A Harris vs. Cheney 2028 race would mean that:
1. Harris won in 2024;
2. The MAGA’s hold on the GOP was finally broken to the point that they nominate Cheney;
3. Democracy itself was saved; and
4. We’d have a very clear choice about policy & ideological differences.
Fine w/me.— Charles Gaba ?? (@charles_gaba) October 7, 2024
Polling has been remarkably consistent/stable last few weeks – Harris has a modest national lead and is closer to 270 in the battlegrounds.
Her campaign is stronger, she is better liked, good econ news keeps coming and just has far greater likelihood of closing strong/winning. https://t.co/SxWCxTAJGk
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) October 7, 2024
NEW
Harris rolling out a major policy proposal today: Having Medicare cover long-term care at home
Idea is to help millions of seniors & people w/disabilities — and their family caregivers too
Announcement to come on “The View”https://t.co/OWMKP3iUNG
— Jonathan Cohn (@CitizenCohn) October 8, 2024
Vice President Harris: There is a lot of disinformation being pushed out there by Donald Trump about what is available to the survivors of Helene. It's extraordinarily irresponsible. It's about him, it’s not about you. The reality is that FEMA has so many resources available to… pic.twitter.com/wWT8anHdfL
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 7, 2024
New York Times Headline Translation: Trump and his GOP Cronies Are Shamelessly Lying, To The Grave Detriment Of Desperate Hurricane Victims.
Another Hurdle in Recovery From Helene: Misinformation Is Getting in the Way https://t.co/GCEIc0kWD2— davidrlurie (@davidrlurie) October 7, 2024
FEMA is a federal government agency it doesn’t TAKE donations any more than the FBI or IRS.
If you get a text from FEMA asking for donations it’s probably this guy. https://t.co/f3gvaW3OCU— zeddy (@Zeddary) October 6, 2024
BTW, that may be—probably is—a sound ratio for a campaign’s digital advertising. But talking about $1m vs $3m is kinda silly in the context of billion dollar campaigns. Harris campaign is probably spending far, far more than $4m on satellite, on streaming radio, on Roku, etc
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) October 7, 2024
60 Minutes: The Trump campaign complained that we would fact-check the interview. We fact-check every story. pic.twitter.com/YNmMGOQ11Q
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 8, 2024
VP Harris says since Donald Trump canceled his interview with 60 Minutes, voters should watch his rallies instead. “You're going to hear conversations that are about himself and all of his personal grievances,” she said. “What you will not hear is anything about you.” pic.twitter.com/fdESLU5vKu
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 8, 2024
Q: What do you say to those who say Minnesota is out of step?
Gov. Walz: Trump may be referring to the fact that our children get breakfast and lunch in school so that they can learn. He may be talking about the fact that we have a paid family and medical leave policy that was… pic.twitter.com/cXFA22UF35
— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) October 8, 2024
Gee, lookit this: Lax Loathar has a dream...
It's possible that he believes this.
It's also completely delusional. https://t.co/ZSbU78VdBu— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) October 7, 2024
Oh, and the ‘help’ he clearly wants is a guarantee that the hostages won’t be released before the election. Which Bibi is clearly happy to ensure.
Americans and Jews and Palestinians all suffer for his ego, which is all that matters in his tiny demented mind.— zeddy (@Zeddary) October 7, 2024
On The Road – Captain C – Road Trip, April 2024 Part 8: Cooperstown Part 1
Baud
They really can’t come up with their own quesfo8, can they?
Mowgli
For the eleventy billionth time, how can this race be so close?
First?
ah. So close, so close and yet so faaarrr…
Baud
I don’t do predictions but I’m pretty confident Cheney won’t be the nominee.
Baud
@Mowgli:
They hate us.
Baud
NYT puts on its anti-click-bait hat when reporting on Republican misdeeds.
Suzanne
Y’all want to see something cool? Will be of special interest to NoVA jackals.
Inova breaks ground on two new hospitals, including one at former Landmark Mall site
ETA: Current project in FL is very much on hold this week for disaster preparedness!
Ken
@Baud: She might be the nominee of something calling itself the Republican party, with someone else (Trump if he’s still alive) the nominee of something else calling itself the Republican party.
Both groups will be spending so much on their lawsuits over the party’s intellectual and corporate property that they’ll have little left for campaigns.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Awesome. I’m going to travel to Northern Virginia and catch some dread disease just so I can say I stayed at a hospital designed by Suzanne.
Kay
People might really be interested in that. We do a lot of advising on this and issues like it in the law practice, including putting up ADUs for older relatives. It might also save Medicaid a lot of money on nursing homes.
Dorothy A. Winsor
quesfo8
That’s a typo for questions, right? Not some bit of BJ slang I’ve missed?
Baud
@Baud:
quesfo8 = questions.
Autocorrect on strike. I blame dockworkers.
Suzanne
@Baud: Don’t do that until 2028!
TBone
OH YEAH BABY!
LFG!!!!!
I’m actually tearing up with joy telling hubby. Maybe we could spend some of our retirement nest egg having fun instead of worrying about how to pay when we need help.
ETA Now I’m really just ugly crying with relief.
O. Felix Culpa
Medicare covering long-term care at home would be a Big
BidenHarris Deal.Kay
Even the NYTimes (a poll that consistently has Black people voting for Trump in an unprecedented share that probably won’t pan out) has Harris up 3.
13m
Suzanne
@Kay: So, as part of my professional life, I read a ton about healthcare preferences and trends. Having Medicare cover at-home care is a huge win. There is a great deal of data about how people live longer and healthier lives if they can stay in their homes. Skilled nursing homes are also just ludicrously expensive.
Of course, this will have after-effects in the housing market. I would love to see more ADUs and one-story row-house-style homes being built.
Baud
@Kay:
The unskewing begins so the final poll will be more in line with election results and they can remain credible.
Baud
I love how Harris keeps telling people to watch Trump rallies. That’s some ownage.
TBone
@Suzanne: 👍subsidized training and education of additional, desperately needed, elder care health workers also too is a good idea.
O. Felix Culpa
@Baud: Agreed. It also shows confidence in the value of her contrasting image and message. I love it.
hueyplong
@Baud: Your theory will really be vindicated when the final Rasmussen poll shows sudden movement.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: my autocorrect has been trying to dominate me for several days. I fix things, and it still returns them to what it “thinks.
the weirdest one was rumors, which autocorrect changed to Romeo. Really. It’s been approximately 5 words per paragraph.
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: the bane of my existence some days.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Agree. There are some yellow flags though – we need to regulate so we don’t get our current “home schooling” situation where we get do it yourselfers who don’t actually plan on doing the work.
There is a program like this in the VA and we have seen too many people take advantage of it, where the government is paying a relative of a disabled vet to care for the disabled vet and actually no one is caring for the vet.
lowtechcyclist
@Mowgli:
You’ve got to get your pants on pretty early to get there ahead of Baud, who after all doesn’t bother with pants
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Looks to be a very good use for the site. (I think I last shopped at Landmark regularly (Hecht’s mostly) in the last century.)
Make us proud! :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Baud:
I don’t think the NYTimes skews their polls. I think they just consistently go all-in on whatever theories favor the Right, so they bet that Black people are in the midst of a Right wing realignment that is much bigger than that of other outlets.
It’s like how they went all in on “anti woke” and pushing the crime panic- they’re enamored with the Right. No one will be sadder when Donald Trump loses than the employees of his home town paper.
Rusty
@Ken: Trump is just what the party wants. Take away Trump and the party remains, looking for someone new to take the role. Taking away Trump doesn’t change the underlying make up of the party base. There aren’t enough of the old country club, Cheney, William F. Buckley, Republicans now to take over the party, there won’t be enough after Teump leaves either. We are stuck with the current incarnation of the Republican party for at least 3 or 4 more election cycles.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
For some reason, this phrasing reminds me of Firesign Theatre’s “Beat the Reaper.” “According to my careful prosthesis, this man has The Plague.”
Kay
@Baud:
They’re also really parochial and there is a lot of evidence NY is trending Right so they’ll probably extend that to the rest of the country, like they did in ’22.
Soprano2
@Baud: I’d say the other states need to catch up!! LOL
Gloria DryGarden
It’s disinformation.
Done on purpose, not simply misinformation.
Walz saying in the video, “ In Minnesota, we’re so optimistic we walk on water half the year.”
Soprano2
@Kay: That is really, really big. I think people have no idea how many people are doing caregiving with almost no help from anyone. In my FB support group they talk a lot about qualifying for hospice, partly because that comes with help that Medicare pays for. I have a caregiver who comes three times a week, and I pay for that myself. Lots of people can’t afford to do that. It’s literally tens of millions of hours of uncompensated work people are doing because they have no other choice.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@TBone: We are in the middle of making decisions about long-term care insurance and my wife wants to do a tour of senior living facilities. “OK, but if you die first, then I’m not sure I want to stay in the house…”
These are not fun conversations.
TBone
When the lameass 60 Minutes guy kept saying “how ya gunna pay for it though?” my TV almost didn’t survive. Came very close to throwing things.
TBone
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I live under the cloud of that spectre every goddamned day. Hugs.
ETA your courage in dealing with this formidable topic is to be celebrated. I wish my parents had done it like you are.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
This. Most people want to take care of their relatives experiencing dementia or declining health at home for as long as possible, rather than having to dump them in a nursing home, so it would be a blessing for all concerned, and it would likely be less costly overall to boot.
Starfish
@Suzanne: You are doing hospitals in several states?!
Is it hard to read zoning codes for multiple states? My understanding is that hospitals have more and different rules than most everything else in architecture. Are those rules somewhat consistent across states?
stinger
You know how they have countdown clocks/trackers for various things? I’d like to see one that tallies the number of women who have died due to treatable but untreated pregnancy issues since Dobbs was overturned. With every passing day, XX American women have died because of abortion services bans.
Denali5
@Kay: So true. Doing the work means actually doing the work. Some people are up to it, others are. . .not.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Another Scott: Hecht’s! There’s a name I haven’t thought of in a long time.
Former MD resident. We only rarely got into Alexandria or into VA at all. I don’t think I know the Landmark Mall. When we went there we’d go to the Torpedo Factory and walk around the waterfront near there.
rikyrah
@Mowgli:
White people
That’s why this race is close
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: can confirm. The provision of professional home care in addition to at-home family/loved one as caregiver is penultimate.
lowtechcyclist
@Gloria DryGarden:
Who knew autocorrect was into D/s? Of course it would take the D side. ;-)
rikyrah
@stinger:
That would be too much like right
Would eliminate the BOTH SIDES that the MSM peddles in
Another Scott
@TBone: @O. Felix Culpa:
Indeed. This is excellent news.
LTC insurance is supposed to be part of everyone’s planning.
(My MIL was able to get a LTC policy with John Handcock in the early 2000s just before the age cutoff because one of her daughter’s company’s paid much of the starting premium, and because the agent didn’t see the early signs of Alzheimer’s.)
But.
It’s very hard to get these days. If you can get it, it’s ever more expensive. And it only pays benefits for 3 years from the date you start taking benefits. Most people don’t think of 3 years as “long-term”… :-/
The devil’s in the details, but mighty oaks grow from acorns and we need to start somewhere. This is an important first step.
NPR.org:
1) Paying for a new benefit. How will the GQP go along with that??!!
b) Making entities with lots of money from their choke-hold on the system pay for it. How will the GQP go along with that??!!
iii) Proposing a benefit that helps a vast number of people who also happen to be a large voting block. In addition to being a sensible policy, it’s good politics. How will the GQP go along with that??!!
IV) Helping middle age and older women also helps their families, their children, and the community. People who aren’t financially parlous have more disposable income, have better mental health, are able to plan for the future, have a better outlook, and are able to partake of “the blessings of liberty”. How will the GQP go along with that??!!
Bidnessmen and trolls who think that leadership is punching down won’t come up with things like this. People who understand the value of politics and the needs of real people will.
We have to vote the monsters out!
Forward!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: Yes, it’s like that rally with Musk in Pennsylvania. Trump looking like Mr Toad trying to pretending he’s a human and Musk pretending to a be teen, it’s just weird.
TBone
@Another Scott: I’m crying again. In a good way. But I’m pining, keening, for this to have been done years ago at the same time.
I say to the GQP:
Lead, follow, or get out of the way. We’re gonna run you down.
Suzanne
@TBone:
You mean, the things we currently expect women to do for free?! Wait, scratch that….. the things that we currently expect women to provide at great cost to themselves?!
TBone
@Suzanne: 🎯
Nearly drove me round the bend.
