There were a lot of hilarious signs at today’s Philly protest (because Philly has A+ protest sign game), but this was my favorite from an “I want that as a tattoo” perspective.
— Leonore (Lee) Carpenter (@leecarpenter.bsky.social) February 17, 2025 at 8:39 PM
“Trump has spent more personal time trying to negotiate a truce to professional golf’s civil war — including a three-hour meeting in the Oval Office on Thursday that included Tiger Woods — than he has dedicated to trying to hammer out a deal to keep the government funded.” (Paul Kane is good).
[image or embed]— Jonathan Bernstein (@jonathanbernstein.bsky.social) February 23, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Per the Washington Post, “Trump, schmoozing Saudis, plays two roles: President and mogul” [gift link]
In back-to-back events last week, President Donald Trump held court with Saudi government officials and investors who do business with his family’s firms.
On Wednesday, he made a special trip to Miami to appear at a beachfront conference hosted by Saudi Arabia’s sovereign wealth fund, which has invested $2 billion in a business run by the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and is the main backer of LIV Golf, the upstart golf league that has held five tournaments at Trump’s courses since it launched in 2022, with a sixth scheduled for April at Trump National Doral in Miami. Trump has not disclosed his profits from the events. Kushner, Trump’s “first buddy” Elon Musk and other family business associates of Trump and his Middle East envoy, real estate developer Steve Witkoff, also attended.
Less than 24 hours later, Trump hosted Yasir al-Rumayyan — who runs the Saudi fund and oversees LIV Golf — for a meeting at the White House. On the agenda: a potential reunification of the golf world.
The meetings demonstrated how Trump has blended the roles of president and business mogul. But “it’s hard to see how any of those meetings have anything to do with our interests as American taxpayers,” said Don Fox, former general counsel for the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
If Trump could help engineer a PGA-LIV deal, he might be seen as a hero to the sport of golf — and more business in turn would flow to his properties, golf experts say.
While it’s not clear how much revenue any single tournament generates for Trump’s golf properties, courses that stage professional tournaments often see profits of six figures or more for higher-profile events — along with the associated fame, prestige and increased demand for tee times year-round….
Trump’s involvement in the potential LIV-PGA deal is “disturbing” because “he has been collecting millions of dollars from LIV Golf at various of his golf properties” and is essentially the Saudi league’s “business partner,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), who probed the Trump family’s business ties to foreign powers while serving as the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.
“One doesn’t know if he is acting as president of the United States or simply as a businessman, in trying to promote this merger,” Raskin said.
The White House referred The Washington Post to the Trump Organization, which is run by Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump, for comment about steps the president is taking to minimize conflicts in these matters. The Trump Organization and Witkoff’s company did not respond to requests for comment. The Saudi government and the Saudi Public Investment Fund declined interview requests. Kushner declined an interview request…
'Anxiety is showing up in the markets.' Wall Street getting antsy about Trump's economy. 👀👀🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 pic.twitter.com/m4CQmIK3nW
— ✙ Dymtrus WhatSpecialOperationDoing? ✙ (@eightynines) February 25, 2025
Even the Very Serious NYTimes… “Wall Street Is Getting Antsy With Trump”: [gift link]
President Trump’s keynote this week at a Saudi sovereign wealth fund’s conference in Miami Beach might have seemed like another jubilant pep rally attended by adoring fans and key lieutenants.
Elon Musk sat in the front under a vast rotunda, not far from the real estate billionaire Steve Witkoff, now a White House special envoy to the Middle East, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. All received shout-outs from Mr. Trump, and frequently laughed at the president’s early jokes during his 90-minute talk.
But in the venue’s packed lobby, which had been repurposed as an overflow room with television screens set up for roughly 150 finance types, the mood was a bit antsy…
These portfolio managers and financial consultants, many in dark suits, had waited for about three hours to secure a coveted seat in the Faena Forum, a pearly white hotel and conference center co-owned by a major Trump donor.
That this crowd waited just to see Mr. Trump on a closed-circuit screen on Wednesday was an indication of their collective enthusiasm for, or at least acute interest in, what Mr. Trump would say in his first second-term, in-person address to the international business set, a group that had high hopes for his return to office.
