Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

FFS people, this was a good thing. take the win.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

Glad to see john eastman going through some things.

Let there be snark.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Late Night Open Thread: Ego Husk Can’t Buy Good Help!

Late Night Open Thread: Ego Husk Can’t Buy Good Help!

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For (the promise of) $45 million a month, you’d think The World’s Richest Man could get more attention than some second-tier oligarch like Peter Thiel…


(If you click on the image, the portrait is *chef’s kiss*…)

Problem is, he won’t pay market rates, and he has a terrible reputation for micro-managing and firing employees on a whim…

… The company’s current operating profit margin, a measure of how much money it makes on every dollar of revenue, was 6.3 percent, compared with 9.6 percent in the same period a year ago.

The results will most likely heighten pressure on Tesla and its chief executive, Elon Musk, to show that the company can find new ways to grow and make money…

Sales of Tesla’s electric cars fell 4.8 percent in the second quarter, to 444,000 vehicles from the same period a year earlier. Production in the period declined 14 percent, to about 411,000 cars.

The second quarter’s setback comes after Tesla reported a 55 percent drop in profit and 9 percent decline in revenue in the first three months of 2024…

Mr. Musk said Tesla was moving cautiously on plans, announced last year, for a new factory in Mexico until after the presidential election. He said former President Donald J. Trump, the Republican candidate whom Mr. Musk recently endorsed, might impose tariffs on cars imported from that country…

With its sales slumping, Tesla has been trying to slash costs. In April, Mr. Musk said the company would lay off more than 10 percent of its staff, or about 14,000 people, worldwide. The cuts include 2,000 workers at its plant in Fremont, Calif., and nearly 2,700 at another in Austin, Texas.

It has also cut the prices of its cars, which has reduced the profit it makes on each vehicle it sells. For a time, those cuts helped to lift sales, but now the company is struggling to win over customers even with lower prices.

 
And all those low-level government drones? Uppity!

Reader Interactions

126Comments

  1. 1.

    columbusqueen

    I keep wishing there was a way to deport his sorry ass to South Africa.  Our country would be much improved if we did that.

  2. 2.

    Tony Jay

    @columbusqueen:

    Mars is right there.

    Just nationalise Space X and Tesla, pump a few billion from the sale of polybagged back-issues of ‘Pale & Interested – The Monthly Journal For Goth Chicks’ into a one-way trip and wave cheerio to the chinless douche.

    Robots can turn the waste into fertiliser when they arrive to start terraforming in 2030.

  3. 3.

    SpaceUnit

    GOP is currently a peckerwood hoedown with all the money, cocaine and moonshine in the world but absolutely no strategy.  A backwoods pigfuck, sponsored by Putin and Wall Street.

     

    Edited for clarity.

  4. 4.

    Chief Oshkosh

    Nationalizing Starlink makes sense in some ways. However, it’d be more efficient to just isolate Musk. There’s precedent in the history of the MIC for doing this with unreliable partners.

  6. 6.

    ColoradoGuy

    @Ishiyama: With Musk as the chief architect of the submersible. That should go well. He can name the new company “Glug”.

  7. 7.

    Pete Downunder

    Open thread but vaguely related I just saw an interview with MN Gov Tim Walz whom I’d never heard of before. I live a long way from MN. He is apparently on short list for VP. Absolutely lovely guy, sharp as a tack and while he looks a bit older is only 60. Has a great smile and is willing to attack Trump head on. Would be a good choice I think FWIW.

  9. 9.

    Chet Murthy

    @Pete Downunder: Look for the video of him signing the bill making school lunches free for all kids in MN.  It’s worth watching: he’s got a gaggle of kids, and they’re all lovin’ it.

  11. 11.

    WereBear

    What’s nice is that we have an actual bench of talent and they have… crazed billionaires and a record of attempting to overthrow the government.

  13. 13.

    Rusty

    I want a world where our national conversation isn’t dominated by the likes of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, self centered blowhards.  Where our crappy press doesn’t run to such people for their opinion on everything that is happening.   Our entire national discourse is dominated, and revolves around, egotistical billionaires.   No wonder it all feels such a mess.

