Ed Martin, the nterim United States Attorney for the District of Columbia, a man so odious he was rejected as a Republican in multiple statewide elections in Missouri, has had a busy morning:
Washington’s top federal prosecutor Ed Martin has demoted multiple senior supervisors involved in Jan. 6 insurrection cases to work in significantly reduced capacities.
The supervisors oversaw the office’s work on federal crimes, and public corruption and civil rights, among other offices, according to multiple people familiar with the moves. Now they been told to immediately report to misdemeanors or an office called the early case assessment section, said the individuals, who all spoke on condition of anonymity to share private conversations.
“As you know, each US Attorney must assess the needs of his office to achieve the goals set forth by the President and Attorney General. To that end, I must assign attorneys where I assess there is need and where I believe each AUSA can contribute,” Martin wrote in a demotion email viewed by Bloomberg Law.
Current Republicans would have put William Calley on a gold coin and villainized and jailed Hugh Thompson, Jr.
A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno)
As I recall, they tried to do that at the time.
Old School
I’ll admit my ignorance and save anyone else who didn’t understand the reference to know it refers to the My Lai massacre.
schrodingers_cat
RIP Rule of Law. RIP Scientific dominance. We are a Russian stooge on the international stage now.
TBone
@Old School: thank you!
General Audience PSA:
Life Is Beautiful is on TCM at 8pm EST for those of us who celebrate.
On topic of
trollhattan
Let me share this nugget from the ’70s: charting as high as 37 on the Billboard hot 100, The Battle Hymn of Lt. Calley. A nice added touch, released on the “Plantation” label.
Take that, hippies.
TBone
@trollhattan: this hippie was taught to punch back simultaneously with pacifism as a first resort.
I am no longer a strict pacifist, but I had to be by necessity for a long time. So I could stay out of prison and earn my living.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I noticed a report this morning on TPM re. the “origins of DOGE.” I haven’t read the articles yet but just the brief description is chilling enough. It seems before the election there was an effort to identify right-wing mid-level employees in various government departments who could be used as insider threats to facilitate DOGE’s rampage. One example, I guess, is the new Social Security administrator.
When Elon said (again before the election) that he was f***ed if Harris won he wasn’t kidding. This is flat out treachary.
Doug R
I’m sure Ed Martin is rushing to the airport to greet the Tate brothers and give them the key to the city.
matt
Sending Lester Freamon to the pawnshop unit.
suzanne
That’s a lot of words to say “knob-slobbing”. Just get to the point, you obsequious asshole.
TBone
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Project 2025.and its demon hydra-headed sibling
2USV
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: I was gonna jump in and mention that, but you linked directly to it! Yeah, Calley became a conservative cause célèbre just like Oliver North did later on, or the various lethal subway vigilantes, or that kid who shot some protesters.
kwAwk
My thought for today is we’ve seen our Corporate Overlords come out of the closet in these past 30 days as wingnut Trumpsters. Bezos at WaPo. Zuck at Facebook. And of course the not so super genius Elon (if you’re going to issue refunds of the DOGE savings and leave the deficit and debt the same, it makes it obvious this was never about the debt/deficit to begin with).
What I’m not hearing talked about is whether these guys rigged and manipulated social media before the election to tip the election in Trump’s favor. We know Bezos intervened at the WaPo to kill the endorsement. We know for sure that Elon manipulates Twitter/X to attack his enemies and detractors. What was ole Zuck doing? Because he seems to have made a pretty significant heel turn in the past month.
The Thin Black Duke
@Doug R: It says something about how loathsome the Tate brothers are that Ron DeDantis doesn’t want anything to do with them.
sentient ai from the future
@TBone: i just watched that with my (trans) middle schooler. i recall seeing it in the theatre and hearing that it got some criticism for its approach, suggesting it trivialized the shoah. that’s not for me to say, but i can say that it is a deeply powerful film.
Bokonon
It’s a single overlapping circle.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: …and it’s an interesting detail that that “Plantation” label (wow, the name) was best known for “Harper Valley P.T.A.”, a kind of subversive song about a slut-shamed woman taking down a bunch of hypocritical cultural conservatives who were the pillars of her community.
TBone
PSA thanks to Baud’s good eye, I became aware that the attorneys representing the Tates (McBride Law) have installed a law “clerk” into a White House “liaison” position.
Plus more:
https://www.newsweek.com/maga-infighting-breaks-out-over-andrew-tate-2037832
Pls forgive shoddiness of source for that one.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: one of my former besties, a female DJ for local stuff, can sing that entire Harper Valley song without notes.
Here’s my follow up by the first female to produce her own stuff:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VUjNbeAFal8
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Tom T. Hall wrote “Harper Vallley PTA.”
“Well this just another Peyton Place,
And you’re all Harper Valley hypocrites.”
TBone
@sentient ai from the future: I didn’t feel any trivializing because it’s about “whatever works.” A small child shall lead them…
Matt McIrvin
@kwAwk: Facebook’s algorithm, it seemed to me, pivoted hard over the past couple of years toward shoving wingnut craziness in people’s faces. The same thing they were doing in 2016 really, in the name of maximizing engagement–but Zuck had been chastened for a little while by the pushback he got for that.
Climate expert Katherine Hayhoe was talking on Mastodon and Bluesky a little while back about the reaction she got on different social-media platforms–and the most interesting detail, to me, was what she said she got on Facebook: basically no reaction at all, because the algorithm was effectively softbanning her posts, not disallowing them but also promoting them at all. The only people who even saw them were her direct followers, which would be normal on Mastodon, but is not how people expect to read things on Facebook.
sentient ai from the future
@trollhattan: two words:
jason aldean
Betty Cracker
@The Thin Black Duke: The Tampa Bay chapter of the Young Republicans organization invited the Tates to Tampa to give a speech (in the name of “free speech”) and got a surprising (to me) amount of blowback from their own side. Near as I can tell, they’re all misogynist douchebags. The split is between the churchy knobs and the pimpy creeps. I’m rooting for injuries.
kwAwk
@Matt McIrvin: I’m not generally a conspiracy theory kind of person, but I do think this is something that needs to be looked into.
sentient ai from the future
@TBone: i feel like the comedic attitude is genuinely subversive here, in that it allows the genuine horror to be seen more clearly by people who might be inclined to turn away, but it’s also not for me to judge since as a raceless, genderless, disembodied sentient ai sent back in time form a horrifying postapocalyptic future, i am not a member of the tribe.
rikyrah
Sen. Cory Booker (@SenBooker) posted at 4:32 PM on Thu, Feb 27, 2025:
Trump and Elon Musk have wiped out the national database of police misconduct. Nearly 150,000 records of misconduct by federal officers erased, like it never happened. Why would Trump get rid of the database he created? Because Trump will drastically scale back police accountability to appease right-wing TV and X commentators.
