Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

I did not have this on my fuck 2024 bingo card.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Let there be snark.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Don’t expect peaches from an apple tree.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / What the Hell is Going on in Some People’s Heads?

What the Hell is Going on in Some People’s Heads?

by | 128 Comments

This post is in: 

First, Joe and Mika seem to have completely lost the plot yesterday:

David Frum just shared a disturbing anecdote from an appearance this morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. According to his short article at The Atlantic, he made a flippant reference to reporting that Pentagon nominee Pete Hegseth was known for drinking on the job at Fox News. The specific line was: “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.”

He went on to compare the case to that of John Tower in 1989, a long-serving senator whose Secretary of Defense nomination (Dick Cheney got the nod after Tower bowed out) was torpedoed over claims of drinking and womanizing. According to David, after he said this, an MSNBC producer piped up in his ear objecting to his comments and warning him not to repeat them. Not long after, David was ushered off the set, apparently sooner than expected. Then Mika Brzezinski read out an apology for what he’d said.

Apparently Joe is yelling at everyone who criticized them today but I’m too lazy to dig up the video (I saw it go by on Bluesky, which really, really needs bookmarks.). I guess Trump’s election just broke their brains?

Second, Ro Khanna, smh:

What the Hell is Going on in Some People's Heads?

Strong “pick me” energy there.  I get the strategy, which is to look for common ground and also expose Musk and Ramaswamy when they back away from doing anything to cut defense, but this comes off as pathetic to me.

Reader Interactions

128Comments

  1. 1.

    Old School

    I’m not on Bluesky, but here’s an X version:

    Wow! @JoeNBC just blasted his viewers this morning in the most condescending way for criticizing him & Mika for going to Mar-a-Lago to talk to Trump ‘on background.

    ’My issue wasn’t that they went, it wasn’t that they told us about it, it was the way they presented it on air.  They normalized the man who wants to be an autocrat and weaponize the DOJ against his perceived enemies. pic.twitter.com/kdADuvNjDP— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) December 5, 2024

  3. 3.

    Steve LaBonne

    Anecdata: nobody at church, including at a Zoom meeting last night of our racial justice team which I am on, has been talking about Assmouth at all. I think people have learned to ignore his weapons of mass distraction and are waiting for specific depredations that can be opposed with concrete actions.

  4. 4.

    Steve LaBonne

    @matt: Never trust a techbro or techbro-loving politician. Modern equivalent of the robber barons and their hired politicians.

  5. 5.

    Dave

    @Steve LaBonne: That is good. It can’t be that black and white but jumping everytime he plays a tune is a losers game.

    As for Mika and Joe I’ve found them useful as guide of where a certain kind of upper middle class mostly white person is at. Kinda the generally bad but tolerable quadrant moderate conservatives inhabit.

    That they are going down this particular path is illuminating.

  7. 7.

    RaflW

    Khanna joins the ranks of obsequious fucks like Gov. Polis who look at Mitch McConnell’s successful total-obstruction tactic and say “Nahh, I’d rather prostrate myself to Trumpism.” Why can’t these people learn a god dammed thing?

  8. 8.

    kindness

    I am not a Ro Khanna fan.  When he ran against a great Democratic rep, MIke Honda it was a slap in the face.  I’ve just assumed the asshole is strong with that one ever since.

  16. 16.

    Dave

    @Omnes Omnibus: Besides that would only hurt a Democrat even if true. The uh earthier voters he activated would love it and the rest will hold their noses and think of the beautiful hierarchies he’s promised to reinforce and preserve.

  20. 20.

    raven

    They have these things on TV’s where you can actually change the channel or even turn it off.

  21. 21.

    Geminid

    Syrian rebel forces have chased regime forces out of the city of Hama and are heading to Homs. Hama is the countries 4th largest city and Homs is 3rd after Aleppo and Damascus. Homs is 100 miles from Damascus.

    So far this rebel offensive that began one week ago has not been terribly bloody. Assad’s assault on Aleppo in 2016 resulted in an estimated 33,000 deaths, while in 1982, when his father crushed a revolt in Hama, 40,000 people died. But it looks like the toll since last Thursday numbers in the hundreds, mostly combatants.

    Hopefully there won’t be a battle of Damascus, and Assad runs to a safe country after Homs falls. It likely will, because the Syrian Army looks totally demoralized.

  22. 22.

