I read nothing positive about the speech last night. Nothing. I remain particularly distressed about Ukraine, and see no positive movement there.
I was very pleased with Ron Wyden’s town hall, which I watched instead of the shitshow, and am goign to try to find a copy of AOC’s instagram thing after the SOTU.
I will say it is nice to see that in all this suck, there are things we can do, as Watergirl has posted below. I encourage all of you to get involved. I will, too. It’s much better to do than to sit paralyzed and anxious. Personally, I do not care if it is a long shot (and I don’t think Watergirl cares either)- every election is an opportunity and we just have to keep going at it until something works.
Florida Special Elections – Long Shot? Or Potentially History Making Opportunity?
brendancalling
I feel as if we all need to re-read “Crashing the Gates,” and re-capture our party. We need more, but more importantly, BETTER Democrats.
frosty
I called my R Rep and told him I stand with Ukraine. I checked awhile back and he had voted for Ukraine on 10 different bills. I told the staffer I wanted him to keep it up.
Aunt Kathy
The thing that always strikes me about AOC’s IG lives (Last night’s is about an hour), is how I usually end up feeling calmer. Over halfway through, she covered how, like it or not, people voted for the guy, they exist, & some Dem Reps are walking fine lines in close districts.
For all the flak she tends to get for the “Squad” shit, trying to make her out to be an extreme hair-on-fire loon, she is very practical. “Here’s the situation…here are some ways to try to deal with that.”
jackmac
I actually did watch the shit show (about a hour of it) and spent time yelling at the screen over that litany of lies and juvenile taunts. Finally gave up in an effort to lower my blood pressure. Christ, what an asshole.
WTFGhost
dc
The amazing Jasmine Crockett (it’s a Facebook reel, I’m betting she’s posted the video on different platforms): https://www.facebook.com/reel/525349056827846
Michael Bersin
What distresses me most is that as a culture we’ve normalized ignorance and stupidity. It’s all perfectly acceptable, but it’s “bad manners” to point out that ignorance and stupidity.
Baud
@brendancalling:
IMHO more is more important than better.
Also IMHO, more leads to better.
Aziz, light!
There’s hope for Ukraine if Europe gets its act together, and soon. A new alliance to replace NATO, which is effectively dead if Trump ignores its obligations, which seems likely. We are going to see a new world order in which America is sidelined, and weaker in both influence and economy, unworthy of the trust of other nations.
As for the joint address, I would rather gargle drain cleaner than ever listen to that sack of pus again.
Old Man Shadow
I ignored the State of the Union and the media last night.
Played Civilization.
And as most games of Civilization work out, I tried to be nice, diplomatic, and work towards a science or culture victory and then my neighbor Greece decides to declare a surprise war and I retaliate by conquering all of his cities and annexing them into my nation.
Germany does not like me now, but they’ll get over it.
And if they don’t, I’m now heavily armed and annoyed and can make them get over it. Hopefully before I meet any more civilizations.
The other scenario that often happens in the game is that I ally with a city state and another civ declares war on it and I get constantly dragged into wars trying to defend it and posting troops in the city state’s territory to disincline folks from trying to take it.
So, I guess, kudos for the realism.
Lee
@Michael Bersin: This is exactly right and it’s a major problem. I was just listening to one of my co-workers talking at lunch and she was talking about how Trump said there are Soc. Sec. checks going out to people over 300 years old. That’s just a plain old lie Trump and Elon made up but she firmly believes it. I have no solution other than a complete remake of the media landscape.
Also, a side note, but she thought the Dem church fans were hilarious. Kind of agree with her on that one.
Steve LaBonne
@Aziz, light!: Germany just lifted the “debt brake” to allow for higher defense spending. I think the Europeans are well and truly awake now and will do what’s needed.
Eural Joiner
@Old Man Shadow: What’s your take on the new Civ that just came out? I haven’t played it in… awhile… since I’m addicted to sci-fi looter shooters like Destiny, but I thought about jumping back in.
Baud
@Aunt Kathy:
IMHO AOC is better than some of her online fans. She’s very positive, but some people who support her have a lot of negative energy.
azlib
I have been repeatedly writing my Republican Rep and reminding him of Congress’ oversight responsibility. Given his responses, he is probably a lost cause, but it is one thing I can do to stay engaged. I am also giving to the local county Dem Party. I will keep doing that unless my Social Security checks start bouncing. :-)
Old Man Shadow
@Eural Joiner: Need to upgrade my motherboard unfortunately. Might see about doing that this weekend.
Ohio Mom
@Lee: Three hundred years ago was 1725. We weren’t even a country yet. I doubt there was a census listing who was born that year.
You can not reason with people like that. You wonder how they manage to successfully complete their activities of daily living.
