In the news media, another aggressively stupid day. Trump was sentenced to… nothing, Meta and zuckerberg means that free speech requires attacking the lgbtq+ community, the media is now providing thought pieces on how Trump actually could buy Greenland, and well, the Cali fires are fucking awful and things are being impeded because drones are crashing into the firefighting planes and helicopters.
Speaking of which, just what the fuck was Karen Bass supposed to do? Jump from a helicopter wearing a carbon fiber ultra light breather and start raking the Hollywood Hills? Why do we always require these fucking performative displays and have to pretend it is 1878 and we don’t have phones and satellites and video messaging and radios and everything else. It’s not like she fled the disaster and went on vacation like Ted Cruz.
In other news Joelle had her first out of house Physical Therapy, and it went very well. I don’t know why I capitalized physical therapy. At any rate, we are now watching some really violent western series on Netflix called American Primeval. It’s ok, I guess. It’s no Deadwood.
War for Ukraine Day 1,052: SCHOLZ!!!!
Nix Besser
You capitalized Physical Therapy because it’s important and deserves your respect. Ask me how I know.
dmsilev
The real chucklefucks were also blaming her for (mostly made up) lapses in fighting the Eaton Fire, not knowing and/or not caring that LA City and LA County are two separate things run by different people.
Chetan Murthy
I think too many
Americanspeople think that leadership consists in something like Mike Pence with that butch leather jacket, staring manfully at North Korea across the DMZ. Yeah, Leadership! Sigh. I don’t think people understand that all the important decisions that could have been made, were made much earlier than the day the fires blew up. It’s like thinking that the mistake was Dubya saying “Heckuva job, Brownie”, rather than having appointed Brownie in the first goddamn place, instead of an experience emergency management administrator who knew what needed to be prepared years/months/weeks/days in advance.I’m not saying that Mayor Bass is or is not an excellent or even adequate administrator; rather, that you don’t judge that by whether she offers up demonstrations of faux in-charge-….-ness (ugh) in the moment.
AmericansHumans are deeply stupid, and we don’t understand the enormous machine we’ve constructed (called “society”).dmsilev
@Nix Besser: Also, it’s important to show deference to people who have ’cause you lots of ultimately beneficial pain’ as a professional skill.
Nix Besser
@dmsilev: True dat.
Another Scott
Yay Joelle! I’m glad her recovery is continuing. Hang in there, both of you.
Meanwhile, … VOANews.com:
We need to keep an eye on issues like these. The GQP (as driftglass reminds us) is not subject to persuasion – their echo chamber is such that they think they’re smarter than their critics and contrary information just makes them put up more shields. We would like to prevent this issue from blowing up into yet another reason why we have to attack some other country (or people from there)…
Best wishes,
Scott.
gene108
I get the feeling right-wing bullshit will replace objective reality for a larger percentage of the population, than just Republicans.
SpaceUnit
I’m boycotting the corp media.
Not that anything will come of it. But maybe it can preserve what’s left of my sanity.
OCD
You should give Interior Chinatown a shot. Less violence. More funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndzygetBHV0
KatKapCC
If Mayor Bass had jumped from a helicopter, even if she somehow managed to single-handedly douse the entire Eaton fire, the fuckheads online would then start asking how much they paid in taxes for the helicopter.
Miki
@Nix Besser: Ditto. Daily ditto, for the knee, the back, the shoulder…. It takes time and patience, but it works.
RevRick
@gene108: The stuff we need to pay attention to is their proposal to cut the federal budget by $5.3-5.7 trillion over the next decade. The problem is that those are just dry… numbers.
Cutting government spending sounds like a terrific idea to many people.
The answer is to say that all those dollars represent the income of Americans who spend it buying stuff from other Americans. Cuts in SNAP don’t just mean paying for food is going to get a lot harder for people who depend on that benefit. It also means reduced sales for the grocery store selling the food, which means that the store may have to layoff employees.
Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid mean less income for hospitals, nursing homes and rehab facilities, which will lead to layoffs of nurses and staff, and worse service.
We need to convert those abstract numbers into real wages and jobs lost.
mrmoshpotato
Oh for fuck’s sake! How can these assholes even think of writing something like that – even in a drunken haze?
