We live in the stupidest times.
christ
This post is in: John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House"
We live in the stupidest times.
christ
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Hidalgo de Arizona
Dog help us all.
Old School
Evergreen post.
Quinerly
Sweet piece for any Jimmy Buffett fans who are around.
JB’s 6’9″ bodyguard of 30 plus years passed away this month. Love the stories and memories in this article.
https://gardenandgun.com/articles/remembering-the-gentle-giant-who-kept-jimmy-buffett-safe/?fbclid=IwY2xjawIBNM1leHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHS_LHhh05Lv6VVtzu90wcbn2PxkzTkLaCxOYYKWazCT0PMvopnlEcvae6w_aem_5EjgPVXGPi03l8dTDqNb1A
Steve LaBonne
Tire rims and anthrax- they’re what’s for dinner!
JerseyBeard
Yup. Sure do.
I find making cinnamon toast in the air fryer helps.
Parfigliano
So stupid the Senate confirmed the lecherous drunk as SecDef with VP casting tie breaking vote.
dm
Do we have to start thinking nice thoughts about Mitch McConnell, now?
Princess
@dm: No. if Hegseth were going to fall, he would have voted yes. It’s a meaningless symbolic vote.
Parfigliano
@Princess: GOP Furrowed Brow Theatre.
Jay
It’s only been 5 days, but it feels like five years.
Well, they voted for it, and are going to get it hard.
Jackie
I’m heartbroken for the world my young granddaughters are growing up into. Hegseth is just the beginning of the next four+ years of hell.
Noskilz
Sadly, that seems to be the case.
TooManyJens
@dm: We will never have to start thinking nice thoughts about Mitch McConnell.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Has Omnes been around lately?
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … RollCall.com:
(Emphasis added.)
More at the link.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jackie
@Jay:
As will all of those who didn’t vote for it. Blue state voters are especially going to get it hard.
Steve LaBonne
@Another Scott: Wait, I’ve been told right on this here blog that Jeffries isn’t saying anything against Republicans.
lollipopguild
@Jackie: If you are a woman in the American military right now you have to be looking at the next four years and wondering WTF?
Another Scott
@Steve LaBonne: Heh. ;-)
I understand the impatience and frustration and all the rest. But I honestly believe that Jeffries and Schumer and the non-MAGA federal courts and non-MAGA states attorneys general and all the well-funded advocacy groups understand the stakes and the importance of preparation in the battles ahead. E.g. Jeffries had to have a physical piece of official EOs or introduced legislation to point to in starting to make his case to the public.
It’s going to be a slog, and we won’t win every battle, but being smart and staying as united as possible increases our effectiveness in opposing the monsters.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Ksmiami
@Jackie: blue states need to secede. There’s. Nothing to gain
Jay
@Jackie:
When FEMA is gone, Blue States will be able to recover, restore and rebuild after natural disasters. Red States won’t.
Voting, and not voting has consequences.
And sadly, “everybody” is going to get screwed. Here, there has been one job posting this week, on Linked In, instead of the usual 60-80, as Companies try to figure out how sanctions are going to play out.
Alberta Politicians are just starting the find out phase, that shipping oil and tar sands to the US Refineries, is not a reliable market and that they might to need to invest trillions in new pipelines to the East Coast of Canada instead.
The US is not a reliable trade partner, a reliable security partner, a reliable anything.
In the mean time, with the CDC shut down and the NIH neutered, the Ebola outbreak in Mississippi should get some real legs over the next 90 days.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Jay:
A lot of other countries have lost their minds too. The world as a whole has moved to the far right
Quinerly
U.S. Secret Service agents – not ICE agents — arrived at a Chicago elementary school Friday but were turned away by school administrators.
Secret Service agents from the Chicago Field Office were investigating a threat made against “a government official” protected by the federal agency, said Anthony Guglielmi, chief of communications of the United States Secret Service, in an emailed statement. The agents first visited a home in a local neighborhood and then “made a visit” to Hamline Elementary School, he said.