My own family members treated me like something they could use as a doormat.
JML
Hoo boy. Got my COVID booster and flu shot yesterday, and I’m paying for it. Last year I was fine doing both at once, this year not so much. Guess today is a day on the couch.
Ken
@Gloria DryGarden: Like this?
I for one welcome our new AI overlords.
Starfish
@TBone: If we desperately need the elder care workers, we need to be subsidizing their pay. We cannot have a bunch of people getting paid minimum wage, or close to it, having to drive all over the country side to take care of a bunch of patients who want to “age in place” as individuals living in giant country houses where there is hardly any medical access.
TBone
@Starfish: that was my point but I neglected to take the word subsidized far enough. Thank you for doing so.
Planetjanet
@Suzanne: I have been wanting to ask you a question. My Mom had surgery last week at UVa. In the surgical waiting room, it sounded like there was a bowling alley above me on the third floor. Periodically, something large and very heavy would roll quite a long way from one side to the other. Do you have any idea what that could be?
lowtechcyclist
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Current MD resident, but I grew up in northern Virginia – Mt. Vernon area – and lived there while working in DC in my mid to late 20s. I remember when the Torpedo Factory was still Dockside, I used to go there a lot back then. I shopped at Landmark only occasionally, but I remember watching a movie at the theater across from the mall the night before the Washington’s Birthday blizzard of 1979.
p.a.
FTFNYT poll can serve as a “push poll” until the final week-ish because only the last result needs to be accurate to maintain market credibility. The previous bullshit can then be explained away.
Another Scott
@Gloria DryGarden: [ rofl! ]
Cheers,
Scott.
Gloria DryGarden
@lowtechcyclist: Right? But I haven’t consented or agreed to it.
oh, right, consent is one of the banned concepts that can’t be discussed or taught anymore, in certain states.
Sheesh
TBone
@Planetjanet: MRI machine
https://radiologyblog.cincinnatichildrens.org/whats-with-all-the-noise/
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: good one!
Geminid
@Suzanne: As a member of the NOVA Diaspora I think that’s very cool. I spent my middle- and high school years three miles from the Springfield site and seven miles from the “fancy” Landmark shopping center.
I wonder if you have followed development news out of your former home town. A few weeks ago the Wall Street journal had an article about a 2500+ acre residential and commercial project in north Phoenix. It’s to be built adjacent to a large computer chip plant. I don’t have the article handy, but it had a lot of detail including the state and municipal involvement. It was part of a larger set about development spurred by the CHIPS+ Bill.
Bupalos
@Baud: Thank you Carl Schmidt.
Planetjanet
@TBone: Me too. The care for people with cognitive issues is just missing, unless you have an expensive house to sell or a $200k plus income. Assisted living is out of reach for a lot of people.
Starfish
@TBone: Fair. Need more caffeine when commenting before 7:00 AM in my time zone.
TBone
@Starfish: no, your comment added what was missing from mine! I edited to say thank you!
Dorothy A. Winsor
In my over-55 building, I see lots of people have home health care aides for all or part of the time. Management screens what aides you can use, for obvious reasons. This would be very popular here.
On another topic, I’m doing a book launch event for Dragoncraft this afternoon in one of the building’s two bars. Free wine and cheese, which should make this event popular here too. I hope.
TBone
@Planetjanet: it’s truly an emergency situation for most retirees. I had visions of eating cat food while pushing my belongings around the streets in a shopping cart.
NOT eating the pets!
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: who did you take care of, and for how long?
Suzanne
@Another Scott:
Please remember that a lot of men aspire to be patriarchs and see their wives — or the wives they want to have — in part as their domestic help. They want to return to the single-male-breadwinner economic model of the family so that their wives can’t leave, even if they cheat or gamble or abuse or drink too much or just don’t behave in the way a mature adult would.
Helping middle-age and older women means women don’t have to endure this. That’s a threat to a lot of shitty men.
Kay
@Suzanne:
I don’t know if you’ve seen this, but there’s now a company that will place a mobile ADU on your property. The ADU is specifically fitted out for seniors/disabled people. They guarantee to buy it back when you’re no longer using it with the intention of cleaning it up/repairing it and reselling it.
It’s not a “great deal” or anything – the buybacks average 80% of purchase price so original purchaser is eating the 20% but it appeals to me because the unit is reused, so there’s less waste.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Bupalos
@rikyrah: The largest movements toward Trump between 16 and 20 were brown people. In polling now the largest movement toward Trump now is brown and black people…. though we’ll see. Whites with college degrees and white women are where the biggest movement away from Trump is happening.
lowtechcyclist
@Suzanne:
All too true. My wife and I are watching this play out all too painfully with one of her closest friends with a mom well into dementia, and a brother whose occasional ‘help’ winds up costing her more time and energy than if he’d just stayed home. It’s heartbreaking.
jonas
@TBone: Cue MSM: “Oh noeses! But how will you paaaay for it? Whaddabout the evil deficit?”
Meanwhile Trump: “I’m going to build a 2000-mile long wall so high it will be an affront to God himself, put a colony on Mars, and cut taxes to zero for all white men!”
MSM: “Trump Proposes Creative Solutions That Appeal to His Base”
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: first my dad went into hospice after my brother lived with my parents for the entire year dad suffered through colon cancer. I spent his last week in hospice by his side while my poor brother went home. My then completely broken from that brother put my SIL in charge of Mom’s millions when Dad died, and they hoarded every cent while I cared for Mom (advanced dementia) as best I could. I lasted six months before fleeing. During those six months, I hired in home care, they immediately fired in home care, twice. They didn’t have to pay me so tried to guilt me, hard. Then they hired a nurse FOR THREE HOURS to drive my unsuspecting mother to a nightmare facility surrounded by a tall, barbed wire fence. She didn’t even have a change of underwear or a toothbrush! I can’t even tell the rest of this story because it is so painful- two broken hips, abuse, humiliation, and neglect at every turn. They told the facility people that I was an elder abuser and not to give me any real access or information.
Suzanne
@Planetjanet:
Some of the imaging equipment, like a MRI, can be really loud and vibrate the structure, which is audible if you’re below it. Hospitals also have a ton of large rolling equipment, like heavy carts and robots and beds. Also, I have noticed in some buildings that their pipes are really loud, and they can vibrate and be audible. Could be many things.
Were you under a helipad? That’s also noisy, but usually doesn’t have a rolling sound.
TBone
@jonas: 🤬🤬🤬🤬
Kay
I’m doing another canvassing shift Thursday evening – the focus is on Marcy Kaptur and Sherrod so these are “persuasion” lists – independents but we also ask a Harris/Walz question (common with congressional canvasses).
I had a real low point with the lies and propaganda on the NC floods that were spread on social media. I head it over and over, all kinds of nonsense, that FEMA were taking title to peoples homes, etc. That sort of stuff makes me feel hopeless for the country – like I can’t beat the Right wing billionaires who are bent on propogandizing this country with their platforms with my stupid 62 door canvass when they reach tens of millions while sitting on their ass. But I rallied since. I have a limited attention span for “despair” which has always worked in my favor and my grandaughters are turning into a real motivator for me.
Chris
@Baud:
They want slapfights between the candidates so that they can have nice juicy gossip to report.
Our Glorious Media. Asking the tough questions.
jonas
@Soprano2: I’ve also noticed over the years that a lot of younger people just sort of just assume that Medicare pays for dementia care or nursing home care when you become too frail to care for yourself. And I’m like, um, no. Unless you go through the whole complicated asset divestment process to qualify for Medicaid, which pays very little, that’s on you and your family, bub.
As some folks were observing on a thread last night, people are so poorly informed about how government works at all levels that it leads them to make terrible personal and political choices (or believe horseshit like FEMA has a military arm that is seizing homes in North Carolina or something).
Suzanne
@Geminid: Yes, I follow a lot of development news in Phoenix. There’s gonna be a reckoning soon. Despite growth in chip fab out there, the largest industry in the Phoenix area is homebuilding. But a lack of water threatens that growth. Katie Hobbs recognizes it and has taken action…. but that’s going to have economic impact out there.
Layer8Problem
@Baud: I welcome their hatred.
TBone
@Layer8Problem: me too
Jeffro
Woke up mad about Elmo & Tucker yukking it up over the perceived futility of MVP being assassinated. SO FUNNY GUYS!! (not)…now go jump in a volcano, jackasses
(on a serious note, I hope the second thing President Harris after being sworn in is to revoke every last one of Tesla’s and SpaceX’s government contracts. If she REALLY wants to make my day – and since she’ll be immune, right? – she can just nationalize his companies by decree. =)
BUT…the mad did not last, because the Mrs and I took a great hike early this morning, and it’s finally cool out, and fall might actually get here at some point! And get this: after catching up with RWNJ Dad, it’s clear that he’s very uncomfortable with the right’s lies about FEMA aid (or lack thereof) and all the disinformation. I think it’s starting to register that the right might well get large numbers of Americans killed with their lies and insanity*, which is good!
*all their other lethal insanities have apparently not registered much…sigh…although I know he was also uncomfortable with the right’s growing anti-vax stance.
Anyway, it’s a good day, peeps! Wait…the Chiefs won last night too…it’s a great day!!
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I started Dragoncraft last evening, which was a mistake because I could hardly put it down and stayed up too late reading! I’m about to get back to it now!
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Cynical but astute.
OTOH…
Just win, baby.
Jeffro
also, that Gaba tweet (well not the tweet, but whomever he’s citing that “Cheney’s just setting herself up to run”) is nuts.
the post-trumpov GOP is most definitely NOT going to nominate Liz Cheney for anything. Half (or better) of the party will see her as the ultimate traitor to their orange god-king.
Shalimar
@Baud: I have always thought Liz Cheney was setting herself up to be the Republican post-MAGA leader rather than being the truly moral person she claims to be, and yet it never crossed my mind for even a split second that she will ever be running against Harris.
Jeffro
@Suzanne: that is very cool! Glad to see that great location being put to excellent use. =)
– NoVA expat Fro
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I’ve been the single male breadwinner, for a few years when our daughter was a baby. It was terrifying, especially when I lost my job about a month after moving into a new house with a new baby, and I don’t recommend it to anyone.
(My wife had herself gotten laid off when her whole office shut down, wanted to do a bit of a career shift but figured that if we were going to have a kid, it was as good a time as any. Then, with a toddler at home, she started retraining herself at UMass Lowell to restart her career. It was a crazy workload but we managed it.)
jonas
@Suzanne: Maybe there are different kinds of chip fab plants with different manufacturing processes, but my understanding is that huge amounts of water are required for cooling and other stuff. One of the reasons Micron sited its new complex in upstate New York is the proximity to a virtually limitless fresh water source: Lake Ontario.
What the heck they’re doing in places like Phoenix or San Antonio, I have no idea.
JPL
@Suzanne: That is so cool!
Frankensteinbeck
@stinger:
Impossible, unfortunately. Medical information like that is very tightly regulated. Only a tiny fraction of the cases are publicly available knowledge. The government could gather statistics, but red states don’t want to.
@rikyrah:
I wish you were wrong, but my people would chop off their own heads if they thought the blood would ruin your shirt. It’s depressing as Hell.
Layer8Problem
@Kay: Sounds like skewing to me, albeit one that doesn’t involve the raw numbers going into a room containing only the NYT editor’s representative, Siena’s head numbers person, and some mystery guy from an office park in Northern Virginia, followed in short order by different fully cooked beautifully formatted numbers coming out. Perhaps not so much wrenching the numbers into position, just gently but firmly encouraging those numbers to go in the direction they would want to be going in, if the numbers really thought about it. In the end, how much could a little goo on a baseball affect one’s pitch?
Jeffro
@Kay:Even the NYTimes (a poll that consistently has Black people voting for Trump in an unprecedented share that probably won’t pan out) has Harris up 3.
well my already-good day just got better!
It’ll be interesting to see just how much she expands on Biden’s narrow 2020 victories in the blessed battleground states (in addition to winning NC).
One has to wonder just how much bigger the Biden/Dem win would have been in 2020 with an actual in-person ground game/GOTV. This time around I think we’re going to see really good D turnout and probably a fair amount of Rs who leave the top of the ticket blank (or just don’t vote at all).
Still…let’s put in the work, as always!
jonas
@Shalimar: Cheney may be teeing up some kind of political future, but it won’t be with the Republican party. My sense is that she and a lot of Never Trumper conservatives have completely written off the GOP and are looking to start a new, non-MAGA center-right party. But that will take years, if not decades, to get off the ground. As long as 40% of the country is in thrall to Murdoch media and the cult of Trump, there’s no chance.
