(H/t commentor Ben Cisco)
Per Urban Insite:
This Tuesday, Roland Martin will be talking State of Our Union. Going live at 7 pm EST and will go to midnight or 1 am. We will break this up into 30 minute blocks. We will have CBC members, labor leaders, civil rights, voting rights, business, grassroots activists and millennials. We will NOT carry Donald Trump’s speech. When Trump walks to the mic, we will go live to New Haven, Conn. where Rev. Barber will deliver OUR speech. My team will be servicing clips of the twice impeached, criminally convicted felon-in-chief, and we’ll discuss after Rev. Barber is done. Spread the word! I would love to have 100,000 watching us LIVE at Youtube.com/RolandSMartin or on the BSN app.
A Ghost to Most
I’d much rather watch cricket than Lumpy, and I have no use for cricket.
BlueGuitarist
Thanks! Looks good!
and here’s an excellent 30- second ad from Wisconsin Dems about the state Supreme Court election:
https://bsky.app/profile/benwikler.bsky.social/post/3ljkqyj2fqc2d
Nukular Biskits
Excellent!
lowtechcyclist
Rev. Barber? Now that’s must-see TV!
Doug R
PMJT speech today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz_42pckM7w
thruppence
I will be at a Mardi Gras burlesque show at Meow Wolf, where I’ll probably be the oldest person in attendance.
zhena gogolia
Rev. Barber is doing a big event in Shrewsbury, MA, on Saturday, but I guess it’s sold out.
NutmegAgain
I confess I am watching Dog Detectives, my first time watching. A dog-based TV show is, uh, catnip to me!
schrodingers_cat
I will be trying my hand at making sketches of the barns in my neighborhood that I have photographed. I don’ think I have shared this here.
From Hannah Karlzon’s Magical Dawn
Colored Pencils and watercolor
mrmoshpotato
@lowtechcyclist: Agreed!
sab
@schrodingers_cat: I love your color choices.
mrmoshpotato
@NutmegAgain: I gotta know, what’s that?
NutmegAgain
@mrmoshpotato: It’s on Animal Planet. Seems to be a UK based show. Police dog handlers talk about their dogs, looking for drugs, explosives, etc. They show clips of the dogs working. Black labs are so cute!
MazeDancer
Even though Howard Lutnik says Trump likely to walk back tariffs tomorrow – who knows maybe even tonight in the speech after he announces the end of the Dept of Education – want to be prepared.
After Chewy delivers tomorrow, I will have 6 months of cat food on hand. Between bird flu and no food inspectors, safe cat food might get scarce. If not, won’t go to waste.
New England gets its power from Canada. If Canada turns it off and the NE grid goes down, Upstate NY will possibly tumble next.
So just bought a River 2 refurb for $119 direct from EcoFlow to charge iPad and phone, which is my internet hotspot. Also got a cheap solar panel. Can’t hurt to have.
TBone
Not wanting to diminish the importance of this live alternative event, I’m still out for the duration tonight.
Having never seen it before, will be watching this tonight instead. I love Jo Van Fleet. She can be so vicious.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_King_and_Four_Queens
TCM has been kicking ass all damn day!
I can wait until Heather Cox Richardson and Jeff Tiedrich give me the skinny tomorrow.
JoyceH
I’ll just be streaming Secrets of the National Trust. But I’ll keep an eye on social media and if Trump melts down and pees on the podium or something, I might switch over.
Gretchen
@schrodingers_cat: Lovely!
japa21
Mrs. Japa and I will be watching the Tracker and Watson episodes from Sunday.
different-church-lady
Any news report tonight that does not refer to him as ‘Dumbfuck Hitler’ is lying to you.
D.C.L. + BOURBON FUCK OFF ABOUT HOW MUCH….
different-church-lady
@MazeDancer: Well, I was always planning to go off the grid eventually…
Jay
With the cuts to the DOE, and Grants, etc it should get rather ‘interesting”.
T’s Institution already has a long list of Schools and Universities in the US that students do not qualify from, for Undergrad and Grad Admissions, because they basically lack the education to qualify.