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    @Rusty: Our entire national discourse is dominated, and revolves around, egotistical billionaires.   No wonder it all feels such a mess.

     
    I don’t think we could think of a more destructive way to manage anything.

  17. 17.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    @SpaceUnit: LOL. That’s a brilliant, colorful description and also has the virtue of being entirely accurate.

  18. 18.

    WereBear

    I don’t blame the youths for looking at the lineup they were offered and being less than enthused. There are wonky people who live for policy, but they are not the majority of even Democratic voters, obviously.

    But it’s possible that, with all of Trump’s over-exposure, senior white men, as a class, have been dragged down across the board.

    Gosh, would that crimp R style or what?

  20. 20.

    WereBear

    @Eolirin: What impressed me was a commenter sharing hearing from relatives who are usually all the way for Trump… and yet the oldest has changed.

    “I don’t want to vote for a dictator,” they said.

    If that’s penetrating into FoxWorld, perhaps Project 2025 will scare our side, too.

    Are the normies STILL not paying attention?

    And when they do, will THEIR heads explode? That how we know it has hit, I suppose :) and settle this science question once and for all.

  21. 21.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @WereBear: I think whenever normies see  narcissistic loudmouths like Trump and Vance outside of their gold-plated echo chambers, they’re horrified. Case in point, the jurors at the E. Jean Carroll trial, or Vance’s lame attempt at a making a joke about Mountain Dew. There’s no Universal Translator available that can decipher wingnut gibberish into a language that normies can understand.

  22. 22.

    hotshoe

    @ColoradoGuy:

    He can name the new company “Glug”.

     

    Gotta be some kinda way to work an “X” into the name.

    Glug-X sounds like a drain cleaner.

    Good for removing stubborn sewage from your democracy.

  25. 25.

    WereBear

    @The Thin Black Duke: Maybe this time, it will motivate them to vote.

    Also, it occurred to me that Trump might have dragged down the political stock on elderly/white/men after the RNC. Don’t know if that combo can get up again, even with assistance.

    Also, ran across an academic note about how Trump has also suppressed religious conversion rates and increased the nation’s secular tendencies. So the MAGA magic isn’t what it was.

    Partly, of course, through Trump’s actions in the Pandemic.

    Time has gotten weird. I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back :)

  26. 26.

    TBone

    @Eolirin: if you don’t do weed, have you tried valerian?  A soothing tea or capsule can help me fall asleep when all else fails.  Also, I find that reassuring myself that there’s nothing, NOTHING, going on that is more important than rest and sleep helps.  I tell myself that anything going on can wait, there will be plenty of time to read about it or deal with life later.

    I hope you can find some relief.

  27. 27.

    Eolirin

    @The Thin Black Duke: Which is why I think there’s a very good chance there won’t be any more debates, and the Trump campaign will stick to a small number of rallies, just enough to keep Trump feeling like he’s being idolized, leaving the media to focus entirely on beating up Harris while they fade into the background, knowing that nothing about them is going to get covered in any real detail.

    We need to figure out how to punch through that, because the media is not going to help.

  28. 28.

    Eolirin

    @TBone: I fell asleep at like 7:30. Waking up this early was kind of inevitable, it just fucks with my day.

    I wouldn’t mind so much, except the rest of the world isn’t aligned to when I end up being awake or not. It’s selfish like that :p

  31. 31.

    TBone

    @Eolirin: I hate when that happens.  Those are the mornings when I treat myself to hot cocoa if it’s not miserably hot outside, and sometimes even if it is since my AC can be set to “icy.” I know the too early to bed thing means your body was so exhausted that it just gave out.

    I hope you have better days directly ahead.

  32. 32.

    Ken

    The NYT article of course requires subscription so I can’t read it. Does anyone know if, somewhere in all that breathless reporting about falling sales and firing employees and cost-cutting, they bothered to mention Musk was recently paid a performance bonus that amounted to the whole of Tesla’s profits for the past few years?

  35. 35.

