I will respect the limits of presidential powers that I have for three and a half years. But any president, including Donald Trump, will now be free to ignore the law.
I concur with what Justice Sotomayor wrote today:
"With fear for our democracy—I dissent."
So do I. pic.twitter.com/YmrPBMQhgY
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) July 2, 2024
Biden says he concurs with Justice Soyomayor’s dissent on SCOTUS presidential immunity opinion: “So should the American people dissent. God bless you all. may God help preserve our democracy.”
— Laura Rozen (@lrozen) July 1, 2024
I second this proposal:
Biden's next act with his new presidential immunity:
Create 4 new seats on the Supreme Court, by executive order.
He can add a binding ethics code as well. And a special counsel to investigate corruption on SCOTUS while he's at it.
— Tristan Snell (@TristanSnell) July 1, 2024
Apparently at least one headline writer and at least one editor at the NYT decided they don’t want to find out after fucking around. pic.twitter.com/GEh5qym98O
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) July 2, 2024
That’s the absurdity in all of this. People are so afraid OTHER ppl won’t VOTE for him so now they don’t want him to run. But if you ask the same ppl who they are voting for they say Biden if he’s the only option.
— HopeyC (@Soaps_Hope) July 2, 2024
I really don’t think I’ve ever seen the pundit class this apoplectic before. They’re very upset that Biden won’t listen to them but also very upset that people are asking what comes after that. It’s like they’re angry that no one will grant their political 3 wishes.
— okay then… (@TheFrankBlaha) June 30, 2024
They are so furious about not being respected as they continue to show why they’re not respected. https://t.co/ebTi3rjral
— Jean-Michel Connard ??? (@torriangray) July 2, 2024
Sure sounds like the answer is no, btw.
And that makes you look very, very bad. Just FYI.
— Summertime and the Voxin' is Easy (@VoxPrudentia) July 1, 2024
Our failed major media, now with added data:
This was a fun piece of data to stumble across. The press started asking massively stupider questions during the Trump admin and now they just ask really fucking dumb questions even though they're getting smarter answers than every Republican president in the last 40 years https://t.co/eoTKVbaT73 pic.twitter.com/GHKEhZdfJ9
— The okayest poster there is (@ok_post_guy) July 2, 2024
On The Road – PaulB – The Cascade Loop, Part 3
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
I’ve come to realize that threatening to run away and let fascism win is how people earn credibility among Democrats. I’m not credible because I’m not willing to do that.
H.E.Wolf
@rikyrah:
Good morning! 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
JPL
@rikyrah: Good morning!
Suzanne
@Baud: It is ironic, because I actually hate unquestioning allegiance and think it’s one of the grossest aspects of Republicans…. but I am actually hoping that negative partisanship is so strong this cycle that it works out for us.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
Chris Johnson
@Baud: I’ve come to realize that malefactors trying to get, not power for any American faction, but for America to disintegrate into infighting and civil war… have to work REALLY REALLY HARD to get that result, to the point that they show their whole ass and get rejected by voters.
It’s almost like disintegrating into chaos, violence and doom, is bad! and not appealing!
When it becomes obvious that chaos and a diet of nightmares is not on the menu, turns out your average sheep-unthinking-voter likes that and warms to the side that is not burning the Reichstag.
Who knew.
The relevance to ‘leftists’ who want to have fire nightmares and death but for the BAD people because it would serve them right, is left as an exercise for the viewer…
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Somehow these keyboard Rambos (who can’t be bothered to vote, btw) will be brave enough to Fight The Power the day tanks are rolling down the streets. Uh-huh.
Baud
@Suzanne:
My allegiance isn’t unquestioning. It’s just that the likelihood that Democrats will do something that would break my allegiance is extremely low. A bad debate doesn’t even come close.
What I never feel is the need to prove to others that I’m an uncommitted free thinker.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
Yeah, natural serfs revel in their Walter Mittty fantasies while submitting to their masters.
Chris Johnson
I mean, the idea that you can NOT LIKE a creepy, criminal, moblike, psychopath who is constantly fucking with people, demands a ridiculous level of worship and adulation, AND wants to literally take your money for his own benefit…
It seems NOT LIKING that is the easier path, and justifying it is really the heavy lifting.
And going to a great effort to convince people that really everybody ELSE likes it, so if the dude runs amok maybe it really represents what everybody really wants… that seems like the hardest sell of all.
You’d have to be getting paid to say that. Oh wait.
Mai Naem mobile
Since Biden has all these new powers and he can now consult with the DOJ on what he wants, he just needs to ask for a quickly set up sting on the conservative SCOTUS judges. We already know Clarence Thomas is easily bought but so are Alito, Roberts(via his wife)? Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett(via her husband) . Try and get congresscritters involed Stagger the release the sting tapes through to the election. BTW Jack Smith also needs to start leaking some of the evidence in the documents case. That info needs to be out for the public to see, since between Cannon and SCOTUS he’s going to have a hard time prosecuting TFG.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
I said late in the other thread that at least Biden First Term, Supreme Court Reform (and we can debate what that actually entails) didn’t seem high on his priority list. Makes sense in hindsight given what was on his legislative agenda. The commission he setup came back, predictably, with nothing and I’d swear he said something at one point about not expanding the Court.
But events have changed and that speech gives me hope that if we can get the Electoral Trifecta, there might be enough political will to do something. Per Tristan Snell in the twitter link, start with a binding code of ethics.
And if this crap has to go before the Extremes, so be it. Back the Worst Chief Justice in Supreme Court History into a corner and make his ass squirm.
Leto
Day 4 of the Tour de France. At the start of the race we say goodbye to Italy (ciao! Ciao! Ciao!), and hello to France at the end of the day (bonjour!).
Leto
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I agree that a binding code of ethics is needed, but what’s the actual enforcement mechanism that could be used? To respin a phrase: ok, now you have your code, let’s see you enforce it.
coozledad
Anyone who watched Biden last night and still has their fucking Berner/Naderite pants in a twist desperately needs to take a remedial course in 20th century history. They would have swapped Roosevelt out for Wendell Wilkie and ensured the Republicans concluded a negotiated peace with Hitler.
Fucking morons don’t have the slightest idea of the what the Presidency entails, or they’re actively working to make the US a satellite state of Russia. Trump will feed his enemies to the FSB until he gets his own version up and running here. Your neighbors will begin to disappear off the streets, as they did in all the Soviet occupied zones following the war.
This is an existential crisis, and those who are bitching about optics have blinded themselves to what a great president we have right now. In some ways I wish they could get their idiotic wish so we could see their limbs dangling out of a police headquarters dumpster.
But I’ll fight to see they don’t.
TBone
Evan Hurst:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I’ve personally have been wondering if what really happen to Gore, Kerry and Hilary was Democrats upset over the candidate not being someone they would want to drink a beer with.
People scream about the horrible MSM while at the very same reporting in intimate detail the MSM latest atrocity. Conservative owners with their agendas are one thing, but the MSM needs an audience to attract advertisers, and it certainly isn’t the Right since they have Fox and company.
JPL
@Leto: They can be impeached. Of course, they can say that they are immune too!
Free get out of jail cards for all.
NotMax
Several early media notes.
Two-part origin of the eponymous detective, Captain Marleau: Wind and Tides hits the airwaves on MHz Choice July 23.
For foodies, At Our Neighbour’s Table is served up on MHz CHoice starting on July 9.
Mystery/thriller Vanished Into the Night drops on Netflix July 11.
July 12 on Netflix, Blame the Game looks to have humorous potential.
Could be a fun take, could be exploitive, painful to watch crap. Inconclusive from the initial trailer. The Decameron on Netflix beginning July 25.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Leto:
I would assume since the rest of the federal judiciary has one, the same enforcement mechanism?
TBone
https://fox59.com/indianapolitics/u-s-rep-victoria-spartz-charged-with-carrying-illegal-weapon-at-dc-airport/
No immunity for DERP
TBone
@coozledad: 👍
Suzanne
@Baud: I know. Most Dems don’t do unquestioning allegiance. If we did, we’d be different people entirely and therefore vote Republican.
Having said that…… if it works out in our favor this time….. who am I to look a gift horse, etc etc etc,
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: but now the King controls the DOJ and, therefore, the FBI and all of its other law enforcement arms…
This isn’t sinking in with people as much as it should. It’s too terrifying to contemplate, I guess.
hueyplong
@coozledad: I’m ok with your argument but not too keen on your 1940 history. GOP nominated Willkie as France fell and chose him (in a surprise) because he was for opposing Hitler (albeit short of actually fighting) in a reversal of Lindbergh-like America First bullshit. After beating him, FDR enlisted Willkie as a supporter of Lend Lease.
Consistent with your themes, lots of GOPers afterward considered him a turncoat.
NotMax
As said yesterday someplace downstairs, the Roberts court has its finger on the pulse of the nation.
Unfortunately for us, that nation is Saudi Arabia.
TBone
@NotMax: Wonkette confirms:
Leto
@JPL: basically. The Impeachment route, in this current climate, simply has no teeth. And it’s not meant to piss on the idea of a Code of Ethics, I just want us to an actionable enforcement mechanism ready to go for it.
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I know that the rest of the federal judiciary has a code, and it probably has an enforcement mechanism, but the Holy Roman Six will decree themselves above any such silly notion such as rules… standards… non-partisanship. Maybe it’s more of we need to ready for them to just completely ignore it because, to quote a great action movie: I AM THE LAW! Again, not to say that we don’t need it (absolutely do) just that we need a way to actually enforce it because if it’s impeachment then it’s DOA.
dr. bloor
Gitmo for Donnie. Make it happen, Joe.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TBone:
I’m still an institutionalist at heart so old habits and approaches die hard.
It would be a tough sell politically which is how I think every cautious Dem will see it, thus, why not wait, win elections, then use that “political capitol” (JFC, I’m quoting Dubya, I need to take a shower) to basically do what President Biden did in his first term: pass massive legislative initiatives only this time aimed at a broken function of government.
Leto
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: you know, I don’t want to have a beer with any of them, but if Obama and Biden invited me to go on one of their mystery solving escapades I’d be down. Because I know there’d also be ice cream afterwards.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: when (if) Repigs steal the election, the fact that they’ll control all federal law enforcement AND the military simultaneously will bite those cautious Dems right where it counts as they’re being led off to be “reeducated.”
Birdie
That last table, wow. The White House press corps – not actually smarter than a fifth grader. It’s incredible the dumbing down we are living through.
lowtechcyclist
@rikyrah:
Good morning back at ya! 😊
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
And here I thought it was the pants, or rather their absence. ;-)
Another Scott
@NotMax: Thank you.
Meanwhile, … Phys.org:
In 2018 there was a sinkhole in the White House lawn. Maybe there’s one under the SCOTUS that’s ready to strike at the opportune moment…
Hang in there, everyone. Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
JML
NY Times political coverage has declined so massively and grotesquely that I keep wondering if Pinch/Punch/Pouch/Peach Sulzburger has a massive and hidden Epstein problem that some right-ring billionaire found out about and has been blackmailing the sh!t out of that useless sack of skin. So awful.
Brutal game from the USMNT last night. Team just could not generate offense and find a way to get a goal, with no real tactical help from the bench. It was also the most poorly officiated game I’ve ever seen in international play. (YMMV on whether the Uruguay goal should have been chalked off or not, but the clownish ref lost control of the game at multiple points and the match was clearly too big for him. Allowing a restart while summoning a player to give a caution is literally insane. Absolute shocker) Berhalter and his staff need to be fired, but frankly we need a house-cleaning at USA Soccer writ larger. Too many cronies floating around and people getting jobs and promotions based on connections rather than talent, and way too many external lines running in at various points as well.
Horrible tournament. (that said, CONMEBOL might be the only soccer organization that makes FIFA look competent and straight-edge…)
Suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
That’s part of it, yeah. For sure. Likeability matters. Relatability matters. It’s not especially rational or fair, but it’s been a major factor in every election in my lifetime and probably every one before that.
Baud
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I’ve said a few times now that the MSM owns half the Dem party. IMHO it’s the main reason Republicans are a stronger group of people than we are.
Kristine
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I honestly don’t get that. Could be my terminal introversion mumbling and backing away with an eye on the door, but that’s so far from being a consideration that it isn’t even worth mentioning. Jeez.
Jeffg166
If ALL the registered Democrats show up to vote the election wouldn’t be close.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
I’d happily wear pants if that’s what it takes to get voters to vote blue.
Chris Johnson
@TBone: The military swears an oath against enemies foreign and domestic. I think we’ve already seen what happens when MAGAs think they can seize power and then they’ll have obedient robots to use as weapons. Turns out that’s not how it works: it’s possible to be too obviously malicious, and part of it is just such failure to understand the service.
Similar to what happened with Chevron. The MAGAs can fight the administrative state, by changing the rules so that experts don’t get automatic deference. At which point…? MAGAs tend to think they won when they do that, think that the administrative state will just evaporate, sort of surrender and disappear.
I remember Martin posting something to the effect of, not so much. The administrative state will adapt. Beau of the Fifth Column suggested that Chevron will actually hurt conservatives more than help them, because they’ll have to spell out stuff in their own regulations rather than rely on conservative experts to fill in vaguely written evil stuff. Now, the evil stuff has to be explicit, and it doesn’t get voted in as easily if it’s too explicit.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
LOCK HER UP!! LOCK HER UP!!
oldgold
The Constitution has been in hospice ever since Bush v. Gore. Yesterday, 6 corrupt ideologues pulled the plug. Our Constitutional Republic is gone.