JPL
@Frankensteinbeck: Impossible you say, but Tx wants to track people in order to insure they don’t travel out of state for an abortion. Didn’t you know that Emtala doesn’t apply to females.
Jeffro
Hang in there!
I got my Covid shot last week and flu shot yesterday. Worked out really well.
RaflW
I just saw the latest NYT/Sienna state-specific poll of Florida. I know there’s good people living there, including several Juicers and a number of my friends. But holy heck.
54% Decompensating horrendous racist
41% Capable Black-Asian biracial sitting VP
No one deserves unending suffering, but I can kinda see how a reverse Hurricane Sandy (ie: this time, Dems refuse to vote for more aid for Florida) could be tempting, even as it’s clearly morally wrong.
CliosFanBoy
We live about a mile from Landmark. The construction will screw up traffic like crazy, but when it’s finished, it’ll be nice. FWIW, the abandoned mall was where they filmed the mall scenes for “Wonder Woman 1984.”
trnc
@JML:
Getting 2 vaccines at once a few years ago made me feel pretty out of it for a day or so, so I spread out by at least a few days now. The covid vaccine I got a couple of weeks ago made me a bit woozy for part of one day, but still not bad.
Belafon
@Gloria DryGarden: Something has done a big reset of my autocorrect, I suspect they’ve decided an AI can do better than the algorithm that’s been running well for years. It’s been totally screwing up Duolingo, because it’s essentially forgotten all of the Spanish words I taught it, but it’s also forgotten a lot of how I speak.
Frankensteinbeck
Liz Cheney has no elected future in the Republican Party. She’s a traitor to the cause of white supremacy. There can be no forgiveness.
She might not understand that. People love their delusions, especially about whether their own side is redeemable.
Jeffro
jinx! (me too!)
I could probably still drive Old Keene Mill Rd with my eyes closed. =)
jonas
@Jeffro: After a slow start earlier this year, the MAGA swag is back out in force in people’s yards across rural upstate NY here. Lots of Harris/Walz stuff, too, esp. in the Syracuse area and around Ithaca (university town), but Trump brainworms continue to thrive and spread in rural America, unfortunately. I wouldn’t count on lower turnout from Republicans, except maybe in places like NC where they completely shit the bed with Robinson. But that would be a nice pickup!
frosty
@Suzanne: I’d love to stay in my 100-year old foursquare but we only have a half bath on the first floor. The local architect who designed our addition retired. Any idea where I can find someone who can tell me if it’s feasible to expand what we have? And draw up plans if it is?
Frankensteinbeck
@JPL:
Notice I said the government can do it. Medical privacy laws make a distinction between public requests and government requests.
Chief Oshkosh
@jonas:
They’re going to go full steam ahead, building as if they’re sitting next to Lake Superior, then get the US gov’t to bail them out when it all goes to shit and all those jobs are on the line.
Dave
@Kay: To the degree that trend is happening it isn’t helped by the NYS Democratic Party being an absolute dumpster fire; I’ve even had to fight an impulse to vote against them given that the NYS GOP is as rabid as it is everywhere else and a third party vote isn’t much better.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Musk is such a candy-assed churl he ought to be called Lickle Me Elmo.
//
frosty
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: We are having the same conversations and touring CCRCs and 55+ communities. We’re not even in agreement on (geographically) where we want to live yet!
The whole conversation becomes depressing really fast.
Kay
I wonder if NY trending Right is because of their increased exposure to NY media. They are saturated with it in a way the rest of the country is not. I keep thinking about how the area served by NY media were much more panicked over crime in 2022 than the area served by media even slightly out of the NY market, like Philadelphia. Philaedlphia has the same brief spike in crime due to covid that NY did, yet Philadelphia didn’t move Right in 2022, and NY did. I wonder if the shitty NY media is responsible for the difference – like increased exposure to the NYTimes virus.
frosty
My parents did. They found a CCRC in Chapel Hill that they liked and moved when they were younger than I am now. It’s a relief for everyone that they took care of their health care so we didn’t have to.
Unlike us, though, they knew they would need skilled nursing eventually when my dad was diagnosed with Parkinson’s
RaflW
@Jeffro: BF got his Covid boost (he got Novavax) just shy of two weeks before attending a small conference of 38 ministers. Turns out one person arrived more or less asymptomatic but later identified as Conferee Zero. Eight other people ended up getting sick (they all started masking once the first had symptoms and very quickly tested positive).
BF did miss most of the superspreader opening event (two hours of unmasked singing) because he was in his room attending a zoom class for his grad. degree, but we’re counting his jab as part of his ‘good luck’.
Betty Cracker
Our MAGA dope neighbors are staying in their doublewide despite the county’s order to evacuate mobile homes. They’re from the Seattle area and have never been in a hurricane.
I hope we don’t end up having to shelter the idiots. It will be on the condition that they keep their yaps shut if so!
VeniceRiley
@TBone: Oh my god. I’m so sorry!
As a former employee of an FQHC that had several large PACE Centers that got waivers to train up and hire patient family members, and once heard some whole question why we pay people to care for their own family:
The answer is: Better outcomes for the patients. Better for family members providing more skilled services, under greatly reduced financial stress, and care more than randoms. SAVES the government a lot of money keeping people with their families much longer and not in nursing homes.
So successful, we were able to get them up to the $15 years before the CA deadline.
It’s a rare win win win.
TBone
@frosty: maybe a chairlift on the stairs would be a viable solution (only if you’re not incontinent though).
Suzanne
@jonas:
So I have some people in my professional circles who work on these kinds of projects. There are things they can do to make them relatively more efficient….. but it’s still a lot of water. All HVAC uses a lot of water, but chip fab, data centers, etc. use a lot more than that.
Bupalos
It’s great to see Harris with a major policy push. This is how we make the campaign about the future rather than the past. Trump cannot win if the election is about the future.
And while it’s a fine line to walk, she needs to be equally ready to explain how our path to that future is only open if we reject the politics of division and fear that the current iteration of the Republican party is offering.
TBone
@NotMax: 😆
narya
As my dad declined, my brother and I really had to lean on my mom to get in some help (luckily, my SIL manages a home health care aide agency and could find good people)–and my parents could afford it. Once he was in hospice, that augmented the assistance, but even hospice didn’t cover everything. Having Medicare cover home health care–AND create a training program, not unlike the current push for community health workers, AND ensure living wages–would be awesome, especially for folks like me who don’t have kids or a lot of family. I have some resources, but one of my best friends and I were just talking about this last week; a lot of options are just not in reach.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
They can brace themselves on your porch and wave to the double wide as it floats downstream.
//
Suzanne
@frosty:
Here is the AIA Central Pennsylvania architect finder!
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: Meh, let’em learn all about hurricanes. Some people just have to touch the stove.
Bupalos
@jonas: Concur here in exurban NE Ohio. A bit more Harris/Walz than there was Biden/Harris I’d say, but also a recent surge of Trump-stains on our beautiful Western Reserve landscape.
Layer8Problem
@Betty Cracker: Stay safe and no unnecessary heroism!
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: My uncle and aunt in Sarasota are now trying to find a hotel room to stay, somewhere inland. They didn’t leave themselves enough time to drive up north to stay with my cousin. ERGHHHHHH.
SatanicPanic
@TBone: I’m still mad at my dad for marrying a total lunatic who abused him verbally and emotionally and drove him out of the house while he had advanced dementia. I spent his last six months caring for him while she just waited around to inherit everything. He passed away two months ago and I won’t get into what a nightmare his last month was but I definitely understand now that people need to make solid plans for their end of life care that doesn’t rely on family just figuring it out. People aren’t always great at guessing how people they trust will actually behave when they’re tasked with caring for them for an extended period of time.
SFAW
@TBone:
Holy shit. Your story makes me want to send my friends “Vito and Guido” to pay your SIL a “friendly visit,” to “explain” to her that she needs to start behaving like a decent person. “Think of it as a kind of health insurance, ma’am. Because life is uncertain, ain’t it?”
[Note: No I don’t really have those kind of connections, but I almost wish I did, so as to be able to deal with stuff like that.]
You’ve probably mentioned this stuff before, but it hadn’t sunk in to my teeny-tiny brain. I’m fortunate in that I don’t have to deal with shit like that. So far, at least.
TBone
@frosty: I am glad for you! My mother’s sister also had the wherewithal to choose her own assisted living facility and voluntarily sold her home before she becomes incapacitated. I already know that both hubby and I will require assistance with daily activities because of our current health issues and neither of us is yet 65. Hubby is disabled by spinal issues & heart surgery and I have other chronic conditions (already getting worse and belying our hoped for dream of self sufficiency).
She saw what happened to her sister.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
Stay safe, kiddo.
stinger
@Frankensteinbeck:
The CDC already reports out (voluntarily reported) annual abortion data. It’s not 100%, but it’s information nonetheless and trends can be easily seen.
Things like the Vietnam Memorial Wall, or the public reading of names on the AIDS Memorial Quit (in which I’ve participated) are extremely moving. We know the names of many women who have died because abortion services were withheld. Even just raw figures on a tracker would show continued deaths.
Suzanne
@CliosFanBoy: The hospital shown in the render is only a part of the campus. The redevelopment is going to be really cool, but I’m sure it’s going to be disruptive for a while.
WaterGirl
@Kay: What is ADU?
Betty Cracker
@RaflW: A “reverse Sandy” would be an excellent way to ensure the state’s Democratic Party couldn’t ever compete for statewide office again. That organization doesn’t need additional anvils!
stinger
@Jeffro:
“Still”? So, you used to do that a lot?
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: ADU is an accessory dwelling unit. Basically a second living space — can be detached or attached — but is under the same deed/title as the main house. AKA casita, carriage house, granny flat, etc.
TBone
@SFAW: thank you. It took everything I had within not to seriously hurt her. She basically murdered my mother for the money. When they then bought a Chester County, PA five+acres Estate soon after Mom died, all those feelings came rushing back. But I am not a murderer!
frosty
@jonas: It might happen if Murdock media does an about-face and dumps MAGA for whatever center-right party gets started. In fact, I think this is the most likely outcome of MAGA losing an election from top to bottom.
Let’s make it happen!
Bupalos
@RaflW: It’s not just morally wrong, it’s stupid. It’s not that stupid for them, for them that’s potentially effective politics.
Making people’s lives worse makes them more likely to turn into hopeless bitter cynics. That’s the secret sauce behind post-truth right-wing populist authoritarianism. The great thing is that almost any way you make their lives worse works. Inequality, climate change, technology-mediated destruction of social networks.
Jeffro
@stinger: oh heck yes! Between that and Braddock Rd, I bet I logged five digits’ worth of miles over the years. =)
Geminid
@Frankensteinbeck: I think Cheney is a realist and understands this. Adam Kinzinger might win office as a Republican someday but unlike Kinsinger, Cheney is not a military veteran or a man.
John S.
@Betty Cracker:
Ah, so you found the mythical Republican from the PNW. They are a truly virulent breed, and while I would never wish for them to live next to anyone I like, it makes me glad that they no longer live here in Washington!
TBone
@VeniceRiley: 💙 thank you!
peter
@Kay:
Amen to that. I am thankful every day that grandchildren are such an effective antidote to despair. They and their generation deserve a lot better than what we have now!
frosty
@Suzanne: Thanks! I’ll take a look at it.
Chief Oshkosh
@SatanicPanic: I’m very sorry to hear this happened to your dad (and, of course, you and your family). We’re dealing with similar with my wife’s dad and his shitbird second wife. At least in our case the shitbird wife is on track to check out first.
I wonder if it’s a generational thing. There are several men I know or knew who appear/ed to just assume/d that they were living in the 1950s and that their second wives would dutifully take care of them to the bitter end, and magically consider the family from the first marriage, all will no planning or effort on their part. Idiots.
TBone
Dedicated to evil inlaws everywhere 🖤🎶
https://youtu.be/XzOvgu3GPwY
stinger
@Jeffro: With your eyes closed?
Belafon
@Betty Cracker: “You’re accepting aid from a Democrat. Do you understand? And I have neither the time nor the energy to deal with anything other than ‘What help do you need to keep the water out of the house?'”
frosty
@TBone: Best of luck to you! This growing old stuff is complicated and difficult and gets moreso every year.
TBone
@SatanicPanic: 😭 oh dear Lord, I’m sorry. I feel your pain.
TBone
@frosty: 💙 thank you.
With VP Harris in charge, things gonna get easier!!!