    WereBear

    @Eolirin: I hear you. I successfully moved mine from 6pm/2pm to the present 8pm/4am.

    Dawn hours are good for writing, though, so not being in synch with the rest of the world has its compensations for me.

  36. 36.

    WereBear

    @Ken: Yeah, right, performance.

    No good outcomes, but what a performance.

    Is Trump feeling a twinge of what I felt when my industry collapsed during the Pandemic? SInce I never had a billionaire buddy who bailed on me.

  37. 37.

    TBone

    Asha Rangappa xit:

    All I can say is this: Over the last seven years I’ve had people call me a “DEI” hire to the FBI. Damn straight: I was (as far as I know) the first Indian American woman in the FBI, who speaks three languages (one that literally no one in the IC existed to even test me for), hired after 9/11 when these skills mattered. The fact that I did not “look” like an FBI agent allowed me to participate in operations that gathered intelligence included in the President’s Daily Brief. My (immigrant) mom later became a contract linguist for the FBI, one of TWO speakers in the Bureau of a critical language needed to take down terrorists. “DEI” means “reflective of America.” And America’s greatest strength — especially compared to places like Russia and China — is that it contains SO many unique backgrounds, skills, and perspectives unparalleled in the world. Let’s stop bring on the defensive. Bring on the DEI. Or in this case, the DE(S)I.

    https://x.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1815955616038261241

  38. 38.

    Eolirin

    @narya: If they let us. The media attention is going to be on something stupid like Willie Brown or how ex-Harris staffers felt she was erratic and controlling or some other stupid ass thing they all pile on. Media is still gonna media.

  43. 43.

    Princess

    @Eolirin: There’s going to be a front page NYT story about how she ate a thing with an implement not usually used for eating that thing. And an extended interview with someone who got fired from her senate office mailroom, who was never in the same room as her about how arrogant she is.

  46. 46.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Princess: Most of us know how the MSM is going to play this. What’s going to be interesting is seeing how the Wormtongues in the Democratic Party who stabbed Joe in the back will respond once the inevitable deluge of hot takes, clickbait headlines and op-ed pieces about DID YOU KNOW KAMALA HARRIS IS BLACK?!? gets up to speed.

  47. 47.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Eolirin:

    The media attention is going to be on something stupid like Willie Brown or how ex-Harris staffers felt she was erratic and controlling or some other stupid ass thing they all pile on.

    I swear they sit around a room tossing around reporting “angles” and somebody will mention “Remember what we said about Klobuchar? Let’s work that angle into a Harris story!”

    They justify this craptastic approach because the right and the left both hate them, so “we must be doing it right”.

    Rick Wilson of all people recently said that based on his previous experience, they’re all cowed by the right (which jibes with what my friend the former WH reporter in the Dubya years would say) so deliberately work stories in the kinds of way we on the left criticize.  He didn’t have any suggestions on how to change that paradigm, just that it’s a very real and entrenched thing.

  49. 49.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Eolirin: For the last six months the Dems have been dangling Biden’s health in front of the MSM like a set of shiny keys with a puppy to distract the MSM from Harris. I suspect people smarter than us have a plan.

  50. 50.

    prostratedragon

    “hostility to truth as a value”

    I like that phrase. We should be ushering those with that hostility out of our public life.

  51. 51.

    3Sice

    Labor is a pass on Kelly.

    I think it comes down to Gretch as first option, with Walz as fallback.

  53. 53.

    nomokesh

    @Tony Jay: If Mars (or a rocket “totally going to Mars, we swear”) is not in budget, I believe we can spray-paint a trampoline park red,  then throw him in after shaking him up and down in a box for a couple of hours. I look forward to reports stating the underground water deposits taste vaguely of Coca-Cola.

  54. 54.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @WereBear:

    Oh, how far they’ve come.  Back in the Dubya years, they simply threatened to cancel their subscriptions which given the massive shift the industry was undergoing then, scared editors shitless, and the reporting over the next decade reflected that.

    And here we are.

    That raises a good question, how many death threats do reporters or news groups actually get? How do they vet them?

