“Democrats, under the leadership of Hakeem Jeffries and Joe Biden, were able to avoid a shutdown and provide aid to those who needed it. In three months, Republicans under the leadership of Elon Musk and Donald Trump, must do the same.” Better version of this.
— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 2:10 PM
Musk lost because he wanted a govt shutdown. Trump lost because he wanted to raise the debt ceiling to cut taxes for his donors. GOP in Congress lost because they’re a hot mess. Dems held strong & we didn’t close down the government. Sausage making is prettier.
Happy holidays!— Rep. Mark Pocan (@pocan.house.gov) December 20, 2024 at 6:02 PM
“…Democrats are less willing to hurt people…”
This is a good thing. This is *why* I align politically where I do, why the democrats are preferable to the republicans. It’s like the most basic distillation of the reason.— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 12:50 PM
Yeah, fighting with one hand behind your back makes fights harder. Fighting to protect the people the other guy wants to hurt while also neutralizing him is a harder fight. But it’s what it means to try to be good.
— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 12:52 PM
Meanwhile…
more evidence that trump doesn’t have as much juice as people think!
— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) December 21, 2024 at 8:10 PM
All I ask is for Trump to have enough juice to really mess Musk up when he flies too close to the sun.
— Gluon Spring (@gluonspring.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 9:28 PM
we're getting signs of this from every direction. less than storming autocraft than decrepit replay barely able to call the shots in the first days.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 8:14 PM
2/ Also a reminder that political power is unitary. Trump only just became Elon's new bitch a couple days ago. Now Dead Bounce Ron is slapping Trump around.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) December 21, 2024 at 8:22 PM
TPM, “Springtime for Billionaires… “
… We will soon see that this three or four day drama is a microcosm for most of what is going to unfold over the next two and likely four years: an always chaotic and often destructive jostling between different versions of far-right state transformation. Here on the one hand is Trump’s autarkic and transactional MAGA, seeking to channel power, adulation and beak-wetting all toward the person of Donald Trump. There you have Elon Musk with his more chaotic and futurist/Randian version of Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” culture. What unites them is their personalist character, something Donald Trump and his politics brought to the national dance. We shouldn’t doll either of these variants up too much as ideologies. They’re just different versions of post-civic democracy America from the world of billionairedom, each guy’s particular wants and needs, etc., and also with some broader constituency beyond them personally.
In this case, you had a lot of drama mostly over nothing. In a way Musk “won.” But it’s not entirely clear what he won. And it’s also not clear whether the had any particular goal other than flexing and having fun…
So a lot of drama and chaos and distraction, sometimes having a lot of costs, sometimes a lot of drama over basically nothing. But in each case it’s drama on the way to really destructive policy.
This is bad for the country. But one thing is unavoidably clear: If you were a party coming off a stinging defeat and looking for ways to burnish your brand as the party focused on the needs of average Americans on a budget you could scarcely ask for a better environment in which to do it. Even beyond what I described above, with these two rough beasts slouching their way into 2025, you have probably never had a time in American history where you have all the billionaires lining up and saying pretty much openly and loudly that we’re here as Team Billionaire and here to support the billionaire President and excited to usher in a new era of government of the billionaires, quite literally by the billionaires and really obviously for the billionaires.
To wrap it all together you also have the gobs of public time and attention and resources lit on fire by the tantrums, egomania and sundry character disorders of people like Donald Trump and Elon Musk because that’s a central feature of billionairedom: the rules don’t apply to you. Things most of us had to get straight with when we were in our 20s, because we live in the real world, guys like Elon Musk have magnified 100-fold by their 50s because the rules don’t apply to them.
Needless to say, it’s not great. But it really is tailor made for a politics focused on being the defense of ordinary Americans living on a budget.
It definitely caught my notice that so many MAGA congress people ignored his "order" on the CR. I think anyone who is throwing in the towel on this before it even starts is making a mistake – it's clear there's a LOT of blood in the water.
