Look at Preacher Johnson’s smarmy grin, now that he’s *finally* allowed to hang out at the Kewl Kids’ table…
I see "Make America Healthy Again" is off to a good start. ?? pic.twitter.com/Bd9p5Ba8ZL
— John Bye (@_johnbye) November 17, 2024
You didn’t vote for a lot of things you’re going to get.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) November 15, 2024 at 3:10 PM
12 of 14 participants in this week's sessions said they were familiar with Musk's advising Trump. Of those, five said it's a bad thing, seven didn't know what to say and none would say it was good.
Focus group: Swing voters wary of Musk-Trump relationship
www.axios.com/2024/11/15/t…— Lauren Ashley Davis (@laurenmeidasa.bsky.social) November 15, 2024 at 3:46 PM
… What they’re saying: “He’s very good obviously at business, but I didn’t elect — I didn’t vote for him,” said Pierre D., of Las Vegas. “I don’t know what his ultimate agenda would be for having that type of access.”
* “I think it’ll favor his Tesla company, and he’ll get the majority of the breaks, and just by throwing a couple hundred million on his (Trump’s) campaign, they’re going to look the other way,” predicted George L., of Phoenix.
* “There’s nothing, in my opinion, in Elon Musk’s history that shows that he’s got the best interest of the country or its citizens in mind,” said Blair P., of Oxford, Mich.
Eight of the 14 respondents also said they were aware that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who Trump on Thursday tapped as health secretary — has been advising Trump in recent weeks. Of those, one thinks it’s a good thing and four think it’s a bad thing.
* The one that supported RFK Jr. said he “can’t do any worse than anybody else has ever done.”
* Others raised concerns about Kennedy’s mental fitness, his family’s own opposition to him and his controversial views on everything from water fluoridation to the use of vaccines. “A lot of his policies are rooted in gut feelings and anecdote, and not science,” said Shawnn E., of Spring Grove, Pa.
The big picture: Most participants said they want President-elect Trump to focus on improving the economy and countering inflation when he takes the White House in January — and not to pursue retribution against his adversaries as he’s foreshadowed.* 11 of the 14 said Trump would not be justified in seeking retribution against his political allies. Eight said they believe that Trump will go after his enemies; six think he’s exaggerating.
* “It just all sounds like we’re just going to throw our political enemies, because they lose an election, into jail,” said Jake H., of Lambertville, Mich. “I mean, it’s completely nonsense. I don’t know if there’s any other way to explain. It doesn’t follow any of our principles we’re supposed to have.”…
Oh, the Faces We’ll Eat!
hitchhiker
Last I heard, swing voters in focus groups were moving away from 45 and toward Harris. Now they feel skeezy about Musk?
I’m not sure what to make of these people. I’m trying to care what they say in their focus groups, but last time I did that I got a shit pie in the face.
Jay
FAFO
Frist?
Jay
Feckond?
Kayla Rudbek
These are the same people who get scammed by the emails about “Elon Musk comes up with energy breakthrough” that I have to block and delete from my oldest active email account. And they are the same people who buy magnets to wear on their bodies or put onto their gas tank to try to make it work better, and who would invest in cold fusion and crypto currency.
May Sehkmet Our Lady of Consequences, bring them Her enlightenment.
NotMax
“Rapid unscheduled disassembly” is not a plan.
Splitting Image
Good and hard. That’s the only way they’ll learn.
Narrator: They won’t learn. But still, “good and hard” is the only way forward.
MagdaInBlack
I have resigned myself to sitting here drinking coffee all night because this head cold draining will not let me lie down without coughing, so hopefully some FAFO tears will help pass the time.
Spellboda
So RFKJr was forced to backtrack on his one decent position (anti-junk food)?
Splitting Image
I’m sympathetic to the idea, discussed by some people here, that Biden-to-Trump voters are genuinely angry about high prices in stores since COVID hit.
