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It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

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Celebrate the fucking wins.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

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He really is that stupid.

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Everybody saw this coming.

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We won’t go back.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / A Slow, Fat Pitch Over The Plate

A Slow, Fat Pitch Over The Plate

by | 337 Comments

This post is in: 

Reading Anne Laurie’s overnight thread about Musk blowing up the House spending bill, it occurred to me that elected Democrats could not hope for a slower, fatter pitch right over the plate to kick off their role as opposition party in the second Trump Error.

Yesterday, the World’s Richest Man™️, who was not elected to any office, demanded that the U.S. government shut down for weeks, which will cause great hardship for regular people. And every elected Republican, from the alleged president-elect to the lowliest House backbencher, scurried to carry out the decree.

House Minority Leader Jeffries seems to understand the opportunity this presents. (The Hill)

“House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government. And hurt the working class Americans they claim to support,” Jeffries posted on social platform X. “You break the bipartisan agreement, you own the consequences that follow.”

That’s the spirit! Also, it’s a very low bar, but maybe Trump and Vance understand how the government works better than Musk does.

“Republicans want to support our farmers, pay for disaster relief, and set our country up for success in 2025. The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling,” Trump and Vance said. “Anything else is a betrayal of our country.”

Emphasis mine. Trump wants the debt ceiling raised before he takes office so he can blame it on Biden. Fuck that. Unelected oligarchs are already running the country through a Nazi-infested social media platform even before Trump is sworn in. Let those fuckers figure it out.

***

It’s important to keep in mind that the average voter doesn’t see Musk as an unelected oligarch who is determined to destroy the social safety net so he can add even more to his unimaginable wealth. Lots of folks buy the hype about Musk, just as they bought the bullshit The Apprentice sold about Donald Trump. Hell, even some elected Dems who should fucking know better talk about Musk as if he’s not the comically obvious Bond villain that he is (looking at you, Senators Fetterman and Blumenthal).

That needs to stop. Musk needs to be “rebranded” to reflect what he actually is. The good news is those efforts are getting a big assist from Musk himself. It’s a softball the size of Mars.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

337Comments

  1. 1.

    Starfish (she/her)

    I didn’t know why Senator Whitehouse was saying that “The toddlers are clearly running the kindergarten over at the House Republican caucus,” but it all makes sense now.

    The House Republicans are going to be super unpopular before they are even seated. Trump needs to get rid of Musk. I can’t believe that he hasn’t done it already, with Musk making everything about himself. Musk is deeply unpopular, and no one elected him. Doesn’t he have some companies to run into the ground?

  3. 3.

    WereBear

    I have a very bright friend I upset for 20 minutes, explaining that no, Musk is not anything but rich.

    That’s how powerful money is. Well, maybe not power enough to get us to accept Vance, but Elon has been a spoiled rich kid his entire life.

    If that’s your secret dream, he will have your center of gravity. Trump was made obnoxious, though I suspect he leaned that way. But Elon has been coddled.

    Trump has never felt that, and here in the same whacked-out circles is Elon, and everyone loves him. Trump is the one worried about being poisoned or stabbed in the back.

    One would think that the tale of how Elon GOT STUCK with Twitter would be enough, but some people must be shown, as in the collapse of the platform with incredible speed.

    Elon doesn’t have to sell gilded sneakers and evil Bibles. Trump envies Elon, and wants to play with his toys.

  5. 5.

    Kay

    Cory Booker made the decent minority in this country proud last night: 

    The saga of Adeel Mangi’s nomination to a seat on the Third Circuit Court of Appeals has come to an end – and not in the way Senator Cory Booker or most of his fellow Democrats were hoping for.
    In an impassioned speech on the Senate floor tonight, Booker conceded for the first time that Mangi’s nomination will not be successful, which has been increasingly clear for months. Booker’s speech, addressed to Mangi’s two teenage sons, hailed Mangi as an outstanding American and condemned the Senate for allowing his nomination to falter in the face of an onslaught of attacks on Mangi’s character.
    “This great body failed your father,” Booker said. “It failed the American people. It is one of the most painful chapters I’ve had in public life. The American people deserve a government that … upholds the ideals that are so core to this country: that everyone is created equal, that there should be liberty and justice for all. That’s not what happened in this episode. It’s not what happened to your dad. He was treated differently because of his faith.”
    “It was shameful for us as senators,” he continued. “It was shameful for America.”
    Mangi, an attorney at Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler and a New Jersey resident, was nominated by President Joe Biden last November to be the first-ever Muslim to serve as a federal appellate judge anywhere in the country. Booker was one of the driving forces behind the nomination in the Senate.
    But Mangi’s nomination quickly ran into severe headwinds on the Senate Judiciary Committee, where Republicans grilled him over the course of two hearings on his connections to a controversial group at Rutgers University and his broader thoughts on Hamas and 9/11. Democrats cried foul, saying that the attacks reeked of Islamophobia – but then a handful of Democratic senators joined the Republican caucus in opposition to Mangi, imperiling his nomination in the closely divided Senate.

    It was the one of the most blatantly bigoted performances in Congress I have ever seen, and a couple of (shameful) Democrats joined in. Apparently it is perfectly fine to deny a Muslim a seat solely because of his religion. It was barely mentioned in media outside NJ.

    But Booker stood up for him every step of the way.

  7. 7.

    rikyrah

    This IS NOT the Democrats problem.

    This is a problem that the GOP must resolve for themselves.

    No more playing Captain Save-A-Ho😒😒😒

  9. 9.

    tobie

    Betty Cracker, nice to see you back on the political beat!

    Is X/Twitter still the top (or one of the top) social media platforms along with Facebook? I’m trying to get a handle on the disinfo pipeline. Hard to figure out which is ‘the worst’ in terms of reach and content: X, Facebook, Instagram, Tiktok, YouTube etc.

  11. 11.

    catclub

    @Starfish (she/her): ​
     

    Musk is deeply unpopular, and no one elected him.

    Tell that to the millions of Tesla stockholders who adore him. also his millions of followers on X.
    Authoritarian followers don’t want an elected leader.
    They just want a leader.

  12. 12.

    Kay

    No one asked Mangi any legal questions. They just kept incoherently bellowing at him that he was in Hamas and somehow also involved in 9/11. He’s from Pakistan.

  14. 14.

    oldgold

    Give Fox, AM radio, Sinclair and X 24 hours, and the slow fat pitch that is hanging over the plate will  be nestled in the catcher’s mitt with a good share of the public blaming the Democrats.

  16. 16.

    Starfish (she/her)

    Elon fanboys are so pathetic. There is a reason why the “I had this car before Elon went crazy” bumper sticker wasis popular. Also, people can’t get their older Teslas serviced. A friend had someone total her Tesla the other day, and she is not buying another Tesla.

    The way we are allowing companies abandon devices that they no longer want to support creates a bunch of e-waste. But it leads to thorny ethics issues when those devices are implants, like Neuralink.

  17. 17.

    geg6

    It will be revealing to me how the Dems in Congress handle this.  Currently, I have little faith in them based on their post-election behavior.  But I really want them to prove me wrong.

  19. 19.

    catclub

    @WereBear: Tesla is the biggest car company (by stock value) in the World.

    SpaceX is building rockets faster than either Boeing or NASA. It has huge government contracts.

    Starlink has a huge constellation of satellites and huge government contracts with both sides of the Ukraine war.

     

    That is not just a spoiled rich kid.

    And I hate them all. But i won’t pretend they don’t exist or were not driven by Musk.

  20. 20.

    Betty Cracker

    @oldgold: Maybe, but don’t batters have agency too? I don’t know if they’ll swing at all or what kind of skill they’ll bring to the game. But this is some really blatant shit, which could be helpful!

  21. 21.

    geg6

    @Starfish (she/her):

    I read an article the other day (don’t ask where because I don’t remember) about the huge difference between accident fatalities for Teslas versus all other makes.  It was insane and makes me wonder what the insurance must cost for a Tesla.

  23. 23.

    Shalimar

    Elon Musk is worth over $1560 for each person living in the US and despite that unfathomable wealth, unspendable wealth, he absolutely would send millions of Americans to gas chambers if he made $150 apiece in profit for killing us.

  25. 25.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    I knew only NJ media covered it (amazing all by itself) but I didn’t know the NJ Star Ledger defended him in more than ten editorials.

    More good people. We’re not a majority but we can be fierce! :)

  26. 26.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @catclub: Tesla doesn’t know how to build a car. It does not grasp why assembly lines work the way the do. It has the highest valuation but is also complete amateur hour with all the recalls. It has been as successful as it has been because it has benefitted from subsidies in a market where there are few other options. There are other companies making better cars now.

