I’m getting the sense that town halls are not going well for Republicans. Trump booed today. Duffy booed today. This is good.
— David Waldman (@kagrox.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 9:21 PM
… who are discovering, as my Nana would’ve said, that they’ve made a rod for their own backs.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN0z…
— David Waldman (@kagrox.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:59 AM
Leopards, faces, things of that nature:
Rep. Nick Begich (R-Alaska) told constituents that there was nothing he could do to stop DOGE layoffs affecting people in his state. Says said he found out about budget cuts impacting Alaska "on Twitter" and "had no idea these things were going on" in advance.
popular.info/p/freshman-c…— Catherine Rampell (@crampell.bsky.social) February 23, 2025 at 1:53 PM
As someone who sat through more than one hostile town hall in WI where tea party activists berated my then-boss about Obamacare, and I occasionally feared for my physical safety, I find these video clips so cathartic to watch.
— Melissa Ryan (@melissaryan.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Remember: pro-Trumpers now control the flow of information in America, so their next move will be trying to suppress news of Rep Rich McCormick being booed in GA (Elon already doing it on the other site) and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy being booed in CA.
— Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha1.bsky.social) February 20, 2025 at 11:43 PM
i am finding it extremely satisfying to read all the stories of republican congresscritters trying to bluster through and getting chewed and booed the fuck out
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) February 22, 2025 at 12:54 AM
They’re going to have people following them around, including picketing their homes. They’re not going to evade this.
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) February 22, 2025 at 1:22 AM
never, if they rebel they lose their primaries. they're trapped here until Trump dies or strokes out so bad he can't denounce them via tweet https://t.co/A8OIs3isTk
— Fentanyl Tsar (@canderaid) February 22, 2025
War for Ukraine Day 1,095: Zelenskky Baits His Trap
JaySinWA
No KIngs.
Simple message, impossible to refute.
NotMax
FYI.
For the time being the half week delay on non-HBO/MAX access to John Oliver’s show has been shelved.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@JaySinWA: I was thinking “Sic semper tyrannis”, but yeah, “No Kings” is better.
Joe Falco
The other choice Republican congressmen will make is to make their town halls call-in only and screen the calls like a radio talk show. My former congress critter, Jody Hice, held nothing but telephone town hall meetings so he could avoid having to face any criticism.
YY_Sima Qian
I like the gallows humor shown below:
Michael Bersin
The Night of the Long Knives for state legislative level republicans in Missouri appears to be in progress. Rick Brattin (r) a right wingnut state senator in my district, absolutely not a “moderate” in anyone’s book, is on the receiving end of an attack mail piece by a right wingnut national committee accusing him of being a shill for the Chinese Communist Party. It’s been mailed to rural households in my county.
I have no idea why Rick Brattin (r) has been targeted with the mailing.
It’s obviously designed as a distraction for the coming economic effects of tariffs on agriculture.
The piece was paid for by Protecting America Initiative. Interestingly, the only individual listed on the committee’s web site under “Our Team” is Richard Grenell as a “Senior Advisor”. Yes, that Richard Grenell. Grenell is currently Trump’s (r) nominee (?) for “Presidential Envoy for Special Missions” and interim Executive Director of the Kennedy Center.
“Four legs good, two legs better”
YY_Sima Qian
More Sinologists drawing the parallel between the chaos & disruption sown by DOGE & Mao’s Great Proletarian Culture Revolution:
Eunicecycle
If Sean Duffy has anything to do with the reason I have been stuck in the Charlotte airport overnight, I might be inclined to do more than boo him. Grrr
ETA at least Cinnabon opened at 4:30.
Nukular Biskits
@Joe Falco:
My previous US Rep., Steven Palazzo, did the same thing. He also had a stupid poll that was so biased as to be ridiculous. I exaggerate here (only slightly), but the “poll” questions would be something along the lines of “Should I oppose Marxism?”
