So, I compounded my yesterday-morning error by slapping up what I *thought* would be a quickie aggregate Open Thread in the evening… just as the response to the GOP’s shutdown threats went full nuclear. My personal opinion remains that we won’t know what’s gonna happen until after it happens (if then), but I want to highlight one excellent, thoughtful comment from NaijaGal:
I hate to say this, but I think people are relying too much on the Democrats to come up with “a solution.” I think fighting fascism is *not* a skillset that most Dems (or most Americans) have and that because most sane voters don’t know what to do either, it’s easier to yell at Dems. Almost none of us on our own are equipped to handle psychopaths and sociopaths and we are definitely dealing with these. People who derive joy from the pain of people they’ve randomly fired or forced to come in to work when there is no available office space or stripped of their identity on their legal passports, etc. Voters have to recognize that these are not normal people and must work together to fight them.
The options chosen by citizens in other countries that have faced similar situations have been general strikes, demonstrations, sit ins, union opposition/sabotage, etc. Those work very slowly and put individuals at risk but there is no avoiding risk when you’re dealing with fascists. By definition, every win emboldens them to do worse, but they have been defeated every time (even though many defeats took longer than their opponents had hoped).
As people realize that there are limits to what the Democrats can do or will do, I wonder whether the majority of Americans will throw up their hands and disengage or start looking beyond political parties for a way out. Right now, I’m seeing more people throwing up their hands and disengaging than I’d like, because they think Democratic party politicians’ actions are the only path to a “solution.” They may be part of a solution but it is up to us as citizens of a country to decide what kind of country we want to live in, not just a subset of politicians. Fascists were legitimately voted in. We can debate whether people knew what they were voting for but they are in now, they hold many, but not all, of the cards and it’s going to take a lot to push them out. They are not popular with the majority of people, especially not with those they are hurting, but they do have a small bubble of vocal (MAGA) support that they listen to. How do we penetrate that bubble? I like the townhalls that some Democrats are hosting in what would normally be hostile territory. What else can be done? I’m not pretending that I have answers. I don’t. It’s been all I can do to avoid going into full blown depression but I know that isn’t going to help me or anyone else.
The government runs out of money tomorrow at midnight.
Let me explain how we got here. pic.twitter.com/kwEXEoP8AI
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) March 13, 2025
be against voting for cloture. be against voting for the republican's dirty-as-shit CR. be in favor of denying them. but don't wish for a shutdown. a shutdown will kill americans. we want a clean CR and a real budget negotiation. anything less is literally murder and you shouldn't cheer it.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) March 14, 2025 at 2:29 AM
most of the people in my life that matter to me are dependent on SNAP or medicaid or both, and they're all going to fucking suffer if we have a prolonged shutdown, and it's going to put a heavy weight on systems that are already overtaxed. jeer from the cheap seats, but these are my people.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) March 14, 2025 at 1:34 AM
this is, again, not hyperbole. a close friend of mine is on medicaid and on low grade chemo fighting cancer. this isn't a thing you can delay. a shutdown will almost certainly delay his meds. if these stakes aren't real to you, i don't care what you think.
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachine.com) March 14, 2025 at 2:15 AM
i’ve taken enough L’s in my life to be like this shit sucks, super not happy, guess we go to battle again tomorrow and the general vibe here is like america is dead, the sea people will ravage us like it is the late bronze age
come on, guys— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) March 14, 2025 at 12:12 AM
these people want to break you and that’s fine do whatever you wish they are just not going to break me
— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) March 14, 2025 at 12:17 AM
On The Road – Munira – On Retreat
JerseyBeard
My nature is to want to fight, and so I am disappointed with Schumer allowing this atrocity to go to a majority vote. But I think the people pointing out the real life danger a shut down poses have the better larger point right now. The GOP is going to curb stomp society and civilizations regardless; buying a few more months for the courts to slow some tiny bit of that down is the less disgusting option compared to cutting those services off Saturday.
its shit sandwiches all around. We need new cooks in the kitchen.
different-church-lady
Almost none of us are good at even recognizing them at first. We all want to assume people are normal and sane and good willed. So when a person (or in this case and entire set of people) violates normalcy in such a thorough fashion we spend a great deal of vital time being confused and flailing around for understanding.
Hildebrand
Yep, we are in a ‘you can’t win’ situation. But that doesn’t mean we walk off the field. In fact, this is when we really start screaming and protesting and making sure that we try our best to protect the vulnerable. This is the all hands on deck moment, and that’s on us, not elected officials. They can be helpful, but they are not the only tools in the box.
Civil Rights were won by direct action – the politicians only caught up when they were forced to.
Protest is the very expression of hope.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
rikyrah
I don’t even know the context, but I love it Samuel L, Charles and Spike as The Pips? 🤣🤣🤣 https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP82UFDoC/
lowtechcyclist
@JerseyBeard:
ISTM that this not-a-CR will largely remove the courts from the picture here. My understanding is that it gives the Administration carte blanche to move appropriations around within Cabinet departments, which AFAICT would give them freedom to shut down programs wholesale, at least for the duration of the period this bill funds the government for. (I hear that goes beyond the usual rest-of-fiscal-year period, but I’m not entirely sure about that.) So the people who man those programs can be RIFfed at least for a period of months.
It’s hard for me to see how a shutdown gives Musk, Vought, et al. more power than that. For one thing, a shutdown is assumed to be temporary; the same protections apply to workers next week that apply now.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
What has dislodged fascists in other places?
They overreached.
Case in point: the Greek junta of 1967-1974. They overreached, in that they broke up a student protest with tanks and infantry in November of 1973. They were gone less than a year later, and a year after that, the leaders of the junta were sentenced to death. (Later commuted to life imprisonment, but still.)
It may take overreach of that magnitude to break the Trumpist coup.
Professor Bigfoot
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: The Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Although I don’t think these current Confederates give a damn.
They’ll kill us and tell themselves we enjoyed it.
sentient ai from the future
Georgians have been in the streets every night, through the winter, for nearly(?) 100 days now protesting.
i’m sensitive to the “we must do something, this is something, therefore we must do it” criticism, but i dont think we avoid people needlessly dying if the government remains open, we just hand the fascists the ability to select WHO they most want to die, and that to me is far more morally reprehensible.
Rick Melita
In our two party sytem, we have one party that disappoints us and one party that wants to exterminate us .I am disappointed too, but I can understand that there are no good options, no easy answers. Denouncing Democrats for not saving us is like complaining that your toaster can’ make coffee. Instead of seething at feckless D’s I am going to go to an event supporting my brave congreswoman, Rosa Delauro and then going to a Tesla takedown rally in Stamford on Sunday. Hope to see some CT juicers there.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
stinger
@different-church-lady:
This is my normie relatives who voted for Trump. They’d never heard of him before (not New Yorkers), saw him on The Apprentice and thought he was funny, smart, decisive, a great businessman. They don’t pay much attention to the news, and when they do it’s not delivered by newscasters who express horror and disbelief but instead deliver the headlines as if Trump’s and Musk’s actions are everyday running of the government.
A lifetime of routinely voting for people with (R) behind their names and, their preferred candidates win or lose, life just goes on much as before — it’s going to take a while for them to wake up.
Baud
I do ok, but it takes one to know one.
eclare
@rikyrah:
Love it!
Reminds me of this great ad with those three:
https://youtu.be/d2tz-MNnLFg?si=KfXxAsjEv55_EpBm
Princess
I completely agree with Naijagal. Thanks for the repost.
I also think that the inclination of all Americans to treat politics as if only Democrats have agency has the undesirable effect of making Democrats even *more* risk averse. I think Schumer is doing the wrong thing, I think Dems should refuse to sign onto the dirty CR. But I understand why they’re doing it. The GOP is in a tails we win heads you lose situation here.
Theflippsyd
@sentient ai from the future: I agree completely. It’s a lose for the country whether there is a shutdown or the CR passes. But this is unilateral disarmament by the Democrats. Their job at the moment is to be seen actively opposing what the Republicans are doing. It’s the act of opposing that is important at the moment, not whether there is a good result.
To strain a metaphor, the conventional wisdom was that Ukraine would fall in three days. But, the leaders and people put up an opposition despite conventional wisdom, and it has been three years and they are still fighting. I’m glad at least some of the Democratic Senators and Representatives are speaking out in opposition.
Paul Krugman’s (free) substack is really on-point this morning and references Adam Schiff on the reasons for not voting for cloture. (I’m not good at linking, but a quick search brings it up).
lowtechcyclist
@Rick Melita:
I am not expecting the Democrats in Congress to save us. This year and next are going to suck any which way. But this was their sole opportunity to resist in some manner this year, and they’re throwing it away. And AFAICT undermining resistance through legal channels in doing so.
Suzanne
@Theflippsyd:
Yes.
The opposition is supposed to oppose. FSM knows that the GOP never stopped opposing when they were in the minority.
Professor Bigfoot
@rikyrah:
@eclare:
THANK YOU BOTH, you’ve made my morning.
(‘course, it’s still early, plenty of time for everything to go completely to shit, but ;) )
Birdie
One of the jokes on Reddit is that if you give the conservatives a few days, they will all gradually adjust to the latest crazy stupid decision and within a week they have all adopted the same dumb talking points that actually things are going well.
I think Democrats are smarter than that so i don’t love the post-hoc rationalisations I’m starting to see. While I can appreciate neither option on the “CR” was good, voting yes seems to be clearly the wrong decision.
These senators seem worried they would own a shutdown. OK – then how does voting “yes” on the unfolding disaster happening right now make them any less owners than voting “no”? Now the tariffs and the DOGE disaster are bipartisan because 8+ Dems will have voted for it too. This is a repeated game, and what is egregious this time (the “CR” that is not actually a CR) becomes the baseline for next time. So this decision actively makes things worse for the next cycle. It’s a pre-emptive fold with no benefit.
AOC is right, this is a slap in the face. I don’t see how people will be motivated to mobilize if they don’t believe anyone in power has their backs. Who do you believe will defend the right to peaceful protest when Trump pressures companies to fire protesters or they start being disappeared? Chuck Schumer? He’ll be looking the other way “keeping his powder dry”.
I honestly did not care about the performative stuff people were annoyed about a few weeks ago. This feels like a completely different line has been crossed. I am afraid for what comes next.
Hildebrand
Thinking about this, it strikes me that Schumer is just not a great strategist. The reason folks are spectacularly pissed is because he said he was a ‘no’ just a few days ago. He didn’t think this whole business through, he seemingly lurched from position to position without a thought about a plan or endgame in mind.
