Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

I really should read my own blog.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Bark louder, little dog.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

You are here: Home / Nature & Respite / Birdwatching / Greater or Lesser (Open Thread)

Greater or Lesser (Open Thread)

by | 138 Comments

This post is in: , ,

Good morning, such as it is. Actually, it’s a beautiful morning here in Northwest Central Florida — 59 F and partly cloudy with a projected high in the low 80s. But there’s still that nagging fascism problem, and the sundowning narcissist with his tiny hand on the economy’s kill switch.

A more pleasant topic: the mister saw an unfamiliar bird foraging around in the swamp from a friend’s place down the road last week. Yesterday, it graced us with its presence. I wasn’t sure if it was a Greater or Lesser Yellowlegs so asked for help with ID on Bluesky.

Here’s the same bird on the move.

[image or embed]

— Betty Cracker of Florida (@bettycrackerfl.bsky.social) April 9, 2025 at 6:03 PM

The consensus from those who chimed in is it’s a Greater. Until this week, I’d never seen either variation of that species around here, so that’s cool, seeing a new bird.

I can’t with The Horrors just yet — it’s too nice a morning. Maybe later. But y’all feel free to talk about anything in this open thread.

ETA: Here’s a still pic of the same bird.

Speckled gray wading bird in shallow water. It has black-and-white patterned wings, a white underbelly and a long black beak.

Reader Interactions

138Comments

  2. 2.

    lowtechcyclist

    The consensus of the people who’ve looked at the overall effects of the revised tariffs is that they aren’t an improvement.  China, Canada, and Mexico are our three biggest trading partners, so we’re doing a 125% (IIRC) tariff on China, and 25% each on Canada and Mexico.  Knocking the tariffs on the rest of the world down to 10% apparently still leaves us where we were two days ago in terms of the overall economic effect, just with the burdens shifted around a bit.

    Wonder what the markets will do today – whether investors will realize that they went on a buying spree yesterday on account of meaningless bullshit.

  4. 4.

    Betty Cracker

    @lowtechcyclist: Last time I looked at futures, it looks like the markets will wake up in a pool of puke next to the empty tequila bottle and coke baggie. But who knows? Some folks made a shit-ton of money yesterday. The corruption is in the open now.

  6. 6.

    Mustang Bobby

    Trump said, “No other president would have done what I did.  None of them.”  Yeah, that’s because none of them were certifiably stupid.

    On another note, today is the 100th anniversary of the publication of “The Great Gatsby,” a story that is all the more relevant today than any other time in my long life.

    “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

  7. 7.

    Albatrossity

    Shorebirds are hard! I just added a reply on BlueSky as well, with a figure from a shorebird field guide that shows some of the other ways (besides bill/head ratio) to differentiate between these two species.

  8. 8.

    Baud

    Reddit day traders are unhappy.  They are starting to understand that the game is rigged against the little investor.

  10. 10.

    Suzanne

    Man, I really wish I was a smart enough person to engage in insider trading.

    Though, is it insider trading if it’s posted right out there on social media by the goddamn President?! Like, what the fucking fuck.

  11. 11.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    It’s not really insider trading. Rather market manipulation.

    Imagine if a cooperate CEO said the company is about to go bankrupt, the shares rank, he buys them at a low price, and then reveal the profits are through the roof. That’s essentially what’s going on.

    Of course, a regular CEO would be held accountable for that blatantly illegal action. No way Trump can be.

    ETA: My analogy isn’t the best since the CEO had insider information on the true financial picture of his company. I’m not sure Trump knows what he’s going to do next.

  14. 14.

    WereBear

    @Ben Cisco: As long as they don’t do medleys.

    The bane of my childhood was sitting through all the dancing and singing so they would get to the comedy.

    Things have improved, ya ask me.

  15. 15.

    Librettist

    I think my favorite horseshoe lie was that Trump would continue Biden’s M&A anti-trust policies.

    That was a funny one.

  16. 16.

    Emily68

    Many years ago I leafed through a spoof of a bird ID book. It included 5 different gradations of yellowlegs, from Greatest to Least, with 3 others in between.

  17. 17.

    WereBear

    @Mustang Bobby:

    “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

     
    It occurred to me in high school, before I got out of the South… all the white people I knew who were in the grip of the Confederacy felt incredible pressure to duplicate their parent’s lives.

    And repeating their mistakes, seemed to me.

  18. 18.

    Chip Daniels

    For anyone interested, I found this account on Bluesky:

    bsky.app/profile/bethwithcats.bsky.social

     

    She’s listing the emails and names of ICE officials around the country, so interested citizens can contact them and express their outrage.