The current rep, Mike Ezell, hasn’t started doing phone town halls but also has held only two actual town halls since taking office over a year ago, both of which were in the middle of the day and the most rural parts of the district.
sab
To cheer everybody up (//): my pathetic state’s legislature has decided to vote for a constitutional convention, because apparently Elon Musk is not dismantling democracy fast enough. The Wonderful World of Ohio
ETA : One of the things they want is term limits for Comgress. Because destroying institutional memory for everyone but lobbyists has worked so well in Ohio
ETA: Not a comvention for Ohio’s constitution. We are joinging states who want a convention to destroy our national constitution. They are still furious about the 14th Amendment.
sab
@sab: I really wish the qwerty keyboard had placed the m far from the n.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
Yeah, whatever. All a Constitutional convention does is bypass Congress’ role in amending the Constitution. Anything passed by the Convention would still have to be ratified by the legislatures of 38 states. So really such a convention would just be an opportunity for the participants to let their freak flags fly. Maybe it would start sinking in with normies just how off-the-wall the GOP is nowadays.
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits: The middle-of-business-hours stuff makes me crazy. As someone with a professional-hours job, which means 8 AM – 6PM, plus plenty of meetings before and after…. it is really frustrating to me when electeds don’t accommodate their constituents. As always, with the GOP, that’s the point!
I will note that when Gabby Giffords was shot, she was out in front of a grocery store on a Saturday morning, going to her constituents on their time, not hers. Just part of what makes her a fantastic person.
sab
@Suzanne: Very OT. I mentionned a building in my town and gave you the wrong name. So hard to keep multiple benefactors’ names straight. I meant EJ Thomas hall, which I have always thought is amazing. I said John S Knight building, which I find kind of dull, but that is just me.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Thank you. That calms me down. 38 is a lot of states. Have that many ever agreed on anything?
Suzanne
@sab: LOL, no worries. They get renamed a lot, too, and it’s hard to keep up. Like I said, next time I am out that way, I’ll take a little tour!
Central Planning
I think we need to start calling republicans what they are – cowards. And it needs to be done loudly when ever they say “I didn’t know” or if they cancel townhalls, or move them to phone-in so they can screen them.
They are afraid of people showing up at their houses or berating them in public. Cowards. What do they think has been happening to democrats since Dolt 45?
If they can’t explain their policy or support – cowards.
We probably need to do that for some democrats too.
Ramalama
Anyone else read this post about the soft power of USAID? At Crooked Timber.
Two sweet little anecdotes that made me forget the madness for a couple of minutes, involving Moldovan wine and old hospital beds.
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
Not since 1971, when the 26th Amendment was ratified. It’s the amendment that lowered the voting age to 18.
sab
@Ramalama: My husband is on a news blackout, but he goes to a high school friends klatch twice a week.
The klatch, mostly Democrars, agreed USAID was probabky a waste of money. Husband couldn’t defend because he didn’t know either, since he has been on a news blackout.
Apparently all Democrats are sulking with news blackouts, so we know nothing. Very helpful.
Goodluck US trying to buy rare earth minerals in Africa after we left all those children we had been helping to die from our subsequent neglect.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: Politically a big mistake, but morally you cannot send folks (kids) off to war if they cannot vote. But when they do vote, many of them vote as stupid juveniles. Ralph Nader stupid.
Ralph is himself a con man, just targeting a different group.
The Thin Black Duke
@sab: The United States is going to learn a much-needed and overdue lesson in humility. The unengaged citizenry in America and the yahoos in charge of governmental policy right now genuinely believes that the global community doesn’t have agency.
Suzanne
@sab: Stupid people come in every age cohort. I will note that, in the 2024 election, young people were the most blue-voting age cohort, and that’s been the case pretty much for every election in the modern era.
Gloria DryGarden
@sab: and then there’s the adjacent vowels uio, or iou, When I type that I’m getting my ducks in a row, but don’t see the predictive text wants to put in the vowel i. And send the text…
Suzanne
@The Thin Black Duke: Agree.
