Look, as someone with a combat arms background, there’s a reason you don’t send REMF’s to the front lines without training. At any rate, JD Vance is going through some things the past few days since his little hissy fit in the Oval Office:
In the wake of Vice President JD Vance’s ski trip to Sugarbush resort this weekend, the Mad River Valley was transformed into a hotbed of protests against the administration of President Donald Trump.
In the largest planned demonstration Saturday morning, Vermonters and visitors stood along a stretch of Main Street by the Mad River Green in Waitsfield toting protest signs and flags that expressed concerns ranging from the state of democracy to climate change to LGBTQ+ rights.
Now the big dogs are taking a bite out of his hind quarters:
Vice President JD Vance has sparked a storm of criticism in Britain after declaring that an American economic deal in Ukraine was a “better security guarantee than 20,000 troops from some random country that hasn’t fought a war in 30 or 40 years.”
Britain, which along with France has pledged troops to a peacekeeping force in Ukraine, fought with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, while French troops fought in Afghanistan. No other countries have said they would send troops to Ukraine.
Mr. Vance later insisted that his comments, in an interview on Monday night with the Fox News host Sean Hannity, did not refer to Britain or France, though he did not name any alternative countries.
Few in Britain were buying it, even on the right.
“JD Vance is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong,” said Nigel Farage, the leader of the anti-immigrant party, Reform U.K., and a longtime ally of President Trump. “We stood by America all through those 20 years putting in exactly the same contribution.”
Yes, that is THAT Nigel Farage.
As a side note, every time I see JD Vance’s name, I want to tell Ron Howard to go fuck himself.
Unqualified, inexperienced, and stupid. But white, so it’s ok.
*** Update ***
Just to clear up some confusion- I have no problem with REMF’s 90% of the military is REMF’s and we wouldn’t get anything done without them. As I have said repeatedly, artillery might be the king of battle, but logistics is the Lord Emperor. The thing that was so amazing about Gulf War 2’s march to Baghdad was a feat of logistics on par with Hannibal and the Elephants.
My problem with REMF’s is when they act like they were somehow born again hard and are now lord and master of all things military. Motherfucker, you were writing press releases in the green zone years after the shit was hitting the fan.
Also, today’s shirt:
Betty Cracker
Yeah, I’m mad at Ron Howard for that too. And he dragged Glenn Close and Amy Adams into it! Unforgiveable!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
It’s always a good post when somebody references REMFs.
My last boss back at the Pentagon was the oldest O-5 in the army, having done two tours as an enlisted grunt on what passed for front lines in Vietnam. He was the embodiment of leadership who went on to become the deputy civilian head of then Fort Benning. I’ve stayed in touch with him for all these years because, well, did I mention leadership?
He’s the first person I encountered who used the term REMF. I remember talking to one of my wife’s uncles, a WWII vet in the Pacific, still hated the Japanese all those years later, VP at GE, typical Reagan-supporting clown.
We were visiting once and I asked him what he did during the war and yeah, it was something decidedly non-combat, not that he ever bragged about his war experience, I’ll give him that. But my reply was “Oh, so you were a REMF?” Nobody else in the room got the reference but he did and much to his credit, his face turned a bit red and he said “Yeah, I was one of the lucky ones.”
raven
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: They called them/us Fobbits in the Gulf wars. Motherfuckers all hated REMF’s until they needed and air strike, medieval, ammo or chow
eta. My uncle was squid and never left Navy Pier while my old man spent the entire was on a tin-can in the Pacific. My uncle hated the “Japs” and my old man respected the shit out of them. My old man was a high school football coach in California in the 50-60’s. He said he’d watch the Japanese kids and when they fell out he knew he was pushing too hard because they were so tough.
Rose Judson
Yeah, Vance stepped in it big time. I know several ex-Royal Army and Royal Marines service members through my time on the competitive weightlifting circuit, and the ones with social media are understandably FURIOUS about this.
Farage is also in quite a pickle. He’s a creature of Putin, and while rank-and-file Reform members are less opposed to Putin than other parties, they’re still generally anti-Russia and moderately pro-Ukraine – though markedly less so than voters in the other UK parties. Farage has been visibly uncomfortable in media appearances the last few days, even as he parps out praise for Vlad. I’ll put up a post with more detail tomorrow or Thursday.
matt
Cute eye liner though. Is Vance a fan of The Cure?
Old School
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Made me look.
Derelict
Like everyone else in the administration, Vance is too dumb to understand that he’s bone-ignorant about, well, everything.
dm
what did Ron Howard do?
raven
@Old School: Look up Fobbit
Rose Judson
@dm: He adapted Vance’s book into a very tired Oscar-bait movie.
WTFGhost
Your daily reminder that RW Noise Machine “truthiness” statements are *not* intended as factual statements.
HinTN
There’s a tag. Well said, blogmeister.
Darkrose
@Rose Judson: I was amused that Kemi Badenoch was defending him. Of course, if that woman was capable of reading the room, she wouldn’t be a fucking Tory.
MobiusKlein
My dad was a REMF in the Air Force – as a surgeon. I think he gets a pass to some extent.
Trollhattan
@raven:
Funny, that. My old man too was in the Pacific on a CV, through to VJ Day.
Growing up we had many Japanese neighbors and virtually all the parents had been sent to the camps. Sis and brother had Japanese besties.
Dad had a temper and never once said anything derogatory about the Japanese, even if the RJN tried their best to send his boat to the Pacific bottom. Everybody was doing a job for their country.
