Joe Biden awards Denzel Washington the Presidential Medal of Freedom
— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) January 4, 2025 at 4:11 PM
On Jan. 6, Harris will oversee the certification of Trump’s win, restoring a historical norm that Trump shattered. https://t.co/01eCHrMWvA
— Maeve Reston (@MaeveReston) January 4, 2025
After my last post, I feel like I should warn Betty Cracker not to read this, from the Washington Post:
Vice President Kamala Harris has called President-elect Donald Trump a threat to American democracy. She has said he is a fascist. She has predicted he would abuse the powers of the presidency. She has warned that he should “never again stand behind the seal of the president of the United States.”
But on Monday, in her constitutional role as president of the Senate, Harris will preside over a joint session of Congress that oversees the counting and certification of the electoral college votes affirming that Trump — despite the alarms she sounded during her 107-day sprint to the November election — will again assume the powers and trappings of the presidency…
The certification carries additional historical importance because it comes just four years — and one presidential election — after a violent mob, infuriated by Trump’s false claims that the election had been stolen by Joe Biden, stormed the U.S. Capitol as then-Vice President Mike Pence presided over the 2020 electoral count. This time, Trump is welcoming the result and Democrats are showing no signs of claiming fraud. Even so, law enforcement officials are planning extensive security arrangements to ensure nothing disrupts the proceeding.
Harris intends to make sure the certification goes smoothly, aides say, partly as a pointed contrast to Trump’s unwillingness to do so four years ago.
Presidential historian Tim Naftali noted that from the first days after Harris’s loss, she and Biden made it clear they would provide “the kind of transition for Donald Trump that Donald Trump refused to provide for them four years ago.” Harris promised in her concession speech to ease the new administration’s transition to power, while Biden hosted Trump — whom he had called an “existential threat” — in a White House meeting that was so cordial it annoyed some of Biden’s fellow Democrats.
“This is, in a sense, a way to meet one of their campaign promises,” said Naftali, a senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. “Their administration came to power to restore dignity and to restore American institutions. And even though they are leaving the Oval Office to the person they replaced, whose chaos they were elected to eliminate, they have one last opportunity to send a message about the importance of traditional norms.”…
The Democratic mantra, for better or worse: We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.
I’ve been accused of “both-sidesism” when I criticize Democrats. But if you want to see how “both sides” are not the same in today’s US politics, tune in and watch VP Harris peacefully preside over certification of the election she lost. I say this as a former lifelong Republican turned Independent.
[image or embed]— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) January 5, 2025 at 8:22 PM
When I voted for Harris, who I disagree with on a lot of issues, I said it boiled down to one thing: I voted for the one candidate I believed would accept the result if she lost. If Harris had won, you know that we’d be all worried today about the prospect of violence taking place tomorrow.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) January 5, 2025 at 8:25 PM
Sen. Ruben Gallego’s son told Kamala Harris he’s sorry she didn’t win the election. Here’s her response:
[image or embed]— Phil Lewis (@phillewis.bsky.social) January 3, 2025 at 3:55 PM
There is a very good reason Rep Hakeem Jeffries is Minority Leader Jeffries and that is because he leads. With purpose and integrity. Social Security is retirement people worked for and that is not is a fact!
[image or embed]— Maya Wiley (@maya4rights.bsky.social) January 4, 2025 at 2:17 PM
It’s signed! https://t.co/cQttEHLFp8 pic.twitter.com/3NgALOyFBr
— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇸💪🏿👩🎓🟣 (@rweingarten) January 5, 2025
On The Road – Albatrossity – The Great Basin
Baud
For better, but it’s not popular.
Matt McIrvin
It’s not restoring a norm if it’s the last time.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
We won’t know that for a few years.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
I don’t live in New York, but I would appreciate anyone who does to explain to me WTF is going on there with charging TOLLS to get in and out of Manhattan 😳😳
How THEE PHUCK will there now be a cost to cross the Brooklyn Bridge?
The HAIL?😒
Over 100 years, it’s FREE What is this nonsense?
Suzanne
@rikyrah: It’s congestion pricing, only in action at certain times of the day. Meant to encourage people to take public transit, and is intended to raise money for the underfunded subway.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@rikyrah:
Its the congestion pricing scheme that was pulled the first time. Now it’s back with a lesser toll. There are several lawsuits in the making from ranging from Manhattan businesses to some based in Jersey, I don’t have details. The cover story is to cover alledged funding shortfalls to the MTA but there’s a ton of debate of various aspects of that. Two of the biggest lobbyists pushing for it were Lyft/Uber.
It has fans in here among the usual market urbanist suspects which should come to no surprise to anyone who pushes back on their agenda.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@rikyrah: Paul Krugman argues in the fee’s favor today in his substack post.
ETA: Oops. Changed the link
TBone
I’m gonna break protocol and post a xitter link because I want to see this action at certification, like Nancy Smash tearing up her copy of the SOTU (I had much fun trolling the pearl clutchers that day).
Our Hometown Girl in Media, PA Wanda Sykes tells it
https://x.com/maddenifico/status/1834274585836949875
(Turn off closed captions because her face is priceless.)
catclub
Hey, I must be a market urbanist cause I approve.
Use the roads, pay for the roads. Use the roads to park, pay to use them. There are a lot of people in cities because they are popular.
bjacques
President (for two more weeks!) Biden signing the SSFA is a parting gift to those of us working and eventually retiring in a foreign speaking land.
Thanks, Joe!
Betty Cracker
Maybe I should clarify my comments in the previous thread because I didn’t mean to imply I’d object to Biden facilitating a peaceful transfer of power or VP Harris presiding over the electoral college crap in congress. That’s their job.
I was calling bullshit on this line in Biden’s WaPo op-ed: “We should be proud that our democracy withstood this assault.”
No, it didn’t.
We can and probably will argue about the personal and systemic failures that allowed a criminal gang to evade accountability and retake power until the end of time, but that’s beside the point I was trying to make, which is: there’s nothing here to be proud of. Asking me to be proud that our democracy withstood an assault that it ultimately succumbed to feels like a species of pissing on my leg and telling me it’s raining.
PS: Sorry to be so cranky so early! For me, that op-ed landed badly today.
BritinChicago
@Baud: I disagree. I’ve always hated that line of JFK’s. That something is hard is not a reason to do it. Some things with very good consequences are hard, some things with very bad consequences are hard. We should do hard things with good consequences even though they are hard, but that’s not the same as doing them because they are hard.
ETA typo corrected.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Rush hour, right?
I drive to work because of mobility issues. There is a parking lot right across the street from my office building. I already pay for parking. The thought of paying an additional toll to get to downtown is ridiculous 😡
TBone
@Betty Cracker: thank you for the Josey Wales.
Baud
Congestion pricing is forcing me to use my helicopter to get around the city. Not good for the environment.
prostratedragon
Local fawks news has a couple of live cams. This one covers some key choke points into Manhattan; unfortunately the view of the 59th St. bridge (Long Island City) isn’t too good, but one can see most of the highways. This other cam seems to be their general one, but in addition to skyline views it seems to pick up traffic in more locations.
Haven’t thought about the issue in a while, but inclined to favor it. My last visit there a few years ago made an extremely strong case.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: There’s exemptions for people with disabilities and those below an income threshold (I can’t recall what it is).
I don’t want to say any more on this topic.
Baud
@BritinChicago:
I think your ignoring the lead up to that line. He specifies the hard things we should do. I don’t interpret his speech to mean do any old thing because they are hard. He says “these things.”
TBone
@Baud: thank you, that’s what the gist is, simply put.
TBone
I’ma go out on a limb and say that there might be a false flag event perpetrated that they’ll use as justification for an immediate Day One crackdown.
TBone
@Baud: where’s your cape for flying? Hope it’s not with your pants!
BellyCat
@TBone: That’s a dark but plausible theory. Hoping they’ve instead been too busy measuring for new drapes!
rusty
London brought in congestion pricing when we were living in the UK, it did help with traffic, noise and pollution. There was an enormous amount of complaining at the beginning, but after a year everyone adjusted.
The thing to watch out for are the loopholes to avoid paying it. You will find millionaires re-registering their cars as the right category to avoid paying, it will become a test of the level of asshole of the rich.
Chris
@Betty Cracker:
Seconded, for whatever that’s worth.
TBone
@BellyCat: and making movies about John Eastman (see early morning thread #16 if you missed that) and also Melanomahead.
moonbat
@TBone: Who needs a false flag? Their cult members are still so angry, even though they won, that they’re self immolating in Teslas already.
Chris
@BritinChicago:
The JFK quote sounds like something Calvin’s dad would say in Calvin and Hobbes. In the midst of some kind of lesson about how the effort in question Builds Character.
TBone
@moonbat: that penchant for spectacle was the false I was clumsily referring to.
prostratedragon
“La mufa [Foul Mood]”
TBone
@Chris: we are all Berliners now.
TBone
@prostratedragon: that’s like what I hear when I see accordion hands!
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: 100 percent. I believe America has succumbed and is on the verge of entering a god awful anti democratic and authoritarian era. Biden’s failures in Merrick Garland and Ukraine have set us up for global disaster.
K-Mo
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Thanks Dorothy. Krugman has it covered.
Geminid
Virginia’s next Governor is in the picture of President Biden signing the Social Security Fairness Act. She’s the tall woman third to Biden’s right wearing a bright blue blazer, former Rep. Abigail Spanberger.
Spanberger was a member of the very talented House Class of 2018. Two others, Andy Kim and Elissa Slotkin, were sworn in as Senators Friday while another, Mikie Sherrill, is running for New Jersey Governor this year.
Classmate Deb Haaland is expected to announce a run for Governor of New Mexico later this month when she leaves the office of Interior Secretary. The election to replace Governor Grisham will be held in 2026.
Professor Bigfoot
GOOD MORNING, you lunatic jackals! Joy of the day to you, and I hope you’re not snowed in like we are!
(oh, okay, it’s really only 3 or 4 inches, but *that’s enough for me to stay right inside.* 😉)
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: we got a mere dusting so far, yet the owner of our local Beer Barn is out in his short, flat driveway using a fucking leafblower. His coal rolling, old pickup truck could just drive right on over it, but today the gas went into the blower.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: BAUD2028!
Because you, sir, are a treasure.
Now excuse me while I clean the spray off my tablet and keyboard.
Princess
@Betty Cracker: Yeah. The only reason our democracy isn’t facing assault this time as it did four years ago is because Trump won instead of lost. There’s no structure that was flawed in 2021 that has been repaired now.
Of course Harris is doing the right thing. And I’d argue that Biden, against some here , in meeting Trump on Inauguration Day is also doing the right thing. But it doesn’t mean what was broken has been fixed.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Agree. Jen Rubin wrote this last week:
“Despite previewing a sentence with no real punishment, Merchan, to his credit, issued a blistering opinion reaffirming the foundation of our legal system“.
Just stop. Stop saying it. The “foundation of our legal system” is in real trouble. The Watergate break in wouldn’t even be news today. Iran Contra? No one would even notice. The Keating Five wouldn’t happen because they do it right out in the open.
This was the Keating Five:
“Five US Senators were accused of pressuring the Federal Home Loan Bank Board to expedite the case of Charles Keating Jr. and give more consideration to Keating’s concerns”
HUGE scandal at the time. LOL. The lowering of standards is just incredible. A straight downward line.
p.a.
What European cities have congestion pricing?
Singapore was the first country to introduce congestion pricing on its urban roads in 1975, and was refined in 1998. Since then, it has been implemented in cities including London, Stockholm, Milan, Gothenburg, and in the central business district of Manhattan in New York City.
Inefficiencies in urban mobility, and road congestion in particular, cost the EU an estimated €110 billion per year. This is more than 1 % of the EU’s GDP.
