Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Humiliatingly small and eclipsed by the derision of millions.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

You are here: Home / Politics / Shoot the Horse Open Thread

Shoot the Horse Open Thread

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Decades ago, I worked at the University vet school.  I loved it.  I got to see cows hanging out in the field on my way into work in the morning.  I got to see horses and cows walking down the halls of the large animal clinic.  I got to see all manner of small animals in the small animal clinic.

One of the large animal vets had this cartoon on his door.  Two columns:  the ailment on the left, and the treatment on the right.

Colic                  shoot the horse

Broken leg       shoot the horse

and so on.

It seemed kind funny at the time.

I was reminded of that cartoon today every time I read the news.

Joni Ernst                                                                   Everybody dies.

No NOAA staffing at night                                      Everybody dies.

I didn’t know there was a hurricane season.       Everybody dies.

Kidnap an innocent man, put him in danger.      Everybody dies.

Shrug.  Everybody dies.   It might be funny if it wasn’t so fucking senseless and sad.

It’s reminding me of the rebellious bumper sticker about Ma Bell, that someone had made up locally, in the classic blue and white colors.  It said:  “We don’t care.  We don’t have to.”   He put them on every phone company vehicle in the lot overnight.  I’m not really into vandalism, but that was fun.

That’s the motto of this maladministration.

But here’s a prominent person, though probably not powerful, using his voice on the air to speak the truth about the NOAA cuts.

Shoot the Horse Open Thread

In my experience, people trust their weather people on TV, even if they get the weather wrong!  Good on this fellow.  The video is less than 3 minutes.  He’s sticking his neck out, so the least we can do is watch it.

He is modeling this for everyone.

We all need to use our voices in whatever circles where we are trusted.

Open thread.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  2. 2.

    Hungry Joe

    I think Lily Tomlin (in her Ernestine character) first came up with that line: “We’re the phone company. We don’t care. We don’t have to.”

    And it was just a couple of years earlier that TPC, great evil in the spy spoof “Our Man Flint,” was in the end revealed to be … The Phone Company.

  4. 4.

    lou

    Sadly, if you go on Facebook and read the comment section of the various weathermen who have forcefully spoken out about the cuts and their impact, a lot of Magas are “well the forecasts aren’t any good, so why should we worry,” kind of thing.

  6. 6.

    Jackie

    Thanks for posting this, WaterGirl :-)

    I hope this weatherman doesn’t lose his job for daring to speak out. This NBC affiliate news station is in FFOTUS’s backyard, broadcasting out of S. Florida.

  8. 8.

    Jackie

    @lou:

    a lot of Magas are “well the forecasts aren’t any good, so why should we worry,”

    They’ll also be among the first to apply for FEMA once Hurricane FFOTUS destroys their property.

  9. 9.

    Jeffro

    McSweeney’s: New York Times’ Style Guide Substitutions for “The President Has Violated the Constitution”

    “Faced with the choice between clinging to the letter of the law and marching to the beat of his own legal drum, the president chose the latter.”

    “Perhaps unaware that he had sailed beyond the Constitution’s horizons, the president found himself drifting further and further from legal terra firma.”

    “In a feat of legal engineering, the president stressed the Constitution’s support structures past what experts considered their maximum load.”

    “The president’s tiptoeing precipitously down the sidelines of legality, inadvertently ran the constitutional football out of bounds.”

  11. 11.

    Scout211

    Sad tales of government employment in the TACO Term Two:

    ‘Big Balls’ Is Officially a Full-Time Government Employee (web archive version)

    ALTHOUGH ELON MUSK has said that he is largely exiting his role at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), at least three of his early operatives and key lieutenants throughout his government takeover have recently become full-time government employees.

    Edward Coristine, Luke Farritor, and Ethan Shaotran’s employment designations at the General Services Administration (GSA) have been officially converted to full-time from the restricted special government employee (SGE) classification that limited their time in government to a period of 130 days, according to documentation viewed by WIRED.

    Coristine, who has gone by “Big Balls” online and previously worked for a telecommunications firm known for hiring former black hat hackers, was converted to full-time on May 31, along with Farritor. Shaotran became full-time on April 10.

    I guess the civil service hiring process has died, just like the horse WaterGirl mentions.  DOGE shot the horse. It’s dead.

    One of my family members worked for the IRS for several years and took the buyout. The hiring process, background check, interviews after interviews and the the “onboarding” and eventual months-long training period took most of an entire year.

    The horse has died and in its place is a hobby horse or maybe a carousel horse.

    ETA:

    DOGE, WIRED reported, also appears to be actively recruiting.