Baud
@Suzanne:
It’s one reason it’s been so hard to elect women and minorities. There’s just something about them….
OzarkHillbilly
@Leto: A hard no from me on partaking in any presidential activities, whether current or past president.
Geminid
@hueyplong: There is tension between the Republican Internationaslsts and their Isolationist colleagues over Ukraine. I think Trump may have lost some votes from Ukraine hawks after the debate because they could see that he was in effect running up the white flag. I don’t think there are that many of these voters but Trump can’t afford to lose many either.
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: good morning from mid air as I fly home to Ohio!
Another Scott
@oldgold: No, thank you.
Cheers,
Scott.
citizen dave
@hueyplong: Gosh I didn’t think I’d be reading about Wendell Wilkie–from just up the road in Elwood, Indidna–this morning. On the other hand, seeing my House Rep Victoria Spartz up on a gun charge seems quite expected and onbrand.
This one, quoted by Charles Pierce in the overnight thread, is quite Orwellian to me; Robert’s concurrence: “Testimony or private records of the President or his advisers probing such conduct may not be admitted as evidence at trial.”
We are slip sliding away. Does Roberts allow an investigator to ask questions, and if they uncover something, they need to get corroborating evidence from other sources for a trial? Would Nixon’s tapes be private or public records?
Eyeroller
@Baud: The Totebaggers. My sister-in-law and her husband have NPR on all day long when they are at home. The soothing tones of (most of) the announcers and interviewers interspersed with light jazz and classical music can really worm its way into your brain.
Baud
@Eyeroller:
Light jazz is Satan’s genre.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, is TCFFG smarter than a fruit bat? Let’s take a look… Phys.org:
Tentative conclusion – TCFFG is not smarter than a fruit bat.
Have a good day, everyone.
Cheers,
Scott.
citizen dave
@JML: Could not watch the match because it wasn’t on free over-the-air Fox. I don’t watch our men’s team much–waiting until they do something. My decision to jump on the women’s team bandwagon in 2019 continues to be a good one. On to the Olympics with the young wave of players!
ETA: USA has 100X more people than Uruguay.
Trivia Man
Maybe biden should turn the bully pulpit up to 11. Joint session of congress and lay out legislative fixes. Expand the court, explicitly grant rule making to agencies, binding ethics for SCOTUS – not sure what can put guardrails in but i bet an agenda could be made.
Sunlight is a good disinfectant and we need to make a stark line in the sand… help us fix it or explain why you favor corruption.
The beauty of the House is that all 435 seats are up. A full reset is possible but its a war against complacency, fear if radical change, an enemy who is liking the situation, and a corporate media much more interested in quarterly profits than civilization itself.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: 🤭😊
TBone
@oldgold: 🎯
Suzanne
@Jeffg166:
Not necessarily true, unfortunately. For example, Arizona — which Dems won last time by like 20K votes, so by an absolute hair — does not have a Democratic registration advantage. Huge amount of registered independents. I’m sure a good portion of those independents always or nearly always vote Dem, but we have to get them every time now.
Since every election is now won at the margins, and they’re all about who can turn more people out….. those marginal, mercurial, pain-in-the-ass voters have to be targeted.
TBone
@Baud: 😆
3Sice
The shitshow at CNN is a John Malone vanity project.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: tell that to my local Sheriff, please. The guy who posted that he’s above the law on an official Memo tacked up outside his Office door here in our Second Amendment Sanctuary municipality.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/investigations/no-sheriff-town-some-lawmen-refuse-enforce-federal-gun-laws-n185426
OzarkHillbilly
@citizen dave: But the best US athletes gravitate towards football, baseball, and basketball. That’s where the money is.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
What do you mean ‘we’?
I think most people still don’t have a clue where else they might go that would be trustworthy. So they read the FTFNYT and the MFWaPo, listen to NPR and watch the Sunday morning political talk shows.
I can’t really identify with those people since I’ve been hanging out in the lefty blogosphere for over 20 years now, was never a TV watcher, and dropped my dead-trees WaPo subscription 15 years ago. (That latter was due to suddenly having no time to read the paper after adopting the kiddo, rather than to any problems with their content, though I was already making fun of Broder & Co.)
Nobody’s pointing out to them the things that are obvious to us about the MSM. We’re in completely different information worlds.
Manyakitty
@3Sice: my dad’s friend was a higher-up at CNN. He left his fancy job for one at C-SPAN because he couldn’t take the lies and BS at CNN.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Oh, absolutely. But white guys get caught up in likeability and relatability issues, too.
We can complain about it, or we can do our best to master it.
Baud
@lowtechcyclist:
We = Democrats
Half of us are captive to the MSM.
By itself, the Internet isn’t that much better, but at least it’s different from corporate media.
NotMax
@Baud
Nah, that honor belongs to Muzak.
;)
Baud
@Suzanne:
We should do both, like with everything else that’s wrong.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Eyeroller:
Yup.
Baud, it was FTFNYT owns half the Dem party. Your thesis has now expanded to the MSM in general? Heh heh, that would then encompass my rejoinder that NPR owns the other half.
My general circle of friends/acquaintances are all fairly liberal (outside one specific hobby) and every damned one of them basically hooks NPR up as an IV feed. I’ve been impressed they haven’t fallen into ‘both-siderism’.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … APNews.com (from yesterday):
More FO days ahead for the bad guys.
Eyes on the prizes.
Cheers,
Scott.
Starfish
@Leto: Biden is going to roll over them with his cute little sports car because he has presidential immunity.
3Sice
Octogenarian Carl Bernstein was on CNN pumping “unnamed sources” and it struck me just how disastrously the Village failed us in 2016.
There is a whole generation of minor D.C. nobility cum media courtiers that are completely lost as to why their world is collapsing around them.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@oldgold: Yeah, the America that I was taught to revere in the 20th century is gone, and has been since about the year 2000. We’re now in a conflict to see what replaces it.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
At the end of the day, it’s the vote that matters, not feelings. The problem is the amount of attention and resources it takes to overcome the MSM agenda. There’s an opportunity cost there.
The people are as they are, and you can’t chastise them into being better. But I think we also shouldn’t sugarcoat the damage they do.
Starfish
@TBone: I think the Republicans do this regularly to gain gunhumper credibility in their home districts. Is the only punishment for this a fine?
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist:
I genuinely don’t know anyone under the age of 40 who consumes any of that media. Maaaaaaaybe NPR, sometimes.
I’m 44, and I remember about ten/twelve years ago, when everyone was saying that the “young Obama voters” were only watching the Daily Show and Colbert Report and not traditional news. Likely largely true. I certainly was. For the generation behind mine, who are now the kids….. I bet it’s mostly podcasts, John Oliver, and that kind of content.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
24 years ago now, Pat Metheny posted an amazing take down of one of the high priests of Satan’s Genre:
https://www.saxontheweb.net/threads/great-article-on-kenny-g-by-pat-methany-long-but-a-good-read.12051/
Pat’s stuck to that criticism all these years later. There are a fair number of youtube interviews that are hysterical.
Manyakitty
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: alas. We must be close to the same age (56).
Baud
@Suzanne:
Young people don’t use the MSM as news outlets. But I think a question I don’t know the answer to is what are the predominant modem news sources.
Tiktok can regurgitate NYT talking points without identifying the NYT as a source.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffg166:
Precisely. It’s GOTV, always GOTV.
And make sure that people who whinge about having to hold their nose to vote for a certain candidate, hold their nose and vote for a certain candidate and make sure everybody else they know who feels that way votes that way. Jeeeesusfuckingkeeristonabike, I’ve done that more than I care to admit over the years, it’s part and parcel of being a Democrat. My nose has permanent pinch marks although they’ve faded in recent years as our bench has gotten far better and far deeper.
TBone
@Another Scott: I love this. I was ruminating about birdsong here the other day. Bats are more like mice with wings, but tiny flying dinosaurs that hatch from eggs might have a trick or two up their
sleeveswings also too.citizen dave
@OzarkHillbilly: Thought I’d mention, here is a nice piece on the representation of the women’s current 18 member roster–around 45% African-American. https://www.starsandstripesfc.com/2024/6/28/24188058/opinion-usa-uswnt-olympics-olympic-roster-black-players
zhena gogolia
@coozledad: You and I are on the same page.
Baud
@citizen dave:
That’s really high. I didn’t realize so many black girls have been gravitating towards soccer.
3Sice
There are plenty of Tradmed sites that are not on the Herman T. Zweibel editorial crazy train.
But…. then one would have to consume one’s news with the plebes. Eeeeeewww…
Suzanne
@Baud: Something that AOC said on a podcast really stuck with me on this issue. She was talking about how some of her fellow Congresscritters will describe themselves as “work horse” rather than “show pony”, and she rejected that formulation. (I am paraphrasing here rather than pulling the transcript.) She pointed out that communications, outreach, persuasion…. those are not ancillary to the job of governance. They are part of the job of governance.
The way I look at it….. when we fundraise and make all these contributions to campaigns…. that’s what we’re actually buying with that money. We should expect them to do it well.
Baud
@3Sice:
If you find good stuff and good people, link to them in the comments.
TBone
@Starfish: it’s a far, FAR more widespread attitude than my illustration belies. It’s not merely about gun humping, I just used that example because it was at my fingertips. These fucks have now been emboldened by the Supremacists Court in all matters having to do with enforcement. I’m covering everything I own with gold fringe. Camouflage! 😆😭
As I told my hubby on Sunday:
ETA: OH SHIT I WAS REPLYING ABOUT THE WRONG COMMENT but it still illustrates the problem!
Gah!
Bupalos
@Baud: A lot of folks have decided they opt for the “clap harder” gambit, and I can’t say that’s not as credible as any of our other options. I find it to be suffused with denial (that I feel too,) and to contain a potentially damaging refusal to broaden the scope of political mechanics and consequences we’re considering in this election. What does it mean to run a candidate 70+% of the public think is not an appropriate person to run? We don’t know. Is it a sufficient answer that the other party is running someone 50+% of the public thinks is not an appropriate person to run? We don’t know. What does it mean for our democracy? We don’t know. It takes a lot of thought, and there seems to me to be a passionate aversion to thinking these things through.
I really do leave the question open as I try to see the best way forward here, accepting that there are massive drawbacks and uncertainty to any course of action.
Do though consider that making these kind of broad accusations about political character based on what conclusions people are coming to in a fraught and complicated situation might be more toxic than you’re thinking. You think you’re the “fighter” and they want to “surrender to fascism.” I have’t seen anyone here saying they are giving up. I promise you they do not think they are giving up. Some of the stuff going around and linked in this article actually seems to have convinced itself that the whole problem is people believing there is a problem. The link here about “independents” and “the base” is one of the most unrealistically meta things imaginable. It seems to me to fully and completely confuse the tone of online conversations with electoral outcomes.
Starfish
@oldgold: With quality hospice care, it has survived longer than I expected it to live.
Baud
@Suzanne:
No one is going to be great at all things. Would we actually prefer Biden be a stellar communicator but a less effective president when it comes to getting good policies enacted and implemented?
In my view, Democrats collectively have not been good bosses to our elected leaders. We’re fixated in finding things to complain about and denigrate the idea of rewarding good work and building a good team.
WereBear
@Baud: Which is why we have battle of the Old White Guys. It simplifies everything.
MOST of the contests of our history might have had younger guys, times being what they were, but it all still came down to white guys and a white guy from the needed state.
Jeffro
Send a message, King Biden: arrest Clarence Thomas and Harlan Crow for bribery, toss them in a dungeon, and throw away the key!
Baud
@Bupalos:
I don’t want us to chase polls. It’s an easy way to get pushed around. If Trump wins, Trump wins. That would be true even if Biden had a stellar debate.
Sure Lurkalot
@citizen dave:
That’s pretty much the game, isn’t it? Wait wait don’t tell me who decides what constitutes “private records” of the president?
Seems a propos for team democracy to utilize the new powers given to its highest office because it’s make or break time.
WereBear
This is when I ask myself, What would Superman do? He’s really not about murdering swathes of people or breaking the law.
Because if there was ever a cartoon villain…
Are we to be defeated by a bunch of people who can’t get a date? Come on!
NotMax
@Jeffro
Throwing away the key is so yesteryear. In today’s climate, we recycle it.
:)
TBone
@Sure Lurkalot: I concur. The job of Nixon’s tape-erasing assistant is now obsolete.
The burglars are running the asylum.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
First, this is one of the better non-insulting summaries of the different worlds media-wise, people not on the Faux “News” crazy train live in; it’s going into the clip file.
I am somebody who’s always pointing out the things that are obvious to us vis a vis corporate media. It generally falls on deaf ears, ie, they look at me like I’m Sanders in uber-scold mode. My wife, a normie who still listens to Totebagger radio in the mornings, has come round to how they write and frame material, who they always have on, etc. So, it can be done but I think she’s only come around because she’s something of a captive audience to my rants.
One of my more recent NPR quotes (that I have no idea where I got it from):
He fulfills the same role as NPR: reassuring the upper middle class that everything is going to be alright, nothing to be alarmed about.
I have no idea who “he” is in this but I’m sure there’s plenty of “he’s” to choose from.
NotMax
@WereBear
Superman is an undocumented alien.
Just sayin’.
:)
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
It’s so slow, but it does sink in. I see so much more skepticism of the NYT today than in 2016. Pitchbot wouldn’t be a think if it were otherwise.
TBone
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: 👍
TBone
@NotMax: 😆
Kay
@Suzanne:
Here’s Gallego though – he’s going to win. Supposedly top two issues in AZ are immigration and inflation, yet the D senate candidate is consistently up. Makes ya wonder.
