One thing about MAGA that never ceases to surprise me is how they are just utterly and criminally hypocritical about everything yet willing to do a complete 180 on things and endorse it with their whole ass heart. I have guys I was in the army with swearing left and right the signal thing is no big deal. I mean, I don’t even have to make up hypotheticals for them to flip flop on- all I have to do is scroll back on their profile timelines a little bit and then quote back to them how they thought Jack Teixeira should be executed and this was proof of Biden being incompetent. And I am sure many of you, like most people, are going to say who the fuck is Jack Teixeira? This guy:
In early April 2023, Teixeira was alleged by media to have regularly shared classified information in a server on the online chat service Discord called “Thug Shaker Central”,[22][23] beginning at least by October 2022, both transcribed from documents he read and from printouts removed from his office on base.[24][25][8] Chatroom members reportedly talked about and played video games together;[26] according to The New York Times, Teixeira was identified as the chatroom administrator.[8] Reports of the server’s size vary, between about two dozen and about fifty members.[27][26][20]
On 28 February 2023, a Thug Shaker Central member was alleged to have posted dozens of pictures of classified documents to another Discord server.[27] From there, someone else alleges they posted images found on that server to a Discord server associated with the Minecraft video game.[27] After classified documents began appearing on Russian-language Telegram channels, The New York Times first reported on the leak.[4] On 21 April, The New York Times reported that a Discord account with similar characteristics as the online profile of Teixeira had shared written summaries of classified information and likely shared photographs of documents to a Discord server with about 600 members from about February 2022 until about March 2023.[20]
He’s currently serving 15 years. Just the shamelessness of it all.
In other news of the stupid and evil, here’s what your Republican Senate was up to today:
The Senate voted 52-48 on Thursday to overturn a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau rule capping the overdraft fees that banks can charge, in another blow to the beleaguered agency.
The resolution under the Congressional Review Act now heads to the House, where the Financial Services Committee approved a companion bill on a 30-19 vote earlier this month. CRAs both invalidate regulations and preclude future administrations from introducing “substantially similar” proposals.
The vote comes as the consumer bureau, long a target of Republicans’ ire, is facing dramatic cuts by the Trump administration.
Why? Because fuck you.
At some point you just have to have faith all of this is going to come back and bite them in the ass. The problem is there is little evidence of that happening in my lifetime. It feels like my whole life the shitty people just keep failing up.
MAN IS IT NICE TO NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT REPLACING THE AIR CONDITIONING. Especially because we are coming up on the tough summer months both financially and temperature wise. What are you all up to? And if you have not heard already, please keep Sab in your thoughts. They are having a rough go of things.
Sometimes We Focus on the Darkness, Sometimes on the Light
WaterGirl
I knew exactly who Teixeira was. Good for you for calling them out on that. Or are you just saying you “could”, not that you did.
Because if you did, this might be a teachable moment.
Gin & Tonic
Call me Mr. Excitement – just got home from a 2.5 hour presentation on local land use planning regs and how proposed State legislation will usurp much of that authority.
NotMax
Witless whiplash.
//
Wyatt Salamanca
RIP Robert McChesney, media scholar and critic
Robert W. McChesney, a Scholar/Activist Who Fought for Media Democracy
https://fair.org/home/robert-w-mcchesney-a-scholar-activist-who-fought-for-media-democracy/
Robert McChesney, the Great Champion of Journalism and Democracy, Has Died
The academic and activist inspired generations of people to challenge corporate power and support a media reform movement that lives on.
https://www.thenation.com/article/society/robert-mcchesney-obituary
Progressive Movement Mourns Loss of Beloved Media Scholar Robert McChesney
https://www.commondreams.org/news/robert-mcchesney
danielx
Sab? Info please.
Suzanne
They have absolutely negative zero principles. They have will to power and that is all.
gene108
Hopefully Mr. Dixon White can bring himself to seeing other ways he’s being lied to and maybe consider the Democratic party.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEqGes1bRq4&pp=ygULZGl4b24gd2hpdGU%3D
Scout211
It’s so good that the air conditioning didn’t need to be replaced. That’s a big win for you.
Our septic leach field is failing so we have to replace that and it’s not cheap. The joys of country living.
Oh, and somehow I exposed myself to poison oak and I’ve been dealing with that for the past week. More joys of country living.