They applauded at first, as Mr. Trump declared what many longed to hear: that the “United States is back and open for business,” that he was ending burdensome regulations and that a golden era for cryptocurrencies had begun.
But rather than continue to address economic issues as many in attendance had expected, Mr. Trump devoted most of his remarks to recapping his electoral win, criticizing the president of Ukraine and reading off a list of supposed savings from the Department of Government Efficiency, some of which were earlier debunked. He also briefly mentioned tariffs and deregulation, only the latter of which received applause.
Within 20 minutes, the overflow room was talking over the president, and those present were asking if it was rude to leave. Plenty did; by the time Mr. Trump had finished, the room was half empty. Those who stuck around were treated to the view of Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary during Mr. Trump’s first term, making a silent beeline from the main auditorium as soon the president wrapped up his remarks. (A spokesman for Mr. Mnuchin said he had been due at a previously scheduled meeting.)
The Miami area should have been a fitting setting for Mr. Trump to reintroduce himself to the world of finance. Miami has tried to remake itself as the Wall Street of the south, a haven for crypto firms and hedge funds, with lower taxes and nicer weather.
Yet the city’s most prominent financial name, Kenneth Griffin, skipped Mr. Trump’s speech…
There were warmer feelings a few feet from the Faena pool, where Alex Konanykhin, head of the cryptocurrency firm Unicoin, lounged with his custom blazer hanging off a chair.
Mr. Konanykhin recently returned to the United States after spending a few years in self-described “business exile in Switzerland,” as the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated Unicoin for fraud.
Mr. Konanykhin said he was relieved because of his belief that his company’s crypto actions were not dissimilar to the Trump family’s $Trump coin…
Hey, we’re all grifters together, aren’t we?…
It’s fine to admit the libs were right about him and Russia. It’s a new day, we should all work together. https://t.co/E0PoWgeFv1
— Egg Price Sufferer (@agraybee) February 26, 2025
Baud
Sunk costs, man. They’re a killer.
clay
It’s only been happening in the last couple of days, but I can no longer see embedded Blue Sky posts on my phone. (I can see the text of the post, but no images or formatting.)
Is this a me-thing, or are others experiencing this?
Leto
Just in case you needed to hear Rep Jasmine Crockett tell Elmo to “Fuck off,” here you go. Volume icon bottom right.
Shakti
No matter how much I learn, I can never stop thinking of the stock markets as mood rings for people with money that people take seriously because they quantify it.
Dude, ranting: The WSJ was biased against Musk because analysts kept reporting Tesla stock was going to drop.
Disclosure: I am an adult with a mutual fund.
Leto
@clay: might be a you thing, but what phone system are you using? Has it updated recently? Might want to send WaterGirl a quick message about it as she handles most of those issues.
CCL
Open Thread?
Under the heading of write your congress critters about:
The SAV act HR 22 – restrictions on voting rights of all Americans… Introduced in the 2025 congress by Chip Roy and identified for fast tracking. (I believe it also passed the house in 2024, but died before being taken up by the Senate). The bill stipulates that voter registration must be in person with Birth Certificate and Passport. Even military IDs and Real IDs would not be sufficient for voter registration under this bill. Married women who took their husbands’ names would conceivably have insufficient documentation. If folks can’t register, they can’t vote the bums out.
Note that these write ups don’t even discuss the proposed criminal penalties for election workers who process registrations.
Brennan Center write up
The tracking information:
SAV – House bill 22
And here’s an explainer:
Nonprofitvote.org
NotMax
Yup, much to bewail going down but that’s no reason to ignore nice stuff out there.
Blog has been short of cute of late. So something to tickle your fancy.
Dman
Not sure if anyone has seen this, but my father sent it this morning.
Posted on the dirt bags social media account.
(the link is not to his account)
DISGUSTING
https://x.com/BeckettUnite/status/1894677568105685011
The Thin Black Duke
@NotMax: Posted on SF writer David Gerrold’s FB page: The Clothes Have No Emperor.
The Thin Black Duke
@Dman: None of the assholes who didn’t vote for Harris because of Biden’s Gaza policy still haven’t given a logical reason why they thought Donald Trump was a viable alternative.
Professor Bigfoot
@Dman: Absolutely monstrous. I’ve been sitting here trying to come up with something and man, I got nothin’.
Baud
Something to lift your spirits.