TBone
@Jeffro: throw away the entire dungeon 🤭
satby
OT, but too good not to share especially with esteemed commenter SiobhanDunne:
Happy Canada Day
WereBear
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: It’s insidious and everywhere.
I think Democrats, who are more wonky about policy, have an edge in figuring out what’s actually going on, but when my mother was exposed to constant Fox News when tending a friend in their home, she began saying bizarre things, and I’d question it, or she would.
She moved out then. And went back to her old self. It was eerie. And stress will always make people more vulnerable.
catclub
Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter
Suzanne
@Baud:
My response would be twofold:
1) He absolutely can have strengths and weaknesses, like anyone. But he needs to hire (or have his campaign hire) people who are good at that job, and take their advice. He has plenty of strengths. Good media people would be looking for every opportunity, every different kind of scenario, to show off those strengths. One of the best pieces of corporate advice I ever got was not to try to get stronger at what you’re weak at. Get stronger at what you’re already strong at, because you like it, you shine at it, it comes across to others. Biden is a really likeable guy. Always has been.
2) Why is this a binary thing? That’s like saying that you want to go to a restaurant where the food is really good but the service is shitty. It’s not a binary thing. We should have good policy and good communication.
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not if they make it to Europe.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Biden has hired stellar people, as a rule.
It’s not binary. It’s relative. Everyone is going to have their strength and weaknesses, like you said. Biden’s leadership skills are much stronger compared to his communications skills.
gene108
@OzarkHillbilly:
As a cousin pointed out, more kids play youth soccer in the USA than the population of Denmark.
There are far too many people in the USA to not have the athletes that can compete at a high international level in men’s soccer. Plus, the skills required to be good at one sport do not translate to being good at another sport. Compare Michael Jordan’s performance in professional basketball to his performance in baseball.
catclub
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Amazingly, Dick Fucking Cheney was that the first few years of the GWBush admin. People respected the deep voice…. of a fucking crazy person.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Suzanne:
That’s true and concerning. NPR any day of the is better than some of the propaganda online. Putin has been able to do a better job of pushing his agenda through those mediums.
NotMax
@eclare
Jai-alai is the future.
;)
3Sice
The thing about fish wraps.
Print runs are less than 10% of the glory days. There is no way they are turning a buck given the cost structure of the news rooms.
There is nothing magical about the Times or Wapo. Just a couple of fading, once très chic brands.
Percysowner
@Baud: i’m not planning to run away partly because I’m old and there’s no place that’ll take me but I have a trans grandson and if Trump is elected, I will do everything I can to get them away from here before things get bad. Too many Jews in Read it Germany did not do that this time we have warning.
catclub
Except you can talk to Bo Jackson before his hip injury.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Just stopped by to say that you are credible to me. You are one of the sanest voices here. Thank you.
eclare
@Suzanne:
I was so happy when my rep from the TN-9th (the fightin’ 9th!) was on Colbert’s Better Know a District.
Not that he’s going anywhere, this CD is about 70-30 D.
Baud
@gene108:
Looking at relative population is a little silly. A larger population doesn’t mean that the culture and institutional support for a sport are present.
Baud
@Percysowner:
I understand. No judgment here.
catclub
Is this an open thread? Has Jake Broe been mentioned in relation to Ukraine commentary. I saw an interview of him and he was clear and terrifying.
off to find the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1diq7QqMl_A
ETA: found it
NotMax
@3Sice
Geritol for the elites.
tam1MI
Christ, Slate magazine has turned into nothing more than a crazed jihad against Biden and Democrats. Today they sunk to attacking not just him, but his wife and grandkids as well! It’s enough to make you want to SWAT those assholes.
Kay
Sherrod is also polling really well and his opponent isn’t a clown this time – he’s a fake MAGA former centrist.
The good news is our senate races/candidates are really strong, and that’s very good news given the lawless SCOTUS.
Baud
@Kay:
That’s good news.
TBone
@Percysowner: be quick about it if the time comes, they already have a plan to implement immediately and we should too. 💜
eclare
@Baud:
One of the things said about Nancy was that being in front of a TV was not her strong suit. Everything not on TV, the fundraising, vote counting, persuading? There was no one better in a long, long time.
Kay
Elissa Slotkin looks good in MI too.
Baud
@eclare:
Good point.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Well, thanks. Too bad I’m not more credible among Democrats generally, or I’d be president.
hueyplong
We’ve experienced at least 30 years of youth soccer dominating the numbers. It’s likely that youth soccer is where the organized activity-dominated US sends its non-athletes.
TBone
Another good read by Tom Sullivan at Digby’s place:
https://digbysblog.net/2024/07/02/the-trump-dictatorship/
Much more at the link!
EYES WIDE OPEN
Bupalos
@Sure Lurkalot: Spending a little time with this decision… I feel much worse about it. It’s possible (though not particularly plausible) I think to argue that they’ve left some room in the language, and that this isn’t just blanket immunity. As you note here practical mechanics turn the limitations to fig leaves.
But what really makes me feel worst of all is simply that zooming back out, this really is an escalation. They are specifically and particularly supporting the Trumpist authoritarian turn. It really seems to be rather carelessly written for a particular person. It’s bad enough that I’m surprised this is 6-3.
gene108
@lowtechcyclist:
I didn’t fully understand what’s wrong with the MSM, until DougJ started explaining it at Balloon-Juice.
A lot of people are not happy with the MSM’s news coverage. Read the angry comments in a NYT or WaPo article that gets highlighted here.
People know something’s off with the media, but where else do they get their information from? It’s not an easy question to answer for non-political junkies. We put a lot of time and effort into digging up facts to prove where the media’s framing is slanted than others want to or are capable of doing.
Eyeroller
@Percysowner: A lot of those Jews had no place to go. We were too damned anti-Semitic to admit them, and by the time things got really bad they would have been “enemy aliens.” Some of the early Zionists tried to use the issues in Europe to recruit immigrants to Palestine, but that was problematic also. At least in the current situation, maybe a young person would have better luck emigrating.
Manyakitty
@Baud: maybe it’s the pants.
Suzanne
@Kay: Gallego is winning — and I can’t believe I finally feel comfortable saying that — because he’s read the room there well. He has stopped doing attention-grabby things like calling Ted Cruz “baby killer” and swearing all the time. I also think that MAGA has absolutely and repeatedly overestimated their appeal in AZ. As I have pointed out, even in these election cycles in which Democrats have done well….. the GOP candidates who are more like “normal assholes” and not MAGA lunatics like Kari Lake have won their races, statewide.
Arizona is a bit like Utah in this regard….. there’s a lot of Mormons and they don’t love MAGA or the more uncouth behavior.
Belafon
@Suzanne: I prefer to think of the Democrats like the MCU Avengers: A bunch of individual agendas that can war with each other as much as others, but can come together when it counts, but it’s a much harder fight than it would be if they were a disciplined group.
TBone
@Bupalos: it is a huge escalation. It emboldened all the wrong people.
Layer8Problem
@Baud: These days crediblity can be purchased.
catclub
@Bupalos: I was particularly irked that they apparently said that a jury could not decide on what was an unofficial act. Because reasons?
Baud
ETA: Workers complain that they’d rather die of heat than accept help from someone who stutters. /NYT
Bupalos
@Kay: I’m in Ohio too Kay, and I’d like to hear your take here– anecdotally I see evidence that Biden’s unprecedented union support and the administration’s manufacturing wins have made converts, or at least dragged some shaky union folks back onsides.
tam1MI
@schrodingers_cat: I’m glad to see you are back. Don’t let the assholes get to you.
Belafon
@Baud:
The Democratic Party is made up of everyone who isn’t Republican. The Republicans can hate different groups as a whole because hate is a binding force. Democrats have their own little reasons to oppose Republicans, but in most cases, getting group A to see that supporting group B would make both groups stronger is a hard sell.
prostratedragon
Seems to leave room for definitions of good behavior somehow, or even behaviour.
satby
Correct. Everyone is a critic, everyone knows just what the guys who won the election are doing wrong. Then, when good stuff happens, there’s an immediate pivot to what hasn’t gotten done. Frankly, we’re lucky anyone decent s bothers to stay in government at all.
catclub
@Sure Lurkalot: Blanket executive privilege, before anyone even asserts it.
…offer only applies to GOP presidents.
Starfish
For those of you on Twitter, is there an AccountableGOP account that is quoting the confirmation hearings of all the Trump justices about their beliefs on the rule of law? I am laughing and also crying if this is real.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Except.. they seem to like Trump. It’s arguably the strongest Trump swing state.
Suzanne
@Baud: But “communications skills” isn’t one thing. Biden’s never been a good facts-and-figures guy. Debating has never been a strength. He’s not an orator. But he’s always been good in conversations. He makes jokes, he comes off as genuine and bullshit-free. Because he genuinely is a good man.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
While other writers at Slate are beating on Biden, this one is smacking down the Worst Chief Justice Ever:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/07/supreme-court-trump-immunity-john-roberts-legacy.html
3Sice
Soccer is a leisure class pastime in the USA. In Uruguay it is a way to get the fuck out of Uruguay.
Non-white leisure class -> white volk acting out over perceived loss of status.
Baud
@satby:
Many don’t. It’s why government and elected leaders are, as a whole, worse than they should be.
tihotm
I really believe the Tapper / Biden hate starts with the fact that Biden ended our disastrous war in Afghanistan. Now Jake has no war to go to, dress up in battle gear and feel like big brave boy.
Starfish
@Belafon: Roe is a binding agent for the Democratic party at the moment. Most folks do not want to see women and girls of childbearing age hemorrhage out on the floor because their politicians don’t know anything about how reproduction works.
catclub
‘Workers’ == GOP lawyers in air conditioned buildings.
Suzanne
@Kay: Trump won it in 2016. Biden won it by a rounding error in 2020. It is swingy AF.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud:
Not sure if that’s true or where you get your numbers from. That said, I have normie Dem friends who have staunchly defended the FTFNYT against my criticisms … until now. They’re appalled by the blatantly coordinated, one-sided drumbeat to get rid of Biden and failure to hit the Felon at least as hard.
So the FTFNYT may have overplayed its hand. The normie Dems are noticing.
Bupalos
@catclub: The obvious problem in the whole unofficial/official distinction is that it rather obviously comes down to a question of constitutional interpretation which…well, we know where that’s supposed to reside.
Though it may be just about time to start remembering that judicial review is not grounded in the constitution. It created itself out of nothing, and to nothing it may return.
TBone
@TBone:
My “hyperbolic” edit
Baud
@O. Felix Culpa:
Excellent news. One person at a time. It’s slow grueling work, but that’s why you never let up.
ETA: Just once, I’d like to see a Democratic backlash drive turnout. I assumed that would happen with Comey, but I was let down.
catclub
@tihotm: I thought A lot of things Trump said did not resonate – all the ‘The US is now a shithole country, and you are living in it.’,
but I wonder if his attacks on the Afghan withdrawal carried any weight. [They shouldn’t, but this is the political acumen of US citizens we are talking about.]
Belafon
@Baud: Texas already has a law preventing cities from requiring companies to provide resources to deal with working in the heat – and there’s a lot of outside work here in the DFW area on roads and housing – so there will be a lawsuit in Amarillo as soon as this becomes official.
Baud
@Belafon:
Absolutely correct.
catclub
That Philly Inquirer opinion was on the money
Elizabelle
I have been thinking about that Warren Buffett quote about how once the tide goes out, you see who has been swimming naked. Or however it goes. The Putz Sulzberger FTF NYTimes and majority of pundits have shown their a$$es on this.
We are better than them, and we are numerous. More numerous and committed than they think.
satby
@Starfish: I saw that. But some of those (Roberts) are almost 20 years old, and they’ll say their views “evolved”. We all know they lied, they’re Republicans.
Kay
@Bupalos:
Well, Sherrod never had “shaky” union support. Since 2006 he has consistently garnered more union support than the Democratic President (Obama and probably now Biden). They’re not returning to Sherrod. They never left him.
Sherrod has a great “brand” in Ohio. He succeeded at what Sinema and Manchin tried – to be more than a party label except he’s actually likeable, so it worked while their efforts failed. I think he did it through ordinary hard work and the fact that his long time campaign manager came out of labor and is an organizer. He’s very, very good at showing up in every single county and talking to people. We went to a swanky fundraiser for him last weekend and he met my husband and Sherrod called him Monday to ask about politics in our county. My husband is essentially a normie – maybe he wanted the normie take? This is the kind of granular outreach he does though. People have a lot of stories like this – where they met him and then he called them.
eversor
@Jeffro:
Is tarring and feathering by an angry mob still on the books? What about sticking people in stocks or hanging? If they want Old Timey shit let’s give it to them. Shit Alito brought up some old times stuff to ask for what he wanted, what about drawing and quartering!
If we are going to have Kings and ancient laws we should at least be able to execute mob justice in hilarious fashion. Hell let’s bring back dueling.
A lot of what these people are counting on is that it won’t come back to bite them in the face. When historically that tends to be what actually happens.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Suzanne: RE John Kerry – I have always thought the image of Kerry windsurfing caused massive jealousy from male voters and reporters. Theatrical criticism has always been part of politics, but now it is dominant, worsened by the MSM thinking their reactions are the norm.
Starfish
@satby: It feels like just yesterday when Roberts was appointed to do crimes in high office.
Ksmiami
@JPL: the only 2 things that matter in this election is fixing the Court and preventing Trumps fascist hoards from getting into power. Everything else is a luxury we don’t have.