Chetan Murthy
I think it’s well-understood by professional economists that the money multiplier for money given to the poor, is vastly greater than for money given to the rich. Ah well, we’ll be ruled by grasping idiots advised by professional conservative economists (as Brad Delong once put it).
Lily
She was supposed to know that taking the job of mayor was proof she was incompetent because DEI causes disasters.
Balconesfault
@Chetan Murthy: the trust fund baby living on family wealth has earned it, the single mom trying to raise her kids hasn’t.
Jackie
We’re “paying” for Dubya’s slow (non-existent) response to Katrina and his “doing a heck of a job, Brownie” statement.
MAGA expects Blue state governors to respond PRIOR to all natural disasters in retaliation.
Jackie
@KatKapCC:
Exactly.
RevRick
@Chetan Murthy: Since the net worth of the bottom 20% is essentially zero, that means that they’re spending every dollar they make. Meanwhile, what is the top 1% going to do with the ton of money that we will shovel into their laps via renewed tax cuts? Invest in the stock market? Buy another mansion they visit on occasion? Buy crypto? The lie we’ll be told is that they will invest it in job creation, but that’s nonsense. Businesses invest, because there’s a demand for more of what they’re selling. But taking $5.3 trillion in spending out of the economy means there will be less demand… a lot less demand.
mrmoshpotato
Shake her finger at and yell at the fires, Bernie-style!
hitchhiker
@Another Scott: The gist of that excellent driftglass piece is that yeah — Republicans generally experience being offered new information as a personal, intentional attack on their intelligence.
Up come the shields! And the spitting, and sometimes, the shooting.
This is why all the “Democrats need to learn how to talk to white working class voters” pieces are worthless. There is no way to talk to people who are determined to feel attacked no matter what you say, and who see you as a caricature and not a person.
Here’s my plan for responding when my (one) family member who has fallen into the pit, when things go wrong:
What are you talking about, Bob? Trump won. He’s got this. America is great again.
His car broke down? His asthma’s bothering him? His daughters hate him?
No problem. He has trump.
NotMax
Release the kraken.
//
cmorenc
Meanwhile, the stock market tumbled 700 points because…the Friday jobs report turned out much better than expected? And as a result, the FED may consider raising rather than lowering interest rates to chill the economy to drive unemployment back up a few notches? Wall Street seems to think there’s something economically perverse about low unemployment among the masses.
CaseyL
It’s a global epidemic of Stupid. Seriously. Seems that every couple of generations, humans decide being intelligent is just too much trouble and embrace being mouth-breathing nitwits.
It’s not just the US. We notice it more because we’re stuck here. But it is species-wide.
KatKapCC
@NotMax: Isn’t Sidney Powell on house arrest or something?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@cmorenc:
One suggestion:
https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2022-10-24/the-wall-street-paradox-why-investors-want-a-weaker-job-market.html
I’m not a labor economist nor do I play one on television but I’ve always thought that Wall St and the labor hating people that get appointed to the Fed hate low unemployment because they see it as labor/workers having actual power. High unemployment means they can dictate from on high.
They’re all lucky I’m not Genghis Khan. Or Tamerlane.
Captain C
@cmorenc:
Harder to keep your workforce underpaid and poorly treated because it’s much easier for them to tell you to fuck off and jump ship.
Trivia Man
And piss baby gov abbott hustling to Asia just ahead of a Cat 5… who knew it was coming? 🤷🏽♀️
Trivia Man
Open thread? SEC! SEC! SEC!
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Business view labor cost as a fully variable cost and a drag on profit. At the Orange, if a store makes less money(not meeting plan) the solution is to cut workers even if you don’t have enough to staff the store for basic operations.
Trivia Man
In a family group text thread today, i suggested (unprompted) that the fires are helpful in exposing people. If they say DRI caused tge fires we know for a fact they are stupid or have a dishonest agenda.
My wing nut sister (are you sure sandy hook wasn’t faked?) asked what DEI means? We explained it and she said “i dont understand it.”
I politely offered to provide examples and deeper explanations if she was seriously asking and not trolling. She got huffy. I have NEVER heard the term in my life!
Then i got irked and flat out said i was skeptical. based on where she lives, what she reads, and who she hangs out with… bet she has heard 100 punchlines of DEI did it! She started today pretending she had no idea California was on fire. She used t live there, still lives in a nearby state, has friends snd family who live there. Shes a liar and a trumper. But i repeat myself,
Melancholy Jaques
@RevRick:
Same thing with unauthorized immigrants. They buy food, cars & trucks, clothes, all the things that citizens buy. They pay rent, cable, go to movies, etc.