That out of the way, anybody trying to resurrect nazism in a neighborhood/city then would have heard from every last vet, and nothing nice.
schrodingers_cat
Not just Ron Howard. Vance got so many fawning interviews from the MSM including one from Judy Woodruff on Snooze Hour. He was such a phony.
Old School
@raven:
OK.
FOB = Forward operating base.
Raven
@Trollhattan: My old man was on the USS Crosby, APD 17. Twenty-six landings in the Pacific and, yea, they were trying their best to kill him and he them.
Raven
@Old School: There it is.
FDRLincoln
Vance….UGH. He makes my skin crawl even worse than Trump on a personal level. How can someone be more loathsome than Trump? Somehow Vance is, I guess because he seems like he is too smart to actually believe this MAGA shit and is just going along with it as a path to power. Trump is an insane lunatic sociopath. Vance is still sane, just utterly sycophantic.
Stephen Miller is worst of all, because he has Vance’s Will to Power AND he is a true believer.
Russ Vought….deadeye sadist religious fanatic, would be at home in the Inquisition, the Gestapo, or the KGB. Maybe he’s worse than Miller?
AGH!!!
Someday people will be writing books about this carnival of evil in the way they write books about the cadre of grotesque personalities that surrounded Hitler.
suzanne
@matt:
Tightlining is five-years-ago’s thing.
If you want to be petty AF, enjoy snarking on “Republican makeup“. Vance is an expert!
Gin & Tonic
I saw a brief video of Vance skiing that weekend at Sugarbush. He skis like a grandma. In skiing terms (since we’re tossing around nicknames) a “jerry.”
And somebody called him a “russian bitch” in the lift line. I hope he had a lousy time and never comes back.
Raven
@FDRLincoln: They all went apeshit because Kerry had a fucking camera with him on his PBR. Hell most of those squids had cameras because they had somewhere to stow them.
Raven
@matt: Crush with eyeliner
youtu.be/ycvJHQUqU1M?si=mPOV1b-pVwZNdPJX
Trollhattan
@Raven:
26? I do not like the odds of that and would call your dad lucky, but that doesn’t sound right, either. Fortunate, just not in the Creedence sense.
NutmegAgain
@raven: My dad was in the China-Burma-India theater for the whole war, USAAC. He never was in combat–although he was on a plane flying the Hump that crashed in China (everybody lived). Seeing his photos of all the places he went (Sydney to Saigon and everything in between) light finally dawned on Marblehead (mine) that he was collecting info aka intelligence. D’oh!
Raven
@Trollhattan: Here’s their scoreboard, they were very lucky.
flic.kr/p/iCEDh
What ship was your dad on?
Matt McIrvin
@Raven: That song is awesome, don’t associate it with that guy!
Raven
@NutmegAgain: Flying the Hump had to be a bear. I knew a guy who was a truck driver in the CBI and he never left Oconee County again!
Anyway
Nah, you should tell Amy TigerMom Chua to go fuck herself. She helped him turn his term paper into a book and set him up with her agent. that’s what got MSM to go starry-eyed about him.
Yay, Vermonters for showing up and taking the shine off his WH bullyfest.
Ohio Mom
@dm: He made a movie of Vance’s autobiography, Hillibilly Elegy, which gave Vance a higher profile and more legitimacy than any sane person would want to bestow on him.
Somebody gave me that book as a holiday present and I slogged through it in case I’d be quizzed on it the next time I saw her. It bored me, I’m not unfamiliar with dysfunctional Appalachian culture. She is now very embarrassed she ever championed the book, and inadvertently, Vance.
Hoodie
My dad was 1st Marine Division (“The Old Breed”) 1939-45. He called rear echelons “pogues“, which I believe came from a pre-war “China Marine” term that originally referred to Chinese prostitutes. He said he served with some of those guys before the war (he joined in ‘39 to escape a broken home) and said they were a rough crew. Somehow this evolved in a reference to rear echelon person. Candy, gum and other treats from rations was called “pogey bait,” which probably derived from using these items to pay prostitutes. Kind of fits Vance, except comparing him to sex workers is an insult to sex workers.
Raven
@Matt McIrvin: They reunited this weekend for a song along with Michael Shannon and his REM cover band. We didn’t get to go but they say it was epic.
youtu.be/Tb_OWQ4-Ivg?si=Lk4u5JinEEx7QPvl
Ned F
Marine le Pen called out Trump and Vance also, on USAID and Ukraine. Called it “inhuman.”
zhena gogolia
@Anyway: Oh, man, I didn’ t know she was responsible for that s–t as well.
Old Man Shadow
Everyone knew exactly what he meant. Conservatives hate Europe and there have been jokes about the “surrender monkeys” for 30 years now and earlier than that.
Conservatives hold anyone who isn’t white, male, straight, Christian, cis, and American in utter contempt.
Doesn’t matter if our ancestors lived in the same spot, somehow if your branch of the family now resides in Europe and we’re in America, we’re somehow automatically better despite being worse off in every conceivable metric except how many billionaires a country has.
You’d fucking think that any asshole could just look at the fucking facts and maybe… maybe… think… “Fuck, are we doing something wrong?” You’d think maybe… just fucking maybe a spark of humility might break through the dense concrete filling their skulls.
