Is there a word of this that’s false? Is it even a tenth as harsh as the average “Troof” that Trump shits out on his failing social media platform? No and No. It’s just how politics ought to be played when your opponent is Trump, or a Trumper.
This is good, too:
So far, Harris/Walz is the best comms operation of any Democratic campaign, ever.
rikyrah
Assuming Donald Trump Actually Shows Up..
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
They ain’t never lied.
trollhattan
They’re doing for social media what Obama did for the ground game.
Eeeexcellent [Monte Burns finger bridge]
rikyrah
This breaks my heart:
Steven Walker
@swalker_7
DEVELOPING: New College of Florida dumped hundreds of library books this afternoon. The school also emptied the college’s Gender and Diversity Center, tossing hundreds of their books. Working to file a story now.
https://x.com/swalker_7/status/1824138952917295337
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: gotta make room for the trump presidential library. 🤮
Hungry Joe
POSTCARD UPDATE — SERIES 2
Yesterday:
Postcards for Jon Tester — 6
Running total — 6
Kay
“For planning purposes, reluctantly” is really funny.
KatKapCC
“Venue: Not a battleground state”
ROFL
Kay
The new thing for moderate Republicans that I know to say is they don’t know “anything” about Harris. That’s why they can’t vote for her ( psst- they were never going to vote for her)
It’s just amusing how consistent it is – always “I don’t know anything about her”
I say “I know a lot about her. What would you like to know?” but they just laugh.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
I’d call them out ask them what they think is so funny
BR
@Kay:
Are these Biden 2020 Republicans or “centrists” who supposedly dislike but voted for Trump?
Frankensteinbeck
There used to be an important chunk of Democratic voters who voted Democrat precisely because Dems were the adults in the room. They would reject the party if our politicians were blunt.
Trump killed that.
And we now have a voting age generation who remember nothing but oppositional defiant Republicans responding to all courtesy by being even bigger assholes.
Oh, and Trump killed the Democratic voters’ love of courtesy in one more way: We elected a mild-mannered, friendly guy to make the pain of Trump go away, but here Trump still is.
wenchacha
Wow. When did a Dem candidate for POTUS ever have so much fun going on the offensive?
KatKapCC
@Kay: Apparently they also don’t know what Google is.
John S.
@wenchacha:
Never happened until now.
MomSense
The press release is perfection. Obama used to do something similar when he was he would characterize what his opponent would say before they said it. Makes you look for it and recognize it when you hear it. Such a smart thing to do.
It’s not the biggest dig in the press release but ending with tune in for the same old thing is so smart. Part of why he receives breathless coverage is the media hope that his antics will be dramatic or cause increased ratings. The Harris campaign is planting the truth that it’s really tiring and boring to hear his grievances du jour. There he is again whining and complaining.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Frankensteinbeck:
I had really hoped that Biden would lower the temperature and calm things down. Not for his lack of trying, it didn’t take unfortunately
Steve LaBonne
When they go low, we kick them in the teeth with a steel-toed boot. Politics ain’t beanbag.
RaflW
“So far, Harris/Walz is the best comms operation of any Democratic campaign, ever.”
And to some extent, that seems to be really pissing off Beltway reporters. They don’t understand how Harris’s op can be this good, and so they’re picking up the GOP line on Harris that she “needs” to do policy.
As Josh at TPM points out, she and Walz are doing great, and why react to that shit?
LFKG! (Let’s F*cking Keep Going!)
SiubhanDuinne
@rikyrah:
OMG. That is utterly sickening.
Literally, I feel like throwing up.
delphinium
Love to see this! I’m sure some of the MSM will raise their eyebrows, but am glad we are hitting back with the truth.
@Hungry Joe: Nice-keep up the great work!
I finished off another 20 postcards for Florida vote by mail enrollment and just got my 200 postcards for a competitive NY house district. Will start on those this weekend.
OId Man Shadow
All of the rhetorical bullets are heading in the right direction. I remain happy.
This isn’t a fancy tea party, it’s a war for the soul and future of America.
scav
statement: “I don’t know anything about her”
reply: “Well, you’re consistently knowledgable, I’ll give you that.”
Mousebumples
From the Guardian –
Steve LaBonne
@RaflW: The mediots spent 3 1/2 years ignoring everything Harris did while chuckling amongst themselves about what a lightweight they imagined she was. They simply can’t deal with the way she has turned the tables on them.
BR
Hilarious for Frank Luntz to basically confirm the theory on MSNBC that bitter divorced men are the ones who hate Harris.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Mousebumples:
That’s sad. Unions are supposed to have ALL of their members’ backs
sixthdoctor
@Hungry Joe: Question; do you (or anyone on BJ) happen to know if writing postcards is OK for gov’t employees? I got my batch earlier in the week and my wife would like to help but she isn’t sure if it’s OK to do so. I checked the Postcards for Swing States site and it wasn’t definitive.
KatKapCC
@RaflW: They’re annoyed at being reminded of their irrelevance.
BR
Another day, another Vance audio drop — this one is him describing on a far right podcast how Italian, Irish, and German immigration caused crime as part of his overall immigrant crime narrative:
https://bsky.app/profile/mtsw.bsky.social/post/3kzrpalnjjz24
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@BR:
It was also revealing that he admitted he couldn’t put together a focus group of undecided women voters because they had already made up their minds, many for Harris
Mousebumples
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): agreed. Makes things make more sense, though.
And I appreciate that there is a workers of color subgroup of the Teamsters that did endorse Harris/Walz! Take that O’Brien
Eta – Teamsters Black Caucus – https://www.politico.com/news/2024/08/13/teamsters-black-caucus-harris-endorsement-00173911
Kay
@BR:
They all voted for Trump. We only have one convert in the (very small) local legal community that I’m aware of – a magistrate who switched from R to D with Obama and never went back. It was kind of fun for a while because she just wasn’t aware of a lot of bad people on the R side. She watched a documentary on Roger Ailes and told me how horrified she was. I was like “NO- he did WHAT?!”
catclub
pearl clutching and fainting couches.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@BR:
I guess Native Americans never existed then in Vance’s mind
catclub
@sixthdoctor: Is she writing on the postcards that she is a US Federal Government employee? That would not be ok.
is she writing that she is doing it while at the office? Also not ok.
Otherwise it is clearly in her private life and time that she is doing that. I say ok.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@sixthdoctor:
Why not? If you don’t say so on the postcards nobody will ever know, and donating/volunteering for a campaign or political cause isn’t illegal if you’re doing on your time as a private citizen as far as I know
Sure Lurkalot
@MomSense:
I hope they continue on banging this particular drum far and wide. Trump fatigue is real and (hey FTFNYT), it’s present on both sides.
My precinct captain neighbor was out canvassing the other day and dropped by to log our votes for Team D. He said his first stop was a neighbor’s house where the couple are notoriously split as to their party loyalties. Republican man cannot bring himself to vote for Harris, but he claims he will not vote for Trump either, because he’s had enough.
trollhattan
@sixthdoctor:
Per my gummint employer (and just them) using work time and work resources is verboten. We are free to do so on our own time. Copy of the rules gets circulated every election cycle.
catclub
[Who lives at their own country club?] my helpful addition.
Baud
@MomSense:
Reagan’s famous line had that effect.
sixthdoctor
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m just being ridiculously overly cautious on her behalf but it sounds like it’s kosher since we’re sticking to the script and it would not be on company time.
geg6
@rikyrah:
Absolutely horrifying. Destroying books is one of the worst things they do. Makes me sick to my stomach.
gratuitous
Activate the Schoolmarms of the Political Press! Someone made fun of the felon, and that aggression will not stand, man. There was even ridicule and implied name-calling! What, oh what, will we tell the children???
VFX Lurker
I knew a government employee (now retired) who opened a separate, private “friends-only” Facebook account under a fake name so that she could post political jokes and cartoons to her social circle outside of her real name.
I’m guessing government employees are free to participate in private political activity as long as they don’t use their official public titles/names to do so. Anonymous postcards could fall under that category.
EDIT – trollhattan posted a much, much better answer upthread.
-+-
My Postcards to Swing States arrived today, but I have abstained from writing postcards this week until I test negative for COVID-19. I donated to the new Balloon-Juice fundraiser to tide me over until then.
CaseyL
@sixthdoctor:
Here is an explainer of the Hatch Act, at a government webpage.
Short answer: Yes, she can do postcards.
Somewhat longer answer: If the government entity she works for is under Republican management (a Red state, county, city) or her manager is a GOPer, she can do postcards but she should not mention she is doing postcards at all, to anyone she works with.