    Leto

    Can someone send all of our Dem representatives a copy of Snyder’s, “On Tyranny” so they can read point #1 over and over? Hell, he even did a video series on YouTube spending 10 mins on each chapter and explaining the meaning behind each chapter. This is why we can’t have an effective opposition party.

  23. 23.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @RaflW:

    Polis is simply another glibertarian, techbro (net worth $400m) who attached a (D) after his name because it was the only way to have a political career here.  15 years ago before the tsunami of pale-blue whites flocked here from every burb in the country, he would have had an (R) after his name and done okay politically.

  25. 25.

    Jeffro

    eff people (especially those in positions of power of any kind) who roll over and play nice with trumpov

    sure they have their reasons…they just have no excuses

  27. 27.

    jonas

    The suits at MSNBC are obviously in a panic after the election and their viewership went into a tailspin. Predictably, their response is to try to become Fox Lite, which never, ever works (ask CNN) because people already have Classic Fox to turn to.

  28. 28.

    hrprogressive

    Once you see the Democratic Party as a captured, controlled opposition Party, instead of one that genuinely wants to oppose what the Fascist GOP wants, it will all start making sense.

  29. 29.

    Jeffro

    @Leto: Can someone send all of our Dem representatives a copy of Snyder’s, “On Tyranny” so they can read point #1 over and over? Hell, he even did a video series on YouTube spending 10 mins on each chapter and explaining the meaning behind each chapter. This is why we can’t have an effective opposition party.

    that, or a copy of Jason Stanley’s “How Fascism Works“

  30. 30.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro:  (good summary in one of the reviews) Fascist politics includes many distinct strategies: the mythic past, propaganda, anti-intellectualism, unreality, hierarchy, victimhood, law and order, sexual anxiety, appeals to the heartland, and a dismantling of public welfare and unity. Though a defense of certain elements is legitimate and sometimes warranted, there are times in history when they come together in one party or political movement. These are dangerous moments. In the United States today, Republican politicians employ these strategies with more and more frequency. Their increasing tendency to engage in this politics should give honest conservatives pause.

  32. 32.

    Leto

    @Jeffro: or Matthew McWilliams, “On Fascism: 12 Lessons from American History.” I feel like we have a g-d plethora of literature on this subject, on how to recognize it, and how to resist it. *insert Will Ferrell from Zoolander: “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!”

  33. 33.

    Ramona

    @matt: I’ve not heard Ro Khanna be right on any issue either. I forget the details of the shenanigans he pulled early in 2020 but I developed a strong antipathy to him then.

  35. 35.

    gene108

    It’s sad.

    Democrats are unable to define themselves to the public, thus Republicans step in and define Democrats.

    Trump was an existential threat to democracy, during the 2024 campaign, and now Democrats are bending over backwards to work with his administration?

    Democrats should no longer wonder why people think they stand for nothing that matters to “ordinary” people. They don’t even believe what they talked about during the 2024 campaign.

  36. 36.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Do keep in mind that Joe Scarborough has rumors about him murdering an intern now for a long time (I was under the impression that the infamous Clinton Death list was an attempt by Scarborough to deflect attention from him)  No one if going to fight Trump on him having a legitimate crime investigated.

    One of the things that a lot of white people don’t get about white privilege is privileges aren’t rights, and can be taken away.

  38. 38.

    Leto

    @Jeffro: Umberto Eco: A Practical List for Identifying Fascists

    In an essay published in the New York Review of Books, Eco distilled the 14 typical elements of “Ur-Fascism or Eternal Fascism,” while warning that, “These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.”

    The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”

    The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense, Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”

    The cult of action for action’s sale. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”

    Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture, the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”

    Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”

    Appeal to social frustration. “[…] one of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.

    The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”

    The enemy is both weak and strong. “[…] the followers must be convinced that they can overwhelm the enemies. Thus, by a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”

    Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”

    Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”

    Everybody is educated to become a hero. “in Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”

    Machismo and Weaponry. “This is the origin of machismo (which implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality). Since even sex is a difficult game to play, the Ur-Fascist hero tends to play with weapons—doing so becomes an ersatz phallic exercise.”

    Selective Populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.

    Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

  40. 40.

