I exchanged emails with Tony Jay this week.
He will be back at some point, but not soon. He said he just can’t engage with the political world right now, he doesn’t have it in him. I get that, because that’s a bit of where I’ve been.
I know we can’t just disengage and tend our own gardens, and I know we need to be politically active to fight against all the awfulness and protect the people who most need protecting. I know we have work to do, but I just don’t have a feel for where we should put our efforts. At the same time, I know that we need to get started soon.
So I’ve been mostly keeping my mouth shut until I can offer something constructive. Seeing Ben Wikler throw his hat in the ring for DNC Chair gives me hope.
In the meantime, I am tired of the blame game, and I’m tired of all the people who pretend they know what the outcome would have been if we had done this instead of that. Or the folks whose hot takes just happen to coincide with what they want anyway. That, plus some people being shitty as they try to pick themselves back up after the election, is chasing some good folks away from Balloon Juice. I hope we can at least get past that part pretty soon, because we have a pretty great community here, and we can’t take that for granted.
Anyway, back to the message from Tony Jay.
Tony Jay asked me to give everyone his best wishes and to tell you guys to stay strong. And, where applicable, to “put some bloody pants on.”
Baud
Thanks for summarizing his 10 page email, WG.
RepubAnon
Bloody pants reminded me of this cart commercial:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmiwbRXIWvs
Baud
Amazing dog show on NBC.
WaterGirl
@Baud: That’s the Baud we know and love. I have missed you!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Where was I?
eclare
In the spirit of Liverpool, IIRC Tony Jay’s team, YNWA.
eclare
@Baud:
Hahaha…
Geminid
I look forward to the Savvy Sassenach’s return. Although I’ve come to understand he’s Irish.
Oh well, at least he’s not a Yankee.
eclare
Thank you for this, WaterGirl.
Quaker in a Basement
Preach!
Raoul Paste
Tony Jay’s missives are gifts from abroad. Unexpected and welcome. We wish him well.
ArchTeryx
It’s been rough for this old tired bird. I just tried to stay the hell out of the circular firing squads that always form after a loss, let alone one as devastating as this one.
But I am ready to do what I can do to protect my own. I’ve lived long enough. Some of my young friends are far more important than me.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
It’s felt like fun and witty and funny and erudite Baud has been MIA. Glad to see you back.
piratedan
yeah, I am tired of “what went wrong”, when more people ended up voting for a felon, rapist, bigot, traitor and thief… i’m not sure “messaging” is the actual issue here.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
I didn’t realize someone has hijacked my nym.
Starfish (she/her)
I highly recommend disengaging if you have the luxury to do so. This week, I have probably been in the comments more than most weeks because I have been on vacation. It has been lovely.
It really is hard to know where to put our energy. If you have some Republican Senators, maybe you can put some energy in letting them know that these appointees to be the Secretary of the Navy and the Defense Secretary are completely unqualified? It seems like the number of stories on Hegseth are picking up, and it would be nice for him to drop out before folks have to vote on his nomination.
If we have no Republican Senators, we can cheer them on for doing their jobs well. I wrote one of mine and said, “Yay, thank you for confirming all the judges.”
The Zoom with Indivisible cheered me up because it reminded me of ALL the things we did last time. We went and talked to local staffers about how ACA was really important to people with the maximal number of people that the staffers would allow.
I don’t feel like I have that kind of energy, but it was good to reflect on what we had done.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I feel in suspended animation right now because we don’t know exactly what will happen after Jan 20. It will be bad. But Trump is such a liar, we don’t know what kind of bad.
prostratedragon
@piratedan:
Where I am.
Meanwhile, “Voodoo Dolls,” Jessie Montgomery; Rasa SQ
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I know! To use one example, TCFG keeps changing tariff rates and which countries that they would apply to. Markets hate uncertainty, along with anyone trying to plan to build anything (I think Suzanne made this point). I hope TPTB are happy.
WaterGirl
@Baud: More like your spirit was temporarily hijacked by the body blow that the election has been.
mvr
This captures a lot of how I feel and have felt since the first bit of this began.
I think I disagree both with people pretending to know how an alternate past would have changed the future, but also with putting suggestions for ways to do something else in the frame of doing this instead of that (which I think accurately captures a lot of the discourse).
I suspect (but don’t claim to know) that a whole lot was done right. The campaign events were full of enthusiasm, the candidate spoke fabulously well, she didn’t make many mistakes and I would have been so happy had she won.
But probably there are other things we could have done that don’t really compete with all that admirable execution of some hard to do things. MisterMix’s suggestion that we need to campaign when it isn’t campaign season may well be part of that. Relatedly it seems like we need to find smaller ways to campaign, ways that are not mediated by campaign news coverage. (I think the postcards are a version of that.) . Nothing may have gone wrong but we may have missed some things we could have done. We can look for those without dog-piling on what was in fact a pretty impressive run by an attractive set of candidates in a difficult environment. This thread probably isn’t the place to do that, but it is my hope that we do some of that eventually.
FWIW.
Elizabelle
How about Matt McIrvin? Has he been in touch?
Good to hear from Tony Jay, and especially such a succinct message. (Kidding. Hugs to him.)
Baud
@Elizabelle:
No. Matt has not been here.
Starfish (she/her)
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Agreed. It is best not to invest TOO much energy in any of it yet because it is unclear what will come of it. What we do know is that he is appointing a bunch of unqualified chuckleheads to his cabinet, and we can encourage politicians to do their job.
Tony G
@Quaker in a Basement:
@piratedan: That’s right. There’s something that’s fundamentally broken in our culture. “Messaging” and “A better campaign” have nothing to do with it.
Elizabelle
@Baud: I worry about him a bit. Totally understand taking a break, though.
Geminid
@mvr: I am interested in our new House members, especially those who flipped seats like Janell Bynum in Oregon and Derek Tran and George Whitesides in California; taking a look at the functional rather than dwelling on the dysfunctional.
Guess it’s time to pull out the quarter inch graph paper and make some notes. I will report back.
Steve LaBonne
We have to not let Orangeanus make us crazy by drawing us into his bright shiny object of the day routine. He has to be in office actually trying to do stuff before we even know what we need to react to and how. Meanwhile we all could use a peaceful holiday season which is what I wish for you all.
oldster
Thanks, Water Girl.
Many of us are still licking our wounds. But we will live to fight another day, and we’ll fight stronger for having had a rest.
scav
Tending one’s garden is not necessarily that bad an option, depending on the definition of tending and the size of the recognized garden. Protecting one’s own can certainly include neighbors / vulnerable and focussing political etc efforts on nearby territories is a valid response especially as we may have more control over them.
There’s also a damn good reason we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen next, the oncoming shithead is a lover of chaos and past master of not delivering on most of the utterly random and spur of the moment big promises he churns out. Certain of his backers have more thought-out agendas but those need to go through the septic wood-chipper first and that’s before hitting the reversed garbage disposal of congress. Keeping one’s powder dry and eyes peeled is tedious, but necessary.
Kristine
Thanks for the update, WG. Glad he’s okay given the circumstances.
Baud
I just realized that tending one’s garden isn’t being used as a metaphor for something else.
Elizabelle
@Steve LaBonne: I just do not want to look at him, or hear about him, any more. He was supposed to be heading to numerous court cases and prison. Now he is trolling us with garbage appointments, every single day.
He has exhausted his welcome, and he never was welcome, in the first place.
Just not going to watch it.
lowtechcyclist
@Elizabelle:
Next time one of us is in a thread with Old Man Shadow, we should ask him if he’s seen Matt in comments at Slacktivist lately. OMS is more active there these days than I am.
Elizabelle
The blog has been really interesting to skim, though, in terms of watching various jackals’ coping strategies for what was a recent, and generational, disaster.
Some of the punching at Democrats is probably a need to feel in control.
How he (and it’s usually a he) could have handled that plane and kept it off that mountain.
Nukular Biskits
Flyby …
I completely empathize with both WG and JT. And, from what I’ve seen here the past few weeks, we’re all feeling that desire to disconnect, some more, some less.
In my case, I’ve totally dropped off our neighborhood Whatsapp group as I just lost all interest in interacting with most of my neighbors. Usually on Saturday nights, I ran something I called “SATURDAY NIGHT DRUNK MEMING AND MUSIC” where I would post a bunch of stupid memes and links to Youtube music videos. I haven’t done that since the election and just ain’t into it right now.
Now, let me be clear: I have absolutely no idea how any voted as there were no political ads up here (HOA rules) and nearly all the conversations I’ve had with neighbors were not political in nature at all. Still … given the demographics and some other interactions (one neighbor made it clear that he was boycotting Budweiser because of “that ad”), the odds are most of my neighbors voted for Trump.
And I’m still trying to figure out how to be civil to folks who don’t have the best interests of ALL Americans in mind.
