It’s a bit grubby here in the swamp this morning because our water pump shut down yesterday, so no running water. We found out Thursday the problem doesn’t lie in the pump. It’s either a tank issue or, worse, a problem with the well itself.
Our well and pump guy is coming out again this morning, and I’m hoping the situation can be resolved today by replacing the tank because dirty dishes are piling up, which drives me nuts. Dishes are the only thing I’m a clean freak about.
I also don’t want to have to drive to my dad’s or mother-in-law’s place to take a shower again. I suppose I could wade out into the river and bathe, looking out for gators while soaping up. But that might scandalize the tourists who are hauled by every half hour or so in a giant airboat.
Well, they did pay $50 a head for a “swamp adventure.” Might as well give ’em a show!
We’ve been without power or running water due to hurricanes past, and I agree with my sister, who said she’d rather be without power for a week than lose running water for a day. Fingers crossed for the tank!
***
For me, Rachel Maddow’s show has been a ray of light in this dark, creepy and endlessly maddening authoritarian tunnel we’ve been trudging through for nearly 100 days. In last night’s opener, Maddow reviewed Trump’s poll numbers. They are tanking!
We’re rightly skeptical of polls, but they’re the only data we have. They are important because public opinion is the primary battleground right now.
We need marginal voters who don’t pay attention to politics to turn on Trump and Republicans so that the opposition can regain power before the evil shitheads who are currently in charge permanently entrench themselves. It looks like that’s happening as majorities sour on Trump.
Trump’s polls are historically bad and dropping, even on issues where he formerly had majority support, like the economy and immigration. As Maddow detailed last night, Americans oppose this administration’s tendency to flout court rulings by overwhelming margins.
The public also disapproves of ICE snatching people off the street and sending them to foreign gulags or bundling students off to immigration jails for the crime of writing op-eds in the student paper or protesting on campus. The public is not in favor of the destruction of federal agencies.
This is good!
Should those marginal swing voters have thought this through and considered the ample evidence of Trump’s incompetence, malice, greed, bigotry, misogyny and disregard for the truth before handing him power again? Yes!
But this is the electorate we’re stuck with: approximately 45% who care about democracy and justice, another 45% who are avidly pro-fascist and around 10% who apparently lack object permanence. If that latter group is waking up and wrinkling their noses at the shit-show, that’s a good thing.
***
I suspect things will get worse for Trump. We’ve got to remember we’re not normal media consumers. We pay attention to this stuff. Most people don’t, so it takes a while for shit to get real in their world.
Things will get worse for Trump when the full effects of the tariffs foolishness land squarely on our heads, which hasn’t happened yet. (It’s coming — stock up on toilet paper now.)
Things will get worse for Trump when the blackout drunk, incompetent sex pest Trump put in charge of the Pentagon inevitably compromises national security.
Things will get worse for Trump when the billionaire weirdos he appointed to dismantle agencies and manage commerce make more astoundingly out-of-touch comments that signal they don’t live on the same planet the rest of us do.
Things will get worse for Trump when the obsequious fascists he put in charge of federal law enforcement and homeland security make more creepy and authoritarian statements or pull more atrocious stunts or keep jetting around to watch fights at taxpayer expense.
Things will get worse for Trump as other leaders clown our would-be king on the world stage, revealing him not as a great dealmaker but rather a crypto scammer and a dumb blowhard who’s in over his head.
***
Some of y’all took issue with the way I described these Trump assholes in a post yesterday: low quality hires. I hear you, and I thought about it, but I respectfully disagree and stand by that description.
Being of low quality doesn’t preclude their also being evil and enemies of democracy, which they are. It means they’re incompetent, and they manifestly are that too.
The bad news is that destroying things doesn’t necessarily require competence. You could arm a demented orangutan with a flamethrower and shove it into a fireworks factory, and destruction would be the highly predictable result.
The good news is the flames and explosions would be seen and heard for miles around. It would be impossible to ignore. And if the people who weren’t paying attention when the orangutan started the blaze wanted to save their town, they would band together and put out the fire.
That’s where I think we are now. The deranged primate is in the factory with the flamethrower, and more people are noticing the flames, which will get much worse and soon, prompting even more alarm and, hopefully, more hands in the bucket brigade.
At least that’s what I tell myself to maintain hope. Hope is important. And today, I have hope in a tank — and a continuation of the tanking.
Open thread.
Baud
Low poll numbers > high poll numbers.
Kristine
Best well wishes, BC.
ArchTeryx
Reposted from dead thread (?) below:
It’s very hard for me to maintain hope any more and that’s the truth.
I’m autistic, and I’m being lined up yet again for some kind of home grown Aktion T4, enough that I am preparing to have to run from my own country just to survive. That is not a first world problem, and being chronically ill and late middle aged to boot, it’s going to be very hard… if I make it at all.
My group of friends fell comletely apart, thanks to the strain on a couple of my LGBTQ+ members breaking them and turning them antisocial and hostile. They split the group down the middle and everyone was underbussing everyone else. It was a total disaster, and a complete failure of leadership on my part.
I vacillate between just getting my gun and shooting myself and going out in a blaze of glory. (No, I don’t use suicide hotlines. I know where those end up, and our local cops would just as soon shoot me themselves as assist in any way).
gVOR10
I didn’t realize until our first hurricane in FL that the worst thing is that when you lose power, you lose the water pump, and when you lose the water pump, you lose flush toilets. Hope it’s the tank, that’s relatively cheap and easy.
Scout211
I feel you, BC. We’ve lived out here in the boonies for 17 years and the accumulated repairs and replacement of parts to our well pump, our storage tank and our booster pump have been overwhelming at times.
That good feeling that we don’t have to pay for drinking water faded quickly when we realized the whole system is fragile and parts degrade quickly when well water is full of iron and manganese and other assorted nasty surprises. Sigh.