    More hobby horses needed, STAT!

  12. 12.

    Raoul Paste

    Sad commentary that when someone speaks the truth on TV, we hail him as a hero,   But these days, he is

  13. 13.

    Parfigliano

    Fortunately the people of NM didn’t listen to the weatherman when former weatherman (full time MAGA) Mark Ronchetti got curb stomped in his runs for US Senate and Governor.

  14. 14.

    Betty Cracker

    Huh.

    Former White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre plans to publish a book, Independent, that will explain her switch in party affiliation to no party preference.

    According to an announcement from publisher Legacy Lit, Jean-Pierre “didn’t come to her decision to be an Independent lightly. She has served two American presidents, Obama and Biden. In 2020, she joined Biden’s campaign as a senior adviser, becoming Harris’s chief of staff and then, two years later, White House press secretary. She takes us through the three weeks that led to Biden’s abandoning his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision.”

    The tagline for the book is “A Look Inside A Broken White House, Outside The Party Lines.”

    In an Instagram post, Jean-Pierre said that when she is stopped by people around the country, “the number one question they ask is, ‘Karine, how do we get out of this? How do we protect our democracy? How do we protect vulnerable communities among us? What do we do next?’”

    The book, she said, will be her answer. “In an era of disinformation, misinformation, the regressiveness of social policy, what we are seeing currently right now, what I have decided to do, and I really have thought long and hard about this, is to follow my own compass.”

    She added, “I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes, and not be so partisan.”

    Source: Deadline

  15. 15.

    Old Man Shadow

    Everyone does die, it is natural. It is a part of the cycle of life.

    It is not other people’s decision as to when we rejoin the Earth.

    We are all a part of this planet. We are all heirs to its resources, its air, it’s water.

    To horde the lion’s share of wealth and resources while others starve is immoral and unethical.

    “The central tenet of Buddhism Christianity is not, “Every man for himself!””

  16. 16.

    Another Scott

    Not really a new story, but a good collection today by Bloomberg:

    A Fatal Tesla Crash Shows the Limits of Full Self-Driving
    As Elon Musk touts robotaxis in Austin, federal regulators are investigating whether the system is dangerous even with a human behind the wheel.

    […]

    The recent posts follow previous warnings from NHTSA about Tesla’s social media activity. Shortly after opening its defect investigation, the agency released an email it had sent months earlier, in May 2024, taking issue with Tesla reposting X users who had disengaged from the task of driving while using the company’s partial-automation systems.

    “While Tesla has the discretion to communicate with the public as it sees fit, we note that these posts show lost opportunities to temper enthusiasm for a new product with cautions on its proper use with the points that Tesla has made to us,” Gregory Magno, a division chief within NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigation, wrote to Tesla.

    A NHTSA spokesperson declined to comment specifically on whether the agency had concerns about Tesla’s more recent posts, but noted that the company’s vehicles aren’t self-driving and require a fully attentive driver to be engaged at all times.

    Musk has said that “solving” self-driving is pivotal to Tesla’s future. “That’s really the difference between Tesla being worth a lot of money and being worth basically zero,” he said in May 2022.

    The CEO has put off plans for a cheaper mass-market vehicle that many Tesla investors — and some insiders — pushed for and view as crucial to the carmaker’s near-term prospects.

    “Elon Musk has bet the entire company on this philosophy that current Tesla vehicles are capable of being a robotaxi,” said Michael Brooks, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety, a Washington-based advocacy group. “We know the FSD system is camera-based, and sun glare can inhibit camera-based operations.”

    It includes a video of a 2023 crash into a woman in stopped traffic.

    :-(

    TSLA continues to bounce around. It’s down 3.5% today, at the moment, but still up 90% for the last 12 months.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  18. 18.

    Old Man Shadow

    @Betty Cracker: She added, “I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes, and not be so partisan.”

    I like her, but no. That just sounds like more of the corporate speak and focus groups that got us where we are.

    Believe in something. Really, passionately believe in something. Stick to those beliefs. In a world of reality TV and influencers, be fucking real. Don’t change for the media. Don’t change for consultants. Be really fucking genuine. Lead. Inspire. Preach. March. Fight.

  20. 20.

    bbleh

    Good for him!  I hope his management has his back.  (I note he says he was asked to talk about it).  Too many people — or their bosses! — are too scared of being yelled at by MAGAts.

    Ailment           Treatment

    Inflation          Crush the MAGAts
    Deflation        Crush the MAGAts
    War                 Crush the MAGAts
    Pollution        Crush the MAGAt
    Boredom       Crush the MAGAts
    etc …

  21. 21.

