so, this is just graft, because a large-scale advertising campaign is expensive and probably someone pointed out that Trump can use emergency authorities for the fentanyl crisis to tap money he wouldn’t otherwise be able to tap
— post malone ergo propter malone (@proptermalone.bsky.social) November 28, 2024 at 12:19 AM
Tribune of the working person
— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) November 21, 2024 at 10:58 PM
Behind the Scenes at a Secretive Gathering of Rising MAGA Donors – the Rockbridge Network co-founded by JD Vance and Chris Buskirk held a recent event with the Winklevoss twins, Rebekah Mercer, Elon Musk allies Ken Howery & Luke Nosek, Donald Trump Jr, right-wing donors and top Trump campaign aides
— Wendy Siegelman (@wendysiegelman.bsky.social) November 21, 2024 at 6:57 PM
Teddy ‘Wow, The Amazing Aura of Money’ Schleifer, for the NYTimes — “Behind the Scenes at a Secretive Gathering of Rising MAGA Donors”: [gift link]
Just four days after being named the next White House chief of staff, Susie Wiles was waiting patiently for an espresso drink at a five-star hotel in Las Vegas.
Overnight, she had become one of the most powerful people in America. The value of a minute of her time could not be higher during the presidential transition: Republican strivers are hounding her for desirable gigs, and back at Mar-a-Lago, President-elect Donald J. Trump has kept courting controversy with his picks.
Yet here she was thousands of miles away, flanked only by a security guard, alone in line at a Four Seasons coffee shop. She had just peeled off from lunch with other top Trump campaign officials, including her fellow campaign manager, Chris LaCivita; the pollster Tony Fabrizio; and the campaign’s fund-raising chief, Meredith O’Rourke. “We’re all just chilling,” one member of the startled Trump entourage joked aloud when alerted that they had been spotted by a nearby New York Times reporter as they walked through the hotel.
What demanded the dayslong presence of all these Trumpworld figures during some of the most important weeks of their careers? The fall gathering of a secretive group of wealthy tech executives and their allies who have ascended swiftly within the Republican Party’s donor class: the Rockbridge Network.
The group, which was co-founded five years ago by JD Vance, sprouted from an informal set of dinners into a powerful coalition of Republican donors who have given more than $100 million to Rockbridge projects since 2019, according to a person close to the group, helping lead Silicon Valley’s march to the right. For Rockbridge, Mr. Vance’s election as vice president was a crowning achievement — and a tantalizing opportunity to wield new national influence.
But Rockbridge has largely kept its activities stealthy, mindful of how groups of wealthy conservatives like the Koch Network have drawn attacks from both liberal detractors and Republican wannabes.
As caravans of black S.U.V.s shuttled in the billionaires from their private jets last week, members of the Rockbridge roster could be spotted around the hotel: Rebekah Mercer, the scion of one of the most prolific Republican donor families, greeted well-wishers in the lobby. Working the happy-hour scene at the hotel bar were two close friends of Elon Musk’s — Ken Howery and Luke Nosek, whose time with Mr. Musk at PayPal made them megawealthy themselves.
And it was hard to miss Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, the 6-foot-5 cryptocurrency investors and former Harvard heavyweight rowers made famous in “The Social Network.”
Attendees, with white-and-red gift bags and lanyards, knew to be closelipped when approached by hotel interlopers or by the Times reporter, who was not invited to the closed-press festivities. But a copy of the agenda listed remarks by several tech billionaires, including the Anduril co-founder Palmer Luckey and the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who spoke about his support for deregulating technology and the mixed reaction in Silicon Valley to his endorsement of Mr. Trump, according to attendees….
“It’s the domestic ‘Davos in the desert,’” said the Rockbridge backer Omeed Malik, referring to the annual business conference in Riyadh, and Donald Trump Jr.’s new business partner…
Rockbridge, according to literature distributed to donors this year, “builds lasting political infrastructure” and “strives to replace the current Republican ecosystem of think tanks, media organizations and activist groups that have contributed to the party’s decline.” The ambition is palpable, but some longtime attendees privately question whether the group has come close to delivering on those goals…
Even before the event officially began, Ms. Wiles was in Las Vegas, headlining an outdoor Saturday dinner at a steakhouse for about 30 Rockbridge donors and friends. Around the jubilant open bars and music-filled ballrooms, attendees openly traded notes on what Trump administration roles they might get and debated whether Mr. Musk was the world’s most powerful person.
