It's not yet been a month, folks!
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) February 10, 2025 at 8:53 AM
I mean, they’re finally covering the actual story: “dictator on Day One”
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 10, 2025 at 11:15 PM
Well, look at this: After Biden slayed inflation, Trump brings it back, along with "eggflation," after the Times gives him slack this morning. The #BrokenTimes, #BrokenPost, and #MurdochJournal says it's unexpected. Not if you're paying attention, it isn't.
— Jeff (Gutenberg Parenthesis) Jarvis (@jeffjarvis.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 10:32 AM
But *also*…
“Colorful” as in “insane”.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) February 12, 2025 at 5:06 PM
If the US agrees to become our 11th province, we'll offer them many exciting benefits—including free Bhangra lessons for every US citizen, delivered with our signature Canadian politeness, warmth and welcoming spirit.
— Gurdeep Pandher of the Yukon (@gurdeep.ca) February 8, 2025 at 12:16 PM
On The Road – Mike S. (now with a Democratic Congressperson!) – Namaqualand, South Africa Part 3. – Succulents and birds in
Baud
From win-win to lose-lose, because many people think someone else winning means they are losing.
Nukular Biskits
Mornin, y’all.
Damn it’s been a long year.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
Morning.
sab
OT My satby rescues are doing great. Wandering around the house like normal cats. Sister naps on my feet beside the sleeping pitbull. Brother comes up to watch sports with my husband.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
And, for MAGA, the “wrong people” winning means “the right people” are losing.
Llelldorin
Getting tired of hearing that we’re “close” to a constitutional crisis. It’s getting hard to parody.
“With Congress under persistent shelling and rumors of Justice Kagan’s daring midnight escape to freedom in Saskatchewan, America is getting close to a constitutional crisis.”
NotMax
Media note. Noticed on Prime.
See that <em?Impossible Peace has returned to availability. A-plus documentary mini-series covering the years between the world wars. Highest recommendation.
On the much lighter side, the giddy hijinks of Noises Off has shown up. Hasn’t been available for streaming anywhere in ages.
Spanky
@sab: That is very on topic around here, and thank you for the report!
Betty Cracker
Those NYT and NPR headlines are so bad I suspect they’re trolling us. Softens. Colorful. JFC.
narya
@sab: this makes me so happy. Maybe a post with pics from all the rescues in that bunch in their new homes?
NotMax
Slight coding fix.
Media note. Noticed on Prime.
See that Impossible Peace has returned to availability. A-plus documentary mini-series covering the years between the world wars. Highest recommendation.
On the much lighter side, the giddy hijinks of Noises Off has shown up. Hasn’t been available for streaming anywhere in ages.
jonas
Since it’s an open thread, spare some positive thoughts if you can for Kevin Drum over at jabberwocking.com. As his readers know, he’s been living with multiple myeloma for a number of years now, but the disease itself and drugs he takes to manage it do have immune-suppressive effects. Now he’s battling a severe case of pneumonia and the outlook is…not good.
Nukular Biskits
Oh, FFS. MS is leading the charge back to the ’50s … the 1850s.
‘Divisive Concepts’: Public Schools Could End DEI Programs Under Mississippi House Bill
Another Scott
Yup, it’s still early and government and politics are slow. It’s going to be a slog.
Meanwhile, …
Grr…
It’s more important than ever to curate the things we read and listen to and watch.
In a presently counter-factual world, 47 would be undergoing impeachment hearings in the House and preparing for a Senate trial. We’re not there yet, and not close to being there yet, but that is one obvious path forward. There are probably other paths, depending on how things go in the courts.
I’m not drunk on hopium, but we have to remember that things don’t change until they do. Keep working for that better day.
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
rikyrah
@sab: 🤗🤗🤗🤗
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
@jonas:
🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
I’m surprised to learn MS has DEI programs to end.
lowtechcyclist
@Nukular Biskits:
Well, we know Mississippi exists to make Alabama look good by comparison, so I can’t say I’m surprised.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Believe me, it’s not because our resident “I need a big daddy like Trump in my life!” shithead state auditor Shad White hasn’t been trying to rid the state of any and all vestiges of DEI … or, more correctly, any mention of anything that doesn’t entrench white Christianist male patriarchy.
Nukular Biskits
@lowtechcyclist:
MS will ALWAYS win the “HOLD MUH BEER” challenge.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
And Axios exists to make Politico (aka TBOTP) look good by comparison.
Professor Bigfoot
@Llelldorin: You said it!
Like we ain’t been in a constitutional crisis AT LEAST since January 20 (but I’d go back to the machinations of the Senatortoise from Kentucky and the Supreme Court nominations)
sentient ai from the future
@Baud: come on, I thought everybody knew about Mississippi.
Goddamn
Tom Levenson
Sort of off topic but in the video about Bhangra in the Yukon, I love how someone says that -22 degrees was “chilly.”
Sang froid. Literally.
Starfish (she/her)
@jonas: Oh. I did not know that about Kevin Drum! I have read him in the past but not consistently. Thank you for letting us know.
Rusty
The anti-DEI push is running under the cover of getting rid of preferences for hiring or admission, but the real goal is erasure of all minorities. Anti-DEI is being used to get rid of affinity groups, so black, LGBTQ+, women’s groups are getting g eliminated now only at places like the military academies, but elsewhere to. Those groups give no preferences, but they do give visibility. They are places where inequality can be discussed, so they are being eliminated. Erasure of the people of those groups and any hint that they could suffer injustice. It’s suppression of speech and the right of assembly under the cover of “equality”.