Good luck with the repairs. I hope it’s a quick fix today.
Professor Bigfoot
To quote Murderbot, “humans are idiots.”
SiubhanDuinne
Betty, this is the one time in my life I don’t want to say “well done!” to one of your posts.
schrodingers_cat
@ArchTeryx: Please take care of yourself, you are valued and wanted. 2024 was awful for me, I lost my mom rather suddenly. I have still not completely come to terms with it. For me personally in all the turmoil creating something, even if it is a coloring book page gives me solace.
geg6
I have to say, I am a born pessimist. But I have been surprising myself and many who know me by being the voice of hope in the last week or so. I don’t know why that is but it’s just a sliver of a feeling that things are turning. I always listen to my gut because it has always served me well when I do and that flutter of hope is there. Maybe I’m delusional because my personal life is such a mess so I’m desperate to feel better about something, anything, but I’m leaning into it anyway.
Librettist
President Oily Rag would like a taste of that sweet sweet Act Blue action.
Professor Bigfoot
@Professor Bigfoot: Ran out of time with an edit:
We are also capable of great things, for such idiots; and one of our superpowers as a species is “hope.” Along with “faith,” it’s how humans keep going in the face of an implacable Universe… oh, and also in the face of our fuckin’ idiots. 😉
satby
The worst part about living out in the sticks was the lack of water when electricity was out, and since my area was at the end of the priority list for restoration 5 day outages weren’t unheard of. Plus, well water actually sucks every place I’ve ever had it. So I feel you Betty, and hope it’s an easy fix. I eventually had to put in a new well, and then had to move about two years later anyway.
Harrison Wesley
So Hope is a tank? I thought Hope was the thing with feathers.
David Collier-Brown
@ArchTeryx: Consider Canada, after the election next Monday. We have our own mini-trump, of course, but he’s doing so bad it looks like he will lose his own seat in Parliament.
Baud
@David Collier-Brown:
You’re welcome.
cain
who would object to describing Trump’ists being low quality hires? Seems like an apt description?
Betty Cracker
@ArchTeryx: I am sorry things are so shitty. I can relate a little, having been on a fear and depression spiral in the past. Words can’t express how much it sucks — how suffocating and life-destroying it is. Please reach out to someone you know and trust, and let us know how you’re doing. You matter.
ArchTeryx
@David Collier-Brown: Yeah. I’m making arrangements, but Canada isn’t my final stop. Europe is. I’ve a sister who’s a French citizen and works for the French government, and might be able to swing me an asylum visa. I know the French are starting to offer safe havens for American scientists Trump turfed out. Maybe they could use a financial analyst or washed up virologist.
ArchTeryx
@Betty Cracker: Thank you. I know how awful things are for you too. My fiancee is a 3-time cancer survivor and she’s still with it. I’m hoping you beat it and make it back to us. I consider you the Molly Ivins of our group.
Manyakitty
@schrodingers_cat: hugs, friend.
Manyakitty
@satby: did your wanderer come home yet?
Also, so sorry to hear about the loss of your baby/wanderer’s brother.
Jeffro
It is, it is.
I worry about the pro-fascist 40-45%, though: that’s the Fox News Floor in effect. It’s a LOT of Americans who should have woken up to trump & the billionaires’ scams and schemes a long time ago.
45% – the crazy 27% = 18% of American voters who if nothing else should have done a PJ O’Rourke, held their nose, and voted for the candidate who was “wrong, but within normal parameters”. If they’d joined the rest of us sane folks, we’d be winning landslides all over the place.
But the MAGA GOP…Fox and Co…they’re very good at distracting a highly distractible electorate, day in and day out.
Manyakitty
@ArchTeryx: Godspeed. I suspect we’ll all find a target of some sort on us as this nightmare progresses, but it’s so scary to be on the forefront.
Trivia Man
Huge news from wisconsin – FBI arrested a Milwaukee judge for, i think, obstruction of ICE
Scout211
@ArchTeryx: I’m so sorry you are going through this.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes when I feel overwhelmed with life, I don’t want people to try to make me feel better, I just want them to hear me and tell me, “That SUCKS!”
So yeah, it sucks, but it sounds like you are starting to make plans and take steps. That’s always a positive. Hopefully Canada or France will be a refuge for you.
Check in here when you can. Please take care of yourself.
frosty
That’s why I filled up the bathtubs December 31, 1999. Even though we were on city water and sewer, nobody knew what would happen, but at least I’d be able to flush the toilets!
Harrison Wesley
I think my Niemoller number is fairly far down on the scale, but I worry about my oldest friend: a Black, female, wheelchair-bound Old. Her response to the ongoing mess we’re in is to post lots of stuff on social media, and I’ve told her that’s courageous but not necessarily the best thing to do right now.
Old Man Shadow
Yea, the morons are getting a clue.
Too bad we’re still fucking stuck with their fucking choice, the fucking motherfucker, for another three years and eight long fucking months.
No, we couldn’t possibly have the nice, intelligent lady who knew shit. We needed “The Businessman” who bankrupted casinos and fucked up everything he touched in his life, including the fucking nation the last time he was president.
Trivia Man
@ArchTeryx: Are you happy with YOUR words and actions? I have many family members with severe mental illness, it gets overwhelming and i second guess myself constantly. I can only manage what i say and do, reminding myself helps. If i am happy with what i did then i rest easy. If i think of something i could have done better then i try to be better next time.
Carry water, chop wood. I do what i can and the dun comes up again.
lowtechcyclist
Jay had suggested a couple weeks ago that we might should do that, so I did that already. (Thanks, Jay!)
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffro:
Great summary. Anything that references the Crazification Factor is always pertinent.
It’s always easy to blame Faux “News” for helping get us to where we are today but it really does help explain that 18% “bump”. Yeah, social media is an adjunct to that and might well carry the right wing propaganda mantle going forward but looking back on that outlet and today has been a sobering experience. Goebbel’s would be soooo proud.