I’m also sympathetic to the idea that most of those morons need to learn the hard way how tariffs work. It isn’t as though Trump made it a secret.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
The bastards up top are going to reach the Find Out phase fairly quickly, I suspect, but the rest of us will probably be too busy trying to repair the collateral damage to properly indulge in schadenfreude.
And I can’t help but laugh bitterly at people talking about what they “want” from a Trump administration. They want improvements in the economy and a fight against inflation? They’re as likely to get it as I am to spend next weekend having all my deepest darkest sexual fantasies fulfilled in ways that cannot be detailed on this blog.
Pity nobody asked what I want from a Trump administration. It involves a very large gallows and every member of Trump’s inner circle, plus Moscow Mitch and the Sinister Six.
(“Moscow Mitch and the Sinister Six” sounds like a band name. What genre would it be?)
NotMax
@Bruce K in ATH-GR
Death
MetalMettle.//
Chris T.
@Splitting Image:
It is, however, as though Trump lied about it (because Trump did lie about it). But it’s not as though “Trump is a liar” is a secret.
Chris T.
[duplicate deleted]
mr perfect
I see it happening already. What we refer to as the Legacy Media is having a field day reporting about buyer’s regret on electing Trump and his cabal of thugs. How juicy! How exciting! How will this do against Yellowstone? Yes, these focus groups that are whining now put their heads in the sand and voted stupidly when it counted but did the Mainstream Media tell the truth? No, that was considered being on the side of Biden/Harris. “It maybe not good for America but it’s great for CBS.” The Legacy Media were for Trump all along because after all, they are nothing more at this point than failed Hollywood scriptwriters writing about behind the scenes gossip and dirt. Oh sure, there are outliers among the networks and newspapers who do real journalism but they aren’t highlighted enough. This is what news reporting has evolved into. Expect more saucy secrets and tell all books. Fiddling while Rome burns.
Chris Licht complaining about nobody trusting the media anymore and change is needed to win the public’s confidence back is akin to the drug dealer complaining about too many junkies hanging around and wanting something done about it.
Viva BrisVegas
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: What should the inflation rate be?
In 2019 under Trump it was 2.3 %, this year under Biden it is 2.6%.
Jay
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Have you tried Only Fans?
Kay
I feel like they rejected liberalism and embraced conservatism so why should I stand in the way of that?
They want low wages, cheap credit, and cheap junk food. They don’t want any long term investments in anything that lasts and they don’t want to pay taxes for anything.
They eagerly embraced all this. They can have the shithole, shoddy country they voted for. I’m not wasting any more time standing in the way of that.
Kay
They’re bad with money. It’s no longer my problem or duty to help them with that.
They chose a promise of 10 % interest on a credit card over longer term investment in national goals. Give them what they want.
NotMax
@Kay
A salmonella truck on every corner!
//
Archon
@Splitting Image: I’m sympathetic to the millions of Biden voters that didn’t vote Harris and stayed home because they were unhappy with prices but also realized Trump was scum of the earth.
The people that voted for Trump in the year of our lord 2024 can fuck off. All of them.
Quaker in a Basement
They thought Musk was giving Trump a HUNDRED MILLION DOLLARS and then was going to just go away?
Oh, no. He’s not going to be IGNORED here.
Kay
The interest rate on my first house was 13% during the term of the Sainted Ronald Reagan. I had a 2 year old, no health insurance and a 20 year old car that wouldn’t shift into reverse.
Yet. Still. I didn’t want to burn it all down like these people do. They’re spoiled, coddled babies who are incapable of long term thinking or planning. I don’t care what happens to them and I won’t donate 1 more minute of my time to them.
Jay
@Archon<
I am not. Fuck em.
Kay
Democrats invested A TON in long term value. It would have paid off.
Voters said “nah – we prefer cheap junk food, easy credit terms and outlandish promises and we DEMAND that RIGHT NOW”
They should get the cheap junk they bought.
Kay
We would have lost an election eventually. They would have gotten their “burn it all down” wish eventually. Might as well be now as in 2028.
