It’s the hair-flip at the end that makes it… up to the moment. Sure, Elon has his trash-talking code kiddies, but can *they* dismiss their God-Emperor’s most inflammatory / insane statements in front of a room full of baying presstitutes with such sneering elan?
“None of us knew he was going to say that, there’s no way to make it sound not-crazy, so next question”
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) February 5, 2025 at 1:34 PM
Ron “This is the operative statement. The others are inoperative.” Ziegler — to whom Leavitt is compared more often than I, for one, would be entirely comfortable with, in her place — would be proud. Or at least envious.
***********
I’ve been looking for a slot to use this for the last week. From the Guardian, “Trump’s press chief shows she’s more than capable of going full North Korea”:
“Clear a path!” shouted the big shots of TV news as they tried to squeeze their way through reporters packed like sardines into the White House briefing room to get to their front-row seats. Tempers frayed, foreheads perspired and necks strained similar to those of passengers itching to get off a plane.
The first press briefing of a new administration is always a standing-room-only event. This time, it was the second Donald Trump administration and the debut of Karoline Leavitt, who pointed out that she is the youngest person to serve as White House press secretary. The 27-year-old beats the record of Ronald Ziegler, who was 29 when he was Richard Nixon’s spokesperson.
If you’re loyal enough, you’re old enough. On Tuesday, Leavitt showed the media hordes and TV viewers that she is more than capable of going full North Korea. Smoothly, serenely and pugnacious-enough-but-not-too-much, she defended her boss’s federal funding freeze and draconian immigration crackdown. She also talked him up as a sort of Renaissance man and Goat (greatest of all time) rolled into one.
In Leavitt’s telling, Trump is “the most transparent and accessible president in American history” and there has never been a president who communicates “as openly and authentically”. He is “the hardest-working man in politics” and “there is no negotiator better”. His policies are “wildly popular” and he is responsible for a new “golden age”.
Her slick delivery style, with almost no “ums”, “ahs” or verbal stumbles, was a radical departure from the way Trump’s first ministry of untruth began…
… Leavitt, who worked at the White House in Trump’s first term and ran for Congress at the age of 23, is the most finely honed version of all. She personifies the Trump 2.0 upgrade: faster, smarter, leaner, meaner, better organised and less chaotic. Executive actions have been more ruthlessly targeted and leaks have been fewer. In the struggle between incompetence and malevolence, malevolence is winning…
She said the first questions would duly go to “new media members” but stretched the definition somewhat with Mike Allen of Axios and Breitbart’s Matt Boyle. Breitbart was once described by its then executive chair Steve Bannon as “the platform for the alt-right”, a movement associated with efforts to preserve “white identity” and defend “western values”.
Next up, Leavitt was asked about her loyalty to the president versus her loyalty to facts. She insisted: “I commit to telling the truth from this podium every single day. I commit to speaking on behalf of the president of the United States.” When the president is Trump, who still hasn’t admitted he lost the 2020 election, are those two statements reconcilable?
Yet Leavitt sought to turn the tables with a chilly warning: “We know for a fact there have been lies that have been pushed by many legacy media outlets in this country about this president, about his family, and we will not accept that.”…
(I did wonder how much Musk’s emphasis on the extreme youth of his current shock’n’awe team was intended as a response to the White House Occupant pushing Leavitt’s ‘youngest press secretary EVAAAR!’ credentials… Elon’s always prioritized the ‘youthful’ immediacy of his least attractive tactics, but getting into a semi-overt contest with the aging monarch seemed reckless even by *his* standards.)
Starting off on the (far Right) foot…
We passed a law. They don’t get to force people to petition the king for mercy. We are still a democracy and this will be found illegal.
— Brian Schatz (@schatz.bsky.social) January 28, 2025 at 1:53 PM
This is not a retreat.
It is a tactical retrograde.
4-D chess. pic.twitter.com/zYPDke4TRz
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 29, 2025
Trump press secretary announces that Trump will be issuing an order “ending funding for public schools” if they teach about history in a way he doesn’t like
— FactPost (@factpostnews.bsky.social) January 29, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Remember, never take this White House at its word and report it as fact right off the bat.
They are now conceding that they made up the whole "$50 million of condoms to Gaza" thing that Karoline Leavitt peddled from the podium yesterday.
www.independent.co.uk/news/world/a…— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) January 29, 2025 at 1:26 PM
But then — more inconvenient facts that weren’t sufficiently noticed in the gish gallop of bulls*t — Leavitt had already established her credentials with the Very Important People actually running the WH Occupant’s maladministration. She’d violated a slew of campaign finance laws running her half-baked New Hampshire campaign (and accrued six-figure fines that were not paid off by her political sugar daddy until after Trump anointed her)…
Please tell me that some journo asked @karolineleavitt today about her congressional campaign's failure to disclose spending of $200k in illicit donations…https://t.co/pN020dppa9
— Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) January 29, 2025
… And, despite her extreme youth, she was already part of the GOP Global Grifter Network of which Steve Bannon is such an important node:
Note that Donald Trump thinks that Karoline Leavitt, who hid the full extent of her campaign finance debt for years and who had ties to convicted fraudster Guo Wengui, is worthy of security clearance, but not military hero Mark Milley.
Here's her tie to Wengui.
www.motherjones.com/politics/202…— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) January 29, 2025 at 7:06 AM
This, let it be said, is a chick who will be going places. Quite possibly places that don’t have extradition treaties with the United States, in a better timeline.
Quinerly
Bondi going to investigate PRIVATE COMPANIES for DEI and DEIA initiatives.
“Her sweeping memo mandates investigations, and potential criminal penalties, against employers and institutions that do nothing more than endorse the principles of DEIA. In practice, that would bar employers from speaking openly in favor of a diverse workforce; establishing mentorship programs that voluntarily connect underrepresented minorities; and crafting colorblind hiring or admissions policies that aim to draw in more non-white applicants. Bondi claims that federal civil rights laws already prohibit such diversity “programs” across the board. But, again, her dubious interpretation of these laws creates a serious First Amendment problem by censoring those who wish to express forbidden ideas.”
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/02/pam-bondi-trump-doj-memo-prosecute-dei-companies.html
RaflW
I’ll never not be a little bitter that the WH press corpse was bored by Biden and his press operation. And did things to help us get to where we are now.
RaflW
@Quinerly: Hopefully she’ll go after Costco and their lawyers can curb-stomp her since Trump’s EOs create no laws. WTF does she allege the crime is?
Redshift
@Quinerly: GOP AGs (including Miyares here in VA) are way ahead of her. GOP attorneys general urge Costco to drop diversity policies, cite Trump’s order
Grrr… Sucks that we have to wait almost a year to kick this clown out.
Redshift
@RaflW: The anti-DEI crusade is another Chris Rufo special (for his wingnut billionaire backers.) They use Humpty Dumpty logic to claim that any attempt to redress discrimination other than being “colorblind” (i.e. just pretending it doesn’t exist) is itself discrimination. It’s ludicrous, but we live in a world where “originalism” is taken seriously.
Their goal is to destroy civil rights overall.
TONYG
“Karoline Leavitt, who hid the full extent of her campaign finance debt for years and who had ties to convicted fraudster Guo Wengui”. Ha ha. So she’s not just a shapely blonde kid, she’s an experienced grifter just like her boss. Although, given Trump’s state of advanced dementia, there’s a non-zero probability that Trump just picked her because of the shape of her ass, and is not even aware of her history.
Quinerly
@TONYG:
Her husband is 60 years old. “Self made real estate magnate” who was one homeless.
Yutsano
@TONYG: Oh. I should have realised. She’s the new side piece. Anyone seen Lara Loomer lately?
Quinerly
@Redshift:
The jarring part is she’s floating going after private companies and universities CRIMINALLY.
I usually don’t read Slate. The entire piece is worth the read, though.
Sister Golden Bear
@Redshift:
Their goal is to restore segregation and Jim Crow — and slavery.
TONYG
@Quinerly: Ha. A trophy wife that was worth every penny.