This flip flop feels purely reactionary, and right now, when faced with such a dangerous knave in the White House, we need folks who know how to play the game – both strategically and tactically.
lowtechcyclist
I believe the operative phrase is, Do Not Obey In Advance.
IMHO, this is what Schumer has just done.
WereBear
All fair enough — but why say one thing, do another, and NEVER communicate?
That’s my real complaint. They just aren’t HELPING. Go ahead and say what the rest of us are thinking.
But a good point about dealing with people who aren’t mature adults. But have to pretend they are. It’s not always psychopathology. They can never get out of junior high, mentally, but so are their voters.
Democrats never protested and campaigned on fixing education from W’s disastrous “fix.” Why not? It led to this.
Suzanne
@Hildebrand:
This is exactly — exactly — why I am pissed.
We don’t elect these people because of their values. Any one of us here has good values. We elect them to be effective, to understand the levers of power. And I don’t mean just “the job”; showing up for the job and voting the right way and raising money are just table stakes. I mean all the soft-power stuff…. how to communicate well, to command attention, to sway opinion, to shape an image and control a message, to build strategic relationships, to “read the room”.
Kills me to say that we should learn some lessons from Mitch McConnell, but the’s a guy who achieved his goals while in the minority.
hrprogressive
The problem with everything said is that Dems don’t even want to mitigate the size of their L.
Literally right after he was elected a second time, key Dems were coming out and talking about working with them.
They by and large do not care about us.
They care about their own wealth and power, and crave bipartisanship like a drug.
I don’t think a lot of people realize that many of us demanding the Dems “do something” translates to “Show some fucking fortitude and act like you understand the gravity of the situation and stop trying to break bread with Fascists”.
And everyone who says “they’re in the minority what do you expect them to do?” Is normalizing their feckless abdication of duty.
The only Dem I’d even consider giving money to right now is AOC, or a new primary challenger to these shitty old guard dems.
I’m fucking done with the vast majority of the current Party.
We need a new party comprised of people who are *not* members of the Big Club we all ain’t in.
u
@different-church-lady: None of my real friends or my close family are Trump supporters, but I have a few acquaintances (former co-workers) and a few people in my extended family who are part of the cult of Trump. These people puzzle me because in everyday life they seem to be “intelligent nice people”. But maybe they’re been shit people all along, and I just didn’t recognize it?
geg6
@Theflippsyd:
@lowtechcyclist:
THIS! Their job in this fucked-no-matter-what-choice-they-make situation is to show some fight. Signal to us citizens that someone, anyone, in power will fight. What we are seeing is capitulation instead. Rolling over and showing their bellies like submissive dogs. Their cowardice is disgraceful, no less than that shown by congressional Republicans who aren’t wholly captured by MAGA. Yes, a shutdown will be terrible but the surrender in the name of avoiding the shutdown will also.
Cole put it perfectly on FB last night. The Republicans are school shooters, you and I are the school kids and the Democrats are the Uvalde police. I stand with Cole here.
geg6
@hrprogressive:
Come sit by me. I have become radicalized by this. So done with these people.
Another Scott
I haven’t read everything Schumer said in the last few days, but he did say this on Monday:
I don’t see anything wrong with that, nor any flip-flop since then.
The MAGAts won’t allow a clean 30 day CR to negotiate a real budget. Why would they??
It sucks, but being in the minority sucks. There are bad choices all around, and no way to force a positive outcome unless the majority allows it. And they won’t.
We have to regain the majorities to mitigate and reverse the damage. That has to be our focus.
Best wishes,
Scott.
New Deal democrat
Fallout from Schumer’s cave across the spectrum:
This is from Adam Serwer:
https://bsky.app/profile/adamserwer.bsky.social/post/3lk7rwbqycs27
When I played rugby in college, I would get nervous about getting hurt before games. But then I’d carry the ball, I’d get that first hit, and I’d be fine. Adrenaline would kick in, I’d get back up and give as good as I got But before that first hit, I was scared to get hit. I wanted to avoid it.
Course if you’re unwilling to take that first hit, you can’t play. You’d just be scared indefinitely and never get anywhere.
This is a true story but obviously this is not about rugby
This is from “LawDork” Chris Geidner:
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgeidner.bsky.social/post/3lkcquad4522w
SETH MOULTON [he congressman who immediately vowed to toss trans people under the bus in the wake of Trump’s election] TELLING SCHUMER TO GET A SPINE. IMAGINE WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO TO MAKE THAT SENTENCE HAPPEN.
And Josh Marshall:
https://bsky.app/profile/joshtpm.bsky.social/post/3lkc7rfm7kt2u
“ I have to say: Chuck Schumer is a weak man and a fool.”
And this is from Chris Hayes:
https://bsky.app/profile/chrislhayes.bsky.social/post/3lkc53x4ghs2h
The institutional Democratic Party is guided by an almost pathological level of conflict avoidance in almost every direction. “What can we do to make the least number of people mad?” is just a bankrupt way to operate.
VFX Lurker
Up at 5 in the morning because my night owl spouse heard a large boom in Glendale, CA. I woke up to hear about it a few minutes later.
Other folks are discussing the loud noise on Reddit, but we can hear police occasionally trying to communicate with someone via megaphone a block or so away. A dog kept barking loudly outside, so all my spouse could hear was “come out with your hands up.”
Nothing about it elsewhere online. I doubt BillInGlendaleCA heard the noise — I think he lives south of us, closer to downtown.
u
@u: On the basis of my “Psych 101 training from 1974”, I think that this is compartmentalization. These people really ARE “intelligent and nice” in everyday life, but that is compartmentalized, walled off, from their fascist, racist impulses that lead them to support Trump. My half-assed theory, anyway. People like Trump and Musk really are cartoon villains. But not all of their supporters are.
eclare
@geg6:
Yes, that is the perfect analogy.
New Deal democrat
@lowtechcyclist:
Also remember that it allows T—-p’s “state of emergency” declaration, which is his fig leaf for the tariff war, to continue for the duration of Congress’s term, rather than expiring after 90 days, which is what the current law requires.
Suzanne
@hrprogressive:
Right. No one expects a win. We expect vehement opposition.
Nelle
Tim Walz is coming for a town hall in Des Moines today. I got one of the first tickets, but now am needed to care for the two year old, so my neighbor is transitioning into me and taking my ticket. It will be on CSPAN at 3 pm, CDT, and I think it might be worth watching to see his take on all this mess, in case any of you guys want to look. Will he be clear and forceful, unrestrained by a campaign team or will he be finger in the wind? I’m inclined to think the former.
geg6
@Another Scott:
Very clever of him to lie by omission by not mentioning cloture there. So Chuckie gets to vote for cloture, allow GOP to get it passed with a simple majority and make a show of voting no on the actual bill which will do nothing to stop it. So savvy, that Schumer dude! That’ll show them!
Larch
Don’t know if anyone’s proposed this already, but given the strong likelihood of real damage to people and the republic from a shutdown, I’m leaning toward the idea that Dems should simply abstain, assuming it gets past cloture. I could see either unanimous Democratic abstention or a mix of nos/abstains, but no matter what don’t give Trump/Musk any positive votes.
It’s not a dramatic, fiery opposition, which I would normally prefer, but it does force the Republicans to own the situation in its entirety.
eclare
@New Deal democrat:
All so true. I mentioned downstairs, I was bullied in elementary school until I hit the main bully in the face.
The bullying stopped.
I am not suggesting FFOTUS will stop, but at least go down swinging.
Raoul Paste
NaijaGal’s comment is so sensible. Kudos to AL for highlighting it. We are in this for a long haul. I’m an Old, and I encourage myself to go to the gym by thinking “ I’m sticking it to the man”
Another Scott
@Larch: Abstention doesn’t advance the bill. 60 positive votes (or unanimous consent) are required.
Best wishes,
Scott.
TBone
@eclare: good on ya, I have advocated many times here that the only way to stop a bully is to make him spit his Chiclets.
eclare
@Nelle:
Thanks for the tv alert!
PaulWartenberg
Oh bleep me. The blood moon was THIS morning?!?! I thought they said it was Friday NIGHT, not this morning!
Now my chance to curse the GOP leadership with pox has passed. Gods! I’m a fool…
sentient ai from the future
@New Deal democrat: I think permitting the tariff war to go on for a year will do a lot more damage overall via wall street than a shutdown
TBone
Seems like a good place for my favorite new-to-me groove. Messy!
“A thousand people I could be for you. But you’d hate the fucking lot.”
https://youtu.be/k-k2_Liofy8?si=LBOmxvT-opFie4Lp
VFX Lurker
Even a man who is pure at heart
and says his prayers by night
may become a wolf when the wolfsbane blooms
and the autumn moon is bright.
— The Wolf Man, 1941
Written by German-American Curt Siodmak, who
That famous verse gets repeated several times in Siodmak’s The Wolf Man.
Matt McIrvin
Schumer is still thinking this is all about winning the next election, and not about putting as many roadblocks as we can in the way of the self-destruction of the United States. Two years from now is AGES in the future. We could all be dead by then.
I’ve written and deleted so many nihilistic comments.
The thing that kills me is that my personal life is going weirdly extremely well right now. To the point that I feel a truckload of survivor guilt about it. Now, that means I’m in way less danger from a government shutdown than the median American is. But I’m also in way less danger from the effective permanent shutdown that Musk’s trolls seem to be aiming for. I might focus less on trying to turn this ship around, because I can’t, and more on trying to protect the people close to me.
Another Scott
@geg6: I don’t think he’s lying by omission. Without a filibuster, they have the votes (they only need 51 and have 53 (or 52 if Paul really does vote no). It was clearly about the cloture vote (but he wanted normies to understand and not get into the jargon).
I think Schumer on Monday was trying to force a vote on the 30 day clean CR. That didn’t happen, so he had to move on to what to do next.
And here we are.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Princess: I agree with all of this, you said it better than I could have. I’m concerned that this cave to the R’s (because let’s be honest, that’s what it is) will discourage the base and make it less likely that we can win back the House or the Senate in 2026. The message “we have power but we’re afraid to use it” is not a great one to send to people who are desperate for someone to stand up to FFOTUS and Musk.
ETA – I’m especially angry that Schumer did that fiery speech a couple of days ago about how the R’s didn’t have the votes for their bad CR. Why did he do that if this was the plan all along? It shows contempt for their voters that they thought we’d be fooled by that for even a minute! What, we weren’t going to notice that after saying all that stuff they were going to cave to the R’s anyway?
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
THIS. He is doing what he knows how to do, which is utterly inadequate for the moment. He is not “updating his priors”.