A 2024 study found that the congestion charge reduced traffic in downtown London, as well as on untolled suburban roads leading downtown.
Above from assorted wikipedia articles.
Outside of NYC, which has efficient (for the US) mass transit into the city, I’d be hard pressed to think of many US cities where this would work: too much built around car culture.
Professor Bigfoot
@TBone: I went all electric for yard-work stuff except for the “big” snow blower that I bought DIRT CHEAP years ago.
I have several EGO tools like my mower, weed-whacker, and blower… and just got an EGO handheld snowblower (I think of it more like a power snow shovel) and we’ve only just gotten enough snow to actually test it.
But do I want to go out in this crap AT ALL???? 😂😂
Spanky
@Professor Bigfoot: I measured 7 1/2 to 8 inches at various points in the yard when I shoveled my way to the garage and garbage can.
It’s let up a bit, but they say there’s more still to come.
Another Scott
@BritinChicago: Yeah, soaring rhetoric may appeal to our guts, but our guts are often nuts.
The very next line in that speech (“pay any price, bear any burden”) didn’t work out so well (for us and millions of others), either. (But of course, history is what it is and nobody knows what other horrors may have happened instead.)
Best wishes,
Scott.
TONYG
@TBone: The Reichstag will suddenly catch fire.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
And that’s how it happens everywhere else, right? It isn’t one leader or one event and it all dramatically collapses and the tanks roll down the street. That’s a movie. What actually happens is the outward appearance of a democracy or legal system continue just limping along, except none of it is actually means anything.
prostratedragon
@TBone: Every now and then he just smashes the thing together. Very conversational.
zhena gogolia
@Ksmiami: God, this is a disgusting comment. You’ll see what failure in Ukraine looks like now.
TONYG
@Ksmiami: Biden’s failures in Ukraine? So Biden is the guy who forced Putin to invade Ukraine in February of 2022! For a senile old guy, Biden sure got a lot done in four years.
zhena gogolia
@Princess:
I’ll repeat my comment from below. Trump was “brought to justice.” He was adjudicated a rapist by a jury. He was convicted of 34 felony counts of fraud by a jury. Two impeachment trials and the J6 hearings exposed his crimes and treason for all to see. White people didn’t care. They voted for him anyway.
Another Scott
@TBone: My uncalibrated eyeball reads about 8″ on our deck in NoVA. There’s a lull at the moment.
Impressive!
Stay safe, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
p.a.
I forget if it was the old (1920s-30s) or new (1960s) left that had the concept of “boring from within”; infiltrating US public and private institutions to bring about socialist nirvana. Oh well…
Looks like the moneyed right (Fed Soc) and the Christofascists actually accomplished it. What is left of the Constitutionalist structure, and can it be sufficiently reinforced?
Jeffg166
I have never owned a car. I have lived in Philadelphia for 51 years. I either walked to work or used the subway or bus to get around. It’s very doable. It is inconvenient at times but it is better than sitting in traffic for an hour or more during rush hour.
Geminid
@Another Scott: Greene County seems to be on the southern edge of the storm, with about 5″ of snow so far.
satby
@rikyrah: it’s a congestion fee. And long overdue. Manhattan has tons of options other than driving to get around. And, as a Chicagoan, the first time I was there I completely missed Wall Street because I thought it was an alley, it’s so narrow (and had a sewer repair going at the end I was approaching). No one other than delivery drivers and taxis really needs to drive in Manhattan with so many transit alternative, plus really walkable.
TBone
@TONYG: which one? Haha (Florida or NYC)
TBone
@prostratedragon: snort!
TBone
@Kay: frog boiling
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: If you do go out let us know how it works. We were thinking of buying one. I wish we had already. I love the leafblower and lawnmower.
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: We got about an inch. The bad thing here is the temps – it was 15° when I came to work at 7 a.m. I see that the sun is out, that’s positive.
Princess
@zhena gogolia: No disagreement from me on any of that.
p.a.
@Jeffg166: You’re conflating people in the city using mass transit to move around to people coming into the city from outside for whatever reason.
I don’t know if SEPTA has good enough coverage to get folks into Philly to use it instead of driving if the city goes to congestion pricing, if they’re not actually carrying/delivering goods that require a vehicle.
TBone
@sab: I harbor a festivus grievance because of Obama’s Convention speech (leaf blowers section) – one of my other neighbors quit his obsessive, daily blowing in the public street (also during during windy storms) afterwards. Then after Erection Day, he came out to double his daily blowjob with one in each hand. He blows detritus on to our Black neighbor’s property while she is at work at local Uni.
Lapassionara
@Kay: This! The level of corruption is jaw-dropping, and it is hardly even noticed by the press. Or if it is noticed, it is described as “savvy.” IOKIYAAR taken to the max.
More than 30 years ago, when I was in law school, I had more than one student ask me (who had lived through Watergate) what Nixon had done that was so bad. I tried to explain that a President did not have the right to send his minions out to commit crimes, then to prevent those crimes from being investigated by the FBI and Justice Department, that doing so was an abuse of office, the very definition of a “high crime,” but they just did not think it was worth the fuss.
Geminid
@satby: Tom Watson (the Columbia professor, not the golfer) said the new tax could be better labeled as “decongestion pricing.”
Ed. Watson is posting a lot about the congestion tax implementation and the snarly reactions of local Republicans includeing Rep. Lawler. Watson posts on Twitter (@tomwatson) and BlueSky. He also writes long-form pieces at theliberaltomwatson.substack.com.
Soprano2
@Kay: It seems to me that most things that used to be considered corruption have been legalized by the courts. I think that makes people bolder about breaking the law, especially the wealthy who are already pretty bold when it comes to stretching the law. As a small example of this, they gave people a grace period to renew their license plates during Covid because offices were closed for awhile. It’s amazing now to see how many people are driving around with temp tags, which means they haven’t paid their sales taxes and transferred the title. Some of the tags are more than a year old! I saw a story where they interviewed one guy who said it was cheaper to pay the possible ticket he would get than the sales taxes. Of course, when he goes to sell the vehicle he’ll have to pay, plus penalties.
ETA another example – Gary Hart. I’m sure you remember that, it was a huge political scandal that he was caught having an affair – he had to drop out of the presidential race. Today, would that even make a ripple?
Kay
I could happily live the rest of my life without seeing another “blistering opinion” with “no real punishment”. The time for sternly worded letters has passed. It reminds me of ineffective parents who capitulate to every demand while loudly professing that the child must never do it again. That’s not for the child – the child knows exactly what happened. It’s to make the parent feel better, along with any onlookers who like the idea of an effective parent – order in the world. But even they aren’t really fooled.
Another Scott
@TBone:
James Fallows haz a sad.
;-)
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Kay: Hungary, they want our country to be like Hungary. They’ve been pretty open about that if only people would listen.
TBone
@Another Scott: got passport?
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Republicans openly embraced Viktor Orbán’s techniques in Hungary, providing a clue that smothering democracy in the U.S. wouldn’t require tanks on the street. The trappings of democracy go on. It’s just hollowed out and meaningless.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. It takes time and some level of skill to entrench an autocracy, especially in a large, complex country with a decentralized election apparatus. Maybe Trump and his handlers and minions aren’t up to the task.
But opposing them successfully requires being realistic about the dire straits we find ourselves in. We have to be honest about it, goddamn it.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
He wasn’t brought to justice, he was “brought to justice.” Being brought to justice, in the case of his multitude of crimes, would have involved incarceration of some sort.
I made the point below that the media have treated his convictions like old news once the trial was over, and have treated his indictments like one-day stories. I don’t recall their even being part of the general conversation in the media this past fall, and that meant that low-info voters weren’t thinking about them at all.
A close election like this is always overdetermined, but I’m way more than old enough to remember how the media never let Whitewater or Lewinsky drop out of view, and that’s exactly what they didn’t even try to do with Trump’s convictions and indictments. And I believe that, given how close the election was, their treating Trump’s convictions and indictments the way they treated the Clinton scandals would have tipped the election.
(Yes, an America that wasn’t racist or misogynist would have also tipped the election. Handily. But you go into an election with the America you’ve got, not the America we’d like.)
prostratedragon
@p.a.:
Quinta Jurecic of The Atlantic (pace) [gift link to article within the post] has given the auestion some thought:
Her idea is that it stiil is possible to use the legal system to create space to get a shot off, as they say in basketball, and that it already has had some effect. I see nothing to gain by assuming in advance that this is wrong.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: support your local
gunfighterartists of every stripe. It’s all I got so far …Artists come in all stripes, especially in a science lab or local kitchen.
OR swamp!
Ksmiami
@TONYG: he let fear of Putin overcome his response. Ukraine needed more from us and their allies and we let them down. See Adam Silberman’s nightly posts if you don’t believe me.
WTFGhost
Whooo, I’m really fucking impressed. You STOPPED being a REPUBLICAN, but don’t have to actually oppose fascism. Big whoop. ObGhostbusters, “Everything was fine until DICKLESS here turned off the power!” by which I mean, the Republican Party stopped meaningfully criticizing themselves, back in the fucking *90s*, but have become ever more willing to smear ever larger numbers of people, in order to gin up outrage, and remain in power.
“Independent” Is just another word for “complete fucking coward,” or “joyful Vichy.”
My humble opinion, is all. I’m somewhat grumpy today.
sab
@Betty Cracker: I agree with your rephrasing even more than I agreed with ypur original comment.
gene108
@rikyrah:
The Hudson River crossings to get into New York from NJ are managed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Tolls are collected on the NJ side.
I know some of the bridges that cross the East River separating Manhattan from Queens and Brooklyn have had tolls, like the Queensboro bridge. The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, which goes under the East River has always had tolls.
Crossing from the north going south into NYC has not had tolls, but it’s been awhile since I drove north of NYC.
Soprano2
Yep, this is the big problem, too many people don’t want to be honest about what R’s are going to try to do. It’s hard to fight something if you’re denying it’s happening.
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: Sometimes you don’t need one, you just need to be selective about how you use real-world events. The Reichstag fire may not have been a false flag. 9/11, not a false flag (despite many conspiracy theories to the contrary). They were exploited as dishonestly as if they had been.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: 🎯
TBone
Greg Greene on Bluesky
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
Given that our once and future President is a serial committer of sexual assaults, I think your question is long since answered, at least for Republicans.
What standard would be applied to a Democrat in a future election is anybody’s guess.
TBone
@WTFGhost: just wanted to see this again
Belafon
@zhena gogolia: Trump was shown to be a crook, but Democrats elected a black man for president, attempted to get two women elected, they have a trans representative in Congress, and their representatives don’t have a majority of them as white. People have decided which is worse.
zhena gogolia
@lowtechcyclist: I don’t need the media to tell me that an adjudicated rapist shouldn’t be POTUS.
zhena gogolia
@Belafon: I agree.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: The MSM destroyed the careers of reporters who tried to cover Iran Contra. Thomas’s egregious ethical lapses have been ignored for twenty years. This slide downhill has been going on for quite a while.
glory b
@Ksmiami:
@Ksmiami: I wish that Garland had moved faster. I wish Biden had been more aggressive with Putin and Ukraine.
But this is the failure of the American people. Do you really think Trump would have lost if he had been indicted? Found guilty? Jailed?
He’d have been even more a hero to them.
sab
@Soprano2: Meanwhile, is the guy driving around on a not yet transferred title as insured as he thinks he is?
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I no longer believe it’s “for others”. I now believe it’s for the person saying it – they’re reassuring themselves.
I vividly remember Iran Contra. Media didn’t let up on Reagan (who by that time was age impaired and mostly out of it).
I don’t think the Teapot Dome Scandal would be a scandal now. Corruption while bidding public oil leases to donors? Pfft. There’s one of those a month.
