There it is: Speaker of the House says Elon has already started running your Social Security through his AI.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) March 2, 2025 at 1:00 PM
2/ Note specifically what Johnson (And Musk) are saying here. No cuts … BUT social security is mostly fraud. So they're going to cut off 50% of Social Security payments? 30%? 70%? Musk is managing the biggest generational theft in American history here.
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm.bsky.social) March 2, 2025 at 1:03 PM
Lent begins on Wednesday, coincidentally the day after the not-exactly-State-of-the-Union address. I don’t know how it’s observed in Pastor Johnson’s version of Christianism, but he does not look like a man who’s expecting his tribulation in the desert to be over in a mere six weeks…
I say this with all seriousness:
This is the face of a man who knows his political career is over and it's just a matter of time to determine how boned he is.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 2, 2025 at 1:52 PM
good luck, Speaker
— post malone ergo propter malone (@proptermalone.bsky.social) March 3, 2025 at 12:40 AM
And the Tsar… knows!
Trump insists he “won’t touch” Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security
He recently compared it to George HW Bush’s “read my lips: no new taxes” promise
… but Bush broke his promise and raised taxes
And a backlash is already emerging as GOP targets Medicaid, and Musk loudly talks about entitlements— Dan Diamond (@ddiamond.bsky.social) March 2, 2025 at 4:28 PM
You might say this is wishful thinking on liberals' part, but Mike Johnson isn't out here offering a clean CR because he's worried about wishful thinking
— Chatham Harrison is tending his garden (@chathamharrison.bsky.social) March 2, 2025 at 11:28 PM
Yeah, I think it's very important to look at what's going on right now and seeing the difference in tone between now and 2017. 2017 had a lot of soaring feel good rhetoric mixed with protest.
2025 is just a bunch of people getting lathered up and shouting at people— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 1, 2025 at 6:20 PM
And in some ways, that might be more universally applicable. Trump voters can get on board with "shout at people who do bad things to me."
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 1, 2025 at 6:20 PM
As a sidenote folks, it feels like the energy and intensity of the pushback is hitting and maybe even surpassing 2017 levels, both in protests and in attendance in townhalls, etc.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 1, 2025 at 6:10 PM
Co-Chair of DOGE Caucus is frustrated with DOGE.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) March 3, 2025 at 12:05 AM
if the town halls from over the weekend are any indication, "badly"
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) March 2, 2025 at 5:50 PM
i do not, as a rule, think it's wise to institute an extremely high visibility regime of radical cuts to social services and health insurance, and then vaporize hundreds of thousands of jobs which the private sector can't absorb, no. i think there are several predictable outcomes of doing so
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) March 2, 2025 at 5:27 PM
there are a lot of republicans currently stroking the "elon musk is an incredible hype man" monkey's paw without acknowledging that what he's hyping is taking away your grandfather's social security payments and your daughter's medicaid subsidy
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) March 2, 2025 at 5:32 PM
Just as a reminder do remember that we actually elected this guy in Alabama. Elections get fucking weird when the incumbent is unpopular and the other guy sucks.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) March 1, 2025 at 11:20 PM
Part of the reason we’re so miserable right now is that we have the clusterfuck but not yet the cultural response to it that provides moral support. For those of you who remember, it’s like 2003—when we had yellow ribbons and 24 but not yet American Idiot.
— Ted Underwood (@tedunderwood.me) March 2, 2025 at 2:25 PM
it’s true that we won’t be able to rebuild what we lost but it’s also possible that we’ll be able to build something better, because we won’t have the same path dependencies that brought us to now.
— post malone ergo propter malone (@proptermalone.bsky.social) February 27, 2025 at 10:36 PM
Taco
Trucks
On
Every
Corner— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) February 28, 2025 at 12:24 AM
Baud
Some good news, via reddit.
Baud
I don’t get the surprise that more damage leads to more resistance.
prostratedragon
“Indian Red” chant from Treme.
satby
Happy Lundi Gras everyone! Here’s hoping the increasing opposition is making the modern day visigoths uncomfortable. I wasn’t planning to give up my SS for Lent.
Lapassionara
@satby: Me neither! Nor was I going to give up my Social Security to the so-called richest man on the planet.
lowtechcyclist
Rep. Blake Moore didn’t notice that his party has been vilifying ‘unelected bureaucrats’ for his entire life, and then some?
Betty Cracker
I love how Marco Rubio looks like he’s in a dissociative fugue state in every recent photo.
lowtechcyclist
They’re all long weeks now.
And I’ve had “American Idiot” going through my head a lot lately.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all.
Last Friday made 1 week since US Rep Mike Ezell’s office was hand-delivered a letter asking for a response. None has been received.
Today makes 1 week US Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith‘s office was hand-delivered a letter asking for a response. None has been received.
I’m waiting, as requested, to schedule a meeting with the “Southern Regional Field Representative” for US Senator Roger Wicker. I’m not holding my breath.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Turkish journalist Ragip Soylu posted video of a catatonic Rubio watching Trump try to bully Zelensky Friday with the comment:
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
To quote a very smart man:
Nukular Biskits
@Betty Cracker:
Karma has been b-slapping him. I hope She continues.
satby
The comedians are always the truth tellers. Josh Johnson on the stock market losing a trillion dollars during the AI kerfuffle.
Scout211
They really parodied that in the SNL cold open Saturday.
It’s almost as if he has been reprogrammed by his tech overlords and they got the wires crossed. Something not right with Lil’ Marco.
Geo Wilcox
I read a thread on X, I think, that was from an anon SSA worker. He or she said that DOGE is dismantling the SSA from the inside. They have fired hundreds of people and not just back end workers but the staff that handles the phones, kiosks, and workload of dealing with the public. They hope to do this so fast that no one notices until it is too late. The system will collapse and they can privatize it.
Tim C
@Scout211: I think, despite Marco’s idiocy and spinelessness, some hint of shred of reality is inside him and he knows that there is no way this ends well for anyone.
And he’s at the center of it.
suzanne
@satby: I agree 100% about comedians. I have a theory that whichever political side is seen as funnier/more outrageous (comedians, candidates, general public) wins, the vast majority of the time.
I want to note that I don’t feel good about this.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Just finished 4 days at the True/False doc festival and finished with this;
https://moveablefest.com/ian-bell-wto-99/
To say it’s prescient is an understatement. I hope it gets picked up by somebody.
Geminid
@Nukular Biskits: Marco Rubio is like a passenger on one of those old Russian sleighs transiting a forest in the wintertime. Rubio knows that when the wolves start closing in, he’s the guy who’s gonna get tossed out the back.
Nukular Biskits
@Geo Wilcox:
This is what I believe is the plan (a variation of the Underpants Gnomes meme):
They do not care how many people get hurt. And the fact that almost no Republicans are speaking out in opposition shows either they’re more terrified of Trump than they are of their own constituents … or they’re in on the scheme themselves.
Tim C
@Nukular Biskits: The other possibility is that they are hoping that whatever shit-storm is coming, and it’s a big one, that they will be spared. It’s certainly possible, I don’t think the red states will do anything but keep voting Republican even if we hit great depression levels of unemployment/collapse. On the other hand, some marginal “Red” states like Montana, Iowa, Ohio, or even Texas could flip quickly.
Nukular Biskits
@Geminid:
I pondered about this yesterday (?): Knowing Trump’s history WRT to subordinates, why would anyone with even an ounce of sense humiliate themselves for him?
Rubio KNOWS Trump is gonna toss him over the side so why did he even take the job? I’m not Rubio fan and he wasn’t even my US Senator, but he probably had a lock on that job for life, given the politics of FL right now. So why give it up only to look like a fool?