CaseyL
In my quest to find Good Things, I’ve been turning to science – which will continue to burble on, even if not in the US.
And sometimes still in the US!
Colossal Biosciences famously announced the birth of sorta-kinda dire wolf pups, the first living products of their “de-extinction” projects. They got a lot of MSM attention – which was of course of the facile, no-background-or-context variety. And they got a lot of pushback from people who know and care about the biosciences.
Among the latter was Hank Green, on his YouTube Channel hankschannel. He posted an entire video explaining, clearly and factually, why the Dire Wolves were not Dire Wolves.
Here’s the amazing good part: Colossal Biosciences posted a video in response. And it was a reasoned, fact-packed, response that acknowledged many of Hank’s concerns, and took the opportunity to talk more broadly about what Colossal Biosciences is doing.
Where do I find hope? In exchanges like this: incredibly educated and knowledgeable people discussing big things, in mutual good faith and honest inquiry, in the service of helping the world.
It is a shame, a shonda, a massive crime, for the US to unilaterally dismantle its science infrastructure. The US is inflicting a new Dark Ages on itself, and that is something to rage against. But the US is not the whole world, and the rest of the world can, and will, fill the gap.
That gives me hope.
Professor Bigfoot
@David Collier-Brown: Perhaps our suffering will not be for nothing.
It is wise to learn from the mistakes of others.
brendancalling
Speaking of tanking, we need to talk about John Fetterman, whose approval ratings are tanking and who seems to have gone completely insane.
He needs a primary, and he needs to LOSE that primary.
Betty Cracker
Good news for us — it was the tank and a switch, so several hundred dollars instead of several thousand. Whew! Now I can wash the damn dishes! :)
Old School
@Betty Cracker: Hooray!
(And Whew!)
satby
@frosty: actually, those of us who had worked the previous two years (some people even longer) on remediation of old data bases for Y2k had a darn good idea what would happen. And it was mostly a nothingburger thanks to all of that work.
satby
@Betty Cracker: oh, hallelujah!
ArchTeryx
@brendancalling: Fetterman is a crypto Republican at this point. Yeah, he needs to get the Kyrsten Sinema treatment. Too bad he’s not up for how man years?
CaseyL
@Betty Cracker: Yay! So glad it wasn’t anything worse.
Let the dish-washing begin!
Geminid
@brendancalling: I’m not so sure John Fetterman will run for reelection. He doesn’t act like it he wants to. Fetterman doesn’t look like a healthy man, either.
mappy!
Take the bright when it shines…
Professor Bigfoot
@Harrison Wesley: Not necessarily the safest thing to do, perhaps; but “courage is being scared to death and saddling up anyway.”
frosty
@satby:
Oh, I know about all the work that was done. It was still a cross your fingers moment at 11:59 that it was enough. And it was.
Baud
@mappy!:
Oh, come on!
Old School
@Trivia Man:
Kash Patel tweeted about it, but seems to have deleted the tweet.
Here’s the local coverage.
Jackie
I don’t pray, but I’m feverishly hoping President Biden gets better seating than FFOTUS! After all, being a true believing Catholic should count, right?
gene108
@ArchTeryx:
I’ve tried killing myself once. Even after that I went through a period of around 19 years where I had suicidal ideations off and on.
It’s really hard.
Living is worth it.
I hope you are able to resettle in France and things improve for you.
Please practice the care you need to make it through. You are a valuable member of this community.
Gin & Tonic
@mappy!:
!!!
YY_Sima Qian
For you policy wonks, Kyle Chan has a great deep dive into the dynamics of the Sino-US Cold War, the points of leverage & the vulnerabilities:
I do have some quibbles w/ his analyses. Delisting the ADRs of Chinese firms from US equities markets will not hurt these firms very much, at least not those w/ dual listings in Hong Kong or other locations (which is most of them). Major Chinese state owned enterprises only listed their Hong Kong registered arms on the US exchanges, & do not rely upon the US equities market for financing. OTOH, wanton delisting of Chinese firms as part of an escalating Cold War will be another body blow to the credibility of the US equities market, which has already been undermined by the obvious corrupt trading at a massive scale through all of the volatility over the past several weeks.
The US’ has had a difficult time enforcing the ban of Nvidia GPUs to the PRC, & we will see how successful the PRC will be in restricting US access to refined rare earth elements & rare earth magnets.
I agree w/ Adam Posen that the PRC has escalation dominance in the trade war, because the PRC has far superior “producer power”, has alternative suppliers for the commodities that the US exports, while the US has fewer options for the critical materials, intermediate inputs/components, finished products & capital goods it purchases from the PRC, sometimes no alternative options in the short to medium term, at all. The PRC can make up for the lost US demand by exporting to alternative markets (including as rerouting through 3rd parties for the US market), & more importantly by stimulating domestic demand. The US has far fewer options to address a twin crises of recession & high inflation, both from the COVID-like supply chain shock.
The larger Cold War 2.0 is a war of attrition, which will be decided by the speed & effectiveness w/ which each side exploit their respective strengths & address their respective vulnerabilities. Since Trump 45 launched the trade & tech wars against the PRC, which Biden continued & escalated, the PRC has been preparing carefully & executing w/ focus & determination for the contingency of the Sino-US relationship becoming a full blow Cold War w/ rapid decoupling. IMHO, Biden’s foreign & industrial policies caused complications for the PRC, but did not fundamentally alter the dynamics. Now w/ the shambolic Trump 47 in charge, & DOGE taking a wrecking ball to the governing capacity of USG as well as long term viability of US academia, & thoroughly alienating everyone (neutrals, ex-partners & former allies alike), the US is now at a distinct disadvantage. Trump 47 exercising the US’ leverage in this contest will simply & rapidly draw down the US’ remaining reserves of strength, greatly accelerating the process seen over the past 8 years. (Even Biden was drawing down the reserves of goodwill w/ partners & allies by coercing them into partial alignment on the tech war w/ the PRC, tensions temporarily alleviated by Putin’s re-invasion of Ukraine, but now coming to the fore again.)