Ohio Mom
@jonas: Oh dear. I don’t stop by Kevin Drum’s place every day but often enough. Poor guy.
Leto
In case people haven’t seen it, here’s Melon Husks human shield telling Trumpov to “hush.” We really need the video where the shield says Trumpov isn’t the president, and to “go away.”
Nukular Biskits
@sentient ai from the future:
I missed a perfect opportunity there. If you don’t mind, I’m gonna steal that to hammer my MS state officials on the dead bird site (yeah, I kept my account there so I could troll MS Republicans).
Kay
Republicans and media think threatening Greenland and Denmark is funny but Danes and Greenlanders are actual human beings (although admittedly not Americans so not important) and they’re mortally offended and horrified. They’re worried about you, too. They think your country is collapsing.
J.
@Baud: Or they want other people to suffer as much or more than they are.
Baud
@jonas:
Thanks for the info. Good thoughts towards him.
J.
Love the Bhangra video! Thanks for sharing it, AL!
Kay
@Rusty:
Agree. They hope to make Black people and women disappear.
Kay
NPR is “haw haw haw, Trump is a delightful maverick, lets invade Denmark!” and Danes are like “are you guys ok in that insane asylum of a country? Do you need assistance?”
p.a.
Masters of the Universe souring on their tRump love? In a true meritocracy, how would imbeciles thinking tRump was competent at anything, become Masters of Anything?
Starfish (she/her)
@Baud: We had LGBTQ clubs in school when I was growing up there. So they are rolling back things that have been around for several decades.
Nukular Biskits
A serious question, one I’ve been pondering for a while now:
At what point will aggressive, not passive, civil disobedience or even violence be seen necessary?
I throw this out there, knowing full well I don’t have time to discuss (I’m about to leave for my last day of work here in SAN) but we can’t go much farther down this path without some folks seeing no downsides to either?
I genuinely fear this is coming. And, lest anyone misunderstand (including the FBI agent assigned to monitor me 😉) I’m not advocating for politically-motivated violence.
ETA: Updated.
Kay
Media in Trump II really do remind me of media in their campaign to invade Iraq. There was the same weird excitement that we were going to throw smaller countries against a wall to prove our manliness.
Gross.
Starfish (she/her)
@Nukular Biskits: I think that next month’s jobs report is going to be brutal. For the folks not following along at home, if the Trumpies are allowed, many thousands of government jobs are disappearing. In addition to that, a lot of large tech companies have been having large layoffs in the past few weeks. Unfortunately, my job was one of those that is now gone.
Some of these may not show up until later months because of California’s WARN act that says everyone must be given 60 days notice.
Nukular Biskits
@Starfish (she/her):
Sorry to hear that.
Come to work for a defense contractor … seems there will always be plenty of money for the war machine.
Kay
@Nukular Biskits:
I think the next thing you should look for is prosecution of dissidents. We’re currently at “friends of the regime are not prosecuted for crimes”. The next step would be ” enemies of the regime ARE prosecuted for NO crime”
That’s when you either bail or fight.
Starfish (she/her)
@Nukular Biskits: I used to work for defense contractors. My sister was proud of me for becoming less evil and not working for them. Also, I have never gone to visit family in Iran because I have worked for defense contractors.
Soprano2
@jonas: I will, this is the kind of thing I worry about for my husband. Drum is a good guy.
Jackie
@jonas: Thanks for the update on Kevin. I’ve been an on again/off again follower for a decade and more. My heart is crying.
AM in NC
Thank you! I needed some Gurdeep this morning!!!
gene108
@Nukular Biskits:
Since we don’t control the police, who lean conservative, political violence will be met with state approved repression and white supremacists looking to murder anyone they find that’s not white.
Spanky
@Leto:
What we really need is the video of the kid threatening to send Trump to The Cornfield.
Nukular Biskits
@Kay:
I think in some respects we’re already there.
Betty Cracker
@Leto: There was some discussion of that and further links in the overnight thread here. FWIW, no one knows if it’s fake or not, and we talked about that too.
Leto
@Kay: President Musk is already moving in that direction.
Soprano2
The problem is that they might be right about that. I think in FFOTUS’s first term many R’s wouldn’t be going along with a lot of this shit, but this time they’re meekly submitting. It’s not a good sign for the future. I think they’ve got many people convinced that things are so broken that only a “strong daddy” given free rein can fix them.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Ah, good ole Totebagger Radio. That headline is classic:
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Baud:
Yeah, I’m pretty sure that future historians will record that everybody lost last year, but not everybody realized it at the time.
Soprano2
@Kay: I hope they’re getting a lot of backlash on that story, because it’s ridiculous to frame it that way. I wish they’d start thinking about how they would cover these things if they were happening in any other country.
Leto
@Betty Cracker: ah; well I’m counting it as cannon because I’m that kind of nerd. Also who the F brings a child to a WH presser? We all know the kid’s actual purpose but still.
Yukoner
@Tom Levenson: sounds about right. It’s 16 below at the moment which feels great. We are on a warming trend!