— Caitlin (@constantcait.bsky.social) December 22, 2024 at 10:00 AM
this attitude is going to backfire on them badly and it will not take long at all
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) December 22, 2024 at 2:08 PM
Lol this is just the saddest bunch of shitheads ever to do it. Hall of fame level shit.
— The Fig Economy (@figgityfigs.bsky.social) December 19, 2024 at 8:05 PM
War for Ukraine Day 1,033: Time for Someone’s Annual Review
Geminid
Lara Trump cracks me up:
I understand there’s a first time for everything, but I still find this assertion incredible.
Gin & Tonic
@Geminid: 15 seconds would indeed be incredible for her.
Redshift
Also notable – the headline for the WaPo news analysis story on the shutdown is “How Trump and Musk set off the shutdown crisis — but got little in return.”
piratedan
going to be bittersweet at best to watch these factions rend each other apart while the collateral damage ends up being real people that are simply in the way.
hoping that we can help Dem leadership win future fights by playing the GOP off against themselves (since they’ve been doing that against us for decades).
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
LOL at the notion that Elon Musk is a voice of the people.
He’s an unelected billionaire asshole who wants to steal the earned benefits the rest of us have worked for and are working for our entire lives. He tells us that there’s going to need to be a little pain the next few years, but doesn’t think he will or should experience it. What a shitheel.
I had some lady tell me I looked like Musk a few weeks ago. I politely said “I hope not” and she said she meant it as a compliment. And called me “Elon” a second time! I was never so offended in my life. She didn’t respect my wishes at all. Got the feeling she was a conservative/Trumpist from that interaction
Splitting Image
I think that one of the most important things that we need to do between now and 2028 (preferably much more quickly than that) is to hang the phrase “move fast and break things” around Trump’s neck. Preferably around Musk’s too, so they can both be thrown overboard together along with the rest of these guys.
However much or how little Trump manages to actually break, he was put where he was by people who want to break things because they think it is more fun than actually governing.
I’ve noticed a bit of talk about how the Democrats need to reach out to the dear, sweet “working class” (of the sort that we normally call white men). The message ought to be that opportunities for the working class were the first things that got broken by the “move fast and break things” crew. Every time they get put back in power, they break more and more. If these guys want a better future for themselves, there is only one way to get there and that is through moving slow and fixing things, boring though that might be.
NotMax
@Geminid
Jesus spake directly to her: “Senator? Are you shitting me? Bwah-ha-ha-ha.”
frosty
Ya think?????
Good on you if you stayed civil. What a challenge that would be!
KatKapCC
The only time “less willing to hurt people” should be seen as a negative is at a kink night.
Also, Lara spends more time thinking about “what are all the worst shades of makeup for my complexion” and then applying said makeup.
Daoud bin Daoud
@Geminid: Lara somehow manages to be even more spectacularly mediocre than hubby Eric.
West of the Rockies
@Daoud bin Daoud:
I suppose, if marrying wealth is a step down from inheriting it. Hard to be less impressive than Eric.
Aussie Sheila
Trump is a lame duck now. He’s managed to avoid prosecution for crimes that any other U.S. citizen would spend serious time in jail for.
Very well.
Despite the trolling this is his last go round.
Musk on the other hand is a handy synecdoche for unaccountable billionaires everywhere.
Make it stick to every arsehole billionaire in the US, tying their wealth to unaccountable political power and arrogance. Make them and him, toxic.
As for the demented crim, laughter and contempt heaped upon him would be the best approach, imo, rather than continual hyperventilating at his vulgarity.
Every outrage actually enacted should be opposed of course, but less attention on him as a political actor, and more on the nature of his misrule as typical ‘GOP’ rule would serve the future better.
Geoduck
The Shaitgibbon is reportedly back to insulting DeSantis, probably because Lara didn’t get the nod.