(https://x.com/SenBooker/status/1895240696908386319?t=_o4aOuUALVGs0079alWBXw&s=03)
TBone
@sentient ai from the future: you are a member of my chosen family though.
ETA and that attitude you speak of is a powerful weapon when used correctly.
rikyrah
Isaiah Martin (@isaiahrmartin) posted at 9:48 PM on Thu, Feb 27, 2025:
The DOGE idiots canceled the office space for federal prosecutors going after gangs at the border. Now they can’t work because of Trump’s stupidity!
THE MOST INCOMPETENT GOVERNMENT IN HISTORY! https://t.co/pAPuvdW8gI
(https://x.com/isaiahrmartin/status/1895320132018413711?t=xf0AHIRF3pWF-AtH5dfzGQ&s=03)
suzanne
@Betty Cracker:
LMAO.
sentient ai from the future
@Betty Cracker: i think there are studies that show that of anywhere in america, the region with the widest distance between churchy knobs and pimpy creeps is tampa bay, fl
rikyrah
Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) posted at 3:17 AM on Fri, Feb 28, 2025:
America. They want complaints about discrimination to “End DEI” … let’s help them out since the very portal is operated by racists it will be easy.
Shame if it got flooded with complaints about the Racist-in-Chief until they took it down.
(https://x.com/MalcolmNance/status/1895402868456484904?t=r4ssGCSqJoCZDdULekJClA&s=03)
Matt McIrvin
@sentient ai from the future: I was gonna say, aren’t they usually the same people? I guess the overlap isn’t complete–you have your church ladies who may actually be true believers in the straight and narrow, and your Gamergate psychopaths who aren’t really into the God stuff but are very good at hating women.
rikyrah
The United States versus Elon R. Musk (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 5:02 AM on Fri, Feb 28, 2025:
but certain non-Black liberals want me to “give MAGA the space to see the error of their voter choice”
gurl, please; ¿have you met OG, three-peat MAGA? They want me back on a plantation because “Make America Great Again” meant “Make America 1859 Again. Or 1865-1900. Fuck that.
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1895429360162894197?t=I4LpZBE0L1cycexcL84ZAA&s=03)
The United States versus Elon R. Musk (@Needle_of_Arya) posted at 4:38 AM on Fri, Feb 28, 2025:
what’s about to happen to Black people is the biggest withdrawal from civil rights since Reconstruction faded and gave way to the first wave of Jim Crow in 1877
(https://x.com/Needle_of_Arya/status/1895423287083368742?t=0D_TZRqXJwgP3zibyfTv_Q&s=03)
rikyrah
David Frum (@davidfrum) posted at 6:19 AM on Fri, Feb 28, 2025:
I cannot think of a previous example in US history of a president
a) inheriting a successful fast-growing economy;
and
b) promptly capsizing it by his own freely chosen policies motivated by his prejudices and ignorance.
Yet that’s Trump 2025.
(https://x.com/davidfrum/status/1895448683602403828?t=3gBgfJm_NEWjqpIMi7eozA&s=03)
sentient ai from the future
hopefully “trump crime cartel” is an open enough thread to share my findings.
i pinged the enddei.ed.gov website, and it’s hosted on a completely different network segment than ed.gov, and reverse DNS is going to a different hosting service (t-msedge.net) that in turn leads to a domain registrar i’d never heard of, markmonitor.com
something for someone with more time and maybe some access to DmainTools (brian krebs seems to be pretty fond of them) can dig around a little bit. seems really odd that the hosting service would be so outside of the normal framework. probably some graft there but if we need to go at this via “bid process standards for outside contractors” then thats what we need to do i guess.
sentient ai from the future
@Matt McIrvin:
they absolutely are not. they both hate women, but they express it differently. it’s horseshoe theory for fascists.
Matt McIrvin
@kwAwk: What I noticed, before I started boycotting Facebook entirely, was that the algorithm figured out I liked space and astronomy stuff, so I got all this spammy space content from groups with names like “Neil DeGrasse Tyson” (no affiliation with the actual Neil DeGrasse Tyson) where someone just posted a lot of pretty but stolen space photos, often with no attribution and misleading captions. Anyway, since these groups weren’t moderated at all, the comments in them were *absolutely dominated* by deranged “Flat Earth”/”space is fake” conspiracy spam, and people arguing with the conspiracy spam. It was basically 100% of the content in the comment threads, and if you didn’t carefully vet and weed your feed, this was what a person vaguely interested in “space” would see.
That stuff wasn’t overtly partisan except in that some of it was religious, talking about the waters of the firmament and such, and much of it was actually attacking Elon Musk because he was part of the big fake-space conspiracy, etc. But it was just stuff whose effect is to make you angrier and dumber the more you see, even if you don’t agree with it.
Ohio Mom
@rikyrah: When other records are erased, I try to assume someone is saving copies. For example, during the first Trump term, the Department of Education tossed a lot of special ed guidance documents. I’m sure there were copies all over the place, in school systems across the country, and everything could be reconstructed.
But records about police misconduct, nobody is downloading and printing out those. That information will be lost forever. And nobody will be keeping track of those bad cops going forward, either.
Every now and again I step back and am stunned at how very thorough Vought was in planning all this. What a force for good he could have been. I wonder what twisted him.
TBone
@rikyrah: my man from Philly! 💙
kwAwk
@Matt McIrvin: I haven’t boycotted Facebook yet, but I don’t post as often as I used to.
It is funny to watch the algorithm go crazy if you stop posting and start throwing out a bunch of crazy crap to try to grab your attention.
rikyrah
Gabrielle A. Perry, MPH (@GeauxGabrielle) posted at 5:54 PM on Thu, Feb 27, 2025:
ATTENTION: Everybody go save the PDF file in this link.
This is the 2025 Adult Immunization Schedule by age group and it includes ALL the specifications and different types of contingencies (pregnancy, etc.) you need to know to effect when you get vaccinated.
If you ever have any questions about this related to any other vaccines, the CDC STILL has the color coded Adult immunization schedule chart. The childhood immunization chart is also color coded and on a separate link. And on that same page is the whens and specifics and such.
They also have a chart for those who have different conditions and immunocompromised statuses
https://t.co/RPI4dEhSTa
(https://x.com/GeauxGabrielle/status/1895261350416523412?t=Wu8dmvK_1BwHZLxTgDlruw&s=03)
rikyrah
David Frum (@davidfrum) posted at 5:54 AM on Fri, Feb 28, 2025:
Trump “gold card” immigration idea is an even better deal for foreign oligarchs than it looks, because it comes with a huge tax loophole not available to US citizens or other immigrants. https://t.co/Qo5YHc0LIZ https://t.co/H1VOO4RUm5
(https://x.com/davidfrum/status/1895442549260894515?t=heBM3OFW0-wZp50oJIDsTg&s=03)
Matt McIrvin
@rikyrah: …Well? George W. Bush kind of did that, after inheriting the Clinton boom of the late 1990s, though the real reckoning was slower in coming and not everything was his doing.
