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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

Let there be snark.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

Giving up is unforgivable.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Dumb motherfuckers cannot understand a consequence that most 4 year olds have fully sorted out.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road" / Monday Night Open Thread

Monday Night Open Thread

by John Cole|  June 30, 20256:23 pm| 84 Comments

This post is in: John Cole Presents "Stories from the Road"

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I’m having mac and cheese with stewed tomatoes for dinner. Well, it’s the bougie mac and cheese, you know, the shells, with that little packet of cheese/petroleum product instead of the dehydrated surplus government cheese powder. Because I am fancy like that. No I don’t know why I eat those together other than my dad ate it when I was a kid and now sometimes I do as an adult. I have no idea if this is a cultural/regional thing.

As to the dismal politics of the day, I have nothing positive to offer and no update on the voting because I remain convinced they will pass it in the Senate one way or another (these people have no souls) but I did think about it for a while today. What confuses me the most about these Republicans in red states is that they are not even remotely acting like the senator of a state that has needs and interests. Everything they are going is going to DEVASTATE their states.

Of all of them, Murkowski is the only one that makes sense. Of course she is an obviously horrible person because she KNOWS and has said how bad the bill is and how many people it will hurt, but I suppose she could make a shitty argument that all the good stuff Alaskans will get in the deals to buy her vote will outweigh the negative, so at least she is looking out for her state, something the others can not.

Instead, they like Stannis Baratheon, are listening to the ginger witch whispering in his ear and burning his child at the stake.

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    84Comments

    1. 1.

      Anonymous At Work

      June 30, 2025 at 6:27 pm

      Rotel > Stewed Tomatoes in Mac & Cheese.  Just the right size and can be spicy, if desired.  (Spicy~ish to Texans, super-spicy to Midwesterners)

      Reply
    2. 2.

      Moondoggus

      June 30, 2025 at 6:28 pm

      I eat Mac and cheese with tuna and peas. And some Old Bay and tobasco. Awesome one pot meal!

      I have been thinking about why the Republicans are so set on kicking people off of Medicaid. I go back to JD Vance’s book, and his attitude towards the white working class male. If you listen to some of these senators talk, they want to get the white working class male to stop playing video games, get their ass off the couch, and get to work. They think this bill does that.

       

      JD just wants them to get off that lovely couch, so he can put it to his own uses.

      Reply
    3. 3.

      bbleh

      June 30, 2025 at 6:30 pm

      … they are not even remotely acting like the senator of a state that has needs and interests.

      True; they are acting like the senator of a state who does not care that it has needs and interests.

      And they do not care because they know (1) the interest of most of their supporters in hating publicly (and expensively) on Others in order to feel good about themselves outweighs any other “needs and interests” they have, even those that materially affect, say, their health or economic well-being, and (2) enough of those supporters, and others who voted for them, simply don’t make the connection between the Senator’s actions and their needs and interests and likely never will.

      The root of the problem, as always, is Republicans, not just their elected representatives

      (We only need to flip a few percent of the disconnected.  It’s doable — in most places anyway.)

      Reply
    4. 4.

      JoyceH

      June 30, 2025 at 6:30 pm

      Question for the jackalteriat. Is Jamaican food yummy? I’m looking for something yummy for the 4th. My usual practice is to go out and get myself some barbecue. But none of the barbecue places around here participate in Grub Hub and I’m currently housebound with The Boot. So I’m looking at the Grub Hub options and I just had pad thai. The Jamaican place sounds good, but I’ve never had it before.

      Reply
    5. 5.

      Moondoggus

      June 30, 2025 at 6:31 pm

      @JoyceH:  I love Jamaican food. You have to watch it cause it can be spicy, but the jerk chicken is fabulous.

      Reply
    6. 6.

      Anonymous At Work

      June 30, 2025 at 6:33 pm

      @JoyceH: Jamaican is great.  If you are not from a place that eats serious chili peppers for fun, however, be prepared.  Jerk typically begins with pulping 20 scotch bonnets per person, give or take some hyperbole.  Then you add some all-spice (edit: there is no such thing as “some” all-spice) and go to town.