Hoodie
@Geminid: I wonder if recent developments with the PKK might restart movement for entry of Turkiye in the EU. Heard that the Turks were also interested in participating in peacekeeping ops in Ukraine, and they seem pretty close to the Ukrainians. Tubby’s dipshittery certainly seems to be putting things in motion that would put us (and the Russians) out in the cold just so he can act out his petty resentments and nuzzle up to a loser like Putin. Reminds me of what my old law partner used to say about being able to dictate certain actions but not their consequences.
Nukular Biskits
@Tim C:
I have no doubt you are correct; i.e., a lot of Republicans are trying to keep their heads down low and hope they get spared. And, sadly, I think you’re also correct that a lot of them will survive because, even with ample evidence of how Republicans can’t govern for the good of ALL Americans, a lot of voters will still reward them with yet another term in office.
And folks wonder why I have no patience these days …
Shalimar
@Baud: Something hilarious I saw yesterday, someone said sales are always low in January and February. They’re down so many percent compared to the already low last year, not to the good periods. It wasn’t much of a defense. Tesla is hurting and it is a lot more likely to get worse than better.
ARoomWithAMoose
@Betty Cracker: “I love how Marco Rubio looks like he’s in a dissociative fugue state in every recent photo.”
The Dignity Wraith claims another damned soul.
Another Scott
‘Morning everyone.
It looks to be decent weather in DC on Saturday, March 7, (high around 60F) for the Stand Up for Science 2025 rally.
I plan to be there.
Attend similar events if you can, and spread the word.
Politics is slow, but our side is gaining momentum. Continuing to push smartly can have a big impact.
Best wishes,
Scott.
mrmoshpotato
@ARoomWithAMoose: Oh Rubio lost his soul long ago. Wonder if he’ll last longer than oilman Rex.
Jackie
@Another Scott:
Ummmm March 7 is FRIDAY.
I only know that because it’s my daughter’s BD ;D
Another Scott
@mrmoshpotato: +1
Dick Nixon has had his number for years.
Best wishes,
Scott.
glory b
@satby: I can’t listen to any “comedy” about our current situation.
Just can’t.
Just like the White House Correspondent’s Dinner. I like Amber Ruffin in theory, but there’s nothing remotely funny about all of this.
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
March 7 is this Friday, and that’s the day of the Stand Up For Science rally.
I’ll be there!
Another Scott
@Jackie: D’Oh!!
:-(
HBD to your little one!
Best wishes,
Scott.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Shalimar:
@Baud:
Three months is definitely an unprecedented trend in Tesla sales given this drop dates back to December sales.
as I’ve said before, what’ll be real telling will be overall First quarter EV sales in the US once GM releases their data and we get a good snapshot.
But yeah, in Yurp at least, this looks more than just stale product line and increased competition. If that were solely it, you’d see a drop but not going off a cliff.
mrmoshpotato
@Another Scott: Haha, add it to the lexicon.
Soprano2
@Geo Wilcox: I believe this, and in fact it wouldn’t surprise me if eventually they “privatize” a lot of these functions they are “deleting”. They know these things need to be done, but they want the private sector to profit from them rather than having government workers do them. So, have a private company hire the same workers for more money and then pay the government more to do the same jobs, because these idiots think everything the private sector does is better and cheaper.
glory b
@Nukular Biskits: The other day I saw a video from a town hall where the speaker started by saying, “I’m a Republican and I’m not going to vote for Democrats, BUT…” then something about a laid of veteran.
He already told the Republican in the front of the room all he needed to know.
pajaro
Some of our Senators are standing up and resisting. A couple of days ago, Senator Brian Schatz put a hold on approval of State Department nominees, which he said he will continue until the Department starts obeying court orders and stops the firings of some of the AID workers. I wish he and Senate Democrats had a larger megaphone, so it wouldn’t fall to me to let you know about this, but there was no way this wasn’t going to be crowded out of the news on Friday, given the disaster that happened with Zenenskyy.
BlueGuitarist
@Another Scott:
Yes! Thanks for posting this.
planning to go to one as well.
Another Scott
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: It looks like TSLA’s revenue has been flat since around summer-fall 2023. The stock going nuts on the upside, especially in the last 3-6 months, is not based on fundamentals.
But we folks in the real world know that.
Here’s hoping that folks who dump the stock move the money into a sensible other company rather than buying magic beans… [sigh]
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@glory b:
He could stay home. But yes. People in the GOP base are going to get screwed because they have taken us off the table.
Nukular Biskits
@Soprano2:
I mentioned the other day that I asked in a company managers’ meeting about the probability of negative impact to contractors should Musk continue to fire gov’t employees who administer those contracts.
I was told corp wasn’t seeing it that way – they were of the opinion the gov’t would contract out a lot of the functions being eliminated.
It’s a scam.
BlueGuitarist
@pajaro:
Thanks for amplifying this!
The US AID disaster shows that the
Disgraceful
Oligarchs
Grabbing
Everything
Don’t care at all about efficiency – there’s nothing efficient about letting hundreds of millions of dollars worth of food rot instead of delivering it where needed.
Nukular Biskits
@glory b:
The very textbook definition of cutting one’s nose off to spite one’s own face.
But, hey, that idiot really own’t the libtards, right?
Tim C
@Baud: I agree… but…. They don’t all have to flip to D, even if say 5% of them move to team D quietly and another 5-10% stay home….
glory b
Another thing to do, an easy lift and I don’t think I’ve read anything about it here:
In one of those “you can’t make this up” moments, Edward Coristine (also known as “Big Balls”), the teen that Musk put in charge of OPM, his family owns the organic snack foods company Lesser Evil.
His father was a hedge fund manager who bought the company when it was failing for $250,000, now it’s worth tens of millions.
Easy boycott. Tell your friends.
Jackie
@Another Scott: LOL!
She’ll be a “little” 43. She’s a petite 5’1” 105 lbs – soaking wet :D
Jinchi
I think Trump believes he can kill social security by firing all the workers, and still claim that he didn’t actually cut social security at all.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Which begs the question as to how to even begin to reach people like this. Or if we should even bother.
This is similar to a situation I ran into years ago when I first ran for public office as a Democrat. I ran into an acquaintance we had known for years, the principal at our kids’ elementary school, and mentioned I was running for office and would appreciate their consideration. They told me they wished me well, they did not support the incumbent, but they would never vote for me because I ran as a Democrat.
Seriously. How do you counter that type of “principled” stance?
satby
Kevin Drum reminds me that the big tariffs against Canada and Mexico are supposed to go into effect tomorrow. So another week of brinkmanship and chaos, followed by another 30 day reprieve, or do we think he’ll do it this time? Either way will throw the markets into a frenzy.
The biggest proof of the lack of a deep state is that Trump continues to walk the earth.
glory b
Lesser Evil Boycott Pushed For Over DOGE Ties
Ohio Mom
The irony is that Social Security *is* efficient.
All of us have heard a gazillion times that Social Security is the third rail, “they” will never touch it, conveniently forgetting that Reagan DID “touch” Social Security, and that GW tried to privatized it.
That’s cognitive dissonance. There is solid evidence against the belief that Social Security is untouchable but people can’t let that information in.
satby
You say, you don’t support the incumbent, but that’s what you’re going to get: same old, same old until you try something else. And then let them sit with that. That’s the seed, and eventually it may grow into knowledge if there’s any hope of growth at all. Won’t be quick though.
BlueGuitarist
@glory b:
thanks!
Jeffro
We are definitely going to have to build it back different post-trumpov…not just build it back.
Different, better, stronger.
