Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

People are weird.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Let there be snark.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Cancel the cowardly WaPo and set up an equivalent monthly donation to ProPublica.

Bark louder, little dog.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

He really is that stupid.

Lick the third rail, it tastes like chocolate!

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Thursday Night Open Thread

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97Comments

  1. 1.

    Trivia Man

    Other countries might have had worse leaders… but i can’t think of any off the top of my head that CHOSE them so willingly and smugly

  3. 3.

    Randal Sexton

    Its hard to guess where this idea of getting rid of the FDIC comes from. I don’t know how to grift off of that.  The crypto crowd maybe ?

  5. 5.

    piratedan

    I predict that there will be a LOT more high profile murders of corporate elites in the next few years.

  10. 10.

    Peale

    @Randal Sexton: fintec, especially the kind that wants to advertise that’s it’s a bank, but not do the basics of being a bank, like keeping accurate records of deposits and accounting or reserves. There was one recently that pretended to be a bank, but then announced that it was really a sweepstakes.

  11. 11.

    Jay

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Technically, no,

    Hitler ran for the presidency in 1932 but was defeated by the incumbent Paul von Hindenburg; nonetheless, he achieved a strong showing of second place in both rounds. Following this, in July 1932 the Nazis became the largest party in the Reichstag, albeit short of an absolute majority. 1933 was a pivotal year for Hitler and the Nazi Party. Traditionally, the leader of the party who held the most seats in the Reichstag was appointed Chancellor. However, President von Hindenburg was hesitant to appoint Hitler as chancellor. Following several backroom negotiations – which included industrialists, Hindenburg’s son Oskar, the former chancellor Franz von Papen, and Hitler – Hindenburg acquiesced and on 30 January 1933, he formally appointed Adolf Hitler as Germany’s new chancellor. Although he was chancellor, Hitler was not yet an absolute dictator.

    The groundwork for the Nazi dictatorship was laid when the Reichstag was set on fire in February 1933. Asserting that the communists were behind the arson, Hitler convinced von Hindenburg to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree, which severely curtailed the liberties and rights of German citizens. Using the decree, Hitler began eliminating his political opponents. Following its passage, Hitler began arguing for more drastic means to curtail political opposition and proposed the Enabling Act of 1933. Once enacted this law gave the German government the power to override individual rights prescribed by the constitution, and vested the Chancellor (Hitler) with emergency powers to pass and enforce laws without parliamentary oversight. The law came into force in March and by April, Hitler held de facto dictatorial powers and used them to order the construction of the first Nazi concentration camp at Dachau for communists and other political opponents. Hitler’s rise to power was completed in August 1934 when, following the death of President von Hindenburg, Hitler merged the chancellery with the presidency and became Führer, the sole leader of Germany.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_rise_to_power

  13. 13.

    Splitting Image

    @Trivia Man:

    Other countries might have had worse leaders… but i can’t think of any off the top of my head that CHOSE them so willingly and smugly

    Karl Marx had some funny things to say on the subject of Louis Bonaparte and the fellows who engineered his rise to power.

    Before that, I think you may have to go back to the Athenians’ embrace of Alcibiades.

  14. 14.

    Kirk

    Wants to fold the insurance into Treasury proper, then get rid of the banking regulation. Partly crypto, partly regulations that don’t “let bankers use reasonable risk in investments” (I think that’s the way I saw it worded)

  15. 15.

    Jeffro

    reposting from the previous open thread that went up just 46 minutes ago…

     

    oh

    you don’t say

    it’s almost like there’s a reason the guy is anti-government, and especially anti-IRS

    Mr. Musk’s ‘charitable’ foundation has fallen further and further behind. In 2021, his foundation was $41 million short, then $234 million the following year. Now, the hole is deeper still.

    Private foundations do have a way to solve the problem if they do not give away enough money. They can distribute more the following year as a make-good. Mr. Musk could choose to do so in 2024.

    Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment. His foundation, which is required to make its tax filings public, provided the 2023 document to The New York Times.

