Happy New Year!
(my cartoon for @newscientist.bsky.social)— Tom Gauld (@tomgauld.bsky.social) January 1, 2025 at 5:04 AM
Biden to honor Liz Cheney, 19 others with Presidential Citizens Medal https://t.co/sSjKWdRlR6
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 2, 2025
I say good for President Biden, and bad cess to the people who will undoubtably bitch & moan about it. Per the Washington Post, “Biden to honor Liz Cheney with Presidential Citizens Medal”:
President Joe Biden will honor former Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney and 19 others on Thursday with the Presidential Citizens Medal, a tribute given to those who have performed exemplary deeds of service for their country or fellow Americans.
Biden will bestow the honor on Cheney — one of the GOP’s most outspoken critics of President-elect Donald Trump, who joined Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on the campaign trail last year in a bipartisan push to defeat him — less than three weeks before Trump is inaugurated.
Cheney served as vice chair of the House select committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters, and in October, she urged Americans to reject his “depraved cruelty” as she rallied alongside Harris. A majority of voters were not persuaded by that argument…
Alongside Cheney, Biden will award Rep. Bennie G. Thompson (D-Mississippi), who served as the chairman of the Jan. 6 House select committee, with the Presidential Citizens Medal.
Other honorees include attorney Mary Bonauto, who fought to legalize same-sex marriage and argued before the Supreme Court in the landmark marriage-equality case Obergefell v. Hodges, and lawyer and activist Evan Wolfson, a leader of the marriage-equality movement.
Veterans, health-care advocates and former lawmakers, some with close, decades-long ties to Biden, are also on the list. Among them are former senators Ted Kaufman (D-Delaware) and Chris Dodd (D-Connecticut), as well as two-time NBA champion and former senator Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey), a Hall of Fame forward who played for the New York Knicks before embarking on a career in politics.
I checked President Biden’s official twitter account (there doesn’t seem to be an official BlueSky account), and there wasn’t any news (yet) about the Presidential Citizens medals, but I did find this:
I’ve met some incredible folks over the past four years.
And this month, I finally got to show them the office. pic.twitter.com/5h7El6gixU
— President Biden (@POTUS) December 30, 2024
A little nostalgia, for my fellow Olds…
On The Road – UncleEbeneezer – Eastern Sierra Fall Foliage 2024- McGee Creek, CA (Part 7/8)
Baud
I was passed over yet again.
Ben Cisco
Good morning everyone!
cmorenc
@Baud:
The difference is, Liz Cheney wears pants, and you don’t. You thereby kind of take yourself out of the running for honors other than e.g. “valedictorian of a hot yoga class.”
Baud
@Ben Cisco:
Good morning.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
If anybody could have predicted a Democratic president would give such an award to such a stalwart conservative like Liz Cheney, go buy lottery tickets cuz you were prescient.
The world truly has turned upside down.
This isn’t a criticism of the action, simply an observation that things are, um, different. And if Biden’s simply trolling the right, even better.
Chief Oshkosh
Seems like the two most popular commercials on the moving pictures box this morning are for Pop Tarts and La-Z-boy sofas.
Man, it’s gonna be tough keeping those New Year’s resolutions…
Edited for grammar and usage…
Baud
@cmorenc:
I wish I were that flexible.
satby
@Ben Cisco: @Baud: @cmorenc: Good morning to you and all who join after.
So much to do today, new ISP install and then new passport pictures to renew my passport with.
Shalimar
@Baud: You could be, if you started going to hot yoga classes.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m having a CT scan of my left ear this morning. A few months back, it started feeling like I’d just gotten off an airplane–pressure, blocked hearing. I hope the scan will show the cause, and that it’s something they can treat.
Baud
@Shalimar:
Maybe I’ll spend all my time doing hot yoga for the next four years.
NotMax
1) Merry World Introvert Day!
2) Media note.
Not access to the entire library, solely to their own content. Still, some bingeworthy things. Couple of short(er) run examples which can be fit into a weekend: The Last Days Of Ptolemy Grey, Schmigadoon!.
Suzanne
Count me as one of the people who’s sick of hearing about Liz Cheney’s bravery. Give her a medal, fine. I don’t love it, but I get that it’s important for vibes reasons. But she’s still spent most of her public life working to forward the interests of some of the worst people in the country.
Please note that I absolutely do not want her to be politically targeted by TFG’s goons. I just want her to return to private life. Sigh.
p.a.
Well I guess an award to someone who helped breed the monster, nurtured the monster, lost control of the monster, then shouts “Look out everyone, a monster!” is… laudable???
Maybe just a “thanks for your attempt at help in 2024” note and a Dunkin giftcard.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
Anyone else observing this occasion is welcome to come over and sit a decent distance away from me. Conversation OK in small doses, but comfortable silences are also welcome.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Honestly a fantastic coping strategy.
Old School
That Biden video is very nice. Thanks for highlighting it.
caphilldcne
Evan (who I’ve met a few times) and Mary are absolutely worthy of this honor and I think it’s notable to choose to honor them before this new congress comes in and starts relitigating the rights of people to marry those whom the person they love. I’m absolutely ill the way they’ve demonized and other used trans people and we will be called upon to fight on their behalf in this new administration and especially not allow the Democratic Party to look the other way or to throw trans people under the bus.
Ohio Mom
@Dorothy A. Winsor: At least a CT scan is a fast and easy test.
I am eternally amazed at how many things can go wrong inside our bodies. Here’s hoping yours has an easy fix.
Phylllis
The silence can also be uncomfortable, as long as there’s…silence.
Mai Naem mobile ¹
@Suzanne: this might be a way Biden may be using to make it harder for TFG to go after Cheney. He’s talked more about going after Cheney then Kinzinger. Pre-TFG I was pretty selective on who I called evil and Dick Cheney was one of them. Dick Cheney did irreparable harm to this country. The Iraq debacle is just this colossal mistake that just keeps on giving year after year.
lowtechcyclist
@p.a.:
The way I figure it, the arc of the monster’s development would have been almost exactly the same if Liz Cheney had never been born. OTOH, her opposition to it has been notable, especially by contrast to the sucking-up to the monster on the part of most of the so-called ‘liberal’ media.
Soprano2
@Baud: Regular yoga works, too. If I didn’t exercise my stress would be off the charts.
Anyway
@Suzanne: Enjoy “regular” yoga – hatehatehate hot yoga. I’ve tried it a couple of times and ended up leaving half-way through the session
ETA – another meh to Liz Cheney here
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: At least she could recognize that it was a monster, rather than the next coming of Jesus, which is how most Republicans reacted to it.
eclare
@Anyway:
I have only tried it once, over twenty years ago. Never again. Unlike your class, the teacher was adamant that no matter how you felt, under no circumstances should you take a break or leave. Seemed dangerous to me.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Agreed. No earthly idea why Democrats keep promoting this far Right Republican.
hueyplong
No “meh” from me about Cheney. The problem isn’t the excessive praise given to her. It’s the fact that so few of the execrable wannabe Nazis chose her course. If even a token number of other relatively powerful Republicans had joined her, what seems to us like minimum required action would in fact be so considered.
mali muso
Good morning to all. It’s another day of me and kiddo hanging out since her school doesn’t start back up until Monday…and even that is looking shaky as there is possible snow in the forecast. Today’s big agenda item; getting my annual car inspection.
Re: Liz Cheney, I am agnostic. I appreciate her having what would have previously been considered the bare minimum of human decency and character. But it is a sad commentary on the era that the minimum is now award-worthy.
Suzanne
@Anyway: Man, I adore hot yoga. The first time I ever did it, which was after multiple years of sporadic regular yoga, I was like, “what the fuck was that?!”. Tried it a second time, enjoyed it more. Tried it a third time and was absolutely hooked. Now I’m the asshole who asks if they can make it even hotter.
I’m going tonight, which, since we are getting our “arctic blast”….. will be the highlight of the day. Sweating when it’s cold outside is one of my favorite things.
Soprano2
@Anyway: I’ve never wanted to do hot yoga even though I know people who like it. “Let’s exercise in a room where the temperature is over 100° for an hour” is not appealing to me. I had a yoga teacher who would make the room between 75°-80°. That was plenty hot for me – I had to start wearing a bandana around my hairline to keep the sweat from dripping into my face!
John S.
@Suzanne:
You can include me in that camp, though for a slightly different reason. I just it find it odd that someone should get an award just for doing their job. I get that there were hundreds of others who abdicated their responsibilities, but that shouldn’t automatically elevate the couple of folks who did.
The bar for so many things is set incredibly low in this shitty timeline of ours.
Kay
Told ya. Republicans want to replace the progressive income tax with regressive taxes that fall hardest on the lowest incomes. It’s exactly what they’ve done in the states they run.
Soprano2
@eclare: Wow, you had a bad teacher!!!! I’ve never had a teacher do that to me. Usually they say the opposite, that if you’re not feeling a pose you don’t have to do it, that it’s OK to take a break whenever you need one. They’re usually super helpful about using props to make a position more possible for you. If you want you should try again with a better teacher. I can’t emphasize enough how unusual that attitude is for a yoga teacher.
p.a.
@John S.: Yes. We used to say at work, “you don’t get a gold star stuck to your collar for doing what you’re supposed to.”
sab
@lowtechcyclist: I will be celebrating this International Introversion day at home with my cats while my husband is off at his weekly coffee klatch with his high school buddies.
Shalimar
@lowtechcyclist: Ima gonna celebrate by not speaking to anyone else all day
Kay
Suzanne
@John S.:
Yeah. It’s….. really tough to watch.
Soprano2
@Kay: People are aware of federal income tax in a way they aren’t aware of other taxes (except maybe property taxes). When you have to pay it once a year (or quarterly if it’s high enough, gotta remember to send in that payment this week!), it’s a lot easier to get mad about it. People have no idea how much total they pay in sales taxes and gas taxes – it’s probably more than they pay in income tax for most people. Add in all the fees they’ve implemented instead of taxes, and I’m sure it’s quite a chunk.
satby
Yep. And I also agree the Rs were on the trajectory to authoritarianism before Liz was born. It was during the LBJ years that some of the far-right in the party went behind the governments back to delay the Paris peace talks for Nixon.
p.a.
There was a Chicago shock-jock at the time, Mancow (sp?) I think, who took the “no different than a frat prank” line. To his credit, he underwent waterboarding. Lasted maybe 20 seconds: “If that isn’t torture I don’t know what is.”
Kay
@Soprano2:
Agree. I have people telling me they’re paying “death taxes” when they’re paying county probate court fees.
It’s been a dream of the far Right to get rid of the income tax since the day it was passed. It would utterly transform this country and turn it into a paradise for the 1% and a miserable hellhole for the rest.
TBone
I am uncharacteristically quiet today, trying to find my center amidst the onslaught. Looking for my Everyday Zen book, I opened a Pandora’s Box from my past, one of the several yet-unopened boxes in my basement storing things I was unable to deal with yet. I tried to obliterate the trauma of recent family history by putting “all new” in my new home and figured I’d save these boxes for a day in the future. My normal policy is, if you haven’t touched it in a year, get rid of it. These books, articles, photos, mementos are like a time capsule.
Crikey. Stuff with emotional attachment is a double edged sword. Going to just clean leftovers out of the fridge instead!
Kay
@p.a.:
The Iraq War was based on a lie. No one was ever held responsible for it. I would argue never holding anyone in power accountable for anything for years and years led directly to Donald Trump and MAGA. We’ve swept so much shit under the rug we’re all tripping walking across the floor.
Too Big To Jail.
The Audacity of Krope
Democrats are morans. You don’t let Republicans get away with criminality for decades upon decade, including much of Trump’s then expect people to take it seriously when you prosecute the absolute least of Trump’s crimes.
I think I finally unsubscribed from all the donor lists I’m on.
frosty
That’s our household!
Baud
Soprano2
@Kay: I think that’s what wanting to go back to the 1890’s tax structure is about. People have NO IDEA what that would be like, or how different the federal government was then from what it is now. This is one of the problems with people’s unawareness – it allows R politicians to lobby to get rid of things people think they’re getting no benefit from, when they’re actually getting benefits from it. My mother used to complain about all those government employees, and I’d say “You know that’s me you’re complaining about”. She’d rush to say that no, it’s not the local and state people, just federal, as if people who work for the federal government are somehow completely different than people in every other workplace. *sigh
Kay
@Soprano2:
MAGAs and MAHAs think people lived longer in 1900.