Jay
@different-church-lady:
Alcohol does not solve your problems, but neither does milk, (raw milk excepted),…………………..
different-church-lady
@Jay: I’M NOT LOOKING FOR SOLUTIONS. I’M LOOKING FOR FUCKIN’ BOURBON!
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Thanks I finally got the night sky like I wanted to. I used
Did you see the hearts I made for Valentine’s Day?
Jay
@different-church-lady:
https://maverickdirect.ca/products/barnburner-whiskey?srsltid=AfmBOoo91_qCOMmv0RwVgUOaKoCrQodnBVAE064em2cc8dCrxGcA0Ul
We can’t legally call it bourbon, but it is.
Think of it as non Sparkly Canadian Rot Gut. Prices are in CDN.
mrmoshpotato
So what’s on TCM tonight? NotMax, you around? :)
John S.
Rev. Barber for the win!
I can listen to that man read the names out of a phone book. He’s such an excellent orator, and compassionate human being.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: No I hadn’t. That is amazing.
I only work in black and white because color confuses me. There is so much there: emotionally hot/cold, close/far, angry/ calm plus it has to actual look okay in a just fashion sense of not clashing.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: When you say “finally got” does that mean there were multiple efforts. I think a lot of people forget how much planning and studies and then trials and errors go into every successful art piece.
WTFGhost
Let’s see:
Stupid
Oldster
Talking
Ukulele-ian?
Scheming
Oligarch-back-s-
Tabbing
Ukraine ?
Nah, that’s even more forced than ukulele-ian.
Sofa
Onanist
Taking-wank
Under-podium.
Not as forced, but eeeeew. To think that’s the thing he’d learn from Vance, to hide a futon under the podium.
Anyone else in the right mood to try?
@A Ghost to Most: Frankly, I’m impressed they can swing those HUGE bats. I mean, I’m sure they’re some big-ass crickets but, I mean, come on, man.
Unless you mean you’re watching Republicans trying to explain what the “rule of law” means when the President is blatantly violating the law, and in those cases, those huge bats always looked like the world’s worst (spanking) paddle, you’d think the journos would find them *useful*, but *noo-oooo-ooooo.* They leave them for insects!!!
(If you had a younger brother, you know how to pronounce that “no” and just how many syllables and ululations go into it.)
I’m sorry – I’m flashing back to my days as the third oldest, both siblings bigger than I, and having a year more language development, and still, the magic of younger brother annoyances shine through. And I want to be needling every Republican until their effing *veins* collapse. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
I want to say “this here, it’s the newest electric razor! Here’s the normal beard/’stache, here’s the manscaping blades, see, and the wheels on the bottom, Musk put them there so you can to *ROOM ROOM* with your little pickup-truck shaped electric razor…” and I want to watch that pathetic mass of insecurities *flinch* when he realized that goddamn, but that “pickup truck” does, in fact, look like an effing Matchbox crossed with a “manscaping” shaver.
I can dream. (Yes, I know, it’s cruel, and it’s wishing the same harm on them as was done to me, but, I’m willing to cripple them any way necessary, and I know better than anyone, it won’t *kill* you. Not unless you let it, by dying.)
different-church-lady
@Jay: BUY IT BEFORE THE PRICE GOES UP TOMORROW!
Ben Cisco
Live stream to broadcast AL posted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WlcDbwwjwI
Jay
@different-church-lady:
It’s from Ontario, the price actually goes down for me tomorrow, as interProvincial tariffs on booze are lifted.
VeniceRiley
@NutmegAgain: Our Reggie goes nose to the screen for doggoes on telly. It’s so cute.
I’ve been watching comedies all day.
H.E.Wolf
@schrodingers_cat:
@sab:
Congrats to both of you for your artist’s practice!
The comments on “finally getting” an art piece the way one wants it, and the color palette for the Valentine’s hearts, reminded me of Julia Child’s strawberry soufflé remark:
“The measure of achievement is not winning awards. It’s doing something that you appreciate, something you believe is worthwhile. I think of my strawberry soufflé. I did that at least twenty-eight times before I finally conquered it.” – Julia Child
May we all be willing to try 28 times or more!
Old Dan and Little Ann
I have s special / sad tale. Our backyard neighbor is in her early 60s and is dying of cancer. She is days away from entering hospice. She wanted to see me on Friday in private from my wife. They’ve become good friends over the last 15 years.