A lovesong for solace
https://youtu.be/dguz0IsCuKU
Betty Cracker
@SFAW: Thanks! I’m cautiously optimistic even though we’re still in the cone. I think it will come ashore far enough south of us that we’ll be spared the worst.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
We had neighbors in a rental w/out a basement behind us years ago. Nice but incredibly overworked and overwhelmed single mom and two 10 to 12-ish girls. There was a tornado coming one night and the girls knocked on our door to seek shelter in our basement, drenched, with their cat. So cute. I made them call their mom at work to tell her where they were. It missed us by 20 miles but they stayed down there a while after – by then it was an adventure.
Chris
@Frankensteinbeck:
Maybe she’s one of these people who’s deluded enough to think she joined the Party Of Lincoln. Which it really wasn’t even when her dad joined it, and definitely isn’t today. But some people are still thick enough to think that.
Redshift
@Suzanne:
Oh, cool! Landmark is about half a mile from my house; I’ve been watching work progress for a long time.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I was wondering about those neighbors and what they would do. This could be good material for a groundbreaking play in the Southern Gothic Disaster Comedy mode.
lowtechcyclist
@Shalimar:
She can set herself up to be whatever she wants, but the only way the GOP gets to a post-MAGA era as soon as 2032 is if it’s replaced by something even more extreme and insane.
TBone
@Kay: 😊💜
Chris
@Kay:
Maybe. I feel like New York City has had an unusually reactionary streak for basically all of history, though. Which in some ways is true of all big cities (their reputation as ultra-liberal sanctuaries comes largely from fascists in blood-red states comparing them to their own preferred politics), but for some reason has always seemed to come out especially strong in NYC. The period of liberalism during LaGuardia’s “little New Deal” in the 1930s was the anomaly.
Bupalos
@Frankensteinbeck: Liz Cheney and most of the folks that were running the old version oil-soaked Republican party has no political future. Because she offers nothing to anyone. Her political agenda collapsed under its own unsupportable weight. What she has now is a kind of reverse-Trumpism that is largely about personal revenge. This is true of most of the anti-Trump republicans. They may be the only ones who think about helping actual citizen constituents less than Trump.
Trump offers something socially destructive but personally fulfilling to bitter fearful cynics. Cheney offers nothing meaningful to anyone. God love her if she can take a pound of Trump’s flesh.
Starfish
@WaterGirl: Accessory Dwelling Unit.
In areas where the lots were large, ADUs are being used to fill in the area to create some more affordable housing units. However, there are places that do not allow them in the zoning.
This is where some of the NIMBY/YIMBY battles go on
If the parents did well in a high cost of living area, they may want to give the main house to the kids who are raising the grandchildren and build themselves an ADU.
If the parents did poorly, the kids might want to build their parents an ADU so they may have access to some childcare support.
catclub
@Suzanne: Thanks. I wondered what that was.
SatanicPanic
@Chief Oshkosh: I could see that. In addition I think my dad was just way too trusting of the women he loved. My own mother similarly took advantage when they got divorced. My uncle had to talk him out of sharing her attorney in a non-amicable divorce.
@TBone: yes! I’m sorry you had to go through that with your in-laws, some people are just garbage and you tend to find out at the worst time.
NotMax
@Suzanne
Ohana cottage in Hawaii.
(I’ve lived im one for coming up fast on 41 years.)
kindness
Wrt Trump and his effect on the Republican party… I just don’t think Trump dropping his mortal coil is going to change this Republican party much. The Know Nothings and haters seem to be the bulk of the party now. And sadly it’s the oligarchs/corporations funding the party that call the shots and as we’ve seen, those oligarchs uniformly want unfettered rule, not to govern. We’re stuck with this version of the party for at least a generation. More likely two.
Redshift
@Kay:
This is huge; this has dominated my family’s thinking since we had to figure out how to take care of the in-laws in their final years. (Nothing like finding out that diabetic f-i-l has been covering for m-i-l’s dementia when she doesn’t recognize that him having a fall and lying on the floor for a day isn’t okay, and having to find assisted living for people who made no plans for it.) I am grateful for the very good care home my dear spouse found, but I still don’t ever want to live in one.
JML
@trnc: I hate needles so I wanted to do it all at once and dodge the extra anxiety. Went fine last year, trash this year. Oh well. Beats not getting vaxx’d and ending up in the hospital!
Even after taking a bunch of time because of my mom’s death I still have a gazillion hours of sick leave so, might as well use it!
cmorenc
@Another Scott:
Actually, that is a very legitimate question, even if the GOP is asking it from a bad-faith perspective that regards all social spending as illegitimate, and not as a constructive step toward finding a feasible solution.
At some point, you really do run out of rich under-taxed billionaires to pay for it, and begin reaching for the pockets of those of more modest affluence. The realistic solution will involve not just more taxes on rich folks, but also installment contributions by more ordinary folks the way Social Security is currently structured. The benefit of doing a large chunk of it on the Social Security model for caring for aged people is that middle-class people take ownership of it and will fiercely defend it if they see themselves as ownership of something they contributed to.
wjca
I think taking away Trump does change the make up of the party base. Significantly. A major chunk of the current base aren’t Republicans in any meaningful sense. They are Trump cultists only. Without Trump, most of them go back to being unengaged non-voters. Some, the QAnon crazies, etc., will remain. Enough to have an influence, but no longer in control.**
Cheney and the other high profile Never Trumpers probably won’t be welcomed back with open arms. But folks like the Mayor of Springfield — conservative, but focused on actually governing; on doing things for their constituents — will have a lot more influence.
** Note also that this makes it much, much harder for a GOP that stays nasty to win elections.
Gretchen
@Kay: What are ADUs?
wjca
Liz Cheney is too smart a politician to make a futile run against an incumbent President Harris. She might take a shot at 2032 (look out, Baud!), but not 2028.
TBone
@Redshift: hugs
Redshift
@kindness:
It’s not, but it may change how successful they are at getting elected. I listened to Chris Hayes’ interview with Dave Weigel recently, and one of the things they talked about is why most of the Trump imitators don’t seem to be able to replicate his success. Weigel’s opinion is TCFG’s particular appeal comes from having been a nationally known celebrity and performer, and people who support him can assume he’s not really serious about anything he says he’ll do that might be bad for them. Mini-Trumps who are actual politicians don’t get that pass, and just parroting his bigoted ideas and big lies isn’t enough on its own.
I guess we’ll see.
BR
You all already talk about this insane story?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/08/bob-woodward-new-book-war-trump-putin-biden/
It was impossible for normal folks to get tests — I remember Trump’s incompetent CDC didn’t do anything to make them and required that nobody else do anything, so nobody could test for it. Meanwhile the dictator of Russia got Trump’s personal stash.
TBone
@SFAW: I want to say thank you in a much bigger way. TBone style. I got too emotional to properly say it the first time. 🎶
https://youtu.be/GhlSvVxLYjw
BritinChicago
@Rusty: “We are stuck with the current incarnation of the Republican party for at least 3 or 4 more election cycles.”
Maybe, but it seems to be quite unclear what the party would be without TCFG himself (or with his being so obviously incapable of holding office that even the magats can see it). He was able to get votes from a significant number of people who would otherwise have voted the other way or (more often, I think) not voted. Anecdotally, a lot of them seem to be drawn by his personality, as much as anything. Would Don jr. have the same effect? Or Eric? Or (please no) JDV?
Opinions and insights welcome!
Citizen_X
That Sheriff up there says “these Appa-LAITCH-ian people are built differently.” Goddam carpetbagger. Go back to Fox News till you learn how to pronounce the mountains you’re in. (Appa-LATCH-ian.)
Jeffro
Jamelle Bouie really nails it here: the constant outright lying by trumpov, Vance, and other GOP elected officials is tremendously corrosive to our future as a country
(gift link)
Jeffro
@stinger: ha! no
JoeyJoeJoe
@CliosFanBoy: I also live a mile from Landmark. I miss seeing the ramp along Duke Street. The new traffic light definitely slows up traffic, though it might be necessary
Dave
@wjca: That’s the hope really other than if Trump manages to bullshit a win and trying with that and how to even deal with that the biggest political question I have going forward is will the voters he activated fade back into the woodwork or will the GOP find a way to keep them engaged?
No one really knows at this point.
TBone
Devoting attention to BiBi, fElon Skum being shadow president, and Donold have almost put me off my reheated Breakfast of Champions pizza this morning. But they will not win.
gene108
@TBone:
Paying home healthcare workers a good salary will help attract people. The wages to work requirement greatly underpays these workers.
TBone
@Jeffro: 🎯
We are all Antifa now. We must all be.
TBone
@gene108: as mentioned earlier by Starfish!
1,000% hard agree – training, education, and jobs programs AND better than “living” wages.
SatanicPanic
@Gretchen: Accessory Dwelling Units AKA granny flats. Small units that are separate or have a separate door from the main residence.
Dave
@BritinChicago: There is a lot of concern about a smart Trump but there is a distinct possibility that the people he activated really only respond to his celebrity plus dipshit charisma and that last part is not something you can fake unless you yourself are a genuine dipshit that precludes the “smart” part of that construction.
Steve LaBonne
Every time I look at swing state polls I remember that in Fetterman’s race in PA, the final polling averages had him losing to Oz by half a point- and he ended up winning by 5. Have the pollsters fixed the sampling issues that led to that? Color me skeptical. I think they’re generally underestimating Harris’s support. I definitely don’t think they’re OVERestimating it.
Steve LaBonne
@Dave: Couchfucker is just a less snarly version of DeSantis. I don’t think he can energize the MAGAs.
catclub
I agree. also Trump is a ‘businessman’ and a ‘billionaire’ and that goes a long way.
Mark Burnett has a lot to answer for.
grubert
That Wall Street Apes LE guy going “FEMA is going to FAFO!” and then on about how the NC hill people there need special treatment because they’re different.. I get that the culture is different, but isn’t it a culture of extreme self-sufficiency?
How are you supposed to be extra helpful in some special way to people who are proud of not ever needing help?
BR
One more all-too-predictable story from WaPo this morning:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/08/kavanaugh-trump-white-house-fbi-report/
cain
Elon will have to fight JD and many other people for dominance.
People think they can control Trump but they end up being controlled.
tam1MI
My parents started out as snowbirds in Florida than moved down there to live full time. When they did, I made them promise that if the authorities told them to evacuate for a hurricane, to get the hell out the second the warning went out. I was terrified some neighbor or other would talk them into going to a hurricane party and they would get killed. As it turned out, they were far enough inland so evacuations never became necessary. But I had that promise and the determination to remind them of it if necessary.
catclub
A smart trump would have to also be a billionaire. I think that was the key to his appeal.
There are not too many.
Dave
@cain: Elon doesn’t seem to grasp that he is actually too cringe for Trump. Trump will use him but he clearly thinks Elon is a loser, sometimes he does assess this things accurately, but also a loser that would want to compete with him for attention.
That and I think Elon is weirdly submissive when he is outside of his little curated sycophant bubble. Even a decompensating 2nd term (heaven forbid) Trump would grind Elon down out of reflex if nothing else.
catclub
@BR: I think I already knew that the FBI was extremely self-limiting in the scope of its investigation of Kavanaugh. For wide values of ‘self’
Bupalos
@Dave: If-and-as people’s lives get worse, post-truth right-wing populist authoritarianism grows. I’ll agree that we can’t really know whether people’s lives are going to get worse in aggregate. But I think it’s important to understand the terms here and the part that really is absolutely knowable, because that can direct action. We know how this works. It’s not a case of “sit back and see what happens.”
Jeffro
@Steve LaBonne: in the NYT today, they talk about how they’ve incorporated a few extra points for trump into their polling. because reasons. yes really.
And yet, Harris is strongly supported by something like 93% of Dems, while trumpov is only strongly supported by about 80% of his party.
I think we’re going to see significant GOP “fading” – either not voting or leaving the top of the ticket blank.
Dave
@catclub: There are no shortage of dipshit billionaires with weird reactionary beliefs but they do not have an affect that appeals to the common clay of the New West voter that DJT activated. I tend to think it’s because DJT is the perfect product of the worst of the 70’s and 80’s it’s the one area he is the real deal.
TBone
One minute to The View!
⏰
Oh this is gonna be so great, I can already tell! 🥰😍
LFG!!!!
Dave
@Bupalos: This is something I’m very aware of. We are entering a time that at best will be very disruptive and RWA dipshits unfortunately have the capacity to make that worse and then benefit from it.
It still isn’t knowable how this shakes out; it can be influenced though not controlled control is almost always an illusion. There is an unavoidable element of unknown combined with the unpredictable timing of events.