    Let’s go BYD. Let’s go Rivian.

  28. 28.

    Shalimar

    @oldgold: That is not how previous government shutdowns unfolded.  Rightwing media did their best, but the majority of people always figured out who was really to blame.

  29. 29.

    Soprano2

    @Starfish (she/her): I dared to mention to a guy here that I thought self-driving cars were a lot further off than a lot of people think. Boy, did I get an earful! He’s obviously a Musk fanboi. It was all about how self-driving cars will be so great, they’re safer, it won’t be long until they’re practical – and this was over 5 years ago!

  31. 31.

    LeftCoastYankee

    I think Musk is popular with the sector of the young men that voted for Trump, perhaps more popular than Trump is.  His endorsement and the illusion the money he threw at Trump was somehow critical, is enough to scare the R’s in the House into being more incoherent.

    Back in the real world, I agree Musk’s popularity is dropping, so getting the message across that he’s not elected (and this is what oligarchy is) is the drum for Dems to pound.

    Also Tim Walz’s assessment of Musk “skipping like a dipshit”, needs much more repetition, IMO.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    I dipped into TikTok last night to make fun of the MAGAs because of the dramatic Dow decline after Trump opened the NYSE. Loser!

    One of them is literally going to find me – I can absolutely enrage them with like nine words. It comes from living among them as a political minority. I know exactly where to poke.

  33. 33.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: This is true. I’m tired of Democrats having to rescue this stuff all the time but then not getting any credit from the public for it.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    Ohio lawmakers pass forced outing bill with religious release time amendments during lame duck

    Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine will have 10 days to sign House Bill 8 into law or veto it, once he receives the bill.

  35. 35.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think all the Democrats should start calling Musk president-elect, because it’s the truth. It has the bonus of enraging TCFG and the other Republicans, plus it’s true! Musk knows this is the closest he can ever get to being president, so he can’t help himself. Nobody voted for him to be making these decisions.

  36. 36.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @Soprano2: Right now, some self-driving cars exist. But Tesla is attempting to do full self-driving in the dumbest way– without lidar.

    Waymo is the self-driving taxi company, and it operates in San Francisco and also some place in Arizona now.

    Here is the video of the self-driving cars waking up the neighbors at 4:00 a.m. by honking at each other.

  37. 37.

    Suzanne

    Teslas are embarrassing. I don’t hate them as much as I hate the Ford F-series, but close. I will freely admit that I think of someone as less cool if they own a car that I don’t like.

    Hey, they’re fashion items like everything else.

  38. 38.

    Shalimar

    @Soprano2: It is possible self-driving cars will get to the point where they are safer than humans.  The problem is determining legal liability when there is an accident, and there is no easy solution.  There will be a lot of accidents for at least the next few decades.   If I cause an accident, I pay or my insurance pays.  If the car causes it, I am not going to be happy about having to pay for something Elon’s piece of shit did.

  40. 40.

    Suzanne

    @LeftCoastYankee:

    Also Tim Walz’s assessment of Musk “skipping like a dipshit”, needs much more repetition, IMO. 

    All of them need much more mockery and invective than they’re getting.

    Politeness is just another norm they broke. Okay. You break it, you buy it.

  41. 41.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: I have complete confidence that what Dems do or don’t do and when they do it will be “wrong”. ETA: My local news just read a headline (no story thank goodness) that it was Trump who torpedoed the deal and not Musk FWIW. I thought that was interesting.

  42. 42.

    Soprano2

    @Shalimar: I know that eventually they may come to be common; my argument was that it wasn’t just a few years away because there are so many issues with them and they’re a lot more complex than most people think. I thought the first practical usage of them would be to drive freight on the interstate from exit to exit, then it would be picked up by a human and driven to its destination. I think it would be relatively easy for them to navigate the freeway compared to navigating the average mid-sized city.

  46. 46.

    Soprano2

    I read that he wants the debt ceiling increased for the huge tax cut they want to do; he doesn’t want to fight that out when he’s president. He’ll probably demand they raise it some ridiculous amount so they don’t have to do anything about it for his whole presidency.

  47. 47.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:  Seems like some NJ papers have more ethics and gravitas than the cowardly “paper of record” one state over.  Good on them for the editorials; think I will cruise through them (if don’t hit a paywall).

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    I agree that it’s effective. It also makes their messiah Trump look weak. And weak they cannot bear.

    People are popular until they’re not popular. Look what Republicans (and a few Democrats) did to the Muslim lawyer. He walked in there a brilliant lawyer and walked out a member of “Hamas”. A very effective smear campaign. Saying attacks don’t work or whatever doesn’t make any sense – coordinated attacks seem to work very well for Republicans.

  52. 52.

    cmorenc

    @Starfish (she/her):

    Trump needs to get rid of Musk. I can’t believe that he hasn’t done it already, with Musk making everything about himself. Musk is deeply unpopular, and no one elected him.

    Musk is the prototype of the Randian (as in Ayn Rand) hero to a substantial slice of Trump’s voters who are in some fashion conservative ideologues.  They are not going to be easily dislodged from supprting Trump and Musk, unless their personal economic pain is enough to force a massive epiphany.  But the fact that Musk is a malignant narcissist bird-of-similar-feather to Trump likely will bring the two into ego collision space sometime within the first few weeks after Trump actually retakes office, and shit starts hitting the fan.

  53. 53.

    Suzanne

    I will note that, IMO, we should definitely raise the voices of the “Regina George Liberals”.

    Suzanne Lambert is one of the funniest follows on TikTok.

    At conservative family Thanksgiving: “Your neck vein looks so crazy when you get all mad like that.” LMAO.

  54. 54.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WereBear: His fans still insist that he’s Robert Heinlein’s D. D. Harriman from “The Man Who Sold the Moon”.

    Musk himself clearly, clearly wants to be that. I’m sure he’s read the story. But what he’s done is to buy his way into hallowed founder status. And he keeps putting out ideas that he got from the popular futurism of the late 1970s and early 1980s. Yeah, I read that stuff when I was 12 too.

  55. 55.

    Shalimar

    @Soprano2: I agree with you on that.  As someone who worked as a long-haul truck driver for several years, I will say that interstate-only driving is much easier than lesser roads but it isn’t as amenable to self-driving as it seems like it would be.  Strange, unpredictable things happen every 500 or 1000 miles that the computer wouldn’t recognize like a human does.

  56. 56.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: Self-driving cars are one of those technologies where the last 1% of the way there is 99% of the work–and they’re not usable without that last 1%.

    Meanwhile, the activities where generative “AI” has made a big splash over the past few years tend to be ones where the output is low-stakes. Can you crank out hackish ad copy? Sure. Nobody’s gonna die from refusal to open the pod bay door.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    Booker has quietly become an advocate for religious freedom for Muslims for (partly!) the same reason Chris Christie defended Muslims when he was governor – because NJ urban areas now have large Muslim populations. It’s been interesting to watch. They have a lot of Muslim constituents.

    This lawyer also famously litigated a case where a mentally diminished African American was murdered by police, and won. I don’t think NJ African Americans have forgotten that.

  58. 58.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @catclub: Tech looks like a bubble right now. There are no ideas besides AI going on. We can keep bubbles inflated for a long time, but personally since I work in tech, I am trying to reduce my exposure to tech stocks. I am probably failing because there are a lot of mutual funds riding high on the magnificient seven.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay:  Had not known that.

    And how politicians twisted support for a Black family whose son was murdered in police custody….  really sick of this timeline.

    Skeery Muslims.  People should grow the fuck up.

  62. 62.

    Torrey

    @Kay:

      Oh do tell us the nine words. (I know it wasn’t literally nine words, but I’m interested in responses people have come up with. Snappy answers to stupid questions, if you will. But also good, solid answers.)

  64. 64.

    Soprano2

    @Shalimar: I think we drive so automatically most of the time that we don’t recognize how complex the task actually is. I worked for Prime for a year in the office (this is their headquarters), so I heard a lot about “four-wheelers” and the hazards of driving a semi.

  65. 65.

    different-church-lady

    Sure, it’s a meatball down the pipe. Now if only I didn’t feel like Casey Stengel managing the 1962 Mets: nobody can play this here game.

  67. 67.

    tobie

    A propos neglected news items, ex-Congressman David Rivera (R-FL) was indicted yesterday for working as an unregistered lobbyist for Venezuela. Another self-professed anti-communist working for a communist regime. Does the Miami community he represented even care?

  68. 68.

