like a toddler denied- was/is exasperating. I’m relieved to see cooler heads here today.
Deep breath, gird the loins and focus on the real shit that matters. We have what we have and we make the very best of it and work to make it better.
Thank you to the calm, sane voices. I know we are all tired and worried sick, but we’ve got work to do.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: The Lawrence O’Donnell video that rikyrah linked lays it all out. The person who polls best is Kamala. But it would be suicidal.
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh: I’d go even further.
These days, if something is not treated as an “existential threat” it doesn’t get addressed at all. There are so many big problems, so many important things demanding attention, and so few hours in the day, that only the “existential threats” get addressed.
And those “existential threat” things only get done (where done == incremental progress) when, as Mayhew taught us, there are 218 / 60 / 5 / 1 votes for it.
There is no One Weird Trick. There is no President Camacho that is going to fix things on his say so. The way things get done to address “existential threats” is the grinding, frustrating, slow, give-and-take process of politics. That’s the way we solve collective problems.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I’m an anti-filibuster voter and would not support a primary candidate who refused to consider abolishing it. Filibuster-philes who were hiding behind Sinemanchin’s skirts need to be smoked out and pressured to change their minds, IMO. The filibuster undermines democracy by disconnecting votes from policy changes.
Ksmiami
@satby: Native Americans would like a word in your diatribe…
evodevo
@TBone: Sorry…birds are declaring their territorial boundaries, and warning others of the same species to keep off, and also announcing that they are physically fit and well enough to sing loudly (“Look at me, honey! I can father healthy chicks and defend them!!) You will notice that the early morning songs by a single bird are sung from high perches at the borders of their claimed stake – same approximate places every day during the breeding season. And that they don’t really react to a different species wandering by. Different species will get into disagreements at the bird feeder, but otherwise they ignore others (except when crows or jays are near – big threat to nestlings).
Barbara
@Chief Oshkosh: I have been impressed by the executive branch actions. Biden is less cautious and way savvier than Obama in pulling institutional levers. He’s also less swayed by credentials and put in people like Buttigieg who have really overperformed. HHS hasn’t changed as much but partly this is because Covid had destabilized a lot of providers, so there is more caution about forcing too much adaptation. SCOTUS is corrupt. There’s no getting around that, but I actually think Biden is likely to be wilier and smarter about how to effectuate change than any other name I’ve heard so far. Obama and Clinton had to overcome ignorance of how to navigate the federal government. Joe gets it.
TBone
We’ll just know 😆❤️🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KKSmHOUaqaQ
Frankensteinbeck
The early poll results say the debate moved opinions slightly in Biden’s favor. All of this wailing and panic is from people whose minds were already made up and were ignoring Trump.
Trump shit the bed much worse than Biden. He came off as an evil, deranged liar and among other things spit in the face of Latino voters. Undecideds loathed him.
I’ll add that if you tapped out in panic after 20 minutes you did not actually watch the debate.
Step out of the liberal and media bubble. For all Biden’s performance was terrible, we won.
Baud
@TBone:
Then we should join the GOP in raising the voting age.
ETA: And we should absolutely tell Dems not to chase young voters.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: Those Democratic Senators may not see it that way. In any event, nothing will be decided until after the election. If Democrats maintain a majority or at least a 50-50 tie, they’ll decide what the new rules package will be.
I suspect there won’t be nearly 50 votes for filibuster elimination, and that pro-elimination Senators won’t make a big public fight about it. Instead they’ll start working up bills that might be passed through carve-outs, anticipating that Speaker Jeffries and House Democrats will pass similar legislation.
That’s assuming Democrats will retake the House, but I consider that very likely. Right now though, I think that retaining control of the Senate is a 50-50 proposition.
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: reducing the Court’s jurisdiction as its power has grown way beyond the Founders’ Intent. After all, we could hang the Justices on their own originalism argument. Or burning it to the ground- at this point, it’s a failed and dangerous institution.
Chief Oshkosh
@Martin:
Thanks for reminding me of that. I live in a world of attorneys. Most of them — actually, ALL of them — recoiled when I first mentioned your suggestion. However, after thinking about it over several days (I was stuck at a conference with them), many of them ended up agreeing, and others at least reached the point of “hey, there’s actually no rule against that.”
