The fifth set of Byrd droppings is out
Dems win on the sale of public lands: Rs may not sell of our public lands!
Other huge victories in this area around making oil and gas leasing, mining, pay-to-play for oil and gas exports, and NEPA compliance
ENR and Senate Budget Dem staff crushed it— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 11:49 PM
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Wow. Fourth batch of Byrd droppings is out – Dem staff absolutely dominated the HSGAC fight
We won on reorg & bonuses for cost cutters ofc, but also on at-will, filing fees, and USPS green vehicles & infrastructure sales
Seriously, major praise to the D staff
www.budget.senate.gov/ranking-memb…
[image or embed]— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) June 22, 2025 at 11:14 PM
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New @msnbc.com op-ed from me: despite protestations from the right, the “big beautiful bill” really would add trillions to the deficit and would harm, not help, the economy.
[image or embed]— Bobby Kogan (@bbkogan.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 9:30 AM
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Damn—the Senate parliamentarian has ruled that a LOT of the reconciliation bill requires 60 votes to pass, including a massive assault on federal regulations and several heinous attacks on civil service protections. This effectively guts a big chunk of the bill. www.budget.senate.gov/ranking-memb…
— Mark Joseph Stern (@mjsdc.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:10 AM
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Morning. ☕️
ICYMI: The provision in the Senate GOP’s tax bill aimed at letting Trump rule like a king — it makes it too expensive for groups to sue the Trump admin for lawlessness — is likely getting axed after the Senate parliamentarian said it violates rules. www.huffpost.com/entry/gop-ta…
[image or embed]— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 10:49 AM
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Chuck Grassley got very agitated when I asked him why he put language in this bill that prices out public interest groups from being able to sue the Trump admin for lawlessness.
He offered this word salad before walking away in a huff:— Jen Bendery (@jbendery.bsky.social) June 23, 2025 at 11:23 AM
Baud
Thanks for highlighting the work, AL.
O. Felix Culpa
Thank you for this bit of good news, AL.
Another Scott
The bill as written was a grab-bag of everything the House monsters wanted, to get enough votes for passage, with a fingers-crossed hope that everyone in the Senate would ignore all the provisions that violated all the rules there. Yet more “just try to stop me” dares.
It’s good the Senate is still kinda working and kinda protecting its role while the House under Johnson continues to roll over.
We shouldn’t be in this timeline, of course.
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Belafon
The people who won these rounds are legislators, not in your face camera people.
kindness
The Yea, But scenerio plays out as Republicans in the Senate can just ignore the Parlimentarian. They aren’t supposed to, but that hasn’t stopped them in the past. My inner Kreskin tells me they will ignore her on many of these issues but not all of them.
prostratedragon
Let’s hope all of this holds.
O. Felix Culpa
@prostratedragon:
From your keyboard to the FSM’s orecchiette.
mrmoshpotato
Good to see Dump repeatedly getting punched in his orange, mushroom cock.
And fuck Chuck Assley.
catclub
@kindness:
Beat me to it. The parliamentarian has ruled, now let her enforce it.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@mrmoshpotato:
With a rusty chainsaw, sideways.
chemiclord
@kindness: They CAN… but with the thin majority they have, there’s really no space for too many to reject rewriting the Senate rules. Thune only has so many golden tickets on this… and it looks like he wants one of them to begin with.
Senators on both sides of the aisle kinda like having the power where just one or two of them can tank any given legislation. If that holds, if enough people like Rand Paul are in the GOP coalition, then there’s not going to be too many opportunities to give the Parliamentarian the finger.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Sadly, it’s not like he’s an outlier. The last “good” Republican was either Ulysses S. Grant or Theodore Roosevelt, and some days I’m not sure about TR.
lowtechcyclist
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
I’ll still stick up for Lowell Weicker.
chemiclord
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: There is a degree that “the product of their times” does apply. It’s far too often used as an excuse for shitty behavior of historical figures, when it really should be used to set a baseline for the eras of our history.
For example, at the birth of our nation, while there were definitely abolitionists, it’s not unreasonable to understand that the chambers of power were going to be filled with white supremacist slavers, and that was inherently going to limit who exactly held those levers of power and what would be done with that power. It doesn’t absolve our leaders, but does provide the context for what could have been.
Betty Cracker
Great news if it holds — thanks for highlighting it, and kudos to the staffers who raised the issues.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist: I’d add Charles Percy and Jacob Javits, but they’re all long gone and would find no home in today’s GOP.
schrodingers_cat
T2.0 is treating blue states like we are his colonial possession.
O. Felix Culpa
@O. Felix Culpa: Heck, even Everett Dirksen would probably rank as a liberal squish in MAGA world these days.