    Scott

    Democratic leadership needs to add to their standard reply:  “Trump caused XX% of the national debt.  He owns the debt ceiling.  Let him take responsibility for once.”

    I’m sure there are better and more succinct words but something to that effect.

  69. 69.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud:  True.  I need to start reading the Philly Inquirer more, rather than just subscribing.

    Still getting email links to interesting stuff in the LA Times, but owner Patrick Soon-Shiong has made that one a no go.  Curious how many subscribers he lost (maybe the word is “jettisoned).   Had not realized he was a fascist.  Sad!

  70. 70.

    Kay

    I also read the “crunchy” MAGAs on TikTok and comment. They got to MAGA thru loathsome grifter RFK Jr. They’re dumber than Trump MAGAS.  The comment that got them was where I linked to one of the “doctors” RFK Jr. promotes who has a BILLION dollar business fleecing these rubes. I got a lot of responses, none of which I read. This is hit and run. I have no interest in their insane ramblings.

    Big Pharma is smaller as a market in the United States than Big Woo Woo Wellness. This they do not want to hear.

  72. 72.

    TBone

    My financial advisor will arrive this afternoon to a meeting at my home I requested in early November, which he rescheduled from early December to today.  So not only must I clean extra hard to remove all traces of the cat hair he is allergic to, but I’m gonna hafta refrain from yelling at him I TOLD YOU SO about DOGE, which was the specific issue I alerted him to when I requested our meeting to shore up whatever we could in advance, as well as the looming Christmas shutdown anyone with two brain cells to rub together saw coming from miles away.

    Need a muzzle!

  73. 73.

    cmorenc

    @Shalimar:

    Elon Musk is worth over $1560 for each person living in the US and despite that unfathomable wealth, unspendable wealth, he absolutely would send millions of Americans to gas chambers if he made $150 apiece in profit for killing us.

    Musk’s M.O. isn’t directly genocidal like that, but more that if he could get away with it, he’d turn labor back into the kind of one-sided body-breaking sweatshop where workers had no rights beyond a raw employment-at-will paycheck, and no ability to exert collective action.  Use up a worker and discard them into benefit-less unemployment soon as job-related injuries began cutting into their productivity quotas.  All under the paradigm of the purported glibertarian freedom of an entrepreneur and a worker to freely negotiate and enter a contract, similar to a star professional athlete negotiating a contract with a sports team.

  74. 74.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: They also need to all mention how much the Dow has slid since the election, and say it was because of TCFG’s election. Business has now realized that the chaos and unpredictability are coming back, and they’re not happy about it. Keep saying it, and blame it on TCFG.

  75. 75.

    Another Scott

    Congress flirts with a holiday shutdown as GOP objects to bipartisan spending bill

    – NPR headline.

    Oh those naughty scamps! Flirting like that!!

    And they, like an oh so serious governing party, have objections to a plan their own team put together.

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    [ sigh ]

    Hang in there, everyone.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  77. 77.

    Sloegin

    Jefferies being mysterious and not actually *saying* who ordered the shutdown is not helping.  At all.

  79. 79.

    Soprano2

    @Kay:  Big Pharma is smaller as a market in the United States than Big Woo Woo Wellness. This they do not want to hear.

    Plus, there isn’t much proof that most of that stuff does anything other than line the pockets of the people who sell it. It’s not a coincidence that people like Alex Jones make millions of dollars selling that stuff.

  81. 81.

    tobie

    @Kay: You’ve mentioned this before and I feel like I need to do some reading up on the dietary supplements industry. This was the thing Joe Rogan was plugging before he got into straight-up rightwing politics. Libertarian mistrust seems to lead to conspiracy theories about the deep state to rightwing populism. Dietary supplements may be the literal and figurative gateway drug.

  82. 82.

    Matt McIrvin

    All under the paradigm of the purported glibertarian freedom of an entrepreneur and a worker to freely negotiate and enter a contract, similar to a star professional athlete negotiating a contract with a sports team.

    But, strangely, for the workers to negotiate that contract collectively is cheating.

  84. 84.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: This morning’s Politico Playbook has a lot of reporting on this blowup, including the Debt Ceiling angle.

    It’s some weird shit. One item: last night Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, who holds the nation’s third highest constitutional office, was negotiating a path forward with that phucking phoney Vivek Ramaswarmy!

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @Soprano2:

    Maybe they could afford eggs if they stopped buying a billion dollars worth of stupid shit that doesn’t work on the internet.

    I buy frivolous things too, but I don’t pretend I can’t afford actual food while spending on them. Own your budgeting choices and stop whining.

  86. 86.

    TBone

    @different-church-lady: because the guy is in charge of a significant part of my portfolio (well under half, though, thankfully because I resisted his efforts to get me to move it all to his org) and I’d like to remain on speaking terms.  If I yell what is on my the tip of my tongue, I may never see him again, and he is also my tax preparer.  GAH!

  87. 87.

    No Nym

    @Soprano2: Rachel Maddow’s opening was about the dangers posed by self-driving cars and photos of some spectacular and fatal wrecks caused by them suddenly not driving themselves any more. She of course tied it to oligarchy and how pulling back on safety regulation (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc.) only affects the little people, not the billionaires who are troubled by any impingements on their wealth.

  88. 88.

    Suzanne

    @tobie: Dietary supplements is part of the aspirational fitness culture that has become super-right coded since Covid. Like, cardio is now left-coded, lifting and muscle-building is more right-coded. Totally tied to retrograde notions of masculinity and domination.

    Joan Williams’ book White Working Class discusses how that cohort resents doctors.

    It’s interesting how, as Americans have gotten physically larger in the last 75 years — first taller and then wider — how certain ideal body types have emerged and they are politically coded. Think of a dude wearing skinny jeans.

  89. 89.

    LeftCoastYankee

    @Suzanne:

    Agreed.  Their power is the volume of bullshit they generate, and having shrieking masses to parrot it, so it seems inevitable.

    Every time they are on defense the bullshit hydrant slows down and the shriekers lose their cues.

    It helps my brain to reframe the BS media narrative of “leader of a movement” and with the reality of weirdos following a dumbass loser.

  90. 90.

    JPL

    @Geminid: In case this hasn’t been answered already, what happens to the inauguration is the government is shut down.   I assume he’ll be sworn in, but will he have all the bells and whistles

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @tobie:

    RFK Jr’s doctor is Doctor Mark Hyman. He owns a “wellness empire”. They hope to direct federal funding away from actual medical research to Dr. Hyman’s billion dollar grifter business where he sells people “supplements” and blood test analysis.

    The “wellness” industry fight every regulation intended to protect vulnerable or moronic consumers from their wholly predatory industry. RFK Jr. led the way on that.

  94. 94.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @TBone: Why have a Republican financial advisor? Your core beliefs and societal priorities don’t align and there’s no reason to believe that conservatives do better guiding “the invisible hand” to prosperity or security than those with a liberal bent.

    ETA At least as far as administrations go, Republicans perform far worse and one reason why this country takes five steps backwards for every six steps forward.

  95. 95.

    TBone

    Reposting this excellent explainer on supplements and woo by John Oliver.  It begins with Dr. Oz but is about MUCH more.  Worth the time if you haven’t seen it (and good for relatives and friends who need to be STFUd).

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WA0wKeokWUU

    Most doctors graduated below the “top of the class.”

  96. 96.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: Christian evangelical culture has been deeply involved with dietary supplements for decades through multi-level marketing, a business model that thrives in the evangelical world because of its dependence on trust operating through in-group markers (along with the Prosperity Gospel). I think a lot of people missed that with the “crunchy” coding.

  97. 97.

    apocalipstick

    @LeftCoastYankee:

    My hatred for the consultant class ballooned when they convinced Kamala Harris to abandon “We’re Not Going Back” (which seemed to have traction and was one of those super simple, repeatable slogans we’re always told Democrats need) and replace it with “A New Way Forward”. Same for telling Walz to stop saying Repubs were “weird” and drilling him to find common ground with J DiVans in the VP debate. Two easy, hard-hitting messages shelved.

  100. 100.

    Kay

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Yup. The Mormon church is huge in it. They have an army of lobbyists, too. I’ll have to find out if there are more wellness industry lobbyists than pharma lobbyists. It’s entirely possible. I was shocked at the dollar value of the market. It’s HUGE.

  103. 103.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    What I said in last night’s thread is that good on Jeffries for making the right statement.

    We provided support, they provided policy priorities we want.  If they don’t provide policy priorities we want, why should we provide support?

    I know, I know, people get hurt over a shut down.  I’m beginning to think the only way to get thru to voters is to hurt them.