    I’ve been able to track a few to their Linkedin pages and message them.

  22. 22.

    Jeffg166

    From Krugman today:

    Let me make four points about Trump’s post-pause tariff regime.

    1. Even the post-pause tariff rates represent a huge protectionist shock

    2. Destructive uncertainty about future policy has increased

    3. We’re still at risk of a major financial crisis

    4. The world now knows that Trump is weak as well as erratic

  24. 24.

    satby

    Sitting in the Tampa airport waiting for my flight to board. It’s been a 4 day asthma binge thanks to all the lovely flowers and dust from endless construction. I’d forgotten how unpleasant travel by air was. Can’t wait to be home.

    What’d I miss? /s

  26. 26.

    sentient ai from the future

    @lowtechcyclist: a couple days ago I think gs issued a memo saying that markets would likely see squeeze effects and those should be used as selling opportunities.

    I think the parties buying in the second half of the day yesterday are the proverbial “bigger fools” and are likely retail degens, not investment houses.

  27. 27.

    Another Scott

    Speaking of The Horrors, RollCall on the adventures in the House and Senate for the monsters to try to pass a plan for the reconciliation bill.

    Key House GOP holdouts including Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris of Maryland and caucus members Chip Roy of Texas, Andy Biggs of Arizona and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, as well as Tennessee’s Tim Burchett — who’s not a Freedom Caucus member — earlier huddled with Thune in his office. Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, R-Wyo., and Senate Finance Chairman Michael D. Crapo, R-Idaho, were also in attendance.

    Crapo’s panel has jurisdiction over Medicaid and tax cuts, two key areas of contention. The House budget instructions contain less room for tax cuts while demanding at least $1.5 trillion in 10-year spending cuts. If $2 trillion in cuts are achieved, the tax-cut package can grow. Either way, centrists fear such big numbers could gut Medicaid, the joint federal-state health care program for lower-income households.

    “We all agree and we’re all on the same page that we need to make significant cuts in spending,” Barrasso said after the meeting, though he said the group hadn’t settled on a specific dollar figure.

    Thune and his team entered the conversation to try to break a logjam that threatened to stall President Donald Trump’s legislative agenda until after the two-week April recess.

    House GOP leaders struggled all day Wednesday with a votes deficit as they faced an uphill climb to adopt the Senate’s changes that numerous GOP holdouts argued could end up increasing the fiscal deficit by trillions of dollars.

    “We’re still working out some of the differences, but at the end of the day math is math,” Roy said after the meeting with Senate leaders. “We’ll figure out what we’re going to do on the budget tonight.”

    Harris wouldn’t comment on a private meeting, though he allowed, “I’m feeling better.”

    Trump and his team have been pushing hard, and Wednesday’s arm-twisting continued right up until the scheduled vote on the revised budget resolution during a roughly 6 p.m. vote series.

    After the Senate meeting concluded, GOP leaders held open a separate vote in the 6 p.m. series while Johnson and his leadership team holed up in a room off the floor with more than a dozen holdouts. House Budget Chairman Jodey C. Arrington, R-Texas, who has concerns with the Senate changes but has been willing to move the process towards the eventual reconciliation bill, was also in the meeting.

    Rep. Lloyd K. Smucker, R-Pa., who helped negotiate the sliding-scale provision that got House conservatives on board with that chamber’s original budget blueprint, said it was “plausible” the House can adopt the budget on Thursday. He said an amendment being discussed would add a similar provision tying the Senate’s tax package to the size of its spending cuts.

    “We need enforceable cuts similar to what we have in the House,” Smucker said. “We’re just looking for any mechanism that would ensure that the final reconciliation bill is going to have the spending cuts in it. So there are several ways to do that that are being discussed.”

    Rule vote squeaker

    In a key initial test of support, the rule for floor debate was adopted after Rules Committee members Roy and South Carolina Rep. Ralph Norman said they would vote for it to move the process forward.

    Still, Republican leaders saw the maximum three defections they could afford on the rule, which was adopted on a 216-215 squeaker. GOP Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Victoria Spartz of Indiana and Michael R. Turner of Ohio voted “no.”

    Massie and Spartz have previously made their concerns known with the underlying budget. But Turner’s vote was in protest over the inclusion of a provision in the rule blocking lawmakers from offering a measure that would overturn Trump’s sweeping tariffs announced April 2. He said he’ll support the budget resolution itself.