Jeffg166
@p.a.:
There is a regional rail system plus the buses that move people from the suburban communities into Center City.
https://www.septa.org/schedules
Belafon
@prostratedragon:
Keep pushing back against it, and protect those around you.
satby
@Betty Cracker: I’m sorry you feel no one is being honest about it. I think pretty much everyone is, and is reasonably aware of the threat to democracy the felon poses. We can’t restore a democracy by being undemocratic ourselves. And the fact that he was able to run at all is a direct result of a corrupt SCOTUS who continually refused to uphold black letter law that should have kept him off the ballot in the first place. And ultimately declared him immune from much of his crime. The only cure for that would be an uncaptured Congress passing laws to correct it; but again, we’re stuck with a plurality of legislators who were elected to undermine our system because voters thought that was fine. And a large number of people are ok enough with it not to even bother to vote at all. Institutions only reflect the people who create and maintain them.
Eunicecycle
@lowtechcyclist: well Rs tried to make a scandal out of Doug Emhoff having an affair before he met Kamala Harris. Luckily it didn’t take, but they tried.
zhena gogolia
@satby: Well put. And a lot of our voters didn’t want to hear that they should vote for Hillary Clinton because of the Supreme Court.
Kay
@Lapassionara:
The 1927 Supreme Court drew a firm line on corruption. They literally said about the Teapot Dome scandal, this is CORRUPT.
Could we possibly shoot for 1927 standards, or too high?
O. Felix Culpa
@glory b:
Agree. He would have been a martyr, and even more fiercely supported.
Ignorance, poor Dem messaging, and/or the price of eggs aren’t responsible for the election outcome. In 2024 everyone knew who Trump is and what he stands for–at minimum in broad strokes if not in all details–and that’s what the plurality of voters chose. As Professor Bigfoot helpfully reminds us, White Male Supremacy won. That’s what we need to target.
Soprano2
@glory b: I think a lot fewer normies would have voted for him if he had been tried and convicted in either the documents case or the January 6th case. I think the Trumpies did a pretty good job of making normal people think the New York case was purely political, so they dismissed it as not serious. I think a lot of them didn’t even know about the E. Jean Carroll case, which is a failure of the press to obsess over it. I think if there had actually been a trial in the documents case a lot more people would have understood how serious it actually was.
Soprano2
@sab: That is a good question. I think if they have a wreck they’ll find out what it means that you don’t really own the car you’re driving.
satby
@zhena gogolia: Apparently a lot of our voters would be ok with “not a democracy, but run by our team”.
But the majority of Americans are just too comfortable to care, or educate themselves, or even vote.
oldgold
@Betty Cracker:
“I was calling bullshit on this line in Biden’s WaPo op-ed: “We should be proud that our democracy withstood this assault.”
No, it didn’t.”
Beyond this, could it be argued the main job of the Biden Administration was to usher the country to back to normalcy and in this regard it failed?
I do not personally blame Joe for this; perhaps, given the totality of the circumstances, this was an impossible mission. But, the fact is that after 4 years of the Biden administration, the MAGA miscreants are ascendant.
Today’s certification procedure does not signal a triumph of our institutions or a return to normalcy. It certifies the exact opposite.
BritinChicago
@Baud: Yes, I do remember the speech. He does specify which things he’s talking about but says that the reason to do them (or at least a reason worth emphasizing) is because they are hard. No it’s not. If they’re worth doing they would be worth doing even if easy. (Indeed more worth doing if they could be done without using significant resources.)
Old Man Shadow
Dark times ahead.
O. Felix Culpa
@Soprano2:
Why would the documents case be compelling, when the Carroll rape case, the NY fraud case (34 counts!), and the Jan 6 hearings weren’t? While I fervently wish that the case had gone forward, evidence suggests it would not have changed Trump voters’ minds.
glory b
And why has Bernie Sanders again been elected to lead Outreach?
Why would he want to lead outreach to a party he refuses to join? How does that make him a credible partner? He can’t wait to get in front of a mic and rail against us every time we lose.
And we lost the MOST ground with the EXACT group so many people claim he has such influence with.
Also, he now says he’s open to voting for Tulsi, I guess Putin has called in his favor for that.
Because did anyone think it was just a coincidence that his first campaign head was Manafort’s partner?
zhena gogolia
@satby: They wanted Biden to handpick an AG who would immediately throw Trump in jail at all costs (not that that would have succeeded). They wanted Putin.
gene108
@Soprano2:
The impact on people’s lives will be minimal. On January 7, 2021, I woke up and went to work. No shops were closed.
This is why so few people get outraged anymore and treat what are serious problems with government as no big deal. The immediate impact on their lives will not be felt for several years, plus Democrats can always be voted in to clean up the mess.
The bigger problem is so many people approve of what R’s are going to do.
Chief Oshkosh
@Betty Cracker: Nope, you’re not just being cranky. I know that this is an unpopular opinion around here, but AFAIC, Job 1 of Day 1 was to immediately hold and investigate the leaders of the insurrection (and remember, Biden et al. proclaimed that it was indeed an insurrection*), including Trump.
But, we are where we are. This whole fiasco was certainly a learning experience for me. At least I’ve now had it hammered home that it’s an absolute fantasy to think that any of the intelligence or justice institutions are truly committed to America as sold to us in grade school. I’m sure that this is not news to members of minority and threatened communities.
So, while I love Uncle Joe as being the best President (or maybe tied with Obama) in generations with regards to so, so many things, with AL’s post showing Joe and Kamala getting the job done right up to the end, it always seemed to me that we really needed A Hard Person to deal with the criminals and traitors as the first order of business. But there I go again, wishing that the institutions would live up to their fantasy traditions.
*Just one example: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/07/06/statement-by-president-joe-biden-on-the-six-month-anniversary-of-the-january-6th-insurrection-on-the-capitol/
Soprano2
@O. Felix Culpa: Too many people still believe that a woman will accuse a wealthy man of rape just to get money; in the NY case, they did have to bend the law some in order to prosecute it as a felony. One of the cases was he said/she said, the other was a complex financial crime. The documents case is easy to understand – he took highly classified documents he shouldn’t have taken, and then refused to give them back when asked for them, then lied about having them. That’s easy for the average person to understand, and they know how serious having unsecured classified documents is. Plus, the NY case was about something that happened in 2016; the documents case was much more recent. We’ll never know for sure, it’s just MHO.
Omnes Omnibus
This looks like a good day to stay the fuck off Balloon Juice. Have fun, kids.
O. Felix Culpa
@Soprano2:
You and I both know white Trump voters IRL. I have yet to see disconfirming facts pierce the armor of their True Beliefs. I seriously doubt that the documents case would have been a difference-maker. Although I wish it had gone forward as it should have.
glory b
@oldgold: Did you think that Biden was going to MAGAs less MAGA?
That the racists and neo Nazis would see the error of their ways?
That the unceasing drumbeat of dubious information about inflation, etc, and the outcry of lefties denigrating everything he tried to do have no effect?
That iy would suddenly be okay to have black people in so many positions of power?
What country do you think this is?
Soprano2
I think the biggest problem is so many of the people who voted for him think he’ll only do the things they want, and nothing else. It was astounding to me to hear TCFG’s supporters interviewed saying that they don’t think he really means most of the stuff he says, that it’s only to make liberals mad, as if that’s perfectly OK. I believe a lot of the people who voted for him are not going to be happy with some of the things he and the R’s try to do, because they never believed he would do them in the first place.
Another Scott
@zhena gogolia: +1
There’s no One Weird Trick. There never is. The battle is never over.
It’s a slog. It’s going to continue to be a slog.
Democracy is always hanging by a thread. It can always be undermined at the next election. If enough people want it to go away, it will. It’s the nature of self-government.
We have to fight them every single day, because the wolf is always at the door (at varying distances away).
I urge everyone to read Teri Kanefield’s new (quasi-monthy) series:
Thanks.
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
TS
@rikyrah:
As with the introduction of same in London – it is a regressive tax – the wealthy could care less – they can afford to pay, the workers, however are hit hard and are the losers in this type of fee.
I do know that the London traffic (when I lived there) was gridlock most of the time. We chose not to drive to the city because of this – not because of a fee. I see it as money raising, not as impacting traffic volumes.
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
I usually agree with Krugman’s economics but not this one.
O. Felix Culpa
@Soprano2:
Sorry, I’m not picking on you (really), but what Trump voters heard above all was not so subtly coded White Male Supremacy. That’s what they voted for.
They won’t say that to a pollster, of course. So it’s some “policy” they wanted, or they didn’t believe the leopards would eat their faces, or the price of eggs. Whatever. White Male Supremacy is at the root of it all. The rest is window-dressing.
Quiltingfool
Soprano 2 mentioned something that I have seen where I live; more and more folks driving around with expired car tags or expired temp tags. Every time I see this, I think “Where are the cops? What the hell?”
Our county and city could make bank on ticketing these scofflaws. I’m not sure what local police do, but I know they don’t pay attention to road crime. And drivers do notice when cops aren’t around.
Funny, not so funny story. Several years ago, the Hells Angels MC decided to have their yearly “retreat” at Lake of the Ozarks. They rented a former bar/dance hall (with rental cabins) for their meetings. This place was about 5 miles down the road from me.
Well, the local gendarmes went nuts. I never saw so many highway patrolmen in the 30-some years I’ve lived here as I saw in the week those guys were in town. By all accounts, the motorcycle guys were very low-key, law-abiding and quite polite and affable to the locals. But, there were all these cops around and they HAD to do something, so the locals were getting tickets right and left for driving behaviors they did all the time. They were pissed.
The Hells Angels were way more popular than the cops. Not a good thing, but this happens when laws aren’t enforced consistently.
Betty Cracker
@satby: It’s not that I think ” no one” is being honest about it. I was objecting to the exhortation to be “proud” that “our democracy withstood the assault” when it did not, in fact, withstand the assault. Anyone who’s saying otherwise is full of crap, IMO.
The systemic failures that enabled this outcome matter. It sucks that millions of idiots voted for a racist, sexist, lawless crook; I’ll never stop being pissed off about that. But systems exist to restrain bad actors, and the systems that should have checked Trump failed.
Chief Oshkosh
@zhena gogolia: I agree with your point that the ultimate failure was in those who voted for Trump.
But I disagree that Trump was brought to justice. He was brought to justice for a handful of his dozens (hundreds?) of transgressions. Within our justice system, he was never ‘brought to justice’ for leading an insurrection.
glory b
@Chief Oshkosh: Those institutions, primarily the judiciary (which gave unconscionable delays to, and unprecedented deisions to Trump’s people), were fatally struck down when Hillary lost, just like she said.
There’s a reason so many Bernie supporters said so many times, “Give me reasons to support Hillary and judges/justices don’t count.”
The thumb they put on the scale for Trump!
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: North Carolina Democrat Cal Cunningham’s extramarital affair probably cost him a Senate seat in 2020. When the news broke a few weeks before the election, Cunningham took a noticeabe hit in the polls and in the end he lost by ~80,000 votes.
That was the same margin Biden lost by, but Governor Roy Cooper won reelection that year by over 200,000. Had Cunnlngham’s vote fallen halfway between Biden’s and Cooper’s he’d be Senator today instead of Tom Tillis
If it had been Tom Tillis with the affair he also would have lost, in my opinion. But this was a in a 50-50 state basically, where the winning margin was around 1.5%. Results could be different in other cases.
Chris T.
To put this in terms I don’t really understand (never played these games myself) and hence might be misusing: Biden and Harris are lawful good and therefore must obey all the rules and norms even while inviting in the chaotic evil Trumpies. We would need chaotic good people in power to stop it.