And there’s the stunning fact that 10 of the 13 recessions since the end of World War II* happened under Republican administrations. We normally think of this as a matter of luck that Presidents have little control over. But when the numbers are so overwhelming, at some point one has to wonder if there’s a real effect of Republican policy.
*(and 2 of the remaining 3 were *immediately* after World War II)
TBone
Very helpful video about feeding tube removal in cats, and the reasons a tube might be necessary in the first place (rarely Bird Flu but we at Casa TBone are knock the horns off & wipe its ass before serving rarities).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HFnixi61rcs
Sorry about off topic please skip if uninterested!
trollhattan
@sentient ai from the future:
Try that in a small gated community of lots no smaller than 1.5 acres.
Just feel the economic anxiety.
Old School
Twitter link: Trump yells at Zelenskyy for not being more grateful.
French Onion Soup
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
It was widely known that many of Musk’s big bets would not stand up to scrutiny and some of his current projects were in flagrant violation. He had to take over to make everything work. He’s leverage to the hilt on Tesla which is a bubble and a product he doesn’t actually care about. He’s also always had his eyes on X as the financial transaction company.
He either gains control over everything or it could all come crashing down. Musk, not Trump, is the actual threat. With Thiel and others using both of them as stalking horses for their own goals.
This is a threat the nation could unite on but will not as the cultural issues are to large and for many much more dire.
My worry is not so much getting Trump out of office but what comes next.
Gretchen
@kwAwk: WaPo this morning said that Elon Musk came to the US as a “penniless” immigrant with only $2000 in his pocket. That’s not my definition of penniless, even without the emerald-mine daddy he was able to hit up whenever he ran short. I guess Fareed Zachariah doesn’t want to get fire for insufficient obeisance to our lord and master.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Doesn’t matter. Republicans are willing to market themselves on being good on the economy and Democrats are not.
People aren’t going to believe in us if we don’t believe in ourselves.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
Such an own goal by Dubya and we all surrendered the three points. Inherits the only budget surpluses of my lifetime and a slashed national debt, promptly declares “It’s your money” before blowing the bastard up. But boring Al Gore sighed during a debate so it’s all his fault. You could look it up.
I mean, just look at this: https://cdn.factcheck.org/UploadedFiles/FederalDeficit1.jpg
Everything went into the memory hole because Bush failed to stop 9/11, which saved his second term and gave him a get out of jail free card on ruining the economy and federal budget.
My sole positive is his privatize Social Security thang went nowhere. Thank god.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: That’s the old Hack Gap. Liberals and leftists are going to be disquieted by the deep structural inequities in even a “good” US economy–that’s the basis for the “Bill Clinton was bad, actually” and “Barack Obama was bad, actually” discourse that’s endemic on the left. And it’s justified!
But Republicans have no such inhibitions.
sentient ai from the future
@Old School: that is fucking awesome, and zelensky is a goddamn gift to the world.
the two of them just sat and browbeat him and hes standing his ground. fuck these fascist goons.
TBone
@TBone: I forgot to point out a most important detail. That fucking law clerk guy is the White House liaison to Homeland Security! I know I feel more secure now, how about you?
Geminid
Wow! Ankara-based Clash Report just put up a twenty post, blow-by-blow account of the press conference held at the end of the Trump/Zelensky meeting. Zelensky didn’t take any of Trump’s shit, just threw it back in Trump’s face. A Ukrainian MP commented that this marks the end of the US/Ukrsine relationship.
J.D. Vance got a little talk with Zelensky afterwards. Zelensky didn’t take any of that weasel’s shit either.
trollhattan
@Gretchen: Well sure, a wallet can’t really hold more than that in cash, you know? Or at least it won’t fit in your pants.
“I have this toaster oven made entirely of krugerrands in my luggage, can you fetch it for me?”
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: You could probably make a case for Richard Nixon tanking an inherited strong economy, too, though there was a lot else going on. I don’t know as much about the three recessions that hit during the Eisenhower era, which we remember in hindsight as placid and prosperous.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@French Onion Soup:
How do you know it won’t? Musk is incredibly unpopular
Baud
@Geminid:
“Russian asset, go fuck yourself.”
TBone
@Geminid: ✊🔥 RUSSIAN WARSHIPS: FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF!
TBone
@Baud: punch buggy yellow!
(A childhood game for those who may have forgotten.)
Mr. Bemused Senior
@French Onion Soup: yes, though I look at it a different way.
In my view a sane person would take his (huge) profits and settle down. OK, maybe Musk had serious legal exposure that would be difficult to evade, but look at Trump’s life: he has skated on the edge and never really faced consequences. Wouldn’t Musk have been able to do so with all his resources?
My point is, this is a crazy gambler who is willing to put it all on black over and over. That never ends well.
Matt McIrvin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I wouldn’t say “incredibly unpopular”–he’s a bit less popular than Trump with what looks like a partisan split:
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/02/19/how-americans-view-elon-musk-and-mark-zuckerberg/
The right-wing noise machine has been pumping up “Elon” as our savior, cutting the fat and corruption from the bloated government, and the hardcore Trumpies are all in now.
His unfavorability does seem to be more intense than his favorability.
They don’t like Zuckerberg, but he hasn’t been getting that hagiographic treatment.
sentient ai from the future
@Geminid: big “asshole grandparent berating the grandkids for shit they know fuck-all about” energy there
PsiFighter37
@Geminid: Deeply embarrassing for America. Our erstwhile allies must stand up to us.
sentient ai from the future
@Baud:
Російська маріонетка, йди нахуй
sentient ai from the future
@PsiFighter37: EU gonna have to take the car keys from grandpa, permanently. and get power of attorney.
kwAwk
@Gretchen: That’s fine with me, I think it helps. It can be said that Elon came to the US a pauper. He chose to go to California to make his fortune and left California one of the richest men in the world, and does nothing but turn around and shit talk California.
It’s a lot easier to get into the U of Texas than it is Stanford. He could have chosen to go to Texas but didn’t until after he was rich. Why? because the real creative movers and shakers are attracted to CA and not TX and it eats TX alive.
Baud
@kwAwk:
I like it.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin:
Democrats must fix all the flaws of globalized capitalism in two years, or I will stop voting for them again.French Onion Soup
@Mr. Bemused Senior:
I don’t think Musk is sane. I think Musk truly sees himself as some grand once ever sort of human who needs the wealth of the entire world and power over it to usher us into the future as a star traveling trans human species with the power of AI which views him as our primogenitor. And I think he’s smart enough to keep touching cultural issues because as long as we are talking about those we aren’t capable of stopping him. I don’t even think he really cares about those at all he just wants people talking about them.