UncleEbeneezer
@Geminid: I canvassed for Whitesides and the main talking points were:
• Abortion
• Protecting ACA
• Protecting SS/Medicare
• Jobs
• Sensible Gun Requirements
• Fire Insurance
All but the last are standard Liberal/Dem points that Kamala also ran on.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Elizabelle: I work on not thinking about him, especially at night. As soon as some idea even remotely attached to him occurs, I say “not allowed” and shove it away. Trump is not allowed to live in my head rent free.
leeleeFL
I am not really able to articulate what I think, or what to do just now! I am devastated by the abject unconcern for their fellow citizens that tRump voters just showed us. But, honestly, I am more discouraged and defeated by the possible 90 million (?) possible voters who didn’t bother! That kind of disengagement or malaise has me reeling. If anyone has a solution for that, let’s do something with that!
Elizabelle
@lowtechcyclist: Good idea.
Elizabelle
@Dorothy A. Winsor: “Not allowed.” Perfect.
lowtechcyclist
@Steve LaBonne:
THIS.
During these next seven weeks, objects in the media really are smaller than they appear. TFFG is going to say all sorts of outrageous things, and 95% of it will be bullshit, and since he has no actual power yet, there’s no way to tell one from the other. So there’s no point in jumping at any of it.
The battles will be here soon enough. Time to rest up so we’re as ready as we can be when they happen.
Ohio Mom
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Yes, it’s all in the details, and there’s no way of predicting what those details will be. It’s impossible to hope for the best and prepare for the worst when you don’t know the parameters.
Baud
Apparently, this is fight week in college football.
cmorenc
The seminal event that created such difficult political challenges to either of Biden or Harris in 2024 was the disastrously messy, abrupt circumstances of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. It was during the immediately following weeks that Biden’s approval numbers quickly tumbled from the high 50s to the low 40s, and a majority of voters lost faith in the Biden Administration, and as a corollary, lost faith in the Administration’s handling of the inflation and patience to understand that it was an unavoidable byproduct of worldwide inflation and supply chain problems cause in substantial part by Trump’s gross mishandling of COVID.
True, it was another reckless, feckless act by Trump : Secretary of State Pompeo in making the withdrawal deal with the Taliban that cut the Afghan government and army out of the negotiations and a challengingly soon withdrawal deadline that set up high probability of ugly fuck-up that put the incoming Biden Administration in a bind if they honored it, a messily prolonged continued involvement if he didn’t. In retrospect, Biden should have insisted on re-negotiating a more realistically doable withdrawal.
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: are you making a chart? I hope you’ll let us see.
You have your eye on a whole bunch of aspects across the nation and the world. And then you make sense of it for us. —it’s valued.
(besides, I love a chart. )
Phylllis
@Elizabelle: Same.
Gloria DryGarden
@cmorenc:
I sure wish we could get this across to everyone. I’m puzzled why it worked to cast so much blame on Biden, when it was totally set up by the previous admin. Rock and a hard place. How do people not understand this?
zhena gogolia
@piratedan: I agree. The information was all out there to see and absorb. I’d estimate it would take 15 minutes of googling to make the right decision.
Redshift
Thanks, WG, I’m very much in agreement. On Tuesday I’m going to a “Worth Fighting For” local community building meeting, organized by Indivisible and others. It’s focused on strengthening connections with people around us so we can be ready to take action and also protect our community. The umbrella organization is “Election Response Center” if you want to look for a local group near you.
Baud
@Redshift:
Good for you.
Elizabelle
@cmorenc: I truly think that was media driven.
Have you heard anyone else say anything about the Afghanistan withdrawal? I have not. It was long past time to be out of there. There was no appetite for remaining. We aren’t even doing right by Ukraine, which is organized and has much more fighting spirit.
Fuck Peter Baker and Mrs. Peter Baker (Susan Glasser of The New Yorker). They have blood on their hands. Will never read another word by either of those tools.
Harrison Wesley
It’s very disturbing to observe a rabble-rouser trying to incite this community to blind fury by waving the bloody pants.
zhena gogolia
I miss Tony Jay and Matt McIrvin.
Melancholy Jaques
Same here. I really want to withdraw completely for a while, like Tony Jay, but that goes against my habits of the last 50 years.
NotMax
Nice thing about the most recent Zoom — during the two hour duration there was maybe 30 seconds of politics.
WaterGirl
I figure about 1/3 of the country voted to keep democracy and allow all human beings the right to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Which is heartening. These are our people. There are many millions of them.
I figure about 1/3 of the country is made up of people who are either hateful, ignorant, stupid, easily taken in, or are unable to think for themselves, unable to process information, or lack discernment. Which is distressing.
I figure about 1/3 of the country couldn’t be bothered, which is mind-boggling.
jackmac
I hope Tony Jay comes back tanned, rested and ready.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Yes! I am very happy that as soon as the conversation turned to Trump – for maybe less than a minute – I had the presence of mind to interrupt and ask the question:
“Do we want to talk about Trump here tonight or talk about other stuff?”
I’m pretty sure that nearly every person immediately blurted out the desire to talk about other things.
WaterGirl
@jackmac: I guess it will be an all-over tan.
Oh wait, that’s Baud, not Tony Jay.
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: I understand George Whitesides is a former NASA administrator. Derik Tran is a consumer rights attorney and also (I think) runs a small business.
Janelle Bynum has an interesting biography. She was born Janelle Sojourner Irick in Washington, D.C. and earned an electrical engineering degree at Florida A&M. Then she went to work for GM and earned an MBA from the U. of Michigan.
Bynum’s work took her to Japan but when her mother-in-law asked for help with her several Portland area McDonald’s franchises, Bynum and her husband moved to Oregon with their kids. That’s when she got into politics and won office as a State Representative.
Melancholy Jaques
@Geminid:
Don’t forget Adam Gray in CA-13, currently leading by 227 votes.
Also too, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez hanging on in an R+5 district.
SiubhanDuinne
Contrarian view: Ackshully, right now (perhaps until Inauguraton Day, still 50 days from now) I think disengaging and tending our own gardens may be both the most productive (for society) and the healthiest (for our individual selves) actions we can take. I’m still going to try to be aware of major news stories, and take action if needed, but I’m not going to obsess over cabinet or agency head appointments. I already know they’re all going to be problematic, to say the least.
In the meantime, hair-on-fire isn’t a becoming look for me, so I’m personally holding off until the right time to contact my Senators, Ossoff and Warnock, and then take their lead on the most effective way to resist.
Fully understand and respect that mileages vary.
hitchhiker
Every time I see a headline w/his face or name, I move quickly to avoid taking in what it says. The truth is that it doesn’t matter now, and won’t matter for a while — like, until the end of January. I paid very close attention during this period at the end of 2016, and all the way through those hideous years when we first had to put up with him. Now, what’s the point?
The media needs our eyeballs, but tough rocks. There’s nothing to say, and nothing to read.
This shit happened in spite of our best intentions and efforts. My attitude toward my sole culty family member is, “You chose the rapist. You celebrated a rapist on election night. Congratulations. You won. Now that America is great again, you can’t possibly need anything more from me — one of the people you despise. So good luck.”
Aside from that, I’m with whoever said he gets no free space in my thoughts. One morning the news will be that he croaked … maybe I’ll read that story.
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: Sorry, no charts. I just like quarter inch graph paper for notes. I sometimes use one of those 4-color pens just for the hell of.
prostratedragon
@Baud: I’d be ok with a flag-planting ban. But if someone trolls you with a plant, getting into a fight over it is not a boss move.
mrmoshpotato
Damn Lake Erie! You lake effect snowed a bunch of people’s bones!
sab
Here in Ohio I am hoping (against hope) that Bernie Moreno said what he said just to be elected and not because he actually loves the Trump agenda. He is himself is a (hispanic) immigrant and his son is gay, and all the luxury cars his successful business sells are imports.
Maybe relentless politely expressed concern (Nelle’s specialty) will have an influence. I don’t think rampaging rage is actually very useful. That just signals you would never vote for him.
zhena gogolia
@hitchhiker: I am looking forward to reading that story.
Wanderer
So glad Tony Jay connected. It’s good to know he’s taking time to decompress. We all need that.
Melancholy Jaques
@sab:
Hoping for decency from a Republican is like hoping Ryan Day can beat TTUN. Or that the latest Browns QB will be good.
mrmoshpotato
@Melancholy Jaques:
Go Blue!
ColoradoGuy
The media isn’t covering the massive drop-off in Democratic votes, while MAGA is also down a bit. The reasons for the drop-off are unknown: either massive tampering at the tabulator level (very difficult and unlikely) or something both internal and public polls completely missed. And we don’t know how much ticket-splitting was going on, particularly in the swing states. We just don’t know at this point.
We need to look for commonalities between 2016 and 2024, and I’m afraid misogyny is #1 on that list. If any candidate was Mr. Misogyny, it was Trump. It’s basically his brand, and the one thing he, and his new Cabinet, stick to.
eclare
@Elizabelle:
Not today, Satan.