Take those consumers out of the market and multiple businesses will suffer.
Citizen Alan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: every penny that is paid to labor represents a business expense that effectively reduces shareholder value. Which is facile nonsense, but I really think that’s what most of them believe. The typical wall street guy would absolutely support bringing back slavery to eliminate all labor costs from the corporate ledgers.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Citizen Alan: The Orange spent one billion dollars on wage increases 2 years ago and made a big deal about investing in our “associates”. Since then they’ve made two stock buybacks of 15 billion dollars each time.
BellyCat
@CaseyL: Upvoted for truthiness.
Dangerman
The asshole got sentenced to … nothing … and still pitched a fit. That’s just being a dick for no other reason that, for some odd reason, being a dick is in. So to speak. I try to follow the Golden Rule (or whatever rule I’m breaking here) but I hope he pulls an Elvis.
Jay
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
Ain’t got nothing nice to say about working for the Orange, other than some of my co workers were nice people.
Kelly
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA: Tax stock buybacks
Ruckus
@Nix Besser:
Have had my fair share as well.
It may not feel all that swell while doing it, but that’s not the point.
Being better is.
Sister Golden Bear
Unfortunately, the Palisades Fire reversed direction tonight and now is threatening Mandeville Canyon, which has been evacuated. It’s just west of the 405, which is still open for now. The Getty Museum — which is different than The Getty Villa previously threatened — has been evacuated.
Gonna be a long night, but the winds are calm enough that the helicopters and air tankers have been extremely busy. Lots of firefighters being sent in by ground as well.
wenchacha
Being dicks is right!
Charlie Kirk and friends complaining that having an ASL interpreter for the fire updates is “just distracting and woke.” “We have closed captioning now, nobody needs to see all that gesticulating.”
Same people who would skip their kid’s measles vax. And don’t want any abortions, no matter what. When will they decide it’s fun to bully and tease people who have an extra chromosome? They already toss around that R-word with abandon.
Whatever they don’t like is “woke.” Fuckers
Ruckus
@Captain C:
Harder to keep your workforce underpaid and poorly treated because it’s much easier for them to tell you to fuck off and jump ship.
One of the after effects of lowering the highest tax level. The rich paid relatively nothing to get things far better for them and worse for the vast majority.
prostratedragon
@Trivia Man:
Well, I guess there’s some use to knowing how deep the duplicity goes.
Today the was talk of Octavia Butler’s prophetic works. Someone posted an essay she wrote in 2000 for Essence magazine that fits the day quite well:
And further [my emphasis throughout],
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Got people like that in my family and it’s always are they simply a rank idiot and that’s why they are wingnuts, or is becoming a wingnut that made them stupid.
Then I focus on what is important in life – wingnuts of all genders make excellent straight men for my shaggy dog stories.
NotMax
@Jay
Should be queued up to the relevant chuckle.
:)
gene108
@RevRick:
Grocery stores will lay off employees and raise prices to offset reduced sales volume, which will maintain the same maintain or possibly increase revenue.
gene108
@cmorenc:
From a number crunching perspective higher wages will cause businesses to raise prices, which contributes to inflation. This leads to a higher interest rate.
What it means is any future expenditure has to have a higher rate of return to be profitable, because of higher inflation and interest rates, which can lower businesses investing.
It’s a function of the time value of money, which basically is a dollar today is worth more than a dollar a year from now. A dollar a year from now is worth more than a dollar five years from now.
How much more a dollar is worth today is relative to things like interest rates and inflation.
Jay
@NotMax:
In 2008, in Canada, Home Despot cut 50% of their staff, even though the Canadian Stores, weren’t hurting. They transferred the money from Canada to the US to keep US stores afloat and for stock buybacks to keep share prices high.
They never put the Staff back.
When Covit hit, they eventually gave the “vulnerable” 98 days of sick leave, to take if they got sick or thought they might.
Half never came back.
So over the years, they went from having a staff comprised mostly of former Trade workers, to a staff of mostly part time Temporary Foreign Workers and International Students.
The Despot system works on two “notice systems”. The Voice of the Customer, an online praise/complaint system. Where you work, greatly varies the impact. Tool Rental, rare and good, Customer Service, ( Returns), mostly bad.