@schrodingers_cat: Yes. He is the God-Emperor, after all.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa:
Agreed, but we don’t need to reach back over a century is all I’m saying. Weicker and Percy, at least, were in the Senate during my adult lifetime; can’t remember about Javits.
YY_Sima Qian
Chuck Grassley is still alive?
Semi-surprised that the Repub Senators still feel themselves bound by such quaint notions as the Byrd Rule, or such quaint figures as the Senate Parliamentarian. Perhaps they are looking for an excuse to scrub some of the crazier provisions in the House OBBB?
Either way, good job by the Senate Dem staffers to put some spanners into the reactionary legislative efforts.
Baud
@YY_Sima Qian:
Almost all the norms favor Republicans over the long run. Their debate is over whether they can cement a permanent majority by ditching those norms. Their Senators aren’t there yet.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist: Don’t follow your point, but sure. Javits was coterminous with the others. In the Senate from 1957-1981.
Betty Cracker
The demented yam was screaming in all caps about the bill on his crappy social media site a few minutes ago (after taking credit for achieving world peace). Here’s a direct quote: “NO ONE GOES ON VACATION UNTIL IT’S DONE.”
Harrison Wesley
@Betty Cracker: Was that right before he went golfing?
Fair Economist
These are all great, but most fundamentally the bill should not be able to pass under a rule for decreasing the deficit when it increases the deficit enormously.
schrodingers_cat
I am listening to a lecture series on YT of a class taught by Vinay Lal a professor of history at UCLA about the British occupation of India. I have also downloaded his reading list. I used to follow his blog back in the day. It is eye-opening and enraging all at once.
An occupation of almost 200 years in Bengal (Today’s West Bengal, Bangladesh and Bihar) bookended by famine. We won’t be done with dealing with the fallout of the British Empire for at least another 100 years if not more. They haven’t expressed any remorse AFAIK.
Steve in the ATL
Haven’t been around much the last couple of days. Been busy correcting Loomis on LGM. Ok, not really, but you knew that.
Has there been any discussion of the latest atrocity from the Supremely Fascist 6 in DHS v. D.V.D., No. 24A1153, slip op. at 12 (S. Ct. Jun. 23, 2025) (Sotomayor, J., dissenting [scorchingly!])? Six justices are totes ok with deporting people–without a hearing–to countries they’ve never been to and know nothing about but that the State Department deems unsafe for Americans, including most diplomatic staff (I’m looking at you, South Sudan). So much for the rule of law!
As if it weren’t embarrassing enough already being a lawyer what with having to share a profession with Baud and Omnes….
lowtechcyclist
@YY_Sima Qian:
I think it’s that they want to leave these rules and procedures in place to hamper the Dems whenever we next control the Senate. Longtime GOP Senators are used to an environment where their top several goals involve shifting money towards the wealthy, while Dems tend to have a lot more regulatory goals as part of their mix. So the filibuster and the Byrd Rule have in recent decades hampered Dems much more than the GOP.
Russell Vought has a metric ton of deregulatory goals so he’d like to change the GOP mix, but we’ll see if GOP Senators are ready to throw out the barriers they use to minimize Dem accomplishments in order to keep Vought happy. Most of them will still be around after Vought’s out of government.
ETA: Looks like Baud said this more succinctly @21.
Lyrebird
@O. Felix Culpa:
@lowtechcyclist:
Bill Weld
Not as awesome as Weicker, but worth a mention.
lowtechcyclist
@O. Felix Culpa:
Just that there have been good Republicans long after TR, let alone Grant.
Layer8Problem
@Betty Cracker: “REMAIN CALM!!! ALL IS WELL!!!”
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat:
They apologized by destroying their own economy and world standing so that City bankers could continue to launder Russian money.
YY_Sima Qian
@Baud: The anti-democratic Senate, & its rules & norms, favor conservative resistance to progress, & favor status quo over change. However, they do not favor a reactionary counterrevolution, which describes the modern Trumpist GOP, looking to overthrow the status quo.
I suspect many of the Repub Senators rather enjoy the cozy status quo that heavily favors capital over labor, monopolies/oligopolies over free market competition, the national security state over civil liberties, the MIC over diplomacy, & US primacy over a truly rules based international order, & they would rather not have that comfortable (for them & the monied interests that back them) status quo torched by the quasi-Fascist-Leninist counterrevolutionaries.
lowtechcyclist
@Lyrebird: Tru dat.
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: You are being facetious. I get it.