A democracy willing to slap down the arsonists and looters who would destroy it.
A democracy with higher standards in so many ways.
Baud
@Nukular Biskits:
@satby is correct, but the reality is Democrat = Black people to them.
BlueGuitarist
The Wisconsin Supreme Court thermometer is almost at the goal!
Have to mail postcards today and get more addresses.
Nukular Biskits
@satby:
That assumes “principled” folks like that are capable of setting aside their “principles” and rationally evaluating their options.
Call me a cynic, but you give people like that, at least those here in MS who think ignorance is a virtue, far too much credit.
siddhartha
Well, WaterGirl, if you read this, I must admit my Luddite failure to locate your email. Your nym on the side took me to Spoutible and I found myself with an account that I did not actually want to create.
Anyway, if you can email me, that is, if you would like to, please do so. I had an idea for a “CRT” book club at BJ. So many great voices here. We could read a book together, like, White Fragility or Dying to be White or Ida B. Wells’s Southern Horrors or whatever and talk about it together–regardless of where we start out from. I personally need to learn more about the failures of Reconstruction and Andrew Jackson, for example.
I say this because being here for decades is like “growing up” with everyone here. (Like I said, I will NEVER get over losing Tunch. That dude got me in the right MOOD.) So, maybe with an actual object in front of us to discuss, we can, myself included, figure out more positive and supportive ways of being together.
frosty
@Tim C: What about solid (65%) Republican districts in states like PA? Any chance they would flip? I don’t see it.
gene108
@Nukular Biskits:
They are afraid of BOTH Trump AND Musk.
Musk has the money to pay for a primary challenger for every incumbent Republican up for election, if they get out of line.
I bet John Roberts is the happiest person on the planet. He and his SCOTUS paved the way for Musk to takeover the government, Trump to be unaccountable, and Republican members of Congress to be more worried about a primary challenge than the general election because of gerrymandering.
Geminid
@Hoodie: The ongoing rapprochement between the Turkish government and the PKK, and between the Kurdish DEM andthe other parties could remove one of tbe biggest stumbling blocks to Turkish EU membership, that being Turkiye’s inordinate amount of political prisoners.
But even if Turkiye cleans up its human rights, Germany and Franve could be reluctant to let z nation with a population equalling Germany’s an exceeding France’s into the EU. For now, Turkiye wants more treatment ij terms of trade and visas issued under the Schengin(sp?) system.
Turkiye always been wary of Russia. That’s why Turkiye joined Nato in 1952 and has since considered that alliance a cornerstone of its national security. Like every Nato member, they have to reevaluate that alliance now. But they already started that reevaluation in 2014, when they saw what their Wwstefn allies did when Russia took Crimea, which essentially was nothing.
Since then Turkiye started to build what is now a formidable defense industry, and helped arm Ukraine before and throughout this war (although neither nation publicizes this much). They’re not new players in this game like the Europeans, who only hot involved in 2022, and hesitently at first.
The Turks and the Ukrainians seem to have an understanding, but they don’t say what that is exactly. But one look at a map of Black tells me that there is no way Turkiye will let Russia control the Black Sea’s north coast if they can help it.
As for a potential Turkish contribution to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine, they field Nato’s second largest army and second largest air force so it could be substantial. There won’t a peacekeeping force though, until there is a negotiated ceasefire. That’s months off I think, because it looks like Putin intends to exploit as best he can, on the battlefront, the rift between Ukraine and the Trump-led US.
zhena gogolia
@siddhartha: That sounds great. I’ll e-mail her and ask her to look for this comment.
Nukular Biskits
@Baud:
Emphasis mine (as if it’s needed):
BINGO! Can’t tell you how many times I had to hear about “welfare queens”, etc, and other thinly-veiled racist dogwhistles when I ran.
But, as I told @satby, I’m not sure it’s possible to break through those adamantium cranial cavities, so “principled” they are.
I suppose the energy is worth it if it only gives 1 out of 10 pause to reconsider how stupid their position is to continue voting GOP.
zhena gogolia
@gene108: “They are afraid of BOTH Trump and Musk.”
This is what gets me — no one has been poisoned or pushed out a window. All you face is a primary challenge. Really? You’ll sell out your own country for that?
Peale
@Hoodie: I wonder if its dawned on Turkiye that part of this Russian push to restore its empire probably includes that old goal that it should have Constantinople as the true successor to the Roman empire.
siddhartha
Thanks zhena!!!!
Ohio Mom
@Nukular Biskits: To be fair, I won’t vote for a Republican. Haven’t since the 1980s when I’d vote for one specific Republican for Cincinnati City Council. Then the forces of evil got Cincinnati to put in term limits and he had to leave Council.
For a while I was playing a game with myself, if Adam Kingzinger was running to be my Rep against a mediocre Democrat, what would I do? I decided I didn’t know enough about him except he generates good sound bites to continue the exercise.
BlueGuitarist
@frosty:
Do you have an opinion about Democrat James Malone, Mayor of East Petersburg, running in the special election March 25 for PA State Senate 36, northern Lancaster County?
2022: Josh Shapiro +0.2, Fetterman -13
2024: Harris -15
So it’s a tough district but more favorable than the Harris -21 district that Democrat Mike Zimmer flipped in the January Iowa State Senate special. And unlike that Iowa district, which shifted sharply right since Obama carried it in 2012, in PAS-36, Democrats have improved from Obama losing the district by 25 points in 2012.
Website: https://www.friendsofjamesmalone.org/
What do you think?
Nukular Biskits
@Ohio Mom:
I know this will probably earn me a lot of sternly-worded responses but I’m not totally averse to voting for a Republican IF they campaign on things that align with my beliefs (strong social safety net, increased funding for public education, etc). And I have to know they’re truly committed to these things, not just saying pretty words to get my vote.
But here in MS, there is very little difference between Republicans and “conservative” white Democrats so I really have no effective choice unless a woman or POC runs under the Democratic banner.
gene108
@Soprano2:
I’d be okay if that’s all I did. Part of me thinks they want to move the Social Security Trust Fund from U.S. bonds to Musk or Trump’s meme coin / cryptocurrency.
Shalimar
AI seems to be a moneypit crock of shit and I assume robotics was that break dancer wearing a robot suit. Both seem like full self-driving, areas where what Elon promises can’t possibly happen for a decade or ever. What am I missing that this genius analyst sees?
bbleh
@Geo Wilcox: @Nukular Biskits: the same thought occurs to me. They’re certainly gonna wreck things, and they’re certainly gonna TRY to privatize them, with all the usual banners and streamers and hosannas from the amen corner.
But who but a ketamine-addled legacy kid who’s run one company entirely into the ground and is working on another, along with his Adderall-addled legacy-kid patron who couldn’t even make a profit running casinos, thinks THAT’s gonna work?
We need a new “gnomes” list, except for Republicans:
1. Break lots of the government.
2. Get thrown out of office.
3. Whine that Democrats haven’t fixed it.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Nukular Biskits: Something that might get them to change in fashion if they realize the GOP sees them as no different than the blacks.
Ohio Mom
@Nukular Biskits: The Councilman I mentioned voting for was the last Republican on any of the ballots appearing before me that I could say supported what I support.
Geminid
@Peale: Turks have never forgotten Russia’s centuries-old designs on Istanbul and control of the Turkish Straits. That’s the main reason Turkiye joined Nato in 1952, after the Soviet Union “requested” that Turkiye renegotiate the treaty of Montreux.
Turks watch Russia much more closely than do Americans, because Russia is much closer. Turkiye has a lot riding on the outcome this war, as much or more than France, Germany or the UK. Poland and the other Baltic nations probably have more riding on outcome than does Turkiye, but not that much more..