The second “notice system” is discipline notes. If you are late, miss a shift, etc. Supposed to be written up, discussed with your AssMan and the Store Manger, counter signed. 3 and you are back on probation, 9 and you are fired with cause. They can range from the worst, to wearing a tshirt or having hair too long. If you get on great with your AssMan, you will never get written up, if you don’t, they will write you up, keep it in the bank, and never let you know there is one.
That’s why after a while. I got two paid years off.
One of the key strategies for surviving the minimum wage job is to just hide in the back, avoid AssMen and customers, log in on time, take your breaks and keep your head down.
Jay
@gene108:
A Big Mac in Denmark is cheaper than a Big Mac in the US.
Mickey D’s employees in Denmark get a living wage,, ($25.70) 6 weeks paid holidays, 401K equivalent at 5% corporate match, mat leave, pat leave, 20 days sick leave, medical, dental, etc.
Funny that.
Dangerman
@Sister Golden Bear: Shit. I know people in that area. Not well but well enough to have telephone number. I’ll have to call and check in a few days.
They’ll move Heaven and Earth for that fucker to not jump the 405.
I’m certain the Getty has state of the art fire protection.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay: The disciplinary system changed a bit about a year ago, a bit more lenient on lates but harsher on NCNS*.
*NCNS==No Call, No Show.
It is far easier to call out now, you can do it via the workforce app and can avoid a NCNS by calling out before the end of your shift.
Jay
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
My experience with No Shows here, was you had to get the name of the AssMan, time, voice recording, etc when calling in, then “link” your Assman and Store Manger.
If you called in after store hours, which is most of the time when you knew you couldn’t work the next day, most of the time, unless you documented everything, nothing would ever get passed on, and you would get “shit” on.
rikyrah
Glad that her physical therapy went well, Cole🤗
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: this job situation at Home Depot sounds quite oppressive
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
It is, but it’s retail.
If you have a good Mgr and good AssMan, it’s okay, other than, you know, the customers.
Dangerman
Photos and reported video show Eaton fire started under power lines owned by SoCal Edison.
How many zeroes in THAT check?
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@Jay: We’re a small and old store, we don’t have tool rental, just trucks and carpet cleaners. But we do rent tables and chairs, just buy them for your event, then return them when you’re done, FREE RENTAL. Our customers are the best!
Jay
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
Yeah, we had a Kohler toilet returned,
When it was sold again, turned out to be a 30 year old American Standard in the box, full of shit.
Was checking a guy out one day, 12 packs of 3″ screws. 4 were assorted scrap, repackaged, returned and restocked.
Baud
If Denmark straight up sells out, I’d feel sorry for the Greenlanders but it’s hardly objectionable to have Greenland. The problem comes if there’s pressure other than money applied to Denmark.
Baud
@🐾BillinGlendaleCA:
No wonder they can’t afford to pay you more.
Dangerman
On Eaton Fire, fairly damning picture and if there is cell phone video …
Just fucking control burn regularly under power lines. Rocks don’t burn.
ETA: Sorry, not cell phone video. Surveillance video.
Aussie Sheila
@Jay:
Don’t know much about Canadian retail pay and conditions, but here in Oz they are definitely below par. Unless a Labor Government legislates certain Labor rights and conditions, (which they do) they are effed here. Their union is beyond thunderdome useless here.
eclare
@Dangerman:
Wow.
Baud
@gene108:
Also, the stock market reacts based on deviations from prior expectations already priced in, not to whether the actual news is good or bad.
Chris Johnson
@Dangerman: That’s very much the good cause. Negligence is the PREFERABLE cause for this stuff.
Arson is the less desirable option. Worst case? Burning California and blue states in general becomes part of the job description for FBI agents under Kash Patel. There’s a lot of area posing a danger given that we’re in climate change, and these people are fully capable of weaponizing it. There are people in charge of finding criminals such as arsonists, such as police and FBI. FBI is federal so wouldn’t be responsible for burning their own homes, and under Kash Patel are quite capable of inverting what law enforcement means. Back in the 1930s they didn’t have climate change to weaponize.
Liminal Owl
@RevRick: Thank you for the excellent summary. May I repost it elsewhere? (Or do you have a bsky account that I should be following and could repost?)