“Generally everyone at Rockbridge was very happy that technologists and politicians are working together directly again and not openly hostile toward each other,” said John Coogan, the co-founder of Soylent who attended. “It’s no longer a question of whether technology will drive the future, but how we guide its impact. So it makes sense that tech billionaires and the political elite are partying together.”
Mr. Vance did not attend, a rare absence and a disappointment to some loyalists. But his victory made Rockbridge suddenly a hot ticket and spurred some last-minute sign-ups. After sometimes letting prospective members attend for just $5,000, Rockbridge raised the minimum cost to $25,000 (although some people said privately that they had been able to get in for less).
The cost of Rockbridge membership ranges from $100,000 to be a “limited partner” to $1,000,000 for a “principal partner,” according to a prospectus seen by The Times.
That money goes toward the eight vehicles that Rockbridge steers, including four dark-money 501(c)(4) organizations, two super PACs, a donor-advised 501(c)(3) fund for nonprofit activity and the Rockbridge Network umbrella organization, an L.L.C. Mr. Buskirk’s main super PAC, Turnout for America, has raised at least $25 million this year…
Mr. Vance’s new job is likely to make Rockbridge and its 150 members influential players in pushing the Trump agenda.
In part, that is because Mr. Trump has had a sometimes frosty relationship with traditional Republican donor groups, including the libertarian Koch Network and the more hawkish American Opportunity Alliance. Rockbridge, by contrast, was born in the Trump era and shares his edginess, if not the wealth of those rival networks.
“There’s a decision that big conservative donors have to make here,” said Oren Cass, an influential conservative economist in Mr. Vance’s orbit who is close with these major donors. “Up until the 2024 election, there was at least a colorable case to be made that maybe Trump isn’t going to succeed.”
That case is now no longer colorable, Mr. Cass said. “Who is stuck in the cargo hold of the old ship and going down with it — and who actually wants to be relevant to the future of conservatism?” he asked.
Mr. Buskirk told donors in Las Vegas that during the campaign, Rockbridge had about 3,000 people in the field working on Mr. Trump’s behalf. Now, after the Republican victory, Mr. Buskirk said, it was time for Rockbridge projects to grow even bigger.
It's politically incorrect to mention this, but at some point we have to talk about the deep, fundamental crisis of morality that is afflicting American conservatives and their families.
These are not good people, and we're not helping anyone by pretending that their values are not to blame.— Nathan Goldwag (@goldwagnathan.bsky.social) November 29, 2024 at 11:37 PM
War for Ukraine Day 1,012: The Butcher’s Bill for November 2024
Pete Downunder
Where is a meteor when we really need one?
Martin
@Pete Downunder: Be the meteor you want to see in the world.
NotMax
@Martin
Be
bestblast.//
Baud
True. But people are still going to pretend.
Jeffg166
Do as I say, not as I do.
satby
@Baud: Until a critical mass of people notices the empty pretence and stops going along with it. We’re already nearly half of the voting public, we should be able to peel a few more % off over the next few years. We can count on the bad guys to practically do it for us. Aside from not good, they’re also not very smart; and they’ll go too far.
SpaceUnit
What exactly is this post about?
JoyceH
Holy smokes, did you folks see the New Yorker report on Hegseth? Every time he was given an organization to run, he treated it as a bottomless piggy bank to fund his sloppy drinking and chasing and attacking women until the org had no money left and he was given the boot. What a great pick for DOD.
Baud
@satby:
The bigger problem is people don’t stick with us. That’s been the problem since Bill Clinton.
Geminid
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araungchi visited Syria Sunday and wrapped up his day in Damascus having dinner at a local restaurant. It’s thought he was tryng to convey a feeling of normalcy after conferring with Syrian President Assad about the war in the north. Araunchi then flew on to Turkiye and is meeting today with Hakan Fidan, President Erdogan’s trusted Foreign Minister.