Tim C
@frosty: 65% Probably not.
Nukular Biskits
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The absolute contempt my members of Congress have for their constituents is astounding. I’m not talking about the irritating assholes like me who keep demanding they answer politically inconvenient questions. I’m talking about the “true believers”, the folks who voted for Trump and a straight Republican ticket … they’re not responding to their questions either.
Of course, I have no actual polling data to support that and only a scattering of unverifiable anecdotes, but they tend to view the majority of their constituents as either stupid enough to believe anything they’re told or opponents to be ignored.
I still can’t over the condescension of the staffer for Sen Hyde-Smith who told me, to my face, town halls were a thing of the past, there was no real need to do them anymore, and it was only a thing back in the 90s. They really are counting on a majority of voters to be that stupid to keep reelecting them. And, sadly, they’re probably right, at least here in MS.
Ohio Mom
@gene108: You want your Social Security funding crypto pump-and-dumps?! The thing about Social Security (so far) is that you are not suddenly going to get a reduced benefit, it’s not like owning shares of stock in a failing company. Oops! No dividend for you this year.
i have a vague memory of Chile privatizing their social security system and that being a disaster (for the recipients, not the privatizers). I guess I’ll have to research that to shore up my vague memory.
glory b
@glory b: Now Lesser Evil is scrambling to insist it HAS NO TIES TO ANY GOVERNMENTAL OR POLITICAL GROUP OR PERSON!!
They are just a group of happy individuals who have come together based on their love of healthy snack alternatives! Sounds like DEI to mw!
Charles Coristine (the Dad) has deleted his LinkedIn.
UncleEbeneezer
We need to talk about Patriarchal Masculinity:
frosty
@BlueGuitarist: I don’t know any more about this than what I’ve read on Balloon Juice so probably the same as you.
Anything I can offer would just be uninformed speculation.
ETA No idea why they would like Shapiro and not Fetterman. Unless it’s a Hate Pittsburgh thing.
Jackie
@gene108:
@zhena gogolia:
These chickenshits need to resign from congress. Let the Democrats take over the House – at least until after the multiple special elections.* Jeffries and House Democrats will stand up to FFOTUS and President Muskrat.
I did read somewhere right after the MAGA House voted to pass Pastor Johnson’s bill, that the last minute phone calls to the squishy Repukes from FFOTUS included death threats and/or being primaried. IF TRUE – America is done.
*There’s no guarantee the Republicans would retake the House following said special elections.
oldgold
I am sure Susan Collins is concerned about this.
“Out of 34 Sea Grant programs, Maine’s is the only one targeted for elimination by Trump. This isn’t about trans people playing sports. It’s clearly retribution for the Governor standing up to Trump, it doesn’t matter what the policy disagreement is.”
Spanky
@Shalimar:
That win or lose, he’s playing with other people’s money, and he gets his cut either way.
Geminid
@Nukular Biskits: What about that Pressley guy who ran for governor against Tate Reeves? Pressley seemed a fairly solid Democrat, and he was white. Pressley seemed to occupy an ideological space not unlike that occupied by Kentucky’s Andy Beshear.
rikyrah
Good Morning , Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
...now I try to be amused
@ARoomWithAMoose:
Following Chris Christie.
“This is not my beautiful house! This is not my beautiful wife!”
rikyrah
@Geminid:
Will forever believe that he won that race.
You don’t ‘run out of ballots’ in the largest county of the state by accident.😠😠
Some states are red states. Others are just voter suppressed😠
rikyrah
@oldgold:
Absolutely ridiculous😠😠
rikyrah
@ARoomWithAMoose:
He never did have a spine😒
rikyrah
@gene108:
They are absolutely gutless😠😠
JPL
Cuz, Why not!
U.S. military removes words ‘history,’ ‘respect,’ ‘dignity’ from digital presence as part of DEI review
Soprano2
@Nukular Biskits: It’s sure not about saving money, because that’s not how you’d go about it if you really wanted to save money and make things more efficient.
RevRick
@Tim C: Already, a week or so ago, generic ballots in swing Congressional districts had the Democrats up by 5%. And that’s before any real pain set in. In 2018, Democrats won 40 seats, but then they were in a far deeper hole.
Betty Cracker
@Nukular Biskits:
THIS. I’m still fuming over a “newsletter” from my rep that landed in my spam folder over the weekend. Lies, obfuscation, ass-covering.
The one positive thing (from my POV) is that he felt compelled to lie about what DOGE is doing and who is running it because, as he put it, “I received a high volume of calls in my office with people who have questions about what they are hearing about DOGE.”
No One of Consequence
An observation and a question for the assembled:
Is anyone else incensed by the use of the term ‘Entitlements’? Specifically with regards to Social Security?
Not only is this surrendering the frame, but it is currently, chronologically, wrong.
I posit that social security was indeed an entitlement for that first generation(s) of Americans who benefited, without having put in their moneys via the payroll tax — but that critically, for most of those alive today (has to be all by now, right?), we have been paying this tax our entire working lives. How is that an entitlement, and not an Earned Benefit?
Please stop letting this one slide in normal conversations. Those of us that have earned paychecks have earned that benefit via that tax. It’s not an Entitlement. We fucking PAID for that. We ARE paying for that.
Want it solvent? Remove the cap. Done. Magic worked. Next problem please.
Oh, the oligarchy has their underwear in a bind over it? Fine. Back to Eisenhower’s top marginal tax rates.
Thought that would shut you up.
Fuckers.
-NOoC
Nelle
Just quickly jumping in before going to co-teach a class at the refugee center. I got a live person at my congressman’s (R) office and found myself going to tears. The congressman has actually been good, for an R, on Ukraine. He went to Ukraine, he sponsored funding Ukraine, and he called me at home the day of the vote. (I call twice a week and his staff takes good notes). As I told him, my father did not serve in North Africa, Italy, and southern France for this. My husband did not do three tours in Vietnam for this. But when I started to cry was when I told him that my dad’s village has been under Russian control since March of 2022. I just needed to write this somewhere, a marker, that I am trying to move them. I said this is a matter of morality, not politics.
Nelle
Oh, and my conservative, Republican, anti-abortion sister, whom I love, has her hair on fire about what is going on, posting on her FB account, raising protests from her conservative friends. For her, she wouldn’t vote for Trump because of his character, but what really tore it was cutting off aid to the starving. We only exist because a bunch of North American Mennonites (Canadian and US), gave sacrificially to send food to the Mennonite colonies in Russia (now Ukraine) and fed our father and his family during the famine of 1921-22. Too late for my cousin, who died of starvation.
Did Musk fly with his family on Air Force One without T? Are they living in the White House now?
Geminid
@Jackie: I think any Republican who crosses Mike Johson will do so with the intention of retiring after this term.
I remember what happened to Rep. Mark Sanford in 2018. Sanford voted for every one of Trump’s legislative initiatives, but he also publically criticized Trump’s governing style. Big mistake! Trump endorsed a primary challenger who beat Sanford. I expect Sanford’s peers remember that better than I do.
Sanford’s challenger went on to lose SC01, which Republican had held ever since the Southern party realignment of the 1970s. But then Nancy Mace reclaimed the district for Republicans in 2020.
rikyrah
@No One of Consequence:
Tell it👏🏾👏🏾
rikyrah
@Nelle:
Speak out👏🏾 They needed to hear your voice👏🏾
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nelle: Exactly who is living in the White House? Is Trump? Or does he fly in from Mar a Lago for photo ops?