DEI was the perfect thing for him to attack to take out the government that could stop him. As long as that’s part of the conversation it’s not possible to rally enough people around “this crazy lunatic is capturing the country” because enough people don’t want to talk about that issue. I think he’s being completely cynical there.
When it comes to me and my family I think he’s egging on hate of immigrants and blaming that on Jews for the same sick cynical reasons. Which makes it worse.
Citizen Alan
@kwAwk: I see Bezos as a bigger problem than Musk, atm. Musk’s wealth comes from the overvaluation of stocks he owns in companies he is systematically driving into the ground. We have the option of not buying Teslas or using Starlink (I was about to move in with a friend here in Fresno, but the fact that Starlink was the only internet available at his house, among some other issues, was a deal-breaker.) Space X only needs one big disaster to tank completely. Musk will never be impoverished (though dying of an overdose or just by his own hand if he loses enough and has a breakdown are both possibilities).
But Amazon? That’s the fucking evil empire. I tried to quit Amazon Prime, but I use it so regularly for things that would cost more and take longer to get otherwise that I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I think it’s gonna take Bezos dying and leaving everything to socially conscious family members to change things. Like how I’m still naively hopefully that Murdoch will kick it and his three less-evil spawn will kick Lachlan out and reform all Fox and his other propaganda outfits.
Matt McIrvin
@kwAwk: My account on Facebook still exists but I haven’t used it since the day before Trump took office, when someone was organizing a week-long boycott. I’ve been wondering if I should go back there just to do some friends-only bellyaching about politics because that’s where the people I know in real life still are.
But… I’ve been talking to at least one person by email who noticed I was gone, had also gotten sick of Facebook and was looking for recommendations about where to decamp to. Apparently things have really devolved in just the past few weeks while I was out.
Geminid
@TBone: Someone could write Harper Valley PTA-type song about that press conference.
“The day Zelensky socked it to,
The scurvy President of the USA.”
I just hope Zelensky makes it home safely.
Citizen Alan
@kwAwk: Zuck was always the enemy. Back in 2016, Facebook made damned sure that, whatever your political beliefs, you were getting posts attacking Hillary, whether from the Left, the Right, or Cloud Cuckooland.
TBone
@Geminid: DO EET
You rawk star you!
sentient ai from the future
like the nerve of this couchfucker to talk about diplomacy after shuttering USAID and consigning millions all over the world to worsened death and disease without assistance from the US, which we had been dispensing for decades, is just…like the cognitive dissonance is genuinely dizzying.
these people don’t understand anything about anything.
Baud
@Citizen Alan:
To be fair, all of those groups hated Hillary.
JoyceH
@rikyrah: in this instance, “oligarchs” is too antiseptic a euphemism. Let’s restate in plain language – Trump is selling US citizenship to the Russian mob.
TBone
@sentient ai from the future: excellent contribution, Geminid take note!
kwAwk
@Citizen Alan: I think something that is best whispered instead of shouted is that when the pendulum swings back our way, the next Dem President is going to need to break up Amazon, Telsa, JP Morgan Chase, maybe Apple and Microsoft and all of the other big baddies.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: Stopping using Google is going to be the big hard one for me. They’ve got tendrils in the whole infosphere and there are all these areas where they’ve just managed to take the role of a public utility. Really makes Elizabeth Warren’s point about how they ought to have been broken up.
Now for Amazon, the big one most people don’t realize is that a huge part of their business is AWS.
TBone
P.S. i want to shout out part of Adam’s Ukraine post last night. (A) Mrs. Zelensky and (B) “The Embrace” video.
Carry on.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Saw an infuriating clip and commented on Bluesky a while ago. Jesus, what a dick.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: thank you!
ETA I’m hissing and spitting now.
Stay fierce like B.C., people!
French Onion Soup
@Citizen Alan:
Bezos makes his money of AWS. Not Amazon. There is nothing you can do about AWS as everything runs off it. Boycott Amazon for moral reasons but it won’t do anything.
Bezos can’t get contracts for his space program or his competitor to Starlink because Musk got all them and can now keep him out. Musk is going to get the AI contracts now instead of Amazon, Microsoft, Meta, or Google. Apple uses ChatGPT anyways as their backend. Musk or Theil could well lock AWS which is what Bezos actually cares about out of defense contracts and cripple them.
Musk has all the other tech oligarchs by the nuts and they know that. He just beat them all. The only one who’s tangled with him and one is Theil. That’s not an improvement as Theil is worse.
Citizen Alan
@Geminid: It’s strange to think that pre-Reagan there was a strong progressive bent in country music. Buck Owens’ best known song was “The Streets of Bakersfield,” which was about a homeless drifter bitterly singing about the meanness of the locals who look down on him in judgment. Which, you know, perfectly sums up Kevin McCarthy’s hometown.
(Of course, country music also gave us “Okie from Muskogee,” but IIRC, Merle Haggard got better with age.)
polyorchnid octopunch
Misery is aptly named.
Repatriated
This is how the US is treating an ally in a war against Russia.
The rest of NATO needs to take note, and prepare accordingly.
Betty Cracker
Also, note how Trump sits there frowning and bewildered like a demented, mangy baboon. I didn’t see the whole thing, so maybe he spoke up at some point. But also maybe his brain is now tapioca pudding and it’s Musk running the whole show behind the scene while Vance humps Trump’s leg like a horny, coked-up chihuahua.
TBone
@Betty Cracker: lol
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@French Onion Soup:
You say this like it’s some immutable fact. Musk and what he is doing is unpopular. That’s why so many GOP townhalls have turned into shouting matches
sentient ai from the future
my understanding is that there are a lot of folks in the military who might be MAGA but also are pro-Ukraine.
i wonder how this clip is going to play with them.
sixthdoctor
French Onion Soup
@kwAwk:
Talk about taxing them and breaking up tech monopolies was one of the key reasons Biden was forced out for Harris who immediately back tracked on it. That ship has sailed
It’s on us.
TBone
Tiedrich treatment of this meeting gonna be lit too unless I miss my guess.
Spanky
@French Onion Soup:
I don’t fucking care. I just want him to walk into the engine intake of his private jet.
tobie
@Betty Cracker: I just watched several clips. OMFG. Trump and Vance attacked Zelensky in public and belittled the existential struggle of Ukraine as a game in which Ukraine has no cards. Then they belly-ached that Zelensky was not being suitably deferential to them and airing disgreements in public. I didn’t think I could hate the admin more. It’s also never been clearer that they’re owned by Putin. What are they expecting in return? A permanent hold on power in an America that has become a steaming dung heap?