Again: these people were telling us democracy was on the line, but they’re not acting like it. He is a man for a different time.
geg6
@Another Scott:
Oh, you sweet summer child. You be you!
eclare
@Soprano2:
Agree completely. Why vote for someone who won’t stand up for you? And Schumer’s capitulation took about 24 hours, which is pathetic.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: I’m thinking back to the aftermath of the 2000 election, and how when Gore conceded my reaction was “well, we’ll get ’em in the midterm, Bush is a feckless loser and people will realize that”.
Nope. Events interceded. A year later the political situation was unrecognizable as anything that had happened in my lifetime. You can’t assume thermostatic politics will continue as usual.
chemiclord
The issue isn’t that there aren’t reasons to roll over on the budget. Hell, there are honestly and rationally some very good reasons to not have this fight.
But we are past reasonable discussion. Hell, even the Average American Voter (who is largely a buffoon who wants nothing more than to ignore politics) is tired of trying to “work things out” and “reach across the aisle.”
No matter how good the reasons are to not have this fight, Americans want a fucking fight, and they’re getting pissed at the people who won’t give them one. Is that right? Probably not. Is that fair? No, but public sentiment has never been terribly fair for the liberal side of the aisle as long as this country has existed.
And on top of that, there’s no particular compelling reason not to give them one. As much as I loathe that American politics has become driven entirely by vibes, the policy reasons in any decision the Democrats make here are not compelling. Might as well let the people have the vibes they want, even if you think those vibes are stupid as hell (like I do).
VFX Lurker
@VFX Lurker: Update: more booms just started. Three so far. Not sure I’m getting more sleep tonight.
Dougb
@JerseyBeard: Then the Democratic Politicians hang that on the Republicans. You make Republicans own it – all the bad things that are happening and all the bad things that are going to happen. You go out, you repeat the actual true narrative that Republicans are intent on killing and harming people – that Republicans actually enjoy doing that.
The people we are going to suffer under a shutdown are going to suffer in any event. Funds will be withdrawn, hell they are all ready being withdrawn, from medical care, from medical research, from anything that improves the human condition. The CR will allow the Republicans to do that in ever greater degrees. If Democratic leaders don’t have the stomach to fight, to explain and hammer the true state of affairs and the rampant dishonesty and evil on the right, then they should resign from their positions and withdraw from politics. Because they are and would be essentially useless.
TBone
Rick Wilson lays out why this is such a bad idea
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7tNbsxVCQD4
Soprano2
@geg6: That was what I thought too. They definitely have the votes to pass it with a simple majority; what he said makes it sound like they don’t have those votes when they do. What they don’t have is enough to invoke cloture. It’s lying by omission. Again, it shows contempt for the voters and is almost an outright lie.
chemiclord
@Soprano2: My guess is that some point after he made that speech, enough of his caucus started waffling and having second thoughts. At that point, lacking any clear consensus, and seeing that it was going to be a plate of shit anyway, he threw his hands up and declared everyone could vote their conscience.
Which even if it makes sense rationally, is horrible for the “vibes,” and right now our entire society is driven by nothing more than the vibes.
TBone
@VFX Lurker: maybe contraband fireworks are being detonated? Keep your heads down, I hope its over quickly and you get some makeup sleep!
sentient ai from the future
I’m going to call and reiterate
cloture is a bad idea because
this permits the whimsical tradewar shitbird engages in to continue and that is extremely bad for our economy
this shows our allies (Ukraine, Taiwan) and enemies that when we do have leverage we won’t use it, which further greatly undermines our standing
it is morally reprehensible to allow the fascists to pick and choose who will bear the brunt of the pain
Soprano2
Boy, completely this. You don’t convince the voters by claiming FFOTUS and his party are an existential threat to democracy and then doing a 180 and saying you’ll try to work with them! It’s an either/or proposition. It’s like the boy who cried wolf
BTW and totally off topic, my choir is doing a piece based on the notebooks of DaVinci. That stuff about the proportions of a person, that’s pretty wild stuff. Does anyone actually use any of that in design? My choir director measured, and the length of her nose and the length of her ear are about the same! Wild stuff…..
Suzanne
@chemiclord:
Vibes have been a significant factor in every election you’ve ever voted in, starting with but by no means limited to Student Body President or Most Likely to Succeed. When Democrats win, we do so in large part due to vibes. What recent events indicate to me is that (royal) we don’t understand that, and thus we don’t put much effort into shaping those vibes. We just ride that wave.
Anyway
Yes, this1 Put as many roadblocks as possible.
VFX Lurker
@VFX Lurker: Nine explosions total. My husband had the window facing the excitement open, and now there’s a weird smell in the room. I put our air filters on blast, and I hope someone reports WTF just happened tonight.
glory b
@Hildebrand: That’s true, but remember the decades suffering that happened before that happened.
Also remember that the entirety of the black community put aside EVERY OTHER political, economic & social difference between themselves to all pull together for ONE GOAL.
The reason that the ACTUAL BASE of the Democratic party is black voters is because of the residual effect of the civil rights movement.
The various factions of the Democratic party may be too fractious to do this. I understand that the pro Gaza folks have already presented a list of non negotiable demands to the DNC. Some Jewish voters ee it as marginalizing them.
At this rate, I won’t hold my breath. Too many factions think THEIR issue should take first place in importance, we are not at the level of desperation that the pre civil rights black community was, nor will many in our party ever be.
That action is the price paid for that success
NotMax
@VFX Lurker
Someone rob the train?
;)
WereBear
@VFX Lurker: His science fiction work is well worth exploring!
TheflipPsyd
I wish I could believe that Chuck Schumer was doing this as a way to give cover for Democrats to vote No by taking the heat himself and rallying the base. Unfortunately, we don’t live in that timeline and there’s no evidence that Schumer has that kind of fortitude.
Albatrossity
@Rick Melita:
I nominate this for a rotating tag!
siddhartha
I wish we could have a national day of non-cooperation (in Gandhi’s vein) and no one goes to work, But with the media silos, how would one even organize one? As someone who did not grow up here, I am still shocked that streets all over this country were not filled with parents when Sandy Hook or Ulvade (or take your pick) happened. But if children being reduced to pulp and having them be murdered in abject terror is not enough …. it’s sick. I think that until a critical mass of white people get sick and tired of how Republican white people treat them, and refuse to concede the definition of American by mobilizing as white people who embody a different whiteness, we’re going to follow the same pattern in the US that has existed since, well, the 13th amendment was established, which created the “criminality” loophole and condemned black people to ontological criminality–criminality as their very being. As soon as a D president establishes a modicum of stability, R’s are elected because they openly stand for white supremacy and segregation (even the dog whistles over the past decades have been pretty transparent–I mean the “southern strategy” is pretty clear and on tape!).
chemiclord
@Suzanne: Oh yes, vibes have always had a significant presence in elections. But we’ve reached a point where quite literally nothing you do in office matters. We outright shanked quite literally the most progressive president since FDR because he stuttered during a debate with a circus clown.
I also dispute that there is any particular way to shape vibes in any specific way that would be good for Democrats. It’s easy for reactionaries; they simply trigger the fear response in their voters and its off to the races.
The left doesn’t respond to the fear trigger the way the right does. We saw that happen in real time as Democrats tried to tell us the danger to democracy Trump’s court posed. We didn’t care. The vibes were about “old Joe with his brains leaking out of his ears supporting genocide,” and we weren’t going to allow anyone to shape that any other way.
(Of course, now we’re telling them we care after they already internalized the clear message that we didn’t, but I digress…)
TBone
@NotMax: I thought that was gonna be whistling from A Fistful of Dynamite
CaseyL
@VFX Lurker: I didn’t see anything about this on BlueSky, so I went over to reddit, first to the thread you linked to, and then just a general search to see if there were any other threads.
I mention this because a general search on reddit for “glendale explosion” turns up a huge long list of things mysteriously going *boom!* every three years, going back at least 12 years!
What the heck is going on in Glendale that they have things blowing up every few years??
glory b
@sentient ai from the future: There are people on social media pointing out that a government shutdown literally means that people will die.
Losing SNAP, Medicaid, other state & locally provided benefits (like pre & post natal home nurse visits) will end if there is a shutdown.
We need to be careful of the “Yes, some of you will die but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make” vibe.
WereBear
@glory b: MAGA demands conformity, and lose their minds.
We welcome a mixed crowd, and lose elections to the soothing and dangerous which the children prefer.
As I get older and sadly wiser, I see more proof that most people resist growing up, manage it badly without support, and stay children emotionally because of its lack.
Not that children are inherently bad people — they are children and are quite humane when treated right.
But we don’t give them armies and economies, either.
Suzanne
@chemiclord:
See, I disagree there. (Minor disagreement.) I think there’s a lot we can do — maybe could have done is more accurate — to push on vibes. I don’t think we lean enough into truly reflecting aspirations back to people. One thing Richard Rorty wrote about that really stuck with me is about cultivating a specifically leftist patriotism. It clicked for me when I read his essay on this. I see a lot of people here minimize Obama’s oratorical skills as “speechifying”, but he probably came the closest that I have ever seen to cultivating a vision for the country that was, at the time, fresh and generous and expansive and positive, without denying the past. That’s the core of his political capital, everything he was able to achieve had that at the foundation.
LAC
@Another Scott: a very good point. To strain the toaster analogy, it is like taking the toaster apart, turning off the electricity and putting a piece of bread on it and expect toast. WE collectively handed both houses to GOP and we will have to get it back 2026 to even restart.
This is so frustrating and I hope that the senate dems ultimately hold the line. But we shall see…🤢 And I am not that blase to be okay about people suffering to make a point either.
Speaking of which, did I miss any posts on the federal judge’s decision to reinstate federal probationary employees? His evisceration of administration’s position was for the ages.
VFX Lurker
French Onion Soup
@siddhartha:
Cultural issues are not something we can expect to win on. It’s not just white people and race. I wish it was. Immigration is also a loser for us even among immigrant communities we claim to represent. Issues around sex and gender are losers for us even among minority groups we claim to represent. We need to accept that.
We are not going to abandon any group and we should not given an inch. But we need to accept that we are not with the majority of the nation on cultural issues and we are bleeding people over them and that will increase the more progress we make. The best we can hope for is that the other side, normies, and non voters start nominating and electing politicians who aren’t economic arsonists and who believe in democracy. It’s not a situation I like being in, but it is the situation we are on. We can’t make them do this either. They have to do it on their own. We will hate them, we will have to get used to defeats on the issues we care the most about, but they won’t burn down the house with all of us in it. That’s the best we can hope for and we have no control over it.
NotMax
@VFX Lurker
“I love the smell of cybertrucks exploding in the morning.”