WereBear
I love that and it is embedded in my mind because it’s all a bus trip to Atlantic City… for THEM.
The US had regular panics until Glass-Steagal, now gone… and here we go. People kept moving west because they kept losing everything and got lured by the prospect of a new start.
So… no one did anything about it…
Ramalama
Have you guys seen this website – The Republican Ripoff – that breaks down (on a cellular level?) on a congressional district level dollar amounts and names of specific programs that you are being denied, thanks to Republicans.
Might be too glum to look, but it also might be helpful to arm yourselves with specifics when talking to clueless family or friends.
A Ghost to Most
No gawds. No tyrants. No cults.
schrodingers_cat
@The Thin Black Duke: They consider themselves white/and or superior to other non-white people and LGBTQ people as much as MAGA?
ETA This is what drives many of the 30% Indian Americans who vote R into MAGA arms, see Vivek Ramaswamy.
Soprano2
@Dman: Oh God that’s gross.
WereBear
@Baud: If it’s imaginary money it does disappear quick.
How much has Elon Musk been a game the elites played on us? A lot of their moves sounds like bar bets more than sober weighting of economic factors.
Belafon
@CCL: If that gets even close to passing, I will pay for my wife to legally change her name back to her maiden name. And which side will more likely have women that won’t take on their spouses name?
Belafon
@Baud: *MORE! MEME
Bex
@Dman: And I thought that his rambling on about going to Ft. Knox with Elmo to “make sure the gold is still there” while Macron laughed at him was bad.
Bex
@Dman: And I thought that his rambling on about going to Ft. Knox with Elmo to “make sure the gold is still there” while Macron laughed at him was bad.
Jeffro
trumpov is…(and it’s his worst fear, since he ALWAYS has to be the center of attention)….booooooooooring
his schtick is tired and booooooooooring
WereBear
@schrodingers_cat: Supporting my theory of that Republican religion is now worship of money, the natural end point of Prosperity Gospel.
Jeffro
@Leto: might make that my new ringtone ;)
Jeffro
@Dman: that’s horrendous and my fervent hope is that President Musk and his little orange side piece pay dearly for it.
WereBear
@Jeffro: I think it’s the double digit years The Apprentice was on.
Reality shows really did blur the lines for some people. And, sadly, they seem to be not-nice people, just like their idol.
TBone
That’s mah gurl in Philly! Attytood level: GENIUS
Now will
followread Professor Leonore on Bluesky, thanks again!comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
25% drop in stock price since the beginning of the year. I’ve linked before to pieces on the drop in sales and how it’s tough to get a metric of that and Edolph’s behavior.
But stock prices are another thing entirely. Sure, it’s tough to pin a metric on that but given how emotions and mood swings can have significant impact on a company’s stock price, I think that’s where we’re seeing the impact.
OTOH, this has happened before. In Nov/Dec 23, Tesla stock price dropped almost 25%.
We’ll have a better perspective on Tesla car sales vis a vis other carmakers with an EV line, once the quarter is over and GM releases it’s data.
If I sound like I’m defending Tesla, I’m not. Anything that screws Edolph Is. A. Good. Thing. I simply want to keep this in perspective from an EV industry standpoint.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Right. Too soon to know how this will shake out.
Belafon
@WereBear: One of the questions I have is who would be the richest person in the world, and in the US, if the markets were to collapse? Probably the Saudi prince for the world, but I don’t know about here.
Trivia Man
@clay: iphone here, i see text and image both
karen gail
Trump didn’t want the “job” of being President he wanted the title and the adulation that came from campaigning; which is why he is floating another term. He wants that ego boost, that worship, that adulation; he craves it, it is one of his drugs of choice. He got hooked on that drug with WWE and “the apprentice” made it worse.
That he is allowing Musk to run amuck shows the world he has no power, no control, and worse doesn’t give a damn about the US. It should be a warning to the world that he will sell out any deal, he will sell or share any top-secret information if it gets him the attention he craves from dictators.
Caught an article about GOP is focusing on getting women out of power; an opinion piece was also written that GOP is going to not only take women out of power but work to make sure they can no longer run and win any public office.
schrodingers_cat
@WereBear: Money is just the means to an end. And the end is pre-Civil war era.
Elizabelle
Today’s bird is perfect. I identify w that ticked off little creature.
