FDA approves Novavax COVID vaccine with new conditions reut.rs/4mmmkCc
— Reuters (@reuters.com) May 17, 2025 at 10:40 PM
There has been a dearth of aggregateable news on all my usual sources since March, and I don’t think it can all be blamed on a deliberate cover-up. After five years, our collective immune systems are less susceptible… and, of course, there’s a lot of other vaccine-related outrages…
Health officials are making a renewed call for vigilance against bird flu, but some experts are puzzling over why reports of new human cases have stopped.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) May 19, 2025 at 5:00 AM
Health officials are making a renewed call for vigilance against bird flu, but some experts are puzzling over why reports of new human cases have stopped.
Has the search for cases been weakened by government cuts? Are immigrant farm workers, who have accounted for many of the U.S. cases, more afraid to come forward for testing amid the Trump administration’s deportation push? Is it just a natural ebb in infections?
“We just don’t know why there haven’t been cases,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University. “I think we should assume there are infections that are occurring in farmworkers that just aren’t being detected.”…
In the last 14 months, infections have been reported in 70 people in the U.S. — most of them workers on dairy and poultry farms. One person died, but most of the infected people had mild illnesses.
The most recent infections confirmed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention were in early February in Nevada, Ohio and Wyoming…
During a call with U.S. doctors this month, one CDC official noted that there is a seasonality to bird flu: Cases peak in the fall and early winter, possibly due to the migration patterns of wild birds that are primary spreaders of the virus.
That could mean the U.S. is experiencing a natural — maybe temporary — decline in cases.
It’s unlikely that a severe human infection, requiring hospitalization, would go unnoticed, said Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota expert on infectious diseases.
What’s more, a patchwork system that monitors viruses in sewage and wastewater has suggested limited activity recently.
New infections are still being detected in birds and cattle, but not as frequently as several months ago.
Dr. Gregory Gray said he wasn’t concerned about the CDC not identifying new cases in months.
“I don’t think that anybody’s hiding anything,” said Gray, an infectious disease speicialist at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston.
But Osterholm and some other experts think it’s likely that at least some milder infections are going undetected. And they worry that the effort to find them has been eroding.
The CDC characterizes the risk to the general public as low, although it is higher for people who work with cattle and poultry or who are in contact with wild birds.
Earlier this month, an agency assessment said there is a “moderate risk” that currently circulating strains of bird flu could cause a future pandemic, but the CDC stressed that other emerging forms of bird flu has been similarly labeled in the past.
Still, research is continuing…
========
FDA significantly limits COVID-19 vaccine recommendations
Critics said today’s announcement is more evidence of the current administration’s willingness to undermine public trust in vaccines.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/c…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) May 20, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Prohibiting children from receiving the COVID vaccine violates my religious beliefs. My faith obligates me to protect others from avoidable harm, & withholding vaccines risks tremendous harm on the entire population. I am asserting my right to a religious exemption so my children can be vaccinated
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) May 20, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Under 65 years old? No Novovax COVID vaccine for you this year.
As expected, the Republicans have enabled RFK Jr. and his coterie of antivax grifters to take away your right to make your own medical decisions in consultation with your doctor.
Gift Link: www.nytimes.com/2025/05/17/h…— Carl T. Bergstrom (@carlbergstrom.com) May 18, 2025 at 12:11 AM
I remember a time when Novavax was championed by these very people as the better vaccine because it uses an "older"platform compared to mRNA vaccines. Everything to them is a ruse and the real end goal is to limit vaccine access to align with their antivaxx views.
apnews.com/article/nova…— BK. Titanji (@boghuma.bsky.social) May 19, 2025 at 7:12 AM
Wisconsin to begin milk sampling for H5N1 avian flu
In other H5N1 developments, the USDA confirmed an outbreak at an Arizona layer farm that has more than 2 million birds.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/a…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) May 20, 2025 at 4:15 PM
This from the NYT ed board after they platform unqualified cranks who push discredited gain of function/lab leak conspiracies or in other cases give false equivalency to them. They need some self reflection here and understand that they’ve been part of the problem
www.nytimes.com/2025/05/19/o…— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social) May 19, 2025 at 8:18 AM
And BTW all the ideas mentioned in this ed board piece seem fine and are welcomed
— Prof Peter Hotez MD PhD (@peterhotezmdphd.bsky.social) May 19, 2025 at 8:35 AM
The World Health Organization's member countries have approved an agreement to better prevent, prepare for and respond to future pandemics in the wake of the devastation wrought by the coronavirus.
— The Associated Press (@apnews.com) May 20, 2025 at 6:30 AM
US measles outbreak grows to 1,024 cases
Texas remains the country's hot spot, with 718 cases.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/m…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) May 16, 2025 at 4:17 PM
Measles cases in Texas rise by four to 722, state health department says reut.rs/3H56tIo
— Reuters (@reuters.com) May 20, 2025 at 11:50 AM
Poll: 83% of Americans say benefits of MMR vaccines outweigh risks
Fifty-seven percent of those polled said they were unsure of complications if a pregnant woman contracts measles.
www.cidrap.umn.edu/m…— CIDRAP (@cidrap.bsky.social) May 19, 2025 at 4:33 PM
On The Road – JanieM – Car Bits
Soapdish
I’ve been missing these. Thanks, Anne.
satby
Poorer, sicker, more desperate: that’s the population the techbros and MAGAs want. Easier to bamboozle and control.
Baud
Remember: Most people survived the Plague.
Gloria DryGarden
An adult friend has has measles recently; it sounded pretty rough.
I need to call the doctor and inquire about getting vaccinated. I probably was, in the 60s, but the word is that vaccines protections have not lasted. The friend had that 60s vaccine..
Suzanne
You’ve done heroic work with these posts, Anne Laurie.
I am so angry about this. Limiting access for adults, no vaccine for children. I am looking at driving up to Canada to get a vaccine for the kids. If it’ll even be available, or if they’d give it to them. The Canadians would probably say that their vaccine program isn’t for Americans’ benefit, and they would be correct.
Everything the GOP touches dies.
eclare
I’m getting the covid vaccine this fall, I don’t care if I have to lie to get it. The big question is will insurance cover it?
oldster
Thanks, AL!
“…the NYT ed board … need some self reflection here and understand that they’ve been part of the problem….”
Ah ha ha no. They know that they are printing bad info and polluting the discourse. They know they are going to get people killed. But the “controversy “ brings them clicks and revenue.
Baud
@oldster:
Yeah, it’s the good professor that needs to reflect on what the NYT is all about.
Princess
@Suzanne: Canada will buy enough vaccine for Canadians and other residents and there won’t be enough for 300 million Americans. The vaccine will be free, even for residents without health cards because it works better if you vaccinate the whole population. But if too many Americans come, it will break the whole system. We can’t be America’s free pharmacy. I’ve had liberal Americans scream at me when I’ve tried to explain this.
p.a.
I tested + Saturday, my last vacc was 9/24. Same as the other time I had it; one day of “a bus ran me over”, two days low (99.1- 100.1) fever, then headcold symptoms and occasional dry cough, not deep-lung cough. That would be worrying. Went off the nsaid yesterday as 24 hours fever-free w/o meds is a good sign of recovery happening.
I’m 65, get my boosters regularly. Last covid was, IIRC 2022, so interesting that it’s almost certainly a different strain, but same results.
Suzanne
@Princess: I understand. A country’s first responsibility is to its citizens.
It’s the same reason that City facilities are free to residents but charge non-residents, or that the primary mission of American public universities is educating residents of that state, which was an assertion I got roasted for once here. But it’s an inherently reasonable premise.
Ten Bears
A little paranoia is not a bad thing: I’m not sure I want a shot that’s for the old folks only
Jeffro
1,000+ measles cases vs fewer than 10 transgender college athletes. in our country…hmmm, which one should I be frightened of, Fox News?
Suzanne
@Jeffro: Stop being all numerate and sensible.
lowtechcyclist
@Jeffro:
Or the number of children and teens sexually assaulted by evangelical ministers last year, which isn’t known but is a hell of a lot more than ten.
Jeffro
@Suzanne: right??
I just bopped over to Faux News dot com and yup, it’s literally their number two story. “trans athletes, ooga booga!” all seven of them
Number three is ‘illegal immigrant causes fatal DUI crash’, complete with mugshot of non-white perp.
We might have to devote a year doing nothing but pulling back the curtain on this shit for our blessed low-info electorate. Anything to throw a wrench into the perpetual fear machine…
Rusty
@Gloria DryGarden: I had the same worry, my doctor had me take a titer test for all three. In my case it came back strong for all three, so no need to get a booster. Your doctor should be able to order the test too
The Covid boosters will again be at the pharmacies, no one is going to check if your claim of a necessary underlying condition is true.
Baud
@Jeffro:
I can’t criticize too much with so many Dems being distracted by and obsessed with Biden stories (and I’m not referring to the outpouring of sympathy for his cancer diagnosis).
Suzanne
@Jeffro: I tend to push back on the whole narrative about “we need better civics education!” and “we need to expose their lies!”. Not because those things aren’t true, but because we (liberals, Dems) can’t really do those things.
People who want to believe lies and ignore facts will do so. We have the greatest information-delivery device in human history in most people’s pockets and they still choose to listen to lies. It’s not because they weren’t taught differently, it’s not a failure of the public schools or whatever. They do so because it feels good.
Remember how DARE actually increased drug use? It’s like that.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Agree. I don’t know why libs are having difficulty changing their approach, but it seems clear to me that that’s the case.
rikyrah
Thank you, AL
Just infuriating😠😠
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: What approach would work, though?
I remain convinced that so long as the Democratic Party is perceived as the party of women, Jews, and Black people, the vast majority of white Americans (but I repeat myself) will absolutely reject them; will believe the stupidest calumnies against them, and will NEVER examine the role that their own whiteness had in their electoral choices.
I don’t see any approach that will get us more white voters other than turning on marginalized communities.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Yeah, it’s easier to critique than to come up with a solution. At this point, I just want Dems to stop being self-hatiing and have some self-respect. But even that seems like too tall an order.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: You won’t find a lot of Black Democrats on that bandwagon.
The problem, as always, is whiteness.
New Deal democrat
The good news on COVID continues. Both Biobot and the CDC report a further decline in COVID wastewater particles through the week of May10. The CDC report indicates 1.64 particles per mL, vs the all time low of 1.13, and 8.91 at the peak last summer.
Deaths also continued to be low, with 358 during the last final reporting week of April 19. Preliminarily there were 126 during the week of May 10, suggesting a final number below 300 vs. the all time weekly low of 314 last June 8.
The 52 week total of deaths also declined another 100 to 35,900, another all time low. As indicated above, the next six weeks will be challenging, as we will be comparing against the previous all time lows from May and early June last summer.
JP Weiland forecasts that variant XEC will be the dominant strain this summer. He is not suggesting any alarm. This is yet another descendant of BA.2 to which the public has been thoroughly exposed.
The measles outbreak has also slowed down, with another 23 cases during the week of May 15, the vast majority of which – 722 – have been in West Texas. There have been no new deaths, but 128 have required hospitalization. Among all cases, 96% have been unvaccinated.Given the substantial percent of young people who have not been vaccinated, I am surprised the outbreak has not increased more sharply.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: I hate Democrats SO FUCKING MUCH for being so self-hating and defeatist. It’s the reason we’re doomed.
Professor Bigfoot
An interesting BlueSky thread on just where we are right now:
Sherrilyn Ifill.
Ohio Mom
@Rusty: I have feeling your insurance company might question why their customer who is under 65 and has no relevant diagnoses should get their shot paid for. I think payment for those shots will be denied.
You’ll end up paying out of pocket, which will be fine if you can afford, not so fine if you can’t.
It occurs to me that most of all, this might be a gift to health insurance companies. If everyone is eligible for a shot, that’s a big expense for them.
They don’t care about everyone 65 or older, they are all the on Medicare and the government’s tab.