Suzanne
@Belafon:
I can see that. But I also think of the fractiousness as a strength. We have a better agenda that improves more people’s lives. We expect our elected leaders to enact it. We vote them out if they don’t perform. That’s what it means to be the reality-based side. That’s our strength.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: I heard an interview with a union leader on the “How to Win 2024” podcast the other day (McCaskill & Palmieri). Can’t remember which union it was, but the leader talked about how difficult it is to break through with union members who are caught up in the Trump “vibe.” He claims they have some success when they recruit workers at sites to serve as point people and give them facts on how Biden has materially improved their circumstances. But it’s a challenge.
Kay
@Bupalos:
He’s probably too prickly to be a national candidate though. Sherrod Brown was the first person I ever heard refer to “corporate media” – it’s how he usually refers to them. He’s opinionated.
Political media would hate him.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Indeed. But you better not have an off night otherwise white progressives will eagerly throw you to the wolves.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@O. Felix Culpa:
Per Baud, that’s good to hear. Let’s hope it’s happening on a broader scale.
Also per Baud, it’s great that DougJ/Pitchbot has the reach that he does although I’d guess it’s still rather limited when compared to, oh, FTFNYT. But his satire model of them clearly strikes a chord with normies when they see it and it’s nice that it gets picked up more and more and thus spread more and more.
gene108
@Baud:
Could be lack of support and not taking men’s soccer seriously enough. I just think out of 330 million people the only people who can compete at the highest levels against other countries only play basketball, football, and baseball.
The only other place a lack of cultural interest is glaringly obvious is men’s gymnastics, which is an after thought at best.
We don’t have this problem producing world class competitors in swimming, track and field, and other sports.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Every night is an off night for me, so people really won’t notice.
E.
@lowtechcyclist: I believe the Democratic Party needs to run it’s own full-blown paper. Not a counterpart to FOX, just a paper that unabashedly acknowledges it’s preference for Democratic values and has reporters and editors producing the news in the normal fashion.
gvg
@Leto: I am kind of inclined at this time to out it on rotating random lower courts who already have to obey the rules and have to be angry the high court isn’t being held to the same standards. I think fair is the exact same standard, to be updated every time the lower court rules get updated. scandals cause laws due to experience with what can happen. New finance, new technology, new trade rules can cause a need to update corruption rules so obviously it never ends. I would look for some mechanism to pick highly respected ones and randomly scramble a panel to review the SC. Ideally anonymously, but I don’t know how to do that. It wouldn’t be just the justices themselves. I think it would have to be all the employees and clerks too.
I think only congress can remove them, but I wonder if Congress can pass a law that requires automatic recusal or suspension for specified times for certain offenses by a board? For serious problems it would need to go to Congress for consideration of impeachment but we know that can be politically problematic so I would say it needs to go public also so that the public can judge the congress being political.
Maybe its time to require public information of public officials finances including the Supremes. Florida has long had some of this.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
For manufacturing and construction unions it’s never been a lock though. They’ve been at +/- 55% D for decades now.
Democrats started to consistently lose Ohio because Right leaning Democrats in rural counties shifted further Right. My county went from 45 D to 25 D in one cycle, Obama to Clinton. Multiply that by 40 rural counties and it’s an insurmountable margin.
schrodingers_cat
@tam1MI: Especially
KropadopeI mean Bellycat. And many who only like minorities as long as they sit on the sidelines agreeing with whatever their betters on the blog have to say. Their mental image of themselves is that of moral giants and galaxy brains but the reality is quite differentWhat they want is cheerleaders for their nonsensical stances who keep telling them how wonderful they are.
Bupalos
@satby: Without commenting on whether Democrats are more particularly guilty of this than other parties here and abroad…It’s universally true in western democracies, the number of young people considering politics has absolutely cratered over the last 2-3 decades. An absolute sea-change.
Ksmiami
@Baud: I blame a lack of ppl who played team sports as kids in the Dem party.
Suzanne
@Cheryl from Maryland: Eh, I don’t know if the MSM is as responsible/toxic as social media these days. Shit gets cooked into these edited and faked clips and flies around the internet at lightning speed.
That’s why I think, in the current environment, ignoring an issue and hoping it goes away (like windsurfing, emails, arugula) is a terrible strategy. You can’t let the assholes have the last word. If you do, the last thing people remember is bad, and memories are short You have to replace a negative with a positive. Lots of positives.
tam1MI
Men’s gymnastics used to have parity. Colleges like UCLA and Nebraska used to regularly turf out Olympic medalists. Unfortunately, colleges chose to make Men’s gymnastics a sacrificial lamb to Title IX rather than touch their oh-so-precious football programs and all that went away.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: India was like that too. But the police state of BJP in Modi’s second term opened the eyes of a lot of people. Not enough for the opposition alliance to get a majority but enough for BJP to not get an absolute majority unlike the last 2 times.
jimmiraybob
It seems that SCOTUS has just restored the Nuremberg defense or “just following orders.”
When the most horrific and formerly illegal orders that the president may give, citing his Constitutional duty to protect the American people (sounds like an official duty to me), becomes a legal order, what is not on the table?
Trump likely learned his lesson with his former Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, when Esper revealed that he asked, “Can’t you just shoot them? Just shoot them in the legs or something?”
Next time: “It is, as President of the United States, my solemn and sworn duty to the Constitution to restore peace and order for the protection of the people. I thereby order you to just shoot them! Just shoot them in the legs or something!”
TBone
Hitchcock alert: 8pm on TCM
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifeboat_(1944_film)
(Story by John Steinbeck)
To punch Nazis or not to punch Nazis? That is the question…
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Sherrod did a specific thing that really resonated in Ohio – he saved pensions. He promised he would and he came through. This is carpenters (example) but there are tens of employment groups where he saved their pensions – tens of thousands of people. They are hugely and specifically grateful to him. It’s like the thing Trump lies about but real “came up to me, big strong man, tears in his eyes…” that actually happens to Sherrod. I’ve seen it. Except they don’t say “sir”. Everyone calls Sherrod Sherrod :)
TBone
@jimmiraybob: 👍
Leto
@OzarkHillbilly: if it’s a current president, then it’s presidential activities. There’s no such thing as past presidential activities. That’s a citizen. You do daily citizen activities… daily. I’m down for having ice cream with a citizen, and getting into crazy scooby doo mystery shenanigans… with a citizen.
snoey
@hueyplong: In soccer playing countries youth soccer doesn’t have to be organized, it’s two kids, a ball and “oh yeah watch this”. A few more kids and they play world cup.
prostratedragon
Holding a thought for those in the path of hurricane Beryl, headed near Jamaica as a category 5.
Cacti
This was SCOTUS’s version of Germany’s Enabling Act of 1933.
The legal imprimatur for a dictatorial presidency has been given and they’re waiting for the next R President (Trump or someone else) to exercise it.
Unless Biden term two includes major SCOTUS reforms, the US is a right wing dictatorship in waiting, and we’re one bad election cycle away from it, with no end in sight.
TBone
@Cacti: 🎯
Bupalos
@Kay: Oh yeah, I don’t mean to Sherrod particularly, he’s always held that crew because it’s so clear that he means it. I mean Biden dragging these guys that in Ohio maybe were splitting on our national ticket back. I feel (very anecdotally, 2 surprising conversations) that nationally we’ve got back some union that we had lost from Obama through Clinton. Which we really had lost in spirit already, but which didn’t show up big time until Trump came along and wasn’t recognized as a Romney type but seemed to run a populist thing mostly by short-circuiting things.
Percysowner
@TBone: That’s my plan. However, I am only the granny and my kids make the final decision. My daughter is really concerned. My SIL tends to be less willing to make changes.
@Eyeroller: Yes, I know a lot of Jew got trapped in Germany, especially after things went bad. I wasn’t trying to blame them for that. I also know that a lot of Jews thought “We’re German We’ve been here forever. The won’t do what they said they would.” and then got caught in a horrible situation. At least this time people have warning and have the past to show that comfortable thinking is really magical thinking.
Baud
@Ksmiami:
But surely we were in band!
Kay
@Bupalos:
I would agree with you except for Tim Ryan. He would have been better for labor but they voted for Vance.
But Ryan probably comes off as inauthentic, honestly. He was anti choice then pro choice. He was a centrist then inexplicably started styling himself as a liberal for a couple of years then back to mushy center Right D when he ran for senate. I think people pick that up and it makes the candidate not trustworthy.
You have to be careful when defining “labor” too. Teachers unions in urban areas of Ohio are majority-minority. They’re strong Democrats. So are government unions (except for police and fire) – majority minority and strong Dem.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Running may increase credibility. But if the US collapses and becomes fascist there will be nowhere on earth that will be safe. Our economy and the reserve status of our currency ensures that. Alternatives will emerge, but that will take time. It took the allies 3 years to mount a successful counteroffensive in World War II
For all the handwringing our easiest path to avoid a dark future and have a fighting chance is to reelect Biden-Harris ticket and Democrats up and down the ticket.
Everything else is just hotair or balloon juice by people who are bathing in their privilege.
Kay
@Bupalos:
Tim Ryan was weirdly out of touch just as an Ohio pol. He came to our county early in his race and kept saying the economy was bad. Ok, I don’t know about the rest of the country but when he was saying this local employers were in a bidding war for workers, complete with billboards. The wage for “operators” – the lowest level manufacturing workers – went from around 12 to around 17 in a year. People couldn’t believe it. We told him this but the next event I went to he was still saying it. It was like he had internalized this “rust belt” narrative and couldn’t switch it off.
jimmiraybob
@Cacti:
“This was SCOTUS’s version of Germany’s Enabling Act of 1933.”
Proud Boys, stand back and stand by.
Baud
Cacti
Uruguay is one of the nicer South American countries, btw, but your point is on the mark. Soccer in the US is an upper middle class sport played in the well manicured fields of suburbia. In central and South America, Africa, and Middle East you can find dirt bare soccer pitches in the poor neighborhoods, kids playing it in the street, etc.
MLS has adopted the academy system of other pro clubs in developing talent, and it has resulted in the USMNT consistently being in the second tier internationally now. But I don’t think we’ll ever rise above that because the talent pool here is too shallow for the reason you mentioned.
TBone
🇺🇸 and they were singing…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XozkO7xQRmk
Ksmiami
@Baud: Soccer/ rugby for me. Unlike friggin Nader
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
So a kind of undercounted group of unionized workers are the people who make processed food. That industry quietly unionized decades ago and they have remained unionized. It makes for odd conflicts – during Fight for Fifteen the unionized people who make hamburger buns told Fight for Fifteen not to boycott McDonalds.
Think like huge companies – Campbells (the soup) is one. Also candy makers. US candy is often a union made product (and delicious!). Commercial bakeries. These are good jobs.
Democrats do better with them than the traditional male dominated unions – they’re younger, browner and more female and there are a LOT of them. If I were running a Dem campaign that wanted union growth I would look there.
Cacti
This can’t be repeated enough. It’s called the Pax Americana for a reason. The post-WWII world order, whatever its faults, was built by the United States. If the US fails, that world order fails with it and chaos follows.
jimmiraybob
@schrodingers_cat:
“For all the handwringing our easiest path to avoid a dark future and have a fighting chance is to reelect Biden-Harris ticket and Democrats up and down the ticket.”
In closing, I will just say Yes.
Belafon
Yeah, no, Ralph:
TBone
@TBone: lyrics are now chillingly akin to prophecy.
schrodingers_cat
@Belafon: Ralph Nader can fuck off and take BS and JS with him.
Kay
I helped with the minimum wage referendum in Ohio where we worked and pleaded for a higher minimum, then of course there was Fight for Fifteen which was probably the most successful labor initiative of my lifetime….then I watched wages in my county go up by 5 an hour in a year during and after the pandemic because the United States made a decision not to punish working people for the pandemic and held them up so they didn’t fall off a cliff.
Really opens your eyes to how much our boom/bust cycle was engineered to punish working people. It was deliberate. A lot of that pain could have been avoided.
Bupalos
@Eyeroller: As always, the ease of immigrating will be in direct inverse proportion to the actual need to immigrate. There are no democracies with sufficient capacity to absorb even a small part of the population which democratic decline will compromise and make feel unsafe. The reason people think this is an option- for them to abandon the deepest and strongest democracy on the planet for shallower and weaker democracies that are slightly less ill- is because there haven’t yet been the kind of significant impacts of democratic decline. Or, like abortion, they are being conceived of as something that must blow over and return to “normal.” But these impacts are in fact likely to come and to be gradually understood as durably harmful.
I’ve gradually been beaten into the understanding that global democracy is declining and is going to continue to decline. There isn’t anything that can change it’s direction as long as we’re still working out the world-historical forces of destabilization which we’re very implausibly looking past right now as speed bumps. This doesn’t mean we can’t mount effective defense within this decline. A defense that preserves critical ground from which we’ll regenerate. But I don’t think “looking for the places where this isn’t happening” is going to be either viable or helpful.
Cacti
@Belafon: Imagine if Ralph had never run. No Chief Justice Roberts. No Associate Justice Alito.
hueyplong
Or, Ralph, you and your ilk could have simply voted or Hillary and handled it instead of eternally spinning and/or relitigating your selfish stupidity.
pat
I just got started on the comments, but I have a huge question:
How is his effort to overturn the election treated as an act of the president and not the act of a CANDIDATE? Doesn’t that make a difference?
UncleEbeneezer
This whole notion that anyone who thinks it’s time to rally behind Biden and go win this damn election, is some sort of unthinking, follower sheep is fucking disgraceful. Especially as it so closely mimics the same, low-key racist “low-information voters” bullshit that bitter people spewed when Black voters in SC pushed Biden into the front-runner position in the Primary. The Dem base is not stupid. They know what it takes to win and how to keep their eyes on the prize.