Fidan will likely tell Araungchi, “We told you so.” Earlier this year Erdogan proposed a ssettlement of the issues between his country and Assad’s that would stabilize northern Syria, and guarantee the safe return of several million Syrians who fled to Turkiye from Assad’s murderous regime.
Reports are that the Russians and Iraqis urged Assad to make the deal, but Iran encouraged him to hold out. Now Assad has lost northern Syria and could possibly lose it all.
Assad relied upon support from Iran, a regional power with 85 million people, but he pissed off the leader of another regional power with 85 million people, and the cranky Erdogan lives right next door.
Now Iran is trying to keep Assad’s regime afloat by sending thousands of its Iraq-based militia to Damascus. Some of them won’t make it though, because according to multiple reports, US warplanes strafed at least one convoy after it entered Syria.
Meanwhile, the insurgent forces in Aleppo struck a deal with local Kurdish YPG forces whereby the YPG were allowed to keep their arms and evacuate to the east side of the Euphrates. The YPG have carved out a stronghold there with the help of the U.S.
Jay
@Geminid:
It’s nice to see all of the anti-Assad forces getting along.
Chris Johnson
@JoyceH: That would be why it’s him that was picked. Every single one of these people is a wrecking ball to finish off an institution of some sort and it’s not subtle this time around.
Stray thought, do you suppose the Winklevii are in it simply to get revenge on Mark Zuckerberg for once and for all? You gotta remember how petty and human (in a bad way) these people are.
Could their involvement be just to get Facebook grabbed away and handed to them, to make Zuck cry?
Geminid
@Jay: Not all of the YPG forces made it out of the northern Aleppo suburbs. Turkiye’s M.I.T. intelligence service announced yesterday that it had eliminated a PKK leader who was on its “red list,” in Aleppo.
But reports are that the rest of the YPG forces left with their small arms, headed for “Rojava” across the Euphrates River. It looks like they may sit the civil war out, and prepare for the withdrawal of the small U.S. Army mission there that has supported them in the fight against ISIS since 2013.
prostratedragon
I looked this up for Hegseth, but use as applicable: “Nobody Loves Me But My Mother,” B.B. King.
Also, sometimes I really miss Mr. King.
p.a.
@Geminid: Kurds gotta be thrilled about their prospects in tRump 2, The Regurgitation. //s
hells littlest angel
Trump’s campaign will have a greater impact than Nancy Reagan’s “Just say no,” perhaps even greater than Mr Mackey’s “Drugs are bad, m’kay.”
matt
they could make ads with an egg in a frying pan, that would be really effective.
prostratedragon
Paul Krugman discusses international money in the context of some idiot trying to justify tariffs as a defense of the dollar’s role. He concludes
prostratedragon
We now have “Traitor Tot” courtesy of Mark Hamill.
AnonPhenom
@prostratedragon:
“Sabotage and then Privatize”
It’s been the Right’s M.O. for decades and how they plan to make their nightmare delusional dream of a Crypto Reserve Currency a reality
AnonPhenom
@Baud:
Hard to have a ”Club’ without a clubhouse like they do (FoxNews). We have to gather every couple of years at the cornor local (MSM) where the proprietor is always telling us to ‘keep it down’ , ‘you can’t come in here dressed like that’ and ‘that’s all we have time for, back after these word from our sponsors’.
Betty Cracker
The country is about to get an object lesson on why it’s a terrible idea to hire the richest, greediest degenerates to “shake things up.” Will our very special low-info voters learn anything?
I very much doubt it. Jesus, Republicans still have a death grip on the legislatures of many populous red states, despite demonstrating beyond all possible doubt that their aim is to enrich themselves and their cronies at the expense of citizens. I could name a dozen examples off the top of my head, just in Florida and Ohio. Doesn’t matter.
I suppose the gathering assemblage of Batman villains mentioned in the post could be colorful enough to break through the fog. Won’t hold my breath, though. Low info voters will zig and zag. It’s what they do.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
We’ll see. The one caveat is that people have largely checked out of state government in a way that they haven’t yet when it comes to the national government.
prostratedragon
@AnonPhenom: Yep. Bust-out.