TBone
Gramps (Edson Strange) always told us with a wink that we are related to Curtis Strange, especially at the Aronimink Golf Club where he gave his grandkids golfing lessons & other wisdom. I am forced to take a musical breather while I stir my cauldron.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-Wtj59opWKg
I am making a pilgrimage to the Strange Driving Range located in Tioga County to practice my swing today.
We also used the tennis courts at Aronimink but my small at the time upper body strength made me not like it. Today, I have a vicious serve.
Gramps also took me to see the 76ers to be sure I could watch this guy and the team.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Cheeks
Gramps had game.
NotMax
Taking advantage of Open Thread, a media note.
Both Star Trek II: the Wrath of Khan and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home are available sans ads on Kanopy for the time being.
Trivia Man
@Ramalama: awesome tool, thanks
oldgold
Last night’s posting of the video “Trump Gaza” by the Short-Fingered Vulgarian may have plumbed new depths of narcissistic indecency.
gene108
@The Thin Black Duke:
Trump and his campaign put a lot of effort to courting the Muslim vote in Michigan. Trump personally met with Muslim mayors. His campaign had people close to him do Q & A sessions with the broader community.
I get how an extremely angry and frustrated group of people getting no answer or seeing any signs of change from Democrats would take a risk with Trump over Gaza.
The rest of the “genocide Joe” folks telling people not to vote are dumb as fuck. They were derided as being antisemites by Republicans for questioning Israel’s actions. Republicans wanted them arrested. I don’t see what they hoped would happen if Republicans won in 2024.
Ohio Mom
@Belafon: Probably more practical to make sure you and your wife have updated/current passports. Because changing names adds another a layer of documentation and something else that can be questioned and challenged.
I’m imagining the run on the passport office, the health department office that issues copies of birth certificates, the government office that issues copies of marriage licenses and divorce decrees, etc. They will be buried under requests, even if only a fraction of voters take action to document their citizenship.
bluefoot
The bird in today’s photo is my current spirit animal.
Shalimar
The sad thing is that looking at it that way Trump is one of dozens of their business partners. That amount of money is pocket change to the Saudis, while they are a huge source of income for Trump’s properties. Our “leader” is a chew toy to other nations.
The Thin Black Duke
But what black Americans don’t “get” is seeing Muslims throwing us under the bus for an openly racist presidential candidate who has demonized Muslims in the past.
trollhattan
In which perhaps the worst corporation in perhaps the planet’s most dangerous industry, is heard from. Spoiler: not good.
The pursuit of “cash flow growth” will hasten our end. Yay.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@karen gail: Also, Trump wanted a get-out-of-jail-free card
TBone
@bluefoot: thanks for that redirect cross!
YY_Sima Qian
@Dman: AI generated w/ low effort, no less.
This might cheer you up.
TBone
@Dorothy A. Winsor: he pulls one out of his ass any time, disregards the whiff.
Ohio Mom
@The Thin Black Duke: I don’t get it either. Maybe there was some sexism in play?
Whatever, I can only shake my head at people who can’t understand their own self interest. I am disgusted and fed up with both Israel and the Palestinian people.
TBone
@Ramalama: I can see that devoting precious time here is never wasted time. Again.
schrodingers_cat
@Ohio Mom: Yes that too. Also KH ran a great campaign but 100 days was not enough to reach all the persuadables.
TBone
@clay: I lost the ability to read our Rotating Tags months ago, never to return except in a tantalizing flash.
Redshift
@gene108:
They sure “sent a message” by withholding their votes. And as many of us told them, whatever they intended, the message was “we are unreliable voters who no candidate should try to court.”
YY_Sima Qian
@The Thin Black Duke: If the Dems had a party platform of cutting Medicare & Social Security by 30%, while the Repubs proposed cutting them by 90%, I imagine that would greatly depress the turnout of older Dems, even though the rational thing to do would be to still vote for the Dems.
Belafon
@The Thin Black Duke:
And that’s the thing for me. Trump is a known quantity. We knew exactly what he was going to do. We also know that meetings with Trump or his team amount to nothing. He extracts what he wants and then stiffs you every time.
Professor Bigfoot
@CCL: “We will disembowel the 19th amendment one way or another!” — Chip Roy, probably.