Redshift
@lowtechcyclist:
Arguably the best protest song of our time!
cain
@Geminid:
That fucker wanted to be part of the cool kids, and he worked hard and now that he’s there – he knows his political career is over and he’ll be forever linked to these clowns.
I’m almost certain he isn’t being treated well either. He’s their bitch.
WaterGirl
@siddhartha: zhena sent up a flare about this.
Can you send me an email message with the text of your comment in it, and any further thoughts on this you would like to share?
watergirl at balloon-juice.com
You may have added a hyphen between water and girl, but hyphens are only used if the nym itself has a space in it, like “Anne Laurie”. The other common issue is the hyphen in balloon-juice, some people leave that out. Third runner up is accidentally leaving out the second O in balloon.
Also, everyone, if you click “Contact Us” in the white menu bar up top, it also tells you how to contact us. Hidden in plain sight! :-)
Redshift
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He’s spent more than a quarter of his term golfing, so yeah.
WereBear
@Nelle: Thank you. I appreciate it. My rep’s office doesn’t even offer anyone to leave a message.
cain
@Geo Wilcox:
I don’t think it’s going to go that well. They can’t privatize it fast enough because a lot of people depend on those checks to live and a lot of those folks are Republicans. The rural areas are going to be fucked so hard that even if they did manage to privatize it, the red states and rural areas will never recover and that trauma is going to be implanted for generations.
cain
@Tim C:
They all are gonna die on from measles outbreak.
MagdaInBlack
@No One of Consequence: You are correct, it is an “Earned Benefit” to which we are “Entitled” because we earned it.
Yes it incenses me they use the word “entitlement.” It incenses me because I know they use that word for a reason.
Nukular Biskits
@Geminid:
Ask me that question later when I have a little bit more time to answer but the short answer is he ran as a Democrat but he also ran as a conservative light and when given the opportunity people are going to choose the genuine article it was a close election I’ll grant you that and sorry for the run-on sentences I’m doing this while driving which I shouldn’t be doing
cain
@Soprano2:
The resultant privatization is only going to make prices go up. The govt do all this stuff way cheaper. The republicans are going to be on the hook to explain why prices are higher for the same services if they even offer the same services.
Steve LaBonne
@Geminid: On the other hand, in Georgia Kemp and Raffensperger handily won their primaries after refusuing to “find” those votes, and in general Trump’s track record in primaries where he endorsed a candidate is mixed.
cain
@Jinchi:
But the scam is always to hand it over to the democrats so that they take the blame and come back in power in 4-8 years. I don’t think we’ll be back in power (if there is even a democracy).
I think if they do manage to win their slow moving nazi coup – the messaging is going to be very different. It’s going to be ‘suck it up, this is what is good for the country’
Geminid
@cain: I think Rubio’s the Designated Fall Guy. He’s the one who’ll get tossed when Trump has a foreign policy failure. Rubio might have hoped the Secretary of State job was a stepping stone, but in the end it it will prove to be a trap door.
CCL
@zhena gogolia:
I have often wondered if Orange and his lackeys threaten the families – a la mob style… a la “Be a terrible thing if…..”
Tim C.
@RevRick: From your lips to the FSM ears man!
UncleEbeneezer
Had a nice weekend. Went down to Santa Fe on Saturday and finally found us a couch. It’s gonna be delivered in a month but we like it and all the others were gonna take even longer.
After that we had some pretty solid Vietnamese at a place called Pho Ava. The drive back from Santa Fe to Taos, right along the Rio Grande at sunset was pretty freakin’ spectacular!
Yesterday we went to an Oscars gathering with some friends which was cool. Enjoyed the show in general, even though we didn’t see almost any of the films. Was a little annoyed that the LA Fire segment only featured the firefighters but no actual victims or footage of the devastation.
I also finally got my guitar amp and have been jamming on it nonstop. Hopefully in the near future I will get together with some other musicians in a space where I can really open it up. But so far I’m loving it.
Redshift
@No One of Consequence: I have to say, I see this a lot and I don’t understand it. They’re called entitlements because workers become “entitled” to their benefits by paying into the system. That’s also the plain meaning of the word of you look it up. What’s wrong with that (other than that the right tries to distort language.) Asking sincerely, I’m trying to understand, not argue.
Redshift
@Redshift: Also, I certainly agree that any time a Republican talks about “cutting entitlements” we, and journalists, should say “you mean cutting Social Security and Medicare?” But the word itself isn’t wrong unless it’s used to obscure.
Matt McIrvin
@suzanne: Roy Wood, Jr. and Amber Ruffin will save us!
(As usual, guess who gets saddled with the hard work…)
Another Scott
@Ohio Mom: I’m convinced we need to recycle Rep. Claude Pepper’s mantra, “Keep your foul hands off of Social Security!!”
He ultimately didn’t keep Reagan from messing with it, but it would have been much worse without his yelling.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Steve LaBonne
@cain: Elmo is big on Underpants Gnome thinking.
1. Destroy ability to pay current beneficiaries
2. ?????????
3.Privatization!!!
They may well be stupid enough to think that’s how it will work. Good luck with that.
Elizabelle
@UncleEbeneezer: Glad to hear that you are settling in.
Steve LaBonne
@Redshift: It was a perfectly cromulent technical term until the right grabbed hold of it. But they have rendered it unfit for purpose.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@cain: None of them has even enough courage to keep away from Trump, keep their heads down, and do their jobs
Elizabelle
@Redshift: And the Medicaid that keeps our rural hospitals open and allows Grandma to live in her nursing home?
(People need to know that Medicaid does more than provide services to loungeabouts and welfare cheats, as they assume.)
MagdaInBlack
@Redshift: It’s used to obscure. “They” have twisted it to where some folks hear it and think “folks who get free stuff.”
Matt McIrvin
@Redshift: “Entitlement” is a term of art here that is 100% technically correct, meaning “earned benefit”, but the word has gained a negative connotation of an *unearned feeling* of being owed something. And propagandists use that gap as much as they can.
Elizabelle
@Steve LaBonne: Another word ruined by the radical rightwing. Like Freedom, Liberty, and Patriot, which used to be pretty good things, but now means selfish and authoritarian.
catclub
I guess oilman Rex was picked because Exxon had fairly polite relations with Russia. Rubio does not have that.
MagdaInBlack
@Matt McIrvin: ..and yet when we say ” entitled prick” with regard to trump or elno, it fits perfectly =-)
Geminid
@Steve LaBonne: Georgia has been an exception to the rule. Brian Kemp seems to have consolidated a powerful Chamber of Commerce/Country Club axis. He crushed Trump-endorsed challenger David Perdue in the 2022 primary for Governor, and then he beat Stacey Abrams by 5 points.
Abrams was a strong candidate who ran a strong campaign, and Kemp needed a unified party to do that. I don’t see this much in other state Republican parties, whether it’s purple or red states.
Kemp’s a smart guy though. When he jammed Trump on the 2020 vote count, Kemp didn’t hold a press conference to announce it. He just slipped the knife in, went about his business and let Trump whine about it.
Spanky
Did any of these jeeeniuses think to check on what the weather was like in January?
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: There’s a bit of actually useful machine learning stuff that has been re-christened “AI” to ride the bandwagon (he said out of egregious self-interest), but *mostly*, it’s driven by the fantasy of money guys that they will be able to do without expensive knowledge workers entirely, and buy a machine that will just pump out software and entertainment and scientific research and goods and services, which they can sell (and that the means of production will remain just expensive enough that they can monopolize it). I think they’re mistaken but the fantasy is still driving them.
chrome agnomen
@CCL: the thing is that every democrat has the same threats hanging over them, yet still find the courage to be the opposition party. it’s not like the RWNJs are going to go after their own harder than they would the ‘demon-rats’.
cain
What’s all this talk about the voting public feeling confused and agitated with little or no notice of what’s changing? Who the fuck are these people? Did they not pay attention in November? They voted for this.