TONYG
@Quinerly: Maybe I’m too cynical, but whenever I read that a rich person is “self-made” I wonder whether they inherited their money or stole it themselves. (It also reminds me of the scene in Goodfellas where Robert DeNiro destroys a phone booth because Joe Pesci got wacked on his way to become a made man.)
Redshift
@Sister Golden Bear:
Accurate. Destroying civil rights law is the goal they’re willing to about to, but obviously that’s also a means to an end.
Chris
@RaflW:
Did things, hell. Nobody’s more responsible for 2024 than the media was.
TONYG
@Yutsano: Elon might be checking her out so she apply to be his next baby-mama.
TONYG
@RaflW: The corporate media (and its “lite” version on NPR) has always been lousy. But these days they don’t even pretend anymore.
Rusty
She lost her race for a congressional seat from NH, against one the most vulnerable incumbents of that election cycle, by a large margin because she was so nuts that she completely turned off independents. In a state with the second oldest population in the country, she ran on cutting social security, and the rest of her campaign went down from there.
Chris
@TONYG:
Equally cynically, I find it harder and harder to care about whether they’re self-made or not. There’s this “Protestant work ethic” derived notion that whether rich people are good or bad depends entirely on whether they “earned” their wealth. As opposed to the much more interesting question of what they’re doing with it.
J. K. Rowling, as far as I know, is a self-made billionaire as much as anybody can be, and she’s lower than a snake full of buckshot.
Mai Naem mobil
@Quinerly: she was supposedly set up with her hubby by Matt Gaetz. Also she married the husband in around Christmas and popped the kid out in early July. And,no, I don’t care about people’s sex lives but these are the people who claim to be holier than thou purity Christians.
Ealbert
@Mai Naem mobil:
I am 68 and this saying was from my mom “new wives are so much more industrious than older women. They get done in 6 months what it takes older women 9 months to do.”
tobie
The expansion of DEI to DEIA is so perplexing to me. George H. W. Bush, a Republican, passed the Americans with Disabilities Acts. Evidently Republicans now see this act as discriminatory against the able-bodied. They just keep sinking lower and lower.
VFX Lurker
I refuse to read WaPo, NYT, and CNN. I won’t watch cable news. I’m almost (but not quite) willing to cut my subscription to The Los Angeles Times. Their local reporting remains top-tier (ex: wildfires), but their billionaire owner just can’t help mucking about with the opinion section.
-+-
I started small monthly donations to Pink Haven and The TRANSCEND Fund. Thank you for writing about these in another thread, and I hope my donations help trans people.
laura
Chief Justice John Roberts continues to get a free pass in all this mishigas.
danielx
People to feel sorry for at the moment: high school teachers teaching American Government classes and constitutional law professors. It must be hell having to revise curriculum on a daily basis.
Yutsano
@danielx: An old friend of mine does that.
He lives in Boise.
Yes I worry about him and his school librarian wife, who is also a good friend
danielx
@Yutsano:
I worry about many people including those jackals who I have grown to know to greater or lesser degrees. Lesser mostly, since I’ve never actually met anyone in our – community, for lack of a better word – in real life. But we all stand condemned for questioning the greater wit and wisdom of Donald Trump. I used to think it ridiculous to think we could be in jeopardy for saying he is what he is, but recent events have made me reevaluate that belief.
prostratedragon
@danielx:
@Yutsano:
My primary school days came after the McCarthy scourge ended, but before many hangers on believed it. I can recall the tension among some of the faculty when a certain teacher was assigned to the school. He was supposed to be the minder. Fortunately a new principal soon kept him in check, but he did put a damper on things for a while in social studies, and evem music, though we weren’t exactly singing “The Internationale.” Hate to see those days trying to return in high-heeled sneakers.
glc
Liz Neeley’s current blog may be of interest, tracking some of the turmoil with an emphasis on science. Or in any case that’s the plan.
danielx
@prostratedragon:
Think what would have happened if you’d broken into La Marseillaise.
Tehanu
Where do they find these bimbos (and I mean both male and female)? How can any young person buy into this crap? I honestly don’t get it.
sab
@Tehanu: Young people are very often idiots. That is understandable. They are inexperienced.
I am old, and everyone my age I know made stupid decisions while young. Supported John Anderson ( third party) . Supported Ralph Nader (third party). Supported Trump (no third party and they thought Hillary was a shoo-in.) Supported Trump 2 ( no third party and they thought Kamala was a shoo-in).
I don’t know how we will fix this but we need to try. Black people spent 100+ years after the Civil War trying, and to some extent they succeeded. The rest of us just need to follow their lead and go on.
Shalimar
I assume the extreme youth of Elon’s Komputer Kamp Koders is because Thiel needs to harvest their blood after they finish their current mission.
TBone
@Shalimar: bwahahaha!
TBone
I will never be satisfied until liars’ pants actually catch on fire. Not just a little flame, a burst!
Also, skirts will do.
VeniceRiley
“presstitutes” indeed! I’d laugh, if I wasn’t so beyond sad.
TBone
@VeniceRiley: I think I was the first person to use that term – I made it up one day. I haven’t seen it anywhere else, to my conscious knowledge. Am glad to see it caught on!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Tehanu: The Religious Right has a whole parallel education system to produce them.
TBone
Noah The Love Cat has got plenty of SPUNK left in him. Last night he woke me up twice (he hasn’t done that since he was a teenager when he used to jump from the top of the floor to ceiling cat tree onto my bed BOOM). First at 12:30am he walked on my boobs, ouch, and I thought he was just trying to get to my pillow using me to climb over. Then at 3am he sat on me to unmistakeably let me know in no uncertain terms I’M HUNGRY. His little face was pissed! GET UP MOM. This is the first time since he stopped eating that he has demanded FOOD and I am so here for it!
Sadly, he is not yet ready to eat with his mouth – his nose is still so congested that he tries to sniff the food I try out on little plates and nothing registers. But hope abides!
TBone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: truth! Liberty University is one such festering pit shooting their poison pipeline straight into the veins of what’s left of our government.
TBone
4:20 means you know what time it is! Bake time!
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
What was her campaign slogan… If elected, I can’t serve?
You have to be 25 to serve in the House.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@TBone: It’s good chance these govement jobs will be the first time any of them encountered an idea out of their bubble.
sab
Husband hooked us into an ADT contract for years.
Basically no problem with them, but useless for us. If we ever go activated then any screw up and the cops will turn up and shoot our very loud barky bitey pitbull.
I am enjoying the yard tv. We have a daily cat visitor. Brown mackeral with white socks. Daily except if weather is really cold.
Deer trouped through once to the metropark.
Raccoon and possum have been there but rare.
TBone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: yes indeedy!
TBone
@sab: nice! I should get one. We’ve had a big black bear, possum, skunk, porcupine, deer, groundhog, bunnies, turtles, and chipmunks (and of course squirrels). But the best are the various birds – water fowl tramp on through the yard on foot, songbirds of all stripes, and all sorts of birds of prey. Fuck you bird flu!
sab
@TBone: Yikes. Your yard is a critter park.
How is Noah?
TBone
@TBone: the euthanasia vet called to check in again on Tuesday and I took great pleasure in telling her all about Noah’s improvements and that we have switched over from death watch to life watch and could they please schedule an appointment for us to come pick up more prescription food and change Noah’s neck bandage and check on his tube incision. We’re going in on Friday morning, I hope it doesn’t traumatize him too much but they need to check the incision and bandage weekly.
Oops, Friday is tomorrow, innit? Dayz is running together…
TBone
@sab: check #38 and just below you! He’s kicking ass & taking names hahaha! He’s a frickin’ miracle, my bionic cat.
sab
Our very loud barky pitbull has no issues with cats. She naps contendely with many of them.
We got two satby rescues. The moose in the basement is still afraid of the pitbull. He comes upstairs a lot, but only when he thinks the pitbull is asleep.We fnd him all over at night, on the fridge, on the bathroom counter.
Sweetest cat I have ever met, also the largest. Maine coon size but shorthaired.
His smaller shyer sister sleeps under the pitbull’s bed, and is no longer afraid of the pitbull at all. They often nap on the same bed at the same time.
