Yesterday evening, we turned on the A/C for the first time this year. We can usually hold out to mid-May. But Bill worked outside all day in unseasonably high temps and then came home and tended the garden (lovely little tomatoes are already forming — yay!).
When Bill learned that I intended to bake a pizza for supper, he shut the windows and doors and flipped on the thermostat. Bill is usually far more heat tolerant than I am and less willing to endure a chill, even though he’s from Buffalo and I’m a Floridian. So it was surprising that he blinked first this year. (The pizza was fabulous, by the way.)
Before sunset, we saw deer crossing the river, which, after flooding us out for a month last fall, is currently at the lowest level we’ve ever seen. Here’s one of the deer:
Temperatures are still dropping to the mid-60s overnight, so I opened the doors and windows again at about 10 o’clock. Later, I was chilly while reading on the sofa, so I snuggled under a fleece throw and got so comfy that I nodded off.
Badger woke me up by stealing the blanket. He stood on a loose end of it and dug at it with his front paws until he’d gathered the whole damn thing up into a ball. Then he stomped around in a circle on it until he formed a fleece nest.
The little bastard! That was my cue to hit the sack, but the usual insomnia kicked in, and here I am, doom-scrolling before sunrise.
***
Speaking of doom-scrolling, The Wall Street Journal sounds kind of alarmed in this article (gift link):
Dow Headed for Worst April Since 1932 as Investors Send ‘No Confidence’ Signal
The Trump rout is taking on historic dimensions.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average shed almost 1,000 points on Monday and is headed for its worst April performance since 1932, according to Dow Jones Market Data. The S&P 500’s performance since Inauguration Day is now the worst for any president up to this point in data going back to 1928, according to Bespoke Investment Group.
Worries about trade restrictions and the prospect of President Trump firing Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell have investors bracing for greater losses ahead. Corporate earnings reports are rolling in, along with executives’ tariff-dented outlooks for the months ahead. Few think the administration’s negotiations with trade partners will yield results soon enough to ease the strain.
Meanwhile, counterweights that usually strengthen when stocks fall—such as government bonds and the U.S. dollar—are also under pressure, leaving investors with few havens to wait out the storm.
Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.
***
In other news, this is so fucking cruel: (NYT gift link)
The Department of Homeland Security denied Mahmoud Khalil permission to attend the birth of his first child, who was delivered at a New York hospital on Monday, according to emails reviewed by The New York Times.
Instead, Mr. Khalil experienced the birth by telephone from Jena, La., more than 1,000 miles from the hospital where his wife, Dr. Noor Abdalla, gave birth to a son. It is unclear when he will be able to see the baby.
Mr. Khalil, a legal permanent resident who was a prominent figure in pro-Palestinian demonstrations on the Columbia University campus, has been detained in Louisiana for more than a month. On Sunday morning, shortly after Dr. Abdalla went into labor, Mr. Khalil’s lawyers requested a two-week furlough so that he could attend the birth.
This act of pointless malice to punish a man for constitutionally protected speech was signed off on by a Trump ICE lackey in Louisiana — a woman who was involved in the disgraceful family separation policy during the shitgoblin’s first term. But ultimately, it’s on Marco Rubio, who calls himself a Christian. Fuck him, and fuck every senator who voted to confirm him, which is all of them.
***
If you’re sick and tired of tech bros building plagiarism machines to steal intellectual property so they can sell it for the purpose of pumping out AI slop, you might enjoy this letter from musician Nick Cave, as read by Stephen Fry.
Nick Cave wrote a letter about ChatGPT and creativity. Stephen Fry read it out loud at Royal Albert Hall. It’s funny, brilliant, and kind of devastating.
youtu.be/iGJcF4bLKd4— Being Liberal ®🗽🇺🇲🇨🇦🇲🇽🇪🇺🇺🇳🇺🇦🏳️🌈 (@beingliberal.bsky.social) April 22, 2025 at 4:20 AM
Amen.
I’ll be on the road starting in a couple of hours and probably scarce around here, though I may pop in from time to time. Y’all play nice.
Open thread.
On The Road – Auntie Anne – Southeast Asia – Laos 1 of 4
mrmoshpotato
Was it a thin crust or a deep dish we Chicagoans would drown the fat, orange fascist in given half a chance?
NotMax
Won’t be much in the way of new info to most of us but here’s a good, concise primer you may want to share with the less enlightened which might as well be called Dictator 101.
MagdaInBlack
@mrmoshpotato: Dear god, why waste a pizza on that turdhole?
Suzanne
I am in a hotel, which means I am watching CNN. They’re discussing a proposed $5K bonus for having a baby. Aside from all the contradictions we already know about, like defunding Medicaid and SNAP and no paid family or medical leave, etc etc etc….. the thing that blows my mind is that, of course, this is only about wanting married and preferably white people to have babies. Which, of course, means it is about providing meaning to white men. “The good life”.
Geminid
The picture of the deer made me wonder if there are many coyotes down around the Cracker homestead.
There are plenty up here in Virginia but they manage to keep out of sight for the most part.
Baud
It’s pretty clear that the sophisticated business community, while generally not MAGA, hated reasonable taxes, regulation, and labor rights so much that they fell into a MAGA like trance where they fooled themselves into believing that Republicans were better for them than Democrats, despite the evidence of the last 40 years.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I hear coyotes howling in the distance across the river sometimes but have never seen one on our shores or the adjacent backroads. I do worry about them grabbing a dog, but ours are mostly in at night.
Baud
@Suzanne:
How are they planning on preventing minorities from having babies to get the $5K?
MagdaInBlack
@Suzanne: ..and a Motherhood Medal for women with 6 or more children……
Ixnay
Thanks for Cave and Frye. Excellent stuff.
Betty Cracker
@mrmoshpotato: It was a grandma-style pie with a medium crust, baked in a square sheet pan and enjoyed with a green salad and a nice Chianti. (th-th-th-th-th)
They Call Me Noni
Most eloquent letter.
zhena gogolia
Thanks for the Nick Cave letter! Sending it to some administrators tout suite.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
Do you still practice the art of wine foil origami?