Anyway, Kyle Chan’s analyses is well worth reading in full.
Bupalos
@ArchTeryx: Thanks for reposting, I was going to reply there, to say I very much doubt it was a failure of your leadership that lead to a split, and to encourage you to look at it from different angles. First and foremost I’d encourage us all to understand that the task we have in front of us to maintain and build solidarity is incredibly difficult, more difficult than it first appears or than appears when we assume we’re looking at an us-versus-them picture with clear divisions. Online discourse, the moralization of politics, and algorithmic clustering are effectively changing the way we think, and ultimately making broader solidarity more difficult. We’re seeing that on the level of nations all the way down to softball teams and book clubs.
This isn’t easy, and not being able to captain a rowboat in a hurricane isn’t a lack of seamanship. Your boat is still there. Maybe think about repairing it as you can and picking up who you can and beat on. It matters.
I’d be interested to hear the tick-tock on just how you feel your group fell apart.
Jeffro
I am LOLing all over the place
Elon spent $250M on the election…for the opportunity to lose $100B+ in one of his core businesses.
He destroyed his business with the very people most inclined to buy EVs
Keep going to those rallies out in the hinterlands, Elon – they LOVE you out there!
Jeffro
@Baud: it’s bad writing in this timeline, all the way down!
artem1s
It’s not just the tariffs that will be hitting people. I got some RX refilled yesterday at the county hospital pharmacy. I can get generic version of over the counter meds that I ask my GP to fill so I can use my health savings account to pay for them. And so I don’t have to pay ridiculous prices for packaging and advertising for brand name OTCs. Most of the time I get the same generic version for 1/3 or less than I would at CVS or some other big box pharmacy. This time the generic version of Mucinex cost me almost twice what it cost me a year ago. I figure it’s probably a mix of tariff and the EO on discontinuing medicare and medicaid being able to negotiate drug prices and the county hospital not being able to use cheaper suppliers (Canada?). It was still cheaper than OTC prices but not as much as I saved in the past. This is a relatively low cost RX. A lot of under served and poor constituents use the county pharmacy. I can only imagine what the impact is these tariffs and other EO’s are going to be for higher priced and designer drugs.
lowtechcyclist
Good luck with the well and the tank, BC. Being without water does indeed suck way more than being without power. In the wake of Isabel in 2003, my wife and I were without power for four or five days, and we were in a water rationing situation for a few days, but that was as far as it got. And even that sucked. Fortunately, power was restored to the area (which meant the county water started to flow as well) before we got too desperate.
Jackie
@Betty Cracker:
YAY!!! I’m like you; I can take a bit of messiness – as long as the kitchen sink is empty and tidy!!!
Professor Bigfoot
@Betty Cracker: YAAAAYYYY!!!
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: Hooray!
Having had the well seize up at the Mountain Hacienda more than once – a couple times because of ice, a couple times because of lightning strikes taking out the electric pump – I agree, I’d way rather go without electricity for a while than go without running water. There’s nothing that makes me feel more absolutely feral than that.
Motivated Seller
Peoplewanted a show, and the orange flame-throwing orangutan delivered!Taste-makers–in-the business-of-selling-ad-space wanted a show, and the orange flame-throwing orangutan delivered!
ArchTeryx
@gene108: Multiple times here. I apparently didn’t want to do it because I am still here, and being a biochemist, I used to have access to all manner of nasty stuff that would have done the job with no hope of an antidote.
lowtechcyclist
@ArchTeryx:
Good luck with your plans. Sorry it has to come to this for you.
Jackie
@Old School:
Confirmed on MSNBC. This isn’t good.
Timill
@ArchTeryx: Fetterman was elected in Nov 2022, so he’d be up for re-election in 2028.
Like many, I don’t think he will, and I also suspect he’s had more mini-strokes since the main one.
gene108
@geg6:
I am also a pessimist by nature, but I too feel a bit more hopeful than I did a few weeks ago.
Stories of ICE’s reign of terror, the detention and intention to deport foreign students for supporting Palestinians, the brushing off of court orders, and finally the rendition of 238 people to CECOT and the details of Kilmar Abrego García sent me into a simmering rage.
The Tesla protests, the April 5 and 19th protests, and Democrats rallying behind Abrego García has helped change my mode.
I’m still skeptical if disapproval if Trump and Republicans will translate into support for Democrats, but Trump not getting unquestioned support gives me hope.
ArchTeryx
@Bupalos: Started when a lesbian friend of 15 years suddenly left the group. I asked her if she was okay, and she took a very cheap shot at my trans members. I came down on her hard for that, and her response was to refund my art commission money, block me, and disappear without a word.
Then a transmasculine person entirely changed personalities and decided that any perceived insult was a hill worth dying on. I watched him go from a stable individual to a human chihuahua. And that started alienating several other group members. By then, I’d given up leadership of the group to my best friend and fiancee. They attempted to talk to Micki, and he quite abruptly left the conversation, laid a huge guilt trip on me, and flounced out of the group. He was popular, so his hostile departure split the group into pro- and anti-Micki factions, and it rapidly came apart from there.
It still exists but it’s half what it was. The rebuilding, if it is even possible, has just begun.
We lost another group member of 25 years (!!) in almost exactly the same way during 2020, the peak of the COVID pandemic. But his departure didn’t wreck the group the way this one-two punch did. Most of the LBGTQ+ folks have left at this point, and the whole purpose of the group was to provide a safe haven and a secure means of planning our escapes.
