it is fun to read profiles of this guy which play him up as some diabolical mastermind and then watch him in action and see a huge loser
— jamelle (@jamellebouie.net) May 1, 2025 at 9:59 AM
This is a cheapjack revival of a show nobody much enjoyed the first time. Stephen Miller has his current position precisely because he salves the senile insecurities of his “boss”… and those of the Oval Office Occupant’s voting base, as well.
I wouldn’t be shocked to hear Miller prattling on about those beatniks & flappers living a life of sin, just hopping trains & traveling to pool halls to smoke opium & drink moonshine with negroes & anarcho-syndicalists
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) May 1, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Stephen Miller to John Roberts on Fox News: "It is our opinion that Fox News needs to fire its pollster."
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) April 29, 2025 at 1:15 PM
Maybe Stephen Miller will demand the House fire THEIR pollster, too. ??
punchbowl.news/article/whit…— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) April 29, 2025 at 1:59 PM
Someone should ask Stephen Miller why Trump appointed a liberal judge who was willing to perform a judicial coup against him.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) May 1, 2025 at 1:01 PM
Even the Trump appointees say Stephen Miller is breaking the law.
— emptywheel (@emptywheel.bsky.social) May 1, 2025 at 12:12 PM
Reminder:
Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite.
I Know Because I’m His Uncle.
If my nephew’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out.https://t.co/Z6ZZ9kDOIR?
— Randy Bryce (@IronStache) April 30, 2025
On The Road – ema – Do Dogs Hate Crowds?
satby
Good morning Anne Laurie! Hope you’re improving every day!
Lapassionara
Stephen Miller looks like a snake. I question the judgement of anyone who wants him to be the “face” of anything.
Mr Longform
This administration has many over-the-top characters, but not even the hackiest writer could get away with creating such an obvious cartoon villain as this guy.
Ohio Mom
Poor Stephen Miller’s family. Most of us have a relative or two we could do without but the rest of the world does not have to witness our shame.
Suzanne
You know what would be amazing for the MAGA?
If all the undocumented people got deported, and there were no more international students….. and yet, their lives continued to suck. They continued to be the dregs of society.
Betty Cracker
Looks like Trump “hereby” abolished Veterans Day via tweet last night:
Was it on purpose? I know Veterans Day evolved from Armistice Day blah blah blah, but I thought the point — since Eisenhower — was to honor all veterans, not just those who fought in WWI.
Suzanne
@Mr Longform: I maintain that Stephen Miller is not really a human. He is a Rodent of Unusual Size.
BretH
@Betty Cracker: I expect Google Calendar to make the appropriate changes right away.
BlueGuitarist
Good morning AL!
Luckovich has had some good cartoons lately:
https://www.ajc.com/opinion/mike-luckovich/
SFAW
In a less-than-lucid moment, I flashed on Don Giovanni, and thought about how it would be great if the ghost of Il Commendatore (Roy Cohn) came to Don Geekovanni (Miller), sang A cenar teco m’invitasti, and dragged Miller to hell with him.
Can’t happen soon enough.
The Audacity of Krope
I just figured out that Stephen Miller is younger than I am by a couple years if the description above is accurate. Uh…yikes.
ETA: Two years younger, with surprising precision.
SFAW
@Betty Cracker:
He is so vile.
p.a.
@Suzanne: He looks like early AI attempts to do Goebbels in modern clothes.
Gloria DryGarden
@Betty Cracker: I hear we’re having a military parade for his birthday. To celebrate something…
I don’t think we can afford it. I’d rather keep my snap, and I’m including everyone else who has had government funds. I’d rather fema sent money to Arkansas. We can’t afford a parade.
meanwhile, has he no concept of the.
world wars? We didn’t get the shit bombed out of us here.
BlueGuitarist
@Betty Cracker:
looking forward to May 8 being renamed
Great Antifascist Victory Day
p.a.
Heh, he’ll be getting a call from Vlad on that one.
SFAW
@p.a.:
No kidding.
The Audacity of Krope
@p.a.: I’m just so sick of all the superlatives. The sickest. You’ve never seen sickness like mine.
Lapassionara
@Betty Cracker: Yes, and it was “Armistice Day” because it was an armistice, not technically a “victory.” And May 8 wasn’t the end of WWII, just the day for the end of the war in Europe.
Trump is an ignorant dope.
Jeffro
sooner or later (and by that I mean, ‘later’) the House GOP will realize that trumpov & Co are going to get them killed, electorally speaking
the only question is, how many of them are going to go along with trumpov’s upcoming “the midterms are rigged” campaign, much less any attempt by him to cancel the midterms and/or ignore the results
Suzanne
@p.a.: He looks like Dr. Evil, but if Dr. Evil cooked meth in a trailer.
The Audacity of Krope
This is the type of aggressive ignorance that reproduces itself.
Barbara
@Betty Cracker: ”Mr. President, Mr. Putin is on line 1 and boy is he angry. Did you know how many Russians died in WW2?”
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
I thought May 8 was already VE Day?
Suzanne
@The Audacity of Krope:
He talks like a bad salesman. I remember thinking, when I saw how many people just lap up his schtick, “Lots of people have never bought a used car and it shows”.
New Deal democrat
Via Carl Quintanilla:
https://bsky.app/profile/carlquintanilla.bsky.social/post/3lo6kp7dtmk2n
“Shipping ports are empty across the United States. Nothing is coming in. Businesses have cancelled the remainder of their 2025 orders.”
Video shows empty container ship unloading berths.
And, as I predicted:
“ China is ‘assessing the situation’ after U.S. officials reached out “through relevant parties multiple times” to seek tariff negotiations, a spokesperson for the commerce ministry said in a statement Friday.
‘Assessing the situation’ = “let him stew some more”
Stores supposedly have 4-8 weeks of merchandise warehoused, so the empty shelves won’t start hitting till June. Meanwhile companies making products with no connection with the tariffs are hiking prices anyway.
Mai Naem mobile
Hope Stephen Miller and his equally ugly wife both end up in the El Salvadoran prison without due process and without their kids. I hate all of these people who are Orange AHole’s entourage. The whole disgusting lot need to be in prison in solitary confinement. Give them a Bible so maybe they can read it and actually learn the message of Jesus.
Barbara
@Suzanne: Or lots of people bought a used car and thought they got a great deal or wouldn’t admit it even if they know they got rolled.
NotMax
“Two Big Beautiful wars.”
//
New Deal democrat
@Jeffro:
Their choices:
break with T—-p and lose in a primary
don’t break with T—-p and lose in the general election
Jeffro
people I’d sure love to see our national snooze media find and interview:
and on and on
Jeffro
and it’s a looooooong time ’til January 2026, whew
Librettist
Bring back Anita Bryant and Up With People to the Superbowl halftime show!
“I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I’m with isn’t it, and what’s it seems weird and scary to me, and it’ll happen to you, too!”
Librettist
@New Deal democrat:
It’s the smart move.
He always folds.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
p.a.
Sorry, there’s other options: no elections, fixed elections, invalidated elections.
When the Constitution is a scrap of paper, you have LOTS of options.
Jeffro
@New Deal democrat: unfortunately, there is a third choice for them: “go along with trump’s plan to try and cancel the midterms” (or to ignore the results)…my hope is that any plans to do so are leaked to the public prior to Nov 2026
It’ll be a huge ‘tell’ if his made-up emergency is something like, “Democrats are receiving HUGE amounts of laundered funds from foreign countries” or “Social media companies are rigging what you see in favor of the Democrats”…projection ought to be his middle name
NotMax
Y’know who’s as smarmy, vile and odious as Miller?
Steven Cheung, who has all but disappeared from the public eye, plying his hate behind the scenes.
rikyrah
Glad to see you in the morning posts, AL👋🏾
narya
I want Miller to be publicly shunned (I’d say “shamed,” but he has none) for the rest of his life. I want every restaurant worker to spit in his food. I want him to be unwelcome, everywhere. And I want the same for Homan and Vought. They are the axis of evil in this maladministration. Others, like Hegseth, are dangerous dolts, but Miller, Vought, and Homan are evil incarnate; they give faces to the expression that the cruelty is the point–and it shows on their crabbed, pinched faces.
Jeffro
OT but seen on BlueSky:
narya
@Jeffro: I actually think they’re doing it state by state, somewhat under the radar. And since a lot of election rules are at the state level, that makes it easier for the courts to okay it.
The Audacity of Krope
I’ve never bought a used car and I don’t find myself taken by that kind of language. I follow what the man says and it tends to be flagrantly untrue.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Newly created post of Senior Advisor on Cuban Heels.
//
Jeffro
also, from the Pitchbot:
tobie
@New Deal democrat: There’s so much pain coming our way. This keeps me up at night. Having RFK Jr and Jay Bhattacharya in charge of public health really scares me. At what point do any of these folks realize that ‘owning the libs’ is a campaign strategy to rile up the GOP base, not a governing strategy?
Eyeroller
@Betty Cracker: I think we all know that Trump is not interested in honoring veterans. He hates veterans. He is interested in WINNING and dominance.