I don’t know that better messaging cures that. These are people who appear to have reached adulthood having done no thinking of any kind.
Soprano2
@Kay: I’d actually say it goes all the way back to Iran-Contra. No one was really ever held accountable for that, and in an act much more corrupt than Biden pardoning Hunter, H.W. pardoned his way out of being held responsible. Not many people know about that.
Baud
I’m just glad one side has finally won the class war, so we can’t put that behind us.
John S.
@Baud:
All of those things are fine as long as the price of eggs goes down.
TBone
@Baud: I bought one of hubby’s famous American flag “camouflage” redneck T-shirts because it says
Keep it classy, America!
p.a.
@Kay: Goes back to Noxin’s pardon. The same fucking characters were involved in Iran-Contra and everything since, except as they died off, but as you note the next generations learned the lesson well.
And “our side” didn’t distinguish itself for the most part in not raising more of a stink.
RevRick
@Soprano2: A study released yesterday by the Independent Fiscal Office reported that high-income earners in Pennsylvania have a lower effective tax rate. For those earning less than $50,000 the effective rate for state and local taxes was 10.7%; for those earning over $1 million, 6.9%.
While Pennsylvania was listed as the fourth most regressive state, I would not be surprised that other states have inverted tax rates hitting the lowest earners hardest.
Ben Cisco
@Chief Oshkosh: My day starts kinda early, and I listen to SiriusXM radio. Have been inundated with ads for Orange Oaf watches and cologne since the start of the Christmas season. They (thankfully) stopped last week, only to resume this morning. UGH. So classless.
Soprano2
I think this is partly because they only have awareness of the lives of wealthy people in those times. People probably ate healthier food in general, but not nearly enough of it for most of them. If you only knew how the wealthiest people lived you might be fooled that most people lived longer then, but anyone who thinks about it for even a minute knows that’s not possible. Of course, these people are dumb enough to believe vaccines actually kill more people than they help. I agree, I don’t know how you fix that when they keep believing something in the face of overwhelming evidence it’s not true. When people can say “It’s just a conspiracy, all those deaths were hidden because they were called death from something else” I don’t know that there’s anything you can do about it.
Boy, I need to read more before I post.
John S.
@RevRick:
The way things are going, Rev. Dr. Barber is going to be advocating for a lot more poor people.
I think he’s great, btw.
TBone
I got no time to complain about the past, too busy girding my loins. It’s all been said and done, some of us have learned from history, to each his own, and some have learned nothing or the exactly wrong, evil crap that is spreading. Gah.
Suzanne
@Kay: They say the political events of your adolescence/early adulthood are the most salient. For me, that is absolutely 9/11 and the subsequent explosion of Islamophobia, and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. I will probably go to my grave angry about it. Part of what made it so painful to watch was watching some of the Dems fall down on opposing it when it mattered.
So…. Liz Cheney: it’s complicated.
Jeffro
@Kay: WaPo’s 3rd story today is the “10 policies Republicans are considering to pay for extending tax cuts”
All of them will hurt working Americans and their families, of course. The #1 “policy” under consideration? Tariffs, aka taxes on working families.
Folks have no idea how bad this is going to get, or how quickly. But trumpov is convinced that tariffs are ‘magic money’ that comes from overseas at no cost to the U.S., so away we go!
p.a.
@RevRick: Don’t forget legalized state gambling, the budget panacea🤢. Straight regressive tax, based on the demographics of gambling (in the US population at least.)
Wapiti
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Interesting; I’ve been having similar issues with a weirdly blocked ear (also the left ear for those who dabble in conspiracies) and get to see an ENT about mid-month.
zhena gogolia
Goddamit, what Liz Cheney did took enormous courage. And she’s by no means out of the woods yet.
I can’t believe you guys.
Kay
I have a new guilty pleasure. I comment on MAGA and MAHA posts on TikTok. Not to brag. but this might be my medium. Have to be VERY concise. It’s like commenting Haiku. TikTok collects a number for responses to each of your posts and I immediately rack up numbers. It’s hit and run though. I never return to a post so they just reply and reply and reply for hours. Last night I told them not to break any windows or shit on the floor at the inauguration like the last time they visited Our Nations Capitol. 37 enraged MAGA responses in seconds.
TBone
@p.a.: good eye
Scout211
@Kay: @Soprano2:
And tax payers have no idea who pays for services in their own states. They will blame the Federal government when the services in their own states are cut.
OTOH, for many of the red state governments and the Republican Party, that myth is not a bug, it’s the plan.
TBone
@zhena gogolia: seconded
Hubby took an immediate liking to her after J6 and I trust his judgement on that matter, normie that he is.
Kay
@Jeffro:
Thanks. I’m so glad it’s getting covered in a way that is in my view correct. These people are serious. The Heritage Foundation is serious. Project 2025 is serious. It is always, always about the money.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: For me that would be Nixon, then the Arab oil embargo and the resulting shock to the economy, then the Iranian hostage crisis and the election of Reagan. Makes sense, because that does color a lot of how I see the world. Why, for example, I think people who believe today’s economy is horrible would cry endlessly if they had to live in the late ’70’s/early ’80’s. Imagine how they would feel if told they could only buy gas on certain days, or if the gas stations ran out of gas at the end of the month and they couldn’t get more until the beginning of the next month. It was years of inflation over 5% along with unemployment over 5% and interest rates over 15%. It was not a picnic, or for the faint of heart.
The Audacity of Krope
Guys, you’re supposed to abuse the law, not break it. /Liz Cheney
p.a.
@Scout211: Well, when gubmint fucks up/falls short of expectations, it’s natural for the peeps to blame the pro-gubmint party, especially since they apparently don’t have the mental capacity to look past results to causes.
Jeffro
I went to great lengths years ago to show my otherwise normal-IQ RWNJ dad that if the US went to a blessed ‘flat tax’ system like he was always rooting for, then provided that we wanted to raise the same amount of revenue, the rate would need to be incredibly high – mid-30%s. This would of course be a huge tax increase on most people and a slight cut for the wealthiest of people.
His response: “then I guess we’ll just have to raise less revenue. But I still don’t think that’s correct. A flat tax would be better.”
Their worship of the wealthy knows no bounds, honors no arithmetic, and can’t be outweighed by any amount of evidence.
JMG
Total US annual. budget: roughly $7 trillion. Total of all US annual imports: Roughly $4 trillion. Even with a 100 percent tariff on all imports, which even Trump hasn’t proposed, tariff doesn’t come close to replacing existing taxes. It’s a fantasy. Like Chevy Chase, Trump was told the Presidency has no math.
TBone
@The Audacity of Krope: my experience working in various law offices for thirty years says that is very common practice.
Soprano2
@p.a.: Yep, people complain about the price of groceries and then can’t wait to be able to place bets on sports. Sports betting barely passed in MO – I voted against it because I think it’s bad for people and bad for sports in general. I guess people think betting is OK because there’s a slight chance they might become a millionaire if they do it.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: Two things can be true at the same time – Liz Cheney believes a lot of terrible things are OK, and it took enormous courage for her to stand up to TCFG and most of the Republicans, because she knew it would end her political career.
Betty Cracker
From an ABC News report on the exploding Cybertruck in Vegas:
Um, why did the cops need the flounder-faced Bond villain to personally unlock the truck? The photos show that the bed cover and windows were all blown out in the explosion, so they had access to the interior.
So many questions! Does the design of those hideous vehicles always trap drivers when there’s an explosion of any type? Does that prevent first responders from using the “jaws of life” or other tools to access the cabin in emergencies? Does Musk personally unlock vehicles to allow first responders to reach accident victims?
Maybe the sheriff is trying to suck up to Musk?
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
TBone
@Betty Cracker: this will be the JFK assassination of our time. Much smaller.
Mitch McConnell’s wife’s sister:
cnn.com/2024/03/10/business/angela-chao-death/index.html
John S.
@Jeffro:
Wow, it’s like mad libs for MAGA. Works for just about any of their shibboleths.
Kay
@Suzanne:
What you wanted was some measure of justice and accountability. Half a million Iraqi civilians died based on this lie and no one in power was ever held accountable in any way. That lawlessness ripples in a society. We pay for it eventually. We’re paying for it now. Trump is a symptom, not the disease.
Soprano2
@Scout211: Some legislator has introduced a bill to completely get rid of state income taxes in MO. I don’t know what they want to replace them with, but it’s probably something horribly regressive.
mrmoshpotato
@p.a.:
Well put.
Scout211
Politico is reporting that Schumer is backing Ben Wikler for DNC.
ETA: autocorrect correction
TBone
@Scout211:
Wikler? Did autocorrect bot get you?Emily Litella voice: never mind
zhena gogolia
@Soprano2: It could end her political career and her career as a free woman walking around outside of a prison cell.
Scout211
@TBone: Yeah, I caught it before I saw your comment. Autocorrect is now correcting names? That is very strange.
The Audacity of Krope
@Scout211: Autocorrect loves changing the tenses of my verbs for no apparent reason.
John S.
@Soprano2:
Ruby Bridges also received the Presidential Citizens Medal. That’s what real courage looks like to me.
YMMV
p.a.
Here’s an OECD study on the regressivity of VATs. Sorry, it wouldn’t let me copy/paste the pertinent info, but it is in the brief abstract at the front of the article.
oecd.org/content/dam/oecd/en/publications/reports/2020/08/reassessing-the-regressivity-of-the-vat_39…
TBone
@Scout211: our new AI overlords are out for reality as our Church Lady said yesterday.
Nukular Biskits
@NotMax:
How does the world celebrate “World Introvert Day”?
frosty
@Kay: What fun!
I’ll let you represent me; other than the swamp of Facebook this is my only social medium right here. That was a good comment on TikTok. Keep us posted when you have another one like that.
Kay
@Suzanne:
It’s particularly hard if you’re in any way a part of the US justice system because we have the harshest sentencing of any highly developed democracy. We absolutely HAMMER regular people – decades and decades in prison and then this nightmarish period where they’re “on paper” and then….nothing at all happens to powerful people who commit crimes. Massive crimes. Half a million innocent people dead level crimes.
Too Big To Jail.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
One person at a time.
TBone
@zhena gogolia: just like Rick Steves warned us repeatedly. The opposing politicians were the first prisoners sent to the concentration camps.
Betty Cracker
I do wish Biden would grant pardons to protect members of the 1/6 committee from politically motivated persecution, including Liz Cheney, whether the individuals want pardons or not. It wouldn’t be an honor for the grantees. It would be a roadblock for the incoming lawless right-wing kleptocracy, which has repeatedly promised to abuse state power.
oldgold
On Liz Cheney, 2 things:
1st, I believe in regards to January 6th and all things related she has been a profile in courage.As such, I support her receiving the medal.
2nd, beyond that, probably we have had enough involvement with her. By and large, Harris ran a good campaign, but touring around with Cheney the last eeek was a big mistake. It was fishing in a very small pond.
The Audacity of Krope
That regressivity can be offset with some form of dividend for basic needs. I’m not holding my breath for that.
Belafon
@p.a.: Note that this award and a Dunkin gift card will get her a coffee.
p.a.
We don’t talk about that.
Kay
@frosty:
Oh, it’s fun. The hit and run nature and the randomness is part of what enrages them, I think. I could drop in anytime! :)
p.a.
As expected, and as noted in the study, varies by nation.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: There was a crash in Cali where 3 out of the 4 passengers died because they were trapped inside. Any other vehicle, in the same accident, and they would’ve gotten out. It’s an inherently poorly designed vehicle in every aspect, but when you buy out the government regulation system then they let you sell it in every state.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Most people don’t pay Federal (or state, or local) income tax once a year. Most workers have almost all of it withheld from their paychecks, and they pay a little the next April, or get a small refund, depending on whether their withholding came in a little on the low or the high side of their actual tax due.
I agree that it does differ from sales and gas taxes in that income tax is the only one where you see the yearly total tax you paid on a form.
zhena gogolia
@TBone: Especially opposing politicians from the same party. Same with Stalin.
zhena gogolia
@oldgold: I don’t think the “pond” of people who would like to see us have two sane political parties is all that small.
Josie
@Suzanne:
That’s interesting. For me, it was the Viet Nam war and watching so many young men suffer and die for a stupid war that benefitted no one but the military iindustrial complex. I was devastated that our government (both sides) closed their eyes and permitted that monstrosity to go on against the wishes of so many young people. It turned me against the idea of foreign entanglements that served no one but elites. We are still paying for those losses and that stupid attitude.
