Today is butter lamb construction day! The sticks of butter that contain this year’s lamb have been shifted from the freezer to the fridge. When they reach the correct level of chill, I’ll get started.
Is anyone doing a No Kings protest today? After I cook breakfast and make the lamb, I plan to swing by one in a nearby town for at least a few minutes. Wish I could stay for the duration, but I’ve got a lot going on today.
I have a No Kings bumper sticker on my car. (The full text is: No Kings in America since 1776.) The other day, I dropped the rattletrap Jeep off for service. While waiting in the garage bay, a fellow customer who was a large MAGA dude asked me what my sticker meant. I replied that it means I’m in favor of democracy and against monarchy.
I could tell the answer dissatisfied him because he couldn’t very well argue with that. I think he wanted me to say it means FUCK TRUMP, which it does, so he could defend his orange idol.
Anyhoo, open thread. Back later with the butter lamb!
Baud
Down with kings! Up with butter lambs!
Black Onion
I find great satisfaction in your answer that dissatisfied your fellow customer.
brantl
A lot of people are saying we have to do a side run around these people so that they can recognize, without hostility, that they’re wrong. Those people aren’t wrong who were saying that, but I don’t know how to do that. I’m gonna have to learn. I guess my in-laws are Republicans and there you know they thought Joe Biden was the apocalypse because of Fox News and other idiots. One of the few things I say to them is there was 775,000 sorry 775 million reasons not to believe Fox News. I’ve been repeating that to I’m on a slow loop mostly to my wife who also believes a bunch of this bullshit, but it’s hard. It’s really hard. I have a low tolerance for deliberate ignorance.
Baud
I like the way you handled that, BC. These people live for grievance and confrontation.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker:
There’s an art form to how to express your take that Trump is a toxic waste-dump in a form that communicates the meaning clearly without leaving a MAGA-cultist any plausible opening to counter and pick a fight with you in public. Yours was a specimen example of the art.
different-church-lady
Well, it was a good run…
Central Planning
I unintentionally walked by trump tower in nyc yesterday. The second I realized I was in front of it I threw up my middle finger and kept on walking. Lots of people taking pictures there. I wonder if they got me.
If I stop posting here it’s because I have been classified as a Venezuelan terrorist and sent to a terrorist holding cell in El Salvador. Resist!
NotMax
Weekend watch.
“Hot damn, I did it! Oh crap … now what?”
MagdaInBlack
The House Finch couple are back courting on my balcony railing. I’m pretty happy to be part of their morning rounds. I hope she is as impressed with his singing as I.
Dog Mom
Good Morning! I am looking forward to see your lamb this year – One of these years I hope to make one, but because I live near enough to Buffalo that Wegmans has them in stock. However, new this year I bought a butter bunny . . . cute, but lacking . . . hmm, character? personality? the Betty Cracker touch!
New Deal democrat
It looks like even some of the GOP Justices on the Supreme Court have Had It with T—-p’s midnight deportations.
Per Charles Geidner:
https://bsky.app/profile/lawdorknews.bsky.social
”SCOTUS orders the government not to remove anyone from the United States under Trump’s Alien Enemies Act proclamation who is a part of the potential class in the Northern District of Texas case until further order of the court. Only Thomas and Alito note their dissent.”
There are several extraordinary things about this order, beginning with the fact that it was issued in the middle of the night, before any opposition papers were filed, and without waiting for the dissenters to write an opinion. Also that it took effect even though the matter was before the (T—-py) appellate court, and remains in effect even if there were to be an adverse decision from that court (and there was).
Reading the tea leaves, it appears the majority believe T—-p is attempting an end around their previous 9-0 decision, and they are having None Of It.
SiubhanDuinne
I can hardly wait to see the 2025 butter lamb. I think I’ve saved the photos of every one you’ve posted over the years (though accessing them might be problematic as I have thousands of photos and very little organisation). I love the tradition, and I love that you’ve made it yours.
ETA: Just occurred to me that I could simply look up the dates of Easter over the years and find photos posted on near-adjacent days!