TBone
@sab: awwww I’ve been following along with your tails tales and love them all very much!
ETA And I am to this day so very grateful for you telling me about pee pads, I don’t know how I EVER lived without them!
sab
@TBone: Me too with the pee pads
ETA Many cats think (or don’t think) outside the box.
TBone
@sab: if I ever get brave enough to adopt another cat, I want the extra large size. All of my lifetime of kitties over the years so far have been rescues by accident or necessity. I want to choose an XL that’s older and needs a home. Hubby might kill me if I ever do that though – we had an agreement that our last remaining brother & sister pair will be the last to break our hearts. He wants to travel more often than our current never, and so do I. We don’t really have family to trust to take care of pets if something happens to us either.
TBone
@sab: hahahaha my tiny, dainty tornado (runt of the litter) Katrina marks her territory every day on the walls of the litterbox and over the edge if she can reach!
sab
@TBone: We had a similar agreement then I saw satby’s comment. Euthanasia was possible!
Husband was really hostile to the adoption idea.
Now he and Solomon ( basement moose) watch sports on tv together. Upstairs
ETA I would be sorry you are awake in wee am, but so am I.
MagdaInBlack
I see we in chicagoland got a glaze of ice. Thin on the porch rails, and I assume the roads were salted, god knows they had plenty of time. My mostly well-off suburb is usually pretty lax at winter road prep but has seen fit to do some winter salting this year.
That’s my weather report
p.s. I say mostly well off, because I sure ain’t.
sab
@MagdaInBlack: We in NE Ohio have the same ice alert. Hasn’t happened so far. Slight glaze, nothing a tiny bit of salt can’t deal with.
sab
@TBone: I know how you feel about travel, We would love to but with cats we can’t. Multiple stepkids whose pets we look out for, but I would not trust any of them to care for ours.
sab
@TBone: John Cole maybe can be counted on to place cats of elders.
TBone
@sab: that’s good to know, thanks yet again!
Anne Laurie
You may have revived the term, but it was commonly used during the ‘C-Plus Augustus’ (George Dubya) era.
(I wish I could remember the name of the then-lauded blog that really popularized the ‘Whores’ Race’ of Our Very Serious Media… )
TBone
We are getting a thick sleet ice storm here and everything is covered in ice now.
TBone
I only have summer preserved pears in jar left now, and am looking forward to:
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3GCrzjVdmSg
TBone
@Anne Laurie: thank you! Always learn something here, maybe I had seen it before and forgot!
sab
@sab: I think my stepdaughter might come around on this come summer. Her kid needs surgery and a one floor house. We have that available. We should demand a payback ( that sounds too mercenary.) I just want tit for tat.
We walked your dog for a week through ice and snow. So please feed our cats and change their litter.
TBone
New Jonathan Pie dropped. UK status update!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qj-gAUaUF-4
TBone
@sab: I hope that works out so you can have a vaca!
sab
My dog needs to go to the vet because she just popped up with another mast cell tumor. Some of these are nothing. Others will kill her. So here we are.
MagdaInBlack
@TBone: Peaches yes, but I am looking forward to summer rain..here’s Johnny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa9vWVEYojg
satby
@Anne Laurie: I kind of think it might have been Smirking Chimp, Jeff Tiedrich’s blog? Anyway, the term has been around for a good 20+ years.
Professor Bigfoot
@TBone: It’s always 4:20 somewhere.
Professor Bigfoot
@TBone: all the luck in the world to Noah. Oh, and you guys, too.
Betty
@RaflW: I was ant her to go after Mark Cuban who is very outspoken in favor of DEI.
satby
Today’s (small) donation is going to VoteVets, their ad highlighting the illegal shutdown of USAID is pretty powerful. I’m doing a daily donation to the different groups fighting the coup, at least until they cut off SS (or try to).
Suzanne
Good morning, jackals.
I’ve got a busy day ahead, and don’t have the emotional fortitude to go look outside yet. I am also just so fucken sad about Gaza, and absolute idiots who voted for the FFOTUS, and the remaining hostages. I just cannot believe it. If ever there was a situation in which no great outcome may be possible, the I/P conflict is it….. but now we’re going to get the absolute worst outcome.
I remember after the 2016 election, I had been canvassing for HRC for months, and I was just shocked for a couple of weeks. I remember looking around with suspicion at everyone I passed, and wondering to myself if they voted for Trump. This time, I am assuming that everyone did.
Baud
@Suzanne:
One of the worst things liberals do is assume other people are decent.
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: I know I certainly am guilty of that weakness.
Geminid
I was kicking around the internet and I ran into a picture of a bumper sticker accompanied by a Bible citation. The bumper sticker:
The Bible citation:
Gvg
@TBone: yeah!
When my kitties have been super sick, sometimes I can get them to eat gooey soft food by dipping my finger in it and offering it. My babies will sometimes make a special effort because mom is offering it. The older cat with kidney failure 40 years ago and a diabetic cat 10 years ago I needed to start eating. If you think his mouth is healed enough to try.
Suzanne
@Baud: It’s a deeply human thing to assume that others think the way we do, or that others share our values. That’s the core of relating. It’s a difficult habit to break. My time working in the advertising industry gave me a very weird window into this.
Even jackals struggle with it. But it’s because most of the people who post here are good, kind people, and it is upsetting to confront.
Jackie
@Ealbert:
My dad used to joke about how many healthy premature seven and eight pound babies were born ;D
satby
Probably a lot of us subscribe to Paul Krugman’s newsletter; but for those who don’t, today’s is a great must share piece.
Geminid
@Suzanne: The situation in Gaza has not changed. They are 17 days into a ceasefire after 15 months of a destructive and bloody war. I believe Israel is still meeting its ceasefire obligation of allowing 600 truckloads of aid into the Gaza Strip daily, and Egypt has reopened the Rafah Crossing that’s been closed since May. Palestinians needing medical care began transiting Rafah Crossing into Egypt last weekend.
Trump’s wild pronouncements on Gaza over the last few days *might* change this, but it seems more likely they’ll end up a bunch of “sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
It’s always good to keep a watch on the Gaza situation though, especially negotiations over Phase Two of the ceasefire which is currently scheduled to begin around March 1. That second 42-day phase is intended to provide the foundation for Phase Three: a “sustainable calm” and the beginning of rebuilding.
EarthWindFire
@Geminid: Since conservatives used to use that against Obama, I’m very supportive of that use of the Bible.
Kay
Trump’s Sweeping Expulsions Have Thrown the FBI Into Chaos https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-fbi-firings-immigration-crime-ad7d6b44
All work at the FBI has essentially stopped while Trump carries out his witch hunt. One of the agents on the scene of the DC plane crash had to stop work to answer a 12 question email on loyalty to Donald Trump. The agents Association is telling them to respond with ” need access to legal counsel before answering”
TONYG
@tobie: “How come that paraplegic gets a wheelchair and I don’t. IT’S NOT FAIR!!!!!”
Scout211
So what exactly is the definition of temporarily in Trump-speak?
Betty Cracker
@Anne Laurie: Was it Media Whores Online? Sounds like something they’d say.
Baud
@Kay:
I wonder how the three FBI shows on CBS will handle this.
Kay
@Suzanne:
Gazans are never, ever going to “relocate” based on an assurance they can return by the US and Israel.
The United States will have to forcibly remove 2 million people, which, admittedly, media and the GOP would enthusiastically support, but that doesn’t change the reality – US soldiers would die in this ethnic cleansing operation.
Betty Cracker
Regarding the Crooked Pam Bondi-led DOJ assault on private companies’ DEI programs, I watched the preview of this movie a few years ago in FL when the DeSantis admin conducted a similar witch hunt. They lose in court when employers sue, but meanwhile they intimidate many (probably most) companies into pre-compliance. Also, they outsource defending their unconstitutional activities to allied wingnut law firms, so win-win for everyone except the taxpayers footing the bills. Quite a grift setup.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Yesterday:
Me: I found your keys and comb on the hall floor.
Mr. DAW: How did…Oh, I know. My pants fell down.