    Problem is that it’s probably hurting our voters more.

    Dems have tended to come thru on this in years prior because, well, we put country first.  But, it dawned on me overnight that we’re essentially dealing with a scene from ‘Blazing Saddles’.

    Cleavon Little’s character, now portrayed by House Republicans, puts a gun to his throat and says “Nobody move or the Ni*CLANG* gets it!”  And House Dems basically act as shown in the movie scene:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z_JOGmXpe5I

    We’re made the “House Republicans as Terrorists” analogy before but now’s the time to call the bluff.

    And then make damn sure we crank what passes for a left messaging machine into overdrive over the next two years to make sure they own it.

  104. 104.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Old term generally meaning hippie, natural-foods, wellness, environmentalist, appropriate-tech kinds of aesthetics. From “crunchy granola”, I think. I remember it getting some currency in the 2000s with popular discussion of “crunchy cons” like version 1.0 of Rod Dreher. Of course this was largely a delusion; these people aren’t particularly environmentalist or generally hippieish, but the right is willing to run with anti-Big Pharma paranoia if it helps them.

  107. 107.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Matt McIrvin: I have a crunchy (formerly apolitical) friend who starting spouting tankie rhetoric after getting sucked into the YouTube algorithm. It’s insidious.

  109. 109.

    TBone

    @Sure Lurkalot: where I live, there isn’t a plethora of trustworthy advisors to choose from.  This guy, at least, is trustworthy.  My bank tried to get me to use their advisor.  I did my due diligence and looked at his history of legal entanglements before I made my polite exit at our next meeting, thinking to myself “OH HELL TO THE NO!”

    My guy’s got a spotless record.

  110. 110.

    WereBear

    @tobie:

    Dietary supplements may be the literal and figurative gateway drug.

    Our food is increasingly made in a lab, and people get fat and feel like crap because we are always hungry for actual nutrients.

    That’s why people go crazy for supplements, because they work, but not long term. They aren’t addressing the real issue, and corporate never will.

    Fresh real food cuts into their margins, you see. They just want to make people chow, and compete on flavors, as they do with snack foods now.

  111. 111.

    Baud

    According to Blue sky, there may be movement to abolish the debt ceiling completely, which would end future Republican hostage taking.

  113. 113.

    frosty

    @Soprano2: I thought the first practical usage of them would be to drive freight on the interstate from exit to exit, then it would be picked up by a human and driven to its destination.

    We already have these. They’re called trains. Intermodal, carrying shipping containers.

  114. 114.

    Matt McIrvin

    @O. Felix Culpa: Conspiracy theory in general is one of the pipelines from vague anti-authoritarianism to the extreme right. People who aren’t particularly political junkies but have vague concerns about the world are easily reeled in.

  115. 115.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Starfish (she/her):

    Let’s go GM.  They’re finally starting to deliver the promised $35K Equinox EV (we’ve got several coming to Denver dealerships).  Late next year, the next-gen Bolt will be out and if it’s anything like the 2023 model, it’ll be a knock out.

    Union built, not defacto product dumping like any Chinese EV would be and while Rivian’s current product line is nice (I live a mile from their “space” — which is their twee term for ‘showroom’– and their service center), they are a dumpster fire in terms of burning thru cash and the VW infusion earlier this year may or may not pay off given VW’s own massive problems back home in Deutschland.

  119. 119.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    They’re denying anything is happening. Trump was supposed to fix everything. They’ll just tell themselves he did.

    2% mortgage rates! gas under 2 dollars a gallon! everyone gets a house in the neighborhood they want! 10% credit card rates! Cheap groceries and an army of subservient and invisible service workers BUT high wages (for them, not you) AND also zero inflation.

    They’re second graders.

  120. 120.

    different-church-lady

    @JPL: I just checked with Samuel Alito and he says if the government shuts down Trump can just do whatever he wants.

  121. 121.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Christian evangelical culture has been deeply involved with dietary supplements for decades through multi-level marketing, a business model that thrives in the evangelical world because of its dependence on trust operating through in-group markers (along with the Prosperity Gospel). 

    MLMs are also tied into that world because it’s seen as a way for moms to earn money without working a regular out-of-the-house job. It’s to the point that there’s a joke that MLM stands for “Mormons losing money”.

    I know a super-right-wing-conservative dude, Messianic Christian, and he and his whole family are really into essential oils. DoTerra, etc. They absolutely believe this stuff is more effective than most pharmaceuticals.

  122. 122.

    RaflW

    @Elizabelle: Of course a letter like this would be expertly argued, cited, clear and effective. “Yet it was three Democratic Senators who surrendered to this campaign.” Ugh.

    “I will not assume the worst possible motivation for their embrace of this attack. But to me that leaves two possibilities: that these [Nevada] Senators lack the wisdom to discern the truth, which exposes a catastrophic lack of judgment; or they used my nomination to court conservative voters in an election year, which exposes a catastrophic lack of principle” is just devastating.

    It’s no surprise to me that Joe fucking Manchin bailed on Magdi. But what the g.d. hell were Rosen and Cortez-Masto doing? “I have to protect my elected seat” is just craven shit.

    My willingness to support the Democratic Party is getting very thin. I cannot imagine I’ll ever vote for a Republican, but I’m gonna need at LOT more of what the OP talks about if this party thinks my 5-figures-per-cycle donations are going to continue.

    I’m no billionaire. But I give generously, and have even supported both Rosen and Cortez-Masto. I am fed up to near breaking point by the lack of courage of our officials. And things are about to get much worse, or as the OP suggests, the opportunities are going to get much clearer. But Democrats have to hang together and fight, or each hang separately (J6 is not guaranteed to be a one-off attack on The Hill).

  123. 123.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Another Scott:

    If Biden walked on water, this would be Totebagger Radio’s lead:

    Biden Walks on Water Risking Bipartisanship with Evangelicals.

  126. 126.

    frosty

    @cmorenc: But the fact that Musk is a malignant narcissist bird-of-similar-feather to Trump likely will bring the two into ego collision space sometime within the first few weeks after Trump actually retakes office, and shit starts hitting the fan.

    If Trump has any sense and any guts, this is where Musk finds out that being rich doesn’t actually give him any power. Well, at least against a lame duck. Representatives and Senators will probably still run scared to avoid being outspent in a primary.

    What a country!

  128. 128.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Matt McIrvin: I think that’s exactly what happened. She’s the first person I know IRL who got sucked in that way. It’s distressing to see how effectively propagandists target and manipulate different personality types.

  129. 129.

    Geminid

    @tobie: Hew Hewitt’s always flacking a natural pain reliever on his radio show. Every hour he whangs out something like, “I ran eight miles yesterday but I took my [Relief Nostrum] this morning and I feel great!”

    Other Salem Radio Network hosts also promote the product. I remember hearing one say he was broadcasting “from the [Relief Nostrum] Studios.” It could have been a room in his basement.

  130. 130.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @tobie: Add Orrin Hatch to your search terms when investigating the dietary supplement industry. He did a lot to make it the unregulated money maker it is. See also the basis for countless multilevel marketing scams.

  138. 138.

    sherparick

    @Baud: Yea, exactly.  The Democrats (and anybody who is not MAGA) has to realize these people are 1) out to cut our throats; 2) establish a permanent oligarchy; & 3) steal anything they can lay their hands on or pry loose. If they serve up softballs the size of Jupiter like this, so that even the FTFNYT can’t “both sides it” in the headline, take advantage of it.

  139. 139.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Can’t he just designate “Acting” appointees? I recall him saying that he actually preferred having “acting” Cabinet members because the process was completely unaccountable.

  142. 142.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @TBone: seriously? Your financial advisor and tax preparer work for you. You pay him. If you don’t like him or his advice, seek out new consultancy.

  143. 143.

    different-church-lady

    @sherparick:

    The Democrats (and anybody who is not MAGA) has to realize these people are 1) out to cut our throats; 2) establish a permanent oligarchy; & 3) steal anything they can lay their hands on or pry loose.

    [shrug] But people voted for it.

  144. 144.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Baud:

    Heh heh, we could channel our inner DougJ all day on this.

    Faux “News” would report it as:

    BIDEN DISRESPECTS WATER!

  147. 147.

    Suzanne

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    It’s distressing to see how effectively propagandists target and manipulate different personality types. 

    I have a distant relation — an evangelical Christian lady — and she got sucked into this stuff bigtime. Her gateway was having a bunch of health problems that went undiagnosed and misdiagnosed for a while. She really suffered. I know a lot of people, especially women, who have a similar story. Blown off by doctors, living in pain, told it’s in their head, told to meditate and go work out, etc. That’s the kind of really common thing that leads people to “do their own research” and fall into rabbit holes.