NeenerNeener
I know exactly what happens when a pregnant woman is exposed to measles: a child with birth defects. One of my aunts was exposed while she was pregnant with my cousin Chuck. He had lung and heart issues and deformed thumbs. He didn’t make it to forty.
I wonder if we’ll ever hear about the damaged children this time around.
Professor Bigfoot
@Ohio Mom: “Follow the money” always applies, doesn’t it?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I can’t tell if you’re making a recursive hate joke or are serious.
In all seriousness, if it weren’t for the fact that our values are strong and the Republican values are so awful, the average Dem personality would probably drive me away.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Congress, including all the Democrats, just voted unanimously to repeal taxes on tips.
This was one of Trump’s campaign promises. Dare Obasanjo on Mastodon noted that our willingness to pass such things, just because they’re things we actually agree with on the merits, is why Democrats are “doomed forever”.
In other words, we need to stop caring about the country and start trying to damage it, including hurting our own constituents, if it hurts our enemies politically. Republicans do that and it works for them. He may be right.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
People like me (and others here) who draw a line from the decline in civics education and it’s connection to an electorate we have use it to highlight it’s role in the decline in public education, the war on public education from the right, and the enabling that gets from self professed progressive support of things like the school choice/charter grift.
What we’re seeing, and civics classes are an important part of that, is the consequences of the slow strangling of public education, not helped by the above types who believe in public education “in theory” and then do little to nothing to make it robust.
A piece from 7 years ago on how that plays out here in supposedly blue CO where we are nothing but self professed progressives and really don’t like public education:
https://balloon-juice.com/2018/04/24/i-know-lets-jail-teachers/#comments
Krugman from the same time frame:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/23/opinion/teachers-protest-education-funding.html?smid=tw-nytopinion&smtyp=cur
Local Dems can do a lot about civics education and public education but as we see in CO, the ones that control things, and we’re talking about the Klein/MattY/New Dem/New Liberalism clowns, don’t.
Professor Bigfoot
@Baud: Get yourself an invitation to “the cookout.”
WE are the true base of the Democratic Party, and we are not in despair.
Worried, yes; deeply concerned absolutely… but again, you won’t hear a lot of Black Democrats turning on other Democrats.
It is not a coincidence that most of those complaining about the “fecklessness” and “uselessness” of the Democratic Party are white men.
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: My generation HAD civics education in school and we went for Trump.
I remember it being a kind of dumb indoctrination class intended to teach you that our system was the most perfect one. I had other classes that weren’t oriented that way, so maybe I just had a kind of dumb civics teacher.
Baud
@Professor Bigfoot:
Is that a blog? I’ve never heard of it.
Professor Bigfoot
Because Republicans promise to harm the hated other, and their voters are four-square in favor of that.
Republicans sell their policies by explaining that “the undeserving” (Black folks) are living the good life on their “hard earned tax dollars.”
They promise to harm trans folk, Black folk, and brown immigrants and the majority of white voters are all in favor of that… and then are absolutely shocked when THEY TOO are harmed by GOP policies.
Davis X. Machina was more correct than even I would like to believe.
Ohio Mom
@Suzanne: We have civics, and economics, woven through the grades in Ohio, with a required one semester class in civics in high school, paired with another one semester class in economics.
It’s all so horribly right-wing that I suspect the curriculum was written by a think tank. No one ever takes into consideration that curriculum can set us back when they insist the problem is not enough civics taught in school. Curriculm in its core is extremely political.
New Deal democrat
@Princess:
My recommendation would be for Canada we’re to charge a fee to Americans to cover costs, on the reasonable belief that those Americans are likely to be pro-science Democrats who are Canada’s Allie’s in their conflict with T—-p.
NeenerNeener
Yeah, I had a friend who insisted that Dr. Fauci is responsible for the creation of COVID and its release in the US. Couldn’t convince her otherwise, or talk her out of any of the other MAGA conspiracy theories she spouts either. I had to write off a 50 year friendship.
Baud
@NeenerNeener:
You did the right thing, but I’m sorry.
New Deal democrat
@Suzanne:
Obama’s and Fetterman’s campaigns were good examples of an approach: picking up just enough voters in deep Red areas to win the election.
I don’t have the link handy, but for the first time in many decades the Democratic Party is now perceived to be a party based on social, rather than economic, issues.
I have some thoughts on how Democrats can better formulate economic programs to garner more White support, but they are way too long for here. But one component would be to trumpet those programs to the high heavens. Remember that Biden’s policies, including from the Inflation Reduction Act, did much to improve conditions in Red America, but even Biden admitted that he felt squeamish about trumpeting them. So Red State Americans never knew.
eclare
@NeenerNeener:
That’s awful.
Ohio Mom
Off topic, just counted a dozen cicadas clinging to the frame around the front door. Most of them are sitting next to their shells, adjusting to their transformation. It will be a while until the males start singing.
Always happy to see them, I take I
as a sign that Mother Nature continues on despite all we do to hurt her.
frosty
From the (possibly little) I’ve read, Harris/Walz did the same thing in PA. My county went >33% D which has been enough to win the state, going back to 1992. Not in 2024. Philly stayed home and didn’t vote.
New Deal democrat
@Professor Bigfoot:
But notice that Social Security and Medicare are virtually impervious to such an assault. Why?
Because the programs are perceived as “everyone pays in, and everyone gets to benefit.”
Consider free school lunches. If they are given only as a benefit to poor people, they are much more vulnerable to racist attacks. But if they were structured as, e.g., every working parent pays $5/week, and every student gets free lunches, they would be almost invulnerable, because those same White voters would perceive that their own children are benefitting. Even though both programs have the same identical result.
RevRick
@Baud: It’s a story as old as time. Powerless groups tend to turn on each other. The Democratic Party during the 1920s was a sad picture of disunity. It got demolished in three straight elections.
But further back in time, we have the Jews of Jesus’s day fiercely divided between Sadducee, Pharisee, Essene, Zealot, and all loathing the Samaritans, their near-religious cousins. And squeezing the life out of them was the Roman Empire. Literally.
Baud
@RevRick:
Splitters.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
They’re not impervious to assault.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: I think the only thing that will work — and it will be incredibly marginal gains and will take a long time — is a constant message reflecting people’s aspirations back at them in a positive way. Part of that is just us regular people being visible and happy and successful. That helps undermine the caricature of Dems as “your annoying niece with blue hair at Oberlin”.
I also think different forces are working on people differently and it’s good to be aware. I tend to think, just from my personal observations, that the older Trump voters are more motivated by racism and the younger Trump voters are motivated to a greater degree by misogyny. (Note that I am saying “more motivated”, which doesn’t mean that the other forces are not at work.) The data that we¡re seeing come out about 2024 indicates that misogyny has inter-racial appeal. So…. if there are young people in our lives, can we work on them?
Again, this work is going to be incremental AF. But margins matter.
RevRick
@Matt McIrvin: But caring is a core value of our party.
New Deal democrat
@frosty: That was the finding that was highlighted yesterday. While the GOP bastion was White voters, especially White men with no college education, T—-p improved *at the margins* with all racial minorities, especially Latinos, and especially Latino men.
I have been meaning to go back and double check, but if I recall correctly, in all the swing States T—-p got more votes than the GOP Senate or Congressional candidates, meaning that he drew out of the woodwork thousands of people who would never otherwise vote. Pace Blazing Saddles: “You know. Morons.”
New Deal democrat
@Baud: So far they are.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
So is most everything else by that standard.
RevRick
@Baud: Love the Monty Python reference. But splitting is inherent in all leftwing politics since the Enlightenment, because we always insist on getting things right.
Suzanne
@Ohio Mom: I went to a terrible public high school, in an area that people talk triumphantly about “getting out!”. I still had civics education. The larger issue is that most people never read a book past high school, but that’s not a problem of the school system.
HeleninEire
I just booked my COVID booster…..in Dublin! I’m going for a visit next week. I may as well get it while I’m there!
Baud
@HeleninEire:
Smuggle some back!
lowtechcyclist
@RevRick:
In politics, making the perfect the enemy of the good is inherently self-defeating. But too often we do it anyway.
New Deal democrat
@Baud: I’m sorry, but that is simply wrong. The GOP – and centrist Dems – have successfully targeted programs specifically funded for poor people, e.g., “welfare reform.”
But they have been completely unsuccessful in any attempt to curtail Medicare and Social Security, because those constituencies are much too large. Medicaid is more vulnerable because of the State funding mechanism, but even there, if GOP cuts mean that granny has to leave the nursing home and move in with adult children, you would be able to hear the howls from the moon.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I think we need to tell the truth, but that won’t make people believe it. When I tutored, the hardest thing to get people to understand was the difference between fact and opinion, because most people believe their opinions are facts. More than once I heard “but I know that, doesn’t that make it a fact?”. No, not if it’s not empirically provable. It’s hard for people to wrap their minds around the idea that all of their beliefs aren’t facts.
Baud
@New Deal democrat:
Welfare reform is about the closest thing you have to an example. I don’t see much evidence of a political difference when it comes to resiliency. Social Security and Medicare have undergone changes too. That’s why the retirement age is increasing, for instance.
Soprano2
Me, too! I want them to strongly advocate for the things they believe, and quit apologizing for believing those things.
Suzanne
@Soprano2: Yeah, it is. Getting through to people is a long, hard, thankless slog.
Kirk
@RevRick:
I think that’s a more accurate statement.
Soprano2
@Professor Bigfoot: So they confronted Billy Long with evidence of his corruption. This is my surprised face. He’ll probably get confirmed as head of the IRS anyway.
She’s right, all of those things are much more important than the fact that Joe Biden has prostate cancer, but guess which story the Beltway press is obsessed with right now?
Soprano2
@Matt McIrvin: I think what that’ll mostly do is increase reporting of tips. The ones who are smart are already reporting enough to not get looked at by the IRS. There will still be state and local taxes on tips, so it won’t actually change much IMHO.
sab
@Ohio Mom: That’s an important point, about the content of the civics class.
Gloria DryGarden
@NeenerNeener: I thought that was for rubella, German measles. Is it both?
Miss Bianca
@Gloria DryGarden: I would get a titer drawn, in any case, to measure your immunity. (I just got the MMR myself.)
sab
@Matt McIrvin: Does it just apply to federal income tax, or also to income reported for social security and medicare?
Matt McIrvin
@RevRick:
And that’s our central, fatal flaw.
At least, in the median election that doesn’t immediately follow a disaster caused by the other side’s lack of caring.
I think this is more or less the cause of the disaster cycle we’ve been in for the past 50 years: there’s no good way out of it because it’s a sort of game-theoretic equilibrium. The system has found the ideological margin where, because of inherent flaws in human nature, the side that will happily destroy the country to get ahead will always win on a level playing field. Their only strategic flaw is an inability to deal with reality, which causes catastrophes that temporarily unbalance the playing field in the caring- and reality-based side’s favor. But that advantage only ever lasts for a period of two to four years, basically a couple of federal election cycles.
And every time they’re in, they try to break the system hard enough that democratic processes will no longer work when the next crisis comes around. So at some point (maybe it’s already happened) we’ll reach an endpoint where either we get a Republican one-party autocracy for about half a century, or a genocidal civil war that physically destroys most of the United States and kills a large fraction of its population, or both. But we kind of don’t have any choice but to act as if that hasn’t happened yet, as long as there’s any hope at all.
suzanne
It appears that Gerry Connolly passed. A loss to us.
WTFGhost
@Gloria DryGarden: Keep in mind, vaccination is only 95% effective – some people who are vaccinated will catch measles anyway, though the case should be milder than it would be otherwise. That said, your doctor can give you more information about whether a booster is a good idea.
@eclare: If you have an underlying medical condition, probably. If not, it’s hard to say. It won’t be required to be covered, since it’s not recommended.