    JoyceH

    I think it’s interesting to contrast the qualifications of Tower and Hegseth. Tower was entirely disqualified by the drinking and womanizing because other than that, he was overwhelmingly qualified to be Secdef. With Hegseth, if you ignore the drinking and womanizing, what have you got? A fellow who mismanaged two small non-profits into bankruptcy, and other than that, being a TV talker. NO qualifications for the job at all – none.

  41. 41.

    trollhattan

    Harry Litman: “I have written my last op-ed for the Times. Yesterday, I resigned my position. I don’t want to continue to work for a paper that is appeasing Trump and facilitating his assault on democratic rule for craven reasons.”

    Not that Times, the LA one. We discovered during the campaign its billionaire owner is a chickenshit lowlife who uses his own kid to lead his defense.

    The US West does not have a “paper of record,” which is kinda sad but indicative of journalism as a whole.

  42. 42.

    Dave

    @zhena gogolia: Yes partly Trump lost popular vote and it was probably assumed his support would not prove durable.

    His win this time changed the calculation in a way that is might as well have been designed to ensure a good portion of our press, consulting class, and not a huge number but far too high of Democratic politicians roll over, show their bellies, and piss themselves.

  43. 43.

    WTFGhost

    I’ve seen people discussing blanket pardons, and it’s the wrong time for that. Blanket pardons would give people reason to engage in violence against the traitors.

    I know, I know, you wanted a bloodless revolution, but there won’t be one. People won’t realize how horrible Republicans are until there’s literal blood in the street (well – a lot more than there is already).

    I’m sorry, but Black  people and gay people and, I assume, womenfolk could have told you, advancing freedom doesn’t come without beatdowns of one form or another. We may need to see Schiff and Cheney arrested and sentenced to prison. That sucks for them, it really does, but, if they are pardoned, it “proves” there’s corruption, because, there hasn’t been enough blood in the streets, yet, to get people to notice. So you can’t pretend you’re protecting them, yet.

    I’m sorry, but I think I’m also correct. Too much protection = Trumpism survives and possibly strengthens, because of the vast marxist fascist communist leftist conspiracy.

  44. 44.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Leto:

    This is why we can’t have an effective opposition party.

    We can, we just have to work at it more and more often.

  45. 45.

    theturtlemoves

    Khanna is another douchebag who is dazzled by the brilliance of Elon and the techbros, who are all just a stupid person’s idea of a smart person. I say that as an employee of giant evil tech corporation who works with a lot of those techbros. They are mostly in sales, BTW. :)

  47. 47.

    dm

    Ro Khana’s comment seems pretty good to me — he starts by establishing some bona fides for knowing something about government waste, then says, “Let’s start with the Pentagon”. Not too different from when Bernie said “Musk is right, and I know where we’ll find tons of waste — the Pentagon!”

    Both these statements are highlighting the fact that Musk’s little dog and pony show is not about waste at all.

  50. 50.

    John S.

    @Dave:

    Democratic politicians roll over, show their bellies, and piss themselves

    Alas, this is often true regardless of whether they win or lose their elections.

  51. 51.

    Leto

    @JoyceH: I think it’s an interesting look at how there was still some form of shame with Republicans, general sense of good governance, but that’s effectively evaporated. Every single one of his nominations is deeply unqualified to run a hot dog stand. Any type of federal agency? I don’t know if kakistocracy even really qualifies for how bad this will be, but I guess we’ll all find out!

  52. 52.

    Steve LaBonne

    @dm: Exactly the kind of “clever” strategy that goes right over the heads of stupid voters, who only hear “Democrats agree with Skum and Ramaswamy!”.

  53. 53.

    Suzanne

    I wouldn’t mind some rhetoric from the Dems about Trump’s promises, like “We’ll hold him to it”.

    Gas prices below $2? Let’s hold him to it!
    Lower prices on eggs? We’ll hold him to it!

    Repeat, repeat, repeat!

    Has the benefit of keeping those promises fresh in people’s minds and accentuates the impending failure.

  54. 54.

    gene108

    @zhena gogolia:

    Am I misremembering, or were they more oppositional in 2016? I seem to think they were. So were the media.

    I think people were more oppositional in 2016.

    I think Trump being immune from consequences, right-wing media, the SCOTUS, Judge Canon, etc. have worn us down to being numb in the face of unrelenting cruelty, mind boggling favoritism by the courts, and relentless right-wing propaganda that has thoroughly sunk into many people’s belief systems.