Kay
@Soprano2:
NYTimes did the same thing – worse. They did a “dealbook” piece where they asked belligerent business Trumpers how they would seize Greenland. Haw haw! Lets invade another nation and steal their shipping routes and give them to Putin!
They love the bullshit they sold that Trump is a “dealmaker”. They fucking love this monster they created.
Nukular Biskits
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Please tell me that is from The Onion.
Starfish (she/her)
@Leto:
Here is another TikTok on it.
There are reasons for the press to not cover this more broadly. The press was really hard on Jimmy Carter’s daughter. Chelsea Clinton was a little defense of the Bush girls because of how she was treated as a child by the press. Going after a kid who is 3-4 would reflect badly on the press, and they have already shown that they are not going to go after our tech oligarchs. The WSJ feels a little more free than the rest of them which is wild.
Ben Cisco
@lowtechcyclist: As it turns out, not THAT good by comparison.
As evidence, I submit to you my two idiot senators:
Katie Britt (R-Stepford)
Tommy Tuberville (R-FL)
Kay
@Nukular Biskits:
I do too honestly but I think we need to wait until its clear and can be verified.
But its just the flip side of not prosecuting friends of the regime and DOJ has already capitulated on that – its just one step further to prosecute innocent people. They didn’t hold the line. Now there are no rules. They’ll fold further and round up regime dissidents. They are weak.
sixthdoctor
Looks like the webpages for the CDC and the FDA were restored.
Kay
@Leto:
Absolute moron. Its so embarrassing how many people, well, MEN, thought he was a genius.
Leto
I know Ohiomom has spoken about this, but wanted to bring notice to it again. The Texas v. Bercera case, which is an attack on people with disabilities. Here’s a plain language explainer about the case:
The explainer also has a map with the 17 states involved in the lawsuit.
Starfish (she/her)
@sixthdoctor: The American Medical Association was putting out information on COVID and flu on their YouTube channel while CDC was muzzled.
Kay
I saw the NY field office of the FBI are whining because President Musk wants to fire them.
Trump’s personal police force, the NY FBI. Delicious that they’re getting some consequences, the fucking hacks.
Jobeth
@Kay: I just read about the Missouri AG suing Starbucks over their DEI hiring policies so not even private businesses are safe from these pricks. Even if Starbucks wants to hire the slowest, stupidest employees in the world what business is it of government? The lawsuit says their hiring practices lead to slower service and higher prices – since when has that been illegal?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Nukular Biskits:
I forget where I stole it from buy yeah, it’s Onion-esque.
Starfish (she/her)
@Jobeth: Pam Bondi was clear that they are going to go after private businesses.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: I’m with you, and I don’t see any answers to that question either.
The thing is, the people most intent on committing violence– who’ve spent the last few decades stockpiling arms and ammunition– are also the people who are offended at the mere existence of people they hate.
They are being given permission to find a “final solution” to that which offends them.
Starfish (she/her)
@Professor Bigfoot: Both the right and the left are arming up, but the left tends to be less aggressively violent so what I am seeing there is “Where can I go buy a gun? Where can I go take shooting lessons from people who are not Trumpian gun humpers?”
Professor Bigfoot
@Kay: Monstrous.
And we cannot say we did Nazi that coming.
Kay
Donald Trump hates children so its delightful to watch Elon Musks poorly raised rude toddler disrespect Trump.
Why are Right wingers such bad parents? They raise HORRIBLE men. Musk’s kid is already horrible and entitled and rude. This ends no where good for that kid.
schrodingers_cat
Mood Indigo, was a big annual music festival at IIT, Powai. I wonder if it still takes place.
ETA: It does. I checked.
Elizabelle
@jonas: Thank you for the head’s up.
Kevin Drum is one of the most decent (and honest) people on the internet. I hope he can survive. He has been battling cancer at least ten years.
Keeping him, his family, including Hilbert and littler cat, in my thoughts today. I always loved that he named Hilbert’s late fellow cat after Grace Hopper.
RevRick
@Baud: This is certainly true of those whose brains are infected with white male supremacy.
Kay
Here’s a free parenting tip – keep kids off tv. That little boy does not belong there. His (bad) father is using him and harming him.
UncleEbeneezer
“Biden Slayed Inflation” is exactly the sort of framing we all should have been relentlessly pushing in 2023-4.
Professor Bigfoot
@Starfish (she/her): Same thing happened in 2017.
In the fall of 2016 I owned two pistols that hadn’t seen the light of day all the way through the Obama administration.
Today I have three gun safes and am a member of NAAGA.co and also of a local gun range.
As was known to the Movement (I commented a couple of books I highly recommend: “Negroes with Guns,” by Robert F. Williams, and “Negroes and the Gun: The Black Tradition of Arms” by Nicholas Johnson.
We eschew political violence, but we do not give up our right to individual self defense; else the Klan would have put paid to the entire Civil Rights Movement back in the 1960s.
RevRick
@Tom Levenson: The world needs more Gurdeeps.
JML
@jonas: I’m bummed about Kevin Drum’s health situation. Hope he gets the miracle and pulls out of it, but pneumonia and a ventilator is not a good sign at all, especially with his other health issues. He was an interesting and data-driven voice that called out a lot of stuff. Plus, his cats were fun.
As always, fuck cancer.