The Secret Service was searching for an 11-year-old who posted an anti-Trump video.
https://blockclubchicago.org/2025/01/24/ice-agents-denied-entry-at-cps-school-in-back-of-the-yards/
Lily
Til this week I’d never been simultaneously on the verge of crying and throwing up during entire days.
Eolirin
The fight over Medicaid and the ACA spending will be big; not only will the consequences to tens of millions of people be severe, the Healthcare sector is a pretty sizable portion of the US economy and employs a lot of people, especially in more rural areas.
A sudden contraction in spending could really fuck up a ton of shit.
Steve LaBonne
@Quinerly: Jesus fuck. That’s actually much worse than if it had been ICE.
Steve LaBonne
@Eolirin: If they gut Medicaid there won’t be a single rural hospital left in the country. We’ll see how Cletus likes that.
Quinerly
@Steve LaBonne:
I’m looking for more info.
Jobeth
@Steve LaBonne: what the hell were they going to do with an 11 year old? Interrogate them without their parents? Thank God for those school officials who kept them out.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Steve LaBonne:
@Quinerly:
@Jobeth:
And what kind of “anti-Trump video” from an 11 year old would promt a SS visit? Like, why wouldn’t they want to talk to the kid with parents/guardians present?
Eolirin
@Jobeth: @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): You know, given who Trump tends to surround himself with, and what they’ll be able to get away with without any real adults in the room, I almost don’t want more details on this story…
Another Scott
@Quinerly: Thanks for the link.
(Emphasis added.)
I can’t be the only person that sees the bolded text as being especially important in this (trumped-up) case. I’m sure too many of them would love to throw the kid out of the country…
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Not for a few days. OO sounded pretty fed up the last couple times he posted. I can’t really blame him.
RevRick
@Eolirin: Yes! The GOP holds as sacred the stupid belief that subtraction is addition. They really think that axing trillions of dollars of government spending will grow the economy! If they carry out their program of gutting the federal budget, and turn the extracted loot over to those who already have tons, they will rediscover the word Depression.
And just as a reminder of the consequences of that blunder, the Republican candidate for President in 1928 went from winning by a landslide to losing by one in 1932, a feat never duplicated.
Jay
Get used to the new Gilded Rage,………………
Eolirin
@RevRick: It really does feel like they’ve become completely unmoored from reality, in a way that’s far worse than it’s ever been, in living memory, at least.
Citizen Alan
Lulwat?
Quinerly
@Another Scott:
It’s pretty bizarre and scary. You caught the part about going to the child’s home first? I want to know what was posted by an 11 yo that would alert the SS….plus, where posted.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Steve LaBonne: almost literally.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Parfigliano: So, Hegseth adVance’d.
Lily
As a teenager I lived with relatives for 9 months in a country that had been taken over (before I was born) by coup and then nearly destroyed while many were killed or died of flu or lack of antibiotics. An idealistic socialist movement of workers was destroyed. Adults I met that years told me as kids they had no shoes in winter and very little food.
I wasn’t very aware or educated then but over time and relationships I at least came to realize that this can happen to good people in countries that had been OK (and eventually ‘came back’ and built up again). Right now for myself I believe in reminding myself that we don’t know what will happen, many things are still possible.
On Tuesday I came across by chance some James Baldwin quotes that I had forgotten about after copying them out in 2017.
1/2
Ohio Mom
I hope someone is keeping a detailed day-by-day list of the horrors, for history’s sake.
I continue to be amazed how granular this administration’s efforts are. According to a TPM (Josh Marshall’s outfit) reader: “Hi Josh,
It looks like the Joint Trauma Service has been taken offline. This is a program that military trauma surgeons use to exchange info, hone skills and save lives. The website has been down for a day. “
It boggles my mind, no pun intended, how surgical their strikes are. And how gratuitous.
Lily
2/2
Quinerly
Trump fires at least 12 Independent Inspectors General tonight.