//
satby
Pre-civil rights, the black community constantly faced death (post civil rights too). White people mostly face disappointment; hardly as motivating, or even as clarifying, as to whom the real enemies are.
Ohio Mom
According to Google, some maintain Hitler dismantled German democracy
In 53 days* and by my calculations, today is 53 days from Trump’s inauguration. So maybe we’re behind schedule?
* Different amounts of time are proposed by different writers, since it’s a process and not a single date, maybe we we are actually on the same schedule.
siddhartha
I also think the most poignant image (a metaphor really) of what’s always been the case with this sadistic, malicious whiteness that wants complete impunity is the concrete-filled swimming pool. They’d rather kill everything than live in a multiracial democracy. It’s visceral and existential. I mean we live in a country where it was normal to take kids to lynchings. Normal. It’s sick. That’s the whiteness that they’ve been taught. Some of those kids are still alive (the lynching photographs were in family albums).
WereBear
@siddhartha: Yes, it’s why I keep saying we are really fighting the Myth of the Lost Cause.
If the Confederacy refuses to concede defeat, they can win just by wearing us down. As they have.
We, the kind people, have to punch bullies in the face. The Confederacy is trying for takeover again, because Red States are on the verge of economic collapse.
Which led the last Civil War, and they’ve been fighting it with other means, since. But at its core, it’s a system that runs on cruelty because it doesn’t “run” at all.
I wound up reading a book about the Murdaugh crime dynasty in the SC Low Country simlultaneously with this book, and they dovetail like fine cabinetry.
“Analyzing land policy, labor, and legal history, Keri Leigh Merritt reveals what happens to excess workers when a capitalist system is predicated on slave labor. With the rising global demand for cotton–and thus, slaves–in the 1840s and 1850s, the need for white laborers in the American South was drastically reduced, creating a large underclass that was unemployed or underemployed. These poor whites could not compete–for jobs or living wages–with profitable slave labor. Though impoverished whites were never subjected to the daily violence and degrading humiliations of racial slavery, they did suffer tangible socioeconomic consequences as a result of living in a slave society. Merritt examines how these “masterless” men and women threatened the existing southern hierarchy and ultimately helped push southern slaveholders toward secession and civil war.”
— Masterless Men: Poor Whites and Slavery in the Antebellum South (Cambridge Studies on the American South) by Keri Leigh Merritt
And here we are again.
Betty Cracker
@VFX Lurker: That’s scary. Stay safe!
tobie
When you’re between a rock and a hard place, you go with your base because you will need them in the future.
CaseyL
@VFX Lurker:
Well, that, yes; plus the overheard “Come out with your hands up!” may indicate something more than illegal fireworks.
sentient ai from the future
@glory b: those people are correct, but WE DONT AVOID PEOPLE NEEDLESSLY DYING BY NOT SHUTTING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT. WE ONLY GIVE THE FASH THE DECISION MAKING POWER TO DECIDE WHO NEEDLESSLY DIES.
chemiclord
@Suzanne:
Oh yes, good ol’ Obama. I remember his brilliant oratory. After eight years of that, we couldn’t wait to hand this country to the man who called him a Kenyan and should never have been president to begin with.
Because the other option was *shudder* a woman that the right had been demonizing for over thirty years. And something about a private e-mail server, I think.
I simply disagree with you that we can shape the vibes in any predictable way; because I think the average American starts with a premise, and then work backwards from there. They aren’t looking to be inspired; they are looking for validation and confirmation of their priors.
We want someone to tells us what we want to hear, not shape our cognition based on what we are told. The best any politician can do is capture that moment and run with it with maybe a small bit of coaxing the herd in a given direction.
Again, we aren’t Republicans. We can’t be led by the nose the way they can. They are a cult. We are a herd of manic cats with ADHD and oppositional defiant disorder.
siddhartha
Thanks for the response French Onion Soup. I guess what I’m saying poorly is that relegating the definition of whiteness to cultural issues is precisely the problem. That’s assuming that race is an add on. White supremacy is the bone marrow of this country and every single institution was created to preserve it (electoral college, etc.). No institution is race neutral but embodies a particular kind of whiteness. Until we get at that root, we’re just going to be tinkering.
Ohio Mom
@JerseyBeard: When there are no good options, every option is equally good.
For once, I am glad my senators are both Republicans, I have no phone calls to make — my Democratic Rep (who I did call) voted No, that feels like it was an eternity ago.
jlowe
I wonder if Joe Biden just did too good of a job with his Old King Log routine lulling folks into complacency (see “I Claudius” for the reference).
VFX Lurker
LOL.
Thanks, Betty. It seems to be over now. I am still a bit rattled.
No kidding. I hope to learn more about what happened later in the news.
eclare
@VFX Lurker:
Holy shit! Stay indoors away from windows.
siddhartha
Yes, thank you WereBear. Also, I will definitely check out that book!
Bupalos
@lowtechcyclist: Personally I’m a bit agnostic on playing chicken with these nutballs wrt a shutdown right now. They’re high enough on their own supply to just go ahead and have the government smash into the bridge abutment and think it means they get a clean slate to build a new car from the parts. And I have no idea how that shakes out politically.
Overall I think it’s better to force a confrontation later rather than sooner here. Some of the pain is going to have to sink in and erode Trump’s popularity. We’re two months into this administration and still at a point democratically where Trump doesn’t really own the status quo. In a year, he will. I think that’s probably a big part of the head-down dem’s calculation.
Ella in New Mexico
@JerseyBeard: I can’t say this enough:
If we vote YES on this bill, we will lose any legal right to challenge Trump and Musk and all the garbage they’re doing already to shut the government down with defacto illegal closings and cuts.
At some point, if R’s actually care about shutting down the government they will cut all that garbage out and pass a clean CR.
But if they sniff ONE Democrat pants shitter they will laugh at us like maniacal deviants and get their way.
WereBear
Agree. We don’t exists solely as Republican opposition, though that it what we are reduced to in popular discourse.
We didn’t complain to the corporate press the way MAGA did. They aren’t afraid of us. We take it.
That has to stop, for one thing.
eclare
@TBone:
I need a cigarette after that! Bravo. Plus I have an affinity for well done cursing, Rick’s was perfect.
Ella in New Mexico
@sentient ai from the future: EXACTLY.
Thank you.
chemiclord
@jlowe: Wouldn’t that be something? That we’ve reached a point in American society where we would say, “Listen, we think you’ve done too good of a job here, so we’re gonna manufacture bullshit to ruin you.”
Betty Cracker
I don’t know about the rest of y’all, but I’m sick and fucking tired of being spoken to like a child who doesn’t know the stakes and doesn’t understand how this shit works. Fuck that noise.
Now, in lieu of further angry ramblings or condescending dismissals or pats on the head, please accept this recent photo of a Red-Shouldered Hawk hanging out on a mile marker. It swooped down for breakfast shortly thereafter and is off somewhere enjoying a frog or lizard, most likely.
H.E.Wolf
Electoral-Vote.com (written by co-blogger Z today) had some commentary on the choice between shutdown and CR.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Mar14-1.html
eclare
@Suzanne:
Obama understood vibes in 2008.
Emily B.
Is it even possible for the Senate Dems to select a new leader at this point in the term? Schumer is not up to the moment. Would he have to resign first (which of course he would never do)?
eclare
@NotMax:
Hahaha…one can wish.
chemiclord
@Emily B.:
Dems can hypothetically elect a new minority leader whenever the hell they want.
But I suspect it will face the same problem that we’re having with the vote here; that there is absolutely no consensus on how to proceed, or who should be the leader going forward.
I mean, fuck, who would even want that job at this point?
eclare
@tobie:
Or as the saying goes, dance with the one that brung ya.
Jeffg166
@Betty Cracker:
Found a pile of pigeon feathers in my back garden the other day. The local peregrine struck again. Gladness my heart to see those piles. I wish the peregrine would develop a taste for squirrels.
I have started to see the peregrine hanging out in the trees around here. Makes me happy.
glory b
@Birdie: I was never annoyed by performative stuff.
I was annoyed by the people that think performative stuff will make Republicans change their minds.
eclare
@siddhartha:
Also legacy college admissions.
Omnes Omnibus
@Hildebrand: This is exactly where I come down on this. I lean strongly towards “no on cloture” on the merits, but I am aware of the costs of a shutdown. Schumer played this wrong every step of the way. I would not be surprised if a small delegation of senior senators have a talk with him this weekend about his future.
zhena gogolia
@Bupalos: Good comment.
JMG
Fox News reporting that TSA is for now not purchasing food for its bomb-sniffing dogs. I think I’ll hitchhike to France the next time I go see my daughter.
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
Pretty bird, murder bird.
TBone
@eclare: he put it very succinctly! I too was very satisfied!
eclare
@JMG:
Wait, what, they are not feeding their dogs?
Omnes Omnibus
@hrprogressive: Ignoring, of course, the 99.5% of the House Dems and the 80% or so of Senate Dems, right?
Redshift
@New Deal democrat:
Unfortunately, that’s not at stake here. The deliberately misleading language that did that was in an innocuous procedural resolution a could of days ago, so it’s already been voted on.
CaseyL
@JMG:
@eclare:
“Not feeding the dogs” might – might, mind you – break through to the great unwashed in a way that suffering humans doesn’t.
That US air travel has TTS’d so fast astounds me. Makes me wonder how it managed to be as safe as it was as long as it was.
WereBear
@chemiclord: During the W years, there was the beginning of the perceptive comments about the Democrats behaving from “learned helplessness” from ceaseless billionaire-funded attacks from every concievable angle, ramping up if someone made the least mistake or even… stutter.
Hysteria moves the weakminded. It’s the force. With Hollywood, Freud’s nephew who invented PR showed how to freeze people’s minds and make them into ridiculous excuse machines whose craving will not be sated until they spend those bucks.
Truth is the only constant we have. That’s why people loathe a weak leader, as Trump is being now. It’s completely unpredictable. No one knows whose ass to kiss next.
And that’s the extent of their skillset. Have the “professionals” fallen down? I think that’s obvious.
So pick a leader, a cause, a group and rally around THEM. Take it from there.
I can’t even get through in NY, and so this weekend I’m focusing on learning, during the break I must take from getting all worked up.
I’ll be informed. I’ll just try to stay level. All this, and an illness that literally worsens with stress :) Which kills my appetite.
On the other hand, I’ve developed a protein shake repertorie that could either be a gastro chain or an MLM…. depending on whether I sold my soul or not.