Not because it’s illegal. it isn’t.
But because the GOP will make her life a living hell.
M31
@BR:
lol on the ‘bitter divorced men’ — here’s Amanda Marcotte at Salon on the attendees at a recent Vance ‘rally’:
hahahahaha, but mostly gross
Baud
@sixthdoctor:
Her agency should have an ethics person she can ask, but like others have said, usually it’s OK if you don’t identify yourself as a government employee or invoke the government.
Sure Lurkalot
@BR:
Hatred and disparagement of immigrants is as American as apple pie. Slam the door after your group gets in!
zhena gogolia
@Steve LaBonne: Yes, this is true.
Joe knew.
Belafon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Requires the other side to see you as an equal. They don’t want to be equals, they want to be in charge.
sixthdoctor
@CaseyL: Thank you (and to the other responders); we’re in Maryland so for now, thank goodness, we don’t have to worry about MAGAstricism…
Belafon
@rikyrah: Seems like a great time to compare this to the Nazis ransacking the institute in Germany.
rikyrah
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I appreciated whomever dropped the link to that article yesterday…it made me smile.
Frank wants his grift back.
rikyrah
@delphinium:
They will try and ‘ tone police’ the Democrats, but, I’m glad that the Harris/Walz campaign is paying them no mind.
BR
@Sure Lurkalot:
I wonder if people might share that interview with folks who strongly identify as Italian, Irish, or German in the midwest or northeast.
rikyrah
@Steve LaBonne:
They made fun and mocked her laugh. Black Joy bothers some people.
So, what did the Vice President do?
She pulled the Uno Reverse on them…now placing JOY as a theme for her campaign✊🏾✊🏾
HumboldtBlue
@Frankensteinbeck:
Excellent point.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: I was a civil service employee in Ohio and the postcards would not be legal there as I understand the law. We could express opinions or attend rallies (on our own time of course) or work to register voters without partisan messaging, but actual campaigning or circulating petitions for a partisan candidate is out. I fear the postcards would come under that.
pabadger
@Baud: to add to that, IIRC, some government employees can’t do anything partisan but can do nonpartisan activities like encouraging people to vote.
RaflW
There are orgs that do nonpartisan postcards & letters. It is legal for them to target under-represented precincts or use other metrics that are not strictly partisan to help select for the type of turnout models we’d approve of at BJ without crossing the line.
That ought to be an option if one is civically inclined but restricted from partisan electioneering.
Hoodie
That’s a good start but they need to keep doing it and finding ways to turn this sort of thing into narrative control. A lot of discussion today about JMM’s comment on the DC press’ newfound interest in policy that just so happens to coincide with Harris’ candidacy and how this was baited by GOP bleating about her avoiding the media. To me it looks like the GOP is settling on a “Kamala is a lightweight” strategy because they think that will gain traction with the DC press. In some ways it’s not much different from the “Biden is too old” meme. In that case, Trump is as old as Biden, but it doesn’t matter to the DC press. In this case, Trump is truly the policy lightweight, e.g., he’s the guy who gave us an always-coming but never-arriving Infrastructure Week. It won’t matter to the DC press.
The thing to realize is that Trump’s incessant trolling is an intrinsic part of how he deals with the media. It’s how he sets the narrative. He, not them, decides how they will talk about him and then he expands that by trolling about how the media should talk about Dems. It makes him look like he’s in control. That’s what he thinks a lot of voters want, and he’s not wrong in that.
Dems fall into a trap with this because they let the media set their narrative and the media is vulnerable to trolling from Trump. Honestly, one of the inadvertent ways that Dems recently turned the tables and took advantage of this was the JDV couchfucking meme. It was a troll that set a narrative for Vance, i.e., he seems like a weird guy who would fuck a couch. That led to a succession of stories that conform to that narrative, i.e., a dork who fantasizes about controlling women. You have to do the same thing to Trump and this tweet falls into that category. But, in some ways, it’s still too nice. Should have added something about him sounding like Sylvester the Cat or Daffy Duck, e.g, ” tune in if you want to hear wind whistling through his dentures or a riveting discussion of Duck Season vs. Rabbit Season.”
CaseyL
@pabadger:
The Swing State postcards I have (For NC) aren’t partisan at all. All they do is urge people to vote on November 5.
ArchTeryx
@Kay: So, basically, just another set of lying pieces of shit Republicans. All they’ve ever given a shit about is trolling the libs, and it looks like that’s pretty much still their game.
thruppence
Someone with more Photoshop skills than me should try to recast Caravaggio’s “Judith and Holofernes” to “Judith and Vance”. Post menopausal women indeed. I have tomorrow off. Maybe I’ll give it a stab. Hah.
JoyceH
@rikyrah: The press basically ignored her for three years, while she was creating her own grad school in politics and governing. Then she takes center stage and dang, turns out she’s good at this stuff!
Since this is an open thread, I had a little adventure yesterday. Was out in the yard, left the sidewalk onto a lawn that needs mowing – and stepped into one of the pup’s excavations, fell down and split my lip on the front step! There was MUCH blood! Thought I’d never get the bleeding stopped. The local clinic suggested going to the ER, which is 20 miles away. Instead I went to the drugstore wound care aisle, got some “rapid seal wound gel” and some small round bandages. Finally got myself fixed up and the bleeding stopped. Today when I changed the bandage, I couldn’t believe how small the tear actually is – all that blood from that?
Steve LaBonne
@CaseyL: Oh, good. That would be absolutely in the clear in Ohio.
HumboldtBlue
GOPers are NOT happy with Trump.
cain
@scav:
They don’t know Trump’s policies either.
Belafon
@Steve LaBonne: They can’t keep you from running for office or for helping others run for office, or for that matter, any other thing that is legal, as long as it’s on your time and you don’t try to use your position to promote your activities.
I was in the Navy, and the rule was that I couldn’t do anything in uniform or while I was at work.
catbirdman
@Manyakitty: How much room do you need to house a bunch of monitors streaming Pornhub 24/7?
narya
@sixthdoctor: Take a page out of Buttigieg’s book: when he appeared on MSNBC in support of Harris, he said, at least once, I am here as a citizen, NOT as the Sect’y of Transportation/not in my official capacity. Same applies to her.
KatKapCC
@rikyrah: I will never get this obsession with her laugh. It just sounds like…a normal human laugh? Like I get the underlying racism, but the insistence that “No no her laugh is super crazy” has never been explained in any other way. They act like she laughs like a hyena on meth. She just laughs like a person! But I guess to the right wing, a normal laugh is confusing since their guy never laughs and the only laughing his supporters do is snide chuckling at the idea of a woman bleeding to death in a hospital parking lot because they wouldn’t give her an abortion.
Hoodie
@HumboldtBlue: How much does the fucking economy have to improve for these idiots?
Belafon
@Hoodie: Isn’t the entire point of this post is that VP Harris isn’t doing what you’re talking about?
Hoodie
@KatKapCC: Women are not supposed to laugh without permission. It’s not the quality of the laugh, it’s very existence is the problem.
Manyakitty
@catbirdman: gotta leave room to throw the ketchup.
cain
@rikyrah:
That is their plan when they finally get their much wanted ‘press conference’ or ‘interview’.
Except it won’t be with them. There will be a press conference and that idiot Fox guy Peter Doocy will be out there with gotcha questions.
KatKapCC
@Steve LaBonne: @Baud: Also, the postcard recipients wouldn’t know who sent it, right? Postcards don’t have a return address, and if you either don’t sign it or just use your first name, how would anyone know who it was from?
Mousebumples
@Steve LaBonne: depends on the campaign. Some are candidate specific, and some are more general GOTV messaging.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@KatKapCC: I don’t get the laugh thing either. It feels like something they pass around to one another and repeat. I suspect many of them have never heard her laugh.
Mousebumples
@RaflW: as always, I can update the list of recommended postcard campaigns listed in the linked Activism post, if you have groups to be added!
Hoodie
@Belafon: Not sure what you’re asking. It seems like they are doing some of it, but they need to keep it up and find ways to push the envelope. Harris herself might need to do some trolling. Walz did.
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: In Ohio they definitely can stop/fire civil servants for running for a partisan office or any other party political activity. It’s state law.
HumboldtBlue
Trump’s neighbors in Palm Beach are fed up with his bullshit as well. As the saying goes: everything Trump touches, dies.
delphinium
@Steve LaBonne:
Some of the more recent postcards I’ve written have just been reminding folks to vote (or enroll in vote by mail) so think those types of postcard writing should be okay.
counterfactual
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): In my early 1800s hometown, the stinky, violent French were relegated to a ghetto village a half mile from decent folks. Further east, a group of French folk founded a whole new settlement to escape discrimination in the original states. Anti-immigrant stuff is *old*.