  55. 55.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: They justify this craptastic approach because the right and the left both hate them, so “we must be doing it right”.

    Yes, but it’s the left who subscribes and watches them.  It’s our people who need to started tuning out these lying assholes.

  57. 57.

    Mapaghimagsik

    I think the thing that apalled me the most about the movie Twisters was the very Orange-aid “solution” to tornadoes — throw diaper plastic at it until it dries up. This only takes 8 barrels, by the way.

    But its made gazillions and for some reason, this bothers me because I feel so out of step — this weird, predictable piece that forced lines, situations, product placement and faux bucolic heartland crap, the very avoidance of any mention of climate change, the weird “there’s always science!” as a way of making the universe bend to our will.

    The idea we’re hiding in a semi-air conditioned theater to watch a movie that deliberately avoided mentioning climate change because the director “didn’t want to preach” just makes me feel like our species is so very very doomed.

  58. 58.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Your preaching to the choir.  I’ve been following that advice for a loooooong time now but have had no luck convincing others to follow suit.  Probably a good time roll out a

    Fuck NPR

    statement to start the morning off on the right note.

  60. 60.

    The Kropenhagen Interpretation

    @SpaceUnit: GOP is currently a peckerwood hoedown with all the money, cocaine and moonshine in the world but absolutely no strategy. A backwoods pigfuck, sponsored by Putin and Wall Street.

    Edited for clarity.

    It was clear from the beginning…

  62. 62.

    Scout211

    @Eolirin: The media attention is going to be on something stupid like Willie Brown or how ex-Harris staffers felt she was erratic and controlling or some other stupid ass thing they all pile on. Media is still gonna media.

    I saw a headline recently that stated that the negative campaign that the Trump team was planning was a “Willie Horton” type campaign against Harris.  The author was not sure that the Trump campaign could keep that message subtle enough to be effective with any voters other than the base.  They always go over the line into offensive. I am inclined to agree with the author.

    And locally:

    We have a Fox News watching book group member, the only Republican/libertarian in the group. She sneaks her right wing messages into discussions every so often.  Yesterday in our socializing period after the book was discussed, one of the members called Kamala Harris a very brave woman.  The Fox News watcher said she thought Kamala “just likes attention.”

    What? So that’s the diss that Fox is going with? I guess that means she’s suitable for politics.  LOL. And Trump never goes for the attention, of course.  OMG.  I decided it was time for me to get going and drive home at that point.

  66. 66.

    JWR

    I know this is yesterday’s news, but sometimes I just can’t with these people anymore. Here’s Tim Burchett, and what NBC chose to print, which was bad enough:

    “The media propped up this president, lied to the American people for three years, and then dumped him for our DEI vice president,” Burchett said on X.

    He also referred to Harris as “a DEI hire” in a brief interview Monday, telling CNN that during the 2020 campaign candidate Joe Biden said “he was going to hire a Black female for vice president.”

    “What about white females? What about any other group?” Burchett added.

    But I heard a longer clip on TV, where he followed that up with this bit of racist bilge. (From Morning Joe):

    “When you go down that route, you take mediocrity. And that’s what they have right now as the Vice President.”

    He’s what I’ve always thought of as a stone racist. He’s incurable.

  67. 67.

    Chris Johnson

    @TBone: I like that lots. Diversity is a STRENGTH and also a thing that makes our democracy more challenging and interesting. It stirs things up, stops us all from being lazy and incurious, and the end result is uniquely American.

    We can draw in so many different perspectives that our discourse becomes incredibly well grounded and sophisticated. This is a power unmatchable by dictatorships and racist hellholes and we’re gonna keep using it.

    It doesn’t even mean that every diverse perspective has to be simultaneously obeyed! That would be madness. But as honest advocates for our own positions we must HEAR the other positions and that’s what DEI facilitates. DEI is our weapon AGAINST tyranny, giving us collective wisdom tyrants and authoritarian strongmen never get close to having.

  70. 70.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @JWR:

    The “DEI Hire” talking point, per soonergrunt, will hit the ground running today.