We still have the likes of Niall Ferguson and Andrew Sullivan telling us how the Empire was wonderful for the occupied countries
Imagine German or Japanese naturalized citizens telling us how Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan were benevolent and we are mistaken about them.
British Empire caused untold misery and death for far longer and has a larger body count than Germany and Japan put together in WWII
Its not just the English, substantial numbers of the foot soldiers of the Empire were Scottish and Irish.
Layer8Problem
@Steve in the ATL: “Been busy correcting Loomis on LGM. . . .”
You’re doing the Lord’s work there son.
@Steve in the ATL: ” . . . Ok, not really, but you knew that.”
Oh pooh . . .
@Steve in the ATL: “As if it weren’t embarrassing enough already being a lawyer what with having to share a profession with Baud and Omnes….”
You made your bed.
O. Felix Culpa
@Steve in the ATL: I remarked on that execrable decision in an earlier thread. It has me just gutted.
O. Felix Culpa
@lowtechcyclist: Which I was agreeing with. Just expanding the list a little. But they have gone the way of the dinosaurs.
Rusty
@lowtechcyclist: He left the Republicans (driven out by the odious Buckleys) and won the governorship as an independent. So I’m not sure he even really counts as a Republican.
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: We are here because privileged white people and their adjacents on the left refused to vote for HRC.
zhena gogolia
@Belafon: Yep. And I bet you won’t see this on MSNBC.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: Agree. And we’re stuck with the consequences. It’s small comfort, but at least HRC won the popular vote. Kamala didn’t even get that, even after having lived through Trump 1.0. What does that say about our electorate?
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: Racist and sexist with a side of xenophobia.
schrodingers_cat
@Belafon: In your face camera people are busy posting selfies with Mamdani.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: True. Sigh.
Another Scott
@Fair Economist: +1
The 10 year timeline for these things dates back (as I understand it) to the times when one could expect the business cycle to do its thing (recession then recovery) at least once. Over those 10 years, things would kinda even out (deficit wise, etc.). Deficits during the recession, pay down the debt some during the recovery.
Since Reagan, the idea that things should even out, that cost-benefit analysis makes sense, that things should get better over the long term, has been set on fire. It’s “grab all the moneys we can now, burn the social safety net down, and let the following generations figure out how to fix the damage – not my problem” since then. Truth doesn’t matter, logic doesn’t matter, fairness doesn’t matter, justice doesn’t matter.
Power and money matters to these monsters.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
...now I try to be amused
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
The Republican Party sold out its founding principles within 20 years of its founding in 1854. I suppose its corruption was a casualty of the Civil War and the postwar GOP domination of the federal government.
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: lame. This Stephen Lynch totally would have won!
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
Garcia is in his 40s, so happy days are here again.
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat:
yes I was being facetious, but I absolutely agree with your statement below. Too many people don’t understand how many of today’s geopolitical problems are a direct result of the British Empire…though the rest of the European empires have done plenty of damage as well. Even Belgium! (King Leopold II doesn’t get nearly enough hate)
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Ankara-based Clash Report likes to repost Trump’s nutty posts ironically. They excerpted this morning’s:
Trump is not the only one celebrating, according to Clash Report:
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu could be in a celebratory mood too, according to a Times of Israel story headined
I’m kind of punchy this morning from lack of sleep, and I keep hearing Kool and the Gang singing:
PatD
@Baud: we can reasonably certain Garcia won’t die in office.
Baud
@PatD:
Like I said, happy days.
WTFGhost
Shorter Chuck Grassley: “The federal courts have NO ROOM in interpreting the law! NONE! If a federal judge says you’ve committed a crime, and you think you haven’t, just *walk away*, and use Stand Your Ground when that stupid bailiff tries to take you into custody! I am not a crank.”
Steve in the ATL
@Another Scott: when people (such as Dick Cheney) say “Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter” they are leaving out the critical word politically. They certainly matter economically and we have only avoided most of that pain so far by being the world’s reserve currency, particularly with respect to the oil trade. The current republican party (not just their orange Jim Jones) has FA and we are all on the verge of FO what happens when that ends.
snoey
@YY_Sima Qian: Blame it on the parliamentarian gets Senators out of a lot of tough votes they’d rather not have to take. Western R’s are happy to drop the public lands hot potato.
https://cowboystatedaily.com/2025/06/23/lee-offers-compromise-on-public-land-sales-bill-hunters-say-no-deal/
mapanghimagsik
@schrodingers_cat:
I’ve only known a few people from Great Britain. But a couple fellows were incredible dipshits in this regard, talking about how they were the most beneficial and responsible empire.
Shocked when he turned out to be a men’s rights advocate, too.