    Gretchen

    Just sat next to a guy in the airport who wanted to borrow my charger. His name was Rhett Butler (could that really be true?).

    He wanted to talk about how DEI was making everything worse. I agreed. Pete Hegseth would never have a job if it wasn’t for DEI for white guys….

    Moved on to the Supreme Court – he claimed he went to school with Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. Wasn’t it terrible what they did to poor Brett and his family? I said that wasn’t my objection, it was his terrible lawyering, starting with the conclusion and moving backwards to the law supporting his desired conclusion. Like with abortion. Rhett thought that was fine moving it back to the states. I said you don’t do rights state by state. Then Alabama could say nobody can get an abortion and black people can’t vote. This isn’t about race! It is if you want to give each state the ability to deny rights to some citizens.

    Rhett returned my charger and moved on.

  22. 22.

    dc

    Bravo, this man is a hero. We all have to stand up against the Asshole Regime from the place where we are (R.E.M. reference, sort of).

  23. 23.

    Old School

    @Betty Cracker:

    Jean-Pierre didn’t come to her decision to be an Independent lightly. She has served two American presidents, Obama and Biden. In 2020, she joined Biden’s campaign as a senior adviser, becoming Harris’s chief of staff and then, two years later, White House press secretary. She takes us through the three weeks that led to Biden’s abandoning his bid for a second term and the betrayal by the Democratic Party that led to his decision.

  25. 25.

    JML

    @Old Man Shadow: yeah, she can get fucked. Talk about someone who learned the wrong lessons.

    reminds me of the No Labels crew and their assorted spin-offs, which were (unsurprisingly) very white, loaded with privilege, etc. But this kind of spin from an ex-WH staffer will definitely get her booked on TV, which I assume is all she’s really going for here. Just another sell-out trying to get hers.

  27. 27.

    bbleh

    @Betty Cracker: @Old Man Shadow: concur w OMS — she’s just trying to cash in on her time in the spotlight, and this is the story-line she’s decided to follow, possibly following a little market research (“this non-partisan stuff is really selling right now!”)

    Nobody will read it except the usual DC circle-jerkers (see, eg, Tapper’s recent oeuvre, which hasn’t exactly set any records).  Phooey.

    Donate, volunteer, organize, focus locally instead of nationally.  The end.

  28. 28.

    Scout211

    @Betty Cracker: I read that earlier this morning and thought, she wrote a whole book about that? And also too, I am confused.

    She added, “I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes, and not be so partisan.”

    This two party system we have in the US makes it tough to get elected unless you join a team.  And it’s hard to make your vote count if you don’t choose a team even if it’s not perfect or completely aligned with your thinking.

    I don’t agree that we think in boxes, either.  But maybe she is referring to the consultants in politics, not the voters.

    I’m still confused but I don’t plan to read her book to find out any more.

  29. 29.

    zhena gogolia

    @JML: Well, I can see how the betrayal by the Democratic Party could have a serious effect on someone in her position.

    ETA: It certainly made me want to leave the party, but there’s nowhere else to go.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @bbleh:  I love it!

    Ailment           Treatment

    Inflation          Crush the MAGAts
    Deflation        Crush the MAGAts
    War                 Crush the MAGAts
    Pollution        Crush the MAGAt
    Boredom       Crush the MAGAts

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    To follow up on my post from a week or so ago, here are the new categories i added.

    Breathtaking Criminality and Lawlessness is the top level category, and all the rest are subcategories.

  36. 36.

    Miss Bianca

    @Gretchen: The real (fictional) Rhett Butler, the guy who schooled the smug planter boyz on how the Civil War would really go down (“all we’ve got are cotton and slaves and arrogance. They’d lick *us* in a month”) and Scarlett O’Hara on the economics of empire (“there’s two kinds of money in empires: slow money in the build-up, fast money in the destruction”)* would be ashamed of this guy’s ignorance.

    *paraphrased from memory, I haven’t actually read GWTW in at least 30 years.

    Good for you for your responses, tho, LOL.

  37. 37.

    Miss Bianca

    @zhena gogolia: Hey, I left the party over all that shit that went down in July.

    I still vote for Democrats, tho’, and think anyone who uses the phrase “think outside the box” these days has automatically labeled themself an unserious person whose “thinking”, box or no, I find suspect.

  41. 41.

    Splitting Image

    @Betty Cracker:

    She added, “I think we need to stop thinking in boxes and think outside of our boxes, and not be so partisan.”