@Suzanne: There are things we can do, but, you’re correct: none of them will work while one political party is a propaganda organization insisting that all is sunshine, lollipops and rainbows. Our founders expected good faith adherence to the Constitution; they never imagined that a majority of the Congress, a supermajority of the SCOTUS, and the Presidency, were all in the hands of corrupt, bad faith, actors.
We can either work the hatred wurlitzer ourselves, our we can hope for a significant disaster to destroy the Republican brand. There might be other answers, but those are going to be the main ones.
zhena gogolia
@suzanne: So sorry.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: I haven’t read the bill, but some talk very early on when this was first proposed said that it was going to do little if anything for tipped workers, but was going to be a sop to “small business” by pushing more people into “tipped” positions to cut business taxes.
And you know the MotUs that get the “carried interest” benefit will suddenly become “tipped workers” if Congress actually closes the carried interest loophole.
And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if that turns out to be the case. These monsters who refuse to pay taxes will twist any potential feature for others to their benefit every . single . time. (Remember Rmoney’s (and Thiel’s) gigantic “IRAs”.)
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
p.a.
When they failed to take Moscow, the German logistical services were pretty sure the war was a failure, if not lost. When the 6th Army fell at Stalingrad, the German public realized “winning” was a long shot at best. (Sources: Richard J. Evans’ histories of the Third Reich) Only the true believers… believed, at least until Germany was in flames in 1944.
What has/does/will it take to crack the MAGA “soft fascist” reality shell? (Soft fascist = I’m on board as long as we “win”.) The rest are lost, and the best to hope is they just drop out of the political arena via apathy.
FEMA telling red states “fuck you!” is a GOOD start.
Wallyworld going public with “these price hikes are tariffs.” Yes!
Any soon: “here’s grandma’s new nursing home bill for you$$$” “Here’s a list of contractors to add an in-law to the shack.”
“You can always sell the Ranger and the truck to tow it to pay for the work.”😂😂😂😂😂
Miss Bianca
@Matt McIrvin: Sounds to me like *you’re* one of those self-hating Democrats, MM.
I do wonder why we seem so prone to it. As opposed to Republicans, who never seem to hate the fact that they’re racist, sexist dipshits enabling mass racist sexist dipshittery.
Scout211
@suzanne:
reposted from downstairs, from NBC News:
Rep. Gerry Connolly has died.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: Just federal income tax, and only for tips reported for Social Security/Medicare, with a $25,000 cap on the deduction.
So if you’re not rich enough to pay federal income tax anyway (which I suspect many tip-dependent people don’t), you’re not getting anything from this. But it might put some people under that threshold, provided they report those tips.
Miss Bianca
@Scout211: Wow, that was fast. RIP
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Scout211: I’m sorry to hear that.
New Deal democrat
@Baud:
The change to Social Security was very incremental and long term, first, because everyone knew by 1980 that the demographic impact of the Boomers meant that funding had to increase. And the slight increase in full retirement age had much to do with significant increases to longevity. Fundamental conditions changed and the program was tweaked. But when W tried to privatize it, Pelosi’s response was “My offer is this: nothing.” And when Obama tried to use a lower cost of living adjustment, that went nowhere as well.
By contrast, most of the “Great Society” type programs targeting the poor have vanished. And food stamps have only survived because they are tied to farm subsidies.
Again, sorry, but you are just wrong, and have no correct examples at all. Bottom line: give a program a big enough constituencies, and make sure it visible benefits lots of Whites, and it will survive.
Matt McIrvin
@Miss Bianca: In reality, it’s not particularly Democrats that bother me, it’s people in general.
I think that human beings are inherently, ineradicably very dumb and short-sighted about government in a way that will strategically favor evil over good on a level democratic playing field. The only reason democracy is ever a thing we want is that any putative controlling elite is no better (they are still people), and taking the reins away from the people means that you lose the restoring force of self-interest when policy causes mass suffering.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@New Deal democrat:
We had this conversation repeatedly last year, both after the candidate switch and the election.
One thing everybody agrees on is the tilted media playing field so even when the trumpets sound, if nobody hears them…
But, the trumpets need to sound and I think that’s another thing everybody agrees on, we don’t do that effectively 24/7/365.
In great irony, after all the bitching about no signs at obvious places like highway projects, some started going up around here last year around election time. Thing is, they’re modest and one’s too busy driving to actually see them much less read them.
I’m quite surprised the Orange Fart Cloud hasn’t rooted them out and had them removed yet. I’m sure that’s a matter of time.
jonas
As with everything in insurance, it’s a cost-benefit analysis. Is shelling out a nominal amount (for a huge insurance company) up front to vaccinate a large number of people better than paying for numerous doctor and ER visits and up to several weeks of intensive care for a few. This is Dave Anderson’s bailiwick, but I’m willing to bet that the answer is, it’s cheaper to pay for the shot.
jonas
As someone once said, democracy is the worst imaginable form of government — except for all the others.
jonas
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: This is exactly it — Democrats *were* talking a lot about these various bills and programs and how they were helping average Americans. But in this fragmented and increasingly siloed media ecosystem, the people who needed to hear that were busy listening to Joe Rogan or watching sportsball and just generally not paying attention to anything but egg prices.
ETA: not to mention the other side’s massive, coordinated, and integrated media ecosystem dogging on all of it 24/7.
p.a.
As long as the programs can’t be branded “welfare”, yes, but another tack that has succeeded in crapifying if not destroying programs is the “look at the budget/deficit/debt. We have to “adjust” (downwards, always downwards) these programs”.
And I know budget=/=deficit=/=debt but in an innumerate society they just chose whichever word resonates in that electoral season. Eventually crapification= program death.
prostratedragon
@Ohio Mom: To some, that is the third sign of impending Apocalypse.
Redshift
@Scout211: Very sad. I knew Gerry since he was the chair of the county board here. He was a fighter, and one of the major figures in turning Fairfax and Virginia Blue. (He apparently moved from blue Alexandria to then very red Fairfax before running for office, which I didn’t know until recently.)
There was a very nice tribute to him at the Fairfax Dems dinner on Sunday
OGLiberal
There is a Novavax “exception” for people between 12-64 with underlying conditions but, of course, no details what those underlying conditions are. My wife, son and daughter all have underlying conditions that could put them more at risk – and the last mRNA booster my wife and son took beat the crap out of them. But since my wife and son have their conditions managed and my daughter’s condition hasn’t presented itself yet (kids are 18 and 17, respectively) I would bet all three would get denied. Heck, they’d probably get denied even if this weren’t the case.
jonas
Oh, and that’s going to cost a shitton more now too because of all the tariffs on the materials. We just requested an estimate for some kitchen remodel work and the contractor was frank that he didn’t know what the impact of the tariffs would be, particularly if various companies like Lowe’s had stockpiled enough inventory to get through the summer, but that it was going to get ugly. *Everything* used in construction is either imported, or made out of a lot of imported materials.
Professor Bigfoot
@New Deal democrat: Remember that when Social Security went into effect, it specifically did not cover domestic and farm workers.
Mostly Black people.
Because FDR was dependent on Southern Democrats to pass it in the first place, and white southerners don’t want Black people to have anything. White Americans generally don’t believe Black people should gain any benefit from citizenship.
Hell, they’ve been destroying public schools ever since they were forced to let Black kids into them!
So it’s not that people perceive it as “everyone” pays in, they perceive it as something that benefits white people. If they could find a way to keep anyone else from receiving SS benefits, conservatives would be all over it.
Professor Bigfoot
I don’t disagree entirely, but understand that a lot of lynchings in the 20th century were of happy, successful Black men.
May were murdered simply for being more successful than the white men around them.
So seeing happy Black people is more likely to cause conservatives to double down on their belief that “they’re livin’ the good life on MAH hard-earned tax-dollers!”
Because remember, the “working class” doesn’t include Black people, however hard we might actually work.
bluefoot
@Matt McIrvin: I admit I laughed out loud at your comment. But it also sounds way too much like many Dems I know.
jonas
There’s a story that when the Austrian mathematician Kurt Gödel was studying for his citizenship exam (he had moved to Princeton in 1939 to escape the Nazis), he told his friend Albert Einstein that he had discovered a fatal flaw in the US Constitution that, if certain conditions were present, could lead to an authoritarian regime taking over like Hitler had in 1933. He wondered if he should point it out to the civil servant administering the test. Einstein advised him to just relax and answer the questions. Gödel passed, but I don’t think we know to this day what the exact issue was he had identified.
I wonder, though, if it wasn’t precisely this scenario.
Professor Bigfoot
GIRL. You just hit on one of my “go-to” denunciations of these moronic conservatives: “You ain’t read a damn book since the last one assigned you in high school. AND YOU PROBABLY CHEATED ABOUT THAT ONE.” 😂
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: I don’t disagree, either. The contemporary example is young women getting more educated and earning more money than young men, and that is also creating a backlash.
But, in general, most people are more comfortable being in coalition with people they like, or at least don’t find threatening.
That’s why this is hard.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: You laugh, but that’s exactly how I feel!
Jeffro
but are you really trying, though?
NotMax
Got my semi-annual COVID booster earlier this month. Even though Moderna was listed on Costco’s web site they phoned me the day before the appointment to inform they were out of stock and didn’t expect any more until an updated formulation becomes available circa September, so switched to Pfizer for the first time.
Person giving the shot cautioned I might experience a headache (in addition to the usual soreness surrounding the puncture). Low level but persistent reaction of that ilk for nearly three days afterward.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
I will cop to not finishing The Red Badge of Courage. Fuck, that book is boring.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: As long as elected Ds seek approval of the professional white grievance mongers, I am looking at you BS of Vt and your legions on social media and the MSM lead by the NYT it will never happen.
Professor Bigfoot
@New Deal democrat: “Welfare reform” as well as the “Sister Souljah Moment” are both vestiges of the early ‘90s, when the entire country was under the sway of “conservatism.”
This, of course, after the “Reagan Revolution,” which, once again, told white people that those lazy darkies were living large on their hard-earned tax dollars.
Billy C went that route because that was the path to winning. White people were an even bigger share of the electorate in 1992; but you’ll notice that Black folks STILL have great affection for Bill and Hill because of what he DID with winning. I remember (just like last year) in 1996 there were “Help Wanted” signs EVERYWHERE.
But once again, too many Black people took too much advantage of that economy and were successful.
Conservatives hate that with the heat of a thousand suns.
bluefoot
@Suzanne:
I know quite a few people who don’t read books. They listen to podcasts or YouTube for info, and those + stream tv for entertainment. They’re all intelligent professionals, so it mystifies me.
But my brother says I own too many books so my perspective may be skewed…
Omnes Omnibus
Just a reminder. We lost by 1.5% nationally. In WI, it was an average of 3 votes per precinct. We can move that many voters if we are smart.
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Here’s the thing— we don’t have any others. We don’t other people for being brown, or Jewish, or gay, or trans, or anything else. We, perhaps alone in this country, understand that nobody is free until everybody is free.
Democrats are about NOT othering people. We are not offended at the mere existence of people who look, think, worship, or love as we do.
All in all, I would still rather be us.
Belafon
@Baud: I am a Democrat because they’re the party most aligned with my goals that has a chance of getting things done, but I am a Democrats. For too many, they vote Democrat but think they can be above it all, because being part of a party makes them impure. It’s why the Green Party can seriously interfere in elections.
NotMax
@suzanne
Riveting compared to, say, Silas Marner.
And nothing – nothing – was more coma inducing than those movies focused on literature narrated by Clifton Fadiman shown in class
;)
Manyakitty
@suzanne: OMG Stephen Crane was the bane of my existence for ages. Blech.
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Yes we can.
Manyakitty
@Omnes Omnibus: you and your facts.
Miss Bianca
@Professor Bigfoot: I hate to think you’re right about all this, but I can’t point to anything you’re wrong about. :(
Professor Bigfoot
@Scout211: I am saddened, but more than that I am “grateful that such men lived.”