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-fires-least-12-independent-inspectors-general-washington-post-reports-2025-01-25/
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
….why would you want to take something like that down? Sounds like the Joint Trauma Service would be useful for the military in a war, for example. GOP congress people need to be questioned about this kind of stuff, on the record
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Quinerly:
Don’t they have civil service protections and just can’t be fired without sufficient cause?
Wyatt Salamanca
More ratfucking fascistic action from Trump
Trump fires at least 12 independent inspectors general in late-night purge
The dismissals could clear the way for the president to install loyalists in the crucial role of identifying fraud, waste and abuse in the government.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/01/24/trump-fire-inspectors-general-federal-agencies/
Quinerly
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The little bit I know is the President is supposed to give 30 days notice to Congress.
The weird part about this is it seems most of these at least 12 came in under his first term. I just switched on MSNBC and caught that part.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Reread that, and don’t expand the abbreviation into “Secret Service” but use just the letters, and it’ll be clearer how this is going to go for a while.
Wyatt Salamanca
Also, where’s all the outrage from the White House Correspondents Association over the fact that the White House Press Secretary has not yet held her first news conference?
Would they have cut Kamala Harris’ press secretary this much slack? Obviously not. These WH reporters are gutless, bed-wetting assholes. They surrendered to Trump as soon as his swearing in was completed.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Ohio Mom: FYSISHANS AR TEH ENNEMEE.
/MAGAt
Quinerly
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Wiki tells me he pulled something similar in Spring of 2020 with 5 IGs.
From Wikipedia
“IGs are appointed by the president and are supposed to be confirmed by the Senate, although many current IGs are in an acting capacity and have not been confirmed by the Senatea. The president may dismiss an inspector general, but is required to give Congress 30 days’ notice and an explanation of the reason for removing them. The 30 days’ notice requirement was added to the 1978 law in 2008; its purpose was to re-emphasize the role of the IG as an independent watchdog and to dissuade presidents from retaliatory firings.”
Ohio Mom
@Jay: What Ebola outbreak? I am assuming that’s supposed to be a joke. Har-har
Soprano2
@Geminid: It’s hard to be here sometimes when the same arguments happen over and over, as if we’re trying to convince each other. I think lots of people are still shell-shocked.
Quinerly
@Wyatt Salamanca:
His new press secretary has a few issues and is tied up with her own problems:
“White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt revealed in amended campaign filings on Thursday that her unsuccessful 2022 congressional campaign owes more than $300,000 in unpaid debts, with Leavitt failing to disclose for years that her campaign took in hundreds of thousands of dollars in inappropriate donations and never paid the money back.
The vast majority of that debt, about $200,000, is owed as refunds to contributors who appear to have donated above the legal limits. Those excessive contributions went unreported for years — until Thursday — when Leavitt’s campaign amended every campaign filing she had ever made with the Federal Election Commission….”
https://electionlawblog.org/?p=148327
Ohio Mom
@Quinerly: Something similar is reported in the Washington Post article Wyatt Salamanca links to at comment #47.
Being mad at the Post, I was loathe to look at that article but they are the DC’s area local paper and these firings are in their back yard. Actually, their front yard.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Quinerly:
Thanks. What’s the point of 30 days notice?
And I don’t remember that happening at all. I guess a LOT was going on in the Spring of 2020 so that went under the radar
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
It’s a joke, thankfully. Ebola is not something you ever want to get
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Geminid:
What was he fed up about specifically?
Quinerly
@Ohio Mom: WaPo broke it. I wouldn’t click. Went looking for another article hence my link. Plus, I flipped on MSNBC and caught it.
Geminid
@Soprano2: People have really been lashing out. That doesn’t bother me like it seems to do Omnes.
This is probably a sign that he’s in better mental health. He wants to keep it that way, too.
Ohio Mom
@Quinerly: The press secretary’s legal issues make her sound like exactly the type of person Trump wants to hire — proven results in ignoring the law, to riff on a standard resume line
Quinerly
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The Wiki is very good. Check out this link for his 2020 firings and background on the law.