Frankensteinbeck
Let me repeat: This isn’t just ‘stay the course it will be okay’. We won. Everybody but us and the punditry watched Trump and came away repulsed. I assume MAGA loved him but who cares? The polls and focus groups don’t show some loss we need to get over. We won.
DougL
@Martin:
If you had a blog I would read it. You make so many great points but I feel so strongly this is the key. We all feel the system is rigged (to use a word) by the billionaires and corps. They NEVER lose. Hard to stay in the fight when you feel it’s ultimately a fixed game. Trump exploits that sense we all have. FDR was great bc he changed that sense of the system being rigged. How do we un-rig it again is the only real political question.
MomSense
@raven:
It was really bad and if people didn’t watch it or couldn’t watch the whole thing because it was so awful that is a tell.
MagdaInBlack
@Frankensteinbeck: Thank you ❤️
Baud
@Frankensteinbeck:
Will you marry me?
stinger
Our candidate is old. Their candidate is awaiting sentencing for 34 felonies. We’re not the ones who should be looking for a new candidate.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
I co-sign all of this, but I also just have a general desire for accurate reads of situations. I think that his age and fitness have been obvious liabilities and that there has been resistance to acknowledging that for a few reasons…. Not least of which is Boomer white guys’ egos, who want to see themselves reflected in leadership.
Nancy Pelosi has a ton of my respect for how she has handled this transition in her career.
jimmiraybob
@stacib:
Has Latte Sipping Surrender Monkey been coined yet?
“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink ….” so on and so forth, etc. I would add women’s souls to the mix.
– written from Thomas Eagleton Country
YY_Sima Qian
Also we need keep in mind that the populist reactionary turn is global, not just a U.S. phenomenon or a Western or developed world phenomenon. There are much greater socioeconomic forces at play, & that is downstream of decades of Neoliberal economics & excessive financialization of capitalism, all to the benefit of global capital owners at the expense of everyone else. The growth in headline nominal GDP does not necessarily translate into improved standard of living or quality of life. How much of the U.S. GDP is health care & legal/financial services, & how well do they translate to better outcomes? (Also will do jack sh*t when it comes to war making capacity in the event of Great Power war.)
The decades long trend in automation & the new trend in AI will further suppress labor. The IRA & CHIPS+ has precipitated a wave of investment into manufacturing, but all told they are not like to generate a lot of jobs because semiconductors & green tech are all capital intensive & highly automated industries. & the U.S. has a dire shortage of the technical professionals needed for these automated operations, which the U.S. immigration policy is not helping. A lot of people’s employment have fallen into informal gig types, vulnerable to exploitation. All of the positive economic indicators mask the underlying sense of scarcity & precarity, creating anxiety & anger.
Most people still have complex motivations, & are driven by a variety of concerns. A 3rd of the U.S. population may be committed Herrenvolk nationalists or religio-Fascists. However, they is still another 3rd who go w/ the flow, even if that flow is toward Herrenvolk nationalism & religio-Fascism, as long as they believe their anxieties & insecurities could be alleviated. We need to the 2nd group by addressing their anxieties w/o resorting to Herrenvolk nationalism or religio-Fascism.”, if we are to defeat the 1st group. (BTW, Great Power Competition w/ the “inscrutable” Other is sure to feed Herrenvolk nationalism & reactionary politics, & using military Keynesianism & economic nationalism to replace Neoliberalism will do the same, while not addressing working class precarity.)
As I’ve said elsewhere, in this populist anti-establishment moment, the center will not hold for long. Either the Progressive Left or the Reactionary Right will take advantage, we can’t let history repeat & allow the Reactionary Right to dominate. That means we need socioeconomic policies that address working class precarity, that means social democracy & perhaps even socialism. Furthermore, preventing the worse AGW & mitigating the worse consequences of the AGW that is already baked in will require immense state capacity & direct state intervention, both to deploy green energy as at massive scale, & to build new infrastructure at a massive scale to adjust to changes in the living environment.
E/SE Asia might have been a partial exception to the trend (because few economies in the region fully bought into the Neoliberal Washington Consensus, certainly balked after the Asian Financial Crisis), but only partial.
jimmiraybob
@Suzanne:
“…but I also just have a general desire for accurate reads of situations.”
Here’s my read, if I trusted the team to govern the country for going on four years now, and I think they’ve done a damn good job, then I trust them when they say they are fit and ready for a second round.