    For the record, the Liberals won the election in Canada because most of the people who normally vote for the New Democrats held their noses and rallied behind Carney.

    Also for the record, Labour did not win the election in the UK because people rallied behind Starmer. They won because the Conservative vote split between them and the Farage party. Labour won its massive majority with like 32% of the vote. Now the former Conservatives are rallying behind Farage and nobody is rallying behind Starmer, so the UK is screwed unless something changes.

    The only way to push back the fascists is to be more partisan rather than less.

  42. 42.

    Betty Cracker

    It’s unclear to me from the info about Jean-Pierre’s new book (posted at #14) whether she decided to leave the party because she’s pissed that Biden got bounced or because she’s promoting a nonpartisan approach to U.S. politics. Or maybe both? Here’s an excerpt of the Amazon description, which I assume she approved:

    In a country obsessed with blind loyalty to a two-party democratic system, Karine Jean-Pierre, former White House press secretary to the Biden-Harris administration, shares why Americans must step beyond party lines to embrace life as Independents…

    In a hard-hitting yet hopeful critique, Jean-Pierre defines what it means to be part of the growing percentage of our fractured electorate that is Independent, why it can be worthwhile to carve a political space more loyal to personal beliefs than a party affiliation, and what questions you need to ask yourself to determine where you fit politically. As a history maker, veteran public servant, political analyst and independent thinker, she urges Americans to think outside of the blue-and-red box as we consider what’s next to save our democracy.

    [Source: Mediaite]

    I think the introductory clause to the first sentence quoted above is flat-out wrong, so I question everything that follows. “Blind loyalty” doesn’t accurately describe most Democrats, though I know some of us wish it did.

  45. 45.

    Trollhattan

    @Another Scott:

    The last CEO at Hertz went long on EVs and got a banker box for his efforts.

    –March ’24
    Trouble and turmoil continue at rental car company Hertz.
    The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
    The company announced that Stephen Scherr, who came to the company two years ago after nearly 30 years at Goldman Sachs, is stepping down at the end of this month. He’ll be replaced by Gil West, former chief operating officer of Delta Air Lines and General Motors’ Cruise unit.
    In the most recent quarter, Hertz took a $245 million hit to its earnings due to a drop in value of the EVs it was selling.
    While the number of EVs bought by American customers surged 40% last year to top 1 million for the first time, there was less demand than some of the traditional automakers had expected as they moved to offer EVs. Tesla, the leader in US EV sales, started a price war for EVs just over a year ago, driving down the value of both new and used EVs, such as those in Hertz’ fleet. And the drop in prices hit Hertz bottom line since it reduced the money it could expect to get from reselling the vehicles.
    But the problem for Hertz wasn’t necessarily that the cars were electric, and customers simply do not want to drive electric cars. The problem was how Hertz handled the fleet in general, according to industry analysts.
    “The execution and marketing of EV’s [by Hertz] was a horror show across the board,” said Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush Securities who follows the EV market. “It’s a black eye they couldn’t recover from.”

    If Elmo thinks the end game for every Tesla is to become a driverless cab after the owner’s 3-year lease is up, I’d like to discuss potential ownership of a bridge connecting Manhattan and Brooklyn.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    That seems like marketing speak. But who knows? We’ll see once the book comes out what it’s all about. Not sure how all these independents are going to save America, however. Maybe they’ll all vote in Republican primaries and defeat the MAGA candidates.

  49. 49.

    Steve LaBonne

    @Baud: People becoming independents who vote on vibes is what got us where we are now. I kind of don’t see how more of that will help. Especially because it isn’t going to happen on the right.

  52. 52.

    Eolirin

    It’s all just pandering to people who are desperate to avoid the truth that the Republican party is captured by facists and as long as they continue to exist as a political force the country will never be safe.

    There’s no choice to be made by anyone who values democracy. There is a pro democracy party and an anti democracy party. You cannot find a middle way between them. One side is going to win, and the other has to be denied power for it to happen.

    Anyone trying to say otherwise isn’t worth listening to.

  54. 54.

    JMG

    The Weather Channel, surely the cable channel most watched by olds and according to surveys the most trusted one, discusses climate change as a matter of fact reality like wind direction and emphasizes its role in weather throughout its broadcasting.

  56. 56.

    Betty Cracker

    @Eolirin: Yeah, that’s about where I land on this question. I could see Jean-Pierre exiting the party in a snit because of the way Biden was pushed out. I don’t agree with that, but it’s understandable. But it sounds like she’s saying both sides suck, so be a cafeteria voter, and she knows what Republicans are, so it makes no sense.