WereBear
@JoyceH: It could have been your EAR.
trollhattan
@KatKapCC: Republican presidential candidates don’t laugh; thus, any laughter is suspect to unAmerican.
Accordion hands—just fine, thanks.
Captain C
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Or they just don’t count as people.
trollhattan
@HumboldtBlue: Keep reminding myself that unlike Trump, Trump’s neighbors are all rich.
rikyrah
@cain:
Phuck that Press Conference.
She should sit down with LarryO or Roland Martin or Zerlina Maxwell.
She should definitely do a couple of TownHalls first. One of BET and one on Univision.
WereBear
@Captain C: It’s not rare for me to get vibes, but such strong vibes from mere appearance on my screen, and the feeling is repulsion.
That’s how I wound up reading his book back in the day, and thinking he’s really a hollow social climber, and forgot about it.
MomSense
@Sure Lurkalot:
Seriously. Just make it stop. He never stops whining. It’s pathetic.
Old School
@JoyceH: Ouch. I hope the pain isn’t too bad.
JoyceH
@Hoodie: I like Harris’ laugh. It’s warm and happy, it’s sharing joy. The only laughter the MAGAs understand is mocking laughter. That’s why they hate her laugh – because the incels that make up the majority of the Trump base assume that any woman who’s laughing is making fun of them.
rikyrah
Ben Jacobs
@Bencjacobs
In her latest campaign video, Kamala Harris wrongly claimed to be the first vice president to ever grow chili peppers. Thomas Jefferson was growing them in 1767! https://monticello.org/house-gardens/in-bloom-at-monticello/cayenne-pepper/
Ben Jacobs
@Bencjacobs
It’s not what she said though. Jefferson was still growing them at Monticello long after he first planted them! And, if it’s specifically the VP’s residence, that has only existed since Mondale and limits to a very narrow slice of time
1:55 PM · Aug 15, 2024
I love this reply:
@xiruxi
If you want to be pedantic, then Jefferson didn’t plant shit. He had 600 slaves doing all the work, but they weren’t vice president. So you’re wrong.
https://x.com/xiruxi/status/1824162380563222613
ChrisSherbak
@HumboldtBlue: Further, I had read that Harris, used to campaigning in CA where the husk of the GOP is mostly just crazies and weirdos, has a different view of the party compared to Biden and this tone is part of that recognition.
zhena gogolia
@Hoodie: I know, right?
Jess
I’m loving this reader’s email that Josh Marshall ran on his site (Political Media’s Faux-Wonk Heel Turn, https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/political-medias-faux-wonk-heel-turn):
West of the Rockies
Is there a postcard effort that focuses on alerting (possibly) disenfranchised voters (those kicked off voting registries) to get themselves able to legally vote?
artem1s
@Steve LaBonne:
encouraging people to vote is not partisan.
Vote for X = partisan
Remember to register to vote by X day – not partisan
Remember to exercise your right to vote on election day – here’s your polling place = not partisan
The strategy behind post cards is to get people in key districts to turn out because that district tends to vote Blue. But you don’t have to tell someone who to vote for.
hueyplong
@JoyceH: I like to think the incels affiliating with Trump have ample reason to think that any woman laughing in their range of hearing is in fact laughing at them.
It’s the romantic in me.
HumboldtBlue
Sarah Cooper is back!
KatKapCC
@rikyrah: I’m reading your comment and wanting to yell UM EXCUSE ME BUT BUT BUT and then I get to the last tweet and was like YEAH THAT PART.
Also, I see in the pic he included, the caption has her saying “I’m the first Vice President, I believe, who has ever grown chili peppers…”. So she didn’t even state it as a definite declaration. Who is Ben Jacobs and doesn’t he have something better to do, like not talking?
Steve LaBonne
@artem1s: Yes I agree, that kind of activity is legal for any government employee AFAIK (certainly in Ohio).
tam1MI
A the nice guy got run out of the race on a rail.
Elizabelle
@Kay: “She is vice president and has been in the news constantly. How is that you don’t know anything about her?”
Mousebumples
@rikyrah: when you’re owned by a Hamilton song, just give it up.
Mousebumples
@West of the Rockies: I’m going to go with maybe. I’m honestly not sure, and that feels very micro targeted. But there are lots of orgs out there, so maybe?
Baud
@Hoodie:
I give all women blanket permission to laugh.
p.a.
@Elizabelle: All they want to know about her is “leftyLeftMcLeftface”
Jess
@cain: Good point. Ask them to explain 2025 and identify which parts they approve of.
SargassoSink
@Kay: It’s hard to imagine what one would need to know about Harris-Walz in order to decide to vote not-Trump? To prevent Trump’s reelection I would literally vote for a Constitutionally eligible American selected at random, the goat behind Door #3, whatever. If there was anything that severely disqualifying about Harris-Walz, you would have heard about it.
Sister Golden Bear
This is the future Republicans
wantare actively working towards.They want us eradicated from public existence.
ArchTeryx
@Sister Golden Bear:
Fixed it for you. I’ve been telling people since I first laid eyes on Project 2025 that it’s a handbook for genocide. THAT is their endgame, like every other fascist regime in history
And book destruction has also always been a step on that path.
Mousebumples
SatanicPanic
@Mousebumples: Having that much money and/or excessive fame almost inevitably turns people into weirdos. I hope I never have either.
Steve LaBonne
@ArchTeryx: “Where they burn books, in the end they will also burn people.” – Heinrich Heine
SomeRandomGuy
“REAL MEN… don’t fear male pattern baldness.”
“REAL MEN… don’t fear childless women.”
“REAL MEN… know that petting the kitties of childless cat ladies might make the ladies purr, too.”
“REAL MEN… might have coffee and excellent conversations with childless cat ladies who ain’t got not interest in purring tonight.”
Mousebumples
@SatanicPanic: charitable giving is an option. Not really considered by the Scrooge McDuck’s of the world.
(for serious, I’d love to dive into a pool of money… That’s the one positive takeaway I have from that cartoon, lol)
Captain C
@Elizabelle:
You could ask that question of most of the MSM also.
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
Just hurt me. Hurt my soul.
M31
@KatKapCC: yeah, what’s up with mocking Harris’s laugh?
It’s not like she’s DeSantis when he suddenly remembers the “ACT HUMAN” instructions he was given.
SatanicPanic
@Mousebumples: If I suddenly came into a billion dollars I would like to think I’d buy a house, maybe a nice car and then give the rest away. But I also might be tempted to do some really dumb things with the money so I’m hoping I’m never in that position.
JML
@Mousebumples: hi, I’m an actual Teamster. I get that it’s fun for people on the outside to try and paint my union and our leadership as a bunch of right-wing shitbags, but that isn’t why O’Brien went to the RNC. Sometimes you have to speak to the people who aren’t the converted in order to try and build coalitions. It wasn’t that long ago that you could actually get votes from the GOP on pro-worker legislation like prevailing wage acts and so forth. Plus…they invited him (BTW, the DNC has NOT). It’s like the Fox News issue: should Dems never ever go on there because they suck so hard, so do you send people from time to time so that it’s not just an echo chamber of crazy-ass right wing talking points. Did the assholes implying that Teamsters are taken over by MAGA-heads actually READ the speech he gave? Bet there hasn’t been a more pro-worker speech given at the RNC in 50 fucking years.
Teamsters are going to endorse Harris. I’ll bet you all the money I have on it, against 2 thin dimes from anyone on this board. Right now they’re waiting until after the convention when it might actually have some impact. Hell, it might not come until after Labor Day.
and it’s FINE.
(The lawsuit? NOT ok, and he’s going to have to answer to the board and the membership for it.)
KatKapCC
@M31: Yeah, to them, a genuine laugh is such a foreign concept that they’ve convinced themselves their forced canned laughter is the real deal.
Elizabelle
@Captain C: I know. They are embarrassing.
hueyplong
@JML: Hoping you’ll update us on the repercussions of that lawsuit if we fail to note them down the road.
Omnes Omnibus
@John S.: @wenchacha: FDR and Truman.
Mousebumples
@JML: fair enough! Thanks for sharing your perspective.
Sister Golden Bear
@ArchTeryx: The plan has definitely always has been eradicating LGBTQ people entirely (i.e. genocide) — I’ve only pulled back from saying that because cis het people typically tune out because they think we’re being hysterical.