Professor Bigfoot
@Jackie: That makes three of us— our kitchen is small already, and stuff piled on the counters drives me nuts.
The carpet might not get vacuumed, but the dishes WILL get washed!
Elizabelle
Oh boy, here we go. Breaking news in WaPost (you may have already discussed it):
FBI arrests Wisconsin judge on charges of obstructing immigrant arrest
The arrest of Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan is the first publicly known instance of the Trump administration charging a local official for allegedly interfering with immigration enforcement.
Happened last week.
Jeffro
@mappy!: I did not realize that Tesla has lost between $400-600 billion-with-a-B in value since last year. Holy cow. I have been underestimating it by several. hundred. billion.
Harrison Wesley
@Professor Bigfoot: She’s certainly not going to stop because her friend is a chickenshit.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Yay! Good news! Suds up!
sixthdoctor
Oh, fuck this.
https://blackpressusa.com/the-smithsonian-purge-trump-team-removes-artifacts-of-black-resistance/
I guess I should be thankful the vandals are returning the items to their donors rather than dumping them like I’m sure they’d prefer. I’m glad I visited the museum before they got their hands on it. Fucking repulsive.
Jackie
@Elizabelle: Has anyone seen Judge Dugan since? Is she still in the country?
Only partly joking :-(
Elizabelle
More of the WaPost story:
And the “aha” moment:
lowtechcyclist
@frosty:
I was online that afternoon and evening, and since much of the world rolled over from 1999 to two-thousand-zero-zero well before we did and nothing bad happened, I wasn’t worried about what would happen here, where massive quantities of time, money, and expertise had been devoted to the Y2K bug.
I’m still convinced the whole thing was so overblown as to verge on a hoax. ISTM that some third-world country should’ve had legacy systems with 2-digit year dates but lacked the resources to do anything about it. If there were any problems resulting from something like that, they didn’t get reported. (But you heard of the occasional post office postmarking dates with 1900 as the year on the postmark.)
p.a.
@lowtechcyclist: What I find most hopeful is the drop in approval before real economic problems hit. It’s the cruelty & incompetence, IMHO, that are causing it, and as of last month I would not have given my fellow citizens as a whole credit for that much humanity. I was expecting a drop when it began to affect people generally, the “oh noes it’s not just teh others who are getting hurt” crowd.
Captain C
I would say that being evil and enemies of democracy is definitely a part of the reason they’re low quality hires, and low quality humans in general.
p.a.
Why the anxiety: don’t you have dogs?😉
Elizabelle
This is excellent, because you cannot set up a better heroine vs. goons scenario.
Former Executive Director of Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee (story comes out as the most humane Pope we have had lies in state awaiting his funeral tomorrow) vs. Trump’s government thugs.
Feed and clothe the needy; welcome the stranger vs. the brutality of an aspiring dictator’s crusade against “illegal aliens.”
And an obvious attack on the judiciary, as well.
Tank those Trump ratings moar!
lowtechcyclist
@Betty Cracker:
Yay!!!!!!
p.a.
@Jackie:
Paging John Roberts. Mr. Roberts, please report to the ineffectual hand-wringing station. Paging John Roberts…
YY_Sima Qian
Apple & India caught in the middle of the Sino-US Cold War:
I doubt the PRC government cares all that much about the low value added work of assembling iPhones, but this is paying hardball as a reminder to both Apple & India of the PRC’s leverage. Sino-Indian relations are already thawing, & the PRC can choose to facilitate Indian industrialization if India refrains from participating in geopolitical containment of the PRC.
As I have mentioned before, the far more damaging action the PRC government can take is effectively banning the sale of Apple products w/in the massive Chinese market. iPhones assembled in the PRC only contains ~ 10% of value added w/in the PRC. Having the iPhone’s market share be replace by Huawei, whose phones contain almost 100% value added w/in the PRC, is more beneficial to the PRC’s economy & tech./industrial ecosystem. The hit will not just be to Apple, but TSMC that fabricates the Apple chips, Micron/Samsung/SK Hynix that supply the memory, Samsung that provides the OLED display, Sony that provides the camera modules, & Corning that supplies the cover glass materials. Likewise, the boon will not just be to Huawei, but SMIC that fabricates the Huawei chips, YMTC/CXMT that supply the memory, BOE that provides the OLED displays, O-Film/OmniVision that provide the camera modules, & ATG that supplies the cover glass materials. The device assemblers, Foxconn, Luxshare & BYD, are neutral because they are happy to assemble either iPhones for Huawei devices.
This is not a card that the PRC government will play lightly, as it does not want to frighten away all of the MNCs operating in the PRC, & lose them as potential allies pushing against further escalation by USG. The US cannot play such a card, because Huawei is already banned in the US, & few Chinese mobile brands (MOTO being the sole exception) sell into the US market.
Elizabelle
Judge Dugan’s arrest is the top story on Reuters at the moment, too. They know it’s big.
jonas
If the FBI can detain a judge, can a judge send the US Marshall’s service after the DOJ if they’re held in contempt?
suzanne
It’s more than this. They also lack pattern recognition.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist: What I always say when people go around and around on this is that there were really two separate threads of alarm going on. There were people with legit concerns about a million institutional payroll systems and such needing repair, and that rational concern got dealt with at great expense–it really was a success story about rational management of a crisis.
But then there were also people who were just using Y2K as the thinnest of justifications for their basically numerological End Times hysteria or grift. And they were out there in legions. I remember the evangelical mountebank Jack van Impe really seizing on it.
zhena gogolia
@ArchTeryx: I’ve missed you lately. Your voice is so important here and in the world in general.
lowtechcyclist
@Timill:
Would be nice if he resigned. Gov. Shapiro would appoint his replacement, who would serve until the next statewide election, when his seat would be filled for the rest of his term.