Geminid
@Baud: I wonder how local Chamber of Commerce members across the country are evaluating the administration’s first 90 days. Probably with apprehension, especially if they see the economy contracting.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
Baud
@Geminid:
Some of them are probably real MAGA.
NotMax
@Betty Cracker
A term of recent creation.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
@Suzanne:
Nothing about PAID family leave
Paid childcare.
These are the mofos who want to end Headstart😠😠😠
rikyrah
Not only stocks…the bond market is garbage too😠
Betty Cracker
@NotMax: Every now and then!
Baud
@rikyrah:
Bonds are a refuge from a poor stock market. They’re not a refuge from a poorly run government.
Ben Cisco
@Baud: Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide…
lowtechcyclist
Good morning, y’all.
@NotMax:
This thread is the first I’d heard of it.
Baud
This is pretty epic.
p.a.
I get weekly “we want to buy your house” snail mails from “local homebuyers” that I have never heard of. It’s a 70 year old 1,100sq foot starter house. I’m not interested, but I am wondering if these are really locals (like the homemade signs I see on utility poles: We Buy You Junk Car), or if they’re fronts for the private equity trend of hoovering up housing. I imagine the PE effort would aim at newer, bigger/better houses?
Geminid
@Baud: Some are probably MAGA, especially in the smaller cities and towns. But they’re all pretty sensitive to economic conditions. Most of them have had it pretty good the last few years, too. This was the best economy in this century, and in many people’s lifetimes.
Now a recession is likely, and may already have started. If it has, some of those Chamber of Commerce members are seeing it. They’ll be wondering: how deep? And how long?
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
30 – count ’em, 30 – regional pizzas.
;)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Geminid:
I’m guessing it’s too early for the ripple effects to be felt at the Chamber level. Okay, their portfolios are taking a beating but in terms of outward appearing business? Probably not yet.
New Deal democrat
Ok, since this is a T—-p Crash economy thread, here is something both amazing and jarring … “Imagine the Chinese having a better grasp of America than most Americans: “They rob you blind and you thank them for it…Americans, you don’t need a tariff. You need a revolution.”
*Well worth* clicking on the link. This Chinese guy cuts to the heart of the economic problems facing America:
https://bsky.app/profile/modsant.bsky.social/post/3lmv3u72owk2z
Suzanne
@Baud: No one would be preventing minorities from having children. But there’s still a big racial differential in the rates of kids living in single-parent homes. So a benefit that goes to children of married couples only is de facto going disproportionately to white and Asian children.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Got it. I didn’t catch the marriage condition the first time.
Ah, well, that’s why God invented gay marriage. An easy accomodation for single women with children.
NotMax
@NotMax
BTW, calling the original Umberto’s a pizzeria is a misnomer. It’s a full-on, large multi-story Italian restaurant, with white linen tablecloths on the tables, along with a thriving take-out business..
New Deal democrat
@Geminid: It’s pretty bad when CNBC is the voice of economic sanity. Their Chief on-air economist Steve Liesman appears to have been given permission by management to just cut loose and unload on the T—-p Administration:
“At what point do Dimon and Solomon and Moynihan (J[P Morgan], Goldman [Sachs] and B[ank] of A[merica]) decide they need to step up and be leaders, instead of watching passively as the train careens off the tracks?”
https://bsky.app/profile/steveliesman.bsky.social/post/3lne6tztlbs2l
He was on MSNBC last night, answering his own question, that they are all afraid of T—-p’s retribution. At some point, though, the pain is going to become unbearable and they are going to buy some Senators and Congresspeople and take on T—-p.
Geo Wilcox
@p.a.: They are fronts. My daughter used to work in property management and her clients used to get those messages all the time. It was a big hedge fund operation that targeted her college town. They wanted to buy up all the homes that rented to the students and charge them lots more rent.
prostratedragon
@mrmoshpotato: We have a nice lake nearby.
In 1932, many people rode the rails looking for sustenance.
“Too Too Train Blues,” Big Bill Broonzy
catclub
@NotMax: I was wondering about the butter lamb.
gene108
@New Deal democrat:
He’s right.
Though a “revolution” is what we are going through now, with conservative Christian white people trying to dominate society by undoing 100 years of civil rights gains,
catclub
Early sign: Trucking from California ports down steeply.
Paul in KY
@p.a.: They are fake, IMO.
Baud
@gene108:
I agree. People wanted to change the status quo. The status quo is changing.
karensky
@NotMax: Thanks for the link. Very good
lowtechcyclist
@gene108:
Yeppers.
Cardboard boxes, sparrows, and curtain rods.
Spanky
@New Deal democrat:
Vladimir Putin says “hold my vodka”. He’s defeating the mighty US without firing a shot by playing off our worst instincts
ETA, I’m less fearful of the Chinese becoming the world economic power than I am of Russia becoming a world power at anything. Fortunately(?) Putin isn’t as interested in raising Russia as he is in sinking the US.
catclub
@p.a.:
What if they are willing to pay much more than you think it is worth? In cash?
I would strongly consider selling, whether they are PE or your crazy neighbors.
… assuming you can actually get other housing more cheaply. If you cannot, then they are really offering market prices, which you no longer recognize.
Gvg
@Suzanne: and they don’t even realize that they don’t understand why women (and their partners) decide they can’t have children. It’s not just money, though that’s pretty big, it’s also the medical risks and pain, concerns about childcare and school shootings plus a real anger at the schools. Kay thinks people mostly support and like schools and dislike political interference but in Florida it seems to have reached a tipping point where people are really hating the schools, and still not liking the political interference (but not enough IMO). Both parents of gifted and parents of ADHD kids and other are really angry and don’t think the teachers are good nor administration. It’s probably not encouraging young women to have children.