Same MO….on a Friday night, late.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_dismissal_of_inspectors_general
Geminid
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I can’t speak for him. Anyway, I’d just be guessing.
Quinerly
@Ohio Mom:
I chuckled when I saw the blurb about her yesterday. Moved on since so minor in the scheme of things this week.
Of course, I had to pull it back up when press briefings were mentioned here. Pathetic yet hilarious.
Eolirin
@Hidalgo de Arizona: Sadly, Kristi Noem got there first. We’re on our own.
Quinerly
@Geminid:
I’m hoping dexwood shows up. He’s in Albuquerque and his wife is NA (I think Laguna Pueblo). Met them several years back. I want to ask him a few things. My brain is mush trying to get up to speed on what I seeing in NA FB Groups and in community forums.
Rob J.
We do not live in the stupidest times. For the next few years, tomorrow will always be stupider times than today.
weasel
Well, there’s always next week to look forward to!
(ducks)
weasel
@Rob J.:
Should’ve checked the thread, figured my point was likely to have been made but not right before my own :P
Quinerly
@Rob J.:
I’m just amazed how little most people are paying attention. Of course, that’s the reason we are where we are.
Unfortunately, it’s going to take something really BIG to get regular people’s attention.
prostratedragon
@Quinerly: Liars.
Quinerly
The poorest state in the union has money to burn.
A county DA in MS is proposing a $1000 to bounty hunters for each undocumented immigrant caught.
“Illegal Alien Certified Bounty Hunter Program” MS House Bill 1484
https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/5105368-mississippi-bill-would-pay-bounty-hunters-to-catch-undocumented-immigrants/
weasel
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’ve seen him on BSky recently. Pretty sure it was posted today
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Quinerly:
21st century slave catchers
Not much has changed
NotMax
@Quinerly
“Totally unfair. She was working in the fields while pregnant when I turned her in. So I should get $2000.”
//
NotMax
FYI.
Hardly a paragon of progressivity, Indianapolis speaking out against raids.
Eolirin
@NotMax: This shit is going to blow up a lot of local economies. There’s gonna be push back from places we wouldn’t normally expect.
Lily
Even though I stupidly fell once again for suspense and hope, I think some time ago they’d agreed hegseth was Yes , and that’s why they allowed collins and murkowsky to vote No. Hegseth sure appeared to me as though he had no doubts at his hearing or today.
Naively still hoping this means they need to go No on RK, seeing as they could never turn down both. That’d be too much manhood-insult in front of “the world” as T imagines it.
Big Pharma and Big Ag surely objected to RK, and he’s too loose a cannon for T to want full time. In this scenario it’s a pleasure for T to treat RK like Romney — those past insults . And no longer needs anything from RK.
All that could be wrong just as easily. Why do I bother to think and speculate. Hope I can sleep soon.
Sorry for this day this week this bitter year.
prostratedragon
On the NIH beat:
And feed and supplies for the enormous number of lab animals used in the facilities. Mood music: Intro duction, “Suite Punta del Este”
Rob J.
@Quinerly (#71):
Well, at the rates the national public health and inspection apparatuses are disintegrating and the bird flu propagating, we may be just weeks away from fresh eggs disappearing from supermarket shelves. We’ll have to import all our egg based products while paying crazy tariffs on them.
Either that or we’re weeks away from bird flu contaminating the entire domestic U.S. food supply.
Maybe one of those would get some notice.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Quinerly: I’m at the point where I’m afraid that paying attention to every atrocity will kill me from the stress. I can’t get more granular than “they’re horrible, they’re cruel, they’re evil, they’re Nazis, they need to be destroyed”.