Starfish (she/her)
@John S.: Well, the President does not get to give a golden chicken to folks that showed the most cowardice (Mitch McConnell, Kevin McCarthy, John Roberts, various attorneys in the first Trump administration.)
different-church-lady
@Jeffro:
“You’ve never even opened a dictionary, asshole.”
TBone
@zhena gogolia: 🎯
different-church-lady
@p.a.: At least it’s a choice. Unlike,say, roofing material….
The Audacity of Krope
@Leto: I’m beginning to wonder if Musk deliberately designed those as death traps because it’s funny to him.
I remember once reading how to manually unlock a Cubertruck and it was the most convoluted thing I had ever heard of. Has society moved beyond things like simple manual switches, or do such things offend Musk’s sense of aesthetics?
ETA: Autocorrect didn’t catch Cubertruck. I did, I like it, I’m keeping it.
EATA: You’re right zhena. Musk doesn’t know how to design for shit. So I wonder if he deliberately paid someone to design a death trap. I thought Batman just finished jailing the Riddler.
Suzanne
@Kay:
The worst part is the cynicism it creates. Like, I notice this as a difference, even here, between me and some of the older commenters here. It’s not a difference in policy position or viewpoint or anything….. but it’s a difference in confidence and trust. I don’t think of government or party institutions working well — not really ever, in my lifetime — and I can see it in my social circles. All my friends vote the right way, but they also simply do not ever conceive of government as a positive good, a thing that advances society.
Belafon
@Kay: I like to point out to my fellow Texans that most Californians pay lower taxes than us and boy do they not like hearing that. And, as the David Frum quote goes, it’s me they’re mad at, not the state government.
zhena gogolia
@The Audacity of Krope: He doesn’t know how to design jack shit. Otherwise, you might be correct.
narya
@Betty Cracker: IIRC, part of the challenge of this strategy is that the person has to accept the pardon, i.e., acknowledge some kind of pardonable activity. I might be wrong, though. Giving Thompson and Cheney the medal is trolling of the highest degree AND deserved for their service on the J6 committee. Also too: I would think that the speech and debate clause would protect anyone in Congress, though of course the process is the punishment.
The Audacity of Krope
I’d like that. Maybe even more.
For now, even one would be nice.
Baud
Test
Belafon
@zhena gogolia:
Behind a keyboard is a comfortable place to be.
Melancholy Jaques
@Kay:
What strikes me is that the great majority of Americans, including many who vote D, don’t seem to want to hold powerful people accountable.
Starfish (she/her)
@Soprano2: So my sister went to visit my mom in the red state we grew up in, and it appears that they are saving state tax dollars by canceling the drivers’ tests. Parents just have to attest that their kid can drive. 😱
Nukular Biskits
@p.a.:
@Baud
You’re in BIG trouble now, Mister, for violating the First Rule of World Introvert Day.
different-church-lady
@Soprano2:
She no longer gets to do terrible things Give her the medal!
zhena gogolia
@The Audacity of Krope: True.
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
They do??
I mean, how many of them have even thought about that at all?? I’ve probably thought more about Cambodia or Guam than they’ve thought about that.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Correct IMHO.
tobie
I can’t imagine a country without income tax. That’s the end of the idea of a commons, a civic space, a public square. Is the idea to turn the US into Somalia?
catclub
I bet far less than 5% of Trump voters switched to Harris ( and every one was in a Harris ad).
The effort put into finding those voters, versus finding non-voters and getting them to vote, was not well spent.
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
What if it wasn’t brave?
What if Liz Cheney, like all of media and a quarter of the public, still believed the Republican Party wasn’t bankrupt and full of crooks and she believed they would follow HER as Party leader? What if it was just self interested delusion? She’ll be the Anti Trump of the Noble Conservative Movement! Then she can fucking make up another lie and slaughter some more Muslim civilians!
I’m not responsible for Liz Cheney’s delusional belief that the Republican Party she devoted her life to is just a husk of lies and grifters and criminals. She needs to face that.
different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope: Everyone complains about autocorrect. But nobody ever turns it off.
TBone
How is Donold gonna top his MSG rally at the inauguration is a question I have that I don’t want. Gonna be lit but not the way I’d like.
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Donald_Trump_rally_at_Madison_Square_Garden
different-church-lady
@tobie: It’s not the idea; it’s the plan.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Yes what she did took enormous courage. She went against her tribe in a public forum. Most people don’t or can’t counter their bigoted relatives at family gatherings.
lowtechcyclist
@John S.:
Which they won’t, at least not for a while. Now’s the time they’ll finally say it’s all because of the avian flu, nothing anyone could do about it.
John S.
@Starfish (she/her):
Now that’s an award I’d like to see!
The Audacity of Krope
@different-church-lady: Somehow not having it is worse still. I blame touch screens.
Bring back the BlackBerry.
TBone
@Starfish (she/her): what could go wrong?
The Audacity of Krope
I mean we start new traditions all the time.
Anyway
ETA I thought Sirius has no ads?
TBone
@The Audacity of Krope: those type things were used like IEDs in the recent past.
cmorenc
Liz Cheney would still be the US Representative from Wyoming, elected by a 70%+ of Wyoming voters, had she not turned against Trump after the violent 1/6 Capitol insurrection. Prior to that time, true many of her principles on substantive domestic and foreign policy were reprehensible, but we should not be shitting on her for standing up on such a crucially important foundational principle regarding 1/6 when doing so obviously put her in the crosshairs of MAGA wrath.
different-church-lady
@Nukular Biskits: You stare at each other’s shoes.
tobie
@zhena gogolia: Agree. I don’t have to like her politics to admire that when the survival of US democracy was on the line, she stood up for the constitution, even as all her colleagues in the Republican Party bowed to the would-be dictator.
RevRick
@p.a.: That and cigarette taxes were cited, but the sales and gas taxes also have a lot to do with what’s regressive.
different-church-lady
@The Audacity of Krope: Most people don’t seem to know you can have it flag stuff without auto-replacing it.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m not looking for a terror attack by the Israeli government, just keys I can feel.
Also, I thought that was pagers.
John S.
@Kay:
Her stance certainly seemed a lot more like political calculation than courage to me. She is a Cheney after all.
Kayla Rudbek
@Soprano2:
but in fact they weren’t eating healthier food, milk was tainted with formaldehyde, pickles had copper and arsenic salts turning them green, etc. Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle and then the work of the Poison Squad is why we have the FDA in the first place, and foreign companies can be quite bad about meeting American food safety standards. Mr. Rudbek had a lot of foreign classmates in grad/MBA school and none of his Chinese classmates would eat food with Made in China on the label. And then I go over to Charlie Stross’ blog and none of the British and EU citizens want to eat American beef and chicken because US safety regulations are less strict than the EU…
zhena gogolia
@Kay: Liz Cheney is too smart to have ever believed the scenario you posit.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: +1.
She was #3 in their party in the House and came out forcefully against the insurrectionists. She destroyed her political career to do the right thing.
Nobody can change their past. We usually want people to make the right choice when the time comes no matter their history. She made the right choice about the insurrection, and it was important.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Yes.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@zhena gogolia:
It’s ironic that such commentary you’re correctly highlighting is essentially an echo of what’s being said (and been said during the campaign regarding the association with Cheney) by the Horseshoe Left…who are roundly criticized themselves by the same sources here as being purity ponies, leftier than thou, etc., when it’s convenient.
p.a.
Fixt
Nettoyeur
@Soprano2: Around 1920, my alma mater, MIT, established a Dept of Nutrition and Food Science after determining that it’s first year students suffered from malnutrition.
narya
@Melancholy Jaques: @Baud: I kind of disagree here. I think that, first, people understand the issues only poorly, if at all, and, second, everyday people just don’t have a sense of how to make that happen. The J6 Committee did great work–people watched/listened! and an impeachment happened, and the Rs absolutely refused to acknowledge anything was wrong. It’s not so much that people don’t want accountability, it’s more that (it feels like) it’s beyond us to make that happen. Voting isn’t enough, especially given the wildly gerrymandered state of our voting. I can’t point to a single thing, or even a few things, that everyday people can do, and I know WAY more than the aforementioned “average voter.” I know what I can do, what folks here do, but we are more engaged and more dedicated to finding information.
Not trying to excuse people; more saying that it’s complex. YMMV.
The Audacity of Krope
Make Republican Crime Quiet Again
MRCQA: pronounced ‘Murrica.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffro:
Yeah, it’s why my otherwise pithy “Every Billionaire Is A Policy Failure” doesn’t resonate with at least 45% of the population, and probably more.
tobie
@John S.: What calculation? Liz Cheney first lost her leadership position and then her seat. Her career in electoral politics is over. She’s not switching parties and has no future among Republicans. Whomever Trump picks to lead the FBI will go after her. It won’t take much for Pam Bondi to be moved to bring charges against her, Olivia Troye, and others. No matter how wealthy you are, fighting the US govt at a trial costs a fortune. If Cheney’s interest was career advancement, she chose a dumb strategy.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Betty Cracker:
The unlatching of the doors when there’s no power is extremely counter intuitive to the point that nobody can figure it out on the fly. I posted a link to an analysis of that yesterday but can’t find it now.
cmorenc
@John S.:
Oh, please do tell us what that conniving calculation was by her in taking such a prominent role in investigating 1/6. Any cynical advantage would have been to potentially be in a leading position to pick up the pieces of a GOP shattered by the fallout from the 1/6 insurrection, but that was light-years from being any sure thing (either the shattering or that she would emerge as leader out of the wilderness) even had Trump been successfully prosecuted and prevented from running again.
Omnes Omnibus
Come on, everyone. Are we really surprised that a doddering old man would do something like this?
Seriously though, did Cheney do the right thing after Jan. 6 or not? Did she pay a political price for it? And, yes, she still has the same loathsome political views overall that she always had. A GOP run by her and her kind is something I would oppose everyday, but it would be preferable to the GOP we have now.
The Audacity of Krope
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Uh oh, the car is on fire and the doors won’t open. Time to consult the owners’ manual.
A Ghost to Most
“Turn the Page” has been a foundational song for me for 50 years.
RevRick
@John S.: Rev. Barber is the public preacher for our time, like Harry Emerson Fosdick in the 30s and 40s, Reinhold Niebuhr in the 40s-60s and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the 50s and 60s.
TBone
Krugman today
paulkrugman.substack.com/p/americas-forgotten-generation-of
The Audacity of Krope
Yes and yes.
Being proud of her for this is like being proud of a school shooter’s parents for testifying in court against their child that they trained, armed, and indoctrinated with toxic cultural beliefs.
And I can give a rat’s ass about the political price she paid when innocent people have been paying for her family’s sins in blood.
oldgold
@zhena gogolia: The small pond Cheney and Harris were fishing at was populated by disaffected “conservatives.” Harris should have been fishing in the much bigger pond full of unmotivated persuadables.
The Audacity of Krope
…for some, yes…
frosty
@Starfish (she/her): What state is that so I can detour around it?
lowtechcyclist
@Kay:
Remember “look forward, not back” from Obama & Co. when he became President?
At the time, I figured that was for public consumption, because he had a recession to deal with and was trying to pass Obamacare at the same time, but I figured stuff would be going on behind the scenes to address the financial crimes that caused the recession, and Iraq as well. But no such luck.
I’d still be pissed about that, but so many other things to be pissed about have come down the pike since.
RevRick
@Soprano2: 1973 was the year that broke America.
The Audacity of Krope
Any truly principled conservative has already been voting for Democrats for 30 years.
Baud
Better to die in a Tesla than escape and be branded a coward.
TBone
@The Audacity of Krope:
Geminid
One counter-argument to a preemptive pardon of Liz Cheney is that she is a hard target. If she is pardoned, there are others Trump can go after who lack her resources and public stature.
If Trump’s henchman go after Cheney they’ll have a major battle on their hands, and I don’t think they can win it. Same with Jack Smith, and Adam Kinzinger who says, “Bring it on.”
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: 😂😂😂
Motivated Seller
I get the feeling that the only people who would cheer this move, were the same people that think Merrick Garland was the right guy for the times.
Omnes Omnibus
@RevRick: My s-i-l can be really annoying, but I don’t think her birth broke the country.
Belafon
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: How many of them get threatened by Trump and other Republicans?
Kayla Rudbek
@Nettoyeur: I have a history of lunch book where they talk about NYC public schools establishing a lunch program (it might have been in the 1890s, I think?) And a lot of men were ineligible for the draft in WWI because of malnutrition.