She told me she wanted us to to have the Grandfather clock her mother gifted her many years ago. She told me my wife always commented on it whenever she was in the house over the years. I started crying and told her how special it was. Then she asked my advice on how to tell my wife. I told her to just tell her exactly how she told me. Well that happened tonight. It is such a sad and beautiful thing for us. We will cherish is to our final days and then our daughter will do the same. Cheers y’all. Fuck cancer.
sab
I had thought our new Ag Sec was one of the less awful choices, but Trumper with a weak backbone is a bad choice.
We need to be growing chickens in our yards if we want eggs.? Most suburbanites dont even know how to raise chickens, and even if they do…chickens in the backyard, tended by you or your children as the waterfowl carrying bird flu pass over head and also maybe land in your yard because you have food and your tiny chickens ( against big geese) let the geese roam in the yard.
Factory chickens have a problem. So let us compound it by exposing novice bird raisers to the new virus.
I cannot think of a faster way to get bird flu to jump into our species.
sab
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I am so sorry for you. I hope your neighbor gets a gentle transition.
Baud
Interesting dynamic to keep an eye on.
WTFGhost
@sab: I hope if you ever can experiment with color, I get to hear about it. I think it might be fascinating. In some ways, the way you talk here about color is not-unlike how I feel about language; and it makes me wonder about synesthesia; and, I therefore have an extra special interest if/when/etc..
schrodingers_cat
@sab: Yes I have messed up many a coloring page trying to render the night sky. The paper in coloring books is not watercolor paper so its pretty unforgiving and you can’t correct your mistakes.
I tried a lot of variations in my sketch book.
WTFGhost
@sab: Thank god I’m not the only one who saw that hole you could drive a passenger+freight train through, *sideways*, and wondered why no one called it out.
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Thank you for sharing some bittersweet joy and beauty.
Doug R
@different-church-lady:
Don’t worry. After Canada stops buying, you’ll have plenty.
Jay
@sab:
$750 on average to get started, before you see an egg, and yeah, Bird Flu central.
On the other hand, RFK Jr wants to combat the Texas measles outbreak with cod liver oil.
So it’s quite the contest for worst,…….
eclare
@thruppence:
Fun!
Elizabelle
@Old Dan and Little Ann: Your neighbor knows you will cherish the clock, pass it down as an heirloom, and think of her from time to time as you look at it. She chose well.
That has to be so soothing to her. I am sorry she is leaving so early. My condolences on losing a friend.
schrodingers_cat
@H.E.Wolf: The hearts was my second attempt with playing with negative space. I had tried leaves before. This was much better. I used 25% cotton watercolor paper and watercolor. My first attempt was my multimedia sketchbook with gel crayons.
Lobo
Don’t forget Van Jones greatest hits: This is the night he became president!
WTFGhost
OOOOH! Google’s celebration is MARDI GRAS! What an INSULT to TRUMP!
Damn. That might have worked with freepers. (Is “freepers” still a thing? Was it ever?)
eclare
I will be watching The Traitors from last Thursday. Then I’ll be caught up for the final few episodes.
Elizabelle
Nice problem to have. Got home a few minutes after 7:30, and cannot get into that Timothy Snyder Real State of the Union Zoom. It is at capacity.
That says something, for sure.
Will be early to the Chris Murphy Brian Schatz online event at 8:15 p.
I wonder if this might be the least watched SOTU in years. To see.
TBone
@mrmoshpotato: see comment #15 (A King and Four Queens); followed at 10pm by Maureen O’Hara in
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rare_Breed
with Jimmy Stewart and Brian Keith
Jay
@eclare:
Is that the latest DJTdiot Documentary series?
robtrim
Read it and weep.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/white-paper-sanders-rand-tax
TBone
@WTFGhost: points for use of “ululations.”
eclare
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
What a precious gift. So sorry about your neighbor.
sab
@schrodingers_cat: Whatever you had to do, it worked. I just want jackals to know it wasn’t easy. You didn’t seemlessly slide into the right color or medium choices. You worked at it.
If you aren’t amazing in the first draft you might be on draft three or four. Or not.
eclare
@sab:
Good points.