🧈🐑
zhena gogolia
@Black Onion: I love it!
tobie
I’ve been thinking about why so many Americans are exhausted with democracy and attracted to supposed strongmen who can make things happen with a snap of the fingers, and it occurred to me that this has been the Republican plan all along. Obstruct, obstruct, obstruct, so nothing gets done or at most half measures. Newt Gingrich started this and it ripened into a full-on assault on democratic and Democratic governance by Mitch McConnell once Obama was elected.
This interview crystallized the situation for me.
They Call Me Noni
@New Deal democrat: We are in interesting times. Anxious to see the reaction when this latest order is ignored. Rubber, meet road.
Harrison Wesley
Isn’t it about time for Thomas and Alito to go on a road trip to El Salvador?
tobie
@New Deal democrat: Thanks for the summary of what happened in the wee-hours of the morning. So glad SCOTUS preempted the 5th Circuit. 7-2 is about as much as we can expect from this court. Thomas and Alito are lost causes.
AM in NC
Your perfectly passive aggressive response to the MAGA chud is what I aspire to in the moment. I have a bumper magnet that says “Have the Day You Voted For!” with rainbows and stars.
I’ll be protesting in Durham, NC today wit a sign that says:
“Just a regular mom fighting Republican fascism” on one side, and “GOP or USA: Which side are you on?”, with a hammer and sickle inside the “O” of “GOP”. I will be carrying an American flag with my sign.
Next time I am going to replace the word “fascism” with “tyranny”. I debate whether to be explicitly partisan in my critique, but I think it is important to tie MAGA/Trump to the Republican Party writ large. It was REPUBLICANS who got us here – the financial predation; the destruction of media; the greed and selfishness; the white Christianist nationalism; the disregard for the Constitution and legal norms – it IS the GOP and has been for decades.
Should be beautiful weather.
Ohio Mom
@AM in NC: I always take my American flag too.
New Deal democrat
@tobie: Geidner noted that there may have been 1 or 2 other Justices who were opposed to the Order, but didn’t join the dissent. But we know there were at least 5 Justices in favor of the Order.
It certainly looked like T—-p was trying to create “facts on the ground” similar to the deportation to El Salvador last month, this time by starting the deportation in a single (T—-py) judge district in Texas, and then through a T—-py panel hearing emergency appeals in the Circuit court.
It’s hard not to see this Order as an absolute refusal to let such “facts on the ground” be created.
NotMax
Sign suggestion.
NEW DEAL YES
NEW STEAL NO
.
AM in NC
@Ohio Mom: Yep. It was my mom who drove this point home to me: “I won’t let them take the flag from me.” I miss her every day, but the one small mercy is that she didn’t live to see the 2024 election.
Patriotism is what we make it.
tobie
@New Deal democrat: Agree. These small victories count, even if they’re temporary and are based on 5-4 votes. Due process is the principle we have to defend with all our voices. It’s the foundation on which American democracy rests.
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all!
Waiting to see the results, BettyC!
narya
Great response, BC! And especially because it clearly discomfited him–sooooo close to getting it, but yet so very far away.
This is a weekend for Chores with a capital I hate doing these things. But I know if I get some of the tedious tasks out of the way, prep for next week’s beer party will be easier.
Suzanne
Oooooh, I will be very excited to see this year’s butter lamb!
narya
ALSO! This weekend’s Penzey’s sale of 25% off everything INCLUDES saffron and vanilla (usually they’re excluded). I’m gonna stock up on vanilla, despite having a large unopened bottle, and maybe saffron, too, even though I only use it in paella.
RevRick
@brantl:
@Baud:
I find that the best way to deal with this is to avoid name-calling and cursing and instead ask simple questions (and not of the how-the hell-could-you-believe-that variety?).
Questions are gently subversive. They are also humanizing, especially when they are based in a desire to understand.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@RevRick:
I think we do a bad job knowing when to be confrontational and when to be subtle. Myself included.
Chief Oshkosh
Man will never be free until the last MAGAt is suckered with the enticements of the last prosperity gospel minister.