Professor Bigfoot
@gene108: expect this from them anyway; and the police will stand by and watch.
The sack of Black Wall Street came from somewhere.
Kay
I know its bad because I keep thinking about buying gold. My grandmother loved gold. She had a hard life and I get it now – she wanted to HOLD what she might exchange for passage or whatever. She would take us into her room and show us and we would be sort of patronizing, “ok, sure, whatever”.
I haven’t done it yet. But I’m gold curious.
Suzanne
@Kay: Grimes has been posting on X that she doesn’t want the little guy in the public eye. Musk is giving her hell in this custody dispute.
Musk is a garbage parent.
RevRick
@Kay: The rightwing mind believes that people are innately bad, and so they resort to punitive measures, and that begins with how they treat their children. In other words, the same way their parents treated them. Violence, for them, is somehow purifying.
Kay
@JML:
I like him a lot too. To the Right of me but always honest and acting in good faith.
rikyrah
@Rusty:
Remember, the Supreme Court carved out an exception for the military in that awful Affirmative Action case😒😒
Kay
@Suzanne:
Satby said that, about the custody dispute. Poor Grimes. Suing the richest man in the world for custody has a predetermined outcome. She’ll never see that kid.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Soft and polite voices for fascism, lending it respectability.
Belafon
@Nukular Biskits: I’m trying to get out of the defense industry.
rikyrah
@Kay:
The lack of ..
This Canada and Greenland talk is utterly Insane..
From them 😒😒
rikyrah
@Starfish (she/her):
Sorry about your job loss 🥺
May you find employment soon
Chris Johnson
I like to point out that if it turns out that Trump, and Musk, and craploads of these media people most notably the NYT all turn out to be working for Vladimir Putin to ruin the country and not ‘save’ it…
This sucks rocks. But I’ve seen other ex-empires do great things, for instance in art and music, after they were ruined and spent. It will be very hard to drag us all down to sub-Siberian levels of civilization, I won’t help with that at all, and I’ll not be too shocked at bidding goodbye to full-supermarket capitalism when it is destroyed by direct attack and also mass sickness and mass death, which seems to be about what it takes to do that.
I just do not want anybody to come around acting surprised when suddenly the NYT shock amazement does NOT seem to be supporting Trump in every word, but instead seems to be pushing doomerism and the need to have a civil war!
That’s how you know they’re Pravda.
MattF
@jonas: Ugh. Drum has been the one who actually pulls out the relevant data and figures out what it means. A unique voice.
rikyrah
@Kay:
It’s not funny.
It’s phucking ridiculous 🤬
Belafon
@Starfish (she/her): In this case, though, it’s not the kid that is the center of this story, it’s Musk and Trump. Musk because the kid is repeating what dad says, and Trump for just sitting there, when, if one of Vance’s children would have said it, would have gone ballistic.
jonas
@Starfish (she/her): Sorry to hear about the layoff. I imagine now all across Silicon Valley companies are reassessing their AI operations going forward. That was the one real growth sector the past couple of years and then DeepSeek came along.
Leto
@Starfish (she/her): Not just Pam Bondi:
‘More female and less white’: Missouri AG accuses Starbucks of violating anti-discrimination laws
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: But he was so old.
Eunicecycle
@RevRick: when I read about the “blanket training” that the RWNJ patents do, it almost made me physically sick. So cruel! And how children must obey immediately and with a smile or they are severely punished.
Belafon
@Leto: And what percentage of white men are actually applying?
Captain C
@sixthdoctor:
I would pay to see that. It would be like the scene in Big Bang Theory where Sheldon insults a judge and goes to jail, but serious as a heart attack.
Kay
My daughter keeps asking me what we should do and I don’t have an answer. I know the difference between venting and asking for direction and she wants direction. I don’t know what to do – other than maybe buy gold and, I dont know, hide it? This is how people become Ron Paul.
schrodingers_cat
@zhena gogolia:Plenty on our side hated him and were glad to knife him when he was weak. That’s why I don’t buy all these lamentations of people who bought us to this juncture. Look in the mirror before lecturing me or pretending to be surprised with the havoc caused by Orange Error 2.0.
You did this. You called him old, You called him Genocide Joe. And now you are lecturing us about “resistance” and writing screeds about how Schumer and Jeffries are doing it wrong
One of the PodCast bros was out there dissing Biden and blaming him on TV recently. What else have they done in politics besides write speeches for Obama?
Another Scott
@sixthdoctor:
+1
Federal employees, even MAGAs, are only willing to go so far to set their careers, and their self-respect, on fire.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Geminid
@Kay: Maybe you should also buy some silver coins, to spend first. Don’t let them know you have gold!
tobie
Another leftwing populist turns right. Matt Stoller celebrates the defunding of universities and firing of federal employees.
bsky.app/profile/jewishwonk.bsky.social/post/3lhzerajibs2i
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
Disagree.
The problem is that while the Founding Fathers saw 47 coming a mile away.
They could not have accounted for the complete abdication of Constitutional duties from an entire political party.
Captain C
@Kay:
The group that leaked misleading bullshit about Hillary Clinton being reinvestigated right at the last moment. Serves them right.
Also, fucking with the security services who backed you on your way to assuming power is a classic rookie mistake of coup-making types. Eventually, enough of them get salty.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: “Nice Polite Republicans,” n’cest pas?