Mike in Pasadena
President Musk and his vice trump got the scalps of kids with cancer. Not many scalps since chemo takes their hair. But you know, it’s a real win for Republicans. A super good look on Christmas Eve. And Biden only got help to farmers, people hurt by disaster, and a functioning government.
moonbat
@Mike in Pasadena: Actually that cancer research funding was put back in the bill in the Senate, so much less collateral damage this time around.
ColoradoGuy
Just call ’em The Oligarchs. We all know who they are by now. Trump, Putin, Xi, Murdoch, Elon, Bezos, the whole rotten bunch of them. All of them narcissistic psychopaths, all of them (multi) billionaires flying in their private jets above the rest of us. We’re just specks on the ground to them.
They are not Job Creators. They are People Destroyers.
NotMax
@ColoradoGuy
The Aristocraps.
//
Betty Cracker
I wanted y’all to be the first to know that after an incredible amount of thought, contemplation and encouragement from so many, I’ve decided to remove my name from consideration for the U.S. Senate too. Also, I will reject any marriage proposal offered by John Krasinski.
Mike in Pasadena
@moonbat: Does that mean it went back to the House and it passed? It’s amazing that I missed all that drama. Must have happened in an eye blink.
NotMax
Will Florida get Senator Waltine Nauta?
//
NotMax
@Mike in Pasadena
Senate stripped the text of another bill and inserted the text of a separate bill already passed in the House providing the funding, so no need to go back to the lower chamber..
frosty
@Betty Cracker: I’m so sorry you won’t be the next Senator from Florida. I had heard you had the inside track.
Don’t break the news to John Krasinski. He’ll be heartbroken.
bjacques
Having seen the excellent second BBC series of Wolf Hall (The Mirror And The Light), I’m hoping Musk, unlike Henry VIII’s fixer Thomas Cromwell, gets at least the figurative chop before he can loot a single monastery. Preferably even before January 20th.
I’m not aware of any “must pass” legislation awaiting the new Senate and House in early January, but a big country like ours is certainly disaster-prone, and those august bodies may get the opportunity to pass an emergency relief bill over the howls of Musk and Trump, while President Biden can still sign it.
JWR
Re President Musk: Yeah right, Donald, but petty weak tea defense you’re peddling there. Musk may not ever have the title, but the decision making power, or perception of same, that I would be worried about. And then after more bitching about the Panama Canal and how they’re ripping us off just like every other nation is ripping us off, he started shilling for his anti-drug ad campaign, just to stay original, don’t you know.?
But enough about Steve Bannon… //s
Splitting Image
@JWR:
Don’t anybody tell Trump that embarking on a new “Just Say No to Drugs” campaign is the sort of thing that the First Lady does. I guess Melania isn’t interested.
Aussie Sheila
@Splitting Image:
Well she mightn’t be, but an adderall addict crapping on about drugs might be an interesting subject.
NotMax
@JWR
“Stick to Adderall and ketamine.”
//
Splitting Image
@NotMax:
And heroin, according to RFK Jr.
Chetan Murthy
@JWR: haha, I think he’s confusing fentanyl and meth. “meth mouth” is apparently a real thing.
NotMax
@Splitting Image
“Endorsed by the Better Brainworm Bureau.”
TBone
I was unaware, until last night, that Elno took a xit both before and after the terrorist attack in Germany.
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/12/musk-sparks-backlash-over-support-german
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
TBone
@rikyrah: good morning!
TBone
It is six degrees here, so we beat the forecast low of 3 by three whole degrees! Snow on the way, maybe a half inch. Just enough for a possibly white Christmas.
NotMax
@TBone
Kevin Bacon weather.
;)
TBone
@NotMax: ha!
WTFGhost
@Gin & Tonic: which is 15x as long as she should need to make the decision, but still, you’re right, it would be an accomplishment.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Some people, they realize they’ve hurt you, and, EVEN IF YOU DON’T ASK THEM TO STOP – okay, like, I’m smothering a few coughs from cigarette smoke, so the smoker blows smoke my way – even if you don’t make any mention of it, they’ll hurt you again and again and again if they can . This is why there’s no real fun in “dysfunctional.” We humans have a vicious side when we feel trapped, even if it’s in a family that’s annoying us.