TBone
Jane Mayer at The New Yorker takes on Hegseth with a damning litany, but if his own mother’s words fall on deaf ears…
Much more at link
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/pete-hegseths-secret-history
satby
Josh Marshall:
p.a.
@Betty Cracker: The big name turd nominees are the facade, a couple get whacked in the process and “the system works” per the MSM dopes/fellow travellers. The next levels of Project 1625 termites are the big dangers, and their confirmations don’t really get much “press”.
Also too, seems LOTS of voters have the memory capacity of mayflies.
The Thin Black Duke
@satby: (mic drop)
Suzanne
Yanno, I feel like Mr. Suzanne and SuzMom and my MIL and I say this kind of thing all the time. Follow me for more obvious tips!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@satby: Biden could serve the norms or he could serve justice. He chose justice.
Kay
Fentanyl use/overdose deaths halve been dropping for the last couple of years. No one in media paid any attention to the drop because they don’t actually care – they cared only to the extent that the GOP could use the issue to fearmonger.
Get ready for them to start reporting the “miraculous Trump cure” of the fentanyl problem. Trump plays them every single time.
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: Come sit here by me.
Baud
@Kay:
You can’t be played if you’re in on the scam.
The Thin Black Duke
@Kay: I dunno. I think drug use is gonna go up the next four years.
Betty Cracker
@satby: I’m with Marshall on this, but I can’t feel celebratory about it. It’s a sad thing for the country, not the pardon specifically but what it signals.
Remember a year or two back when Biden called McConnell a man of his word or some such bullshit? He of course knows McConnell is a lying, cheating snake, but Biden was trying to model how democracy works in the hope that we could recover our traditions after the first Trump wrecking ball.
Well, he’s not trying anymore, and he’s right not to. There was a battle for the soul of the nation, and the orcs won. This isn’t new information, but every event that confirms it makes me sad.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
I blame Biden.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Agreed.
Elections have consequences.
Geminid
@p.a.: I expect the U.S. Army’s ~800 soldier mission based in northeastern Syria will be withdrawn next year. There is similar mission on the Iraqi side of the border which will leave next year at request of the Iraqi government. The two missions began in 2013 as part of the Obama administration’s effort to suppress ISIS, which had seized large swaths of both countries.
They succeeded for the most part and now the Iraqis say they’ll handle the fight going forward. That will leave the Syrian mission hanging out there all by itself, and we might have pulled them out anyway; but now that seems certain once Trump’s national security posse is sworn in.
There is a third US mission based at Erbil in northern Iraq. It supports the semi-autonomous Kurdish Regional Government and its Pesh Merga militia, and has been there in one form or another ever since the First Gulf War.
That mission is supposed to come out in 2026. A week ago, Prime Minister Barzani of the KRG told an Al Arabiya interviewer that this mission is still needed and he hopes it will be continued.
Barzani is walking a tightrope. The Kurdish Regional Government that controls four Provinces in northern Iraq is the closest thing to an independent state Kurds there have ever had, but to preserve its autonomy Barzani has to stay on the good terms with Iraq’s central government. Twenty-one years after the U.S. blew up Saddam’s government and Iraq along with, Iraq finally has a stable government that is better able to assert its interests.
Barzani’s immediate objective is the resumption of oil exports through Turkiye. Twenty months ago, Turkiye complied with an arbitration judgement against it and shut down oil shipments from Kurdish Iraq. The Baghdad government had brought the lawsuit. Now Barzani is working out a deal allowing the KRG to export the oil again. His government needs the revenue.
WereBear
@The Thin Black Duke: Especially in the White House!
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker: I’m with you. I’m really, really sad. I think Biden did a sensible thing here, in a terrible situation. But I’m more outraged that it came to this, not about the specific pardon.
Kay
@Baud:
“Record Black Friday sales despite inflation concerns”
Once again our poverty stricken fellow Americans who can’t buy eggs are miraculously finding ten billion dollars to spend on shit that will be in a landfill in 6 months.