People aren’t Biden-Or-Bust because we are blindly-loyal to Dems, it’s because we’ve given great thought to the entire ball of wax and decided that this is a stupid, useless debate that is a waste of our precious time and energy when we have another existential election to win. Continuing this debate hurts our chances the more we bash our candidate in public.
In 2000, I was a Nader voter convinced that Al Gore was too boring and not Progressive enough, yada, yada, yada. I laughed at the sheeple Gore voters for not having enough independence and intellect to see his flaws and how he was no different than Bush, etc. It was one of the dumbest things I have ever done and I will forever regret it. Even though my vote was in CA which went overwhelmingly Dem, I helped contribute to his loss (and all the horrors that W brought us) by talking endless shit about Gore online and giving other idiots in swing states a rationalization to refuse to vote for him, instead of putting my energy towards helping him win. I was young and stupid. But at least I learned my lesson.
If you are spending your time calling for Biden to step aside, regurgitating concerns about his flaws in public spaces etc., you are doing the same damn thing. You’re just doing Hillary’s Emails and Al Gore Invented The Internet, updated for 2024.
Omnes Omnibus
@gene108: Jim Thorpe says “Hi.”
Emily B.
Just cancelled my NYT subscription. I have to admit it hurts—I’ve been a reader for 35 years, and some of their journalism is really excellent. But I’ve lost confidence in their overall editorial judgment.
Eyeroller
@Bupalos: I don’t think I’ll be around for the worst impacts of climate change but it’s going to be bad. I’ve said I’m a misanthrope so perhaps I’m unduly pessimistic, but the fact that nuclear weapons exist means to me that they will eventually be used, and my guess is that stressors from climate change will result in conflicts that will lead to something happening there. Maybe not for 50 years or more, but I think it’s inevitable. It won’t necessarily wipe out humans but will certainly destroy most of “civilization.”
RaflW
@Jeffg166: Biden won 2020 by over 7 million votes. 51-47 isn’t really even close. The press treated it as a more narrow win, because they suck goat balls, but it was a solid win.
Heck, Clinton “won” 48-46, but this f*cked up constitution of ours stole that and handed the office to Trump.
All that said, I agree that we need a stomping margin of victory. I’m hoping people will be angry enough in Nov. to deliver that, but we’ll see.
Kay
My tiny grandaughter is visiting the US from Denmark. She’s with her mother’s (US) side of her family outside Detroit for a couple of days, then she comes to us. They just sent me a picture. They have her in a Tigers ball cap.
She looks precious.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I just had a normie check-in. She’s worried about Biden. But she recently had another Democrat, who I thought would be joining in the freakout, scream in her face that there was absolutely nothing wrong with Biden’s debate performance! So we’re all over the map.
Bupalos
@Kay: I thought that campaign, which everyone* was praising up and down as perfect, was a borderline disaster. Fully half the ads were pretty close to “I like Trump just fine.” And I think we lost more than the election with that one.
*mostly nationally, based on their idea of “Ohio” which they just see as some red ink on a map.
Eyeroller
@Emily B.: I’d only had my subscription for 15 years but same. Krugman joining the jihad was the last straw. Cancelled yesterday.
tam1MI
They stab us in the back, and they expect us to love them for it
Bupalos
As I’ve said, that is DEFINITELY part of joining the freakout.
Elizabelle
You may have already seen this article, but sharing it again. USA Today, from two days ago:
Historian who predicted 9 of the last 10 election results says Democrats shouldn’t drop Joe Biden
zhena gogolia
@satby: Yep.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@RaflW: I ran the numbers after the 2020 election, and discovered that there are over a hundred countries represented in the United Nations whose entire populations are smaller than Biden’s popular-vote margin of victory.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: The good fundraising numbers after the debate made me hopeful about that.
zhena gogolia
@Belafon: OH FUCK HIM
Cacti
Okay, I think I’ve figured out a genius solution for if Biden actually is in cognitive decline.
Biden/Harris continue as nominees, get reelected anyway, and after the swearing in of both to their second terms, Biden resigns the Presidency on inauguration day, and VP Harris is sworn in as the 47th POTUS.
Now I’ll just send an invoice to the Biden campaign for coming up with this for them.
Bupalos
@Eyeroller: I don’t get into predicting particular historical outcomes. There’s kind of line for me between saying “democracy is certain to decline over two decades” and for instance “X country will no longer have meaningful elections” or “there will be a nuclear exchange.” I feel that I know for certain we’re headed in a direction, but not how far we are destined to go in that direction nor exactly what lies on that path.
As certain as I am we are headed in that direction, I’m every bit as certain we can have an affect on what this journey looks like, and what shape we’re in when bluer skies return and better options open up.
rikyrah
Chris D. Jackson
@ChrisDJackson
https://x.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1808119467047571860
JWR
Geez, this guy… (From CBS)
zhena gogolia
@Bupalos: Well, I’ll take her version over some others.
sixthdoctor
@UncleEbeneezer: I hope they invent time travel before I die so I can go punch my 29-year-old-Nader-voting-self in the nuts while on the voting line.
@Emily B.: Just cancelled my Slate subscription because the doomerism there is off the charts. I don’t know what they’re trying to accomplish.
rikyrah
Just phucking evil
Greg Bluestein
@bluestein
Georgia has teamed up with a coalition of Republican-led states – and with a group of Georgia growers – to halt a new federal rulethat would bring expanded protections to migrant farmworkers on temporary visas. #gapol
https://x.com/bluestein/status/1808109565201863085
TBone
Yeah, sure Jan…independent safety, that’s the ticket!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz7e3wnjxjzo
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: They are listening. That’s why they’re trying so hard to kneecap him.
prostratedragon
@Belafon: Downright pathological.
TBone
@JWR: oh, so now immunity is also retroactive! It begins the moment you contemplate running for president! “I don’t even have to announce, I just start thinking about it!”
Leto
@Omnes Omnibus: anyone mention Deon “Prime Time” Sanders yet?
zhena gogolia
I have to admit, I haven’t canceled NYT or WaPo. My anger makes me want to, but I like keeping tabs on what they’re doing. And I feel that as a subscriber, I can send them feedback. Maybe I’ll start sending feedback every week. SOMEBODY must read it.
No response to the letter I sent the other day, by the way, for those who were wondering.
But hearing about how many people here have cancelled, I wonder if I should too, to join the throng that maybe they will notice.
Leto
@UncleEbeneezer: +1
TBone
@pat: see my reply at #252 and the comment it replied to for your answer.
prostratedragon
@UncleEbeneezer:
all the horrors that W brought us
Samuel Alito🤬. But love you anyway.
3Sice
@Cacti:
The European clubs hoover up those kids into their youth programs. See also MLB and the DR.
I get frustrated with USMNT fans and their insistence that dropping a 15 y.o. US suburban kid into the youth programs at BVB is for sure going to create the next Diego Forlan. It just doesn’t work that way.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Bemused Senior was an advocate of “cancel the subscription” and I confess I still subscribe. I think I will take up your suggestion. This has gone too far.
Mr. Bemused Senior
Damn right.
TBone
A Philadelphia Inquirer subscription is economically efficient!
Belafon
@zhena gogolia: I am generally torn. They both reach large audiences, but they are both beholden to generally conservative ownership which is ultimately profit driven.
I think Democrats should pour more of their money into NPR and spend their effort driving it in the correct direction. They don’t have the profit motive the others do, and I think could be better persuaded to report properly if they had better funding. They’re the largest news org that we could influence and they reach a lot of people.
And spend some money on independent and local reporting.
Kay
@Bupalos:
Oh, I backed it. I thought “what the hell – try that”. In the end though, he was a mediocre candidate and we need a really strong one to overcome the shift Right of the electorate. I was wrong.
Another good example for Ohio is Marcy Kaptur (my rep). Part of it is she has a genuine base in Toledo/Lucas County – she is very much from there, her family still lives there. But she’s also smart as a whip and hard working. She is 78 years old this cycle and I heard a radio interview with her the other day. Difficult questions. She responds in 2 seconds and in full paragraphs, on any subject. Just a great candidate. You can’t invent that out of thin air. They have to be in the top ten per cent of pols. I think Gallego in AZ may be one of them and also Slotkin in MI. There aren’t a lot of these people. They’re very talented.
Eyeroller
@zhena gogolia: They will ask why if you call. The agent I talked to kept pushing for a specific reason besides my general “editoral slant” so I cited the headline of that one they all signed on to.
TBone
I just received a June 21 notice of a SECURITY BREACH “incident” involving all of my personal health data!
A former employee of their “outside vendor may have “accessed and taken with him” all of that data, including DOB and SS#…
But, no worries! They’ve expressed their deep regret in the “What We’re Doing” section of the Notice! And they are “further enhancing workforce training”!
Signed, and I shit you not, Nuance Communications, Inc.
The incident occurred in November of 2023. AYFKM
The corporate headquarters is in Georgia, USA. I guess the mails there are still handled by carrier pigeon. As well as the IT security.
Baud
@Emily B.:
Good for you.
3Sice
@TBone:
They just bought back Spirit… We manufacture planes. If we outsource our production costs the only thing left is profit!
MBA’s playing at galaxy brain levels that us normies can’t understand.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Great. Normies talking to normies is the best.
TBone
@3Sice: 😆😭
Another Scott
28s video from the White House.
[flailing arms] ALL y’all watch it, and take it to heart, ya hear??
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Why did the congressional candidates overperform Tim Ryan, then? With the base.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Just to be clear, the normie who’s “worried about Biden” isn’t worried that he’s senile or shouldn’t be president, and she HATES Trump. But she’s worried that OTHER PEOPLE won’t vote for Biden (as one of those tweets talked about). I think we have to get over this.
cmorenc
Richard Nixon gets off scott-free under roberts opinion about privileged testimony under presidential immunity
Almost Retired
Is there a concern troll Hall of Fame? If so, I’m looking forward to Katy Tur’s induction ceremony.
Kay
@Bupalos:
Kaptur to me is an example of how a great candidate can overcome a problem. So she is Catholic and her original (urban) voters were Eupropean immigrants. It’s Toledo so eastern European immigrants – she came out of that Ohio Dem tradition. But her voters changed – browner, younger, many more Arab Americans. She was fine as far as her basic (populist) focus on economics BUT she was anti choice. Really uncomfortable with abortion and kind of a PIA about it in the coalition – you may recall she one of the Dems who insisted the ACA somehow infringed on Catholics religious freedom, which was just nonsense.
She’s no longer anti choice, not even a little bit. She shifted. But she’s a good enough pol that no one thinks it was cynical or insincere, like they did with Ryan. She’s just a cut above him. More talented.
TBone
@Another Scott: can’t access.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@UncleEbeneezer:
+100
I’d need a cigarette if I smoked.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
It’s always that. Liberals suck. “I’m decent and smart enough to do the right thing, but it’s those other, lesser people I’m going to spend all my time fretting about.”
Maybe those other, lesser people are driven away by our elitism rather than Biden’s age.
TBone
@cmorenc: no investigation would have been necessary in the first place. Because official. Officially!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
Which means another day of being a Democrat! :)
Almost Retired
Rudy disbarred in New York! Behind bars would be better, but I’ll take it.
CaseyL
@TBone:
And the LA TImes. I subscribed to them when I cancelled WaPo.
BTW, I want to thank whoever it was that suggested I sign up with Postcards to Swing States. I have done so, and the first packet is coming my way! H E Wolf is right: it is a far, far better thing to do something than to marinate in rage.
Baud
@Almost Retired:
👍
cain
@TBone: She looks like some Machiavellian Shaker woman that likely owns a long gun and a machete.
CaseyL
@UncleEbeneezer:
Yeah – that was me, 1980, John Anderson. My own lifelong regret – and lifelong lesson. Have never since, and will never again, vote for anyone but the Democratic candidate.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
The Biden campaign announced this morning that they have raised over $264 million in the second quarter, including a record setting $127 million in June.
Edit: Oops, I see rikyrah beat me to it.
BRyan
@Kay: It’s heartening to read that Sherrod is polling well, and I certainly hope he wins; I’ve always thought he’s pretty good. But the 74 fundraising emails I received in less than three weeks finally forced me to unsubscribe. Can that sort of bombardment of likely donors possibly be effective? Doesn’t work on me. No more $$ for Sherrod.
Juju
@Another Scott: Trump should be put in a maze with a block of cheese or a Diet Coke and an overcooked steak, or whatever works for him, at the end of the maze. While a mouse is also doing the maze thing at the same time. My guess is the mouse would have a good chance of beating TCFFG. I think a fruit bat could fly circles around TCFFG in just about any situation.
Another Scott
@TBone:
Sorry. Twitter version of 28s White House video.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
It’s a hell of a risk. I mean, you’re looking at a complete take over of the federal govt and fair and free elections would be endangered. I’m not sure what happens if we lose the presidency.
TBone
@Almost Retired: 💙💙💙💙🤩
Trivia Man
Remember the Contract With (On?) America? The Great Society? New Deal? Square Deal?
that shit works. A coherent and specific package of projects with a catchy (short!) name. Kick it iff with a presidential address – joint session of congress or just a nationwide TV event. If the media bigs wont play ball, carpet bomb every live stream you can – YT, Twitch, Tik Tok… the works.
Another Scott
@BRyan: Unwanted e-mail is a fact of life. Don’t let it get in the way of doing what needs to be done – financially supporting candidates who need the money.