@Betty Cracker: Are you sure about the marriage proposal? Is this one of those people on “The List” where you can have sex with them without permission? Arrangements could be made, a Christmas miracle could occur… oh, you were joking.
Um, yeah, SO WAS I!!! So there.
@Chetan Murthy: I understand that smoking meth gives you meth mouth. I don’ t think anyone would smoke fentanyl, though I honestly don’t know if it would have an effect. *Vaporizing* fentanyl and sucking it into your lungs, should work, and, if I heard a person died from that, before Narcan could be grabbed, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit. (I mean, sucking into your lungs brings a vapor directly into your bloodstream. I’m not *trying* to be morbid.)
Gretchen
@WTFGhost: Dr. Ryan Marino, a toxicology expert, is on Bluesky. He says smoking fentanyl won’t do anything because the heat degrades it so it has no effect. He also finds police claiming to have ill effects from touching fentanyl maddening because it isn’t absorbed by the skin.
Jay
@WTFGhost:
Dealers cut everything with fentanyl. Pot, crack, meth, heroine, ketamine, coke, etc.
It’s cheaper than anything, has a higher high, can easily kill you and turns a shitty stepped on product into something “better”
If you live.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
You were Florida’s last hope.
Baud
I got conflicting information on the cancer bill. Apparently the Senate fix wasn’t as good as what was stripped from the House, but not sure.
In any event, we’ll be back here in 3 months.
TBone
Plain old snorting of meth rots the teeth. Thus meth heads are easy to spot (I knew a few in my former life). Purty mouth ruined.
Baud
@TBone:
That’s why they want to get rid of fluoride in water – so the meth heads won’t stand out.
Gretchen
@Baud: I’ve read that they put back some of the cancer funding that was removed but not all of it. So they just made the bill worse for no reason. Move fast and break things, indeed.
Baud
Via Blue sky
Baud
@Gretchen:
Owning the libs is all the reason America needs.
TBone
@Baud: I hear “May the odds be ever in your favor” whenever I think about what’s coming.
Luigi mighta sorta out-thunk Katniss.
Baud
@Baud:
With link
TBone
@TBone: sometimes, the perfect meme appears outta nowhere
https://bsky.app/profile/fancysplace.bsky.social/post/3ldx467qqw22b
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: And you get a “Gah!” for that one.
Good morning, Happy Festivus !
P.S. They are predicting some icing for morning drive in Chicago-land and I am off today burning my last vacation day. I’m pleased at my luck.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: happy Festivus! My stash is so low, I have only dregs with which to celebrate is my grievance today. But I stocked up on vape cartridges so there’s at least something to fall back on.
Gotta go to the supermarket today. Blech!
Enjoy your day off!
TBone
This attorney needs a pardon.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/i-m-still-not-free-environmental-lawyer-who-fought-chevron-in-ecuador-seeking-biden-pardon/ar-AA1wcb1m
TBone
I think I met this woman at a very rural Christmas cookie exchange party a few years back when I lived at my cabin. Her credit card receipts are from the same local stores I frequented. My brush with fame:
https://www.spotlightpa.org/statecollege/2024/12/gregg-township-centre-county-rural-pennsylvania-local-government-felony-theft-public-money/
Belly Cat should see this story.
I brought TBone’s Kicked Up Cocoa to that party with my cookies (real homemade hot cocoa with some added Godiva chocolate liquor, cinnamon, hot pepper, and vodka) so the faces are a little fuzzy.
Chief Oshkosh
Musk won because he blocked that part of the bill that would’ve hampered Musk’s continued investment in China (a threat to national security, btw). Musk also won, short-term, by dominating Dumbshit Donny.