The culture and news plus what Trump is doing to the economy is going to depress the birth rate further I think. They ought to think what the constant disrespect of women’s rights and opinions does to choices. I wonder if our young women will start immigrating out?
catclub
Why don’t the present landlords know what the market can bear for rental prices?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Nick Cave’s letter reminds me of the complaints against typewriters when they came out. The real danger is the way ChatGPT is set up it basically strokes the user ego in the way it will never tell the user “this is a dumb idea” like another human will.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: So $5,000 to have a baby is “good”, but a child tax credit is “bad” for reasons. Is this proposal only for married couples?
WTFGhost
Well, remember, Marco Rubio is an oathbreaker, having sworn to see justice done, and then forsworn himself with Trump, which, had he voted honestly, could have prevented this second term. He did agree to be Trump’s fall guy, though I bet he never thought SoS was going to be Trump saying “the department of state’s fucking up, not me!”
Still, I think the best part of all this is, Trump pantsed Rubio, made him a dog, whipped the dog, and now is swearing the dog is deporting away people unlawfully, and also causing the smell of a bad fart every time Trump shows up – come on, you know Trump blames the stink on the closest dog, Rubio!
When Trump and Rubio are in their Christian Hell together, part of Rubio’s torment will be hearing Trump’s voice giving him orders, and half the time, he is supposed to disobey, and the other half the time, obey, even if he’s told to chow down on dog feces, like the dog he was in life. Half the time, he must obey; the other half, he must disregard the instructions. He just never knows which half. Trump would be watching, told he’s going to have to do the same thing, and keep hearing his own voice taunting with the worst doggo behaviors imaginable, never realizing which foul order would get the dog whipped.
I think I’m in a bad mood again today.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@gene108: It’s also a lot fringe crazies too. That’s why it’s chaos because the policy of the moment is what ever faction in the White House last had Trump’s ear.
NotMax
@catclub
Butter lamb thread showed up on Sunday.
Meanwhile, howzabout cheese carving?
:)
Soprano2
And unfortunately they thought nothing could hurt it, even though FFOTUS was telling people what he was planning all the time. They thought telling everyone it was the worst economy ever for everyone wouldn’t cause any problems at all.
The Audacity of Krope
I mean, there were non-idiot-assholes looking to change the status quo as well. What made Trump’s change better?
satby
@catclub: They ALWAYS lowball. And they target senior citizens who have paid off their houses and probably don’t know current market prices.
Current landlords know prevailing rental rates.
satby
@Gvg: True for Indiana too.
catclub
@Soprano2: There is a theory that the US voters only elect Democrats when they are scared the economy is going to get worse. In particular, they give no credit for a GOOD economy to Democrats. This makes a lot of sense over the past 30 or so years. I would say 1996 and 2012 are the only possible exceptions, both had strong incumbent presidents.
catclub
I was suggesting that the market can bear higher rents than the prevailing rates. Or at least, those buying rental housing at a premium think that.
Geminid
@catclub: Another sign: a friend rents out a part of her house in Charlottesville– two rooms over two rooms and a bathroom– as a short term AirBnb-type rental. Joan says this Spring is her worst period since she started renting seven years ago.
Charlottesville’s a good place to have an AirBnb, and Joan was making more than she ever did working as a carpenter or painting contractor. But her tourist/renters are spending discretionary income and they are sitting on their wallets right now.
Maly TV
Love the detail about Bill caving first there’s something oddly comforting about those seasonal “firsts” and the little domestic negotiations they spark. Also, shoutout to the tomatoes already doing their thing! Garden MVPs 🌱🍅
And Badger… absolute menace, total king. Nothing says “spring evenings” like being ousted from your own blanket by a furry tyrant. 😆
Honestly, this could be the opening scene of a slice-of-life movie I’d 100% watch.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Trump isn’t better than anything else, including the status quo.
Baud
@catclub:
Also, in hindsight, they had particularly weak opponents.
WTFGhost
@Geminid: Except when the new Acme catalog came in, during which there were always Jet-Powered, and Rocket-Propelled, disasters, unless… did you make sure there were no RoadRunners near your place?
WereBear
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: And then the complaints about word processors when they came out…
suzanne
@Soprano2: So nothing is a proposal yet. The piece in the FTFNYT (you can search for it if you’re really curious) is about how the Administration is soliciting ideas for how to increase the birth rate and promote “conservative family values”. $5K is one idea. Some of the ideas are explicitly for married couples. On CNN, they were discussing that some people would only want the benefits to go to married couples because single moms are cringey sluts, or something.
TL;DR: All idle speculation at this point.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: So much of the anti-Trump narrative right now is really devoted to bashing Democrats. Trump is so awful–god damn Democrats for sucking so much that he beat them!
Librettist
“I’m -not a Democrat- but the Democrats have to nominate yada, yada, yada…”
Peak entitlement.
Librettist
@suzanne:
They just float bullshit to change up the talking points.
New Deal democrat
@Spanky: We’ll, again, I highly recommend listening to the video.
In a nutshell, he says the Chinese spent their gains from trade on building infrastructure and housing to lift up the vast Chinese population, while the US funneled all its gains to oligarchs so they could have bigger yachts, mansions, and private jets. So the downfall of the US working class isn’t China’s fault, it’s American voters’ fault.
suzanne
@Librettist: Agreed. They float stuff to test reactions, too. Plausible deniability.
Matt McIrvin
@Gvg: I’ve never heard of coercive pro-natalist policy actually working as intended. Every country with a declining fertility rate seems to try it at some point.
frosty
That was my experience with Baltimore County schools, although we weren’t angry, just frustrated. I’m convinced that they only want to teach the middle 60% of the bell curve and just blow off both ends.
Soprano2
@The Audacity of Krope: Trump was offering them open racism, sexism and homophobia and claiming he could “fix” the economy and high prices; we were offering them a better life financially, but asking them to be decent people to everyone. I think what people want is for prices to be cheap and to not have to think about the government that much. Sadly for all of us, they didn’t get either of the things they voted for.