But nooooooo… not conservative Americans… the facts are just proof of how much greater we are! Gun deaths mean FREEDUMB! Poor education means we need more Jeebus segregation schools not fewer! Happiness? God didn’t put us here to be happy, dammit! Get to work! We know everything already and we’re never fucking wrong!
Assholes. The lot of them.
zhena gogolia
@Ohio Mom: The NYT made a big deal of it. A lot of people were taken in.
Rose Judson
@Ned F: Christ! Up is down, black is white.
Sloane Ranger
@Rose Judson: It’s interesting that a lot of foaming at the mouth Brexit supporters who usually appear in my social media feeds have been unusually quiet over the last few days. I suspect they can’t bring themselves to support what Trump and Vance have said, but don’t want to publicly criticise them either.
As for Vance, I think everything he’s doing is to set himself up among the Faithful as the natural heir to the leadership of the MAGA movement. Vice President’s are usually low profile, but he seems to delight in making outrageous comments, which are sure to get wide publicity.
It may be that Trump is sinking, physically, intellectually or both and the money men behind him are worried that MAGA might split into different factions unless there is a clear successor.
NutmegAgain
@Raven: Yeah, I read somewhere that 1/4 of those planes were lost–the altitudes required to get over the Himalayas were a challenge. Since all the guys on that trip had to hang out and wait for a rescue pickup, there were some amazing stories about drinking parties with the local warlords, and stuff.
Tom Levenson
@Rose Judson: My grandfather was a colonel in the Royal Horse Artillery, my uncle a major in the RA. Both are gone now. I wouldn’t have given much for Vance’s chances if he’d said that back in the day in either mess.
(Not saying my family members would have laid a glove on him. But I do not think Mr. Vance would have enjoyed what would have come at him.)
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
That could apply to any number of topics.
Old Man Shadow
@Rose Judson: She probably wants to throw some money at the poor of other countries so they’ll be more inclined to stay there and not try to emigrate to Europe.
Anonymous At Work
I don’t think Vance’s comments were a mistake. I think they were made from the principle that “America’s military is #1, Eastasia’s is #2, Russia and North Korea (aka Fascist states) are #3, and all else is worthless.” It’s wrong and represents a blinkered view but I’m not so sure he misspoke.
Baud
Via Reddit
Raven
@Hoodie: The 5th and 6th Marines are also called The Pogey Bait Marines .
FRENCH FOURRAGERE
When new Marines and Sailors join the 5th Regiment, they are presented with the French Fourragere, a braided cord worn on their left shoulder.
The French government awarded the 5th and 6th Marine Regiments this decoration after their distinguished service in the battles of Belleau Wood, Soissons, and Champagne. These two regiments are the only units in the Marine Corps authorized to wear the French Fourragere.
(U.S. Marine Corps Photos By LCpl Cameron Rowe)
WTFGhost
@Ohio Mom: I’m just glad you were too polite to mention the couch.
(What? I’m just relieved there’s at least one person who will not mention that the word “couch” does appear in the book.)
Baud
Jackie
Apparently Muskrat wants the FFOTUS to “think about” pardoning Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who murdered George Floyd on camera.
Musk made the call for Derek Chauvin’s release from prison Tuesday on X, after getting the idea from Ben Shapiro.
I can’t even…
Baud
@Jackie:
State crime. As long as MN stays blue, he stays in prison.
cmorenc
@schrodingers_cat:
Back when Vance was but an author of a popular book that made him seem like one of Dolly Parton’s poor struggling Appalachian kin who seemingly ifted himself out by the bootstraps and got himself enough education to write an articulate book aout it, I can see why he superficially fooled a lot of smart people about his true sociopathic character.
Raven
@NutmegAgain: They also planned to have the B29 attack the mainland from China and India but it was scrapped because of logistics.
Baud
@Old Man Shadow:
That’s not …. evil.
azlib
My Dad was an Annapolis grad of 1943, but graduated in 1942 with the accelerated class. He was a gunnery officer on the Northhampton which was sunk off of Guadacanal by Long Lance torpedoes. He came home on survivor’s leave and married in January 1943 and immediately volunteered in the submarine service. He ended up on 7 war patrols and was the 2nd in command (Executive officer) on the Redfin. I think the attrition rate for the submarine force in WW II was over 30%. He never talked much about his experiences. I have all his letters home to my Mom and her’s back to him and they will end up in the WW II Museum in New Orleans eventually.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Oh, yeah. Aluminum tubes, anyone?
zhena gogolia
Speaking of Dolly Parton, RIP her husband.
Hoodie
@Raven: My uncle was a bombadier/navigator on B-29s, said until they captured Saipan and began operating out of there, they never were sure they’d be able to find their way home without running out of fuel. He navigated using a sextant.
Trollhattan
@Raven: One picture says a lot.
Dad was on CV20 Bennington. Launched in ’44 and entered combat early ’45, so not as much…opportunity to get bombed and shot at. Did take one on the flight deck but nobody was refueling, I guess.
Her air groups were involved in sinking Yamato.
uss-bennington.org/phz-sink-yamato-1.html
hitchhiker
@zhena gogolia:
It was mostly about timing, I think. The 2016 election had just happened, and the idiots at the NYT were rending their garments over how badly they’d missed the appeal of the thug to rural voters.
Their fluffing of Vance’s book was an early effort to show the people that they got it.
A friend of mine — very literate and well-meaning person — read that book and recommended it to me. What I understood immediately was that her life hadn’t intersected much with people like Vance’s family. She missed all the clues about what a sniveling grifter he was.
Trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
A lucky, lucky man. Poor Dolly must be bereft. She’s the best of us.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Rose Judson: I think Howard’s expressed regret in recent times for having made that movie. He’s certainly expressed his horror and disgust at recent political events, as a self-professed liberal. (In my book, making Apollo 13 earned him a lot of credit, enough to overcome the Vance movie.)
TONYG
Yes. Also: I have zero military experience but it’s my understanding that in a modern war (i.e., any war since 1939) the “rear” is often just as much a target of airstrikes and missiles as the front lines. This is nothing new. My grandmother’s brother was far from the front lines on a merchant marine freighter when his ship was torpedoed in 1942. He watched men die and barely survived himself.
Central Planning
I’m thinking about enabling the hotspot on my phone but make it broadcast something like “Fuck Trump and Elon”
Of course I’ll have a sufficiently long and complex password so nobody can get in. I can’t imagine any downside, except when I’m at customers.
WereBear
@Gin & Tonic: My favorite sign read “Vance skis in jeans”
Melancholy Jaques
I doubt that it ever occurred to Ron Howard that Vance would be going into politics.
But the good & wise people of Ohio decided they’d be better off with that asshole than a guy who had been championing white working class people his whole career.
Melancholy Jaques
@zhena gogolia:
Like the Whitewater pseudo scandal. I think I hated the FTFNYT before it was cool to hate them.
Matt McIrvin
@Melancholy Jaques: Vance’s heel turn from pseudo-insightful Speaker-to-Liberals to MAGA sloganeering asshole when he went into politics was so sudden and complete that it could only be executed by a man with no beliefs or principles whatsoever.
Raven
@Trollhattan: The largest ship in the world at the time, great photo!
Matt McIrvin
@Jackie: Okay, they want more mass riots so they can mow people down with machine guns.
Aziz, light!
My grandfather was the radar chief on a destroyer throughout the Pacific War. Narrowly avoided death by kamikaze pilot. Hated the Japanese for 30+ years until my brother came home from his job in Tokyo with a Japanese bride. Took a few years and great grandkids but we turned the old Navy vet’s tune.
Raven
@TONYG: Which is why the blogmaster survived “The Doha Dash” !
Raven
@Aziz, light!: Do you know which ship?
prostratedragon
I’m reminded of one of my mother’s principals in the Chicago Public Schools system, herself white. At one early faculty meeting she was introducing herself and setting forth standards and expectations and such, finally exclaiming, “And I do not want any incompetent whites!” This got a great laugh, or ovation, or something.
WereBear
@Central Planning: Man, now I want to change the name on my router.
Jay
Paul Krugman has some thoughts about tariffs,
paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-hates-canada-for-its-decency
a key sticking point,
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I actually don’t think they want to kill a lot of people like that. That gets messy. They mostly want white people to feel afraid. That’s pretty easy to accomplish and pays a lot of dividends.
Matt McIrvin
@Jay: Doug Ford isn’t particularly decent, he just knows which way the wind blows
I wonder about the leverage of the electricity cutoff though, since it would mostly hurt people who Donald Trump wants to suffer.
Glory b
@Melancholy Jaques: But he belonged to the party with the black people in it, whereas Vance was a Republican.
Rachel Bakes
@Ohio Mom: Daughter read it in her AP Language and composition class 2 years ago.. Loathed it. Since then a good friend convinced the teacher and department to replace it with a better and more legitimate memoir by a woman undergoing cancer treatment. One small victory.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@schrodingers_cat:
This is why I remain pessimistic when it comes to the clown Hair Furor endorsed for the (R) nomination for OH governor and his chances. Everybody dismisses those chances (including many of our OH commentators) but then I simply think “JD Vance”.
Obviously a Federal office like the Senate and a governorship can be two very different things (think KS and KY) but since the World’s Turned Upside Down thanks to a) the people that voted for that bastard and b) the people who sat it out and not voting for Harris, I don’t know what to believe.
Trollhattan
@Raven:
Big as a big thing, Yamato. 18-inch guns, can you even imagine?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@NutmegAgain:
Wow!
For those who don’t know about “Flying the Hump”:
nationalmuseum.af.mil/Visit/Museum-Exhibits/Fact-Sheets/Display/Article/3627010/flying-the-hump-life…
“Deathly Air Space” is an apt term.
Jackie
@Baud: WHEW!!!
Trollhattan
Elmo wants his…feet licked so House Republicans, you’re on the clock. Not pushing and shoving as you line up.
suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
I keep bringing this up because I now cannot unsee it….. the “Know Your Enemy” podcast guys did a deep dive into Hillbilly Elegy, and they noted that an overriding theme of the book is that Vance has, for his entire life, yearned for the approval of a father figure. Apparently he describes, in attempt to get whichever guy his mom was seeing at the time to like him and want to stick around, he would cultivate the same interests and personality traits. He is, in the common parlance, a suck-up with Daddy Issues. And, of course, it is visible how much he wants the approval of not just Trump, but also Thiel, Yarvin, Dreher, etc etc etc.
I would see this as really sad if he was just working through it with his therapist and not inflicting it on the entire fucken country.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Baud:
And last month it was an 11.6% drop, meaning, yeah, this is about more than a stale product line and domestic competition given Chinese buyers with the wherewithal look to foreign brands as a sign of prestige.