Captain C
@Suzanne: I wouldn’t want my kid being used as a human shield by my ex, either.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: White DSA left, hates women, minorities and immigrants and are anti-Semitic. So this is not surprising at all.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: I stopped listening to them a long time ago.
Captain C
@Another Scott:
Assumes facts not in evidence.
rikyrah
@tobie: he has been an azzhole since the OBAMA years. SO, no shock 😒
Spanky
@Kay: After you buy it, what are you going to do with it? If you need to use it to pay someone, how will you remain safe once they know you have gold around you? This assumes that the world has gone to shit enough that you need it, but it’ll be a lawless time.
Gold holds no attraction for me because I don’t see how it benefits me in a lawless society.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: It’s all sickening.
Another Scott
@Kay:
The Gold price has been going nuts for a while (see the 20 year graph). If you’re willing to take a ~ 50% loss at some indefinite time in the future, then I guess it’s a kinda free country…
Not for me though!
Platinum has been much more stable recently, but it also has had huge swings in the past. (Note the Yaxis is a log scale there.) It’s substantially cheaper than gold now. (I wouldn’t buy that either, myself.)
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Professor Bigfoot
Yep. That entire “separation of powers” was meant to keep any one person, party, or even branch of government could have unchecked and unbalanced power.
The thing is, though, that the founders couldn’t foresee an electorate that would willingly vote away the freedoms the Constitution guaranteed.
But then, I bet they could never have envisioned a Black president; and that’s what it took.
Conservatives have overthrown the Constitution they claim to revere because it permitted a Black man to become President.
Every single policy prescription from conservatives since then has been an angry reaction to that fact.
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: With the split custody, he just takes the kid where ever and lets her see him whenever he feels like it. I felt that all this public exposure of the kid was a lot of “Look, I have him, and you don’t.”
AM in NC
@Suzanne: Grimes is also a white supremacist and is all into that tech lord garbage. Garbage parents, the both of them. I went reading up on her to see what kind of person procreates with Musk, and it’s exactly the kind of person you’d think.
Starfish (she/her)
@rikyrah: Thank you. It happened on a day some of us were attending a coworker’s funeral so I am taking a few weeks before I get into the grind.
tobie
@rikyrah: I haven’t followed Stoller for years, so thanks for the background on his devolution.
The fantasy Stoller’s peddling — “if only me and mine were in charge, we’d root out corruption and fix everything” — is no different than what MAGAts say. Populism is toxic as far as I’m concerned.
New Deal democrat
Occasionally reality intrudes in a very big way in this online world. Today may be one of those days.
Last night Keven Drum posted that he believes he is dying:
jabberwocking.com/health-update-89/
“Fading fast. Pneumonia worse. Ventilator next. Not looking good. Take care of Donald Trump for me.”
I certainly didn’t agree with everything he wrote, but on the economy he was a fellow nerd’s nerd.
Hoping for the best, and if not, for an easy passage.
MomSense
@Kay:
I think they also want to make people with disabilities disappear. I think Musk has made his calculations that people with disabilities are too expensive and they want to stop any funding or requirements that allow them to live.
His grandparents were NAZIs who left Canada for South Africa because they liked apartheid and wanted to get in on it.
Eunicecycle
cleveland.com/medical/2025/02/conservative-group-launches-ad-campaign-against-cleveland-clinics-dei-…
The Cleveland Clinic has been targeted for its DEI initiatives. It contains lies, including that the CC does gender reassignment surgery on minors. This is all getting so ridiculous.
sentient ai from the future
@jonas: deep seek was the excuse. The fact is, widespread adoption of glorified autocorrect is poor outside of some fairly narrow fields and topics.
Largely because it’s mostly hype
Kay
@Another Scott:
I once had a bf who traded silver. He was a very vibrant, interesting person, much like my goldbug granny. Eccentric but great.
I have been low income and I wasn’t unhappy. I suppose I could do it again. I would miss travel though. A lot.
sentient ai from the future
@Spanky: that’s why I’m long on cyanide capsules
Professor Bigfoot
@tobie: They are simply bog standard American white dudes.
Stoller, Stewart, Maher… ultimately all just exemplars of the breed.
kindness
Speaking as a Californian…. I would love to be a citizen of Denmark right now. I mean, Trump hates us. Well, he loves the money he gets from us and he loves to publicly shit on us but other than that he hates us openly. Denmark would be better.
Kay
@MomSense:
I agree. I saw that media and Rufalo were promoting making peop!e with disabilities disappear and so I knew it was fashionable. Edgy!
They’re all such shallow, fad following assholes. No character. No depth. Bad thinkers.
Starfish (she/her)
@Eunicecycle: The medical places are so scared. Terms like “genetic diversity” and biodiversity are being scrubbed. This is for sure not double plus good.
Kirk
@rikyrah: Agree.
I recently had reason to read George Washington’s farewell address. It has warnings that are very applicable to today’s issues. They’re just in the style – aka longwinded to modern ears.
For example,
MomSense
@Nukular Biskits:
I remember discussions with a lawyer who is really smart but his live for guns kind of set him off on a weird path. He believes that the 2nd A is absolutely for the purpose of ordinary people being able to fight back against government tyranny. So I used to go along with his premise and talk with him about how that would necessitate asymmetrical warfare. Would he be willing to blow up schools, coffee shops, theaters, hotels, grocery stores? You can’t fight government tyranny and still go to Home Depot on Saturday mornings. That’s when he would want to go back to hypotheticals.