Princess
This is what Cory Booker said. This is good: “Every day I have the privilege to walk through the Capitol, I carry the memory of what happened on January 6th, 2021 with me.
Certifying the presidential election today is a stark reminder of the work that needs to be done to ensure justice and protect the freedoms of all Americans.”
Kay
@zhena gogolia:
No one ever said any such thing. It’s a straw man people made up to rush to the defense of Biden.
This is BiGGER than Joe Biden. It is not about him. Reducing it to this ridiculous “good Democrats versus bad Democrats” based on perceived loyalty to Joe Biden diminishes what is happening here. It’s also a fools game. The enemies list changes weekly, because it’s a dumb and impossible to measure metric.
WTFGhost
@Another Scott: Everyone knows the frog is like the “reasonable Republican,” or so it is assumed, a hypothetical that doesn’t really exist.
It’s also true: when things get worse, revolutions don’t tend to happen – it’s when there’s a chance perceived of things getting *better*.
So it’s true, the American Frog has been watching the temperature rise, but failing to notice things are dangerous. The metaphor is more true than the reality.
Denali5
@Soprano2:
Have they been to Hungary? I have. Pay toilets in McDonald’s (my pet peeve) and 40% inflation. Terrible public schools. Things have improved in Orban’s home town-elsewhere not so much. There is so much ignorance.
Soprano2
@O. Felix Culpa: I’m not talking about MAGA’s, I’m talking about “normie” voters who voted for him. I guess I need to say that every time.
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa:
Perhaps our ears here have grown dull to the coding, but Trump voters understood and responded to it.
After all, what does MAGA really mean?
Denali5
@Soprano2:
Have they been to Hungary? I have. Pay toilets in McDonald’s (my pet peeve) and 40% inflation. Terrible public schools. Things have improved in Orban’s home town-elsewhere not so much. There is so much ignorance.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: The system is designed to be responsive to voters. We have a role to play in electing Senators who will/won’t Impeach, approve/reject good SC nominees and we have a role in not electing criminals. That’s all on us. It’s frustrating but a justice system where the people have no effective say in those things would be infinitely worse. It wouldn’t be a Democracy at all. The people ultimately control the levers in our system. This is the curse of Democracy. Trump was indicted not once but twice by separate Grand Juries for his role in Jan 6. Trial dates were set and pre-trial motions were already happening. In the chain of accountability it is the Supreme Court, Republicans in the Senate and too many of our damn fellow voters who dropped the ball and didn’t care enough to keep Trump from getting re-elected (not to mention electing him in the first place, giving him a GOP Senate and giving him a three SCOTUS seats). DOJ/The System actually did their job. They are the only link in the chain that did. It really is We The People who couldn’t be bothered to do our part. I wish there had been a huge push to convince voters that electing Harris was the only way Trump would still be held accountable (preventing his re-election was always gonna be necessary to do so) but there wasn’t. And honestly, it’s probably appropriate because too many voters simply didn’t care. We could never get the larger conversation away from inflation, Biden’s speech patterns, Gaza etc. So now here we are. The System relies on voters and our voters are ignorant, ambivalent and impulsive. Trump is a fucking criminal who is unfit to serve as President, but Joe Biden was too old and Kamala apparently wasn’t good enough for US voters. That’s the real injustice of all of this. The People are the problem.
Denali5
@lowtechcyclist:
If he had been brought to justice after conviction, he would have had punishment. That has not happened.
O. Felix Culpa
@Soprano2:
And I’m saying “normie” voters knowingly chose Trump and MAGA. After that, we’re in opinion territory as to whether one more conviction would have made the difference or not.
lowtechcyclist
@zhena gogolia:
Yes, but you don’t forget that that happened. That’s a necessary precondition.
stinger
A little surprised no one has commented on the photo in the Maeve Reston tweet up top: Kamala “shaking hands” with Ted Cruz. Her body language and facial expression say it all. She’s not smiling, not looking anywhere near him, not quite leaning back away from him, not shaking or squeezing his hand but only extending hers slightly as if she’d rather not engage. My total sympathy!
And I wonder why Cruz, who doesn’t seem to be part of the story at all, is featured in the accompanying photo.
eclare
@TBone:
I remember that at the time and loved it. Wanda is priceless.
Kay
@WTFGhost:
I think they know. I think that’s why we get all these bullshit “panics” where they lash out at Black people or immigrants or trans people or public school teachers or “Wokeness”- they know it’s starting to boil but they’re too chicken shit to LOOK at it. I just can’t do it anymore. I want leaders to stop coddling them and pandering to them. It just makes it worse.
Do you know the result of pandering to them about the UFOs? They now believe Democrats in the US government are preparing to attack Donald Trump. It never, ever works. They take whatever imaginary bone we throw them as validation and run with it.
Lee
No, no, no, no, no. We’ve been playing the “Look at us, we’re the adults in the room” card for literally decades! How has that been working out? I agree Biden and Harris need to certify the election but at every point of the way they should be pointing out the danger we are in here. Not smiling and nodding and greeting Trump at the White House.
Harrison Wesley
@p.a.: SEPTA runs a number of commuter trains to and from the suburbs. I haven’t lived in the area since 2016, so I don’t know how adequate they are today.
Ksmiami
@Denali5: the country is so dependent on NATO democracies to keep it basically functional at all. The economy there is a joke.
Professor Bigfoot
@Spanky: That’s my excuse to myself for not going at it yet. “I think I’ll wait ‘til it stops snowing before I get out there…”
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: no. I wanted Doug Jones or someone who would have gone after Trump et Al. Merrick was simply the worst.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa:
There’s the True Believers, and there’s the low-info voters who went for Trump this time. They don’t have a majority (well, plurality) without the latter.
Geminid
@Ksmiami: I think it’s the EU that’s keeping Hungary afloat, but your basic point stands: it’s a failing state and much of this can be debited to Orban’s leadership.
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer:
Manifestly not. To name just two examples, the U.S. Constitution privileges land masses over voters, and the U.S. Senate’s filibuster “tradition” disconnects votes from political outcomes.
The system has been gamed by the rich and powerful since day one, which perhaps helps explain why we apparently had higher standards about what constitutes public corruption a hundred years ago, when society was inarguably worse for anyone who wasn’t white and male than it is today.
I’m not letting voters off the hook. Racism, sexism and a heaping helping of ignorance and gullibility all contributed to this outcome, were essential to it. But systems matter too, and ours (which was never anything close to perfect, of course) failed us spectacularly.
I think it’s important to acknowledge that. YMMV.
Soprano2
@Quiltingfool: Here in Springfield they say periodically that they’re going to crack down on it, and I think they do for a little while, but then they back off again. I think they just don’t care that people haven’t paid their sales taxes and are thus driving a vehicle that isn’t legally licensed. I see them on a lot of expensive vehicles where I know the person should be able to afford the sales tax. When the law about collecting the sales tax at the point of sale (like almost all other sales taxes are collected) goes into effect I think a lot of this will go away
That’s funny about the Hell’s Angels, and what the cops did was totally predictable.
Harrison Wesley
We choose to do these things, not because they are easy, but because we don’t know what the fuck else to do.
Ksmiami
@glory b: we don’t know the Counterfactuals. Trump convicted and a media actually covering his crimes in depth might have created enough space for another weaker Republican candidate.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Cunningham isn’t white, either. Women and people who aren’t white are still held to a different standard when it comes to sexual peccadilloes than white men are, especially white men with money. People assume that women are throwing themselves at white men with money, so it’s all OK.
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh: OTOH, America has always, always been a very messy place politically. That’s one of its strengths, and one of its weaknesses.
Take slavery (please) and the American Revolution…
Wikipedia:
Was Dunmore a good guy? Were American Blacks who joined the British Army right, or wrong?
It’s complicated.
Incremental progress is the way things work in the real world.
If Donnie had been sentenced to 30 years in prison in the documents case, he would still be appealing the conviction and would be out on bail. And would (almost certainly) still have been on the ballot.
Remember Enron? Just about everyone knew that something hinky was going on, but the investigation and trials took years.
Remember Jonathan Pollard? That’s another infamous national security case. He was arrested in 1985, pled guilty, was sentenced in 1987, and there were years and years of attempts to reduce his sentence, grant him clemency, etc., etc., that did not end until he was finally released from parole in 2020.
Politics is slow. The legal system is slow. Things are even slower when they’re mixed together. Life is complicated.
My $0.02.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Denali5:
If he had been brought to justice after conviction, he would have had punishment. That has not happened.
I read that as “if A, then A.” But maybe that’s just me. If in response to lawbreaking, the justice system does everything but impose consequences, the offender has been embarrassed, and that’s all. That’s not justice. Trump has not been brought to justice.
Soprano2
@Denali5: Yes, there is a lot of ignorance about Hungary (I’ve been to Budapest; we were there one day in 2015). I think Tucker Carlson has been to Hungary and talked to his viewers about it. Of course, he emphasizes all the things he thinks are good, such as the absence of non-white immigrants and the harshness of the government toward LGBTQ people. That’s what they want to emulate, plus the government basically controlling most of the educational system and the press.
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: Agreed. The original system catered to wealthy white landowners. That’s it. It’s been a long, hard and somewhat improbable journey to where we are now. But most heterogeneous empires and democracies fail – especially ones that don’t have a muscular presence in the lives of their citizens. Just ask the Carthaginians.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist:
This is actually nothing new— Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were “brought to justice.”
Same thing from the same people; only this time the victim is the would-be multi-cultural democracy that the United States might have become.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: What the “drone” thing reminded me of was the “War on Christmas”. Specifically, the timing– what the retrospectives about that bullshit generally miss is that it kicked into high gear immediately after George W. Bush won reelection. The right wasn’t allowed to just feel smug and happy for one moment. They needed a new scare to keep them in high dudgeon and make them sore winners.
I’m not going to spend a lot of time opining about what politicians should do. Politicians have to at least try to keep winning elections. But I don’t. Policy tradeoffs and moral dilemmas are hard, but egregious bullshit is easy for me and I call bullshit when I see it.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
I had 7″ on the back deck an hour ago, and it’s been coming down pretty heavily since then.
ETA: Southern MD, not that far from Spanky.
Professor Bigfoot
@Another Scott: Yes indeed, it’s complicated.
Some things, however, are not.
This timeline is not a coincidence.
Betty Cracker
@Soprano2: I hung around Budapest for a week or so in the mid-1990s. Fascinating place! Back then, you could see people and systems were struggling to adjust to post-Eastern bloc realities, but they seemed very enthusiastic about the possibilities. It’s sad what happened.
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
I totally agree. The voters failed us, but so did the legal system and the media.
WTFGhost
@Betty Cracker: I agree, until the perps are punished, we have an ongoing cold war, *not* a victory.
@p.a.: I grew up in Philly, and, I can vouch for the public transit. I’ve been constantly surprised at how *bad* other transit systems are, in other places I’ve lived. (Now: I was privileged in where I lived, and where I needed to go, so, that may have made my experience better than others.)
@Lapassionara: and if Nixon didn’t have enough expletives deleted, some would never have stopped supporting him.
Geminid
@Soprano2: I think Cal Cunningham is a White man. But you are correct in that this affair would hurt more had the candidate been a woman or a non-white man.
Tillis is up for reelection next year, and I’m hoping Roy Cooper will run on the Democratic side. Cooper would be strong challenger, I think, despite his age.
UncleEbeneezer
@zhena gogolia: Yup. Claiming it’s the system alone that failed is giving 70 Million Americans a pass for electing Trum (and GOP Senate) TWICE!! Sorry, but to me that’s bullshit. Any system is only as good as the people who administer it. The system of having someone guard the henhouse is a good one so long as you don’t put a hungry fox in that role. Voters continually allow our system (President, Supreme Court & Senate) to be flush with foxes, knowing damn well the risks that that entails.