Professor Bigfoot
@RevRick: Rev, I admire the heck out of you.
I wish you all success in your “subversion.”
May many more join you on that quest.
Most of all, thank you for reminding me that there are a lot of white Christians who aren’t neo-Confederate nationalist swine.
Nukular Biskits
@RevRick:
I don’t disagree and there is a lot of truth in the old proverb about attracting more flies with honey than with vinegar.
Having said that, like @brantl, I have a very limited tolerance for belligerent ignorance and no interest in educating someone who isn’t interested in changing their mind. As I told a friend who once chided me for calling someone else ignorant, attempting to reach such people is a waste of time and it’s just more efficient to call them ignorant and move on. Admittedly, that’s no way to bring folks over, yada, yada, but life is short.
As I’ve mentioned a couple of times here, and at risk of doom-posting, my faith in the basic goodness of people was crippled last November. I’m still trying to reconcile how so many can claim to be good while supporting a regime that actively engages in words and deeds directly opposed to their supposed “sincerely-held convictions”.
If a Trump supporter appears to be genuinely interested in moving back into the light, so to speak, I’ll do my best to welcome them, clumsily, probably. But the true believers who are still in the cult?
No.
Sorry, not sorry.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Speak for yourself. I know damn well I’m no longer capable of subtlety. ;)
Scout211
Sometimes there is so much news and so many horrors going on at the same time, we miss some of them.
ICYMI, in health news:
You have to see it to believe it. The first page of the newly designed COVID page is shown in the “new page” link above. It’s right out of conspiracy theory 101 graphics.
And this:
Chief Oshkosh
@RevRick: Agreed, but I can’t help asking this question:
When was the last time a person of the MAGA persuasion asked me why I disagreed with a Trumpian policy or action?
The last time a Republican asked me why I disagreed with “conservative” policy and action was my cousin (a Korean War combat Marine!) over Shrub’s invasion of Iraq, and his question was “Why do you even care? How does this directly affect you?”
Pretty much embodies the differences between “us and them.”
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: We have noticed. Trust me.
Chief Oshkosh
@Professor Bigfoot: Hear hear!
Professor Bigfoot
I don’t see the value in trying to reach someone who is determined to misunderstand me.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Of course he was unhappy; he was having an argument in his head and realized the idiot talking was himself.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@MagdaInBlack:
And how. We have a broken (since removed) piece of glass in a porch light that suspends from the front porch ceiling. Every year, we get House Finches nesting there and the last week has been glorious morning singing, cajoling her into accepting the nest location and now building the nest.
The songs those dinosaurs put together each spring is pretty amazing.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@tobie:
That reminds me of something else I read recently:
“The lesson of the Holocaust was not that the Nazis were uniquely evil. The lesson was that anyone can become a Nazi. You’re witnessing this with America right now.”
PaulWartenberg
Tonight, what began at the Commons in Concord, Massachusetts as an alliance of farmers and workers, of cobblers and tinsmiths, of statesmen and students, of mothers and wives, of men and boys, lives two centuries later as America! My name is Josiah Bartlet, and I accept your nomination for the Presidency of the United States! – The West Wing
Gods, we had better fictional Presidents who understood the history.
Another Scott
Morning, everyone. Thanks to everyone going to the protests. Be safe!
I’ll be here at home, waiting for delivery of 3 new toilets that I’ll get to install. Fun in my immediate future!!
No Kings! No Tyrants!! No Going Back!!!
Forward!
Best wishes,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I was thinking, if Trump’s lost “Presidents are little gods” Alito, then Trump is out of luck now.
Incidentally, Trump lost Karol Rove yesterday.
Scout211
Rex Huppke has another commentary in USA Today this morning that is full of his usual humor and snark.
. . .
. . .
Sometimes you just have to enjoy the snark.
Nukular Biskits
@Professor Bigfoot:
Concurred.
The problem is knowing that for certain. I’m too quick to assume (and you know the ol’ saying about the word “assume”) a MAGA striking up a conversation is doing so out of malice aforethought. This is where RevRick’s wisdom and patience would be beneficial (to me, at least) but a lot of us are already on a hair trigger.