Soprano2
@satby: We get those mailers, both for our house and for hubby’s dad’s house. I throw them away, I don’t think I would ever sell my house to them because I figure they’re going to lowball you.
Librettist
“Not a Democrat” has buyers remorse, can’t admit they got conned, and are at the customer service desk demanding an exchange for an non-existent upgrade item. Clerk is pointing up at the ‘no returns’ sign.
Fuck ’em.
Matt McIrvin
@catclub: The divided nature of government makes it easier to spin cause and effect any way you want. The Republican spin on the booming economy and budget surpluses of the Clinton era was that they were Newt Gingrich’s doing. As power outside the executive rots away, that gets harder to do. But it also gets harder to un-elect the party in power.
WaterGirl
@Maly TV: Welcome!
lowtechcyclist
@WereBear:
I missed those, thank goodness. I will always regard WYSIWYG word processing as a gift from the gods. For the first time in my life, my writing could almost keep up with my thoughts.
Geminid
@WTFGhost: That reminds me that I heard the new Roadrunner movie was sold, so it might make into distribution now.
Matt McIrvin
@Soprano2: Now a bunch of them are revising their beliefs to conclude that actually, high prices and a shitty economy with high unemployment are good–it’s some kind of necessary shock therapy.
Librettist
@suzanne:
And then lie when “big idea/power flex” goes over like a lead balloon.
zhena gogolia
@Librettist: I keep hoping we’re in a “Christmas Carol” situation. Like the Ghost of Christmas Future is showing them how bad it’s going to be, but luckily it’s all a dream and they still have time to go out and buy that goose for the Cratchit family (i.e. vote for Kamala Harris).
Unfortunately, it’s not “A Christmas Carol.” It’s real.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: Ooh, I seem to have heard that term before . . . yeah, in Moscow in the 1990s!
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
It’s a Nightmare before Christmas!
Leto
The Atlantic had an interesting article the other day: Hitler’s Terrible Tariffs
The parallels are too obvious. The “writers” are using find+copy+paste here. They need to ask Vanilla Ice about copyright infringement.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
“You’ll be sick of all the winning.”
prostratedragon
@rikyrah: Part of the Handmaids program.
NotMax
FYI.
DC Bar: Urgent Message For Members.
prostratedragon
@rikyrah: People must be tapping out altogether rather than seeking safety in bonds to ride this out.
p.a.
Goalposts on rollerblades.
UncleEbeneezer
Shout out to all the assholes who hammered Biden on this for four years, drove down his popularity and encouraged people not to vote for Kamala. Well played…
prostratedragon
@New Deal democrat: What one knows and what one is ready or willing to face not always the same.
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I think there is a real IP problem here– big tech firms are trying to re-centralize creative activity as something they own, and doing it by training AI on publicly available material they don’t own, much of it copyrighted by its creators. It’s like a big land grab.
Obnoxious copyright behavior by big IP firms has led to a lot of tech guys having a deep contempt for copyright, but if it just results in a few tech firms effectively owning our cultural heritage through machines designed to remix it, that’s not a good outcome.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
There have been lawsuits filed, but I don’t know if there are any decisions yet.
lowtechcyclist
@suzanne:
The whole thing is just racist AF. The big decline in birth rates over the past ~35 years is among teens and women in their early 20s; the overall birth rate among women 25+ has actually increased, just not by enough to make up for teen births dropping off a cliff (which is a Good Thing, you’d think).
And to make up for that, we’ve got a lot of immigration, which makes the whole thing work for us overall.
But [Mr. Rogers] can you say “great replacement”? I knew you could! [/Mr. Rogers] Having a growing population by white women having white babies – GOOD! Having a growing population by having brown people doing all our shit jobs for us in order just to be here and have a better future for their kids – BAD!
Or because they think single moms are more likely to be Black. Whether or not that’s actually true these days.
New Deal democrat
@prostratedragon:
Here is a likely explanation via CNBC:
https://bsky.app/profile/carlquintanilla.bsky.social/post/3lnd6csfqnk2a
“Deutsche Bank has reported that its Chinese clients are selling U.S. assets and shifting to Europe and gold. Indeed, I recommend keeping an eye on the trade-weighted dollar index, which is breaking down —and fast — becoming its own source of general market instability.”
NotMax
@prostratedragon
From an episode of Taxi:
WTFGhost
@prostratedragon: I’ve seen it said that a lot of America’s major bondholders are dribbling out bonds. They’re not flooding the market – they’re just making the bond market a bit more full, leading to a downward pressure on prices, which means an upward pressure on yields. That increases the US’s borrowing costs, and at a really bad time, because the bond market is weak at the same time as the stock market, so there’s no safe haven.
It takes a really stupid person to start something like this, with no actual endgame in sight. I mean, if he knew what he wanted… but he doesn’t, so he can’t even negotiate!
The Audacity of Krope
Unfortunately, not everyone agrees. Too many not everyones.
Professor Bigfoot
and American voters choose the way they do because they do not want to share this country with anyone who is not straight white and Christian.
twbrandt
Loved that Nick Cave letter. Thanks for posting it!
The Audacity of Krope
Well…
Kristine
Thanks for the Nick Cave/Fry link, Betty. I get Cave’s newsletter but I missed this discussion.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m not a Democrat but I consistently vote in Democratic nominating contests, as state law entitles me to do. This is good and normal.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Agreed. I’ve never claimed to be in the majority.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: What’s funny is that they never do things that would actually help people with children, like cheap childcare or free preschool or 6 months off with pay.
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
There’s an implied ‘or else I won’t vote for the Dem nominee’ in what you quoted.
Voting in Democratic primaries is fine, as long as you vote for the winner in the general election, regardless of whether your favored candidate was the nominee.
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I’ve noticed that, suddenly it’s OK to raise prices and have a shitty economy because FFOTUS says so. Tell me you’re in a cult without saying you’re in a cult.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
But some of those benefits might go to undeserving minorities!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Soprano2:
Oh, they’d be all for that if it only went to certain people, nudgenudgewinkwink.