    People really did work to oppose Trump and Trumpism and it never went away, which demoralizing. Despite our successes in 2018 and 2020, and now Trumpism is back more popular than it was in 2016 and 2020.

    I am honestly surprised Democrats and liberalism, in general, can still win or even be competitive given the structural advantages Republicans have regarding money, media, etc. I mean there’s billions of dollars Republican donors are willing to spend to keep an army of Chris Rufo’s employed hoping one of them finds something to rule up the conservative base and dominate the news, like Rufo did.

    I honestly get wanting to shutdown. We threw what should’ve been a haymaker in 2018 and didn’t do any real damage.

  56. 56.

    Dave

    @John S.: It’s not even most of them just enough and probably a few more that would but have enough cover not most of them are solid but even when you win if you have idiocy of the Senate and anything but massive margins you can’t afford that.

     

    @Steve LaBonne: I’ve read it and it’s a beautiful article one of those things that will be forever pertinent. I should save that link myself.

  57. 57.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @JoyceH:

    NO qualifications for the job at all – none.

    Hegseth’s one and only qualifications: confirming him will own the libs!

  59. 59.

    Leto

    @Suzanne: I’m always down for that. I know it’s been thrown around as a joke, but getting little Trumpov stickers saying, “I did that!,” ala the Biden style stickers, is the perfect thing to do. Simple and effective. I don’t trust all of our reps to stick to the message, and we know the media won’t, so might as well try a small scale/local campaign to do it.

  61. 61.

    cain

    @Geminid: are the rebels pro-Hezbollah? Just wondering what the balance of power is going to be and whether this will make Iran more powerful.

  62. 62.

    WhatsMyNym

    @trollhattan:

    paper of record

    Has the west coast ever had a paper of record? I’ve never found one. I do still glance at The Seattle Times. I tried the LA Times but they heavily LA centric.
    I grew up in Chicago area, NY Times was always a joke of a newspaper.

  63. 63.

    Layer8Problem

    @hrprogressive:  Wow.  Such hot take.  Much progressive.

    I’m betting the “hr” in hrprogressive stands for Human Resources, because you act like you’re helping the rest of us while you’re furthering the cause of the suits.

  64. 64.

    Geminid

    @Lapassionara: Among other news sites, Middle East Eye has good reporting on this conflict.

    Events are moving so fast I’ve been relying on news aggregators Visegrad24 and Clash Report for reporting. Clash Report has a pro-Turkiye bias while Visegrad24 has an anti-Turkiye bias, so they cancel each other out more or less.

    On the diplomatic front, the Foreign Ministers of Russia, Turkiye and Iran will meet on the sidelines of a conference in Qatar tomorrow.

    I find Turkiye’s Foreign Minister, Hakan Fidan to be a very interesting man. Fidan finished out his career as a non-commissioned officer in the Turkish Army with a Ph.D. in International Affairs, and was teaching at an Istanbul university in 2005 when Prime Minister Erdogan tapped him to be his diplomatic troubleshooter.

    Fidan was head of the Turkish intelligence agency M.I.T. for 11 years before Erdogan made him Foreign Minister in May of 2023. That was a smart move on the undiplomatic Erdogan’s part. Much of the region’s diplomacy is done through the various nations’ intelligence chiefs, and Fidan knows the other players well.

    Fidan is a physically imposing figure who looks like an NFL tight end. Interestingly, his father is Kurdish.

  65. 65.

    gene108

    @Suzanne:

    I wouldn’t mind some rhetoric from the Dems about Trump’s promises, like “We’ll hold him to it”.

    Gas prices below $2? Let’s hold him to it!
    Lower prices on eggs? We’ll hold him to it!

    Right-wing media will brag about how inflation has leveled off under Trump, since it’s already leveled off under Biden, which will convince a large percentage of the population prices have come down.

    Once Trump is sworn in the price of eggs will appear cheaper to many Americans. The price of gas lower than it was in 2019.

    There’s no way I can think of to handle people who occupy a different reality than what is observable.

    No amount of flashing observable reality before their eyes will get through the barriers they’ve put up to defend Trump.

  68. 68.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @cain: The rebels are pro-Turkey, as much as anything can be said in a civil war with seven sides to it.

  69. 69.

    Poe Larity

    @Origuy: Am not amused MyShake is going off on something 250 miles away when I’m showering. Range is apparently not configurable. I suspect a lot of people will turn it off now.