Jeffro
true!
and so…”reluctantly, for planning purposes”…we must FINISH HIM! (electorally speaking, of course)
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
Ignorance is a choice.
KatKapCC
@JML:
Did he think speaking there was going to change the minds of anyone in that audience as far as who to vote for? Does he want Trump reelected? Does he actually think if he gets reelected, his admin will give a single solitary damn about workers’ rights, no matter how many speeches to crowds of bigoted hateful jerks O’Brien gives?
Jeffro
110%
I hope when the debates come around, both Harris and Walz’s opening statements are along the lines of:
“I don’t really plan on ‘debating’ [trumpov/Vance]. He lies like he breathes, and he doesn’t actually know much of anything. What I’m actually here to do tonight – big reveal! (laugh) – is to talk straight to the American people about the choice in this election.”
Literally ignore the
snooze mediamoderators’ questions and just recite the stump speech, over and over.Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: She also said that she believed she was the first one. She did not make a definitive statement. And wtf?!
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah: Besides eradicating LGBTQ people from people life, cruelty is the point, as is instilling terror.
Steve in the ATL
@JML: I’m really glad you posted that. My experience sitting across the table from Teamsters has been that the leadership is solidly democratic and smart enough to know what the other party wants to do to them. On the other hand, the ranks and file members—machine operators, clamp truck drivers, mechanics, etc.—are all over the place politically. I’ve had a number of Teamster business agents and such express to me their frustration at having so many MAGAs on their committees. They don’t get it either! I agree with you that the union will do the right thing, and at the right time.
Jeffro
so…that most dreaded of all things…the most dire of all trump insults…he’s boring
(yes. yes he is!)
someone should tell him =)
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah: FYI just saw your first comment. When I’m late to a threat I usually post first to be sure I get my comment in before the thread dies.
wjca
In the late 1700s, some of our Founding Fathers (including, IIRC, Ben Franklin) fretted about the German immigrants “not sharing our values.” It’s an American tradition!
Jeffro
@KatKapCC:
@Hoodie:
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
total guess but it seems like a holdover from the way they went after Hillary for it (‘cackling’ got some airtime back in 2016, iirc) and just general misogyny (if women are laughing, they’re laughing at YOU, incels!)
stupid stuff
BethanyAnne
@rikyrah: I am so with you. The library was *home* when I was a kid. These fucking assholes.
Omnes Omnibus
@wjca: The Germans drank beer and brandy instead of rum.
3Sice
The Whinging Tour – 2024!
zzzzzzz…..
3Sice
He is dying out there. Maybe they can Poochie him up with a backwards MAGA cap and some shades.
BR
@Steve in the ATL:
I always wonder — what value does a union endorsement bring if the rank and file aren’t really on board (or at least are a mixed bag politically)?
Chief Oshkosh
@Hoodie: That’s what I thought. Our economy is ROARING. Hell, I just spent significant time in norther European countries, and NONE of them have recovered from the pandemic to the extent we have. They’re not going badly, but they’re simply nowhere near what we’re living.
wjca
Baud in 20XX!!!
Sister Golden Bear
@KatKapCC: The idea that she’s laughing with others instead of laughing at others has broken their brains.
SomeRandomGuy
@SatanicPanic: Giving money away is actually a bit difficult. What you’d probably want to do is set up a foundation. Why?
Well: Let’s say you wanted to build up Planned Parenthood. Okay, but, right now is a *terrible* time to do that. Anything you build could be wasted funds, if you build it in a snotty-vengeful state like Alabama, or Arkansas, or Florida, which would make that *specific* site illegal with a special legislative act.
So you’d set up a foundation, to fund reproductive health, over a period of time. When the nation becomes sensible again, you start building out Planned Parenthood again.
There are other reasons why it’s hard to give money away, but the biggest reason it’s hard to imagine giving away a billion dollars is, it’s like giving away a real ring of three wishes.
If you suddenly had great power, there’s nothing saying you couldn’t temper it with wisdom, but I do agree, most “three wish” stories end with the third wish undoing the damage of the first two… or are of the form, “Oh, boy, I wish I had a big plate of beans! Oh, boy, I wish I had a spoon! Oh, boy, I wish I didn’t have to clean my new plate and spoon!”
Which is, I guess, “making one’s self happy, and giving the rest away.”
It’s harder to give away a ring of a THOUSAND wishes, which is what a billion dollars is like – at a million bucks a wish.
3Sice
Nobody is on the streams – max is FOX with 51k.
Pull up! Pull up!
MSNBC passed and CNN dropped off.
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
You are not hysterical. The actions of the Orange Menace’s Administration made it quite clear what their intentions are. As have been all the anti-trans bills that proliferated over Red States.
karen marie
@Mousebumples:
I’d like some clarity on what John Palmer is “extremely disappointed” about.
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus:
I wasn’t around for those campaigns. 🙂
RaflW
@Mousebumples: Oh, thanks. Center for Common ground, which is already linked, was what I had in mind but was on-the-fly so didn’t say that explicitly.
Baud
@John S.:
You might be too young for this blog.
Layer8Problem
@3Sice: “Maybe they can Poochie him up with a backwards MAGA cap and some shades.”
If we’re lucky they’ll call him back to his home planet.
Ksmiami
@SatanicPanic: a billion ain’t what it used to be…
Leto
@3Sice: “It’s an older reference sir…”
wjca
Although I believe applejack would have been an acceptable alternative. (Johnny Appleseed was celebrated for a reason. And not the one assumed today.)
rikyrah
@Sister Golden Bear:
No Problem. It was just so painful to see. The loss of that education. The deliberate erasure. It punches the gut. That ‘ these people’ and ‘ their ideas’ are not worthy of study. They aren’t important enough to study.
Van Buren
@Kay: You don’t know anything about our Vice President?
That’s on you, not her.
Is what I would say.
wjca
Maybe we’re grooming him…?
Another Scott
@sixthdoctor:
IANAL, but for most federal employees postcards should be Ok.
OSC.gov – Hatch Act FAQs:
“Further Restricted Employees” are:
Again, IANAL.
HTH!
Cheers,
Scott.
KenK
@BR: as one of German-Irish lineage, Vance can go fuck himself.
Misterpuff
@Baud:
Heard at the next debate: KH: “There you go again. Whineing and complaining.
BTW stop hovering over me, its distracting, its rude and it’s WEIRD!”
Baud
@Misterpuff:
I don’t think there are any town halls so the hovering might be hard to do.
karen marie
@HumboldtBlue:
“and the economy starts to show signs of improvement”
I’m sorry, WHAT?
Yeah, I would have declined to allow my name to be published with a statement that stupid.
TBone
@SomeRandomGuy: 🩷
Sure Lurkalot
@tam1MI:
It’s heartening to read about the warm reception Biden is getting at public events and the “thank you Joe” chants.
The best president of my lifetime. Currently the best economy on the planet right now.
But he rarely broke 40% approval in the “polls”.
Sing it:
Hoping beyond hope that Harris/Walz get elected so they can continue the job Biden/Harris started to restore our democracy to we the people.
Baud
@Sure Lurkalot:
👍
Tenar Arha
@West of the Rockies:
Voteriders.org is a 501c3 that helps get people voter id’s. Totally non partisan which is why they get the “c3” designation. They have remote volunteer work, but nothing about postcards.
Ksmiami
@rikyrah: she should sit down with Matt Levine from Bloomberg. At least he’s great at explaining the economy.
dm
@Misterpuff: I’ve always thought Hillary should have turned to him and asked if he ever bathed.
jonas
@SiubhanDuinne:
“I can not eat as much as I want to vomit.”
— attributed to the artist Max Liebermann, whose studio was near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, as he watched formations of Nazi troops goose-stepping down Unter den Linden after Hitler’s takeover in 1933.
Chet Murthy
@JML: with respect, these are not normal times, and the Teamsters have forgotten Father Niemoller’s confession. That is to say, Maybe Sean O’Brien thinks That if he helps throw uppity women, People of color, Religious minorities, and LGBTQUnder the bus, Maybe the fascists will give him a cookie.
The selfishness is breathtaking and disgusting.
wjca
Let me be sure I understand. You’re saying Vance is a couch?
On behalf of couches (and sofas, and divans, and…) everywhere, I think an apology is in order.
Fake Irishman
@JML:
Thanks for weighing in here. There’s a lot of nuance in this world.