Kay
United Healthcare is no longer in the news, but this is from a lawsuit filed by a firefighters pension fund against managers at the company:
Not only did UnitedHealth go from an 8% refusal rate for claims to 23% (at the time of the lawsuit- it went higher than that) they were ALSO insider trading and blatantly robbing Medicare Advantage.
Brian Thompson was a crook and the company he led were chronic, repeat lawbreakers – for YEARS. One can oppose violence and unequivocally condemn extra judicial killings while still telling the truth about that. I think our leaders have to tell the truth. We have to fix this. It’s not sustainable.
zhena gogolia
Everything leads back to the Supreme Court. They can undo everything our institutions do. The time to insure against that was 2016.
Glory b
@zhena gogolia: Exactly.
WTFGhost
@UncleEbeneezer: I think what you’re trying to say, is, the system *NEEDS INPUT FROM VOTERS* – not that it’s designed to be “responsive” to them.
From there, you can say “we must be the ones who elect Senators who swear to see impartial justice done, then hold actual trials of fact for impeachment, rather than no actual trial at all… when it’s their boy, that is.”
Right now, the system is designed to hide responsibility from voters, replacing it with the politics editor’s best guess as to the horse race. “Yeah, we don’t think stories about Trump’s treason[1] are moving the poll numbers, so, we won’t report them any longer.”
[1] “Treason” as defined by the Republican Party USA, except insofar as it means “being a Democrat”
Chief Oshkosh
@TBone:
Fun movie, as was the Support Your Local Sheriff, starring a quietly solid Democrat.
TBone
Just got of the supermarket, where a lady my age (or older) accosted me, cussing like a drunken sailor, so I thought she was ok at first. On my way out of the store, I remarked to hubby about the lady cleaning the water sprayers water in the floral section. I merely said “that’s fascinating.” Drunken sailor said “yeah it is! twenty years ago we didn’t even KNOW about germs but now everything is Covid, Covid, Covid. You used to tell your kids they could eat something they dropped on the sidewalk! Five second rule” (I corrected her to 3). Then I let her know I GOT LONG COVID before vaccinations were a even a thing! She said “Well praise the Lord you’re still here!” all churchy. I wanted to shout WE HAVE KNOWN ABOUT GERMS FOR A HUNDRED YEARS – WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN, UNDER A ROCK OR STUCK IN YOUR DARK AGES CHURCH?” But I smiled and said simply and quietly hallelujah! Because The Kidz Are Alright local college radio had primed me to be ready for her on my way to market today.
Tonic Masculinity Alternative to Smashmouth:
https://youtu.be/UStfN_e2oJM
And Paul Simon!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YcD8b5vJQzc
tobie
I didn’t think I could be sadder than I am today. Putin won. He set fires around the globe and counted on the fecklessness of the west to respond and he was right. Now both Russia and China are actively cutting data cables belonging to neighboring democratic states. Together with Xi and American media owners, Putin created a propaganda machine on social media so powerful that up became down, black became white, job and wage growth became job and wage loss, etc.. Where was the admin’s response? It’s ironic and deeply tragic that a man like Biden known for his foreign policy expertise was outplayed by America’s adversaries. I don’t know if America will recover from this defeat. That’s what’s so sad and frightening.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist:
Either low info voters are adults or they’re not. I doubt that many didn’t know what the ubiquitous red MAGA hats stand for, and it was not disqualifying for them.
Another Scott
@Professor Bigfoot: Perhaps. But I think the argument can be made that that too is too simple.
Archives.History.AC.UK:
(Emphasis added.)
Progress is slow. Things involving humanity, commerce, politics, and the law, are complicated.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: When we were there was at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe. You could tell most of the people there were pretty sour on it. It struck me as a more “backwards” place than other European countries I had visited.
Glory b
@Ksmiami: Rachel Maddow did multiple reports on the 2016 Republican primary. Trymp was at the back of a very large pack until his famous elevator speech, in which he called Mexicans a bunch of rapists and drug dealers.
He sht up to number one and stayed there to the end.
NOT as reported on was the fact that there was significant growth in the raw numbers of newly registered voters, almost all Republicans and almost all of them voting for Trump.
He showed the Republicans that a lot of people didn’t recognize the silent racism, that he appealed to them because he said the quiet part out loud.
There was NEVER any room for a weaker candidate.
The politics of racial Resentment rule the day.
tobie
@zhena gogolia: Bingo. Instead people who had no clue about the details of trade agreements — because trade agreements are notoriously correct — disrupted a convention shouting “No TPP” and based their third party vote on this slogan.
Old Man Shadow
@zhena gogolia: Yes, but that is predicated that you actually think rape is a crime that should be punished, and not something that should be excused with “boys will be boys”.
I’m no longer certain a majority of Americans feel that way.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Yeah, you’re right, I think I got him confused with someone else who was running at the same time. That makes me more surprised. Of course, even 2016 was a lot different than how they treat it now.
Chief Oshkosh
@Soprano2: I agree. FWIW.
Miss Bianca
@Professor Bigfoot: When I really want to get depressed about this country and its supposed “liberty!” ideals, I find myself thinking that we might have been better off as a people generally if we had remained a British colony.
cmorenc
@Baud: you should travel about in an electric helicopter. Much better for the environment.
Soprano2
@Kay: Hubby has United Healthcare Medicare Advantage, and they bug you non-stop about those home health visits. Now I know why. We’ve always refused them – I could never see any good purpose for hubby from them.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: It was the same cast of characters that knees the Ds in the groin again and again that torpedoed the TPP. Blog favorite, Elizabeth Warren being one of them.
Kay
Other countries privatize for various reasons and it doesn’t turn into massive corruption and robbing the public. EVERY time we do it results in that. It’s not normal. It doesn’t happen everywhere. Does it also happen some places? Yes. It is worse some places? Yes. But that’s not the measure. We’re not measuring against the absolute fucking bottom and saying “yay! We’re not yet Russia!”. This lawlessness at high levels is not something people have to accept or should accept. We can’t raise standards until we set some.
schrodingers_cat
OT: How quickly can Trump undo the EV subsidies. I want to buy a used one and doing it before Jan20 looks difficult.
Princess
@Soprano2: I think that’s exactly right. I think they don’t believe Trump will do the awful things he promised and they didn’t believe Harris would do the good things she promised. I know people who say she should have promised more left stuff — free healthcare etc. But I don’t see how that would have helped if they don’t believe politicians at all about anything.
rikyrah
@Ksmiami:
FAILURE IN UKRAINE?
WHAT?
President Biden has been completely in support of Ukraine.
You are about to see what failure in Ukraine looks like when the Orange Menace takes office. I am sick just thinking about it.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
The last statement is almost certainly true. But the documents case was open-and-shut; if the conviction had happened a year ago and moved through the courts with the speed that Watergate’s legal issues were handled, the Supreme Court would have heard and decided it last summer.
So I am putting this one at the door of institutions failing us. Why they failed us goes back to electoral politics, of course, specifically those of 2016. But even there, we’re back at Betty C.’s point about institutions: Hillary got 3M more votes than Dump – more than his margin this year – but lost in the EC.
A week or two before the 2000 election, there was a news story about the Bush team’s concerns that they might win the popular vote and lose in the EC: they were planning to try to persuade electors that they should change their votes to honor the popular vote results. I still wonder what that timeline would have looked like: would the EC have died a quick and bipartisan death afterwards? We’ll never know.
Gin & Tonic
Justin Trudeau resigns.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It’s the REASON Medicare is in trouble. We are happily bankrupting our safety net program for this. I mean, WTF? It’s YOUR money! Demand that government lawyers protect it!
Betty Cracker
@UncleEbeneezer:
Who’s claiming that?
WTFGhost
Everyone robs Medicare Advantage. The program, as it exists, is a cash cow for insurers to milk. For example, many insurers only nominally cover hospice care, which is extremely expensive. Oh, if your hospice care ends your more expensive cancer treatment, then your health insurer might… well, you get the picture.
What happens to people who don’t get hospice care? Well, they die in agony, if they can’t get switched to Medicare, or otherwise get good treatment. But we don’t see the “dying in agony” people.
Matt McIrvin
@Ksmiami: What the whole idea of “whiteness” was about was drawing a big circle around a bunch of disparate ethnicities that could unite them in bigotry against somebody else, to justify slavery and genocide. In its own sick way, it was a way to create unity in a heterogeneous society.
And it keeps working that way, since as a concocted social construct, it’s elastic and can always expand just enough to maintain dominance.
The hard part is expanding the notion of “us” beyond this. It may not be possible. But, again, bullshit is bullshit.
Professor Bigfoot
@Another Scott: Nothing in that timeline exonerates Britain.
It merely shows how the thought that England COULD ban the Enslavement drove our Founders to do what they did.
Demonstrating that you too cannot see the forest for the trees.
Edited to add: You talk about how “progress is slow,” but *why do we need to progress?*
So many people decry the Reign of Terror but ignore the depredations of the aristocracy against the peasants for hundreds of years.
So many (white) people blame the violence of the Haitian Revolution on the Haitians, while ignoring the root of that revolution- white surpemacist slavery.
TBone
My mother’s ghost inhabits the algorithm today. She played Paul Simon relentlessly, starting out from his beginnings with Art and progressing to everything else. Thanks, Mom!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9HKNAhAxMAk
brendancalling
All last year, my Governor Josh Shapiro called TCFG “an existential threat” to our democracy, and today he says he’s looking forward to working with him.
I’m not impressed by the framing of this post—“we choose to do it because it’s hard”—because I am sick to death of the Democrats clinging to their precious norms while literal fascists take over our government. What’s HARD is fighting back. I’m sorry—I do NOT respect Harris for doing this. I don’t respect ANYONE going through the motions here.
We need new and better Democrats.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: This is the constant refrain of the Ukraine threads, and why I stay out of them.
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: The Biden administration has been too little too late on Ukraine since February of 2022. Sorry, but that’s the truth. “Trump would have been/will be worse” may be true, but does not make my previous sentence false.
TBone
@Chief Oshkosh: muah!
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: I seriously doubt that the British Empire’s commitment to abolishing slavery would have survived in the colonies if King Cotton and his gin had been among their subjects.
Kay
@Soprano2:
They should just kill MA. Obviously we cannot have any privatization at all in this country without it turning into a crime spree with the public as the victims.
It could work, it works beautifully some other places, but one would need actual regulations and enforcement.
We’ve only had widespread private school vouchers for less than a decade. It’s an absolute sewer. They’re robbing billions. Our private entities are too fucking unethical to be given access to public money. They will steal it.
lowtechcyclist
@UncleEbeneezer:
I will mention that the 2024 election is only the second time since 1988 that a plurality of the voters has favored the GOP’s Presidential candidate. If the will of the voters had carried 2016 or 2000, our institutions would likely have been in better shape going into this election.
tobie
@TBone: Sorry for the unpleasant run in. What a way to start the day.
The problem is the crap people believe because they saw it on YouTube. There’s an entire industry of YouTubers and podcasters working to build mistrust in institutions and science. As Kay points out, the wellness industry is larger than Big Pharma and it peddles pseudo-science and disinfo.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay:
White men in this country are OFTEN held to no standard whatsoever.
That brings us back to That Marigold MF again, of course, as the gold standard of whiteness.
MomSense
It was an extremely close election. Acting like prosecutions, and a more engaged messaging team including a president who could have stumped for the administration’s accomplishments instead of being largely out of sight wouldn’t have made a difference is just ridiculous. There was a complacency in this administration that started with the president and it is a big part of why we are where we are today.
Glory b
@lowtechcyclist: WE DO NOT HAVE THE JUDICIARY WE HAD DURING WATERGATE.