May his memory be a blessing.
JanieM
@NeenerNeener:
@Gloria DryGarden:
It’s rubella that can cause birth defects, not measles. The confusion is probably because rubella is (was?) often also called three-day measles or German measles.
From here:
Professor Bigfoot
@Matt McIrvin: Entirely.
I love my species… but gaht DAYUM we piss me TF off sometimes.
bluefoot
@Belafon: I truly don’t get the whole purity thing. The current options are governance (though flawed) or immiseration and death. Then again, I’m a brown woman so I don’t have the luxury of being a purity pony, I’ve got to be pragmatic. I had hopes that we’d get to a place where elections were a choice between good vs better, but no longer.
NotMax
@JanieM
On the other hand, a consequence of mumps in adults can be sterility.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
You’re not usually this negative.
suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: Agree. Margins matter.
Baud
@Scout211:
RIP.
Elizabelle
Haven’t read the thread, but Mistermix and crew can celebrate.
Gerry Connolly has died, age 75, of esophageal cancer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I am not really a morning person.
Scout211
Some people do have difficulty processing the written word so I’ll give them a pass on not reading books as adults.
As an aside, when my husband’s neurologist did his first assessment of him to determine his cognitive decline, he asked if my husband read books or watched television mainly. When we let him know he rarely if ever watches TV and reads books daily, he said, “Oh good!”
Reading uses more parts of the brain and is an active process while watching movies and television is a more passive experience and does the processing for the viewer. It’s not as brain stimulating and over time that can be less helpful in future cognitive decline.
So yeah, stream the shows and watch television, but also read books to keep your brain healthy.
WTFGhost
@Matt McIrvin: I did realize, at one point, the Democrats must stop trying to keep Republicans from harming Red State programs, and instead focus on attacking them for trying, and then (this is hard) letting them succeed, and slam them for succeeding.
They want to cut the VA? Don’t swear we’ll die on that hill, they won’t take one penny from it. Trumpet their cuts, far and wide, and make them think of doctors bayonetting the wounded, to cut costs, all because of evil, blood-round-their-mouths, REPUBLICANS. We’ll fight for something we really want, in Congress, we’ll just fight trench warfare in the media.
Obviously, this only works with enough funding of superpacs, or enough independent attack dogs. Without it, the ads can’t spread far enough to really hurt (i.e., tilt elections).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Matt McIrvin: The thing that I remember from High School was the history classes weren’t just dumb, they were absurdly so. Things like the class skipped from the beginning of the Civil War to WWI, so apparently the Civil War, Western Expansion and the Industrial Revolution didn’t happen, so that is three of the most important things in American history, vaporized. Also, we are a capitalist system, but we don’t discuss what capitalism is.
At lest the teacher was hot.
Omnes Omnibus
@WTFGhost: You have to be willing to let the hostage taker shoot the hostage. Most people who run for office as Democrats do so because they aren’t that kind of person.
Steve LaBonne
Speaking of COVID, when I registered for the UU Summer Institute in my region, I was surprised to find that the Unitarian Universalist Association still has very strict COVID prevention rules which apply to next month’s General Assembly in Baltimore as well as to other UUA sponsored gatherings like Summer Institutes. I have to demonstrate a full set of COVID vaccinations (good thing I held on to my card!), test before heading to Oberlin on the first day, and mask indoors except when eating. We are serious about protecting the most vulnerable people. It’s making me wonder whether my congregation should be urging us to mask on Sundays (though people who have colds or bad allergy symptoms do so without being asked). But the UUA policy does go beyond any current guidelines from infectious disease experts that I am aware of.
NotMax
As there’s no official morning thread, worthwhile watch..
Parsing DOGE. Makes the minotaur’s maze look like a cakewalk.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Omnes Omnibus:
That’s the rub. But then we have to define exactly what “smart” means. And right now, there’s a clear divergence on the left side of the aisle about what Democrats should do, should stand for, etc.
That divergence is on stark display here every day and has nothing to do with how it’s typically attributed in such a way as to dismiss those who push back.
suzanne
@Scout211: In all honesty, I don’t have a strong preference about how people get their information. I’m sure there’s benefits to some formats over others. But the larger point is that many people just do not seek out education on their own.
That leaves entertainment content, and we’ve seen how political information has been getting embedded in that, which is a thing we have not figured out how to counter.
Steve LaBonne
@Belafon: Multiparty parliamentary systems preferably with multimember constituencies and proportional representation don’t completely neutralize this problem but at least offer opportunities to work around it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The history teacher at my high school was the football coach
prostratedragon
@NotMax: Thanks. Been noticing Ms. Bowers struggling with madness lately, a sign that she truly has caught on.
Speaking of the skipping dipshit, the president of South Africa should decline to attend.
Professor Bigfoot
@bluefoot: As “Son of Baldwin” said, “We can disagree and still love each other, unless your disagreement is rooted in my [anyone’s] oppression and in the denial of my [anyone’s] humanity and my [ANYONE’S] right to exist.”
(parenthetical is entirely mine, of course, but people who are offended by the mere existence of people who are different from themselves… well, you know)
New Deal democrat
@Professor Bigfoot:
I actually agree with almost all of both above statements. One point of difference is that the plutocratic wing of the GOP just wants their tax cuts, and don’t really care about anything else.
To explain my position would require a lot more room than these comment lengths, but my basic point is that, to keep racist Whites from dismantling programs that benefit non-Whites, they have to see that they themselves are major beneficiaries of the programs. And one tried and true way to do it is for (almost) everyone to pay taxes into the program, in return for their widespread ability to benefit from it.
PatD
@Elizabelle: there’s nothing to celebrate here. There was reporting that he was terminal last year. The point, which has proven out, is that it’s politically dumb to grant leadership positions or deference (Ginsberg, for example) to people at the top end of the life expectancy charts no matter their seniority or that it’s their turn.
By all accounts Connolly was a good man who did good work.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yeah, that in itself was always an issue.
As somebody with a BA and MA in history or historical-related stuff, I look back on my history education growing up (and I went to a shitload of schools since my single mother moved around a shitload so I saw a lot of different teachers over a widely divergent set of school districts to include being in the first wave a white kids bussed to inner city black schools in Norfolk VA in the early 70s) and I got to say that the history teaching actually got worse as I moved up in grades.
It woefully unprepared me, always considered the history nut growing up, for actual college-level history classes.
But, pre-high school, I can say there was a decent enough grounding in the basics, civics, etc., that’s a far cry from what comes out the pipeline nowadays.
Steve LaBonne
@New Deal democrat:
I don’t agree with this. The billionaires like Musk and Thiel want a hell of a lot more than that and it always involves grinding the rest of us into the dust.
Omnes Omnibus
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: My point is that a lot of people are using what Trump is doing as a result of his squeaker of a win to argue that the Dems need to make fundamental changes. Move much father left… Abandon whatever their blue haired niece at Oberlin wants… And so on.
All of them are using the loss as an excuse to do what they have wanted to do for a long time. I just want people to remember how close it was and be willing to make changes at the margins to grab back 2-2 1/2% in the next election cycle. Then make a few more changes to do it again. We don’t need to reinvent the Democratic Party.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@New Deal democrat:
Exactly. Anybody who’s read on the history of the origins of Social Security can see how that ‘tried and true’ way was at the heart of the program.
Which is why conservatives (and enablers from a large swath of the modern (D) party) are always looking for ways to not do that, shit like ‘means testing’ ‘work requirements’, etc.
suzanne
On the topic of civics education, I’m sure all of us can benefit from more. I’ve enjoyed the podcast Civics 101, by New Hampshire Public Radio.
Keith P.
I’m staying healthy with regular injections of beef tallow and methyl blue. Fingers crossed!
Matt McIrvin
@Manyakitty: I kind of liked Crane’s incredibly dark poetry, which was very much the work of a guy with serious PTSD. Visions of masses of tiny men getting crushed by giant stones, that kind of thing.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
As a former teacher of 11th grade American history, I shall exercise restraint in pushback.
Jackie
I mistakenly thought this was the Covid and bird flu thread….?
Professor Bigfoot
@New Deal democrat: YES.
The plutocrats are avoiding taxes by stoking white “Fear of a Black Planet,” and those frightened whites ignore how much they are harmed by the policies that benefit only the plutocrats.
The plutocrats/oligarchs/plantation aristocrats cannot be successful unless large numbers of white voters can be convinced “they have someone to look down upon.”
It comes back to the voters, ultimately; but there’s no denying the interest that the capitalist elite have in flogging that narrative.
zhena gogolia
@Jackie: There hasn’t been a new thread for a long time so people have drifted to politics.
NotMax
@Keith P.
Gee, your hair smells like french fries.
//
@suzanne
For one year and one year only when was in junior high, social studies classes were renamed citizenship education classes.
prostratedragon
More dogeshit:
Six days ago, judges of the DC Circuit ordered DOGE to comply with a FOIA request from CREW. Today,
suzanne
@NotMax: In 2010, I spent months volunteering for the campaign of now-former Congressman Harry Mitchell, who started his career as a high school teacher of civics and government.
He lost his seat because he voted for the ACA, and was succeeded by the absolutely odious David Schweikert.
Professor Bigfoot
@NotMax: Stopped at a Steak ‘n’ Shake the other day and saw that they’re adverting “fries cooked in beef tallow.”
Like that’s a huge draw… to who? I wondered if that was for MAGAts and the MAGA adjacent, the fat guys in the t-shirts that say “Bacon, Beer & Bullets…”
And of course, to make matters worse, none of it was very good. I went off my “heart healthy diet” for THIS crap?😂
(tbf I think it was this particular S&S; I’m not ready to write them off forever… but it will be a while before I try ‘em again.)
Manyakitty
@Matt McIrvin: his reporting was okay. I just couldn’t with his fiction.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Mine were all civics majors.
Omnes Omnibus
@Professor Bigfoot: Duck fat. You want fries cooked in duck fat.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
You know how difficult it is to source enough fat ducks?
//
zhena gogolia
Why do all the wrong people keep dying?
Omnes Omnibus
@NotMax: Do I look like I care?
schrodingers_cat
@Omnes Omnibus: Ghee is the best, for chips and fries as well.
prostratedragon
On the original topic, Bergstrom adds
CaseyL
@Professor Bigfoot:
Fries cooked in beef fat do undeniably taste much better.
However, there is a reason that’s now a rare thing to find, and no longer standard cooking procedure. Y’know, all that saturated and transfat stuff.
We are absolutely going backwards in the popular conception of what is and isn’t healthy. That’s not solely the Right’s fault, though: I’ve seen it creeping up for years.
The “rehabilitation” of refined sugar, because as least it’s slightly “healthier” than high-fructose corn syrup. You’ll see processed foods make a big deal of containing “real cane sugar!” and Coke has made a minor sub-industry of selling “Mexican Coke” in the US, with its “real cane sugar!”
And then there is the mini-fad of the last few years of putting coconut oil on and in everything. I remember about 30+ y ears ago when coconut oil was considered one of the LEAST healthy plant oils around, particularly when hydrogenated, because of the (again!) monosaturation. Imagine how gobsmacked I was to see hydrogenated coconut oil being hawked by “lifestyle influencers.”
I am frequently reminded of the scene in Woody Allen’s movie “Sleeper,” the one where a guy in 1972 is put into cryosleep and wakes up 200 years later. The scene I’m thinking of, he’s still in the hospital, and the doctor offers him a cigarette. He is shocked. The doctor says that medical science discovered that eating steak and smoking cigarettes are the healthiest habits you can have.
In fact, I am semi-expecting cigarette smoking to make a big comeback.
Belafon
@zhena gogolia: Being evil is a lot less stressful.
prostratedragon
@schrodingers_cat: And pancakes. Going to try with popcorn next time.
zhena gogolia
@Belafon: Yes.
NotMax
@CaseyL
Not until Dolt 47 lowers prices. MASA = Make America Smoke Again.