TBone
Well the band’s on stage and it’s one of those days! Stuck like Chuck 🎶
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mphSvuLGAQo
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: Luckily, each rep and senator runs in a clearly defined geographical area where they can hopefully be assessed for their own individual choices.
ETA: This will require challengers for each willing to call them on these transgressions as opposed to the fantastical bullshit we know Republicans will challenge them on.
eclare
@CaseyL:
TTS’d?
I can’t get “shit hit the fan” out of those letters.
RevRick
@lowtechcyclist:
@Rick Melita:
@Princess: Senate Democrats are in a terrible position. If they don’t vote for the CR, you can be damn sure that the wingnut Wurlitzer will be shrieking Democrat shutdown at full blast. If they do, they’re allowing Trump and Musk to do untold damage to our government, the people it serves, and the overall economy.
I get why many in the Democratic base are furious with the possibility that Senate Democrats will “cave.” But there is no solution to this predicament. So, the question becomes which is least bad?
I am inclined to give our political leaders as much grace as possible. We are all fallible human beings, after all, and we all make mistakes. To expect a perfect response to a conundrum is asking a lot of anyone.
I suspect Sen. Schumer is calculating that a vote on the Democratic one-month CR will give the party some purchase with the general public, offering a clear alternative. But if eating the GOP shit sandwich is an inevitability, then doing it sooner, rather than later grasps the nettle. Even if it looks like surrendering.
The advantage of Schumer’s approach is that the GOP will own all the damage, all the costs, all the pain, all the ensuing ugliness that is sure to follow. And that will be in the local news for the next two years.
Matt McIrvin
@PaulWartenberg: I woke up early this morning near the end of totality and tried looking out the window, but it was overcast.
siddhartha
French Onion Soup, I seem to have neglected to respond to one point. Absolutely not. I totally agree. We cannot abandon anybody. That’s the old model of turns–first white women get their rights, then so on down the line (which is what some Suffragists were saying). Because intersectionality allows us to get at all of it (when you’re racist, you’re also being sexist, etc. in ways we can’t yet articulate), I am trying to get at the ontological whiteness at the root that is anti-black (and hence sexist, etc.). White is a race too. So race is not just ours. And any white leader who embodies a different whiteness, like Carter, like Biden, like Hillary, gets, well, … we’ve seen what happens. This is what I mean. White people have to stop putting up with this shit as white people, especially when the GDP comes from blue states (for example) and yet this kind of whiteness gets to be American. Who died and made them the decider? Sorry if I’m not articulating myself well. I have a bad cold.
Chief Oshkosh
@lowtechcyclist: Exactly. This is NOT a real CR. Instead, it functionally and profoundly changes powers.
THAT point is what Schumer assumes his voters will never understand. He’s already demonstrated what he thinks of his voters’ political savvy, so…on point? Hell, maybe Chuck himself doesn’t understand it?
taumaturgo
An army of sheep led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep. Arab Proverb
catclub
Understatement?
TBone
@siddhartha: I highly recommend the Ayr brand of nasal saline solution. Non-addictive and works very quickly on sinus infections. Tilt your head all the way back when ya snort it. If sinus is a problem, I mean.
sentient ai from the future
@RevRick: I give schumer zero grace.
As a leader of the caucus it’s his job first and foremost to count votes.
He has not done a competent job of that in this high stakes situation.
It’s secondarily his job to twist arms, but that requires him to accurately count votes. His failure at the former ensures he cannot do the latter.
He needs to go. And his selection of paths forward is at minimum suspect because of those failures.
TBone
@taumaturgo: that’s a great proverb.
Professor Bigfoot
@satby: This is what drove the alliance between Jews whose families had escaped antisemitic oppression and violent pogroms in Europe and the Black folks they found undergoing the same exact shit (from the same exact MFs) that they had fled.
Watching white people tear at that alliance has been illuminating.
chemiclord
@WereBear:
And when every other cause and group in the caucus become furious with you that you’ve centered that issue and not theirs… then what?
Jeffg166
Has to start somewhere.
Broadway Backwards 2025 – Defying Gravity
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxbGk8B7uAM
siddhartha
Thanks TBone! I’m going to try it. I’ve been drugging myself with NyQuil, which has its pluses in these abjectly depressing times. :)
TBone
@CaseyL: another one just now (we had one in Lancaster, PA recently too)
https://www.witn.com/2025/03/14/plane-crash-reported-near-pitt-greenville-airport/
Redshift
@Ella in New Mexico:
I’d like to see a reference on that. From what I understand, the extra funds in some areas are effectively a slush fund because there’s no authorization controlling them, but a CR alone doesn’t throw away the existing authorizations or the laws that are the basis for the challenges.
TBone
@siddhartha: I love Nyquil! It’ll clear your sinuses enough to be able to snort liquid saline! I don’t get flu or cold sick without Nyquil on hand for bed time.
Professor Bigfoot
Seems to me that someone on this very blog once ranted, “they hate you, they want to kill you, and that’s just that!” (paraphrased, of course)
THIS is the core conundrum that faces us– that a large enough plurality of white people will move heaven and earth to re-establish their supremacy (somewhere between Jim Crow and Enslavement); even though it hurts themselves, too.
Another large plurality of white people will just avert their gazes, it doesn’t hurt them, after all, and who knows, one might even be able to eke out a bit of profit from it, eh?
catclub
As I have said about Mitch McConnell, I will say about Schumer. He does not boss the caucus around, he is the agent of the caucus. They can boot him at any time. So he is doing what a majority of the caucus want.
Suzanne
Cartoons Hate Her has a piece worth reading, “DOGE is About Sex“.
chemiclord
@Chief Oshkosh: On that score, assuming that the American public won’t grasp, and won’t want to grasp, political nuance is probably the only correct observation Schumer would have ever made.
WereBear
@RevRick:
So why are we mad at him? Like I’ve been saying, if he said that I wouldn’t be mad at him.
Professor Bigfoot
@WereBear: I’d forgotten that one– have to dig it out and give it another read.
The analogy holds.
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: We’ll see, I guess.
ETA: Again, in my view, it’s how Schumer played his hand that concerns me. Not necessarily the actual decision in this particular situation.
catclub
@taumaturgo: Wake up, Sheeple!
Professor Bigfoot
@chemiclord:
NOMINATED!!
zhena gogolia
@TBone: I don’t get it. What damage can sheep do to anyone, even if their leader is a lion?
zhena gogolia
@WereBear: I thought he did say it.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ohio Mom: SAME.
If Emilia had lost last November, I think I would truly have lost my mind.
Hell, I’m not sure I didn’t. ;)
TBone
@Suzanne: so fucking true and gives me the redass every time I think about it. It’s one of the reasons I’m so hell bent on insubordination at every opportunity.
Womens History Month points too!
Professor Bigfoot
@Bupalos: Nah. They’re just incompetent. /s
catclub
@Suzanne: yeah, right. It is not that Musk has a huge disdain for being constrained by government and laws, so he attacks the agencies that have done that to him,
and not that they want to carve out space for a tax cut for billionaires.
Omnes Omnibus
@zhena gogolia: Have you never been savaged by a sheep? Terrifying experience, I would guess.
catclub
@Omnes Omnibus: yep. predictions are hard, especially about the future.
mapanghimagsik
Looks like a good time to stock up on copium futures.
“Decision X could kill my friends” is great because it shuts down discussion and gives you the moral high ground. You’re not discussing policy, you’re killing my friends so i am justified in whatever I do.
And for those of us who have already lost friends through the continuous enablement of these bad decisions? The click-baiters have said it out loud. fuck you
TBone
Dick jokes trigger finger itchy but I will just remind everyone what rape is actually about. It’s not about sex, it’s about power and control.
Redshift
@geg6:
Okay, this kind of pisses me off. “They” in this case is Schumer and eight pretty Senate Dems. All the other Senate Dems and all but one in the House did the right thing, fought the fight. We may never be able to convince the normies to see it that way, but as political junkies who know what went down, we shouldn’t be blaming the nebulous “they.”
Martin
@TBone: I wouldn’t invest much in crashes of private planes. It’s not that they don’t matter, but they historically crash all the time with little to no media coverage other than local. One media phenomenon when people start to worry about something (valid or otherwise) is reporting attention goes up – local stories become national stories, and people start noting these stories at higher rates. On average, the US suffers about 3 plane accidents every day, and about one a day is fatal. ‘Cessna craters into mall parking lot’ is, unfortunately, normal.
What’s not normal is the rate of commercial incidents we’ve seen this year. That a short time period so it can just be an unfortunate clustering, or it could portend a larger trend. That some are directly tied to ATC staffing means we can reasonably worry that’s a larger trend. But the story you linked to is how it’s always been.
In addition to 3 plane accidents each day on average, we have 3 train derailments each day on average. We’ve come to see this as normal and tolerable, just as we’ve come to see a mass shooting each day as normal and tolerable, until there’s one that gets national attention and then we fixate on these for a few weeks, and then we get distracted.
TBone
@zhena gogolia: overwhelming the enemy by force of sheer volume of the herd.
Plus, their heads are so hard, at ranming speed they can obliterate opposition.
Suzanne
@catclub: Musk gains his leverage over Trump from the fact that Elmo’s popularity coalesced the frustration of a bunch of weird guys who hate-yet-desire women and gave it a political outlet. Elon gets political capital from incels.
Omnes Omnibus
@TBone: Not every discussion and disagreement needs to be tamped down by a dick joke.
TBone
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t make one. But you did.
Yank yer skirt down a bit, your devotion is showing again.
siddhartha
@eclare YES
Professor Bigfoot
@siddhartha: If I may: it’s about recognizing whiteness as a demographic identity, with its own wishes, needs and desires.
People who decry “identity politics” generally ignore this; and the majority of white people simply don’t think about it any more than a fish thinks about the water it swims in.
Josie
@Omnes Omnibus:
I hope they do. I’m not saying one way or the other about his final decision, since I really don’t know what is a better choice. I do say, however, that his tactics suck.
Martin
@Redshift: Either the Democratic Party has a governing philosophy and strategy to achieve that or it doesn’t, and if they can’t get enough of the party on board with that (notably the leading Dem in the Senate) to achieve some kind of action then they don’t have it. Talk is cheap.
Another Scott
@H.E.Wolf: Thanks for that.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Redshift
@catclub:
I don’t buy that entirely. I’ve learned the lesson that the leader is mostly following the caucus, so the best way to influence the leader is by influencing your own rep. But not that the leader has no influence. I think this situation was fluid (partly because of our calls!) and since it was a choice between bad options, no one was sure of the right choice. The leader reflects the consensus of the caucus, not just the majority, and where there’s no consensus the leader is definitely making choices.
chemiclord
@WereBear: Well, we’re mad at him for a couple general reasons.