But the myth that America won WWII single-handed is pretty pervasive here. It was closer to the reality in the Pacific theater, but not at all the case in the European war. We also seem to overstate our contribution to WWI since we entered it so late, making it easy to claim that we were responsible for ending it.
eclare
@narya:
Agreed.
lowtechcyclist
Good! Start by requiring that the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution be read aloud at least once each year in every public school* classroom in America.
*Including any schools that are receiving public funding directly or indirectly, e.g. vouchers.
AM in NC
@Betty Cracker: I just went on the FOX website and in multiple articles dropped this comment:
“Wanted to make sure everyone saw that President Trump said Thursday that he would rename Veterans Day as ‘Victory Day for World War I’ and May 8, widely known as V-E Day, as ‘Victory Day for World War II’, saying ‘We won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance’.
“Apparently Veterans of Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Iraq, Afghanistan, and who served our country not in a conflict zone are no longer worthy of veneration because, ‘losers’.
Calling Vets ‘losers and suckers’; cutting VA positions; disparaging Gold Star families; cutting the Veteran-heavy federal workforce, and now this. When people repeatedly show us who they are, we should believe them.”
Hoping to keep driving the wedges. And there are A LOT of Vets over there.
NotMax
@The Audacity of Krope
Ah, memories.
;)
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Baud
@AM in NC:
Good for you.
The Audacity of Krope
@NotMax: Seems Republicans have a type…
eclare
@Eyeroller:
The WWII Museum in NOLA is incredibly impressive. It is split into the two theaters. My family and I only had one day, so we did Europe, and barely got through that, there is so much to see.
Seriously, if you are ever in NOLA, it is amazing.
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
All we are…are just bricks in the Wall.
“You can’t have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!”
Raven
@eclare: On my retirement fishing trip to Venice, LA we went there and my Jewish buddy declined the Europe wing. ” I know all about that.”
TS
@p.a.:
He has no knowledge of history – within or without the USA. He thinks the world started in 1620 or more likely 1776.
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro:
As a couple of commenters here have said, that remains to be seen, because the voters clearly still don’t like Democrats either and may still regard them as not preferable to Trump’s fuckery. If past cycles are any indication, a complete economic collapse could change that calculation, but it’s not a great thing to count on.
Now, those commenters keep saying that the Democrats need to be more economically populist to turn that around. I agree on moral grounds that the Democrats should be more economically populist, but I am not at all convinced it’s an electoral winner. Biden was more economically populist and openly pro-labor than any Democrat since at least LBJ, and it didn’t help him or Harris–in fact, the progressive left who demand this just kept insisting it hadn’t happened, and that the party was continuing the rightward swing that it had been taking from about 1976 to 2004. Meanwhile, elite centrist opinion is that the Democrats went too far to the left!
I think the white working class actually still supports their own economic immiseration because they think the country’s problem is that someone less deserving is getting handouts. I think the only thing the Democrats could do to get that vote would be to be more bigoted, and even putting morality aside we can’t do that without losing the rest of our coalition.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I share your sentiment.
The Audacity of Krope
I keep hearing claims like this, but I don’t tend to encounter it.
Mustang Bobby
A friend calls him “PeeWee German,” and now I can’t get that out of my head.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
I see it all the time on Reddit. Now, I obviously don’t know how much of that is real and how much is trolling by bad actors. But it’s “out there.”
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Heh. That is good.
Suzanne
@The Audacity of Krope: I refer to it as “blowing smoke up [one’s] ass”. One would think that people could recognize it, but when you’re thirsty, I guess some people will slurp up dirty water.
I have no idea where that expression came from, BTW. But it’s kind of hilarious.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the white working class supports their own economic immiseration because they loathe the college-educated class of all genders and races and they want to do anything that lowers their social status, even if it reduces their social status, as well.
Soprano2
@Betty Cracker: He sure does act like a king, doesn’t he? I wish the press would quit treating his proclamations like they’re some kind of law. They’re suggestions he wrote down, nothing more or less.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I still can’t believe we’re paying for a big birthday parade for the dolt. For all I know, we’re also paying for extra ice cream and cake.
Baud
@Suzanne:
For his supporters, Trump’s rhetoric is a merging of woo self-affirmation with dick-swinging machismo. The right wing base is hopelessly lost morally and spiritually, so they are in fact “thirsty” for a “strongman” who will puff up their feelings of self worth.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Two things are simultaneously true: one is that Biden was quite economically populist and pro-labor….. and that inequality is still really terrible.
I blame Ronald Reagan.
NotMax
@eclare
“I would have ended World War Ii in 24 hours.”
//
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Suzanne: You blame the right person.
The line graphs showing income distribution start to diverge wildly with Reagan’s policies.
Matt McIrvin
@The Audacity of Krope: see recent comments by “no body no name” on this very blog, and to some extent Martin’s. I also see it all over Mastodon.
I will say: I didn’t hear it from Bernie Sanders, or from AOC. I know a lot of people here have beef with Bernie from past adventures but I think he’s mostly been saying good things for the past couple of years.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Guess good for me I’m only using reddit for video games discussions.
NotMax
@Sopano2
Government by Sharpie.
cmorenc
I have a hard time imagining Stephen Miller at parties with other students while at Duke. Bet he was the kind of guy who was a buzz-kill to hang around with.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: Wow, if that’s true we’re so screwed.
Suzanne
@Baud: Here’s Francis Fukuyama pretty much nailing it.
Baud
@Suzanne:
It did start with Reagan, but it will stay terrible because fixing it takes time that people don’t have patience for.
Of course, if Trump causes a major stock market crash, income inequality will go down. So maybe there’s hope.
RevRick
@Betty Cracker: @BlueGuitarist: @Lapassionara:
Calling May 8th the anniversary of the end of WW2 would come as a great surprise to those who fought and died for the next three months in the struggle against Japan, which was also a fascist regime. Moreover, to ascribe the victory solely to the United States totally erases the fact that Hitler lost due to the onslaught of the Red Army. We were desperate to invade Normandy when we did, because we were afraid Stalin could sweep all the way to the Atlantic. His army had reached Warsaw by August of 1944. And there they sat for two months, while the Nazis battled the free Polish underground.
TS
@Jeffro: There is also the option they are trying at the minute to suppress all but the white male vote.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: I want them to go find that trader who was so happy because now he can say “re***d” and “p***y”, and see how he views it today.
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin: I feel like Biden’s economic populism has been like bringing a squirt gun to a forest fire. The right thing to do, and yet totally inadequate.
narya
@Dorothy A. Winsor: But only he gets the extra scoop of ice cream; everyone else only gets one scoop.
NotMax
@cmorenc
“How about them
Dodgersn-clangs?”//
prostratedragon
@Lapassionara: I think in Britain they call it Remembrance Day. Depending how it’s counted, upward of 740,000 killed; over 1 million each in France and Russia. He should shut up.
ETA World War I, to be clear.
Baud
@Suzanne:
That is pretty apt.
RevRick
Stephen Miller is only 40? He looks older. Maybe his obvious hatred of others is rotting him from the inside out.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ve seen arguments that it really started with Nixon’s policies–Reagan just turned it up to 11.
The Audacity of Krope
@Matt McIrvin: I see those commenters’ comments. They tend to say “not enough,” not “didn’t happen.”
I’m of decidedly mixed agreement with Martin, no name no consequence…doesn’t tend to make a strong impression, go figure.
But as a premise, it is depressingly possible for a US President to be the most pro-labor in decades and still not enough so.
oldgold
How many members of the Trump clan fought in WW I or WW II? Of course, to be fair, perhaps bone spurs run in the family.
cmorenc
@Ohio Mom:
RFK Jr is *that* relative in the Kennedy family, but the word on him from members who have spoken out is a dichotomy: he’s actually sort of a fun, zany guy to hang out with at family events but too toxically nuts to be trusted with anything requiring adult responsibility.
Soprano2
@eclare: It is amazing, we went there in 2003 when we visited NOLA. Hubby specifically said he wanted to go there.
Baud
@cmorenc:
Who doesn’t love falconry?
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: There’s only so much you can do when the legislature is deadlocked and will not pass any significant legislation–unless you become completely lawless in the manner of Trump term II, and Biden wasn’t going to do that. (He’d likely have been impeached and convicted if he did.)
The Audacity of Krope
For the record, he was always allowed to say those things. Those around him remain free to respond as they see fit.
Suzanne
@Baud:
And, of course, some people don’t really want to fix it. They’re fine with inequality, as long as they’ve got more.
So, I blame Reagan, but I also blame these assholes.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: We want quick fixes. We want to drink turmeric and become fair, overnight. Reversing almost 40 years of trickle down in one presidential term is impossible. Yeah and no workers revolution is going to make that happen either.
Baud
@Suzanne:
We’re surrounded by assholes.
The Audacity of Krope
I’m sitting on one right now.
Soprano2
This, 1,000%. Every program I’ve heard that talks about the Dem’s loss hardly mentions this. I think they’re afraid to say it, but it’s true. I do believe lots of people were concerned about the economy, but that’s not the only issue they talked about. The #1 reason they should talk about it is that you’re right, Biden was more for unions and the working class than any president in my lifetime; he did more to get the government to create jobs for the working class, and yet somehow the working class (especially the men) didn’t give him much credit for that. The press should ask themselves “why is that”?