Fucker.
Phylllis
@Belafon: Aren’t there a lot of couples these days who have hyphenated their names? So the men and the women would have name changes. I guess the thinking is that any man who would do that is too woke to vote anyway.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
If you just look at platforms, however, our platform on Gaza was fine. These voters nonetheless punished Harris for Biden’s actions, even though she was never a central player.
Obviously, anything can depress voters whether we think it’s rational or not. If Dems proposed Medicare for All, that could depress voters freightened about government takeover of health care.
Regardless, we’re out of power now so it’s out of our hands.
Redshift
@trollhattan:
Meh. I never believed oil companies’ “transition” to renewables was anything more than PR. Fossil fuels (which Google tried to autocorrect to “fusion girls” 🙂) are, I believe, the most profitable industry in the world, so their profits are going to crash in the transition regardless. And even if they brand themselves “energy companies,” there’s nothing about them that makes them particularly suited to it.
Redshift
@Phylllis: Yep, I’m one of them. Yay, I have a personal story to tell when I call my reps!…
The Thin Black Duke
@Belafon: The Muslim community in America forgot that racism is a blade that doesn’t discriminate who it’s cutting, especially when it’s a white man using it. Dark meat is always on the menu.
New Deal democrat
@Ohio Mom
@YY_Sima Qian:
Imagine two hypothetical candidates.
Candidate 1: “I will let your enemy kill all of your relatives, friends, and ethnic group, and with great glee!”
Candidate 2: “I will let your enemy kill all of your relatives, friends, and ethnic group, but with great consternation, resignation, and sorrow.”
Which candidate would you vote for?
catclub
Remember how quaint it was in 2017 when he pretended to put his holdings in a blind trust ( administered by his son)?
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
So you think Harris campaigned on that?
If that’s what we think, we deserve a Trump win.
catclub
My guess is that over the past 90 years or so it is Philip Morris cigarettes.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: You may be surprised at how common this perspective is toward the 2 major parties in the US among people in the developing world, & those who emigrated from developing world countries to the US, based on their lived experiences.
Redshift
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’ve read plenty of opinions that the reason for Tesla’s insanely high valuation was mostly Elon’s reputation, and he’s busy torching that. (When institutional investors voted to save his insane pay package after the judge voided it, I suspected that reasoning might be behind it.)
I had a little bit of Tesla stock I bought years ago. I sold it at the beginning of last week. Feeling pretty good about that, for multiple reasons.
CCL
@Belafon: Thank you! Already, to even get a real ID, a married woman has to show her marriage certificate as well as her birth certificate in order to establish her identity. And if I understand the proposed bill correctly, even a Real ID is not enough to register to vote.
It is so important to stand up against this bill… it completely undercuts one of the few tools we have left to keep our democracy. Action item: Contact your representatives!
Can’t vote ’em out if you can’t vote.
The Thin Black Duke
@New Deal democrat: Ridiculous.
catclub
While pretending they did not see Bibi Netanyahu campaigning FOR Trump and against Biden/Harris.
Idiots, intentionally blind.
schrodingers_cat
@The Thin Black Duke: The Indian American enablers in the Orange Error’s cabinet will be the first to be sacrificed when the tide turns against this administration. It will be well deserved.
You can take this to the bank.
In 2008 during the Great Recession two men who went to jail were a SriLankan American and an Indian American. (Rajaratnam and Gupta). Coincidence? I think not.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
Lots of beliefs are common. And no one is perfection. The question is whether we the base of the party are going to work through the party to make things better or are we going to tell people it’s ok to allow fascists to govern until we reach some level of good enough.
I believe in us. I don’t think cynicism leads anywhere good.
catclub
My guess is that well below 40% of US citizens hold a passport. And the State Department is fairly slow in processing them.
This may be feature not bug for that bill.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: The cold hard choice is still Candidate 2, because Candidate 1 will also go after myself & my immediate family in the US while Candidate 2 will not.
However, a lot of people will vote for neither. To not recognize that was political malpractice. It would not have been so hard for people to empathize w/ if the issue was something that directly impacted them. That’s why I chose cuts to Medicare & SS in the thought experiment, given the demographics skew of the community here.