    The DEI Hire of 2024 is the Affirmative Action dog whistle, aimed at people of a certain age, race and class.

    They never change.

  71. 71.

    Tony Jay

    @nomokesh:

    Tosses down pen. Closes file with a flourish.

    “Ladies and Gentlemen, I believe these Muskwrangler auditions have reached a successful conclusion.”

    Swaggers out humming “Oh Happy Day”

  72. 72.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @JWR: Sounds like Burchett is heart broken Biden didn’t just chose him as VP.

    And another example how Harris is DEI – She stole the Democratic nomination from poor Mitt Romney.  I mean Romney is experienced and fully vetted Republican, and here comes this Harris character to steal the Democratic nomination from him.

    So unfair.

  73. 73.

    Chris Johnson

    @Eolirin: From what I’m seeing, such as people resonating with the proposed attack, one attack on Harris is to try and take ‘coconut’ away from her by claiming everybody using it including her is racist and therefore cannot say such things.

    No meming allowed, you bad people! And don’t you dare trust kids! They’re no good! ;P

    I think I’ve seen the strength of that one since it’s got good people caught up in it, like people who’ve had experience with what it used to mean. All it has to do is split Dems and make them tone police and fight each other with accusations of evilness and racism, and have people attacking excitable yoots.

    I could be wrong because I’m basing that on years of watching directly Russia-linked fake lefties (tankies) making sure that they have an ongoing expectation where there’s an authority on what you can even say, and it’s very strict and hates you if you say racist and sexist things, and any weird thing can be decreed as racist/sexist/sanist etc, and you are not the authority. It’s always somebody else who has made the rules and they’re inviolable and if you say the Bad Thing, you’re cancelled. That’s an ongoing thing from Russia-aligned ‘leftists’ and has been going on for years, and they never claim to be that authority, but they’re speaking for it. It really means ‘anybody is subject to being deemed racist/sexist at which point you have to banish them’, and it’s used on people who aren’t toeing the Russian party line. I could cite numerous Russia-aligned lefties, both overt and stealth.

  74. 74.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @The Thin Black Duke:

    I think Harris is safe.  It took a years-long campaign, a really bad debate performance* and the grassroots like people here at Balloon Juice freaking the fuck out to turn the Democratic politicians against him.  Dems have been in array for years.

    *Trump did worse, but the freak out became a self-fulfilling story.

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    they’re all cowed by the right

    I don’t think so.  The NYT brags that if they’re pissing off liberals they’re doing it right.  MSNBC liberals like Maddow glowed with excitement covering the freak out.  Being a high level news person gives you brain worms.

    And of course many of them believe conservatives are right about most things anyway.

  75. 75.

    TBone

    Good thing most RWNJ don’t even know what those letters, DEI, stand for.  They just mindlessly repeat whatever the crap du jour is.

    We can fight this effectively.  Just by pointing out that our founding principles and even the Statue of Liberty are based on those ideals.

    The New Colossus

    Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
    With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
    Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
    A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
    Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
    Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
    Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
    The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
    “Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
    With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

  77. 77.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Being a high level news person gives you brain worms.

    Or as somebody said in a thread yesterday in regards to Little Ezra’s cockamamie piece:

    Pundit Brain is a terrible disease.

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    Harsh words from New York Democrat Tom Watson:

       If you are busy trying to tear down one of Kamala’s VP choices, just put on your MAGA hat on the outside. Don’t hide it. Let that internal comfort with fascism fly free. Walk it down the sidewalk.

    We’ve got one chance to save this. They’re all quite good. Do the right thing.

  79. 79.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Chris Johnson: one attack on Harris is to try and take ‘coconut’ away from her by claiming everybody using it including her is racist and therefore cannot say such things.

    And the hilarious part of it is the tone police absolute obliviousness to “coconut” is minority on minority racism.  It’s  immigrant  carpetbaggers who are only in the US to get that prestigious education or that big score before going home, attacking people from their own ethnicity who are being good US citizens.

  80. 80.

    Glory b

    Tuberville, who didn’t know the 3 branches of government when he got to the senate, called her an unqualified DEI hire.