Strangely enough, the thing that *really* pissed me off about him was complained to me his wife was fat.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
Only knowing a little bit about Mamdani, I’d rather have him be the next mayor of NYC than the likes of Cuomo or Adams.
ETA: It doesn’t say great things about Bill Clinton and others for endoring Cuomo. Bill Ackerman has funded Cuomo’s campaign
Jeffro
just a quick note to say, fuck Grassley and ESPECIALLY fuck Russell Vought
Viva BrisVegas
@Steve in the ATL: The American Empire hasn’t exactly been an unalloyed joy for the rest of the world either. If you want inflicted misery, take a look at most of Central America for a start, then we can move on to the Middle East. 100 years will barely scratch the surface.
laura
@Steve in the ATL: it reads very Enabling Act to me.
Geminid
@…now I try to be amused: One significant development for the Republican Party occurred in 1860, when the nativist American (“Know Nothing”) Party dissolved and most of its members joined the Republican Party. They and their political descendants never left.
Jeffro
god I hope Massie or Paul or someone on that side of the aisle just loses it and tells him to go fuck himself
Redshift
@Betty Cracker: In a better world, Orange Julius announcing that everyone had agreed to a ceasefire when they absolutely had not would wake people up to the fact that all of his very easy “peace deals” are narcissistic fantasies with no plan behind them.
But nope, still politely pretending the Emperor’s clothes are amazing…
schrodingers_cat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If he becomes mayor of NYC it will be difficult for Ds to take back the House.
Redshift
@Geminid:
I need to learn more about the Know-Nothings. All of the incredibly wasteful “let’s throw stuff we don’t like or don’t care about in the trash” (ongoing foreign aid programs, multi-billion dollar space missions, postal service EVs, just to name a few) seems very much like the original incarnation, but I don’t want to opine on that with only superficial knowledge of them.
(I know, I know, I’m never going to make it big on the Internet with that attitude…)
Kristine
@Layer8Problem:
Not sure why I’m laughing so hard at this exchange, but. Laughing.
So thanks for the needed laugh.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
…why? Also, why would who becomes mayor of NYC have such an effect on retaking the House anyway?
If anything, electing someone like Cuomo would have that effect, because he’s a corrupt POS who held back NYS during his governorship
schrodingers_cat
@Steve in the ATL: Agreed. Although the British Empire was the largest Empire was it not. So its sheer scale dwarfs other imperial powers.
schrodingers_cat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): He has taken a string of extremist left positions which the Republicans will tie around the necks of Ds nationwide.
From Defunding the Police to Globalize Intifada. And there is video of him saying these things.
He will be on TV bashing the Ds from the left. Also, the media is on the east coast so he will get a lot a coverage.
dnfree
@YY_Sima Qian: This is such a worthwhile insight (the difference between being conservative and being reactionary) that if I had any confidence in my ability to block-quote it I would have. Thanks again for your valuable contributions.
Paul in KY
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: I think Everett Dirksen was pretty good, for a GQPer.
Matt McIrvin
@Redshift: I know Abraham Lincoln despised the Know-Nothings.
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: Him too, tho he should have been a Democrat & caucused with us.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat:
We don’t need them, we have Americans to do that.
Layer8Problem
@Kristine: [Bows] Then my work here is done. Thank you. 🙂
Melancholy Jaques
Very much enjoying my retirement tour and thank you all for your kind sentiments expressed here the other day. I’m about to leave Santa Fe, but I wanted to share one story.
Yesterday morning at breakfast I overheard people talking about a protest. Being a busy body, I asked. I turns out the secretary of education and former WWE executive was speaking at a hotel here and teachers were protesting. Of course, I had to join in. Certainly a small protest by Los Angeles standards, but a spirited group. As usual, I did not chanting, but I agreed to pound on a pan with a wooden spoon. It always feels good to participate.
Steve LaBonne
@YY_Sima Qian: The techbros have spent so much time huffing their own farts that they decided fascism would be the ideal vehicle for them to run the world. I don’t think the rest of the CEO class is on board, though currently they’re being cautious about sticking their heads over the parapet. But they have plenty of quiet pull in the Senate.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s a ratchet though– Senate obstructionism helps the far-right revolutionaries by creating a legislative power vacuum. They can do policy damage in the courts or the executive branch, with explanations that Congress could fix it trivially if they wanted to, secure in the knowledge that Congress will never do this. That makes the government more and more broken, enabling the “anti-government” death spiral.
Sometimes it helps our side, but usually it doesn’t.