  57. 57.

    George

    As a former federal employee who worked in an agency that often had budgets cut and was chronically understaffed, what employees often ended up doing was working extra, unpaid hours in order to get their jobs done. Part of that was due to professional pride, and part was due to management encouragement.

    The result tended to be that most of the work did get done, despite the understaffing, which led to management telling us that because the work was accomplished, those extra staff members weren’t really needed anyway. That, in turn, led to burn out and low morale, and the agency has become a fixture in the bottom five percent of the annual federal employee viewpoint survey.

  58. 58.

    Trollhattan

    Felon catches a break from fellow felon.

    “The Justice Department has abruptly dropped its effort to force Peter Navarro, President Trump’s trade adviser, to turn over hundreds of his emails dating to the first Trump administration to the National Archives,” the New York Times reports.

  59. 59.

    UncleEbeneezer

    I remember back in the fights over Obamacare at a Republican town hall didn’t people start chanting “Let Them Die” is something similar?  And back then, the Republican speaker tried to fight it.  Nowadays they wouldn’t even bother.

  63. 63.

    raven

    When the Illini played the Murray State Racers in the NIT in early 80’s they had a horse mascot and thousands of Illini fans chanted “Shoot the horse, shoot the horse”!!

  65. 65.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Gretchen:
    Good for you!

    Rhett must be a Georgetown Prep alum, the high school Kavanaugh and Gorsuch attended.
    Kavanaugh’s dishonesty at his confirmation hearing, and unhinged, vengeful, extremely partisan demeanor were sufficient reasons for every decent person in the US Senate to vote against his confirmation.
    kakistocracy: government by the worst people.

  66. 66.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Nelle:

    excellent! It won’t be easy but Ernst could be defeated for US Senate, and there are 2, maybe even 3, flippable US house seats in Iowa. And some progress likely in state legislature and Governor’s race.

  68. 68.

    HopefullyNotcassandra

    @Miss Bianca:    I have no notion of what Ms Pierre means by “thinking out of the box”.  I mean capable of independent or original thought

    Did you know team USA won the global mathematics competition in 2015?   We did.  You would think from our media that we miserably fail in global mathematics competitions   We do not.  

    https://www.mathnasium.com/math-centers/okemos/news/us-wins-math-olympiad-for-first-time-in-21-years-is-math-education-improving 

    Our students routinely win global competitions in all areas featuring or requiring independent, adaptive and even novel approaches.

    Nobody in a dictatorship like Russia, or whatever China is now, can do that well, if at all.   It has nothing to do with their genes.  It has everything to do with freedom.    The very notion of freely thinking likely never occurs.  After all thinking in any unapproved way can land one in prison (or worse) in both of those countries.

    Original thinking is a core strength of a free people.   Free thought and the ability to actually do it are under attack by the GOP right now

    I am open to a new metaphor to describe this great strength of our great Experiment with self governance if thinking outside of the box has lost its luster.

  70. 70.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Jeffro: I had dinner just last night with a bunch of true-blue liberals. This group included three very successful small business owners, a partner from a silk-stocking law firm, and me. These are people who successful, pretty hard-nosed, and well-inform, yet politically liberal (and they back that up with lots of donations in money, time, prestige, etc.).

    Sadly, I could just not convince them that the NYTimes is an evil enabler, if not flat-out instigator, of much of our societal ills.

  72. 72.

    Another Scott

    Dunno.  I’ll wait to see how longer excerpts of the book look.

    The thing I keep coming back to is that presidential elections for the last 25 years or so have been pretty close.  A few votes in a few places would have change the outcome in FL in 2000, etc., etc.  I don’t see how the numbers illustrate that everything on our side is massively broken and we have to throw away the Democratic Party or turn it into some SDS or Red Brigades cult.

    We need to find ways to reliably win close elections in a divided and too often disinterested electorate.

    Another thing I keep coming back to is – People don’t like change.  Change is scary.  They like familiar things.  They like routine.  They like being able to relax and enjoy life and not think about politics or government.  They hate unfairness and don’t like cheaters.  They don’t like worrying.  Democrats who can figure out how to solve problems and move forward given all those human factors may provide a path forward.

    We need to learn the correct lessons.

    FWIW.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  73. 73.

    Trollhattan

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Sigh. Frustrating when dealing with someone stuck in some past time, especially a past time that never existed.

    Watergate! Pentagon Papers!

    Okay. Then there’s NYT wondering whether this Herr Hitler might have some good ideas.

  74. 74.