    But the budget resolution — key to passage of a filibuster-proof reconciliation bill to enact much of Trump’s agenda — remained on shaky ground.

    “I will not support this on the floor,” Norman said at the Rules meeting Wednesday morning. “It doesn’t make financial sense.”

    Roy said he could not vote for a budget based on verbal assurances from senators that they intend to cut much more than their budget plan requires.

    Even if Senate assurances of $1 trillion in cuts — which Trump has also promised — ring true, Roy explained to his colleagues on Rules that the math still leads to trillions of dollars in deficits. He said the tax package was shaping up to cost over $5 trillion, so taking the Senate’s theoretical higher cuts number would still add more than $4 trillion to the debt.

    “Get an eraser and a pencil, and put it out on paper and come show me — and that message from me goes to the White House, to my Senate Republican colleagues and to the leadership on this side of the aisle,” Roy said. “Come show me the math.”

    Asked on his way into Thune’s office what could get him on board, Burchett replied: “A lot of cuts.”

    (Emphasis added.)

    “Could” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.

    When Roy is out arguing that “math is math”, it shows how far out from reality these monsters are.

    My expectation is that they will pass something. They know they are unlikely to get this chance again. Everyone, as usual, is pushing their maximalist positions until the last moment. On the one hand, they’ll argue “math is math”, while on the other ignoring what these $1-2T cuts actually mean to the country and real people that they’re supposed to represent. All to bow down and serve 47 in the hope that he can drag them across the finish line ahead of any challenger in the next election…

    Democrats will stay strong, but we’re still in the minority. We cannot start to fix this until we’re back in the majority. All of our efforts should be focused on winning every possible seat and that includes (but is not limited to) hanging this abomination on every GQPer everywhere.

    Hang in there, everyone.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  28. 28.

    Librettist

    @Baud:

    He re-opened review of Nippon Steel buying U.S. Steel, and Bondi’s crew approved the Capital One-Discover deal.

  30. 30.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Mustang Bobby:

    They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made

  33. 33.

    schrodingers_cat

    OT Art supply acquisition update: I have already ordered British made gouache set from Winsor and Newton, their introductory Designer Gouache set of 10 and the Swiss made Caran’ d ache set of Studio Gouache which is 15 pans plus white both should be arriving next week. I got great deals on both.

    My favorite watercolor paper is made in France and it is already pretty pricy. I hope that doesn’t become even pricier.

    To all trade hating idiots,  a hearty fuck you

    And all the US tankies railing against billionaires and capitalism you have no idea what it is to live with ration cards and true scarcity. None. You are going to miss Sleepy Joe’s full employment economy if you don’t already.

  34. 34.

    prostratedragon

    Thoughts and curses.

    Duffy: “The president is talking about shower heads. You don’t have enough water that can come through your shower heads because of Biden’s regulations. So fixing small things like that — hopefully he’s gonna get the dishwashers. Wouldn’t it be great if dishwashers worked again?”

  36. 36.

    snoey

    @Suzanne: That was happy talk in the morning and nobody with any brains traded on it.

    Some people got the tip on the reversal minutes before it happened and made a killing on options.

  37. 37.

    Wanderer

    Good morning everyone.  Weather in my area is bright sun but cold. Hoping some better temperatures arrive soon…. there is gardening to be done.

  38. 38.

    BlueGuitarist

    SpaceX gets $5.9 billion in new DOD contracts – the grift, waste, fraud, and abuse goes on

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    WSJ has pretty good coverage of the trade war madness if you ignore the editorial page. Here’s the nascent extortion scheme we all saw coming:

    Trump Says He Will Consider Exempting Some U.S. Companies From Tariffs

    President Trump said Wednesday that he’s considering granting some U.S. companies an exemption from his tariff program. “There are some that have been hard,” Trump told reporters when asked about companies requesting exemptions. “There are some that, by the nature of the company, get hit a little bit harder. We’ll take a look at that.”

    Translation: Call me “sir,” and give me money.

  45. 45.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @satby: bet it was more fun than being stuck in the hospital for a week. 😉

    but I just got word. I’m getting kicked out today so yay!

  47. 47.

    Bupalos

    @lowtechcyclist: I agree the persisting  tariffs are a BFD and I think the euphoria may wear off very quickly. But the fact that the weird formula came off is not meaningless. It suggests to some that Trump can be controlled like in the first term. That he won’t be allowed to tank the market.

    I think that mostly abstracts from deeper issues of trust in America internationally that have arisen. But it does change the fear/greed calculus.