ETA: I wouldn’t be surprised if there were irregularities in the early years of Social Security. But everything has been computerized for quite a while and is connected to funeral homes and banks. If people like your coworker want to be nuts, they could go on a jag about how Social Security knows too much about us.
clay
A while back there was a discussion about national media organizations that don’t suck, and that deserve our support. Can anyone point me to that post?
zhena gogolia
@Aunt Kathy: Yes, she is much more reasonable than a lot of her fans.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: GMTA
mellowjohn
Well worth a listen…
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/for-the-record-rachel-maddow-sets-the-record-straight-on-trump-address-falsehoods/vi-AA1AgB8h#details
French Onion Soup
My Jewish ass is going to take this as a moment to not be involved. We have for far too long ignored the economic issues that droves us to this because educated white people with liberal cultural attitudes didn’t want to deal with that. We slandered Sanders and blamed our failings on a Jewish person. You are on your own. When we can talk about those failings I’m all ears. Till then. I hope it fucking hurts.
CaseyL
Hey, if anyone still has an appetite for sending out more postcards, there’s a national mailing campaign for everyone who opposes Trump to send him a postcard saying so on March 15:
Ides of Trump Campaig
I still have a lot of postcard stamps, and this seems like a decent use of them.
Doc Sardonic
I wish I could play the Civilization type games, because they are really interesting, but I can’t. The reason I can’t play them is because they are really interesting and that becomes hazardous. I remember many years ago I got a game called Zeus, it came with another game I had bought as a free add on. Well, it came about that I was taking a midweek mental health day so after I finished breakfast I started the game install and my spouse left for the office. The next real world thing that got my attention was my spouse returning from the office, I had dropped into the game and lost 10 hours, so I can’t play those.
Geminid
@Aunt Kathy: My observation is that Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has evolved in a more pragmatic direction since she entered Congress in January of 2019. I don’t know her but if I had to guess, I’d say she’s learned a lot from her peers, especially those also elected in 2018.
That was very talented Class. It included Andy Kim and Elissa Slotkin, who are now Senators; also, Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger who have good shots at winning elections for governor of New Jersey and Virginia this year.
Former Interior Secretary Deb Haaland also first won election 2018. Haaland is running for Governor of New Mexico next year, and as Senator Ben Ray Luhan told an Axios reporter: “Deb knows how to win.” And there were a lot of other capable Democratic politicians elected to the House that year.
I’m not “shading” Rep. Ocasio-Cortez here and I’m not trying to. What I’m trying to say is: there are a lot talented and hardworking House Democrats from all kinds of districts in all regions of the country, and they’ve learned from each other by working together and talking to each other.
Melancholy Jaques
@dc:
There are many reasons to love Jasmine Crockett.
suzanne
@Baud: What I struggle with is that I think worse (maybe “less-good”?) also leads to fewer.
Melancholy Jaques
@Michael Bersin:
It’s worse, the culture has elevated ignorance & stupidity, declared it to represent authenticity, wrapped in a protective blanket called religious freedom.
People who have graduated from our best schools, with graduate degrees, vote for morons like Tuberville & Ron Johnson. They know their stupid, but they like it because they hate the rest of us.
SW
Well it is a representative democracy and from my perspective Trump and his ilk represent a large if not dominant portion of the population. We have always been somewhat self absorbed and ignorant. But what seems to be more recent is the notion that being a braggart and a liar are now looked on as somehow positive characteristics. In the past that was not true. Being a braggart and a liar were perceived as disqualifying liabilities. “Getting over” is perceived as a skill to be emulated. And by the way, get off my lawn!
Baud
@suzanne:
There’s a two step process to both more and better.
If less good is really less good, then there’s no reason why more good can’t do these two things.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I’m not so sure. The most we’ve had in my adult lifetime was 2009-2010. And we were like 25% blue dogs.
WaterGirl
@clay: I am still compiling the list from 3 different threads. I need to get back to that! Hopefully this week.
Bionic Space Jellyfish
I’m trying to get more involved with my local dems who are trying to lead the charge in turning Missouri back into a swing state. We’re one of the few parts of the state that has actually increased dem turnout in elections and they’ve had a lot to do with it. My wife and I were both feeling pretty hopeless and cynical after everything and it was good to go to their advocacy training and leave feeling a bit more optimistic.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Who were slowly replaced by Republicans. Had we kept more, we would have gotten better IMHO.
p.a
@French Onion Soup:
In France, it’s just “Onion Soup.”
VFX Lurker
That imperfect majority made the lifechanging Affordable Care Act possible. I hope that accomplishment survives the Idiot’s second term.
danielx
MAGA is becoming more and more of a bitter joke.
clay
@WaterGirl: I look forward to it! Is there a specific tag that these posts share, so I can find them?
Lapassionara
@Baud: Ditto. And, oh by the way, who helped Dems have a majority so that our side was in charge of the House. That is SO key to getting things done, or to preventing bad things from happening.