Long-term, Donny could get rid of Musk any time he wants, assuming he’s brave enough. First, he can fuck with Musk’s sweetheart contracts. If Musk tries to pull another dominance stunt over that, Donny will have ICE give him a one-way trip to SA — or worse. I wrote “could” because I don’t know that Trump has it in him to play real hardball.
satby
@Baud: @Gretchen: Kevin Drum wrote about the background on that. Not the specific amounts of money (about $40 million less in the previously passed bill by the House).
Scuffletuffle
@Betty Cracker: What? Are you nuts?…John’s a keeper…
Baud
A lot of the new follows I get on Blue sky are by grifters or some sort of scam artist. Very interesting.
satby
@Baud: block them. That’s the big draw of Blue Sky, though the bird site’s block is working again too.
I suspect people who work for the ketamine addict just comply for as long as he pays attention, then go back to business as (almost) usual as soon as he flits off to something else.
Jackie
@JWR:
I burst out laughing when I read that! TCFG probably has to keep reassuring himself with that reminder! LOL
Baud
@satby:
Thanks. I don’t follow back, but I haven’t been blocking.
satby
@Jackie: especially funny coming from the clown who wants to end birthright citizenship.
Baud
I blocked my first account!
Some right wing Bitcoin guy.
Jay
@Chief Oshkosh:
https://www.thewrap.com/donald-trump-bad-firing-the-apprentice/
satby
@Baud: 👏👏👏 well done!
MagdaInBlack
@Jay: I’m sure you’ve seen Noel Casler talk about his time with trump on the set of “The Apprentice.”
If not, try a little youtube dive for his interviews
P.S. Kicking Horse “Kick Ass” this week.
Jay
@Baud:
@satby:
Block. The Hell Site has become so bad that crypto grifters are trying to grift Goldbugs and Nazi’s are arguing with Nazi’s. And of course, the bots,
so of course they are all migrating over to BlueSky and Mastodon.
Jay
@MagdaInBlack:
: )
Soprano2
@Chetan Murthy: Oh yeah, several years ago our paper posted a series of photos of how a meth user looked over a 10 year period. It wasn’t pretty.
satby
Amanda Marcotte on the mishegas in DC last week.
TBone
The TV producer of ‘The Apprentice’ will be our next
AmbassadorSpecial Envoy to the U.K. in case you missed that tidbit.https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c3rqj5z1e5vo
Jackie
Hear ye! Hear ye! The congressional ethics committee finds Gaetz had sex with a minor!
Rose Judson
@Baud: Block early and often, bro (but not me). I’ve had quite a few crypto weirdoes and obvious porn spam accounts following me and nuked them all as soon as I reviewed the notifications. It’s bliss.
Princess
@Baud: Good. I’d prefer he commuted all of them (i oppose the death penalty because I don’t think the state should do that but also in part because I think life in jail is a worse punishment) but he left the three who killed Jews, Boston liberals, and Black people so maybe Trump won’t be in such a rush to “avenge” those people.
Baud
@Princess:
Feel the same.
Princess
@satby: Yes, anyone who follows me who seems even slightly shady gets blocked.
Baud
Now I’m a little worried about missing out on a sweet crypto deal.
Jay
@Baud:
Gold is forever.
TBone
TBone
@TBone: and another thing appears
https://bsky.app/profile/fancysplace.bsky.social/post/3ldxquvyffc2t
Baud
@TBone: Is that real?
TBone
@Baud: Fancy said “check the time and date on xitter” which I refuse to do. So I don’t know but if it isn’t, I’ll be surprised.
Baud
@TBone:
It’s got a big factual error, since Musk wasn’t appointed to the cabinet. And he’s made a big deal about how he was staying private.
TBone
@Baud: well, this will be the Reign of Error, so…
And he is that fucking dumb, after all.
But it’s the quiet ones we need to keep the eyes in the backs of our heads on.