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
He’s started with a 25% “tax” on Ontario Hydro shipped south, add in DJTdiot’s 10% tariff and that’s a 35% price hike, (at minimum, Utilities must profit, that’s a US Rule,)
Minnesota, New York and Michigan.
It is a “targeted” response to the tariffs, as it’s not Minnesota, New York and Michigan who brought the tariffs, it was the USA.
What’s the QAnon line, “where one goes, we go all”?
Ruckus
Going to add a bit here.
I was USN during Vietnam. I was sent to the Atlantic fleet. Now being in the USN was far safer than being in the Marines or the Army. Except that they did send USN personal up river in patrol boats. And I did get shot at once. OK it was walking back from town one afternoon and I have no idea if they were trying to scare or kill me. They did manage the first part. I had been around weapons more than enough to know how close that was. And on in port duty I carried a loaded weapon with orders to shoot to kill any one that did not belong. The second part of this is that I use the VA for my healthcare. I earned it and it is pretty good – most of the time. (A lot of clinic docs are contractors and show up for 4 -8 hrs a week – at least that is my experience at clinics. And on occasion I’ve gotten in the first 2 minutes that this person was there for the money – and only for the money – and not anyone’s health) One reason I use a hospital. Never had an issue at the hospital. But there as well, too many complaints and they are out of there.
Now to the matter at hand. I call him shitforbrains because he is. His buddy has figuratively shot himself in the wrong area (if you get my drift….) by being a full on jackass. He seems to be someone (sort of like the guy he seems to have running the country for him) who thinks they are on the top of the pile – because of MONEY, of which he has a not fair bit of. NOT FAIR because he’s such an asshole who thinks, such as it is, that he is the bestest human who can’t be bought – but he can BUY everyone else, and an entire country. I’m sure there are those that can be bought. Especially if the price is high enough. There always are. But I’d bet that push comes to shove, most won’t. First because I’d bet he is very against giving anyone money for most anything. I mean he could donate a billion and not even blink an eye about his wealth. And he seems to always jump in with his checkbook with certainty, when he wants something. But what he really wants is huzzas for his wealth, and using that wealth to the likely extent he’d have to do is a big risk and quite
possiblylikely illegal so if he fails in the least, he could lose the entire farm.Gin & Tonic
Since we’re talking about WWII experiences, my old man was conscripted as a medic into the Polish Army in the summer of 1939. Things went to shit pretty quickly after that. As long as he lived he never said a word about it to me.
Dan B
@Matt McIrvin: It’s happening in dark blue Washington with a dramatic drop in shoppers from Canada. Bellingham is in trouble. It’s a very liberal city.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Gin & Tonic:
Another Wow!
It’s understandable he never spoke of it but also too bad, those oral histories are priceless.
More on what the Germans did to Polish POWs during the war:
hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/nazi-persecution/non-jewish-poles-and-slavic-pows…
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
My dad was in the USN in WWII and he would never talk about it or answer a question. I don’t know if he was drafted or joined. And never talking about it included after I was in the navy.
NutmegAgain
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I have a photo of the crashed plane on the runway-in-progress in China. This plane was a B29 (Superfortress). Amazing aircraft.
ArchTeryx
Ah, Romeo Echo Mike Foxtrots. Or, as they were known in my father’s day, Peter Oboe Georges. Got a bad rep in the Nam, but they also were the reason the Blitz turned from an unstoppable force of nature to a circus once they rolled East. They outran their logistics so far their vaunted heavy war machines just plain quit on them. There’s a reason there’s only one working Tiger I in a museum.
Ron Howard was the very last person I expected to go full fash, but I guess you just never know about a person until you put an idol in front of them.
matt
@Jay: We’re the top market for Canadian and Mexican exports because they export products at the best quality and price for the American market. Consumers will be affected by every dollar of those exports that goes away.
Ruckus
@Hoodie:
I was, as stated here more than once, in the USN during Vietnam and the term pogey bait was still spoken back then. Not sure of the etymology of it.
matt
@Baud: My theory on the tariffs is that Trump wants to help right wing governments get in power by creating recessions in Mexico and Canada.
ArchTeryx
@Ruckus: Take a good look at some of the best WWII movies, especially the opening of Saving Private Ryan or Nolan’s Dunkirk, and you’ll know why he never talked about his experiences. My father did, but he was a fighter pilot. He only saw limited action before a machine gun malfunction and a cut nerve put him out of the fight. He was sent home, and he was one of the lucky ones. Most of his unit died over Italy when they encountered an elite Luftwaffe Jagdkorps squad. Intelligence FUBARed, as was common in the European war in WWII.
Geminid
@suzanne: JD Vance sure did a good job sucking up to his boss during the Zelensky meeting. I thought it was a BossWeasel move: upstaging Trump by standing up for him. It seemed to work among the MAGA faithful.
ArchTeryx
@matt: Replace “Trump” with “Putin” and you have a working hypothesis. Putin’s primary goal is to spread fascism worldwide and destroy liberal democracy, and he’s doing a smashing job of it here in the good old U.S. of A.
Aziz, light!
@Raven: I used to know but have forgotten it. Looked up the full fleet roster but with no avail. He never tired of repeating the same war stories to me. He was a semi-pro boxer and the Navy sent him around the fleet to entertain the crews in matches. Told me that whenever a mick or wop (his words) called him a kike he would punch their lights out and lose a stripe, then have to earn it back.
zhena gogolia
@ArchTeryx: Ron Howard is not fash. He just made a movie of Vance’s book, long before Vance showed his true colors. Bad judgment, but not fascism.