Badpenny
Maybe Trump thinks if he brokers a LIV/PGA peace deal between he’ll win the Nobel Prize.
catclub
There was a while that it looked like Tesla was the ONLY electric car company and that electric cars are THE FUTURE. At that time Tesla was valued about as high as all the other car companies combined.
Which is crazy considering total profits and total sales.
If any of the big makers (GM, VW, Toyota, who else?) get good at electric vehicles Tesla is done. There is also Chinese maker BVD.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Just rewatched The Sting.
Chief Oshkosh
@CCL: Just contacted my Representative. Thanks for the heads up.
catclub
@catclub: I checked. It is interesting:
As of October 2024, 51% of US citizens have a passport, according to USA Today. This is a record high.
Factors that affect passport ownership:
Leto
@YY_Sima Qian:
A lot of white people don’t understand that. For the people getting bombs dropped on their heads, D&R look exactly the same because the end result is the same. They point to the bombs and go: America.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: There are well founded reasons for these common beliefs. The Dem Party & the anti-Fascist coalition have to do better on these kinds of issues.
I’ve always maintained that Arab-/Muslim Americans voting for Trump or not vote were engaging in extraordinary self-harm. However, human beings are not calculators tallying up the ledgers of self-interest, we are often driven by emotions, & the political strategy has to account for the human condition.
In the other threads we’ve talked about acknowledging & internalizing the pernicious & pervasive effects of white supremacy & patriarchy. Well, we also need to acknowledge & internalize the pernicious & pervasive effects of US hegemony & militarism (carried out by the US or enabled), & not dismiss the lived experiences of those who have loved ones directly at risk.
No, being an oppressed minority in the US is not the same experience as being on receiving end of US hegemony (be it militarist or economic domination/exploitation). They are similar enough that it ought to be easy to make common cause, but that still requires effort & empathy going both ways.
catclub
haha Feature not bug!
New Deal democrat
@Baud:
What YY Sima Qian said.
I don’t think Harris campaigned on that, but undoubtedly many Palestinian Americans viewed my hypothetical as pretty close to Biden’s actual policy.
YY_Sima Qian
@catclub: Neither BYD nor any other Chinese marque is coming to the US market any time soon. Not w/ the 100% tariff & the ban on Chinese sourced software implemented by the Biden Administration, & the inevitable hysteria & moral panic whipped by politicians (& not just the Repubs) should they try. Too bad for the US consumers, stuck between Tesla & ICEs.
Ironically, Trump had indicated a willingness to allow Chinese carmakers to enter the US market, on the condition of investing in local manufacturing, establish JVs & transfer tech. & there have been reports of Trump wanting to strike a “grand trade deal” w/ Xi.
The Thin Black Duke
I dunno. If a black or brown people has an unfortunate encounter with the wrong cop, it won’t matter if they follow the teachings of Jesus or Allah.
And maybe White America isn’t dropping bombs on black neighborhoods yet, but what happened at Black Wall Street wasn’t that long ago.
catclub
@Badpenny: Maybe? Almost certainly.
catclub
True, but their sales in China and elsewhere can affect Tesla sales. Thanks for the correction to BYD.
Captain C
@karen gail:
I’m not sure if it was here or someone else where I read the quote, “Everyone wants the throne. Nobody wants the desk.”
karen gail
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I agree but at the same time I was sure that with his age and money he wouldn’t spend a minute behind bars.
It is a well proven fact that rich rarely go to jail or even face penalties for their crimes. How often does a “rich” male get charged with rape? How often is the victim blamed? The US has a tiered justice system; the color of your skin, your sexual orientation; even bigger the amount of money and power one possess “dictates” your level of “justice.”
YY_Sima Qian
@The Thin Black Duke: Didn’t cops flatten an entire African American neighborhood in the 80s? I forget whether it was Philly or Baltimore.
Like I said, there are enough similarities that it should be easy to make common cause, & it is tragic that such common cause often fails to take hold, whether due to myopia, racism, classism, whatever.
The Thin Black Duke
@YY_Sima Qian: Agreed.
Divide & Conquer has always been an effective strategy in the oligarchs’ playbook.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
We also can’t dismiss the harm caused and that will be caused to many innocent people because of how the election turned out.
Each election will always require more of some voters than others. We can’t be in the business of giving some voters a pass when we’re also telling people that Trump will destroy this country. I think we lose credibility if we try.