Geminid
@Aussie Sheila: Your mention of “outrage” reminded me of an aphorism I came across this weekend:
This sounded like something I might pull out of a fortune cookie, but I thought it contained at least one grain of truth.
TBone
@Geminid: 🎯
I have learned to use anger as a positive force for change after letting outrage subside. Sit through the pain and think when you’re able to.
Righteous anger is righteous.
Baud
@Geminid:
Sounds accurate to me.
TBone
@TBone: also too this is where the Wollman Test of Reality comes into play.
Suzanne
It is 16 degrees outside. Hot yoga tonight, man.
I know this is very Scrooge-y, but I am sick of the Christmas tree. It drops needles everywhere, and it takes up space, and I have to constantly police if the dog or the Spawn has messed with the ornaments. We only had one break this year, so far. I decluttered/donated a bunch of holiday decorations this year. Anything with glitter, though…. straight to the trash.
TBone
I hope to see my favorite cashier, Earl, at the market today in the hopes that his dreaded diagnosis from last week is not cancer. If it is, I’m gonna be crushed after surviving the other sucktastic going on around Casa TBone lately.
C’mon, man! I’m rooting for stomach ulcers that can be tamed by antibiotics.
Betty Cracker
Good to hear Biden commuted the death row inmates’ sentences. IMO, the government should not be in the business of killing people, but especially when a demented fuck like Trump is in charge. He got off on that power trip last time around, and it was sickening.
artem1s
@Geminid: GOPer/MAGAt/country club speak for ‘I thought the job was getting up at noon, dressing up, getting free botox and Xhitting all day. After realizing it may mean having to show up and sit in a bunch of boring meetings with boring people and having to learn boring shit, I decided to retire to MAL and sit by the pool and drunk Xhit all day the way my other influencer trust fund friends do.”
Jackie
@Suzanne:
I hung tiny little bells among the outer branches that tattle- taled when the cats and wee littles touched the tree. Worked like magic. After a few tell-tell tinkling bells, the littles stopped. The cats didn’t stop, but they couldn’t figure out how I knew…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Jackie: When our son was little, we put the tree in the playpen
TONYG
@Geminid: Speaking for myself, whenever I hear the phrase “an incredible amount of thought”, the first person that I think of is Lara Trump!
TONYG
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You should have told her that you have $400 billion!
Suzanne
@Jackie: The dog has actually been pretty good. The kid wants to mess with stuff. Honestly, the fucken pine needles on the floor bother me the most.
I am really trying to intentionally do less in the house. I do not want clutter to put away, or junk to dust, or projects to do. SuzMom lives with me, and she has always been a shopper. It makes me insane.
zhena gogolia
Speaking of good people, Pres. Biden:
Jay
@TONYG:
Don’t worry about what other people think about you,…………..
Most people don’t think.
Kay
@Jackie:
Paying a minor for sex is sex trafficking in the US code – a felony – and ordinary people are regularly prosecuted for it. I can think of double digits who were charged just where I live in the last 10 years – in a county of 30,000 people. It doesn’t matter if they transport the minor or if they were aware of the minor’s age – “trafficking” rests on the transaction – the payment traveled.
Glory b
@Betty Cracker: I, however, would like to announce to Idris Elba and Boris Kodjo that I remain available.
Either can have his people call my people.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: I see you beat me to it.
Matt McIrvin
@JWR: So… Trump and his pals talk constantly about how he maybe-kinda-not-really-but-maybe-is going to ignore the Constitutional prohibition on serving for a third term, but he thinks the Constitutional prohibition on non-native-born Presidents is going to protect thim?
Kay
Just FYI, Glenn Greenwald vigorously defended Matt Gaetz and hinted that an investigation was a Deep State conspiracy.
Although why the Deep State would bother with some performative, degenerate clown House member is never explained.
Americas dumbest lawyer is wrong again.
I hope its before a grand jury. If federal prosecutors can go after ordinary people for this crime they can charge this scumbag.