Lily
Last minute Friday afternoons and late Friday nights — a pattern that spells bravery and proud service. Egs could be buying another round for everyone just abt now.
danielx
@Quinerly:
I will wait for further confirmation of this story, but if it is as reported…seriously, the Secret Service – which has not been covering itself with glory of late – must have one hell of a bigger budget than I imagined. An eleven year old, for a fucking anti-Trump video? If it showed the kid pointing a rifle at a picture of him or something, maybe…but the whole thing is frightening.
Yutsano
@Rob J.: Why? They just blame libruls and FOX makes it a point to get that exact propaganda out there. Bonus if they can get “woke” farmers in there.
danielx
@NotMax:
Hell, even the local FOP doesn’t want anything to do with it. There’s a movement afoot in the state legislature to make it a crime to ….
House Bill 1393 would require street patrol officers to notify ICE after any arrest is made for unrelated state criminal charges.
“The jail or detention facility has the obligation and lawful responsibility to then initiate the notification process to the federal agencies, to ICE,” said Snyder.
If Senate Bill 172 passes, officers would face charges for not cooperating with ICE.
No wonder the cops don’t want anything to do with it. Plus which they are already dealing with all manner of violent crimes., what with a murder every other night.
prostratedragon
@danielx:
They seem unable to choose between getting their slaves back, through crminalizing all aspects of undocumented immigration, or beat Hitler’s numbers:
zzcool
I’ve got a freebie for y’all:
Print out stickers of musk doing his Nazi salute and underneath it have the words ‘TRUMP DID THIS’
Spread said stickers liberally across the egg aisle of grocery stores.
You’re welcome.
Jay
@zzcool: And gas pumps
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
Part if Jeff Tiderich’s post for January 23:
FAFO of the day: Donny has a message for the Latino community: thank you very much for your vote — now go fuck yourselves.
“Hispanic advocacy groups and others expressed confusion at the abrupt change and frustration at what some called the administration’s lack of efforts to maintain communication with the Latino community, which helped propel him to the presidency.”
Latino activists who voted for Donny are shocked to find the leopards eating their faces.
“A move like shutting down the Spanish White House page and X profile serves no purpose other than to cut off resources for millions of Hispanic Americans and immigrants attempting to enter the United States legally,” Hernandez said. “And it’s a slap in the face to the millions of Hispanic voters that supported him in this recent election.”
if advocacy groups think that Donny’s removal of the Spanish-language White House website is bad, wait until they hear about his plan to strip Latinos of their citizenship and send them back to “where they came from.”
Thanks to T-Bone for turning me on to Jeff Tiderich!
Matt McIrvin
If only the tsar knew what the Cossacks are doing in his name!
Noskilz
Recently there have been announcements for the closure of several manufacturing facilities in the general area of where I live in TN: a Perdue plant in Monterey, a Bridgestone tire factory in La Vergne, and a Bargain Hunt distribution center in Antioch.
I will not be surprised if more businesses close as the knock-on effects of those job losses hit those communities. MIddle TN is a decent sized area, but that is still a lot of jobs
This seems like just one of the many signs things are taking a turn for the dire and not wasting any time getting there.
WTFGhost
@Geminid: People lashing out can be dangerous, especially in a tight community, because people tend to lash out when they’re super-sensitive, and often, they’re hitting people who are also super-sensitive, and there’s loads of needless pain.
I don’t now how to sow kindness in that sort of situation. It’s frustrating
sab
I am angry and furious and frightened, but I am old enough to remember my middle of the road midwestern parents concerns from the McCarthy Era.
However angry you are, don’t lash out on public media. 11 year olds are now alerted that if you post stupid threatening stuff you endanger every family in your school.
We need to keep fighting, but we need to not be idiots or encouraging our kids to be idiots
ETA Post useful positive stuff. Not empty threats to the guys who are now our government.
sab
OT: Totally off topic but my hairdresser had an interesting comment. ( He usually does. He is a very very bright man.)
There are lots of predators out there. There are lots of prey species out there. Small cats are unusual in being both.
ETA I think we understand that when we take in a feral. I don’t think we realize this is all cats, hardwired into them.