1) It’s not at all clear that is actually the right move. Giving the GOP full reins (and having them own all the damage) isn’t necessarily the least bad option.
2) We want a fucking fight. At this point, at the very least a sizable plurality of Dem voters no longer care who may or may not get hurt. We want to see some blood on Republican lips. Even if that was the worst possible move (which again, is not at all clear it would be), it doesn’t matter. We’re willing to make that trade just to hear a handful of Republicans say, “Ouch!”
RileysEnabler
@Betty Cracker: he’s gorgeous- thanks, BC.
I don’t have much to add to the convo; it’s been a shit week and my shoulders won’t come down from my ears. So much chaos and stress and bad news. Will we ever recover? I keep calling my two awful TX senators via 5-calls, but my heart isn’t in it this week. Maybe next week I can work up more rage.
catclub
@Suzanne: I would suggest Musk has power over Trump because he could contribute $300M to his campaign, and that he is the richest man in the world.
I suspect the incel vote is smaller than the hard left vote against genocide Joe, which is negligibly small.
Hoodie
I hope people will get past this and quit finger pointing. Whether or not you agree with Schumer, everyone should realize there are no good options. But the other thing is that people have to realize that the ground has shifted and quit fighting battles that have already been lost and start thinking about how to operate in a changed battlefield other than a suicide charge or, alternatively, completely giving in.
I can be ok with what Schumer is doing, but I hope there is a longer term strategy that’s more than simply waiting for Trump to fuckup sufficiently to piss everyone off. He’ll probably do that, but there has to be some sort of alternative messaging to gets out to the normies and lets them know that Dems are on their side without burning down the house. I personally don’t think causing a government shutdown at this point will be all that effective because it’s too soon for the malicious effects of Trump to be apparent to people. Many will still give him the benefit of the doubt for his “experiment” and will look at a shutdown as political sour grapes or trying to protect their vested interests. The media is certainly wired that way. A lot of normie voters don’t understand the details of how the government operates and a lot of them don’t think there is a crisis. So, Dems need a way to make them start thinking about how they’re going to get royally fucked by these wonderful changes that Trump has in store for them. By way of analogy, make them start thinking about how the management fucks them when they come out with changes to their benefits that are advertising as giving more “flexibility” but are actually a benefit cut so stockholders don’t take a hit.
For example, Trump is setting up a situation where rich folks are going to get a ginormous tax cut while the lower and middle classes will be hammered by tariffs. Middle class folks are also being hit by losses in their investments because they don’t have the ability to hedge all this nonsense like billionaires do. All of this is being sold with a vague promise of great manufacturing jobs returning to the US, which is a fucking pipe dream. Whatever. Given this is the bill of goods being sold, maybe the Dems should be thinking of some way of pushing a message along the lines of “hey, since tariffs are going to pay for everything, why are working folks having to pay the bill for this? Why not give the big income tax break to the people who will be paying the tariffs?” Yes, that would blow an even bigger hole in the budget, but that’s on the Republicans and most folks don’t understand that anyway. If you’re getting the shitty end of the stick anyway, why care about the budget deficit?
siddhartha
@ Professor Bigfoot: I agree. In this respect, whiteness is distinct even from white people in a certain sense because, for example, we have seen that black cops can embody the institutional prerogative and raison de etre that has been operative since the slave patrol: terror and impunity. And do not get me started on my own community. I haven’t taken enough NyQuil (yup TBone!).
WereBear
@chemiclord: We center a cause. Not an issue.
There’s common cause for the picking up, now. We already have people showing what they bring. And telling their reps what they think.
Honestly, we should have been doing it sooner, but we were also lied to. Mostly by the press, but kicking D asses, not from each other. had to come from constituents.
We’re appealing to the wrong “boss.” We are supposed to guide this. And we are. I support Indivisible, and donate to a group helping immigrants. And periodically send a message to the NY AG’s office saying “I love what you are doing.”
Because my Rep NY-21 just ran off to the Vatican and there is no one there, apparently. At least I have someone to praise and support.
Matt McIrvin
@Redshift:
Do we know this? Did the cloture vote happen yet?
WereBear
@siddhartha: Alternately, you can try Valerian root.
In capsules. I cannot emphasize this enough.
catclub
From CNN: On finding 8+ Democrats to vote for Cloture:
This does not seem terribly certain. We shall see.
catclub
@Matt McIrvin: NO. Premature disappointment.
I have _never_ seen that on this blog.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: The Senate is in session now, but TheHill says the first vote will be in the “early afternoon”.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Suzanne
@catclub: Men who are frustrated by the financial independence of women aren’t just incels, they’re also a heap of social conservatives, “white working class” men, and techbro types who complain about the workplace being “feminized”. They all shifted right this election. That’s a lot of people, and Elon (and others) made that happen.
sentient ai from the future
@Matt McIrvin: no! It hasn’t! Call your senators if you don’t want them to capitulate!
chemiclord
@Hoodie: I will concede (actually this isn’t much of a concession, because I wholeheartedly believe this), that the politically engaged frequently make the mistake that they represent more than a vanishingly small percentage of voters, much less of the citizenry as a whole. So yeah, while we’re pissed as hell, the majority may very well not be, and won’t respond to the shutdown the way those “in the know” will.
However, I do think in this particular case, the politically engaged do represent a significant enough portion of the population that it would be dangerous to simply ignore their desires the way Chuck Schumer is doing.
At the very least, his rationalizations for his decision should be on full blast, not some small press release that tragically few will ever care to see, as well as a very clear accounting of who is joining him and why.
I would recommend to him, if he is determined to do this, to put himself in front of his electorate, and let come what may. He won’t do that, of course, he never particularly has and Senators rarely do so in general… but if he wants to salvage anything from his decision, he needs to let people vent to his face, not snark on social media.
Hell, maybe it would demonstrate that the jackals are an insignificant minority of his electorate, and that he is making the right move!
Denali5
@Soprano2: Can you share more about your choir piece? I would love to hear it.
siddhartha
Were Bear–oh, I’ve never tried that. Will do. Thanks!
Chief Oshkosh
@Hildebrand: Josh Marshall has a good piece on this today. The graph that sticks with me is:
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/black-thursday-in-the-democratic-senate-an-explainer
CaseyL
@eclare:
TTS = “Turn to Shit”
I thought that was an expression only my own family used, until I saw it out in the wild quite a bit. Maybe “TTS” is now passe, but I still like and use it.
HinTN
@chemiclord: I used the comment form on Schumer’s Senate site two days ago demanding that he demonstrate leadership and hold firm on the filibuster. There had been no response. Maybe it was my potty mouth.
Old Man Shadow
If they send this through, and it’s still “if”, then they’ve surrendered.
I vote for Senators and Representatives to be my representatives. It’s their job to fight politically what I cannot and use every tool at their disposal to do so. That’s how the system is supposed to work. Being angry and disappointed IF they surrender isn’t my personal betrayal of America. A part of it is my frustration that there is no third option. At least not one I can live with morally.
But IF they surrender, IF they are perfectly happy being a permanent minority party hoovering up their pay checks and enjoying their perks, then THEY too will soon become a choice I cannot morally live with either and then we have even more bad options: starting a third party from scratch, starting an intra-party revolution that might result in more losses, starting a general peaceful revolution that might not work and will disrupt our lives, starting a violent revolution that might not work and will result in a lot of people dying.
I don’t know what a good choice is. For now, I’ve told both my Senators that I expect no votes on cloture and surrendering their authority to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
We’ll have to see where things go from there.
eclare
@CaseyL:
Thanks!
Probably just hasn’t migrated to TN yet, I am sure it will, unfortunately.
Another Scott
@chemiclord:
+1
It’s a problem.
( via nycsouthpaw)
Something something I need a majority.
[ sigh ]
It’s a slog. It’s going to continue to be a slog. We need to figure out a way to keep pushing forward, in spite of all the obstacles, in spite of our anger and disappointment, in spite of the media and the MotUs being against us.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Chief Oshkosh
@u:
I think it was Sondheim who wrote: “Nice doesn’t mean good.”
WereBear
@zhena gogolia: They can brainlessly vote.
Gin & Tonic
@Chief Oshkosh: The old saying, people in New York are kind but not nice, people in L.A. are nice but not kind.
WereBear
@chemiclord: If asked, I’d say we have to let them own the damage, because nothing else has worked.
MAGAs crying on social media has moved the needle more than previous efforts combined. Now everyone has a friend who knows someone whose cousin got fired.
And it’s getting closer. Yes. If this is the only way they learn, we are stuck with it. And it was coming anyway. I discovered how many people started living on their credit cards during the Pandemic and now they can’t keep up.
Let them take ALL the blame. It’s all their stupidity and interference. We might have to do electronic shock on the Red States, but let them blame Trump and Elon.
TBone
@Suzanne: thank you, I just subscribed and look forward to many more edifying and entertaining insights.
Shalimar
@geg6: My mom was press secretary for Senator Jeremiah Denton of Alabama in 1986 when he ran for re-election against the loathsome scumbag Richard Shelby, then a Democrat. Denton was expected to win easily, but Shelby’s campaign started running ads highlighting votes Denton had made against things he was in favor of. It was situations like this, cloture votes, votes against alternate bills that weren’t going to pass instead of the bill he supported that did pass, etc. Very misleading, dishonest ads. But Denton was complacent, felt he shouldn’t have to defend his honor, and left the allegations unchallenged. He lost.
This feels like that to me. Schumer expects we’re too dumb to know he’s allowing this vote to happen even though he’s voting against it. He’s insulting our intelligence, and I’m even more pissed off about it than I was in 1986 (and I didn’t even like Denton, but Shelby was worse). I hope people don’t buy his bullshit like everyone did then.
John S.
@chemiclord:
100%
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Chief Oshkosh: If what Marshall describes is what went down Schumer is a putz. He thought he had a way to keep the government open AND keep his hands clean but it blew up.
Another point to highlight is Senate Dems had no plan for if the Republicans in the house passed a CR. Like, what universe have they been living in for the last couple decades – yes they’re crazy but when their leadership really wants something REPUBLICANS ALWAYS FALL IN LINE. To just count on them failing is political malpractice. But that was the only plan so they were caught flat footed when it fell through.
WereBear
Now Florida is experiencing a gas shortage. DeSantis plans to ask Mexico.
People in lines with gas cans.
It’s going to be a bleak tourist season along the northern border, in rural areas which rely on this more than most regions. And I imagine the same is true along our southern border.