Percysowner
It hit 67 today, which was great for my grandkids to play after school. It will be in the low 40s 24 hours from now. This means I have just gotten a SCREAMING headache, because weather changes mean Migraines or at least awful, awful headaches. I wouldn’t have watched the Orange Turd anyway, but now it’s quiet podcasts in dark rooms.
different-church-lady
@robtrim: This is surprising to whom? Will Rogers had it figured out decades ago.
Gloria DryGarden
@Elizabelle: didnt he say overflow would go to YouTube?
eclare
@Jay:
Hahaha…
different-church-lady
@Lobo:
It’s a single.
different-church-lady
@Baud: I did not have Florida more progressive than the federal government on my 2025 bingo card, but I really should have.
TBone
@Baud: I have a feeling about that FL AG & crew appointed by DeathSanta, that they’ll do an Epstein. Much ado, then nothing.
Elizabelle
@Gloria DryGarden: It’s streaming on their facebook page. Watching that now.
Would imagine we can watch it after it concludes. Who knows?
different-church-lady
@Jay: BUY IT FOR ME THEN, BRAGGART!
NeenerNeener
For what it’s worth, Disney+ is restarting the “Daredevil” franchise tonight at 9:01 pm, with the same cast that was in the Netflix version some years back. I’m looking forward to seeing bad guys get their butts kicked for a change.
Lobo
@different-church-lady:
That was funny!
A Ghost to Most
Who needs bullshitting fascists when Whose Line is it Anyway? is on?
Jay
@different-church-lady:
If I ship it south, you will have to pay the 25% tariff at the border.
Just wait a few days, barrels of Kentucky bourbon are soon to be overflowing, they will be giving it away.
TBone
@different-church-lady: I meant to give you kudos earlier. You’re on a roll!
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: The colors are dazzling!
sab
@sab: Factory chickens live in dirty but very enclosed circumstances.
Suburban chickens wander the yard pecking at whatever and conftronting migrating waterfowl. What the fuck doesn’t scare you about this?
I wear a facemask to the grocery because I am a wimp and also old with health problems . When our suburbanites manage to bring the flu into our species I will be triumphant in anger: We fucking warmed you about bird flu and it’a transfer to cows and humans but nobody who should have cared did.
H.E.Wolf
@schrodingers_cat:
Thanks for the additional information!
Jeffro
be honest, peeps: at this point, if you had RWNJ relatives like my dad and brother, and everything was going to hell this quickly under trumpov’s 2nd maladministration…would you
schrodingers_cat
@Glory b: @Gretchen: Thanks
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: It will get worse. Hold your fire.
But. Observe them closely. Maybe talk about the hit to most peoples’ investments. Make them anxious.
Jay
@sab:
When we lived at the other place, we sort of had “backyard” chickens, quail and ducks.
But it was not suburban.
The pen was 25 x 30, white tarp (shade) and mesh wire roof, (hawks, owls), pig wire and hardware cloth sides, (coyotes, raccoons, weasels, mink, snakes) on a concrete perimeter foundation, (weasels and mink) that got moved like a massive chicken tractor every 4 months. In the winter, the interior was lined with strawbales for insulation and heat lamps.
Not an easy thing to manage, an hour and a half every am and an hour every evening. All for 30 eggs a day in the summer and none in the winter.
schrodingers_cat
@robtrim: How much has flowed from his followers to hi
@sab: Ah yes, the struggle is real. I have become better and now I also have better supplies. I want to share my art journey, so that’s another reason to revive my blog.
I do love the starkness of black and white as well. I have done some stuff with black and white in graphite.
Ben Cisco
Currently 150k watching The State of Our Union w/Roland Martin…Dr. Rev. Barber will give the keynote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WlcDbwwjwI
Joy in FL
@Ben Cisco: I just started watching that.
Ben Cisco
@Joy in FL: Glad you could join.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle: thanks! I’ll do that for now, even though it’s very tempting to go nuts about it.
I’ll have to lay this all out for the jackaltariat sometime soon…my dad, mom, and bro are all slowly realizing that the leopards are INDEED out to eat their faces
…and my bro’s wife’s job, and his retirement portfolio…
…and my dad’s portfolio + the dawning realization that trumpov might just be a Russian asset after all…
…and my mom’s portfolio + the dawning realization that trumpov might just be a fake Christian after all
NeenerNeener
@Jay: Even bottles of Pappy Van Winkle?