NotMax
@New Deal democrat
From downstairs.
US Port Update – May 1, 2025.
Caveat: TMI, valuable thought it may be.
cmorenc
@Suzanne: Yep – agree that analysis of Trumpism nails it.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: OMG that’s a Russian holiday.
Why don’t we just call it День победы and be done with it?
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
I agree with you. But I also can very easily understand and the mindset that looks at the current state and thinks that the Democratic response is inadequate to the challenge.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I think so. It’s why the right wing is stronger than we are. They have patience and perseverance. Our side will wait 100 years for a revolution rather than work for 20 to make steady progress.
schrodingers_cat
@Soprano2: We can’t talk about the white elephant in the room here either. There is an instant pushback and veiled threats.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I can understand the MAGA mindset. Understanding doesn’t mean much. At the end of the day, it’s about the decisions that each person makes.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: It also helps that they are far more homogenous than we are.
Betty Cracker
@AM in NC: First rate trolling! I may make that my primary hobby if I ever get to retire. ;-)
The Audacity of Krope
@schrodingers_cat: Why not?
White people need to get their shit right.
See? Easy.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Absolutely.
Professor Bigfoot
There are those on this very blog who would choose exactly that because they know THEY will not be targeted.
Coincidentally, they seem to be almost all white men. 🤔
Matt McIrvin
…Also, the interesting thing is that with the COVID pandemic, we went through an economic crisis that in the short term was more intense than anything since the Great Depression, and we pretty much destroyed it with policy that was more intensely Keynesian than anything since the Great Society–and that was an initially bipartisan effort that started under Trump! Continued under Biden.
But the supply and price shocks that resulted from all that were tougher to control and pissed people off. And I also think there was this intense and horrified money-elite reaction to it that ultimately drove the tech billionaires to go in with Trump II.
The Audacity of Krope
Until RFK passes his radical milk agenda…
RevRick
@Suzanne: Basically, Trump captures those who are desperate to feel superior to others based on some shred available to them on the basis of race, gender or class. Pathetic as that may be.
Baud
@RevRick:
It’s difficult for those of us who are superior to wrap our heads around that mentality.
NotMax
@RevRick
The Deliverance doctrine.
Librettist
A point and half loss at the top of the ticket is not much of a case to blow up the party and replace it with magic thinking. It scans as self serving bull.
The online left that coalesced around Iraq War 2 has crashed and burned, and that’s where most of the flakey hot takes are coming from.
Betty Cracker
@Suzanne: Agree. Biden was also indelibly coded as “establishment” because he’d been a high-profile politician for as long as anyone could remember. So he was seen as a defender and beneficiary of a despised status quo. I don’t think people rejected his pro-labor policies. They rejected him. It sucks — I really wish policy mattered to people, but I don’t think it does.
Matt McIrvin
@Librettist: Some of them already flipped full MAGA back in 2016 (I’m old enough that I remember when Wikileaks was regarded as “far left”).
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I second this. It’s all about who’s in the club. And right wing clubs are bigger than ours, so advantage them.
danielx
@New Deal democrat:
Waited too long to get new hiking boots, no 10.5 wide available.
Matt McIrvin
@Betty Cracker: That was also probably why he got elected in the first place, as a steady hand in a crisis. But that’s also the kind of leader who gets turfed out when the crisis is over.
Biden himself is something of a weathervane over the long term–not following the center of the country, but the center of the Democratic Party. So he was into some reactionary stuff during the 1990s, when that was where the Democratic Party was, and there was still some festering resentment of that.
prostratedragon
@zhena gogolia: Oh, of course! Have to start lining our calendar up with theirs. Good point to wear people out with this week.
prufrock
@Eyeroller: We were the straw on the camel’s back.
That’s it.
RevRick
@Baud: Quite the humblebrag.
The Audacity of Krope
That accounts for my doubting Biden in 2020. I still voted for him. Then he turned out to be the best President of my lifetime. But to hear the media tell it, no one approved of Biden after 2020.
Jackie
O/T For WaterGirl, if you’re around:
Professor Bigfoot
@prufrock: We were the manufacturing engine that permitted the Red Army to be a fully mechanized one while the Germans were depending on horses and mules for logistics.
It’s been said there should be memorials to the Studebaker truck alongside all the many of the T34 tank in Russia.
mappy!
@Betty Cracker: This all goes back to Tony Schwartz’s Responsive Chord theory:
Shalimar
@AM in NC: A lot of vets visit Fox News’ website, not a single one of whom is a veteran of WWI. Not even sure who he thinks he is appealing to with this.
Matt McIrvin
@The Audacity of Krope: I really did not like it when Obama chose Biden as his running mate in 2008, because Joe Biden was never a guy I had liked. He was the crime-bill sponsor, the “senator from MBNA,” etc.
He was really good as Obama’s VP, though. *Really* good, and that gave me a better opinion of him. He wasn’t my primary choice in 2020, but sure, I supported him without reservations by November.
The Audacity of Krope
@Matt McIrvin: Maybe if you and I spent more time in diners taking to reporters, we could have kept Biden.
UncleEbeneezer
@Eyeroller: There’s also a lot of post-war mythology about America like that we welcomed Jewish refugees with open arms. We didn’t. Both during and after the Holocaust, America refused to accept most of them and even had major political fights to keep them out. But it’s a pretty commonly held (mis)belief that Jews have gotten special/preferential treatment as a result of collective guilt over the Holocaust. It’s an antisemitic trope that sadly refuses to die and is disturbingly popular even on the Left.
JCJ
@Lapassionara: Yes, I remember my mother referring to V-E day and V-J day. He really is a moron
Omnes Omnibus
@Mai Naem mobile: Nope. Miller needs a public trial that lays out every shitty thing he has done. Then prison.
The Audacity of Krope
@Omnes Omnibus: Presupposes the results of the trial, but I’ll give it to you in this case.
Omnes Omnibus
@narya: Now, now, we have been scolded about calling people evil.
NotMax
@Shalimar
When This Lousy War is Over.
Bonus scene: Bombed Last Night.
Matt McIrvin
@SFAW: I heard someone mention that that “Don Giovannniiiii!” had the same sequence of notes as “By Mennen!” and now I can’t unhear it.
gene108
@Suzanne:
That’s when the race war white supremacists have been craving for decades begins to exterminate the remaining “racial impurities” from this country.
MAGA is incapable of admitting error about deportations and their wrong ideas on immigration.
The Audacity of Krope
And Martin is allowed to scold us. And we’re allowed to disregard that scolding.
prufrock
@Professor Bigfoot: True for WWII, but not for WWI. Russia was out of it before we really got involved.
LAC
@narya: See? We can call out people as evil – thank you
Also, glad you are feeling better, AL!
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Lapassionara:
America’s* Favorite Himmler.
*77 million voters
schrodingers_cat
In my own lived experience I have encountered far more prejudice and condescension and outright nastiness from people with multiple college degrees than the WWC. My interactions with WWC have been mostly quite pleasant with may be an exception or two in the decades that I have lived here.
It was far easier for me to deal with the guys in the shop who built the lab equipment than dudebros taking classes with me for example.
I have lived in the NY, New England and MD.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Speaking from a career in Corporate America, the white man who will be an willing, enthusiastic, loyal, hard working second-banana to a Black boss is rare as fuck.
It speaks to why Black America so joyfully supported him in 2020, because we know from experience how most white men are when subordinated to anyone other than another white man.
Joe and Barack’s relationship meant something. One reason why white America hated him so.
He got turfed out because he chose a Black woman VP, and because he put a Black woman on the Supreme Court, and most damning of all, he was obviously comfortable and happy to be surrounded by Black people.
Joe Biden got shivved because he was an n-word lover.
”Change my mind.”
The Audacity of Krope
@Professor Bigfoot: No need. You right in point.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Eyeroller:
Ain’t no think about it. We saw his contempt of veterans on full display repeatedly during the first (mal)Administration.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: I agree, Biden was too old because his VP was black woman of immigrant descent. If it was a white dude we would be in our second Biden term now.
glory b
@Jeffro: Let’s not look down on the trades. An NPR story called trade unio apprentice programs “The New Grad School” because so many degree holders are now in them.
They found out they could make more money as an electrician, carpenter, HVAC installer, etc., than working in a cubicle.
glory b
@Professor Bigfoot: I won’t/can’t.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@eclare:
I’ll second that. Went there during a Netroots Nation last decade and that 11 years after being in NOLA during the immediate aftermath of Katrina doing animal rescue.
Amazing museum and the story of it’s creation is also pretty amazing.
schrodingers_cat
@glory b: One thing I always liked about the US was that people working with their hands were accorded the same respect that in India is reserved for those pursuing higher education.
That’s why I can’t abide some of the classism by those who fancy themselves as progressives that I encounter in the comments sometimes.
karen gail
@UncleEbeneezer: That is how they ended up being given land in Palestine; the British had control for a number of years and thought it would be a “great” place to dump the Jewish people that no one wanted.