    She absolutely hopped aboard the Trump train, and the bleach-injecting nonsense, and didn’t get the vax. Ended up in ICU on a ventilator. Her daughter, who is about my age, told me, “I don’t even recognize my mom anymore”.

  150. 150.

    TBone

    @Sure Lurkalot: but I do like him.  His wife also too is a fine woman who is his assistant.  Sometimes politics takes a back seat in my IRL world, and he’s never said or done anything overtly political that gives off big, huge red flags vibes.  If that happens, my shitcan is at the ready.

    He may have a really good reason why he rescheduled our December meeting that I am unaware of – I didn’t ask him why.

  151. 151.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Williamson endorsed a yoga cult where the cult members sent their children to a cult school in India where the children were brutally physically and sexually abused. For two decades. The (now grown) children sued and Williamson was named in the complaint. They settled and I read about it in the context of a complex negotiated agreement, I was reading to see the process, but I thought “there she is!” Like a bad penny.

  152. 152.

    frosty

    @TBone: Yeah. Between that and Fetterman deciding he can work with Oz, I’ve had it with these Democrats. All that money and all that time painfully knocking on doors and this is the result?

    Fuck ’em. Read the room, assholes.

  153. 153.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: When RFK Jr.’s big thimerosal-vaccine exposé first appeared in Rolling Stone, for a few minutes I thought he might actually have uncovered something. It was cleverly written. It was only because I carefully read the whole thing and had go-to sources to check out that were skeptical of alt-med stuff that I realized he didn’t; it was the same old same old. Vetting this stuff actually isn’t easy, unfortunately.

  154. 154.

    sherparick

    @tobie: Many of us have moved to Blue Sky.  It is not perfect, but has a strong blocking feature that one can beat the trolls with.

  155. 155.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @TBone:

    but I do like him. His wife also too is a fine woman who is his assistant. Sometimes politics takes a back seat in my IRL world, and he’s never said or done anything overtly political that gives off big, huge red flags vibes. If that happens, my shitcan is at the ready.

    This.  I’ve said this before but one of my (many) hobbies, it’s where JAFD and I have known each other for decades, is an example.  Massively conservatively political white people, but as long as the people don’t bring politics into the relationship, it works.

  156. 156.

    TBone

    @Suzanne: I have a similar “being a woman in pain” story with the opposite ending for which I’m very, very grateful.  I’m sorry your person’s ended that way.

  159. 159.

    frosty

    @JPL: what happens to the inauguration is [if] the government is shut down.

    Nothing. It’s all privately funded with 10% off the top for Trump. Can’t stop the graft and grift!

  160. 160.

    sixthdoctor

    @Kay: Well, they’ll get their $2 gas once the economy crashes and unemployment’s at 15% from all the stupid shit that happens.

    I thought at least Trump would get into office before he started fucking things up, I’m almost impressed.

  166. 166.

    frosty

    @Baud: I see others have given you a definition. The first thing I did was hit Old Reliable Urban Dictionary:

    “Adjective. Used to describe persons who have adjusted or altered their lifestyle for environmental reasons. Crunchy persons tend to be politically strongly left-leaning and may be additionally but not exclusively categorized as vegetarians, vegans, eco-tarians, conservationists, environmentalists, neo-hippies, tree huggers, nature enthusiasts, etc.”

    As usual, their examples are fun.

  167. 167.

    Harrison Wesley

    Snooty libtards like to look down their noses at those of us who are saving our health with brain-worm-aged bear cub tartar and H5N1 raw milk. Well, WE DO OUR OWN RESEARCH.

  168. 168.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: Yeah, we didn’t vote for him either. I think we need to start calling them oligarchs, because that’s what they are now. They’re in charge of the government, and people need to understand that. A guy who says we all may need to suffer for him to get a bigger tax cut is effectively in charge of the government now.

  169. 169.

    TBone

    @Baud: well my inner child is very bouncy and sometimes irrepressible.  I vent here, usually mostly sometimes in jest, so I don’t get derailed IRL by her tantrums!

  171. 171.

    Leto

    This headline just popped up (via WaPo):

    Fani Willis disqualified from Trump election case by Georgia appellate court

    The decision, which Willis is likely to appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court, is a major victory for Trump and his co-defendants and could doom the high-profile prosecution.

  173. 173.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @TBone: Understood, but for me, financial matters is one area where my world view is important so I have sought out advisors who respect and represent my values. I had way too many republican workmates (finance related career) but I got along with most of them. My retirement coincided closely with Trump’s presidency when some of them really went gaga.

  176. 176.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: I’ve seen that resentment of doctors from my BIL, the retired mechanic. He had untreated diabetes for at least 15 years (he fooled himself into thinking it went away). The fluid in his legs got so bad he had to have his legs debrided and he spent over a month in the hospital. He’s a life-long smoker who has COPD, and he has sleep apnea. He’s on oxygen pretty much most of the time now. He’s constantly complaining about how the doctors want to do tests and stuff but don’t ever seem to help him. His poor health is mostly his own fault because for years he engaged in bad habits and didn’t take care of himself, but he blames it mostly on doctors!

  177. 177.

    sherparick

    @TBone: This story is an example of what failed with the Biden administration, almost from the start.  A lack of attention to detail and a failure to understand the necessity of the theatrical tool as part of democratic politics (not just in the social media age, but in the legacy mass media residue). The story is that the ACLU approached a the White House with a list of 1500 people who had been moved from prison to home confinement during the pandemic stages of COVID because of age or other vulnerability but were likely to be returned to prison despite health issue by Trump.  Biden, instead of having his people vet the list for any exceptions, just signed off and commuted the sentences of all 1,500, including this notorious ex-judge. This lack of attention to detail, unwillingness to provide a show for the media (e.g. press conferences and Presidential tweets), (including giving the FTFNYT their precious interviews), poor personnel choices and then not moving decisively to correct them (e.g. Merrick Garland as AG and not Doug Jones being the worst), and repeated failures to read a room is one reason his popularity is down around 38% despite presiding over the strongest economy since the 1990s.

  180. 180.

    TBone

    @Sure Lurkalot: I’m glad you have a pool to choose from!  I am new in this locale, new to having any portfolio to look after, new to the jargon, just…new to it all!  I try not to worry about it too much because, after all, I’m supposed to be enjoying retirement as much as I can under the circumstances.  My parents wanted that for me, it’s the whole point of why I even have any money to worry about (worry is a waste of imagination).

  181. 181.

    different-church-lady

    AMERICAN ELECTORATE: “We hate high prices and rich elites.”

    ALSO AMERICAN ELECTORATE: “Let’s put billionaires in charge of our government!”

  182. 182.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Soprano2: It’s also similar to generative AI in that some breakthroughs were accomplished some years ago that made these systems perform far more impressively than they had previously, and it led to a lot of hype claiming that the problem had been cracked. But in a life-or-death critical situation, that last 1% will get you.

    Also, a lot of these systems that kind of work make heavy use of radar, and Elon Musk specifically had the idea that he could cheap it out by removing the radar sensors and relying entirely on cameras. And he couldn’t, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

  186. 186.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: That explains why a Utah senator singlehandedly prevented the FDA from being able to regulate the supplement industry (can’t remember his name, he served for a long time). That’s why they can market stuff that has no actual active ingredients in it, or that can make you sick or kill you.

  190. 190.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    When RFK Jr.’s big thimerosal-vaccine exposé first appeared in Rolling Stone, for a few minutes I thought he might actually have uncovered something. 

    That came out right around the same time that Spawn the Elder was born. I was really freaked out by being a new mom and having to make these decisions. I asked his pediatrician about it, and I said that I was a vaccine believer, but that this was concerning and I didn’t know what to think. She advised that I could do a slightly more spaced-out vaccine schedule, so that’s what we did. I wouldn’t do that today, and the next two kids got their vaccines on the regular schedule.

    But that’s how it works, right? You can’t be un-scared for your kids or your self. I am by no means qualified to make these kinds of decisions. I can only trust the advice of experts.

  191. 191.

    Starfish (she/her)

    @RaflW: The Democratic party can continue to learn from their jackass Islamophobia which was present during this last election. At some point, they may get tired of losing. Jacky Rosen got $1 million from AIPAC so she is doing their bidding.

  192. 192.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: ​But they keep saying they do.

    ETA: Then again, most of the think “elite” is a synonym for “Jew”.