NotMax
@Professor Bigfoot
Why I gravitate to sturdy paper plates.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: I’ve mentioned before that a lot of the anti-Trump rhetoric seems to jump immediately to bashing or blaming Democrats for the situation, almost as if someone is trying to make it a hard as possible to actually vote Republicans out for sucking.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I feel like that’s been true at least as long as politics on the Internet have been around. It’s not something they Russians invented. It’s something they took advantage of.
ETA: where anti-Trump = anti-Republican anything
mali muso
Here’s a tiny crumb of good news that I’m hearing from my professional networks of international educators this morning. It appears that many (most) of the international student’s electronic immigration records that were terminated are now suddenly back in active status. Perhaps in response to the increasing number of TROs being granted by judges as students and their attorneys challenged the legality of the terminations. Yesterday a class action lawsuit was filed. Maybe the administration backed down once their bullying was challenged? Here’s hoping.
Baud
@mali muso:
They back down a lot. But it’s impossible to predict what they’ll back down on. So you have to oppose everything.
Matt McIrvin
@Harrison Wesley:
She’s probably already made that calculation and decided to go ahead. Because what else can you do? Just shutting up before you know of a specific danger is the kind of behavior they’re counting on. They don’t even have to do anything, just come on really threatening.
Baud
@Harrison Wesley:
Tell her she’s awesome.
Kristine
@Betty Cracker: YEA!
lowtechcyclist
@Matt McIrvin:
Forget the End Times stuff. The mainstream media said the concerns were about computerization of power utilities’ systems, traffic signals, Internet, and other infrastructure stuff like that. They, not a bunch of fundies, had told us that these systems that directly affect us might fail at the stroke of midnight. That was what had non-fundie people worried.
Yeah, they mentioned payroll systems and whatnot too, but nobody was worried that a paycheck might not get printed at 12:01 a.m. on January 1, 2000.
Baud
For BC
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: A lot of what they do actually involves pretty small numbers of people, but is really theatrically cruel and shocking. They WANT to come on like melodrama villains. And I think it’s a couple of things: this plays to the sadists in their base who see this kind of show of cruelty as “strength”, but it also serves to demoralize and terrify. They’re hoping for preventive surrender and sometimes, they get it.
They openly call this “shock and awe” and I think it’s pretty funny given that that was the opening move of Bush’s disastrous failure, the Iraq War. They’re just overtly inviting comparisons to a fuckup that ran on vibes instead of planning.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Agree completely.
Bupalos
That caught me just right, and I snorted coffee. I haven’t heard ‘human chihuahua’ before. It’s definitely evocative!
I’m probably somewhat inappropriately fitting this into a box I have all prepared for it- but having coached softball for a dozen years, I really think things are changing wrt people acting irl more like they act online, especially as regards “blocking.” I had an incident this year that left me shocked – 3 girls coming to me and making a case that 2 girls should be removed from the team, not really on the basis of particular things you could point to, but (to summarize) because they have a different (admittedly overly negative) approach to motivating other players. Not “please talk to them,” not “let’s have a team meeting about it…” the opening bid was “kick them off the team because otherwise other people (!) are going to quit.” Like it’s the first and only thing that comes to mind. They are that kind of person and they or I need to go because I am this kind of person.
I mean, players who too loudly or roughly tell other players to do a better job is something that is there all the damn time, every coach knows this. Just time for the “respect others and understand we have different personalities” speech and maybe the “constructive conflict” speech. Neither of these 2 players are in my all-time top 10 of the class that yells “hey get your head out of your ass.” Just standard competitive insensitive players.
Jackie
@NotMax:
Second deadliest kitchen sin: full kitchen trash can. I’d rather wash dishes (and I hand wash) than haul out the trash more often. AND think of the environment! Dirty paper plates aren’t recyclable. :-P
trollhattan
Shut the hell up you worthless bag of skin. Fuck you and your lectures, you’re nobody now. Got it? Nobody.
Ask me what I really think.
Gin & Tonic
Crazy story developing about a 21-year-old American named Michael Gloss, who signed a contract with russian MoD last year, and then earlier this month met the same end that many other fighters for russia have. His mother, who may be of russian descent (story still developing) is a Deputy Director at the CIA.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
BellaPea
I try not to look at any visuals of the Orange Anus, but that photo above next to Rachel Maddow tells the whole story. She is such an intelligent, aware person and she looks great. He looks like, as one of my old friends used to say “death on a cracker.” I’ve heard it said that the face you finally end up with is the one you deserve, and that’s certainly true in his case: old, tired, flabby, and fully corrupt.
trollhattan
@Jackie:
Will cautiously note we now put soiled food wrappers, etc. into the greenwaste bin, the contents of which are composted. Somewhere mysterious.
I only use paper plates at work where we have no kitchen or breakroom, meaning washing dishes in the mens’ room sink? Hard pass.
Baud
@trollhattan:
Who is this person we should forever shun?
rikyrah
The Smithsonian PURGE: Trump Team Removes Artifacts of Black Resistance
By April D. Ryan
Washington Bureau Chief
BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE – Black Press USA has learned that Trump officials are sending back exhibit items to their rightful owners and dismantling them—starting with the 1960 Woolworth’s lunch counter sit-in exhibit.
“This president is a master of distraction and is destroying what it took 250 years to build. Here’s another distraction in his quest for attention. Another failure of his first 100 days,” said North Carolina Rep. Alma Adams, responding to efforts to physically remove the Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth’s lunch counter exhibit from the National Museum of African American History and Culture—affectionately known as the “Blacksonian.”
The exhibit features portions of the original lunch counter and highlights the story of four Black male students from North Carolina A&T who were brutally attacked after sitting at the whites-only counter Feb. 1, 1960. When denied service, the students refused to leave. Their defiance ignited a wave of lunch counter sit-ins across the South and became a major flashpoint in the Civil Rights Movement.