Redshift
@Matt McIrvin: Most of what I know about them other than their general bigotry and corruption comes from fun facts about the Washington Monument. Like how various countries and groups donated stones to be incorporated into it, and the Know-Nothings took the one the Pope sent and threw it in the river, because they were anti-Catholic bigots. And also that they were cheap on the construction during their tenure so they could skim money, to a degree that the part that was added during that time had to be torn and started over.
dnfree
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): People in Chicago didn’t know much about Brandon Johnson before he became mayor, either. His only previous experience with governance was with the Chicago Teachers’ Union. Turns out that is not adequate preparation for dealing with administration of a major city. Expressing good intentions doesn’t actually result instantly in them being implemented, who knew? Also, coming up with revenue for all the needs isn’t easy.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: Genghis Khan’s empire might have been larger, but it was extremely transitory.
O. Felix Culpa
@Steve in the ATL: Have you read King Leopold’s Ghost? Absolutely horrifying.
Jeffro
interesting: VA Dems in the Senate continue to show spine, fight, dare I say…moxie?
Dems sue university rectors
The Dems are essentially telling the rectors, “the guidance you got from AG Miyares is WRONG – do. not. seat. the university board nominees that we have rejected in committee”
I predict this’ll go to the VA Supreme Court, and Miyares will lose. The legislature rejects nominations, legislation, etc in committee all the time.
WeimarGerman
@schrodingers_cat: If you enjoy that, then have you also listened to The Empire (spotify link)? It’s by Anita Anand and William Dalrymple. I found it very well done.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@lowtechcyclist: I hear Tom McCall and Mark Hatfield were pretty good Republicans…
schrodingers_cat
@WeimarGerman: I am not a big fan of Dalrymple’s work. His version of history is a bit too rose tinted. His latest book is a hot mess.
He is entertaining as a speaker. So the podcast might be interesting. I have heard good things about it
Link to Lal’s playlist of the History of British India
schrodingers_cat
@Paul in KY: By which metric land mass or the # of people? Genghis Khan could not make any inroads in India though. And it was not for the lack of trying.
WTFGhost
@schrodingers_cat: Why not? Any complaint to the effect of such will be brushed off as partisan warfare.
@Betty Cracker: American or African yam? I think Trump is definitely an African yam. You can see the artificial orange color, proving he’s pale fleshed beneath it, and ashamed that he doesn’t look like a proper American yam, which is actually just another variety of sweet potato, with yellower flesh.
In Trump’s case, it’s more of a bitter potato, due to the excess of bile and cruelty.
@Fair Economist: Alas, reconciliation is *not* intended to reduce the deficit. There are rules under which it can be used, and one of those rules (which they may be using now) is to assume “current law.”
This isn’t proper – under current law, the too-expensive tax cuts would expire, but, they’re saying “no, we’re assuming they will remain in place,” because that is the right-now current law.
That would allow them to ignore the cost of the tax cuts going forward, instead assuming they were a sunk cost – which they weren’t. They weren’t even *budgeted* to be spent, yet.
Now: what did they do? I don’t know. But everyone agreed that it was a minimum 2.4 trillion hit to continue the tax giveaways. However they effed the rules, they’re still giving away boatloads of money, while pretending they aren’t.
@Layer8Problem: REMAIN CALM! DEFCON 1 MEANS WE’RE IN A FULL DEFENSIVE POSTURE WITH NOTHING FOR YOU TO WORRY ABOUT!!
Layer8Problem
@O. Felix Culpa: Roger Casement had Leopold’s number. Ironic that it was a British parliamentary report.
schrodingers_cat
@Layer8Problem: Of course, the British want to look good in comparison. We take the work of British historians as the truth, but is it?
When they ruled Bengal (and then the rest of India), they let millions of people die due to starvation. India had not known famine on that scale either before or after the British rule. They exhibited blatant disregard for the life of Indians until the very end of the Empire in the 1940s.
I would like to read Belgium’s history of the British Empire if such a thing exists
Whenever I bring up the British Empire, someone chimes in about Belgium. Whatever Belgium did, does not excuse what the British did in India or Africa or Australia or the Middle East or the colonial US for that matter
Oh and Bengal went from the richest province in India to a province now known for its abject poverty.
Layer8Problem
@schrodingers_cat: I used to be a Whig Theory of History person. No more.
schrodingers_cat
@Layer8Problem: What does that mean?
Ok found the definition. But I wonder what you mean by it.
YY_Sima Qian
@Matt McIrvin: I agree. I am mildly surprised that the Repubs in Senate may be still following some of these norms & rules, even as they have spent the past 3 decades trashing the rules & norms. I am also not at all confident that the such non-counterrevolutionary Repubs (almost all of them are reactionary) will be able to hold their positions against the quasi-Fascist-Leninist radicals, since the counterrevolutionaries control the Executive branch (thus all of the formal coercive power) & make up the various militias (thus much of the informal coercive power). Republicans Senators, as w/ the reactionaries on SCOTUS, will fold when their own lives & livelihoods are threatened.