  70. 70.

    Harrison Wesley

    I’ve watched way too much Ted Lasso. Every time I see ‘Ro Khanna’ I read it as ‘Roy Kent.’

  72. 72.

    Belafon

    @gene108: Which is why every price change will have to be pinned on him.

    You’re right at one level. Until reality gets too painful, they’re not much any direct messaging will change. But, when it does, the message needs to be ready to point at him.

  73. 73.

    trollhattan

    @gene108:

    Trump lies and it’s simply not an issue because his fans don’t care. “Trump being Trump” is they best you’ll get; more commonly it’s “he never said that. Fake news!”

    Fact-checking Trump is a fool’s mission.

  74. 74.

    Mike E

    @raven: please tell that to my sister and brother-in-law, nonstop MSNBC viewers but at least they have a big house where I can comfortably go and ignore it all

  78. 78.

    azlib

    There is “waste” in the Pentagon budget, but it is mostly driven by Congresscritters who always want Defense spending in their districts to not be cutback. The Pentagon often says we do not really need that widget, but the represenative of the district where the widget is manufactered will always say it is essential.

  80. 80.

    Geminid

    @cain: I’m pretty sure the rebels are not pro-Hezbollah. In 2013, when the rebels had Assad on the ropes, Hezbollah helped save him. They killed a lot of people too, including Palestinians. When Israel killed Hezbollah chief Nasrallah a couple months ago, I was struck how some Palestinians took a break from denouncing Israel’s violence in Gaza to celebrate Nasrallah’s death.

    The Assads are Alawites, a religious minority in Syria. They are part of the broader Shi’ite group and the Assads found Hezbollah and Iran to be natural allies for repressing Syria’s Sunni majority. This conflict’s sectarian nature has made it an unusually bitter one.

    One could blame France for this. When the they took over both Syria and Lebanon after the Ottomans lost them in WWI, the French ran a classic colonialist play: they filled Syria’s officer corps with Alawites in order to better keep the Sunni majority down. Hafez Assad was a product of that system.

  81. 81.

    trollhattan

    @WhatsMyNym:

    Never a consensus one in my view, even as LA Times considered itself that. They had tremendous clout in the Chandler family years and at one time partnered with WaPo to challenge NYT.

    SF Chron, SJ Mercury News, Sac Bee/McClatchy, Portland Oregonian, Seattle Times, Denver Post all did meaningful journalism in their heydays and each is a husk, today.

  83. 83.

    Citizen Alan

    @Origuy:  Didn’t even notice it in Fresno (7 hours away by car). Court building in Sacramento was evac’d for about an hour and then given the all-clear.

  84. 84.

    NutmegAgain

    Wowzers, the Trumpettes must really have some damning and devastating film footage of those two. “We hold your strings, now dance you fuckers!”

  87. 87.

    Geminid

    @Harrison Wesley: The rebels have Al Qaeda antecedents as well. The head of the HTM militia that has taken the lead in this fight has a U.S. bounty on his head. But Mohammed al-Joulani is at least talking like a liberal pluralist now, and he may mean it. We’ll see in the next few weeks if he does. Some people can change.

  88. 88.

    HumboldtBlue

    7.0 earthquake in the normal Gorda plate spot, it sucked badly, apartment swayed so much I couldn’t stand up. All is well, other than my nerves.​

  90. 90.

    Leto

    @HumboldtBlue: 76 earthquake? Is the planet still intact? What is your apartment made of? :P

    Silly jokes aside, glad you’re ok. Have a spot of chocolate, or maybe a nice beverage to help calm those nerves :)

  92. 92.

    gene108

    @Layer8Problem:

    @Marmot:

    I, a random internet commenter, do not know how to refute with right-wing propaganda machine does not mean quitting. It’s acknowledging a bad situation that is beyond my power to deal with.

  95. 95.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Geminid: I dunno. If I was an Alawite or a Christian or a Druze or a Yazidi, I would getting the hell out of Syria. Shoot,if I was a mainstream Sunni I’d probably leave.

  98. 98.

    different-church-lady

    @gene108: ​

    There’s no way I can think of to handle people who occupy a different reality than what is observable.

    Mr. Orwell can give you some insight.

  99. 99.

    Princess

    I never thought this before but Morning Joe’s reaction is making me wonder if there actually was something behind the story of Scarborough and that dead intern and someone knows something and Joe has been warned.