    WTFGhost

    Apropos of nothing too important, I think “We don’t care; we don’t have to; we’re the phone company!” was one of Lily Tomlin’s bits. If you like old comics, and remember a time when people really did say stuff like “operator, can you help me place this call? The number on the matchbook is old and faded,” it’s worth seeking some of her bits.

    @Betty Cracker: When one party openly supports a criminal, and is willing to tell any lie, accept any lawbreaking, and overlook any damage as a result, a person should be partisan, against the criminal.

    Republicans needs to stop being so hyperpartisan they’ll cripple the country, rather than accept an L.

     

    @Gretchen: WTF did they do to Kavanaugh and his family, gave him a Supreme Court seat? Look, I’m sorry, I get that guys hate the thought of sexually assaulting a woman, and making her fear for her life, guys hate the thought of that coming back up, during a job interview. But, if you can’t handle living your life without committing sexual assault, and terrifying women, you need to learn to handle those accusations coming back up and biting you.

    If only men had been fathering boys for thousands, nay, maybe millions, of years, and could say “don’t be a shit to women; treat them with respect, and you won’t get  rape accusations derailing your fondest dreams.”

  75. 75.

    Trollhattan

    Okay, just Politico but the blowback, she’s a-comin’.

    “Karine Jean-Pierre’s announcement that she’s leaving the Democratic Party — timed with the rollout of a new book — has detonated long-simmering grievances among her former White House colleagues about Jean-Pierre’s pursuit of celebrity and personal media exposure while serving as then-President Joe Biden’s press secretary,” Politico reports.

    “One former official recalled that Jean-Pierre had joked about becoming an independent even while on the job in the Biden White House, an off-key comment for someone ostensibly serving as a major messenger for the Democratic Party. Another former official said that Jean-Pierre had begun working during the Biden administration with a New York-based publicist and had copied that person on official emails before some of Jean-Pierre’s White House colleagues intervened.”

    Said another former colleague: “Everyone thinks this is a grift.”

  76. 76.

    kindness

    I liked Joe Biden.  I happily supported his re-election up until the first debate.  There was no coming back after that one and if Karine Jean-Pierre thinks otherwise, she is the one blinded by ‘loyalty’.  I was so happy Kamala took over.  I stupidly did not see how many misogynists and racist voters there are.

  77. 77.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Baud: Oh, but it’s hard to live by the rules
    I never could and still never do
    The rules and such never bothered you
    You call the shots and they follow

    Chrissie Hynde knew.

  79. 79.

    bbleh

    @Steve LaBonne: @Baud: just ranted on LGM about this (mostly in response to another Gloomis post about how We’re All Doomed and we need to Burn It Down and then kumbaya a New Solution), but (1) I don’t think we actually have a very big problem and (2) I don’t think it’s either too much partisanship or not enough ability to work together.

    Re (1), the Presidential election was won by a VERY narrow margin.  Despite all the noise from the self-serving right-wing press and the sensation-hungry general media, it was no landslide, there is no mandate, and the approval/disapproval ratings for the TACO guy are the lowest in recent history (followed not particularly closely by … his earlier term)!  And the Republicans control the House by FIVE votes (8 seats plus vacancies).  Neither of those is much of a problem by any historical standard.

    And re (2), in the spirit of Will Rogers, we certainly don’t want to be a bunch of lock-step authoritarians — that’s one reason we’re not Republicans — and we don’t really need to be, in part because of (1) above.

    I think the problem was, and continues to be, Dem-leaning (or potentially Dem-leaning) voters and non-voters who are just … checked out.  They’re too busy / harassed, or they’ve got their noses in their phones (even when they DRIVE), or some combination of those and other things, and they just don’t see a REASON to take the time to get informed and then vote.  (And the large majority of them — although certainly not all! — are economically pretty well off by historical standards.)

    All we need to do is get a couple of percentage points of them back onto the active voter rolls.  That’s it.  No great make-over, no Grand Vision, no Messiah required.  Just boring ol’ retail politics.  And the TACO guy is certainly providing enough grist for THAT mill.

  80. 80.

    brantl

    @Betty Cracker: Her response is one of the dumber things I’ve read in a while. It completely ignores The problem it is the Republican Party. It’s just ridiculous.

    she’s 2 side-ing this shit, when there aren’t two sides.

  81. 81.

    Baud

    @bbleh:

    Dem-leaning (or potentially Dem-leaning) voters and non-voters who are just … checked out.

     

    You don’t think all the internecine fighting and lack of direction incentivizes them to check out?