But on the plus side, I’ve had two neighbors in the past week rant to me about how Trump and Musk are destroying our country. One I was sure was a MAGA and the other one is a libertarian or maybe an independent but never votes Democratic. The surprises of living in a red county among the MAGA of NorCal. People are paying attention.
Urza
Its nice to imagine we get out of this, but Germany and Japan only got better through laws preventing the ideas and education of the children against the evil ways. Its the mistake America made not doing that after the Civil War. If Germany hadn’t been forced to they would have easily reverted, and many old timers never gave up on it and taught their children, its how they still have the AfD.
Even if we win the elections the screaming at erasing their culture will be insane and there still won’t be the political will because if we win everyone will assume that democracy is working and won’t break again because people don’t want to put in the safeguards necessary. Nice people arent willing to take the steps to erase the evil, evil people are perfectly ok to do the things necessary to remove opposition.
Anyone who can think their way through this i’m happy to hear any hopeful plans. Knowing history there’s conspiracy theories and lies that have made their way with varying degrees of strength through 6000 years of recorded history, facts be damned. And most of our politics can be traced back to what was going on shortly before the migration waves from Europe.
RevRick
@danielx: Her grandchild was killed in an automobile accident.
dmsilev
To them, what matters is “who”, not “what”. If one of “their” people does something, it’s fine and good because, well, it’s one of their people. If the same thing is done by a not-their-people person, then it’s bad because not-their-people.
That’s really it.
YY_Sima Qian
Another victim of the ICE:
Firebert
I just had our HVAC system replaced. Only 59 more payments to go.
Martin
@YY_Sima Qian: Trump leaving sexy little candies on Putin’s pillow now.
CaseyL
I wish the whiplash and Orwellian reversals were something as simple as hypocrisy. But I don’t think it is.
They have no values to be hypocritical about: they believe in nothing but their own aggrandizement. If there is a moment’s advantage in trumpeting support for the same today they trumpeted opposition to yesterday, they’ll do so without a second thought – and then reverse themselves again, if that serves their interests.
Some of it is also a raw power display: they can violate laws they demand the rest of us live by, and they want us to be aware of that, to know they are lawless and we can’t do anything about it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Honestly, MAGA in practice is really Putin Russia & Fascist Israel First.
Scott_S
i’m with you John- I’m 69 years old and I fear I won’t live long enough to see these fuckers suffer. Or for this country to get put back together again. Totally and completely fucking depressing.
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
They aren’t being hypocritical though, they’re being altogether intellectually consistent. Some of them truly do believe that they–and those they like–are immune to the law, or should be. It’s, what, Wilhoit’s Law, I think? In groups the law protects but doesn’t bind and out groups it switches 180 degrees for.
For a lot of others, it isn’t hypocrisy because, well, this is all a big game, right? Nothing is real, nothing matters, not really, it’s only a game, and all that matters is winning the game. They don’t–these people, not the first group–care about Signal, or letting Russia read all our shit, or even about Hillary’s e-mails, or any of it.
And we all know it’s a big game. We, Democrats, liberals, we know it’s a big game, too, that nothing really matters–that’s what they think anyway. All that means anything is getting a good punch in for your team. National security, our standing in the world, that’s all horseshit, and everybody knows it’s all horseshit, and it doesn’t mean anything, and we’re only bitching about this because our team is losing, and we’re angry, and we think this is something we can grab onto to land a punch.
And that’s all we’re angry about. We don’t care about any of this shit, any more than they do, and what really pisses them off, what they really do think is hypocrisy on our part is when we say this means something to us. They know it doesn’t. It couldn’t. How could it? It doesn’t mean anything to them, so there’s no way we could truly give a shit.
All it is for these people is a game. Owning the libs, just the same as all we care about is owning the wingnuts. And when we say otherwise, that’s when they really do get pissed, because they know we’re lying, we’re only being sanctimonious, we’re holding ourselves up as morally better than they do because we have–so we tell them–consistent moral beliefs that we follow, but that’s a lie. It has to be, because nobody has consistent moral beliefs.
You know, one thing that sticks out to me is Al Franken in 2017. The people who were the loudest about saying he shouldn’t leave, he didn’t do anything wrong, nobody has a sense of humor any longer, all those were conservatives. And they were pissed at Democrats, at liberals, for insisting he should resign. Because we were all acting like, “Hey, this really means something, there are really standards,” and we were lying. They knew we were lying because we didn’t really care, because there are–in there eyes–no standards. And here we were all high and mighty pretending there were.