Baud
@Kay:
It worked. They won.
prostratedragon
@Suzanne: The point was transfigured in 2016. I guess too many people have been merely blinded by the light.
Baud
@WereBear:
Heh.
Baud
@prostratedragon:
Too many still are.
narya
I can’t figure out which positions have been bought, which are at the direction of foreign influence, and which are ideological (either FedSoc/2025 types or break it and privatize for their profit types).
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I think the better argument against it is not “he violated a norm!” but is instead that some people wanted him to violate norms on THEIR behalf rather than his family. So that’s their beef – that he should have dropped norm following in pursuit of some greater good.
I don’t really buy that because I don’t think self serving pardons violate a norm – it’s just another fairy tale. Richard Nixon pardoned the head of the Teamsters to get their endorsement. It’s another fake norm.
Princess
@satby: I’m with Marshall all the way. Plus, the Hunter Biden pardon, as a show of pushback, seems to have energized a lot of us for the first time since the election. I believe the people who are tut tutting it are not going to be helpful in the fights that are looming so it is useful for us to know who they are right now.
p.a.
@Kay: Saw another report that a considerable (can’t remember %, but 30%+ I believe) still owe credit card $ from last Christmas season.
Is it any wonder “I want it all, I want it now” is stupid enough to fall for tRump’s never-changing “I can fix it” schtick.
I always feel like an old crank when I say this stuff, but I am!
different-church-lady
What happened to all those Just Say No t-shirts? Did we just burn them or something?
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: North Carolina will be a very important state in this struggle. A Democratic Governor and Attorney General will be fighting a gerrymandered legislature of Republican knuckle-draggers on one front, and Trump’s thugs on the other.
Fortunately, North Carolina Democrats seem energized by the leadership of Governor Roy Cooper and their young party Chairwoman, while Josh Stein and Jeff Jackson, the incoming Governor and Attorney General, look like they’re up to the task. This fight will be worth watching.
Princess
@Kay: I’ve forgotten why Trump is so obsessed with fentanyl. There must be some personal connection; there always is.
Barbara
@Kay: I knew that. It has been reported on. But no one is confident it will continue.
Regarding the pardon — all pardons subvert the justice system but there’s no doubt Hunter Biden’s case was not just politically motivated but that its disposition was subject to political interference.
TBone
This short video clip from her eulogy is *chef’s kiss
I’m fighting the urge to get too cynical…this helped.
WereBear
@Kay: Though I saw video of empty Wal-Marts on Black Friday.
Some neighborhoods took opportunities to take issue with their DEI reversal.
Chris Johnson
@Princess: This. Anyone who wants to spin this is by definition unserious.
About time Biden got up to speed. He’s probably saved his son’s life, Hunter would’ve been killed in a Trump-controlled prison.
Chris Johnson
@Princess: If it’s in line with other stuff, he’s tied up with the people who’re bringing it in. Making him literally on the opposite side of what he’s pretending to be.
Akin to him harping on ‘russia russia russia hoax’ when now they’re using TASS to remind him of his responsibilities to them, and MTG is publically threatening her fellow Congresspeople on behalf of Russia and vowing that they didn’t have just only Epstein getting kompromat, but other agents too!
So that’d imply HE is aligned with malign forces bringing fentanyl into the country, or trying to. Wouldn’t surprise me. See if he continues harping on it, that’s a tell.
Kay
@p.a.:
They can buy whatever they want but stop saying you can’t afford food if you’re buying TEN BILLION in scented candles. These are budgeting choices.
I’ve seen an actual bad economy. I’ve seen 16% unemployment and the notice section of the newspaper with ten pages of foreclosure notices and sheriffs sales. Retail sales dropped. Travel/restaurant spending all but stopped. This is not that.
p.a.
@Geminid: Check out TPM on what NC’s legislature is attempting.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/north-carolina-gops-new-power-grab-is-a-recipe-for-disaster-for-elections-too
rikyrah
@JoyceH:
When your mother reads you for filth…
You ain’t shyt😒
rikyrah
@Kay:
They were always lying, Kay.
It was never about the economy 😕
NotMax
@different-church-lady
Two possibilities.