The Audacity of Krope
I have, so far, save for 2004 John Kerry. But there is no obligation there and I find the suggestion offensive and…entitled.
lowtechcyclist
@Soprano2:
This. It’s ‘Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia’ all over again.
The Audacity of Krope
Last two words are redundant in wingnut speak.
Soprano2
A few days ago I saw two deer running down the alley behind my house. That happens every now and then, the deer come from a bunch of open land to the east of us because there’s a creek running through a park near my house that they walk down from the open land. When they come out into the park, then they run around the neighborhood. It happens every few years. I saw a fox in our neighborhood once!
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I agree, if white people could find a way for welfare to only go to “deserving” white people, our welfare state would be a lot more generous.
lowtechcyclist
Gotta agree with Librettist on who the entitled parties are here.
You, and people like you, who are OK with letting the Republican win because the Dem nominee wasn’t good enough to meet your entitled standards.
But thanks for making it clear just who you are. I think it’s time to re-pie you.
prostratedragon
@UncleEbeneezer: Glad I don’t owe any of those loans. One fewer murderous impulses for me to fight off.
The Audacity of Krope
Once they figure out how to do it without saying it in the law explicitly, it’s on. God forbid anyone think they were racist, after all.
TS
Market futures are up – is this just speculators making money out of all the uncertainty? or disciples of the president knowing about another announcement?
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
You are free to vote how you want, just like everyone else. I just want Dems to learn not to respond to people scolding us for not making better choices. Except for a few highly partisan districts, there’s always a choice, and we shouldn’t feel bad if we’re in the minority. Happens all the time with political parties.
prostratedragon
@New Deal democrat: What I’m talking about. New money is avoiding here rather than looking for a safe siding to wait.
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Oh that’s great. The tv show?
Chief Oshkosh
@Geminid: And for the first time ever, a recession caused by ONE fucking idiot.
ONE single human being.
Matt McIrvin
@The Audacity of Krope: While I’m for supporting your favored candidates in primary contests, I believe that a lot of the really generalized, non-name-naming “Democrats suck” rhetoric on the left is spurred by enemy action and progressives are being useful idiots for it. Sometimes you get really obvious indicators like Jill Stein palling around with Putin and Mike Flynn. Sometimes it’s subtle.
Soprano2
@Chief Oshkosh: I disagree, Congress has a role to play here too, because if they wanted to take back the tariff power they could.
Chief Oshkosh
@New Deal democrat:
Why would any of those people be “leaders”? Their jobs are to make money off of whatever is happening.
The Audacity of Krope
And your evidence for this was an election 21 years ago, my first, where the Democratic candidate fully supported…all the dumb shit Bush was doing that I wanted to stop, like the Iraq War and PATRIOT Act, and was just promising to administer it better?
Sorry, not sorry. Sometimes the results of a primary will make enough of an effect on the ideological positioning of the party that supporters of one candidate may legitimately not find themselves able to support the other.
Also, too, I voted for Democrats further down the ballot that same year. Voted straight D tickets since. Probably still for the best I took an interest in the intra-party politics and showed up for the general, regardless of what I did at the top of the ballot.
Or does that offend the purity of your sensibilities?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
I’m a lifetime Democrat, identify as one and have a track record in here of pissing on those who go thru mental gymnastics to showcase their self-professed progressive bona fides and then always caveat it by saying why they’re not a Democrat >insert pet rationalization here<.
People like me have spent a lifetime holding our noses when voting for certain Federal candidates in a statewide election…however, there does occasionally come a time when that becomes very hard to do.
How does one define that? Really hard to say, it’s like porn, I know it when I see it. For example, Chuck Robb of VA. What. A. Fucking. Tool. After his activity with Uncle Clarence’s confirmation, I swore I’d never vote for his sorry ass again.
But then I learned how to turn my nose-holding to 11 because his next opponent was Oliver North. Sigh.
If our glibertarian techbro governor weren’t term limited and ran again, I’d have a hard time voting for him…until the other guys put forth somebody so nuts I’d hafta hold my nose.
My ruminations had a point when I started and I guess the point is, despite my inner FUCKYOUICAN’TSTANDVOTINGFORYOUONEMOREFUCKINGTIME!!!!! thoughts, I still end up voting for them in the end.
Bupalos
@The Audacity of Krope: Running for office?
I mean, I don’t disagree that there were ‘concepts of a plan’ … we’re really being a little obtuse if we thought voters were going to see “nothing that comes to mind” and “Cheney alliance to defend sacred institutions of democracy” as revolutionary.
Citizen Dave
Did not expect Nick Cave content here. He is one of my very favorite artists. Will have to check that out.
Several years ago I read a tip from someone in the WSJ (we have a work copy). One of those vanity pieces where they ask some noted person a bunch of questions. I can’t recall who this came from, but the tip was not to turn on the TV at all in the morning when in a hotel. I’ve been doing this ever since when on work travel. It helps a lot in terms of not getting worked up, being calm, etc. ‘Course in recent years the unrelenting information stream is on our phones. But that beats cable tv morning shows by far.
prostratedragon
@WTFGhost:
Deeply, deeply stupid. Turning the country into an authoritarian state doesn’t even require such wholesale destruction
Chief Oshkosh
@Soprano2: Yes, yes, yes. There’s plenty of blame to go around. But NONE of this would happen if Trump weren’t so fucked in the head. There’s not another Republican “leader” who would have done this. If Trump became incapacitated this afternoon, by tomorrow morning JDivan would “acquiesce” to R electeds and the tariffs would be killed.
NotMax
@prostratedragon
Yes indeedy.
Bupalos
@Chief Oshkosh: This is probably true and it’s why Trump wins. And Trump knows that. More Trumps will figure out this math, so we better get better at fighting it and not get caught up in thought experiments that deny the political reality around us.
Trump has spectacular disabilities, but he’s better at political reality than we are.
am
I’d wondered how the heck you knew about butter lambs. Did you chase each other with pussywillow branches and have water gun fights for Dyngus Day on Monday, too?