    The I.R.S. appears to be among Mr. Musk’s early targets as a leader of Mr. Trump’s government efficiency initiative. The tax agency serves as the federal government’s charity regulator and thus oversees Mr. Musk’s foundation.

    New tax filings show that the Musk Foundation fell $421 million short of the amount it was required to give away in 2023. Now, Mr. Musk has until the end of the year to distribute that money, or he will be required to pay a sizable penalty to the Internal Revenue Service.

  16. 16.

    TS

    @SpaceUnit:

    Hard to argue with that, looking in from outside.  Main issue being most the rest of the so called “free” world is also fucked. Seeing world leaders bowing to the new leader is nauseating to the extreme.

  20. 20.

    SpaceUnit

    @Jeffro:

    Very soon the IRS will be a very different agency with entirely different priorities and marching orders.

    Musk will be fine.

  23. 23.

    VFX Lurker

    I use a credit union, so I rely on the credit union equivalent — NCUA insurance. Hoping the kakistocracy doesn’t target NCUA.

    I also have savings in I-Bonds and a Treasury money market mutual fund. They’re supposed to be as good as FDIC-backed CDs and bank accounts, because the United States has never defaulted on its debt. Hoping the kakistocracy doesn’t blow that up, too.

  24. 24.

    Peale

    @Jeffro: yep. You know, there was this huge financial shock 4 years ago, and usually when the tide goes out suddenly like that, a lot of junk gets revealed. And not a lot of junk got revealed this time. What he hates about the SEC is that from time to time they’ve tried to make him behave like an actual CEO and with a business with real accounting and some accountability for not being able to make up accounting metrics. That of course impinges on his free speech rights. So they got to go.

  25. 25.

    Martin

    The billionaires really have done a great job of getting the working class and the professional class to scream at each other while they just strip the wires out of everything that both classes rely on.

    I’m a top 5% guy, and the FDIC is still very relevant to me. You gotta get up to the deci-millionaires and up that it no longer is useful.

  26. 26.

    satby

    We’re the dumbest country ever and it really makes you wonder how we got so powerful.

    Being the only standing first world industrial country after a world war decimated all our competition. But, now we’ll finally get to see how the rest of them felt as we sit in the smoking crater of our own economy.

  27. 27.

    Trivia Man

     

    @Gin & Tonic:  my thought process, flawed as it may be, is that Germany was in dire condition and feeling it was hopeless. Recovery from a devastating war with a punitive aftermath. World wide economic turmoil. Revolutions succeeding practically on their doorstep.

    We had a miraculous recovery from a tremendous economic downturn. No apparently dangerous foreign threats in the immediate present. Things looking rosy.

    Nah, better grab the wheel and MAGA!!!! Then after a pandemic recovery and another economic success story… WATCH ME DO IT AGAIN!!!!

  29. 29.

    Peale

    @Kirk: yep. It should be noted that despite all these onerous banking regulations, a grand total of 4 banks failed when the press was all up in arms about there being a huge recession. Two of the banks were involved in some pretty niche lending to businesses that were impacted by COVID, like Broadway shows. One was just a case of old fashioned bank fraud where someone embezzled money. And the other was a run caused by Peter Thiel. The banking system is … too sound?  There isn’t a shortage of capital out there.

  30. 30.

    A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)

    @Suzanne: Americans have always been dumb, but dumb Americans used to be less politically active. If they bothered to vote at all, they split their vote randomly out sheer ignorance. Now the stupid act, and they act in concert.

  31. 31.

    Kay

    Trump says its hard to bring down grocery prices so he doesn’t know if he can do it.

    This is a week after his last interview, where he said he was elected on “groceries and the border”. So 50% gone and he’s not even in there yet.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    I assume between last weeks interview and this weeks interview someone told him they won’t be actually cutting grocery prices.

  33. 33.

    danielx

    We’re the dumbest country ever and it really makes you wonder how we got so powerful.

    It’s a mystery…no, it’s not. Many of our fellow citizens voluntarily became dumb fucks.

  35. 35.