It blows my mind that so many people think that the U.S. cannot lose influence due to our dumbassery. Like, my brothers in Christ…. you have seen the British Empire crumble and wane, yes?
It’s of a piece of that toxic optimism I describe…. when people blithely assume that nothing bad will ever happen to them because they are special, so there’s no need to get vaccines, wear a seatbelt, or just in general stop being dumb!
lowtechcyclist
@Ramalama:
Thanks for the link! Some good stories to bring up when some MAGAt tries to tell you why we shouldn’t fund USAID. (ETA:) And just in general, the difference ‘soft power’ can make.
Gloria DryGarden
@lowtechcyclist: At a GOP convention, such as this constitution meeting you mention, do they attack each other and call each other assholes, and make each other wrong? How do they handle it if they disagree with one another?
surely they’re not hypnotized into some homogenous thought process? Or held together under some peer pressure to agree with whatever party line some authoritarian leader insists upon? And who decides the party line?
I can’t imagine..
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist:
Only if Constitutional norms aren’t so eroded already that people generally decide to just ignore the existing amendment process (which is the kind of thing that’s happening now). The original Constitutional Convention didn’t follow the Articles of Confederation’s processes.
What matters isn’t what the Constitution says is legit, it’s what the people pointing guns at you say is legit.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: If I recall correctly, the 18-to-21 cohort voted majority for Nixon in 1972 (along with most other people).
Matt McIrvin
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: As badass as “Sic semper tyrannis” looks on the Virginia flag, John Wilkes Booth kind of ruined it for the rest of us.
raven
@Matt McIrvin: I have a Life magazine where they asked troops what they thought about a bombing halt. They overwhelmingly said “not until I leave”!!!
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne:
It’s true, though that characterization does NOT apply to young white men. (Young people have the lowest percentage of white men, and that explains almost everything about their voting behavior.)
K-Mo
@The Thin Black Duke:
@Suzanne:
Agreed. The lesson in humility will be generations long and entail actually being humbled. I see this in both domestic and foreign spheres.
suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: Yes.
Some of the most staggering statistics I have read in recent years is about a strong correlation between race and age. The modal age for white voters is something like 58, and 75% of the Boomer age cohort is white. Millennials are 50% white, and the percentage for the youngest voters is even smaller than that.
YY_Sima Qian
While every great power should & need to learn humility, I am afraid the prospect of facing up to the reality that the U.S. has already lost its primacy in the world will break a lot of people’s brains, & not just among the MAGA reactionaries. Much of US FP & National Security Strategy from Trump 45 through Biden to Trump 47 are different flavors of trying to hold on to the unipolar moment that has already passed.
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Young idiots. But at least they got a vote. I did too. I worked my heart out for McGovern. Not even my own parents agreed with me. Then everyone impeached their guy a few years later.
Gloria DryGarden
I didn’t understand it had already happened several presidencies ago; I don’t have your depth of understanding from having a foot in two countries, and from grasping the complex economics of international trade.
But on day 1 of trump 2.0, when the research funds were interrupted, and USAID was also stopped, it was crystal clear to me then. Such huge parts of our former soft power. It will be useful for leadership to realize our new lower standing, and make adjustments. I guess I’m saying, how can they not see it?
TBone
I am very busy schooling people on last night’s Jane Fonda thread so I’d like to enjoy this schadenfreude but Jane is every inch a fucking SHERO and deserves every moment of attention she can garner. I will never STFU about Jane Fonda as long as I live.
montanareddog
@Gloria DryGarden: I have often had problems with S and W being adjacent, as in typing Shite House (which may, of course, be a Freudian slit) ;-)
lowtechcyclist
@sab:
And as you undoubtedly remember (IIRC we’re roughly the same age, and I turn 71 next week), that was the context. (Fuck LBJ.)