YY_Sima Qian
@schrodingers_cat: One still regularly encounters the deeply engrained White Christian Supremacist framing that European colonialism was such a net positive for the colonized across the world, & the Anglos (Brits, Americans, Canadians, Aussies, South Africans) who hold such a viewpoint tend to be its most enthusiastic proponent.
E.
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: GAAAHHH!!! It’s been DECADES! Why do I have to keep hearing Mark Hatfield’s name!???
schrodingers_cat
@YY_Sima Qian: Yep. Sounds about right. Europeans wanted stuff from India and China. Not the other way around. And they didn’t want to pay for it. Neither did they want to pay import duties while passing through the Ottoman and Arab lands.
That’s what colonialism was ultimately about. Trumpism is not different. Its colonialism rehashed, in particular Victorian mercantilism.
Layer8Problem
@schrodingers_cat: Onwards and upwards, nothing but improvement, better and better and better. “Excelsior” is the motto of my state. And England/Great Britain/The Empire only moves toward perfection.
Former colonial places don’t agree.
And the U S of A isn’t the New Jerusalem. To say the least my childhood notions of American Exceptionalism aren’t what they were.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: I guess metric landmass. Tamerlane did some bad stuff there later on.
They Call Me Noni
@Jeffro: One would think Moscow Mitch would love to do just that, but I suppose that would take just a tiny little bit of backbone.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
They Call Me Noni
@Harrison Wesley: Probably typed it from his golf cart on the first tee box.
Steve in the ATL
@O. Felix Culpa: I have, but I also studied him in college as part of my African history regimen. Not a nice person!
Steve in the ATL
@schrodingers_cat:
It’s probably written in Walloon
catclub
@lowtechcyclist: I would say that Eisenhower was a lot less bad than any who followed him.
laura
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): new york city is the locus of American finance. Socialism isn’t popular as many people believe it to be.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@laura:
It used to be, once upon a time.
I understand this guy has some flaws, but if NYC Dems elect Andrew fucking Cuomo of all people and Dems in general continue taking the money of Big Tech, who are not our friends, nothing will ever meaningfully change for the better.
Maybe this guy ain’t it, but I think we should draw the line when it comes to someone like Cuomo
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: thanks for the vinay lal YouTube tip!
Elizabelle
@catclub: Another vote for Eisenhower.
I think he got the “old and out of touch” treatment because he was honest about the military-industrial complex.
Geminid
@Redshift: The Know Nothings were a power in the 1850s. They filled some of the void left when the Whigs broke up. The American Party elected at least one governor, in Vermont, and I think that former President Millard Fillmore ran on an American Party ticket in 1856.
I was researching a Georgia Congressional district the other day, and looked at the list of members Wikipedia provided. This list went back to the 1820s. There were Jacksonians, Anti-Jacksonians, and then it was all Democrats except– the Congressman from 1857 to 1859 was a Know Nothing. They had a wide reach in their heyday.
I think the Know Nothing strain in the Republican Party survived into the 20th century and beyond. Besides being anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic, it was anti-union and Isolationist. Calvin Coolidge exemplified these values, as did Senator Robert Taft.
In post-WWII era, the Eisenhower Republicans got the upper hand over the Taft Republicans. They might have kept it had it not been for a major historical development: the Southern Political Realignment that transpired from rougly 1965 to 1990.
This was presaged by a different 1860 event: the split between the Northern Democrats led by Douglas and the Southern Democrats led by Breckinridge. Democrats managed to recombine post-Civil War but this alliance lasted only a century, until 1965.
That’s when the White Southern Democrats began defecting to the Republican Party in large numbers. It did not take them long to become a major power center, and they found the Know Nothings to be natural allies. So these two dark, durable strands in American politics combined into one big stinking cable, and that is today’s Republican Party.
Jacel
@catclub: Eisenhower also was a better president for the nation than several Republicans who preceded him earlier in the 20th century (Hoover, Coolidge, Harding, etc.)
Trollhattan
@YY_Sima Qian: Somehow alive and still 2nd-worst senator from Iowa.
tam1MI
Historically speaking, empires tend to have effects on the areas they ruled over that last long after those empires have contracted or gone away. Much of how we conceive of Europe is still formed by the Roman Empire.