But then again, it’s not simply North Americans who don’t want to visit us any more. When someone crunches the projections on that, the Defenders of the Stock Market will realize they are also the stupid ones…
WereBear
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: Exactly. And I frankly didn’t expect them to. They are proving to be among the slowest learners among us.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s what I got out of from reading Marshall TMP, it was only Fetterman who was yes and then in closed meeting Gillibrand changed to yes and then it spread. Worth keeping this isn’t just Schumer.
Steve LaBonne
@John S.: That’s what happens when like 20% of voters are even moderately well informed.
satby
Yeah, that seems to be a problem, especially since many of our courageous “shutdown, si!” advocates aren’t actually in danger of much hurt from a shutdown. Lots of people are though, and they have representation and can call their reps too.
John S.
@Steve LaBonne:
Oh, Steve. I think you vastly overestimate our fellow Americans. But I appreciate your optimism.
The Thin Black Duke
–Eileen McCann, Canadian folksinger
CaseyL
@The Thin Black Duke:
True but, as the old saying goes, “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others that have been tried.”
Relying on The People sucks, because by and large so do The People, but it’s the best we got.
JiveTurkin
Schumer helped Trump immensely and got nothing in return. That’s all we need to remember. We should all remember that when he starts jailing and/or deporting people for their beliefs. When he puts in policies that target blue states. When he openly defies courts. Chuck Schumer can bask in the knowledge that he did the right thing. Sounds like the piece of shit didn’t even try.
Chief Oshkosh
@catclub:
Premature disappointment? Hell, we’re already being told by some on this thread to get over our disappointment and move on to the next…thing? Disappointment? I’m not sure…
Steve LaBonne
@JiveTurkin: Has Schumer said word one about the nakedly fascist attempt to basically take over the most prestigious private university in his state and city?
Captain C
@CaseyL:
Nominated.
NaijaGal
Oh wow! Thanks Ann Laurie. Will read the comments later.
CaseyL
My Senators are now both “No” votes, based on the latest tally seen on BlueSky. Murray was always a No, I’m pretty sure; but Cantwell likes to play footsies with fascists on occasion.
Also – I did try to get through to their DC offices, if only to thank/encourage them to vote No – and couldn’t get through. Murray’s phone clicked off just before the leave-a-message beep, and when I tried to call Cantwell, I didn’t even get as far as saying her name before a recorded message told me all the operators are busy. Since it’s an automated line, I guess that means there have been enough calls that even the automated system can’t handle it.
JiveTurkin
@Steve LaBonne: I think he supports it. Antisemitism is bad and it is a legitimate issue, but the thing with Columbia is way past that. IMO being pro-Palestinian is almost as bad for people like Schumer.
YY_Sima Qian
Well, an economic downturn is baked in at this point, just a question of how bad:
Further commentary:
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@satby: I’m a federal worker. It’s felt like constant danger since the inauguration. I’m not sure what the best strategy is but the main thing is that they don’t seem to have had a proactive strategy or plan of any kind. They’re constantly reacting rather than planning and executing a plan.
The Republicans have a plan. They published it. They’re executing it. The Democrats knew the plan but as far as I can tell didn’t put in any thought as to how to counter it. Constantly on the back foot. I know there are no good options right now but they could at least try to figure out how to get a step ahead rather than duck and cover.
New Deal democrat
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
This is a very important observation. One of life’s important lessons is, *always* have a Plan B, and if it’s important enough, a Plan C and D too.
Had Democratic Senators been on all media saying “We will vote for a clean CR,” and maybe even testing “a clean CR that ends Musk’s prerogatives and tariff wars,” they would be in much better shape now, since this is radioactively dirty CR. Then it would be the GOP refusing a clean CR that shut the government.
But by “keeping their powder dry,” they ceded the field to the GOP and now they are boxed in.
tam1MI
This. If Schumer had prepared the ground for this decision, the Usual Suspects would be doing their usual moaning but the majority of Dems would have understood. But he put on this whole act of breathing fire, he got a hefty amount of House Dems to stick their necks out for him, then he just whipsawed everyone. What was the plan here? Was there ever a plan?
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: I’m a retired federal worker. I can’t imagine working in this current environment and having to deal with things like Elon’s “five bullet points or you’re fired” email.
Instead, all I have to deal with is wondering each month is whether the check from OPM will arrive or whether Elon put me on some sort of “waste and fraud” list. Same with my SSA check.
catclub
@Steve LaBonne: No love for Skidmore?
WereBear
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: It’s the incompetence.
lowtechcyclist
Meanwhile, the sea level of our oceans is rising faster than ever, and the main cause is that they’re getting warmer.
Used to be that the rise was 2/3 icecap melt, and 1/3 expansion due to warming. Now it’s mostly the latter, which also results in more intense hurricanes. But just keep pretending it ain’t happening, Trumpies, DeSantis, etc., and just keep on cutting FEMA. I’m sure it will all work out just fine.
Citizen Alan
@CaseyL: my friend who does work for the FAA (and who told me just last night that he and his wife have a bug out plan in place that would put them in scotland on forty eight hours notice) warned everyone in our gaming group, that at this point, we should not fly unless it’s a matter of life or death.
Captain C
I called both Schumer and Gillibrand last night in what may be a fruitless attempt to get them to change to a no. I understand the merits, such as they are, of both positions, but I think at this time a) Senate Dems need to at least show some, if not fight, some better understanding of what’s at stake*, and b) maybe find a leader who at least understands the concept of a wartime consigliere (eta-and a consistent opposition message). Schumer is good at some things, sure, but this ain’t one of them.
That said, as someone pointed out in the last several years of the last several weeks, the blame really lies with (roughly in order) a) Republicans in power, b) Republican voters, c) the idiot (intentionally or not) MSM which only cares about clicks and their owners’ stock portfolios, d) apathetic non-voters, and e) people ostensibly on our side of the divide who are always most concerned with Teaching Democrats a Lesson every election rather than actually making things better, no matter what the stakes (and who then demand we protect them with our bodies, our well-being, and our lives while they still sit around and tell us We Are Doing It Wrong).
*I would say the same about the FTFNYT and other self-important legacy media, but I think the FTFNYT’s fuckups are intentional, and at this point the only solution is to confiscate it from the Sulzbergers and fold them into a dedicated nonprofit (partially funded by Wordle and the other games), and also fire Joe Kahn’t-Get-A-Clue and whatever malicious fuckup is running their editorial page.
TBone
Another stellar entry by Tiedrich, great stuff while I wait and see…
https://www.jefftiedrich.com/p/off-with-their-tariffs-screams-mad
Ceci n est pas mon nym
So I’m sure many jackals are already aware of this, but one thing Jamie Raskin is suggesting as an individual action we can do, is to put in a FOIA request to DOGE for the personal information they have (illegally) received and possibly distributed. This is available to us because of this week’s ruling by a federal judge that they are an agency and subject to FOIA.
I went to the FOIA page, which surprisingly hasn’t been Elon-ed yet. But you can’t enter DOGE as an agency, because it doesn’t exist on paper.
No worries. Raskin has a letter you can use, the same one he used to file his own FOIA request.
The letter is addressed to “Privacy Officer or Coordinator”. DOGE of course has no such person, and no FOIA staff unlike legitimate agencies. I think that’s part of the idea, because the judge’s ruling means they’re required to respond in a timely fashion to these requests.
catclub
here’s some unnecessary beat-sweetening: CNN:
He warn’t no moderate.
Paul LeBlanc
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
I think it’s scheduled for 1:15pm.
Citizen Alan
@TBone: actually, it is a nonsensical proverb. Because give that scenario played out, the army of lions would eat there lamb leader and then the rest of the opposing lamb army in short order.
ExPatExDem
Dem leaders like Vichy Chuck are the reason my name is what it is.
I’m outsmarting Trump by giving him everything he wants! The known awful things that are actually happening are better than the hypothetical bad things that may happen. -Chuck “Chamberlain” Schumer
Brilliant. Just brilliant.
TBone
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: great idea but that woman (Gleason, if I remember correctly) they tried to pin this on as being “in charge” was “vacationing in Mexico” last I heard. She’s prolly having all her mail forwarded there by now.
https://apnews.com/article/doge-acting-administrator-amy-gleason-65af638e646fdd5dd6d5fcc5cc04a2e7
I will nevertheless check out Rep. Raskin’s letter, because you can’t win if you don’t play!
Captain C
@lowtechcyclist: I’m hoping for a tiny Cat 6 Hurricane this summer that’s exactly the size of Mar a Lago, which hovers above Trump’s tacky resort for about a week before disssipating without further harm. Yes, I know this is probably impossible.
catclub
@Citizen Alan:
oy.
even though driving is still more than ten times as dangerous as flying? so already not a driver or passenger of passenger vehicles
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@JMG:
My daughter and son-in-law have a long-planned trip to Scotland with the grandkids next month. I am very anxious.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Harry Reid never would have done this.
Period.
John S.
@Captain C:
Just remember that Schumer chose to run to the FTFNYT with a ready made op-ed justifying his cowardice within hours of announcing his capitulation.
That speaks volumes in and of itself.
Captain C
@catclub: Wasn’t he considered an extremist when he was in the Senate?
YY_Sima Qian
Reactionary counterrevolutionaries probing w/ bayonets in every direction, Columbia University is just one of them (click the link for the actually letter):
More on how ugly the assault on academic freedom is:
Speculation on why Columbia University was chosen as the 1st target for the bayonet thrust:
Adam Tooze (highly acclaimed economic historian & faculty at Columbia) advocates for presenting steel:
Citizen Alan
@Suzanne: the last time I attended a baptist church service was when I accompanied my mother to her church on mother’s day, about fifteen years ago. And the preacher used the occasion of mother’s day to spend twenty minutes, pounding on the lectern and ranting about the feminization of america.
TBone
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Updated and revised opinion:
I’m SO doing this and wish that everyone would so we could overwhelm them with sheer volume pain in the ass (throw sand into gears!)
TBone
@Citizen Alan: it’s a parable, not about animals even a little bit, i.e., not meant to be taken literally.
But you know that.
Citizen Alan
@WereBear: i’m still shocked that the house passed the CR. They couldn’t lose more than one or two votes and the house GOP still includes at least one person who voted to impeach trump and is now going along with everything he proposes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@rikyrah: Begs the question then; who is the alternative to Schumer as minority leader?
YY_Sima Qian
More assault on the rule of law:
I shudder at the persons & organizations USG can now target w/o any judicial review.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@WereBear: Yeah I thought the smart people were supposed to be on our side. Turns out they can’t figure out how any of this works
YY_Sima Qian
Howard Lutnick w/ zero self-awareness:
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: Two of the ten Republican Impeachers are still in Congress: Dan Newhouse in Western Washington and David Valadeo in the Central Valley of California. Both states have an open, “jungle” primary system which is probably how they survived. Neither one seems at all interested in bucking their caucus again.