    Lauren Boebert, who passed her GED right before she filed to run for Congress, called Karrine Jean Pierre, who has a BS from the NY Institute of Technology & a Masters from Columbia in public policy, an unqualified DEI hire.

    One of the FOX hosts referred to “her colored sorority.”

  81. 81.

    Eolirin

    @Chris Johnson: Yeah, you know, I think, on this one, the kids are acting from a place of ignorance, and it’s going to piss off people who have additional context in ways that aren’t great. I see no reason to use anything adjacent to a well established and longstanding slur as someone who isn’t a teenage tiktok user.

    I’m not gonna yell at the kids to stop either, mind. Though if I got into a conversation about it with one of them I’d point out the adjacency to a problem. And to be careful about other people using it in the other way.

  84. 84.

    Eolirin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Given the ease with which that can be applied to Harris as a way to try to cleave off black, Indian and South east Asian support, I wouldn’t be so flippant about it’s usage.

    While there will be concerted efforts to paint Harris as too black to white folk, there’s going to be a simultaneous effort to paint her as too white to black and brown folk. Her time as a prosecutor will be a core part of that line of attack.

  85. 85.

    TBone

    It’s a great day for blueberry flapjacks and real maple syrup.  It’s finally raining here, a steady downpour that will quench the parched earth and all green things.  Cool temps and rain on the roof are really nice!

  86. 86.

    3Sice

    I’m uncomfortable around my demographic cohort when it comes to politics.

    Why can’t Democrats just be happy with an anodyne white male, with a slight southern accent and less baggage than Bill Clinton?

  87. 87.

    Geminid

    @3Sice: Some people don’t just want to win, they want to win the right way. Privileged thinking in my opinion.

  88. 88.

    Chris Johnson

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: WHOA STOP.

    I’m not gonna sit here and listen to you say what you said about ‘carpetbaggers’. You bite your tongue! Just because I disagree with someone’s take that I think is misguided does NOT license you to talk crap in that way. Holy SHIT my dude, what is wrong with you?

  89. 89.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Eolirin: The “#ADOS” push on Twitter in 2020 was a Russian-supported trolling effort to convince people there that Harris wasn’t Black enough because she was Afro-Caribbean and Indian. As far as I could tell it failed miserably, just like the “Halfrican-American” slam on Obama.

  90. 90.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Geminid: It’s easy to indulge in entertaining societal thought experiments when you don’t have any [black] skin in the game.

  91. 91.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Chris Johnson: Diversity is a STRENGTH and also a thing that makes our democracy more challenging and interesting.

    When we lived in Detroit, I used to think that all the praise for diversity was mostly a way to tell the racists to shut up. Because diversity means you encounter people who are different from you and that’s occasionally annoying. Then we moved to Iowa and I missed diversity like crazy. Where was the ethnic food? Where were the unexpected insights? Homogeneity made some things easier in Iowa, but there was a loss.

  92. 92.

    Chris Johnson

    @Eolirin: William Gibson wrote in a novel, ‘the street finds its own uses for things’, and I think that holds.

    As far as the diversity side of the discussion, I think it’s really important to HEAR the voices saying ‘yeah, it used to mean this, it’s weird and jarring to suddenly see it’s now said to mean this’. I get that, and it’s worth hearing.

    I also think Kamala has done that on purpose, and I need to learn that little blurb she’s added to it, word for word. I get what it means, but the words don’t stick with me as well, and that also means it feels like a new saying, words we haven’t heard in that exact arrangement, and there’s power in that.

    Consider what the cartoonist who drew Pepe thought, when he found his frog was getting repurposed by alt-right fuckheads en masse. Consider that after four years of Trump, the place I now see that frog most, is in the left-wing chat of a particular memey edgy politics and drama youtuber who was a diehard Biden supporter right up to Biden’s throwing it to Harris, and made that pivot just as well as any of us, and continues to assert Biden was and is a great President. His crew post Pepes because they’re stealing the meme back.