The crybabies won’t be any happier in 2026 than they were in 2024 and they’ll pitch another hissy fit because they won’t have gotten what they demand
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Viva BrisVegas: …huh? There’s half an hour of lightspeed lag between arguing about theoretical ideal interest rates and the point I was trying to make.
Jay
@Kay:
They will have gotten what they demanded, and hard.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Jay: Might as well show a starving man a picture of a seven-course meal and then ask him why he’s still hungry.
Kay
They think they’re entitled to high wages, a low wage workforce to serve them, cheap credit, a mini mansion at 1k a month and whatever crap consumer goods they think will make them happy, on demand.
There is no set of rational “policies” that will give the toddlers everything they demand.
If you make 25k a year and think you need a 4000 dollar handbag I can’t help you. No one can help you. You’re a moron.
opiejeanne
Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.
H. L. Mencken
Chris T.
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: That’s when you have to take things into your own hands. Er, so to speak….
This does remind me though. Someone attached a misspelled variant of my email address to some porn site somewhere. That site no doubt sold it to others, or something like that — and Google being Google (gmail will “guess” a corrected email address), I now get a ton of porn-spam (which gmail helpfully mostly filters correctly, although if they would just reject the misspelled address, this would be unnecessary in the first place). Anyway, most of the come-ons (er, wording again?) seem to start with obvious lies and deception, which makes me wonder how dumb someone has to be to fall for these things.
Jay
@Chris T.:
It varies. Through LinkedIn, I got a bunch of “requests”, to tap into my “Supply Chain” experience.
Yeah, nope.
They did not want to talk about the “supply chain”, were in theory young Asian Women, (stock photo’s), tried to push contact onto apps I would never use, unprofessional stock photo’s.
I spent 15 years as an Online Dom (and real world dom) and Polyamory Guru. Seen it all, all the fakes.
It is sadly. easy to sucker somebody who feels alone.
montanareddog
Re the fast food picture up top:
Central Planning
@Chris T.: Gmail tries to guess a incorrect email? That seems like it violates what SMTP is supposed to do.
Or is it a case of “Honest honey, I didn’t subscribe to OnlyFans!”?
Chris T.
@Central Planning: Yep, if there’s a stray digit (I got one of these once) or extra or missing punctuation or whatever, gmail reroutes. You sometimes get a little notice “yes, this is you” attached.
(My correct email address has some punctuation and someone stripped it out somewhere. I don’t do that!)
Baud
@Kay:
100%.
Respecting democracy means respecting democratic choices.
Baud
When they ask us to fix everything again, we should demand post-birth abortions as a condition for our assistance.
TBone
@NotMax: it’s not even a concept. It’s just fancy jargon for things that go boom and hurt Elno’s fee fees.
p.a.
@Kay: Yep. Instant gratification. I’m not even sure, without the deck-stacking of conservatives, we’ll get 8 years of a single presidency for a while. “Ooohhh, I’m angry I wasn’t deliverd the New Jerusalem in 4 years. Time for a change!”
tRump is gone in 4. I don’t think “change the Constitution” will fly, even with Fux & hate radio behind it. Of course, that’s assuming the Constitution is still in effect after Heritage Don does his work.
Central Planning
@Chris T.: Ah. I thought you meant something like chirst@ would get redirected to christ@. Some punctuation doesn’t count (like periods) and things like + can be used to help with filtering (and tracking who is sharing your email)
Ksmiami
@Archon: I’d say fuck off and die. Because that’s what they deserve.
Gloria DryGarden
@NotMax: rapid u dissasembly
RUD… i do think a new swear word could be invented based on this.
U: unscheduled, unbearable, uninformed, etc
Otherwise, “bindweed”! which for those who know, could be a handy and common curse, meaning, engulfed and entangled, seemingly endless, with long lasting consequences.
people in Kansas and Colorado know. IYKYK.