1) Carefully folded and put into a rickety old chest of drawers in the attic, right below the drawer with the WIN buttons.
2) We smoked them.
rikyrah
@satby:
He did right.
If Hunter was your garden variety Upper Class White Man…
He never would have been charged in the first place.
Kay
@Barbara:
We’re seeing this interesting thing. Addicts are self medicating with legal weed and actually getting off opiates. It’s anecdotal but I was at a juvenile law conference and they’re seeing it all over Ohio. We encounter addicted parents a lot in juvie courts because of abuse, neglect and dependency proceedings. As you know, nothing else worked – opiate addiction was basically a terminal disease. Weed seems to work. I hope Big Pharma studies it :)
different-church-lady
Gosh, they’re lucky they’re not Democrats. Otherwise they’d have a problem.
NotMax
@different-church-lady
No secret that hot air rises.
//
different-church-lady
@rikyrah: Well now you’re saying the obvious part out loud.
Baud
@Kay:
I expect a crack down on weed.
Geminid
@p.a.: I guessing the TPM item is about Senate Bill 362 that Governor Cooper vetoed last week. Republicans in the legislature will attempt to override that veto this week. They might even try today if they think they have “the tickets,” as 19th century politician Abraham Lincoln would say.
hells littlest angel
@Kay: Walmart parking lots are filled with cars and trucks people can’t afford to put gas into.
stinger
Even though I’m pretty sure the made-up term “the Winklevoss twins” is included just for laughs*, it’s important to know who the others are — the people actually running this country. Howery, Nosek, Luckey, Malik, Coogan are new to me; Koch, Musk, Mercer, Andreessen I was aware of. Know thine enemy.
*Wasn’t that the name of a pair of evil foxes in ’50s Donald Duck comic books?
Kay
My youngest is a Lefty – protested US policy in Gaza on his college campus, threatened to not vote for Biden but then did vote for Harris. I told him I’m done with campaign work – if coddled, pampered Americans are too fucking stupid to realize what they have and throw it all away with a tantrum over inflation then I’m not wasting my (valuable and precious) time.
He REALLY pushed back – told me one can’t give up, etc.
It is just so funny what happens when you let go of your end of the rope. He can’t be a burn it all down Lefty without “ continue to prop it all up” liberals like me. It’s like media freaking out over liberals abandoning Twitter. They can’t play this stupid reckless game where they flirt with fascism unless we’re there to assure them we won’t actually let it happen.
Well, no more. It’s sink or swim time. The only thing I’ll be doing is getting young women in anti choice states access to health care, one by one. Americans wanted this – they should get it good and hard. Trump will be a fucking disaster – I say let it happen. It’s the only way Americans will ever learn.
Trivia Man
I keep seeing the bsky footnote that authors dont want these displayed externally. Is that just a hot link they object to or is it the substance of their posts?
Kay
@hells littlest angel:
Trump literally promised them gas under 2 dollars a gallon. But it won’t matter when he doesn’t deliver.No one in media will point it out and US voters have the retention of goldfish. They won’t remember he said it.
stinger
@Geminid:
Trump will claim credit in each case for “bringing troops home”, and most Americans will buy it because they don’t know the facts. Geminid, I always appreciate your clear summaries of what’s going on in other parts of the world.
Trivia Man
@stinger: if the enemy has a name, they can be used as shorthand for scaring people. Rightly (koch brothers) or as a made up bogeyman (Soros).
”Billionaire donors” is a legit evil and a powerful force, but its too abstract to scare enough voters. “Koch” and “Soros” do a lot of heavy lifting. Curious about media mentions for those and other shadow influencers like these “new” billionaire PACs.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Wow, that’s so interesting that his response was to push back! Haven’t had that conversation with my lefty kid yet, but I think you’re right about the general dynamic.
Kay
Glad to see Jane Mayer, Americas Last Real Reporter is still stoically plugging away exposing scumbags. Not that it will matter. Most Americans admire men who abuse women and go out of their way to reward them with top jobs. We’re quite literally the most misogynistic and backwards wealthy western country. US women haven’t figured out yet they’d be better off in any of the other wealthy democracies. They all beat the US on women’s rights and opportunity.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
He was really upset! I adore him so I softened a bit and told him he absolutely should stay engaged at 21 and I hope he does.