The current embrace of post-truth and destruction of a shared reality is major weight on that scale and anyone who doesn’t want that really does need to consider what is effective versus what feels right.
Steve LaBonne
@Jeffro: This is what many of us have surmised- they’re fighting the last war by kludging away their 2016 and 2020 undercounting of Trump’s support but have done nothing to fix their post-Dobbs underestimation of Democratic support in 2022 and in subsequent special elections.
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: I do want to add one comment about this. Sometimes people have to be put into a facility for the safety of themself or their families. Dementia isn’t just about forgetting things – there can be huge personality changes, people can become violent and not the person you knew. I heard about one woman who put her husband in a facility the day after she woke up to a gun in her face (she should have already put them somewhere else, but lots of people don’t want to face the truth about this disease). Other times a person needs more medical care than can be done at home. Believe it or not, often care in a nursing home is cheaper than having it done at your house.
jonas
@frosty: I guess that depends on whether Lachlan is allowed to take over lock stock and barrel and freeze out the other Murdoch spawn who supposedly aren’t happy about the Fox brand being synonymous with MAGA. That’s all being slugged out in a big court battle right now.
Soprano2
@jonas: Maybe they’re using recycled water from a sewage treatment plant. Here there is a power generating plant across the way from our largest sewage treatment plant; they use our treated water for cooling before they discharge it into the nearby river. Believe it or not, that water is clean enough to drink – it has to be by law!
Gloria DryGarden
@Belafon: it’s true, I’m having trouble in all 3 languages, w auto correct. And I have my keyboard set for them. It’s been worse. It took two weeks to teach my devices to allow Kamala, and Walz.
a former google director was on an interview with diary of a ceo podcast, and he said AI is an even bigger danger to us than climate change. I didn’t listen to the whole thing, but I think it’s findable.
Layer8Problem
@Jeffro:
Well shoot, if they have reasons then no harm no foul! That certainly puts my mind at rest.
Geminid
@kindness: I look at Georgia as a counter-example to the notion that the Republican Partty is all-MAGA all the time and will stay that way. Trump blamed Brian Kemp long and loud for failing to back his attempt to steal Georgia’s 16 Electoral votes. Trump’s radical allies even took control of the state’s Republican party apparatus.
But when Trump put up former Senator Perdue to oppose Kemp in the 2022 Governor primary, Kemp crushed Perdue. Then Kemp worked around the hostile party apparatus to beat Stacy Abrams by 5 points, and Abrams was a strong candidate with a united party behind her.
Georgia is much like many of the states where this power struggle will play out. I think Kemp and those like him will benefit from Trump’s defeat.
In the short-term the MAGA maniacs will be after RINO blood. But these radicals are the real RINOs, with little commitment to the Republican Party or to the political process itself. Many of the knuckle-draggers who rushed into the party 2016-2020 will drift away because they were never very civic-minded to begin with.
Some “America First” radicals are already alienated from Trump because he (in their words) has been captured by the corporate “globalists.” Some of these Isolationists will try to fight it out in the 2026 Congressional.primaries, but they couldn’t knock out any pro-Ukraine Aid Republicans this past cycle. I think many of these folks will retreat to the sidelines where they’ll join the Lefties griping about the “Duopoly” and the “Monoparty.”
As for the Republican electeds who flocked to Trump’s standard, the true believers might stay true but I think most are opportunists who can turn on a dime. They’ll have their fingers in the air and their eyes on Kemp and Youngkin.
TBone
Ana Navarro FTW!!! 😆😍💜💙💙💙
“He’ll take your call when you’re President.”
Kay
@Gretchen:
Sorry. Suzanne and I have had this continuing conversation about this. Accessory dwelling units. People want to put up small residences for their aging relatives on a piece of property they own alongside their own residence. Obviously helps if you have an acre or better, but you can do one on a smaller lot too.
They’re legal where I live with the exception of one township which won’t allow them. It can be anything from converting an existing outbuilding to building new to buying a small mobile home and siting it. It works quite well here because rural people have done this sort of thing for generations – it’s common to see a 1930’s farmhouse and a brand new house for another relation on the same parcel. It’s really more that they’re going BACK to it.
It can make sense but a lot of people are just not realistic. We had one where dad is “young” (69) but he was a lifelong heavy drinker and has cognitive issues AND anger issues. He can get violent. I don’t think his 130 pound daughter can handle him.
As I mentioned, we have had some bad experiences in the law office with the VA program. The VA will pay relatives to care for disabled vets. Except some people suck and they’re taking the money and just adding it to the household budget and leaving the vets to fend for themselves while they work full time. It has to be regulated.
I’m more comfortable with having a home health aide come in from an agency. I’d be fine with Medicare paying for that- although if we’re shifting costs from Medicaid (nursing homes) to Medicare we’re going to need more money for Medicare.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Jeffro: Well put! The gish gallop is corrosive to self-government.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: oh my gosh! That is quite horrendous. And they lied about your character, and all the rest of it, I am so sorry. You deserve hugs 10 hours a day. Jesus god!
my mom had dementia, lived with my sister, but there was money to pay for in home care as things progressed, and as my dad couldn’t care for her. It was painful enough, just their declines, and the chill civility between me and my sister.
what you had to go through, and your mother also, that is heartrending, way beyond the pale.
K-Mo
@Baud: She’s the Justin Amash of Jon Huntsmans
Sure Lurkalot
Good on Harris to propose expanded Medicare benefits. We have had LTC policies for over 10 years now, pay beaucoup bucks and they’ve been modified twice (so far) to take away negotiated benefits (reduce the period, the daily benefit amount). So happy to have to pay for the insurance company’s poor underwriting and investment returns /s.
Now, please please please rid us of the Medicare Advantage scam (and let those on it move seamlessly into real Medicare) and please please please cover eyes, ears and teeth (even with a pay-in). I want an entire stable of ponies!
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: where do they get their water? Lake Powell, ie the Colorado river? It’s gotten pretty low. There are discussions about that dam, I think. Not completely sure, so don’t send this rumor to Marjorie yet.
SatanicPanic
I was somewhat interested in seeing the Joker sequel because I like Lady Gaga. (I normally can’t stand anything DC related, especially Batman and the Joker. I never saw most of the movies, including the first Joker and all the Snyder Batmans.) My wife wanted to see Joker and normally I’ll see anything but I refused because it looked depressing and again, I really hate the character. I was expecting her to ask about going to this one and this time I was going to say OK, I’ll see it. Apparently the ads though over promise on Gaga appearances and the reviews are brutal. So I guess I’m off the hook.
Steve LaBonne
@TBone: That’s utterly terrible. I am so sorry.
Bupalos
@Dave: Trump is, for lack of a better word, “smart.” As far as political and media manipulation he absolutely knows what he’s doing, and the vast majority of his detractors even to this late date really don’t. We’re constantly in “wtf is going on?” mode with this phenomena, then incrementally ratchet up the story we tell stil ourselves about demographics to explain it, then get surprised all over again, rinse and repeat.
The stories we tell ourselves about this phenomena have odd implications that don’t necessarily pass the smell test, like that America is fundamentally more racist and sexist now than it was in the past. There are just more evil people. That America has become uniquely bad, a kind of reverse-exceptionalism. We can’t grasp that Trump is (in historical terms and global terms) perfectly normal.
Trump also thankfully has shown absolutely no ability and seemingly little desire to effectively wield the power he is able to amass. His personal narcissism renders him (thankfully) incompetent.
Gloria DryGarden
@Suzanne: where do they get their water? Lake Powell, ie the Colorado river? It’s gotten pretty low. There are discussions about that dam, I think. Not completely sure, so don’t send this rumor to Marjorie yet.
@Frankensteinbeck: on the pregnancy related deaths, I keep waiting for a wrongful death suit, and practicing medicine without a license. Has there been any such lawsuit against a legislative body?
I don’t see how they have the right to force medical neglect and malpractice on to patients, nor on their doctors. It pains me so much.
I know, women are only half the population , but our partners, often men, are harmed by these situations.
danielx
I feel almost guilty for enjoying a picture perfect fall day while so many are running for their lives.
Matt McIrvin
@Steve LaBonne:
It’s easy to assume this is for some nefarious reason, but they don’t do this because they can’t. Midterm elections and Presidential elections are very different. The effect of that shift on a Presidential election, with Trump in the race, running a Black woman as the Democratic nominee, is simply unknown. Any adjustment that’s different from the 2016-2020 turnout model that anyone cares to make is simply a guess.
That’s one reason why I’m not paying any attention to poll aggregations this time around. The only takeaway message they can really give anyone is that it’s very close, they don’t know how it will go, and everything depends on turnout.
Belafon
@Sure Lurkalot: Do you know how bad seniors will get about not getting their “free” gym memberships (I don’t actually remember what the actual “free” stuff is, I remember gyms being one offered at one point)?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@stinger: I love hearing stuff like this. Thank you for telling me.
Princess
@Jeffro: Haha. They invite you to check their weighting strategy on their “methodology “ page and when you click to go there, you get “page not found.” Nice trick, NYT.
Also they combined the national poll with polls of TX and FL, then weight those two polls down so their weight would be equivalent to their population. Still, inevitably because they are relatively oversampled, I think the cross tabs of minority groups in those states are going to be more finely grained. When do they weight Latino voters for instance? Before they’ve weighed Tx and Fl down or after? Many questions, answered only with “page not found.”
Layer8Problem
@Bupalos: ”Trump is, for lack of a better word, ‘smart.'”
Yes, “smart”, almost like the guy who sees a partially used 500-count box of matches spill out on the floor and says “436” within two seconds, who still can’t manage normal life. He has one talent, but he’s rich and has lots of helpful people around him ready to assist.
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: thank for your sweet, thoughtful, sympathetic words. I wish you didn’t have to know any of this kind of pain either! Infinite HUGS and lovely comfort to you Gloria!
Planetjanet
@Suzanne: No, the helipad was elsewhere. It was a second floor waiting room of a 10 story building. Interestingly, the section of the third floor above it had no windows.
TBone
@Steve LaBonne: thank you. I just watched VP Harris and the ladies on The View knock it out of the park and I’m confident that, as we, our nation, are finally putting a name to the Sandwich Generation (sandwiched between taking care of parents and kids at the same time) we can finally officially acknowledge the disease and treat it. Like finally getting a proper diagnosis for a baffling medical mystery.
I had to scrub the bathtub to work off my emotions after seeing The View today. I’m overwhelmed with GRATITUDE and I honestly don’t know how people with children can face taking care of parents simultaneously. Thank God I have only fur babies.
Ksmiami
@Kay: licensed and bonded home health aides worked for my in laws. They were amazing.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: Thanks! Pretty sure most of us here aren’t familiar with that term.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Layer8Problem: We all have different strengths and challenges in life. What we choose to do with those strengths and challenges is the question.
narya
@Belafon: I have the regular supplemental plan, not MA, and for about $10/month I have access to a ton of gyms. I haven’t used it a lot yet, but, e.g., one free Pilates class/week and two free Orange Theory classes/week are an option.
Steve LaBonne
@Layer8Problem: Anyway, his active direction will not be required for running a fascist regime (that’s not even how one actually works- Hitler was anything but a competent administrator) so nobody should take comfort in his idiocy. Nobody really expected him to win in 2016 so the “right” people hadn’t been put around him in sufficient numbers and things were slow to get off the ground. This time it would be Project 2025 all day every day right from the start, and when he actually starts drooling on himself it will make no difference.
SFAW
@TBone:
OK, now I’m the one blushing.
Belafon
@Layer8Problem: His talent is finding the thing you want and telling you all you have to do is follow him and you can have it.
SFAW
@Steve LaBonne:
Your analysis should be stapled on anyone who says “I’m not worried; look how incompetent he was last time”
Steve LaBonne
@SFAW: And on every “journalist” bullshitting about Harris’s media schedule instead of actually informing readers / viewers that we are living in Germany at the beginning of 1933 and everything is hanging in the balance.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: I think a lot of normies are imagining that Trump administration II would be like the first one. But the difference is that he won’t have so many old time Republican “adults in the room” trying to push back at him, because those guys all quit in disgust the first time around and most are now trying to get Harris elected.
The starting point is going to be the clusterfuck of Trump’s lame-duck period in 2020-2021, when he was shuffling around acting toadies in his Cabinet on a weekly basis at the 11th hour, and he didn’t bother distributing COVID vaccines because his effort was all focused on trying to mount a coup to reverse the election. It was all freaks and clowns at that point.