Elizabelle
@eclare: Yes. Better.
sab
@Melancholy Jaques: Well, in Ohio all we have is Republicans (except Congresspeople) and DeWine did appoint Amy Acton.
Encourage bad peole to be less bad. It may not be performatively satisfying, but it might have a small impact. Ranting and rudeness will absolutely not have a good impact.
tam1MI
I feel the same. I am making an effort to focus myself on the things that bring me joy – my family, my friends, my pets, even things as small as the maple tree in my apartment complex that refuses to drop it’s leaves (I find it inspirational). In the words of the old song, “They can’t take that away from me”.
Melancholy Jaques
@sab:
It works for them.
sab
@mrmoshpotato: Climate change is not Lake Erie’s fault. In the Great Lake scheme of things it is just a bathtub.
Geminid
@Melancholy Jaques: Yeah, Adam Gray is pulling away at the finish line. Looks like Rep. Duarte will get to spend more time with his family and pistachio trees. I wonder if he’ll miss those nuts he served with in Congress.
I think Democrats flipped two seats in upstate New York as well.
There are also some promising new Representatives from blue districts. In the Virginia 7th CD where I live, Eugene Vindman will replace Abigail Spanberger who is running for Governor.
And in the 10th CD to the north, 37 year old Suhas Subramanyam looks like a keeper. He’ll replace Jennifer Wexton, who sadly must retire for health reasons.
surfk9
@Starfish (she/her):
@Geminid:
There is also Adam Gray CA-13 who took the lead last week and is beginning to pull away.
Gloria DryGarden
that’s the part I’m studying, because I have friends in this group, some of whom have been very close, and dear to me for a long time.
I think there’s a news media bubble and a commitment to certain conservative lies, from my old gf fr hs, dr J, DO. Maybe.
There’s a weird subset of hateful and ignorant, that I call judgemental and non inclusive. She has a lesbian sister yet finds amazing negative or stereotypical things to say about gays, and about her sisters lover. She freaks out about Muslim immigrants in Norway, how they’re taking over neighborhoods and getting laws changed to fit their way of life, and then she brings it back to immigration issues here. She was sending me talking points about nancy pelosi was at fault for the Jan 6 debacle. Sheesh.
i don’t get it, she’s intelligent, but can’t imagine anyones point of view that differs from hers. Can’t put herself in someone’s shoes, about some things. And yet compassionate with her patients, loved by animals.
im still puzzled
the 1/3 who didn’t bother, that’s who might be gettable voters next time, and who we’re trying to win over with our discussions of branding, and messaging, and consultants, pr, and DNC leadership. All the ideas about campaigning , and gotv. I trust that process, as we try to right the ship and go forward.
prostratedragon
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Kind of like my old Bullwinkle filter. That worked, back when I needed it.
divF
I’ll miss Tony Jay’s screeds while he is on hiatus.
My goal for the next few months is to try to protect the people I care about who are vulnerable in a diverse set of ways – they’re working-class, gender-divergent, or scientists (like myself) whose skills and POV will be declared irrelevant by techbros redefining all of science to be AI/ML. I’m retired from the University of California (and its excellent defined-benefit retirement system), and it will take a lot of damage and disaster before I am directly threatened. So I will spend my time saving what I can, and who I can.
zhena gogolia
@eclare: That’s a good one!
Gloria DryGarden
Does anyone know much about what Katie porter, and Stacy abrams are getting up to next?
zhena gogolia
@tam1MI: I know it’s not for everyone, but our church is a great solace.
zhena gogolia
@divF: What’s ML? Googling didn’t tell me, other than milliliter.
prostratedragon
Here’s a good chart from Kate Starbird, schematic, not statistical:
sab
@Melancholy Jaques: It won’t work for us with two Republican Senators. Vance has moved on, but we still have Moreno coming in and whoever DeWine appoints.
Rob Portman stayed in forever by being innocuous. Nat’l Park funding etc. He quit when he knew he had to be a Trumper or not. Ohio still has cities and is not 80% Republican.
I think (or hope) Moreno is still manageable. Trump is a lame duck with a four year term. Moreno is new with a six year term. Trump had coattails for him but never will again.
Doug
I am tired of the blame game, and I’m tired of all the people who pretend they know what the outcome would have been if we had done this instead of that.
I think that I’m done listening to advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”
Gloria DryGarden
@Redshift: with this, you have thrown me a life preserver flotation device
will you let us know how it goes?
i think this topic deserves its own page here. Anyone else think so, too?
Kathleen
@Geminid: I used graph paper to create project tracking templates before we had spreadsheets. Pencils and good erasers were also my friends. Dinosaurs sharpened our pencils. This was “Thu 80’s”.
tam1MI
I have been thinking about ways to economically resist the oncoming storm, and I think boycotting the media that lied us into 4 more years of Trump is a good place to start. So, NYT, you thought that getting Trump re-elected would help your bottom line? SURPRISE! I am not going to subscribe to your shitty rag, or read any of your articles, or even skim your headlines. You are dead to me. Rinse and repeat for the Washington Post, CNN, etc etc. Remember – they need us more than we need them.
Kathleen
@sab: I’ve had a lot of practice trying to be reasonable with Republican reps when expressing my views.
sab
Also too, any advice on turkeybone soup?
I plan to divide the boiled carcass in half, one half turkey noodle vegetable soup (beloved by spouse but beyond boring for me) and turkey with wild rice and mushroom soup. I wait all year for this yet my husband hates it. Will freeze and send half to his daughter who loves it.
Anyway
@zhena gogolia: From the context, Machine Learning ?
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: I read that Katie Porter will resume teaching law at the University of California-Irvine.
I’m not sure about Stacey Sbrams, but last I heard she was teaching at Howard University. Abrams used to write romance novels; she may be working on another one.
sab
@Kathleen: With two Republican senators, rudeness is just performative.
Like Yippies in my youth. Full of sound and fury signifying nothing. And they mostly grew up to be stockbrokers.
I want to be there, quietly but urgently commenting, whenever they have a tough choice. Ohio is still a purple state although leaning red. Our senators need some Democrats to vote for them. Give them hope that voter suppression isn’t the only option.
Anyway
I cannot get excited about individual House results with Ds failing to win the majority. It’s winner takes all in the House and there’s not much that can be done with the presidency and senate with the evil RThugs. Call me d00mer.
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden: Maybe check out StaceyAbrams.com
(don’t forget the E in Stacey.)
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: my library has some of her books. I glanced in one of them. Characters in the legal world.
I’ll look again when the mood strikes. I’m kind of reading soothing fluffy stuff right now.
Aziz, light!
@Geminid: @Melancholy Jaques:
Janelle Bynum didn’t “flip” Oregon District 5 so much as reclaim a seat that had been in Democratic hands for 26 years. I think she will have to dance to the Blue Dog beat to keep it.
WaterGirl
@Doug: You bring up an excellent point!
New rotating tag:
OGLiberal
@Gloria DryGarden: People think presidents should be able to solve everything, if they are Democrats. If GOP, well, bless their hearts. But idiots on all sides will vote for the latter because they prefer bullshut certitude over necessary nuance. Can’t trust the American voter any longer. Worse than EU/UK nuts.
WaterGirl
@Redshift: Multiple organizations come up when googling Election Response Center or Worth Fighting For.
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden: I see Katie Porter as more of a whiner than a leader. I think she showed her true colors during her recent campaign.
Gloria DryGarden
@sab: he hates your wild rice and mushroom soup? It sounds wonderful, though I’ve never made that. Are there particular spices you use that make the flavors pop?
when I’ve had a turkey carcass, I use the broth to make turkey vegetable soup. Usually I like to use onions carrots, and turnips. Maybe bay leaf and peppercorn. Maybe garlic. Greens optional, other things can go in the bowl or for a quick cook on re heat: broccoli, for example.
once I pick all the meat scraps off my boiled bones, I often like to do a second boil, and use that broth for rice, or ramen, or another soup. It doesn’t have as much gel, or flavor, but it’s still good.
trollhattan
@Gloria DryGarden:
Porter considering governor in ’26. Rumors of Kamala running, as well. There will be 50+ choices on the primary ballot, it’s a free-for-all when the governor is termed out and one in a thousand can name the Lt. Gov.
I’ll be surprised if Abrams runs for office again, but I’m far, far away from GA.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@WaterGirl:
She sure didn’t do herself any favors in that regard at the end of her Senate campaign.
Splitting Image
@Doug:
Quoted for truth. Pronouns matter.
tam1MI
Could you elaborate a bit on this? All I know about Katie Porter is what I read here on BJ, your post is literally the first I’ve seen that didn’t praise her warmly.
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl: thank you. I didn’t follow her enough to know this. She was incredible to watch in congress, with her facts and whiteboard, calling people on their fallacies and lies. There haven’t been many like her.
where do you see her best serving, with her skill set?
WaterGirl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Exactly!