Kay
@Another Scott:
She had no political career! It was over! The MAGAs hate the Bush/Cheneys more than they hate you, and they hate you a lot.
She clung to the idea that there was some mysterious group of Republicans who would follow HER as leader once the Trump fever broke.
I don’t blame her for the Hail Mary pass or the ambition. I like ambitious people. I blame her telling herself lies that made her feel better about herself. Am I shocked she’s delusional about Republicans? No. She is, after all, the co creator of the Big Lie that was the Iraq War. We don’t have time to coddle people’s delusions anymore. Their feelings are now secondary to reality.
John S.
@tobie:
Follow the discussion. Kay already provided you with an answer.
Hildebrand
@zhena gogolia: Yep.
Folks laud the Republican Senators who stood up to Nixon because it was the right thing to do (even if they were terrible in other areas), but shit on Cheney. If a few more Republicans had Cheney’s courage, we wouldn’t be where we are today.
I celebrate what Liz did and continues to do to try to hold Trump accountable.
RevRick
@Nukular Biskits: We won’t say.
John S.
@cmorenc:
Again, Kay already provided the explanation you are seeking. But by all means, feel free to remain incredulous that I’m not in the Cheney fan club.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: She was, IIRC, in the third highest position in the House GOP. She was getting 70% of the vote in her elections in WY.
TBone
Does no one believe that redemption in one area may lead to redemption in another area, a questioning of one’s priors? It doesn’t happen all at once for most of us and, if doesn’t happen at all, ever, we are then well and truly fucked. I’m not talking about forgiving everyone everything, I’m talking about small steps toward progress that add up.
Starfish (she/her)
@frosty: Mississippi, Goddam
Kay
@Motivated Seller:
Joe Biden doesn’t even think Garland was the right pick. He has now said this TWICE, once just last week.
But you won’t read that here. This is the no actual NEWS zone on a whole range of issues. May NOT mention that Joe Biden has now publicly trashed the sainted Garland twice.
TBone
@Hildebrand:
smithsonianmag.com/history/senator-who-stood-joseph-mccarthy-when-no-one-else-would-180970279/
The Audacity of Krope
Let’s examine another profile in courage, Mitt Romney; who bravely voted to convict Trump in his impeachment after he bravely proved you can run a whole Presidential campaign on lies and not be called out on it.
TBone
@Starfish (she/her): love!
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: I guess what I’m thinking is that once a year they see what they’re paying because they have to fill out a tax form. You never see how much you’ve paid on a yearly basis with sales taxes.
Elizabelle
@TBone: Makes sense to me.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@The Audacity of Krope:
Exactly. And even if you did…when the car wasn’t on fire…it takes a youtube demonstration of how to make it work.
Again, no surprise Musk want’s to eliminate things like the consumer product safety commission.
John S.
@Kay:
It’s absolutely amazing that a bunch of staunch Democrats are debating the awesomeness of Liz Cheney. Who the fuck ever thought we would be HERE??
This timeline is truly broken.
Omnes Omnibus
@John S.: Recognizing her political courage following Jan. 6, does not mean someone is a member of her “fan club.” I, personally, wouldn’t give her a medal, but I am not bothered by it either.
Starfish (she/her)
@The Audacity of Krope: Your nominee is definitely worthy of a Golden Chicken.
The Audacity of Krope
@John S.: Explains why I’m not on board because I’ve never technically been a Democrat.
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus:
In a state like Wyoming, it’s not exactly a miracle that a Republican gets 70% of the vote.
ETA: I’m not particularly bent out of shape over the medal, either.
Scout211
Here’s an analysis from KTVU re: the Cyber Truck crash that killed teens in the Bay Area. Not only are the door releases hard to find, they aren’t consistently in the same place in electric vehicles. .
Another Scott
@Kay: Um, your doing it again, Kay. You’re shouting down everyone who disagrees with you on the topic. People can have different views. You don’t have to try to win every discussion that you feel strongly about.
Just my $0.02.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Omnes Omnibus
@TBone:
I don’t think that Cheney is going to follow John G. Cole’s or Jennifer Rubin’s path. I think she is a largely horrible person who was right about one thing. It was a big thing though.
Kay
@John S.:
It’s lowered standards. Trump has lowered standards across the board.
Incoming! The Sainted Biden regrets hiring the Sainted Garland. I genuinely don’t know what they do with this development.
TBone
@Scout211: Calvinball!
The Audacity of Krope
@Another Scott: Point, counterpoint, and the conversation’s over. No thread should have more than 40 posts, tops.
Gin & Tonic
@Nettoyeur:
Which ended up being called “Food and Nuts” IIRC.
Kay
@Another Scott:
It’s just amusing how it’s happening on a blog that was created as a mea culpa for the host supporting the Iraq War.
The bravery of Liz Cheney.
Jeffro
@TBone: he’s absolutely right, too. The post-WW II era decades were both our most prosperous AND saw the highest level of union membership ever.
If those truths ever got out, this would be a wholly different country.
John S.
@Another Scott:
Um, zhena gogolia kind of did the same thing.
tobie
@John S.: No, she didn’t. And you haven’t either. What many here have proven is that they are filled with the same rage and self-righteousness as MAGAts. It’s one of the many reasons I have no truck with populism of any political stripe.
Suzanne
@TBone: I think I’m more just sad that what she did is seen as extraordinary courage and not ordinary courage. If all she did was lose her political career, well, then, she’s just like the rest of us, and she gets a PR or lobbying job making $200K a year. Is that extraordinarily courageous? The kind of thing you get a big award for? Now, political prosecution is another matter, which is why a preemptive pardon feels a little better.
It’s just a sad feeling, as noted above….. that the bar is so low.
Omnes Omnibus
@John S.:
Dude, I am arguing with the proposition that her political career was over before Jan. 6. She was high in the GOP leadership and had, effectively, a House seat for life.
Old School
@Kay:
Pretty sure the story last week was *sources say* Biden wished he hadn’t picked Garland. If you have an actual quote, I’d be interested in seeing it.
Gin & Tonic
@The Audacity of Krope:
And yet here you are, posting comment #209.
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: neither do I, and I’m almost ambivalent about her. However, a prolonged act of courage like she displayed deserves a graceful response IMO.
They call me Grace Fullfall hahaha.
Kay
@Another Scott:
And lots of people shout me down on this blog and you and the rest of the tone police only scold me. Because you DISAGREE with me while you agree with those who attack me. Apply your invented rules equitably at least.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Cole still supported the Iraq War when he started this blog.
MomSense
@Kay:
I am so furious about a number of things that I have recently learned about what was going on behind the scenes. Unforgivable.
John S.
@tobie:
Good for you. Consider yourself morally superior to the rest of us.
TBone
@Suzanne: losing her political career is not all she did though. She set an example. You can drag a horticulture, but you can’t make her drink (my inner Dorothy Parker won’t STFU).
The Audacity of Krope
@Gin & Tonic: I was definitely joking. I think people here know well that I love a rigorous back and forth going over all the minutiae of any debate and the associated arguments.
Soprano2
@Starfish (she/her): Wow, just wow…I remember my mother telling me she didn’t have to take a test when she got her license in the 1950’s. There are a lot more cars on the road now. What stupidity….
Gin & Tonic
@The Audacity of Krope:
Which is why I was yanking your chain.
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus:
I get that. I have no clue what Liz Cheney’s motivations were, just like everyone else here. We’re all just opining.
She gets a golf clap from me for doing the right thing maybe the first time in her life. Let’s see what she does from here.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
I agree. But, I think that Biden should pardon her and the others on the Jan.6 committee.
The Audacity of Krope
Sources say whatever the news industry needs them to.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Omnes Omnibus
@John S.: She’ll probably be horrible. I have little doubt about that.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: Can you do that on an iPhone (i.e., set autocorrect to flag rather than replace potential errors)? I can’t figure out how and am at the point of turning it off, even though it’s a time saver most of the time, because the latest update inserts ridiculous errors that I don’t always catch before texting…
Soprano2
@different-church-lady: You know, it’s easy for us to say that. It’s hard for people to stand up to others who they previously agreed with. Plus all the threats from TCFG aren’t a joke no matter what his supporters say. It would have been a lot easier for her to go along with the TCFG supporters.
p.a.
Ever met the information-less, information-proof conservaturd that thinks the top marginal income tax rate they pay is the tax rate on all their income? “Look! If you earn X, you actually LOSE MONEY!!!” Some know better and are just fucking liars, some are just dumb.
The Audacity of Krope
I don’t remember consenting to this…😏
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
Give Cheney a medal as a consolation prize for the collapse of her career in the Republican Party because this kind of feel good rah rah bipartisanship makes everyone feel better. MAGAs LOATHE the Bush’s and Cheneys. She had no career. She had a Hail Mary to try to lead some faction of the GOP, the only career her nepotism-fueled advance allowed. I don’t blame her at all for giving it a shot but I don’t confuse it with “bravery”. Bravery would be admitting her lie contributed to the death of half a million innocent people. That would be brave.
tobie
@John S.: When it comes to populism, yes, A pitchfork crowd needs its scalps. History is littered with examples.
John S.
@Omnes Omnibus:
Agreed. I’m thinking she falls in with some third way nonsense like a Joe Lieberman from the Right.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: Read the fine print of your membership application.
The Audacity of Krope
I see you’ve met my dad. I tend to think of it more as in-person trolling. He knows I also know better, after all.
TBone
@Scout211: buried treasure wtf
John S.
@tobie:
Yes, it’s also littered with the corpses of my relatives who died in the holocaust. I’m well aware of the perils of populism.
The Audacity of Krope
Ding ding ding ding
We have a winner!
Kay
@MomSense:
I know. We should talk off line because I don’t want to upset the police force of the salon of murmered agreement John is somehow now hosting.
Although it’s going to come out. It always does.
TBone
@Jeffro: we need his voice, indeed.
Kay
@MomSense:
And not “off line”. That would be a long lunch! But privately.
MomSense
@Kay:
Yes, let’s talk offline. We need some major changes to take place and I hope we still can.
Gin & Tonic
For today, I expect three or four several-hundred-comment threads re-litigating Liz Cheney and Jan 6, a welcome respite from yesterday’s hundreds of comment re-litigating Biden’s withdrawal from the Presidential race in July. Spending months picking at scabs will certainly help win elections in the future.
Chief Oshkosh
@Mai Naem mobile ¹: Yep — witness the New Orleans attack.
MomSense
@Kay:
We can ask MM for emails.
The Audacity of Krope
So you don’t expect people to give due consideration to arguments and maybe learn something?
ETA: When did it come in vogue to shame people for having political debates on a political blog? Might be the strangest part of this very strange timeline.
Not singling you out, I’ve been seeing a lot of that here lately.
Kay
@MomSense:
Sure. I’d love to discuss.
MagdaInBlack
@Gin & Tonic: C’mon. If we beat those horses long enough surely they will come back to life, no?
John S.
@The Audacity of Krope:
I’m not a sociologist, but I’m pretty sure there’s ample information out there about the heterodoxy of communities.
catclub
Umm, maybe you misread. I see this as Musk telling his guys to unlock the truck. Not getting out a lockpick.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Audacity of Krope: This particular fight is a weird one. No one is denying Cheney’s general horribleness. No one is really saying she didn’t do the right thing after Jan. 6. So it’s her motivations and how much to reward her post-insurrection behavior are being debated. These are things over which rational minds may differ without too much rancor. Or so I would have thought.
Gin & Tonic
@The Audacity of Krope:
Are you seeing much of that here?
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
But then MAGA! Did you follow the 2016 GOP primary? They rejected Bush Cheney.
The enemy of your enemy is not your friend. That’s just a dumb saying. It’s not real life.
The Audacity of Krope
@Gin & Tonic: A few instances here and there. Even one makes it all worthwhile.
Omnes Omnibus
@Kay: Well, it’s a good thing that I didn’t say that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Also, she held her position in the House GOP post-2016.
Geminid
@TBone: Ahmed Al-Sharaa, the de facto leader of Syria, could be a powerful example of redemption. As of one month ago, the U.S. government had a $10 million bounty on Sharaa’s head, and Gulf Arab nations regarded him with aversion and mistrust, as a dangerous man.
Now Al-Sharaa is probably the most celebrated leader in the Arab world. The U.S. has dropped the bounty and high State Department officials have met him face-to-face. He has hosted a stream of high level officials from Arab nations who want to see Syria succeed under its new leadership and are willing to help.