  193. 193.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Baud: anti science back-to-nature idiocy. Includes far left hippies and far right conspiracy theorists (yes Virginia the horseshoe theory is real). Anyone who would freak out more about fluoride in their water instead of natural arsenic.

  194. 194.

    sherparick

    @TBone: I still think there will be a Santa Claus rally before the New Year, I intend to move most of my retirement into T-notes at the end of the year.  The next 24 months appear likely to be a bumpy ride.

  195. 195.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Well of course now they want to get rid of it, because it’ll benefit TCFG. If a Democrat wins in 2028, look for them to try to bring it back because “reasons”. It needs to go, I agree with that, but this is so cynical.

  199. 199.

    TBone

    I once took a supplement that was sold to prevent vericose veins, way back before supplements caught on like wildfire. I was so young and dumb.  It contained horse chestnut or something, but after a few days my stomach revolted in an eruption of GERD so fierce that I tossed those pills into the Gulf of Mexico.  Always had to learn the hard way in my yute, but I was always ahead of the curve, at least.

  201. 201.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: And there is no area where you get more contradictory and unsolicited advice couched in morally condemnatory terms from unqualified people than raising a new baby. It’s enough to drive anyone up the wall.

    The second-worst thing is pet care.

  202. 202.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I think that’s insulting to second graders. They’re 2 year old toddlers, loudly screaming for everything they want right now!!

    I think they’ll lie to themselves about a lot of things, but they won’t be able to do that with higher prices, their bank balance won’t let them.

  205. 205.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @TBone:

    Best of luck. I’m a worrier by nature who has to distract all the time. I met with my advisor soon after the election to move some things around. Hopefully to have less worry and be less subject to the chaos brewing. Probably no safe haven with sociopathic billionaires running the show.

  207. 207.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kayla Rudbek: Back when I was Doing My Own Research to figure out that RFK Jr was full of it, antivax had a reputation for being a left-wing hippie thing, and I was surprised to discover some stats that indicated that even then, it was actually a uniform tendency across the political spectrum. Of course, that was before the right decided to make it part of its brand, which was associated with the COVID pandemic.

  209. 209.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: As a person who has suffered from chronic back pain since I was 27, I can understand why people look for answers elsewhere when the medical field doesn’t have any. I’ve had pain under my right shoulder blade since I was in my mid-20’s, and no one has had any answers for me as to why it’s there or what’s causing it. I have days when I think it would be great to take opioids, that’s why I’ve never taken them.

  211. 211.

    Nettoyeur

    @TBone: Financial advisors are a scam. Chimpanzees do as well.  Put your money into a broad set of ETFs and high interest insured accounts and let computers optimize. I use Betterment.

  212. 212.

    TBone

    @Sure Lurkalot: I have had to train up in Zen in many areas.  It helps, which is why I always post what might look like trite words of wisdom to others who have not had to learn the wisdom the hard way.

    I wish you every success in your abilities and your enjoyment of life.

    LOLs such as Kathleen has given are an example of the Power of Silly.  One reason this community is SO important!

  215. 215.

    Matt McIrvin

    @different-church-lady: “Run the government like a business” is still a popularly tempting idea to this day. It’s one of the reasons I’m really skeptical that Democrats can win elections by adopting more socialist or progressive economic ideas, even though I’d usually personally like them to.

  216. 216.

    sherparick

    @Suzanne: The wellness industry goes back deep in American history to the first reform movements that spun out of the Second “Great Awakening” of the1820s and 30s.  Again, at the end of the 19th and early 20th Century, cereals, promoted by Kellogg brothers and Graham (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Graham) as part of a vegetarian and purity diet for health (and when you read “The Jungle” about conditions of the meat packing industry and the sulfites injected into process meat – sold as sausages and canned meat – they had a point).  Ironic now that “cereals” are right next to vaccines in RFK Jr.’s abolishment list. There is really nothing inherently RW or LW about it.  The emotional and religious commitment to one “true” diet of “pure” food is in the in end about asserting control over something we only have a very limited control over, disease and death.  The Covid pandemic just put people in a emotional state to look for magick cures.

  219. 219.

    Soprano2

    @sherparick: A lack of attention to detail and a failure to understand the necessity of the theatrical tool as part of democratic politics (not just in the social media age, but in the legacy mass media residue).

    I was listening to the Pod Bros earlier (Jon and Dan) and they made this point about AOC not being Oversight Committee head. They said most committee heads don’t matter that much, but the two that do are Judiciary and Oversight. They said the ability to get attention for your views is important in these positions, which is why they thought AOC would have been the better choice. I tend to agree with them, she gets a lot of attention when she speaks so that would have been better than a 74-year-old white man that most people probably won’t pay any attention to no matter what he says. Democrats need to learn this generally, if you can’t get attention from the press no one hears your message no matter how good it is.

  223. 223.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Mostly they don’t no matter what they say, they’re jealous of them and want to be just like them. It’s one of the things about TCFG that appeals to them so much. “Just imagine what it would be like to be able to do whatever you want and have whatever you want” is an appealing fantasy for a lot of people.

  224. 224.

    TBone

    The clock says I must attend to life matters but I so want to stay here with youse guys giving me life today.  Bother!

  226. 226.

    JPL

    @Leto: She’ll appeal, but the ruling says she can stay on the rest of the case.   That makes no sense, because if they thought her actions were questionable, why not remove her from the entire case

    2-1 decision

  227. 227.

    TONYG

    @Starfish (she/her): My wife has better things to do with her time than to closely follow political news.  I mentioned to her this morning that the Republicans are probably going to force a government shut down four days before Christmas.  Her reaction was: “What the hell is wrong with those people?”.

  228. 228.

    frosty

    @TBone: I am only confident in my ability to lose money.

    Ha! You and me both. I gave it all to our financial advisors, who have managed to keep it growing. I warned them about the crap coming down the pike and they’re paying attention to it, so I’ll keep letting them make the decisions. I know I’d do much worse!

  229. 229.

    PIGL

    @Kay: within moments of Trump’s first election, these nasty idiots were insisting loudly that Trump had accomplished more in his first 48 hours than Obama had in eight years.

  230. 230.

    TBone

    @Nettoyeur: I forgot to say: the male attorney in charge of releasing my portion of inherited portfolio would not release anything unless I provided proof that I had the counsel of a financial advisor first.

    Mothaphucking patriarchy.

  232. 232.

    Soprano2

    @Suzanne: Yes, but it’s also understandable, because if you’re in pain or feel bad and doctors can’t do anything for you, eventually you start to search for other answers. I manage my pain with a combination of chiropractic care, yoga, other exercise, and a couple of supplements. I take a turmeric/curcumin supplement that got rid of that stiffness in the joints and muscles that you get with age. It wasn’t why I took it initially, but it fixed that so I keep taking it. I get it from my chiropractor. Even if it’s a placebo effect, it’s worth it just for that. I don’t pretend these things can cure anything, though.

  233. 233.

    Suzanne

    @Soprano2:

    I can understand why people look for answers elsewhere when the medical field doesn’t have any.

    Agreed. It is really rough to feel like we have made so many improvements — and we pay so much money — and still there are often not solutions for any of these issues. And you can be utterly desperate in your misery.

    Ross Chunky-Reese-Witherspoon wrote a book about his experience with chronic Lyme Disease. Part of it is how he fell for more and more outlandish shit. As much as it is nonsense…. I can completely empathize with people who get sucked into it in this way.

  234. 234.

    Barbara

    @TBone: As someone who has been worried about this since even before Election Day, the reality is, there is nothing they can do either.  There is no “safe space” in an economy that is sustaining multiple intentional blows from a toddler who has inexplicably been given the keys to a tractor trailer.  Not. A. Thing.  Even if you limit yourself to “hedges against tariffs” you will find that there is Not. A. Thing. you can do about it.  Most consumer products that are sold in the U.S. have imported components even if they are designed, assembled or even partially manufactured in the U.S.  Cars and pharmaceuticals for instance.  If your CFP tells you that he has some kind of strategy I might fire him on the spot for lying.

    At any rate, the guy we mainly rely on was born in Russia and moved to the U.S. when he was around 9 and I will say that he has what you might call a very healthy dose of pessimism and skepticism and he is honest about what he knows and doesn’t know.

  236. 236.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Those guys were so big on high fiber–it strikes me that the diets of the time might have had everyone… bound up all the time. 

    I will note that I drink a glass of psyllium husk watery-mud stuff every day and, uhhhhhh….. it is fan-fucken-tastic.

    10 out of 10, would recommend.

  238. 238.