Miki
@YY_Sima Qian: 1985, in Philly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1985_MOVE_bombing
YY_Sima Qian
@The Thin Black Duke: Imperialists, too. Elevating a minority indigenous group to serve the colonial authorities, give them privileges, while keeping them loyal to the empires by making their existence precarious, because they are hated by the rest of the indigenous population as collaborators. Introduce people from other parts of the empire of no suitable local groups can be found: Chinese in SE Asia, Indians in E. & S. Africa, Lebanese in Francophone Africa.
tam1MI
That lie was the excuse the Genocide Joe assholes used to justify trying* to throw the election to Trump in order to Teach the Dems a Lesson.**
* – I say “trying” because as it turned out, they were too ineffectual to swing the election on their own.
** – They taught Dems a lesson all right, that being that their demographic is too unreliable and tiny to be worth alienating larger, more reliable demographics over.
The tl:dr is that the Gazassholes, instead of advocating effectively for their cause, metaphorically put a gun to the heads of every other member of the Dem coalition, pulled the trigger, and ended up mortally wounding themselves.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: We shouldn’t, but whose votes was Biden/Harris afraid of losing in staying their course on Israel-Gaza? & why should those voters get a pass for holding the Dem Party hostage on an important policy (not to mention moral) matter.
YY_Sima Qian
@Miki: Thank you.
CCL
@catclub: yes, feature not bug.
@Chief Oshkosh: Thanks. I am still tracking down what the proposed penalties are for the election workers. Even though this is a dead thread, I thought I would post it here (bolding is mine):
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
No one gets a pass on anything. If you want to hold pro-Gaza War voters responsible for electing Trump, go ahead. But that doesn’t remove moral responsibility from anyone else who didn’t act to stop Trump.
tam1MI
@The Thin Black Duke: And maybe White America isn’t dropping bombs on black neighborhoods yet, but what happened at Black Wall Street wasn’t that long ago.
*Cough cough* Philadelphia MOVE bombing *Cough cough*
EDIT: And I see I was beaten to it by several posts!
YY_Sima Qian
@tam1MI: Wait, are you really saying that it was a good idea for the Biden/Harris to continue to hug Bibi tight despite the ample evidence of Israeli war crimes & crimes against humanity in the latter’s war of vengeance in Gaza, because there were more votes (“Israel, right or wrong” types, be they Jews or gentile?) to be kept than lost (some Arab/Muslim Americans)?
Lest we forget, US policy wrt Israel-Gaza 1st & foremost had geopolitical & moral implications. Losing the enthusiasm of some Arab/Muslim Americans in the ’24 election is just the downstream effect.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: Those voters had agency for their votes & are responsible for their choices. Biden/Harris had agency over their policy choices & have responsibility for the foreseeable downstream effect.
Chief Oshkosh
@The Thin Black Duke:
And what happened in Philly was much more recent (though much smaller, of course). “Let it burn.” Fuckers.
tam1MI
No, I am saying they DIDN’T hug Bibi tight. That they did was a lie promulgated by the Gazassholes because they decided it was more important to Teach the Dems a Lesson then effectively advocate for their cause.
The lesson has been taught. Unfortunately, it’s not the one the Gazassholes were looking to teach.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
Everyone has responsibility for everything. But we have a point of view as to which party should be in a position to govern, and we can only move forward with people who share that viewpoint. And especially when the other party is fascist, we don’t have a lot of room to accommodate people who want to go in another direction.
YY_Sima Qian
@tam1MI: Biden’s senior FP officials (Sullivan, Blinken) openly stated that their strategy was no day light w/ Bibi in public, in hope of maintaining influence in private, but all to no avail. Bibi let f*cking Trump get the credit of facilitating a Gaza ceasefire deal.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: If we only move forward w/ people who voted for Harris in ’24, that is by definition a minority. Then the only way to get to a majority is to somehow suppress the votes of the reactionaries.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
We might be in a minority for a long time. But we can’t force people to align with us in a common cause. That’s a decision each person needs to make for themselves.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: On that I agree. & w/ that I am off to bed.
tam1MI
What, you mean to tell me that someone other than Democrats had agency in this? Well, blow me down!
And let’s not forget the third major party with agency over the war – Hamas, who started it in the first place.