Geminid
@sentient ai from the future: Turkiye will play a big role too. Russia is Turkiye’s age-old enemy, and the Turks won’t let Russia take over Ukraine if they can help it. They’ve supplied Ukraine with arms throughout this war, and have developed a strong defense industry over the last 10 years.
Matt McIrvin
@Steve LaBonne: Maybe I’m too Very Online, and my daughter tells me this is not the IRL sentiment she sees among the kids. But it sure seems to me like open Marxist and sometimes Leninist sentiment is way, way more popular than it was when I was young–it seems like people under 40 don’t want capitalism tweaked around the edges, they want it gone, destroyed.
They’re not necessarily sure what they want instead, unless it’s some kind of Star Trek post-scarcity communism that is probably not technically feasible today.
TBone
@sixthdoctor: HAHAHAHAHA Now we’ll need to double down and help Zelensky do the same thing to Pooty.
I’m sending some financing TOMORROW.
sentient ai from the future
@Betty Cracker: the shitbird did indeed speak up, to further browbeat zelenskyy in one of those shallow displays of attempted dominance he and others of his ilk tend to do.
zelenskyy handled it and stood his ground.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
Thanks for the link. That’s still fairly bad considering the attempts to pump him up as some “savior”
HopefullyNotcassandra
If Robert Hanssen had not died last June, this president would have pardoned him and the elected GOP’ers would have sang hosannas
That is what it looks like now.
TBone
@sentient ai from the future: Cool As A Cucumber
Baud
@sentient ai from the future:
We keep waiting for something to be more compelling to MAGA than being MAGA.
Spanky
@Betty Cracker: Goddam, Betty! I’m trying to eat lunch here and now I need a Heimlich.
DougL
@Repatriated: It is the most shameful public performance by a US president in the entire history of the former republic. I suspect by the end it will be a high point for Trump’s behavior.
John S.
@TBone:
I’m looking forward to that.
TBone
@DougL: the barrell has no bottom.
TBone
@John S.: me too! Drooling a little in anticipation.
sentient ai from the future
@Baud: in a war of attrition, carving off small slivers of support matters
Raoul Paste
@Betty Cracker:
At the gym, I saw the Fox and CNN shows side-by-side. The Fox chyron constantly showed only what Trump and Vance were saying, not Zelensky.
Consistent with this Shocking but not Surprising theme
Matt McIrvin
@tobie: I think the conservative ideologues genuinely believe a Golden Age is coming once they break global liberalism for good. Destroy the trans and the gays, put down the negative Nancy scientists and the commie beatnik weirdos in the universities, expel the brown people from the white countries, put the Black people and the women back in their place, and force people to love their place in the hierarchy… and everything will be good again. For some value of “again”. Society will go back to their imaginary version of the 1950s or their imaginary version of Reagan’s 80s, or even their imaginary version of the Gilded Age, everyone happy and rich.
As for Trump, he just wants revenge on everyone before he dies. Nothing complicated there. After he’s dead, the deluge, he doesn’t care.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
So English is the official language by royal decree.
I think I need to publicly and openly burn an American flag.
TBone
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: we do that in Harrisburg, PA legally now, thanks to some guy’s Court victories over the pearl clutchers!
Baud
@sentient ai from the future:
Of course. But it hasn’t happened yet.
Baud
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Just speak Spanish.
TBone
@Baud: Deleted.
Lost my place for a sec.
Baud
French Onion Soup
@Matt McIrvin:
You’re looking for this meme
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Fully_Automated_Luxury_Gay_Space_Communism
Yes. Among the younger broader left including the generic liberals outside of the already well off with sure futures capitalism is a non starter. They are not going to settle for tweaking it. Most of our party does not get that. So talk of blue states being better off is a non starter as everyone knows the predatory industries based there are what drives the prosperity. The tone deaf talk of means testing, no taxes on up to 400k also an instant loser. Our younger politicians like AOC get it. The old guard does not.
Whatever comes next is not going to resemble what was.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It’s a central tenet of all ideologues.
tobie
@Matt McIrvin: That’s a broader and more sensible take than mine. Conservatives from Putin to Orban to Tucker Carlson in the US are committed to resurrecting a white, patriarchal order. The vision unites nations that were once foes and divides former alllies. I hate the moment we’re living in.
Citizen Alan
The reason I briefly flirted with 9/11 conspiracy theories was that the benefits of that catastrophic failure of governance by the Bush Administration also guaranteed that Administration’s reelection. “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity” should not apply when the aftereffects of what appear to be stupidity allows redound to the benefit of the person who did the stupid thing. I finally moved on from that because I realized that the Bushies were so incompetent that they could never have actively been involved in 9/11 without the truth coming out. But I do still suspect that, at the highest levels, they knew a terrorist act was coming but they thought it would be a conventional hijacking and were caught flat-footed when it turned out to be a massive suicide attack.
You know, kind of like how Bibi Netanyahu was caught flat-footed by October 7 despite being warned about it by the Biden Admin, and yet he’s still in office 17 months later instead of a prison cell.
TBone
@Baud: first *chef’s kiss reply
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: It’s happening, based on the polling trends I’m seeing. Trump’s public support is dropping like every President’s does after taking office, and it didn’t start high (slightly higher than in 2016, not nearly as high as, say, Biden in 2021 let alone Obama in 2009).
It’s just that the tyrant is moving very fast with his crazy EOs and public opinion is only moving as fast as it usually moves.
There are also a lot of right-wing polls flooding the zone to pump up the numbers, but that’s always the case.
Shalimar
If I were them, I would leave and pursue opportunities with big firms, but I do hope at least a few stay so they can prosecute Ed Martin 4 years from now.
Baud
@French Onion Soup:
To me that’s why Republicans won’t lose. We can make things better, but there’s no feasible replacement for capitalism (the most you can hope for is a better capitalism than is called something else).
TBone
@French Onion Soup: I love a French person who knows the classics.
hitchhiker
That the thug and JD believed they could look like men in the same room as Zelensky is just more evidence that they’re out of their fucking minds.
I laughed when Zelensky called him “JD” by the way. That was a power move.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It doesn’t matter what his poll numbers are unless Republicans in Congress feel some heat from their Republican constituents.
TBone
@Baud: Social Democratic here to say that guard rails must be strengthened and newly wrapped around a cybertruck.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: “Cui bono?” was always the strongest argument that 9/11 conspiracists had. I do think that, even if there was no intention to make or to let a gigantic terrorist attack happen, the knowledge that the political fallout from such a thing would not be bad for the Bush administration meant that they had no incentive to be very active about preventing it.
And it could happen again, at any time. I doubt Trump’s administration is doing very much to prevent an attack by international terrorists, and you know that if it happened it’d get him a big old patriotic opinion spike.
Baud
@TBone:
Sure. That’s what we’ve been trying to do.