I feel like this was inevitable. Democrats couldn’t hold it up alone forever. At some point we were going to lose an election. If Harris had won the Right would have just gone more insane for 4 years and we’d be right back here in 2028. Americans have to LOSE. We need to introduce some moral hazard into their risk taking. Let’s not cushion the blow this time.
Josie
@Princess:
This is so important. We need to start taking notes right now on who to trust and who not to.
Trivia Man
@narya: that sounds like an interesting graphic in the making. Color coded for WHY each one is a despicable saboteur. I am mostly disengaged from politics for right now but if that gets created i would be very interested.
With apologies to Tolstoy, all decent politicians are alike. But every despicable politician is despicable in a unique way.
Another Scott
@Kay: He’s right, IMHO.
We owe it to our parents and grandparents, and those less fortunate and less privileged than us, to keep working to make things better for those who come after us.
Something something good men (and women) to do nothing.
My $0.02.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Kay
@Another Scott:
My paternal grandmother was a garment worker in Scranton Pennsylvania – proud member of the garment workers union. She quit school in the 6th grade. She could barely read. What she did manage to do was to understand basic facts about how the country she lived in worked, and vote every election. She knew where Medicare came from and she proudly paid payroll taxes to fund it. She knew shit had to be paid for.
Im out of fucks to give on behalf of spoiled, coddled people who think living in 1000 square feet is unbearable hardship and they’re entitled to low interest loans – free money – for all the useless shit they buy. They can clean up this mess themselves. They made it. Hopefully they get genuinely expensive food – they’ve never actually experienced that. I want accountability for reckless behavior. They SHOULD deport the workers who feed them – they can starve. It’ll be a good lesson.
Soprano2
@Kay: Oh man, I had a conversation with my future partner Saturday night that’s a perfect illustration of this. He tells me “it’s bad out there” because people are complaining about our higher prices and every time he advertises a job he gets a bunch of applications (which should be called NORMAL). Then he mentions in passing that these same people will spend $100 on Doordash! I told him that completely lost any sympathy I have for them because if they can spend $100 on Doordash they aren’t that broke, then I told him about how I had roommates and worked two jobs, one full time and one part time, so I could actually have some spending money. I don’t mind when people talk about young people having it hard; young people have always had a hard time getting started. What I mind is this “young people have it worse now than at any time in the history of the WORLD” crap, because it’s just not true! When my husband was in his teens young men were being drafted to fight in a war. So who had it worse?
Geminid
@Geminid: From Middle East Eye correspondent Ragip Soylu:
Turkish, Russian and Iranian officials have met before to work out the Syria question in what they named the “Astana Process” after its venue in Kazakhstan(?).
Soprano2
I told my manager that if we have a really bad economy all these people who think it’s bad now will be crying all the time.
Soprano2
The more I think about it and listen to people, the more I think it was people voting to try to go back before Covid happened. I definitely think it was partly about the economy as well as other things.
Glidwrith
@stinger: Gods, those names read like the seven dwarves, only it’s the nine dicks.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2: I think it was people voting to go back before the Civil War happened.
different-church-lady
@Kay: Mexico still owes us for the wall, right?
Soprano2
@different-church-lady: Yeah, I think there was some of that too. I’m thinking mostly of the low info voters. They seem to honestly believe TCFG can lower prices in the grocery store and make gas be less than $2.00/gal. Of course, none of them remember why gas was so cheap in 2020…….
Soprano2
This is harsh but fair IMHO. I grew up in the 1970’s and graduated college in 1983, during what was unquestionably the worst economy of my lifetime. People got used to no inflation and 2% interest on home loans, which is certainly not normal. If people today lived the way we did when I was growing up, they’d be considered poor, but we were middle class. My father had a professional job.
I don’t want a bad economy, but I’m afraid we might get one. I look for the stock market to go down during TCFG’s presidency, too, because it’s kind of overvalued right now. I never believed any of the people who were whining that their 401K’s did better when TCFG was president. Unless you were the world’s worst investor that was impossible with the way the market has performed the past 4 years.