This is the problem we find ourselves in now. The fascists have fighter jets, drones, tanks, facial recognition.
What are we willing to do to fight that kind of war? I don’t have the answers. I know that my ballet teachers who were part of the resistance in WWIi in France and other places would hide explosives under their skirts. 13 years old riding their bikes with bomb making components strapped to their legs to deliver them where they would be used to blow up bridges or be placed in roads. Crazy shit. Do we have the ability to organize that now? We cant plan it on Facebook.
Phylllis
@Eunicecycle: Tia Levings talks about this in A Well-Trained Life. Harrowing.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: I inherited two gold pieces of jewelry from my mother, at least one of which she inherited from her mother. They were never my style. Two years ago, in one of many stabs at decluttering, I sold them and made not quite $900.
I figure that means the gold was worth, I dunno, at least three times as much. Because unless you have an original Picasso, whatever used item you sell, you only get a fraction of what the buyer is going to turn around and resell it for.
But I certainly get your urge. We all know the economy is going to crash. I’m reminded of the time we were stoped at a red light and a pickup truck rushed past us. I could see this would come to a bad end — the truck crashed into a car — but there wasn’t anything we could do in that moment except stare wide-eyed.
Kay
@kindness:
They have a high tax rate but Americans pay high (total) taxes anyway. Texans pay more than Californians and Texans get nothing in exchange. At least in Denmark you’ll get low cost healthcare and education. But anywhere outside Copenhagen is VERY Danish. Americans might be bored. Danes are rule people. They insist on order and they have strict social norms. Individuality is not the highest goal, conforming to social norms and collectivism is – there are trade offs for that.
Lyrebird
@Nukular Biskits: Morning! And yes, long year already.
Thank you Anne Laurie! Now my dream future has even more definition: a taco truck on every corner, AND FREE BHANGRA LESSONS.
stinger
“Tonight, there are warnings…” (the CNN quote in the second Skitter up top) : It must be Breaking News or they won’t mention it.
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: Where did you sell your gold. I have some stray single gold earrings, that have lost their partner.
Kay
@Ohio Mom:
Its selfish. I’m pissed because I retire in July and I had big plans.
I was telling my husband this, how Trump is going to ruin our plans, in the airport on the phone and I noticed this woman listening and getting madder and madder. Trumper. So I raised my voice and listed all the bad things coming. They really bring out the worst in me. I enjoyed it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@tobie:
That’s nothing new for Stoller. He might have been a leftwing populist 15+ years ago but sure as hell not been one for at least a decade now.
UncleEbeneezer
My social media feed is filled with Black People saying exactly this. “Resistance? Where the F*** was your ‘resistance’ (to Trump) when it mattered?” And I think that is 100% valid and I don’t blame them at all.
Eunicecycle
@Starfish (she/her): my daughter works at the CC and she is worried these assholes will rile people up to be violent. It’s a sustained campaign with paid advertising, not just rumors on X.
Ohio Mom
@Kay: I asked Adam if he would do a post on what we should do now but he did not bite. I think it’s the most important question for a lot of us right now.
hells littlest angel
A Canadian Century might be very nice.
Starfish (she/her)
@Kay: In many countries it is traditional to pass along gold as a store of value; and when the economy crashes, there is a tendency to bump up these stores of value.
However, there has also been a lot of weird right-wing gold bug nonsense that has been going on for at least a decade now so I am not sure how I feel about gold as a store of value because it gets very weirdly inflated.
And it got so weird that Costco was selling gold bars, and they were running out of gold bars to sell.
There is a gold ETF (GLD), and I do believe it is impacted by all the gold bug foolishness. The silver one (SLV) seems less impacted.
Ohio Mom
@schrodingers_cat: I went to a mom-and-pop jewelry store in an upper-class neighborhood. I was just going to ask, “How much are there worth?”Then they gave me a price and I took it. Maybe I could have done better or worse somewhere else. I am glad to be rid of them.
raven
oops
Salty Sam
Fixed!
tobie
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: The difference between you and me is that I find populism of every stripe toxic.
Begin by dehumanizing your opponent–call them deep state, bureaucrats, fat cats, pigs.
Claim to speak in the name of the people who’ve been victimized by these non-people.
Expel said non-people from civil society so society can be purified (of bad blood, filthy lucre, etc). The people will revel in the destruction of their enemy.
Put yourself in charge and rule with an iron fist. While assserting such power you can again claim to be speaking and acting for the people.
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: Thanks. I should do the same. I have some singlet silver stuff as well.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: You and me both. Populism is toxic whether it comes from the right or the left.
kindness
@Kay: I was riffing off the snark tweet about Denmark offering to buy California. It’s snark and won’t ever happen. Washington, Oregon and California have a better chance of joining Canada than Denmark buying us. As fantasies go, either of those scenerios would be better than living in the Gilead nation we’re becoming.
tobie
@MomSense: I read an interesting thread on the ways Musk’s showcasing of the child fits into his eugenics program. The child is the successor, the dauphin. He is also the incarnation of the pure genes of his parents, especially his father, and is, you could say, bred for success. The whole thing is nauseating.
tobie
@schrodingers_cat: I don’t get how people can’t see that populism relies on exclusions of folks who are then identified as non-people. That’s why I love this scene from Blazing Saddles. Maybe only a black man and Jewish man could smell the Blut-und-Boden appeal of populism.
schrodingers_cat
@tobie: Bingo. The tech bros and their effective altruism is nothing but eugenics for the 21st century.