Me: (Laughs so hard, I can’t breathe)
Admit it. You feel better for reading that.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
DOJ historically hasn’t outsourced prosecutions, but who knows what they’ll want to do.
ETA: Independent counsel’s being the big exception.
Kay
For the first time in my life I’m a little nervous about flying. I just don’t think any of these agencies can be functioning amid this chaos and purging of all who have not sworn loyalty to Trump.
And, what kind of people will be left? The bottom of the barrel – people who pledged loyalty to Trump. It’s designed to get rid of all the good people.
Jobeth
@Scout211: what does it matter now? That data has probably been already downloaded and saved by Musk. Think of the damage he can do if Trump gets sick of him and tries to push him out.
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: :)
Geminid
@Kay: The Israeli Army had 400 soldiers KIA and thousands more wounded fighting Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, and they never occupied more than 20% of the Strip at any one time. There is no way Trump will deploy US troops there.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Its going to be so hard for MAGA and “antiwoke” white men when they’ve pushed all the women and Black people out of the workforce and they still suck at their jobs. It isn’t going to fix our mediocrity/nepotism problem at all.
Anne Laurie
YES! Thank you: Media Whores Online
I hope the person / people responsible for that aid to sanity have gone on to live long & prosper…
Quinerly
@Mai Naem mobil:
I had forgotten the Gaetz connection. Thanks for adding that
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And also they are rational.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Is it common practice for states to outsource legal work? I have no idea, but they definitely do in FL. A DeSantis crony’s out-of-state firm received millions to rep the state in losing cases. ETA: Source
Kay
@Geminid:
I love how stupid we think they are. Hey, how about a “temporary relocation” while we, um, rebuild your city?
Gazan’s ran schools in tents during the entire siege. They have a literacy rate that is 20 points higher than the US. They’re not going to be bamboozled into accepting our completely dishonest “offer”
suzanne
@Geminid:
This is what I am hoping for. But FFOTUS and Bibi are good buddies — Bibi helped him out! — and FFOTUS doesn’t care about American lives, or Palestinian lives, or Israeli lives. I fear it’s just a real estate deal he wants to make.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I think states do it more, especially on the civil side. State criminal systems are more complicated and vary a lot.
Professor Bigfoot
@Geminid: They printed up those against Obama, too.
Along with the vertical
One
Big
Ass
Mistake
America
stickers. grrrrrr
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
That one is going into the clip file.
Not that any of us want JD Vance taking his place but still, wonderful jab.
Geminid
@suzanne: Netanyahu wishes he and Trump were good buddies. There’s a lot of reporting that this is not so, at least from Trump’s end.
I saw a funny cartoon to this effect. Remember that wide-brimmed hat Melenia Trump wore Inauguration day, and the speculation that was intended to keep Trump from kissing her? The catroon showed Trump wearing that hat and a frown as Netanyahu tries to kiss him.
Princess
@Geminid: I assume “relocate to nice houses” means “give them a week to go to a somewhere else then bomb to smithereens everyone and everything that’s still there.” I think relocate means the same thing as your parents sending your dog to a farm in the country.
And of course there’s no someplace else that will take them.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: We tried to tell them.
At this point, I for one am at “fuck ‘em all, let God sort ‘em out.”
Baud
@Geminid:
Not a Netanyahu fan, but I assume he’s smart enough to know Trump doesn’t have buddies and is unreliable.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay:
I don’t think that is going to bother them–what will bother them is that bosses like Musk will respond by cracking the whip for them to put in MOAR HOURS. He’s obsessed with people sleeping at the office and working 120 hours a week; thinks this is the solution to all problems. It’s like the Soviet cult of the Stakhanovite.
AM in NC
@Suzanne: Same here. I am a 50-something white woman. Whenever I go for a run or go to Costco, etc. I view every white woman and every white man I pass with suspicion, especially the ones my age and older. And I live in a blue bubble. But MAGAS are everywhere, apparently.
I hate viewing the people around me with such suspicion, but we white people have proven ourselves to be suspect.
Professor Bigfoot
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Not to put too fine a point on it, no Black person should ever expect kindness, reason, or rationality from any white person until that white person demonstrates otherwise.
My default for white men right now is “fuck you, you conservative ofay fuck.”
Geminid
I wonder how this will go over down under.
Princess
@AM in NC: The thing that nice white Dem voters like me have the hardest time admitting is that not only white strangers voted Trump but also white friends — people we think are nice like us. “Oh he’s a little conservative but I can’t see him voting Trump.”
Kay
@Princess:
This “no one will take them” language makes me uncomfortable.
It’s ethnic cleansing. Can we please stop talking about them like they’re in an animal shelter and we’re rehoming them? This proposal, made towards any other group of people anywhere else in the world would be immediately recognized as ethnic cleansing. Why are Palestinians different?
This is not a real estate deal. Like with Greenlanders, they are not for sale.
The big bully isn’t going to be able to buy these people and move them around like objects. We’ll have to kill them all and they’ll kill some of ours too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Or, and hear me out now— it’s the Confederate dream of hundreds of slave laborers; it’s the apartheid South African dream of dominating and controlling a powerless labor force of millions.
Like all the rest of the conservatives, they want slavery.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: Great!
Matt McIrvin
@Baud:
Where did y’all grow up? Based on the experience of my formative years in what was then deep Reagan territory my default assumption is that the people around me are right-wing cranks who will flip out if you say liberal stuff too loud. I still kind of flinch when my family members do it even though I am a Masshole now.
zhena gogolia
We saw a sign in our neighborhood. Small letters: “PRESIDENTS ARE TEMPORARY.” Large letters: “JESUS CHRIST IS FOREVER.” It was professionally printed on a blue background. Strange, but it comforts me whenever I drive by it.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Thanks, that makes sense.
Kay
Truly shocking how much the United States hates women. I wonder if most American women know we’re really far behind the rest of western democracies on womens rights. I bet not. I bet a large portion of women are simply unaware that the US stopped advancing on womens rights in 1990 or so while the rest of the world kept going. Rah rah! We’re Number Twenty Seven!
Scout211
In local news , Governor Newsom is in Washington trying to get Congress and the White House to send aid to California for the wildfires.
His meeting with Trump was scheduled for 30 minutes but ended up being 90 minutes. Newsom’s spokesperson said the meeting was “productive.”
I hope disaster relief for California’s doesn’t get ignored or tabled due to the current chaos and pressing disasters in DC right now.
And rest assured, the White House will bring out “the president’s perpective of the meeting” whenever Trump needs to punch down on Newsom and California to give himself an ego boost.
Soprano2
What a great way to start the day. The internet is down and there’s no one at the help desk yet.
TONYG
@Suzanne: i have several people in my extended family and several acquaintances who are big-time Trump supporters On a superficial level they are “intelligent and nice”people Yet they are destroying the country and the world There were probably “intelligent and nice’ Germans whi voted for Hitler
@Suzanne:
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I was thinking about Reagan and how Right wing Gen X is and how they were sort of immersed in Right wing ideology early with Reagan’s dominance when they were coming up. That’s not true of later generations. Obama would have been centered in a lot of their early political awareness, along with equity as a central liberal tenet.
They’ll be harder to propagandize. They know there is something else besides MAGA AND Maga will be their only experience of Republicans. Donald Trump = Republicans. So far that’s been successful for the Right but it’s a VERY narrow investment strategy. Their brand is Trump. That’s still risky.
Geminid
@Baud: And Trump learned in his first term that Netanyahu cannot be trusted. Everybody, inside and outside Israel, who has negotiated with Netanyahu learns this. Also, Trump respects strength and he knows that the Israeli PM is in a weak position politically.
This is one reason Netanyahu filled the rest of his week with various meetings and won’t return to Israel until Saturday night, after the Sabbath. He doesn’t want to go home. He’s more popular here than he is there.
Quinerly
@Kay:
I read that yesterday. Appalling.
And, I agree….much of this is about hating women.
******
Trump speaking now at Statuary Hall at National Prayer Breakfast. I think I have the quote right, “The hand of God guides everything we do.”
He’s quoting scripture.
“Must always practice good.”