      Reply
    7. 7.

      zhena gogolia

      June 30, 2025 at 6:35 pm

      @JoyceH: If you like spicy, yes, it’s very tasty.

      It’s going to be a lot spicier than pad thai, but it actually sounds like a fun choice for the 4th.

      Reply
    8. 8.

      satby

      June 30, 2025 at 6:41 pm

      @JoyceH: oh my God yes, Jamaican food is great! And though it can be a bit spicy, it’s not usually hot, just flavorful. I love jerk chicken with Jamaican beans and rice.

      Ok, the Jamaican restaurant where I used to live had spice ratings so you could specify how hot you wanted it. I never had jerk that was more than medium spicy.

      Reply
    9. 9.

      NaijaGal

      June 30, 2025 at 6:43 pm

      @JoyceH: I think Jamaican food is delicious. Jamiacan curry dishes (curried chicken or goat) and oxtail are usually milder on the scoville scale than jerk dishes (e.g., jerk chicken), which use several scotch bonnet/habanero peppers. Also grab some beef, chicken, or veggie patties.

      Reply
    10. 10.

      George

      June 30, 2025 at 6:45 pm

      Bryan Kohberger apparently just took a plea deal. Four consecutive life sentences.

      Reply
    11. 11.

      Gloria DryGarden

      June 30, 2025 at 6:49 pm

      @Moondoggus: I’m into Mac n peas. I need to convince Annie’s to sell just their vegan seasoning powders, so I can have powdered non cheese sauce.
      but peas are a great addition. If I ate cheese, then of course, tuna as well, sort of instant tuna noodle casserole. Sounds great. Oh well.

      Reply
    12. 12.

      satby

      June 30, 2025 at 6:49 pm

      I had beanie weenies (hot dogs and baked beans) for dinner because I just really wanted some. Used beef hot dogs and Kingsford hickory smoked baked beans baked for 1/2 an hour to thicken them up. My kids used to ask for that weekly, at least.

      Reply
    13. 13.

      cain

      June 30, 2025 at 6:50 pm

      The DOJ wants to exile naturalized U.S. citizens that have a criminal record. Imagine that shit? Just make up a crime or just break a traffic law, exiled.

      That’s cool bro – I’m sure you’ll get plenty of work out of your rural white folk hopped up on meth and govt money.

      Reply
    14. 14.

      cain

      June 30, 2025 at 6:51 pm

      I could really go for some doner kebabs.

      Reply
    15. 15.

      Anne Laurie

      June 30, 2025 at 6:54 pm

      @Moondoggus: I eat Mac and cheese with tuna and peas.

      Known, in my working-class Catholic childhood, as ‘Friday in Lent dinner’.

      Or, per Prairie Home Companion… Tuna (Casserole), the Food of My Soul

      <iframe width=”539″ height=”404″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/LzyI_Hh8ufI” title=”Jean Redpath &amp; Garrison Keillor: &quot;Tuna, the Food of My Soul&quot;” frameborder=”0″ allow=”accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=”strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen></iframe>

      Reply
    16. 16.

      eclare

      June 30, 2025 at 6:55 pm

      @JoyceH:

      Jerk chicken, some fried plantains, yum!

      Reply
    17. 17.

      eclare

      June 30, 2025 at 6:58 pm

      @cain:

      When I lived in London I lived about a block from The Kebab Machine.  That was the perfect snack coming home from the pub.

      Reply
    18. 18.

      eclare

      June 30, 2025 at 6:59 pm

      @satby:

      I love beanie weenies.  Hmmm, that sounds good for the 4th.

      Reply
    19. 19.

      Miki

      June 30, 2025 at 7:06 pm

      I’m watching Somebody Feed Phil today with a breaking heart and the realization that we’re on the edge of our own  Georgian/Ukrainian/Chechnian war.

      Jeebus.

      Reply
    20. 20.