I either read or heard a lecture where it was mentioned that if the US and Canada had allowed the fleeing Jewish people to land then settle we wouldn’t have all the problems that come with nation of Israel.
karen gail
@UncleEbeneezer: double post
The Audacity of Krope
@glory b: I’ve long argued for broadly expanding adult education and that does not just mean university. I’d love to see more support for trade schools and apprenticeships and to get the educational institutions providing them more involved in the community.
It’s easy for people to disparage education and educated people when that education is viewed as elite people creating more elites and I don’t see how their intellectual work affects me.
karen gail
@Omnes Omnibus: I disagree; I think we need a public trial and then a public hanging or beheading.
zhena gogolia
@Professor Bigfoot: I agree totally.
Lapassionara
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t think Biden was ever a very good campaigner. He had started running for President several times when he was younger, but those campaigns went no where. I’m not sure he would have won in 2020 if it had not been for Covid and Trump’s message on mail-in voting. He was a fine president. That we are now in the hands of an ignorant dope is a tragedy.
glory b
@Matt McIrvin: fun fact, a majority of black people favored the Crime Bill. We knew Biden gave us what we wanted.
Almost all of the Congressional Black Caucus voted for it.
We were tired of young black men killing each other.
To its credit, the homicide rate fell pretty dramatically and has never been as high since.
The Audacity of Krope
@glory b: Still don’t make it right…
matt
Just want to fast forward and help these guys with the last act of their Nazi cosplay.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@schrodingers_cat:
Exactly. And having a significant amount of Dems who still push that crap in various forms using disingenuous language straight outta Big Tobacco and the forced-birther messaging laboratories hasn’t helped.
Suzanne
@Baud:
I think understanding is the first critical step to persuasion. And we need to persuade if we ever want to win anything ever again.
I also think that despairing the current state of affairs is limited to MAGA. There’s plenty of people on our side who think that electing Dems is, as valued commenter Martin phrased it, necessary but not sufficient to creating a better society.
glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Hmm, I didn’t realize that.
I worked for the PA Department of Labor and Industry, seeing lots of wage rates.
The skilled trades do just fine.
Chief Oshkosh
@New Deal democrat: Tiny example of this. My commute takes me across a bridge over train tracks. The weekly or so trains that have passed beneath, over the years, have stretched seemingly from horizon to horizon – several dozen cars at least.
Today’s train had 5 cars.
...now I try to be amused
Stephen Miller is one of those people who was born 50. But he has so many anachronistic attitudes it makes me suspect he is a time traveler.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: When tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin left BoingBoing a few years ago, she tweeted: “…my future plans include weed and shitposting.”
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
“I have here a list of 200 Communists employed by the State Department…”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@schrodingers_cat:
Ain’t. That. The. Truth. The cognitive dissonance that comes from the keyboards of entitled white professionals when talking about working class (always being careful to couch it in ‘white working class’ so as to hide behind racism while pounding typical classist bigotry) is a sight to behold.
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne: FFS, Biden wasn’t a king who could undo decades of inequality by fiat. He got the ball rolling in the right direction with a slim Senate and hostile Supreme Court majority. I too wish that more could have been done, but I also recognize reality-based constraints. Harris would have continued addressing inequalities in housing, income, etc. but the majority of voters chose something else.
I know self-proclaimed progressives like to sneer at incrementalism, but tell me how in our system of government and closely divided electorate any other approach works. Unless our side is also willing to shred the Constitution, which I’m not.
Suzanne
@gene108:
There’s a lot of white people who think that being white makes them special. I can assure them that, if the US ever became the whites-only paradise they dream about….. they would still find themselves embroiled in status games, and usually on the losing end. Prep school douchebags do not want to be hanging out with me, for example.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@The Audacity of Krope:
There’s a recent piece in a labor magazine about immigration policy and the trades. It goes into great detail about what many people here know, mainly that “the trades” offer a financial way into what’s left of the middle class and that much of the work is a helluva lot more skilled than the entitled white professionals ever care to admit.
Masons are artists. Just ask my wife about what it takes to become an electrician much less a master electrician. And so on. Much less some of the trades, think roofing, are tough jobs. I think somebody here in the last couple of weeks talked about going into HVAC and discovered just how hard that was physically.
And given “the trades” are facing an outright crisis in recruiting people, immigrants are considered the lifeblood right now.
New Deal democrat
@Professor Bigfoot:
Agrred. The biggest contributors to victory in Europe in WW2 were Ivan the soldier and Rosie the riveter.
WW1 is a whole ‘ nother story. By 1916, both sides in Europe figured the US would enter the war, probably on the side of the Entante, and that if it ever did in full force, it would prove decisive. This caused Germany to gamble on quick victory, which it almost pulled off in early 1918. But by the last 100 days the 100,000’s of fresh US troops were proving decisive, as the Germans, who like the British and French, were exhausted, were relentlessly pushed back.
in fact, Clemenceau and Lloyd George fatally agreed to the early armistice with Germany because they did not want US troops occupying much of Europe and Woodrow Wilson to dictate the terms of the peace.
Suzanne
@O. Felix Culpa:
I agree with you, but I also recognize why it’s hard to build passion and excitement around incremental change. I am much more sympathetic toward those people who generally want the right things but are not pragmatic about how to achieve it, than conservatives who would happily take us all back to 1850. I see the first as reachable, and quite frankly, essential to winning.
TS
@Jackie:
Since the 1970s when Australia dropped its preferential trade agreements with the UK (partly based on them joining the EU), Australia has swung with the US on almost everything. We are now having to look at our own destiny and untie ourselves from the dependency on US (especially military) so most seem to want a PM who will negotiate with trump on equal terms, not someone who sees him as all powerful & someone to appease. Our Labor party (democratic equivalent) was losing until trump came on the scene with his policies and tariffs. It now appears they are our best chance to cope with trump.
It is reality that the US has, until now, had a major impact on other democracies, perhaps it is a good thing that we have to search for alternatives. It will be difficult for any future President to get back the trust that has been lost.
The latest insults to the allies that fought with the US troops during virtually every war starting with WWI, is something we never expected to hear from a US President. Australia was the country that had a ticker tape parade to show we were “all the way with LBJ”
https://www.naa.gov.au/students-and-teachers/learning-resources/learning-resource-themes/war/vietnam-war/american-president-lyndon-b-johnson-official-visit-australia
Soprano2
@Suzanne: The problem is that Biden/Harris wanted to make inequality better by raising people up, while FFOTUS wanted to make it better by bringing down people the working class doesn’t like. Hurting people you don’t like won out over the more logical course of action.
I was listening to a “Fresh Air” podcast with Andrew Marantz, who wrote an article for the New Yorker about the political battle for the votes of young men. Never mentioned in the whole interview (not sure about the article) was the idea that the reason young men don’t want to vote for Democrats is because they’re the party of women, minorities and gay people. The closest they got to talking about it was a few mentions of “wokeness”. No one wants to take this issue head on, but until they do there’s no way to even begin to solve it. I hate to say it, but James Carville complaining about the Democratic Party being “too feminine” is getting closer to the real problem than all these discussions about policies.
The Audacity of Krope
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Of course, we find ourselves led by a political cult that wants neither robust immigration nor well-funded education. I really don’t understand how anything gets done in a world led by their priorities.
Suzanne
@Geminid:
Whenever I have been asked, “Where do you see yourself in five years?”…. I am always tempted to respond, “Sitting by the pool, with a piña colada and a trashy novel, watching the pool boy”.
I worked with one lady who, when she quit, said that she was gonna go bake bread for three months.
LAC
@O. Felix Culpa: that second paragraph ..yep! As I have said over and over again – our proclaimed keyboard warriors in social media have learned all the wrong lessons of the civil rights movement. No, it will not be resolved within the hour (with commercial breaks). And no, you may never have the perfect governmental structure to work in. Sorry …
The Audacity of Krope
This is true . Though, I’d rather expend my energy fighting white patriarchy than submitting to it for some temporary incremental improvement.
“Negative peace” and all that.
...now I try to be amused
@TS:
But General MacArthur shat on Australia pretty much nonstop during World War II. He shunted Australian forces to secondary fronts with inadequate support and credited their successes to US forces.
NobodySpecial
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not calling him evil.
I’m calling him Steven Himmler. Or maybe Steven Beria.
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
Same here on all counts. And on the doubting part, it was not just his 1990s stuff, but more recent things like his support for the 2005(?) Bankruptcy Deform Act.
Suzanne
@Soprano2:
Agree. The Fukuyama excerpt nails it.
FFOTUS is the Primal Scream of White Morons.
The Audacity of Krope
@lowtechcyclist: For me the Iraq War AUMF and his statements supporting the PATRIOT Act loomed large.
Harrison Wesley
@Lapassionara: I think Jim Clyburn’s endorsement was what got him the nomination and sure didn’t hurt in turning out the vote.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: Pastor Niemöller’s advice applies to EVERYONE, if only they have eyes to see.
The Audacity of Krope
@Harrison Wesley: I can imagine daily news media reports of “only Biden can beat Trump” certainly helped his case in the primary too.
Polls…🤬
lowtechcyclist
@Omnes Omnibus:
Am in total agreement with you here.