Bill Arnold
@Ksmiami:
A billion spent on anti-fascist influence operations and on disrupting fascist influence operations would have a big effect, if staffed with competent people. (They exist, though they can be difficult to identify, and it can be difficult to reject self-promoters.)
jonas
@SargassoSink:
It’s pretty devastating. Apparently she has an annoying laugh and, never having held public office or even campaigned a day in her life, is a complete political cipher. Who knows what she represents? And Walz of course once signed that tampon law. That’s like practically being a period product yourself. Ew.
Other MJS
@Misterpuff: “Are you lost? Can I help you find your lectern?”
JML
@Steve in the ATL: It’s a real issue and comes up during organizing. A lot of members have gotten suckered by the Fox News propaganda, but also think that the Democratic Party only cares about social issues. And it certainly has taken Teamsters longer to evolve than some unions, which is an issue for other units they’ve organized.
Many of my brethren have been very unhappy about Teamsters going to the RNC at all; we’re part of a public employees unit and my particular area is definitely more left than the Local as a whole. So it’s complicated.
Union politics aren’t always as simple as they look like to outsiders. It’s easy to say to the Operating Engineers, don’t endorse republicans they’re going to screw you out of existence…but when they’ve got a bunch of members out of work and the Dems are opposing a pipeline project that will put food on the table for their members…the long-term can get lost a little.
I disagreed with Sean’s decision to go to the RNC because I thought there was too big of a risk that it would signal some members that it was ok to vote for TFG. I told the held of my Local exactly that, and he’s told international VPs that concern as well. And he’ll say it straight to Sean’s face too. but I do understand why they tried this.
VFX Lurker
I found a Facebook post with pictures and video, and I shared it to my feed.
This breaks my heart in so many ways.
Fake Irishman
@Chet Murthy:
Unless you are saying the Dems shouldn’t engage with GOP period (which is a coherent position with a logic and some evidence behind it) I think you’re wrong here. The Teamster’s president wasn’t using his time to toady up to the GOP but speak about the needs of workers. It perhaps isn’t speaking truth to power, but claiming he’s trying to throw various vulnerable groups under the bus because he’s selfishly trying to get a cookie from fascists I think is a very uncharitable take.
There are some of folks on this board who really need to take a deep breath before attacking groups we don’t necessarily understand the internal politics of. (Cue Baud with “forget it, Jake, it’s Balloon Juice)
RaflW
@Mousebumples: If you don’t really think people have value, then why would they have “real concerns.” Theil is an antisocial creep.
Baud
@Fake Irishman:
The internal politics of Balloon Juice continue to alude me, but I’m still willing to attack it.
Kay
Trump: “We are a failing nation and economy”
Today and every day. God, what a whiny sad sack.
JML
@Chet Murthy: well, that ain’t respectful at all, but whatever. Labor supports candidates, Labor doesn’t work for the candidate. Labor endorses candidates, but they’re not entitled to endorsement.
And again: it’s not going to matter if Teamsters endorses Harris now or in 2 weeks. FFS Teamsters almost always endorses late. but no, we need to change things because you say so? Start paying dues, yo.
CaseyL
I am so sorry, but I must vent, and also ask for advice.
I was in a car accident last Friday. Entirely my fault. Damage is body-only, passenger-side mirror and deep gouge along front and back doors. But the doors open and close just fine, and the car is entirely usable.
It’s also a bit of a beater: 2008 Scion xB.
The estimate to fix is $4500. The blue book value is $4800.
The insurance calls that a “totaled car,” even if the car still works.
So I have a choice to release it and get X amount of money, or keep it as a “salvage” and get a lesser amount of money. (I’m not sure how much; got a call into the insurance company to nail down how much I get if I keep it as an owner-retain salvage).
I’ve looked at used car prices, and I won’t get into anything I actually want for less than $5000, and that’s if I’m not picky. An EV? No way – I can’t afford one, even with all the rebates. Plus keeping it charged would be an issue.
So I am inclined to keep the car and get at least the mirror repaired, maybe get the gouge painted (to prevent rust).
Does anyone have any words of wisdom for me?
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Layer8Problem: Poochie died on the way back to his home planet.
Krusty: “Poochie’s dead!”
Kids in the audience: “YAAAY!!!”
Ksmiami
@JML: to which I say. Sure union idiots – vote for the anti-labor party and by the way, that pipeline that you thought would be staffed by union guys is going to a GOP friendly, non-union contractor so oops
rikyrah
Qondi (@QondiNtini) posted at 2:26 PM on Thu, Aug 15, 2024:
It’s the little look back and smile Vice President Kamala Harris gives President Joe Biden for me
These two clearly have a genuine bond![]()
https://t.co/U2aQHMHVOL
(https://x.com/QondiNtini/status/1824165808924213575?t=-x707wc5Xq2zbArFzR9g2A&s=03)
Expletive Deleted
Re her laugh, or indeed any woman’s natural laugh, there was this piece recently about “keeping sweet” which I think is relevant. Can’t remember if I found it here or on masto;
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/wellness/fundie-baby-voice-seems-to-be-everywhere-now-heres-what-you-should-know/ar-BB1jLNTS
Obviously also too racism.
jonas
@HumboldtBlue: I forget where I read it some years ago, but some paper interviewed people in Palm Beach about what they thought of Mar-A-Lago. Was it considered an exclusive club? Did they want to join now that Trump was president? It was hilarious. Almost every one of them — including some self-identified incredibly rich Republicans — agreed that it was a joke shithole and if you were 1. seriously rich and 2. seriously connected in Palm Beach there were several other country clubs that people with “real money” and status joined. MAL was for supercilious, fake-tanned, nouveau-riche jackasses trying to grift off proximity to Trump.
rikyrah
Chicago Sun-Times (@Suntimes) posted at 4:43 PM on Thu, Aug 15, 2024:
Ex-Cook County prosecutor accused of scheming with two Chicago cops to claim more than $100,000 in phony overtime now works as a prosecutor in Idaho, it was disclosed in court Thursday.
https://t.co/nwfibzxdsX
(https://x.com/Suntimes/status/1824200373327847517?t=GwJP_LHdiIXQn9Wp9YdLXA&s=03)
Baud
@rikyrah:
She’s gonna be pissed when he reclaims the nomination next week.
Scout211
Here’s Trump’s latest “policy statement” at his Bedminster news conference.
OMFG. He’s melting, melting . . . melting.
rikyrah
I will say this again. The park nearest the United Center is an actual Park District Park. That neighborhood uses that park.
They can clown if they dare.
But, don’t start none. Won’t be none.
It might not be as hard as when I grew up, but that’s still the West Side.
THOMAS (@TommyInPA) posted at 3:22 PM on Thu, Aug 15, 2024:
Protesters big mad because City of Chicago blocking use of sound systems, stages, portable restrooms and more during DNC
I love this for them cuz here’s reaction from organizer: “Someone doesn’t want us to talk about ‘Genocide Joe’ and ‘Killer Kamala.”
https://t.co/JTUCghHKhn
(https://x.com/TommyInPA/status/1824179814066164170?t=c8mkABhm6aHPYidg2AprDA&s=03)
Chet Murthy
@Fake Irishman:
Damn right, the only good G(r)OPer is a dead G(r)OPer. What O’Brien did was to make it alright for people on-the-fence to think “OK, if the Teamsters -President- thinks they’re alright, then they’re alright”.
Y’know, I live in California, and aside from -maybe- a few House districts in 2018, all of my quite sizable political contributions go to races elsewhere in the country, not in California. Why should I care? Why should I give a flying fuck? It’s no skin off my back after all.
And yet, I do, b/c I know that my own short-term self-interest isn’t supposed to be everything.
@JML: “Not respectful” would be to quote the A.R. Moxon quote about Nazis, or “what do you call a table with nine people, when a Nazi sits down at the table and none of them get up to leave?”
Sister Golden Bear
@rikyrah: Agreed, although it’s more than just that we’re not important enough to study, it’s that we’re invalid to study, wrong to study, and that they don’t want students to know we exist at all—similar to what they’ve done at the K-12 level. As you said, it’s about erasure.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Sister Golden Bear: This cis het dude knows what’s at stake.
The Republican fascists will keep trying to eliminate our trans family members, friends, colleagues and neighbors.
And it’s up to the rest of us to stop them.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: That is so sweet.
RaflW
Apparently cottage-cheese-brain man at his press ‘conference’ is now raving about birds and windmills.
He cannot ever be in control of the levers of power again. It is intolerable.
Kayla Rudbek
@Mousebumples: if I was a billionaire, I’d go out and fund a lot of science and engineering research and/or fund underrepresented people to go do scientific and engineering research.