RevRick’s approach is the correct way … but only for those who are truly interested in leaving the cult.
Matt McIrvin
@Chief Oshkosh:
A perennial theme in reactionary rhetoric is a refusal to even believe that someone might care about other people, especially if they are strangers. They think it’s got to be some kind of fakery or done with some kind of selfish angle. Whenever a man speaks up on social media about misogyny they’re in there calling him a “white knight” and a “simp” and saying “she won’t fuck you”. That’s the only reason they could think of for doing any of this.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@RevRick: I do much the same. But my theory is they will only listen to themselves, and if you can keep them talking long enough by asking perfected reasonable question, they will realize they are sounding like complete fools.
NotMax
@Another Scott
No kings but three thrones.
:)
dc
@tobie:
“So I’m an asshole,” he admitted at the same time.
NotMax
@Scout211
He also added, “If anything the price of eggs is too low.”
Another Scott
Meanwhile, LOLGOP points us to a XPostFactoid post on the Punchbowl piece that David Anderson discussed in his most recent post.
The good guys all end up at the same place – these “moderates” are fully on-board with gutting Medicaid.
XPostFactoid on Substack:
Laws and rules and norms are just words to them. And words are just mouth noises that they use to get what they want.
Grr…
Eyes on the prizes.
Even with all the other infuriating and important stuff going on, we can’t lose track of them trying to gut the social safety net that all of us depend on.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Another Scott
@NotMax: 👍 👍 👍
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: The *wholesale* price of eggs has sharply dropped. Of course, the price available to commodity traders is going to be the one Donald Trump cares about. I haven’t heard a lot about retailers passing those savings on.
It probably will drop in retail at some point because the bird-flu wave abated, and then we’ll hear a lot of MAGA crowing about it.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: RIGHT??! <snicker>
Chief Oshkosh
@dc: I don’t understand what he’s happy about. He’s happy that Trump is all about personal power and personal loyalty? Why? To ask the “conservative” question, what’s in it for him? He’s a young black man — does he think Trump’s power is going to help him? Does he think that being loyal to Trump means that Trump will be loyal to him?
Does he think?
bbleh
Going to Philly protest at Independence Hall. Kinda obligatory — we started it after all.
stinger
Good psychology! I’ll have to remember that.
It’s a cult. They want to fight for their Great Leader, but they are ignorant about the issues and most retain some surface allegiance to democracy.
Baud
@Chief Oshkosh:
He could just hate women.
jonas
I was here the other day saying that Not All Farmers in places like Upstate NY are to blame for Trump, but alas, a number are. And they are reeeeeeaaaallllly dumb.
Gvg
@Chief Oshkosh: Prosperity gospel is anti Christ’s message. I don’t see how anyone could even lie to themselves about this. And I am an atheist. With Calvinist relatives…it goes back pretty far, so people have been doing it a long time. There are even stories in the Bible. And when you get down to it the assumption of a class system being right is almost the same thing, including the king must be right, thinking.
I grew up with the Soviet system nonsense on full display. Ideology resulted in tyranny and starvation.
Mind your own business includes allowing experts and the persons involved to consult and decide without the interference of officious self important “authorities” that don’t know enough and only mess things up for some ideology that doesn’t apply to the situation. The experts change when the subject changes too and peoples specific conditions and choices matter. Freedom means letting go of people, which can also means restraining the huge and powerful (rich or corporations or government itself) so that we can handle billions of needed smart decisions ourselves. You do not know better than your neighbor how they should live their lives.
oldgold
With apologies to Mr. Wilson Pickett.
The ‘In the Midnight Hour’ Order was a pretty damn aggressive act for the Supremes. Surprising.
Perhaps the old
umpabettor has seen enough and is prepared to let the Supreme’s power come tumbling down.Farfetched I know, but one can hope.
One more thing I just want to say right here, splitting Kavanaugh and Gorsuch from the corrupt troglodyte faction could be important going down the road.