ETA Just naturally wary little critters
ETA The both sides also probably includes most rodents. Probably why I so liked our pet rat we inherited. She was a lovely little loving doll. Friendly as could be. Raised to be a lab rat, so of course she died of cancer.
sab
When husband and pitbull and I go to sleep we think the household is asleep. Silly people we are. The seven cats are roaming the place.
I have insomnia. I wake up a lot. Our feline crew is awake and active. Apparently they sleep only in the late morning and afternoon. All night they roam.
Chris Johnson
@dm: No, but we have to think about the meaning of him, Murkowski and Collins voting no. It’d be a lot simpler for them if they’d voted yes and not dragged Pence, I mean what’s his name, into it.
I do think it’s quite interesting that Mitch voted no. Mitch is a traitor from way back but now he’s a double traitor: I’m certain he’s fully cognizant about all of what’s going on here. They used to call him Moscow Mitch, and now this? He’s also a lot smarter than Trump, even in his decline. If the government was fully going to go along with its Russian takeover, Mitch would be voting yes so quick it’d make your head spin, AND force Murkowski and Collins to also vote yes. Something is up with that. He’s most certainly gamed this out better than Trump’s people have.
Geminid
@WTFGhost: There’s people lashing out at each other here for sure, and that’s never good.
There’s also people lashing out at Democratic politicians. That’s pretty intense now. Harris’s loss unleashed a lot of blamecasting, and a lot of ax-grinding. I think much of this is destructive and demoralizing.
And a lot of this is opportunistic. As someone once said, “Never let a crisis go to waste.” There are people who were never satisfied with the party and its elected officials to begin with. Now they’re taking advantage of people’s shock and distress to persuade them that while Republicans may be the adversary, the real enemy is within.
So periodically, I encounter posts with a common theme: “How have the Feckless Democrats failed us today? This is how.”
They play upon a widespread cynicism about politicians that has always been with us, that makes it easier to tear down and “dirty up” Democratic Senators and Representatives who don’t conform to a desired model.
Sometimes I try to counter this indirectly, in a positive way, by talking up individual Democrats like Hakeem Jeffries, Xochitl Torres Small, and Abigail Spanberger like I did last night; or Adrian Fontes, Janelle Bynum, Sharice Davids and others I’ve talked about at other times.
But I think I have to push back directly sometimes, and I don’t care whose toes I’ll step on.
Anyway, in the end these issues won’t be decided by the amateur political strategists here at Balloon Juice. They’ll be decided by Democratic voters in primaries next year, and that is how it should be.
Chris Johnson
@Jackie: No, red staters.
FEMA’s going away, as is healthcare. Killing science might hit blue states harder. Gutting the healthcare system/pandemic defenses and FEMA is 100% going to hit red states way harder. That’s not an accident: they are more vulnerable to attack and they’re more trusting, making them doubly vulnerable. I’m gonna start working on not gloating NOW. What’s in power is not ‘red’ anymore, it’s Russian warfare, no longer even communist: just exported authoritarianism running a puppet guy to break our shit.
Red states enabled this, but it’s not truly theirs. It’s at war with them too. Blaming that part on them as if that’s what they meant, is not good. They meant ill, but they didn’t mean THIS.
sab
Hegseth is a rapie drunken fratboy. Apparently our new president isn’t expecting to go ro war soon. That fits his previous comments.
Agg Sec doesn’t seem like an idiot.
ETA Trump has always been anitwar. Sort of not our problem.
The Thin Black Duke
@sab: Trump wanted Hegseth because he will order soldiers to shoot protesters. The next war isn’t overseas. It’s here.
sab
Like everything with the post civil war south was somehow Sherman’s fault, instead of your economic approach does not work.
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: Agreed.
Gloria DryGarden
@WTFGhost: indeed.
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: War at home against the Democrats. That seems on message, and Supreme Court six will go along.
I thought Bork was a pompous asshole. Apparently they thought he was a hill to die on. Decades later they are still very angry.