Glory b
@TBone: We here in Pittsburgh clocked in at a balmy 13 degrees last night.
Only a 18% chance of a white Christmas though.
Soprano2
@TBone: That’s his reward for repressing the alleged tapes of TCFG saying the “n” word.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: For some reason my cat thinks the tree is something she should try to eat. She chews on it, then throws it up, rinse and repeat. Our tree is on a stand that looks like a drum; hubby made it a long time ago. We elevated the tree just to keep the critters from messing with the ornaments, but it’s not stopping her from chewing on it. I got a Frasier fir this year, and the needles are soft not sharp, so that’s probably why she’s doing it.
O. Felix Culpa
@satby:
Good article. I particularly liked this sentence:
And also her comment about Jeffries and the House Dems:
So maybe the Dems aren’t predisappointing us (yet), after all?
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
As in Adam’s Ukraine thread, the GrOPer’s are calling for elections in Ukraine. Ukraine’s Constitution does not allow that, but the GrOPer’s hate Zeleniskii.
They don’t understand that while the Multi Billionaire President, the 34 Felonies Rapist Vice President and the White Supremacist Court can change the US Constitution on a whim,
Most actual Democracies make Constitution changes harder.
Kay
Welp, they already declined to charge him with federal trafficking and he’s obviously not going to be charged in Florida – they let Epstein go in Florida and he was trafficking an entire group of high school girls – so he gets off.
Anyone else would be facing a LENGTHY prison sentence. Draconian.
Kay
You’d have to actually value girls more than powerful and connected men to prosecute powerful and politically connected men for crimes against those girls, so that’s probably where the US Justice system falls down.
In Florida re: Epstein they decided the victims were prostitutes so it was no harm, no foul. The victims were low status – girls we can throw away.
frosty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: My parents did the same thing. A couple of Christmases ago WG posted the picture of my brother and me on the wrong side of the fence, staring at the tree.
Glory b
@Suzanne: Yes! Glitter drives me INSANE.
My husband buys ornaments with it, I try to toss them every year. It makes post holiday clean up difficult, there have been times that pieces of it still pop up in the spring.
stinger
Am I wrong to say we shouldn’t even have billionaires? Millionaires, I’m okay with, maybe because I watched The Millionaire on afternoon TV as a child, where the rich guy gave some of his money to needy people. It often didn’t do them much good, but he at least was willing to have fewer of his own millions.
Kay
Most of the federal sex trafficking charges here involve truck drivers, be cause truck stops are easy to access for underage, low income local girls – we’re right off the major NW to NE route – and, like Gaetz, drivers (inexplicably) use PayPal and Venmo rather than cash so there’s a record. Low status perpetrators and low status victims.
Glory b
@Kay: I read that he’s considering running for the Senate or requesting an appointment as a special congressional prosecutor so he can harrass Dems & Republicans he doesn’t like.
Kay
@Glory b:
I do not understand why I continually see this gaping gulf between how ordinary people are treated by the justice system and how powerful people are treated. I feel as if its unsustainable – that each time one of these men is not held accountable we just go further toward a low trust society. The justice system lacks credibility. Its a problem, and it isn’t going away. Its one of the reasons I think we need a major reworking of institutions post Trump. We need to recommit to higher standards. Donald Trump has lowered standards across the board, sadly. Nearly everyone is better than his pack of lowlife criminals so “better than Trump” can’t be the standard. Its too low. Hoist it back up quick or its the new norm and were stuck with it.
Kay
@Glory b:
This sounds dumb, but I took “quality” training as a manager and it had a profound effect on me. Its one way to measure things and I use it a lot as an analysis frame. So you know how Obamas appointees were blocked for things like minor errors on federal income tax and now Trump appointees are rapists and criminals? That’s a dramatic loss of quality and it doesn’t fix itself and it spreads throughout systems unless it’s affirmatively resisted and corrected. Its spreading. You can’t just “get through it”. You have to turn it around, and that’s hard as nails.