Honestly, I can’t understand how they digest information and then in their mind create a fantasy world where they pick and choose what to believe about Trump and the GOP. I think it’s because they’ve always depended unconsciously on the system righting itself because of Dems. They think all this will stop when Dems take back the house. I’m not that hopeful. But I also think the move fast and break things is to make things untenable when we hit 2026. We can’t fix it
But as the one quote says, it might be broken but maybe we create a new system that’s better than the old. Trump gives us permission to repair in a way that is more equitable and does not have the historical prejudices on govt systems that republicans have been placing on it since the civil rights era.
frosty
@UncleEbeneezer: What amp did you get? I’m thinking of moving on from my ’69 Deluxe Reverb for something smaller and lighter. It will probably (shudder) have to not have tubes.
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: Have you taken the “high road” route from Santa Fe to Taos, the one that runs through Chimayo and Peñasco?
I always stop in Chimayo when I visit New Mexico, and pick up some beautiful weavings to bring home as presents. And there’s a really neat old church in Peñasco.
cain
@Matt McIrvin:
The thing is they don’t learn from their failure. I mean look at fucking Brownbeck, dude tried to create his conservative fantasy in Kansas and nothing panned out the way the conservative playbook said it would. He was very confused.
catclub
@Geminid: It is so pleasing to see Turkey being better than I expected.
cain
@Matt McIrvin:
Entitlement is a racist dog whistle – because I think even here in progressive land when we think entitlements we think of those who are not white men. It’s a learned thing. I hate myself every time it creeps into my mind.
catclub
That is correct. Millions did not bother to vote.
cain
@Steve LaBonne:
He’s probably working on creating that company right now so that it goes directly to him. It’s gonna be super techy with an AI brain!
Matt McIrvin
@cain: They wanted the world of 2019 back. Because of mainstream mystification, the extent to which first-term Trump was just on cruise with a good economy he’d inherited from the Obama administration was not clear to them. They also were not paying attention to the indications that the second Trump term would be *different* from the first one, because that was the kind of stuff that gets buried on page A23 at best.
Other MJS
Musk bitching about “entitlement” is transcendentally absurd.
Old Man Shadow
White Evangelicals don’t really do Lent.
Lent requires sacrifice. Lent requires giving up meat on Fridays… unless it’s fish or beaver. Conservative white Evangelicals don’t do that shit. Neither do they really do in depth introspection of their characters and inner being. They know they’re good people and Jeebus thinks they’re awesome, so no need.
cain
@Redshift:
See, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is not the journalists except for these high paid ones. No, I think it’s clear that editors are these late GenX motherfuckers (and I can say it because I’m a late GenXer!) who got all sucked up in all the lovefest with Reagan in high school although they didn’t really pay that much attention to what he was really doing.
Nobody seemed to have commented about my thought about front paging people running for office at the local level and giving them the ability to talk about stuff. I really want my wife to write something about the Oregon school systems for instance, she’s not running for office but she’s been in 3 school systems now and it’s astounding how much we promote mediocrity in these schools. There is a reason why Oregon is behind Mississippi in education.
Ruckus
In this particular case AI stands for Always Idiot.
Old Man Shadow
@Steve LaBonne: I think, if Trump and the GOP Congress lets him, he will eventually require all payments made by the Federal government to go through his X-money service and take a cut of every transaction.
This would require everyone to sign up for X-money if they wanted whatever will pass for benefits when the GOP monkeys are done.
AS
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security unemployment insurance and eliminate labor laws and farm programs you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group of course that believes you can do these things. Among them are a few other Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Every appearance on every pundit show by every pol, they need to have next to them some person who’s life has been upended by Trump policies.
For the Nuremberg speeches tomorrow, they make up half the chamber – time to be loud, unruly, disdainful and scornful. Politeness and civility empowers the narcissist – open disdain is like kryptonite.
Ruckus
@cain:
Honestly, I can’t understand how they digest information and then in their mind create a fantasy world where they pick and choose what to believe about Trump and the GOP.
They don’t digest information.
They swallow bull and shit. They enjoy swallowing bull and shit. It’s the reason they absolutely believe AI. The problem in their case is that for them AI stands for Always Ignorant.
Timill
@cain: Yup – they’re going to be (a) starving, (b) desperate and (c) own guns. This is not a good mix.
Steve LaBonne
@Old Man Shadow: I also imagine that’s the plan. But the idea that it would go smoothly, without massive disruptions and white-hot anger in an age cohort that votes at high rates, not so much I think.
RevRick
@Geminid: The Crimean War was fought by the British and French to repel Russia’s imperialist designs on the Ottoman Empire, which was multiracial, multi ethnic and multi religious.
ArchTeryx
@glory b: He can always stay home, which will both be one less vote for the guy at the front of the room and hurt all the OTHER Republican candidates on the ballot. 2010 wasn’t caused so much by more Republicans voting as by masses of D voters staying home.
The same thing could easily happen to Republicans in 2010. Their voters stay home in droves, and the Ds show up fired up in larger numbers than usual for a midterm, and it will be a bloodbath for them.
MagdaInBlack
@Ruckus: I think of them as parrots: they can learn to say a string of words, but that sure doesn’t mean they digested any information. They just regurgitate the words in the proper order.
CCL
@chrome agnomen: It’s just my tinfoil hat speaking… trying to understand the complete folding of the Rs. I keep seeing Justice Kennedy’s body language…
Is the Orange Mob Boss himself threatening their families, (I mean, we know that their crazed MAGA followers attack Dem reps’ families – e.g. Paul Pelosi )? We know that they have stolen intel – all those boxes in the bathroom – and now Musk’s DOGE-ies running amuck.
Re-adjusting the antennas on my tin foil now.
Redshift
@Elizabelle: It seems to me that abandoning words when they distorted them (like those ones) hasn’t worked out well for us, and we’d be better off to keep contesting them.
schrodingers_cat
@UncleEbeneezer: Toxic masculinity is the root cause of all the RW politics across the world.
No One of Consequence
@Redshift: I’ll engage in good faith. There is a book I read a while ago by Jack Trout and another ad man who’s name escapes me, ‘Positioning: The Battle For Your Mind’. This is a work, IIRC, from late 60’s or 70’s marketing giants. I believe it is relevant here because of the varied inescapable unconscious biases of human nature. When one hears the word ‘Entitlement’, the brain settles on the root Entitle and in our current society (my take), this has a negative connotation, immediately manipulated by the unconscious mind into ‘Entitled’ which definitely has a negative connotation as a descriptor of ‘undeserving’ or ‘unearned’. Again, my take.
As an allegory, consider the use of the phrase, ‘To be honest…’ This is utilized every day, thousands and thousands of times. When uttered, the hearing ear parses the meaning, but the subconscious ears perk up, because they alert to a situation where honesty should not be expected, nor counted upon. Honesty is not the default of the speaker. The subconscious registers mistrust when the conscious mind is reading a meaning of ‘frank or open’.
Does this help explain my meaning and/or take on it? I do hope so, I did try. Thanks for reading.
-NOoC
Tim C.
@RevRick: Actuallty, as a follow up, do you have a link to those numbers?
trollhattan
Starmer’s task today is evidently sane-washing Trump on Ukraine and NATO.
If only.
Steve LaBonne
@trollhattan: I certainly understand the diplomatic reasons for saying this shit in public, but I hope to hell he isn’t stupid enough to actually believe it.