THAT WOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT HAVE HAPPENED TODAY.
THAT DREAM ENDED IN 2016.
Thank you for coming to my TED Talk.
cmorenc
@O. Felix Culpa: You are right that it isn’t the number if convictions but the quality, not that Trump didn’t deserve convictions on all 4 of the different ongoing felony prosecutions. Had most any other federal district judge been assigned to the stolen national security docs case and gone to trial, Trump likely would not have picked up the low-info voters that carried him across the line. It’s also the one case a blatantly partisan SCOTUS could not have crafted a basis to gum up the works on. OTOH, it was unfortunate that the Manhattan one that did go to trial was the one that seemed to many voters like Trump being specially singled out made it possible for him to present himself as victim. Also, Fanni Willis made an unforgivable and obviously foreseeable mess of the Georgia case by having an affair with the special supposedly impartial investigator.
rikyrah
@satby:
I’m just not buying it. I have been to NYC. Sure, people use public transportation, but people drive for a reason, Something that’s been free for 100 years, suddenly becoming a toll? This is going to hit the working and middle class most.
If the NY Dems lose the next election because of this issue, I wouldn’t blame the voters at all. Talk about being tone deaf.
As a Chicagoan, this is equivalent to bad snow removal. Just something that should never be done.
EVERY avenue to get into NYC is being TOLLED?
No. No. This is one of those things that can cost votes. It’s so tangible.
tobie
@brendancalling: Why say “I look forward to working with him.” Why not stay neutral, “I will continue to work with the federal govt to advance the interests of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.” Good gosh, it’s not hard to find a milquetoast phrase.
Harrison Wesley
@Gin & Tonic: Damn. I was so looking forward to Canada becoming the 51st state.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa:
Feel free to move goalposts at your leisure. Bye now.
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: I think the fundament is that our institutions were not strong enough to overcome the white male Christian supremacy that today is the GOP.
The GOP which is supported by the majority of white people.
Our institutions were not stronger than the power of white people at the ballot box.
tobie
Counterfactuals: if SCOTUS hadn’t taken up the immunity case and slow-walked its dreadful ruling which ended up requiring the seating of a new grand jury for Trump’s Jan 6 case, would the case have gone to trial before the election? I think so which makes
@Glory b: ‘s comment about the stakes of the 2016 election spot on. SCOTUS thwarted the judicial process. Aileen Cannon did her part too.
Kathleen
@Baud: He also said, “Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” It was uplifting back then but would not go over well with the “They have to EARN MY VOTE crowd.”
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: The thing is that it, by definition,excludes Black people from the possibility of becoming “white.”
The Italians became “white.”
The Irish became “white.”
Black people who’s ancestors have been here for the last 400 years will NEVER be accorded the privileges of whiteness.
gene108
@UncleEbeneezer:
People are influenced by mass communication. The news aspect of mass communication is based on what’s happening, including what the government does.
The federal courts giving Trump every break possible and then some meant all the evidence Jack Smith had never made it to the news cycle and impressed in voters minds.
The federal courts interfered in the 2024 election by making sure Smith’s evidence never made it to the public.
The federal courts failed because they were loyal Republicans first and foremost. Other systems failed us by being slow to react to the biggest assault on the U.s. government, J6, excluding the Civil War.
In the absence of government systems working to hold bad actors accountable, the system of right-wing propaganda prevailed in influencing voters.
Kathleen
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m in Cincinnati and I am snowed in. The view outside my window is so white it looks like the Republican National Convention or Trump’s Cabinet.
Glory b
@MomSense: Again, Democrats don’t have a messaging problem. People know what we stand for and the policies we would enact.
They enact them as stand alone ballot initiatives, so we know they’re popular.
Too many Americans don’t want to vote for the party with black people in it.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist:
LOL. So holding voters to a minimum standard of awareness and responsibility is moving the goalposts. Good day to you too, sir.
lowtechcyclist
@Glory b:
Exactly. Not sure where we disagree.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa:
It is, if you were arguing something very different from that. Good day to you too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Honest-to-God, I’m starting to believe that a significant fraction of American business in its entirety that are simply CROOKS.
EVERYONE has stories of some business or other that screwed them over; and Trump is FAMOUS for it. Hell, a bunch of the J6
riot– insurrectionists were “small business owners.”tobie
@gene108: I agree with everything you said about mass communication and the courts with one exception: Judge Chutkan and the federal court in DC did not delay Trump’s prosecution. Even the DC Court of Appeals put out a thorough ruling in quick order. It was SCOTUS that slow walked the whole process and ultimately declared Trump immune that made the difference. Smith sat a new grand jury to bypass the immunity ruling and got superseding indictments but then the clock ran out. SCOTUS thwarted the judicial process.
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot: Exactly. That’s how it works. The circle expands with anti-Blackness as the bullshit North Star.
Kathleen
@Belafon: Great comment.
O. Felix Culpa
@Glory b:
“People know what we stand for and the policies we would enact.”
Yes. And they also know what MAGA stands for and the policies it would enact, and it’s what they chose.
MomSense
@Glory b:
The phone calls I made for the last election say otherwise.
Glory b
@Kay: I recall that Vox conducted a poll showing that even Sanders supporters didn’t want to pay the taxes that his own people calculated would be needed for it.
Kathleen
@glory b: I agree. Hitler’s time in jail certainly didn’t derail his rise to power.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Agreed. This is going to bite NYC Ds in the ass.
Glory b
@lowtechcyclist: That was for the people in the back lol.
Matt McIrvin
@Glory b: They like the policies, they don’t associate them with Democrats. A lot of them seem to think Trump is for them. All the messaging has to be crammed through this tiny keyhole.
All my life, the only way liberals have ever gotten real national power is when catastrophe strikes that can be reliably blamed on Republicans. They seem hellbent on eroding the peaceful mechanisms for that, though.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: Tatoo this on my forehead.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
This. The circle is always drawn in a way that keeps Black people on the outside.
‘Never’ is a long time, but sadly, I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime, and I expect to be around for another 25-30 years.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist:
I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about. My points were and remain: (1) MAGA cultists are not swayed by discomfirming facts, so another conviction would not have mattered; and (2) “normie” voters chose MAGA too, despite knowing at least its broad implications, and despite having presumably heard something about Jan 6 and maybe even something about the other convictions.
Therefore my opinion is that another conviction probably would not have changed many “normie” “minds,” and that it is notable that the known quantity of MAGA was not disqualifying for them.
lowtechcyclist
@Glory b: Gotcha. :-)
Jeffro
There doesn’t even have to be a false flag event…a ‘Rio Grandestag Fire’, if you will. He already has one, in his mind that is. He already has an audience of suckers just waiting to hear about it.
Trump already knows that he can say the country is suffering a world-record crime wave, or a historical surge of vicious brown immigrants, or anything else, really. His base will believe him, and they’ll excuse whatever he does in the service of his fake crisis.
He told us back in January 2017 that he was going to put an end to the ‘American carnage’ of…peace and prosperity under Barack Obama. Right? This time will only be different in the scope of what hellscape he’ll pretend that he’s inheriting.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa: Sorry, but in the comment I responded to, only (1) was present. Nice try though.
Jeffro
@Geminid: we seem to have gotten even less here, just south of Cville. I’m guessing 2-3″.
It’s been gently raining here for the past two hours.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: The other constant is exclusion of Native Americans but as an Easterner I find you don’t fully feel the intensity of that until you go out West. Here we treat Natives like a kind of mythical fantasy creature which is bad enough, but there, holy crap the hate is visceral.
O. Felix Culpa
@MomSense:
Do you really think that people are going to tell you why they aren’t going to vote for the blackity-black woman and the party that is closely identified with Blacks and other minorities? Answering my own question, no, of course they won’t. They’ll say something like we don’t know enough about her and her policies, which gives them plausible cover.
I’ve done plenty of phone calls, door knocking, and other political organizing, so I have direct experience with how it works.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist:
For an alleged Christian, you display a remarkable lack of charity. Discussions evolve, you know.
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: I was about to say my arm, but okay.
O. Felix Culpa
@Glory b:
LOL. I don’t have any tattoos yet, but that might work.
Kay
@Glory b:
Bernie Sanders isn’t the only proponent of MFA. I’m happy to talk about policy but you can’t talk about MFA on Balloon Juice without it turning into some bizarre Democratic loyalty test/personal vendetta , and it’s always the Left side of the Party they want to exclude. THE SQUAD! Shakes fist!
Sanders actually privatized part of the VA. It was part of a deal he made with Republicans. I thought it was dumb. It’s relatively new so we haven’t seen how corrupt it is, but if it’s like every other US attempt at privatization it will be robbery.
We can’t have a government paid private system – I’d be fine with it if it were a good deal for the public. But no. Too corrupt.
brendancalling
@p.a.: I live here. They do and they don’t. Buses are extensive but unreliable (traffic delays, etc). SEPTA also has a driver shortage, across all transit modes. Also, many of the buses are gross and dangerous. Our subway is good, but not extensive enough. Two main lines and some trolley lines.
Origuy
@rikyrah: Living in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m not sympathetic. Bridge tolls just went up to $8.00 24/7. That’s generally in the direction towards San Francisco.
Kathleen
@glory b: Nope.
Chief Oshkosh
@Another Scott: Justice is necessarily slow and messy. Sure. I get it. I’ve been married to a trial lawyer for nearly 40 years . BUT…
Your examples don’t speak to an actual insurrection, as proclaimed by the Chief Executive and Commander in Chief of the United States of America. Full stop.
By not proceeding with all due haste to hold responsible the leaders of an actual insurrection, it de facto is viewed as NOT an insurrection, and all such talk about an insurrection is then seen as nothing more than political posturing.
And so here we are.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kathleen: {snicker}
I’m just back in from “shoveling” my sidewalk— we had about 4 inches to my uncalibrated Mk I Eyeballs, and the EGO hand held snow blower works GREAT! I mean GREAT! Granted the sidewalk in front of my house is only 15 meters or so, but I was able to do it all in three sweeps in like 5 minutes.
I don’t remember offhand who asked about it, but if you see this, be assured— IT WORKS!
Ksmiami
@MomSense: yep, they completely failed on selling Democratic governance during Biden’s presidency. They forgot the Always Be Closing component of sales. Something FDR figured out in the 20s.
Ksmiami
@brendancalling: completely. Scrub them all. They’re not up to the fight.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay:
There’s no concept of unjust enrichment. The private sector thinks it’s owed a profit, regardless of conditions aka their precious “invisible hand”.
Soprano2
@Princess: I think they believe all politicians lie, but they fool themselves that the politician who says the thing they like to hear (I’ll deport all the criminal aliens that Biden wouldn’t, I’ll bring down the price of gas and groceries on day 1), is telling the truth only about they thing they like. You hear it again and again when TCFG’s supporters are interviewed, it isn’t just one interview. Most of them don’t believe he’s going to take retribution on anyone, for example.
Ksmiami
@rikyrah: timidity cost the Ukrainians a swift victory. Putin exploited the dithering and now the Baltic’s etc are at risk. This is pretty indisputable.
Soprano2
@Kay: I heard a story where they cited a statistic that for every dollar they spend going after Medicare fraud, they get back seven dollars. I wondered why we didn’t do more of that!! Of course, the short answer is because the fraud is committed almost always by doctors and medical institutions, not the individual patients.
MomSense
@Ksmiami:
Exactly
TBone
@tobie: yeah MAHA can suck my dick. This lady was well dressed, well coiffed, well spoken and fluent in cuss. Obvs has money. Educated but chooses CHURCH over science because we’re in Evangelicaluglican territory and she is sheeple. She couldn’t knock me off balance because I am ALREADY off balance hahahaha!