Ohio Mom
@hitchhiker: All you have to do is consider how long it takes a skilled psychotherapist to get a willing client/patient to get past their defenses and you can see that the rest of us aren’t going to make headway against the MAGA in our lives through casual c9nversstion.
So you might as well respond to their every personal problem with “You got Trump.”
satby
Kevin Drum on the blame game following disasters.
Baud
@satby:
Right wingers have an obvious agenda. I’m not sure why everyone else does it.
satby
@Baud: People like to feel control over uncontrollable things; an explanation that blames someone or something makes it seem as if the disaster wouldn’t have happened at all if that bad actor had done their jobs. Of course, that’s not true; but most people can’t cope with the uncertainty of life, so blaming is the mechanism they use as the voodoo charm that keeps bad things away.
Edit: and as Drum points out, even disaster preparations are limited by the calculations of probability and cost. Edit again: of course Matt Welch is the most rank of bad faith arguers, as he would have been scathing in criticising the cost of preparation for a disaster this dire.
Baud
@satby:
Very wise words.
TBone
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/german-institutions-depart-x-a-day-after-musk-s-weidel-talk/ar-BB1reCJE
matt
@RevRick: we’re already at full employment
TBone
https://apnews.com/article/obituary-sam-moore-bcdf09de45e2475a8c016d30b4297709
Kay
US billionaire/Republican/media attacks on Europe getting really interesting.
META has a headquarters in Dublin so I suppose we now find out whether US billionaires will direct EU policy and political speech like they do US politics.
I guess the goal is to turn every country into a basket case like this country.
Baud
@Kay:
Hopefully, Europeans have more pride in their nations than a majority of Americans do in ours.
Kay
It’s daunting how much more obvious it is now that this is a worldwide far Right movement – they intend to direct and control the whole world.
Kay
@Baud:
Zuckerberg took a shot at them. In his meandering blathering of platitudes he did some rah rah USA on free speech. So that’s gonna be the campaign – any country that objects to the American far Right and insists on sovereignty will be attacked as not protecting speech.
I assume the US-based billionaires will want US sanctions against countries that won’t bow down to them.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@satby: Well said.
I would also add once the Right Wingers start bullshitting about the fires everyone else joins in the shit talking because humans are social creatures and keeping one’s mouth shut until getting enough information to form an opinion is hard.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Media and Republicans did the exact same thing with the NC flooding, except in that one they only went after one liberal mayor and Joe Biden.
It’s absolute rank terror. They know on some level how big climate change is so the more evidence they see the more they have to point fingers at someone. Someone can make the fires and the floods and the winds go away. There’s a strong daddy who will save them.
Trump is going to have a warming-driven disaster and so are GOP governors. That’s guaranteed. This latest terrified flight from reality can’t last.
TBone
Fact checking is free speech.
TBone
…
https://apnews.com/article/affordable-care-act-preventative-care-supreme-court-3225f11fbb02f83dd29335d2c34885bb
Kay
@Baud:
I feel like it’s a race to the bottom. That they know people will compare countries they run with countries they don’t run (unfavorably) so they have to ruin every country. So if the EU has protections against billionaires running their governments US billionaires and Republicans have to destroy those protections to level the field down to where the US is.
Geminid
Some of this morning’s headlines from Saudi-based Al Arabiya:
AFP would be Agence France-Presse. Also:
And a future meeting:
Geminid
@Kay: Brexit was one of the opening battles in this war. Russia helped instigate Brexit, and wealthy Britons pushed it too because they feared an imminent change in EU tax regulations that would cost them.
The foreign and oligarchic interests successfully ran the project as a Nationalist, “Populist” movement.
sab
@TBone: What does that 5th circuit ruling do to DOGE going forward? Consistency isn’t part of RWNG jurisprudence.
way2blue
I admit I haven’t dug into the specifics of the LA fires, but am wondering how they started exactly.
My recollection is that Santa Ana fires typically start when electrical wires whip around, break, ignite palm trees… In my area, PG&E is sufficiently gun-shy (from previous epic wildfires) that they will preemptively turn off power grids when serious wind storms are predicted. And as I recall, the Maui fire was triggered by high winds and a dysfunctional power company which wouldn’t shut off power… So. My question is whether there’s a move to underground wires in the LA basin.
dearmaizie
Because you want to be like donald trump. I don’t know why we capitalize american any more.