Geminid
@Aziz, light!: A flip is a flip. It was importsnt to knock the Republican out before she embedded herself in that seat. Republicans knew that, which is why OR05 was one of the most expensive House races nationwide.
And I doubt very much that Janelle Bynum will join the depleted Blue Dog Caucus. She will likely vote as a moderate, but many if not a majority of Democrats self-describe as moderates. I know some liberals don’t want to believe this but polling numbers support it.
WaterGirl
@tam1MI: When Katie Porter wasn’t one of the two candidates for Senate to move forward into the general election, she made some terrible remarks.
She said the election was “rigged”. No self-respecting Democrat should have even suggested that, let alone used the word rigged.
And then she doubled down when people challenged her on that.
Poor loser.
divF
@zhena gogolia: Sorry – Machine Learning.
Sally
Messaging. I was flummoxed as to what to say to an educated, intelligent (?) acquaintance who told me, wide eyed, did I know that “they” are teaching children they are cats and toilet in litter boxes in schools. I calmly (well, not that calmly) went through the real reason some primary classrooms had litter in cupboards. And I suggested that the real reason was horrendously worse than the made up nonsense. And entirely the fault of right wing nut jobs, including those in SCOTUS. He remained sceptical, but thought he might “check it out” (do his own research?). I went on to discuss the miracle gender transform surgery that in hospitals takes days and months of recovery, but teachers can perform between 9 and 3, with no recovery time required, whilst doing all their other duties.
I just can’t.
WaterGirl
@Gloria DryGarden: I don’t much care what she does next.
rivers
Thanks, Watergirl. You’ve expressed a lot of the feelings I’m having. Also, I think that tending our own gardens is not necessarily the same as disengaging. I’m ready for any fights that I can help with, but it won’t be obvious for a while what those are and where. In the meantime, I spend about ten minutes a day catching up on the news and I avoid all analysis, speculation, recriminations, hot takes, etc. I have decided that whatever happens I am not going to let Trump live inside my head. I remember what it was like the last time – I woke up every morning wondering what new outrage he’d committed. It wasn’t a good way to live.
Jackie
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: No, she didn’t. Porter whining that her loss was due to a rigged election deeply disgusted me. I hope she stays away from politics.
WaterGirl
@Sally: I simply don’t know what we do with the stupid/foolish people who simply parrot right wing talking points. And then they aren’t actually interested in hearing actual facts or information.
Those people are the bane of our existence, and they are contributing to the downfall of democracy.
Gloria DryGarden
@tam1MI: im into economically resisting.
There is a huge, unfortunate list of big maga donors, a while I might not manage to boycott everyone, I’ll sure try to buy blue, as much as possible. I hope to encourage others to do the same.
it’ll be hard to give up on ace hardware; I really do have to buy stuff to fix my house.
im happy to stay away from Walmart, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, discount tires… it was a v long list sorry. It almost needs to be a sidebar item, with the alternative, how to find out, look up, find blue or both sides donors.. Im not even sure the search terms, and it’s such a damn morass of info.
Jay
@sab:
Put the skin and bones back into the roaster, toast until golden.
Crack open the larger bones.
Put in a pot with carrots, celery and onions.
Cover over by an inch with cold water, bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, top with more water as needed, simmer for 3 hours.
Strain, chill and skim the fat if preferred.
zhena gogolia
@Anyway: Sounds right! Thanks.
trollhattan
I’ll suggest setting aside national optics when evaluating Porter for statewide office. We don’t fit those well, as any glimpse at the last fifty years well demonstrates.
Stay tuned.
zhena gogolia
@divF: Thanks.
WaterGirl
@rivers: I get that. Avoiding all analysis, speculation, recriminations, hot takes, etc makes total sense right now.
But there will be things we can do to mitigate the damage, so I hope we can all muster the strength to fight the things where a fight has a chance of succeeding.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: Yep. I completely wrote Porter off after that.
frosty
Thanks for getting touch with Tony Jay, WG. I was wondering about him.
WaterGirl
@frosty: You’re welcome, frosty. I was glad to hear back from him.
rikyrah
Blame game?
It’s simple:
Racism and misogyny.
That’s what did in the Vice President.
Plain and simple.
WaterGirl
@rikyrah: Kinda hard to argue with that.
rikyrah
What should we focus on?
Virginia- 2025
Wisconsin- Supreme Court Race
Who is running for those Congressional seats being vacated
raven
@trollhattan: Her campaign manager lives around the corner. . . in Athens, GA!
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden:
More information if you’re interested (she used a word that still has important meaning, despite the orange taint):
https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/katie-porter-california-senate-election-rcna142292
WaterGirl
Women apparently hating other women is one of the hardest things to make sense of.
Apparently power and patriarchy trumps gender.
I am, of course, not speaking of black women, who are certainly not the beneficiaries of power and patriarchy.
rikyrah
@WaterGirl:
Which is why I am solidly on those voters for the Orange Menace to get everything they voted for😒😒😒
Geminid
@WaterGirl: I was surprised Porter said those things because she could see that 3rd place finish coming. I think Porter didn’t want face the fact that she wasn’t as strong a candidate as she thought she would be.
Ed. I think Porter’s popularity within her national fan base went to her head.
But Porter could still have put a positive, forward-looking spin on her loss. Instead she came off as a sore loser. I thought it showed poor judgement and a bad temperament.
Almost Retired
@Jackie: IIRC, she was also whining during the primary campaign when Adam Schiff ran ads warning Californian’s not to vote for “very conservative” MAGA Shoeless Joe Jackson – or whoever the washed-up baseball player was that the Republicans ran.
The ads were clearly designed to fire up Republicans, and it was a clever (or dirty) strategy, depending on how you view it. It worked – it’s probably why the Republican came in second in the jungle primary. Because he was otherwise too busy juggling angry ex-wives and disinheriting children to do much campaigning. I think her whining also hurt her in the primary.
TS
@rikyrah:
Right there with you.
I think you all did everything right, but dumb & stupid wouldn’t believe what will happen to them.
The love for the wealthy (or pretend wealthy) in this world brings me to tears every other day.
mvr
@Geminid: That would be great. I’m somewhat sporadic in following threads since I am usually screwing off when I have time to read them. But I hope to see the results.
Jackie
@Gloria DryGarden: I already drive by fast food restaurants, but do buy groceries and pharmacies at Walmart. My budget can’t afford other grocery and pharmacy stores.
Martin
@WaterGirl: So, Porter apologized for that remark and said it was immature of her.
Porters point was a valid one, though. Schiff’s campaign put money behind Garvey to face off in the general. Under the current arrangement, that’s valid. But her intended point, which she later clarified, is that Democrats shouldn’t get complacent regarding the influence of money on politics because it’s antidemocratic. And the Democratic Party should have been more upset with Schiff for putting a senate seat at risk. Normally, that would have been a Dem/Dem general, and a guaranteed Dem win.
I agree that Porter isn’t one to lead.
Another Scott
Speaking of doing the work, … NotebookCheck.Net:
Martin has mentioned the rules about Taiwan staying ahead. 3 years used to be a lot – 1-2 doublings in Moore’s law – it’s not clear that it is these days (at least once everyone gets to a “2 nm” process) – optimization for ever smaller sizes on silicon wafers is getting increasingly difficult.
TSMC wouldn’t be building in Arizona without Biden’s work on the CHIPS and Science Act. Competence matters.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Sally:
My 2¢. Don’t worry about persuading them. Focus on disagreeing with them. They love rejecting your arguments, but they hate when you reject their worldview.
Gloria DryGarden
@Sally: im confused. I work in primary schools, but I’ve never seen or used litter. Maybe for the pet rabbit or hamster..
i take kids to the toilet all the time, supervise boys, in some detail if necessary, and I look in most of the cupboards, on my search for the table cleaning supplies, or the paint.
what is this litter for, bedsides perhaps pets, and vomit ( we call a custodian for their special sawdust)
im going to study that blue sky schematic linked above, about how disinformation is spread. I just figured out how to copy the link and repost it on my Facebook.
for real, there’s barely talk about gender, let alone surgery, training staff permissions for this sex change at school bs. It’s so far out that I’m puzzled why it hasn’t been silenced. The closest to gender variability I’ve seen is a few kids being addressed as they, and a few more who dress interestingly, outside of prescribed norms, can i call it cross dressing?
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes!
(to what you said)
WaterGirl
@Martin:
I never saw that. It must have been quite a bit after the fact?
edit: I’m totally good with your second paragraph. I just never heard her say any of those things. But i did tune her out after the whining about the “rigged” election.
Glad to see you here tonight. You are one of the people who can help us think through and figure out where to best put our efforts in these next 2 years. So I’m glad you are here.
jnfr
I feel like I’m in a waiting mode. Friends I talk with say much the same. There’s not too much for me to do right now other than let my Congress critters know that Trump’s nominees are all shitty, and honestly my critters know that already.