Another one of these speeches that really has to be heard to be believed. Trump rambling on about giving himself 25 years to live and his father taking him to see Billy Graham at Yankee Stadium
Back to the ear and assassination attempt and his strong belief in God and divine intervention
Making a golf ball analogy re the plane/helicopter crash last week. Alluding that Musk is going to build a great FAA system. Need one company with one set of equipment for the FAA
“Covid hurt religion.”
“Army has the best recruitment levels in over 15 years.
Talking about all the support Bondi had from Dem votes in the Senate.
narya
So all of these female, LGBTQ, POC, with massive skill sets, are going to be starting new businesses, right? I mean, I know it’ll be a lift, because they’ll be denied sweet, sweet government money, but that’s a whole lot of talent that is going to be (a) missing from the Felon’s workforce and (b) looking for ways to be productive, (c) in the face of an ever-more-incompetent bunch of cronies. Yeah, I know, but I can dream, can’t I? (And I’m inspired by Professor Bigfoot: if you purge the military of the above folks, you have just seriously annoyed a LOT of people who have military training.)
Peale
@Kay: a lot of this current backlash against DEI can be explained as a pushback against MeToo exposing that the media had never implemented policies against sexual harassment 30 years ago when the laws changed, and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to get to 1995.
Matt McIrvin
@narya: Sounds like Bondi is going to try to prosecute private businesses for not being led by white guys.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@TONYG: There’s a novel by Iris Murdoch called “The Nice and the Good.” I can’t remember what the book is about, but the title marks a divide. We tend to elide the difference between those two things.
Kay
Yeah, good luck with that.
catclub
@Geminid: I think every day that Trump forgets to give Ukraine to Russia is a good day.
catclub
@zhena gogolia: Mine says Wu-Tang is forever.
Baud
@catclub:
Agreed.
Kay
@Peale:
I agree. Media companies are real cesspools of sexual assault and harassment. I genuinely believe they hire for conventionality and obedience, which is why they’re so backward on this.
We think this is partisan but really it’s just hiring people who are rigidly conventional and resistant to change of any kind.
They STILL do the thing where they report Trump’s lie and then follow up days later with the truth. They’ve been doing that with him since 2012. It worked with other pols so they remain in this rut where he lies, they repeat it, and the lie sticks.
They continue to do it because they’re not at all creative and they can’t solve problems or change an approach. They must HIRE for that. They have to. Nothing else explains how uniform it is across the industry. It’s really a shitty business, at the end of the day.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
@Anne Laurie: Media Whores Online? It was a sad day when they closed up shop.
Matt McIrvin
@TONYG: Many conservatives of my acquaintance have been consistently nice to me but I always have to remind myself: nice to me doesn’t mean they’ll be nice to other people.
Kay
@Peale:
Two things made white men (and regressive white women) freak out and incite a ferocious backlash – BLM and Me Too.
Those two things inspired the entire middle aged white man revolt against women and Black people. Fucking crybabies, all of them. Weaklings.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I hear a lot about the menace of young men swinging hard right, and it’s real, but when you look at the numbers, “hard right” actually means “almost as hard right as men currently in their fifties.” Every fascist, misogynist, racist, homophobic thing they say and do, I heard from bros of my acquaintance in college on the regular. And these late-middle-age bros are now controlling the government apparently, with squads of pliable teenagers doing their bidding.
There’s this colossal gender divide and it’s mostly because young women went way to the left.
TBone
@MagdaInBlack: oh I haven’t heard that one in ages, thank you!
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
They might be nice to other people too. A lot of them outsource their hate to professionals in the Republican Party.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: We had commenters here saying that #MeToo was a Russian psy-op, because it hit some liberal men.
TBone
@Gvg: yep, he has been tempted by food covered fingers but he’s still congested and can’t smell anything yet, so he gets a lot of time next to new cool mist humidifier and every other day saline nasal solution up his nostrils. I can’t do the saline every day because he hates it too much, thinks we are waterboarding him. I am confident that when his cold goes away he’ll be able to smell food again and he’ll eat what is offered before every tube feeding when he’s hungry.
Feeling grateful for your and everyone’s good thoughts and advice, thank you!
satby
Oh, darn!
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
I encounter a lot of lower income white women in my local political volunteering and also just because I know a lot of people and I have said for years that Dems should have a special outreach effort just for working class young white women. They’re liberal. A lot of them don’t know it because they don’t identify as political but I’ve talked to hundreds of them.
We actually did this for a school levy. My job was to get younger white moms out for a school levy. I concentrated exclusively on the east side – lower income. Women in my better-off neighborhood already vote for school levies.
We won :)
Soprano2
@Baud: They’ll probably ignore it completely.
Quinerly
Really good piece on what’s happening at the EPA.
https://www.propublica.org/article/epa-workers-resign-trump
The vote was 56-42 in Zeldin’s favor. Three Democrats — Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly of Arizona and John Fetterman of Pennsylvania — supported Zeldin, along with all 53 Republicans. (Roll Call reported)
Every Dem vote to confirm these cabinet votes will be used against us. Trump rambling on this AM at the National Prayer Breakfast how much Democratic support Bondi and Rubio got. He is equating votes for cabinet picks for support for what they are planning to do.
Kay
@Matt McIrvin:
Lol. All political activism is a Russian plot. Allegedly.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
This is a thing that is so weird to me. If you look at the age cohort breakdowns, the youngest generation voted the bluest. That’s been the case for a long time, and that pattern held. Gen X — the people just a bit older than me — swung even harder to the right. Gen X is much more white than the youngs.
Soprano2
@Kay: It’s all of a piece with their racism – they think people with brown skin cannot possibly be smarter than white people. I’m not sure how they explain Asian success to themselves. I read a book a long time ago about the concept of “whiteness” where the author predicted that eventually Asians would become seen as “white” in our culture.
Kay
@Quinerly:
I just think it’s dumb. What is Fetterman going to say? I’m fashionable and clued in because I vote for Republicans? He just looks like an idiot who wavers with the slightest gust of wind.
Frankly, the costume was a red flag. Like Sinema he’s one of those people who thinks clothes = a personality or worldview.
TBone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I do thank you! Hubby has a rather flat backside (he calls it his extended back) and frequently moons us by accident as a result hahahaha!
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: That’s my default assumption, too. One guy started complaining to me about Musk and the government yesterday, so I know he’s “safe” to talk to about it. We talked about it for awhile. I know most of my co-workers who voted probably voted for FFOTUS.
OH, and the internet came back up. They sent an e-mail at 4:11 p.m. yesterday about taking down the server; I had already left because we get off at 3:30 p.m., and no new e-mails came up when I logged in this morning. That was my first sign something was wrong.
Baud
@Soprano2:
The first immigration law in the US was the Chinese exclusion act.
rikyrah
@Redshift:
They want to erase the 20th Century
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: Ofay? Thanks a lot. I guess all the money and time I spent getting Obama elected and trying to get Harris elected means nothing to you.
Pretty broad brush you’ve got there.
Kay
I called Marcy Kaptur’s office to ask about Elon Musk’s access to my family’s protected information and a (local) staffer called me back. She’s always had excellent constituent services. My IBEW son thinks it’s because he canvassed for her – he said “yeah, I’m connected with them” :)
He admits he canvassed mostly to meet women, because oh, 80% or so of canvassers ARE women.
Quinerly
Seems the RW talking point that is popping up on line is Musk’s wilding crew are the same ages of our Founding Fathers. I have no one in my circle who supports Trump but I have friends who continue to maintain relationships with their friends/family who do. I know that FB is on our shit list but I continue to stay on it for the connections I have. Not ready to exit so let’s not turn this into a FB discussion.
This Founding Father age thing has taken hold in comments by RWers who I know are real people. If I am seeing it in my small circle, it has to be being pushed out widely as a talking point. I’m in a lot of non political travel, national parks, and music groups. I am seeing the Founding Father age thing in the national park and travel groups.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
rikyrah
Looked outside at the ice on my car and went…nope 😒
I don’t do ice
Suzanne
@Princess:
This is not my issue. I have no more Trump voters in my personal life. It’s fucken great.