    Barbara

    @Matt McIrvin: And the people who say this routinely complain without cessation about what piss poor businesses they work for — about how idiots get promoted, good ideas get squelched and so on.  There is literally no sense of self-awareness let alone irony in the average person who says things like this.

  239. 239.

    RevRick

    @sherparick: Purity versus disgust is one of the emotionally valent markers of politics. With the right, it’s purity of blood, which is why they get so angry about immigration and fall for “scientific” racism. With the left, its purity of ideology. How dare you believe/say such things, and I cast you into the outer darkness.

  241. 241.

    Matt McIrvin

    @PIGL: I remember one rally Trump did early in his administration where he touted some good economic numbers and he just outright SAID to the audience “We used to say those numbers were fake, but now they’re real, right?” And the crowd went wild.

    He was just confessing his information-manipulation strategy right out in the open, telling them how he told them what to believe so that he could conjure “fixing the economy” out of thin air, and they ate it up. They wanted to be manipulated like that.

  243. 243.

    Suzanne

    @Matt McIrvin: I actually love some supplements, LOL. I do vitamins, probiotics, fiber, and some hair oil concoction.

    That’s the other thing about this….. some of this stuff does indeed have benefit.

  245. 245.

    schrodingers_cat

    @O. Felix Culpa: There is a straight line between tankie rhetoric and fascism. Both eschew complexity and love strongmen/women who promise them simplistic solutions.

    The fitness-wellness community is a hotbed of antivax conspiracies.

    BTW how have you been? Long time no see.

  248. 248.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Suzanne: I take vitamin D supplements under doctor’s orders because I had a measurable deficiency. Was also on multivitamins after my knee surgery, also on doctor’s orders, though I went off them.

    And I’ve occasionally tried melatonin gummies for sleeping though I honestly cannot tell whether anything they do is placebo effect or not.

  249. 249.

    John S.

    @Suzanne:

    I enjoy some natural remedies as well. But when I’m really sick or have a serious problem, I go to the fucking doctor.

    I have found that I can enjoy the benefits of nature without signing a death compact for myself by scorning modern medicine (while remaining a slightly skeptical patient).

  252. 252.

    Peale

    @sherparick: Yep. You’ve got this image problem when it comes to crime and punishment that you’re gullible fools who will believe any sob story and let criminals out of prison, and this idea that only violent criminals should be put into prison. Their philosophy is what now exactly? Every white collar criminal should go free because they commit crimes when they are old and they aren’t violent? Should we just allow old people off the hook now?  This was just dumb.

  253. 253.

    karen marie

    In other stupid news:

    Sununu pulls nomination for state librarian after some councilors say she was too ‘woke’
    Mindy Atwood had spoken out against book bans

  254. 254.

    trollhattan

    Musk’s balloon over the plate tanked all the markets yesterday and I’m expecting to see the Trump Effect reflected in my Q4 retirement account statements come January, the same accounts that the Biden Economy had first dragged out of the canyon dug by Trump and covid, then again by Vlad’s great adventure in eastern Europe. FM.

    This, of course, will be blamed on Biden.

  255. 255.

    Suzanne

    @John S.:

    I enjoy some natural remedies as well. But when I’m really sick or have a serious problem, I go to the fucking doctor. 

    Agreed.
    It’s so funny…. it’s been folk wisdom for decades that prenatal vitamins are good for your hair. Now, who knows if that’s actually due to the prenatal vitamins, or the fact that one’s hair shedding cycles are disrupted by pregnancy. But I just…. didn’t stop taking them when I was done nursing (though these are iron- free). And I had experienced some hair loss, and it has regrown really well.

    I also enjoy that any algorithm which may be monitoring my purchases has thought I was pregnant for, like, six years at that point, and I hope it is deeply confused.

  257. 257.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @different-church-lady:

    Nobody who says “run the government like a business” ever seems to notice that businesses go bankrupt on a regular basis.

    Oftentimes businesses go bankrupt because of a relentless pursuit of profit above every single other consideration…core business purpose, product excellence, employees, customers.

  262. 262.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    I dipped into TikTok last night to make fun of the MAGAs because of the dramatic Dow decline after Trump opened the NYSE. Loser!

     

    BWA HA AH AH AHA HA HA HA HA HA

  263. 263.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Kathleen: Some of our leftist betters are A-OK with terrorist tactics if they don’t like the victim. See the excuse makers for the CEO killer and Hamas

    So the tankie left to authoritarian right pipeline is the least surprising development.

  264. 264.

    different-church-lady

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Businesses can jettison unprofitable parts of themselves at any time.

    Government is supposed to be “unprofitable.” It’s supposed to be zero-sum.

  265. 265.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @schrodingers_cat: Great to “see” you too! I’ve been fine, under the electoral circumstances. Busy with holiday and family stuff. Also enjoying a social media break, with occasional lapses. :)

  267. 267.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Baud: They’ll be criticized for not doing something they actually did (and vice versa).  And if 1 out of 100+ House Dems does something bad it will be blamed on Dems collectively.

  269. 269.

    Kristine

    So the Teamsters are leading a nationwide strike against Amazon.

    The Teamsters said workers will begin striking at Amazon facilities across the country Thursday morning — in what the union calls the largest strike against the online shopping giant less than a week before Christmas.

    The Teamsters said the strike will begin early Thursday at several facilities, including in New York City, Atlanta, three locations in Southern California, one in San Francisco and one in Skokie, Illinois.

    In addition, the Teamsters said local unions would also put up primary picket lines at hundreds of Amazon Fulfillment Centers nationwide.

  272. 272.

    rikyrah

    @Scott:

    Democratic leadership needs to add to their standard reply:  “Trump caused XX% of the national debt.  He owns the debt ceiling.  Let him take responsibility for once.”

     

    REPEAT AD NAUSEUM:

    Every 1 out of 4 Dollars of the national debt is from his LAST bunch of tax cuts…and, now, he wants to add more?

  274. 274.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Soprano2:

    It’s one of the things about TCFG that appeals to them so much. “Just imagine what it would be like to be able to do whatever you want and have whatever you want” is an appealing fantasy for a lot of people.

    A non-zero number of them work for obscenely wealthy “betters” like I did…and have a front row seat to see how miserly and miserable some rich people are. Mansions, planes, travel, clothing, jewels…these things lose their glitter when you can “have it all”.

  277. 277.

    different-church-lady

    @Soprano2: 

    “Just imagine what it would be like to be able to do whatever you want and have whatever you want” is an appealing fantasy

    I used to have that fantasy a lot, as a child. But even then my fantasy was that everyone else had died and the world was left to me alone. It was not about making everyone else suffer under my whims.

  279. 279.

    TBone

    My beloved Magnificent Other did the bulk of the cleaning while I was futzing around online all morning waiting for my coffee to fully kick in.  I won the Wonka Golden Ticket when I met this man!

  280. 280.

    rikyrah

    @Suzanne:

    Joan Williams’ book White Working Class discusses how that cohort resents doctors.

     

    Does she say why?

    I finally realized during the Orange Menace’s first term why so many rural folks hate immigration. I didn’t grasp that so many of our immigrant doctors have been placed in rural communities, because that’s how they can fast track themselves – by serving in underserved communities.

     

    So, they are going to the doctor…resenting that this doctor isn’t White. Doctor obviously making more than they do, because even in a rural setting, the doctor is making more than most. And also reminds them that the best and brightest of that community got the phuck outta there as soon as they could.

  281. 281.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @rikyrah: Truth! Much of the national debt can be attributed to the Reagan, Bush the Lesser and Trump tax cuts. As well as gaping inequality. And far too many billionaires (aka policy failures, h/t Comrade Scott).

  282. 282.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: The internet and social media have made that a lot easier, too. Used to be you could see it on TV with programs like “The Lives of the Rich and Famous”. Now you can follow them on social media and feel like you really know them and what their life is like. I think it’s toxic, and is one reason why people feel their lives are lacking so much.

  283. 283.

    tobie

    @Suzanne: I gather body builders were also part of the hysteria about seed oils. They claim it consists of too much Omega 6, which leads to inflammations. Mass General has a nice page debunking that.

    @Sure Lurkalot: I recall hearing something about Hatch and dietary supplements. I need to look into this.

    @Geminid: What Republican doesn’t sell nostrums? Snake-oil salesmen…every last one.

  284. 284.

    rikyrah

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    Dems have tended to come thru on this in years prior because, well, we put country first.  But, it dawned on me overnight that we’re essentially dealing with a scene from ‘Blazing Saddles’.