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: yes, and see my #27 comment…
Mornin
Jay remarked on jane and Vietnam, on the Ukraine thread 8 believe. Very apt comment, if you care to go find it.
I’ll go listen to Jane when I get back up from my nap..
Ohio Mom
@sab: Crap. It’s harder and harder for me to remember that when I moved here, Ohio was purple. We sent Howard Metzenbaum to the Senate!
Term limits for Cincinnati City council has been disastrous. We lost a cadre of very solid, knowledgeable, levelheaded officials and replaced them with constantly rotating group of attention hogs. They provide no push back to the big money boys, who know they only have to wait out whichever Councilmember is in their way to do whatever they want (cater to themselves).
Sigh. I don’t think moving is in the cards for Ohio Family though.
TBone
@raven: thank you for hipping me to the 1972 F.T.A. documentary film last year!!!
Ramalama
@sab: I understood that USAID was doing good things, but only because I had an overall trust of US agencies in general. However, I subcontracted to do a website for an agency with PEPFAR, funded in part by USAID, that dealt with AIDS prevention and treatment mostly on the African continent but also some other underdeveloped countries. The work itself paid well and I liked the people running the show, but my God the detail and forms for every last thing. It drove me mad. Until my uncle (RIP) who ran a world-wide non-profit said that when you have countries torn apart by war and corruption (or both), the people lose trust. When you lose trust, nothing good gets done. You have to rebuild trust one document, one web page, one face to face interaction at a time.
Because I can be a literal moran, he had to tell me this numerous times through the years. A couple times he wanted me just to meet some guys from Nepal and Bangladesh when I was commuting to Montreal (I now live in the mountains north of Montreal). Fine, I said, I’ll meet them for breakfast. Stilted conversations until I just decided to tell stories about whatnot. Because I drove strangers in my car up and back Montreal to Boston all the time, that was something I can do pretty well. And then Uncle told me, because I hadn’t gotten it, that my meeting them in Montreal as a representative of him, was one more brick in building the trust highway (you thought I was going to say ‘wall’ didntcha). A normal person representing the non-profit, took them out for brekkie and had interesting chats. His non-profit was donating content and computers to countries who had a working network of allies and trusted organizations. But really his non-profit was about building trust with strangers.
With Pepfar you had corporations working with GOVERNMENT following strict rules to help people.
So losing peoples’ trust – that’s a long-term thing that gets broken in a wink.
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: good morning my exotically colorful friend of beautiful words.
kalakal
@The Thin Black Duke:
@YY_Sima Qian:
Absolutely. I’ve been here about 12 years and the casual assumption of US superiority still staggers me. Not just amongst the general public, but amongst senior politicians and officials. It’s not unique to the US, there are still idiots in the UK that are delusional, hence Brexit, but it’s far, far stronger here.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian: Well what ever the reality is of the power dynamics, Trump seems to be convinced it’s the year 1946.
M31
my kid got me a greeting card with a picture of Gritty on it and the legend “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”
TBone
Is anyone surprised that there were “technical difficulties” during Jane’s presentation?
https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/jane-fonda-sag-trump-speech-b1212841.html
P.S. if you don’t know about 🔥 Fire Drill Fridays, you should:
https://firedrillfridays.org/about/
Jane moved into an apartment in D.C. specifically to do this, where she was also arrested and wrists zip tied.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: They’re still furious about the 13th amendment.
stinger
@Central Planning:
Yes, “Coward!” And, “You didn’t know? I knew! She knew! He knew! [pointing around the room] What are you doing all day for the $174,000 we pay you?”
Not too many people in the room are likely to make $174,000 a year, plus a staff.
sab
@Ramalama: I really love your metaphor of building bricks in a highway not a wall.
Ramalama
@stinger:
This.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: Actually they are furious about everything but the second.
NotMax
@Enhanced Voting Techniques
Return to sh*tting in his diaper?
//
Professor Bigfoot
@Gloria DryGarden: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it.”