Kamala is already on the ballot and I would trust her to preserve the Obama-Biden legacy should she have to step up.
Suzanne
@jimmiraybob: Yeah, I don’t think that. At all. I think there are very human tendencies at play — as with Ginsburg — and that can lead to bad decision-making.
There are lots of people who were really good at complex jobs who had terrible personal lives, and vice versa.
Layer8Problem
@jimmiraybob: “Has Latte Sipping Surrender Monkey been coined yet?”
It sure as hell has now, and I’m stealing it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: I am sure those D senators don’t, that is why we need better Ds in addition to more Ds.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: Sunday’s French elections could provide some good data points in this area.
Speaking of elections, I wonder who won Iran’s Presidential election, and what the turnout was like.
TBone
@NotMax: 💜
zhena gogolia
@Frankensteinbeck: Thank you so much. I did feel in the part I was able to watch that Trump was repulsive, but I always feel that way!
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Well, it’s not looking good. The big questions is whether the non-Fascists can coalesce again in the 2nd round to narrowly deny Le Pen. However, Macron & his coterie has spent the campaign inveigling that both the left wing Popular Front & the right wing National Rally are equally threatening. I don’t think that “center” will hold. & even if it did this time, how about the next time?
In the meantime, top CDU politicians in Germany are playing footsie w/ the AfD.
I will not place my faith in the so called “center”, perhaps not even “center-left” or “center-right”, unless they are willing ally w/ the Left to form a true popular front.
jimmiraybob
@Suzanne:
“… can lead to bad decision-making.”
In risk evaluation you have to place a value on “can”, in the case of Team Joe*, versus “will absolutely happen”, in the case of Team Felonious Sex Assaulter Destroys American Liberal Democracy.
*or Team Anybody
schrodingers_cat
It is laughable that people who find it onerous to vote and stand by the President who has delivered on their priorities are going to successfully lead a violent revolution. These are the same people who think that registering to vote at the DMV is difficult. Who are willing to throw the rest of the D coalition under the bus at a minute’s notice for a perceived slight.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: I saw the whole thing, Biden was havinng a bad day and his voice was breaking initially. But Trump looked and sounded like he had escaped a lunatic asylum. He said things like, we had the best water it was clear (or something pretty close). He sounded completely unhinged.
jimmiraybob
@schrodingers_cat:
I think that the shear volume, magnitude and outrageousness of The Felon’s lies would have stunned anybody into looking bewildered. If Biden had given up and walked off stage that would be one thing but to stick with it and start to recover actually showed strength and determination.
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh:
Er…
USCourts.gov:
Wikipedia.org:
They can’t legally get a commission without a successful Senate vote. They can’t legally be a Justice without taking the two oaths. And on and on. A president might decide to make a fake commission because of Senate intransigence, but the SCOTUS could just say, nope, no Senate approval, invalid, no oaths.
There is, as always, no One Weird Trick.
Of course, lawyers can argue either side of any issue. It’s what they’re trained and paid to do.
IANAL.
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@Geminid: So I looked at headlines, and Iran’s Presidential election will go to a runoff July 5th between the top two contenders. There was record low turnout.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Are both hardliners? Low turnout is not surprising.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: One is said to be a reformer, a Khatami-type.
Gvg
@p.a.: it was widely reported when he was in office to my disdainful kid memory. I did not pay much attention to them out of office. I also recall disapproving of how much she spent on stuff like dishes and decorating the whitehouse. Her kook advisors were widely known and reported, not hidden.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: If one is a Khatami type & there is still low turn out, then the regime’s government system has really lost legitimacy.
Gvg
@Martin: why would you ban short term rentals? I live in a University town with a teaching host hat people get sent to from the whole state when the local can’t handle it. This means sometimes students need just one more semester rent, or if a roommate arrangement goes bad, quick housing for part of a semester. It also means families from out of town want a month or two housing because hotels are too much. They are not a big share of the market around here anyway, so why would banning them change anything anyway? I think it must make some sense in your locality, but it doesn’t here.
Rents were up last year and are still probably too high, but are coming down and there are houses on the market that aren’t selling fast. Prices are beginning to drop as sellers start to accept they aren’t going to get the rich prices earlier lucky sellers did….that is here. Also there are houses being built. I worry about the roads not being widened enough but all towns and cities seem to do that too slow. It’s a people problem.