      Spanky

      June 30, 2025 at 7:06 pm

      Alexandra Petrie:

      The Big, Beautiful Bill assigns each American a billionaire who will live the American dream for you. You can check in on your billionaire at intervals and see how he is using your money. Maybe he’s building a 19th pool. Maybe he’s buying himself some formerly public land! Maybe he’s taking a Supreme Court justice on a dream vacation! Maybe he is reupholstering the Statue of Liberty to hide the poem.Maybe he’s throwing a Great Gatsby–themed cocktail hour as part of his wedding extravaganza! Maybe he’s replacing his blood with transfusions from his “blood boys.” Maybe he has bought hundreds of eggs and is pelting the house of a mere hundred-millionaire with them. Maybe he has bought some $TRUMP coin and is attending a special bash! There’s never a dull moment for the lucky beneficiaries of this wonderful bill!

      Now at The Atlantic.

      Reply
    21. 21.

      Baud

      June 30, 2025 at 7:08 pm

      @Spanky:

      You can check in on your billionaire at intervals and see how he is using your money.

       
      Pure Gold.

      Reply
    22. 22.

      RevRick

      June 30, 2025 at 7:09 pm

      @Anonymous At Work: Mac and cheese topped with stewed tomatoes used to be a staple of my childhood. My mom would bake the Mac and cheese in a Pyrex dish, giving the top layer of cheese a toasty crunchiness. We had a pretty predictable menu. Spaghetti on Thursday, fish on Friday, hot dogs or hamburgers on Saturday, pot roast on Sunday. Leftover pot roast became hash on Tuesday.

      Reply
    23. 23.

      Spanky

      June 30, 2025 at 7:10 pm

      @satby:

      Used beef hot dogs

      Yeah, that’s the way I read it.

      Reply
    24. 24.

      ColoradoGuy

      June 30, 2025 at 7:13 pm

      I have an image out of “The Electric State” (the book, not the movie). Fox News viewers, dead in their Laz-Y-Boys, propaganda still streaming from their 65″ TV sets.

      Why would their Senators care?

      Reply
    25. 25.

      hells littlest angel

      June 30, 2025 at 7:15 pm

      Every Republican has turned into Charles Foster Kane.

       

      “Nobody thinks in terms of human beings. Governments don’t; why should we? They talk about the ‘people’, and the ‘Proletariat’, I talk about the suckers and the mugs; it’s the same thing. They have their five-year plan, and so have I.”

      Reply
    26. 26.

      WaterGirl

      June 30, 2025 at 7:20 pm

      .

      Reply
    27. 27.

      phein65

      June 30, 2025 at 7:20 pm

      Kraft Mac n Cheese (we live in the town where it is made) in the pot, onions, bell peppers, and smoked sausage sauteed in the pan, some diced tomatoes at the last minute, serve it with lightly buttered toast with garlic.  Comfort food any night of the week.

      Reply
    28. 28.

      pieceofpeace

      June 30, 2025 at 7:25 pm

      @George:  Yes, which if he opens up could provide valuable understandings of the what and why of his choices and possibly save others from similar behavior, in addition to saving lives.

      Good to read of someone committing a heinous crime and not being automatically killed for it.

      Reply
    29. 29.

      sab

      June 30, 2025 at 7:26 pm

      @satby: New beef hotdogs also work

      Spouse is itching for baked beens, so that might be on this weeks menu. Hot enough to cook but too wet for outdoor griil.

      And corn on the cob is in from southern Ohio.

      Reply
    30. 30.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 7:27 pm

      What confuses me the most about these Republicans in red states is that they are not even remotely acting like the senator of a state that has needs and interests. Everything they are going is going to DEVASTATE their states.

      What if it’s actually in their interests to devastate their states?

      I mean, I know here we have this “first ask whether it’s a “red” or “blue” state and then proceed as if that’s a real thing in the real world. What if they (and this bleeds into “blue” states as well”) are servants of the oligarch class and “devastating” most human beings IS THE PROJECT?. The declining, the desperate, the uneducated…. these are the juiciest forms of fuel for fascism. With these being slightly more concentrated in “red” states, in these sacrifice zones. Places like Bethany.