Trollhattan
@catclub:
Likely true. Ford gets an incomplete and H.W. lacked the necessary levels of hatred and avuncular populism to be Reagan Lite. They’re the least worst Republican presidents post-Eisenhower. Rest of the lot were/are psychopaths.
schrodingers_cat
@laura: How do you like your watercolor pencils?
Jackie
@catclub:
Including his VP!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
BTW, relatedly, I think I might have asked you a few years back this, but what fountain pens would you recommend for a beginner?
Jackie
GAH! Another reason to prevent FFOTUS’s big UGLY bill from passing!
PK
@Another Scott:
The Republicans get in the news as cutting taxes. Democrats save the fiscal health, democracy, and hundreds of millions of acres of public land… behind the scenes. The usual.
Don’t want Democrats to stop being grown ups, but it has been working against them for decades. I don’t know how to fix this.
schrodingers_cat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Do you want them for drawing or writing and what’s your budget?
Jinhao makes good budget fountain pens.
I also like Lamy Safari. Its a good all round pen. I use bottled ink and converters.
Captain C
@Steve in the ATL:
That’s something that shouldn’t take long, given how quick he is with the banhammer.
eclare
Deleted
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@schrodingers_cat:
For writing. I’d prefer to keep it below $100 or so
Geminid
@Geminid: Clash Report caught Trump mangling the English language yet again, when he told reporters:
Trollhattan
@Geminid:
Did you know Joe Biden ruined Trump’s first, second and third marriages? It’s true, you could look it up.
tam1MI
What is so frustrating about this particular election is that the extremist leftist and the sexual predator are not the choices on the ballot. But people keep acting like those other candidates don’t exist and our choices are Shitty and Shittier.
PatD
@dnfree: I’m not sure he’s any worse than Lightfoot or Rahm. Vallas would be working with Trump.
Steve in the ATL
@tam1MI: and Hadrian’s wall is still there!
PatD
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Some just don’t want to come out and say they would rather the sex pest win than the socialist. So they appeal to fear.
Baud
RaflW
Johnson and Thune have some fairly big caucus problems. The two chambers R members do not, from what I can tell, trust or like each other.
PatD
@Baud:
As of now, he’s my choice for 2028. Being Gov of IL is not easy (and often ends in jail time).
Harrison Wesley
@Geminid: Supercells? WTF?
schrodingers_cat
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Jinhao has pens under $10 and Lamy Safari is around $30. Ink and converter add another $10. I like Parker’s blue ink.
Geminid
@Harrison Wesley: He meant “sleeper cells,”as in terrorists. But it came out “supercells” as in thunderstorms which sparked plenty of ridicule in the comments.
Steve in the ATL
@PatD:
often? I’d go with “usually”!
Harrison Wesley
@Geminid: Oh. Thanks. My first thought was “Jesus Christ, Supercell” but that didn’t make much sense.
dnfree
@PatD: Vallas isn’t everything I would want in a mayor, but he’d be competent. I don’t think he’s in Trump’s camp. Rahm was worse than Lightfoot, in my opinion.
PatD
@dnfree: You can read his thoughts directly here on ICE’s mission. https://www.chicagocontrarian.com/blog/ice-immigration-mission-return-chicago-normal
I agree, Rahm was worse than Lightfoot. He ended up failing upwards after his disastrous tenure but that’s just how the party works sometimes.
Matt McIrvin
@tam1MI: and the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. An institutional offshoot of the Roman Empire owns many hospitals in the New World, continents entirely unknown to the Romans.
Ramona
@schrodingers_cat: I found Dr Lal’s YT channel following your suggestion. Am on 3rd lecture and enjoying it THOROUGHLY! Many many thanks…
Matt McIrvin
@Jacel: Eisenhower did preside over indiscriminate mass deportations that are a model for Stephen Miller.
prostratedragon
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: Was going to add Eisenhower and Hatfield. Say whatever else about him you will, but as minority leader, Everett Dirksen helped get the 1960s civil rights legislation passed. Amazingly enough, Idaho Senator Frank Church was a Democrat, as well as relatively short-lived.
NobodySpecial
@Steve in the ATL: “Correcting Loomis” is a euphemism for getting banned from LGM.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Geminid: We sure Trump doesn’t think Biden is the cause of tornados. After all, Trump is the idiot who thinks California should rake it forests like a golf club’s landscaping to stop brush fires.
opiejeanne
@Steve in the ATL: As well as coliseums and aqueducts scattered about, all higgledy-piggledy. We visited Avignon in May, saw the Roman coliseum in Arles and Pont du Gard. Also found the little bridge that Van Gogh depicted several times in his paintings. The wonder that all of these things still stand. Our guide at the aqueduct just said, “No earthquakes here.” We thought that was pretty amusing, imagining such a thing surviving in California.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, … Reuters.com:
Eh??