Soprano2
@Kay: Yeah support the troops my ass.
Quinerly
@Kay:
Couldn’t agree more. Especially about the costume.
rikyrah
@Baud:
There was literally a WHITES ONLY on US immigration policy until the Civil Rights Movement.
These new non-White immigrants since 1965 would LITERALLY Not be in this country without the CRM.
Not figuratively.
LITERALLY would not be here.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Absolutely outrageous 😡😡😡
frosty
@Soprano2: that’s a better way to start the day than reading the news.
rikyrah
@Scout211:
When I say that CA and Blue States need to find a way TO STOP their payments to the Federal Government…I am serious.
Let the Red States pull themselves up by their bootstraps 😡
Shalimar
@Geminid: https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/When-Netanyahu-slept-at-the-Kushners-and-other-media-tales-of-Trumps-Jewish-confidantes-481486#google_vignette
Netanyahu has close ties to Jared, who hopefully is not there anymore though the Gaza thing sounds like he is still working the phones.
satby
@frosty: Oh, c’mon; ofay is so obscure at this point. Though I think it’s hilarious as a word, and have applied it to myself when I’ve (frequently) been the only ofay in a gathering. If it doesn’t apply to you ignore it, his point stands.
White fragility is ridiculous.
rikyrah
@Kay:
I keep going back to Lebanon.
I remember that, and the loss of American troops
This is going to be horrible.
Soprano2
@Baud: I know, but we’re a long way from that now. Ask me how many of the soloists with our symphony are of Asian descent, or from Asian countries. It’s most of them. Look at other highly paid professions, and you see lots of Asians. I don’t think they can explain that using the DEI excuse.
Soprano2
@rikyrah: I know they at least want to erase the ’60’s, they’ve wanted that for a long time.
satby
@rikyrah: I keep wondering if this is the first time in American history that we could see a military coup when (not if) the felon’s administration issues an unlawful order. Like occupy and ethnically cleanse Gaza.
Edit: there was a reason Biden in his farewell address to the military said, and repeated, “remember your oath”.
Geminid
@Quinerly: I was hoping Lee Zeldin would get ensnared in George Santos’s crimes. Zeldin was the boss of Long Island Republican politics when he ran for governor in 2022. I think top Republicans there knew Santos was a fraud when they ran him a second time that same year, but he was also useful for laundering illegal campaign contributions.
They did not expect Santos to win. That’s when he was exposed, but it seems Zeldin was careful enough. I guess we might find out more when Santo has his sentencing hearing. I think that’s scheduled for this month.
Shalimar
@satby: I have plenty of contempt for my fellow white people and I haven’t heard ofay before. I’ll remember it in the future though. If people want to assume I’m horrible because all of my ancestors were english, scottish, french, and finnish, I think that’s fair until i convince them otherwise.
Matt McIrvin
@satby: I really doubt they’d disobey that one–they’re going to get some kind of token Congressional authorization for it, or at least a justification that can be spun as legal.
The red line for some chunk of the military is going to be when they’re ordered to shoot or bomb Americans. For far from all of them, I fear.
satby
@Shalimar: it’s a term way older than me, and I’m nearly 70.
Dave
@Soprano2: A lot of them (though by no means all)make an exception for many East Asians though that is much likely in Suburban and Urban environments particularly ones that are doing well
Shitkicker Missouri and Decayed Rust Belt #78 I’m fairly sure you’ll still find plenty of more blatant bias even if only as a generalized inferior other.
Matt McIrvin
@Quinerly: Those kids are being directed by a dude my age. Nobody should be fooled by that.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: But we were consistently told that we needed to vote against Kamala Harris for their sakes!!
And that we were “genocide enablers” if we didn’t!
raven
@Shalimar: Chuck, Mr Charles, T-shirt mofo, Honkie Ass Mofo. . .
Dave
@satby: That it could be a less bad option if it comes to pass (something I think is highly unlikely for a variety of reasons) is ummm not great.
satby
@Matt McIrvin: I think you’re forgetting all the ways the Musk administration has already started screwing the troops and veterans. And how obvious it is that Congressional Republicans are corrupt. The new Defense Secretary is a middle finger to all branches of service, and they know it.
frosty
@Kay: We’re going to have two Republican Senators in PA after the next election, aren’t we?
Glory b
@rikyrah: Your federal taxes are withheld from each paycheck by your employer. States don’t write tax checks to the federal government, individuals and businesses send taxes through withholding and quarterly payments.
Betty Cracker
As a lifelong slob, I’ll admit I found Fetterman’s bucking of the U.S. Senate dress code kinda refreshing. Someone here (Baud maybe?) theorized that voters are more influenced by affect than policy. I think that’s true. In the case of Fetterman, I’d hoped his hulking, tattoo’d, biker-dude affect might make voting for a Dem more appealing to “affect” voters. It probably did!
But if he goes full Sinema, that win may turn out to be more costly than a loss. I think we have to weigh the utility of Sinema-style Dems (mostly voted for Biden’s judicial picks, etc.) with the damage they do to the party’s brand. I don’t know that Fetterman will be as big a catastrophe as Sinema was, but the signs so far are not good.
satby
@Dave: agree, both on the less bad and on the unlikely. But how much other unlikely stuff have we seen in the last two weeks?
pajaro
@Kay:
On Elon, there are a number of lawsuits that have been filed to attempt to shut down what he’s doing. There are applications for temporary restraining orders that would require him to stop while the litigation proceeds. My understanding is that the government is working on a response that would involve them voluntarily pausing some or all of this while the case goes on. They haven’t said they will violate court orders and we shouldn’t assume they will, so it’s possible that some of the vandalism will stop, at least for a time. (if they don’t agree to stop, we will have to hope that the court does, at least temporarily).
prostratedragon
@MagdaInBlack: Had a friend once who described his neighborhood as “the slums of Winnetka.”
satby
@Betty Cracker: I think Giselle needs to get him to a doctor, personality changes after a stroke are serious warnings of more damage that might be occuring. He’s not the same guy he was.
frosty
@satby: It wasn’t the word ofay, it was the attitude that all white men are evil. We push back against that approach with a lot of other groups (Boomers anyone?).
I’ll drop it now. I hope I didn’t start a 300-comment argument.
Quinerly
@Geminid:
Good morning! Always great to read your comments. I hope to take a break from Trump, media, and BJ today. Meeting some gal pals at an old school joint in town for lunch and maybe the Dylan movie. I have tried to see it for over 3 weeks and each time ask myself whether I can settle my mind enough to sit through anything for 2.5 hrs. My answer up to today has been I know I can’t sit still that long.
I am stoked for the chicken fried steak with green chile gravy at Tiny’s, though. Still haven’t made it to The Comet in Santa Rosa. Hoping for a little day trip soon south. Less than 90 mins away. Since I do road trips that long for the green chile cheeseburger at San Antonio, NM’s Buckhorn Tavern, I certainly can go down to Santa Rosa on your recommendation. 10 days road tripping and in Silver City is coming up….so The Comet will have to be in March.
Thanks again for all of your thoughtful and knowledgeable comments here. Take care.
satby
@frosty: from the perspective of an older black man, who is in danger every day just because he gets behind the wheel of a car and drives while black, it’s not at all unreasonable. We hear about the summary execution for broken tail lights, phones in hand, not complying fast enough often enough. And the racism is intensifying. For you, it’s hurt fees-fees, for a black person it’s survival. Try some walking in other shoes.
Matt McIrvin
@frosty: It’s a rational default assumption and one I’m not ready to challenge for #notallwhitemen reasons. I figure if I don’t want people to think that about me I’m going to have to prove it.
zhena gogolia
@catclub: But does it say Presidents are temporary?
pajaro
@Kay:
Kay, it is appalling that anyone is even contemplating the crime against humanity that would occur if Gazan’s are involuntarily removed to another country. But I do think it’s worth letting people know that even if Trump and Israel want to do this, it almost certainly cannot happen, because the neighboring countries will not cooperate in the crime, because attempting to displace Gazan’s under those circumstances would amount to an act of war against those countries, and because the US is not going to put its soldiers in a combat zone in the Middle East to await them being picked off in a guerrilla war.
zhena gogolia
@satby: I know. As a friend of mine said, “We have bigger fish to fry.”