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Whocoodaknowed?
But it will be interesting to watch how they deal with the incoming bad news.
Sister Golden Bear
What’s the over/under that Trump declares he’s outlawed the United States and Putin will begin bombing in five minutes.
TS
Just read an article where trump admin has sorted out how to avoid a massive drop in GDP
It should be calculated without regard to government spending – a MAJOR part of GDP calculations and a major part of any economy.
Blows the mind how they just lie their way out of any issue, rather than face reality. They are also selling off assets to balance the books – so any new admin will have to pay rent to house government workers – like selling your house to pay the bills and discovering you have nowhere to live
thruppence
@eclare: We shall see. I’m not much for elaborate get ups but I have a couple of colorful shirts, and it’s Fat Tuesday, and I’m fat, so does that count as a costuming idea?
different-church-lady
@TS:
Not really: that’s fascist S.O.P.
TBone
@Sister Golden Bear: hey, how did the heart monitor stuff work out? Unless you don’t want to say, of course.
YY_Sima Qian
Epilogue to the brouhaha over PRC “control” over the Panama Canal:
While the global headlines are focusing on the Panama ports, the bigger news is that Li Ka Shing (Hong Kong based plutocrat) is financially distressed enough to sell all of CK Hutchinson‘s portfolio outside of the PRC, for a cool US$ 23B.
For years, China Hawks have been portraying the Hong Kong based CK Hutchinson as an extension of the CPC regime & the PLA, & counts all of the ports it operated around the world as potential staging sites for the PLA Navy, Marine Corps & Rocket Forces. Now that the company has sold off 43 ports around the world to a US interest, one would think the hyperventilating would dampen a bit. Not!
Also, having BlackRock running these ports, even w/ MSC‘s terminal operator as part of the consortium, is not a good sign. BlackRock will probably look to flip these assets for a profit, rather than sustaining them long term.
Sister Golden Bear
@TBone: It’ll about another week and half before I get the results from the heart monitor (mailed it back last week, and then they need to analyze it). But overall, my blood pressure is down, albeit on the high speed. Still having racing pulse at times, but generally not so high that my cardiologist is immediately concerned. We’ll see.
different-church-lady
Apparently to the surprise of absolutely no one Dumbfuck Hitler is going to blame Biden for the fact that he didn’t couldn’t his campaign promise of cheap eggs. It’s literally been announced in advance.
Philbert
I’m watching it but on cspan with closed captions. Awful but I do want to see history no matter how awful. I’ll see how long I last!
TS
I’m watching a cyclone approach our town. At least our government is currently taking note, promising support & not changing the meteorology map with a sharpie. No eggs at all available, panic buying of everything and I am out of cheese – my open sin, cheese and biscuits with a glass of wine regardless of the political scene or weather activities.
YY_Sima Qian
Yep, as expected. The grift continues at the expense of everyone not of the plutocrats & kleptocrats:
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
LMFAO, an agreement on nothing.
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-hates-canada-for-its-decency
different-church-lady
I’m following this from a distance and it looks like he’s not more than minutes in and it’s already a shit show.
Jay
@TS:
Well, no FEMA. They can’t travel, anywhere on their $1 limited charge cards.
How it going in South Carolina or Kentucky?
different-church-lady
Looks like certain members of congress are not going to watch fascism take over the country without piping up.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@different-church-lady: I have cspan on mute and all of a sudden that dude started yelling. Good for him.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: Describe, please. I am not watching, and will not watch.
Unless he gets shot. That could be good television!
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: It’ll be an empty agreement (if there is one), but that will allow Trump to spin as a victory through twisting Canadian & Mexican arms, & the MAGA types will believe it. & then we go through this again in 6 mo. or a year.
In the mean time, the tariff increases on PRC imports keep going up, the PRC continues to retaliate, until a “grand bargain” is reached (if there is one).
Trump will only want to fight a “Phony War” wrt trade, but there are advisors around him that do want to re-shore manufacturing from everywhere else & want to use tariffs as the leverage.