      Oligarchs want government weak, and they want people weak. Maybe you take away their healthcare because that puts you that much closer to owning them? Maybe it’s not true that they’ll be mad about that, maybe the desperation will be more salient than the anger. Maybe they’ll be even better targets for Trumpism. Maybe that’s how we’ve already arrived here, and maybe that’s how they progress further.

      Reply
    31. 31.

      no body no name

      June 30, 2025 at 7:27 pm

      @cain:

      This is not what’s going to happen.  There will be some high profile cases to scare people but that’s not the actual meat of this.  Those ICE detention centers are going to be sources of forced labor.  They aren’t building an Alcatraz they are building an Auschwitz.  They are going to build these prisons in red states and use them as labor camps or bus people to business who will pay for their labor and then use that money to cut taxes.

      Those meth heads are going to be left to die.  Those rural white folk aren’t going to get shit.

      Just as the Nazi’s used IBM machines to run their system this whole fiasco is going to be done by AI.  It will all be automated through Theil and Musk companies on a scale you cannot imagine.  When, not if, AI screws up and the system gobbles up an actual American that’s a bonus to scare people.  Those same AI systems are going to take over the jobs of government workers and when you get denied your social security or made a non person there won’t be anything anyone can do about it.

      This has all been funded by our tax dollars and we can’t do shit about it without taking out the tech sector and massively fucking over the economies of many blue states and zip codes which depend on it to keep those nice professional liberals employed.

      Make no mistake people will go along with it.  During Trump 1.0 I was in consulting.  Six figure salaries, pride month, all in on DEI.  Those same women who wore pink hats to protest Trump worked on the DHS projects that put kids in cages.  They knew, but hey six figure income and they earned that!  They had graduate degrees!  Their resistance stopped right at their pocket books, education, and meritocracy.  They will do it again.

      Nothing is going to change as long as the educated top 20% keep earning the income that is their god given right because they went to the right schools.  They’ll march, they’ll protest, and they will go right back to working for the companies that enable and conduct this horror because they deserve that six figure income.

      This is who we are.  It’s who we’ve always been.  As long as our sacred upper middle class can keep their status and doesn’t have to physically see it in person they aren’t going to stop it.  And if stopping it stands a chance of impacting their economic or social status in one bit they won’t.  The GOP is not stupid enough to screw this group over economically.  The social terror they inflict is going to hit the bottom 80% who lack the economic ability to get around it.  It’s also the one group the Democrats will go to the mat to protect.

      Make no mistake about where we are as a country and what is going to happen.  Make no mistake that our educated professionals will look the other way while participating in it as long as the money and status does not change.  Make no mistake they will proudly participate if their money and status are threatened.

      We are in deep shit.

      Reply
    32. 32.

      mayim

      June 30, 2025 at 7:30 pm

      @JoyceH:

      I’ll join in the chorus saying Jamaican food can be very yummy. The small town one over from where I live has a Jamaican restaurant, and it’s excellent. I’ve had the curry chicken and the orange chicken ~ flavorful but not too spicy ;-)

      Reply
    33. 33.

      Omnes Omnibus

      June 30, 2025 at 7:32 pm

      @no body no name:  Yeah, let’s kill half commenters here.      I am sure that’s a winning strategy.  Fucknut.

      Reply
    34. 34.

      HinTN

      June 30, 2025 at 7:33 pm

      @no body no name: You describe the French Revolution very well.

      Reply
    35. 35.

      Nix Besser

      June 30, 2025 at 7:33 pm

      Mr. Blogfather,

      Mac and cheese with stewed tomatoes and either fried fish or (usually) fish sticks was a very common offering in my Northeast Philly childhood.

      I will make no comment about the Big Ugly. It’s definitely Serenity Now! time as far as that’s concerned.

      Reply
    36. 36.

      WTFGhost

      June 30, 2025 at 7:33 pm

      Lots of people agree with tomato and cheese as a combination. Apparently, the grilled Kraft cheese (or store brand substitute) and tomato soup was the perfect sick day lunch. I know I heard of macaroni and cheese and stewed tomatoes somewhere, but it was more for the casserole style, not the Kraft style.