  48. 48.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Wonder what the markets will do today – whether investors will realize that they went on a buying spree yesterday on account of meaningless bullshit.

    Oh to be young and gambling with people’s money in the Springtime!

  49. 49.

    Jeffro

    the House GOP really is kind of amazing…I had no idea the taste of boots could be so addictive to some!

  55. 55.

    Phylllis

    @WereBear: It’s the constriction of conformity. So many people dying by inches because they can’t see a way to break free and live an authentic life.

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    anyway, in good news: the Fro household is happy to report that the first (hopefully of many) bluebird eggs have been spotted in one of our bluebird boxes!

    (Mrs. Fro “raises” several broods a year, so between this news and the prospect of hummingbirds coming in a week or two, we’re very excited!)

  57. 57.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @jame: So if you pulled cash out of the market in anticipation of Trump’s tariffs and you have it parked in various “normal” banking accounts while you figure out how to re-invest elsewhere, there now added pressure to execute on plans.

    I’m just making that up as I am the world’s worst money person, but seems logical.

  63. 63.

    prostratedragon

    NYT article identifies the data fields on all of us that DOGE is trying to access and aggregate to one database. Gift link at the post, or here’s an archive.ph link.

    “The categories of information shown here are drawn from 23 data systems holding personal information about the public across eight agencies … In all, The New York Times identified more than 300 separate fields of data about people who live in the U.S. contained in these data systems.”

  68. 68.

    prostratedragon

    @Gin & Tonic:  Remember Avery Burns ordering Smithers to catch an autogyro to Siam to do some business for him? I think these guys commonly are BIGLY divorced from life as we live it. See also some goon’s China trade policy.

  70. 70.

    Professor Bigfoot

    @WereBear: definitely does not apply to Black people in the south. The last thing we wanted to do was to repeat our parent’s lives all the way back to Jim Crow.

    But then again as I think of it, southern whites would love to see Jim Crow back again, wouldn’t they?

  71. 71.

    Jackie

    MSNBC is reporting Johnson says he has the votes to pass the compromise budget resolution bill.

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: You have such a great way with words, that made me laugh. This looks like an “opposite” pump and dump, where they drive the price of stocks way down, then buy the dip and drive the prices back up. Trump was openly telling people on his shitty platform that it was a good time to buy! That was two hours before he did the 90 day pause. Hubby & I were talking about buying some in our portfolio, but we didn’t. There will be other chances to do that, I’m sure.

  80. 80.

    Soprano2

    @prostratedragon: They’re so stupid, those aren’t Biden’s regs they’ve been around for a long time. There are ways to mitigate those problems, my dishwasher and shower head work just fine.

  82. 82.

    Soprano2

    @WereBear: Hey, good to see you. I wanted to tell you I’m slowly making my way through your book, and it’s helping me. I use the “Fist of Friendship” now, and they seem to like it. I figured out why it took so long for them to start getting along – Half Pint is more like a Gamma cat, and Lewis is definitely an Alpha cat. Now they have a morning thing where they chase each other around the house. There isn’t much hissing or growling anymore, so I guess that’s progress!

  84. 84.

    prostratedragon

    Candle in the darkness:

    Over 280 alumni of University of Michigan Law School (with signatories still incoming), in class years ranging from the 1970s to the 2020s, from all over the US and all corners of the legal profession, stand up for the values and legacy of diversity, equity, and inclusion at Michigan. Our letter:

  88. 88.

    prostratedragon

    @Soprano2:  GHWB, someone said. Checks with my sense of how long they’ve been around. I can vary my shower pressure, and the higher settings hurt after a minute or two. Guess they want that old Birmingham experience.

  89. 89.

    prostratedragon

    @jonas:  “Aeromail!” Knew there was at least one more howler in there, which I couldn’t remember.

     

    @jonas:

    Oh wait, “Prussia!” Two more.

  90. 90.

    Belafon

    @prostratedragon: The entire party is united by the fact that they have grievances. They are different things, and they conflict with each other, but that’s all the party has become.

  91. 91.

    Hoodie

    @Another Scott: The level of delusion in these guys is breathtaking, but it’s always been clear that these are nothing but a bunch of car dealers and Butler building preachers who are in so far over their heads they’d likely implode from the pressure of the water above them.   We may be on the brink of a financial crisis that is related to the structural problems in providing liquidity to the markets but triggered by Trump’s erratic behavior (Krugman wrote about this yesterday before the pause but it still applies), but these dipshits are arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of an imaginary pin to give their donors tax cuts that may never materialize if their assets melt down into a pile of goo.    Their number one goal should be to take the matches away from the toddler.