TBone
Here is a very short educational video for your viewing pleasure. Sprinkle this shit everywhere! 😍😆
Elno!
https://youtu.be/lS3Q0Diu474
TBone
@TBone: now do Vivek’s ramalamadingdong.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: it makes Jesus sad…
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: 😆 so do I.
p.a.
Here’s an interesting take on the modern US. Subtext alert!
https://www.gocomics.com/basicinstructions/2024/11/18
Subsole
@NotMax:
It is if you’re planning to collect the insurance, auction the scrap, and sell the survivors’ organs.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: just quoting from your video… . If you manage to follow through on the advice in the video, I won’t tell Jesus..
Princess
I just want to say that I replied to a post on Bluesky with that Trump hamburger dominance display photo in it and Nancy Pelosi liked my reply and I feel my life work is done now.
Subsole
Honestly? The more these people open their mouths, the more I want Trump to do the tarriffs.
Because good Lord these assholes deserve it.
TBone
@Princess: 😻😎
Chris Johnson
I mean, their trouble, is that they are a One Weird Trick to destroy America and leave the world open for a resurgent Russian Empire, personified.
In other words, fucking stupid.
People’s suspicions that Elon is not really on their side are more than justified. Notions that RFK might not be wisest overseer of scientists are more than justified… the bottom line is, this is all a giant stunt to sproing Russia’s pet asset into power once more, and then ??? PROFIT!
Because clearly all the Republicans and all the voters are so enthralled by Trump and by shirtless Putin on a pony, that they will give away all their power and sign on to an array of bullshit that will doom them. Right? Right?
The only good thing about any of this is, there’s a fair chance we’ll get to drop by a McDonalds at some point and try the 1970s fries again. ‘cos french fries cooked in beef fat are pretty amazing. Don’t eat too many, but that was a well known culinary secret, like adding bacon to stuff.
I’d do that once.
So will the Republicans, but if they wanted to not schism with Trump they’d have given him Rick Scott. Interesting that they’re openly rebelling this early. He must not have as much power as I thought if they’re delivering beatdowns this early.
Baud
@Princess:
👍
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: if I don’t sin, He died for nothing!
Xtian logic
Subsole
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
Imagine a chorus of the most underwhelming dry-farts producible by modern technology.
That’s the kind of band it would be.
Subsole
@mr perfect:
I would like a framed copy of this post, please.
Princess
@Baud: I can think of quite a few people I’d like to have be post-birth aborted.
Ramalama
@Jay: Fecund?
Subsole
@Jay: No. They will have gotten what they chose. What they are demanding is cultural respect.
It’s part of the reason they hate us so much; they crave something they are utterly unworthy of and will never receive.
And, as weaklings often do, they are attempting to compel what they cannot command.
Baud
@Subsole:
👍
Soprano2
@Viva BrisVegas: But Biden didn’t magically make prices go back down, so they voted for a liar who said he could do that. I don’t want to hear their cries either.
Soprano2
@Kay: Of course, they aren’t going to get that either.
Subsole
@Chris T.:
In all fairness, I have seen horny make otherwise smart people very, very dumb.
Princess
@TBone: If Ramaswamy is right about DoE, I guess that means they’ll be ending the student loan programs for universities. That will cause hundreds of universities and colleges to close down. All those college towns in the Midwest and the south where the whole town is propped up by the university, all those people losing their job — not just hated professors but the support staff and admins who more than equal the number of profs. Yeah, that’s going to go well.
Subsole
@Baud:
As a start.
Soprano2
@Kay: Many of these people have no idea what a really bad economy is like. They might be about to find out. I for one won’t cry for the ones who voted for TCFG, that’s what they want. Especially the one I read about yesterday who thinks he’s going to improve education.
p.a.
Getting to the point, Dems will have to come out in favor of renumbering the Amendments: move #2 to #1, not only enshrine it as tippy-top right, but give yearly voucher to every white American to purchase a gun of their choice. Will still lose the white vote: “I want a flamethrower and the libs deny me mah rahts.”