I wait to see which horrors he’s going to start with. I have a list I’ve made for myself tracking a whole lot of awful things he’s threatened. He may or may not manage to do them, and once he starts there will be things to do. But I’m not in politics directly so for now I’m mostly tending my community and my friends, who are all pretty devastated from the election.
Sally
@Elizabelle: And no one mentions the 5,000 Taliban terrorists/fighters trump released in time to attack Kabul during the withdrawal.
Geminid
@trollhattan: I saw another poll for the California Governor’s race, one that included Kamala Harris. It looks to me that if Harris wants that post she’ll get it.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jackie: im in a budget too. Target? How are their prices? I started getting a few grocery items there, prices seemed good.
I’ve had it in for Walmart for a long time.
Baud
@Geminid:
The problem for her is if she wants to run for president again in 2028. I’d imagine her primary opponents will press her on that, and I don’t see CA electing someone who won’t serve given the wealth of talent they have. Republican voters would, but not Dems IMHO.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
Interesting.
Jackie
@rikyrah: Sadly, Democrats will suffer even more. Collateral damage for starters; Blue states, because Blue, even more. It’s going to be a looong four years of retribution, revenge and retaliation.
Geminid
@rikyrah: I’m looking forward to the Virginia Governor race. I’m a big Abigail Spanberger fan. Spanberger has a quality I’ve come to appreciate in a politician: she’s ruthless.
Another Scott
@Gloria DryGarden:
Wikipedia – Litter boxes in schools hoax:
(Much more at the link.)
As usual, when one sees something weird or unusual online, it’s best to take a breath and say, Is that plausible? Who’s the source, let me read the original rather than the game of telephone version. There’s too much stuff out there that is designed to get us upset and angry because it increases “engagement” and makes the MotUs money.
HTH a little.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Nukular Biskits
@WaterGirl:
You’ll get no disagreement with me on that, other than I think the proportion is closer to 40%.
And, as evidence to support that, I present this from the Great Orange Satan: 5 dumb conspiracy theories conservatives actually believe
Jackie
@Gloria DryGarden: Cat litter stored in classrooms is for the worst reason ever: School shootings. Young children aren’t capable of holding their bladders indefinitely during a prolonged lockdown.
tobie
@Elizabelle: It’s always a “he.” Always. And it’s penny ante shit when you realize that people were so brainwashed they believed up was down and black was white. I was sitting on a plane last night and the person in the seat next to me insisted on chatting, though I was trying to read. Nice enough realtor guy…but in the course of our conversation he let so many FOX News talking points drop, I thought I was going to scream. Gawd, I wish they would serve alcohol on domestic flights. I don’t know how I managed to keep my anger in.
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@tam1MI: Do you also plan to ignore all the blog posts based on stories from the NYT and WaPo? I’d guess about a third of them, including on sites like this, take off from those papers.
sab
@Gloria DryGarden: The evangelical churches and the charter schools are telling parents that grooming is going on and the parents are worried. I know some of them.
Seriously, cis staight kids are not having issues, but now their parents are worried. Gay and trans kids and parents are, as always, worried and confused.
It just makes me want to vomit when I talk to the worried parents of cis straight parents brainwashed into defending their kids from a nonthreat and turning their kids into the predatory monsters the other kids and parents fear.
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
Some schools have put kitty litter and containers in a coatroom in the classroom in case there is an active shooter and they need to go into lockdown/hide in place.
Gloria DryGarden
@WaterGirl: This. Exactly this.
it’s so infuriating. And you have said it so well.
It’s visceral, for me. As if I could shake them and make them listen. (I won’t. )
Suzanne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Agree. I have a closet to organize. I took some old picture frames to Goodwill. I’m going to go through my books and get rid of some. I’m reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to Spawn the Youngest. I’m running and/or working out indoors (if cold or raining) a lot.
Starfish (she/her)
@Gloria DryGarden: Are you in Colorado? I think Colorado has one.
Here is the Wednesday one for Colorado from 6:00PM to 7:00PM. It is a Zoom meeting.
Geminid
@Baud: That’s the decision Harris will have to make. But she seems like a realist, and given the circumstances of this election I don’t think her chances of winning in 2028 are very good.
On the other hand, Harris would have a very good chance of being elected Governor of California, and that’s a powerful job and a good platform.
Sally
@Baud: You are correct. I was not trying to persuade so much as mock. I had my Really? Really? You got sucked into that nonsense? face on. And there was an audience. I was hoping he would be more cautious about believing the dribble that comes from his right wing bin. Or at least, more cautious about regurgitating it to me. And if he were afraid to tell me, maybe he should be afraid to tell anyone, or even believe it himself. I was teaching him, and the audience, to analyse – Could this be true? No, it could not.
Anyway … I can’t help myself.
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: i understand lockdown, and the coat closet, and I’ve been there during the drills – hate it- but I’m not following about the litter.
It’s not anyplace I’ve been. It could be I’m stupid today Thanks for trying.
Jackie
@Gloria DryGarden: Our Target doesn’t offer a full range grocery section – more like an expanded convenience store -with very limited meats and veggies. And, their prices are higher than Walmart.
Baud
@sab:
I blame Democratic messaging.
Uncle Cosmo
@Jay: Sounds like a solid recipe for turkey soup. I might take it one step further: After the soup is mostly finished, remove whatever is left of the turkey except the meat, return it to the pot, add a roux of flour and butter (if the fat remains, omit the butter), and heat through while stirring to produce creamed turkey. Serve over your preferred toast. I have fond memories of that from my childhood – we kids almost liked it better than the original roast fowl.
Baud
@Geminid:
Yeah, if she’s not running for president again, then there shouldn’t be a problem.
Gloria DryGarden
@Starfish (she/her): yes, thank you, I love you.
(if I used emojis, there’d be one here)
Kathleen
@sab: I agree. I was always courteous. You have a good point about Moreno. It certainly can’t hurt.
Gloria DryGarden
@Uncle Cosmo: oh my god, I am drooling. Creamed turkey, w frozen peas added, maybe carrots.
Lyrebird
@rikyrah: I definitely agree
I am struggling to consider what to do beyond my own little garden so to speak, but I want to share with everyone this Boots UK commercial with Mrs. Claus in charge
THe only reason I saw it is because of more racism (Ms. Andoh is Mrs. Claus) and misogyny (she runs the “Werkshop”), some interesting link from @Another Scott: had a comment about RWNJs screaming because of the terribleness of this ad.
Funny thing, some US-based RWNJs are saying they should boycott Walgreens because they own Boots or something like that… isn’t Walgreens part of the Walton/Walmart empire anyhow?
Martin
@Gloria DryGarden: You can’t leave a locked down classroom to go to the bathroom. If it’s an emergency, as often happens with little kids, the litter gives them a place in the classroom to pee.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You are bad!
(assuming that was snark)
Gloria DryGarden
@sab: just so.
I don’t talk to parents, not allowed, as a para and as @ sub. But there is no grooming going on. We are so background checked. Yes sometimes one person gets away with something more than another, but in general, no one who sees creepy stuff go on in school would let it pass. It would get caught, in any rare cases.
so weird to make it a generalized thing.
the groomers, and predators, don’t they do it via internet, or becoming friends of the family? For crying out loud.
thanks for trying
chrisanthemama
As somebody somewhere said: We’re not in the post-election period–we’re in the pre-catastrophe period. Prepare accordingly.
Gloria DryGarden
@Martin: oh!! We never had the drill last that long. That’s horrible. But, practical. Now I will cry.
Baud
@Gloria DryGarden:
Apparently Christian youth camps are a preferred means.
Gloria DryGarden
@chrisanthemama: oh fuck.
if only you were incorrect
trepidation
and for anyone w previous ptsd, this is a deeper version of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: well glory be, in excelsis deo. Church camp!
now i need a bowl of kitty litter to puke into. And a box of Kleenex. It’s just so wrong. I have no place to put my rage. I can think the things, but I can’t go to violence. I guess tennis or something.
mybe everyone doesn’t know, but science shows that impacts on the palms and the soles, helps bring the red down.
in case anyone else has internalized rage, all dressed up and no place to go.
tam1MI
That’s disappointing to hear. It’s certainly lowered her in my estimation. :(
Gloria DryGarden
@Lyrebird: i just know Walgreens has been odd about filling a few peoples birth control prescriptions. I hadn’t heard they apologized for it. I used to like to shop there, for certain things. Bummer.
mrmoshpotato
@Gloria DryGarden: I think the cat litter is for an actual active shooter situation.
It’s fucked up what the gun humpers have done to the kids of this country.
narya
@sab: I used some of the stock to add to a roux (I believe that’s a veloute), and made pot pie; I found some puff pastry in the freezer and laid the baked puff on top, served in bowls.