//
Melancholy Jaques
@Professor Bigfoot:
You left out LGBTQA+, but I completely agree with you.
The grip of white supremacy & patriarchy on the voting behavior of white Americans has tightened as brazen racism & misogyny have become more acceptable.
Naturally, I blame Democrats.
prostratedragon
Now:
CaseyL
@NotMax:
H’mm. I wonder if there’s a way to keep the cancer sticks expensive, and convince the rich to take up the habit because it’s too expensive for the lower classes…
sab
@suzanne: We have been watching a lot of old old tv shows and it is amazing how left of center 1960s and 1970s tv was, especially some of the westerns.
On the other hand, the sitcoms are for me unwatchable. Traditional marriage.
Professor Bigfoot
@Omnes Omnibus: I watch too much Food Network, and well, duck fat is just too intimidating.
NotMax
@Melancholy Jaques
Presumably you saw this.
Federal judge strikes down workplace protections for transgender workers.
This maladministration: “Federal judges issuing sweeping rulings are minions of Satan. Except in Texas.”
Kayla Rudbek
@CaseyL: yes, when I was a young GenXer, coconut oil, palm oil, and animal fats were all considered bad for you (cardiovascular disease). Of course then we all went to eating low-fat and that increased our carb intake instead…
Thor Heyerdahl
Canadians were pissed off before when Americans would come up via bus tour to fill their prescriptions at a cheaper price.
In the current political environment, Americans are going to be cross- checked right out of the pharmacy.
JeffH
@Professor Bigfoot: Steak ‘n Shake has been on the MAGA train for a while, but fairly subtly. Things like running ads with designs which match the current stuff being hawked by the grifters. When traveling last week I was going to get lunch from one because it was the only thing around, but when I saw their sign advertising that you could use Bitcoin to pay I decided to wait until I could find a non-insane option.
NotMax
@sab
Dipping into the old (1957 – 58) Betty White sitcom Date with the Angels on Prime periodically as respite.
Kind of charming, for the time.
CaseyL
@Kayla Rudbek: Yeah, there was some but not unfortunately not much distinction between good fat and bad fat. Fat got a bad rap altogether, in favor of sugar. And adding sugar is how low-fat foods became palatable!
Mind you, seeing how everything turns around into its opposite does make me wonder if, in 20-30 years, fat and sugar will change places again as dietary boogiemen.
Sherparick1
@Baud: Actually, if we are talking about the “The Great Mortality” of 1348 – 1350, only about 50% of the population of Western Europe survived. None of the people who developed the obvious symptoms appeared to have survived. But at least some people whose immune systems were able to fight off Yesinia pestis with mild systems and they left a genetic heritage in the genes of descendants from those Europeans and Asians. https://news.uchicago.edu/story/ancient-dna-shows-people-certain-genes-were-more-likely-survive-black-death
Bill Arnold
@jonas:
Wikipedia has a useful article on that: Gödel’s Loophole
VFX Lurker
I hope you’re right. Me, I once tried to get a spring booster after my regular autumn immunization even though the CDC recommended them only for age 65+, the immunocompromised, and people with a preexisting condition.
CVS cancelled my household’s appointments for the extra shot! They would not accept out-of-pocket payment, nor did they accept my obesity (BMI 31-32) as a preexisting condition.
However, this may have been back when the mRNA shots still had only emergency authorization and not full FDA authorization. Maybe I will be able to pay for COVID vaccinations this fall.
CaseyL
Regarding going to Canada for vaccines… I wonder if there is, can be, any effort by US medical organizations to work with their counterparts in Canada to order enough vaccines to accommodate Yanks coming North. I imagine working out the finances would be tricky, since they’d be relying on USians being willing and able to pay for the shots, but perhaps something can be worked out.
Ohio Mom
@NotMax: That must have been the influence of John Dewey, who declared that the purpose of public education was to produce an informed citizenry.
I think about that everyone I hear about the schools not producing enough career-ready graduates.
Baud
Ohio Mom
@CaseyL: Well, vaping seems to have taken off, and what is vaping except smoking tobacco? Though to be fair, I don’t think anyone claims vaping is good for you.
Martin
@Elizabelle: So, the criticism some of us had for the appointment of Connolly wasn’t a criticism of him personally. It was a criticism of the party’s inability to identify a governing strategy and which members would be most effective at communicating that strategy, and instead embracing a mechanism of seniority in order to dodge such an effort. Many of us see this as a kind of political malpractice that opens Democrats up to losing elections because they can’t advance and defend a proactive strategy, only reactive ones (trump bad).
It was not a criticism of Connelly as a bad guy (he wasn’t), it was a criticism of Connelly not being a vehicle for advancing a party strategy, and his uncertain health representing a risk to the party because he would be unavailable to fight the administration that Democrats spent 4 years calling an existential threat to the country, and well, he’s now about as unavailable as one can be, and he was pretty unavailable before. At a time we need an opposition party, we keep having an absent one because the party won’t commit to an agenda and strategy and advancing the people best able to sell that to voters.
That’s the criticism. Connolly was a good guy, but he wasn’t the person you needed running Oversight when you have a president breaking the law on a daily basis. Not sure why this is such a difficult concept to grasp.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: agree with your comment 141.
Ohio Mom
@Baud: I just came back from Target, my CVS is located inside.
I took a walk around the store while my prescriptions were readied. It looked like the entire women’s clothing section was on sale and discounted. The bed linens were lower priced then I remembered them too.
It looked to me they were trying hard to woo customers back.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@CaseyL:
Steve Martin on his seminal “Let’s Get Small” album from the late 70s had a bit:
“My doctor recommended I take up smoking because I’m not getting enough tar in my diet.”
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Thor Heyerdahl:
Now that’s a reality TV show I’d watch!
Jeffro
I was the Cliffs Notes KING of my HS English classes…but in fairness, I had no time to read the ‘assigned’ reading because I was reading trash like Stephen King and Ken Follett. =)
CaseyL
@Ohio Mom:
Er… as a vaper, let me just say: there is no tobacco in vapes; therefore, no smoke, ash, or tar.
Vapes contain nicotine-drenched water and polyglycol, which while certainly not healthy, is better than actually smoking.
Jackie
@CaseyL:
Maybe “All things in Moderation” will be considered ;-)
That’s always been my go to, and avoiding things my digestive system has ruled taboo. In my case, greasy high fat foods. :-(
Jeffro
yup!
my RWNJ parents still wonder what made me progressive…should I tell them that half of it was watching ‘Alice’ and ‘The Jeffersons’ every morning on summer break?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Jeffro:
Both on CBS, as were other shows of a similar ilk like “Maude” and “All In The Family”.
Sure, a lot of Norman Lear in there but this has had me wondering if the other two networks had a lineup like this in terms of liberal social messaging?
rikyrah
@Baud:
I guess the Target boycott has had an effect on them.
Soprano2
@bluefoot: That’s mostly what I do these days, because I can listen to podcasts while I work or in my car or while I clean house. It’s hard for me to find time to sit down and actually read a book. I’ve never tried audio books, I’m not sure I’d like them.
rikyrah
@prostratedragon:
uh huh
uh huh
Manyakitty
@zhena gogolia: million dollar question
Josie
@Omnes Omnibus:
Just got my 100 Post Cards for Pennsylvania in the mail today. I have until October 15 to get them done, so a few each day will make it happen. My contribution to the small percentage.
suzanne
@Jeffro: Agree…. shows like “Will & Grace” and “A Different World” make a lot of difference over time. I think stand-up comedy is a big vector, too.
Sure Lurkalot
@Jackie:
I think these are excellent guidelines. It does require a modicum of “honesty” in regard to eating things that “don’t agree” with you. I had a boss who had a sensitive system and gobbled antacids and the like to eat poorly. Still felt bad after eating those garlic fries but less so.
Sugar, salt and excessive fats are added to make foods taste good and be craved…so I understand it’s a battle.
rikyrah
COMPLETE IMMUNITY
COMPLETE IMMUNITY
COMPLETE IMMUNITY
THIS is what it means!!!
ABC News
@ABC
BREAKING: The Justice Department said it is moving to drop police reform agreements reached with the cities of Louisville and Minneapolis, which were intended to address allegations of systemic unconstitutional policing and civil rights violations.
https://x.com/ABC/status/1925195789363470606
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Slow moving rapture.
Jackie
Further proof advanced age hasn’t anything to do with maturity or the lack of:
Steve LaBonne
@rikyrah:
I certainly can't think of anything bad that cops did in those two cities.Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think part of it is that “smart” means different things in different places. As you well know, what can win in MO is different than what can win in California. Springfield is slowly, slowly becoming marginally more liberal. For instance, our school board was never taken over by MAGA’s, and now it only has one on it, in a place where R’s still get the majority of the votes.
Melancholy Jaques
@CaseyL:
This is the scene from Sleeper you referred to.
“You mean there was no deep fat, no steak or cream pies or hot fudge?”
Captain C
@Belafon:
For people like that, no matter what they claim, their vote is all about them and showing that they’re better than everyone else. If you can’t vote for X over Y (or if you do but complain loudly the whole election season) because of reasons ranging from utterly spurious to perhaps vaguely reasonable in a vacuum, then Y is an acceptable alternative for you even if it’s much worse (including for your supposed reasons and values) than X.
(General ‘you’ here, not meant for anyone specific.)
Another Scott
@Baud: @rikyrah:
Made me look. It looks like they had a huge run-up in 2021, then have been falling back to Earth since then. Since they’re mostly a grocery/soft goods store these days, it probably doesn’t make sense for them to have a huge valuation.
Walmart, on the other hand, had a big run-up starting in 2024, so maybe they’re stealing some of Target’s customers.
Dunno.
The stock market is a weird thing – it’s hard to point to one or even a few causes for what it does.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Belafon
@Jeffro: You should check out the morality stories in shows like Gunsmoke and Little House on the Prairie. They were far more progressive the Father Knows Best.
Steve LaBonne
@Ohio Mom: How can we replace them with AI if the schools aren’t graduating them in the first place?
Captain C
@bluefoot:
“If I vote for X then I’m complicit, but if I just sit it out and make it easier for Y to happen, then I’m clean even if Y wins out and is much worse, because me being clean is the most important thing, not other people potentially being screwed hard.”
Or in some cases, I suspect there’s a little subconscious (or overt) “If Y wins at least I pay less taxes on my trust fund/inheritance.”
Baud
@Captain C:
Aren’t enough rich purity people to be a major problem.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
What do we do when AI stops reading?
Melancholy Jaques
@rikyrah:
Was it really to address allegations of systemic unconstitutional policing and civil rights violations, or was it actual, repeated incidents of unconstitutional policing and civil rights violations?
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
They’re usually settlements, so no wrongdoing is ever officially found.
Soprano2
@prostratedragon: So, I posted the following comment:
Fair Economist
@CaseyL:
It’s pretty simple – they are both bad in excess. Sugar is worse overall, because you need some fat and you don’t need any sugar, and it’s easier to get vast quantities of sugar your body doesn’t register properly in drinks.
There was never any science behind substituting sugar for fats back in the 80’s – it was a marketing effort based on demonizing fats and taking advantage of the fact that there was less science on excess sugar. I don’t think that will work again in either direction. Although I will concede the Republicans are doing their best to murder health science to allow endless scams, which would include that.
Omnes Omnibus
We aren’t all as brilliant as you are.
New Deal democrat
For those who are interested, here is an update on the Administration’s apparent open defiance of a court order not to deport anyone to third party countries without specific due process, via deporting a Vietnamese person to South Sudan.
The court held an emergency hearing last night, but did not make a ruling. It held another hearing at 11 this morning, and instructed the DoJ lawyer to notify everyone involved, including the pilots, that they may be in criminal contempt of court:
https://bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social
“ In a late-night court hearing, the Trump admin says that it deported the Burmese man to Burma, but is REFUSING to say where they deported the Vietnamese man, claiming it’s classified! The judge ordered ICE to tell everyone involved they may face criminal contempt.”