Chief Oshkosh
@jonas: Another FAFO.
And you’re right, amazingly stupid. How can you be in a business and not understand basic policy that directly affects your industry AND your microenvironment (impact of tariffs on small farming at an international border, in this case).
Who on god’s green earth told this guy that the country that has tariffs placed on it magically pays the tariff?
Oh, right, the Democrats (who he always listens to) told him that. /s
The only sad thing here is that when this guy goes under, he won’t be selling to small-farm farmer of a more liberal stance. He’ll be selling at auction to a vulture capital/private equity firm.
TF79
@AM in NC: “Tyranny” and “Tyrant” are both good words. “King” can have some positive or at least neutral connotations but “Tyrant” really drives home the mad abuse of power. Semper Fidelis Tyrannosaurus!
NotMax
@TF79
“Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
.
Gvg
@Professor Bigfoot: The admirable Christians I have known were not big mouths or boasters. It’s almost definitional. You don’t notice them mostly. Though they do tend to be the ones who step up and run charity action groups. Such as going to Mississippi after a hurricane with a church group to physically clean mud out of peoples houses and come back to work able to tell stories that made it sound funny how bad it smelled and how the chemicals mixed in the mud were eating the rubber gloves at first so they were using two pairs….Encouraging others to volunteer by describing how rewarding it was, helping elderly people who couldn’t do for themselves anymore. That is my idea of a “real Christian “ not the self proclaimed ones shouting for deportation of asylum seekers or even just the poor wanting a better life, or the complainers about the homeless.
jonas
When dairy farms go under around here, the buyers who scoop them up aren’t hedge funds — it’s the Mennonites or Amish. Land here is cheap relative to OH or PA and they have big families, so this is where they expand. They’re very successful farmers because the labor is provided by the family and they keep costs low, but also bring all that anti-vax/raw milk bullshit with them which as we’re seeing in TX, also comes with a bad FO phase.
WTFGhost
I think the best part of your answer, is, anyone who listens to the BS Republicans spew can’t help but recognize that this is a bad thing to say about a Presidential administration, but, because there’s no name, and no action attached to it, they can’t attack anyone.
One reason the President is not a king, is, the President is expressly bound by the law – the king-as-monarch could surely set aside inconvenient rules, and create new forms of “treason” such as “pissing me, the king, off!” and so forth. The President is bound to see that the laws are faithfully executed.
Of course, this President handed over some of our most closely guarded secrets to numerous foreign adversaries while bragging about them to Australian businessmen, creating a massive national security breach, and that’s all without discussing him putting SCIF-only documents in the crapper, and excusing it because “there’s a lock on the door!”
So it’s not surprising that he handed over our most closely guarded domestic secrets to treasure hunters and code jockeys without the experience to test their code pre-production, because they, like Trump, are too stupid to be allowed to live, but there are no laws allowing the hastening of their death, so… well, you’ve been frustrated before is all I’m saying.
But none of it was supposed to happen. The President, chief executive, is to see that the laws are faithfully executed. Not “only sworn government employees were able to see Social Security stuff, and they swore they wouldn’t make more than 10-20 direct copies,” but, “no one was allowed to see Social Security stuff, unless they were properly vetted and could be trusted not to abuse the privilege.”
It’s amazing that Republicans have sworn to love the Constitution and rule of law, when every single Republican since Nixon has completely violated their duty to see the law executed faithfully. Hell, W wouldn’t even give an honest State Of The Union speech, saying that the UK thought a US-debunked story was true, which, you know, if the US hadn’t debunked it, might have been defensible. Oh, yeah, and that’s to say nothing of defrauding the entire US into wasting trillions and thousands of lives, and doing nothing but causing the formation of ISIS.
TaMara
@Black Onion: I was thinking I would memorize that answer and use frequently.
Baud
You don’t say…
TaMara
@Baud: This is my shocked face:
WTFGhost
“Ignorant” gets a bad rep, because dictionaries used to use “ignorant” as the default invective-producer. Motherfucker, if in the dictionary, would be defined as “an ignorant person”.