TBone
@M31: I would like to have a photo of that card for appropriate distribution among my comrades for to please.
Ramalama
@sab: Thanks but now? Ha ha well I deserve it – this ear worm (Life is a Highway) just got stuck, from the Office.
TBone
So much to say and do, so little time … Cats require me in person again and it’s not even yet time for Second Breakfast.
YY_Sima Qian
@Gloria DryGarden: I’d say the twin fiascos of the GWOT & the GFC put paid to the US’ unipolar moment. So, the end of US primacy date back to at least 2008.
It was great that Obama sought to be inclusive in the formation of the G20 in the wake of the GFC, but he was also facing up to reality. The G7 had lost both the heft & the credibility to dictate to the ROW. The IMF & the WB had also lost the heft & the credibility, & giving more weight to Global South voices (while the developed West retained veto powers) in these institutions was part of an effort to regain credibility.
But, that still made Obama far more “enlightened” than most of the policymakers in DC. Remember how hard the Biden Administration tried to remake the G7 into a “[democratic] committee to save the world” from authoritarianism, w/ another group of “democracies” attached at the periphery, & the kind of reactionary characters put on pedestals to advance that effort (Abe in Japan, Yoon in SK, Modi in India)? “Liberal” hegemony through & through.
& contrary to vociferous critics such as Van Jackson, Biden/Harris were orders of magnitude better than Trump on FP.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@NotMax: Second childhood.
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: Tru dat.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I think they want to go back further, to 1898. The US primacy that MAGA wants to assert is not that of “Liberal” Hegemony, but that of being the unquestioned top dog in an era of ethno-nationalist multipolarity.
Ramalama
@TBone: I did not know about Fire Drill Fridays! Thank you, lady.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ramalama: Gimme 5 bullet points!
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: I’d go as far as 1859.
BTW– thank you for all your posts and comments; they’ve all been terrifically enlightening.
I worked for a Chinese company for a few years (they bought the little company I worked for) and spent a good bit of time in Qingdao and still miss it. (but dear God did I feel like the biggest fattest MF on the planet when I was there!)
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: exotic, colorful, hmm
I was trying for sharpness. Oh well.
not sharp enough? or too indirect? Too bitchy? ( oh for heavens sake!)
Or it’s all just too shocking to find words …
K-Mo
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I recommend this conversation in the FTFNYT between Begbug Brett and Masha Gessen. Gessen notes that Putin wants to redo the postwar divvying and Trump is the perfect foil.
gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/21/opinion/trump-putin-ukraine.html?unlocked_article_code=1.zU4.s-pp._HjW9Y05EwvA&smid=url-share
NotMax
@Professor Bigfoot
At the latest 1849.
California became a state in 1850.
//
The Thin Black Duke
@YY_Sima Qian: Neanderthal thugs like Pete Hegseth are nostalgic for the “good old days” when the United States was the Big Dick of the global community. The Vietnam war broke a lot of Republican’s brains, so they’re desperate to start another conflict overseas that we can “win” this time.
Glory b
@Suzanne: True, their problem is that, historically, since numbers have been calculated, young people don’t vote as much.
Interesting, though, that Republicans did significantly better with them due to young men voting more Republican.
And the age cohort coming closest was 65+.
YY_Sima Qian
@Professor Bigfoot: Huh, I did not know that you had spent time in China!
If you gained weight while living in Qingdao, the beer (& not the seafood) must have been to blame.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: I googled Qindao to find out where it was exactly. Misspelled it (added a u after the q) and got a Brazilian custard instead of a Chinese city.
China is so full of multimillion population cities.
sab
@The Thin Black Duke: We already tried that in Gulf Wars one and two.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian: Assuredly not that dreadful liberal Theodor Roosevelt? 1898 doesn’t work because the British Empire was still the big cheese so the US could get away with being cheep on it’s military and ignoring the rest of the world.