Elizabelle
@TS: Good luck to you.
Biscuits. Where are you?
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle: I’m only looking at the WaPo’s live blogging. Apparently Rep. Al Green started heckling right off the bat. Disorder in the chamber, with the sides trying to drown each other out.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady:
“Let’s stay together. Loving you whether, whether or not ….”
Wait. Not that Al Green?
YY_Sima Qian
Decades happening in weeks (gift link to FT article below):
different-church-lady
@YY_Sima Qian: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”
Elizabelle
Hmmm. Posted at 5:55 pm today: WaPost:
D.C. prosecutor drops bid to investigate Schumer for purported threat
U.S. Attorney Ed Martin concluded a probe into Senate Democratic leader’s 2020 statement was unfounded and the wrong choice to launch ‘Operation Whirlwind’
Is that like “reap the whirlwind?” What a tool.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
Like we will agree. We won’t. Tariffs are on until DJTdiot resigns.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Sister Golden Bear: so glad to hear that!
Among people I only know through the internet, the two voices I worry about the most are you and Kevin Drum who writes Jabberwocking.
TS
@Jay:
I’m on the other side of the world – Australia – We still have a vaguely functioning government although we have elections soon & it’s likely the trump supporting RW party will win
@Elizabelle:
Brisbane, Australia – I didn’t think cookies and cheese sounded right – we call them biscuits – maybe I should have said crackers?
ChristianPinko
Rev. Barber laying it down in the State of Our Union.
Elizabelle
In more important news than The Felon’s big look at me night:
Bald Eagles Jackie and Shadow are parents of two hatchlings in Big Bear valley, CA (San Bernardino National Forest). One further egg not yet hatched, but still within its timeframe.
Welcome, eaglets. May you never encounter anything as toxic as that pool of orange goo orating at the moment.
The Guardian link.
different-church-lady
Seems that the strategy is non-verbal protest: signs and placards held up, messages written on clothing. Dems are leaving the chamber.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle: I happened to be watching yesterday when the first pip was revealed. Quite a thrill to see it in real time.
YY_Sima Qian
Heh. (Click through the link for the image.):
different-church-lady
TS
@YY_Sima Qian:
Good recap of any US policy at the minute. I just had a quick look at the post live blogging – not a word of push back, reporting every word as if it were the absolute truth – they still don’t know (& obviously don’t care) who is their audience.
Elizabelle
@different-church-lady: That’s exciting. Hope the little ones make it through to maturity. And let’s go, egg #3.
We have had Great Horned Owls in our park, although not for a year or two. That brings owl paparazzi with 2 foot long lenses.
I guess if we cannot afford them, we can at least watch them.
(Kidding. Eggs available here in central VA for less than $5/dozen at Lidl. I am good with that.)
Jim Appleton
I’m painfully watching the thing live.
What a horror.
R’s should get P.E. credit for all the standing ovations, which come about every twenty seconds.
That’s so sad. They enthusiastically want fascism.
rikyrah
Last Day With You (@Last_DayWithYou) posted at 2:25 PM on Tue, Mar 04, 2025:
The Full Conversation –
KERNEN: So, Alina, you’re saying veterans—people who served this country—were fired from their government jobs because they weren’t fit to work?
HABBA: Perhaps they’re not fit to have a job at this moment.
KERNEN: These are combat veterans, intelligence officers, career public servants. Many of them held top security clearances. But now, suddenly, they’re unfit?
HABBA: Well, maybe there were other reasons—efficiency, restructuring—
KERNEN: Efficiency? The administration fired experienced veterans and replaced them with Musk’s DOGE hires—mostly teenagers and influencers. Are they somehow more qualified?
HABBA: Look, the president is focused on streamlining government.
KERNEN: Streamlining? By purging veterans with decades of expertise and handing jobs to unqualified people because they’re politically loyal?
HABBA: I think it’s important to have fresh perspectives in government.
KERNEN: Sure. But since when does ‘fresh perspective’ mean firing the people who actually know what they’re doing?
HABBA: We need people who align with the president’s vision.
KERNEN: So loyalty to Trump matters more than service to the country?
HABBA: That’s not what I said.