Gloria DryGarden
@OGLiberal: they prefer bullshit certitude over necessary nuance”
thanks for this clear view on it.
gol darn it
Geminid
@rikyrah: Virginia Democrats will nominate Spanberger for Governor, but they’ll choose between several good candidates for Lieutenant Governor. I’ve got my eye on State Senator Aaron Rouse, the former NFL safety. I think that guy is going places.
There are also good candidates for Attorney General. I’ll probably vote for a Northern Virginian. Spanberger’s from the Richmond area, Rouse is Tidewater, so I’ll want someone from Northern Virginia for geographical balance. I don’t think that matters as much as it used to, but I’m old school in that respect.
tam1MI
Unfortunately, I can’t avoid those. But I can avoid giving the NYT and WaPo any direct positive metrics.
Martin
@Gloria DryGarden: The drill doesn’t last that long. The event can. Uvalde lasted over an hour. Parkland an hour and a half. If the suspect is at large, lockdowns can last hours as police slowly clear a large location like a high school or university.
rikyrah
When I say….
she said this with her ENTIRE CHEST…
She let it all out .. What she thinks of the Boomers
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8NRjEAN/
Starfish (she/her)
President Biden is pardoning Hunter.
Jackie
According to NBC, President Biden is expected to announce tonight if he’ll pardon Hunter. Fingers crossed!
https://www.rawstory.com/biden-pardons-hunter-biden-report/
Jackie
@Starfish (she/her): Jinx! 😂
Leto
@Jackie: @Starfish (she/her): good.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Hmmm…heir apparent to the incumbent President loses race to succeed him, then runs for governor of California two years later…if she were to lose that race, would she tell the reporters that they won’t have Kamala Harris to kick around any more? ;-)
Lyrebird
@Gloria DryGarden: Thanks – turns out I was wrong!
(in @Lyrebird: comment above)
There really was a Mr. Walgreen, who founded Walgreens… which later merged with Boots UK but has remained entirely independent of the Walton empire
The sources I am finding are Quora replies and super spammy looking industry websites, so I am not linking, but I wanted to correct my error.
WaterGirl
@tam1MI: Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Baud
@Starfish (she/her):
@Jackie:
Trump would have Hunter killed in prison.
ETA
Biden statement
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/12/01/statement-from-president-joe-biden-11/
WaterGirl
@Starfish (she/her):
I don’t see that Joe had any other choice, giving what is going to happen to the DOJ.
Good for Joe.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Or something just as awful.
Jackie
It is done!
Statement from the President:
different-church-lady
@Jackie: Recently I had been thinking about this possibility.
Obviously the morally rigid thing to do would be to stay out of the matter. And given a Harris victory I believe Joe would have let things lay.
But — and don’t need to explain to this group that it’s no exaggeration — we are now faced with a quazi-going-on-full fascist administration, lead by a president-elect who has made no secret of his desire to use his power as a tool of capricious retribution. Additionally, that same president-elect and the party that supports him have shown no compunction whatsoever.
Given that reality, I can imagine the calculation is that Hunter Biden will not be given any fair justice in his punishment, and the decision lies between erring on the side of unfair leniency versus the danger of increased unjust persecution, with no ground in between.
Or, to put it more concisely: Trump is the one who smashed up all the rules. We’re just playing on the same court.
different-church-lady
@Jackie:
As always, “We’ll need a majority.”
WaterGirl
@Jackie: You go ,Joe! So proud of Joe for this.
WaterGirl
@different-church-lady:
Absolutely.
frosty
Not Abbie Hoffman. He stayed an activist for the rest of his days. Save The River (St Lawrence).
Martin
@lowtechcyclist: We’ll see what happens. I’m expecting Democratic voters to shift to some degree what they are looking for in elected officials after this election.
2026 tends to be referendum on the current president, and we haven’t even begun to see how that’ll play out. 2010 was a terrible election for Democrats nationally, but it’s the year Democrats took over California. It was a great election here, buoyed by Obama, not hurt by him.
If CA sees 2026 as an election where we feel we need someone to fight the federal government, Harris might not be seen as the right person to do that. I would just warn people that if Trump is able to shove the courts even further right, that the way Democratic voters choose to fight may change substantially, and an institutionalist who fights in the courts may seem ineffective.
Chris T.
@WaterGirl:
What, like the “knocked right out of your body” mode from the Dr Strange universe? (The “spirit punch” or “soul punch”.)
Jackie
@WaterGirl: My first tears of joy rather than sorrow in a month. It feels wonderful!
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Good for Joe! Good statement.
narya
@frosty: and Dump the Pump in Bucks County. (I have a tshirt from that effort because a relative was involved.)
narya
@Bex: good. I was hoping for that. Now commute all the fed death penalties.
different-church-lady
Oh, and by the way, the response to this should be, “You’re about to make a guy you pardoned the Ambassador to France. So SHUT THE FUCK UP.”
Brant Lamb
@Elizabelle: How much “fighting spirit” should the Afghanis have had, after Stumpy sold them down the river? Leaving their government OUT of the negotiations with the Taliban, and then setting a short date-certain for leaving? Stumpy left them high and dry.
Baud
@different-church-lady:
I think the response should be “I don’t care what you think.”
Brant Lamb
Rest, in snark, TJ.
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: I wouldn’t consider it serious planning unless TSMC itself announces such plans. This is probably the Taiwanese government playing to the economic nationalist sensitivities of Trump & his coterie, to try to stay out of his cross-hairs early on.
TSMC was both enticed & coerced into setting up the AZ fab, as it did & does not think such fabs could be cost competitive against its fabs on TW, thus it only makes sense if the investment is subsidized by USG & TSMC’s US customers (which in turn also requires government incentives & coercion). Fair practice as far as industrial policy is concerned, which, after all, is the state strong arming market player to do things they would not otherwise be inclined to do in the market place, hopefully for the greater good.
Between all the chip designers & the AI bubble, the U.S. does have the ecosystem to sustain a domestic advanced semiconductor manufacturing industry. I think the bottleneck for the CHIPS Act & the IRA to realize their ambitions will be shortage of skilled labor. The U.S. has not emphasized STEM education for decades, there aren’t nearly enough human capital to support the degree of re-industrialization as DC (mostly peopled by those w/ legal backgrounds) want, be it engineers, technicians, toolmakers, & trades people. Much of that human capital in the U.S. is aging, & things would truly be dire if not for immigration. The disparity in human capital is a big part why the PRC & the Sino-centric supply chain ecosystem in E/SE Asia is multiple times faster, at a fraction of the cost.
The rising xenophobia, & Sinophobia specifically, set to rise further in Trump’s 2nd turn, will not help matters. Most of the Taiwanese engineers who might be interested in decamping to AZ might not want to be confused as Chinese (certainly not Mainland Chinese), but the nativist xenophobes won’t care, not would the latter care to distinguish between Chinese, Koreans & Japanese.
WaterGirl
I put up a Joe Pardons Hunter post. It’s after Medium Cool.
Jay
Good for Joe, only 31,517 other Presidential Pardons to hand out to provide immunity from Dolt47’s vengeance.
YY_Sima Qian
I too will miss Tony Jay’s polemics.
WaterGirl
@narya:
I’m all for that.
WaterGirl
@YY_Sima Qian: He’ll be back.
It will just be awhile.
lowtechcyclist
@Martin:
That was a joke, son – I was just having fun with the parallelism.
zhena gogolia
@narya: I signed a group letter for that a while ago. I hope it happens.
zhena gogolia
@different-church-lady: Haha, yes, that is a readymade answer.
JWR
@WaterGirl:
Exactly. And aren’t the HB charges a bit harsher than those typically handed down against Black street gang members? But yeah, who knows what the latest DOJ would do to him, or where they’d send him?
PS. Apologies for the misposting in the next thread. Feel free to delete it, if only for sanity’s sake. ;)
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Signed a group letter for Hunter or for everyone on death row?
Jackie
@different-church-lady: I was just thinking the same!
I hope someone (media-wise) puts together a chart comparing pardons issued by Biden vs pardons issued by TCFG.*
*Not including the ones about to be issued in seven weeks, and further into the future.
prostratedragon
@Jackie: Good! And a strong statement.
UncleEbeneezer
@WaterGirl: The only problem is that it doesn’t explain why 1.) Biden was looking even worse in polls and 2.) why every incumbent govt in the world also suffered voter share loss, even with white candidates even right-wing incumbents. Inflation does help square those circles. But there’s no one, single reason. It’s multiple reasons and obviously Racism and Misogyny are at the top of the list. And I think it’s absolutely safe to say that without them, it’s likely Kamala wins.
frosty
@narya: A relative (aunt) of mine was involved in Save The River too. She met Abbie at the meetings.
WaterGirl
@JWR: Thank you, I deleted it just now. People really need some politics-free threads, and we really do try to keep Medium Cool as not an open thread. thanks again.
WaterGirl
@UncleEbeneezer: The answer about Biden is the media. And misinformation.
They are no longer the fourth estate. Generally speaking, media is now an arm of the Republican Party.