If I was the dean of an engineering school, I’d make all the students take an obstacle course aka disability simulation course to make them understand what it’s like to be too short, frail, physically impaired, etc. to get around comfortably in a world designed by able-bodied young men who are assumed to be at least 5”10.
Sister Golden Bear
@RaflW: Folks like Thiel and Co. think people outside their MOTU circle are non-player characters.
3Sice
They had him out there with a little table of groceries. Trying to do a Katie Porter, but coming off as the worst Midday Movie host ever.
Ellen from Sheboygan, if you can tell me the star of NBC’s The Apprentice, you will win all these products from our fine sponsor Jensen’s Foods….
Ummmm….. Kamala Harris??
zeecube
@Jeffro: jumped the shark, so to speak.
p.a.
Part of me thinks the open dumpstering of the books was authorized by someone who abhors what was done and wanted it out in the open rather than back-door-disposed so the authors of the outrage would be exposed.
Another part of me thinks it was just a tRumpturd rubbing the civilized world’s face in their bigotry.
Scout211
The scary thing is he doesn’t seem to be interested in actually being president. It seems like as long as he gets that magical immunity that SCOTUS has offered, he will outsource the actual job of president to the highest bidder or maybe Jarvanka. But he’s not campaigning to be president anymore. He’s campaigning to convince voters he is entitled to be president again because of how mean everyone is being to him. He’s pathetic.
But preaching to the choir here.
trollhattan
@CaseyL: Guessing it varies state by state.
Have friends who received the totaled value check from insurance, bought it back for an agreed lesser value, had it repaired to their satisfaction, kept driving.
Understand it will show on Carfax as having been totaled on N date, should you ever sell later.
IDK if that process works elsewhere.
Good luck! I just finished with a $3050 repair, $1000 deductible, my balance of the rental, just from hitting an out-of-alignment freeway pavement slab. Frickin’ horrid experience all around.
3Sice
Luntz was lying. They can’t message around Dobbs. Not with a basket of groceries, not with anything.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud:
The internal politics of Balloon-Juice mean that there are two categories of people who post here: those who care about proper grammar and usage, and the assholes who call those people “pedants.”
Almost Retired
My favorite part of Trump’s monologue at the Golf and Memory Care Center was that Fox was running a chyron showing the closing minutes of the market with the Dow up 500 points/1.3%. While Trump was explaining how the Democrats would tank the stock market like you’ve never seen before…not even 1929, etc.
hueyplong
@3Sice: It’s reasonable to assume that a guy who for his living assembles people to figure out how to sell them a repugnant candidate might be spinning when he releases statements about how the process is going.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
I consider you more of a pendant.
hueyplong
@Gin & Tonic: They only call them “pedants” because they can’t spell “pedophiles.”
bluefoot
@Sister Golden Bear: Anyone who thinks it’s hysterical either hasn’t read anything about Project 2025, doesn’t know anything about American history, or lives in a cave. Even if we win this election, we will continue to be in this existential fight because too many people, with power and without, want the future MAGA is working towards.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chet Murthy: Do you really want to start down the eliminationist path again?
Michael Bersin
@Jeffro:
Actually, we elected the guy who gets things done.
Uncle Joe was my seventh choice in the leadup to the 2020 primaries – if any of them was the nominee they were going to get my vote in the general election.
I consider Joe Biden to be the best president in my lifetime. I’m expecting Kamala Harris to usurp that rating once she assumes the office.
Scout211
So he wants employees to love being paid low wages. Check.
Chet Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: There is no such thing as “to try and build coalitions” with Fascists. You are either a Fascist, or you are -against- the Facists. [insert Dropkick Murphys song “Which Side are you on?”]
KatKapCC
@Fake Irishman: Maybe I don’t know anything, but it seems to me as valuable a way to spend one’s time as me going to a conference for the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association to expound on the virtues of a plant-based diet.
Baud
@Scout211:
Man of the
peoplenatural serfs.KatKapCC
@Scout211: “They’re not nice to me.”
Holy heck, can he be any more of a literal baby?
karen marie
@JML:
I had read that was the case before the convention and O’Brien’s appearance. But it didn’t fit the narrative, so that information was promptly disappeared.
Mike E
@JoyceH: head wounds bleed a lot, it’s from high concentrations of capillaries…Miss E had an elementary school zip line handle hit her in the forehead, not pleasant though no other trauma except a bunch of bleeding. When they called me with this news and suggested I take her to the emergency room I said “No way!” since we had already experienced her falling back wearing a hair clip when she wasn’t quite two years old and learned that ER lesson the hard way (two stitches and a numbing shot were much worse than the fall). An administrator must have worked as a boxing trainer since she had that sucker butterfly bandaged and totally copacetic. We then visited her pediatrician who glued it like you did.
Another tip: apply ice or a frozen bag of veggies to stop the bleeding
Gin & Tonic
@Scout211:
Says the man who is best known in the NY metro area for stiffing everyone.
Jay
@CaseyL:
if it’s medium to low mileage, or really well maintained,
and the Insurance Company isn’t gouging you on salvage, ( the formulae is usually estimated replacement value – value as salvage),
keep it and find a shade tree bodyman to do the work.
Old Lurker
@sixthdoctor:
2
Yes. You as a private citizen (of the United States) may send postcards at your expense endorsing a candidate (FEC). You may send an unlimited number. You may have to post a disclaimer. The relevant law is at 11 CFR 110.11(a), e.g.
There may be more restrictions if someone else gives you money to pay for printing, postage, or other expenses. But if you are doing this at your own expense, send as many as you want. There also might be issues if you were a foreign citizen. But for a US citizen, this would be a rather straight forward first amendment, freedom of the press issue.
Citizen Alan
@SiubhanDuinne: Every republican is a nazi at heart. They look at that famous footage of the bonfire the nazis made out of the research of the Institute of Sexology, and they become sexually aroused at the thought of doing it here.
ArchTeryx
@Sister Golden Bear: Yeah. I got a lot of that from certain commenters here as well, when I said I’d be on the list as well. (I’m cis, het, and white, but I’m heavily disabled, so I’m othered every bit as much as the LBGTQ+ crowd). There’s a reason I count myself an Ally. It’s enlightened self interest, as well as being the moral thing to do when standing against monsters
Someone decides to sealion me, they get pied immediately. And I know exactly when they’re pulling that crap.
CaseyL
@Jay:
As of now, that’s what I’m inclined to do; thanks!
trnc
@Kay:
Of course, it’s easy to find interviews with Harris over the last few years on 60 Minutes, Face The Nation, NYT, etc, unless you’re a concerned voter cosplayer.
The Dying Gaul
@catclub:
And an excellent one.
(Also, his own country club where his wife is buried in an unmarked grave – surely, that’s not true…)
Sister Golden Bear
“I didn’t rant and rave. Please don’t put in the New York Times that I ranted and raved.”
Steve in the ATL
@CaseyL:
The Dying Gaul
[Who lives at their own country club?] my helpful addition.
And an excellent one!
(Also, his own country club where his first wife is buried in an unmarked grave – surely, that can’t be true…?)
ArchTeryx
@trnc: Every time I hear one of these stories, it always comes down to trolling the libs. It doesn’t matter if these are friends, family, even people you once trusted. Once they join the cult, there’s the cult, and there’s everyone else – and they lie to you and troll you at every opportunity. They will happily betray every single left-leaning person in their life just to win approval of the cult.
Toño Pizote
@Sister Golden Bear: It’s horrible. I graduated from New College and spent many, many hours in that library. The school was such a wonderful place – this has all hit hard
The Dying Gaul
@catclub:
[Who lives at their own country club?] my helpful addition.
And an excellent one!
(also, his own country club where his first wife is buried in an unmarked grave – surely, that can’t be true…?)
StringOnAStick
@CaseyL: What kind of shape is the engine in and how many miles on it? If you think there’s still some good life in the engine, transmission and suspension then I’d say keep it because if you buy a used car for $5k, you have no idea what problems that owner is trying to unload. Maybe it’s better to stay with what you know, and the environmental thing to do is use it until it’s no longer usable.
karen marie
@wjca: That’s for sure. He wasn’t planting apple trees out of the goodness of his heart or even to make/sell cider. He got free seeds that cider-making facilities were discarding. Apple trees grown from seed are shit. And cider apples are used to make cider because they’re not pleasant to eat.
Not exactly a selfless humanitarian.
3Sice
JML
@Chet Murthy: if you actually bothered to read what I’ve written here, you’d see that I told my own leadership that I thought the risk that appearing at the RNC would let members think it was ok to vote for TFG outweighed the benefit of sending a pro-worker message in front of people who may have never even heard one. But they also had to think about the variety of politics within Teamsters membership, because not everyone is as lefty as me.