It’s all a big game to them, owning the libs, owning the wingnuts. That’s all there is.
SW
I came of age during the first Nixon administration. This really feels like a return to form. Nixon was just as evil as Trump but far more intelligent. Most but not all of the things people are freaking out about today are violations of the post Watergate reforms. The most troubling thing today is the contempt the Supreme Court has for the clear and plain language of The Constitution.
Currants
Focusing on the good news: glad you don’t have the expense of a new system, John.
re: sab, my heart to yours. Cannot imagine that loss of dear ones, especially at this moment. ♥️
Jay
@danielx:
@RevRick:
The estranged Meth Mom, claimed the body because “moron Coroner”
Family has been able to claim back the body.
Now, the family who actually loved her, can say goodbye properly.
Parfigliano
@dmsilev: Its the Republican Party before Country no matter what.
frosty
Air Conditioning. We have window units in this 100-year old house. When we moved in there was a 20,000 BTU 220v A/C in the dining room window that had enough capacity to cool the whole house if only we could get the air to the second floor. Nevertheless, it worked fine for the entire first floor. From the day we moved in until the end of last summer, for over 20 years.
So it appears I’m going to have to do something about A/C on the first floor this year. I’m thinking change the 220v circuit to 120, put a 5,000 BTU unit in that window and another in the front hall and call it a day. I’d look into a split system HVAC but I’ve sunk enough money into this house and we want to move out in a couple of years. Let the next owner deal with it – they’ll have the new siding, roof, porch on my nickel. (And the roof, siding, windows, and doors on the detached garage)
JoyceH
Ossoff needs to understand something. When conservatives talk about elites, they’re not talking about billionaires. Billionaires are awesome masters of the universe, figures to admire. No, when conservatives talk about elites, they’re mean college professors, doctors, scientists and all those genuine experts who make them feel stupid. You know that childish taunt, “You think you’re so smart!” – that’s the conservatives whine about the elites.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
From Cole’s link:
Tim Scott is a brazen fucking liar. Limiting the overdraft fees that banks can charge absolutely helps Americans financially. It wasn’t a “distraction” from inflation, which Trump is exacerbating with his brain dead tariffs, by the way. If it was just a “distraction” the Biden administration wouldn’t have bothered finalizing the rule after the election. They followed through on their promises because they believed in helping people
YY_Sima Qian
Putin may “support” a MAGA hegemony in the Western Hemisphere so that he can reestablish the Russian hegemony in fUSSR & CEE (video through the link.). However, once having consolidated his position in the new Russian imperium, he (& other great powers) will start to undermine the U.S.’ position in the Western Hemisphere, starting from LATAm that will inevitably chafe under Monroe Doctrine 2.0.
MobiusKlein
@JoyceH: Are you sure Ossoff does not know the rhetoric landscape? And maybe he is trying to refocus the legitimate dissatisfaction on the real culprits
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@YY_Sima Qian:
What “deep historical roots” is Putin babbling about?
YY_Sima Qian
Some good news;
YY_Sima Qian
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Cynical formulation to mirror Russian revanchism, & probably somewhat subtle trolling.
Viva BrisVegas
A national election in Australia for the 3rd May has been called by the incumbent Labor Party.
The Labor Party has been in government since May 2022, having replaced a Liberal government which had ruled since 2013.
There are two main parties. The Liberal Party, a formerly centre right party now ruled by it’s far right wing and the Labor Party, a formerly centre left party now firmly centre right.
The two leaders are a contrast in mediocrity.
The Liberal leader Peter Dutton (aka Mr Potatohead, if you ever see a picture of him you will understand) is a Trumpy former Queensland drug squad copper. Which gives him the distinction of having being part of the most corrupt section of the most corrupt police force in the country. He also has the charisma of a potato, but without the integrity. He is currently spruiking nuclear as the electricity of the future. Although when that future might be is anyone’s guess. This is the drill baby drill party, or would be if we had any oil.
The Labor leader is Anthony Albanese (Albo), son of a single mother. He is also a charisma free zone and can be relied on to show as much political courage as a bowl of cold spaghetti. The term of his government has notable for its friendliness to big business, its foot dragging on climate change and its aversion to social justice policies. Still, it’s light years ahead of the other mob.
Complicating that is a push by the Green Party into Labor held seats, and a push by (mostly) female pro-environment independents into Liberal held seats.
This last factor has many people predicting a minority government (one in which the ruling party has less than 50% of the seats). At the moment it’s a coin toss as to who that will be.