Adams added, “We are long past the time when you can erase history—anyone’s history. You can take down exhibits, close buildings, take down websites, ban books, and try to change history, but we are long past that point. We will never forget!”
Black Press USA has also obtained a letter from Dr. Amos Brown, long-standing civil rights leader and pastor of Third Baptist Church in San Francisco—also known as the home church of former Vice President Kamala Harris.
The letter notifies Dr. Brown that the museum is returning a Bible and George W. Williams’s History of the Negro Race in America, 1618-1880, one of the first books on racism in the U.S. Black Press USA has obtained emails from April 10 and 15, 2025, confirming the transfer.
The excerpt obtained by Black Press USA reads:
Dear Reverend Brown,
“I wanted to alert you that the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) will be returning your Bible and book we borrowed for our exhibition, Segregation.” (Email to Dr. Amos Brown)
These artifacts have been on display since the museum’s opening in September 2016. Dr. Brown has confirmed he will accept their return.
For Dr. Amos Brown, the artifacts meant something.
“Those two books and the summary of my civil rights activism and my picture right there next to Medgar Evers, John Lewis, and Fred Shuttlesworth in the desegregation of civil rights exhibit… That book [History of the Negro Race in America] inspired me before there were even African studies published. In my home, in that 3rd Street Baptist Church, we studied that book. The Bible—that’s my father’s Bible and the Bible I used in the Civil Rights Movement. When we went on demonstrations, we always had the Bible.”
https://blackpressusa.com/the-smithsonian-purge-trump-team-removes-artifacts-of-black-resistance/
YY_Sima Qian
@Gin & Tonic: Seems like he dove deep into the Left end of the horseshoe.
Captain C
@Harrison Wesley:
Hope is a tank
For use against enemies
But I am a tankie
So I aim for my frenemies…
rikyrah
@ArchTeryx:
Please don’t give up hope. Please don’t.
rikyrah
LOW QUALITY HIRES.
Kay told us that years ago.
rikyrah
When the shelves of the big retailers are bare…that’s when even the most stupid of us, who ignores politics…will have it in their faces.
Jackie
Don’t want to pollute WaterGirl’s thread, but this is great news (to us!) to celebrate!
Please, oh please, FFOTUS, Don’t pardon him!!!
Manyakitty
@Betty Cracker: a lucky turn! Love that when it happens to good people.
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
Phuck Manchin.
Matt McIrvin
@trollhattan: A sphincter says what
Jackie
I can completely believe FFOTUS not being aware of either the painting or what John Adams believed in:
Selected emphasis mine.
trollhattan
@Baud: BBC, doing a twist on the Cletus roundup.
Matt McIrvin
@ArchTeryx: What I tell myself when the self-harm feelings come is that the most socially productive way I could do it is for the assholes in charge to do something to me for just not shutting up. If that happens, people WILL hear about it–these creeps seem to go out of their way to actively trumpet their disappearances–and I know I’m a pretty sympathetic target. I’ve been around the block a few times, a bunch of my friends are dead already for one reason or another (I just heard about another one the other day), “nonviolent martyr” isn’t the worst way to go out.
(And, who the hell am I kidding, probably it’ll just be French fries and idleness that’ll get me like with most of us.)
As that other commenter says, hang in there.
The Audacity of Krope
…with the King of the Cleti…
sixthdoctor
@rikyrah: This pissed me off and I’m just glad that I visited the museum before the election. The people that are doing this have no souls.
sixthdoctor
@rikyrah: I did just see this post now. Hopefully it’s accurate.
ArchTeryx
@Bupalos: Use the term because Micki is second generation Latino. He’s got a lot of family members looking very nervously over their shoulders for ICE goons. He’s got a whole lot to worry about, but so do we all, and the number of people that decide underbussing beats solidarity is shockingly high.
Captain C
@trollhattan:
No, but the fact that he’s an incompetent psycho who’s filled his administration with incompetent psychos who are working to wreck this country and hurt as many people as possible is an excellent reason not to work with him, and in fact to oppose him.
Can we just tie Manchin up in his boat and tow it out to Point Nemo and leave him there without fuel or a radio, already?
trollhattan
I’d also accept Joe’s big solo exploration of the Sargasso Sea. Or Great Pacific Garbage Patch, either/or. Just make sure that fuel tank has nothing but vapors.
dnfree
@ArchTeryx: I am so sorry to hear about your group of friends. Sometimes leadership and compassion just can’t overcome divisions that arise in times of stress. I hope you still have part of your group for mutual support in this frightening and infuriating time.
rikyrah
@sixthdoctor:
Just like the Harvard story was a ‘ mistake’.
Just like removing Jackie Robinson and the Tuskegee Airmen and the Navajo Code Talkers from the military websites was a ‘ mistake’.
PaulWartenberg
@Trivia Man:
THIS is it. this is the ram touching the wall moment.
rikyrah
Wisconsin Judge Arrested, Accused of Shielding Immigrant From Federal Agents
Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested on suspicion that she “intentionally misdirected federal agents away from” an immigrant being pursued by the authorities, the F.B.I. director said in a social media post.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/25/us/politics/fbi-arrest-judge.html?smtyp=cur&smid=bsky-nytimes
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@ArchTeryx: I am so sorry about your friend group, please don’t take all the blame on yourself. Please stay alive we would miss you, please don’t leave. Is there anything that would help?
dnfree
@frosty:
@satby:
Yes, I’ve mentioned before sitting at home New Year’s Day watching as the year turned to 2000 around the world, and in country after country the lights stayed on. I think for most of us, we knew our company had done the work, but we couldn’t be sure about everyone else. Y2K was a massive government-private sector project that was successful (at great cost), and could have been a model for other global efforts like climate change. Instead it’s turned into a supposed hoax.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: Yay, that’s good news!