Melancholy Jaques
Open thread?
In an hour, I am heading to where the blogmeister is, Tempe AZ, for my annual spring training weekend. Heard the weather might not be that great, but we will make it work.
Lapassionara
@Bionic Space Jellyfish: that sounds promising. Where in Missouri are you?
SteverinoCT
I watched the speech on MSNBC, and Rachel’s brief off-the-top-of-her-head fact-check, and was pleased to find we had picked up on the same things. And also whats-her-name liking the police kid, the only good part, except that as she pointed out he was a pediatric cancer survivor, and, well… Also the totally gratuitous “Pocahantas” swipe at Warren.
Melancholy Jaques
@VFX Lurker:
I’m aware of what we got done & how it was apparently the limits of what was possible.
But you can’t make me like the blue dogs any more than you can make me like Manchin & Sinema.
Long term I think our party would benefit from not having the “But Some” Democrats. I know am like a broken record on this (how old do you have to be to get that simile?) but the questions Who are the Democrats? & What do they stand for? need short, clear, consistent answers.
sentient ai from the future
i am liking this new approach theyre taking to what is putatively a game show. i cant watch, i am a cord cutter and refuse to pay for streaming services, but i like the clip here
https://youtu.be/9sXDdZXu3s8
BethanyAnne
I got one brief bit of good news, though I know it will be appealed. Still, I’m taking the win as a win. A (Biden appointed) federal judge blocked the Trump trans healthcare ban. This will apply nationwide. It was the ban on trans healthcare for minors.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/judge-blocks-trump-trans-ban-nationwide?publication_id=994764&post_id=158451851&isFreemail=false&r=56cg&triedRedirect=true
Professor Bigfoot
This is what pleased me about the various Democratic responses to FFOTUS’ SOTU: we gotta keep throwing shit against the wall to figure out what works– our diversity gives us a lot of walls and a lot of shit to throw at ’em; that’s our real advantage.
WaterGirl
@clay: No, there is not. Sorry!
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
I’m not sure we have a long term.
In any event, I haven’t seen anyone explain which new cohort of voters are ripe for the picking. Instead, what happens is that existing Dems want the party to chase their favored group of voters, regardless of whether those voters are receptive to being part of our coalition. No matter how much we try, we always fall short.
The person who can expand our coalition in reality and not just talk about it will be our next leader.
Professor Bigfoot
@Michael Bersin: I’m afraid a lot of that ignorance and stupidity is driven by their “strong Christian faith.”
What their Bible says is far more convincing that actual science or history or logic or reason.
BethanyAnne
Oh, hey, WaterGirl. I meant to say thanks for posting my thread about the talking cat. I was so glad to read good news for your Willow last night. The picture you posted of her for my thread was a great one.
When my Suli was near passing, we invited an amateur photographer over for dinner. She hung out a while, and Suli got comfortable with her. Then, after dinner, she snapped photos of Suli. Those are still some of the best photos of my good girl I have. (We did pay the photographer, too. She got more than just a meal for the service :)
TBone
TRUSK 🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ATMR5ettHz8
HERE’S YOUR GALDANG ROMAN SALUTE MOTHAPHUCKA
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
To be fair, a lot of people in the Bible lived well past 300.
WaterGirl
@sentient ai from the future: That short video was very gratifying!
zhena gogolia
I just saw this in NYT:
Baud
Via reddit
WaterGirl
@BethanyAnne: Talking cats are wild! Glad you liked the photo of Miss Willow. She’s my sweet girl, and I’m so glad to have gotten the good news.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: I agree. She is a very positive person. When people comment on her lack of legislative accomplishments, sometimes I wonder if it’s because there are very few people in Congress who are willing to actually help the middle class, much less poor people. Maybe her ideas and her ideals, many of which the Jackalariat here seem to support, are not popular with her peers?
WaterGirl
@Baud: She tells it like she sees it!
*I would have thought “hoe” would have been spelled “ho”. Guessing that one’s not in a dictionary that could check.
Bionic Space Jellyfish
@Lapassionara: Lee’s Summit. Technically in the KCMO metro area. It’s an area that’s been slowly trending blue for a while.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl: Yeah, it shouldn’t have an “e.”
BethanyAnne
I loved this photo from that night. Whoa, weird deja vu. Anyway, moving on.
Chief Oshkosh
@Ohio Mom:
It’s not that they’re nuts, it’s more likely that they’re mentally lazy. They’ve ceded the thought process to the RW propaganda sphere. Hell, it probably doesn’t occur to her to even question That Day’s Talking Point.
In other words, she’s a reprogrammable meat sack, a consumer, a mark, a rube, a useful idiot.
TBone
@zhena gogolia: I’ll be shaking my Texas snowman snow globe in his honor. It contains two lumps of coal, a carrot, and a lot of snowflakes.