Ahmed Al-Sharaa was one of the many young Arabs who were radicalized by Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. That’s when he adopted the nom de guerre “Mohammed Al-Jolani” and went to fight U.S. forces in Iraq. He spent years as a ruthless, vengeful jihadi, and during that time he qualified for that bounty.
Al-Shara’s transformation came after he returned home to fight the brutal Assad regime and its Russian and Iranian allies. Over years spent defending and then administering the 3 million person enclave of Idlib in northern Syria, Al-Sharaa learned and grew; more lately, he has spoken of the transformation in his thinking since 2016.
While many, especially in the West, say he is hiding his true nature and intentions, I believe Al-Sharaa is what he says he is: a changed man.
eclare
@Gin & Tonic:
Thank you!
TBone
@catclub: Elno has access to all of the, as he put it in a xit yesterday, “telemetry” on all of his vehicles. Like the black box combing-over after an airline crash.
Kay
@Geminid:
My hope for the Syrian people is the US stays out of it and allows them to govern themselves. This their victory, not ours. We have done enough damage for the next decade or so.
TBone
I just read my first rotating tag in ages! What miracle of sorcery has taken place?
The Audacity of Krope
@TBone: So if I bought a Tesla, Elon or a designated representative could access it at any time they choose.
I suppose that means one never truly owns a Tesla.
TBone
@Geminid: wow! Thank you for that example from a place no one (me!) expected it.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: In my experience most of them quit being bigoted in front of you once you make it clear you won’t put up with that kind of language and behavior. We had a discussion about that in a thread last week. I have to say I don’t go too far in challenging the customers at my bar, because I feel that’s a different situation; I live in a 65% TCFG supporting area, there’s never going to be a time I don’t have some of them as customers. Even the people at the bar know not to talk and act like that in front of me because they know I’ll say something about it if they do, even if it’s something relatively gentle.
TBone
@The Audacity of Krope: it’s by subscription-only to the software and maybe even some of the hardware!
bsky.app/profile/ernesttbass.bsky.social/post/3ler5rdxdx222
Soprano2
@RevRick: Also pot taxes in the states where it’s legal to purchase. Boy howdy are they high!
Soprano2
@Kayla Rudbek: This is true. I was thinking more about how there weren’t all the additives and dyes and other stuff these people think are toxic that we have now, but yeah a lot of food wasn’t too safe to eat, and lots of water wasn’t safe to drink. It’s more that people weren’t eating processed food like we do now. Every era seems to have its own problems with stuff like this.
UncleEbeneezer
@TBone: I can 100% say that seeing the error of my ways wrt misogyny made it easier to do wrt race, Transgender issues and now antisemitism. Ability to admit you were wrong and change course is a skill/muscle and the more you do it the easier it becomes to do it again. And imo, it’s not just A skill but really it is THE skill we should all have on our tool belts.
Chris T.
@p.a.: A “value added tax” (VAT) is a form of sales tax, so like all sales taxes, it’s going to be regressive. The theory is that it’s less regressive than a straight sales tax. In practice, I’m sure it depends on the practice.
MomSense
One of the issues with Republicans and the whole media ecosystem they have built is that they keep making short term decisions that end up fostering a culture that is really unhealthy. The Bush/Cheney you are either with us (total support for their wars and other policies) or for the terrorists framing and messaging helped get us where we are today with Republicans going along with a nominee, now president elect, who is threatening a Cheney with prosecution and firing squad.
Was it courageous for Liz Cheney to speak out against Trump? Yes. Did she and her father help build this leopards eating faces party? Yes. I’m honestly way past caring about her or whatever symbolic gestures Biden engages in now. Too little way too fucking late.
TBone
Kim (rando bluesky comment I just saw) says
Mr. Bemused Senior
Let’s not overlook the fact that she now has a target on her back. Unlikely, but not impossible that a crazy will come after her.
Another reason to feel sad.
Soprano2
@RevRick: Yep, people today don’t appreciate how much of a shock the increase in fuel prices was. Imagine the price of gasoline doubling in less than a year and then going even higher! It wasn’t just gas, it was diesel and jet fuel too. I think it took a decade for the economy to recover from that.
TBone
@UncleEbeneezer: muah!!!
Ruckus
@cmorenc:
OK I’m not even going to attempt to come close to this one.
MomSense
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
An award wont make a bit of difference. They voted for a guy who said outright he wanted to suspend the constitution so he could do what he wanted.
TBone
Holding grudges can be like taking too many carry-ons to the airport.
tobie
Schumer endorses Ben Wikler for DNC Chair. I remember reading a commenter here saying that the Dem establishment would never back Wikler. Another meme bites the dust.
Kay
@Omnes Omnibus:
And John wrote a post years and years ago where he said the blog would be an apology for supporting the Iraq War. Accepted responsibility for his TINY role.
artem1s
I don’t care what honors or awards she’s given. As long as she’s never allowed to hold an office or cabinet position or any position of power again. She had her chance to keep TCF out of office but was too busy putting party and power over democracy to disavow all his and the Bush Crime Family lies about POC, LGBTQ, abortion, immigrants, women, Pelosi, etc. She stupidly put her trust in JEB to defeat him and McConnell to rein him in knowing it would hurt the middle class and she was just fine with that until TCF put her in danger. She wouldn’t have cared one bit if the mob had gotten hold of Pelosi and Pence as long as she wasn’t inconvenienced.
She will continue to make money off those lies the rest of her life. She paid no price for the J6 hearings that matters to her. She’ll still have a voice in the parts of the party and rooms that matter to her and won’t lift a finger to reverse any of the damage or lies she helped spread and continue to help spread. She’ll be just fine.
Soprano2
@John S.: I don’t think she’s “awesome”. She holds a lot of positions that I think are terrible. In this one situation she stood up publicly against TCFG when most other R’s wouldn’t, and that took courage. That’s all. I would vote against her every time if I had the chance.
catclub
@The Audacity of Krope: sounds like an iPhone
The Audacity of Krope
I don’t have to. 2008 also happened.
Old School
catclub
@Chris T.: It is also noted that a regressive tax that is used for progressive ends can have progressive results.
The Audacity of Krope
If this is what the future looks like, I’m done now.
Hildebrand
@MomSense: So, what is your prescription for moving forward? How do we do whatever needs to be done without deciding to throw out those things that actually make us different from Trump? We can’t shoot our way to peace. We can’t burn the village to save it.
Yes, Cheney has much to atone for, but I would like think that fighting like mad to hold Trump to account, endorsing Harris and vigorously campaigning for her (moreso than some Dems), even changing her stance on reproductive rights (even if by a small bit – it’s still an important change) is a measure of atonement.
If someone is moving toward the light, why would we reject them because they aren’t moving fast enough?
Mr. Bemused Senior
@The Audacity of Krope: “futuristic-looking.” See “truthiness.”
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
Fast, easy and painless. Plus – informative.
MomSense
@Hildebrand:
I really don’t care about it at this point. If he gives her a medal that’s fine with me. She has the resources and connections to leave the country. The rest of us aren’t so lucky.
catclub
@Old School: They need to just say he was at Fort Liberty in North Carolina. fuck the TIDOS general.
TBone
@Old School:
“I AM the motherfucking shore patrol!”
Raven knows.
Anyway
@Soprano2: Most of the guys in the break room are hardcore Rs. When they see me (or others they suspect are not) they quickly change the subject and stop discussing politics. Part of it is being polite in the workplace, part of it is not wanting to engage.
The guy who comes to my office and shares the latest greatest exploits of Cheetolini is an outlier.
Hildebrand
@MomSense: You know I’m not talking about the medal, I am talking about what happens next.
What do you want to happen?
What are your thoughts on how we move forward?
Geminid
@Kay: Like it or not, the U.S. is in Syria, at least for the short term. The U.S. Army’s 900 soldier mission in Northeast Syria has grown to 2000 in the wake of the Assad regimes collapse.
Now we’re involved in a complex, four-way standoff between the Syrian Democratic Forces we (along with the UK and France) have partnered with in the fight against ISIS and Turkiye’s proxy Syran National Army forces. Now we seem to be playing a positive role there, encouraging a settlement between the SDF and Syria’s Interim Givernment.
But our influence in Syria is limited compared to that of Turkiye, which stood by Syria’s rebels through thick and thin while Western nations turned their backs on them. Fortunately, our relations with Turkiye are on a sounder footing now than they have been ever since we blew up Turkiye’s neighbor Iraq in 2003.
The longstanding relationships our two militaries have built since Turkiye entered NATO in 1952 have helped also. Our anti-ISIS missions in Syria and across the border keep a low profile, and we say very little about our “deconfliction” process with the Turkish military. But the Turkish officers talking to their American counterparts operating across the border likely know the Americans from joint NATO exercises, or postings in the U.S.
Baud
Ruckus
@John S.:
We are dealing with people who seem to want to take time back 2-3 hundred years. Can’t quite understand that but then I’m not one to see/hear their “How life was so much better!” bullshit and go “Oh Goody!” But then I also don’t need a trophy and a pat on the head to actually be a living human.
Baud
Elizabelle
@Baud: Whoa. Interesting times.
Phylllis
@Baud: The FBI guy also just said as of right now there is no link between New Orleans & Las Vegas.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m old enough to remember when changing assessments as facts came to light were “proof” of a cover-up.
Benghaziiiiiiiiiiiieieio!!!!
Maybe the trick to no accusations of cover-ups is to come out front with a media friendly hot take.
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
And here I thought that the bar was buried a couple hundred feet under everything else. It can still be seen?
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Probably will be again, for at least four years.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Another look at VAT:
It’s Jacobin (so our resident Libertarians in Trench Coats will shudder but Bruenig has been a good counter-voice to clowns like Yglesias, No Opinion, Stancil, numerous Atlantic writers plus the usual Totebager Radio messaging on economics in general) so one would expect a strident point-of-view. Instead, Bruenig walks the reader thru an interesting example of how VAT can, at least semantically, be all over the place.
Of course the real point is made in the quote above, debating VAT’s aim kinda misses the point in that *other* tax-the-wealthy approaches are what we should be doing.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Well it would likely be OK for a few that got paid a few cents to constantly shovel dirt into the hellhole to keep the screams and foul language down…
UncleEbeneezer
Liz Cheney 1.) is horrible, but she 2.) did a couple good things when 3.) no other Republican would.
I can be mad about 1 & 3 while also appreciating 2. Life is complicated and nuanced. Our thinking about it should be too.
Scout211
At the end of a very long thread, I’ll add to the
discussionarguments that there is usually no resolution or even a middle ground when the arguments are our own personal opinions, perceptions and points of view. We all have our own personal “truths.” But arguing about whose truth is more valid than other commenters’ truths seems to me a recipe for never ending conflict and bad juju.But that is just my own personal opinion.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
I’m hard pressed to think of any national taxing system that wouldn’t satisfy this standard (on an individual basis).
On a class basis, most revenue would probably come from the middle class under any system.
SFBayAreaGal
@Ben Cisco: Good morning
Ruckus
@Kay:
That’s because they haven’t reached adulthood.
Hell they haven’t even hit the teen years. They should still be wearing diapers because they are shitting all over everything, including themselves.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Anyway:
I assume that to mean “the guy” comes in to praise wtf Hair Furor has done lately. If “the guy” knows/suspects your politics and still does this, “the guy” should be told in very unpolite work terms to GTFO.
I clearly was fortunate in that over 38+ years in Club Fed, surrounded the vast majority of that time by people I knew voted (R), one didn’t discuss politics. Most of it was an unspoken Club Fed rule/culture thing, probably one of the most consistently applied over all those years and places.
zhena gogolia
@tobie: I noticed that. It seems to have passed without notable comment by anyone.
zhena gogolia
@The Audacity of Krope: It’s what the future looks like in a Leslie Nielsen movie from 1959.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
People are still mourning the death of Wikler’s campaign for DNC chair.
zhena gogolia
@Scout211: Well, we were assured yesterday that a commenter was offering FACTS about how Biden lost the presidential election in 2024. Since he did not run in the presidential election of 2024, such facts do not exist.
The Audacity of Krope
@zhena gogolia: I noticed. You could count on zero hands how many figs I give for the DNC chair at this point.
zhena gogolia
@The Audacity of Krope: I’m in the same place, but some people seem to really still care.
TBone
@Baud: but but but now how is Fux gonna ‘splain that brown immigrants did this? Donold pronounced it only yesterday!
jefftiedrich.com/p/republicans-make-shit-up-about-new
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Do we know his name?