Citizen Alan
I stand by my belief that wealth beyond a certain point makes people go insane and become evil. It’s why I distrust Mark Cuban and am literally afraid of JD Pritzker (because he’s a nice billionaire who stands a good chance of being the 2028 Dem nominee, so he must be hiding something awful).
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m less certain about that.
TBone
@Baud: thanks, I mixed up my flavors for a minute there.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I don’t recall who was quoted as saying “we can use it.” To me that is the great sin committed by W and his administration. They could have united the country and the world. Instead they chose selfish partisanship.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: I completely deleted my FB account, and now I am continually frustrated by how often I try to look up something pertaining to a local business or event and am taken to a FB page that will not let me scroll down until I login.
Also, I am still angry that I cannot delete my Twitter account because years ago I was permanently suspended for hurting some MAGAts feelings (I don’t even remember what I said to get suspended), and it is apparently impossible to delete your account while it’s under suspension.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Baud:
That seems to have been happening recently
Matt McIrvin
@French Onion Soup: I’m old enough to be really, really skeptical of Communism, in a way that makes me feel like an out-of-touch fogey.
I mean, I’m not sure you even need to be old. Some of these kids see Xi Jinping’s China as a paradise, and it claims to be ideologically Communist. China isn’t even not capitalist, or so it seems to me–it’s another right-wing autocracy with predatory crony capitalism, but one that invests a lot more in public infrastructure and public goods, with some very impressive results (I covet their transportation network!) And that last bit is what the kids are keyed on.
So if that’s what they see as the end of capitalism, well, maybe it’s easier to accomplish. Not fond of the angle of dismissing the authoritarianism because the US is authoritarian anyway, but it does seem like there’s a disbelief that democracy is even feasible any more.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: Yeah, but it was the microtargeting that I thought was so awful. As in, depending on one’s politics and demographics, one person might get posts saying Hillary was racist b/c of her support for the 1994 Crime Bill while his neighbor might receive one saying she was a communist because she voted for a tax increase.
Elizabelle
WaPost breaking news headline: Trump cancels news conference after contentious meeting with Zelensky
There’s more, describing how the meeting proceeded to shouting.
Fuck Trump. Fuck Vance. Slava Ukraini.
oldgold
Zelensky apparently has left the WH w/o signing the mineral deal.
Citizen Alan
@kwAwk: And nationalize Space X and Starlink, asap.
The Thin Black Duke
@hitchhiker: I just saw what a real president looks like, and it wasn’t the gibbering orange pustule.
Citizen Alan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): True, but a lot of the shouting is from MAGAts angry that Trump is, once again, “hurting the wrong people.”
hitchhiker
@Matt McIrvin:
The FBI became all about counterterrorism after 911, but now it’s going back to being all about going after domestic “enemies.”
You know, people who prosecuted Jan 6 thugs. Those enemies.
They don’t have time to wonder about what bad actors from outside are up to, and if something happens they’ll just blame Democrats anyway.
Mr. Bemused Senior
@Elizabelle:
In my opinion the best possible outcome. Slava Ukraini.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
CLAP CLAP CLAP
Elizabelle
@Mr. Bemused Senior: Truly.
Adam’s post tonight is going to be lit.
Rose has a new post up; it’s on the Keir Starmer (aka Stormer) visit to El Trumpo (aka The Felon).
I wish we as citizens could impeach Trump and Musk for the shitstorm today. Zelensky just left at 1:40 p.
rikyrah
@Betty Cracker:
TELL IT, BC!
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Will you put up a link to the posts?
If you have already done so, thank you.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I’m certain. It probably wouldn’t be the level of short-term admiration that Bush got even from liberals right after 9/11, that 80+% job approval for basically nothing in the fall of 2001. But Trump would get a bump. Even Jimmy Carter got one when the Tehran hostage crisis started–he lost it again when it seemed like he couldn’t handle the situation.
kwAwk
@French Onion Soup: Trump lied his way back into office. Some people are slower at picking up on that than others.
Trump really was elected on grocery prices and has done nothing on that front. Tariffs will only make that worse.
Trump also wasn’t elected to gut Medicaid, Social Security or Medicare, but is intent on doing it anyways even though he said he wouldn’t.
People are waking up slowly but surely.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker:
Vance sniffing that it’s “disrespectful” to litigate this in front of the American media?
Zelenskyy knows damn well he needs to go over the heads of the American media.
PJ
@kwAwk: Trump was elected on racism, misogyny, and bigotry. A lot of the people who voted for him may not like the impending economic and political collapse, but they will still love the racism and misogyny and bigotry.
sentient ai from the future
Oh, al-jazeera and others reporting that Russian state news agency, TASS, had access to that press gaggle, even as AP and Reuters did not.
Huh.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: So they didn’t even get to the press conference. I guess Clash Report just had the back-and-forth from the easy chairs. Trump never would have had the press in if he’d known how this would go. I bet he’s furious.
PJ
@Elizabelle:
Trump was the one who staged this for the press. He wanted to show everyone (and particularly Putin) that Zelensky would eat his shit and grovel in front of him. Because that’s what any Republican would do.
Harrison Wesley
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I’m sure this latest will go over well here in Florida. In my neighborhood I hear at least as much Spanish as English and nearly as much Haitian Creole.
Elizabelle
Here is what the media lickspittles at the Bezos WaPost have up. Did I mention “lickspittle?”
Citizen Alan
@French Onion Soup: I think “tweaking” capitalism would work if we “tweaked” it enough. We haven’t come close to that in my lifetime. Politically and economically, I consider myself a Social Democrat. (Note: I am not a Democratic Socialist because fuck those tankie assholes.) That means I support capitalism provided that it is regulated to prevent abuse, to protect both civil rights and and the health and safety of the people, and to break up monopoly power. In particular, everything we depend on to live (water and power, agriculture, probably internet services) should be tightly regulated or else nationalized.
Naturally, that means I have absolutely no use for the ridiculous DSA because the Democrats would give me pretty much everything I want if there were enough of them to control all three branches of gov’t for long enough and in sufficient numbers to not be dependent on creatures like Manchin or Lieberman.
Matt McIrvin
@PJ: That’s his base. I do think he got a fair number of low-info votes from people whose rationale was that they thought Trump would somehow roll the clock back to 2019 and get them the pre-pandemic economy back.
sentient ai from the future
@Matt McIrvin: I think you can be skeptical of communism, while lso acknowledging that there area lot of problems that atomized, alienated consumer choices aren’t adequate to handle.
Elizabelle
Previous WaPost newsbite, attributed to reporter Hannah Knowles. Something is different about these two posts, would you agree?
Baud
I’m just glad Trump isn’t old.
French Onion Soup
@Baud:
I think the Nordic model is something that could be settled for. Which is pretty much what Sanders, AOC, and others have been advocating for. There’s a reason they have the hearts and ears of the younger generation.