No hat.
BethanyAnne
@zhena gogolia: I saw that this morning. I remember when he showed up at the annual Pride banquet in Houston that Equality Texas throws. It was great to see him there – sometimes little things mean alot.
TBone
@Baud: love her so much
🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vEtbfzMLVWU
E.
@danielx:
Hey at least the phrase “Make America Great Again” means something now. Only took five weeks!
Baud
@WaterGirl:
@zhena gogolia:
I think you’re correct. No e.
But not everyone is as hip as us.
Spanky
@Baud: Another spell check victim.
Trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
Please tell me Greg Abbott does not appoint the replacement. Please tell me Gre…
ETA wait, is this House seat like being the Spinal Tap drummer?
kwAwk
If you want something to look forward to, the next Tesla earnings call, is April 23rd. This may just be the date where Elon has to choose to either be the leader of Tesla or DOGE.
Tesla sales are falling off a cliff around the world. Down over 70% in China. A former stronghold. Down in Australia. Down in Europe. Down in the US.
Some say Elon is trying to update his lineup to make the cars look like the Cybertaxi which will help sales. The Cybertaxi is a very handsome vehicle if you park it between a Cybertruck and a Pontiac Aztec.
Baud
@Trollhattan:
Special election for House members.
Trollhattan
@Baud:
Whew (brow wipe)
Trollhattan
@kwAwk:
Parked between a brace of jacked pickups at work this a.m. and it’s notable how my roof does not come close to either of their doorsills.
How I fucking hate fucking commuting.
kwAwk
@Trollhattan: lol And I bet if you asked either they would say they voted for Trump because gas is too expensive.
Soprano2
Boy this is the truth, and it probably won’t be a far left person.
They had Fox News on in the waiting room of my accountant’s office yesterday. They were characterizing the vote on trans girls in sports as “Democrats refuse to protect girl’s sports from men”. They’re going to beat that panic to death because they know it scares and confuses a lot of normal people. Just like we did with gay rights, we have to figure out a way to talk about trans rights that appeals to most people.
Soprano2
@kwAwk: I cannot feel sorry for anyone who whines about gas prices but drives a huge gas guzzler. No one made them buy that thing!!
Gin & Tonic
So now the asshole administration says it’s withholding military assistance and intelligence sharing with Ukraine until peace talks are scheduled. Just perfect. They’re not just extorting Ukraine, they are giving russia every reason to delay such talks – the longer russia delays, the worse position Ukraine is in. This is fucking perverse.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
And once peace talks are scheduled, there won’t be any need for those things, of course.
cmorenc
@VFX Lurker: Part of that imperfection in the ACA was Joe Lieberman, D-Hartford-based Insurance companies. There seems to be a Manchin or Simena in key tactical position in every time of D majority who view their role as forcing imperfections on what the vast majority of the D coalition are trying to do. We haven’t had a President with the brass-knuckled hold Trump has on his party’s congressional majorities since LBJ.
Baud
@cmorenc:
LBJ also had huge Democratic majorities.
Steve LaBonne
@Gin & Tonic: Not perverse when you understand the intent, which is to be a faithful ally to Putin.
zhena gogolia
@Steve LaBonne: Yes, I’m afraid it’s anything but perverse.
WTFGhost
@French Onion Soup: May boiling croutons scorch your lip, just in time to cause your cheese to all get pulled onto your face, giving you a hilarious beard-accompaniment to the crouton mustache, all ending without injury. It probably would, but I hope it doesn’t, “fucking hurt”.
@p.a: I thought it was “a royale with cheese, sans royale”
@danielx: so, they’re the carob of political movements?
@Melancholy Jaques: It *will* still be… as much spring as it was last year, I suppose.
@Baud: He’s a ho! He’s a garden tool! Meet… the GARDEN WEASEL!!!
zhena gogolia
WHERE IS CONGRESS? And I mean the Republicans who supposedly supported Ukraine?
Hoodie
@kwAwk: Hadn’t seen it before, definitely has a fascist futurist vibe to it.
Kelly
@Trollhattan: Purely a style thing. I remember the big tires in back car leaning forward mods back in the 1970’s. Looking like funny car dragsters. Drove terribly due to messing up the suspension geometry.
Jacking up a 4×4 truck makes it damned hard to load anything and impairs off road utility by reducing visibility. Well reduced visibility is also an on road defect. Going for the monster truck car crusher look. Which explains the driver’s typical behavior.
Geminid
I’m never sure whether, when people refer to European nations in this context, they are including Turkiye. While Istanbul straddles the Bosphorus– the traditional boundary between Europe and Asia– Turkiye is not usually thought of as a European nation.