Ignorant simply means unknowing, as in “I am ignorant of functional analysis, having just barely understood real analysis,” says the guy with the master’s degree in math, who probably knows tons more math than most of you.
Which makes this a bit of a peeve – it would be trivially easy to educate the merely “ignorant”.
“Hey, did you not know that the Trump administration is engaged in wide scale lawbreaking? Yeah, for reals and all. They’re even in violation of court orders that said ‘if you do this, it’s breaking the law’.”
BAM, problem solved. They were ignorant; they no longer are. Revolution started!
Um. Apologies for this lengthy – what, no one read it anyway? Well, maybe that’s a win-win.
Where was I? But it’s true: there’s a certain form of ignorance, most famously espoused by the “no nothings”, of proud ignorance.
For a great example, imagine “I don’t need to hear some climate scientist say that it’ll snow more often due to global warming! All this snow I’m shoveling proves global warming is FAKE!”
Those are definitely the people you must label as “ignorant” in the (ahem) dictionary sense of the word, as well as whatever term you use for “proudly ignorant moron” which the dictionary will again define as “an ignorant person.”
Modern dictionaries are more expressive, and I’m happy for that, though perhaps the kiddies can be kept from that non-rural dictionary I’ve heard about.
Another Scott
Some half-baked thoughts rumbling around in my head the last few days/weeks.
1) Part of 47’s coalition wants to cause a major depression so that they can buy up assets for pennies on the dollar; cause mass unemployment to drive down wages; control the housing market so that peons can’t build and pass down wealth and have some economic security; and concentrate even more economic power in their hands. They don’t care if the pie is smaller, they want to have the biggest fraction. The crazy neo-Feudalist MotUs.
2) Part of 47’s coalition wants to cut taxes on themselves, remove all regulatory oversight, and have the “freedom” to do whatever they want with whatever power and wealth they have accumulated. But they don’t want to destroy the stock and bond markets where they have their wealth and so can’t see more than one step ahead. The uber-Libertarians.
3) Part of 47’s coalition wants to take the rights away from everyone who will not bow down to them, everyone who does not fit their definition of American. They want their tribe to have all the political power, and for everyone outside of their tribe to tremble in fear. They won’t necessarily deport everyone else – they know they need cheap labor – but they want everyone (citizen, legal immigrant, etc.) to be afraid. The neo-(and not so neo-) rule or ruin Confederates.
4) Part of 47’s coalition wants their twisted version of Christianity imposed on the rest of us. The Christian Nationalists.
5) Part of 47’s coalition wants a return to 1950s America where they think that everything was great, that one could have a good middle-class life with one income, where they were respected, where everyone got along (ignoring all the misery, death, poverty, racism, hypocrisy, lack of progress in the law and in government, and all the rest). The Misogynists, the Repressers, and the Pat Boone fans.
6) Part of 47’s coalition is just really angry at almost everything and want those outsiders to be put in their place. The War Mongers and the Angry Americans.
7) Part of 47’s coalition rejects all science and investigation of the natural world because it takes away their power of social control in their group / cult. There was some news this week about astronomers potentially detecting signs of life on a planet ~ 100 light years away. Were that to be agreed to be the case by experts in the field, it would be yet another sign that Earth is not a unique place that is the center of the universe. That stories passed down for generations by a particular group of people and written down a few thousand years ago are not the same as what we can learn today via the Scientific Method. The Woo-sters and the Evil Priests.
8) On top of all this is 47. He who demands to be in the news continuously. He who demands to be in the center of every political, economic, and social decision. This is why he hates multilateral institutions – he wants everyone to come directly to him, to bend their knee to him, to offer tribute to him. “Only I can fix it.” No modern government, no modern economy, no modern society can work this way. Other power centers will not yield to him more than temporarily or perfunctorily. The wannabe tyrant.
There’s lots of overlap, of course, but there’s lots of tension as well. The MotUs running giant medical and pharmecutical outfits don’t want the uber-Libertarians or the Priests getting in the way of making money. Etc. Etc.