Geminid
@Starfish (she/her): Gold has hit $2900 an ounce. I bet there’ll be a lot of people out panning for it this year.
There’s a “gold belt” that runs about 40 miles east of the Blue Ridge, in the Virginia Piedmont. Virginia had 40 small gold mines when WWII commenced. Then, gold mining was declared a non-essential industry and the miners were drafted or went to work in defense plants. The mines never reopened, but there are still placer deposits in the local streams. You could probably get gold out of the James River bottom.
The gold belt runs all the way to North Georgia. It has places that teach people to pan. The one nearest me is just south of Greensboro, North Carolina. I need to get down there and learn; then I’ll come back and clean out Swift Run.
TBone
@NotMax: both of those are of great interest, thanks! I’ll see where I can find ’em on my “smaht” TV.
TBone
@Leto: I’ve wanted to see that for myself after reading wbout it here, thx for link.
NutmegAgain
When I was younger I had enough points to be able to move to Canada (professional, speaks French, Canadian grandmother, whatever else…) I’m so sorry I didn’t go then! That was the Bush years, when it seemed like the US was out of control. Oh for a crystal ball.
satby
@Tom Levenson: I subscribed to Gurdeep’s newsletter several months ago. Always brings the cheer. I’m happy to see Anne Laurie featured him today.
TBone
@Spanky: LOL!
TBone
@Leto: thanks, I know some doctors who need to review that.
Kay
@Starfish (she/her):
My paternal grandmother had a 6th grade education and was a garment worker. She was always afraid of being poor, of crashing economies and unrest. I think she was showing us the gold to comfort herself. It’s funny – me and my siblings never got it when she died. A cousin grabbed it ahead of everyone else and it wasn’t enough to fight over, so we just walked away. She would have been mad.
Professor Bigfoot
@MomSense: I believe that those white conservatives know damned well they couldn’t stand against a single Marine fire team, period full stop.
But what they CAN do is murder their neighbors.
See also Slobodan Milosevic and the Yugoslavian “civil wars.”
glory b
@UncleEbeneezer: I think a lot of white lefties (because they don’t have much contact with us in real life) don’t realize how absolutely LIVID black people are with them right now.
MomSense
@Professor Bigfoot:
My point is that it is not discussed. The part that comes with fighting government tyranny is not discussed because there are a lot of people who would not go along with it.
And now we find ourselves on the other side of the superpower with tanks and drones.
MomSense
@tobie:
And we know Trump believes in that shit too.
Seanly
Can Americans meet the requirements to be political refugees? My wife keeps asking me to check my company’s website for non-US jobs…
Professor Bigfoot
You’re so right— but then, if they DID talk about it, they’d quickly understand how completely fucked they’d be trying to fight the US Army.
Believe me, my little “arsenal” ain’t for the Army. It’s for the same people Fannie Lou Hamer was talking about.
TBone
@Chris Johnson: your comments are always spot on, I am in awe. I couldn’t remember which Chris you were recently (sleep deprivation) but now I will remember that it is Chris Johnson, always worth the time.
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: that’s exactly why hubby & I have red county evacuation plans. Back to urban dwelling owned by Black, ex-military dude who does not FA.
TBone
@Chris Johnson:
Over at Atrios
Chris Johnson
@TBone: May they ALL have to go around in wankpanzers to show loyalty.
Those things are garbage, a con in their own right, unreliable, poorly designed. These people are evil but they are also stupid and self-deluding. Give ’em ALL wankpanzers. Better than real vehicles.
brantl
@Nukular Biskits: Remind me of the John Prine lyric “ I spent a week there one day”.
brantl
I want some major news network to start a frequent chyron scroll for when Chumpy’s climate policies put Mordant LardAss under water.
brantl
@gene108: Or doesn’t look white.
gvg
@Nukular Biskits: No. Defense contracts are always in danger of running out. It’s a very on off type of business. The people in it are obsessed with investments because they get laid off so often. They don’t expect retirement plans. Also why they are among those who are sure SS won’t last and have alwsys thought it was about to end. New contracts come along, but it doesn’t benefit everyone. And there are cutbacks for awhile. Musk may be one of them. Especially since one of the goals is to weaken us for other countries. Musk may get money, but that does not translate into lots of other jobs.
sab
@Eunicecycle: We rescued our pitbull from such a household. Sweet dog who sucks on my comforter for comfort. She has sucked holes in it.
MomSense
@Professor Bigfoot:
I finally bought a shotgun and took lessons. I’m surrounded by trumpers and I have people to protect.
sab
@NutmegAgain: My dad wanted us to move to Canada in 1965, and my mom’s background made us eligible and dad found a job there. But mom wouldn’t go because it was cold.
sab
@Kay: I used to watch nordic noir on tv and I was amazed at what the Danes would put up with from their apartment neighbors.
Citizen Alan
@Nukular Biskits: my friends here in fresno complain about how conservative this part of california is, and I just laugh and laugh.