And if a change in US foreign policy was the goal of the Gazassholes, why didn’t they focus on that rather than getting bogged down in stupid shit like ruining college graduations and harassing people who were going to see a movie (because said movie had the temerity to have a Jewish character in it, let’s also not forget the movement’s wild embrace of anti-Semitism)? It’s like they threw their focus everywhere but there.
Steve
“No Kings” seems like the obvious slogan of the resistance. Is anyone a decent graphic designer who wants to put together a bumper sticker design?
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: That’s a damn shame, too— I’m old enough to remember when Japanese cars were derided “weird little tin cans with motorcycle engines,” and today who’s big in NASCAR!
Then I watched the Korean marques jump up that learning curve like it damn near wasn’t there.
So I really expected one or another of the Chinese marques to start making their inroads here.
But then, this brings me to this thought: in those days the US was the market EVERYONE wanted to penetrate and succeed in, and that just ain’t true no more. China has a bigger internal market than we even dream of, Chinese marques have absolutely no reason to deal with American bullshit.
(I know it’s not Chinese, but it’s still a curse: “We’re living in interesting times.”)
Elizabelle
Will anyone see this? Holy $hit. A directive on high from Jeff Bezos. You know, the former “Democracy Dies in Darkness” owner who is now into telling stories?
(Also, an open thread would be helpful, with a pinned thread at top. No idea who will see this.)
Byline on this one is “Washington Post staff.” That in itself is instructive.
Crystal.
Elizabelle
He announced it on Elon Musk’s Nazi resembling platform. 11.4 thousand responses to Jeff’s post, and I can’t see any of them, since I don’t have a Twitter account.
The free market in action!
columbusqueen
@YY_Sima Qian: This is another case of beating a dead horse. Please ease up on this.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle: Crystal clear indeed. I am glad I did not renew my subscription when it last expired.
burritoboy
“And if a change in US foreign policy was the goal of the Gazassholes, why didn’t they focus on that rather than getting bogged down in stupid shit like ruining college graduations and harassing people who were going to see a movie (because said movie had the temerity to have a Jewish character in it, let’s also not forget the movement’s wild embrace of anti-Semitism)?”
Because that was never their goal. I have the misfortune to know many of these people better than I want to. They wanted to play the revolutionary ON CAMPUS. They wanted to get campus cred as being the cool “anti-imperialists.” The protests started dying down after they got their campus cool cred, even though the underlining issue had actually gotten worse! They never gave any concrete reason why they were directing their actions on campus, when the campus wasn’t really the site of the struggle or even an important part of making foreign policy in America. They never gave any concrete reason why they repeatedly targeted American Jewish institutions, often ones with no real relationships to Israel (things like college courses where students studied medieval Jewish philosophers were targeted, for some examples, or whatever synagogue was closest to campus.) Except that these things were very easy for them to do, while working on any form of realistic modes of getting what they wanted were both harder and they were not interested in.
These are simply not people who can actually organize a movement for the long term, and to stick with it, in any form of realistic politics that involves convincing a nation of 330 million people.
And then there were the anti-Semites, which the movement did absolutely nothing to guard themselves against, or even to speak out against.
That’s why you ended up with a group of fakers who thought inventing “Genocide Joe” to be the height of political sophistication. They got their line on their resume of being an anti-colonial activist and that’s ultimately what most of them were after.
Kayla Rudbek
@CCL: called Warner and Beyer and left voicemail, Kaine is useless because he won’t even set up his phones to take voicemails. Beyer is actually starting to respond to my rapid-fire voicemail messages. He’s still at a C- as compared to AOC and Crockett and Underwood and Frost in my arrogant opinion.
But I’m still voting for whoever primaries Warner and Kaine (hopefully we get Senators Abigail Spanberger and Jennifer McClellan in whatever order they choose to run in, after Spanberger/or McClellan serve as Virginia governor).
Kayla Rudbek
@The Thin Black Duke: and there was a Black neighborhood in Philadelphia firebombed by the cops in the 1980s (MOVE movement if I recall correctly)
Lauryn11
@tam1MI:
@tam1MI: Political movements are vast and polymorphous but it was remarkable how many of the Gaza-centered accounts on Twitter/X went dark after Nov. 5th. Almost like they existed only to get Trump elected.