I very much expect him to have Harris and Biden arrested and thrown in jail on fantastical charges, along with most plausible Democratic candidates for 2028. Some of them may not stick because there’s only so much that even some MAGA judges can put up with. But the full-scale weaponization of the federal law enforcement apparatus is a thing to watch out for.
TBone
@SFAW: 😄😎 💙
TBone
@SFAW:
@Steve LaBonne:
Nailed it again
🎯
Chief Oshkosh
@Jeffro: this goes all the way back to the lates 70s iteration of College Young Republicans, who were even then being taught to lie all the time about everything. I saw it happen to former friends.
Villago Delenda Est
MVP states the obvious: As far as TCFFG/PAB is concerned, EVERYTHING IS about him, and him alone. All others, now to include his nominal wife, can fuck off.
catclub
@SFAW:
The gadget they did at the end, of reclassifying huge numbers of federal employees as political, and therefore subject to firing, will be on day one this time. If.
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin: In my worst nightmares I imagine Uganda under Idi Amin. A totally unchained, reckless crazy person at the helm and no one brave enough to do anything about it. This ends in a failed state and hyperinflation. Trump ends up being overthrown when we try to invade Mexico.
TBone
@Sure Lurkalot: Amen!
Free gym does not ameliorate the Medicare Disadvantage and LTC insurance for-profit SCAMS that we’re facing. Free gym will be included in Real Medicare!
TBone
@SatanicPanic: holy shit. Glad I don’t live in your head, it’s too real! 😳
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: I’ve gotten really tired of the whole serial-killer archetype, especially the whole “genius serial killer who holds up a dark mirror to our corrupt society”. I think it leads people to think about crime in distorted ways and even when it tries to be subversively anti-authoritarian, it’s really not.
These kinds of villains are historically common in superhero narratives but it’s kind of interesting that the MCU didn’t do a lot of that kind of story, and even when they did it was more fantastical.
Omnes Omnibus
@SatanicPanic: That’s when everything will get better. True Progressives will get their chance, and we will finally have a socialist paradise in the smoking ruins. It will be great.
Villago Delenda Est
@Omnes Omnibus: “Nach Hitler, Uns!”
Jinchi
I’m pretty sure when TFG says “they don’t back me”, he means Jewish Ameican voters, because Bibi certainly supports him, and is working hard to make sure there’s a major war going on by election day.
Baud
@SatanicPanic:
I’d watch the sequel to The Last King of Scotland.
@Jinchi:
Yes, that’s what he means.
Ruckus
@Rusty:
republicans serve themselves not everyone. To the upper echelon of the republican party, money is the most important thing on the planet. That and them having it. My best bet is that they think it makes them better than anyone else.
All it really does is make them selfish.
They are interested in politics in that it allows them to maintain the status quo and retain as much of the money as possible. They do not give one crap about those that need assistance to live or making the country whole, they care about their bank accounts. Sure they may talk about what government can do but the concept of their political life is about money, them having it and them keeping as much as in any way possible. We are a big country, a rather wealthy country, a rather divided country and that devision is based upon money, who has it and who gets to keep it. Most of it. Didn’t we used to tax extreme wealth at a higher level not long ago? Which left them still with a hell of a lot of money but helped those that didn’t have, couldn’t afford things like healthcare. This is supposed to be an actual democracy, not a cash based democracy, where the level and position of someone is based upon their bank accounts and holdings. A place where equality is not based upon the size of those bank accounts. They would still have more than the vast majority of people, far more, likely just not far, far, far more.
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin: Same. We have a pretty good idea about what makes serial killers- horrific parenting. The mundane answer to that problem would be to increase CPS funding but I don’t think anyone wants to make that movie. Marvel often does a good job of making villains that believe they’re doing the right thing- Magneto is the best example. Which actually is kind of interesting- the fight for justice can sometimes bring out the worst in people.
@Omnes Omnibus: I can’t wait for my nationalized healthcare and subsidized housing delivered to us under a freeway overpass.
SatanicPanic
@Baud: as long as we don’t have to live it!
Omnes Omnibus
That’s the spirit!
Tony G
“Some leftists griping about VP Harris campaigning with Liz Cheney …” Heavens to Betsy! A common thread among many contemporary “leftists” is that any instances of the normal give and take of politics are just too icky for their pure, unsullied souls. They would rather be “pure” than actually accomplish anything. Are these people eight years old? Are they just stupid? Or is something else going on with them? It’s a mystery.
jonas
@Soprano2: That’s possible, though from what I read, it takes a lot more water than even a large metropolitan treatment plant can produce, The Micron fab in Clay, NY is planning to lay a pipeline into Lake Ontario that will deliver more water to the plant than the entire city of Syracuse uses in a day. Most of the water will be treated and returned to the lake when it’s cycled through the plant, but damn — that’s a lot of H20.
The Audacity of Krope
I suspect the timing will very from place to place. If (when) the Republicans get crushed next month, I plan on exploring the possibility that the already anemic Massachusetts Republican Party might be ready for someone not from either ideological wing.
Make common cause with the currently purely theoretical “good” values they have, bring forth some new ideas, stress a truly conservative (as in not radical unlike movement “Conservatives”) dinner table stuff, focus on independents (who can vote in partisan primaries here), and just maybe….
Tony G
@Tony G: A recently headline in a “leftist” website called “Splinter” calls for the immediate impeachment of Joe Biden — a guy who will be a private citizen in a few months. Maybe these people are actually five years old.
Steve LaBonne
@Tony G: I would have my sparkly unicorn right now if it weren’t for those corrupt neoliberal Democrats!
Tony G
@The Audacity of Krope: Yup. If Hitler had died of a heart attack in 1942, Himmler or Goring or one of the others would have taken over. A similar dynamic is true of the contemporary Republican Party.
JoyceH
@BR: I saw that and what’s really crazy is that the Post made the COVID tests the main headline. Seems to me that the big story is that ex-president private citizen Presidential candidate Trump remains in touch with Russia’s dictator and American enemy Vladimir Putin.
Tony G
@Steve LaBonne: Yes. I want a PINK unicorn, because those are the most special.
The Audacity of Krope
@Tony G: I’m not suggesting a Hitler corollary, but rather myself. I would like to lead the charge to reclaim the Republican Party for those who want functional, efficient government from a Massachusetts House seat.
Omnes Omnibus
@Tony G: Damn, a Brony. I thought Yutsano was the only one here.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: I loved My Little Pony when I was young. And that was the old 80s version that was no good as anything but a toy ad.
I heard the more contemporary series is good but haven’t checked it out yet.
StringOnAStick
Good luck getting rid of Medicare Advantage, insurance companies love that pot of money.
I’m thrilled about Kamala’s aging in place proposal. We bought a single story house with a curbless shower and wide enough halls for wheelchair access, just on luck because it met our other criteria.
Geminid
@Tony G: I think these people are cynical. Their goal is to undermine and discredit the Democratic Party and they will use any tool at hand. Some of their audience may be naive as you describe but the people pushing this narrative are not.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: I’ve no idea. Not my scene at all. I do know that you supposedly need a virgin to catch a unicorn.
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: Serial killers are quite rare, too. I think there’s an element of social contagion: there were a bit more of them when they were a bigger object of media fascination. Bit of a resurgence after 9/11 when they could be a penny-ante sub-variety of terrorist. The same people are perhaps more motivated to be spree shooters now–go out in a sudden blaze of killing, because that’s what they see in the news.
schrodingers_cat
@Tony G: Many are Republicans in leftist drag is my suspicion.
schrodingers_cat
@Tony G: Many are Republicans in leftist drag is my suspicion.
The Audacity of Krope
Geez, no wonder I’ve not so much as seen one.
Melancholy Jaques
@Tony G:
If Hitler had died of a heart attack in 1942 his various lieutenants would have engaged in a knife fight to determine his successor. Cf. What happened in the USSR when Lenin died.
Who would have been the winner? Hard to say. Maybe Goering has the inside track, but if Hitler dies early in 1942, don’t rule out Heydrich.
Soprano2
@Chief Oshkosh: My father married the woman he divorced my mother for, knew he had severe heart problems, and died without a will or trust of any kind. I was a senior in college and my sister was 16. Ask me how much fun that was! He knew better, but never did anything about it. Lucky for me he had life insurance for us so I was able to pay for my last year of college.
Kelly
Medicare covering more long term care? Wow!
Mom’s health went to hell September 2023. A minor surgery led to a Cdiff infection and her mind began to go. My wife and I took care of her in her home from then until the end of March 2024. I helped her at the toilet and slept in her room. She was often very confused at night. Mrs Kelly cooked and helped her shower. She fell and broke her arm in February. I was 20 feet away. It didn’t look that bad.
We’re healthy and prosperous retirees. It was near the limit of what we could do. We moved her into a care facility in April. She died in July.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: Even if they’re not literally Republicans in leftist drag, many of the really illiberal ones have the “Internet tough guy” profile–an aversion to women and causes like LGBT or reproductive rights, a gun-nut streak, insistence on the need to blow up the system, calls for violence and dismissal of any kind of nonviolent means to anything. You’re just waiting to flip MAGA when you’re in that niche.
Ironcity
@Another Scott: At least it wasn’t Woodie’s. Or Sears. Or S&W (was it?) cafeteria.
Trollhattan
Tick-tock for TikTok?
Surely they’re robust, those safeguards.
Ksmiami
@Tony G: but fascism requires a show. Most of the dweebs in the GOP can’t pull it off.
The Audacity of Krope
@Trollhattan: I understand the concern. What I don’t understand is what differentiates TikTok from the various American social media companies engaging in literally the same behavior.
Trollhattan
@Tony G: Perhaps they do not know what that process comprises nor how ineffective it is. If only there were recent experience with impeachment to serve as a template. If only.
Ruckus
@TBone:
MRI machines. Aww the good times. I’ve been in a few of them and yes they are loud and make a pounding noise. Most of the ones I’ve been in are in their own building or in the basement of the VA hospital I use. They are loud but inside it doesn’t seem all that loud. It maybe possible that the building structure is not built around containing the noise, but none of the ones I’ve been in are above another floor – they are all on solid ground. And I’ve been in a few of them.
Matt McIrvin
@Tony G: Well, they did impeach Trump the second time when he was already on the way out. But, you know, it was for trying to reverse his removal from office.
Soprano2
@Kelly: You’re heroes, that took a lot of work and dedication. I’ve said I will never promise my husband not to put him in some kind of facility, because sometimes that’s what’s best for everyone involved.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
(click the above links for video)
TBone
@Kelly: hugs
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
(click the above links for video)
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
FTA
TBone
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: 🥰💙😎💪
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
rikyrah
@TBone:
This story from you 😢😢😢😢
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
The best take on “genius serial killer who holds up a mirror to society” is still The Killing Joke.
“Maybe ordinary people don’t always crack. Maybe there isn’t any need to crawl under a rock with all the other slimy things when trouble hits. Maybe it was just you all the time.”
zhena gogolia
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: Good!
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
(click above links for video)
StringOnAStick
My father is 92, of sound mind but not so much of body a d is currently doing 2 months in a rehab facility because he got to weak to care for himself but is insisting on going back to his home because to not do so “would be a betrayal of your mother, who loved that house”. He is just starting to receive an inheritance from his late brother so we can hire a home healthcare person, but one sibling is insisting we force him into assisted living. He’s not the kind of guy you can force into anything so I would rather try home health care first, and if the money is there, why not? If there is money to let him live out his wishes, and at his advanced age, why not let him?
TBone
@rikyrah: Aww honey thank you! I almost lost my very self. It tested every fiber of my being. I was in a waking coma of hurt. I couldn’t even cry for two whole years. But I recovered. I rebuilt a sort of relationship with brother who, in the very end (after I found hacked emails full of libelous slander they’d printed out for my mother to read, thereby giving me the ammo for a real lawsuit) illegally rewrote Mom’s Will and reinstated me to an almost fifty percent inheritance as intended.
The end of the story is that I’m stronger than ever, and now much wiser about people with money. Always distrusted the upper classes, but wasn’t actually afraid of them. Now I know what money can really do.
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
Melancholy Jaques
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch:
Links go to “this page doesn’t exist”
Chris
@Melancholy Jaques:
Himmler had enough success building up the SS as an empire-within-an-empire that I’m afraid it would’ve been him. Which is one way that Hitler’s replacement could conceivably have been even worse, although with Hitler it’s hard to fathom what “worse” would mean.
Ruckus
@Tony G:
Maybe these people are actually five years old.
Me thinks that maybe you give them too much credit….