Look at the lyrics to Obvious Child filmed in South Africa, as well as the comment there about how Paul Simon treated his brethren there. I did it today for Jimmy Carter too.
Gin & Tonic
@Professor Bigfoot: Bought one for my son for Christmas, so it’s good to hear a positive review. Thanks.
Kay
@Soprano2:
I’m always opposed to privatization because in this country it is always corrupted. It’s just an option we don’t have. If one could actually try it and then get rid of it if it didn’t serve the public I would not be ideologically opposed. Denmark’s public transportation system is excellent and affordable and mostly privatized. They actually write regulations and enforce them. The idea it is a privilege for a private company to administer public funds and the companies have to earn it.
This is what some German municipalities did. They just threw the companies out when they didn’t perform in the public interest:
We never, ever reverse privatization. It doesn’t matter how bad it is- once they’re in the door we’re stuck with them, forever. So I oppose. Always.
TBone
@Jeffro: yep, as was said earlier but BEARS repeating!
Kathleen
@Professor Bigfoot: Fortunately I live in a high rise condo for the reasons you need a snow blower LOL! (I’m lazy).
Gin & Tonic
@rikyrah: The congestion charge (toll) applies to Manhattan south of 60th St. only, and only during business hours. Traveling “through” – as for instance going up or down the FDR Drive, is not charged – it’s just street traffic south of 60th, river to river.
My son lives on 4th St and has a car, so he’s been aware of the rules since they were first proposed – but his wife works from home and he either e-bikes or takes the subway to his office (which is also below 60th) so it will hit them only if they leave the city for a weekend and don’t come back until after dawn on Monday, or if they use the car to, say, go to Costco in Brooklyn.
My daughter lives in Brooklyn and neither she nor her husband ever drive into Manhattan, so it’s pretty irrelevant there too.
brendancalling
@Betty Cracker: 100000%. GTFOHWTS, Joe Biden.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kathleen: When I was a wee one, scarfing up all the Heinlein I could find, I came across the concept of “the man who was too lazy to fail.”
I don’t consider that ‘lazy,’ that’s *SMART.* XD
TBone
@TBone: excellent primer at #194
Primer as in old school book
Mom wasn’t fucking around. She was so mad at God that she sent me out into the world, waiting, keeping my powder dry until I see the whites of their eyes.
Play it again, Sam!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YcD8b5vJQzc
brendancalling
@Ksmiami: TBH, they haven’t been for years. Even Obama was a fucking milquetoste.
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: come sit by me!
Professor Bigfoot
Look, I know a lot of people get tired of me harping on how whiteness and white supremacy are the root cause of why we’re in this godawful mess, but if we don’t acknowledge the problem, how do we address it?
I read a Dean Koontz novel a long time ago that left me with a catchphrase: “Never lie to the dog.”
That is, never lie to yourself, and a refusal to recognize facts— ESPECIALLY difficult, painful facts— is a form of lying to oneself.
Soprano2
@zhena gogolia: That’s why I stay out of them, too.
TBone
Old Cousin Zadoc is visiting The Waltons today. Using catnip & various mountain herbs to cure Mary Ellen’s baby and she’s pissed hahaha!
Anyway
@Professor Bigfoot: How are the new E-Bikes? You get a chance to take it out for a spin?
Soprano2
Fixed that for you, because that’s closer to the truth, but I take your point. Wealth is relative, too, so in a place where most people are poor you don’t have to have that much money to be considered “wealthy”.
Professor Bigfoot
@brendancalling: It was that or be labeled “THE ANGRY BLACK MAN” and be even more viciously opposed than he actually was as a “milquetoast.”
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: theme
https://genius.com/Paul-simon-the-obvious-child-lyrics
Some people say a lie is just a lie
But I say the cross is in the ballpark
Why deny the obvious child?
Jaybird
@sab: We have gone all in on the Ego ecosystem – we bought our very first house with a yard two years ago (at the ripe old ages of 59 and 73) – so we now have the mower, blower, edger, trimmer and weedeater – all great. I have my eye on the pole saw. Electric tools are so much nicer to use than the gas ones I remember from being a kid.
Professor Bigfoot
@Anyway: I did! ONE short ride around the block because A)It’s been a minute or two since I last rode a bike so I need to get a lot more comfortable riding again; but more B) because IT’S FREAKIN’ COLD! lol
TBH, I was impressed with the quality of the thing, right down to the paint job. And, it’s pretty darn quick (like I said, it’s COLD)!
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: JW Milam and Roy Bryant were not wealthy.
Nor is Daniel Penny.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Chief Oshkosh
@Professor Bigfoot:
You got it. And the “significant fraction” is approaching unity.
This is why my brother retired as early as he possibly could from his high-level, MBA corporate job and profession. By the end he was spending most of each day combing through contracts just prior to final signature in order to find tiny changes inserted by business “partners,” put there to simply but blatantly steal from everyone else. And this combing was not part of his brief — he did it just because I couldn’t bear the thought of accidentally becoming part of the scheming and conniving. It was exhausting and he had to go into therapy over it. Talk about disillusionment.
O. Felix Culpa
@Professor Bigfoot:
Truth. I know from personal experience how adept we humans are at lying to ourselves, with unfortunate consequences.
As a white person, I also know how personally painful it is to acknowledge the racist sea in which we Americans swim, and how I have personally benefited from it, and how I have been shaped by it, even though I have never used the n-word and marched for civil rights and have had Black friends. We wypipo are so weirdly and fiercely defensive about it. We have to do that truth-telling about ourselves if we’re going to fix the racism that permeates our society. Yes, it’s painful, and, despite the pain (and underlying shame), we have to do the work
ETA: The documentary “I am not your Negro” features incisive and insightful commentary from James Baldwin about whiteness in America. Highly recommended to my fellow wypipo.
Professor Bigfoot
@TBone: damn, I loved that album, and its predecessor was IMHO the one best album of the ‘80s. Think I’m gonna have to go fire that one up.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TS:
Bingo. It’s a political marker to show who’s in charge. And there’s plenty of data out now showing London’s as congested as ever.
Funny how they didn’t levy a regressive tax on Lyft/Uber. Using the same bullshit “logic” being used to shove this tax down everyone’s throat, tax the hell out of so-called “ride shares” in order to bring about decongestion nirvana.
The numbers entering the new congestion tax fiefdom has remained flat for decades (around 1.3m coming in via vehicle on an average day in the late 90s vs around 800K now). What has risen? The number of “ride share” vehicles in the zone has gone up 3-fold since 2010 to around 120K today. These For Hire Vehicles (FHVs) comprise about 15% of vehicles in the zone but account for 44% of the traffic. This has resulted in most people taking them and not transit, nothing to do with reducing private vehicle usage. Average speeds in the midtown core have fallen as the numbers of FHV riders has increased. Subway ridership began to decline in 2016 as the popularity of FHVs increased.
There’s a reason that the operators of “ride share” fleets have not only come out in support of congestion taxation but have also spent millions to ensure its implementation as their stated goal is to reduce private vehicle ownership to increase dependency on and use cases for their own service. With the way the congestion taxation plan is presently structured they are getting away with literal highway robbery in terms of pricing structure that does not hold accountable the vehicles most responsible for congestion.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa:
There’s a difference between evolving and moving the goalposts. You moved the goalposts. Christian charity doesn’t require me to pretend otherwise.
Pie time.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Kay:
You and I disagree on a variety of very fundamental issues but this ain’t one of them (and public education). The outsourcing of government services is the road to tyranny. Just more neoliberal, Reaganomic crap that’s embraced by a helluva lot of “progressives”.
Chief Oshkosh
@Kay:
I’ve got a couple of friends who have clinicians at the local VA for a couple of decades. In their practices, every single vet who decided to use the new system in order to access medical care closer to home (many vets live in rural settings; many big VAs are in big towns/cities) came back to the VA and their VA docs inside of 6 months. Most had horror stories about being treated like a number (welcome to the club, Bub) and/or sub-par treatment.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist:
An honor, to be sure! Can’t have differing opinions on a political opinion blog now, can we? Ciao, baby. Enjoy the pie.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chief Oshkosh: I quit working early for much the same reason.
I’ve been out long enough to have done a good deal of retrospection and it occurred to me that of all the companies I worked for, I endured the most and worst racism at ONE company— one led by some “bros” bent on hitting certain metrics to increase the share value regardless of whether it was good for the company or not, and one whose software/electrical engineering was so massively incompetent (partly due to that racism) that they lost the cash cow of a major auto manufacturer’s business.
A major manufacturer who literally went out and found SOMEONE ELSE to rebuild and refurbish this companies equipment.
It’s been quite a realization.
Chief Oshkosh
@Chief Oshkosh:
…HE couldn’t bear…
lowtechcyclist
@Ksmiami:
???
‘Closing’ is when everyone sits down and you sign your name to dozens of documents. Sounds less than ideal to me as a way of boosting one’s party. Maybe you mean something by this phrase that I’m not familiar with? If so, please explain.
karen gail
I haven’t read all the comments, I got bogged down after the first few so excuse me if someone else has noticed a number of posts on blusky about transfer of power. The comments were that this wasn’t a peaceful transfer of power but the continuation of Jan 6th, 2020 because if Trump had been properly charged he wouldn’t have been able to run for president.
I have seen a goodly number of posts pointing out that by not charging him and by not following through with impeachments this country slow walked a felon into Oval Office.
jowriter
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
This. It was almost impossible not to notice this at the time. Also he had to run the cleanest Administration ever because any corruption would have been because of being one of them black folks.
lowtechcyclist
@TBone:
And some loon waving “John 3:16” is sitting behind the goalposts.
Kathleen
@Professor Bigfoot: I feel seen. (Taps heart and extends arm in your direction while bowing head)
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: let’s dance in the ether! Beats bitching today. Which I am prone to!
TBone
@lowtechcyclist: love!
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: It’s not always true, but lots of poor white men are also held to account because they’re poor.
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: it gives me chills in a good way. I’d love for Deb Haaland to be governor of New Mexico.
imagine if she rose, as some governors do, to become president of the country. As a Native American woman. The circle would be complete.
At the very least, it would make for a pleasing fantasy fiction, in the alternate reality genre.
Betty
@rikyrah: Not sure how it works, but I heard it is possible to get exemptions. Maybe you can try that.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist:
Having honored me with pie, you might not see this, but “Always Be Closing” is a reference to the David Mamet play and subsequent film, “Glengarry Glen Ross,” about struggling and cutthroat real estate salesmen. “Always be closing” is what they need to do to succeed, their mantra or art of the deal, if you will.
You’re welcome.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid:
I think Deb Haaland has a good chance of winning the Dem nomination for NM governor. I’m a little concerned about the voters deciding “it’s time for a change” and going for whoever the R’s hork up, especially after Lujan Grisham’s somewhat lackluster second term. But Haaland knows the state well and can mount a strong campaign.
Kay
Kamala Harris backed Medicare for All as a Senator and in the 2020 primary.
The BJ Bernie obsession is nutty.
Ksmiami
@lowtechcyclist: I mean closing the sale argument… promote promote promote
Gloria DryGarden
@Another Scott: Thank you for these links about chile. I will study them. My exchange student year was in a nearby country that also had a military coup, and took a while to become a democracy again. So I’m highly interested. I know people who were in chile at that time, and I almost went there in 1976, instead of to Uruguay. For me this is riveting stuff, besides being very useful parallel information as we think about what’s next , here.
Apologies that my autocorrect doesn’t know Chile is a proper name. I’ll have to teach it.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: im reading through those lyrics. I must be Missing some cultural references. I’ll call up
dnfree
@Betty Cracker: Absolutely agree again. Keep saying it.