@TBone:
I credit my queer niece!
@Citizen Alan:
I don’t trust Cuban for shit. Cuban and other Democratic donors were the ones who talked Harris off going after tech and wealth and people saw straight through that bullshit and it is a huge reason the election went the way it did. As long as that keeps happening we are fucked. Cuban can be shot into the sun with Musk. Also the Linkedin execs that got Harris to go that route along with Cuban. If you liked Bidenomics but saw that reversal by the Harris campaign it was brutal and a sign that things were going to go back to the old ways. It was political malpractice and the donors own a huge portion of it and I’ve yet to hear one meep out of them about that fuck up.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Elizabelle:
It’s all from Trump and JD’s perspective, not Zelensky’s or anyone else’s, about how “disrespectful” Zelensky was to them
Poor babies
Baud
@sentient ai from the future:
Agreed. But that’s not what appears to be happening.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Zelenskyy played The Felon.
In the Oval Office. The media saw everything. Brilliant!
ETA: Except: could lead to even more Ukrainian deaths. But I would guess Fox might have carried that one live.
Zelenskyy might have broken through. We shall see.
Baud
@French Onion Soup:
Maybe. But I classify them as capitalist and I think they do too.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Clash Report is mainly a news aggregator. They only post on Twitter, like just about everone else over there. But this story will be widely reported by overseas.news sites. They’re all watching us closely
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@French Onion Soup:
Is there any particular reason you haven’t responded to my two replies to you in this thread?
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Ohio Mom:
Hate?
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: You may have liked the Democrats of the 2010s, but will you still like the Democrats after the center of the party moves right because they think that in the era of Trump that’s the thing to do? This is what happened with the DLC in the 1990s. I think I see it happening again, though my Democrats here in good old crazy Taxachusetts aren’t doing it. (Well, not in my district anyway.)
Regardless… I see market capitalism as something like a technology, one with advantages and dangers, like nuclear energy or the microprocessor. It is not God or the Devil. The problem we have now is that too many people seem to see it as an ideology–they justify terrible things on the moral grounds that they’re good for capitalism itself, which is kind of like being a fanatic about building space rockets at any cost. “When the rockets go up, who cares where they come down? That’s not my department, says Wernher von Braun…”
Mr. Bemused Senior
That is my hope.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Whenever I see Clash Report I think of the late, great Joe Strummer. (And of Omnes, one of Strummer’s devoted fans.)
Strummer would have some stuff to say about what is going on these days. London Calling.
Citizen Alan
@oldgold: Good for him. I hope the US doesn’t get a penny of that. I wonder if Turkiye, Germany, or France is willing to trade arms and security guarantees for rare earth minerals.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Rep. Bacon is ex-US Air Force, retired as a general with Strategic Air Command. That’s how he ended up in Omaha.
Elizabelle
@PJ: And yet!
One of these nations is governed by a former comedian.
The other one, it’s clowns all the way down.
Elizabelle
@Geminid: And somehow he has passed on accepting the Republican lobotomy.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Citizen Alan: Listen to Okie from Muskogee again.
Almost positive it is satyrical. It is hilarious too.
Elizabelle
We should take this discussion of the Zelenskyy meeting into the next thread. It is all of a piece, and Rose is present now.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Same. We’re in a completely different place 24 years on.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan:
It’s still there, but it’s not the Nashville mainstream.
Eunicecycle
@Elizabelle: really, who the fuck “cherishes” the Oval Office? What a weird thing to say.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: The media would be MORE on board to pump up Trump as the anti-terrorist Superman than they were with Bush.
French Onion Soup
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I don’t think it’s worth responding to. In this country sadly cultural issues are not negotiable. Period. I know with this boycott and talking to people about it when I talk about Musk and all that people are onboard to boycott. The moment I mention DEI even for people that agree with me I get “it’s always about XYZ with you liberals” and then that’s it. They won’t do it. And I’ve now lost them for any support on any issue going forward.
So rather than be morally right about it, I chose to shut up about it so I can possibly get them now and not run the risk of losing them and their vote later by being one of those liberals that sneaks cultural issues into everything.
Frankly, I’d rather win. And if that takes not talking about the medicine hidden in the pet treat to get them to eat it I’m willing to do that. Because I know damn well mentioning it doesn’t bring people in but causes them to run the other direction.
I didn’t respond to you because I know people here don’t want to hear that or deal with it. But it is an issue. It’s not our politicians that make these thing issues, we do by putting it into everything. We are morally right to do it. It’s also clearly backfiring. I don’t bring up the fact that these assholes mark a group I’m part of for the death either for the exact same reason when I talk to them.
Matt McIrvin
@Eunicecycle: “My father built that cabin in 1947. His last words to me were: cherish the cabin!!“
Citizen Alan
And you won’t. The wealth Dem donors will never acknowledge that there is any value in bashing the wealthy, even if it is limited to the predatory super-rich.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Citizen Alan: Think again.
FDR was quite wealthy. It is not the money that wrecks them. The money simply makes it simpler to wreck a soul imho
The Thin Black Duke
@French Onion Soup: You mean throwing black people under the bus again because it makes white people feel bad?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@French Onion Soup:
What exactly are “cultural issues” to you?
sherparick
@A Man for All Seasonings (formerly Geeno):
Yep. Not the gold coin bit, but Nixon did set him up as the hero and basically regarded the individuals who did their duty and testified against Calley as disloyal snitches.
Citizen Alan
@Baud: See also what I said above about “Social Democrats” and capitalism regulated for the public benefit.
Harrison Wesley
Disrespectful? Vance needs to STFU. Like I was taught as a kid, “people who fuck couches shouldn’t throw stones.” Or something like that.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: Tufkiye will sell arms to Ukraine on credit. Tbeyd rather get the Europeans to pay for them, but this war implicates Turkiye’s vital national interests in a way it doesn’t Western Europesns’ and the US’s.
The Turks have always understood that US support for Ukraine could dry up some day. But they have to live there, and the last thing Turkiye wants to see is Russian control of the northern Black Sea coast.
Archon
@kwAwk:
The genius of Trump talking about eggs and groceries is that it gave bigoted, deranged, and idiotic voters a talking point that couldn’t be easily refuted.
Lets be clear though people weren’t looking for a reason to vote Trump, they were looking for an excuse to vote Trump.
sherparick
@PJ:
Sadly true. At least living with groups of people and feeling that to be socially accepted, they have to along with the racism, misogny, and bigotry.
French Onion Soup
@The Thin Black Duke:
I’m Jewish these assholes want me dead as well. I’m not throwing anybody under the bus at all. DEI and cultural issues is not just black folk.