Redshift
@CCL: I think all the talk of threats and blackmail gives them too much credit. If you were elected to an important and powerful position and your leader said you have to give up your power and never speak out, and your family was being threatened, why not just resign? Why worry about primary challenges if it’s just to keep a title and a paycheck and nothing else?
They’re bad people and authoritarian followers, and a lot of this destruction conservatives have wanted to do for years, so they either rationalize it or enthusiastically support it (and lie to their constituents.)
catclub
@trollhattan: yeah, important if any bit of it is true, but it looks more like whistling past the graveyard
UncleEbeneezer
@frosty: I ended up going with a used Dr. Z M-12. It’s a boutique company out of Ohio and he makes really incredible amps. I previously owned a Carmen Ghia and a Maz 18 Jr (that one was lost in the fire). His amps are cathode-bias (similar to Class A) tube amps that usually don’t have lots of bells and whistles but deliver really amazing tone. They are very responsive and sound really complex in ways that I have often found the big amp companies (Fender, Vox, Marshall etc.) usually don’t, to my ear. Plus, I’ve always enjoyed playing gear that not so many other players use. Anyways, Z’s are usually VERY loud/powerful, so I wanted something small enough to play at bedroom levels at home, but that still can keep up with a full band, when I eventually find one. And this model, the M-12, is supposedly a great platform for pedals, which is another thing that was important to me. Some amps sound incredible on their own but don’t get along with various pedals.
Matt McIrvin
@Old Man Shadow: Conservatives *love* austerity and sacrifice when it’s done by somebody else. They’re always lecturing the little people about the need to suck it up, work harder and tighten their belts. They’re all right though; they earned everything they have.
Geminid
@catclub: Turkiye has a very solid national security/foreign policy team now. R.T. Erdogan’s strengths are as a domestic politician, and his foreign policy endeavors were hit-or-miss for much of his tenure. It did not help that as soon as Erdogan became Prime Minister 2003, George Bush destabilized the region with his stupid Iraq war.
But Erdogan made a couple of smart moves in June of 2023, after he won reelection. He promoted his intelligence chief Hakan Fidan to the Foreign Ministry, and selected Ibrahim Kalin to replace Fidan as head of the M.I.T. These are two very intelligent and practical men. They both hold PhDs, Fidan in International Relations and Kalin in Islamic Studies,* but they are not the ivory tower or think tank types.
Fidan was the architect of Turkiye’s successful intervention in Libya in 2020-21, where his M.I.T. operatives threw Wagner Group forces back from Tripoli. Fidan also managed Turkiye’s support for and protection of the Syrian rebels based in Idlib, from 2011 until last December when they finally toppled Bashir Assad during Kalin’s M.I.T. tenure. The two men are all the more effective because they have Erdogan’s confidence and respect.
* Kalin earned his PhD at George Washington University, where he studied under a well-known Iranian-American religious scholar. Then he taught college in Massachusetts a few years before returning to Turkiye.
Ed. Fidan has an usual biography for a foregn minister in that he served 15 years in the Turkish army as a non-commissioned officer. Fidan was posted at a Nato headquarters in Germany when he earned a BA in International Relations from the University of Maryland Global Campus.
After leaving the army, Fidan earned a PhD at Bilkent University near Ankara. He was teaching there in 2005 when Erdogan tapped him to be his diplomatic troubleshooter.
Hakan Fidan’s father is Kurdish, and Fidan has played a key role in negotiations with the PKK that began in Norway in 2006 and finally culminated last month.
UncleEbeneezer
@Geminid: We did that when we visited here a few years ago during Fall Color and it was really lovely. We will definitely be doing it again. We are excited to go out to Los Alamos and Chama, at some point.
Redshift
@No One of Consequence: That’s fair. It’s entirely possible this one has an inherently negative connotation through the other meaning “feeling entitled.”
I just want to be really sure about that, because I do feel we surrender too often and try to find a new term when the right wing distorts language.
Fair Economist
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
And, indeed that’s what we see in China, where there’s not a anti-Eloon wave, and sales in January were down about 10% (pretty good given how much the Chinese EVs have improved).
CCL
@Redshift: Sigh. You are probably correct. I have to admit to simply not understanding how they can all be in lockstep and so cruel.
Captain C
@Matt McIrvin:
Which is what gives the FTFNYT cover to say, with a sort of straight face, “no, we did cover that!” despite page A1 being nothing but how Biden sucks, Harris doesn’t seem to be campaigning ( because we, the FTFNYT aren’t covering it), TCFG is going to be totally reasonable this time around, and the Russians are not and have never been involved with his campaign.
Captain C
@Old Man Shadow: They’ve got their get-out-of-Hell-free card by once claiming they took Jeebus into their heart, or bank account, and therefore they can sin as much as they want, especially against others.
Fair Economist
@Nukular Biskits:
Isn’t that like saying you’re not totally averse to voting for a flying pig? The last time there was a plausible Republican on *my* ballot was 2014, and even then she wouldn’t have met those standards.
Sheila in nc
@Nukular Biskits: You can’t “contract out” the administration of contracts.
Geminid
@UncleEbeneezer: Do you have the DeLorme New Mexico Atlas? That’s a good resource. The Atlas breaks the state into a grid of 57 squares with a page for each. Each page has a lot of detail: parks, roads communities, arroyos etc. A map on the back shows the entire state with the grid superimposed on it.
Albuquerque’s on page 31, but then they break Alburquerque into larger scale grid squares on pages 57 to 63. You can see every street with its name. Santa Fe and Las Cruces each get two pages; then there’s a page for Roswell and a half-page each for Farmington and Clovis. Nothing for Taos though.
Gloria DryGarden
@UncleEbeneezer: that was a new insight! Astonishing.
How on earth do we counter that?
Also, it sounds very painful for guys. And for anyone who is not naturally an alpha.
Humans deserve room in their cultures, to experience the whole range : soft, fierce, vulnerable, strong, needy, capable. None of these qualities precludes the other.
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: i love this. Competence anywhere is a relief to hear about. And to know someone Kurdish is such a big influence. Wonderful.
dnfree
@No One of Consequence: An entitlement is something you are legally entitled to. It’s got nothing to do either with “feeling entitled”, or with what anyone personally contributed, although the amount of your social security benefit is tied to earnings and yeats of work.
The minor child of a deceased worker is “entitled” to a benefit. Someone who lives a long time probably receives far more than they ever paid in, and someone who dies at 59 might receive no benefit whatsoever. It’s a social INSURANCE program.
In other words, I think the frequent social media posts about entitlement are misguided.
...now I try to be amused
@dnfree:
You’re absolutely right, but that argument won’t change anyone’s mind for the reasons NOoC gave. It sucks but there it is.
I wonder if calling it social insurance (which is also accurate) might gain some traction. Everyone understands that with insurance you might get back less than you put in, or you might get back more, depending on your circumstances.
Gloria DryGarden
@siddhartha: love your idea. there is so much to read and learn, and discussing it together will help with his painful the subject matter is. Maybe, like the zoom with Elle, people can come who haven’t read the whole book.
for your future use:
watergirl@balloon-juice dot com.
WG, if not ok to have spelled out your email here, pls remove my comment
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: i am mathematically troubled by the idea of there being a 57 squares grid that lays over an area that is basically a rectangle.
Pollyanna will laugh at me, if he ever goes to the library internet to view this blog he got me involved with.
Gloria DryGarden
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: would you consider a guest post, in the vein of “Where we go from here?” It might be intriguing/helpful to discuss protests, and WTO, etc. I’d like to hear your takeaways
MagdaInBlack
@UncleEbeneezer: I am not the least bit surprised at the very last line:
“Vescio found that the more insecure you are as a man, the more you support tough guy right-wing policies.”