    It’s all too much for ME to keep up with, but I don’t have to, I’m too old for that. But I’m just one vote. These meme kids are lots of other votes, and whatever they gotta do to make Kamala Harris their own, more power to ’em.

  93. 93.

    Chris Johnson

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I took a breath. For a minute there I thought you were going after a poster I’m arguing with on a subject, who’s legally immigrated here and is staying, and I saw red and thought you were going after her, and that did not stand, with me.

    A more measured thought. Coming to this country to do well and then send money back home or indeed go home to the other country is ALSO not wrong. That too is diversity, and more importantly, it’s global economic and cultural activity. It’s good for us and it’s good for the other country.

    I still can’t work out if you’re against that or just referring to the idea that other people are against it. If you just plain derped what you were trying to say, I’m sorry, I misread you. Wanted to follow up pretty quickly ‘cos I got so mad at what I thought you were saying, ‘k?

  94. 94.

    SFAW

    @WereBear: ​
     

    “I don’t want to vote for a dictator,” they said.

    Serious question: are we sure they meant TCFFG, and not VP Harris? I realize it’s not your relative, so you may not have the answer. But, given the propensity for projection among RWNJs, it would not surprise me that the relative meant her, not him.

  95. 95.

    SFAW

    @TBone: ​
     
    Of course, were the RWMFs to put up their preferred version of the Statue of Liberty today, it would have her lifting her middle finger, not a torch.

  97. 97.

    WereBear

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: Homogeneity made some things easier in Iowa, but there was a loss.

    Likewise, I feel how well I did fare well in a blue state (NY), especially when I see what my red state (FLORIDA) has turned into.

    It’s similar to my thesis that red states don’t have cities. They have big small towns. And this does not create that DEI synergy that is only noticed when it’s no longer there.

  98. 98.

    Trivia Man

    @Ishiyama: Someone claimed, as a joke, that he wrote about that in his book. Including instructions and an equipment list.

    But their next post was the Arthur meme – You really think someone would do that? Just go on the internet and tell lies?

    But it was too late

  99. 99.

    SFAW

    @TBone: ​
     

    It’s a great day for blueberry flapjacks and real maple syrup.

    If I thought you lived in central MA, I’d invite myself over. [I love blueberry pancakes.]

  100. 100.

    WereBear

    @SFAW: This was before the Big Decision. They do listen to their own candidate, who said it his own self.

    No, this was Trump as Dictator, which just doesn’t have an American ring to it, I’d say.

  103. 103.

    artem1s

    @Scout211: ​ 

    the Trump team was planning was a “Willie Horton” type campaign against Harris.

    What, are they going to show a video of a convicted felon out on bail, awaiting sentencing, committing hate crimes and sharing classified documents with Putin?

  104. 104.

    Trivia Man

    @TBone: I love this poem. I have been using Suno AI to try and turn it into music. Klezmer was ok, i may try Indie Folk next as a prompt.

  106. 106.

    Anyway

    @Geminid:

    Harsh words from New York Democrat Tom Watson:

    If you are busy trying to tear down one of Kamala’s VP choices, just put on your MAGA hat

    Who’s he targeting? Why the vagueness, call out the offending party – otherwise it comes off as passive-aggressive.

  107. 107.

    Trivia Man

    @Glory b: I saw a meme about all the black sororities uniting to elect President Harris. Trump has no fucking idea what they bring. Socially connected, successful, ambitious, organized, and nationwide. They get shit done and if they push voter registration among minorities of college age – tsunami is coming.

  108. 108.

    Geminid

    @Anyway: Watson is talking about Democrats tearing down one or another of the 5 potential picks said to be on Harris’s short list. He thinks it’s divisive and could undercut Harris’s selection.

    I could not say who exactly Watson is talking about but I can see the “tearing down” starting here; at a low level so far. Watson monitors Democrat Twitter so he probably sees it more.

  109. 109.

    Trivia Man

    Interesting to watch the workshopping of attacks in real time. Once one of them gets traction it will get the But Her Emails treatment 24/7.