But the basics of what you’re saying is rooted in that classic “if you only understood” argument that has convinced absolutely no one of anything ever. I get that risking the utter destruction that the GOP wreaks upon this country for short-term gain of jobs in certain areas is a bad choice, but you’re selling this with a condescending line of ivory tower BS that makes members feel disrespected and stupid and union leadership cringes and looks for a hook to pull anyone off-stage that does that kind of garbage.
There are parts of the party that simply can’t resist the “if you only understood” language in their argument to people they think should be agreeing with them, and it fails every single time.
Kay
Hudson is the National Republican Congressional Cmt chair and he will be meeting with House Republicans. I told you-all Democrats overperforming in Congressional races was the untold story of this election cycle
I knew media would start covering it eventually. It’s too obvious to ignore.
cain
@Scout211: Basically, it will be a pitched battle between Johnson, JD and Trumps Chief of Staff. I think JD will have the upper hand and he’ll be convincing Trump of all kinds of stuff Federalist people want.
Baud
@3Sice:
If Kam would give the media an interview, they could ask her if she’s seen cheerios.
MisterForkbeard
@Michael Bersin: Yep. Right there with you. Biden was my 7th or 8th choice in the primaries, and Kamala was my first.
I think Biden has been (on balance) the best president during the last ~45 years of my life. I hope Kamala can surpass him
@Scout211: The obvious followup question for Trump’s answer that he DIDN’T actually agree with Elon about threatening to fire striking workers is “So why did you lie to Elon Musk in your conversation on Monday?”
Our press corpse needs to do better
Another Scott
@CaseyL: Check into the details in your state.
(My recollection:) Virginia considers anything older than 10 years old to be “totaled”, but doesn’t require that you get a “salvage title” when it happens. My 2004 VW Jetta wagon was rear-ended on I-75 while I was traveling at 70 mph in Ohio and smashed the rear liftgate. Something like $2500 damage. Insurance said it was totaled. I got a check from them (and a check from the guy who caused the accident for my deductible) and got it repaired (and had some other paint work done at the same time). I still had insurance with the same company, didn’t have to get a new title, etc.
I sold it to CarMax for a few hundred dollars a few years later with no issues (it was a diesel with 160,000 miles, so it was never going to be worth very much at that point).
Don’t panic. If you want to get it fixed and keep driving it and have it be insured, you still can – at least in Virginia.
HTH a little.
Good luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
karen marie
@Misterpuff: Yeah, Trump will have a much harder time when he tries to fuck with Harris than he did with Clinton. Harris is not bound by the bullshit rules of behavior that have hamstringed other women politicians.
Jay
@KatKapCC:
That would actually have some value, as their “product” relies on a plant based diet.
Part of the “greening” programs for livestock management is to reintroduce native plants that used to be considered weeds into the forage, for the health benefits to the livestock and the planet.
MisterForkbeard
@The Dying Gaul: I think there’s a plaque, technically. However, the grave is off by itself in the middle of nowhere, isn’t being tended, and the plaque and entire gravesite have grown over.
If you don’t know exactly where it is, you could never locate it.
3Sice
@Baud:
Bigfooting the clown show by appearing with Joe is chef’s kiss.
K-Mo
@MomSense: I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: they should make bingo cards out of this stuff.
Ivan X
@Chet Murthy: I usually like what you have to say, and I certainly feel and understand your righteousness here, but, for me there’s an ugliness coming through. I mean, I hate the fascists too, and don’t think one should do business with them, but I feel like if someone’s here with a perspective that’s been reasonably expressed in good faith, even if it’s one with which I don’t agree, I don’t like to see them just nuked from orbit because you’re outraged. You can think someone’s an apologist and be angry about it, but expressing it with seething contempt pushes me away rather than making me want to hear what you have to say.
Kay
The “San Franscisco liberal” thing about Harris really does take me back to the 1990s. Very nostalgiac.
The NYTimes is going to LOVE it.
karen marie
@Almost Retired: Yes, but everybody knows the stock market was surging in reaction to Trump talking about how great he is.
Jay
@CaseyL:
Insurance Companies estimate retail prices for bodywork, not wholesale. So they would have estimated that every damaged panel would have to be replaced, not just having the dents pulled and hammered, bondo’d then painted.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay:
Oh come on! Yesterday, it was “third world country, banana republic.” Variety!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@karen marie:
Which is funny, because the stock market started soaring more than a year ago, long before the presidential primaries
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Gin & Tonic: And going bankrupt anyway. Takes a special kind of financial idiocy to stiff all your suppliers and still go broke.
K-Mo
@Steve LaBonne: You can absolutely campaign for partisans in *your private life.*. But you *cannot* :
While you’re at work, you can’t do anything that could be considered partisan.
SatanicPanic
@SomeRandomGuy: I don’t want to start a foundation, that requires work. Sounds stressful.
I would just donate it to the state of California or something. I dunno, this is why I never buy lottery tickets so I don’t have to think about it.
Scout211
Good.
Kay
@Sure Lurkalot:
“Minnesota is a failed state”
That was today. A month ago they said they would win Minnesota. Guess that’s off the table.
KatKapCC
@Jay: Okay but you know that’s not what I meant.
Steve LaBonne
@K-Mo: Not true in Ohio. You can’t campaign, or circulate nominating petitions, or serve on a party committee, even on your own time. Other places might be less draconian.
UncleEbeneezer
Ksmiami
@Ivan X: except he’s not wrong. Republicans today represent an existential threat to most Americans in nearly ever aspect of life from healthcare, to relationships, to education, to business.
MCA1
@Kay: I look forward to their pronouncements that Iowa, Arizona and North Carolina are also failed states.
The fact they ever thought Trump had Minnesota in the bag is insane.
SatanicPanic
Beyond being an asshole and a dunce, Trump really is a fucking wet blanket. Total bummer.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@UncleEbeneezer:
Good for her. We need more affordable housing
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MCA1:
Iowa?
Steve LaBonne
@UncleEbeneezer:
But the mediots told me she has no policies!Sally
@Hoodie: Listening to Daffy Donold Ducking the questions. Same old, same old.
SatanicPanic
@UncleEbeneezer: I like the sound of that. 3 million homes is a good start.
Ivan X
@Ksmiami: Did I say he was wrong? You’re preaching to the choir here, about Republicans, pal. But I don’t like absolutist, eliminationist, I-own-truth, you’re with us or against us as I frame it, type of language. Which you also sometimes do (but appreciate that you’ve toned it down). Truth may seem absolute, but actual human beings tend to be less so, and the final outcome of tribalism is civil war. So I’d at least like us to be civil to each other in our little corner, unless someone has genuinely forfeited the privilege.
Being righteous about the evilness of Republicans might make you feel better, but does not help actually win hearts and minds. I think we all need to monitor our own sense of righteousness closely — it’s a hell of a drug. I hold myself to this too. None of us own the absolute truth, nor are in a position to impose it on others.
HumboldtBlue
Harris campaign has a response to Trump’s food rally.
Scout211
Corey Lewandowsi was just added to the campaign and he immediately screws up according to HuffPost.
. . .
He has been mocked all day on social media and clearly deserves it.
Read the roomplease proceed, Corey.Kay
@SatanicPanic:
“We are literally a third world nation”
Trump, today.
Harrison Wesley
The Trump food plan for America:a hamberder on some people’s plates and ketchup on all the walls.
Eric S.
@sixthdoctor: IANAL, just an upjumped computer programmer, but I believe she can.
https://osc.gov/Documents/Outreach%20and%20Training/Posters/The%20Hatch%20Act%20and%20Most%20Federal%20Employees%20Poster.pdf
Jay
If the US had a functioning FTMSM, a long time ago, some reporter at a Sundowning 34 Felonies Rapist Pedo guy’s “presser” would have asked,
“Sir, are these massive, great, largest crowds ever in history, are they in the room with us now?”
Steve in the ATL
@Kay: he said “literally”? Ok, I’m totally Team Kamala now!
Darkrose
@Steve LaBonne: I love some of the old hot takes from the Guardian:
January 2024:
‘This person should not be president’: Kamala Harris takes hits in book on Biden
April 2024:
How did Kamala Harris go from being a rising star to a damp squib?
K-Mo
@Steve LaBonne: My bad. I was thinking Federal law.
MCA1
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Goin’ out on a limb, I know! It’s my pet hot take on the current state of the election that unpolled Iowa, which Biden lost by 8 points, is in play. The Walz pick appeals to Iowans’ innate midwestern sense of decency, along with Trump exhaustion.