Appreciate the Fry/Cave video.
The Audacity of Krope
@Bupalos: Well 2024 had that little feature of an incumbent during the primary that wasn’t seriously contested. Our opportunity to choose someone to shake up the status quo was in 2020.
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
And you didn’t express any regret over your choice, did you? And you’re defending it now. So this is who you are now. So thanks for the additional clarification.
Bye.
Matt McIrvin
@The Audacity of Krope: In his second term, George W. Bush nominated John Roberts and Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court.
Jeffro
SO much inside baseball on this top 10,000 blog, lol
Jeffro
Well, we’re sure about to find out.
I guess it will take a Covid-type crash, which we are about to get, to make these folks realize just what they’ve got in trumpov. And it won’t get better until he’s out of office, either – he is not giving up on his ‘magic money’ (tariffs) or his insistence that he’s a sooper-genius. We’re looking at nearly four years of Depression unless ol’ Donnie is removed from office or strokes out.
Your move, GOP!
Jeffro
Yup.
“Dying of Whiteness“, so to speak.
Miss Bianca
@frosty: When you are penalized for low standardized test scores – held professionally and even *personally* liable for them – why the hell *wouldn’t* you want to teach to the middle 60%? I’m not justifying it, I’m saying that teachers and administration hate this shit too.
If only abolishing the Department of Education meant that we could *finally* get rid of this bullshit OBSESSION with fucking tests and test scores, I could almost get behind it. But since that’s not what’s going to happen – those children left behind by No Child Left Behind are just going to fall further and further behind with cuts to Title I services.
Bupalos
@New Deal democrat: It’s pretty much just in the nature of being human that we need others to be able to see ourselves. China understands a lot about American oligarchy that America doesn’t know, and America understands a lot about Chinese dictatorship that China doesn’t know.
though we’re busy losing the ability to see dictatorship as well, for reasons.
The Audacity of Krope
@lowtechcyclist: And you’re defending the Democrats nominating someone who voted to authorize a War against a nation that hadn’t ever harmed us directly and had been quiet with respect to its neighbors for a decade.
People like you are the ones giving “both sides” narratives credibility.
And I’m putting down markers now. No Fetterman or Newsom in 2028.
schrodingers_cat
@UncleEbeneezer: You can include blog favorite Warren in this as well. Everyday she would tweet how Biden could make student loans go away with a stroke of a pen.
Did she ever introduce legislation for student loan forgiveness
I had to unfollow her because I got tired of her constant whining. Senator you can do more about this issue than tweeting like the rest of us plebes.
Librettist
@The Audacity of Krope:
Pedantic nit noted.
Maybe go practice tieing you shoes or something. Better use of your time than whinging at randos on the inner tubes.
catclub
@Matt McIrvin: The reason the US has not yet faced a declining birth rate crisis? Immigration! Immigration! immigration!
This is the American Exceptionalism you have not been looking for.
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: JGC was mad at Ted Kennedy because he made Mrs. Alito cry. Good times. The current Republican shit show was not built in a day. It is the result of decades of contempt for anything else other than tax cuts and bigotry by the party of the white people aka the Republican party.
Bupalos
@Jeffro: the marginal difference between 2020 and 2024 was supplied by a share increase for Trump among non-white voters. He also secured a larger share of young people, less wealthy people, and less educated people. The Democratic vote was whiter, more wealthy, and more educated than 2020.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
He got better.
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Incidentally, what is your take on Bennet parachuting into the Governor’s race after claiming that Washington is so broken he can’t do anything there, so he’s planning to walk away in the middle of his term?
YY_Sima Qian
The PRC is returning Boeing planes already delivered in country, being burnished at the completion facility before final delivery to PRC carriers.
YY_Sima Qian
The PRC applying further non-tariff retaliations:
The CPC regime has not yet gone after the profits & manufacturing savings (which ends up in fat profits) of the US MNCs (cough, Apple & Tesla, cough…) operating in the PRC. That is one of the trump cards the PRC government has in the back pocket, if the economic war gets that far.
The Audacity of Krope
Not a little of mirrors in your personal space…?
Librettist
@YY_Sima Qian:
Nobody needs them stateside.
Southwest has already started parking planes out in the desert.
catclub
@TS:
This is just: Volatility is way up.
Volatility is usually very high when the market is declining. The best up and the worst down days BOTH happen in periods of declining stocks.
Citizen Dave
@Bupalos: Interesting. Very consistent with the view that Trump is a Con Man.
I’m referring to the “less educated” and “young people” factors as being less able to recognize the con(s). Not the other two groups you cite.
Fair Economist
@New Deal democrat: I’m moving some of my investments from US to international myself. I just don’t think the US will be a good place to invest for at least 3 1/2 years. Probably longer; even if we manage to get the Republicans out by 2028 I think Trump will wreck the currency.
catclub
@Bupalos: and I say the not so marginal difference was 7 or so million fewer mail in voters.
catclub
@prostratedragon: Looked at the price of gold lately?
Baud
@catclub:
I should have listened to Ron Paul years ago.
catclub
Stupid CNN headlines:
So more than half of teens say social media is good for youth mental health, right?
catclub
@Baud: You can probably still subscribe to a newsletter.
H.E.Wolf
Baby bonuses, 1930s Fascist style:
11-17-33: “The Fascist authorities are very much worried about the fall of the birthrate of Italy. … The rewards for babies by way of rent reductions, &c., have not brought results.”
– Henry W. Bunn, US columnist on European affairs for “The Annalist” [economics/business journal: merged with “Business Week” in late 1940].
(Ask me sometime about my Grandpa’s articles for “The Annalist”. He had a ‘nym!)
The Audacity of Krope
Not necessarily. “I don’t know” is a typically an allowed response. We have virtually no information how others responded, better click.
Poll based reporting is my least favorite kind of reporting. “People have an opinion,” great. Do we have any actual evidence on social media effects on mental health?