    FastEdD

    I was counting on the FDIC to keep my life savings safe from these bastards. I hear roasted sparrows taste okay if you’re hungry enough.

  38. 38.

    Harrison Wesley

    @Kay: If pressed, his administration’s answer to everything will be straight out of Animal House: “Hey, you fucked up – you trusted us!”

  39. 39.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @VFX Lurker: I have some savings that I need to transfer from one credit union to another, and I think that the simplest way would be to buy T-bills. But now I’m not sure if even that would be a safe option. These idiot RWNJ reactionaries aren’t even good at conservatism, because they can’t and won’t keep things stable.

  42. 42.

    Bupalos

    @Gin & Tonic: seriously. The level of American exceptionalism that still exists, even in this inverted ahistorical, hyper-provincial form of “we’re uniquely dumb” is perhaps the most exceptional thing about us.

    this is all completely normal. Normal all too normal.

  43. 43.

    danielx

    @Shalimar:
    One thing we know for sure: whatever happens, it will not be Donald Trump’s fault.
    ​
    Edit: although it will be a stretch to blame Democrats for whatever disasters occur when Repubs control House, Senate and White House, I have faith.

  44. 44.

    scav

    Thing about many Americans is they’ll sit in the swill of their own making and insist it’s the greatest ever, the worlds’s best, bar none.  Rather like post-empire, let along post-brexit England, only with a lot more Mississippi/Louisiana in it.

  46. 46.

    Bupalos

    @FastEdD: I eat maybe 10-20lbs of acorns every year. They’re ok. I can recommend them crusted with maple sugar served on dandelion greens, and a tangy apple cider vinegar dressing. You need the bitter and acid because they have a strange cloying sweetness a bit like chestnuts.

  48. 48.

    Harrison Wesley

    The level of suffering we’ll witness (and experience) for at least the next few years looks to be pretty intense. Of people who I’m very close to, the ones I worry about most are my older brother in Texas who’s in a nursing home living on some sort of Medicare – Medicaid deal, and my oldest friend in South Carolina who’s a Black woman as well as a disabled senior.  I hope we can put the brakes on the worst of this shit.

  49. 49.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    We’re the dumbest country ever and it really makes you wonder how we got so powerful.

    Manifest Destiny Bitches!

    That and being buffered by two oceans.

  50. 50.

    Splitting Image

    @Suzanne:

    I’m so skeptical of claims like this. I think Americans have been dumb for a long time.

    “A single word indicative of doubt that any thing, or every thing in that country is not the very best in the world, produces an effect which must be seen and felt to be understood. If the citizens of the United States were indeed the devoted patriots they call themselves, they would surely not incrust themselves in the hard, dry, stubborn persuasion, that they are the first and best of the human race, that nothing is to be learned but what they are able to teach, and that nothing is worth having which they do not possess.

    The art of man could hardly discover a more effectual antidote to improvement than this persuasion; and yet I never listened to any public oration, or read any work professedly addressed to the country, in which they did not labour to impress it on the minds of the people.”

    Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans, 1832.

  56. 56.

    opiejeanne

    The Lincoln Savings disaster comes immediately to mind. The Keating 5 were at the center of it.

    We had about $600 on deposit with Lincoln Savings, but I walked it across the street to BofA in… 1972? Can’t remember why I did that, but a few years later I moved our savings to the city employees’ credit union.

  59. 59.

    thruppence

    We’re dinosaurs who have created and aimed our own asteroid. Some of us little mammals tried to stop it, but too many just wanted to sit on their own bushy tails and complain. I’m deeply sorry for those who have children and grandchildren.

  61. 61.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Peale: More than two decades ago when Musk got deposed from the predecessor of PayPal* (his original “X” effort), he was trying to turn it into an unregulated bank.* So yeah….

    *Peter Thiel and the others who ousted him realized that making unsecured loans and not checking to see if people were qualified to get loans wasn’t a great business plan.

  62. 62.