Gin & Tonic
@Viva BrisVegas: Labor, not Labour? Weird.
Gin & Tonic
@YY_Sima Qian: Good news indeed, worth reposting downstairs.
Steve LaBonne
@JoyceH: That’s his whole point.
eclare
@frosty:
Window units! I love my window units, I have four. I almost never turn on two, based on where I am. They are so efficient.
I need to clean the filters in the next couple of weeks.
lamh47
Because of course he’s targeting the African American History Museum.!
Trump executive order on Smithsonian targets funding for programs with ‘improper ideology’ https://apnews.com/article/trump-smithsonian-executive-order-improper-ideology-558ebfab722f603e94e02a1a4b06ed4d?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=share
Viva BrisVegas
@Gin & Tonic:
The Australian Labor Party formed in the 1890s. At that time the US was regarded as the centre of labour reform. Things American were in vogue at the time . We have a House of Representatives and a Senate as a result.
As well the labour movement in Australia was heavily influenced by nationalist Irish members, who pushed for greater distinction from the British Labour Party.
Pete Downunder
@Gin & Tonic: According to the ABC (Australia’s PBS): “The use of the spelling ‘labor’ was quite common at an early stage [1890’s] … and is often attributed to a number of American texts of one kind or another that were popular in the labour movement at the time.”
So historical accident. Mostly we use the British spelling of words like colour and favour.
Pete Downunder
@Viva BrisVegas: The Guardian is holding an invertebrate of the year contest ( “We’re asking Guardian readers to nominate their favourite spineless wonders and vote for the global winner – let battle commence!”) I nominate Albo. His failures on climate, environmental protection in Tasmania, gambling advertising and many more surely make him a front runner. Dutton is, of course, unspeakable. Vote Green or Independent.
TS
@Gin & Tonic:
There was a reason which I have long forgotten – BrisVegas may know why. The UK use the English spelling Labour, Australia does not.
(Pete above – way in front of me)
@Viva BrisVegas:
Best description I have seen since he became Labor leader. Has Australia had a PM since Whitlam who actually led change to help the people who vote labor? Seems to me the policies of both parties are pro business and anti labour. The latest tax cuts being another example. No-one votes for Labor to get tax cuts, it will get them zero additional votes and send some to 3rd party voting
mrmoshpotato
Doubtful. If that were so, the orange shitstain would’ve choked on a Big Mac during the Nixon administration.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
FYI, your favorite short will be on TCM this coming Saturday morning.
;)
Martin
@JoyceH: I don’t agree. A lot of GOP *voters* equate coastal elites with bankers, and blame Democrats for defending them after the housing crisis. By extension, bankers pulls in economists, hedge fund guys, and a range of others.
I’m increasingly of the view that the split is less about education and income and more about asset control. Who is buying up the nations farms? Guys like Bill Gates. This both drives up the cost of farmland and also turns him into something of a plantation owner as his tenants are largely sharecroppers. Who is buying up real estate – private equity and hedge funds – which drives up housing prices even in places like Idaho. They create financial instruments that normal people can’t understand but need to pay the consequences of, and then the economists get on TV and tell them how great the economy is. In 2024, even as inflation was cooling, crop prices fell 20%. The benefits of inflation don’t pass down to the workers in the form of higher wages, it’s captured by the equity holders in the middle who can manipulate wholesale and retail prices.
Americans are sitting on $1.6T in car debt and another $1.6T in credit card debt, both of which are held up as necessary gateways to the middle class – a car to get to a job and a degree to get a good job – and even there, your job could be wiped out on the whim of some group of investors who want a higher profit margin. So long before the public can build wealth from those costs, there’s a class of people (mainly bankers) on the other side of those transactions that are cleaning up. When your grocery store chain decides it has a billion dollars burning a hole in its pocket it doesn’t decide to lower prices or pay workers more, it hands that back to investors in the form of a buyback.
That’s the system we currently have. Democrats continue to defend that system. I think if they tried to attack that system, they might get somewhere with these voters. Not republicans don’t attack that system either, but they will at least tell voters they should be angry about it. That was Bernies schtick and it worked pretty well on republicans and independents.
I don’t think they feel the college educated make them feel stupid, I think they feel the college educated believe they are stupid by going on TV and talking about how great the economy is when nobody can afford a house. And I think it’s because the economy of the upper middle class (the college educated) *is* great, and the economy of the working class is garbage.