Despite the government’s claim, a journalist was able to locate the plane, first before it refueled at Shannon Airport in Dublin, where the police were notified but apparently declined to intervene. It then proceeded to a US airbase in Djibouti. Apparently there will not technically be direct contempt until the US actually transfers custody.
https://bsky.app/profile/gbrockell.bsky.social/post/3lpow5bioxk2s
Manyakitty
@New Deal democrat: my god. They’re stashing people all over the world. And FOR WHAT????? I want to scream but I’m afraid I’ll never stop.
Omnes Omnibus
@Manyakitty: Putting them in places with failed or corrupt states who either can’t or won’t track where they are. Can’t bring them back if you can’t find them. Remember the Nazis put the industrial death camps in regions where there was no real functioning state authority.
Manyakitty
@Omnes Omnibus: yeah. If anything, that makes it more horrific. Soulless ghouls all the way down.
Citizen Dave
@Jackie:
Unbelievable. Another data point that your average MAGAT doesn’t grasp the massive difference in ability and talent needed to play golf (driven in a golf car) vs. performing a 2+ hour rock concert, leading your band and sharing the concert with 20,000+ fans.
Trump is a total ass laughingstock to any normally sentient american.
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot: From talking to Green voters and non-voting advocates and the like over the years, I think they have a fundamentally different model of the ethics of voting.
We (pragmatic Democratic voters) tend to see voting as an instrumental act of government, and the citizen’s obligation is to vote in the manner that has the best chance of producing the best outcomes.
They see voting as an expression of personal preference, and consider themselves as morally obligated to treat it that way even if it leads to perverse outcomes. Any perverse outcomes are the fault of the system, not theirs.
As far as I can figure, they see any kind of strategic voting contrary to their optimal preferences as a kind of lie, and therefore evil. What strikes me is how passionate they are about it.
New Deal democrat
@Manyakitty: Update:
“Judge: I find that my preliminary injunction order has been violated. Next step: what is remedy?”
Ruckus
@Suzanne:
Everything the GOP touches dies.
And suffers in the meantime before the end result.
Seemingly even more than it used to be decades ago. Now of course that is a normal symptom of the disease that is the conservative party of today. They have lost the plot, the direction and the level of power they used to have. And that makes them just a tad crazy, insufferable and several tads worse than they used to be. In my mind the conservative side always has wanted, desired, needed control. And with growth that has become less available, and with our level of communications today, far more obvious – at least to a not insignificant percentage of the population. And I believe that has also screwed with their vision, narrowing it significantly, which makes conservatism work worse than it used to. IOW they are freaking out at the loss of control they have and so have seemingly/possibly/actually dialed up the concept of them having control, and thereby abusing it. IOW they have, in my opinion, lost the plot.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Think about how strident MAGA and right wing religious people are about pretending their immoral behavior is noble.
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: My AP US History class was… OK. The teacher was an entertaining character, he provided a counter-narrative to some of the dumber assertions in the (still recognizably Dunning School-influenced) text, and we didn’t skip over a lot.
My wife and my daughter both seem to have had genuinely GOOD APUSH classes, from teachers who taught them to think like professional historians and synthesize information from a variety of primary and secondary sources. One result, in my daughter’s case, was a near-complete mistrust of her alleged textbook, which was a later edition of that same damn text. (As she put it: “They’ve got a NARRATIVE and they have to fit every event into that NARRATIVE.”) But the teacher seemed to largely be ignoring it.
I am pretty sure that experience is atypical.
Manyakitty
@New Deal democrat: I have some suggestions for remedies.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: The argument I would make to them, which I am sure would fall on deaf ears, is that they are morally culpable for knowingly facilitating avoidable bad outcomes. The lesser evil is less evil and we are morally bound to do what we can to prevent the greater evil, while continuing to press “our” side to do better. Morality is obviously of crucial importance in politics but moral perfectionism and moral posturing do not logically follow from that.
Matt McIrvin
@New Deal democrat: The courts seem to be gradually coming around to the observation that “Trump is immune, but YOU (minion) are NOT.”
Gin & Tonic
@Omnes Omnibus: Absolutely true. There is (was?) even a restaurant in Portland, the Atlantic one, named Duckfat.
Matt McIrvin
@Steve LaBonne: They seem to regard voting for a lesser evil as inflicting extreme psychic pain. I’ve seen them go on about it as a thing that just corrodes their souls.
Ruckus
@Citizen Dave:
Worse.
A laughingstock is just overtly funny. Point and laugh till you get cramps from laughing so hard.
Today’s conservatives are, in my mind far worse than they used to be, mainly because we now can do what we are doing here – communicate what the hell is going on, how desperate they seem to be – because they have lost the plot, and with far better communications of today, like we are doing here, everyone including them can see it. That doesn’t mean everyone will – always remember it has to be a hell of a lot more difficult to see with one’s head stuffed up their exit port.
Melancholy Jaques
@Martin:
I agree with you generally, but have doubts that the ranking minority member of the Oversight Committee has much influence on election outcomes.
I do believe that our congressional caucuses’ refusal to speak with one voice harms our ability to convince people to vote for Democrats. The days when we could have our members taking opposing positions on major issues were in the past, in a different country.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
It also doesn’t make much sense for people who need support from others for their causes to tell everyone else they should not support anything that is imperfect.
rikyrah
Everytime I think I’m at my limit, I read something else.
The South Sudan stuff has sent me back to the edge.
We are literally dealing with just evil people.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: Modern “conservatism” isn’t even conservatism in any recognizable sense. The ideologically Burkean, “Chesterton’s Fence” version of conservatism exists in the more centrist Democrats if it exists anywhere–this is what the Bulwark types all recognized a while ago. (And it’s also part of what pains Democrat-skeptical progressives.)
rikyrah
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I loved AP US History. One of my favorite classes ever.
Back then, we were actually taught REAL US History, and wasn’t any controversy about it.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: These are intensely selfish and self-centered people. The extreme individualism promoted by white American culture tends to encourage people to develop this kind of distorted personality.
Anyway
NYC had (has? haven’t checked in a couple of years) places that sold fries cooked in duck fat – that were SOOOOO good.
Ruckus
@Belafon:
And easier.
CaseyL
@Matt McIrvin:
I went to high school in South Florida in the early 1970s. Florida had a McCarthy-era law (probably still does, for all I know) that all high school students had to take a “Americanism v. Communism” class, and it always had to teach that Americanism was better. But it didn’t specify the curriculum: that was still up to the teacher.
I happened to take the class in 1972, just as Watergate was breaking. (SWIDT?)
And we happened to have a fantastic teacher, who decided to use current events as a filter for examining “Americanism v. Communism.” So she, and we, would bring newspaper and magazines to class, which were full of the new scandal – which of course escalated over the course of the school year – and good lord, the discussions we had!
Probably wouldn’t be able to do anything like that today.
Anyway
yep – same here. The callous way this maladministration deals with human beings with minor compliance issues at best is beyond the pale. As you keep mentioning we have the largest prison-industrial-complex in the world— just lock them up here. Why ship them to a third country to which they have no connection. Aaaargh!
Manyakitty
@rikyrah: come sit by me. We can hang on together.
Matt McIrvin
@Anyway: Some of them don’t even have minor compliance issues–they’re legal residents or legit visa holders who are literally being scooped up because they engaged in anti-Trump protected political speech, or were in the vicinity being Hispanic when ICE was arresting someone else
They’re being shipped out of the country because that’s red meat for MAGA folk, and because it leaves them with fewer legal protections.
Juju
I think people here are misunderstanding the Covid ban. It’s only on the Novovax vaccine, not the MRNA vaccines that Pfizer and Moderna make, and they are updating their vaccines and your insurance will pay for the boosters because they are a lot cheaper than paying for a hospital stay.
Matt McIrvin
@Juju: I got the impression there were two different stories. The first one (a few days ago) was about Novavax, then the second one (yesterday) extended that to all COVID vaccines, which will no longer be recommended for people under 65 without extenuating health circumstances.
Redshift
@Martin: In sure your comments were in that vein, but in that thread there was also a pile on with comments that literally began “I don’t know anything about Connolly, but…” and this is why we have to get rid of the old guys.
Eunicecycle
Ugh I just saw our military has officially accepted the Qatari jet. And Trump just had a major meltdown in the Oval when Peter Alexander asked him about it. Oh and Trump was a jerk to the president of South Africa. Just a typical day these days!
Belafon
@Melancholy Jaques: A lot of the older Democratic leadership are great legislators, but not great fighters. I don’t know how well people like Crockett and AOC would be at getting their legislation through during normal times (a time they have never been part of), but they can fight. And right now, I think fighting is needed, because Democratic legislation isn’t going to make it through.
The appropriate historical figure is Churchill. He was never a very good peacetime PM, but he was a fighter at the time one was needed.
eclare
@Soprano2:
Great comment! I commented but not as well. Like you said in your example, good friend of mine is 60, no pre-existing conditions, but she helps take care of her 90 yo mother. So she won’t be able to get the shot?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Belafon:
The massive irony there pertains to ‘Little House’. The TV series from the outset wasn’t beholden to the specific stories from the books. That caused a certain amount of consternation among ‘Little House’ afficianodos but it was clear the show had no long-term prospects story wise as they’d run out of stuff from the book in no time.
And thus, they were able to do what you describe.
Which is great because over the last 20 years, a lot of academic attention has been paid to the ‘Little House’ books and who’s seen as the real crafter of the final product, Laura’s daughter, Rose Wilder Lane.
Rose is considered one of the three founding lights of the modern glibertarian movement. She was, if this is possible, probably more virulently anti-FDR/New Deal, etc., than Rand was.
As such, the ‘Little House’ books take on a new light ignoring legal niceties like Pa squatting on Indian land or the back migration Laura and Almanzo take from godforsaken SD to much prettier but equally stark south central Misery. It’s all “up by your bootstraps” kind of stuff.
A glibertarian fluff piece on just what Rose meant:
https://fee.org/articles/the-ghost-of-the-little-house-a-life-of-rose-wilder-lane/
Two very worthwhile *reads* on her:
https://www.amazon.com/Ghost-Little-House-Missouri-Biography/dp/0826208878
https://www.amazon.com/Libertarians-Prairie-Ingalls-Wilder-Making/dp/1536627224
It’s also useful to read Laura’s original material pre-Rose. That’s also been published in the last decade or so.
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Yep!
But it’s not just conservatism.
The world has changed significantly in the lifetime of those alive, like me. We see more, we communicate far, far more, like right here/now. We can discuss both sides of an issue. That was far less likely within my 3/4 of a century. I’ll say it again, the world has changed significantly. Your car works better/likely gets better mileage, you likely have a microwave in your kitchen so less natural gas or electricity is used – on a per person basis. And that microwave cooks far faster and uses less electricity than an electric stove/oven. A lot of the problem of today isn’t what/how we do it, it’s that there are far more of us doing whatever it is. Now on the other side a lot of things are far more efficient than they used to be, like TV or radio or even your phone. And manufacturing as well. We’d be in far worse shape if everything worked like it did 50-100 years ago. It’s still that far more of us part that is a big part of the issue. So let me ask a question that doesn’t need an answer – how many of us are having 3-5 kids? Or any kids at all? Sure the population is growing, but is it growing as fast because we are still having 3-6 kids? I’m 75 and have seen a lot of population growth in my lifetime. A lot. That seems to be changing a fair bit. I could be wrong and it could be changing a lot slower than it seems to me but it does seem to be changing. Me and my 2 siblings have only one in the generation beyond us. How many of us can say similar?
Ruckus
@Matt McIrvin:
Agreed.
Melancholy Jaques
@Belafon:
We Democrats are in the minority. We don’t need legislators & savvy backroom dealmakers. We need the whole country to know: Who are the Democrats? What do they stand for?