Steve in the ATL
If anyone is still around, here’s some Nick Cave for you:
Red Right Hand
SFBayAreaGal
@schrodingers_cat: Who is JGC?
Jeffro
@Bupalos: those were shifts on the margins. trumpov won because he won sizable majorities of white Americans. please don’t try to pretend otherwise.
And “Dying of Whiteness” – the book – is not about the 2024 election. It’s about all the bad policies that many whites embrace thanks to racism.
They Call Me Noni
@Fair Economist: Our financial advisor started moving ours back in February. We’re still getting beat up but not as bad as I had feared. Of course we’re just starting this journey through the forest and no-one knows when we come out the other side of the woods.
Steve in the ATL
@They Call Me Noni: what did you think of the Masters ending?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: the other thing is getting enough people used to using AI, which is free right now, and then start charging a fee.
schrodingers_cat
@SFBayAreaGal: John G Cole, blog founder of Balloon Juice.
The Audacity of Krope
Got my copy last night, amid a couple other books. Think I’ll start it soon, but The House Where Death Lives, an anthology of ghost stories is calling to me now.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: In this particular case, I am not sure if it is organic trolling from Chinese netizens, or an influence operation by the CPC regime (it is normally piss poor at external propaganda toward Western audiences), or both, but IMO effective because I think the assessment is fundamentally true.
It has increasingly become the dominant opinion among Chinese people w/ overseas exposure toward the West in general & the US specifically, especially post-pandemic travel restrictions, as the more worldly urban mass affluent Chinese started to venture abroad again, & have been shocked at the decay in physical infrastructure & social welfare in the US (& to a lesser extent, Europe).
I think here is where the Western macro-economic orthodoxy, & the political economic conventional wisdom, have kind of lost the plot since the ’80s (& not just the Miltonites & the Neoliberals). It was just accepted that the PRC’s economic miracle occurred in spite of the CPC regime rather than substantially due to the CPC regime (IOW, the state being the obstacle to be overcome rather than the necessary builder, facilitator & regulator). The obsession became about profitability, market capitalization, & Return on Invested Capital, including for public goods & infrastructure. All of this had the effect of concentrating the surplus value created (through free trade, the information revolution & automation) toward the producers & the capital owners that back the producers, & not toward the consumers (who also happen to be the workers). The profits were privatized & the costs socialized.
Public goods almost universally have poor ROIC, because their purpose is not to generate high profits for the state, but to expand the size of the political economic pie (which then translates to higher tax revenue to the state) & to improve the quality of life of citizens. Evaluating the financial “sustainability” of public goods on per project basis is ass-backwards. This is also why Western attempts to facilitate the development of the Global South have largely been miserable failures.
The Western political economic orthodoxy has completely misdiagnosed the PRC’s political economy for the same reason. Ever since the PRC government started to ramping up infrastructure investment in the ’90s, Western commentators have raised the specter of waste (empty highways, railways, airports & apartments), ignoring the fact that even today the per capita capital stock of the PRC remains a fraction of that of the developed world. Michael Pettis (whose views have gained currency in both Trump & Biden administrations) has been predicting that PRC “over-investment” & “underconsumption” would cap GDP growth rates to 3 – 5% per annum, & keep the PRC in the “Middle Income Trap”, since the mid-’00s, even as the PRC built world class infrastructure, saw GDP increase by 3X, huge gains in household income & consumption, & reach the technological frontier in a number of industries. That is one rung below Gordon Chang predicting 25 of the last 0 PRC economic collapses since 2001. Pettis once notoriously suggested (in the early ’10s) that, since French workers were more productive than Chinese workers & thus the former’s time more “valuable” than the latter, HSR made more economic sense for France than the PRC. That was an ass-backward formulation that would only manage to keep developing countries “developing” & poor, since capital investment (in industry, infrastructure, housing, public goods) is what promotes development & productivity to begin w/. If you read Paul Krugman’s or Brad Setser’s takes on the PRC economy, they are not far from Michael Pettis’.
Sure, post-GFC the PRC built significantly ahead of demand on housing in 3rd Tier & below cities, likewise on infrastructure. However, the result is that Chinese residents now enjoy a quantity & quality of infrastructure & housing that is far ahead of their E/SE Asian peers at the same per capita GDP levels, & nearly on par w/ what their developed E Asian peers currently enjoy. Furthermore, the mass urbanization of the PRC still has about a decade to run its course, & many urban residents will look to upgrade their housing situations, so most of the overbuilt residential (even commercial) real estate can still be absorbed in the coming years. These are physical assets w/ long usable lives, unlike asset price bubbles.
Another knock on the PRC economy was the brutal competition suppressing the profitability (& thus valuations) of market participants. Absolutely true, but what is missed is that low producer profits means the surplus value created accrued to the consumers (& thus the workers), instead. As far as the CPC regime is concerned, that is the feature, not the bug. It is pursuing an “Abundance” agenda that is far beyond what Ezra Klein is conceiving, & that starts w/ energy abundance (the foundation for everything else) via the gargantuan investments into renewables & nuclear.
The PRC economic has overcome a lot of challenges & still faces a lot more, & even the post-Mao CPC regime has certainly been susceptible to mistakes, prevarications, procrastinations & miscalculations, but the bulk of Western analyses of the PRC political economy (& their own) do not even have the right framework.
They Call Me Noni
@Steve in the ATL: Too dramatic than it should have been but I am very glad Rory won. Justin Rose is a class act and I have a lot of respect for him too. He just goes about his business without a lot of drama. Have never been a Bryson fan so I wasn’t at all upset when he imploded.
New Deal democrat
@YY_Sima Qian: Thanks for the detailed reply.
prostratedragon
Stupid, stupid!!
gene108
@Chief Oshkosh:
Not one person.
Spineless Congressional Republicans, greedy billionaires who only care about tax cuts, crazy-ass tech-bro billionaires who want to bring about a dystopian sci-fi future, Trump’s sycophantic Cabinet, and millions and millions of American voters made this possible.