PaulWartenberg
@Baud:
NOOOOOOOOOOO
Goddammit, Tampa millionaires. POOL YOUR MONEY TOGETHER AND BUILD THAT DAMN YBOR BALLPARK.
Soprano2
@artem1s: The LPN prescribed Zyrtec for my husband. I asked if I could get a prescription, she said yes. The prescription for 30 pills was less than $6!!! OTC Zyrtec, even the generic kind, is more than that!
I’m worried about the meds going up, hubby takes a couple that are already somewhat expensive.
dnfree
@lowtechcyclist: I take it you weren’t a computer scientist who worked in a factory, one of numerous plants owned by a major corporation, each with multiple different computer systems in different parts of the plant, and even controllers and microprocessors of various sources and ages. Dates are tracked at all levels in a plant. My employer at the time spent mega-millions on remediation, often involving buying new equipment for the plant floor. It’s hard for anyone outside of the field to picture what all was involved.
Citizen Alan
@gene108: I don’t think I have suicidal ideation, but I am nearly certain I will eventually die of suicide. This is not because of depression or anxiety (though I experience both) but rather a pathological fear of living long enough to become an invalid and dependent on others to help with basic life activities like simply going to the bathroom. I have watched too many loved ones die in their 80s after spending months in a hospital bed barely able to communicate. I literally have nightmares about it.
My “retirement plan” is working to 65 (or older if my health remains good) in my comfortable, non-stressful, high-paying job, and then liquidating everything, bumming around Europe until the money starts to run out, and then going to a Scandinavian country with liberal assisted suicide laws. Or, failing that, going to Amsterdam to go out in a massive drug-fueled orgy.
The Audacity of Krope
This scenario immediately comes to mind.
gvg
@Matt McIrvin: No, Shock and Awe was the opening phase of BUSH I’s sucessful campaign against the Iraq invassion of Kuwait and it was really pretty impressive and effective with massive amounts of missles firing continually, all televised around the world instantly. It involved much more modern weapons than we had had reason to show before and coordination between allies. Hussain did not stand a chance. It also involved us driving them back to his own borders and then monitoring them after, not expanding the mission beyond what the alliance had agreed to, even though it “looked” easy right then with the Iraqi army in tatters and deserted tanks in the desert.
Bush II was trying to recapture the nostalgia. I don’t think it was the first time the term was reused either because I think the media really like it and wanted to relive the glory of that campaigns reporting. From what I saw on TV, this time just really didn’t live up to the previous time. Jr. didn’t know how to pick good plans or let go of a bad idea. We also didn’t have a visually spectacular new weapon to unveil for this (Patriot Missils). A TV consumer specatuclar weapon is not the same as a military important advance and I can’t judge that, but I sure remember Iraq war one.
Betty
@mappy!: I love that for him.
trollhattan
From the Butter emails folks.
Shocked, I am.
Matt McIrvin
@gvg: I don’t remember the term being used in Gulf War 1, though it certainly could have been applied to the opening there. I looked it up– it appears the phrase was the title of a DoD white paper from 1996.
Matt McIrvin
@PaulWartenberg: But interestingly, they arrested her in the normal manner and let her out on bail instead of declaring her citizenship null and sending her straight to the Salvadoran gulag. Not sure what that implies. It doesn’t serve to terrify in quite the same way, suggests that they’re trying to claim this is rule of law somehow.
sentient ai from the future
@Matt McIrvin: today, as the parent of a trans child in a pretty safe blue region/state I thought about sending angry postcards to Pam Bondi, harmeet dhillon, etc all, calling them fascists.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Are these idiots finally realizing Dump is a narcissistic pile of shit who only cares about his own fat, orange, fascist ass?
sentient ai from the future
@ArchTeryx: right there with you, comrade.
If it weren’t for the custody battle over the kiddo i’d have already been gone.
FWIW there are at least some countries starting to talk about taking seriously the need for asylum of USians
DanB
@rikyrah: So many people are being made invisible it’s discouraging. I believe that the Trump administration’s drop in the polls is in part due to the way it treats minorities with disdain and outright cruelty. There are many people who may feel that straight white, and wealthy, people should be in charge but don’t feel that all others should be made voiceless.
Jackie
FFOTUS and Bondi are going after reporters (as we knew they would.)
Matt McIrvin
The turn I’m dreading is when the polls go up again because people are too scared to say or report different, and we get into Kim Jong Un, 99.8% territory and the guy who didn’t support gets executed by antiaircraft gun.
trollhattan
In the span of a day we have the corpse of Joe Fucking Manchin telling Dems to play nice with Donny–because America wins!–and Chuck Fucking Grassley telling the goddamn truth about Trump and Russia. I think I need to lie down.
Matt McIrvin
@sentient ai from the future: Well, the danger there is that they’ll single out your kid just to hurt you, but if they’re in the crosshairs anyway… that’s the thing, when people behave like complete ogres their targets may well conclude they have nothing to lose.
prostratedragon
Georgetown
Srutters’ Ballspreadsheet of law firms by the extent of their compliance. Law students all over the country are using the list to decide where to interview, and some of the firms are taking notice.Yutsano
@ArchTeryx: Betty is the result if Molly Ivins & Carl Hiaasen had a love child. Except in this scenario she skips the hard to spell surname.
brantl
@ArchTeryx: seriously, are you gonna be OK? Do you need people to talk to people here will talk to you.
brantl
I think a lot of people are missing something important from that Rachel Maddow piece in a whole bunch of the places where Trump is taking the vote against him is still only 50% that means for him to have won the last election. There are a lot of purely brainless people voting for purely brainless reasons if that doesn’t scare the hell out of you, I don’t know why it doesn’t.
Chris T.
@Harrison Wesley:
My hovercraft is full of eels,
My tank is full of feathers.
This seems to need another rhyme,
And something something leathers?