French Onion Soup
@matt:
It seems more like revenge and the urge to be an imperial emperor. It could be anything though. Put the word out there Trump is mad at Canada because Trudeau banged Melania and Ivanka though. We all saw them thirsting after him. It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
NutmegAgain
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: And I see in the website that they have an article on Chinese handbuilt runways. One of the tragic things that happened when this plane went down was that the road crew of Chinese peasants building the runway had no real conception of ‘airplane’. A number of people were killed b/c they didn’t get out of the way. Awful.
ArchTeryx
@zhena gogolia: I’m going based on what Cole himself said. And I tend to agree: Fuck Ron Howard. Anyone with two brain cells in their head knew Vance was a smarmy asshole and fash-curious, just from reading his damn book. Nevermind once he started running for Senate.
Jay
@matt:
The US will go into recession first.
The historic response in Canada, to a recession, is a Liberal Majority, as the Con’s have overseen every single one of our Recessions and Canadians don’t buy the con jobs, except for Alberta.
Be interesting to see what happens in Alberta with DJTdiots 10% tariff on energy.
The Alberta Prayer, is “Please dear God, give us another oil boom, we promise not to piss it away like all the other times.”
suzanne
@Geminid: JD Vance is also, to use more common parlance, a pick-me.
Merriam-Webster says a pick-me is:
Another insult more commonly used for women (when trying to differentiate oneself from one’s friends for male approval). But Vance is the quintessential!
JBWoodford
@Hoodie: I’ve seen the term used as POG–“Person Other than Grunt.” That might be a backronym, though.
Jay
pat
REMFin in Military Slang commonly refers to Rear–echelon Motherfucker, a term used to describe personnel who are stationed away from combat zones, often implying a lack of frontline experience
Perfect!!
I had to google it. I assume this is what you meant. (I might not be the first to mention it, just got here.)
Geminid
@Dan B: I was researching the upcoming NY21 special election to replace Ellise Stefanik and I ran into this story in the Adirondack Explorer:
The Adirondack Explorer is based in Saranac Lake, New York.
Ruckus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
It might also be that there are a lot more choices of electric cars these days. Many of them made in China.
Jay
US taxpayers have given $40 billion in total to Elon Musk’s companies and he hasn’t said ‘Thank you’ once.- Feminist News
raven
@JBWoodford: That use is fairly new.
different-church-lady
@Baud: Huh. Just gonna have to fire more federal workers in retaliation.
catclub
My parents code to stump the kids was asking if the other wanted a Charlie Oboe – the start of cookie.
We eventually figured it out.
Trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic: Poland? ’39? Talk about timing!
And people wonder why Poland doesn’t trust Russia today.
raven
@Aziz, light!: Good for him!
Jay
Putin Scolds Trump: “I Got You Elected And You Haven’t Said Thank You Once.” – Andy Borowitz
raven
@ArchTeryx: It all depended. My old man didn’t say much until I came home from Vietnam.
Baud
Senate Dems account in Blue sky
bsky.app/profile/democrats.senate.gov
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@ArchTeryx:
One of the best, ie. realistic, WW2 movies that also shows why a lot of people couldn’t or didn’t talk about it is the 1985 Soviet film, ‘Come and See’:
criterion.com/films/28895-come-and-see
It makes the opening scene from ‘Saving Private Ryan’ seem downright pedestrian. Not to take anything away from that opening scene in that movie.
Trollhattan
@catclub:
We would spell things like that around the kid, just for our amusement and not using the proper call words–just names.
One day the wee thing, maybe three? came down the stairs from our office/guest room cradling a beer in each arm and asked “Do you want a Barry Edward Edward Randy?”
Kids.
Trollhattan
@Jay:
Okay, internets won.
raven
@ArchTeryx: Everyone got a bad rep in the Nam.
Redshift
@FDRLincoln:
Glenn Youngkin even more so. I doubt he believes any of it, but he’s spent his entire term as governor chasing Fox News manufactured outrages to build his wingnut cred.
Matt McIrvin
@suzanne:
Makes sense. And of course Trump himself had an abusive father who sent him to an abusive military school for being a fuckup, and he abused his own kids. Bullying as “strength” is all he knows, and he turns into a total suckup to any bully scarier than he is.
I’ve always thought the fact that I had awesome parents and was generally treated well by teachers and such (but had a lot of trouble with bullying peers) makes me a little too trusting with authority and institutions–not enough of the fuck-you impulse. But there are worse things.
Dan B
@Ruckus: We’re EV nuts and the Chinese are making very inexpensive and very high quality EV’s. They may take over the European market. At a recent auto show in China people were ignoring the Japanese, Korean, and European cars but there were big crowds around the Chinese models because they were the coolest cars.
cain
@Betty Cracker:
Why are we mad at Ron Howard now?
Gin & Tonic
@catclub: My parents’ code was to switch to German. If we heard German we assumed we were in trouble.
Cheryl from Maryland
@Matt McIrvin: Trump won Michigan.
Matt McIrvin
@cain: He directed the movie of Vance’s memoir.
ArchTeryx
@raven: That really sucks. There were a whole lot of good men that died in that meat grinder. I was 2 years old when it ended and my father was well past draft age (and a wounded combat veteran) so we missed that catastrophe. My father never believed the spitting on returning vets bullshit.
NeenerNeener
@cain: He’s just as responsible for giving Vance “Hollywood cachet” as Mark Burnett is for introducing T___p to audiences outside of NYC and New Jersey.