I think I (literally) have about 100,000 unread e-mails in my local personal inbox. It’s fine. The software can handle it.
Cheers,
Scott.
JML
I used to think she was ok, but holy cow, she’s a full-on member of the Idiot DC Media now. Never misses an opportunity to whack the Democrats.
(maybe I just thought she was hot and wasn’t paying attention. I dunno.)
Baud
@BRyan:
Create an alternate email for political donations. That’s what I do.
O. Felix Culpa
@Manyakitty: Son worked for a time at CNN. Took a lesser-paid job elsewhere for the same reason.
TBone
@cain: 😆 so true! Her accent when I see her speak makes me instantly think of Natasha, the villains of Rocky & Bullwinkle (Boris and Natasha) fame.
Kay
@rikyrah:
Oh, I agree! Now. Ryan’s approach was bad. You and sab were right. I was wrong. Ryan was too weak a candidate to win against red state headwinds. He underperformed just about everyone.
I asked Kaptur to run for Senate that cycle – she just laughed. Subtract one House seat but add a Senate seat. I think she wants to retire and is only running again because we’ll lose the seat when she leaves unless some real talent appears. She has a large and close extended family although she herself is single with no children. I think she wants to kick back and come home.
Suzanne
@Almost Retired:
I, for one, would really enjoy seeing Rudy Giuliani in an orange jumpsuit, picking up trash on the side of the highway. I might just litter, in that instance.
I’m envisioning his hair dye dripping into his mouth as he sweats.
Belafon
@Trivia Man: Build Back Better.
RaflW
@tihotm: Tapper is more than welcome to go report on Ukraine, and how the GOP holding back on military aid f**ked over that country for months and months.
Oh, but he wants to look heroic, not take any personal or reporting risks.
TBone
@Another Scott: ❤️🇺🇸💙
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Almost Retired:
I’m not sure but years ago Charlie Pierce talked about the American Museum of Feckless Journalism:
I’m sure there’s room for an up and comer like Tur. Like various sports pro halls of fame, there’s probably an annual nomination and election process.
Trivia Man
@Belafon: That works for me. But it needs hammering into public consciousness. That was 2 years ago now? Im fine with dusting it off but it needs a catchy list and 24/7 repetition. Yes, it gets boring. But that shit works in branding.
And bully pulpit the shit out of it.
cain
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Let’s be clear – we’re talking about Gen X and Boomers when we are talking about this, right? I don’t know anybody from the younger generations who listen to NPR. I actually didn’t start regularly listening to NPR until 911.
Today, I don’t listen to any of that stuff cuz I rather just listen to spotify music and the occasional podcast.
I’ve reduced my entire political content down to reddit, twitter, and balloon-juice. I’m pretty beholden to Balloon-Juice more than anything else :D
catothedog
I think anyone who is subscribed to the NYT is funding the enemy. Teaching them a lesson – the Democratic Party is not their chattel- is imperative and writing letters or criticizing them does nothing.
Blackmailing Biden – sit for interview or we will destroy you – is the least. The Iraq War, Trump what-aboutism, hippie-punching …
They are part and parcel of the white supremacy cult.
Hit them where it hurts. Cancel your subscriptions
cain
@Baud: I think it’s tiktok and instagram these days.
My daughter occasionally talks about Palestine – but I don’t get much about U.S. politics from her. My wife of course does plenty of that with her. She’s in the demographic that is in the crosshairs of GOP stupidity – young and childbearing age.
rikyrah
Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) posted at 3:38 PM on Mon, Jul 01, 2024:
The point of Roberts not telling us what “unofficial” or “official” actually means is that it gives him leeway to make it up later, depending on who wins the next election.
(https://x.com/ElieNYC/status/1807876376768172411?t=0jrwr3N-LU46ydwOjz1dWQ&s=03)
prostratedragon
@JML: Never misses an opportunity to whack the Democrats
I call that “striking the gong,” like a ritual in which one moves around a shrine and at certain locations must strike a little gong to indicate completion of the prescribed obligation.
rikyrah
Biden’s Wins (@BidensWins) posted at 9:52 AM on Tue, Jul 02, 2024:
BREAKING: Former Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson just articulated why President Biden is better on his worst day than Donald Trump at his best. Biden is surrounded by leaders. Trump is surrounded by crooks. Retweet so all Americans see this.https://t.co/TqXFY4Sqgv
(https://x.com/BidensWins/status/1808151786068312179?t=arHDCPSHZWWmPK1_NskO2Q&s=03)
rikyrah
Leah Goodridge (@leahfrombklyn) posted at 8:56 PM on Mon, Jul 01, 2024:
There are angels who walk among us.
Nicky Crawford is one of them.
He’s retired. From Atlanta. And he just opened a mobile laundry bus for unhoused people.
“God has blessed me so much, I knew this is what I was supposed to be doing.” https://t.co/3s1RqQJwQ6
(https://x.com/leahfrombklyn/status/1807956389924319250?t=92cLz8sdnH-bC956__P64g&s=03)
rikyrah
Ragnarok Lobster![]()
(@eclecticbrotha) posted at 0:06 AM on Tue, Jul 02, 2024:
Everyone who says “I can vote my conscience because I live in a blue state” should be forced to spend the ensuing election cycle in a red state.
(https://x.com/eclecticbrotha/status/1808004218327912601?t=9su2LbnUz2pk80K8kicJ1A&s=03)
BRyan
@Baud: oh, absolutely a separate email address for the political stuff. Which made it really easy to count up the 74 begs that were specifically fundraising for Sherrod. Nope. Ridiculous.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: If the time and energy spent on fretting could be channeled into doing stuff that would be a far more productive use of one’s time.
cain
@gene108:
Mark my words, Cricket is coming. We already got a stadium in New York. You can bet another one in California. The T20 is probably a perfect formulation – a single day 20 over match.
Honestly, cricket and futbol is going to be the two biggest sports because they are going to have the largest audiences.
Also, I just want to take one more thing away from MAGA :D
Stevo
Coming in late….I don’t see how the scenario of Potus ordering a drone strike of literally anyone (including peaceful protestors, judges, journalists….) followed by a pardon and option to bribe whoever would follow the order once out of office is not a-ok. No harm no foul.
Suzanne
@cain:
Agree. We’re always complaining about the MSM, but, like….. I genuinely don’t know anyone under 40 who consumes any of it. Daily newspapers? Sunday talk shows? Boomer-ville.
The yoot are on social media, listening to shit-tons of podcasts, watching YouTube channels, watching “infotainment” on streaming services. It is a different dynamic. They have to be reached differently.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@cain:
From my anecdotal experiences related in the comment above, correct. That being said, the mass of white 30-something “progressives” here who mostly adhere to “new liberalism” (which is another rebrand of the “socially liberal/fiscally conservative” claptrap I got in the 80s and 90s) can certainly hear most of what I see them say on social media on any given day on NPR so who knows.
Your question reminds me of yet another critique in my clip file of NPR critiques (and this was written in 2014):The typical NPR listener is 55 years old, makes $86,000, is white and believes both sides do it. In other words NPR programming targets upper middle class moderates who are close to retirement. Outside of the 1%, that’s the most comfortable group in America.
Baud
@BRyan:
Well, the key is to not look at that account. :-)
JML
@prostratedragon: LOL! “striking the gong”, I’m going to have to tuck that one away for future reference.
Timurid
If the media wants a horse race, why do they keep shooting at one of the horses?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: The NYT wants to invalidate the vote of millions of Democrats that voted in the primary. And the bedwetters chorus that joined the NYT and other prestige media are doing the same. Their intentions matter less to me than their actions. Which say that your vote for Biden is inferior to my feelings and vibes. When they deride the Democrat establishment. They are deriding the votes of black people and other minorities who chose Biden over their great white hope.
Most of these concern trolls on our side, you can take the ones of this blog for example were at best reluctant Biden supporters in 2020 and were pining for their great progressive hope (BS or EW). Check out their comments of 2020 if you don’t believe me. So now they see the blood in the water and are exacting their revenge
cain
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:
NPR is excellent when it cones to social issues but horrible when it comes to washington politics. They have a lot of great series – like katrina and the like. It really showcases the power of radio.
NPR can just re-invent itself as a podcast and I think it likely already has done that but it it is perceived as old. I haven’t checked in awhile, but what is the average age of the hosts/commentary people there? Have they incorporated Gen Z content?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@rikyrah:
Leah is good people.
Another Scott
@cain:
And she wants revenge.
Cheers,
Scott.
Timill
@zhena gogolia: Coould be worth a try at WaPo – I went to cancel, and they said: “All right – when your sub expires we won’t renew it. Or, if you don’t cancel, the sub will run the same length of time and we’ll give you $70 back.”
So I took the $70…
and put a note in my calendar to cancel next year.
Geminid
@Kay: Marcy Kaptur has been at it a while. I read she started working for the Democrat Party when she was 13 years old.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: I hate the 20 over format. I am old school.
Another Scott
@Belafon: As I understand NPR’s and their member station’s funding, half of their budget has to come from the public. So, without substantial public support, corporate funding won’t save them.
I don’t know the funding solution.
But I think it’s important to remember that NPR News is not all of public radio. There’s PRI, there’s PRX, there’s APM, and there’s all the foreign public radio networks. There’s a lot of great public radio programming out there.
NPR News deserves all kinds of criticism. But support public radio (and TV) or the news business will get even worse.
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
Yes, and you can thank assholes James Carville for encouraging that. I hate that man so much. A lot of these assholes were chasing white men votes and they still as a group like to vote for Republicans because they are still wired for misogyny and don”t like that modern men don’t have the same masculine rules – we are free to act as feminine as we like. Now pardon me while I play with my dolls er action figures.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: That makes sense. The union leader on the podcast deals with workers on heavy infrastructure projects. Democrats have been great for them, but many are still Trumpy.
TBone
@Another Scott: I have a meme about that. It’s a photo that Noem posted of herself in her cosplay hunting camo, with a shotgun slung prominenttly in her arms and a “properly trained, I guess” black lab looking on. She posted the photo of herself in anticipation of going on weekend hunting trip. She overlayed the photo, in curly, feel-good font, “It’s almost Friday!”
The meme says
“Holy shit, what happens to that dog on Friday?!
Old Man Shadow
And that’s why John Roberts feels safe making you into a king. He knows you would never personally have him and his five associates murdered or disappeared. He knows you would never use that power to order all guns to be seized and destroyed or declare martial law and remain in office until your death.
They weaponize our basic decency and humanity against us and our republic.
cain
We’re giong to have to keep the presidency away for at least 3 terms so that we can replace those people. It’s going to take 15 years to ge this nation back on track – I hope I’m around to see it.
JWR
Alvin Bragg responds to TFG’s request. (From ABC)
UncleEbeneezer
@prostratedragon: Exactly. We all make mistakes. The best way, imo, to atone for ones that do collective damage to everyone else (like helping enable the election of W through my pro-Nader, shit-talking and Gore-bashing in 2000) is to realize the mistake, acknowledge it and encourage others not to make the same damn one in 2016, 2024 etc. Especially as someone who understands all the sentiment that leads to wanting to make that mistake.
cain
I was telling my wife this because she wants to leave the country. She’s sick of the misogyny and the racism that has been directed towards her in education. She has many not so nice things to say about white women. Who she is particularly bitter about.
I told her that there is no place that we can hide from fascists and mentioned that right wing crap is spreading all over Europe as well.
TBone
@Old Man Shadow: 1,000 percent. I wish we could make him (all of them) eat and choke on that.
Suzanne
@schrodingers_cat:
You can just call me an asshole and not be passive-aggressive about it. I can take it.
If you’ll recall, my first choice in 2020 was….. Kamala Harris. And my most fervent, best-scenario for 2024 would have been that Biden spent a year raising her profile and then declining to run again, so Harris could have been well-positioned as the front-runner. As it stands, there’s no graceful way to do that now, so I think Biden should spend some media energy emphasizing the strong leadership skills of…. Kamala Harris, as a strong backup plan should he not make it through a second term.
I am absolutely not on Team Never-Criticize-Dem-Strategy. I think that’s counterproductive. I think it makes us lose winnable races and encourages us to lose sight of voters. I believe in Plan/Do/Check/Adjust, with polling falling under “check” and strategic changes under “adjust”. I am as reliable a Dem voter as you will ever find.
Josie
@schrodingers_cat:
Come sit by me. I’ve been around for a long time, and these fake Democrats make me sick.
Bupalos
@Geminid: The Democratic party.
cain
@Emily B.: You’re doing it for America. Nothing says you can’t come back if they reform – but it’s time that we liberals and centrist abandon these newspapers. They are the tools of oligarchs now.
May I suggest you instead put money in Talking Points Memo and Pro publica whose work have been way more impactful than anything the NYT has done recently.
Geminid
@JWR: Magdi Jacobs volunteered for Nader’s 2000 campaign. She wasn’t old enough to vote but she regretted it anyway after a short while.
prostratedragon
@rikyrah: Flowing with blessings! Surely this can be reproducible.
JML
sad truth but the virulently racist appeals from the MAGA crowd played well in the construction industry, who often think “immigrants” are coming to steal all their jobs and increasingly believe that any time a minority does better it means they’re doing worse. the fact that they’re getting consistently screwed by Wall Street, big banks, venture capitalists, etc (aka, The League of Sh!tty Rich White Dudes) doesn’t seem to penetrate.
cain
@zhena gogolia:
The only feedback they’ll listen to is the loss of revenue.
jackmac
@cain: There’s a 25,000 seat cricket stadium that’s been approved in far western Chicago suburbs (Oswego). But construction will be slow and in stages and project won’t start until some wetlands concerns are addressed.