Baud
@Soprano2:
Bush’s recession was within the memory of any middle age adult.
TBone
@Subsole: it’s all that blood rushing to their nether regions, away from their brains. Causes an oxygen deficit.
p.a.
@Princess: And higher ed is in trouble NOW, without their policies in place.
EZSmirkzz
Well AL, what we see here in that photo is some seriously Henry High School trolling, which doesn’t bode well for the governance of the most powerful nation on Earth, does it? But we already knew that too.
Now when it comes to Preacher Johnson, one must realize that, like most fundamentalists, he is woefully lacking in understanding of his scripture. Most if not all the abortion proscription is derived from the Didache, the teaching of the Twelve, which is as old if not older than the letters of Paul, which preceded the Gospels, yet I digress, but the Didache while quite ubiquitous in the early church was deemed non-canonical by the orthodox because of it’s non-trinitarian passages.
One thing over looked in all of this is that the men and women singled out in the Hebrew scriptures is thee fact that Enoch, Job,Noah, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob existed before the Mosaic Law, and so the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah preceded any proscription of the Torah. Hence Ezekiel 16:49-50 says;
Which falls under the purview that those who have come to emotional conclusions cannot be persuaded by rational arguments, which also does not bode well for the governance of the most powerful nation on Earth.
For those of us 64% of the population that still believe then, we are left with a cloud of witnesses that trusted God, and hopefully like Abraham will be found to be friends of God.
As a side note, the Elysian Fields were thought to be in Northern Poland and Lithuania, which might explain the presence of the Greek and Jewish population there in the later BCE and early CE times, as per Timothy Snyders third lecture, IIRC, on Ukraine on You Tube.
Soprano2
@Kay: Some of them say they like that TCFG tells it like it is, but that’s not true. He says what they think is true and they mistake that for “straight talk”. If you really talked to these people like they were adults they’d run away screaming and sticking their fingers in their ears.
TBone
@Princess:
Soprano2
@Subsole: I’d go further – they want cultural dominance. Nothing else will satisfy them.
Soprano2
@Baud: You’d think, wouldn’t you, but they can’t remember 2020.
Baud
@Soprano2:
People remember what they want to remember.
Princess
@p.a.: This won’t just be the collapse of higher ed. This will be the collapse of even more parts of rural America, which are only being propped up by their colleges. Grinnell, Coe, Kenyon, Beloit, Dickinson, Ohio University, Wittenberg, Knox and so many more, all gone and their towns ghost towns. This is what Musk means when he talked about causing several years of extreme pain.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jay: A-motherfuckin’-men. Fuck ’em, every last one of ’em.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Thirded.
Geminid
@Chris Johnson: Senate Republicans could have been asserting their independence when they rejected Rick Scott, but there may have been a more mundane factor that made the decision easier: they just don’t like the guy.
Subsole
@Soprano2:
Yeah. I’d agree with that.
Subsole
@Soprano2:
This is a very apt observation.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Splitting Image: My biggest frustration is Republicans always get a mulligan on shit that goes sideways while they’re in office. Like, Trump was POTUS when grocery store shelves were bare and you couldn’t but toilet paper or cleaning supplies anywhere. Why can’t Democrats ever get a mulligan? Inflation was a knock on effect of the pandemic so if Trump gets a mulligan on the pandemic Biden should have gotten one on inflation but that’s never how it works. Just like Bush kept us safe if you ignore 9/11 Trump’s economy was good if you ignore the pandemic. But Biden didn’t get the “if you ignore X things are great” deal.
Soprano2
@Baud: Yep, exactly. I’m going to take pictures of the prices of some common things in WalMart the Saturday before the inauguration, and a picture of the price of gas, so it’s dated. Then I can remind people if I need to.
Soprano2
@Princess: I think this is what they want, though. They want to make higher education exclusionary again, so that only wealthy people can afford it. That’s how things used to be in their minds.