And even if (as I fully expect) Trump pardons him on his way out the door, the trial should still take place, dammit.
Professor Bigfoot
@New Deal democrat: Re agreed on all points— it’s just that most Americans don’t really have any understanding of what happened in WWI, who the players were, etc. *Points totally taken.*
BY THE WAY I am STILL salty that the mango moron skipped the 100th anniversary of “the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.” 🤬
Harrison Wesley
@Professor Bigfoot: Unfortunately I think Niemoller’s point is that the comfortable class only see when it’s too late.
Melancholy Jaques
@Matt McIrvin:
This is certainly what the white working class has been saying in clear terms for the last 50 years or so. It’s why Bernie’s constant “Democrats turned their backs on the working class” schtick is not just infuriating, but a lie.
Harrison Wesley
@The Audacity of Krope: His treatment of Anita Hill left much to be desired, too. Yet he’s certainly shown that people can grow and change at any age.
The Audacity of Krope
@Harrison Wesley: And Trump has shown that people can stop growing and maturing as young as four.
Matt McIrvin
@…now I try to be amused: The one I find least surprising is Elon Musk: basically all of his big ideas came from the science fiction and popular futurism of the late 1970s and early 1980s. I know because I saw all that stuff too. We were both just the right age to be into it.
(note, that was also the absolute heyday of “The government can’t actually do anything, just privatize it all”)
p.a.
@glory b: To its [ed: 1990s crime bill credit], the homicide rate fell pretty dramatically and has never been as high since.
But I agree that people in high crime areas want effective policing, not confrontational, all population X is criminal, policing. And that’s not what we got.
Eyeroller
@Melancholy Jaques: Never forget the immortal words of Davis X. Machina posted at this very site way back around 2009 or earlier:
“The salient fact of American politics is that there are fifty to seventy million voters each of whom will volunteer to live, with his family, in a cardboard box under an overpass, and cook sparrows on an old curtain rod, if someone would only guarantee that the black, gay, Hispanic, liberal, whatever, in the next box over doesn’t even have a curtain rod, or a sparrow to put on it.”
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: I keep thinking about Joan Williams’ observation that “American is the only high-status identity available” to some white people, which is why they cover themselves in the flag. (And I see all the discourse about “Heritage Americans” as a way to further slide and dice.)
But there’s plenty of other high-status identities available to other white people.
TS
@…now I try to be amused:
But he wasn’t the US President – and he had many Australian supporters – who taught the US troops how jungle warfare worked . I obviously wasn’t alive then and have limited knowledge of MacArthur (there is a building named for him in Brisbane), but my father often told me the only thing he disliked about the “yanks” was the segregation of the troops based on color.
Harrison Wesley
@The Audacity of Krope: Two scoops! Two scoops!
Baud
@Suzanne:
Too bad for them that many of them choose Russian over American.
different-church-lady
You know who else was a huge loser?
Miss Bianca
@Soprano2:
“Gee, could it be that *we’re* somehow, some way, to blame for all this?”
“Nah! UNPOSSIBLE!”
Baud
@different-church-lady:
Me?
Professor Bigfoot
This is fundamental.
The GOP are the party of straight white male supremacy, and I’m sorry, that’s BOUND to be attractive to white men of every age cohort, including the “young” ones.
Defending the rights of people other than straight white men is always going to be perceived by white men as an attack.
Always.
(*obligatory “not all”)
The Audacity of Krope
All of them, Katie.
Miss Bianca
@Professor Bigfoot: How does rikyrah put it? Ah, yes: “No lie told.”
Baud
@Miss Bianca:
“It’s the liberals who are wrong!”
Old School
RIP Ruth Buzzi.
lowtechcyclist
@The Audacity of Krope:
Unfortunately, very few Dems had the guts to oppose the goddamned Patriot Act in the fall of 2001, and his vote for the Iraq AUMF also didn’t exactly differentiate him from the party as a whole.
RevRick
@The Audacity of Krope: It was the efforts of black, South Carolina church ladies who picked Joe. I count them as the savviest voters in America, because they know the truth about us.
Miss Bianca
@glory b:
You know, I have tried to make that exact point over the years to white self-styled “progressives” who railed about the Crime Bill and…they would not believe me.
But that was my experience living in Chicago. The Black women I worked with schooled me pretty hard on it at the time.
p.a.
Something to note about
Himmler’sMiller’s et al push for a homogeneous white Xtian society is that the deadliest war the US has ever been involved in was when the population was the most homogeneous it’s ever been. Mid 1800s…As I told my bigoted, bible-thumping but alcohol-drinking relatives, “get rid of people like me, your teetotaler “friends” will turn on you next, and if there’s one more of them than you, on the bonfire you go.”
Miss Bianca
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Examples? You got any?
Geminid
@New Deal democrat: A few of those Republican House members might break with Trump and still win a close primary. I’m thinking of Don Bacon, who represents an Omaha-based district and Brian Fitzpatrick, whose district is based in the Philadelphia suburbs. But the Trumpers would punish them by staying home in November; these are very vindictive people with no special party loyalty.
Reps. Bacon and Fitzpatrick both won by narrow margins the last two cycles. It wouldn’t take a very big “blue wave” at all for them to lose in the next one even with a united party behind them.
I think that at this point the only safe way out for the Bacons and Fitzpatricks is retirement. I don’t know about Fitzpatrick, but I think Bacon will retire, and a Democrat will take that seat.
Hudson Valley Republican Rep. Mike Lawler is in a position similar to Bacon’s and Fitzpatrick’s. Lawler might be the most vulnerable Republican House member of all. There is speculation that Lawler intends to run for New York governor next year, figuring that if he’s gonna fail, he might as well fail upwards.
Professor Bigfoot
Q.F.T.
Suzanne
@Baud: One of the bigotries that I think was really significant in the last election was fatphobia. Obesity is very strongly correlated to economic class and race in this country. And the rise of the body positivity movement, the greater range of body types in the beauty standard, etc. in relatively recent years…. has apparently triggered oodles of men, who are used to women working hard to conform and who want their approval. I remember thinking this during COVID…. the people who noted that COVID mortality was higher for obese and overweight people, and they decided that was just fine, who needs masks or vaccines?
Fucking disgusting.
Gravenstone
@NotMax: Someone belatedly realized that man has a face for radio.
Professor Bigfoot
@Miss Bianca: Of course they couldn’t believe you— in their heart of hearts, they really believe Black people are sofa king stupid that we’d enthusiastically support an outright racist.
When the plain truth is that Black voters are THEE savviest voters in the electorate.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Well, the fatter candidate won so…
Miss Bianca
@Old School:
Oh, man.
(I still have fond memories of Laugh In. Although when I finally saw an episode again in latter years, it didn’t seem nearly as funny to me as it did when I was five. Still. Respect.)
The Audacity of Krope
Yes, well the male supremacist view is that men should be allowed to be fat and still draw any partner they like. Their job is to provide, not to actually appeal physically or personally to any other partner.
...now I try to be amused
@Matt McIrvin:
Less than 35 years after the government ended the Great Depression and won the largest war in history. So soon they forget
Perhaps relevant: Richard Brautigan, “I was Trying to Describe You to Someone”
Baud
@glory b:
Fun fact: No one really cares about the crime bill just as no one really cares about Hillary’s email server. Both things were used to beat up on her in 2016 (even though Bernie actually voted for the crime bill and she didn’t). If people really cared about over policing or national security, Trump wouldn’t be the president right now. It’s all a game.
Harrison Wesley
I don’t usually talk about policy because I’m a pretty right-wing Democrat and don’t want to shit in the punchbowl. But….. given the success the Biden administration had providing funds to those in need due to Covid, given that we’re going into another period of personal hardship, and given that we could use a constructive policy that brings us together – isn’t it time to push for Universal Basic Income?
tobie
@Suzanne: Maybe, maybe not. The most gung-ho Trump voters I know are all well-heeled small business folks in the home trades. The Biden economy generated lots of disposable income and these folks got tons of business in those years. Americans in general were spending like drunken sailors in 2023 and 2024, which is why I don’t buy the line that Biden tried but the recovery was slow and there was still a world of misery out there. Wages were up 19% in his late year, inflation down to 2%.
p.a.
I’ve seen the point made that to understand any society, the best sources are that society’s minorities. They HAVE to know the cultural rules/norms to navigate as successfully as they can when for the majority, it’s as water to fish.
The Audacity of Krope
Bernie also decried the problematic elements of the bill even as he voted for it. HRC was First Lady at the time, so not in a position to vote on bills in Congress (just in case anyone takes you to mean she voted against it). She did speak on behalf of the bill in terms that rather dehumanized the communities affected.
Professor Bigfoot
@p.a.: Fish who refuse to believe that such a thing as “water” exists.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Pretty weak distinction IMHO. There are some criminals who are really bad people, and he’s voted against imperfect bills in other contexts. But I’m not going to relitigate 2016. My point is, not that many people really care outside of the context of scolding Democrats.