  83. 83.

    brianm

    @watergirl: My wife was a food animal vet at UIUC. She remembers the “shoot the horse” cartoon, and thinks she knows who the equine clinician was who had it on his door. But out of a weird sense of scrupulousness, she won’t let me say because she’s not sure.​

  85. 85.

    bbleh

    @Baud: I would say it’s more a lack of positive motivation than a negative one.

    First, as alluded to above, I think most (not all!) people are in a pretty good economic situation, historically speaking, and they feel like they CAN check out (and/or indulge relatively petty grievances).  Compare the current situation to, say, the Bush Recession(s), or the Reagan Recession, or the 70s stagflation.  And I think Dems, being less inclined to toe the line, tend to do this more when the pressure’s off.

    Also (as mentioned elsewhere), Dems don’t have a full-time media Hate Machine feeding grievances and even inventing them when necessary.  Nor do I think we want one.

    And second, I don’t think most “normies” pay much if any attention to intraparty squabbles.  Remember that an awful lot of people, including some voters, have trouble remembering the two houses of Congress, much less which party controls them.

    I agree that some sort of Grand Unifying Vision would help.  But in the absence of a serious economic downturn (so far! give the TACO guy a little time!), and lacking a Grievance Machine to manufacture one, I have no idea how such a thing could even come about!  (Again see Rogers, Will.)

    So yeah, would be nice.  Or another Obama.  Or maybe a Ring Of Power to control the race of Men.  But more practically, I think some boring ol’ retail politics can do the job.

  86. 86.

    Captain C

    @Betty Cracker:

    so be a cafeteria voter

    ‘Yes, I’d like some univeral health care, legalized weed, affordable college, tax cuts for only the rich, and all the people I don’t like to be murdered,’ said no one ever.

  88. 88.

    Captain C

    @bbleh:

    Gloomis post about how We’re All Doomed and we need to Burn It Down and then kumbaya a New Solution

    Gloomis couldn’t kumbaya if the instructions were sarcastically printed on a hipster album’s liner notes.

  90. 90.

    Another Scott

    Relatedly, ICYMI, …

    New York Times Pitchbot
    ‪@nytpitchbot.bsky.social‬

    Joe Biden says he’s started treatment for his prostate cancer and the prognosis is good. Donald Trump says Biden was executed in 2020 and was replaced with a legion of clones. For busy voters, it can be hard to know who to believe.

    June 2, 2025 at 12:44 PM

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  91. 91.

    Matt McIrvin

    @lou: Generalized grousing about the inaccuracy of weather forecasts is a pet peeve of mine: they are genuinely miraculously good compared to when I was a kid. Even being able to make a 5-day forecast that isn’t farcically bad is an amazing accomplishment, and the NWS does that on the regular. But it may be that if the quality degrades people will just forget how it was.

  92. 92.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Trollhattan:

    Said another former colleague: “Everyone thinks this is a grift.”

    Meh. They’re just mad cause her book came out before theirs…

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JMG: There was a time when the Weather Channel was officially climate-denialist or at least climate-denialist-curious, if I recall correctly– back in the 2000s or so. I think that era was when a lot of Republicans went all in on abolishing the NWS because a lot of TV weather presenters then were on their side, but NOAA/NWS definitely was not.

  94. 94.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @brantl:

    @Baud: BAUD 2028! LESS PANTS, MORE BRAINS!!

    Uh, I think that’s “@Baud: BAUD 2028! FEWER PANTS, MORE BRAINS!!”

  95. 95.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Chief Oshkosh:

    Sadly, I could just not convince them that the NYTimes is an evil enabler, if not flat-out instigator, of much of our societal ills.

    I have a ton of die-in-the-wool Dem voters, less “normie” now than they were a decade ago but not like us.  And I pitch the same thing to them about Totebagger Radio to no avail.

  97. 97.

    Capri

    @brianm:  I’m a large animal veterinarian who worked at a veterinary school before retiring. The shoot the horse cartoon is on a lot of equine surgeons’ doors.

  99. 99.

    brendancalling

    @Betty Cracker: I’m old enough to remember when everybody loved her!  And Tapper! And Gavin Newsome! and John Federman!

    Who knew so many people supposedly on our side were a bunch of grifters?

  100. 100.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, …

    jamelle

    ‪@jamellebouie.net‬

    i will also take money to give my main political recommendation, which is that democratic candidates should do whatever is necessary to fit their states and districts and that it is more important for them not to seem like weenies and nerds than it is to hug the poll as closely as possible

    June 4, 2025 at 2:57 PM

    +1

    “Just win, baby!” – N. Pelosi

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  101. 101.