Baud
TBone
@artem1s: why was she tapped by Pelosi to be on the J6 Committee? Out in front, in the spotlight?
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia: Of course DNC was the main villain in the Bernie bro mythology that denied their prophet the nomination.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Don’t recall. Some posts on Blue sky indicate he’s a MAGA.
TBone
@schrodingers_cat: Old School at #289
Matthew Livelsberger
Anyway
one comment makes a meme?? that’s not how they work…
Ruckus
@Kay:
They only know whinny bullshit and what they think life was like a century ago. Which is that they are the better part of life and that everyone else is pulling the entire concept down. And of course they are 1 billion percent wrong. They are the problem, people like them have ALWAYS been the problem because they only see what’s in a mirror and think that is reality. Equality to them means that they have to dig underground to be like they ASSUME everyone else is. Their world only works if they are on the top of the heap. Problem is that they also think that the heap they would have to join is pure crap. They don’t understand that they are looking in a mirror and that the pure crap is THEM. The world has tried to move on, to be better but to them unless the world sees them as the top of the pile it can’t be better. Pure crap always smells and thinks it’s better than anything else.
Soprano2
@Gin & Tonic: Actually, I did see it in one thread this past week. Professor Bigfoot hadn’t thought about the idea that if you’re white once you let your family know you won’t tolerate their bigotry, they quit displaying it in front of you. Evidently he thought we’d listen to it constantly and never say or do anything about it.
Geminid
@TBone: Well, I did say “could be a powerful example of redemption,” not is one. Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s story is still in its early chapters. But if he succeeds, Al-Sharaa could prove to be a transformational figure not just for Syria but the larger region as well.
Syria is a key part of the Arab world, and Damascus had been a center of Arab history and culture for almost 1000 years when the Ottomans took over. After the First World War, the French succeeded the Ottomans and controlled the newly formed country until the end of the Second World War. So Syria has existed as an independent state for less than eighty years.
For now, Syria’s defacto leader has his hands full dealing with the problems of a nation the size and population of Florida, and with a crippled economy and ethnic and religious fault lines that are even worse than Florida’s!
It’s a story worth following. One good source is the Middle East Eye which has several knowledgeable reporters on the Syria beat.
Al Arabiya is another one, and its recent interview with Al-Sharaa is worth watching. The interview is in Arabic but the subtitles are good, and he and the reporter cover a lot of ground.
Soprano2
@Kay: Not a friend, an ally. There’s a difference.
TBone
@Geminid: you are an invaluable source, thank you. Understable, succinct, erudite …
Lily
Will Republicans claim the Army is a “radicalizing force” via TBI’s
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Thanks.
eemom
This may have been said already, but maybe Biden did this Cheney thing purely to troll trump?
If so, go Joe! 👏
Kay
@Baud:
I’m actually relieved. The ISIS flag sounded like bullshit. I’d like to trust them but it’s difficult. They’re very MAGA.
trollhattan
@Lily:
Woke Army, yeah. Remembering the SecDef nominee has specifically said he intends to end all that diversity nonsense and get back to some proper people killin’. Or something, between bourbon-fueled ragey outbursts.
Baud
FYI: Right wing sixth circuit has barred FCC from regulating net neutrality.
Soprano2
@The Audacity of Krope: Yes, but it also came back down within a year in 2008/2009. It kept going up and up all through the ’70’s, and didn’t come back down to a comparable place. Most of the economy was predicated on cheap gas and diesel; when that disappeared it shocked the economy badly, worse than 2008. Maybe it’s one of those things you had to live through to appreciate how bad it was.
Baud
@Kay:
I haven’t heard that he didn’t have a flag. Just that he acted alone and that he was self radicalizing. No apparent contact with ISIS.
TBone
@Baud: I read that as “Sith circuit.”
Kay
@Geminid:
IMO, the US foreign policy establishment need to seriously examine their bias against Muslims before engaging in any more nation building or “advising”. We long ago exhausted any presumption of good faith on that.
The Audacity of Krope
@Soprano2: Yeah, definitely before my time. People about my age tend to remember how steadily gas was $1/gallon for a long time which seemed gloriously cheap.
Still, we’re subsidizing fossil fuels with our tax dollars both directly and by world policing. Far as I’m concerned, gas is too cheap.
Kay
@Baud:
Yeah, well, flag poles on trucks are really common in my neck of the woods. I’ll need to see a photo of that flag. Are they sure it’s not one of the 5 or so MAGA flags that are associated with terror attacks? Any of the police flags? The “punisher” or the blue line. Those are black.
Sister Golden Bear
@Nukular Biskits:
We unite, and then stare awkwardly at our shoes.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
Selfish people have been within humanity since day two. They hear the words “Survival of the fittest,” and so they throw fits about how great they are – at throwing fits. They seem to think that humanity is survival of those that can take out everyone else. I wonder how they’d feel if they knew history and how much that people they would never want to be around are quite possibly the people that came up with vaccines so that more people lived and lived better lives, or how that they think that $40,000 car they drive is because the are so much better than someone with a $39,800 car. For some life is always a competition. To be alive, to be “better,” to be higher up the food chain. They have no idea that money doesn’t make them better, it most often makes them lazy, pompous and arrogant. They are living in a time that is both 2 centuries ago and today. They want all the goodies that the people they hate get paid to create for them and they want all those people to be beneath them. It’s just that humanity still recognizes that money is important and still buys stature as well as bigger homes and cars. And the seemingly only way to fix that is for no one to have any. Can’t see that working either.
Baud
@Kay:
Maybe we’ll get more info. I personally don’t care that much about which particular right wing ideology causes someone to commit acts of terror.
satby
@Baud: On Twitter too, with screenshots of stuff he posted online. And since witnesses thought they saw him trying to get out of the car, may turn out to be an accident. Which would be crazy. Or at least not an intentional suicide bomber.
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
How does one do that if they aren’t wearing shoes at any given moment?
The Audacity of Krope
@Kay:
And even if it was an ISIS flag, do we know if this person really saw himself as supporting ISIS or was he trying to scare people using that flag. I say we wait for evidence.I know, not a popular opinion in the old U.S. of A.
@trollhattan: Never mind.
Geminid
@Mr. Bemused Senior: I hadn’t heard Cheney got a lobbying job, and I don’t she has. Cheney certainly doesn’t need one, with a congressional pension and last I heard, a faculty position at the University of Virginia’s Miller Center.
Baud
@satby:
Or a terrorist who didn’t intend to commit suicide but got Tesla’d.
We’ll see.
trollhattan
@Baud: From today’s briefing.
Seems his family escaped the rage he unleashed on complete strangers. No word on whether the dead have thus become believers against their will. The point, it is clear as mud.
Kay
@Ruckus:
Poking them on TikTok is fun because they have this kind of consistent visual where they put the camera too close to their face when they do their morning devotions to Donald Trump. Giant pores, stray hairs, inexpertly applied lip liner. It’s like they’re an inch from your face!
Kay
@The Audacity of Krope:
Again, not to be a jerk, but I haven’t forgotten the NY FBI office. I think some caution is called for.
The Audacity of Krope
@Kay: Understandable. Still, a video manifesto is about as clear cut as you can hope for motive.
I mean I don’t expect honesty from the FBI, but good liars tend to work with innuendo, not claims of non-existent documentary evidence.
And then there’s Mike Lindell.
zhena gogolia
@eemom: Maybe not purely, but certainly partly.
prostratedragon
Nukular Bizkits@94:
Paradoxically.
Kathleen
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I hope you get answers you need and relief from the pain and discomfort. Ear stuff is not fun.
Kay
Suzanne bait:
TBone
crooksandliars.com/2024/12/trump-s-former-wh-doc-beats-house-ethics
The first of many…
Ben Cisco
@Anyway: If a radio broadcast is playing, ads come with it.
Scout211
Man, the Republican controlled House (ethics committee) must have really hated Gaetz.
TBone
@Scout211: yep, MyKevin does too
TBone
Breakdown of PA election spending includes this:
That tidbit is by NO means the gist of the article – but our enemies list is large (autocorrect changed that to enemies lust but…)
spotlightpa.org/news/2024/12/pennsylvania-election-top-donors-pacs-attorney-general-jeff-yass-state-…
Elno has friends.
Kayla Rudbek
@Soprano2: canned food was invented much earlier than most people realize (commercially available by the mid-19th century, mostly due to military applications so that they could feed soldiers and sailors, the Civil War soldiers joked about desecrated vegetables as they had desiccated vegetables in their rations) and the cans were invented before the can opener. However since the canning process can destroy nutrients, frozen food is actually better at being nutritious. Clarence Birdseye was responsible for large-scale frozen foods if I recall correctly. And the whole-wheat movement was Alexander? Graham (of the Graham crackers) who was a crank in a lot of respects but who was right on whole wheat being better than white flour
Belafon
@Kay: “That school is full of girls.”
“Just think about it, you could meet smart women who are interested in the same thing you are.”
“Why would I want that?”
Captain C
@Soprano2:
Going by Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle, I’d say maybe not.
Belafon
@Kayla Rudbek: Early canning involved welding the lids on, which meant the food contained a lot of leached chemicals. Heinz invented the current canning process much later, where the lid is crimped on, around the turn of the century. It was much safer, but it required prying the lid off until the can opener was invented.
TBone
@Belafon: that also made no sense whatsoever to me. Young & amorous is how I remember college-aged fellas. I once brought my BF and his older brother to visit my all-female dorm at all-female Rosemont and they strutted like peacocks, looking like Cheshire cats in a cageful of canaries
Leto
@Kayla Rudbek:
The history, and purpose behind, Graham Crackers is… kinda wild. O.o
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: I love it too. Sadly, there are no hot yoga classes offered anywhere in the county. And with heat in the house confined to two woodstoves, basically, it’s…impractical to try it at home. Still sorta dreaming about the woodstove-fired yoga shack on the back 40, however…
Ruckus
@Kay:
I really do not want to see anyone, especially up close, who thinks that dumb Jackoff trump is an actual human being. I mean I know he is but having to accept him as one is beyond the pale. Or whatever the hell it’s beyond – pale, pail of something/something……
I guess I’m just an old fart who has been seeing the rethuglican party for decades and seeing that not only haven’t they gotten one iota better but a lot of iotas worse. With the advent of TV and the internet we get a much larger chance to see them up close and how much worse they are than they were decades ago. OK I’m not sure they are worse it’s just that they are open about what they want.
TBone
I’m not certain that we comprehend the full nature of the tsunami of criminals heading this way. I find it hard to wrap my mind around the extent of the fuckery that is about to occur.
Kayla Rudbek
@Belafon: oh interesting I didn’t know that the cans were welded shut. So then you would have tin and potentially lead leaching into your food depending on the can and solder materials.
Kayla Rudbek
@Leto: yeah, I didn’t want to get into that because it’s not time for B-J After Dark here yet.
Miss Bianca
@John S.: Which they won’t be, because why? Avian flu is still going strong. People gonna be sooo pissed come January 20 and they are seeing signs in their grocery stores limiting purchases to one carton per customer at $6.99 per dozen. “Oh, noes! NOT THE PRICE OF EGGS! I VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP CUZ HE SAID HE’D MAKE GROCERY PRICES GO DOWN!”
Thankful to have neighbors whose flocks appear to be healthy…so far…
TBone
@Miss Bianca: but Dr. Scott Gottlieb assured me, just this morning on CNBC, that avian flu is literally nothing to be concerned about!
JaySinWA
Perhaps the incel propaganda is working to convince young men they don’t have a chance.
Ruckus
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Not the same thing but I’ve had tinnitus in my right ear for over 60 years and there doesn’t seem to be any fixing it. At least in the last 5-6 months the volume is down a bit and it doesn’t seem to be my hearing is getting worse but then I am an old (just arrived – OK it’s been a while….) and many in my family tree had hearing aids, and most well before the age I’ve achieved. Aw the joys of being old. Are much better than the not getting there.
TBone
@JaySinWA: the young men I once knew would view that as merely a challenge.
Times they are a changing.
Suzanne
@Kay: I read that yesterday. Amazing that fear of girl cootiez appears to persist into adulthood. It’s similar to what Joan Williams says in her book about white working-class men finding it insulting if someone suggests that they get out of coal mining and go into nursing.
Sister Golden Bear
@Kayla Rudbek:
Yes, he was inspired by seeing fish caught by Inuit fishers become flash-frozen by Arctic temperatures after the fish were pulled from the water.