They Call Me Noni
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Truth. I spent the last 20 years of my career as office manager for a very large industrial, country wide, construction company. Most of our crews were Latino and they made damn good money and the benefits were good as well. Anyone who thinks those jobs do not take skill doesn’t know anything about construction. We did a ton of training (technical and safety) and testing. And just for reference, very few white people on those crews and just our branch alone we had upwards of 1,000 (mostly) men on the payroll. Good folks working hard, paying taxes and supporting their families.
RevRick
@Baud: But his iconography portrays him as the muscular he-man.
tam1MI
@Baud: It shows up a lot on Reverse Pyromania too.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: To me it’s more screaming that Black people are SO stupid to be supporting this “racist” who “championed the crime bill” and “eulogized a Klansman.”
THAT is the core message, but fuckall if they’ll listen when it’s pointed out to them.
...now I try to be amused
@Professor Bigfoot:
Especially when the water helps them more than other fish.
Baud
@tam1MI:
Is that MM’s new blog?
stacib
@glory b: THIS! Every time I read about how Biden tossed Black folks under the bus with the crime bill, I think – hell, many of us WANTED / SUPPORTED THAT BILL. Crack was killing the neighborhoods and crime to support crack habits was rampant. Some of us would have signed a pact with the devil to get any solution to what was happening in our neighborhoods.
chemiclord
What should be depressing is Americans seeing what is going on with immigration, and the majority of them saying, “Yeah, this is acceptable.”
Baud
@chemiclord:
I thought Trump was now underwater on immigration.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: Just saying it’s more complicated than you portray it. I really take issue, though, with the way so many here want to slag on the vague notion of leftists while asserting that they don’t really care about the issues they say they do.
See for example: The many times people have posted on threads here “no one talks about Palestine anymore” while there have been active conversations about Palestine in the very same thread or immediately preceding one.
It just seems to be a generally understood rule of American politics that “you never have to be honest when criticizing those to your own left.”
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne: I hear what you’re saying AND I remember people complaining that Biden hadn’t solved the student debt problem after the fucking SUPREME COURT overturned his measures, because apparently it was his fault for over-promising, or something. I don’t know how we fix an ignorant and self-indulgent electorate. Messaging can’t fix stupid and childish.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
The opposite. I portrayed it as a not a real basis for distinction, but it was blown up to be a big deal. I’m saying something complicated because a meme.
The reason for that is, we too often see a blase attitude online about the dangers of electing Republicans. For those of us how see and feel the threat, it comes off as not caring.
That goes both directions. There’s plenty of dishonesty to go around in political spaces.
RevRick
@Harrison Wesley: Biden voted against confirming Thomas. The Democrats who voted to confirm were:
Boren -OK, Breaux -LA, DeConcini -AZ, Exon -NE, Fowler -GA, Hollingsworth -SC, Johnston – LA, Nunn – GA, Robb- VA and Shelby -AL
Note all the states where Democrats are now an extinct species
The Audacity of Krope
Sometimes Democrats and Republicans agree on the bad thing. The Democrats’ comparative lack of fervor for the bad thing they still support isn’t really a selling point.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
That just confirms my comment. There’s no bridging the gap between those of us who see Republicans as a threat and those that don’t.
The Audacity of Krope
@Baud: You got me wrong. I view both parties as a threat, just one is all threats all the time and the other has an internal conversation about maybe we could do less harm and a dominant faction saying “no, that’s too extreme.”
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
Then you don’t see Republicans as a unique or paramount threat. That’s just not a gulf that can be overcome.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: I think the Republicans want to disenfranchise me, subordinate me, and ultimately to enslave or kill me.
How are the Democrats a “threat” to you?
Suzanne
@The Audacity of Krope:
Yes, the trope of the fat man with the skinny/hot wife exists for a reason: to normalize this dynamic. To make women willing to accept it, when many men would never accept the inverse.
Harrison Wesley
@Professor Bigfoot: That’s almost exactly what a friend of mine said this morning in light of the administration’s recent assaults on civil rights.
catclub
so much for the stock market being forward looking.
It seems to be in a whistling past the graveyard mode.
Suzanne
@O. Felix Culpa:
No, it cannot. But it might be able to activate/motivate people on another axis. Aspirations, personal economic interest, etc.
Some people are just not pragmatic. It’s a weird mindset to me, but I observe it.
Bill Arnold
Just to note this:
Microsoft Boots Trump Capitulator Simpson Thacher, Awards Business To Jenner & Block – Firms caving to Trump reach the ‘find out’ stage. (Joe Patrice on May 01, 2025, Above The Law)
Soprano2
@The Audacity of Krope: Oh I know, but his perception was that he couldn’t say them without the danger of being “cancelled”. I’d love to know if he still thinks the tradeoff was worth it.
NutmegAgain
Put him together with that British pol Rees-Mogg who also cosplays the early 20th century. And then set them on a barge to nowhere, with no tugboat in sight.
frosty
For which side?
cmorenc
@Jeffro: midterms will happen as scheduled – but the GOP will be running a selective voter disqualification derby before, during, and after nominal election day – see, eg the still-ongoing effort in the 2024 NC Supreme Court election.
The Audacity of Krope
I see the Democrats as support for the Republican threat. They agree with the Republicans, frankly, too much. The Republicans could not be the threat they are without Democrats’ help.
In a good cop/bad cop situation, both cops still have the same goal.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: This is true for sure.
Captain C
@karen gail: You’re not ambitious enough. After being found guilty, impalement would be suitable, ideally a long-lasting one.
Baud
@The Audacity of Krope:
That’s fine. But there’s no overcoming our differences. We’re too far apart.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Do y’all ever read Astral Codex Ten? Scott Alexander is one of those people who has a lot of influence on the techbros, and so I try to keep tabs on him. (Yes, it makes me feel dirty.) Anyway, he had a post this week about how it is now clear that the Right is more dangerous than the Left.
frosty
Just got mine from REI. Same problem with 7.5 in the past. I got them for two reasons: 1) tariffs and 2) companies keep discontinuing things that I thought I could get for the rest of my life.
Bill Arnold
@Betty Cracker:
Well, to be fair, Russia celebrates Victory Day on May 9.
So Trump was not insulting Russia, just the rest of the WWII allies.
If it looks like Trump is insulting Russia, look again. :-)
Then compare with a Trump’s Razor explanation; those are also supernaturally strong.
Suzanne
@Baud: Why do you need to overcome your differences? I bet you vote the same way.
Captain C
@schrodingers_cat:
Since Reagan there have been exactly three times that the Democrats have held a trifecta (White House-Senate-House), two years at a time each, separated by over a decade each time. In the first two, many of the Democrats were old school Blue Dog-types, and the last time numbers 49 and 50 were Senator Yacht and Senator Umbridge (Manchin and Sinema). One of those times we got the ACA (despite its flaws it’s a vast improvement on what came before) and the other time we got a bunch of good things (IRA, infrastructure bill, CHIPS act, &c.).
It’s apparently both never enough and too much all at the same time.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: So you see the Black, Jewish, and female led Democrats as supporters of the neo-Confederate white male supremacists?
Is that what you’re saying?
The Audacity of Krope
I see plenty of white men in leadership and a broad unwillingness within the party, overall, to rock the white supremacists boat too hard, yeah.
Reminder there is broad support in the party for funding genocide in Palestine.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I vote Dem for every race. I’m not going to presume how Krope votes. But even if he votes the same way (which would be great), there are some questions I don’t engage with. Treating Dems and Republicans as the same is one of them. It would be hypocritical for me to treat that as within the range of reason given what I say about Republicans.
Betty Cracker
@The Audacity of Krope:
I used to try to push back against hippie punching in this particular space* or get people to be more precise about whom they’re criticizing since “left” and “progressive” cover a lot of ground and people who don’t deserve it can catch flak. I’ve basically given up the project as hopeless.
To complicate things, these days, it’s becoming hard to distinguish the general broadsides from passive-aggressive subtweets aimed at other commenters. That’s a whole ‘nother species of irritant that degrades the discourse.
*I agree with Baud at #245; in other places, dishonest attacks are more likely to go the other direction.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: That’s what you say but. you’re here railing against the party that put a Black man as leader in the House, a Jew as leader in the Senate; that made a Black woman VP and put a Black woman on the Supreme Court… and claiming that party is SUPPORTING THE WHITE SUPREMACISTS??
Talk about privilege. 🙄
ETA: this is PRECISELY why we can’t trust white men.
Anyway
My experience is totally the opposite. People in my network (even vague acquaintances) are impressed by people who can put down a floor or hang dry wall or change out a hot-water heater or have some dope landscaping — coding is easy. anyone can do it.
tam1MI
@Baud: Yes. I try to keep up with it and have been in some very interesting discussions there.
Baud
@tam1MI:
Thanks.
The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Professor Bigfoot: Exactly this. Any analysis of the political moment that doesn’t center racial resentment and white hysterical backlash to the prospect of a multiracial democracy as the foundation of all the other fuckery is a fraud. There may be a million branches, but all of them spring from that trunk.
Suzanne
@Baud:
I agree with you. I just….. don’t care if people are enthusiastic Dem voters, as long as they’re Dem voters. Begrudging votes count up just the same.