KERNEN: But it’s exactly what’s happening. These veterans fought for America. And now they’re being thrown aside because they won’t pledge allegiance to one man. If that’s not corruption, what is?
(https://x.com/Last_DayWithYou/status/1897020694845706330?
t=ftDY3KhvsDr0dn8lfQIe5g&s=03)
TBone
@Sister Golden Bear: fingers & paws crossed!
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle: Went shopping today, glanced at the shelves and we thought, “Quail eggs… never tried those…”
YY_Sima Qian
@TS: Haven’t seen Aussie Sheila around recently, but you might appreciate the below quip from Ezra Klein’s interview w/ Fareed Zakaria (I know, I know). (Gift link to NYT below, emphasis mine):
Australia is probably concluding right now that it has, in fact, made a generational strategic error. Still not too late to back out of the AUKUS mess, though.
Ben Cisco
@ChristianPinko: Bringing the TRUTH!!
YY_Sima Qian
@TS: Disagree, most other aspects of US policy are consistently & relentlessly heading in one direction – terrible & disastrous.
different-church-lady
@rikyrah:
NARRATOR: “That’s exactly what she said.”
Joy in FL
Rev Barber is the voice I need to hear. wow.
(on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WlcDbwwjwI The State of our Union)
Sister Golden Bear
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: @TBone:
Thank you. I intend to live out of spite, if nothing else.
prostratedragon
[Immediately bannable]:
prostratedragon
@Sister Golden Bear: Spite can carry one far.
geg6
@eclare:
I do not want Danielle to win. That is all.
TBone
@prostratedragon: what in the clusterfuck of jack diddly dingdong bulging eyed brainless dickless bungling moron hell is this.
“Back to the office!” WHAT office?
Matt McIrvin
@TBone: Just pure corruption. They’re selling off the buildings to their friends at fire-sale prices so the US government can rent them back in perpetuity, and this supposed to be “saving money”.
TBone
Canada canceled Elno this morning.
https://betakit.com/its-done-its-gone-ontario-premier-doug-ford-cancels-100-million-starlink-contract-in-tariff-response/
So the “Tariffs, but change them every hour” meme has a factual blowback basis.
TBone
@Matt McIrvin: 🎯 pwning teh rubes!
TBone
This handbasket is too small, gonna need a bigger handbasket for this fresh hell trip. And Quaaludes.
Barbara
@sab: ”Hi, I’d like to complain about my neighbor keeping chickens in apartment 3R.”
Seriously, lots of cities and suburbs don’t allow “livestock” to be kept in residential zones.
Gloria DryGarden
@prostratedragon: the ways they come up with to grift, and destroy, and cut right past security measures, all it it, just boggles the mind.
prostratedragon
@prostratedragon:
[Still bannable, with my bold]:
TBone
@prostratedragon: favorite reply so far
TS
@YY_Sima Qian:
For most of us the strategic error was made when they cancelled a contract we had with France to buy from the USA – the latter contract will probably never be filled, and we lost a good ally (France) to take on one who is at best a fair weather friend (ie when the democratic party is in power)
There has never been a war in the memory of people I knew where we were not on the same side as the USA. How the times are a’ changing.
TS
@YY_Sima Qian:
Which was what I thought I was saying but my world is so upside down at the minute – words escape me because of the anger and thoughts of disaster.
Facing a cyclone is much easier than facing world politics
Jim Appleton
All done, the p o op
The Repulicans thanking him are wretched.
TBone
@TBone:
Direct SOTU Donold quote from the one moment I could bear to watch on MSNBC when my movie ended. It received much applause and maybe a standing ovation. I changed the channel very quickly…
Kayla Rudbek
@Jeffro: I finally called my parents last night (I hadn’t talked to them since before the inauguration). Fortunately my dad’s unreconstructed Cold War anti-Russian reflex has kicked in, and as retired JAG Corps he is very concerned about the top JAG lawyers all being fired. As he put it, they’re trying to get rid of everyone in the JAG Corps who has even heard of the Posse Comitatus.
So I was able to have a semi decent conversation with them, and put in the idea about “if he was a Russian asset, what would he be doing differently?” Also planted the idea that Fox News is owned by the Russians so stop trusting it.
YY_Sima Qian
@TS: That’s where we all are.