Another Scott
@Baud: It’s the right decision, of course. I am a little surprised though. Pleasantly so.
Peace and comfort to Joe, Jill, Hunter, and their families.
Best wishes,
Scott.
sab
@Jackie: Thank God. He never should have been prosecuted and would not have been if he was just a random citizen.
They were just hoping to push him into a relapse or worse to embarrass or derail his father.
As the step-parent of a kid who has been through recovery I have so much respect, sympathy and gratitude to the Bidens for the public face they have presented for the families dealing with this.
sab
@frosty: Hoffman was a good guy and an exception.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: For Federal death row.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I surely hope he pardons all of them. I can just see Trump and his henchmen delighted to be killing people. Especially those people, because I’m pretty sure most of the people on death row are not white.
Martin
@Another Scott: Appreciate that this primarily affects one company – Apple – as Apple buys almost all of the leading node capacity. And if Apple loses 2-3 of their annual advances, all of their lost sales will go to foreign companies.
Nvidia/AMD would be hurt next as they’re usually next in line, which would impact PC sales. Intel is working on catching up and have some real tech advantages to do so, but Intel’s leading node volume is really tiny compared to say, Apple’s. They’d need to outbid TSMC for equipment to meet a domestic demand, and Intel is bleeding money.
@YY_Sima Qian: The advantage for the US here is that the customers with real money are all US customers. And they can afford to cover the higher US costs – provided as you note, the US could import the necessary workers, etc. They would prefer not to, but they can afford the move.
Aussie Sheila
Just read about Biden’s pardon of his son Hunter. Good for him.
The treatment of that man was abominable, all happening while Biden, properly, stood back. The way Garland ran the DoJ was absolutely execrable and showed no understanding of what the country was dealing with.
I agree with Biden that the prosecution and persecution of his son was political, and make no mistake, any whining and wailing that would equate this pardon with trump’s pardons of war criminals and any Jan 6 felons should be treated with very loud contempt and derision.
Maxim
Thanks for the update, WG. Please let Tony Jay know that we miss him and will welcome him back whenever he’s ready.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: All the money in the world cannot make up for the short fall in skilled labor in the short term, unless the US can attract existing talent from E. Asia (& facing competition for the same talent pool from Taiwan, SK, Japan, the PRC, ASEAN & the EU), which US immigration policy & political climate are not conducive to. & the semiconductor fabs will be completing w/ the battery plants & solar panel plants (everything else funded by the IRA) for engineering talent.
Gloria DryGarden
@Martin: horrible
Another Scott
@Martin: ?
People who need the fastest chips will get them from TSMC in Taiwan as long as they’re the fastest. If Samsung has a breakthrough, then they’ll be the supplier of whoever needs the fastest chips. Etc.
People who don’t need the fastest chips, like GM, Ford, Stelantis, Whirlpool, John Deere, and about 98% of the rest of the S&P500, will have another potential US supplier in case, say, Texas freezes over again.
I don’t see a downside for the USA, or TSMC.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Randal Sexton
@mvr: nice analysis
YY_Sima Qian
@Another Scott: The TSMC fab in AZ is making 5, 3 & 2 nm chips for mobile consumable electronics & GPU (for AI training/inference) applications (meaning Apple, followed by Qualcomm & Nvidia). It will not fabricate mature node semiconductors for home appliances, transportation, industrial and defense applications.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian: My assumption is that, given the 3 year delay, folks that need the fastest parts will still mainly get them from Taiwan. I don’t think that after setting up the N5 line they’ll immediately take it apart for N4 and N3 and faster, but who knows.
https://exploresemis.substack.com/p/tsmcs-top-10203040-customers-who is a 2022 list of TSMC’s customers. They get lots of revenue from lots of players.
But, as you say, all the PR mentions “advanced fabs” so those slower parts don’t seem to be in the mix in AZ.
Thanks for the correction.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Odie Hugh Manatee
I’m pissed about the loss and I blame our side for it. The fascist’s voters were always going to do what they did so that’s no surprise. You can be tired of the blame game but that ignores the fact that there’s plenty of blame to go around. A successful President who had beaten the orange bastard in the past was attacked and abandoned by his own party after garnering 14 million votes in the primary. Frankly, we deserved this loss.
I’m out again for awhile. I’m just too pissed to post much here right now because more than a few people here really disappointed me.
Martin
@Another Scott: The semiconductors that TSMC is going to make on their N2 (2nm) node at the end of next year are already designed – which started last year. Apple can’t take that design to Samsung as-is. They can’t even take it to the leading node being produced in TSMCs US plants. If China takes the Taiwan plants out, Apple misses at least one entire generation of silicon – as does everyone else on the two other newer nodes than what the US TSMC plant can produce – basically everything that AMD, Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple, and some of Intel and a lot of Broadcoms stuff. To adapt to Samsung’s process would take a year or two. And that’s if Samsung had the ability to meet customer volume – and they don’t, just as Intel doesn’t. The equipment to make this stuff has similarly complex supply chains and requirements for pre-order. It’s not clear that the suppliers could outfit Samsung or Intel in less than 3 years.
It’s not just that TSMC is ahead of Samsung and Intel on process tech, Apple completely breaks the traditional adoption curve for that tech by putting the largest volume at the newest nodes (rather than one that is maybe 3 years old and discounted in cost). So Apple’s leading node volume is ~5x that of Intel and Samsung. Semiconductor manufacturing just can’t adapt the way say the auto industry would be able to, at least not without throwing all of the IP laws out the window.
And I think that’s speaks to YY_Sima Qian’s observations of China’s opportunity here – the western semiconductor industry is very interconnected and breaking the largest market player (by a LOT in terms of leading nodes) potentially breaks the entire western semiconductor economy for 2-3 years until the normal lifecycle would have played out. That gives China a lot of time to close that gap.
So yeah, if Samsung has a breakthrough they would be considered for who needs the fastest – but in about 3 years – because that’s how long it takes to get the next generation of silicon designed for their process, for ASML and others to build the equipment needed, and so on. You’re right, but it’s not a fast transition. Apple is testing with Intel now for ~2027 in case that should come together. I wouldn’t be shocked if they were testing with Samsung for a similar time frame. That’s about the fastest they could transition (same for the others, unless they started earlier).
So Apple would be effectively stalled out for 2+ years. And that would favor Chinese phone makers and Samsung. And they aren’t US companies.
The downstream customers on older nodes have loads of options in the US right now. By and large they aren’t reliant on TSMC now and their designs are quick to adapt. It’s the big US tech giants that would get hit, and pretty much just them. TSMC customers by approx revenue:
Apple 25%, Nvidia 10%, Broadcom 7%, then Qualcomm, AMD, Intel, Mediatek (Taiwan), Marvell, Sony (Japan), Amazon.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: I don’t think I have suggested that the PRC is looking to break either Apple or TSMC, certainly not by invading TW and bombing TSMC’s fabs there.
My point is that the continued escalation in semiconductor export controls by the Biden Administration (another round is coming this week), & w/ tech war certain to worsen much more under Trump, has solved the coordination issues across different segments of the semiconductor industry in China, & created a giant captive market for domestic suppliers, which generates the necessary revenue streams for these suppliers to fund their R&D & provide the necessary user feedback to these suppliers to steadily (or rapidly, depending on the product life cycles) improve their products. Furthermore, the rising cost of each advancement in transistor density is reaching diminishing returns in terms of user experience on mobile devices (where the most advanced chips are mostly used), in addition to possibly reaching the scaling limits of LLM training diminishing the advantage of scaling computing power & thus power consumption benefits conferred by thinner line width GPUs. Finally, line widths at ~ 1 nm is reaching the limits of physics in terms of silicon based semiconductors.
All of these factors gives the PRC the space/opportunity to catch up on development of domestic iDUV/EUV lithography machines, & domestic advanced node fabrication processes (5 nm or below), as well as blunt (but not eliminate) the disadvantage of not having access to advanced node chips for AI training or high performance computing (HPC) in the meantime.
Even if Apple continues to lose market share in the PRC, or the PRC governments retaliates against the expected Trump escalation of the trade war by asymmetrically disincentivize (not necessarily ban) purchase of Apple devices w/in the PRC, that just means more bleeding edge capacity at TSMC available to Qualcomm & MediaTek (& Nvidia, too). Outside of Samsung & Huawei, every mobile phone vendor out there is using Qualcomm & MediaTek SOCs, made by TSMC.
Of course, you are correct that the pace of advancement will slow if Apple’s ability to subsidize such advancement is constrained, & not just in semiconductors, but every component in consumer electronics that Apples cares to expend its enormous resource on. (No other company in the world is willing & able to subsidize such rapid advancement, outside of Huawei w/in the PRC context.)