But Turkiye has been a Nato member since 1952, and fields Nato’s second largest army and its second largest air force. And since Russia invaded Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014, Turkiye has rapidly developed its defense sector. It now sells more combat drones worldwide than any other nations, but drones are only one part of the story
The Turkish Navy used to buy its frigates from the US and its sumbarines from Germany. Now Turkiye has 27 warships under construction including 5 submarines, and a corvette for Ukraine (Ukraine took delivery of another corvette, the Hetman Ivan Mazeppa, last year). Turkish Aerospace Industries plans to start serial production of a fifth generation fighter jet next year.
Turkish support for Ukraine in this war is often underrated. They were pushing badly needed armaments to Ukraine right up until Russia invaded. When hostilities began, two Turkish Air Force cargo planes were stranded on Ukrainian airfields, and they hadn’t just hauled in rugs and baklava. The Russians wouldn’t let those planes fly out for months.
Turkiye continued to ship weapons to Ukraine after the war began, but they did not publicize the shipments. There was a lot of ballyhoo when the US suppled Ukraine with HIMARS multiple rocket launcher systems, in June of 2022 as I recall. It turned out that the Ukrainians had already been killing Russians with Turkish Roketsan MRLS units for weeks.
And unlike the U.S. and other countries, Turkiye did restrict use of the weapons to Ukrainian soil. Again, this policy was not publically announced. The Ukrainians just posted video of Bayraktar2 drones blowing up Russian army convoys in Kursk Oblast.
All this is to say, Turkiye has a major role to play in future European defense arrangements. That’s also what Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said to the other officials who gathered in London a couple days ago.
As for Ukraine and this war, a look at a map of the Black Sea region tells me that there is no way the Turks will allow Russia to conquer a major part of Ukraine, not if they can help it.
Russia is Turkiye’s centuries-old nemesis, like Russia is Ukraine’s. The Turkish Republic has never fought a war with Russia during its 100-year existence, but the Ottoman Empire contended with Russisn aggression for centuries and the Turks have never forgotten this.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@brendancalling:
Ah, the book to read from the Aughts. I referenced this exact same issue in an earlier thread. We elect “more” but we constantly push for “better” and the way we do that is push back against the “more is fine” mindset and ignore various messaging techniques designed to shut us the fuck up.
Which ties directly into this from French Onion Soup at #22:
And this from Melancholy Jaques at #43:
That last part again goes to what Shawn Fain of the UAW said recently (I’m a broken record):
I posit that Fain’s wrong and that the party has decided who it wants to represent: urban, cosmopolitan business liberalism and for a variety of reasons, that’s not been a winning electoral stragety as we kinda saw in 2016 and definitely saw last November.
WTFGhost
@Kelly: One of the things, is, as with Trump, some people want “dominance”. Which is fine, you know, I don’t judge, but, one of the rules of BDSM is fully informed consent for all participants, including inadvertent witnesses.
It’s okay to want to be a big, massive, swinging bully, but, you have to learn to play by *grown up* rules, because (generic)you are *not* a child who hurts other people without thinking! Though some helpfully add testes to the back of their trucks (many of which are useless for, you know, *work*), which is a good sign, check relative speeds, make sure you’ll be a few miles ahead, or, stop for coffee, let them get a few miles on you.
Ahem. Not that I have opinions on this or anything. (I used to think I had an LDR, but I was just a useful toy. Meh, it happens, but I did get a lot of “driving while exhausted” in. I *really* appreciate courteous driving, and I do my best never to do that which pisses me off when other people do it.)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
My favorite quote on it is from Bill in Portland Maine over at Teh Orange:
kwAwk
@Hoodie: I’ve heard that the Cybertruck is retro-futuristic. It looks like what people in the 1980’s thought cars would look like in the future.
Leto
@Michael Bersin: the Carl Sagan quote always comes to mind, but here’s Frank Zappa (Feb 1986) who just absolutely nailed it. (here’s the full interview: Frank Zappa on Crossfire 1986)
TBone
Tiedrich on the SOTU, for all who celebrate
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/what-the-fuck-was-that
Worth every second of time, it’s one for the books!
Geminid
@zhena gogolia: Senator Murkowski spoke out pretty forcefully last Friday, and Senator Tillis did also a couple weeks ago. It remains to be seen how many of their colleagues are willing to get up on their hind legs.
Steven Holmes
Here is the direct link to AOCs instagram live thing, I can open it in a browser.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DGziAQjAG1R/?igsh=dGU0ZWg1NDNmZ2p2
Chief Oshkosh
@kwAwk: I never thought a car would like the Cyberfuck. I did, however, think that SciFi artists who portrayed future vehicles as looking like that had found their niche.
TBone
@Steven Holmes: thanks!
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: Not consuming as much media these days, so maybe I missed it. But the only Repub I saw who made a public statement criticizing Trump for switching sides to support Russia’s genocidal war on Ukraine was Lisa Murkowski.