They don’t explain why it would take weeks, nor what is complicated about it.
I assume that there is a deadline for ballots to be accepted. Then they start counting them. Then they rank them and do the “you’re last, you’re out, votes are redistributed” dance. Until someone has more than 50%. I would think the process shouldn’t take more than a few hours at most once they start counting.
What am I missing?
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
chemiclord
@PK:
It would require the electorate growing up.
prostratedragon
@PatD: Pretty sure he’s not, even though my heart is not exactly inditing of good things all over the place. And Vallas is part of the vrwc, afaiac.
prostratedragon
@PatD: Upward being in this case more than 6700 miles from DC.
lowtechcyclist
@opiejeanne:
Two of Euler’s seven bridges of Königsberg from 1736 are still standing. I’d love to visit if it wasn’t part of Russia nowadays. (Not only am I a math geek, but graph theory was my area of research for my dissertation.)
Ironcity
@WTFGhost: Then what are you Chuck?
PatD
@prostratedragon: Haha, there are worse places to be than Tokyo. Pelosi did say she thinks Rahm might run in 2028.
AnthroBabe
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): THIS THIS THIS if nyc wants Mamdani then hurrah for them. Electing that corrupt asshole Cuomo will absolutely demoralize Dem turnout, especially among you g voters. Cuomo should be banished from the party.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@lowtechcyclist:
One of the oldest Roman bridges is in Rimini:
https://www.travelemiliaromagna.it/en/bridge-of-tiberius-rimini/
Pretty cool to walk over it.
Betty
@lowtechcyclist: John Heinz was a pretty good guy. He stood up for working people and reproductive v rights. Died too young in a helicopter accident.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Meanwhile…
Words fail me.
Jackie
No memes about the VP allowed if you’re a foreign tourist, apparently:
Jay
Current Rules for Radicals.
If you see iCE,
take a photo of the vehicle and the plate #
Call 9/11
Report that you have seen an Iranian Sleeper Cell taking hostages off the street.
Report the vehicle, make model, colour, location and direction if it is moving.
If asked by 9/11 why you think it was an Iranian Sleeper Cell explain:
No badges, no ID’s refused to identify them selves.
Heavily armed and wearing a various mix of camo and body armour, as if they shopped at a military surplus store, some German camo, some Russian camo, some Desert Storm camo, all mixed, pants don’t match shirt, etc, fully masked.
Screaming at the people they were taking hostage in Farsi.
If they ask you how you know it was Farsi, explain that one of your coworkers is Iranian American and that you are familiar with the language.
Lauryn11
@Jackie: Leave it to Trump to want to do a big honking publicity tour for a shambling unpopular werebeast of a bill that Republicans will hope to pass stealthily in the dead of night.
Geminid
From Ankara-based Clash Report today:
opiejeanne
@lowtechcyclist: I just saw something about crossing those bridges just yesterday.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
And the fundagelicals are A-OK with that, because they place a higher value on bringing about the End Times than loving one’s neighbor.
Grrr. Argh.
lowtechcyclist
@opiejeanne:
There’s even an XKCD about them.
YY_Sima Qian
@AnthroBabe: One can criticize Mamdani’s specific policy proposals as unrealistic, but I think we do the reactionaries’ work for them if we characterize him as “extremist left” & scary “socialist”.
Only in the US (& Canada?) is the word “socialist” a pejorative, which only serve to greatly limit the horizons of the policy discussion to realms that do not really negatively affect capital, & thus do little to correct the imbalance that greatly favors capital over labor & producers over consumers.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
In Canada, socialist and socialism is only a pejorative on the Reich wing side, for anything they don’t like. The rest of us use it as a flag to note when what seems to be rational person is a wingnut.
pluky
@Lyrebird: Bill Weld is one of only two Republicans I’ve ever voted for (the other was Clark Abt running against Joe Kennedy II for Tip O’Neals seat in Cambridge). In the house in Allston I shared with 10 other people (grad student days!), half were either current or former BU students. To a one, they loathed Weld’s Democratic opponent Silber.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay: Thanks for clarifying.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jackie: FFS, but also par for the course these days.
This is the kind of sh*t that people think the PRC government does (searching visitors’ phones for Winnie the Pooh memes). In reality, the modern CPC regime is pretty discriminate when it comes to the people it targets, because arbitrariness & mass application invite blow back.
Kayla Rudbek
@Redshift: they also remind me of Senator Proxmire and his “Golden Fleece” awards.
ETA and these MAGA types are anti Catholic just like the Know-Nothings and the Klan were