Geminid
@Bupalos: I know. I rearranged the sentence but did not change “Democrat” into the adjective. But good catch…I guess.
rikyrah
Ragnarok Lobster![]()
(@eclecticbrotha) posted at 11:13 PM on Mon, Jul 01, 2024:
Screaming “ZOMG Biden used a teleprompter and left without taking questions!” just hours after the Supreme Court granted Trump immunity from prosecution is just one more nail in the coffin of responsible journalism.
(https://x.com/eclecticbrotha/status/1807990959424090266?t=eMS68O0dMk5rc3Y4MRAPNg&s=03)
cain
@Suzanne: The danger with Youtube, Instagram and Tiktok is the algorithms. Watch one right wing show and now your entire feed is filled with it.
rikyrah
The Biden Accomplishments Guy (@What46HasDone) posted at 11:33 PM on Mon, Jul 01, 2024:
Another funny thing about the “Biden can do crimes now” people is you literally just saw how all the disloyal hoes went running and screaming because of a subpar debate performance. There’s not anywhere close to the ride or die in this party necessary for “commits crime spree.”
(https://x.com/What46HasDone/status/1807996015221309655?t=y4pjKTjTM-XSc2DXrcsa6A&s=03)
cain
That was me in the 90s and the early 2000s until I realized “wtf does that even mean? Who isn’t fiscally conservative?” I realized only the socially liberal matters. Now I’m more for progressive taxation.
rikyrah
Vincent![]()
(@VtheEsquire) posted at 10:59 AM on Mon, Jul 01, 2024:
Joe Biden does not need to “step aside” for some magical Democrat to come in and put a campaign together in 3 months.
There is already a Presidential succession plan in place. Her name is Kamala Harris.
All this hand-wringing is really about her, when you think about it.
(https://x.com/VtheEsquire/status/1807806364657263032?t=DWj2fIrDKd6y8fqmF-O0aA&s=03)
cain
@Another Scott: That honestly made me LOL. :D
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: Ryan offered Republican Lite, which was never going to win against Republican Real. I think Xochitl Torres-Small lost her reelection bid in NM CD3 for the same reason: her television ads were all “I like guns! I like fracking!” I knew that wasn’t going to win over right-wingers when they could have bloody red meat from her opponent, and was likely to soften Dem support. The D who won back that seat in 2022, Gabe Vasquez, presents more solidly Democratic and aligned with core Dem values, but not super-lefty. That’s ok. It fits his district. I will be working to help turnout in his reelection bid.
cain
@schrodingers_cat: It’s great for the upcoming players I think. But I enjoyed the matches all the same. But there is definitely felt like it was going at breakneck speed.
Suzanne
@cain: Absolutely right.
But that’s also why it’s incredibly important to watch the pols who are good at it and emulate those tactics. Name recognition? Hot damn, you see something once, and the algorithm pushes it at you 500 more times with no additional effort from the candidate required. It is the environment. Get good at it.
TBone
@JWR: goddamnit.
Mike E
@schrodingers_cat: Pants? What pants?!
rikyrah
worth the watch
HEE DMVGMC
@gwenmcdonald1
Read them professionally for FILTH!![]()
![]()
https://x.com/gwenmcdonald1/status/1807972725903827007
Old School
@JWR:
Delay, delay, delay.
Sigh.
cain
100% this – the right wingers bake in our decency and clinging to our procedural rules when they do this shit.
Our citizenrys basic entitlement is what makes this into a yo-yo.
I for one am sick of having every fucking presidential year something where my stomach is clenched for 12 months.
Kayla Rudbek
@Eyeroller: I have had nightmares where my nephew’s descendants are bow-hunting on horseback outside the Metro station and not realizing/knowing what it was.
Bupalos
@zhena gogolia: Whether or not OTHER people are going to vote for your candidate or not is in fact the most important question. People want to make some kind of moral or character issue out of something that is pragmatic. We’ve just got two parallel freakouts going here that are BOTH about the affect on others. One side tends towards thinking running a candidate that performed as Biden did is going to end his chances and ours because 70% of the population answers that he is too old to be president. The other side thinks talking about that, or changing candidates is going to end our chances because they tend towards the idea that this kind of chaos will cause others to not vote.
We do not know which consideration is more valid. For my part I slightly tend towards the former, but mostly because I expect Biden to exhibit more of the same, or similar enough that the issue will grow. Others seem pretty sure it was a one-off and it can just kind of go away. We’re all just kind of guessing, I just think I’ve seen enough signs that this is my bet.
I 100% agree that people with public exposure shouldn’t be CALLING on Biden to hang it up. And even those of us with little confidence in Biden’s ability to manage his issues here should be thinking about lines of argument that can help get around it. I like the emphasis on a broader TEAM that you can trust that is interested in the same things you are. I like a higher profile for surrogates like Butigiege and Whitmer and Harris.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: This is what I’m bitterly laughing about.
cain
@Josie:
I’m not sure it’s a great idea to start labeling people as ‘fake democrats’ when we literally believe in the same things. It just creates undue turbulence. I think we can spend our time being more positive with each other even if we have disagreements.
I was not a BIden fan either. I was initially for Elizabeth Warren and then Kamala Harris. We don’t know everything about everything and going back and doing purity tests because you supported the candidate from the get-go is a right wing flex.
ETA – this does not apply to the people like Carville, and Democratic influencers, and what not on twitter/youtube. They deserve our scorn because they use their platform to kneecap us as a party.
O. Felix Culpa
@rikyrah:
Brilliant! Thank you.
Elizabelle
@Timurid: with you on your comment 321.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: That’s great!
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: Santa Fe Democrats also redrew the district that Torres Small lost in 2020, and that was another factor in Vasquez’s 2022 victory.
Gabe Vasquez’s challenger won’t have to work much on building name recognition. This is Yvette Harrell’s fourth straight campaign for the NM 2nd CD.
cain
@Old School: I’m actually ok with the delay – the press is obsessed with Joe Biden right now and anything we do with Trump will be lost in the noise.
Let them chill the fuck down.
TBone
@rikyrah: I watched it twice! 💜
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
That’s my middle son’s crowd – he’s IBEW. He’s a very strong Democrat, interestingly. My husband and I are surprised at how “political” he is. NOT to enrage anyone but he was one of the people who sent me all caps texts during the…tv show :)
Even that demo is changing though. I’m NW OH (the industrial part of the state) and OH and MI are reciprocal on construction trades, so Toledo can work in Detroit and vice versa. He is a journeyman and has a Detroit-area crew (apprentices) for a huge solar project. A lot of the Detroit area apprentices are Arab Americans.
Toledo carpenters union (I represent a lot of them) are very Latino. Sadly, a lot of Ohio Latinos love Donald Trump.
As you and I have talked about before I think white Democrats made some assumptions about Latinos that are just wrong. We need an entire reset there. Forget everything we thought we know about them and start approaching them not so much “as Latinos” but instead as American voters. I represent a lot of them. These people are Americans. If they ever had a connection to Mexico is it long gone. I don’t find them particularly tribal as to ethnicity. For one thing they’re really patriotic. They love the US. They want to be considered fully part of it,understandably. I feel like all our Latino consultants are grifters and we should fire all of them. They failed.
Mike E
@Cacti: imagine if Al Gore actually wanted to be president, and ran a competent campaign that embraced his incumbent advantage as opposed to shutting out Bill Clinton. Sigh.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid:
Well, I wouldn’t call it “Santa Fe” Democrats. It was the majority party and the capitol is in Santa Fe. I was in party leadership at the time, and informed about deliberations. You are correct that the district was redrawn more favorably, although not with a strong Dem majority. I still think Torres-Small was badly advised in her campaign strategy. That said, she might have lost anyway given the headwinds she had to fight.
Agreed that Herrell [not Harrell] has name recognition. Hopefully it works against her more than it helps.
Also, I incorrectly identified Vasquez’s district. It’s CD2.
geg6
@zhena gogolia:
Yes, you should. It’s the only thing they’ll pay any attention to. You can write ten letters a day and they’ll just pitch them while pointing and laughing. You should have told them that you personally know the Pitchbot. That might get them to sit up and take notice because they are terrified and freaked out by our Doug.
Eyeroller
@Kayla Rudbek: I’m sure there would be some mythology about it. The Aztecs feared Teotihuacan, which predated their arrival by centuries, believed it to be sacred and used it only for rituals. Maybe a future Mad Max world would feel the same way about our sports stadia.
Geminid
@Kay: Ruben Gallego said much the same about “Latino” political consultants, in his characteristically blunt way. I think this was in a Politico podcast interview two years ago.
cain
Yeah, Latinos are all over the place especially when many are multi-generational. As a near 2nd generation (well I was born in India, but came here at 4, my wife came here as a full adult and we have interesting differences) I think my grand kids will likely be very far away from an identity that is classically Indian
One day, I’ll try to figure out how the Irish manages to maintain being Irish over many generations. :)
cain
@Mike E: I remember how different he was after the presidential campaign was over – it was like “where was this guy?”.
Mike E
@TBone: also, the Cleveland Plains Dealer
JWR
@Old School: I keep telling myself that Bragg knows what he’s doing and that another two weeks really won’t matter in the long run. I hope
ETA @cain: Excellent point about the delay.
zhena gogolia
@geg6: Haha!
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: I was about to write, “Democrats in the Roundhouse” but it seemed too insidery.
“Sante Fe Democrats” is just shorthand for the Democratic state legislature, like I’ll say “Springfield Democrats” when I talk about redistricting in Illinois.
AWOL
@cain: I’m afraid you’re not reading the room.
NYFC games (soccer) are a prime socializing and meeting spot for NYC-based Proud Boys
Meanwhile, the NY Mets (baseball, allegedly) devote the entire month of June to LGBT+ rights.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: I understand what you mean, but it has connotations of the elite making decisions for the state, which I try to avoid. Democratic state legislature has equal the number of words, if a few more syllables, than Santa Fe Democrats. :)
schrodingers_cat
@cain: Did you see that bear meme applied in an office setting. How a Chad is preferable to a Becky? Yeah that’s been my experience also.
And in the Indian context I would rather deal with a know-it-all uncle than a mean mami anyday of the week.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: I figured.
Leto
@Kay: Sure, I’ll treat Latino voters just like Americans, which they are.
“Republicans will deport your ass regardless of what you do, regardless of how long you’ve been here, regardless of how much you parrot their racist AF language. They will call you “beaner” straight to your face, tell you to “go back to where you came from”, while at the same time telling you to get back in the field to pick crops. You’re not white, no matter how much you delude yourselves into thinking it. You’ll never be “one of the good ones” in their eyes, no matter what you do. Yeah, the Democrats are asking you to maybe extend basic decency to your fellow human, but please continue to collectively shoot yourselves in the dicks just like white people do.”
I plan to meet them where they are, just like you suggest. Why teach that Project2025 will deport between 11-20 million of them, when I can just meet them where they are: delusion fantasy land. This is also why I’m director of communications and outreach for any Dem candidate.
Archon
Donald Trump, the right-wing policy establishment and media and now the Supreme Court have told us their plans. They want to engage in the biggest right-wing social engineering project since Nazi Germany.
We will not be able to say we weren’t warned or they hid their agenda.
prostratedragon
@cain: I’ve had good results so far in using private windows or tabs for my rare offscript excursions.
cain
@schrodingers_cat: I rather not deal with either – but the mean mami does terrify me :D
Wish my wife luck – she’s in the middle of an interview with Portland Public Schools right now! She’s going to do well.
Suzanne
@cain:
Harris, Warren, and others have positively influenced Joe. That’s to their credit, and to his. That is how a healthy, normal political system should operate. The idea that I should feel…. what? Shame? for voting for Elizabeth Warren in a primary is, like, ON WEDNESDAYS WE WEAR PINK-level groupthink.
BTW, I was proud to vote for Joe in 2020, was proud to vote for HRC in 2016, not to mention the 200+ houses I canvassed on her behalf (in 90-degree-plus heat and being threatened with being shot). If there is anybody who sucks it up and moves on to a general election with great pragmatism, it is me.
eclare
@Cheryl from Maryland:
I can see that. There was also a lot of blame to Hillary.
Maybe they elevate Pincess Anne and Mike?
cain
@prostratedragon: I’m not instagram and tiktok. My wife consumes both of those. It’s definitely part age difference between us. I prefer reading. We are both ADHD, so she goes through those videos at 2x speed, and will go through them in milliseconds. I’m much slower (but fast compared to the general populace)
You can tell my ADHD since when I get on here – my posts are bursts of high speed posting :D
schrodingers_cat
@cain: Tell your wife to hang in there. Its hard to be an Indian woman, even in India actually.
TBone
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), June 14, 2024:
Now what? Just…Good luck with that? Grrrrrrr…..
https://www.citizensforethics.org/legal-action/lawsuits/crew-sues-doj-for-olc-records-on-section-3-of-the-14th-amendment/
If they received the requested records in time to publish before the election, it would at least be something to use as a weapon in this battle.
schrodingers_cat
@cain: Wishing her all the best!
catclub
The climate change prediction I fear the most goes like this: “We successfully make a transition to clean energy that effectively halts the CO2 crisis before it is too late….. However, the global ocean ecosystem is ruined to the point of being 98% jellyfish, and ecosystem collapse does us in.”