  100. 100.

    The Other Bob

    @Suzanne:

    I wouldn’t mind some rhetoric from the Dems about Trump’s promises, like “We’ll hold him to it”.

    Gas prices below $2? Let’s hold him to it!
    Lower prices on eggs? We’ll hold him to it!

    Repeat, repeat, repeat!

    Has the benefit of keeping those promises fresh in people’s minds and accentuates the impending failure.

    Adding a few:

    100% Tariff’s on China?  Let’s hold him to it.
    Peace in Ukraine in 24 Hours? Let’s hold him to it.

  102. 102.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Didn’t feel the earthquake and didn’t get the Shake Alert because my phone was off during a doctors appointment. But the tsunami alert scared the hell out of me.

    Fortunately it appears the quake moved laterally (not vertically) meaning not that much ocean water was displaced, which turn means we probably won’t have a significant tsunami. We’ll find out here in the SF Bay Area in about 10 minutes. Lots of evacuations to be on safe side.

    UPDATE: Tsunami warning was just cancelled.

  103. 103.

    Kay

    People LOVE austerity! Except it doesn’t work and it will be dumber than the last time they did this in 2010.

    Democrats lost 60 house seats, 5 senate seats and half the governors when these morons last pushed this.

    Watch media though – they hate that regular people have social safety net programs. They cheer led in 2010 and they’re doing it again.

    Maybe they don’t want power. They prefer a pat on the head from media.

  104. 104.

    CaseyL

    @gene108: ​

    Yes! I was angry, unbelievably angry, when I saw *Biden,* of all people, welcome Trump the WH with smiles and a promise of a smooth transition.

    I have rarely said a word against President Biden, ever. I love the man. I fought as hard as I could to keep him as the nominee, right up to the day he stepped aside. But that act, that singular act, did feel like betrayal.

    And the Dems in Congress also trying to normalize a fascist government, saying “We will fight for you!” to us out of one side of their mouths, and talking about “working with the GOP” out of the other side of their mouths.

    After weeks, months, of saying Trump and MAGA were the greatest threats to America since WWII? Now it’s “Let us work together!” ?

    I am not ready to “give up” or “comply in advance” by any means – it’s just, I don’t know, what are effective oppositional and resistance tactics when the elected officials on one’s own putative side have themselves given up?

  105. 105.

    Kay

    When Mike Lee brings up abolishing Social Security “root and branch” these dumb shits  will want to have a theoretical discussion about it.

    They can’t be this dumb. They have to get better, fast.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    It’s Elon Musk. Its the shitty liberal male worship of Elon Musk.  They wish they could treat women like shit and have 12_children they never see.

    They admire that.

  108. 108.

    Geminid

    @Harrison Wesley: The Druze aren’t going anywhere. One of the rules in the Levant seems to be: Do Not Fuck With The Druze.

    We’ll see what the other Syrian communities do. To me, this is a good opportunity to keep an open mind and learn. It’s the culmination of a very destructive civil war that started 13 years and has never gotten much attention in the U.S.

    Like I noted above, Middle East Eye has good reporting. Saudi-based Al-Arabiya and Qatar-based Al Jazeera do too. One advantage of those two sites is a reader can get a sense of Saudi and Qatari policy from the way the conflict is reported.

    Tasnim News is Iran’s semi-official newspaper and it can be read similarly. At least I think so; I don’t think I’ve read Tasnim since this summer, when the Israelis killed six IRGC officers in the building next to Iran’s embassy in Damascus and Tasnim published their obituaries. They all spent a lot of their careers in Syria helping build Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.”

  109. 109.

    Old Man Shadow

    @Kay: I’ve often joked that when Democratic party leaders are being dragged to their executions, they will insist on penning a VERY strongly worded letter.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    A lot of liberals loved Elon Musk. So cool! So edgy! They never fucking understood he’s just another authoritarian billionaire who hates women.

  112. 112.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Kay:

    The effects of Austerity!™ are never popular, unless you’re rich.

    For the right, Austerity!™ has always meant “cutting shit we don’t like”.  For Dems, it means “we’ve allowed the other side to frighten us into adopting their talking points”…again.

    It’s always been glibertarian econ policy to use debt, mainly thru tax decreases at the top end, to force popular social programs into seemingly unaffordable deficits. Alas, this also falls under the neoliberal playbook which too many on our side not only buy into but shill like nobody’s business.