We no longer live in a country where the Democratic minority can horse trade on legislation or budget matters with Republicans.
Since the 90s, with very few exceptions, Republicans reject any legislation that Democrats are willing to support. If they get Democratic support, they believe they haven’t gone far enough.
Another Scott
@Martin:
“the appointment of Connolly”.
Connolly wasn’t “appointed” to be ranking member, he won a fair and square election by his peers.
Best wishes,
Scott.
sab
@rikyrah: My sister in her fancy boarding school had two American history classes the same year. One was the usual one and the other was taught in French class with a French textbook. Very different perspectives, although the French didn’t hate us back then
ETA I thought my public school history classes were incredibly boring, but I went on to major in it in college and loved it.
Captain C
@Matt McIrvin: For them, voting is all about them, not selecting someone for a job that could affect everyone in their jurisdiction.
Matt McIrvin
@Steve LaBonne: I kind of understand where the purity ponies are coming from (as Kay remarked a while back, I don’t hate them). Because I get overtaken by these overwhelming feelings of moral taint, too. That I’m stained just by living in this evil system, I need to make some dramatic self-destructive renunciation of it, etc.
Where I always pull back is the realization that, at heart, this kind of feeling is a desire to be the main character in a grand drama. None of this is really about me, and a lot of it is terrible decisions I oppose, being made by people I don’t actually have any control over, aimed at punishing people who don’t look like me. All I can do is express my disgust and opposition in any way I can and hope it has some effect.
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: You think the notion that a warning is equivalent to a desire is an inescapable equivalence to most people? Just because we warn about the consequences of climate change doesn’t mean we feel gratified when part of LA burns down.
Were we right about the risk of putting Connolly as the lead democrat on one of the most important house committees? I guess. Are we happy about being right? Fuck no. We’re certainly not happy he died. We’re not happy that Democrats haven’t been able to use oversight to advance even a rhetorical resistance to Trump malfeasance because it’s been functionally leaderless.
This has been one of my big complaints about most politicians as well as many commenters here – the performative nature of it. As though being rhetorically correct is more important than actually solving problems for real people, and then projecting that bias onto others, which is what Elizabelle was doing – asserting that we would be celebrating something that was fairly tragic from the outset – a poor choice for an important position and then that persons death. Of course we don’t celebrate that – but Elizabelle can’t help but assume that we would because she thinks our motives were to be proven right rather than to be helpful toward improving how the party operates and resisting Trump. *That’s* the concept I don’t think should be terribly hard to grasp, and yet it remains elusive.
Juju
@Matt McIrvin: You are right. I missed that. It does extend to boosters, but my guess is the drug companies will either sue because the new requirements are ridiculous or give the data that’s necessary. The drug companies make a lot of money from the Covid vaccines. As someone who takes care of a 92 and is under 65, the powers that be will have to amend that rule.
Steve LaBonne
@Matt McIrvin: The first duty of any privileged person who wants to be a genuine ally is to realize “this isn’t about me”.
Ruckus
@Anyway:
Why ship them to a third country to which they have no connection. Aaaargh!
Because then it becomes very difficult for them to come back. We can likely bring them back with less effort but for them to get back on their own it costs money and effort and where do they get that money and how do they put the effort in while in a gulag?
This is an extremely shitty way to treat any human, let alone someone that has actually done zero wrong. This is pure dictator bullshit. From our president.
Juju
@Soprano2: That’s a great comment.
bluefoot
@Captain C: I had a friend like this back in 2016. She was considering voting for the orange man because she didn’t want the stock price of the company to go down. When reminded of how bad he was, she was all, “I know but my stock.” This was someone who had plenty of money. We’re not friends anymore.
Steve LaBonne
@Ruckus: And today we finally appear to have a judge who has had enough of their shit. Let’s hope that he follows through and that there will be others.
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon: The LGM folks keep using this Godfather-derived notion of “not a wartime consigliere”, which is too cute by half but I guess expresses the vibes.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: The French hate us now?
Ruckus
@Soprano2:
The point from the current maladministration may be exactly that.
Look at those being deported.
This is bullshit at the highest level, dump truck and trailer level bullshit.
Chief Oshkosh
@Omnes Omnibus:
It may well be that none of us are as brilliant as Martin, but the point Martin is making in his post that you are commenting on is really not hard to grasp.
schrodingers_cat
Typical Bernie Bro logic
All older Ds need to retire. But the Apostle of White Grievance can stay even though he is older than Biden and has survived a major heart attack.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus:
My parents were the oldest of 5 and the youngest of 4. I have one sibling, and she and I both have only a single child each. So, we’ve got a lot of first cousins, but our kids don’t.
A caveat: Our perception of this is statistically biased because the people who are more likely to be our ancestors are the people who had more children.
But the US average fertility rate has definitely gone down–that’s well-attested.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Wouldn’t you?
Professor Bigfoot
@JeffH: I forgot about that part, but yeah, the whole bitcoin thing was a major put off.
Oh well, we still have Culver’s…
Chief Oshkosh
@Steve LaBonne: I’m keen to know that the follow through might be, though. I doubt that he can even get the bailiffs in his own courtroom to cuff and transport the Administration’s attorneys.
Steve LaBonne
@Chief Oshkosh: I think we really need to find out one way or the other, today.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chief Oshkosh: Were I a member of Congress, I probably would have voted for AOC in that election. There is, however, a group of people who are interested in primarying and getting rid of everyone over, say, 70 on general principle. The Amanda Litman/Kay Abu contingent. I think getting more younger people into leadership is a good goal, but I wouldn’t throw away all the voices of experience.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: No. They just fart in our general direction
ETA: //
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: I’m not French.
Omnes Omnibus
@sab: They do that to the English with their silly king person.
Matt McIrvin
@Ruckus: Actual data on US total fertility rate since the Baby Boom:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/SPDYNTFRTINUSA
There was a low in the 1970s, then it rose again to near-replacement basically with economic ups and downs… but since the beginning of the Great Recession, it’s just been dropping, dropping, with no real rebound from the subsequent recovery. And a lot of today’s freakouts probably are associated with that.
Aside from population growth from immigration itself, there’s also been some upward pressure on birthrate just from immigrants having more kids than the native-born. And guess what… that freaks out reactionaries too!
Ruckus
@Steve LaBonne:
Agreed.
But what about the people that voted for pure shit?
Think about his talk of a THIRD term. Think about the next 3 years of pure shit. Think how much damage and how the hell will we all clean it up, what with a seemingly large portion of voters liking shitforbrains. And yes I know and many politicians have said “IT’S 2 TERMS – (ASSHOLES).”
We have to put in a lot more effort in our selection of presidents.
Because the other side has seemingly decided that their winning is more important than democracy. They are 1 billion percent wrong, but how or is there even a fix for this split in our concepts of actual governing. They are seemingly getting rather desperate in finding someone/anyone who can/will/should be a leader of anything.
Let alone a democracy.
Matt McIrvin
@CaseyL: I do think that it helps a bit to, instead of just focusing on the Nazis as our model of authoritarianism/fascism, look at past episodes of American authoritarianism for analogies and strategic guidance, because boy howdy are there a lot of them to examine.
The HUAC/McCarthy era is a good one that our current era echoes in some ways–remember that Roy Cohn was a mentor to Donald Trump!
brantl
@Baud: that “most “people weren’t where the plague was and that’s the only reason they survived it. I expect you’re aware of that.
Geminid
@Melancholy Jaques: One aspect of the Ocasio-Cortez vs. Connoll controversy: while the Oversight Committee conducts hearings an a wide range of topics– chosen by the Majority– it does have an area of substantive jurisdiction, and that is laws and regulations concerning federal employees.
That was Gerry Connolly’s area of concentration since the day he entered Congress. He was known as a tenacious advocate for federal workers, something especially needed at the time he was chosen. He did not have a national reputation, but he had subject matter expertise.
That was a reason 119 Democratic Caucus members voted for Rep. Connolly, compared to 86 voting for Rep. Ocasio-Cortez. I saw plenty of people loading every last grievance held against party leadership onto that election but the fact is, House Democrats had to choose between two candidates with different strengths and a substantial majority chose Connolly.
Some of Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s fans haven’t gotten over it because they don’t want to; they cherish their grievances. I think Rep. Ocasio-Cortez has gotten over it, though. She ended up on the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has a relatively large area of substantive jurisdiction including clean energy legislation.
This was an early interest of Ocasio-Cortez’s. The New York Congresswoman may decide to run for higher office some day, but in the meantime she can help craft a Green New Deal that will actually be signed into law. So in the long run, I don’t she’ll have lost in that Oversight Committee vote.
In the short run, Ocasio-Cortez has already done good work, in last week’s marathon E&C Committee hearing where she joined other Democrats in exposing the destructive nature of Republican Medicaid cuts.
Geminid
@Chief Oshkosh: The concept Martinn expressed was not hard to grasp, but it was not a self-evident truth either. It was a point of view.
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@p.a.: Yeah, wait until all the people on Medicaid and CHIP programs realize that those are Medicaid…Just like all the people who wanted to see Trump kill ObamaCare, because they have the Affordable Care Act… Not all state call it Medicaid
Examples: Arizona Health Care Cost Containment and KIdsCare
Kansas: KanCare
Mississippi: Mississippi Health Benefits
Oklahoma: SoonerCare
South Carolina: Healthy Connections
Tennessee: TennCare
Iron City
@NotMax:
Agree, but raise you a “Great Expectations”. Barf.
In the senior year of HS the English teachers were also tired of the curriculum so they said second semester we will have a variety of classes available and you pick. We had film, poetry, american novels, short stories, etc. I picked Shakespeare. Got the teacher from first semester who was a well known dragon lady. Somebody who looked like her walked in the room in January, but sure didn’t act like her. We read everything, including analyzing sonets, the whole bit. It was great. Turned out, she had done some kind of masters program in Shakespeare and really loved and knew her stuff. Made a big difference for everyone.
brantl
@Martin: person’ S death not persons death. It’s not plural, it’s possessive.
Martin
I never suggested that it would. My assertion is that the Democratic Party is lost at sea right now, stuck as the maintainers of a governmental status quo that they are unwilling to change because to do so would require asserting a proactive view of the role of government.
In order to attract voters they need to develop that, which can either be done as a cult of personality as Trump is doing (which I argue is bad and Democrats should seek to avoid) or as a consistent expression across the party. Oversight was an important place to do that because Democrats are out of power, so one place they can express that from is in criticism of the party in power, which is what Oversight does, so it’s a better starting point than say, commerce or judicial, because it simply needs to function as a rapid response to whatever malfeasance Trump puts forward. But it needs to be consistent with an overall vision and strategy which is missing.
Note Josh Marshall’s observations here: “So we have the mounting knowledge that the divisions are more Team Fight vs. Team No Fight than the more ideological definitions. At the same time, though, you have non-progressives (see the problem of definitions?) worried that the highly polarized climate of 2025 will ‘push the party to the left.’”
The observation being made here is that engagement by democratic voters is not going to be steered toward centrists or the left, but to who chooses to fight and who does not (and who voters see as fighting), and it’s their ideology that will come along for the ride because to some degree, that will be taken as evidence for why they are fighting. That is to say that if the loudest and most effective fighters are from the center, the party will likely move to the center, and if the loudest and most effective fighters are from the left, the party will likely move to the left. The concern around Connelly wasn’t that he was too moderate or too left, its that his medical condition put him in a position to not be an effective fighter in a role where Democrats could be relatively effective given how little voice they would have almost everywhere else.
None of this directly has anything to do with winning elections, but the party needs two things – they need a vision and a strategy (which if they have one, it’s being kept very secret) and they need mechanisms to communicate that to the public, and Oversight is one of the better ones they have because it’s one that the media is predisposed to give voice to because it’s where the usual DC drama generally originates from. So Connolly was a bit of a lost opportunity, that is, unless Democrats don’t have a vision or strategy, in which case there was no real opportunity there to begin with. One reason why that was specifically contentious is that AOC is seen by some of us as someone who can be relied on to produce a vision and strategy. It may not the party agreed upon one, but leadership can come from anywhere and she does articulate a proactive theory of government (not saying that other democrats don’t but they are very quiet regarding that) that could be a stand-in for one that is lacking.