    Death Panel Truck

    @WTFGhost: Apropos of nothing too important, I think “We don’t care; we don’t have to; we’re the phone company!” was one of Lily Tomlin’s bits.

    It was on Saturday Night Live sometime in the seventies. I have the video.

    “A gracious hello. Here at the phone company we handle 84 billion calls a year, serving everyone from presidents and kings to the scum of the Earth. We realize that every so often you can’t get an operator. For no apparent reason your phone goes out of order. Perhaps you’ve been charged for a call you didn’t make. We don’t care. Watch this! (presses computer buttons). Just lost Peoria! You see, this phone system consists of a multi-billion dollar matrix of space-age technology that is so sophisticated even we can’t handle it. But that’s your problem, isn’t it?  So the next time you complain about your phone service, why don’t you try using two Dixie cups with a string! We don’t care. We don’t have to. We’re the phone company!”

  105. 105.

    WaterGirl

    @brianm: If you send me an email with his name, I’m sure I would know whether that was whose office it was.  I just can’t pull his name out of my brain at this point.

    P.S.  what is a food animal vet?  I was installing and supporting the IT network at the vet school, so I pretty much knew everyone.  I wonder if I knew your wife?

    Send me email?

  112. 112.

    Marc

    @Scout211:

    Coristine, who has gone by “Big Balls” online and previously worked for a telecommunications firm known for hiring former black hat hackers, was converted to full-time on May 31, along with Farritor. Shaotran became full-time on April 10.

    Essential Big Balls reading.

  114. 114.

    JML

    It’s also very important to remember that the Press Secretary is not a decision-maker in basically any White House, and would be regularly be excluded from discussions; CJ Cregg was a fictional character. So while she may have had a fair amount of access to the President, it wasn’t unlimited. At all.

  115. 115.

    dnfree

    @zhena gogolia: ​
      Every time I see the statement that Biden was betrayed by the Democratic party, I feel sad. To me, it’s more that the Democratic Party was betrayed by Biden. It certainly matters that he did a good job for four years. It’s also true that he aged greatly in that four years, as most presidents do if they take the job seriously. He didn’t have another four years of doing that job in him.

  116. 116.

    dnfree

    @kindness: ​
      I’m with you. The debate completely changed my perception of whether Biden should undertake another four years.

  117. 117.

    BigJimSlade

    I’m a bit late to this, but the Ma Bell thing made me think of this: at one time I worked for a company that did some work for Bell Atlantic. They made up t-shirts with the Bell Atlantic logo, but it said Bell Satanic. Designers were involved – it looked perfect.

  118. 118.

    Ohio Mom

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: That’s my sister, the NYT-reading, NPR-listener. Occasionally she says things that make my eyes pop out but in the end, she votes Blue.

    Her vote counts the same as mine, my smarter and better informed social critique does not give extra weight to my vote, so I consider it all, No harm, no foul.

  119. 119.

    WaterGirl

    @dnfree: I wouldn’t think of it.  I think all those books are gross, and I wouldn’t give any of them a dime.

    Very disappointed in her.

  120. 120.

    Chris T.

    @Trollhattan: Dead thread, but to address Hertz’s issues with rental Teslas, they were many-fold. Here’s a short sample:

    1. People who rent a car mostly want to rent a car. An appliance, like a toaster is an appliance, like a Toyota is a boring appliance car. Now, all modern cars are in fact rolling computers, but some of them shout out loud I’M ALL COMPUTER, some state it plainly, some whisper it a bit, and some (Toyotas) hide it pretty effectively. Hertz needed one of the “hide it pretty effectively” types. (Unfortunately most EVs don’t, yet.)
    2. Renting out an EV is like renting out a diesel-only or CNG vehicle. Some people know that you can’t put gasoline in one of these, but most Americans (who one must admit are mostly pretty damned ignorant, in the usual sense of the difference between ignorance and apathy they’re often high on both scales) just … don’t. They’ll pull into the gas station and not understand why the gas pump nozzle won’t fit into the CNG connector. You’ll have to educate the consumer, or at the least, make the education available. Hertz … didn’t.
    3. EVs need support structure in the form of chargers. Hertz rental places just don’t have them. Worse, Hertz employees, renting out Teslas, didn’t know this, didn’t acknowledge it, and demanded that customers fill up their EVs with gasoline!
    4. Car rental is a competitive service, and service companies in competition need to treat customers well. Hertz didn’t do that, in any way, before or after they started renting Teslas. Renting out Teslas was not going to fix this “company culture” problem.

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