Matt McIrvin
@Quinerly:
Let’s hope they remember that when they start going on about how the voting age is too low and college students don’t have mature brains.
zhena gogolia
@frosty: He didn’t say all white men are evil. He said he can’t trust that any particular white man he encounters ISN’T evil. And I feel the same way, although I’m white.
Quinerly
@Betty Cracker:
I guess you have read about Fetterman’s comments on Trump’s plans for Gaza….Fetterman is definitely open to America occupying Gaza and is “Riviera of the Middle East” curious.
I have absolutely no patience with him. Done. He’s close to worthless. Definitely destructive.
Professor Bigfoot
@Peale: Straight white Christian male supremacy.
That is conservatism in one sentence.
Dave
@satby: Tomorrow will probably look like today which looks a lot like yesterday… until it doesn’t.
And we are certainly off the map of normal here.
Quinerly
@Matt McIrvin:
Thanks for the chuckle.
In related news….I will never say “the kids are all right” ever again.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve had plenty of white conservatives who obviously thought I was “one of the good ones.”
I was happy to disabuse them of this mistake.
frosty
@satby: Fair criticism.
Suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
It’s 100% true. Policy doesn’t matter to a horrifyingly large number of people. It is not a “deliver results” world we are living in.
Affect, emotional connection, parasocial relationships, a vague feeling of representation….. all the semiotics of celebrity are much more significant factors these days for people. Look at FFOTUS. He doesn’t just have voters. He cultivated fandom.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
I’ve been talking to, and reaching, low income people my entire adult life and I dress like a 1970s accountant. We wear our respective clothing – no problem.
Funny story along those lines. I had a juvie case that bled into Indiana. I’m not licensed there but I know some very good Indiana lawyers. I got my two juvies one of those lawyers. Begged him. They laughed at him, to me, because he was using their language- swearing, etc. They recognized it as phony. I really lit into them – he’s great and they dont deserve him. He was probably trying to gain their trust. But they think its weak.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: GOOD ON YOU! <applause emoji>
That’s how you get it done, brava!
Geminid
@Shalimar: Kushner also has ties with the Saudis, although it’s by no means an equal relationship. They’re the boss.
The Saudis made their attitude towards Trump’s Gaza gambit very clear in a statement released yesterday. The whole thing is worth reading if one is interested in this controversy. The Saudis came out four-square against any population transfers and repeated their commitment to the establishment of a Palestinian State. The statement ends with:
The Saudis swing a lot weight with Trump, as do the Emiratis who issued a similar statement. They both swing a lot of weight with Israel too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: Gen X is the first cohort of American white men to come of age after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
They’re the first white men who actually had to compete for jobs, promotions, etc. against women and <shudder> Black people.
Gen X white men do not like this one little bit.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: The “model minority” trope was that offer from whiteness to Asians.
Alas, Manzanar remains in living memory and Uncle George can break down just how NOT white Asian folk are.
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: Hit dogs holler, white dude, and if you got hit, that’s not my fucking fault.
Soprano2
@satby: She has to know this. Probably he’s refusing to go because he thinks everything is OK.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Agreed. I wish there were a way to address that because it’s a shitty way to pick leaders, but I can’t think of one.
MomSense
@Quinerly:
I thought I was having a stroke listening to whatever the fuck that was this morning.
First he invoked Jefferson about faith and I bet that stupid tangerine tinpot has no idea Jefferson wrote his own bible removing anything that smacked of miracles or of Jesus being superhuman.
Then he invoked Winthrop and Roger Williams and somehow ended up with blacked out windows and other ridiculous bullshit.
He is such an embarrassment and I will add that he seemed out of breath and very low energy. SAD!
Glory b
@Betty Cracker: No, any Dem is better than any Republican.
Candidly Tiff and I got dragged by lots of lefties/progressives about favoring Conor Lamb over him.
They talked about Lamb wearing suits, that his father is in banking as proof Fetterman was a man of the people.
But Fetterman’s father is in the same profession & has enough money to pay for all of his kids to go to the most expensive private school in Western PA and to renovate a gas station into their home.
Kay
@pajaro:
My hope is resting on two things – plaintiffs attorneys and liberal activists. Agree. The lawsuits will be effective.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: It’s also bullshit, Thomas Jefferson was 33 in 1776 and George Washington was 44. Most of them were probably in their mid-30’s or older, not 19 or 22!!!!
Miss Bianca
@Quinerly: they’re full of shit. Per usual.
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: Oh, Frosty— we all know it’s not ALL of you!
It’s just that it’s SO MOTHERFUCKING MANY OF YOU— like 2/3s of you— that we are only RATIONAL to assume each of you is a Trump sucking white supremacist son of a bitch UNTIL DEMONSTRATED OTHERWISE.
You apparently are unwilling to demonstrate otherwise, and that tells me everything I need to know about you.
Hit dogs holler.
MagdaInBlack
@prostratedragon: I know exactly what he meant.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: There’s an interesting divide among white people that is much larger than a divide within any other racial cohort, which is college degree attainment. Even white men who have a college degree voted about equally for Harris. It’s interesting to me that this divide is so large for white people, and I suspect that it’s because white people have been going to college long enough that we’ve sorted ourselves out socially, geographically, etc.
Betty Cracker
Sharing the text of a Bluesky post which seems appropos here right now…
Love to wake up every morning, sharpen my pincers, and dive right into the crab bucket and start fighting
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: But even among the college educated white men, the majority still went for Trump.
The majority of white people went Trump, period.
I understand the need to subdivide white people to put the bad ones out of the clan, but it’s white people, and there’s no taxonomy that will change this.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: You’re absolutely right. But I think we’re underestimating how much — within the cohort of white people — there’s a divide happening, and there’s a lot of hatred there.
Geminid
@Quinerly: Sant Rosa Lake State Park might be worth visiting. It’s unfortunate that the Pecos River was dammed, but there’s still some decent althogh uneven hiking along the river below.
And up top, across from the 10 tent sites, there’s an 8-mile horseback riding loop. I liked it it because I could walk inside it and not get lost. I was out there at dawn one morning when a Great Horned Owl glided past, hunting up breakfast.
The park is seven miles out of town. Blue Hole, a big sinkhole, is right in town and is worth visiting. It draws cave divers from all over. There is a small artesian lake next to Blue Hole where Santa Rosans swim when the weather’s nice.
catfishncod
@Professor Bigfoot:
Consider this: the Union started preparing for, and eventually winning, the Civil War aka the First Insurrection because the wypypo finally figured out that _they would wind up enslaved too_.
Reconstruction Amendments likewise came of that.
just food for thot
Professor Bigfoot
@suzanne: I can only wish the good white people luck; but for the rest of us it’s time to prepare for the depredations against us that conservatives demand.
Professor Bigfoot
@catfishncod: Yes, but then there came Reconstruction, and the way the former Confederates fought that with fire and terror, culminating in their “Redemption,” and the rise of Jim Crow.
Same thing is happening here all over again. Black people have too much power in this country- especially in the Democratic Party— and too many white people are massively threatened by this.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: You’re wise to do so. I think the white-people-college gap is only going to grow, and that means I think GOP wins are more likely in the future.
satby
@suzanne: “there’s a divide happening, and there’s a lot of hatred there.”
True enough. Though on the red side, they want us dead (traitors that we are); and on our side we just want them to shut up, go away and be out of the power to hurt people. Both sides are not the same, even in the way we hate. And oh baby how I hate some of them.
Betty Cracker
@suzanne: It’s real, and it’s an important indicator of an ongoing political realignment, as is the shift rightward among Hispanics and other POC. It’s probably harmless enough if people bloviating on blogs dismiss it, but I hope folks making decisions about campaign strategy aren’t.
Lyrebird
@Glory b: Yeah Lamb is a mensch and continued that way even through his concession speech. Deep breath.