Frankensteinbeck
@Bupalos:
No he’s not, and he doesn’t. He has a very cheap, simple idea of political and media manipulation. He probably was good at it once upon a time, but really he’s just an outrageous clown and the media eats that up. It’s not a strategy, it’s just who he is.
If Trump were smart, he would have control of the narrative, and he sure as Hell does not have control of the narrative. Since Biden stepped down the big public issues have almost always been shit that drives his numbers down.
The Lodger
@Kay: I moved from the Philly media market closer to NY in the late 80s and I noticed the NY local news broadcasts just about always led with a recent murder in the area. Might have been because the area was a lot larger than metro Philadelphia, and if it bleeds, it leads.
Greebe
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: @216
The Vance Dance is the new Gish Gallop.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Audacity of Krope:
Friendship Is Magic is one of the best cartoon serieses to come out in the last… ever. At least up until fuckin’ “I want to make my self-insert the star” Meghan McCarthy took over. I believe that happened in Season 3.
It’s not as consistently high quality as the most recent Duck Tales, but it grabs you by the heartstrings better.
Matt McIrvin
@Chris: No question, some renditions of the Joker were about as good as that trope ever got. But I’m just tired of it.
The Audacity of Krope
I don’t doubt it is high quality; but Avatar, the Last Airbender, a cartoon, is the greatest show in any format of all time.
Friendship is magic, due to this conversation, is at the top of my short list for next show to start.
Melancholy Jaques
@Chris:
Himmler was definitely a contender, but he was geeky looking and kind of short.
Captain C
@p.a.: “Why We Fucked Up Again In A Manner Favorable to Republicans. But Did We Really? Or Are You the Reader To Blame For Everything?*” — FTFNYT Editorial, 11/6/24, ghost written for Pinch the Lesser.
*The answer is, of course, yes, gentle reader, you are to blame. The FTFNYT is blameless even when they’re openly putting their thumb on the scale for a Nazi or Stalinist (cf. ’20s and ’30s coverage of Hitler, Duranty’s PR flacking for Stalin during the ’30s which won him a Pulitzer which the FTFNYT still has not returned despite the reporting being on the level of Pravda, plus all the travesties the last 30 or so years…)
The Audacity of Krope
Like Snapchat.
Like Youtube, Netflix, anything video focused. Also, Twitter.
Snapchat again.
Innumerable platforms.
Tony G
@Melancholy Jaques: Well, Hitler himself was no blonde, Aryan muscleman. But he had just the right level of hatred and insanity to appeal to Real German voters.
Tony G
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: Well, Howard Stern has come a long way from his days of interviewing porn stars! (Or maybe he’s still interviewing porn stars. I haven’t listened to his radio stylings in almost twenty years.)
Trollhattan
Serial rapist to visit the virgin Ben.
Doubtless they’ll do a lot of comparing notes.
Frankensteinbeck
@The Audacity of Krope:
Avatar was very good. Can’t dispute that. The torture porn of Legend of Korra got to be a bit much for me, but I’m still happy I watched the whole series.
Geminid
@The Lodger: I listen to WTOP radio out of DC some, and they frequently report fatal shootings. I think they should, because gun violence is a real problem for many people in the DC Metro Area and it should not be ignored.
The Audacity of Krope
@Frankensteinbeck: I loved Korra, too. You’re right they did rough her up a little gruesomely at some points. I liked the ideological focus of the show, though.
Tony G
@Matt McIrvin: Well, good point. I’m just annoyed by “Splinter”. About 90% of their content is attacking Democrats, as though the Republican Party doesn’t exist. And their posts just started showing up on Facebook, uninvited by me, a few months ago. I want them to get off my lawn!
The Audacity of Krope
Facebook has a feature that allows you to address this yourself quite simply.
wjca
No really a mystery. There are some people who just can’t handle complexity and uncertainty. They needed simple answers.
That’s obvious in the RWNJs, of course. The far left has its share of them, too. (Thus the phenomena of some people going from far left to far right. They’re after simple answers. Having that simplicity is more important to them than whether the answers are left or right.)
JoyceH
On the subject of crime reporting – CNN always likes to have a running crime drama to really get their teeth into over a fairly long period of time. One wraps up and another one comes along. The Rust shooting. Gabby Pateeto. Etc etc. Of course, when there’s hurricanes, that takes over.
And since this is an open thread, I’m looking for some expertise on the subject of IPads. I’m headfirst into Prime Day and need some opinions on tenth generation versus ninth generation. Is the tenth generation better than the 9th? Like $100 worth of better?
Tony G
@Chris: Well, Hitler was pretty incompetent as a military leader. (“Let’s invade Russia a few months before the freezing weather with inadequate supply lines and no winter uniforms!”). A competent version of Hitler would have been fearsome.
TBone
@Trollhattan: 😆🤮
This is gonna be Nazi shit to the nth degree. For the children!
Chris
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the biggest problem with the genre, which goes to your point about thinking of crime in distorted ways, is that it’s helped convince the public that cops somehow require extraordinary measures to fight people like that because they’re just so smart and hard to beat. When really, catching serial killers is quite possibly the most basic difficulty level it’s possible for a police department to be on, at least when it comes to violent crime. (A guy who commits one murder might be able to get away with it; a guy who keeps doing it over and over is just trying to get caught). If a police department in this day and age can’t catch a serial killer, it isn’t good for anything.
In real life, the Joker is found and dies in a shootout in like a week, tops, and without any need for anything but basic police work. (Well, except that given his choice of targets, he probably doesn’t even get that far: The Dark Knight version of the Joker would’ve turned up dead in a gutter within 24 hours of that heist at the mob bank).
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Melancholy Jaques: Look like Elon took it down
Tony G
@David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch: Way back when Howard Stern was on broadcast radio in New York City I listened to his show sometimes as a “guilty pleasure” during my morning commute. He was very crude and misogynistic — but often funny and apparently intelligent. Maybe he’s changed his act in the past 18 years.
JoyceH
@Tony G:
Can anyone think of some examples of competent dictators? I’m serious. Dictatorships tend to be incompetent by their very nature.
Tony G
@The Audacity of Krope: I’ll check into that!
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
Kamala’s twitter account has some great clips of her interview with Stern
https://x.com/KamalaHQ/
(scroll down)
Ruckus
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I am a senior and I live in an apartment complex for 55+ that is a rent controlled under federal law. I’ve been here almost 9 yrs and used to work about 1/2 mile away before I retired so it has worked out great. And I am no where near the oldest here. Or the youngest. One woman I know is 98, maybe just turned 99 yrs old. She’s old enough to be my mom. Just. About 1/2 the people still work. I did until 2 yrs ago. There are financial limits (not unreasonable) to being able to live here.
Tony G
@wjca: Yes, the search for simplistic answers is probably it. Way back in my long-ago college days I knew some “leftist” kids like that — usually from upper-middle-class backgrounds — although I didn’t know any of them well enough to see how they evolved later in life. Maybe some of them became Trump supporters!
Tony G
@JoyceH: Yes, good point. A characteristic of all dictators is that they surround themselves who sycophants who tell them all day long how great they are. So, as a result, they never learn from their mistakes.
The Audacity of Krope
@Tony G: Just block them, man.
Yutsano
So…
We gonna Tbogg this morning?
wjca
The people who found dictatorships tend to be competent initially. (At least at replacing previous governments.) But they attract sycophants like mad. Which leads to them thinking they know more than they do. About everything. And, when they don’t, incompetence becomes the overwhelming narrative.
Why does all that sound so familiar…?
EDT Tony G got there first
Ruckus
@TBone:
I’ve been in a number of MRI machines in several locations. The first MRI I was in, I was told was one of the first in that state. Yes they make noise. They also give very concise views of what is going on inside a human body. But I’ve also never been in one that was not on solid ground. On an upper floor would be a not great place to put one because of the noise. Some VA locations I’ve been to the MRI(s) is in a building by itself, and all of them have been on the ground floor or in the case of one hospital there is one in the basement.
Mr. Bemused Senior
How exactly do you define “competent”? Would you call Putin incompetent?
Matt McIrvin
@SatanicPanic: The worst-case end state I imagine is generally domestic nuclear war. California tries to secede, coastal blue states follow, Civil War II begins, the US Air Force ends it real quick by dropping a few 300kt warheads on the cities of California and Massachusetts.
Maybe they’d refuse to follow orders, but I wouldn’t like to bet my life on it.
Sister Golden Bear
@JoyceH: Here’s a quick summary of the differences with a recommendation to get the 10.
One big difference between the iPad 9 and 10 is the latter uses a USB-C connector instead of the Lightning connector, and Apple is standardizing on USB-C across it’s product lines, which means you can use one charging cable for for all of them. Also faster charging and much faster transfer of files on/off the iPad for synching. iPad 10 also uses a newer generation of chip, which means Apple will support it longer with OS updates.
A key question is how long you plan to have the iPad. I had my last one for years, so the additional upfront cost was negligible over time.
Chris
@Tony G:
Maybe?
IIRC, Hitler’s successes and failures were all kind of intertwined together. The annexation of Czechoslovakia worried a lot of the professional officers, who thought surely the French and British wouldn’t stand for it and Germany would have to face them before it was ready – but then the French and British rolled over. The breakthrough in Belgium and France in 1940 was much more high-risk than is often remembered, and a lot of senior officers were again really worried that their army would faceplant – but then the risk paid off. Hitler got a lot of street cred in Germany early on because he was brazen enough to keep rolling dice where a saner person wouldn’t have tried, and his first few dice rolls were double sixes.
But of course, the corollary of that is that he insisted on continuing to roll the dice, having convinced himself that his early diplomatic and military successes meant he was invincible rather than lucky. And, well. Whenever you gamble, eventually you lose.
TL/DR: a competent version of Hitler might have been fearsome, but a competent version of Hitler probably wouldn’t have started such a massive war in the first place.
Geminid
@Tony G: Hitler was overconfident and told his generals the Soviets were weaker than they looked: “Once we kick the door in the whole rotten house will fall down.” Had Hitler appreciated the difficulty of the task he might not have let operations in Yugoslavia delay Operation Barbarossa by a month. His Army really needed that extra month of good weather.
frosty
15 more cards this afternoon. I’m up to 159 to CA-47 with 41 addresses left to go. After that I have enough postcards and stamps to send 100 statewide to PA in close congressional districts.
I need to buy a new fine point sharpie and a couple highlighters!
Chris
@JoyceH:
By most accounts, the most competently run dictatorship in the world today is probably Singapore.
Of course people can argue quite a bit over definitions of competence.
JoyceH
@Sister Golden Bear: Boom. You had me at USB-C. At first I was annoyed that Apple changed their charging cord but then I realized that they changed it to the new EU standard. I’ve got a couple new items that lately that charge with USBC and it’s heavenly that they can all charge on the same cord!
Layer8Problem
@Chris: When Himmler was given an army group at the very end he found it hard work and checked into a nice sanitarium after a bit. Goering might have been able to manage things. Heydrich . . . would have, in the worst way.
Ruckus
@JoyceH:
It may or may not be. I find that most Apple products are good at any level and it’s the bells and whistles that are different, in things like the amount of memory or the size of the screen or the case. I’ve had a cell phone since the mid 90s of several brands and the improvement in all of them is pretty good. I will state that I am an Apple fan boy and have said that here before. I used to work in professional sports and traveled 8 months a year and had to check in to the office on a regular basis so a cell phone was an amazingly better way than trying to find a working pay phone. (Do pay phones even exist any more?) I haven’t had a land line in 20 yrs, but always have a phone with me. As an old fart, old enough to remember when not everyone even had a landline, this is far better
On the iPad concept I believe that current day stuff likely won’t change a lot from year to year unless some sort of scientific breakthrough occurs, because the current concept of cell phones, iPads, even computers is pretty good. Compare them in the store and see if you can see a difference. Also check the warranty to make sure they are the same.
frosty
@StringOnAStick: Why not indeed? There’s no reason not to try home health care and see how it goes. Tell the sibling that assisted living is still an option but it’s down the road. Then tell him (gotta be a him, right?) to pound sand.
JoyceH
Btw, Prime Day is insidious! They have a page for deals on items you’ve bought before. There’s a lot of things I buy regularly on Amazon. So I’m going, wellll, I don’t need it right this minute, but – it’s 40% off! I currently have 12 items in my cart…
Ksmiami
I was the 227th voter in our little mountain town in NM. Woot. Big lines.
Yutsano
@JoyceH: Nope. Nope. Not gonna look. Wouldn’t be prudent at this juncture…
frosty
But not here!!! It’s almost like The Blogfather knew what he was doing.
Anotherlurker.