Unfortunately, Birdseye was a bit too ahead of his time because home refrigerators weren’t common yet, and his company would’ve failed had the potential not been seen by the formidable Majorie Post* (who inherited and then vastly grew the Post cereal empire). She bought the company from Birdseye, but very intentionally kept him on to run it, providing the time and capital needed to eventually become successful.
*Post was the one who originally built Mar-a-Lago.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, (short thread) …
[ womp, womp ]
Best wishes,
Scott.
Citizen Alan
@John S.: If I were a believer in 11-dimensional chess, I would wonder if Biden gave Cheney this honor because he thought it would enrage the Beast and make it more likely he would try to prosecute her for some bullshit, thus further inflaming conflict within the GOP. Since I don’t really believe in 11-dimensional chess anymore, I will simply take comfort in the fact that that is the most likely outcome anyway regardless of Biden’s intentions.
Another Scott
Ack. I’ve got a comment with too many links in the dungeon.
Help?
Best wishes,
Scott.
glory b
@RevRick: The PA constitution prohibits the implementation of a progressive tax rate.
Geminid
@TBone: Some more Syria news, from Al Majalla editor-in-chief Ibrahim Hamidi:
The Aqaba conference was hosted by Jordan three weeks ago. Foreign Ministers from Bahrain, Saudia Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, and Turkiye as well as Secretary of State Blinken attended. This time Syria’s Foregn Minister will also be there.
Al Majalla likely has a longer article. They are a Saudi-owned, London-based journal that covers the Middle East.
I found Mr. Hamidi’s post on Hassan I. Hassan’s Twitter feed. Hassan edits New Lines Magazine which seems to be very good source for in-depth reporting. He recently wrote a long article about Ahmed al-Sharaa and radical Islamists published by the New York Times.
Hassan also posted about a New Lines story by Lebanon-based journalist Madeline Edwards about Sweida Governate in western Syria on the Israeli border, and its large population of Druze. It’s titled, “Joy and Trepidation Among Syria’s Druze.”
The Druze are a distinct community spread across the mountainous areas of northern Israel, western Syria and Lebanon. Their singular and esoteric religion branched off of Islam in 11th century Cairo. Deemed heretics, they set up in the mountains across Sinai and preserved their autonomy over the succeeding centuries by convincing aggressors they were too fierce to fuck with.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: I love you for this.
Sister Golden Bear
@Ruckus: Come sit by me. Too much loud music during the glorious days of a misspent youth. Thankfully I can mostly ignore my tinnitus, since I can’t afford a hearing aid that might be able to help with it (and my overall hearing loss).
Thankfully, I was able to use the audiologist’s test results to program my AirPod Pro 2s to act as OTC hearing aids. They’re not particularly great, but sufficient for specific situations, like a loud restaurant, and I already owned them.
JaySinWA
@TBone: I’m not sure they don’t see it as a challenge, but are looking for safer hunting grounds. The Trad-wife nonsense kind of plays into that. “These aren’t the women you are looking for” to paraphrase Star Wars.
There’s probably the death to the “looking for an Mrs degree” belief factoring in. If you have to take women going to college for reasons other than finding a man seriously, then the grass looks greener elsewhere.
trollhattan
@Belafon:
Lead poisoning from canned food helped doom the 1845 Franklin Arctic expedition.
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1279489/#:~:text=The%20technology%20for%20preparing%20canned,and%20….
After further review, the Good Old Days seem less Good than popularly believed.
Ruckus
@TBone:
Some men’s brains are located in the middle of their bodies and run by a different control system than it should be. Also their brains are
oftena lot smaller than normal.And yes I am a member of the male side of humanity. I was also a mental health counselor for 4 yrs. I’ve see this concept from a different angle than a woman would but still, it’s visible. Fortunately not every man catches this disease and some of the ones that do get the antidote (often a swift kick or knee in a sensitive area) and it actually works.
Kay
@Suzanne:
The War on Boys is a big theme for Right wing women where I live. I like boys – I had three- and I’m deeply uncomfortable with how we keep telling them they’re doomed. I don’t think it’s helping them. I represent juveniles and I try to show them how the world is open to them and they really can tap into help and create their own lives.
trollhattan
@Geminid:
Thanks for the rollup. So much happening so quickly.
Some troubling developments WRT school curricula, with the removal of evolution and the Big Bang (not the sitcom) and pledging allegiance to Allah rather than Syria.
different-church-lady
I’m getting caught up on the Las Vegas explosion and I’m thinking the best way to stay safe in a Cybertruck is to never get in one.
different-church-lady
@Miss Bianca:
brantl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: stall were conservative my ass. The only reason these people are considered conservative anymore is because Trump has set his own fucking hair on fire. This makes those people look reasonable. They were dicks. They were unreasonable dicks they’ve subverted the constitution in different ways that he did but they still did it
Citizen Alan
@The Audacity of Krope: I stand by my belief that Liz Cheney’s only objections to J6 were (1) the vulgarity and classlessness of the insurrectionists and (2) the fact that it was in service of a wing of the GOP that was in opposition to the one for which she was one of the leading voices. The Brooks Brothers Riot was AOK in Cheney’s eyes. And I strongly suspect that Kerry winning in 2004 under anything less than decisive circumstances would have led to a “kinder, gentler” insurrection in January 2005. More men in expensive suits and less shitting on the walls, but the principle would have been the same. And Liz Cheney would have cheered.
Ruckus
@Sister Golden Bear:
I believe that the tinnitus is at least partly due to working in a machine shop for decades. Compressed air hoses to clean machines will do that and a strong right handed bias puts that sound on the side of the tinnitus. OTOH often the machines themselves likely added to the effect. Oh well – no going back now…….
Citizen Alan
@Soprano2: Or perhaps she just gambled on Trump simply dying before 2024 and his coalition falling apart immediately afterwards, allowing her to be one of the leading voices in the rebuilding of the GOP in the aftermath.
Leto
@different-church-lady: it’s a testament to Elmo’s engineering skill that nobody thought this might be an intentional bomb because Cyberturds so regularly explode. People collectively went, “Well, yeah, they just do that. What’s new?”
Miss Bianca
@Hildebrand: I think I’m with you on this one. Plus, I have no doubt that Trump will try to attack Cheney, Kinzinger, et al., and maybe the award thing will be a way to spike his wheel.
But honestly, I just don’t give enough of a shit to get OUTRAGED!!11!! about it. I have a lot more pressing worries on my mind than why or whether or not a Democratic POTUS gives a medal to some Republican.
tobie
I suspect Trump will get his moment to announce the release of the hostages on Jan 20 as Reagan did at his inauguration. Just two weeks ago, discussions collapsed as Hamas and Netanyahu dug in their heels. But Netanyahu is on the side of Trump, and Hamas’ last major backer is Russia. For complicated reasons, both have an interest in giving Trump a win. I certainly hope the conflict will be over and the hostages returned but the timing will only convince me that the instigation and the prolonging of the conflict had everything to do with US electoral politics. Trump will always sell out to the highest bidder. Every autocrat knows this.
glory b
@Kay: I understand that there is still a coming shortage of skilled blue collar workers. Locally, there is much concern about a looming shortage of electricians. The construction trade unions have united into a Builders Guild, offering a pre apprenticeship program, giving stipends and guaranteeing entry into any of the trade unions apprentice programs for anyone completing their program.
I also heard an NPR segment about union apprenticeships, calling them “The New Grad School,” because so many new apprentices have college degrees but have realized that they can make more money in a skilled trade than a cubicle.
Citizen Alan
@Scout211: That’s actually the first negative thing I’ve heard about him.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: I guess the FPers are on strike with the Brotherhood of Basketweavers , Flying Car Mechanics, and AI Researchers?
Fritschner:
More in the thread.
Best wishes,
Scott.
glory b
@tobie: I pointed this out months ago, but no one seemed to notice. Hamas was/is as interested in giving Trump a win as Bibi.
Hamas has as much or more animosity towards LGBTQ people as Republicans, on that they have a shared point of view.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
Or be around one. I’ve seen one in person. One truly fucking ugly thing. I wonder how many of the people that work in the factory making them will admit to that?
(tried to not describe it by swearing – couldn’t manage to make it work – I’ve seen one in person) I made things out of metal for decades and nothing I’ve ever seen is that fucking ugly. Sorry no other way to describe it. OK I could use fugly. No I was wrong that does not go far enough.
RevRick
@Omnes Omnibus: You’ve greatly underestimated her power.
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2: So weird to have been growing up in the 70s – and growing up outside Detroit! – and seeing all the upheaval and economic devastation that came from the oil embargo in *that* area of the US, at least – and realize that that’s all such ancient history now that no one seems to remember it. Might as well have happened in the WWI era!
Kathleen
@tobie: It doesn’t count because Schumer is old and boring.//s
Kay
@glory b:
That’s neat. Love to hear it. My middle son did the IBEW 5 year apprenticeship and is doing really well as a journeyman.
He is single with no children and he travels – takes jobs all over. The IBEW “travelers “ have hooked into an existing network of home rentals traveling nurses created, so he spent Christmas season with three nurses. He helped them wrap Christmas presents, which he is terrible at. He expected them to ask him to fix their garage door opener – something he can actually do :)
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: No, I thought you’d just let them have it, after all, “they’re from another time,” “don’t know any better,” etc. etc.
It’s not my fault that white people have made excuses for white racism since long before either of us was born.
Miss Bianca
@TBone: Err…that’s not what the Colorado Department of Agriculture is saying, but why should I be listening to *those* eggheads, am I right?
tobie
@glory b: It’s hard for me to read the tea leaves but Hamas will do anything to survive and the idea of a new future for Palestine, a real two state solution was as repellant to them as it is to Netanyahu. Every civilian who has suffered in this conflict has suffered in vain. There will be no secular, democratic Palestinian state. Israel’s secular democracy will be dealt a fatal blow. And, frankly, the US’s democracy will have been defeated on various battlefields. Russia won the war. It skewed people’s perceptions of the economy in the US and merely in burning fires everywhere made the US seem weak abroad.
glory b
@Miss Bianca: Yep, as a black person with a black son and a black daughter, I’m kind of envious of the folks here who have the bandwidth to actually care that much.
The Civil Rights Act? The (or what’s left of) Voting Rights Act? Vaccine restrictions? The absolute regression of the coming tariff system? The alienation of our allies?
And you’re mad about Cheney getting an award?
Lol, okay.
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Jesus: A man cannot worship two masters or else he will love one and hate the other. You cannot serve both God and Mammon.
Conservative Christians: What if we worship Mammon and just pretend that he’s God?
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
I am eternally amazed at how many things can go wrong inside our bodies.
I’m not. I used to work on one part of the body, the computer that runs everything – the brain. As a mental health counselor we had to find the basis of the problem, teach the process to change that, then the hard part, watching some struggle like one man pulling a rope with a semi truck and 2 full trailers attached up hill. Some don’t know how to operate a brain, even theirs, some don’t actually want to learn how, and some seem totally incapable of it. But they showed up and asked so we did the best we could. Sometimes they did as well.
Kathleen
@zhena gogolia: Only old senile people care about “facts”.
Spanky
@Kay:
I’m sure it’ll make you feel better when I point out that these are the folks homeschooling their kids
ETA that it’s not my fault I’m 5 hours behind.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Someone on Bluesky, in a discussion of generational political preferences and why is it senior Gen Z white men are conservative: they are the first generation of white men who actually had to COMPETE against anyone who was not a white man.
That tracks.
Kay
@glory b:
They just have to graduate high school and pass a HS Algebra course. Then they have to stick with it for 5 years. I have trouble convincing them to do this. The whole wind turbine industry has a brand new apprenticeship.
TBone
@Ruckus: I have given that swift kick many, many times. I joke that I’ve been “married” more often than Liz Taylor, but, truly I need no explanation – the vast experience I’ve had with boys and men of all stations in life is quite an encyclopedia. I do not have children by design, hint hint.
These days, the only experience I have with college aged males is the incel offspring of the rumpy neighbors, so I see the utility of the arguments being made here, but was simply astonished at how far things have gone in such a shortish time.
Gloria DryGarden
@NotMax: lessons in chemistry
@Dorothy A. Winsor: good luck
Professor Bigfoot
@Belafon: That tracks, too. (snicker)
glory b
@tobie: I think that during the last Trump administration other countries knew better than to look to the US for anything & it was every man (country) for themselves.