It is hard to accurately & timely assess the pace of advancement in the PRC in semiconductors. The tech war has made PRC companies (regardless whether their application is civilian, military, or dual use) much more reticent on publicizing their progress, lest they become targets for US export controls (to whom everything is viewed through the natsec lens). US semiconductor equipment (SME) suppliers have largely lost the visibility to the happenings in their former Chinese customers. We will only see new sign posts when Huawei launches a new phone w/ a new SOC made by SMIC (such as the Mate 60 Pro using 7 nm chip or the Mate 70 Pro using 5 or 6 nm equivalent chip), or Huawei launches a new GPU (such as the coming Ascent 910C using 5 or 6 nm), also to be made by SMIC. For now, the fabrication almost certainly still relies upon a lot of Western SMEs, & Chinese foundries have been stocking up on Western SMEs in anticipation of further controls, to the point where the PRC has accounted for nearly 50% of revenues of these Western SMEs in the past couple of years.
For the same reason, Chinese HPCs no longer participate in the semi-annual global rankings, so the top ranked supercomputers are now US ones, even though there are circumstantial evidence suggesting that the top two (or three) are actually in the PRC.
Rumor is that there is already a domestically made prototype EUV machine being tested & evaluated in the PRC, working out the kinks before scaling production. It is possible that we will see domestic EUV machines in mass production before domestic immersion DUV (iDUV) machines, even though both are under development by Chinese SMEs & iDUV is the older gen tech. Chinese foundries can still purchase iDUV machines from ASML, Nikon & Tokyo Electron, so they are demanding Chinese SMEs to approach the performance/reliability of the established international players before they would purchase domestic iDUV machines in bulk. That could change if the coming round of export controls by the Biden Administration twists Dutch & Japanese arms to choke off supplies of foreign iDUV machines, too. EUV machines have always been banned from export to the PRC, so Chinese foundries may be more tolerant on the performance/reliability of domestic offerings.
Martin
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that and I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think the PRC gives a shit about Apple or TSMC here. They have their own motives and interests and what happens to Apple or TSMC is immaterial to that. But Apple and TSMC are not neutral regarding Chinas effects here.
I’d put LLMs to the side, because my views on that are broader than what I want to tackle here.
As to diminishing returns, I’m not so sure. There are a lot of threshold functions in the compute space. For instance below a certain frequency the sensor-compute-control loop is too slow to allow a drone to fly in a stable manner. The second you cross that key frequency, it’s possible and a whole new industry emerges. Yeah, it may not be material in smartphones (though that remains to be seen given on-device AI) but it might unlock AR/VR and other classes of wearables and we get a whole new industry again. Betting against the law of accelerating returns is a suckers game.
And line widths don’t necessarily stop the progress, you just adapt to that by stacking. You have a whole, largely unused dimension to play with.
My only focus in this discussion is if TSMCs operations in Taiwan are disrupted (by way of China or earthquake or whatever). Apple would likely come out best of TSMCs customers simply because they are the fastest to move and have the most capital to move with, but the manufacturing capacity of leading nodes in Taiwan does not exist anywhere else. There is no backup. And there is no realistic way to make that backup in short order. It would be years before a Samsung or Intel or even TSMC-US to meet that need. The only way that might be mitigated somewhat is if the equipment and engineers in Taiwan could be spirited away in the nick of time, which in an invasion situation might be somewhat feasible on some scale. It would still be a big disruption but a slightly less big disruption.
I’m pretty confident that if China could produce their own EUV (and again, I’m skeptical China could easily get to the current state of the art there) that China would get from breakthrough to production astonishingly quickly. All of the analysis I’ve read is that China is hamstrung when it comes to effective tech investment – that is, the wests R&D and funding systems are much more effective than Chinas, because as I noted before, it has a very broad reach and is very risk tolerant. So I’m skeptical that China can hit those breakthroughs. But China is much faster then the west once that happens – in production, training, supply chain build-out, infrastructure, etc. The west’s strategy is to make sure China doesn’t get a bullet, because China is a VERY fast draw if they do.
I will keep saying it – tech companies aren’t in China because it’s cheap, but because it’s fast. Fast makes you money quicker than cheap can save it. That is the lesson the west is struggling to learn.
The other lesson the west is struggling to learn is that export controls don’t work very well, because enforcing them is expensive, and we are allergic to expensive.
Doug
@WaterGirl:
Oh thank you! You are very kind.
Doug
@Splitting Image: Truly.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Agree on Apple in case of disruption.
I have also heard rumors that even Apple internally are banking on AR/VR to truly unlock the benefits of 3 or 2 nm chips. However, I think for AR/VR applications there are other bottlenecks that might be more important than the capability of the SOCs: there is the 5G connectivity, as well as connectivity between the device & the goggle. The former is important if the AR/VR goggle is to be more than just a novel interface w/ the phone/laptop, otherwise it will remain a very niche use case. The latter is still important since I doubt there will be much onboard compute on the AR/VR goggles. On both counts, Huawei is leading the pack, & the PRC is leading in deployment of both countrywide 5G networks, as well as dedicated networks for specific settings (such as smart manufacturing). As a long time iPhone user in the PRC, I can attest to the capability of the iPhone’s antenna being decidedly inferior to that of Huawei devices at equivalent price point.
However, at < 14 nm thinner line widths do not increase clocking speed, but rather increase transistor density (thus enabling smaller form factors) & lower power consumption. It is still mobile consumer electronics where space & battery juice are at premiums, for almost every other application it is not prohibitive. You are correct that the opportunities going forward will be in advanced packaging, such as chipsets and 3D stacking, but here the playing field is more open & more level.
On SMEs, I guess we will see in the coming years, since even the most dedicated outside observer can only speculate or guess at the true speed of progress w/in the PRC. In terms of efficiency in R&D spend & deployment of resources (particularly on a per R&D staff basis), I would tend to agree that most Chinese companies & organizations still lag their leading Western counterparts. The exception in my experience is again Huawei, who has both tremendous resources at its disposal & is relatively efficient & very agile in deploying them. OTOH, the more competitive Chinese companies are show high effectiveness in R&D, because they can devote a lot more resources (staff, equipment & materials, though not necessarily funding in USD terms) in short amount of time. Furthermore, the Chinese R&D engineers & scientists are mostly much younger, so what they lack in experience they make it up in numbers & enthusiasm. An experienced & skilled scientist or engineer in a Western MNC can attack a problem by designing an elegant & efficient Design of Experiment (DOE) with 16 runs, while a relatively inexperienced team of scientists/engineers in a Chinese company may choose to brute force it by designing a DOE of 96 runs. However, the Chinese team can complete the 96-run DOE in 3 days by operating in shifts (& having enough equipments & instruments to run at such intensity), while the Western scientist/engineer’s DOE is still waiting in queue after 2 weeks for his/her turn. (Can you guess that I have intimate experience here?) In any case, in applied sciences most of the learning comes from doing, & there is a lot more doing at a much faster pace in the PRC.
The “China Speed” effect is now quite prominent in Development, & increasingly Research. I have shared links before on the PRC academia’s & industries’ increasing competitiveness (& in some areas, dominance), it does not get to that position by just being a fast follower. The situation is also fluid, because the PRC has dramatically increased, & is expected to continue dramatically increase, its college educated white collar workforce (heavily weighed toward STEM) into the 2040s, even as it rapidly sheds its relatively poorly educated blue collar workforce over the same time. Exploding Sinophobia during the coming Trump years is likely to also drive increasing numbers of very experienced ethnic Chinese scientists & engineers to the PRC.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: Apple’s got a good 15% on the rest of the industry right now on the same process, so they don’t feel particularly under pressure. If they are thinking AR/VR, they have more fundamental problems to address than technology. They failed their number one rule – don’t introduce a technology without a job-to-be-done on their AR system. They even had a job in-house and never packaged it up. I’m mystified by the fumble – very unlike them.
And I think it’s very safe to say that the loss of Chinese students to the US will be a serious loss to the US. One of the systemic problems the US has in STEM is convincing domestic students to pursue advanced degrees when there are pretty decent opportunities for students to bail out of academia for the private sector (the scale of our defense industry and requirements to only employ citizens plays no small part in this – I am something of an expert on this topic). It is not uncommon in engineering PhD programs to find effectively zero domestic students. It’s a HUGE problem, and there’s no national effort to change this – at all. The US is enormously dependent on H1Bs as a result.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Well, Apple may not be under pressure in the North American market, but it is in the PRC & other developing markets, & Chinese users have not been overly impressed by either the iPhone 15 or 16 series in terms of overall functionality.
As I said above, the issues w/ the STEM workforce is the single biggest obstacle to the IRA’s & the CHIPS Act’s ultimate success. Well, that & Trump & the R Congress rescinding the IRA.
Geminid
This reminds me of remarks made by the head of Dutch company ASMI(?) after elections there resulted in an anti-immigrant majority. He said his company relied on foreign engineers, and that if the new government curtailed their visas ASMI would have to move some of their operations to other countries. ASMI is the Netherlands’ largest company by stock value, so its leader’s statement definitely got people’s attention.