MagdaInBlack
@Kay: Yes, and the radical communist Kamala has destroyed California, its a disaster
Ooooh, and also too ” She crackled while the economy burned.” ( cackled, I guess)
Sally
@JML: That is what I thought about the speech. It was very pro labor, and I wondered how it would be received. Was that audience even listening to him! I am disappointed to hear O’Brien is not invited to the DNC. Can that be rectified at this late stage?
Steve LaBonne
@K-Mo: We’re both right- the rules differ in different jurisdictions. I always felt Ohio’s law was a bit over the top.
wjca
I’d look forward to them saying that Florida and Texas are failed states**. Except that would be too close to being true for them to let it escape their lips.
** I’d offer to bet that whoever suggested that “failed states” label has zero clue that it applies to countries, not American states. But I’m sure I won’t win any sucker bets on that here.
Princess
@Scout211: Please proceed, Corey. Let Trump be Trump. 2024 Trump is stale, boring, incoherent, obsessive, mean, and weird weird weird. Please proceed.
Sally
@KatKapCC: The speech was carried to far more people than those in that room, like Sec Buttigieg on fox, who knows he is not going to convert any fox entertainers he talks to. Buttigieg is talking to the wider audience. Perhaps O’Brien was also.
Ksmiami
@Ivan X: I think there’s a difference between bog standard GOP voters who actually aren’t as anti lgbt etc or anti birth control as the current crop of leaders like Voght, De Santis etc who really are distilled fascists
dm
@UncleEbeneezer: “I can call spirits from the vasty deep”
“So may I, so may any man. But do they come, when you call for them?”
(Hotspur and Falstaff? One of the history plays, anyway.)
I love the idea, but the problem is often finding a Back Yard that will say yes. But go for it! Times are changing and so are attitudes.
Put 50,000 of them in Boston, please.
Starfish
@CaseyL: We still have our 2006 Scion xA. We are thinking about replacing it, but we are not into the whole “there is no option if you do not want a giant vehicle” thing that is going on right now. I totally understand wanting to keep your xB.
Darkrose
@Fake Irishman: I’d be more inclined to give O’Brien the benefit of the doubt if he hadn’t subsequently retweeted posts from Republicans about how woke corporations are forcing DEI and pronouns on real working Americans. I’ll be standing with the Black Caucus of the Teamsters, who were not down with that and have already endorsed Harris.
karen marie
@SatanicPanic: There will be a lot of screaming by people who benefit from the continual, insane increases in home prices.
wjca
Sad, but true. So many people want to move here that we have a critical housing shortage. It’s a disaster!
MagdaInBlack
@wjca: You know she personally burned San Francisco, right? She started it…..I’m told by an orange man who can’t read or speak very well.
K-Mo
@JML: Good take. I’m in wait-and-see mode on OBrien. The Teamsters are good folks generally though.
CaseyL
@Starfish:
Yes! I don’t want an SUV or any other oversized car. But one thing I do like about my xB is the cabin, and driver’s seat, sits a bit higher than other small cars.
About the only car I’d be happy having instead (other than an EV which isn’t practical for me just yet) would be a Kia Soul or Honda Element. I’ve been looking around for those, and there aren’t any in my price range that are also good model years.
Ivan X
@Ksmiami: I am not disagreeing with you.
Timill
@dm:
Henry IV Part 1 Act 3 Scene 1 :
Captain C
@Scout211: If the FTFNYT had the same standards for Republicans as it has for Democrats, the headline would be “Lewandowski Admits Entire Republican Party Fucks Couches”
(Though their genteel version would say something like “Has Sexual Intercourse With Couches”
Uncle Cosmo
Save your time w/r/t Italians. Long before the Sopranos, my people were adamant there was no such thing as the Mafia. They were lying through their teeth all the time. AND THEY KNEW IT.
Sid
@JML: He was used. He’s a fucking fool for not understanding that, or he’s a fucking quisling if he did.
Another Scott
@Steve LaBonne: I think you’re reading the Ohio prohibitions too broadly. “Classified” and “Unclassified” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in the Ohio code, it seems to me.
E.g. THE Ohio State University:
It seems to me that political activity is a pretty core First Amendment function of the polity. Restricting it is possible (e.g. in the Federal list I posted above), but there needs to be a good reason for it. Ohio saying that, say, a cafeteria worker cannot advocate for the candidate of her choice simply by being an employee is a step too far, IMHO.
IANAL
Cheers,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@Darkrose: When the Guardian started its US edition I had hopes that it would provide serious political coverage that would put FTFNYT and WaPo to shame. How naive I was. It’s often even worse.
Sid
@Chet Murthy: Not to mention the fucking ingratitude of appearing there (and the ‘thumbs up’ photo op with Trump) after Biden’s $36B bailout of the Teamster’s pension fund.
Fuck O’Brien and fuck the Teamsters- they’re barely better than police unions when it comes to worker solidarity.
Lyrebird
@JML:
Thanks for piping up with an insider’s view!
That speech at the RNC was one of the only sane bits, and the photos I saw showed that the MAGA leaders didn’t quite know what to do! So that was a public service in and of itself, showing them unable to respond to such a clear statement conveying the concerns of the people that speaker represents.
Another case where I’m an outsider, but yeah that’s my take. They mock her laugh… in my visits to normie white society, it seems that Black women are often put in a “either you’re too passive or you are loud” Catch-22
MVP, since she weighs her words carefully AND has a lovely laugh, breaks both rules.
EFGoldman rule applies here, right? Fk ’em!
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: “Classified” in Ohio means everyone except elected officials and appointed managers and board members. The cafeteria worker is a classified civil service employee. I completely agree with you that the blanket prohibition on political activities is excessive.
wjca
The prevailing winds blow from there to here. Yet somehow I failed to notice the smoke. The local news shows, which jump all over even small fires if a couple of homes are damaged, inexplicably failed to provide coverage either. One amazing cover-up, entailing tens of thousands of conspirators and NO leaks.
Sid
@Lyrebird: I think it’s more misogynist than racial- Clinton’s laugh was an issue as well. I told a guy who mentioned Harris’ laugh that it was the sound of a woman experiencing enjoyment, something apparently unfamiliar to him.
Steve LaBonne
@Lyrebird: Speaking of Harris and Catch-22s, she had a variety of duties and a busy schedule for 3 1/2 years, but the press simply ignored all of it and disappeared her, THEN complained that she “has no profile”. Just enraging. I’m thrilled that she’s not giving them the time of day- they richly earned that.
sab
@Kay: Only a loser would want to win a failed state.
////
MagdaInBlack
@wjca: Pretty impressive management skills, she should run for President =-)
sab
@trollhattan: Whether a totalled car survives to crash another day depends on the state. Texas allows totalled cars to survive. Ohio won’t alow a totalled car to be reregistered. ( I don’t know the correct terminology.) My step-daughter works in insurance adjusting for a national company.
wjca
@MagdaInBlack: 👍😂👍👍
Paul in KY
I think my snarkodetector ™ broke evaluating that press release! Looks like they really are having some fun skewering Cheetolini. Good!
Paul in KY
@Kay: But you do know about her challenger, right? You do know what a fine & upstanding guy he is?
Paul in KY
@John S.: I think both Presidents Truman & FDR loved taking the pompous GOP pricks to the woodshed. Both seemed to enjoy the hell out of it.
Has been a while since those 2 titans were on the stage…
Paul in KY
@M31: Amanda hit that one out of the ballpark.
Paul in KY
@KatKapCC: When they are whining about her ‘misrepresenting’ her experience in growing chili peppers, you can damn well bet that they A) Know they are losing and B) Got nothing.
Paul in KY
@SatanicPanic: I would like to try the ‘too much money’ route & see if I can be the exception. Do not want the fame part, though…
Paul in KY
@JML: Sure hope you are correct and Teamsters do endorse VP Harris!
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Should have known you would point that out!
Paul in KY
@Jeffro: Definitely do not try to actually ‘rebut’ the whoppers TFG will vomit up. That was one of the mistakes Pres. Biden made in his debate.
Paul in KY
@Misterpuff: Would be unpresidential and might cost her some votes, but would be great to see her knee him right in the balls.
The kind that drops him to the floor all huddled up & howling.
Paul in KY
@CaseyL: Keep it as ‘salvage’ and drive it till it falls apart.
BethanyAnne
@Kayla Rudbek: I know it’s a dead thread, but did you read this?
https://www.wired.com/story/patricia-moore-sacrificed-youth-to-get-tech-bros-to-grow-up/