[/wall-of-text]
Anyway, there are conflicts among these various groups. We need to think about ways to exploit those conflicts, and how they will try to appeal to these various groups in the run-up to the midterms, etc. (IOW, what will be this election’s CARAVANS and EBOLA and …).
Best wishes,
Scott.
Sure Lurkalot
@Chief Oshkosh: Not all Trumpers are happy. This morning I saw a social media post by a distant acquaintance about how he “takes bullets” every day for his views. He included a screed from a fellow traveler about how his country, faith, freedom and patriotism are being stolen.
Even in “victory”, they still whine when everyone else is not in lockstep with their every thought.
Nukular Biskits
@WTFGhost:
Agreed. In my original draft of that post, I used the words “stupid redneck” but changed it for reasons I don’t recall.
Ignorance is indeed a state of just not knowing. What we’re seeing is what I call “belligerent ignorance” a.k.a., outright stupidity. There is a difference. One can be remedied, if a body is willing to learn. The other is terminal.
Professor Bigfoot
@Nukular Biskits: Willful ignorance is functionally equivalent to stupidity.
WTFGhost
@Dog Mom: Let’s just make sure it’s not a nickname of “cracker” for scraping butter sculptures with – can you guess? – a cracker, ruining their sheen, destroying their natural beauty and purity, and
(stops and gets the giggles)
Sorry – the molded butter lambs all look too molded, and the ones I’ve seen made are intended for use, and yet, I suddenly imagined saying it all with the appropriate pomposity.
@New Deal democrat: kind of a punch in democracy’s metaphorical balls that it’s only “a majority”.
@Harrison Wesley: You’re thinking of another country, one “with liberty, and justice for all.”
@AM in NC: Given that the Republican SCOTUS and Republican Congress could stop him, or at least demand to know what’s happening, so (some of) it can be undone, and refuse to do so, I don’t see how one can be entirely nonpartisan and still be speaking about our problems. It’s not like Democrats are even allowed to demand answers – they’re forbidden to issue more than mere “requests.”
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Alas, we learned that even during the Nuremberg trials, but we keep forgetting it. If you know that it’s normal to give up, and go along, you have the knowledge needed to realize you are doing that (or are about to), and make a real moral choice, one that the other choices you’ve made, and the moral teachings you’ve had, will show.
Soprano2
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: This is Jordan Klepper’s superpower. Sometimes you can see that they realize how dumb they sound.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Maybe I’m missing something, but the point here seems to be avoiding unnecessary unwinnable fights without giving any ground.
This is what Betty C’s response does. She isn’t trying to reach this person, who has picked up on the fact that the bumper sticker is aimed at him and his kind. She just doesn’t want to waste time arguing with this bozo.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: Oh, I wasn’t at all referring to BC’s magnificent response— it was more of an in general, because generally conservatives are simply determined to misunderstand me.
lowtechcyclist
@Chief Oshkosh:
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s so weird, considering how many of them consider themselves to be Christians.
The man in Jesus’ parable who was robbed, beat up, and left by the side of the road – what happened to him didn’t directly affect the priest, the Levite, or the Samaritan. The Samaritan was the one who chose to care about this stranger in need. And Jesus says we should do like the Samaritan did. Seems pretty straightforward to me.
lowtechcyclist
In about an hour, I’ll be driving up to Annapolis to join in a “no kings” protest there. Already got my sign ready.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Example #1 of my favorite Voter Ideology: “Look, I hate everything he’s doing, but I’m really glad he’s doing something.”
WaterGirl
@Another Scott: I am stealing that – with credit to you of course – for a discussion post next week.
jonas
I don’t think I would call him a hardcore Never Trumper, but Rove never went full MAGA. He is completely irrelevant, however.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m wondering if the “No Kings” slogan might be a good parallel, at least in terms of outward symbolism, to the astroturf TeaTurds.
Yeah, they looked stoopid with their tricorne hats with tea bags hanging from them but they did what the right’s been very good at doing: appropriating and then perverting still-resonant imagery from history. Then they use classic right-wing messaging tropes (you see this on the other side of the aisle as well in certain policy areas) and our Failed Media Corpse just laps it up.