    DEI president.
    She has a weird laugh
    Arrested marijuana users
    Slept her way to the top
    Childless cat lady with no stake in the future
    Simultaneously a sell out to white culture AND too black AND too Asian.
    Dumb
    Mean to staff

  111. 111.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Trivia Man: ​
      One of the things I’ve seen floating around suggests not boosting the signal on any attacks. Instead, it says bury them with positivity. Apparently, it’s what the Swifties and KPop kids do. I am going to give it a try.

  112. 112.

    DougL

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I totally feel ya.  I live in DC. For most of the time I’ve been a “minority” (white guy) in the city. For me, nothing is scarier than being in an all white crowd. It just “feels” wrong. When I travel back to the land of my birth (middle TN) I almost get heart palpitations being surrounded by rw evangelical white people. Scariest (and dumbest) mfers on the planet.

  114. 114.

    artem1s

    @DougL: I almost get heart palpitations being surrounded by rw evangelical white people. Scariest (and dumbest) mfers on the planet.

    I see you. I left rural Ohio back in 1989 and moved to NE OH. My family can’t understand why I’m uncomfortable hanging out with them in chain restaurants or movie theaters in suburban Columbus. The deplorable and MAGAt conversations I overhear scare the f*ck out of me.

  115. 115.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @artem1s: When I lived in Columbus, I lived in Columbus.  I would occasionally meet people at the Old Bag of Nails in UA,  the Graeter’s in Bexley, or places like that, but I generally avoided the suburbs like the plague.

  116. 116.

    The Nameless One

    @Eolirin: I’ve seen people giving Lotus and the Lotus emoji as an alternative since apparently Kamala means ‘Lotus’ in Sanskrit.

    Lotus for POTUS

  118. 118.

    DougL

    @artem1s:  Yep. I’m 66 yo with white beard. Except that I’m not overweight (and I’m gay but adept at passing for straight – a skill I learned quickly to survive), I pass for one of them. The stuff they believe, the stunted emotional dysfunction, the constant undercurrent of violence. These are scary people. Broken humans.

  119. 119.

    The Nameless One

    @Chris Johnson: Really? Crap.

    I’ve seen it with a few of the Black Twitter accounts I follow. Candidly Tiff has added it to her name. Needle of Arya has this post

    https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1815743348788863154

    This points to an account Mitali (@mmodi93) (yeah, but then again maybe Modi is like Smith?)

    I know random accounts don’t mean much – and as a white Australian I’m not really someone to be prescribing anything myself rather than listening to the relevant communities – but should the Lotus usage in India prevent a more positive repurposing in America?

    Anyway, I think I’ll steer clear of any usage of any of those terms. I don’t need to use them.

  120. 120.

    Juju

    @Pete Downunder: I was surprised to find out that I am almost 3 years older than he is. I can see why people vote for him. I think it may be Roy Cooper, who is also a nice competent guy.

  121. 121.

    Juju

    @Eolirin:  I think erratic and controlling in regards to her earlier career probably means little in comparison to Trump’s erratic, controlling and weird behavior. 

  125. 125.

    TBone

    @SFAW: if you lived near enough, you’d have a standing invitation to help us eat ALL of the concoctions I make with local produce.  This week has also seen fruit salad (with cherries, peaches, and blueberries in a honey lime juice emulsion), and buttered brown sugar/cinnamon peach upside down cake.  I also made stuffed local green peppers using local fresh tomatoes pureed in the sauce and chunked up in the ground beef stuffing. And yummy steamed fresh green beans.

    Next up will be lobster corn chowder (bisque with fresh corn kernels cut raw from the cobs of local sweet corn left over after I devour fresh overnighted lobsters from Maine) and blueberry buckle for desert.

    Summertime AHHH!  What will the farm stands nearby offer up next?

  126. 126.

    VOR

    re: hat. The reason EM has to use AI to generate his hat pictures is because he wore the hat backwards. And none of his people told him it was on backwards.

    My understanding is EM claimed he never agreed to give Trump $45M per month. So he isn’t changing course, his story is someone mis-interpreted something and he was never going to do that. But Trump told a rally crowd EM was doing it. So who is lying? My money is on EM.

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