Nukular Biskits
Good afternoon/evenin’, y’all.
Yet another day trying to get answers from my elected officials.
A Nukular Biskits Bluesky thread/rant
raven
@ArchTeryx: Me neither!
cain
@Dan B:
Neat. I don’t think Trump will be able to stop EVs as that would harm Tesla. That said, he might go after chinese manufacturers via the tariffs.
ArchTeryx
@raven: I wouldn’t expect you to, you’re here!
My father was a bigot and center right but he HATED the rednecks with a fiery passion. Called them stupid and cowardly. And they were who were spreading that crap about spitting on veterans. The source mattered to him.
Tom Levenson
@Baud: Tesla sold ~670,000 cars in China in 2024 and derived 22% of its total revenue there. (Its margins in China are much thinner than everywhere else–they make roughly half per car what they get for a US sale.) I know car sales are uneven by month, but if that percentage drop maintains itself across the year, that’s…big.
Also: the Shanghai factory generates more revenue than the China sales figures suggest, because it exports a lot of cars to Europe–something like 30% of its output, maybe a little more. If European sales continue to crater, and I can’t see a reason why they wouldn’t, then the hit to revenue and profits will be significantly greater than the 10%+ implied by a ~50% drop in the China market.
Here’s hoping!
Matt McIrvin
@cain: I’ve noticed some initiatives that seem designed to stop EVs that compete with Tesla.
Matt McIrvin
@ArchTeryx: I was convinced I was going to get drafted into some new meat grinder during the Reagan or Bush years, but the armed forces were dead set against conscription by that time.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Tom Levenson:
I’ve commented on this before, Tesla’s sales at least in Germany in terms of semi-tanking, date back to Dec 2023 so we’ve got a quarter’s worth of data from a fairly strong, by EU standards, EV market.
We know they dropped in China in January (-11.6%) after 2024 saw an increase in overall Tesla sales in China so it’s still a tad bit too early to make a sweeping statement.
But given what we’ve seen thus far in Yurp and at least partially here in the US (Tesla sales in CA were off 11.5% in January), the signs aren’t great.
Or “are great” depending on where you sit politically. :)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Matt McIrvin:
Um, what would these initiatives that *might* impact Tesla sales be?
Trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
It has to be the case, in lockstep with roadblocks against any kind of renewable energy development so as not to hinder moar baby drill-drills.
TheronWare
Can we please bring back the Eisenhower tax rates?
Omnes Omnibus
@MobiusKlein: As Cole said, no soldier has a problem with REMFs unless they try to portray themselves as something they weren’t. For the most part, people do their jobs and that’s it. Pretending you were something you weren’t is the issue.
Jay
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Dealerships burning down?
Ruckus
@ArchTeryx:
Dad worked on a USN repair ship as a machinist – making metal parts. But he was stationed in the Pacific and other than that I know almost nothing. I figured that as I was basically a machinist – from working in his business, that when I joined the USN I would be one as well but they sent me to electronics school. Between boot camp and electronic schools I didn’t see a ship until my second year.
RevRick
@Hoodie: My dad may have trained your uncle, since he was a bombadier/flight instructor at Stapleton Field in Denver. My dad came closest to combat before the U.S. entered the war, having served in the American Embassy in Berlin as an assistant to the Naval Attaché. (Dad actually had been arrested by the Gestapo and held overnight for smuggling currency.) Anyway, dad was finally evacuated shortly before the invasion of the Low Countries, narrowly escaping the bombing of Rotterdam, and got stuck for a month in Genoa, before finally getting tramp steamers to Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and NYC in November!
My uncle, on the other hand, saw combat at the Battle of the Bulge, the Huertgen Forest, and finally did graves registration duty in Germany postwar.
In the first church I served, I knew a man who fought in Balleau Woods in WW1, and who, at aged 92, rode on the back of his son’s motorcycle on a day trip to Gettysburg (two hours each way). In my second church, I knew two men who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. One had first landed in North Africa, where he was wounded, then landed in Sicily, and at Normandy. The other had a shrapnel wound to his head and had a metal plate in his skull. Of the three couples who were my parents best friends, two of the husbands served in the South Pacific, one on a supply ship, the other fought at Guadalcanal, where he caught malaria.
Tom Levenson
@Jay: Probably a good deal for Tesla. They get to claim the insurance on the torched cars instead of hanging on to inventory, hoping they sell.
Still…not good brand publicity, I’d guess.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
For those interested in a first hand experience of a different kind from WWII, read two David Westheimer books:
Song of the Young Sentry (fiction but essentially a coming of age story from Westheimer’s experiences)
Sitting it Out (A WWII POW Memoir)
He was a B-24 navigator shot down over Italy in Dec 1942 and sat out the war in various POW camps.
Westheimer’s best known for “Von Ryan’s Express”, one of those rare instances where the really, really good book was made into a different, but really good movie.
Tom Levenson
@RevRick: My cousin Jack, who died just a few years ago, received a Silver Star for his courage under fire at the Battle of the Bulge. He was a corporal in a signals unit. The day the battle started, his officers were all out of pocket for various reasons. He recognized what was happening and ordered and organized the pull back that saved all involved. I only learned of the medal at his funeral. He never spoke about his wartime experience.
In his civilian life he became one of the most learned, gentle and civilized people I’ve ever known, holding perhaps the best-named academic chair imaginable: he was the Edgar Allen Poe Professor of American Studies at the University of Virginia.