TBone
@Soprano2: good eye!
Miss Bianca
@Geminid:
@Gin & Tonic:
Pretty sure any amount of thought would be incredible for her.
Matt McIrvin
@stinger: The sales pitch for unobstructed hypercapitalism that we got back during the Reagan era was that the bureaucratic friction and bad incentives associated with making the world fairer was enough of a drag on general prosperity that everyone would be better off without it. Things might get more unequal, but a rising tide would lift all boats.
Well, it didn’t lift all boats, except in very specific ways (cheap consumer goods of types previously considered luxuries if they even existed at all–yeah, we got those! Now do health insurance or housing.)
But it feels as if, just in the past few years, the very richest stratum of the richest rich have passed some threshold where they have the power to become much more personally malevolent. There are Masters of the Universe who are just nuts and are jerking us all around with their money power. And they seem to feel that some kind of social barrier to throwing their weight around has fallen.
We’ve gotten these people under control before. The Gilded Age ended. But often what got them under control was a war. And I am not sure our society or human civilization can survive a major war at this point. I don’t know if there’s any good alternative to that. Carter described the energy crisis of the 1970s (which, in a way, continues in our age) as the moral equivalent of war and it didn’t really work.
RevRick
@Matt McIrvin: It didn’t require a war to constrain the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age. What it did require was for the middle class to get fed up with their predations. And that was very much assisted by the investigative journalism of the Muckrakers. When the protests arose from Populists, who represented poor farmers, miners and railroad workers, they were met with a certain degree of hostility from the middle classes, who feared radicalism. But when the middle classes realized that their health and safety, their prosperity, their freedom was at stake, they suddenly used their clout to affect change.
JAM
Musk did get something he wanted: All the language meant to prevent defense technology manufacturing/intellectual property theft in China and to assess privacy and security problems with Chinese routers and internet equipment was removed according to his wishes.
BellaPea
As this is an open thread, just want to take a break from politics to say I got my Pets of Balloon Juice calendar, and I am thrilled! So many adorable pets. It was lovely to see my precious Callie on the August page. Many thanks to Watergirl and her colleagues who did an amazing job in such a short time. If you haven’t ordered a calendar yet, do it! If you don’t need one for yourself, it would make a very nice gift.
Lobo
@Aussie Sheila: Synecdoche- a figure of speech where a part is put for a whole
The eight most terrifying words in the English language and one, “I’m a billionaire and I’m here to help you(myself).
apocalipstick
@JWR:
What genius! No one has ever thought of using anti-drug advertising before!
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: Don’t forget, you need to be a rapacious money lender, dedicated to bankrupting your clients (so you can seize their property), to be *truly* Scroogelike.
And of all the ways one can lose Christmas spirit, a needly tree is one of the best. Worst. Whatever!
That said, if I’m in danger of being boiled in a plum pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through my heart, I’ll just back away slowly, not saying anything more.
WTFGhost
@apocalipstick: In two months, he’ll insist he invented this new ad campaign, no one ever thought of it before, and everyone is telling him it’s *genius*, they’re saying “sir,” with tears in their eyes and everything. “Just say no to drugs!”
StringOnAStick
@Jay: A friend’s son is a cop in Portland (he’s not a white supremacist, but he sees fellow cops who are). He said fentanyl overdoses are down on the streets because the dealers realized killing their customers is bad for business, so they’ve gotten much more circumspect about how much they add in the last couple of months.
StringOnAStick
@TBone: Meth ruins teeth because it dries up saliva, which helps remineralize your teeth after acid attack. Meth users drink tons of sugary drinks while on multiday benders, and all that sugar in a dry mouth is the perfect recipe for rampant decay. So is being bulimic due to how acidic stomach contents are, but that usually shows up more on the inside of the front teeth.
Kayla Rudbek
@Jackie: we would hang tinkling bell ornaments on the lowest branches as well. Sometimes the cat and/or dog would set them ringing.