Mike E
@Suzanne: Honestly, it really is not about you me or any one person here … I voted for Warren during the Super Tuesday primary (she was still in the race, barely) but I did what I always did (what my immigrant mother always did) and voted straight D. I am always right (hah) in my mind and feel like Cassandra when talking to other ostensibly reality-based voters but at the end of the day people are fickle weirdos at best, sadly. I don’t feel a burning need to be vindicated or to say “I told you so” since the time to be “right” was when Reagan pulled his treasonous Iranian hostages coup in ’80…or when Ford pardoned Nixon and the nation should have burned shit down over that…or when Tricky Dick did his maneuver with N Vietnam….you get the idea. Our republic and its constitution have so many soft spots that autocrats can exploit and this goes back centuries.
Eyeroller
@geg6: The FTFNYT have a long history of refusing to accept feedback. They fired their public editor a long time ago. When criticized they wave it away with “you don’t understand our greatness.”
I inherited my subscription to the WaPo and it goes back even further than my NYT one, but with the new management I’m considering canceling that also.
lowtechcyclist
@oldgold:
Kindly shut the fuck up, willya?
I’ve got no illusions that yesterday wasn’t a big and bad deal. But most of us haven’t given up yet. If you have, why don’t you find a bunch of other people to hang out with where you can all talk about how it’s all over now, and weren’t we right all along that that’s where it was headed. Anyway, cheerio to you.
cain
Hillary won all her debates. :-) Where did we go wrong??! But you know, if she failed any of them – you know the NYT would be badgering her on that as well as Butter Her Emails.
Never has there been so much pressure on a candidate and did not break once. Truly one of the most resilient politicians I have ever encountered. Hillary is a perfect example of how propaganda can vilify someone for no reason. I know I didn’t care for Hillary for quite some time – but changed my mind when she ran for President and I have the NYT to thank for that.
cain
@schrodingers_cat: Thanks!
if anybody is interested in following a super awesome person interested in helping children in education but a warrior for diversity, equity, and inclusion – check out her twitter feed:
@nikshi
or linkedin:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/aartiramkrishna/
Kay
@Leto:
I know you’re joking and I’m only talking about the people I represent, I don’t claim to know 20 million people, but the deportation threat isn’t going to get them to our side. They’re 2nd and 3rd generation and they’re in Ohio, not Texas. All their family members are citizens. Now, the “beaner” thing is probably good.
They recognize discrimination. It’s just that they don’t tie that back to Mexico. You sort of know when you get a “hit” with them. So, example, one county east of here was strong in HS football. The county has a higher than average Latino population – because it’s tied to agriculture – things that had to be picked by hand not machine, so my county where we grow corn and soybeans and wheat had no Mexician workers. Anyhoo- Latinos in that county got very strong in football. The entire team became Latino – the Latino kids were better than the white kids. White people then stopped attending football games. We have talked about that. They get that.
JAFD
@Bupalos: Here is a well-argued optimistic vision of our economic and ecological future. IMHO, recommended reading for all jackals
https://caseyhandmer.wordpress.com/2024/05/22/the-solar-industrial-revolution-is-the-biggest-investment-opportunity-in-history/
Ghost of Joe Liebling’s Dog
@3Sice: I’m reliably informed by major media outlets such as the paper of record, so called, that since he’s an octogenarian, it’s likely he’s not naming his sources because he can’t remember their names. Or what they said. So he’s just going with his gut instead, and guessing at who they were (if they existed) and what they might have said if he could have remembered to ask.
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: respectfully, I (for one) didn’t read that as having given up. I read it as a howl of objection. I happen to concur with his opinion and saw it more as a call to pay attention. I think the facts of yesterday should be blasted over loudspeakers like Muslim calls to prayer. But that’s just my opinion!
Kay
@Geminid:
I listened to the Latino voter consultant who worked or works for the Lincoln Project and it just sounded like such obvious bullshit. “They love FAMILY and they have a WORK ETHIC” Who the fuck doesn’t love their family and lots of people have a work ethic. How is this helpful? I can’t believe he gets paid.
OGLiberal
@Kristine: My guess is that almost no serious voter interviewed or polled ever said that they’d like to have/not like to have a beer with a candidate and whether that played into their voting choices. It’s shit the media makes up when they don’t like somebody – eg, Gore – and love it when idiots like GWB given them silly nicknames. Despicable people.
Ksmiami
@catclub: Super intelligent AI will do us in way faster.
Eyeroller
@JAFD: The problem is tipping points. Solar is great and very promising. It will take a while. Meanwhile the acidity of the oceans is increasing considerably and, per a comment above, jellyfish are exploding. We could start to see substantial rises in sea level sooner than expected due to loss of Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, particularly the latter.
A lot of what they wrote is great but this isn’t: “With relatively minimal equipment, it’s possible to transfer solar PV DC into synthetic fuels which are backwards compatible with all the fossil fuel infrastructure we already have.” That would need to be a very short-term stopgap. Synthetic fuels still burn, anything burned will emit CO2 as a byproduct.
Eyeroller
@Ksmiami: Well that’s good because it’s not intelligent and unless the models change, never will be. But I’m not going to argue against the possibility that super-fast stupidity might be even worse.
Ksmiami
@Eyeroller: I find your lack of faith disturbing…/s
Ksmiami
@Kay: they will get swept up in deportation raids, citizens or not.
Ksmiami
@Leto: thank you for this.
Ksmiami
@Kay: they’re being incredibly dumb and shortsighted, the thing about discrimination is that it affects and percolates to everyone.
Leto
@Kay:
Except that doesn’t matter, and you and I know that. Project2025, and more broadly the conservative movement, doesn’t make that distinction. Remember the former military members who were deported during Trumpov first term? They were 2nd and 3rd gen as well. Deported. Didn’t fucking matter, and it won’t matter with them.
@Kay:
This is republican code for: they’re one of us. They share the same values as us. They’re conservatives. They don’t like LGBTQ people, hate welfare, and think it’s “those people” who are keeping them down. It’s all standard bog fare conservative whistles.
It might be helpful to teach them about Nazi Germany, about ethno-nationalist states, but what’s the point? I also think about media communication with them, and how Republicans over the past 15 years have bought out local FM/AM radio stations in predominantly Latino areas because… that’s what they still listen to. Not TikTok, Shitbook, or Instacrap… fucking radio. And they just flood the zone with right wing propaganda. But we’re all in on the digital age here. Meet them where they are, right? We just don’t have the same deep pocket money class. They’re too busy with direct access to the President, MoC, their pet newspapers that they use to attack Dems… /shrug
Geminid
@Kay: I think if I wanted inform myself about Hispanic voter outreach, I’d watch how Ruben Gallego is campaigning.
wjca
Nixon was likeable and relatable? Really? In what universe?
Eolirin
@Eyeroller: The models will absolutely change.
They always change. This is the cycle with AI development since it’s inception. You get a new method that solves something really hard, there’s a boom, it stagnates out because it can’t solve for the next hard thing on its own and things settle down until a new technique shows up.
What’s different about this moment in time is that there is access to computing resources that are orders of magnitude greater than anything that’s ever existed and that can scale more than they’ve ever been able to, and the foundational techniques that are in play are much more robust. As a consequence, we’ve been in a place, for the first time in the history of the field, in which the next advancement is coming before, or at worst right after the boom from the previous one is fully tapped out. It used to be years or decades between major advancements.
Anyone that’s looking at the weaknesses of the current state of the art and thinking well that’s never going anywhere isn’t paying attention to the rate of change in the field. LLMs aren’t going to be the solution. They’re going to be a transistional and enabling technology. What’s going to come next will be far more sophisticated and it won’t be using the same techniques even if the current models are part of those solutions.
Already we’re seeing solutions to hallucinations and methods to keep models coherent against some version of recorded “truth” with RAG, and there’s a lot of work being done to create systems that rely on multiple specialized models examining and processing each other’s outputs. Work is being done on new kinds of hardware that can process the kinds of workloads needed for these systems more efficiently. We’re getting closer and closer to the way the brain is set up and processes information. We will reach a tipping point there eventually.
There’s nothing special about human level cognition. It’s really just about having enough computational resources and the right engineering.
Suzanne
@wjca: Did I say that Nixon was relatable or likeable? I said those are factors. Factors among many. They can be outweighed by other factors.
TBone
@Eolirin: that’s what my nightmares are about.
Juju
I feel like writing a letter to the idiot majority on the Supreme Court stating that if I wanted to live in a country like Hungary, I would move there. And, all of the majority on the Supreme Court is composed of awful people, as are most, if not all of the members of the Republican Party. It probably wouldn’t do anything, but I might feel better, or not.
satby
@tihotm: late to this, but no, Jake Tapper is the ass who “smelled cigarette smoke on Obama” and would not rest until he hunted down the story that Obama, who was trying to quit, bummed an occasional cigarette off of people. You know, like millions of people trying to quit smoking. Tapper hunted this critical story down because to him it was essential that people learned what a liar Obama was.
Juju
@TBone: My guess is a trip to the gravel pit.
Eyeroller
@Eolirin: This is not my immediate area but I have done a little GPU programming so I am aware. I mean we need a better model of cognition. The brain is probably not the only possibility, but purely statistical models are too limited. And we don’t really know how cognition arises in the brain so we can’t say when we have a good model…yet. I think we are farther away from that than you believe. We’ll have to see how it works out. There is no theoretical reason that hardware could not achieve consciousness, of course, it’s just still quite a ways out IMHO.
satby
@schrodingers_cat: good. Gandhi’s murderers should never have been elected at all, IMO.
Ksmiami
@Eyeroller: some of the smartest ppl closest to the Silicon Valley projects are actually afraid we are on the cusp. Within a decade.
Ruckus
@Eyeroller:
There is no theoretical reason that hardware could not achieve consciousness, of course, it’s just still quite a ways out IMHO.
You mean hardware could become HUMANISTIC????
What a fucking disaster that would be… Hardware telling us what to do, telling us who to like, who to hate, when one can’t do math – trust your gut, some skin colors cause disadvantages with humans of another skin color – even though the colors are all caused by the exact same chemical…. IOW hardware would have to have our hates, racism, intelligence, kindness and stupidity as part of it’s instruction set to become humanistic.
I can see how that would be so positive and work out so well.
BTW that last sentence is snark – if it wasn’t obvious.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: BJP-RSS got a full majority only in 2014 after most of the generation that gave India its independence had passed away.
BarcaChicago
When people are spouting off about leaving the United States in their initial reactive phase to something upsetting, I can cut them some slack. If they stick with it, they have lost my respect.
That said, if you’re a direct target of the violent white supremacist agenda and have the means to leave, that’s a different story. I have a couple people in my life who I love that chose that path.
I lived in Spain for 10 years, and that opened my eyes to a lot of things. I don’t see a parliamentary system with multiple parties as a panacea to any political problems. For example, throughout Europe there are generally two main parties, one of the left and one of the right. If they can make a government on their own, they do so; if they can’t, they have to join forces with another party/parties and if that fails they have to fold the government. To my mind, the Democratic Party is a coalition party already, and the problem is our inherently anti-democratic electoral system (electoral college, Senate ratios) and the corruption of our electoral system.
After trying to live in another country, initially the plan was to make that permanent, I realized I have a deep connection to the United States and in particular a love for our diversity. I feel energized, motivated, and defiant at this time in our history. There are more of us, and if we all vote, we win. The rise of authoritarianism on the right is a direct response to progressive change in America. Entrenched power is threatened by this change, and the democratic system that has brought it about. I think we will make it through the onslaught of false narratives, pundit-fueled panic, and judicial power grabs – we will vote and we will win. Again.
Layer8Problem
@BarcaChicago: Read and appreciated. Thank you.
Ksmiami
@Ruckus: actually super intelligent AI would probably devise its own morality much different than our petty ones.
Bill Arnold
@Ksmiami:
You mean this: SITUATIONAL AWARENESS – The Decade Ahead (PDF, Leopold Aschenbrenner, JUNE 2024)
Very briefly paraphrasing (using chatgpt!) someone at work, it is speculative and lacks rigor, but provides insights into Silicon Valley thinking.
There are things that minds using meat substrates can do that current human-made machines cannot, IMO. Consciousness in particular is not currently understood by science. (Also, (I am not a neuroscientist) brains are underrated, e.g. dendritic trees add a few orders of magnitude of complexity.)
The situation will get truly dicey when machine intelligences work out functional analogues, again, IMO. The timeline is very much in play, e.g. even the early stages depend on continued civilization include large very expensive fabs, and a lot (many gigawatts) of electricity.
Captain C
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The thing is, between them and their opponents, I would much rather have a beer with Gore, Kerry, and/or Hillary than an off the wagon Shrubya (who would either go back to his sadistic fratboy ways or be both weird and boring) or Trump (who wouldn’t drink anyway but might do blow and or Adderall rails). The Democrats here would be far more interesting and enjoyable company, and I bet Hillary gets amusingly silly when she’s tipsy.
Kayla Rudbek
@cain: discrimination from outside and a college football team to follow :). My closest connection to Ireland would be my great-grandfather’s parents, I think, but I still regard myself as having Irish heritage. I recommend the book Notre Dame vs. The Klan and the late Fr. Andrew Greeley’s books (fiction and nonfiction, although his fiction improved considerably since the 1970s).
UncleEbeneezer
@Captain C: I guess I’m just on the Dem Plantation but I would LOVE to have a beer with any of them. And Obama, and Biden, and Kamala and Bernie and Pelosi too. Hell, I’d sit down for a beer with Harry Reid, Henry Waxman, Barney Frank, Michael Dukakis etc.
Why wouldn’t I want to pick the brains of some of the smartest politicians in our lifetime and hear their many, amazing stories? I wouldn’t base my vote on it, but that doesn’t mean it still wouldn’t be cool.