Ksmiami
The only good Nazis are dead ones. My Northstar and the sooner people realize this is the real fight will start.
Baud
Happy Dems voted in lock step. I know there were concerns about Fetterman.
Baud
@Chris Johnson:
No one is forcing them to vote red.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: Yep.
They chose to drink the kool-aid.
It’s disingenuous to complain about an upset stomach afterwards.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
We’re the pepto. All they have to do is drink the pink stuff.
brantl
@Jay: EBOLA OUTBREAK????????
Geminid
@brantl: I think that was what some would call, “creative writing.”
J.
@Quinerly: Thank you for sharing that. Great story about a great man. (Back in the early 1990s, I worked with a young woman who was a huge Jimmy Buffett fan, but I didn’t really start listening to him until I moved to Florida.)
Princess
@Quinerly: This is such a bizarre story. Yes, they were SS officials, not ICE. But they told the school they were ICE. Why?
lowtechcyclist
@Jay:
All too true, unfortunately. To me that’s the thing that’s really the worst. Nobody either here or abroad can count on the U.S. government for anything anymore. The reliability of the U.S. government to keep on doing 95% of what it’s been doing, regardless of changes of Administration, has been one of its strengths. And that largely survived Dubya and even Trump’s first term. That’s gone now.
And even once Trump is gone, nobody’s going to trust that Trumpism will stay gone, or that something even worse will come along in its stead, until this country is governed by sane people for a good long time. I hope I live to see that.
Chris Johnson
@The Thin Black Duke: I don’t care if they’re disingenuous, hypocritical or whatever.
All I care about is, will they act when the knife is literally at their throat, or will they get slaughtered and in so dying, doom us all? Lotta farmers, etc who voted red. They have to figure it out or they are FUCKED and they might have to figure it out real quick while being attacked, and take vigilante action to protect their workers, and keep it up.
They don’t get to believe they will be exempted this time, because the improvement of their partisan lot is not on the table now. They think they’ll be protected, but this is war and they are now an obvious obstacle to the progress of the Russian state. If our country was literally being bombed maybe he’d get the picture?
Glory b
@Another Scott: BUT I was told on THIS BLOG, that Jeffries only repeats what Pelosi tells him, he has no agency.
And she was only the most successful speaker in US history…
lowtechcyclist
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
“Look at my thumb.
Gee, you’re dumb.”
lowtechcyclist
@Chris Johnson:
Tell me though, which Republican electeds in red states were warning their constituents about what electing Trump would mean, this time around?
It’s been there in plain sight. If you’re in politics, either you saw it or you went out of your way not to see it. It’s not like Trump was trying to hide it.
I take it that these elected officials represented the people who elected them. So yeah, it’s on them too. They bought into the hate and vengeance and cruelty. I’m not going to waste a moment feeling sorry for people like that.
Betty
@Quinerly: That was beautiful. And Miles was a natural on stage.
pluky
@The Thin Black Duke: ^^^ THIS ^^^
Geminid
@Glory b: Yes, the idea that an accomplished Black man must be under a White woman’s thumb. There is a lot of latent racism in how Jeffries’ critics talk about him, and it’s not hard to see.
Quinerly
@Chris Johnson:
Thread is dead. Just wanted to say that I totally agree with you.
Quinerly
@J.:
You are welcome. I really loved that piece about Charleston. What a guy!
Big Buffett fan here….mostly before the commercialization and Parrott Head feeding frenzy kicked in. Actually met Buffett in late 1970’s. He came to a college bar after one of his shows at my old East Carolina University in Greenville, NC. A lot of the students had gone to his show on campus. We went to the bar afterwards and then he showed up there too. Hung out with us.
Quinerly
@Betty:
So glad you liked it. Take care.
Gloria DryGarden
@Quinerly: an anti trump video? The Ss? We used to have freedom of speech..
Ruckus
@TooManyJens:
Can any nice thoughts even exist for him?