Kay
Ugh. Blinken is on a “save my reputation” tour. All denial, very little mention of Palestinians, as usual.
At some point international human rights groups are going to get into Gaza along with foreign journalists. There will be a reckoning on the war crimes. 90% ofGazans are displaced or dead. The entire human rights apparatus and international law structure are NOT going to go along with the US demand to pretend these things didn’t happen.
Gloria DryGarden
January 6 is dia de los Reyes across a wide swath of south and Central America. Today is when the Spanish speaking world celebrates Christmas.
Feliz Dia de los Reyes. (Happy day of the 3 kings.)
Also happy day of Raphael Warnock winning his special election and winning his senate seat, gaining the senate a democratic majority.
I’m going to lean into this to dilute the painful recent USA history
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: RICH Black men are held to account every single day.
Poor white men DO get away with shit because they’re white.
Please.
pieceofpeace
@bjacques: Son and dil leaving soon for vacation to EU which might end in a move. I’ll read this, but time’s scarce.
How does this benefit you? Thanks…
Ruckus
I was just commenting and poof, half of it disappeared. I think that was the best half.
I believe I’ll sulk for a while.
Chris
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
A somewhat arcane pet topic of mine is that privatization is the road to monarchy. Monarchy is basically the total privatization of society – the public space (“republic” = “res publica” = literally “the public thing”) has so completely disappeared that even the state itself is, by law, just the private property of one guy who gets to pass it down to his kids like some family heirloom.
Citizen Alan
Personally, I saw the MfA arguments from Harris and Warren as fairly blatant (and unsuccessful) attempts to cut into Sanders’ base of support. And it made me lose a little respect for both of them, TBH.
My hatred for Bernie Sander, which I will never give up, stems from 2016 in which he kept in the race long after he knew it was impossible to win apparently on the “theory” of “well, what if Hillary gets indicted or something?” And then, he and his brain trust (Sirota, Nina Turner, Brie-Brie, Cornel West, et al) picked his delegates to the DNC solely on how loudly they were willing to boo every time Hillary’s name was mentioned, including by the BLM Mothers!
Citizen Alan
@Professor Bigfoot: I will never get over my astonishment at the study showing that resumes from white men with criminal convictions are more likely to lead to interviews than black men with clean records.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Chris:
Heh heh, well, the Founding Fathers did use “monarchy” and “tyranny” in the same sentences a lot.
Ruckus
@Baud:
For better never is for some people, because they know that makes them equal to everyone else. And they HATE BEING EQUAL.
We’ve all seen this, humans who think their exhaust doesn’t stink. And we ALL know that human exhaust can really stink, and that it normally comes from the lower “exhaust” port, not the upper intake port, but is sometimes stated loudly out of that upper intake port. There is a reason that this country calls everyone equal because that very often wasn’t considered acceptable at all in many societies way back when. And sometimes people do throw away that equality, and stomp on it when they do that. How do we fix this? I’d bet all the money in the world that there isn’t a way to do so. Because it’s humanity – in all the good, bad and indifferent ways it can be.
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: the location of the music video I posted at #194 gives more context, as do the people and action in it.
Ruckus
@TBone:
Thank you for that. I had forgotten that one.
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: ok. I’ll look deeper. Thanks. I love Paul Simon, and all the S&G music, too.
Just wrote something on the end of the cold dawn thread, you might like.
Gloria DryGarden
@Ruckus: that happened to me! Poof! Usually good writing, too. Phooey, I hate it when that happens.
Gloria DryGarden
@Chris: useful, about privatization. I need to read up more on this. Great pithy description!
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh: Made me look…
Merrick Garland was sworn in to be 86th Attorney General of the United States on March 11, 2021.
Was he supposed to borrow Obama’s time machine??
Maybe everyone should be screaming at Jeffrey Rosen instead?:
;-)
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chief Oshkosh
@Another Scott: I didn’t say “Merrick Garland.”
But that aside, what in the ever lovin’ wide wide world of sports does a Time Machine have to do with this? Yes, Garland was sworn in on March 11, 2021, months after every elected Democrat I can think of, and even several Republicans, had stated that the Jan 6 attack was an insurrection. The WH statement from a few months later was simply easy to find online and clear, so I provided the link. But even if Garland had started when that statement was published, at least he would have started in 2021. The earliest I can find where DOJ/FBI was looking higher up (however, still not looking right at Trump) is April 2022.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/06/19/fbi-resisted-opening-probe-into-trumps-role-jan-6-more-than-year/
(It may be, but I’m not aware that any of this WaPo article has been debunked or corrected beyond the correction about identifying a 2012 case in Michigan. Reading the entire article, Garland comes across as Kay and Betty have been saying — dithering and not a very effective leader. But no doubt the WaPo had its own axe to grind.)
Gretchen
@Denali5: Tucker Carlson went to Hungary and met with Orban. Rod Dreher has been praising Hungary and Orban for years and moved there for awhile. Their kids go to private schools and they love the repression of feminists and LGBTQ people and the imposition of religion. Rich people won’t be harmed, or think they won’t, by turning into Hungary
LAC
@Another Scott: I get what you are saying.
I found this take on the case against Trump to be interesting. But I prefer my takes to be from folks who are involved in the legal process and understand the time it takes to develop a case like this. This doesn’t give Garland a pass but we seem to be of the impression that the AG can sweep aside law and the legal process and that that office could have affected the outcome. Sadly, it was not the case in 2024. The voters saw to that. Money bought Trump time to challenge everything.
https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/the-situation–in-defense-of-merrick-garland
Thanks, Scott
sab
@Gretchen: They will be hurt,though. Oligarchic corruption is very bad for a nation’s economy.
O. Felix Culpa
@LAC: Thank you for this. Coming from your place of expertise, it means a lot.
ETA: Oops, I think I got you mixed up with LAO, who is a lawyer and (i think) a federal prosecutor. Nonetheless, thank you for the link. :)
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh:
Dead thread, but to reply:
My point in bringing up Garland was as yet another illustration that it’s fine to say that it’s clear to everyone what’s real and good and right and therefore quick action is possible and necessary and will give the obvious good result, but that is not how the world works. The world is messy. Politics is messy. The law is messy.
Yes, it’s trite, but it’s true.
Garland’s deputy, Lisa Monaco, didn’t take office until April 22, 2021. As Adam occasionally reminds us, “people are policy” and it’s hard to change policy when you don’t have people in place.
And there are differing accounts of the FBI’s actions (or lack thereof) – Reuters.com (from August 20, 2021):
No big deal. Just maybe some of the people were there to storm the Capitol and take hostages. Nothing to see there, amirite??!!
Grr…
If Garland were going to indict a former President with insurrection, then he would have to have as bulletproof a case as possible. With RWNJs telling the press from the beginning that DJT had nothing to do with it, that it was only just a bunch of patriots acting spontaneously, it would have been disastrous to charge in and rush a trial without doing that.
It sucks, but this stuff actually is complicated. We actually have to prove things in court, prevail on appeal, and all the rest. And we have to convince our fellow voters not to vote for monsters. We too often suffer setbacks, but we have to keep pushing forward.
[/soap-box]
My $0.02.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Professor Bigfoot:
As a “white” really old fart, I do not disagree with you.
I have seen a lot of racial bias in my life and absolutely know that it still exists. I will say, that from my perspective it has improved in my really old fart life. And that I’ve seen this my entire life so I at least have some perspective. It was better in the USN than I expected and that was about 3 or 4 lifetimes ago – or at least it feels like that. I do know young white people that have left the last generation in this regard so I also believe that it will continue to get better. Not fast enough mind you but better. I live in a very diverse apartment complex with neighbors from many walks of life and countries and am currently building a cabinet for one of my black neighbors. You should know that one person in my life was a woman of color who died of Sickle Cell. If she hadn’t been gay, I would have asked her to be my partner.
Life is what we make of it and as humans are involved expecting perfection seems way out of any concept, BUT we should expect far, far better of our humanity than to hate another human for the color of their skin. I’ve often wondered why the emotion of hate exists, especially racist hate. Maybe it’s to separate out the trash from the not trash but then it wouldn’t be based upon skin color, but actions and reality. One thing I tell white folks who I’ve found out to be racist fucks is that they aren’t white because they are better but because they have less melatonin in their skin. And that they aren’t white but a paler shade of brown. Because that’s what we are. They don’t seem to like that.
Tough shit for them. Be strong, be safe.
LAC
@O. Felix Culpa: You are welcome – I am an attorney too, but i have only handled a couple cases in the federal circuit. Most of my expertise is in admin law and labor and employment. Just wanted remind people of the legal realities, as unsatisfactory as they feel.
Ruckus
@brendancalling:
Think about it from a slightly different perspective.
It’s a big country and it has a lot of points of interaction and human beings, with all sorts of crap in their minds, some from history (not good history!) and some from present day life.
It has racism in it.
It has ageism in it.
It has humanity in it. And not all of humanity has the ability to see anything other than what’s right in their face, nor do they always/ever give a damn about learning anything whatsoever new (to them). A closed mind is not an out of the ordinary mind.
How do we get past this? Beats the hell out of me. But I sure wish I knew. Or even had an inkling.
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
As a white person, I’ll put forward that many did care.
And absolutely yes, many did not care in the least. If they had he would never have been elected in the first place.
It’s humanity, in all it’s good, and in all it’s pure shit. But the people that voted for him got what they think they wanted. But many people seem to now see that he was exactly what other people were saying he was. And still is, except for him being far worse. And he’s exactly the kind to hold a grudge, even if every thing against him is true and who he is. He is a person who his entire life has been trying to prove he is worthy of who the hell knows what, and he going to take that to the grave with him.
UncleEbeneezer
@O. Felix Culpa: One thing his blogpost misses though is the obvious reason that Trump was charged for MAL documents case in Southern District of Florida and not DC: when Trump moved the documents while he was President, which he is allowed to do. The documents were in MAL when his Presidential term expired and it became a crime for him to retain them. Charging him in DC would have made little sense.
Another Scott
@UncleEbeneezer: Unfortunately, I believe you and Jack Smith were correct (even though it seems truthy to me at times that national defense cases should be handled by courts with national defense expertise). As evidence, we should remember the case of Harold Thomas Martin III. 50TB of information in his shed in Maryland, charged in federal court in Maryland.
IANAL.
FWIW.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
While there was money originally it was not at the level of today. Nor did it have the communications of today. (how long has this web thing/blogs, been going on?) Even when I was born, shortly after WWII many bits and pieces of government and humanity were massively different than today. Communications being one of them. Population being another. We discuss, almost or in real time, life, politics, history and the future. So much has changed in the last 75-100 years that little looks the same. And yet it still is humanity, in all it’s good and in all that is pure shit walking.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
I’ll ask – is there any other way for NYC to deal with the traffic congestion?
There are so many of us and a higher proportion of us does not seem to want to live in the countryside where many of the jobs aren’t. LA has provided an electric rail transit system but of course it can’t be everywhere, so driving in LA county often takes TIME. I’ve used that rail system for some years and it has improved substantially but it still can’t go everywhere. We have a number of bus systems but like the rail system they do not cover every square foot, and given LA, that means that everyone else has to drive, which they ALL do. And really what can most any large city/area do about it? When I was a kid, long ago, the City of LA had electric buses but the power was not battery but overhead wires, which limited the routes and cars were becoming better and better, while rail systems seemed to be very limited. Cars won the battle in the way back, but are quietly losing because building 27 lane streets doesn’t seem to be a cure either. And the electric transit trains often run along the freeway routes at least part of the time and on the one I mostly ride we often pass traffic as we go down the middle of a not so free moving freeway.
There go two miscreants
I’m just catching up very late in the day, but you are so extremely juvenile in your comments. What an asshole!