Quiltingfool
@Firebert: We had to do that in December. Between that, taxes and insurance, we hemorrhaged money in November and December.
Well, they say you can’t take it with you…damn it!
WTFGhost
Alan Cole and Chris Bunch wrote some *fine* sci-fantasy and fantasy worlds, and one of the things they mentioned, in their writing, that hit like a gut-punch, was, you can never get people to turn on their heroes.
And of course, you, John Cole, know some folks who have turned on their human “heroes” because their real heroes were some kinda “honor,” that can’t be embodied in a fallible human, but can be sought after, by a whole bunch of fallible humans, looking out for each other, and holding themselves to reasonable account.
It’s like, dear god, I know, there must be some times a soldier/marine/seal/airman, wants to kill a despicable enemy, and doesn’t – not because the enemy deserves mercy, but because the UCMJ says your ass goes to jail for a hell of a long time, if you lose control. So you don’t.
When I hear Trump pardon someone for that, I feel like he’s pissing on everyone who held their fire, because the UCMJ didn’t allow them commit homicide.
And I feel like you, John, are helping keep honor meaningful. I know an elderly Marine, and when I hear of the military acting poorly, I feel like its the POTUS spitting on him, and, on you, and all the folks who are like you; Hugh Thompsoning you.
I don’t know if it matters, but, insofar as I understand the nature of honor and service, I’ve got my metaphorical umbrella between you and the POTUS, even when he hawks one at me.
(Hm? being spit on is nothing compared to being held down and pissed on, but the green snot *is* gross and causes one to gag. So far, the Secret Service isn’t willing to… assist, so, no worries. Meh. It happens. Plus, he’s a (sexist word for “little bitty kitty cat”) so its fun to watch him try to launch one higher than my umbrella, especially when I tell him an 85 degree angle is just *perfect*….)
YY_Sima Qian
The counter revolutionaries (at least the Project 2025 faction) do have a good understanding of where the levers are:
Also, marginalized minorities are often targeted for being “enemies of the state”, “5th columnists for foreign enemies”, or simply being “drags on the national project toward greatness”. Since at least the Vietnam War, minorities have also disproportionately served in the U.S. military that has so often been instrument for advancing U.S. hegemony.
BellyCat
Trump is so narcissistic that he won’t pardon this Patriot ™ ?!?! //
BellyCat
Aye, there’s the rub, right?
Here’s an idea if Dems ever get back in office, ban Fox “News” from all military sites and all other federally funded entities. (It might really be this easy to save us from ourselves?)
Matt McIrvin
@Martin:
But in 2017, Donald Trump told them the economy was great and they instantly believed it, even though all this was also true then.
That’s the thing that limits the extent to which I can believe that resentment of liberals is about legitimate concerns over economic inequity. If that’s true, why in January 2017 did these people go literally overnight from believing the economy was broken to believing it was in great shape? Why, in 2024, did they have such nostalgia for the economy of 2019? The economy of 2019 was terrible by the same metrics of long-term structural inequality that the Bernie movement emphasizes.
Right now, it seems like the spell is breaking for some of them–but Trump’s approval floor is high enough that even that is this game of inches.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
They feel college makes people liberals and liberalism makes people moral. And they don’t like realizing how immoral they are.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I just feel like the grading on a curve makes progress impossible. The team that is for making things a bit better gets possibly deserved flak for not wanting to make it better enough, but somehow, the team that is for burning everything down and turning the country into a totalitarian hellscape gets a pass on this. And it’s supposed to be our side’s fault, somehow, for not being good enough. I don’t see the way past it. Why don’t they have to be good enough?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Because the people who are major influencers on our side share a common socioeconomic and demographic identity with the people in their side and benefit from the other side’s policies, regardless of ideology.
If your getting your viewpoints from media or social media, far more likely than not, your listening to middle to upper class college educated white people, or their children. They’re not really going to be a threat to the only political party that truly protects their status.
Papa Boyle
No wonder Witkoff was made to wait hours in the Kremlin lobby – Putin was reading US classified intel over Witkoff’s shoulder
WeimarGerman
Question on :
How can this preclude a future law? Can’t a future Congress just pass a new law?
lurker
@WeimarGerman: precludes the regulation – regulations are put forth by the executive. congress can still pass a new law, but the exec/administration cannot use the existing law to create a similar regulation that congress rejected under that same existing law
rikyrah
@RevRick:
thank you for telling us. I didn’t know. oh sab :(