If these people stood up to Trump even a little bit, things would not be so bad.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Miss Bianca:
Bennet’s a putz. He also clearly lined up plenty of reasonably prominent Dems, new and old, to endorse him.
The fact that our Great White Dope of a Mayor was right there at his side is reason enough to not want him here as governor.
I don’t really know much about AG Weiser other than he’s sued a lot of entities that always need suing. And that a lot of old-school Denver Dems are supporting him. Not surprisingly, those same Dems understandably detest our political lightweight Mayor and assume Bennet would appoint him to fill out the rest of his terms.
Might not be bad if it rids us of Mayor Mikey but then it’s Denver and all we ever get are craptastic replacements.
scribbler
@The Audacity of Krope: As far as I can tell you didn’t respond to Matt McIrvin at #139. Was your vote against Kerry worth having Alito and Roberts on the Supreme Court?
The Audacity of Krope
@scribbler: My vote had literally no bearing on Alito and Roberts being on the court. I, like most people, am in a state where the Presidential vote is so lopsided my personal vote has negligible relevance.
And if you don’t want Republicans nominating Supreme Court justices, nominate better Democrats for president.
scribbler
@The Audacity of Krope: Hmm. Yes, I see. You’re totally right to exercise your purity vote whenever and where ever you like.
Betty Cracker
@Steve in the ATL: 🎶
Love that song. :)
The Audacity of Krope
@scribbler: It occurs to me that if someone a bit more more pacifist, social justice oriented, or socialist who I preferred were nominated, there wouldn’t be this type of shaming of centrist Democrats not choosing to vote for them.
“It was a bridge too far…”
Punch left, placate right. Just as true for Democrats as Republicans and you wonder why your party is in such bad shape.
Goddamn hypocrites.
The Audacity of Krope
@The Audacity of Krope: Oh and when the establishment figures decide that their own candidate doesn’t look good enough on TV and railroad him out of the race, we’re just meant to accept that and move on too.
There is a serious lack of principle among…too many of you.
scribbler
@The Audacity of Krope: I think it’s hilarious that what you take away from this is I’m shaming centrist Democrats. I want ALL the Democrats possible!
What I’m saying is that in the purplish-reddish state that I’m in, Democrats don’t have the option to vote only on one issue, no matter how important that issue is to us. We suck it up, vote blue, and try to deny Republicans a way in.
Steve in the ATL
@They Call Me Noni: I concur on all points. And Bryson is a loud and proud trumper so eff that guy.
tam1MI
I disagree with you about a lot of things, but substitute the word “candidate” for “President”, and I am with you 1000%.
Elizabelle
The ValPak Index: (those junk mail envelopes full of local business coupons that come to every mailing address):
Just leafed through the most recent and — not a single fast food coupon. One coupon for a local Mexican restaurant.
But no other food and restaurant coupons. Not even the Chinese restaurant 10% off that has been a constant. The owners/managers know they cannot afford to do them.
A pak full of home improvement advertisements, and one dentist.
Have never seen that. Never.
Elizabelle
Betty C, that’s a beautiful photo of your ripening tomato plants. Can almost smell the leaves with the sun on them. A favorite smell.
Mrs. Meyers was offering a tomato vine scented soap last year.
They Call Me Noni
@Steve in the ATL: Didn’t know that about him, but I am not surprised. Just one more reason to root against him.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: Loved it with the opening titles of The Peaky Blinders.
The Audacity of Krope
@scribbler: No. What I’m saying is that centrist Democrats would never be shamed in this way for withholding their vote for a candidate perceived as too pacifist, too social justice oriented, or too socialist.
It gets waved away as obvious, wrong candidate for the district, it’s the left’s fault for winning the primary.
Basically your position works backwards from “what is best for billionaire connected establishment Dems” to justify what that wing of the party does to the detriment of every other wing of the party. Committed Democrats eat that shit up but literally no one else finds it convincing and people like me who have voted for Democrats 99.88% of the time without that tribal commitment even find it super fucking irritating. Like what is your goal here, for me to go back in time and change my vote?
@tam1MI: The President was that candidate.
YY_Sima Qian
@New Deal democrat: The People’s Bank of China is pivoting to energetically promoting the internationalization of the Yuan (but not as the new global reserve currency):
& Setser on the current suit of PRC retaliation to date:
Keeping the Yuan stable against the USD promotes the former’s use by the PRC’s trade partners, while its slide along w/ the USD against other currencies enhances the already tremendous competitive advantage that the PRC manufacturing sector enjoys.
JimV
I lasted about a minute of Stephen Fry/Nick Cave. When you start with BS about a god creating the universe in six days as the foundation of your argument, you lose me. When you don’t understand what ChatGPT is and isn’t, what it took to create it and train it, you’re incoherent. It was developed and made by humans. Its misuses were done by humans. As a creation, it is a human achievement, like the cannon, the germ theory of disease, and the atomic bomb. Go after the specific people who are misusing it, not the concept, and don’t tell me it isn’t an achievement and can’t do any good.
Betty Cracker
@JimV: If you only heard the first minute of the letter, you didn’t hear the full argument, and it sure seems like you missed the point if you think Cave invoked God and the creation myth as anything other than a commonly understood analogy that in no way requires the reader to believe superstitious religious claptrap.
That’s okay — you’re not required to hear Cave out, but it renders your rebuttal meaningless, IMO.
The Audacity of Krope
@Betty Cracker: Also reeks of “you need advanced expertise in this subject to offer any opinion at all.”
sab
I have some very overripe cocktail tomatoes in my kitchen. Tomorrow I transfer them to the yard and hope the seeds thrive.
Myarents had years of good tomatoes in the rosebed because my sister could not be bothered to eat a whole BLT sandwich. The abandoned tomatoes almost always routed.
pluky
@p.a.: PE hovers up houses like yours for the land. The dwelling is trashed, and as big a McMansion is then erected as will fit, as cheaply (therefore shoddily) as possible.
pluky
@YY_Sima Qian: This is why I read this blog!