I woke up this morning wondering how looney I would seem handing out cards with info for Candidly Tiff, 2Raw2Real, and that I smoked whoever guy to people like the young man at the car shop who didn’t vote…
Lobo
@RaflW: thought crime
tam1MI
Could people fly on foreign airlines who are regulated by the EU or the like?
suzanne
@satby: Agreed. College educated people are often seen as class and race traitors, and it’s also tied strongly to women as earners, views on parenting, religiosity, and all the other divisions we’re enduring.
Matt McIrvin
@tam1MI: If you’re flying in US airspace, you’re subject to US ATC. If that’s broken, all the airlines are in trouble as long as they’re flying here.
The one remaining major US civil passenger aircraft manufacturer, Boeing, was already in trouble before all this with a series of high-profile quality-control and safety issues. Airlines the world over use their planes, though right now Airbus is eating their lunch.
Up to this point, even with everything that’s happened, the fact is that flying has been far safer than it was when I was a kid, and it was already statistically the safest mode of travel then. So we’re in “a lot of ruin in a nation” territory. But it’s hard to say how fast things will deteriorate.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: I think the rationale they’re using is that private DEI programs are forbidden by the same Supreme Court decision that killed university affirmative action in admissions–basically, they’re claiming that desegregating is a violation of civil-rights law. Classic conservative “NO U” move.
Lyrebird
@suzanne: The education divide you’re pointing to is so real, and must be given the invective from the other side (remember Santorum?)… I don’t think people are factoring in the changes of how prevalent college attendance is right now for young adults in this model.
Curious, are you at all persuaded by this “Hidden Tribes” idea?
Meantime, the other name I want to shout from the rooftops is Shuler, AFL-CIO prez, and the new Department of People who Work for a Living that’s directly going after the unelected nepo fascist doing the hostile takeover
tam1MI
Unpossible. I was assured on this very blog that nobody paid any attention to Cabinet votes and that trying to get elected Dems to oppose them “wasn’t a strategy”.
Once again, we all saw this coming. Why couldn’t the elected Dems?
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Coming of age during the Reagan years was a strange thing. He wasn’t super popular through his *whole* time in office–there was a crushing recession during his first term that had him in the doghouse for a while–but in the mid-80s, he was really unstoppable and even had a broad youth movement behind him.
He was popular in a way that Trump isn’t. I hated Reagan and I hated that, but I couldn’t deny I was in the minority. The people genuinely believed he had saved America from some postwar liberal death spiral. The media fluffed Reagan in a huge way, but they were reacting to a grassroots love of him that took them by surprise.
The one later thing I can compare to it is the initial sympathy for George W. Bush right after the 9/11 attacks, which felt kind of like a false second dawn of Reaganism. The early widespread hope and respect invested in Barack Obama had some of that quality on our side, but that didn’t last either.
The situation with Trump is different–he’s got a thin majority, but the media indulgence of him is top-down, owner-imposed, fear-driven.
Suzanne
@Lyrebird: I have never seen this “Hidden Tribes” framework before. It’s fascinating. I need to dive into it. Thank you for sharing it.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: i have a close friend who is an FAA contractor, and he has advised us to avoid flying if at all possible going forward. DOGE has it’s I on them next.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t know if I think love of Trump is media-driven. I mean, the man has been in the public eye for 40 years…. and he’s used media for that, but….. I honestly think that celebrity has a lot more power and appeal than we want to give it credit for. Remember when McCain tried to be all snide to Obama by disdainfully calling him a celebrity? Most politicians are lawyers. A group of nice lawyers don’t know how to compete with that.
TBone
@Lyrebird: thanks for sharing that important AFL-CIO info!
bluefoot
@Professor Bigfoot: Yep. Speaking as a woman of color who has worked in the so-called meritocracy of the sciences for my entire career, and lived in “deep blue” states, IME the majority of white people are at least biased, whether they realize it or not.
I wanted to say more, but I just can’t since I am despairing right now.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Oh, MAGA love for him is genuine but Reagan had times when he was above 60% job approval. The Bushes both briefly had above 80% when the country was in the grip of war fever. With Trump, he’s got a bare plurality but the mainstream media are acting like he has a Reagan-level popular mandate
I think one of the reasons Trump is making all these unhinged war noises about Greenland or Canada or Gaza is that he knows a war is a way to get genuinely popular. But it also only works for a little while.
planetjanet
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Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: …and I should add, for me the popularity of Reagan was magnified by my living in what at the time was a super-conservative neighborhood. People looked at you like you were nuts if they learned you were a Democrat. It was an alien thing.
Quiltingfool
@bluefoot: I’m going to agree with you that even “good” white people have bias, and they may not be fully conscious of it. Many white people I know, in my age group (60 and up), were separated from black folks in the schools and community. No one had black neighbors when I was growing up. Black folks were in the community, but they couldn’t live wherever they wanted (red line). We didn’t go to the same churches – and, frankly, I think black folks got the better part of that deal, white church is boring. Black people were in the background.
I work on my bias. I know it’s there, and I don’t like it. I work on it by listening to black folks on other social media, reading books by black writers, and listening to you and Professor Bigfoot, Thin Black Duke and others.
This is very silly (with way more important stuff to be concerned with), so forgive me, but I watch a lot of tv shows and now I’m thinking new shows will erase diversity. We will go back to the days when there were few to no people of color, no gays and women were less than. It will be 100% straight white men. Yuck.
I am very worried about all of you. I know you have had to navigate white people nonsense your whole life, but where we are going seems extremely bad. At the very least, it won’t be a complete shock that white folks are shitty. Cold comfort, indeed.
Matt McIrvin
@Quinerly: Many of the kids are all right–well, they’re not feeling all right right now, but their hearts are in the right place. It’s just much more the girls than the boys. And even some of the boys.
Matt McIrvin
@Quiltingfool: One of the things that consistently pisses off racist online randos the most is seeing interracial couples and families in ads. So, probably a lot of those plans are getting cancelled.
Gvg
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t think that ruling applied to private universities though, just government ones-public/state ones.
Which was bitterly ironic in Florida, because our state legislature had forbidden it more than 10 years before so it made absolutely no difference or change for us. It also hadn’t made much Difference before. People were always convinced there were lots of big minority scholarships and it was easy to get it if you were x. It wasn’t, especially the money which really ends up deciding who goes.
And schools find ways to get the mix of students they want, they just don’t call it racial. It isn’t. They look for various income levels and especially high achieving first generation kids. Well, there are multiple strategies and it’s probably good they aren’t Al doing the same thing, but schools want their graduates to be successful and don’t think keeping them unexposed to anyone different is good for them. That includes exposing the well off to poor whites.
The public believes a lot of myths that are lies and have been lies for decades. I have wondered if they were ever true.
Kayla Rudbek
@Betty Cracker:
@Kay: once you get past protection from the elements and sanitation, all clothing is a costume and you can use that to manipulate people’s perceptions of you. This is why when I want to show that I Am Serious Lawyer Doing Serious Lawyer Work, I wear a suit. Because everybody knows that lawyers wear suits. (Jewelry and other accessories are just more elements of the costume). And yes, the color, fit, and design of the costume matters as well. Does what I wear actually make me smarter or a better person? No. It’s a tool and a weapon in this world of ours, and I am not going to give up any potential tool or weapon available to me in order to have people take me seriously and treat me with respect.
Kayla Rudbek
@Professor Bigfoot: you’re correct to assume that you can’t trust a white person until they have proven themselves. Repeatedly proven themselves.
Kayla Rudbek
@Suzanne: yeah, I can see that with my maternal cousins. The scapegoat daughter got involved in her teens with a low-class Protestant church (we cousins were all raised Catholic), wound up in a shotgun wedding, and all the bad consequences of that. One of her brothers was the golden boy of his nuclear family, went to college, married and one kid. Her other brother is a mechanic, no college, two kids sort of out of wedlock although he’s been with his partner forever so he wasn’t an absent father.
Kayla Rudbek
@suzanne: hatred from the lower class and contempt from the upper class (I say this as upper class and educated myself).
Professor Bigfoot
@Kayla Rudbek: Well, according to some commenters here, that just means I hate white people, because I have no reason to distrust them.