Citizen Alan
@Starfish (she/her): if they are shutting down LGBT+ in the schools, tgey damn well better be doing the same thing to the fellowship of christian athletes.
Citizen Alan
@Ben Cisco: i have said for decades that mississippi and alabama are each others evil twin.
Citizen Alan
@rikyrah: i would say that their mistake was in failing to anticipate the complete corruption of the purpose of the electoral college. The EC exists theoretically so that instead of directly voting for a president, we vote for sensible and respected people from our communities who will go to the electoral college and vote for the best candidate. Probably a naive view from the start, but there’s no way they could have anticipated an electoral college that would approve someone as grossly unfit as donald trump.
Citizen Alan
@Starfish (she/her): ridiculous. Genetic diversity has a scientific meaning, completely divorced from politics. We’re basically at the point of Lysenkism, aren’t we. Demonstrable and proven scientific facts will be written out of the textbooks, because politicians don’t like their implications. I wonder if trump will give us a Five Year Plan to deal with the high price of eggs that ends with the extinction of chickens in america.
Another Scott
@Citizen Alan: +1
The idea of the EC somehow being a check on the baser instincts of the masses was blown up in 2016 (and probably earlier).
Probably a bigger underlying problem than even the EC is that the Constitution was drawn up when US political parties were not a thing, and the pathologies of Party over Everything were not considered (or not considered as much as they should have been) when drawing up the document. And things quickly got messy thereafter. :-/
But somehow we muddled through, mostly.
Now, the Founders would be horrified by the way things have turned out since W was installed (and maybe since Reagan won in 1980).
Grr…
When I’m Benevolent Despot, things are going to be different!!1
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Cathie from Canada
Gurdeep is a Canadian Treasure! His posts are always so happy and positive – he has taken Bhangra across the country, teaching people to dance it in every province. So good to see him here.
WTFGhost
Government funded health care, safer schools, more polite aristocracy, and, how many believable Bond-style villains ever came from Canada? I *did* say believable, you in the back!
We’d no longer have Make Colonialism Great Again, we’d break the lies about slavery and Black people, and OMG, so many racists would be politely told “how can you be so cranky at your friend and neighbor, eh? Fancy a cup of Tim’s to talk it over?”
(I think a lot of people would give up bigotry if they got gently scolded like “and where were your parents during this? Didn’t they teach you important stuff, like where to peepee, and not to say such nasty things?”)
I say we must put it to a vote, and we should explain to Trump that this would make him the FINAL WINNER, NO ONE WILL EVER SUCCEED YOU!
(I didn’t *think* it would work, but, making a wish once in a while, just in case there’s a wish granting entity around , seems like a rational decision, if one studies media, folklore, etc..)
WTFGhost
@Cathie from Canada: Thank you! That closed the loop for me on how he could promise lessons in something that – wait, it originated (where I looked it up on Wikipedia – Bhengal region of India?), and then, “but how could you promise lessons to 330 million – OH! A *joyspreader*.
Folks who feel hopeless – you really need those. They are where you recharge. If you’re all fearful of getting too het up too early, and wasting your chance, listen: you can drive the car superefficiently, but when the tank is *empty* it’s *empty*.
Gad, I wish I knew a few Bob Marleys as well – you need happiness, and to think that just being happy is *good* because, if you do that, you keep filling your tank, and you’ll get your chances <- plural, not singular.
Hee. I don’t know any, because I don’t exactly recharge, I heal back a bit. Keeping up with joyspreaders, so I have a list available for thems as can recharge from joy hasn’t been a priority.
Maybe that would be a non-open thread akin to whatever that weekend-media thingy is. I sometimes feel silly, because I see people speaking about having courage and not giving up, and when you’re talking *that*, you’re only catching the people for whom depression is set in. The first self-care rule is sharing happiness, because that’s where some real magic happens.
How can you be happy with all this horror in the world? Beats me, but I have three confirmed decades of major depression, and I can *act* happy, and sometimes, even feel *pleasure* – not in the past five or so years, but, “don’t lose hope!” – so, I can’t say how these work, but they are the only things that break the final crust off depression (or depression-like symptoms):
You can fake it and hope, which works as often as anything, but remember to fake your happiness where it matters – family probably evokes happiness more than work, so put your efforts in there, first, to see if you’re ready. Or you can consciously remember what you *are* still happy about, and try to find the happiness with sense memory (this is one of those times where that actually works).
And for heaven’s sake, indulge in some time “wasted” seeking the help of joyspreaders.
Kayla Rudbek
@Starfish (she/her): I saw on Reddit that at West Point, the Society of Women Engineers chapter and the National Society of Black Engineers chapter were disbanded/barred. SWE has been around since the 1950s if I recall correctly, NSBE around since the 1970s.
Kayla Rudbek
@Kay: yeah, I have been considering buying guns, ammo, and gold instead of yarn, although I was advised here that seeds would be better (I now need to find a non-fascist seed company, Ursula Vernon did a whole Twitter thread about this but I’m not sure if she took it down when she migrated to Bluesky).
Kayla Rudbek
@MomSense: yeah, part of my beef with the Catholic Church in general and the Notre Dame community in particular is that their “pro life” bullshit doesn’t apply if you have a genetic disability. Scratch a pro-lifer, find a Nazi eugenicist scumbag when push comes to shove.