The reality is if we win and sweep back into power DEI is coming back. Not just in the government but corporations will push it again as we have power. So the question is how to get power. And the way to that which works is to bang as hard about Bezos, Musk, monopolies, and all the other stuff that gets people and leave the rest unsaid. They know it’s going to come back if we get power but talking about it lets the people trying to kill us make the discussion about it and then everyone bolts.
When it comes to getting through this and avoiding what I fear is coming I’d rather be pragmatic and win than dead and morally right.
Citizen Alan
I don’t recall saying I liked “the Dems of the 2010s.” I said Dems would generally give me policies I like if they control all three branches and don’t have to deal with conservative Dems hamstringing them as Lieberman, Baucus, and too many others did to Obama in 2009, and it cost them control of Congress. I am more positive than you about whether the Dems will shift right in response to Trump because of two fairly narrow losses to a specific and uniquely charismatic (to some people) politician. Get back to me on “triangulation” (which I assume is what you’re talking about) when we decisively lose three presidential election in a row because of “Wokeism.”
Citizen Alan
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Really? I don’t know that I ever heard the song. But from what I know of it, most conservative country music fans didn’t get the joke. Which, you know, is common (see the Colbert Report).
French Onion Soup
@Citizen Alan:
The same cadre of assholes pushed Biden out. Got Harris to walk back on economic progress. Made Walz stop mocking people. I know none of them will ever admit they were wrong and I fully expect the same behavior next time around.
We have to fix things. They won’t.
Citizen Alan
People who belong to a cult and who think that the Oval Office is where their God-King lives.
NutmegAgain
My standard response to each post or announcement of yet more horrifying and anti-democratic dismantling of the US government: Jesus Fucking Christ! Followed by Fuuucking Asshole. (I hope I don’t offend anyone there, but it’s the first thing that pops out of my mouth.)
Eunicecycle
@Matt McIrvin: Smile! (I almost put a smile emoji)
Archon
@French Onion Soup:
Fair or not Bidenomics as a political project was massively unpopular.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@French Onion Soup:
Biden got himself pushed out because he was incoherent on national television (what does “We beat Medicare” mean?) and was largely absent for the year prior from public. And he never got much better afterwards. He reinforced the negative perceptions against him.
Now, the stuff on Walz and Harris, yes I’d agree with you on that. The donors are a problem
Warblewarble
A day that will live in infamy.
NutmegAgain
@Citizen Alan: They don’t really know what words mean. It’s part of the right wing wurlitzer. The one argument I let myself get pulled into on a local town page included me saying, “It’s good to know who the Nazis are around here.” I got one magat response of “hey Lib, you’re being sexist.” Sexist?? I reached for the Princess Bride, and said that I didn’t think that word meant what she thought it meant. It’s happened more than once, same thread. Another choad was ragging on DEI in the public schools. I looked at each word in turn and asked what the issue was. Magat response: “you libs are always using obscure words to confuse the conversation.” Obscure?? Maybe only if you are part of Trump’s select group, the poorly educated that he likes so well.
French Onion Soup
@Archon:
Taxing corporations, rich people, and breaking up monopolies was though. The moment Harris stepped in for Biden she backed off wealth taxation, corporation taxation, and corporate power. Now some of that is just who Harris is. But it was Cuban Linkedin execs and others who got her to go there.
That was a massive fuck up. And none of these consultants, campaign gurus, or donors are every going to admit that. They are a problem we have to deal with.
PJ
@sentient ai from the future:
You get atomized, alienated consumer choices – and political and social choices – under Communism as well.
French Onion Soup
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
I’m also furious that they probably ended Harris political future. Gore, Kerry, HRC, and even going back further failed general election runs are largely fatal.
I’m also furious because now that the campaign is over and Walz is free to start speaking how he wants to speak it’s working! But nope you can’t call people weird or dipshits not allowed.
Geminid
@Elizabelle: Don Bacon goes along and gets along on domestic issues, but he is a Ukraine and Nato Hawk. There are plenty like him in that regard, especially in the Senate. Whether they’re willing to get up on their hind legs now is a different story.
But I expect Bacon plans to retire. He’s hung on by his finger tips for the last three cycles. Biden won Bacon’s district in 2020 and 2024 I think.
trollhattan
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
Is this finally Donny’s commitment to learning it?
English motherfucker, do you speak it?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@French Onion Soup:
Public polling indicates that in a vacuum these things are popular, but add in political candidates and parties and suddenly those same people will vote for the candidate who is against all of that, for various reasons, including racist, sexist, etc ones.
Personally, I don’t think Biden was going to win, especially not after the June debate. It badly damaged him. He and Trump were neck and neck before that in polling. Harris actually improved on his numbers
Elizabelle
@Geminid: Interesting.
Retire, perhaps. But he is sidestepping the Dignity Wraith for now.
(Josh Marshall’s term for those who come out worse for sucking up to Trump.)
Dignity Wraith is even in the Urban dictionary now!
Bex
@DougL: US won’t see one tiny mineral anytime soon. EU is probably whipping up a deal right now.
trollhattan
I can’t read this headline without thinking it’s about Trump.
Alas, it’s about some poor 20YO resident of Herculaneum in 79 AD. Super interesting article; unlike Trump, do read for insight on how to vitrify a hooman. Spoiler: not easy!
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgr2n8xx5gyo
karen gail
@Old School: I’ll admit I am old; I got the reference right away. Sadly, if that happened today will Trump is President rather being tried for murder he would have been proclaimed a hero by the far right, a true “warfighter,” and an shinning example of manhood.
After all that is about what happened with Rittenhouse, who couldn’t believe he could no longer call President personally and be treated like hero when Biden took office.
Matt McIrvin
@French Onion Soup: To me, the Nordic model is “tweaking capitalism”. There are still limited-liability corporations!
Socialism and communism are not that. Certainly the Star Trek automated luxury gay space communism model isn’t–they insist they don’t even have money, though it’s never been clear how that is supposed to work.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Conservatives like to claim that they’re the only non-utopians, the ones who recognize that we live in a fallen world and human nature cannot be perfected. But I’m sure not seeing that from the MAGA movement. They want to Trumpatize your mind and force you to be the kind of person they think you ought to be.
Kayla Rudbek
@HopefullyNotcassandra: yeah, Opus Dei is totally in the tank for the Russians.
Gloria DryGarden
@kwAwk: friends tell me they started to X out all the ai posts, and ass, and started seeing way more of friends. Over on Fbk.
Gloria DryGarden
@Matt McIrvin: on Fbk, I expect to see all my friends, and I don’t. Mostly just the ones I click like on, or like my posts. Otherwise I have to think of them, and go searching.
i like the “quiet posters” on blue sky, for the folks that don’t post often. I catch up on more people that way.
Chris T.
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
He was obviously trying to say “We beat inflation and saved Medicare” and, due to the stutter, dropped two words.