Gvg
@sab: use goats on poison ivy if you can. Are there nice things to save? If not hire goats before you go in the yard.
if you can’t hire goats I would still hire someone to do the first round if you are allergic. That’s pretty serious. My mom is and I have seen the results.
George
@Tony Jay:
Your second point is especially relevant. There is a level of malignant narcissism that has infected the institutions you mention. Or maybe the way the news commenting and delivery systems are structured, malignant narcissism is the intended outcome.
Any and all half-assed proposals–such as replacing Biden–are entertained and discussed at length, but no one proposing such things ever is called upon to defend the likely outcome of such a proposal. If Biden were to be replaced now and the Democrats got smoked in the election, the punditocracy would shrug and say that the Democrats waited too long to do the deed. Had Biden stepped down last year and someone else were the party’s nominee and got smoked in the election, pundits would question why the Democrats turned their backs on the most effective and accomplished president in recent memory.
It’s the ol’ “heads I win, tails you lose” strategy, and no one in the media has the balls to call out the morons who are spouting their nonsense.
Whatever the case, though, the narcissists never expect that they will be the ones impacted by their negative behavior. At least not until an angry mob grabs them and takes them to a service station somewhere in Milan.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I think the Iranian political establishment has lost legitimacy in the eyes of most Iranians. I’m not sure how they’ll get that back, or if they can. The regime is leaning heavily into its role as leader of the “Axis of Resistance” against “the Zionist entity,” but ordinary Iranian citizens don’t materially benefit from this, and some blame Iran’s foreign adventures for their lack of economic activity. Iran has a very young populace that’s grown up with the internet, and they can tell they’re missing out on their potential.
Ruckus
@JWR:
I take it you didn’t enlist in the Navy….
On your second part, the almost two humans running for president, Joe Biden, and that semi human thing opposing him, I’m still trying to grasp how anyone can think that disaster of a human can be good for anyone and that he actually ever got elected once. Does not speak well of humanity. Nor conservatism. I’m also sure that the republican party has long since lost it’s way, as I’ve been following politics for decades and we’ve had a number of republican presidents, all of whom had rather weird views of what humanity does or should look like, none of them are where SFB is on the scale of humanity. So I’ll ask the question, what the hell happened to the republican party and can anyone tell me what they hell they are smoking? They all, or at least far too many of them seem to have decided that they do not want to belong to the human race, either that or they think there is some sort of race to the bottom of everything. Is money so important to them that they will accept a lying disaster of epic proportions as their “leader”? Or do they think that fucking over everything might make them richer? Or do they think that any human this far from normalcy can screw up everything so bad that they can become even richer? Because I’m having a rather tough time with the concept that anyone can see anything positive whatsoever with SFB anywhere near even the concept of power.
Ruckus
@satby:
We democrats see, if not all sides, at least the larger sides and what they mean, both good and bad. rethuglicans see only two sides, the monetary one and what does it mean for them and the control side and how it allows them to be on top. If they thought it would help them, they’d elect the Crips gang to run the country. Come to think of it, that may actually be their concept of leadership and monetary domination.
TBone
@evodevo: did you just explain birds to me? Really???
TBone
@Baud: Al Franken? Issat you?
😆
The adult teachers in this video 😂
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KKSmHOUaqaQ
And the walkout at the end *chef’s kiss
Queen of Lurkers
@Suzanne: Agree with your assessment (and @Martin). I don’t watch debates; the hubby does. On Thursday, we were hurrying back from an engagement so he could watch. I heard the first few moments of Biden’s first answer. It was stomach-churning. After that, I literally closed my ears. (I never want to hear the felonious imbecile’s voice anyway.)
When we got home, I happened to watch Twelve Final Days, an obviously crafted/curated documentary about Federer’s retirement. It was an object lesson in how to bow out gracefully, in choreographed fashion.
It’s impossible for me to not make a comparison. Like most people who visit this site, I admire Biden for what he has achieved. But I am also forever wary of hubris, RBG being a case in point. So I wish Biden had pulled a Federer last fall. But since he didn’t, one can only keep one’s fingers crossed and hope his health and stamina are really up to the rigors of governing and campaigning.