    RevRick

    @Trivia Man:

    @Princess: The desire for a king-like leader is deeply ingrained in the minds of people… everywhere. Governance is hard and handing over the responsibility is easy. The story of history is the story of kings. The story of science is the story of great scientists. The story of art and music is the story of great artists and composers.

    History remembers the greats…like Alexander the Great or DaVinci or Newton or Columbus. You and I will be forgotten in a couple of generations after our deaths. I know of my great grandparents, but they are basically names on a page.

    This adulation of those who make a big splash creates in our minds that our leaders can always make things happen. As Bill Clinton observed, “Wrong and strong beats right but weak.”

    It takes a great deal of effort to cleanse one’s mind of the assumptions of white male supremacy which all of us have been taught by the culture in which we live. The hierarchical structure of race, class, and gender perfectly corresponds to a world where kings rule. Presidents are our elected kings and once we elected them we expect them to fix everything and make sure it runs smoothly.

    I know this all sounds like babbling, but I hope you can connect my dots and hear what I am trying to say

  64. 64.

    WTFGhost

    @SpaceUnit: Well, considering that a woman *I* have fucked is blissful and satisfied, I find “we’re fucked” to be an inadequate descriptor of the trouble we’re in.

     

    @Kirk: See also: Depression, Great

     

    @Suzanne: Yes, but, in the past, people tried to protect dumb Americans from themselves.

  66. 66.

    brendancalling

    If he ends the FDIC, you’ll see a bank runs. If it didn’t affect me, I’d point and laugh. But I’d be part of the bank run. We all would be. I’m not leaving my cash somewhere it’s not protected.

  67. 67.

    Ohio Mom

    @opiejeanne: Keating was from Cincinnati and was the reason our red light district was across the river in Kentucky. He was a fierce anti-porn activist.

    In his twisted mind, porn was a lot more horrible than robbing bank depositors.

  73. 73.

    Steve LaBonne

    @scav: I don’t know. People of European descent have the biggest genetic contribution from them, and considering how much trouble we’ve caused in the world…

  75. 75.

    VeniceRiley

    Potterville here, Potterville there, Potterville everywhere. Poor George Bailey S&L.

    My banking issues while draining my lifeblood to extend my visa were such that I am considering … IDK, but something. Chase got so weird lately 

  76. 76.

    scav

    @Steve LaBonne: May only be because the good Neanderthal qualities only enabled the bad H. sap sap tendencies to really get going.  If a few more diseases took out the colonizers . . . Quinine, Neanderthal resistance and whoever discovered one needs citric acid on long voyages have a lot to answer for.

  78. 78.

    Jackie

    @Suzanne:

    @White & Gold Purgatorian:

    The dumbing down of Americans in my lifetime is staggering.

    I’m so skeptical of claims like this. I think Americans have been dumb for a long time.

    Naive is my word choice. Applied to Democrats.

    We truly believed Good vs Evil would win.

  79. 79.

    Martin

    @Kayla Rudbek: Why not just ask for a fund transfer? You give them the routing number of your other account and they send it. It’s effectively the bank writing a check on your behalf and routing it through the same system.

    We do this all the time. Commercial banks will usually charge you but credit unions may not.

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    I’m not sure dumb is the correct word.

    Misinformed – maybe.

    Self involved – possibly.

    Doesn’t give a shit – Now we might be getting somewhere.

    Doesn’t know they should give a shit – Aww we are closer.

    Doesn’t know how to give a shit – runs along with self involved.

    Oh wait aren’t we talking about all humanity? Including the ones that think they deserve everydamnthing and will do anything to get it all or as least as much as possible that they can carry away.

    I’m in a GRAND mood this evening…….

  81. 81.

    JaneE

    @Gin & Tonic: But they didn’t.  Hitler’s party did not have a majority in the legislature, but joined with others as a coalition and Hitler was appointed Chancellor.  This was the legal procedure.  The “Enabling Act” of 1933 gave the cabinet the right to pass laws bypassing the legislature.   This essentially gave Hitler total control, all legally, but no voting by the citizens or legislature needed.

  83. 83.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @Shalimar: oh yeah.