     

    Once again…

    Time for Democrats to stop being Captain Save-A-Ho

  285. 285.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Soprano2:

    I think all the Democrats should start calling Musk president-elect, because it’s the truth.

    Or just run their names together and refer to “President Trusk.”

  286. 286.

    Steve LaBonne

    Can Trump actually get rid of Musk? Musk has more money than God and a powerful megaphone. Would Trump really come out on top in a showdown?

  289. 289.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: Rep. Ocasio-Cortez will get the same same 5 minutes Rep. Connolly will have at Oversight Committee hearings; she just won’t go first. Freshman Rep. Jasmine Crocket spoke almost last in this Congress’s Oversight hearings and that didn’t seem to cramp Crockett’s style much.

    But it will be Connolly and not Ocasio-Cortez negotiating matters of hearing procedure, witnesses etc. with the Republican chair, and that seems to me to be the main difference.

    I would disagree with the assessment that the heads of Judiciary and Oversight are the two chairmen that matter the most. Those are the two committees whose hearings generate the most publicity, so I can see how they interest the Pod bros the most. But when it comes to Congress’s actual work product, the Chairs of the Ways and Means, Appropriations and Energy and Commerce Committees wield much more influence

  290. 290.

    TBone

    @sherparick: dunno how I missed that, thank you for the edification!

    ETA Disclaimer:  maybe he’s been so busy elsewhere that delegating some responsibilities to others tripped him up.

  291. 291.

    Lobo

    Repetition: The eight scariest words in the English language, “I’m a billionaire and I’m here to help you. “

  292. 292.

    Bill Arnold

    For the all caps “DEMOCRAT” in “WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS”, Mr. Trump should be forced to eat freeze dried dicks for the rest of his miserable life.

  295. 295.

    Jackie

    Late to this thread, but just heard on the news Rand Paul and MTG suggesting the Puppet Master be SOTH. First, as second in line to POTUS, is Musk even eligible, as he wasn’t born in the USA? And, secondly, WTELH is a senator doing sticking his nose in House affairs?

  297. 297.

    LAC

    @Matt McIrvin: There needs to be an ethics and personnel security review done and they are done by federal workers in offices that will be closed by any shutdown. So, the process will be held up.

  298. 298.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Re running the country like a business, here’s what I used to tell my GMI students.

    GM isn’t in business to make cars. GM is in business to make money. The actions GM takes are a means to that end.

    A country is the opposite. Money is the means to the end of running the country and serving its citizens.

  301. 301.

    Ksmiami

    @Kay: esp the stupid and unnecessary enormous loaded pick up trucks – then they whine about gas prices. Fuck em, I hope they go bankrupt.

  304. 304.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Sure Lurkalot:

    It all traces back to Reagan and the beginning of our 40+ years of deregulatory-market-uber-alles theory and it’s results across the board.  As I say repeatedly, the sad thing is how much of that has baked into self-professed progressives across the left spectrum including some people here.

  305. 305.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Over the last 40 years and the general MBA-ization of corporations, the mission of business is to provide the least service for the most profit.

    The mission of government is to provide the most service for the least expense. Government is more like a non profit.

    When we run government like a business we end up with potholed streets, cities with lead poisoning, poor quality schools and people being treated like numbers on a spreadsheet.  That then leads to calls for privatization, etc.  And you see it on both sides of the aisle in certain policy areas, ie., Libertarians in Trenchcoats.

  307. 307.

    Citizen Alan

    @Soprano2: these are the people who are so ignorant about their own finances that they insisted obama raise their taxes, even though he cut them.

  310. 310.

    TONYG

    @different-church-lady: Trump showed no interest in the job of being president during his 2017-2020 term of office.  He’s older and has more severe dementia now.  Elon will be the real president, while Trump watches TV and eats hamberders all day every day.

  312. 312.

    gene108

    @TBone:

    That fucking judge ruined the lives of some many kids…I hope Biden’s actually senile because no sentient sane person should be pardoning or commuting that motherfuckers sentence.

  313. 313.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: Energy and Commerce has very wide jurisdiction and along with the two you mention is one of the five hardest committees to get a spot on. Representatives typically have to serve a couple terms before being considered for membership on the more powerful committees. It was considered unsual when Hakeem Jeffries got a spot on Appopriations in 2013 as a freshman.

  319. 319.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: They were talking about importance as far as being able to message to the press and get your message out, I guess because those people get interviewed on TV a lot. I think they realize that they might not be the most important as far as actual work product is concerned.

    They also interviewed Ceila Munoz about immigration policy and Democrats. That was an interesting listen. I know there’s a lot of dislike for the Pod Bros on this blog, but I learn things from them. They’ve actually been involved in campaigns, so they know stuff about them that the average person doesn’t. That stuff isn’t as easy as some people seem to believe.

  321. 321.

    prostratedragon

    @Soprano2:  Why I scaled back on NYTimes print edition years ago. I was beginning to feel like a voyeur, and to suspect that might be deliberate.

  323. 323.

    Miss Bianca

    @glory b: God, why the hell would the ACLU go to bat for *that* guy?? Can it be possible that they consider his civil rights have been violated by being jailed for illegally ruining a bunch of kids’ lives?

  324. 324.

    glory b

    @Soprano2: i actually think that Jasmine Crockett is better at this. She’s more educated and an experienced trial attorney who does a better job than AOC does.

    Honestly, I think the tendency to require the party leadership to undergo lefty purity testing isn’t good for the party. I think leaders should more often be those who have flipped Republican districts. On the one hand, we want to reach out to the voters who voted for Republicans, on the other, we want the most purely left leaning.

    Don’t forget, AOC happily supported primary challenges to some of her fellow members. This includes Nina Turner, who compared voting for Biden vs Trump as which bowl of sh** she’d be made to eat. AOC voted against Dem initiatives almost more than she voted for them.

    She also stated that anywhere else, she and Biden would not be in the same party & mused that she considered herself a socialist, not a Democrat.

    We have noted on here that many Hispanics who voted Republican came here to escape socialist run governments. The Republican ads would write themselves.

  327. 327.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @glory b: I do think we do ourselves a disservice by pitting Jasmine Crockett against AOC in anyway.  I think both are great and that both will be in significant leadership positions very soon.  Also, their styles are complementary.

  328. 328.

    schrodingers_cat

    @glory b:

    Many Jewish Ds also are not her fans. And she is not as popular IRL as she is on social media and legacy media

    I too want Ds who flip R seats to be leading the conversation on the changes the party needs not former DSA members who hold most Dems beneath contempt and pillory them worse than they do Republicans.

  329. 329.

    Bill Arnold

    @Matt McIrvin:

    His fans still insist that he’s Robert Heinlein’s D. D. Harriman from “The Man Who Sold the Moon”.

    He is not. Mr. Musk says he is a fan of Iain M. Banks’s Culture novels. He cosplays (intentionally or not) a main character in the 2010 novel “Surface Detail”(link with clickable spoilers), “Joiler Veppers”, wealthiest man in his (lower-tech) civilization, arrogant and cruel (and, it develops, extremely loathsome), who eventually contends with a (disguised) Chekhov’s Gun, unsuccessfully. Mr. Veppers is used as tool by more intelligent entities with a broader agenda.

  330. 330.

    Soprano2

    @glory b: I think it was a blanket commutation for everyone who had been paroled out of prison to home confinement due to Covid. They think TCFG was going to send all of them back to prison. I don’t think they vetted the list, they just did a blanket commutation. I don’t think it’s a pardon, so the crime is still on their record they just didn’t have to serve out the rest of their sentence in home confinement.

  334. 334.

    Suzanne

    @rikyrah: Yeah, she does say why. She has a whole chapter called “Why Does the Working Class Resent Professionals but Admire the Rich?”. Reasons include thinking professionals are condescending and patronizing, preferring to value stability over novelty, and finding professionals somewhat two-faced and phony.

    I think race and sex are, of course, part of it…. there’s a lot more women and PoC in medicine than there used to be. I also think weight is a huge part of it. Obesity is strongly correlated to social class and is a big reported reason that people avoid medical care.

  335. 335.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Well, except we don’t. Sanders has lostt a step. He’s too old.

    Democrats have ten committee heads who are older than 70. Three of them are in their 80’s. They are quite clearly working to block the advancement of younger members. Its appalling and entitled behaviour.

    Why are we helping them behave like this?

    Pelosi should go first. Be a good example.

  336. 336.

    glory b

    @Omnes Omnibus:

     

    @Kay: There’s no participation trophies in Congress. If you spend time trash talking & trying to primary your colleagues (which AOC did a number of times), don’t expect them to vote for you.

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