  92. 92.

    Steve in the ATL

    Possibly relevant to several of you: birdwatching is a great cover for spies.  Gives you a reason to be always looking around and using binoculars.  Pro tip: know a little bit about birds so as not to blow your cover if someone asks questions.

  94. 94.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Mustang Bobby: Wesley Lowery, a Pulitzer Prize winner journalist, has a Substack article out this week discussing the interpretation of the book by professor Carlyle V. Thompson – that Gatsby was a black man passing as white.  Thompson started asking his Intro Lit students in the late 1990s to find descriptions of Gatsby – the main one being that Gatsby has a tan.  It’s fascinating .

  99. 99.

    New Deal democrat

    FWIW, this is from the former “Bond King,” Bill Gross, this morning:

     nitter.poast.org/real_bill_gross/status/1910050319897346552#m

    “I ask you, would you want to own highly volatile US stocks whose price depends on whether POTUS had a good night’s sleep and woke up the next morning to reverse yesterday’s policies.”

    As an aside, I have learned with Bill Gross that if he is encouraging you to sell, it is because he wants to *buy.*

    But in this case, regardless of his trading position, he is stating a fundamental truth. Why would you want to own any financial assets tied to a country ruled for the foreseeable future by a mad king?

    And why would you want to try to trade with it? I think the main effect of his temporary reversal is to give other countries time to solidify new trading relationships with each other to the exclusion of the US. T—p almost certainly will go back to touching the hot stove again, because he just can’t help himself. The only question is whether it will be next year, or this afternoon.

    Also, reiterating what others have said, Wall Street discovered that lowering average tariffs to just *below* Smoot-Halwey levels isn’t quite the relief it first appeared. And the tape yesterday showed that there was almost certainly huge insider trading based on knowledge of T—-p’s surrender, which massively undercuts trust in the markets.

  100. 100.

    frosty

    My help for ID is Merlin, not Bluesky etc.. Take a picture, paste it into Photo ID. Most of the time (75%?) I get an ID I can believe, Last week it was an unknown hawk sitting on a branch. Merlin told me it was a juvie Bald Eagle.

    Actually, that’s my second help. The first is to go on bird walks with people who know what they’re looking at. Not always available but it definitely helps with warblers, ducks, and shorebirds. New Jersey Audubon’s “Harlequin Romance” was great!

  101. 101.

    Steve in the ATL

    @princess leia: sounds a mission for our Balloon Juice writers!

    ”excuse me, sir—this is a restricted area.  You need to leave now”, said the MP, unsnapping his holster.

    “I am so sorry, young man.  I was just trying to get a look at this, um…red…um…bird.”

    ”ok, but please move along now.”

    Once the MP had cleared the area, Albatrossity spoke quietly into his lapel microphone. “Albatrossity to Betty Cracker Actual, the eagle has landed.  I repeat, the eagle has landed!”

  103. 103.

    BlueGuitarist

    Found this interesting as a reminder to keep focus on the kleptocracy as well as the fascism and kakistocracy. What do y’all think of this?

    On the stupidity of calling Trump’s protection racket tariffs
    Let’s say your job is writing about chess. You’ve seen The Queen’s Gambit at least twice, so you’re considered an expert.
    This     guy sits down at the table, flips over the board, and says to his competitor, “How about you hand me your wallet or my friend here busts up your kneecaps?”
    The article     you write is about how this guy is literally the worst chess player you have ever seen, and you’re not sure he even understands the rules.
    jwz.org/blog/2025/04/the-stupidity-of-tariffs/

  104. 104.

    JML

    There’s all of this minor consumer impact stuff that the Current Occupant and his band of grifters jump on that the Biden administration was doing that only people who reflexively hate change and presume that everything was better back in the day care about, like energy efficiency in appliances or lightbulbs. Most people wouldn’t even really notice and would adapt quickly and painlessly to these fairly small shifts (that also have significant impact in the aggregate for the environment) if not for the Grievance Only Party yammering about them as if it’s going to wreck your house and destroy your finances to rile up their base.

    they did more damage to people’s retirements and finances in a week with their tariff flirtations, but have managed to convince their base that energy-efficient dishwashers are the real problem. It’s unbelievable how far people will go to avoid having to change their allegiance or alter their beliefs.