Kayla Rudbek
@AnonPhenom: I sometimes think that this goes back to the Reformation and how they dissolved the monasteries and convents to take the land and money, and left the people who relied on them in the streets
Kayla Rudbek
@Chris Johnson: every accusation a confession. You tell no lies.
Miss Bianca
@Kay:
IKR? For all the short-term (and long-term) damage it would do, I kind of find myself hoping that Democrats in Congress just drop their end of the rope. Stop trying to mitigate the damage that the GOP plans on doing, and let them do it. Drive the country into a fucking ditch.
Except of course they’ll get blamed for the wreckage because of course, the Party of Personal Responsibility can never, ever, be held accountable for the political destruction it causes.
RevRick
@Kay: In Hebrew, the derivatives of the word hope are wait and rope. In essence, dropping one end of the rope is to give up hope. Us white peoples need to take a lesson from our fellow black and Indigenous people, who had every reason to drop the rope, but against the odds did not.
RevRick
@Kay: It’s impossible to get the price of gasoline under $2/gallon. The economics just don’t work. The current price of a barrel of crude oil is a bit over $68. That’s $1.73/gallon right at the wellhead alone. Then you have to ship it to the refinery, refine it, ship it to the distribution terminal, ship it to individual gasoline stations, and make a profit at each step in the process. Given that $60/barrel is the rock bottom price for crude, because at that price it becomes unprofitable to drill new wells, a promise of $2/gallon oil is absurd.
Bill Arnold
@Princess:
Fentanyl has been demonized way beyond reality by many on the right wing. Notably, the cop freakouts when possibly handling or even being near fentanyl. (Which is an extremely potent substance, but intake into the body is through only certain pathways. E.g. not through skin without a carrier like with a fentanyl patch.)
It is quite possible that Trump believes these stories to be true.
Even if he didn’t write that post; his ghostwriters channel him to the best of their ability.
ETA: While fentanyl can be absorbed across the skin, this happens only with constant direct contact over hours and days. Still, you should avoid touching fentanyl. Skin absorption can be increased by using alcohol-based hand sanitizers, bleach, and excessive sweating.
Bill Arnold
@Kay:
Stickers on gas pumps quoting Mr. Trump would remind people.
tam1MI
I agree with this 110 percent! The Dems have been a party of enablers for too long. Lefties and the Media alike have refused to see the light, let them feel the heat and see how much they like it.
Barbara
@Kay: Way late, but in defense of big Pharma, the DEA has made it almost impossible for anyone to study the efficacy of cannabis in any form for any health condition. The legalization movement is way ahead of any actual proof that cannabis has health benefits. I nonetheless agree that it should not be criminal, and that it is certainly no worse than alcohol, which itself is legal without any underlying proof that it has medical uses.
@Another Scott: No, there is a limit to what any one individual owes to anyone else. Of course, I am going to focus on vulnerable people in my orbit, like my sister, who definitely didn’t vote for Trump, but I am not going to worry endlessly about an entire generation that seems determined not to understand how things they rely on work and where they come from. Have been testing negative for sympathy for a while now.
And just so it’s clear, I haven’t “given up” but will continue to work in the upcoming Virginia election and for causes and candidates I believe in, but the bleeding heart has run dry for now.
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: This is something that infuriates me: idiots who scream that Democrats are communists yet who demand economic policies that are only possible in a command economy. You know how we can get to $2.00/gal gas prices? Government mandated price caps. That or nationalize the domestic oil and gas industry. Again and again, white rural Americans demand socialist policies without understanding that they’re socialist policies (and more socialist than any elected Dem other than Bernie Sanders would ever propose).
Of course, we all know that the assholes really have no concept of what socialism or communism is and don’t care to learn. They call us communists because they know that they can’t get away with calling us race traitors, if not “[n-word] lovers.”
No One You Know
@satby: Yup. Exactly so. And he waited until the last moment to do it, which feels proper as well.
Jacel
I suspect that these statistics about the relative donations to the parties don’t account for the off-the-books PAC or other untracked funds spent on behalf of mainly Republicans.