    2008 every investment bank hung up their investment banking shingle and applied to become an ordinary bank so that the FDIC could bail them out.

    Watching a financial bubble pop with no FDIC?  that will look like 1929-1933.

  85. 85.

    NaijaGal

    Wow!  You got me researching Canadian banks in the US and whether the Canada Deposit Insurance Corp works for US account holders.

  87. 87.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    Well the population has increased and I wonder how many of the dumb side didn’t realize that 5-10 kids really isn’t necessary.

    As well our republican “leaders” seem to be getting power by  bull and shit, which is the only thing that seems to fall out their mouths. Maybe it’s the only thing INSIDE their heads.

    As an old, who depends on the retired benefit of social security (that I paid into for 60 yrs) I wonder what used restaurant garbage tastes like and how close to one can I put my tent. Of course if the economy is not just fucked with by the 2 dimmest bulbs on the planet but destroyed I won’t have to worry about paying for food, because I imagine that very little will be available. I’m not sure but I’d bet I’d rather starve to death at 75 than at 25.

    In case no one has noticed I’m just a tad worried that shitforbrains #1 and #2 seem to be working towards destroying this country. Now that may not be their goal but it sure seems that our concept of government and their personal wealth and power seem to be on the road to destroy the first and build up the second. I wonder if they have any idea what life might be like being the wealthiest in a country of poor starving beings that may just end up not all that happy about their escapades causing those poor to starve to death.

    It takes all kinds to make a country – it very likely only takes a couple of wealthy assholes with way too much power to destroy most of one.

  88. 88.

    Ruckus

    @FastEdD:

    You have to catch the sparrows and start a fire. And have a place to do that. And a full meal would be a number of sparrows. I see this not working all that well with most of the country looking for them……..

  89. 89.

    Ruckus

    @RevRick:

    I’m old enough that even though I was the youngest in my immediate family, as of early January of this year, I am now the oldest of the extended family and only person left in my family. Everyone in the extended family is younger than me. This is of course the way humanity works, we are born, we grow, hopefully in both size and brain function, and at some point we’ve lived a life. Had a cousin that lived 6 months and one, not even the oldest in his immediate family passed early this year. It’s humanity. It is what it is and the individuals last as long as they last. With the advances in medicine in the last 75 yrs many more of us live to be old. I have a friend my age who lives in the same complex that had polio, because there was no vaccine till we were 5-6 yrs old, she got polio at one year old. She is not the only person I know/knew that had polio. Girl I went to school with for 12 yrs had it. And she walked into our 50th high school reunion without crutches of any kind. One of my childhood neighbors had polio as well. If I remember correctly he lost a leg and had an aftermarket replacement.

    Medicine is just a tad better than it was when I was born……

  90. 90.

    Ruckus

    @Princess:

    I’d say that many are actually looking for a janitor – except that every janitor I’ve met was smarter than shitforbrains, and not as pompous or obnoxious.

    @Randal Sexton:

    I’d go with stupid – which is anyone involved with shitforbrains. And it’s because it makes no sense other than removing a governmental controlling system that insures our savings and makes it much harder for people of less than reputable desires to remove it from our possession.

  92. 92.

    Jay

    @prostratedragon:

    So is duck, and often, there is enough to share.

    You don’t need $3K worth of neoprene camo, a $3.5K shotgun, a $2.5K duck blind c/w benches to keep you from crouching in the water, a $150 Duck Dynasty Duck Call, a $3.8K pedigreed trained retriever dog,

    You just need a lake or pond, a park bench, a bag of stale bread,……………………………..

    and a hammer.

  97. 97.

    The Unmitigated Gaul

    @Bupalos: Brilliant observation! There is something SO AMERICAN and “oh, fuck it!” about voting in this obvious buffoon a second time.

    It would be wildly amusing if not for the fact that action on climate change might be put on the back-burner (so to speak) for four years.

    Even then, the green initiatives that Joe put in place will be irreversible.

    I may be getting into the Christmas spirits a little early but I think we’re in for a lot of entertainment and minimal damage for the duration of Trump’s clown show.

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