But 1946 was when the rest of the world was in ruins and every year since the rest of the world has been catching up. Trump comes across as he thinks the US so far advanced beyond everyone that he can sit in White House and bully other countries as he wants.
YY_Sima Qian
@The Thin Black Duke: I would have thought the 1st Gulf War should have cured their “Vietnam War Syndrome”.
Great powers share a similar psychosis, but the US is rather pernicious because of the by far the strongest proselytizing impulse in the Western Civilization. Then again, each great power is pernicious in its own way, its psychosis propelled by some cultural/historical hang up or another.
YY_Sima Qian
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Good point, so they want the power distribution of 1946, but the world system of 1898, & the domestic socio-political organization of 1859, all the while fantasizing that they are the 1776 reincarnate.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Then you don’t know the American Right. Plus, now they have to compensate for the Iraq and Afghanistan, because those were never dumb ideas in the first place.
Professor Bigfoot
@NotMax: “WE HAVE A WINNAH!” ;)
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@YY_Sima Qian: and too bad for them time dozen’t go backwards.
The other reality they run into is, if the US doesn’t do the heavy lifting when something gets out of hand, when who? Putin got the Soviet Navy in his back pocket? China interest in messing around solving other countries problems can be summed with with, they support both sides in the Myanmar civil war, and that is on their border. The new reality it has to be an alliance, led by the US, and Trump doing his best to screw that up, so now what?
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: Oh no, I was a fat SOB before my first visit there, but OH MY GOD THE FOOD— there was a restaurant really close to the (old?!) airport that was FANTASTIC… one of those where you literally choose the live seafood to be cooked up and brought to your table… Oh, lawdhammercy it was fantastic!
Then of course there’s the brewery— I’ve always been a “beer and popcorn” guy, but the popcorn was *salted and buttered.*
They had a popcorn machine, I got a bucket, sat down, took a sip of beer and handful of popcorn and “HEY! THEY PUT SUGAR ON THIS!!”
I wouldn’t quite kill for some genuine Shandong dumplings, but… ;)
TBone
The neglected by necessity house cleaning phase of cat recovery has begun.
Does anyone here have any experience weaning a cat OFF of tube feeding? The slow diminishment of food volume is not helping – Noah simply refuses to voluntarily eat ANYTHING except liquids now. Aaaarrrggh three days of snubbing hurts. He fucking tried to EAT GRASS yesterday despite my admonishments and forbidding him from his vegetarianism!
TBone
@Ramalama: yours in service!
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: a serenade especially for you & me today but also for G.P. (general purposes):
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=aevfzuFAD7w
(We are ALL Janes today!)
NotMax
@TBone
Stand at the counter, pretending to prepare something and “accidentally” drop morsels on the floor?
“Oh my, I’m such a butterfingers today.”
;)
Professor Bigfoot
@sab: Oh man, I remember flying into Shanghai and it was like we flew over the city for miles and miles and miles before we were on final. And Beijing!
One of my great regrets is that I never saw the Forbidden City while I was there.
ETA likewise for all the MANY times I visited India, I never went to see the Taj Majal.
But let me tell you— THE FOOD, oh lordt, the food in both countries… if I hadn’t been a fat SOB before I landed there, I woulda been by the time I left! LOL
TBone
@NotMax: have tried that nonchalance and also, in my desperation, booping him in the nose “by accident” with a food covered finger BOOP so he has to lick it off.
He is smarter than the average bear when he’s pussed off
Once when he & his sister were left at home in the care of a friend while I went to cabin weekend, when I got home I took a nap on beautiful new sofa. I woke up with a carefully placed cat turd next to my face. Never left them home alone again hahaha!
Professor Bigfoot
@NotMax: ah, so I’m not the only one with those kinds of “butter fingers.”
By the way for anyone interested— one of our Yorkies, Cooper, developed severe ataxia last Thursday— became really bad on Friday, so we took him to the vet.