Captain C
@Bill Arnold: As has been pointed out in several places (including probably here), people want a law firm that will vigorously stand up for them. If a law firm won’t even stand up for itself (when it’s in a winning position no less), why would any potential client assume the firm will stand up for them?
The Audacity of Krope
Sorry, maybe I just imagined the months of conversations about how we *had* to nominate Biden to placate white racists. The decades of hesitation on gay rights. The refusal to honestly engage on police reform issues. The general ambivalence about genocidal acts of global partners.
Sure, Democrats aren’t actively white supremacists or misogynists, but they sure tolerant of white supremacists and misogynists.
ETA: And I’m certain I’ve seen you saying the same thing. You just don’t like who’s saying it.
Baud
@Suzanne:
I don’t care either. But I also can’t control anyone else’s vote.
Bupalos
As always, I’ll take the half-baked hyper-identity bait.
The marginal difference in between 2020 and 2024 was Democratic underperformance with non-white voters. There was a smallish but statistically significant drop in Black support and a very large drop in Hispanic support. White support remained statistically unchanged.
The call for the Democratic Party to take the extraordinary step of asking Biden to step aside had very little momentum until a series of polls in the summer that showed his support cratering, a drop which also was higher among non-white voters. Reliable black voters in PA were leaning towards Trump at unprecedented levels for the post civil-rights era. There were polls that had him pulling 24%, which presaged an extinction-level event for Dems in the state.
https://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Marist-Poll_PA-NOS-and-Tables_202406071448.pdf
A plurality of Black voters overall said they wanted Biden to step aside. That was a majority for white voters, but if you were to correct for party affiliation (which the following poll does not), it’s likely a larger percentage of black Democrats wanted Biden replaced than white Democrats.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/07/03/us/elections/times-siena-poll-registered-voter-crosstabs.htmlhttps://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Marist-Poll_PA-NOS-and-Tables_202406071448.pdf
In the actual election voted for Harris at a much higher rate than they had said they were going to vote for Biden. Trump’s share of the Black vote with Harris ended up being about half of what polls were predicting with Biden.
I think all of this would tend to discredit the idea that white racial animus at Biden for being too favorable to Black people played a meaningful role in the decision to ask him to step aside. Looking at numbers rather than sneaking suspicions, I think a much better explanation is that the Democratic Party decided it could not win or hold marginal seats with the general collapse in support, and probably that the collapse in support among Black people was considered the most politically unsurmountable variable there.
As a side note, assuming that Harris did get the traditional ethnic identity bonus among Black voters, the underlying decay of Black support for the Democratic Party may be much worse than we’ve yet realized.
Eyeroller
@Anyway: I might agree that anyone can code badly, but not anybody can really get it. (I taught scientific/data coding for several years and it was a real struggle for most of the students.)
I have long had a great respect for skilled trade workers. (Of course we all know about crappy trade workers, I’ve experienced that as well.) I’ve noticed that many are Hispanic. All the roofing I’ve had done, has been carried out by almost entirely Hispanic, probably Central American, crews.
A big concern of mine, now that we’re shifting from “learn to code” to “learn a trade,” is that there is also the never-ending pressure to increase the retirement age. Manual labor is hard on the body. Most cannot keep at it till they are 65, much less 70.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: Would think his boss would educate him a bit on WW II and who won it, etc. etc.
Bupalos
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: I know this just feels true… but actual voter behavior and measured sentiment really doesn’t support it. At least to the extent that we’re talking about how things are changing. How they are different from a couple decades ago. If that’s what we mean by “this moment” then I think this is a simplification that obscures more truth than it reveals.
The Democratic Party is becoming more white, wealthier, better educated, and more female. It’s a multi-cycle trend that has accelerated. The authoritarian opposition is becoming less white, poorer, worse educated, and more male.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@stacib: This all sounds familiar, like it’s happened recently…regarding a certain part of the Middle East, I think…
Paul in KY
@p.a.: I think he’s trying to do Goebbels in modern clothes. Probably jacked off to pics of him.
Paul in KY
@New Deal democrat: PRC can ‘assess the situation’ for 20 years. They think loooong term.
Citizen Alan
@Suzanne: As far as I can tell, the white working class basically consists of the sort of people who would have slammed me into a locker in seventh grade because “reading is for fags” but then grew up to learn that, yes, working hard in school really is the best way to get ahead in this country, and they’re all absolutely furious about it.
gvg
@New Deal democrat: Nothing has no connections. Businesses have to make payroll, the mortgage, taxes and keep the utilities on. They pay for those things with a small % of everything they sell. If they know they have less to sell, and that they are going to cost more to replace some of them which will reduce how many sell, than they must raise the price of what they do have to sell. NOTHING is unconnected.
Also they know perfectly well that they need a cushion for more surprises and that its going to get worse when people are unemployed. If your customers lose their jobs, you are in trouble too.
The only good strategy is get rid of Trump and his nutty ideas as fast as possible though.
Bupalos
I think the general political dysfunction and authoritarian swell we’re seeing in the world is at heart largely due to the fact that this statement is simply and obviously untrue
So obviously untrue that I’m a little surprised to even see it here.
zhena gogolia
@The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion: Well said.
Paul in KY
@Mustang Bobby: I’m going to start using that!
Paul in KY
@NotMax: He would have surrendered to Hitler!
Paul in KY
@oldgold: Some of them (I’m sure) fought for the Kaiser and then for Nazi Germany!
The Audacity of Krope
@Paul in KY: He would have entered into negotiations with Vichy France about we can subjugate them financially rather than letting Germany do it militarily.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Agreed.
Suzanne
@Citizen Alan: Plenty of my family on both sides, and friends from growing up, are “white working class”. (And my ex-husband, LOL.) And they’re nice people, mostly.
But my classmates who mocked me for wanting to get an education as a kid, and of girls who got better grades, who were annoyed by women who didn’t have housewifery as an aspiration….. yup.
And the adults who are resentful of women who make more money than men, or who resent college-educated women who won’t date or marry them…. Yup.
Paul in KY
@karen gail: The Zionists sure wanted to go to Palestine, as opposed to somewhere in Africa or Europe.
Paul in KY
@New Deal democrat: Clemenceau thought Wilson was an insufferable prig. Wilson had his ’14 Points’. Clemenceau famously remarked ‘The good Lord only had 10’.
Paul in KY
@Miss Bianca: Laugh In did not age well. Maybe too topical at times. Ruth, however, always got great laughs from me.
Paul in KY
@Baud: Anyone who thinks electing GQPers is no big deal and will ‘accentuate the negatives’ to bring about the Socialist Age ™ can DIAF, as far as I’m concerned.
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: I don’t remember nominating Biden to “placate the white racists,” because how do you do that when the entire Black electorate is enthusiastically working and voting for him?
Oh, that’s right, because white people think Black folks are so fucking stupid we’d be that enthusiastic about an outright racist, so OF COURSE.
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: But what have you done for me lately?
Professor Bigfoot
@The Audacity of Krope: So explain, if the Democrats are these white racists, why the only Black President was a Democrat, why the former Vice President was a Black woman, why a Democrat put the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.
Yes, the party that put a Jew up as its leader in the US Senate. The party that put a Black man up as its leader in the US House.
And no, you’ve never heard me argue that we should nominate a white man to placate the racists, only that white men all across the ‘left-right’ spectrum will ONLY be comfortable with another white man in power.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: Our people (Dems, those who pull lever for Dems) ought to be just as enthusiastic (even more so) as the mouth breathing choads that are so enthusiastic for the 4th Reich.
Professor Bigfoot
@Bupalos: FAIL.
Paul in KY
@Citizen Alan: A lot of them seem to have figured that out. To their and our detriment.
Paul in KY
@The Audacity of Krope: Tried and true business practices there…
Bupalos
@Professor Bigfoot: You really need to study up on the “debate me bro” maneuver. After dropping the steamer and inviting a detailed response that shows it’s failings, the correct move is to Gish-gallop, not just go “nuh-uh.”
Suzanne
@Paul in KY:
Sure. But I can’t control anyone’s feelings and so the Spaghetti Monster has granted me the serenity to accept this.
I also think voters on our side who punch at other Dems and Dem-leaners do great damage to us, but I can’t control their feelings, either.
evodevo
@Suzanne: It comes from an 18th century medical remedy of literally blowing tobacco smoke up someone’s rear end…needless to say, it didn’t work, and I suppose its ineffectiveness was the basis of the saying…
Baud
@evodevo:
RFK, Jr. has entered the chat.
Professor Bigfoot
@Bupalos: How I would really like to respond to you, white man, would get me banned.
So instead, 🖕🏾, and I’m enjoying the pie.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: No shit on can’t control other people’s feelings, etc. You’d be a hit in politics if you could :-)
I personally think that (after the last 100 days) a decent portion of MAGA voters have buyer’s remorse or bad feelings about votes they may have cast, but (in general) you’ll never hear them voice those misgivings. They publicly ride for their brand.
I wish more of our voters would do the same (outwardly enthusiastic about being a Democrat/voting for the Democrats, upping our side publicly even if they have private misgivings about some facet of our agenda). Should not be hard to do (IMO) as our politicians, policy positions, etc. etc. are so much better than theirs and that fact should not be hard to embrace and defend!