AM in NC
@TBone: Talked with an unaffiliated voter for half an hour during canvassing. Daughter has Down Syndrome and relies on school services. Husband was Puerto Rican. She is Catholic but said she didn’t think abortion was a matter for government. We talked about al of these things and Republican plans for them all. She seemed onside.
Trans athletes in girls’/women’s sports was the sticking point I don’t know if we got around or not.
This woman was willing to vote to cut off her daughter’s services and have her husband disparaged and attacked, because she had been made terrified of the 15 trans women playing sports and excelling.
Just craziness what propaganda can do to people. Imaginary non-threat more important than the material welfare of your child. What do we DO with this?
Another Scott
Has anyone with too much time on their hands done a deep dive on the various things around DJT’s place setting? His phone, a newspaper and bunch of other papers. A bottle of Pedialyte, maybe, with the label facing away? Salt shaker, 2 small ketchup bottles, 2 small jars of white stuff, all lined up in a perfect row.
Everyone else has to use the packet stuff.
Only DJT gets to have the shades open so only he can look outside.
Only RFK, jr, has something to drink (except for the Pedialyte).
Only Uday (or is he Qusay?) has a single sandwich, and he apparently thinks he’ll be getting a check from MickyD’s for the product endorsement.
Just weird.
Best wishes,
Scott.
AM in NC
@Soprano2: I have been advocating for this on every site I regularly visit. We ALL need to be doing “guerrilla news” for normies in the real world.
Record the price of gas, eggs, beer, milk, bacon today – take photos if it’s easiest. Then get thousands of small stickers printed (it’s pretty cheap to do this) that say:
Gas 11/18/24 $2.99. Thanks DEMOCRATS!
Gas today: (arrow graphic) Thanks REPUBLICANS!
And sticker that shit on every pump.
Ditto for the food items in every grocery store/Walmart/Target around.
Rub their faces in REALITY and link the REPUBLICAN brand to all of it. Let them see it hundreds of times a day.
Media isn’t going to do this. We have to.
Glidwrith
@TBone: You just made my husband go “Oh God!” multiple times. Thank you!
Quaker in a Basement
@Princess: Oh, shit! That’ll play hell with the foo’ball! Cain’t have that!
Paul M Gottlieb
@Spellboda: Trump forces all he bootlickers to undergo some form of public humiliation. For Kennedy, it was publicly eating a Big Mac. Of course, Kennedy would eat shit sandwich to keep his seat on the Presidential Plane
Bokonon
The real problem here is accountability.
For several election cycles, a large portion of the American public has not held the correct politicians accountable for their screw-ups. And they have voted for the arsonists, while punishing the fire fighters.
This may have to do with powerful tribal and cultural identification – and they may be refusing to hold THEMSELVES accountable for their own voting – since they expect the government to stay open, Social Security checks to go out on time, farm subsidies to be paid, etc. SOMEONE has to deliver all this stuff for them, even while they vote for the politicians who are floridly and proudly sabotaging these things.
As someone who used to work in politics and do canvassing and political organizing … I just feel defeated these days. You can’t reach people who won’t listen, and who are so self-indulgent and lazy that they prefer gratifying social media memes to real information and hard, demonstrable facts.
Bokonon
I have never seen voters as reactive and emotional and illogical and undisciplined as I have in this election cycle. The correct information was out there – in plain sight – but tons of voters decided to ignore it, and consume total garbage instead, and then voted based on their fears and reactions instead.
Social media and smartphone screens have made people worse informed and more reactive. I remember when I used to canvas and organize, and I remember people’s ability to listen and digest information 40 years ago … 30 years ago … even 20 years ago. And things are worse now. Demonstrably worse. I am not going to blame the GOP – these people do have agency, and they made their own choices. And they choose poorly, over and over again, and then still expect good things to be delivered to them by the system.
Anne Laurie
I hate to quote H.L. Mencken, but I keep remembering his voter analogy – ‘As though a starving man, faced with a banquet, chose instead to nourish himself by catching & eating flies.’