Gretchen
@glory b: That was the question that made Senator Marshall flee the room and complain that the people there were paid Democratic plants. He was in deep rural Kansas and they were screaming at him about federal job losses and telling him to resign. He won his last race 53-42-5 in 2020. He didn’t win by a landslide as much as he wants to claim it.
UncleEbeneezer
@Geminid: Not yet. Looking especially for a book with a list of all the campgrounds (with pertinent info) and hikes. We had a really great one for the Eastern Sierra.
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: When I read Abdullah Ocalan’s recent letter calling for PKK to renounce armed stuggle and dissolve itself, I could see how Hakan Fidan would be good person to negotiate with Ocalan. Aside from shared Kurdish heritage, both men are intellectuals. Ocalan couched his “call” in a very complex historical analysis. I believe Fidan’s PhD thesis was a study of Scottish Devolution.
Ragip Soylu has several good articles on these developments in Middle East Eye. The most recent is titled, “What’s next after Ocalan’s order to disband PKK?” Link (I hope):
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/whats-next-after-ocalans-order-disband-pkk
Abdulla Ocalan founded the Kurdish Workers Party in 1978, and declared war on the Turkish state in 1984. Turkish intelligence agents kidnapped him in 1999, in (I think) Nairobi, Kenya and brought him back to Turkiye to stand trial.
Ocalan has been imprisoned since then on Imrali Island in the Marmara Sea.* Judging from Ragip Soylu’s article Ocalan could be free man before too long, maybe even by this Nowruz, which is March 20.
* That’s a large body of water just west of the Bosphorus and Istanbul. The Greeks called it Propontus back in the day.
cain
@Old Man Shadow: Makes sense for an evangelical they are already the favored people and they can do whatever they want because skyfather will forgive them.
cain
@Geminid: Erdogan accomplished quite a feat and he didn’t need the U.S. to help.
I mean, peace with the Kurds and the idea from a right winger? Crazy times.
cain
@UncleEbeneezer: Also what is feminine and what isn’t is constantly changing.
They are obsessed with female roles.
A man should be able to have both qualities and vice versa for women.
Gretchen
@UncleEbeneezer: Hilarious that Elon thinks that masculinity is being able to defend oneself physically. As if that sack of dough would last a minute in a fight.
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: These Delorme maps are difficult to conceptualize, but they’re easy to use once you get the hang of it.
Their New Mexico Atlas starts with couple pages of a place name index. It gives the page and then the grid numbers within each individual page, so every place is located within ~7 miles.
It’s the same for several more pages listing parks; paddling, hunting and skiing opportunities; familiy outing destinations, multi-use trails plus seven ghost towns.
Then page 12 is a rectangular map of the northwest corner of the state. It scales out around 45 miles wide by 75 miles north to south. Pages 12 to 19 take you across the northernmost part of the state, from Shiprock to Clayton at the Oklahoma border. Taos is on page 16.
Then pages 20-27 cover the next band south; from west to east, Gallup to Oklahoma. Los Alamos is on page 23, Santa Fe on page 24. The map of the state on the back provides a quick reference for the particular area you might be interested in.
Delorme has a similar atlas for Colorado you can probably look at in a book store or library. They’re a little pricey; I bought my New Mexico Atlas in 2019 and it was $24.95 then. It served me well on two trips to the Land of Enchantment. Now it makes me want to go back.
Gloria DryGarden
@cain: amen. It’s all a continuum , anyway.
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: a book of maps is a VERY SERIOUS TEMPTATION!
Ohio Mom
@Geminid: Ohio Dad LOVES those atlases. I’ve bought him half a dozen different ones. He curls up with a Delorme atlas the way other people curl up with a novel.
Queen of Lurkers
@Nukular Biskits: Because he is a fool.
TONYG
@Gretchen: Elon and Trump are two of the most non-physically-tough people that I’ve ever seen. Childish, hypersensitive personalities too. The fact that they’ve both have cult followers is an indication of something really broken in our “society”.
Geminid
@cain: Turkiye has kept the US out of this problem. They’ve always condidered it an internal matter, and the US has a bad track record there anyway. Most Turks believe the US was behind two military coups in 1960 and 1980, as well as two changes of government by “military memorandum,” where the generals told the president to pick a new prime minister or else.
Also, the Yankees have done nothing but screw up the region to Turkiye’s south in this century. We’ve done better in the Black Sea region, but not much better.
Fortunately, Turks still maintain a reputation for being friendly and genuinely hospitable to American visitors. They just don’t like our governments.
Ksmiami
@Jeffro: a society that bans Confederate bs and fascist propaganda. A society that regulates disinformation and educates its people to steer clear of. And a society that says you can worship, but don’t bRing your woo into the public sphere.
Ksmiami
@UncleEbeneezer: Ghost Ranch is not to be missed
Gloria DryGarden
@UncleEbeneezer: there’s a hot springs off the road to Jemez. Very short hike.
No One of Consequence
@dnfree:
I concur, wholeheartedly even. However, I posit that entitleMENT isn’t as easily, or readily brought to subconscious mind in our current day as say, entitlED, i.e. underserving, unearned, unworthy, etc. This seems (admittedly) a minor distinction, but again, I posit the meaning conveyed subconsciously by the framing itself.
Again, I concur, and wholeheartedly so. Furthermore, I also believe that the initial recipients of ‘largess’ in the form of Social Security deserved it, if for no other reason than it kept some from living on the streets eating out of trashcans. You recall, out of the old black and white films, when the country pretended to give a shit about those of challenging means or circumstances.
But I digress.
What we say to each other here, and what our ears HEAR here, are different, WITH THE VERY SAME WORDS, in the ears of those unfamiliar, or pre-convinced of the Dems’ or Libs’ nefarious subversion of the language.
I also believe, this is just another dog whistle. MAGA believes it to be racist so they support it, when in actuality it is classist, so despite their not being in the club, they’ll STILL back it.
It stuns one’s capacities beyond functionality to consider that PT Barnum was far too modest.
I don’t really partake of social media, so I couldn’t say. I just wanted to express discontent with the framing that everyone seems to be using, without realizing that talking about it alone plays into the idea that it should be negotiable. Like we don’t deserve to be able to take advantage of a system that we have paid for our entire lives, promised to us, that we don’t expect to be there.
-NOoC
Ruckus
@Geminid:
They just don’t like our governments.
I’m not too fond of the fucking idiot in charge of whatever the hell it is dipshit elon thinks he and his puppet are in charge of. They fuck with SS in any way, shape or form I’d bet there will be a very big and short battle over it. I’m an old and I EARNED every cent I get paid from SS by paying into it for decades.
How about we confiscate all of elon dipshit’s money and add that to SS for what the next 30 or so years? Wouldn’t bother me…. And he’d actually have something to be pissed about.
Kayla Rudbek
@Geo Wilcox: yeah, SSA is going to fire about 7000 people if I recall correctly
Kayla Rudbek
@Nukular Biskits: however I saw today that GSA is targeting a lot of the large contractors for cuts https://federalnewsnetwork.com/acquisition-policy/2025/02/gsa-tells-agencies-to-target-top-10-consulting-firms-for-cuts/
Chris T.
@Betty Cracker:
Maybe he’s on ketamine too now.
It might even not be voluntary! I just learned this:
Chris T.
@Nukular Biskits:
Why does anyone want a billion dollars, when a “mere” 20 million means you’re set for life?
Although it’s a different kind of greed, it’s basically greed.
Chris T.
@Ohio Mom:
Exactly: it’s insurance, not an individual asset.