Stevarino
I love this part from his Uncle:
Before Donald Trump had started his political ascent promulgating the false story that Barack Obama was a foreign-born Muslim, while my nephew, Stephen, was famously recovering from the hardships of his high school cafeteria in Santa Monica, Joseph was a child on his own in Sudan in fear of being deported back to Eritrea to face execution for desertion. He worked any job he could get, saved his money and made his way through Sudan. He endured arrest and extortion in Libya. He returned to Sudan, then kept moving to Dubai, Brazil and eventually to a southern border crossing into Texas, where he sought asylum. In all of the countries he traveled through during his ordeal, he was vulnerable, exploited and his status was “illegal.” But in the United States, he had a chance to acquire the protection of a documented immigrant.
Soprano2
@Baud: Have you ever watched situation comedies where a fat man has a super-thin hot wife? That’s how they think the world should be.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: We’ve had this discussion before, but my lived (county- and statewide) Democratic organizing experience is with self-proclaimed Progressives/Bernie-bros (and they’re mostly bros) as saboteurs and just plain nasty people. I support most progressive policy goals, but I don’t know what these people would be doing differently if they weren’t Putinists or MAGA in disguise.
Some of my best volunteers and fellow party officers were Bernie-supporting women and at least one absolutely lovely man. They understood the assignment and did marvelous work. But there is a dangerous group of real people in real life who are self-anointed Progressives and attack only Dems, make vile accusations against good people–especially women and minorities–and suck up valuable organizing and volunteer time mitigating their lies reported to the press and internal party judicial proceedings that they initiate against innocent people. The harm to individuals and the party is significant, and I resent it being blown off as bloody-minded hippie-punching.
Captain C
@Paul in KY: People who talk about ‘heightening the contradictions’ need to make damn sure those contradictions are heightened on themselves first.
Betty Cracker
@O. Felix Culpa: I believe you and have met a few of that type when I was involved in county level Democratic Party politics. In my experience, the troublemakers were a distinct minority in the progressive caucus, and with very few exceptions, the folks who were passionate about Sanders swallowed their disappointment and worked their asses off to elect Clinton.
So, I think indiscriminately blasting “progressives” and crapping all over Sanders supporters is counterproductive, particularly as it’s no longer 2016. But I don’t bother to argue about it much these days. It’s like trying to sell corndogs at a vegan festival around here. ;-)
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker: Thanks for your reply to my heated screed. As I noted in my comment, many erstwhile Bernie supporters understood the assignment and did great work. We’re in agreement there. Sadly, the trouble-making minority wasn’t as small as one would have wished and they actively recruited young, mostly white mostly males to their cause. Some of whom thankfully wised up over time, but not until after considerable harm was done.
Some of the continuing heat regarding “progressives” in this forum is the result of the profound harm that some caused and that some continue to cause. Thankfully many have faded into irrelevance, but the wounds they inflicted still throb. That said, I agree that this is not the best time to rehash old conflicts unless they provide guidance on how we should better handle things going forward. We’re in an emergency!
ETA: I’ve never had a corndog. Should that omission be remedied?
dnfree
@RevRick: Trump also has captured those who want to impose their version of Christianity on all of us.
Since you’re a minister, what do you think of this? In my friend and relative group, most of the Trump supporters (not all) are believers that Genesis is literally true, the Bible is not only inerrant but completely clear and not subject to interpretation, that men should run their households, and that masculinity as they understand it is under attack.
The same people deny facts that are evident to most of us, including many other Christians. Evolution? A hoax. There might be micro evolution, but no macro evolution. January 6 was a peaceful stroll through the Capitol except for a very few bad apples (false flag bad apples).
I’ve come to think that belief in Biblical literalism predisposes people to accept what Trump says as being true and to ignore evidence to the contrary.
Citizen Alan
@UncleEbeneezer: american jews may not have gotten preferential treatment as a result of the holocaust and american collective guilt over not doing more to stop it. But the nation of israel indubitably gets such preferential treatment, if only because fundamentalist american christians who likely have anti semitic beliefs about jews in general nevertheless believe that israel will play a vital role in their end times theology. And they won’t hesitate to exploit the holocaust towards that end.
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat: In my experience, some white people can be perfectly civil and even genial to people of color who they consider to be social equals or inferiors to the point of developing social ties with them, but who are deeply uncomfortable if not hostile at the thought of a person of color holding a higher status than them or, worse, being at a position of direct authority over them. And other white people have the exact opposite dynamic, being perfectly capable of working under a black manager or supervisor while being horrified at the thought of their children dating or even maintaining close friendships with the children of those black superiors.
...now I try to be amused
@dnfree:
Authoritarians have a deep need to believe their authority figures, in whom they invest the power of life and death, are infallible. The thought of them abusing that power would be terrifying. As it should be, which is why I’m not an authoritarian.
Paul in KY
@Captain C: God forbid we get there, but I can see one of them commenting to the other that these latest evil acts by the Fascist MAGA dictatorship has him convinced that the people will soon rise up & overthrow their oppressors. This comment given while in the line for summary execution by guillotine.
Paul in KY
@dnfree: I think most people who actually believe in biblical inerrancy are probably somewhat stupid or they are much too credulous to be living in this age. Or both.
So, it does (IMO) predispose them to lapping up TFG’s lieapalooza.
Betty Cracker
@O. Felix Culpa: I can’t really recommend corndogs, no. ;-)
Timill
@Paul in KY: Ask them to reconcile the day of Jesus arrest, trial and execution? Friday in most Gospels, but Thursday in John.
Citizen Alan
@schrodingers_cat: given my socioeconomic background, i mighr well have gone to some kind of trade school had I not been blessed with a particular skill set that is uniquely suited to excelling in an academic environment, mainly off the chart verbal skills.
I don’t look down on people who work trade jobs. But neither will I tolerate people who hold trade jobs looking down on me because the nature of our society has rewarded me with a very high paying job that I can perform in an air-conditioned office sitting in a comfortable chair and never breaking a sweat.
Professor Bigfoot
@Soprano2: Y’know, if those fat guys had a damn thing going for them, it wouldn’t be so odious.
Mel Brooks married Anne Bancroft, after all, and I’d bet my very last nickel part of it was that he kept her in stitches.
But the ones on TV are talentless schlubs.
dnfree
@Citizen Alan:
My husband and I both came from families that worked physical jobs, although still required both mental and physical skills. We know how fortunate we are to have had jobs where we didn’t have to sweat in a factory (or on a construction site) or be on our feet all day.
That said, all of our daughters had factory jobs a couple of summers, and I think it was good for them to have that experience and know what it’s like. It’s not good for society if any group develops the illusion of superiority.
dnfree
@Professor Bigfoot:
I was trying to think of some way to express that, and your way is excellent!
Citizen Alan
@dnfree: i had a factory job for about four months. I took a semester off college for personal reasons but felt uncomfortable sitting around my parents’ house unemployed, so I went to work at a local factory that made airbag components. After four months I came away with three very strong beliefs.
1. That I would do whatever it took to get a career that did not require any degree of manual labor.
2. That the majority of people who work factory jobs are good and decent people, and quite a few of them are awe-inspiring in the way they commit themselves to an absolutely miserable job in order to provude for their families.
3. Capitalism is evil.
dnfree
@Timill:
It’s even simpler to ask them to explain why, if Jesus said he would return within the lifetimes of some then living, it didn’t happen.
I read a version of the New Testament arranged in the order the books were written, as best can be determined. Paul goes from saying neither male nor female, slave or free, etc. early on to saying women shouldn’t speak in church or teach later. The “later” part came after it became clear that Jesus wasn’t returning quickly, and an institution needed to be created, and that letter might not really have been written by Paul.
brantl
@Mustang Bobby: That’s from the podcast, Strict Scrutiny.
brantl
@Suzanne:
I feel like Biden’s economic populism has been like bringing a squirt gun to a forest fire. The right thing to do, and yet totally inadequate.
And yet all the things he did, and he did a LOT, he got them passed with razor-thin majorities.
brantl
The falcons.
Ramona
@Baud: Indeed ;-}
Noskilz
Miller allways struck me as a kid who wanted to be Mr Burns when he grew up, but also a nazi.
Hopefully he has to answer for his awfullness one day.
Ramona
@RevRick: Democrats are not extinct in VA and 4 of our US Senators are from Arizona and Georgia. But your point does hold true for the other states you mentioned.
Paul in KY
@dnfree: Jesus supposedly said he would return when he was least expected, etc. etc. I would think if you (very anxiously awaitng him in the not too distant time period after he was executed) really thought about those statements, you would have to conclude he would come back in a time period 100s of years after you were dead (Jesus intimating that).
Paul in KY
@Noskilz: Imagine watching The Simpsons and thinking it would be cool to be Mr. Burns. What a sick soul that would be…
Kayla Rudbek
@Bill Arnold: good! If these firms can’t advocate for themselves, how can they effectively advocate for their clients? When you go to hire an attorney, you don’t want a pushover, you want the pitbull wrapped in the nice suit.