    Hells bells, today’s dishwashers are great. sure, maybe it takes longer for some of them, but they’re also much much quieter. and they use a lot less water. energy efficiency is great! how is it that a chunk of people have made it the enemy? this is like the old canard that “the democrats are coming to take your guns!”; they’ve convinced people that they’re coming for our dishwashers now, apparently…

  105. 105.

    catclub

    @Professor Bigfoot: There are states where the kids tend to move away, and states where the kids tend to stay.  Once they move away they are less likely to recreate their parents’ lives.  Also the great migration.

  106. 106.

    frosty

    @Another Scott: ​
     Do you or anyone else know if Smucker is doing something to make things better or is he fanning the flames? I can’t tell but if I knew more I could make that the subject of my next call.

  107. 107.

    Steve in the ATL

    @JML:
     

    they’re coming for our dishwashers now, apparently…

    Indeed. I’ve had to resort to using paper plates since they deported Consuela to an El Salvadoran prison.

  111. 111.

    catclub

    @JML: they’ve convinced people that they’re coming for our dishwashers now, apparently…

     

    also gas stoves, the corvair, rotting teeth (flouride), sewage outfalls by the beaches….

  113. 113.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Jeffg166:

    4. The world now knows that Trump is weak as well as erratic

    Hasn’t the world always known this?  The world’s take on the Orange Fart Cloud’s not the issue, it was the 77m or so ‘Murkins who don’t know.

  114. 114.

    Hoodie

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: The issue for the world is that the entire US political structure is erratic, not just Trump.   Congress and/or the courts could shut this crap down in a NY minute but seem unable to do so.  Even though he was erratic as hell, Trump was somewhat constrained in his first term.   The US system has features that could deal with an erratic president, but they’ve broken down.  The guardrails eventually break down if you continually drive a bulldozer into them.

  119. 119.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Hoodie: The corpse of the First American Republic is beginning to smell bad. Though no institutional arrangements can save a country whose population includes 35% committed fascists and another 15% who are fascist-curious or simply don’t care.

  127. 127.

    TurnItOffAndOnAgain

    @Cheryl from Maryland: Gatsby was one of those old stories I could never get into when they made us read it for class. Even as a kid, before I was properly woke, I didn’t see anything particularly interesting about the ostensible class issues inherent to an insular cadre of rich people.

    This take adds so many gorgeous and terrible layers to it, my god. I love it. I want a film adaptation of this yesterday.

  128. 128.

    A Ghost to Most

    The wife and I watched a fox colored like a collie wander all around the yard with something orange and round in its’ mouth. Reminded us of when we saw the fox with a pack of hot dogs in its’ mouth on Oh-my-god Road.

  130. 130.

    Another Scott

    @frosty: Sorry, I know nothing more than what’s in that story.

    I see (via TheHill.com) that the House passed it today, 216:214.  A grand and glorious overwhelming victory for MAGA, etc., etc.

    [ groucho-roll-eyes.gif ]

    There are still friction points along the way, as I understand it, so we have to keep fighting.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  131. 131.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Albatrossity: when Pollyanna had some acreage up near Pawnee grasslands, we spotted a water bird near his pond. We walked over there, saw two eggs in a small ground depression.
    We didn’t see it again, and when a forest ranger gave us 4 suggestions of what it might be, none of them seemed to match. alas, this was before we had cell phones w cameras, and i didn’t think to sketch it.

    The curiosity and mystery is a tiny reverberant memory flicking its feathers at me in a corner of my mind.

  133. 133.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Professor Bigfoot: keep getting better. So glad you get to go home.

    A friend and I discussed hospital stays as sort of a 5 star hotel experience, only , you’re sick/ need care. I was pretty grateful I could order my meals, and got help I needed; if they’d sent me home from “outpatient surgery” I would have been up a creek those first few days.

  134. 134.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Chip Daniels: interesting tactic, to contact your local ice officials. Can one make a meaningful difference by doing this?

    Curious for some follow up reports on this..

  135. 135.

    ljdramone

    @Albatrossity: I’ve only ever been able to tell the two Yellowlegs apart by seeing a Greater and Lesser standing near each other in a flock of shorebirds.

  136. 136.

    Miss Bianca

    @NotMax: Um…you didn’t read all the way to the end and discover that “Jay Gatsby” started life as Jimmy Gatz?

  138. 138.

    pluky

    @prostratedragon: In the article, note is made of Gatsby’s admission that his real surname is Ganz, implying his father could be Jewish. So the conclusion reached was that his mother was at least partly of African descent. If Gatsby was light enough to pass, then of course the majority of his ancestry would be European, but the ‘one drop rule’ would have made that moot.

Comments are closed.