John S.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Patty Murray. She would be a great bridge to the next generation of leadership (and a pretty damn good leader herself).
WTFGhost
You could – I know this is shocking – you could talk to people who aren’t Democrats. Try to find people upset about Trump and the Skeevy Republicans. Ask them if they have any ideas to stop this crazy-ass shit.
Anyone feeds you maga, sigh, and say “okay, maga-BAA-AA-AAA,” and leave, because this person is clearly too stupid to talk to. (No – you have to BAA like a SHEEP. Or, you can sigh deeply, and say “forget it,” and walk away, clearly disappointed. It depends on whether you want to be nasty or concerned.)
Anyone complains, you’ve learned something that annoys Republicans. “Yeah, I guess he is screwing farmers, both by canceling reimbursements, and by this stupid trade war.”
I know, I know, you can’t whisper this meme to a Democratic Strategist, nor even to the Lincoln Project, but you can spread the idea that he’s hurting everyone, in ways that you know Republicans consider to be painful.
Geminid
@Shalimar: I remember Senator Denton. I was reminded of him last year because his grandson, “Jake” Denton ran for Congress in Virginia’s coastal 2nd CD. Jake Denton seemed like a promising candidate but he got in late and came in second in the primary to another Democrat.
She lost, so maybe 2nd CD Dems will go with Jake Denton next year. Although, if former Rep. Elaine Luria decides to get back into politics she’ll almost certainly be the nominee.
Hoodie
@Citizen Alan: None of them were going to cross Trump when he’s in the midst of his Revenge Tour. This is all being driven by Trump and the variegated pack of zealots around him. GOP congress members are more afraid of him than Democrats because he has more power to make sure they don’t get re-elected than he does over Democrats. These Republicans are a pack of losers and mediocrities with no real unifying ideology other than greed and lust for power and who, for the most part, are totally dependent on him.
The Democrats’ biggest fear is losing the normies by looking like they’re driven by a vendetta against Trump, even if he is an evil, toxically stupid fuck who richly deserves it. The key is to be on a vendetta against Trump but wear a fucking mask so it’s not so obvious that you’re going to blow up Parliament. It only has to be good enough to fool the normies. One way to do that is to learn from Trump – change the topic, shift the rhetorical ground. Shutdown just keeps bringing up all the old arguments from the election and a too large segment of the public has already given an initial pass on that.
I imagine I’m not alone on this, but events like this CR cloture vote seem to bring out a bunch of people out of the woodwork that you rarely or never see. Perhaps because they’re tuning in from St. Petersburg or just like to throw rocks at Democrats. Or maybe they’re just really pissed and need to vent. Who knows?
I’ve had some involvement with local politics and, let me tell you, being an elected official, while a privilege, is kind of crock of shit unless you’re a crook looking to leverage it for personal gain. The pay sucks, particularly at the lower levels, and everybody wants to give you grief and tell you what you’re doing wrong. Where I live, most candidates for local office have traditionally been either retired or hustlers. My experience is that Republicans often fall into the “leverage it for personal gain” school, but there are some Dems who do that too. The right has even developed a system of patronage to make up for the shitty pay and abuse. Liberals don’t have anything similar.
Professor Bigfoot
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: The American* people fucking VOTED FOR THAT PLAN.
What are the Democrats supposed to do about THAT?
jackmac
@rikyrah:
What a fun video! I’ll have that as an ear worm the rest of the day!
WTFGhost
You are then, I assume, claiming there’s no choice but to eat the shit sandwich. What if it’s not actually inevitable? Then we surrender for no reason, and eat shit to boot.
I will grant you one thing: if you SURRENDER, only a sadist will continue to hurt you. So I’m sure you’re safe with Trump. Has he *ever* shown the least bit of sadistic tendency?
YY_Sima Qian
@YY_Sima Qian: Here is the “centrist” in Israeli politics, commenting on US politics:
artem1s
NEWS: Sens. Schiff, Smith, Colleagues Urge HUD to Swiftly Distribute $3.6 Billion
might want to take this into consideration. a CR allows the rulings to take effect. government shut down means everything stops. Including already appropriated funding. There are tangible successes from the last 40 days. Review panels and study sections are meeting again. A federal judge rescinded a bunch of the agency firings yesterday and is considering rescinding them for all agencies.
A long shut down (and this will not be a quick one) will mean giving up on governing and the government. That’s what Norquist and all the wingnuts and autocrats have been aiming for all along. Make the mob distrust the the process of governing (e pluribus unum) by the people. Make the mob angry at everyone in office. And, most important, make them forget that they are the government.
If you don’t want a democracy or at least this democracy, you may still get your wish even without the shut down. From my perspective, the Dems are framing what kind of government they want to try to salvage from this chaos of change. The change that has been festering since Appomattox.
I have no argument against those who would harbor and support as many communities and people as they can during the chaos of change. If they and we can redeem the image of a government that has a role in our daily lives that is good and worthy, that is a heavy task and absolutely critical if we are to keep any form of self-government alive. If we all give up on government altogether we will have no choice but to accept what crumbs are left over when the Robber Barons and anarchist have finished pissing all over what’s left of the country they’ve been trying to ruin for over 250 years.
No One You Know
@hrprogressive: This! All of this. We need to do better at primarying people who won’t fight. It should be easier now that they’re making themselves this obvious.
WTFGhost
@Professor Bigfoot: Shove the results of the plan in people’s faces. They didn’t vote for good workers all getting fired – they were told only the lazy, worthless bums were getting fired.
They didn’t vote for “if you were in your position for less than a year (or two years, in some cases), you’re all fired!’ They were sure they voted for something else.
They didn’t vote for medicaid to help only the most obviously desperate – they know they may need medicaid for grandma or grandpa (or ma, or dad, or, gee *I* am getting old, and my bum hip…) to get nursing care, so they aren’t shipped off to a home.
They didn’t vote for farmers to make big investments (with promises of repayment), only to have the repayment cancelled as “waste, fraud, and abuse.” They didn’t vote for some VC-creep to take away the family farm for pennies on the dollar!
They voted stupidly, because we live in a stupid society. That’s my statement of belief, and you won’t change my mind unless you can convince me the American people are more mean than stupid.
They hate transfolk – but because they think transfolk are causing problems they (transfolk) simply aren’t causing.
They hate immigrants – but because they think immigrants are causing problems they simply aren’t causing.
They hate deficits – but because they think deficits are causing problems they simply aren’t causing.
Etc.. Stupid fits better than mean. Trust me, I know mean, and I know stupid.
gvg
@Suzanne: Be “irornic” if more men than women got laid off, and it is quite possible since men still tend to make the higher saleries and have had more promotions.
No One You Know
@chemiclord: That last sentence should be nominated for a rotating tag!
prostratedragon
@YY_Sima Qian: Here’s to Prof. Tooze. (BC alumna here)
Another Scott
@artem1s: Thank you.
I think one of the clearest indications of 47’s intentions was a couple of things he was screaming about before taking office:
Those things did not happen. They are in place as constraints (time delays and extra paperwork, if nothing else).
He does not want any constraints on what he wants to do.
We do not have much influence at all given their majorities, but we should not be in the position of refusing to supply the critical votes to keep the government, agencies, and the courts, running If there’s any sensible way to avoid it.
This is a skirmish, not the end of the war.
Unless we flip the House before October 1, there will be more CRs (because the dysfunctional House cannot pass a budget). We’ll go through these battles and threats of shutdowns again (and again) until we can flip the House. Lessons can be learned, tactics can be adjusted, etc., to address upcoming skirmishes. Nobody knows the future.
We’ll see what happens. We don’t have much choice…
Thanks again.
Best wishes,
Scott.
gvg
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: One thing about Democrats not having a plan, I think they might have but lost a lot bigger than they planned for. Remember Nancy Pelosi said we weren’t going to lose the house. She has been right so many times that I was reassured, but she wasn’t right that time and I suspect (I’ll never know) that she wasn’t telling reassuring lies, I think the professional data was just wrong and off enough that the party is in a worse position than the planned for. That also might make them doubt that they know what people want them to do or that they know what is going on? At any rate, They probably spent a year making plans they had to throw out. This is just my guess. It also means they are all thinking about who made better predictions and rethinking who they should listen to. Maybe re aligning within the party. All just guessing.
I sure don’t feel like I could step up and lead right now.
RevRick
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
@John S.: We can speculate about this until the cows come home, but the odds on favorite for the job of Senate Minority Leader is… Chuck Schumer. First, he is not up for re-election until 2028. Second, the last thing his colleagues will want is an intraparty fight.
One of the primary public-facing jobs of this position is to take the heat for his/her fellow party members. IOW, be the bad guy. With the prestige comes all the grief.
Internally, the primary job of this position is to massage egos and negotiate the differences. He was chosen by his colleagues for a bunch of reasons. For one, he represents a deep blue state. Second, he’s bland. Third, he’s willing to be a shit magnet.
We tend to forget that Mitch McConnell hated government shutdowns, even when he was Majority Leader.
RevRick
@WTFGhost: The GOP is running a hostage situation and the hostages are all the vulnerable people who depend on government services for survival. The GOP doesn’t give a damn about them; Democrats do and the GOP is more than willing to outwait the Democrats ,so, yes, we will have to eat that shit sandwich. But then all the blame shifts to the GOP for everything that follows.
I am not willing to do what will end up being useless virtue signaling, because while I am fairly well insulated, I am not going to gamble with other people’s lives. And I believe that is exactly the calculus of Chuck Schumer.
Matt McIrvin
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I’m not sure it’s possible for them to overreach. Americans are really brutal, evil, sadistic people. Remember that after the Kent State massacre most Americans thought the protesters had it coming
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I would classify Yair Lapid as more “Center Left” within the spectrum of Israeli domestic politics. He did a good job of cobbling together the 8-party coalition that formed the government before the current one.
But I don’t look to Yair Lapid for guidance when it comes to American politics. For one thing it’s not his business and for another, he’s saying this for domestic effect anyway.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: Nevertheless, comments like these for domestic effect will merely alienate a lot of Americans (including American Jews) from the State of Israel in general, & not just the far right. He is voicing support for authoritarian policies enacted by a far right government in the U.S.
Why is he commenting at all? & what does that say about the state of Israeli politics if a “Center Left” leader felt it to be to his domestic political advantage to openly voice such drivel?