The other so-called foreign policy hawks on the R side either blame Zelensky for an alleged fashion faux pas or for the crime of identifying the source material for Trump’s stated views on who started the war, i.e., the Kremlin. Or both.
Bionic Space Jellyfish
@Lapassionara: Lee’s Summit MO. It’s an area that’s been slowly trending blue for a while. Like most blue/bluish places in the state, the state gov’t constantly tries to screw us over and ignore our local government.
TONYG
@jackmac: You’re a tougher man that I am. I spent the evening hitting my head with a hammer instead of watching that shit. Much more enjoyable and productive!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TBone:
Many are commenting on the length of the “speech”.
That was a good thing. One thing I learned a couple of years back when dealing with a narcissistic sociopath (the most hated developer in Denver, so hated, the other developers hate him with a passion) is to let them go unleashed to speak.
That guy was our best ally because all people needed to do in hearings was hear him speak. Each and every time they’d come away with the same conclusion Tiedrich led with:
Fuck. This. Guy.
That’s the problem with media in that they can edit down the craziness which we dealt with. It was like dealing with Hair Furor. Which was why we always wanted to get into public situations in front of a ton of people who could see the stream on crap unedited.
I’m all for letting the Orange Fart Cloud do these on a regular basis. They help us.
TONYG
@Trollhattan: Those fucking oversized pickup trucks and SUVs. Why not drive around with a big sign that says “I am an asshole and a moron”?
Redshift
Josh Marshall had a great piece (gift link) in his newsletter yesterday about how we may have to abide by corrupt Supreme Court rulings for now, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept them as legitimate or constitutional. It’s kind of subtle, but I think has some great points about how it changes your mindset whether you’re thinking “these plainly bad-faith ideas are what the Constitution now” vs. “we are in an interregnum, and if we succeed in returning to constitutional order we know what has to go.”
I would say it fits well with Jamelle Bouie’s piece from a couple of weeks ago about how whatever happens, things can’t just go back to what they were, because that would put us at the mercy of another Elon or TCFG in every election.
BellaPea
I didn’t watch the shit show, but saw discussion about it on MSNBC. They had several people doing commentary, and John Kasich, former Ohio governor, was on the panel. He can be a blowhard (he’s a former Republican, after all) but he did have some pretty good comments. The main thing he really emphasized was that he saw a lot of gloating by Trump and Republicans.
“It’s almost always a dangerous thing when a political party in power gloats,” Kasich said. “It’s a very bad look and nearly always people want to take that power away when they see it.”
Trollhattan
@Soprano2:
Heh, yep.
And if they’re typical they’ll both complain about filling the 38-gallon tank and at the same time lie about their mileage. “Yeah, I get just over thirty on the interstate and about thirty-five when I’m towing the ATVs or the boat.”
Gretchen
@Geminid: AOC was a 28 year old political newcomer in 2018. She confronted Pelosi right off, which wasn’t particularly savvy. I’m betting Pelosi took her aside and taught her some things. She’s become rapidly more politically savvy since then, and people still want to go back to clueless things she said when she was first elected. She’s learned a lot since then.
Gretchen
@Bionic Space Jellyfish: are you involved in Blue MIssouri? I’m a big admirer of Jess Piper.
Peale
@kwAwk: Oh, it most certainly is. Its aimed at GenX men whose idea of luxury and sportiness was imprinted in the 1970s when they were 7. Its basically a 1970s Cadillac El Dorado or Buick LeSabre tricked out for an old man who can no longer fit comfortably in a Corvette.
Belafon
@Geminid: I received a fundraising text from Haaland, and she described herself as a 35th generation New Mexican.
Central Planning
@Soprano2:
Time to find a new accountant.
Jay
@Gin & Tonic:
The also shut down key features of HIMARs and Patriots.
Globally, the question has become, why buy US weapons for defense, when the US can render them null.
Darkrose
@Soprano2: “Republicans support gender inspections to determine who should be allowed to play sports. Meanwhile, Donald Trump’s administration allows alleged rapists and sex traffickers into the US and encourages colleges to protect sexual assaulters at the expense of victims.”
Doc Sardonic
@TONYG: Damn, I must put one of those on my Jeep right now. You are such an inspiration….
Bionic Space Jellyfish
@Gretchen: I’m not but I’ll check it out! So far my wife and I have focused on getting involved with Lee’s Summit Dems.
Trollhattan
@Jay:
Imagine how India feels having focused on acquiring Soviet and Russian arms, to now watch them perform so badly on and over Ukraine? I’d be shopping elsewhere, like mad.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid: My husband keeps praying for “wisdom.” Maybe it will seep through.