The next few months will be very, very stressful.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Over my lifetime the sides have become farther and farther apart. My quick, simple take is that conservatives want structure so that life is easier to understand and easier to live. Liberals are willing to have far more freedom to choose your own path. And in my lifetime the number of paths has increased exponentially. Conservatives see change as bad. I’m not sure why but that seems to me to be their view. One of the main problems with their view is that change is eventual and can be good or bad. Liberals see it as good, conservatives see it as bad and the reason they do is that choice and change often have bad consequences because humans will often make bad choices. They do, because they chose to never change or grow. But change and growth are, and always will be a part of life. That word is evolution. And one can see this if one looks at all. The change in life over my time on this rock has been just a tad amazing. And yet if one has their head up their exit port, life looks like shit, because that’s not a normal view. And life is more complicated and far better than it was. But if change scares the hell out of one then they will not want change, inevitable as it may be.
Ruckus
@satby:
Has any previous WH occupant come into office with all that? I mean we’ve had wars -(I know I served during one – along with millions of others), we’ve had depressions, we’ve had growth and hate and, and, and …..
It’s life, it’s not scripted (what conservatives think it should be, because that might be more understandable and simpler) We have to roll with it or get run over, give it some understandable structure and allow it to happen. But some humans want it to be Leave It To Beaver, and it isn’t a TV show. It’s life, it’s good, it’s bad, it’s great, it’s horrible. It’s life, it isn’t a simple short story, it’s often complete crap, it is often beautiful, stunning, fun, and then the sun goes down/comes back up and it’s another day. What’s that old saying – “Come what may.” We have very little control over it, we can enjoy it or hate it and sure, some of the surprises are not good.
My entire point is that it seems that humans, on a broad scale have two visions of life, 1. It’s great, with some shit along the way to let you know that it’s life, 2. It is scary because no one knows what tomorrow will bring. My take is that liberals want to take it as it comes and conservatives have to have so much structure so they don’t ever have to really decide anything, likely because they might be wrong.
Ruckus
@TBone:
Think of it from a different direction.
SFB is likely to lose, if for no other reason than he is declining rather rapidly. I am the oldest left in my extended family, all moms and dads are gone, and I’m the only one left in my family of 5. I’ve watched a not insignificant number of people decline in my lifetime and it is about 1 out of 4 paths. Quiet and peaceful, hospital and illness, loud and pissed, your number is up. (The last one is when it is totally unexpected) With modern medicine there are fewer #4.
But SFB is likely to lose some support if he is a deranged as I’ve heard. His rallies seem to be getting worse, hard as that is to believe, but then public derangement is often eye opening for those that actually wake up enough to see it.
Martin
@Suzanne: Right. Biden gets you a $500/mo raise and you landlord raises your rent $600. I can say Biden fought for me, put money in my pocket and some fucking landlord, who’s costs sure as shit didn’t go up $600 took it from me simply because he had the power to do so because between being homeless and handing up my raise, I’m handing up my raise.
Half this country pays rent, and while there is a share of individuals who are landlords and I’m sure a lot of them are fine landlords, I also know a LOT of people where that is their ‘job’. The couple of properties they happened to buy when they were cheap are now throwing off $5K a month, taxes and maintenance is under $1K, and they pocket the rest. Their software tells them every year how much to raise rent. My neighbor, a senior software engineer who happens to be pretty shit with money, is leaving next month because they can’t afford the $600 increase they just got hit with. I know the owner of that house. I know she paid $120K for that house and will be collecting $6200/mo on it. She’ll find a tenant instantly.
They don’t know where they’ll go. They’ve been on waiting lists for a few months now and haven’t had a single application accepted.
And that doesn’t even speak to Sanguophage Private Equity or whoever when they’re your landlord. Yeah, people have a pretty keen sense of when they’re getting fucked over. I don’t think we need to spell that out for them.
@Another Scott: The fed could lean in on CAs builders remedy. Half the communities in the state still don’t have an approved housing plan, and the state allows for builders to step in and bypass zoning to build. The approvals for that construction are made by the state, overruling local governments, per state law. It’s one thing when big land developer comes in and wants to build luxury condos with 20% affordable units there how amenable the state is to that plan, it’d be something else entirely if HUD showed up with a plan for 100% affordable housing, and twice as many units because these are utilitarian housing. HUD doesn’t even need to eminent domain – the property is right there for them to buy. I think the state housing authority would have a pretty hard time telling the federal government no, particularly when that’s always going to be the option that most closely aligns with the states goal of getting low income/starter housing which is what gets people off the street.