Ksmiami
@Jeffro: rub it in.
Quinerly
I watched it. America has a dictator.
Fist pump in real time for Rep Al Green. The entire Dem Party in attendance should have walked out in solidarity when he was escorted out.
prostratedragon
@TBone:
Heh. Here’s a list from GSA, which might be partial. This includes Federal Plaza in Chicago. The Dirksen Building described in the second link is now called the Metcalf Building.
RevRick
@NeenerNeener: Um, that was an atom bomb dropped in the beginning. But Vincent D’Onofrio certainly delivers.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
You folks need to concentrate on what is important; turn the sound off, almost everything Trump says is BS anyway, and look at the right side of Trump’s face; something happened to him, stroke maybe?
YY_Sima Qian
@TS: AUKUS was Morrison’s play. No sure why Albanese/Marle & company decided to latch on to it. Even w/ Biden’s election it should have been obvious that fastening to the US in structural confrontation w/ Australia’s primary trading partner, when the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region has turned against the US, was a very high risk gamble. Even if MAGA did not return.
I guess guys like Kurt Campbell are very effective alliance managers.
You might have also seen this news:
This exposes a quite pernicious aspect of the network of natsec elites in the US & allied capitals. ASPI, the leading FP think tank in AUS, ostensibly founded by the Australian government (in really lots of funding from the MIC & foreign governments), has long advocated a hawkish stances toward the PRC, to fully embrace the US in the incipient Cold War w/ the PRC. It takes funding from the US State Department to conduct PRC related “research” to make such a case, to influence the debate in Australia. Its reports are then laundered back in DC to bolster the case for Cold War w/ the PRC. (“See! It’s not just us the ‘Blob’ that’s saying it, even the country totally dependent on exports to the CCP is saying it!”)
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Why are no major reporters reporting what you, a random expat, sees?
In the olden days I would have said because random expat doesn’t know enough,
Nowadays when I am less naive I would say because random expat being abroad sees stuff not reported to us.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: If you keep track, just about everything I post are sourced from Western (mostly US) sources, be they academia, think tanks, MSM articles, trade journals, or interested observers living in the West, plus some Western expats living overseas. I do follow a number of sources that platform Global South voices.
So, the knowledge & the expertise is there in the US & the West, in fact still better than most places in the world. However, such knowledge & expertise rarely percolate to policymakers & politicians, & almost never affect policy. At this point I think it is a deliberate refusal to face reality. As Adam has said in the past, & people I’ve repeatedly plugged (such as Van Jackson) have too, the purpose of the DC think tanks is not in the voluminous reports & papers, but in access to power, as sinecures for the members of the bipartisan “Blob” when they are out of power, platforming their thoroughly conventional views, & gain prestige when these members of the “Blob” return to power. Despite the grains among the chaff, MSMs are corporate entities beholden to power, & the prevailing conventional wisdom, & preferred narratives.
I follow a lot of heterodox voices outside of the conventional wisdom wielding mainstream, voices determined to go against the zeitgeist. Of course, I have to stay vigilant w/ such voices, against them being kooks, but in the current age of chaos, some of what was once kooky are no longer so easily dismissed.
YY_Sima Qian
A quick summary of craziness of the most recent Trumpian tariffs, from a recent Treasury official of the Biden Administration (& a great source of the nitty gritty of balance of payments & international capital flows):
As someone else on X stated, products assembled in Vietnam from Chinese components face no tariffs, but products assembled in Mexico from US components face 25% tariff.
However, Setser (who also worked in the Obama Administration, so a Dem-aligned technocrat of long standing) has also become a economic nationalist (though he does not admit it), as the below exchange illustrates:
It is not just MAGA that is “America First”, Dem technocrats have just as deeply internalized primacist & hegemonist thinking. I am sure that is something the non-USians here can appreciate.
Setser also betrays a complete lack of knowledge of supply chains, technology-industrial clusters, product design & integration, & why Chinese EVs are so competitive, as macroeconomists whose minds are captured by aggregate figures & GDP accounting identities tend to be.
lowtechcyclist
oops, wrong thread
Professor Bigfoot
This fully explains why major media is the way it is.
”Corporate entities are gonna corporate.”