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot: Often it’s not even what the Bible says. It’s what somebody told them the Bible says, or just some random prejudice that they associate arbitrarily with being Christian.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@WaterGirl: Perhaps a hoe is the one whose brother is a rake
Jay
@Trollhattan:
India is focused on making their own. They are not having much success at it, it’s always a long learning curve.
I haven’t read all the comments on all the threads today, but has it been mentioned that the Pre-Puberty Zitfaced Incell Coderats cancelled the lease on the secure facility that stores all the US Military’s nuclear waste?
RevRick
@Baud: Over the course of the last 30 years, Democrats in Congress have shifted left. That’s due, in large part, to the reality that yellow dog Democrats have been wiped out. Hard to believe now but we had Democratic Senators in N.Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Louisiana, Montana, and West Virginia and they are all gone now. A similar culling has taken place in the House.
Of course, what’s happened in the Senate is an ominous development, and it bodes ill for the 2032 Presidential Election.
Kelly
@Jay: India should have plenty of time to develop their arms industry. The mountains between India/Pakistan and India/China seem like useful barriers. Not perfect but useful.
Russian arms quality and USA intransigence seems like a strong marketing opportunity for South Korea.
JoyceH
@Betty Cracker:
I swear, sometimes I want to wop these guys upside the head and say, “Hey! Are you a United States Congressman or a gullible rube at a sidewalk thimblerig?” Because this Oval Office rant is straight out of Trump’s business playbook. Guy gets a contract for work on a Trump property. He does the work and throughout the project Trump is a perfect gentleman who is perfectly satisfied with the work. Then the work is done, and the contractor tries to get paid. Next thing he knows Trump is on the phone raging like a maniac – the work is total shit, the worst he’s ever seen, he’s not going to pay this bill, in fact he’s going to sue for harassment for sending him the bill, etc etc. When he wants out of a clearly created and understood obligation, he always throws a tantrum and lies to change reality.
JoyceH
Well, I sure screwed up that block quote, and don’t know how to fix it. AAAAAnyhoo…
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: that’s a pretty big mistake. Do they not know?
takes my breath away.
Jay
@Kelly:
There is a reason why Poland went to South Korea for a co-production agreement for the K2 tank, rather than Leopards or Abrams, and why Europe’s focus since ruZZia invaded Ukraine back in 2013, has been domestic production.
Gloria DryGarden
@Geminid: thanks for giving us hope. Yay Turkiye.
Geminid .
@Melancholy Jaques: The 111th Congress elected in the Obama wave of 2008 did have a lot of Blue Dogs, but not as many as you suggest. There were 54 Blue Dogs among the 257 Democrats, which was 21%.
@Baud: Republicans won almost half those Blue Dog seats in 2010. The Congress elected that year had 194 Democratic members. Democrats lost of 63 seats, and 26 of those were held by Blue Dogs. The new Democratic Caucus hsd 28 Blue Dogs, or 14% of the total.
Democrats hit a recent low in 2014 election, winning only 188 seats. Only 15 were held by Blue Dogs, or 8%.
The 2018 blue way swept in 235 Democrats. Of those, 27 caucused with the Blue Dogs, or 11%.
The kennel has emptied out in recent years, and not just through election losses like Mary Peltola’s last year; five or six Blue Dogs left on their own in January of 2022, and affiliated solely with the New Democrats
Now there are only 10 Blue Dogs out 215 Democratic House members, or 4.65%. And some of them are hybrids, part Blue Dog and part New Democrat. Four of them are over 70 years old and one of those, Henry Cuellar, is facing an early retirement at the hands of federal prosecutors.
My prediction is that there will not be a Blue Caucus before too long. I’m not saying that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I think the caucus served a purpose when it was formed in 1997; that is to help the Democratic Party better weather a political realignment that’s been working out over the last few decades. But I don’t think Democrats running in battleground districts need that particular affiliation any more.
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Ha!
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: the vast numbers of people who lack skills for civil discourse or supportive constructive communication,
astounds me. I have to remember, that negativity, the blame and attack and judge sort of mindset seems to have been the default for a lot of folks, and has been way more prevalent than I’d like. Way.
WaterGirl
@JoyceH: I fixed it. I think i got what you were going for?
Anyway
LOLOL!
Jay
@Gloria DryGarden:
Well, the cult now believes in the existence of transgendered mice, so the stupid is bottomless.
Citizen Alan
@Ohio Mom: When I encounter people like that, I openly sneer at them and say “Is that what your cult leaders told you to believe?”
Citizen Alan
@Melancholy Jaques: I complained about this after Palin rose to national prominence. I said then that to the GOP voters, the opinions of learned individuals who have devoted their entire lives to a field of study are worth less than what some bumpkin “knows to be true in their heart.”
RevRick
@cmorenc: FDR&LBJ had huge Congressional majorities. But between 1938 and 1964 very little got done legislatively of a progressive nature. Southern Democrats had aligned with Republicans to pretty much grind things to a halt. They passed Taft-Hartley over Truman’s veto.