Vet said it could be a stroke but to be sure we’d need an MRI— but “let’s try these two meds for a few days and see what happens.:”
Well, the little shit is at about 95% full functionality now. That dog has a one-track mind; if there’s a ball nearby, he will bring it to you to be thrown… and will continue for as long as you’re willing to throw it for him.
He would just look at it Saturday… but this morning, he brought it to me and demanded a throw.
It’s a very good day so far, y’all.
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot:
Fuckin’ A!
p.a.
I guess I’ll come across as ever$0re, but the Republican Party has been taken over by fundy crackpots who will never admit to or even understand a mistake. I don’t think the Big Money Boyz have a shot at regaining control (or want to as long as collapse can be avoided and they can siphon off what they can.). It will take a collapse. The only question is the degree of collapse necessary before the American electorate gets its head out its ass. And if/when that happens will there be a Rethug Party left.
I used to tell my bible-thumper relatives (a few fundies, most CathoFascists) who happened to be social drinkers that once they got rid of me and the Shining City on a Hill didn’t appear (because of course not) relifundies would turn on each other, and that alcohol would be as good an excuse as any other to be attacked. “And if there’s one more tea-totaler than there is you people, you’ll be on the bonfire next.”
TBone
My next unorthodox move in the weaning effort will include BACON GREASE. We are having Luxury Eggs (leftover spinach & asparagus) omelet with parm and BACON for supper.
p.a.
My comment, #90, in moderation. Possibly because I mentioned a banned commenter? I edited to muck up the name, still in mod.
sab
@Professor Bigfoot: My sister’s inlaws are all amazing cooks.
Her MIL moved here and watched US cooking shows while not knowing more than a few words of English. She came up with some delicious variants of American looking foods that tasted Chinese. The soy sauce based stew, for example.
Geminid
From Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu:
Soylu posted a,picture of the two men sitting in armchairs with a table in between. Fidan’s chair is advanced, and turned more towards the camera than is Lavrov’s. (I’ve gotten into subtle optics of these set-piece photo ops. The Turks have too).
Ukraine’s President Zelensky visited Turkish President Erdogan in Ankara six days ago. Ragip Soyle has a couple good articles about this in Middle East Eye.
Afterwards, they appeared before appearance and Erdogan said Turkiye would play a role in prospective negotiations over Russia’s war against Ukraine. The two men seem to have an understanding on this question but I’m not certain what it is, or if that is in fact the case.
Lavrov and Fidan will have a joint appearance of their own today. I’ll be interested in what Erdogan’s trusted Foreign Minister has to say about this.
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
You don’t need a Constitutional convention for that.
But I think doing it via the convention route might be the push that got blue states to secede.
Since you mention the 1787 Constitutional convention, you will recall that they were in effect forming a new nation. But they still didn’t regard themselves as having done so until at least nine of the 13 former colonies ratified the new Constitution.
If a Constitutional convention declared that its amendments, or new Constitution, or whatever, were already in effect and didn’t need states to vote on it, they too would be declaring a new Constitutional republic, which would create a put-up-or-shut-up moment for each state: did they want to be part of this new republic, or not? As long as Trump’s America isn’t forcing states to a decision point, secession is unlikely. But if it does, that changes the dynamic.
Gloria DryGarden
@YY_Sima Qian: that broke my brain. I will try. The national mindset boggles the mind.
Just the sheer desire for legalized racism, I just don’t get it. Or all the weird ticks of misogyny.
bluefoot
On the flipside of this, my Democratic Congressperson has been great. I am on her mailing list, so I’ve been getting email updates about what she’s been doing to oppose all the crap going on – the work she and others are doing with the state AG to file lawsuits against DOGE actions, etc. The emails often also contain a question that you can vote yes/no on, so I assume her staff is keeping track of what her constituents are thinking. I posted here that she had a zoom town hall meeting a couple weekends ago with a LOT of Q&A. She even handled one woman, who was obviously in a FoxNews bubble, with politeness and grace, and tried to address the questioner’s concerns despite a good chunk of it not being connected to reality.