Ramalama
@HinTN: That is quite a scene. Wim Wenders: are you taking notes?
Martin
@Ruckus: Conservatives most strongly held belief is that the world and society is inherently hierarchical. It is human nature, it is economics, it is like gravity – inalterable. Egalitarianism isn’t just bad, it’s impossible except by force. Conservatives (including Scalia) have more than once cited ‘Harrison Bergeron’ as what an egalitarian society would look like. More personally, even if you are situated in the middle of the pyramid, you are still at the top of the pyramid for everyone below you. You are still white, they are still black. You are still straight, they are still gay. You are still Christian, they are still not Christian. You can be the poorest redneck shitkicker in Alabama and you will always have someone you can punch down on. The GOP might give all your tax money to billionaires, but they’re secure your right to have someone to spit on. You’ll never be on the bottom.
That’s why they see change as bad. Because Democrats take that away. What if they wind up on the bottom? Everyone is going to spit on them (because in their world, that’s natural). All they’re left with is being a poor redneck shitkicker. They’re not better than someone – they would have to actually earn that. And it’s why they have fantasies of FEMA camps and whatnot, because if society and everything in it is inherently, unavoidably hierarchical – then the only way for liberals to succeed at making it no hierarchical is to do it by force. How do you get Trump from his spot at the top down equal with others – you persecute him. You drum up fake charges, you have a fake trial, you shove him down where he doesn’t belong because that’s their agenda. They don’t want to let my daughter be the best swimmer in her school – they’re going to force her to compete against a trans boy.
They see Democrats winning. They can’t call people fags any longer. The cops they used to be able to rely on kicking the black people out of town now have to wear body cameras and can’t do it as well (shades of Harrison Bergeron there). And so on. Churches are emptying, non-whites are winning office, worst of all, advertisers are abandoning them and pursuing consumers of color, LGBTQ consumers, Target runs ads in my town in Spanish. Even my money isn’t enough to keep me on top.
They are fine with change and growth so long as the hierarchy is preserved. Learn some new skills and work your way up the company, sure. But this others stuff – to their worldview it’s unnatural and unsustainable and tyrannical. They are not being hypocrites when they say that the law shouldn’t apply to Trump. They genuinely believe that is how it is supposed to work. That is the first order principle on which EVERYTHING in the GOP is built. That is their principles of mathematics.
Martin
Is that how you think cops work? I mean, they don’t work the way they should, buy they don’t work that way. You think the Supreme Court cops are instructed to fight off any other federal branch police? If US Marshalls are executing an order by the AG or the US Senate, so long as the justices aren’t in physical danger, they’re going to let that happen. It’s not their job to stop that – they aren’t Thomas’s palace guards.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Can’t argue with a word of that, we are on the same page, you just stated it better.
My point is that I am an old, and yes, at one time long ago I never expected to be here. This year I will be 3/4 of a century old, and I do not mean in another year, I mean very soon. I remember Los Angeles when I was a kid, electric buses with overhead wires, pretty much the same as the Metro trains of today here in SoCal. I remember huge orange and lemon groves and mostly 2 lane roads. The local bus company has battery powered electric buses, or at least one of them. I have seen a massive change of life since I was a kid, it is better today, even as it still isn’t better for everyone. There is still poverty and some with wealth far exceeding any need other than just plain fucking greed. But cars are far better and public transit is far better as well. People wonder what some see in an ass like djt, but I can tell you it is that someone with that low of both humanity and human skills who has that much money and hate will be admired by a not insignificant percentage. I’ve traveled to many parts of this world, from the very southern tip of New Zealand to the very northern tip of Norway, from that far west in New Zealand to far east of us in Athens, Greece and 46 states of the US and can tell you that while many, possibly most of the people I’ve met in all that travel and working a job in professional sports for over a decade, I have met so many damn far better humans than djt in every possible way. Not all of them mind you, but the vast majority. Of course shitforbrains is an extremely low bridge but still most humans I’ve met are far higher up the scale of humanity, using any measuring methodology.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone:
exquisite