Geminid .
@Jay: South Korea is a hilly place, and the K-2 was designed with that in mind. The K-2’s chassis and suspension allow it to lean back to shoot up a hill, or lean forward to shoot down. It reminds me of those custom “Lowrider” cars.
The K-2 also is set up to cross rivers deeper than its hull is high. And its a Hyundai!
Gloria DryGarden
@Jay: they can roll their big old balls in some of that uranium dust…
Sorry. It makes me mad. I used to drive by rocky flats, the plutonium triggers factory, all the time. We held hands around it, 5 miles square, a few decades back. West suburbs of Denver , a tad north. On the road out of golden towards boulder. The dust blows and down wind in Thornton there’s a higher cancer rate. Maybe Westminster as well. It matters a ton. They tried to make it a park, wildlife reserve, for people to walk in. Looks real pretty, open short grass prairie. The ppm for plutonium, it takes nothing, super tiny amount. I rake nuclear waste really seriously.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Citizen Alan:
Always good to channel one’s inner Barney Frank:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYlZiWK2Iy8&t=27s
Kelly
@Jay: I see Türkiye has a similar coproduction agreement.
Liminal Owl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: LOL, and I needed that. Thanks.
JoyceH
@WaterGirl:
Yep. Thanks.
Jay
@Kelly:
For me, the coproduction/codevelopment agreements to watch are the NATO Baltics and Finland/Ukraine drone agreements.
stunning Video in link of what Ukraine has been able to crowdfund and self develop.
https://nitter.poast.org/wilendhornets/status/1896974288194081275#m
https://nitter.poast.org/Tendar/status/1897392612606402684#m
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jay:
Putin: Mission Accomplished!
China: Thanks Putin!
Gin & Tonic
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Gloria DryGarden
@Gloria DryGarden: Fix: i take it seriously. Take.
Ruckus
@Aunt Kathy:
rethuglicans do not want practical.
rethuglicans want money and power and to fuck over everyone that isn’t them. They have, over my lifetime, become more and more the party of money and fuck the citizens that do not bow-down to them.
I’m not saying they weren’t that for the last century, just that they’ve lost all concept of what a free, democratic country is. Not that they were ever invested in the concept, but they at least understood that there were guardrails. They DO NOT give a fuck about guardrails or a working economy, they have swallowed the concept of greed, which is short for “IT’S ALL MINE, YOU HEAR ME, MINE! And if I don’t get it all I’m going to, not hold my breath, I’m going to destroy everything. If I can’t have it all, you can’t have any.” Of course if they get it all we all get nothing, and if we get nothing, in an actual democracy, then we don’t actually live in said democracy any longer.
IOW they want to overthrow the government and reintroduce slavery. It is Bull and Shit. And we cannot allow it.
A number of us on this blog served in the military during a war. We use the VA for our healthcare, we EARNED IT.
Any one under what 90-100 years old has paid into Social Security for their entire working life. I did, for 61 years. Ending Social Security will kill millions of US citizens, many of whom served in the military during a time of war. We paid into Social Security, we EARNED being paid for our Social Security payments for decades. I’m not sure what will happen if they fuck up Social Security but I can well imagine it will NOT BE GOOD.
And I’m very likely not the only person on this blog getting the retirement money we are OWED, for paying into it for decades.
If ever the words FUCKING BULLSHIT were appropriate, this is it
I wonder how many of the idiots that voted for shitforbrains and his puppet master are on Social Security? I’d bet far more than a handful
I wonder how many teslas shitforbrains partner/puppet master thinks he is going to sell when the economy is sinking a couple thousand feet into the ocean?
BethanyAnne
@Darkrose: Absolutely fucking perfect. No notes.
AM in NC
@Geminid: Senator Tillis is willing to make mouth sounds and nothing else.
he voted to confirm Hegseth.
until he renounces Trump and says ‘I fucked up supporting this guy’ it’s just mouth sounds.
Geminid .
@AM in NC: The people running Ankara-based Clash Report thought Tillis’s floor speech mattered enough to excerpt part of it. But they look at these matters through a different lens than we do.
Ruckus
@kwAwk:
park it between a Cybertruck and a Pontiac Aztec.
Ouch!
Ruckus
@Gin & Tonic:
These are not very smart humans.
Hell they may not even be human.
OK maybe they are a human part. Assholes.
After all they are full of shit.
Ruckus
@TONYG:
That would be a moronic asshole.
How many minus points should they get for being one?
Ruckus
@Jay:
Stupid almost always is bottomless.
Occasionally it can be from an educational level but if the person is over 13 yrs old, it’s absolutely just bottomless.
Kayla Rudbek
@Trollhattan: same here. I wound up scraping the car door already after about a couple of weeks back in the office.