Jay
@Tom Levenson:
Well, it’s France. Roughly half the cars were Customers, the others were Tesla’s.
So, in about 2 years, when the Magistrate decides that yes, it was arson, Insurance claims can be filed.
NeenerNeener
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Killing the tax rebate you get for buying an EV. Although that used to be based on how many of each manufacturer had already been sold in the US, so Teslas may not qualify anymore anyway.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@NeenerNeener:
No, it hasn’t.
And FYI, most Teslas qualify for the tax credit, even the dual-motor Wankpanzer (the tri-motor does not, way over the $80K cap).
caranddriver.com/news/g43675128/cars-eligible-for-ev-tax-credit/
This isn’t to say Hair Furor might not get around to axing the Federal credit, lord knows he’s spouted quite a bit of anti-EV garbage over the last couple of years.
Also too, the Federal tax credit was massively overhauled 2+ years ago so numbers sold is no longer a consideration. They cleaned it up with the obvious aim to make it easier, and slightly cheaper, to purchase an EV.
When I bought my 2023 Chevy Bolt EV, I got $12,500 in federal and state tax credits for a $30K car. No brainer purchase.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: It was interesting that when he ran for Senate seat in Ohio he kept his mouth closed and his head down. We (not me) voted for him because he had an R after his name and wrote a famous book nobody read.
sab
@Anyway: Amy Chua is herself a groomer. Trains pretty young Yale law students how to dress so that they can get a Kavanaugh clerkship, while her husband behaves so badly with young women that he is not allowed to teach required courses at Yale Law School.
RevRick
@Tom Levenson: A lovely tribute for the best kind of hero.
Geminid
@sab: Vance barely got the nomination in 2022. He won a multiple candidate primary with less than 33% of the vote, despite having Trump’s endorsement.
SteverinoCT
@Old Man Shadow: Re: “surrender monkeys”
An apropos Get Fuzzy comic.
NeenerNeener
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: From your Car And Driver link:
UPDATE 2/28/25: Reports that the Trump administration plans to end all federal EV/PHEV credits mean that this list could soon become moot. We’ll continue monitoring the situation and update this story with any changes.
I really wanted a new EV, because my 2018 Plug-In Niro sits a little too low to the ground now when I’m having lumbar problems. But this is not the time to be buying a new car when I may need every nickle for the Trump Depression. My Niro still has less than 29000 miles on it so it’s not like I need to replace it for mechanical reasons.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Two reasons for that.
First, a lot of young men did not want to become dead young men. Ask me how I know.
And if one looked at all closely at what was going on, I think their minds would not have changed. Especially after it had been going for a while.
Second, others did get to vacation in Vietnam. It of course wasn’t a bright and cheerful vacation and they couldn’t pull the plug if they felt like it was a waste of things like their life. But if people didn’t feel that way we wouldn’t have had to draft so many casualties. Men my age at the VA, mostly from what I’ve heard over the years didn’t always appreciate the good time they didn’t have in Vietnam. They may have felt that it was a very needed thing and even volunteered but I’d bet that most of them didn’t appreciate their time in. I’ve sat with a few at the VA and we talked about our time in and the people that want/are willing to talk mostly did not serve in Vietnam. I’ve also know a few that served in Vietnam and my impression is that they were less gung ho than they thought they’d be, if they were gung ho in the first place. More than a few weren’t / aren’t. My best friend was in the Marines and served in Vietnam and in the 50+ years I’ve known him, I’ve never known him to appreciate his time spent there.
And he walked away unharmed.
TerryC
@Ruckus: Vietnam vet here, too. My local VA shares doctors with the University of Michigan hospital system and they are top notch, as are the support staff. I’ve been in there a lot this past year.
I’m sorry you don’t have a better situation.
Ruckus
@TerryC:
I didn’t get close to Vietnam, just served during. Half way around the world. I was USN and served my time on board in the Atlantic. Have been to Antartica, to the north of Norway in the winter, been to several countries in the Mediterranean and in Europe and a few in Africa. Been to Guantanamo Bay Station 3 times, and a few island nations in the southern Atlantic. Crossed the Atlantic 6 times. I carried a loaded weapon on in port watch with orders to shoot to kill anyone who didn’t belong. Never pulled that .45 out of the holster other than giving it to the next watch.
My care at the VA has been pretty good about 99.5% of the time, the other 1/2% was OK. Most of the docs at the hospital are employees and good to quite good. At clinics they are part time, or at least most are that I’ve ever known.
The guy in the comment you replied to is the world’s wealthiest moron/man, he’s more one than the other…. but he’s not president shitforbrains.
Ruckus
@Tom Levenson:
he was the Edgar Allen Poe Professor of American Studies at the University of Virginia.
Now that is a hell of a title!
dnfree
@Aziz, light!: My dad was a radar technician on a tender, but he always emphasized that their title was radio technician, because they didn’t want to confirm the presence of radar to the Japanese. His ship was hit by a kamikaze with heavy casualties. They limped back to California for repairs and were on their way back to Japan when the bomb was dropped in Hiroshima.
Darkrose
@NeenerNeener: FWIW, even if they don’t get rid of the credit, it doesn’t carry over, as we found to our chagrin when he had our taxes done last week.
Liminal Owl
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Belatedly, I will recommend a similar fictionalized-experience from WW I: “Generals Die In Bed,” by Charles Yale Harrison.