I know that the pro Palestinian protests had outside help. I know that anyone thinking Bibi would give Biden a win rather than setting things up for a Trump win was fooling themselves.
Someone said the Israel/Hamas situation was tailor made to tear the Democratic coalition apart. There would be NO outcome that would have done otherwise.
Lots of black people had the sinking feeling that the coalition that supported civil rights was coming to an end.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Geminid: I was just quoting Suzanne. AFAIK you are correct about Liz Cheney’s current employment.
My point is, she is now a target for Trump and his supporters.
Miss Bianca
@glory b: Right?? : (
@Professor Bigfoot: Yes, that does track.
TBone
@Miss Bianca: you are indeed hahaha!
tobie
@glory b: You succinctly summarize the tragedy of the situation. I couldn’t have said it better. Hang in there as we head into the storm. We will have to learn how to deal with the new reality.
Hildebrand
@Miss Bianca: Yep – we have much bigger fish to fry. My only hope is that we do the small things right (i.e. with a small measure of grace), because it’s good practice for doing the big things right.
glory b
@Kay: Yes, I understand that a significant part of the local Builders Guild program consists of a high school math review
But all that’s needed to enroll is a high school diploma or GED.
Kathleen
@glory b: I’d use word “created”. There’s been a coordinated effort to tear the coalition apart since 2014. Started with the campaign against Hillary.
glory b
@Kathleen: Agreed.
Ruckus
@glory b:
Not all of us are racist assholes. Granted the number that are is staggering but still, it’s not universal. How do I know this? My best friend in my life was a gay black girl. She died of sickle cell. I was the last person to talk to her in the hospital. And I’ve been a white person my entire life. Life is what it is, some are complete assholes from day one and some are not. Some get dealt a hand that sucks donkey balls and some have everything handed to them on a silver platter. My experience is that the better people know that sucking donkey balls isn’t a good thing and the worst people have their heads firmly up their exit port with a pair in their mouth. And yes they have to work at it to be that bad and arrange that insertion but they seem to manage and enjoy it.
TBone
@Sister Golden Bear: that six degrees of Kevin Bacon gave me the willies. The frozen food thing was also a major theme in East of Eden.
Citizen Alan
I’m thinking about all those Democrats who voted for the ACA knowing that it would end their political careers. And the politicians of both parties who came before them and voted for the Civil Rights Act knowing the same thing.
If things are so bad that Liz Cheney (net worth over $14.7m) is in any kind of physical danger, we’re all screwed and need to have a bug-out bag and an escape route ready.
NotMax
@Kayla Rudbek
See episode 3. “Eat, Drink and Be Merry” of the delightful series Connections for a bit more on this.
TBone
@Ruckus: incel son of rumpy neighbor once showed me a photo of his new girlfriend he had on his phone. A very beautiful Black girl he knew at high school. He was merely trying to to gauge my racism – he had no girlfriend and never has. When I reacted favorably, she was never mentioned again, until I brought it up six months later when he was being a racist asshole to the Chinese guy in whose store he worked at the beginning of Covid.
His other proudly shared photo was a picture of himself with Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Citizen Alan
@The Audacity of Krope: Bonus points if she walks back her enthusiastic support for torture.
TBone
@Hildebrand: 🎯
Soprano2
@Kay: It drives me crazy when I hear discussions about this supposed “War on Boys”. They talk incessantly about how school is designed to help girls succeed and not boys. Well, it’s been like that forever and it didn’t seem to inhibit boys before, but no one ever brings that up. They refuse to address the real elephant in the room, which is that it makes boys mad when too many girls best them so they just give up. That’s what happened in my class – out of 30 students, nine of the top ten were girls! It was seen as “sissy” to get good grades because they thought they wouldn’t need them to get a good job.
Citizen Alan
I suppose we will be better prepared the next time we have an unpopular aging President with a black female VP who is running for reelection against an outright fascist imbecile, we might have a better understanding of how to proceed. Since we will have a precedent of one election to draw upon instead of zero.
Citizen Alan
Citizen Alan
So she’s like every schoolchild in the country, which is also a consequence of her and her party’s actions.
glory b
@Kay: That’s good. My son is a heavy equipment operator, unionized but working at Homewood Cemetary, here in Pittsburgh.
I’m pretty familiar with the travelers from various unions, I’ve done unemployment compensation work in Beaver County, where the Shell Oil cracker pant is located (a HUGE project). All buiding trade unions from the entire eastern part of the US are there.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I haven’t had a single taker for the wind turbine apprenticeship my son put me on to. Obama included a gas card for rural people to get to job training. No one took me up on that either.
Captain C
@Ruckus:
Boy do they get pissy, though, when someone does it to them.
Personally, if I drove the cheaper car, I’d figure I was, or at least did better because I got a better deal (provided the cars were reasonably similar in performance and reliablility). But apparently the ability to stupidly waste money is a sign of status these days.
Citizen Alan
@Lily: I assume both attacks were because of “woke” or some subliterate bullshit.
Captain C
@Belafon: Library school was great (in part) because it was full of smart, interesting women. Had I not already been dating someone excellent at the time, I would have figured that the odds were in my favor (provided I didn’t screw it up by being stupid and/or an asshole).
Citizen Alan
@Sister Golden Bear: I like to celebrate by going out to crowded bars and then sitting in a corner by myself while nursing a beer and checking Balloon Juice obsessively and never making eye contact with anyone.
Captain C
@Leto:
I’m not one to kink shame, but preferring Graham Crackers over sexytime fun is definitely an unusual preference, I would think.
(Or am I thinking of Kellogg?)
Ruckus
@TBone:
Some people walk upright on 2 legs. Other than that their connection to humanity and reality is closed off. Their connection to pompous, arrogant jack off is secure and suits them just fine.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: During the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, I was dumbfounded when my RWNJ sister basically said she was afraid of her two adult sons getting falsely accused of rape but poo-poo’d the idea that her 20 yo daughter who was about to transfer from a community college to Mississippi State was in any danger of actually being raped.
Citizen Alan
@glory b: The main reason I never knocked Biden over Gaza and had very little patience for those who did was that I thought he had no real options for improving things there while the political leadership of both sides of the conflict had powerful reasons to see him fail. And I think if he’d done as the pro-Palestinian activists wanted and seriously sanctioned Israel, then the GOP and the worthless prostitute media would have held him responsible for literally every bad thing that happened in Israel thereafter. I think if he’d cut off arms for Israel, that would have been the signal for Hamas to renew their attack on some vulnerable Israeli population or perhaps kill some hostages, and it would be perfectly timed with a Russia-backed social media campaign saying Biden had “emboldened” them.
Citizen Alan
@Ruckus: There is one or possibly two in Fresno that I’ve seen (I assume they were the same vehicle but maybe there are two). One of them pulled up next to me when I was stopped at a light. I seriously considered rolling down my window and sneezing on it just to see if the door would fall off.
VFX Lurker
They never cared about “eggs.”
“Eggs” was one of the white “get out of jail free” cards for not voting for Harris last November. Anyone who squawks “eggs” hopes to maintain all of their social contacts despite not voting for Harris.
Deep down, they support white patriarchy. They just don’t want to pay any social price for their support. So, they squawk “eggs” (or another convenient contrivance) and hope the women, minorities, immigrants, poor, working class and LGBTQ folks in their life believe them.
Kayla Rudbek
@Captain C: both Graham and Kellogg were cranks in the same way
Citizen Alan
@Professor Bigfoot: Over 20 years ago, I politely but firmly asked my dad to never use the n-word in my presence again. And he never did. And unless my mother was lying to me (or he to her), he voted for Obama twice before he passed away.
I did have to hear the n-word once when I went back to Mississippi for Christmas in 2023, but it was from an 84-yo aunt who is in the early stages of dementia, and (oddly) it was in the context of her approving of the young black man that my niece has been dating, so I let it slide.
Citizen Alan
@Professor Bigfoot: Did you mean Gen X? Because I’m pretty sure that started in my generation.
Citizen Alan
I think the thing I hate most about the ascendency of MAGA is that the country is being run by and for the benefit of the sort of people who would have slammed me into a locker when I was in 7th grade because “reading is for fags.”
The Audacity of Krope
@Citizen Alan: Facile bullshit.
Citizen Alan
@Captain C: These are the people who got spitting mad at the thought of the government mandating an increase in light bulb efficiency, to the point that some of them advocated leaving all the lights on in your house when you leave as a protest against it. Literally squandering money for the sole purpose of owning the libs that live rent free in your head.
Captain C
@different-church-lady: A good example of a typical Republican blame/responsibilty cycle, to wit:
Yep, the party of personal responsibility all right. It’s always someone else’s personal responsibility. Kind of like how running three casinos, a football league, an airline, and multiple other businesses into the ground demonstrates that one is a top-notch businessman and dealmaker.
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
I used to be an employer. In a machine shop. We made molds for plastic parts and some for molten metal. Kind of like high tech jello molds. Now this was a few decades ago, I am an old… Anyway decades ago there was a concept that women could not do the job. My answer to that was how much mathematics do you know. And if you didn’t have a concept of geometry and a useful knowledge of trigonometry you had to learn it fast or weren’t getting a job. My point was that most men that walked in looking for a job couldn’t do the work, and far fewer women walked in. But the one’s that did were actually often better qualified than most men that walked in, because they had the math skills and many men would tell you they did but – they often didn’t. Now back all those years ago it actually was rare that many humans were good at the work because they didn’t get taught the necessary skills anywhere but on the job. So it was difficult to get the job to learn the skills. There were schools to teach the basics but not everyone wanted to learn to do trigonometry even to the basic level, or could afford the schools that actually taught it well.
And I have zero idea what it’s like in school today, but I imagine that without some of the skills some had to learn in my day, one is not going far in the working, productive world, learning most everything on the job. When I started we didn’t have such a thing as a calculator. A mechanical adding machine sure, but a hand held calculator – didn’t exist. Today a lot of cell phones can do most of what was needed. Mine can. Computers do it easily. And my first one couldn’t, but then that was 1978.
eemom
@Citizen Alan:
THANK YOU for pointing out that eminently obvious truth.
First time I’ve seen it done here.
Geminid
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Yeah, I know it was Suzanne, and I didn’t mean to imply you believed this.
Liz Cheney may still be with the Miller Center. It’s not a bad gig so long she can stand sipping sherry and yakking with Larry Sabato. Cheney would find plenty of simpatico neighbors if she wanted to live in Albemarle County.
I live on the approach pattern to the Charlottesville airport. If I see one of those SR-71 Blackbird spyplanes swoop by I won’t be surprised; I’ll be like, “Awww! Dick Cheney’s come to see his little girl.”
PasturesOfPlenty
Liz Cheney voted with Trump 93% of the time. I’m genuinely baffled about this, is saying “fuck you” to the left that important?
Suzanne
@Geminid: Did not try to imply that Liz Cheney is currently employed lobbying. Just that I have no doubt that she has many lucrative opportunities ahead of her.
brantl
@lowtechcyclist: she sucked up to him for a long time too. It was only at the insurrection that she broke with him. She was perfectly fine with a lot of his asinine and evil shit. She deserved the sign that says you got one right with her picture on it.
satby
@glory b: but don’t ever mention how invisible white privilege is to the bearers of it.
The Audacity of Krope
@satby: @glory bI haven’t seen a lot of outrage here. People were supportive or not.
This is the topic we were presented with.
Miss Bianca
@PasturesOfPlenty: if anything, it strikes me as a “fuck you” to the right. Not everything is about
youthe left.Ruckus
@Captain C:
But apparently the ability to stupidly waste money is a sign of status these days.
Always has been but there are more of us and more of the people that NEED status for some asinine reason. And higher wages (yes and costs too) which may lead to a better ability to show some “status,” which some people really, really feel the need to prove. Seems, as above, rather asinine.
Geminid
@Suzanne: Yes, Cheney has plenty of lucrative options: private equity like Al Gore, corporate boards etc.
But with the right partner, Cheney could clean up with a cable news news, and Joe Manchin is rested and ready. It could be called “The Centrist Hour.” They could stage a sensational launch by featuring John Fetterman as their first guest; Cheney and Manchin would wear hoodies and get Fetterman to show up in a suit and tie. “Our groundbreaking show is about new paradigms.”
I think Cheney will keep a low profile though. She doesn’t need to accumulate wealth because her father already has, and Cheney has to look out for nutty stalkers with guns. So maybe she’ll settle into the genteel life of a part time professor at U. Va.’s Miller Center for politics. If she can stand listening to Larry Sabato.