@RaflW: As a survivor of Sandy, who is now enjoying severe PTSD, I would approve of your suggestion. Republicans made the after effects of that horrible storm so much worse than it had to be.
wjca
Until a couple of years ago, he wasn’t doing too bad. He was securely in office in Russia. He had successfully crushed Chechnya, taken chunks of Georgia, taken Crimea and chunks of southeast Ukraine.
But then he persuaded himself that he could take all of Ukraine, and virtually instantaneously. It did not go anything like his plans. And, while he is making (very) slow, grinding, progress, victory is still in doubt. Even in the long term. So, as a strategist, definitely incompetent.
jonas
@Tony G: An old German joke went that every real Aryan German was as blonde as Hitler, as trim as Goering, and as athletic as Goebbels.
Himmler was also kind of gangly and weird-looking and shaved his head in what has become that weird style favored by white nationalists (who aren’t complete skinheads) because he had a distinctive non-Aryan skull shape — according to the Nazis own phrenological charts or something — and thought the haircut made him look better.
N M
@JoyceH: Others may have said it, but it’s probably worth $100 to get another year or two of life out of it, in the long run. If past is precedent, 9th gen iPads will stop getting OS updates about a year (maybe more) before 10th gen iPads.
wjca
Small problem with nuking California: the prevailing winds would blow the fallout across the rest of the country. Somehow, I doubt any magic marker is going to successfully reroute the jet stream.
The Audacity of Krope
There’s a reason why the “nuked” district 13 in the Hunger Games is perceived to be in New England. We’re feisty.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I’m not familiar with Snapchat.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Snapchat allows chatting and sharing pictures and short-form videos, including a variety of image filters.
Baud
Milton
TBone
Law Dork said oral arguments at the Supremacists Court regarding ghost guns (no serial numbers and intended for criminal use) appear to lean toward the ATF retaining its rule/regulatory power. With the exception of Alito.
https://www.lawdork.com/p/atf-ghost-gun-rule-scotus-arguments
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@JoyceH: Would Marshal Tito count? Somehow he managed to hold Yugoslavia together for something like thirty or forty years.
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: you’re not obligated to save people who can’t save themselves… just fyi
lowtechcyclist
@JoyceH:
I agree 100%. The key excerpt (gift link):
Always good to know the GOP candidate for President is kissing up to the world’s leading war criminal.
Captain C
@Steve LaBonne:
The FTFNYT thinks that was a voter error, not a polling error.
lowtechcyclist
@Ksmiami:
‘Can’t’ is one thing. ‘Won’t’ is another, and these people are in the ‘won’t’ category.
But it is still a very hard-hearted thing to do, to turn away people in need in the middle of a disaster, even if their own bullheadedness and stupidity got them there.
Captain C
@SatanicPanic:
FTFY
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: Logan Act prosecution any minute now…🙄 Thanks for letting us know soonest, Woodward 💩
Also, this documentary film on the family separation policy masterminds is being withheld until after the election 🤬
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/why-is-nbc-news-burying-a-documentary-on-trump-family-separation-policy-until-after-election/ar-AA1rTLpI
scav
@lowtechcyclist: GSD help me, the inevitable spasm of imagining DRumpy drooling over the bare chested Pootie instantly linked to said DRumpy getting (F)Elon to flash a little belly at him. Sssfdhfdgtfyhh.
Captain C
@Tony G: I’m at work on a break so I tried to look up “Splinter” and it came back blocked for CIPA reasons. What the hell are they up to there?
wjca
Meaning, presumably, that the voters erred in not voting the way the polls, and the NYT political editors, said they should. Because whose interests, after all, is a senator from Pennsylvania supposed to be representing???
wjca
Fixed your fix.
Captain C
@Chris:
Fewer stupid strategic decisions so it would have taken longer to wipe out the Nazis, perhaps? How much depends on when Hitler notionally croaked and Himmler took over, and whether Himmler was actually less high on his own farts than Hitler.
Matt McIrvin
@Steve LaBonne:
Like I said, I don’t think it’s possible for them to fix it. They’d just be guessing in the dark. A Presidential election is different from any other type of election and the effect that Dobbs, or whatever other novel situation arose after 2020, would have on it is simply unknown. The most small-c conservative assumption is simply that any such things are a wash and turnout will have similar patterns to 2020. That’s probably wrong, but you simply don’t know how or in what direction.
Captain C
@wjca: Seems legit.
Trollhattan
@wjca:
“No vote big guy in sweatshirt. Vote small guy with teevee show and expensive house(s).”
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: reactions included at link
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/10/trump-has-secret-phone-calls-putin
Captain C
@wjca:
Meaning, presumably, that the voters erred in not voting the way the polls, and the NYT political editors, said they should.
Exactly.
Why, the owners, publishers, (certain) editors, and star reporters of the FTFNYT of course, Who else could it possibly be?
David 🐝KHive🐝 Koch
@Matt McIrvin:
they wouldn’t have to drop nukes, the Dodgers are imploding on their own
Geminid
@JoyceH: Kemal Ataturk was a fairly successful dictator. The Turkish Republic he helped found had a National Assembly and hKemal worked through it, but his prestige was such it gave him what he wanted.
Kemal ruled the Turkish Republic from its beggining in 1923 until his death in 1938. During the first ten years Kemal instituted among other reforms: a new alphabet based on Roman characters instead of Arabic script; changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday, abolished the Caliphate that made Turkiye’s ruler the prime religious authority. He also subordinated religious authorities to a secular Republic, and confiscated their property and built public schools with the proceeds.
Kemal was intent on modernizing his nation, and Turkiye sure needed it. Anatolia’ literacy rate in 1920 was 7%, and that was just for men; estimates are that only 4 out of 1000 women could read and write. So Kemal made public education a top priority.
Kemal waited 10 years for a very fundamental reform. In 1934 the National Assembly passed legislation allowing women to vote and guarenteeing them equal legal status. The first 15 women entered the National Assembly that year, and women were serving in Turkiye’s armed forces by the end of the decade.
Several threats could have derailed Kemal’s plans. One was foreign wars, but Kemal’s policy was “no problems with our neighbors” and he kept to it.
This was despite being a formidable general who stopped the British at Gallipoli in 1915, and whose forces threw a 150,000-strong Greek army out of Anatolia in 1922 and persuaded the British to give up Istanbul and the Turkish Straits without a shot.
After that, if Kemal had wanted to be another in a long line of charismatic Turkish warlords he could have taken Kirkuk and its oil fields from the British. But the Turkish people had experienced a century’s worth of war in the first 22 years of the 20th, and Kemal understood that they needed a long period of peace in order to build their new Republic.
By 1935, Kemal was regarded by most Turkish citizens as a combination of George Washington and Franklin Roosevelt. He decided then to foster a second party to compete with his CHP. Since Roosevelt had Republicans in his opposition, Kemal tapped some business leaders to create a Republican-type party.
The experiment lasted little over a year. The party attracted some of the many Islamists who resented Kemal’s modernism, so Kemal dissolved it.
laura
Man, Howars Stern in a suit and tie interviewing Madame Vice President is making my day….well, that and voting my ballot! California Secretary of State (and my favorite history professor) Dr. Shirley Weber does an excellent job getting voters all they need in a timely fashion to vote. Our County elections office is just a few miles down the road, so spouse and I will drop our ballots off this afternoon.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: You’re letting them off the hook too easily. One of the Siena national polls a few while back had a sample that included THREE Black men, one of whom said he was voting for Trump. They rounded down a bit and duly reported that 30% of Black men were supporting Trump, which caused quite a stir at the time. They know they have absurdly low response rates and, as you note yourself, no real objective way to predict what the actual electorate will look like, a source of bias (in the technical statistical sense) that swamps their calculated uncertainty intervals. What they are doing is of negative Informational and social value and should be ignored.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: Putin is certainly one of the world’s leading war criminals, but Syria’s Bashir Assad still holds first place I think. Although, Putin helped save Assad’s regime so some of Assad’s many crimes can be debited to him.
Ruckus
@StringOnAStick:
It’s his life, so as long as it is not recommended by his docs that he shouldn’t. As I’ve said here before, in the apartment complex I live in there is a 98/99 yr old woman who lives by herself. Now she has help because she is getting to the almost blind stage now but still rides around on her 4 wheel old fart scooter. Not as much as she did 2 yrs ago, but she still manages. It depends on the person, on how they have aged. I am an old fart and I still walk a lot farther than most of the other old farts that live in the complex. I have slowed down my walking speed at the demand of my doctors, and the walking distance from 10-12 miles a week to 4-6 miles. That 10-12 miles was good for me not all that long ago but it’s too much now. At some point our bodies do not rework the internals as they do at a younger age. That reworking is what allows us to actually age, but at some point that slows down and then basically stops. The insides get old instead of getting repaired. That’s called aging, some call it aging out. It happens at a different rate and time for all living creatures.
SatanicPanic
@Matt McIrvin: If California secedes I expect the rest of the country to say “good riddance”. Maybe that’s naive, but whatever, if I’m wrong oh well. People talk about building bunkers in case the bomb gets dropped. I intend to be on my roof.
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Competent= dying of old age while still in power. So Mao Zedong was competent, he didn’t even get overthrown while he was bedridden and senile. How he managed the country was another story.
surfk9
@laura:
My ballot did not have an “I have voted” sticker. Took it to the one drop box they deigned to provide in Lodi
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
A lot of the right/conservative side wants to go backasswards to a time that they think was better for the country, like a century or more ago. They seem to think it was better living back then. So they want the entire country to go backasswards a century or so because it must have been better than this hellhole where we live now, which includes THOSE PEOPLE, whoever they might be. I’m not quite that old but I was born in the first half of the last century so I’m not all that young either, and they are a bazillion times wrong. One doesn’t get more wrong than a bazillion times wrong, because that’s when your head spins around at a 1000 RPM for 20 hrs a day and the world looks strange and your mind is dizzy and completely lacking in humanity, reality and any concept of your own actual worth as a human.
Omnes Omnibus
@SatanicPanic: California isn’t going to secede. Neither is Texas. It’s a weird dystopian fantasy.
wjca
Even in the darkest hour, there is good news.
wjca
Omnes is doubtless correct. But if we did, expect Oregon and Washington to join. Also Nevada, simply because Las Vegas doesn’t want to be across a border from its biggest market.
And it would be a major economic power in the world pretty much instantly. Nothing like the Brexit disaster here.
StringOnAStick
@Ruckus:
@frosty:
Thanks for your input. The sibling who is insisting on assisted living is the youngest sister, a complete drama queen. Every time there’s one of these crisis points she paints an “at death’s door” picture, and I talk to him and he sounds fine. There will have to be rules though; no more going down the basement stair, which means moving his office upstairs and letting the home health person handle the laundry since that’s in the basement.
SatanicPanic
@Omnes Omnibus: I don’t think so either, I’m just responding to a suggested dark future
Mr. Bemused Senior
By that definition the jury is still out on Putin.
Certainly Ukraine has not gone as planned and the cost is horrendous. Being surrounded by sycophants probably had a lot to do with it.
I think Putin still holds onto hope that Trump will be elected (God forbid!).
wjca
It does seem to be grasping at straws time for him.
laura
@surfk9: go back and take a look at your ballot materials. There should be a card that says congrats on voting early- that’s where the I Voted sticker is.
Ruckus
@wjca:
I think he’s more or less grasping at thin air, a straw would be an improvement.
JoyceH
@Mr. Bemused Senior: it’s the Ukraine war that demonstrates that Putin’s Russia is in no way an example of a competent dictatorship. It’s so corrupt from top to bottom that no one anywhere is able to make an accurate assessment of any situation. They invaded Ukraine with troops packing their dress uniforms for the victory march through Kiev which would be in less than a week. They didn’t have the troops they thought they had, the weapons they thought they had, the supplies they thought they had, the ammo or even the food they thought they had – all those things or the money to purchase them had been looted at every level.
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: I’ve become hard hearted toward Maga cretins because what they want will hurt my kids so eh. If they drown, nothing of value will be lost
Mr. Bemused Senior
@JoyceH: oh yes, I quite agree. As far as Putin himself, though, see @SatanicPanic.
I’m not trying to be facetious or pedantic and I abhore what’s going on. I’m just pointing out Putin’s grip on Russia seems intact though it’s impossible to tell from outside how tenuous it is. [ETA or what might follow if he slips]
wjca
Maybe he reads the NYT, and believes them…?
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: I imagine you’ve spent hours throttling a rolled up towel, though. It helps with the energy build up of feeling such strong feelings. It’s gotten me through some tough times.