You can’t even talk about winning elections until you solve that problem, and we’ve eaten up the first quarter of the game before the next election and gotten nowhere. Clock is ticking and all we have is a negative strategy of hoping that Trump is so unpopular that voters will vote Democratic without caring what the party stands for, and now a pretty important gap in how a strategy could be communicated is absent. We’ve lost rather than gained ground.
brantl
@bluefoot: he really weren’t friends then either, her only friend was money.
Ruckus
@Omnes Omnibus:
This.
We have a system that separates us based upon the concept of governing. One side – wants everything to be the way they think it was many decades ago. But what they think it was is wrong because what they want is a monarchy, with one of them sitting upon that throne. And it has not been that since it was founded as a democracy. It has been pushed to be far more inclusive, and is – but this is humanity, and a portion of humanity seems to think that every single human and every single concept of our government must reflect their concept of a far more singular concept of humanity – just them. And there is seemingly zero way to get them to understand that in a modern world, even including many monarchies, there will be different looking human beings. They want to demote people that don’t look like them from humanity. It’s about control and them losing any of it.
Ksmiami06
@Martin: fundamentally government should be about making the country better for most citizens and being a good influence in foreign affairs. This shouldn’t be that hard.
Gloria DryGarden
@Baud: Black Death killed 50% of European population according to Wikipedia
PatD
@Omnes Omnibus: There is quite a large age range where politicians can provide a wealth of experience. Anywhere between 35 and 70 easily qualifies. What value is anyone over 70 providing in this Congress where Dems have no input on legislation? Zero.
The last 8 House members to die in office have all been Democrats. That includes 3 just since the election. That would have been catastrophic had Democrats actually won the House by a a few seats. This is political malpractice.
PatD
@schrodingers_cat: Bernie should retire too along with Schumer. At least Durbin took the hint.
Gloria DryGarden
@Gloria DryGarden: a side note about the plague. Cats were being killed off, associated with “witches” and all that fear mongering.
Male-dominated medicine was coming in, bloodletting, leeches, opioids…and the village herbalists and folk healers were competition.
cats killed rats, and might have helped slow down the spread of plague..
And here we are in public fights about how medicine can be practiced, who to trust, etc.
Ruckus
@Martin:
Long winded but to me, spot on.
Seemingly for at least most of my life democrats have been about bringing us all together and allowing for an actual, consistent democracy, which of course is where everyone has a say in how things work. It’s a small say for each of us of course but a say and brings inclusion. My vision of conservatives is they want exclusion of those that do not strictly follow their view of government, possibly that they think government was better when smaller. It may have been more consistent but was that better? I don’t think so. Also there may be on the conservative side the concept that money talks, or at least should. Which brings us to who sits in that one chair – again. First he only thinks of himself, at least seemingly, a plus to the other side. Second he seems to have aged out, a point being that as some do age out they cannot think as widely or as fast or as well. (and yes on that basis he’s been aging out for some time) But think about how long each of us lives. Some make it to 100 or very close and some make it to maybe 70. Some not even that far. He will, in just under a month be 79 yrs old. He’s overweight just a tad, and seems to think the world rotates around him, a problem more than a few humans have and one that often creates huge problems for them. He seems to think that his wealth is more than earned, it’s owed. It isn’t.
lowtechcyclist
@bluefoot:
“Too many books” – that’s an oxymoron.
OK, I suppose it’s possible to have too many books. If you’ve got so many books that you can barely get between bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and outside door due to all the books, you might have too many books. Otherwise, nope. :D
Omnes Omnibus
Wow.
PatD
@Omnes Omnibus: It’s a pithy response, which you are quite familiar with, to your “wealth of experience” comment. There is no one of any age amongst Dems in the House providing anything of value with regards to legislation.
sab
@Omnes Omnibus: Agree with your Wow.
Martin
@Redshift: I don’t think it’s some kind of radical view that ‘hey, let’s not put the guy fighting cancer in the leadership slot’. You can say that without knowing anything about him.
I don’t care if it’s seen as unfair to them – they’re here to do a job and that’s to represent voters. Their desire to advance is not more important than that.
Geminid
@Gloria DryGarden: I don’t know if this is in fact true, but I read that one reason cats were protected in Constantinople– now Istanbul– was to prevent rat-borne diseases like plague.
Martin
@Another Scott: I don’t think the seniority system inside the Democratic Party is a secret. And yes, a limited number of voters can endorse and maintain that system, and yes, we can be critical of all of that.
Let’s not pretend this was some will of the people thing – it was a vote of less than 200 people most of whom have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.
sab
@lowtechcyclist: My sister ( an art historian) has had to have floors structurally reinforced because her books are heavy and big. But otherwise I see your point (e-books.)
Geminid
@PatD: Senator Ed Markey says he’ll run again in 2026., and he’ll be 80 yrars old on election day. I have not noticed the opposition to him running that I saw with Senator Durbin.
This makes me wonder if the agitation about the “gerontocracy” is at least in part ideological. What if Markey retired and Rep. Seth Moulton won that seat? I expect some folks don’t want to run that risk.
PatD
@Geminid: the opposition to Durbin was, in some part, because he kept doing politically dumb things like keeping the blue slip. Perfect style for 1980s Democrats but horrific political instincts for 2025. Markey hasn’t drawn that level of ire but he should retire as well.
Martin
@Ksmiami06: But how to do that? Both parties agree on those things, but disagree as to how, and why that should be done. Democrats have a more cooperative view of foreign relations and Trump has a much more adversarial zero sum view. Similar disagreements exist on domestic policy. Should government have an active or passive role in the economy? Should all economic activity be equally embraced or should the government bias toward productive rather than non-productive economic activity? That’s not even a discussion being had. I don’t think either party has an economic philosophy.
When things are going well, you can kind of coast on this stuff, but when the electorate decides it’s not going well, you need to forward a theory of the case and a strategy to address that.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Joe Kennedy tried to primary him a while back, but Kennedy couldn’t really articulate why he wanted to do it aside from it somehow being his turn, and he lost.
Geminid
@PatD: I would like to see my Senator, Mark Warner retire in 2028 That has nothing to do with his ideological profile. Rep. Jennifer (Richmond would be his likely successor and she’s pretty much a moderate also. But besides being younger, McClellan is a woman and Virginia has never had a woman Senator.*
And McLellan is African American. Black Democrats are a cornerstone of the Virginia party, and they deserve some representation at the statewide level.
* Virginia has never had a female Governor either, but former Rep. Abigail Spanberger will change that this November.
Another Scott
@Martin: You’re moving the goalposts.
Connolly wasn’t “appointed”. His peers wanted him to be the Ranking Member on that committee as demonstrated by their votes. That is all.
Best wishes,
Scott.
PatD
@Geminid: I think Virginia can do far better than Mark Warner and I’m sure McClellan fits the bill.
Martin
@PatD: I wouldn’t put it quite that way, but Democrats need to ask where their next leaders are coming from, how they get developed, and what opportunities the party is providing them.
There are only so many opportunities here. We do not have the power to create more congressional seats or more governorships, and so in order for younger members of the party to rise and get public exposure in order to be senate/presidential candidates in the future, there needs to be space for them to do that. That doesn’t mean a wholesale stepping aside of older for younger members, but if you have younger members that have promising careers, finding older members that aren’t aspiring for higher office to step aside becomes an important exercise. Connolly was never going to run for President. AOC very likely will. One of these needs to be invested in more by the party than the other. It has nothing to do with their political leaning or how much you like them or anything else – it’s simply how you build your team.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Congressmembers shouldn’t consider their position as trining for a higher office. There is work that Congress is mandated to do and we need to have good people there. There are leadership positions in Congress that make the holder one of the most powerful people in the country. Learning to do those jobs can take some time. An apprenticeship, if you will. AOC is ambitious. She also appears to be smart. She made a bid for a leadership position, but she didn’t get it that time. So she took the opportunity to get on a powerful committee in which she had a longstanding interest. She is getting ready to climb the ladder.
PatD
@Martin: Yeah, I generally agree with everything you’re saying but I do think there are significant number of long-time elected Democrats more focused on “their turn” and doing things their way instead of what’s good for the party. And whether Crockett or Mfume becomes the ranking Dem at Oversight may be a good example given the failure of electing Connolly for the role.
Ruckus
@Martin:
With the separation of so many citizens from an actual concept of leadership to one of money talks – always, we have a ways to go to get to actual leadership and a real democracy. You know one for all of us. Because while there is and always will be money involved with any government since what 125-150 years ago it is something we all pay into and which is regulated by how much we earn and maybe should have some sort of concept of how much we have in a bank. My concept is that someone with say over a million or 2 in the bank and/or someone who owns more than say 10 million in property should have a SLIGHTLY higher tax ratio. That might even things out a bit for those of us with more normal monetary things. I have zero idea how this might be implemented but we have more than a few citizens who have a lot and a much larger number that don’t.
@Ksmiami06:
Any time you have 300-400 million humans you are going to have an at least somewhat wide range of monetary value of the things they own and how much they can earn, if from nothing else bank interest. Because even bank interest on 200 grand is a lot different than on 5 to 10 times that.
And to make it understood I’m not against some having a lot more than me, that’s how life works most of the time. Hell, Vlad has a lot more money than most of us do and his “citizens” normally don’t make a hell of a lot. Our president makes $400,000 pay per year, plus $50,000 in expense coverage, $100,000 travel expenses, and $19,000 entertainment budget. Now does he pay for flying in Air Force One or his security detail? I doubt it because it seems to me that one fill up of fuel might be out of most of our budgets, let alone the salaries of the crews, security and maintenance.
dnfree
@Gloria DryGarden: There was a measles vaccine in the 1960s? I was first aware of the combined MMR in the early 1970s. My first child was born in 1973 and I recall the doctor saying it was a new vaccination then and they were still adjusting the timing of it.
brantl
@Matt McIrvin: douchebaggery is always passionate; Mostly, that’s how you can tell It’s douchebaggery.
Ruckus
@PatD:
We are all different humans and sure we might fit in the same box as others or many others, but then maybe we don’t. Just one example – when I was growing up we had an older, retired couple living next door and the man had worked for Standard Oil for decades. He traveled around the world for them and spoke, if I remember correctly, 5 languages. Fluently. I don’t recall exactly what he did for them but he was very smart and I got the impression his work was rather technical. This was over 6 decades ago. Not many people did the kind of things he understood. I’d bet even today a lot of people wouldn’t be able to do what he did. Now there very likely would be a lot more that could, but as a percentage it might not be a significantly larger number.
Ruckus
@dnfree:
1963 was the first.
I was in high school then and got the shot for measles. Didn’t stop me from getting measles before that of course. I remember getting my first vaccine when I was still in single digits, the entire famdamnly dressed up and we stood in line to get a shot at a bank. This was in 1955 and it was the first polio vaccine. I’ve known 2 people that had polio, a girl I went to school with and a woman who lives in the same apartment complex and is my age. She got polio at 1 yr old and lives in a wheelchair. The girl in school lived a couple blocks from me. She walked into our 50th HS reunion. Which was a few years ago.
Ruckus
@Anyway:
They may be at least partly thinking (such as it is….) IT’S CHEAPER. It’s still wrong of course but when has a seemingly large percentage of the population given a shit about right/wrong, as long as they get their way and it costs less?
dnfree
@Matt McIrvin: So you hate Democrats for being self-hating?
dnfree
@Soprano2: In Illinois and I think other states, your income on the state form is based on your income as reported on the federal tax form. So if tips weren’t reported to the feds the state wouldn’t count them as income either, unless the state changed its laws.