    Austerity!™ economics has been described as ‘Aztec Economics”.  You stand at the top of the tower and rip the hearts out of the less powerful until the merciless gods are appeased and the harvest is bountiful again.

  113. 113.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @SiubhanDuinne: It happened at the triple junction between the American, Pacific and Juan de Fuca plates (at the north of the San Andreas Fault), which reportedly is one of the most frequent location of 7.0+ quakes in the world. USGS scientist said they happen roughly every 20 years.

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @CaseyL:

    I think our guide shou!d be this question: “is this performative norming we’re doing A LIE”

    The meeting with Trump was complete bullshit and every Democrat knew it. Its not even a norm. Trump didn’t do it for Biden, so therefore no longer a norm.

    We can clarify this by insisting that our side stop lying.

    The flip side holds too. Media invented a norm about pardons. A lie. Therefore Biden’s pardon hews more closely to the truth so we should support.

  117. 117.

    Kay

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Its just so funny that the dopes in media think this is new. Trump hired a bunch of hatchet men to cut popular programs because he’s a fucking coward who plans on lying to his supporters.Like every budget gimmick ever. These people have the recall of goldfish.

  119. 119.

    Geminid

    @Kay: I’ve noticed a real Musk mystique among Turks I see on Twitter. He’s a real celebrity over there, at least among other men. They don’t seem to be that concerned about Musk tampering with the news through his control of Twitter, either. They assume that if it’s not one Yankee trying to propagandize them it’s another.

    From what I’ve heard, Turks are genuinely hospitable and friendly towards Americans who visit their county. But it’s easy to see from Turkish social media that they are also very cynical about the U.S. government and power structure.

  120. 120.

    Kay

    We have the Toledo Symphony for Christmas program tonight and my (really nice) husband buys tickets for some lawyers and clerks and para!egals that he deals with. Its fun. Some bring kids (over 12) and I love kids. BUT I am exhausted and I dont feel that well so tested for covid. Negative. Drat.

    I am not getting out of this :)

  121. 121.

    stacib

    @Princess: The woman’s family has spoken publicly about this several times.  It was a medical emergency that killed her, and they’ve asked several times that folks stop saying Scarborough did it.

  122. 122.

    weasel

    @JaySinWA: ​
    I was just popping in to share that detail on the Pin emoji. Just found about about it lasterday and wanted to share as it is something I’d really been missing :)

  123. 123.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Origuy: Our phones exploded with warnings (first 2 earthquake warnings, then a tsunami warning), but we didn’t feel anything. we’re about 100 miles SE from the epicenter.

  124. 124.

    Citizen Alan

    @stacib: I actually didn’t know that (about the family, I mean). I never heard anything one way or another about how Lori Klausutis died except that her body was found in Scarborough’s office, a fact which was of supreme disinterest to our worthless prostitute media because they were too obsessed with the murder of Chandra Levy and the resulting Jyhad against Democrat Gary Condit that eventually chased him out of public service even though he was completely innocent. I guaran-damned-tee you that if Joe Fucking Scarborough had been a Democrat and a pretty young intern had been found dead in his office, he would not have landed on his feet with a sinecure at MSNBC.

  125. 125.

    AM in NC

    @Suzanne: 100% this as a strategy EVERY Democrat should be pursuing each and every day until Trump is out of office.  And then do it for EVERY MAGOP office-holder.

    And we, each one of us should be keeping these promises front and center in every way we can online and in meat space.

  127. 127.

    Chris T.

    @Steve LaBonne:

    I heard they did an MRI of his head and didn’t find anything.

    The comedy practically writes itself:

    MEDIC: When Trump’s ear was bleeding, they rushed him to the hospital to check for brain damage.
    PASSERBY: And?
    MEDIC: They didn’t find any.
    PASSERBY: Oh, so no brain damage.
    MEDIC: No… no brain.

  128. 128.

    Chris T.

    @pacem appellant:

    JFC. Ro Khanna is my rep. :-( Somebody primary him immediately.

    Yeah, I’m glad that when I lived in the SFBayArea it was never San Jose. (I had Barbara Lee most recently.)

    The thing is, he could have phrased this so much better: “I think Musk is a liar, but if he wants to stand up to my challenge, let’s look for efficiencies in the DoD budget.” But that’s not Our Ro.

Comments are closed.