It gives me hope.
TBone
@Geminid: thank you for your eyes and keeping us informed!
Gloria DryGarden
@TBone: thought he had been eating on his own some..
YY_Sima Qian
@Professor Bigfoot: Shandong dumplings, now you are making me hungry in this late hour for me.
Fortunate, one can get Shandong dumplings (& cuisines from every part of China) in every part of China now, but the ones in Shandong remain a cut above those found elsewhere.
lowtechcyclist
@montanareddog:
There was a regular at my old Internet hangout who went by that nym. :-)
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Türkiye is the one country that has a bit of credibility & pull w/ both sides, & sure to be one of the guarantors of any peace “settlement”. The PRC & possibly India will have to be involved to help ensure Putin stays to the terms.
However, there is no one that Putin will not betray to realize his revanchist fantasy, because if he can make it real then Russia will no longer be at such disadvantage vis-a-vis the PRC (& to a lesser extent India).
lowtechcyclist
@The Thin Black Duke:
Somebody surely beat me to this, but that worked so well in 2003.
Geminid
@TBone: The personal difference between the two Foreign Ministers was striking. Fidan is a physically imposing, vigorous 56 year-old, while Lavrov is a very worn out-looking 74 year-old
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I think Fidan and his boss Erdogan have no illusions about their frenemy accoss the Black Sea.
I was interested to see that Lavrov’s next visit will be to Tehran, where he’ll discuss various matters with Turkiye’s other frenemy.
satby
@YY_Sima Qian: perfect encapsulation of their thinking. Except most of them don’t know history.
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: aww, yay for Cooper!
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Lavrov has said that Putin will attend the PRC’s celebration (probably including a military parade) on the anniversary of the defeat of Imperial Japan in China (mid-Aug.).
Professor Bigfoot
@p.a.: I have always thought that they invited Southern conservatives into their party after CRA64 (see Goldwater, Barry) and those Confederates now own that party entirely.
Confederates would absolutely take money from Russia to reconstruct Jim Crow— or the Enslavement, if they could take it that far.
And look where we are today, with The Great Resegregation.
TBone
@Gloria DryGarden: HE WAS then abruptly stopped when I decreased tube foid volume as instructed by vet!
TBone
@Geminid: he can’t “wear out” fast enough for me.
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian:
Great Maker, but this is SO spot on it’s giving me goosebumps.
I intend to copy this everywhere:
YY_Sima Qian
@Professor Bigfoot: I am rather proud of it. :-)
Go nuts w/ it.
Kristine
@Professor Bigfoot: glad your pupper recovered. It’s scary when you watch them go downhill and you wish they could talk for just a few minutes and tell you what’s wrong.
Ramalama
@Dorothy A. Winsor: A Drill Sergeant says: “Get down and give me 5 bullet points, you fat f*ck!”
Professor Bigfoot
@Kristine: Facts, and thank you… I’m very cautiously optimistic; like I said, he’s not quote 100%… but WAY closer to it than he was two days ago.
The big girl (our Cane Corso rescue, “Sweetie”) tore an ACL 3 weeks ago; and following Dr. Dan’s suggestion she’s been getting a daily med– pred-something– and she is bit by bit putting more weight on that leg, so…
Oh, and let me sing the praises of our vet- it’s a family affair, Mrs. B had been going to the senior, Dr. Dave, for the last four decades; now his son, Dr. Dan, and HIS wife, Dr. Dana, plus a few more– are just wonderful.
There are vets you can tell they’re really into it for the money; and there are vets who genuinely care about their furry patients and we’ve found the latter. Heh, I’ll brag about ’em to anyone who’ll stand still long enough to listen!
TBone
@Professor Bigfoot: I am stuck with a mixture of both types at the only local enough vet hospital, and the good ‘uns are sorely outnumbered. Dogs rule this mans’ red county. Cats are like an afterthought.