“No Kings” has that potential.
jonas
A sentiment never extended to a Democratic president — Biden “did something” decisively about Afghanistan and caught only shit for it.
Miss Bianca
Eight inches of snow up here at the Mountain Hacienda, still snowing, power went out at around 7 am, still out. Was planning to hike down the hill to where I parked the car and try to make it to the No Kings rally scheduled for my little town, but it’s looking kind of sketchy to even try to drive down the rest of my driveway!
I think God is telling me that this Easter Saturday is, “burn more wood and take the doggoes for a snow hike” day. Oh, and grab some more snow to stash in the fridge and freezers! At least if the power is out I have plenty of snow to help with refrigeration!
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: Er, thanks??
:-)
If it’s too long, feel free to hack it up (with all your free free-time, of course). It’s out of my hands now!
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Miss Bianca
@Scout211: that was in USA Today? Day-um!
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Mr. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality” himself!
(well, we *think* it was him).
A lot of these guys who created the conditions for Trumpism are feeling remorse.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: The ones who just want the line they care about to go up and make them richer, but who aren’t actually doing inside trading, are about at the end of their rope right now.
There’s also a division within group 3, between the people who just want their undocumented immigrants scared enough to control and the people who want real ethnic cleansing. That alliance was always uneasy.
Chief Oshkosh
@jonas: Thanks for the education on the local situation. Princes and priests – they’ll be the death of us yet.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: I checked, they’re still six bucks a dozen at Market Basket. And there’s a limit of two cartons per customer.
RevRick
@lowtechcyclist: A lot of them remake Jesus in their own image. Since Jesus was on the side of the oppressed, they identify themselves as always the victim, nevermind the fact that what they want is to rule over others. This all takes a rather selective reading of the Bible and suddenly you have “muscular Jesus “ or Prosperity Gospel or a reification of all gender, class and racial hierarchies.
RevRick
@Baud: It takes practice to not meet belligerence with counter belligerence. The first step is to sidestep any attacks, to not make it about oneself or what one believes, and to let your prefrontal cortex take over.
@Professor Bigfoot: Thank you for your gracious words.
@Nukular Biskits: I have no illusions that anyone will see the light. By asking questions I humanize myself and disarm the aggression. It just turns down the heat.
Betty
@New Deal democrat: It has been noted that the petition would have been presented to Alito to bring to the others. Apparently he didn’t do that and Roberts took over. Why is that man so full of hate? Clarence too, of course.
George
@tobie:
In any human population, there is an endemic percentage of people who lean fascist, regardless of demographic characteristics–male, female, black, white, Latino, Asian, etc. In the U.S., that percentage managed to remain unrecognized for decades. FFOTUS, the Heritage Foundation, rightwing talk radio, Christian fundamentalism, and other fascist or fascist-friendly entities simply managed to draw that percentage to the polls with open appeals to “strongmanism,” for lack of a better descriptor.
That was not enough for a plurality, though, so the soft middle had to be mined as well. That was easily enough done with pointed if false critiques of Democrats as well as flooding the zone with so much sh1t that hapless normies believed the lies that FFOTUS spouted. The compliant media also helped, as did horseshoe leftists.
One big revelation for me over the past few years is the realization that Bob the mechanic or Jane the engineer, whom I might have thought were just loyal, sane Americans, really were fascists all along and didn’t give a damn about democracy. I realized that FFOTUS did not convert people to fascism. He just allowed cryptofascists to reveal their true selves.
That is what we are up against, I think–the notion that fascists cannot be convinced with superior arguments or appeals to their better selves, but that they will fight to the death in favor of strongmanism.
Florida Frog
@AM in NC: we had a great crowd in Jacksonville today. Most of the signs were of the kind discussed here – No kings in America. Mine said The Constitution protects ALL of us or NONE of us. Lots and lots of supportive honks and waves though one woman leaned out her window and shouted “leave the United States” . Looking at all the Rule of Law and Protect Democracy signs, we wondered what she was so upset about.