      Tomato goes well with fish, too – I’ve been poaching fish in tomato sauce, then flaking it into the sauce to put over pasta. (“Poaching” is probably too delicate a word for what I do; but the next step up from poaching seems to be banditry.)

      I’ll tell you another thing: cheese cooked in tomato sauce can be very interesting too; some cheeses will dissolve, some will stay together, all can soak up some tomato-y goodness as well as the seasonings in the sauce.

      Reply
    37. 37.

      HinTN

      June 30, 2025 at 7:34 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: We’re a hot mess, yes we are.

      Reply
    38. 38.

      stinger

      June 30, 2025 at 7:35 pm

      Bring back pork barrel spending. Seriously — I’ve thought this for years. It got legislators actually negotiating across the aisle.

      Reply
    39. 39.

      HinTN

      June 30, 2025 at 7:36 pm

      @WTFGhost:

      I’ll tell you another thing: cheese cooked in tomato sauce can be very interesting too; some cheeses will dissolve, some will stay together, all can soak up some tomato-y goodness as well as the seasonings in the sauce.

      Velveeta and Rotel in a crock pot. That’s what I’m talking about.

      Reply
    40. 40.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 7:38 pm

      The most disappointing thing for me about these spaces is that they become a place where people just try to form community around attacking weakness.

      The groundling Trumpers are incredibly compromised, miserable people. The reason they are there and serve as rocket fuel for fascism is because their communities were destabilized and they received bad education in a country that educates by median income. They were left to rot in rotting communities. These people were failed as 3 year olds, and now people with much more privilege– who simply can’t comprehend how someone could be so stupid– are laughing at them.

      The atmosphere for this movement was prepared by the opioid epidemic, which itself flowed from the depressing realities that neoliberalism drove home.  All we have for them, all we can offer is “if you’re too stupid to leave, then fuck you!” Often and mostly voiced by people with much more social and economic privilege. Not understanding that this imagined conversation, which they think they’re having with a guy rolling coal in oakley sunglasses… is actually with a 6 year old kid that YOU failed.

      Reply
    41. 41.

      gene108

      June 30, 2025 at 7:40 pm

      @cain:

      The DOJ wants to exile naturalized U.S. citizens that have a criminal record. Imagine that shit? Just make up a crime or just break a traffic law, exiled.

      That’s cool bro – I’m sure you’ll get plenty of work out of your rural white folk hopped up on meth and govt money.

      This was coming. I’m not surprised.

      Today’s Republican Party wants a white nationalist Christian country.

      Reply
    42. 42.

      eclare

      June 30, 2025 at 7:42 pm

      @HinTN:

      That is a classic!

      Reply
    43. 43.

      Omnes Omnibus

      June 30, 2025 at 7:42 pm

      @Bupalos: You know that we are just going to keep disappointing you, don’t you?

      Reply
    44. 44.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 7:43 pm

      Reply
    45. 45.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 7:46 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: Nope. Always hopeful.

      Even YOU could reform. You’re pretty clearly addicted to this internet polarization and what it offers. But it could happen!

      Reply
    46. 46.

      Gvg

      June 30, 2025 at 7:48 pm

      @no body no name: prove it. You are too extreme. I suspect you are a propaganda tool to lead us to despair and inaction.

      Reply
    47. 47.

      Betty Cracker

      June 30, 2025 at 7:48 pm

      Wow. The Baratheon comparison never occurred to me, but that’s 100% right.

      Reply
    48. 48.

      currawong

      June 30, 2025 at 7:49 pm

      I did see one tweet (or whatever you call them on Bluesky) that basicaly said the GOP representatives and senators are voting as if they’ll never have to face the voters again. Chilling.

      Reply
    49. 49.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 7:52 pm

      @no body no name:Nothing is going to change as long as the educated top 20% keep earning the income that is their god given right because they went to the right schools.  They’ll march, they’ll protest, and they will go right back to working for the companies that enable and conduct this horror because they deserve that six figure income.

      Yup.

      Also a bunch of them will maintain high carbon footprints, buy cars that offer more convenience, and fly all over god’s creation to take pictures of what those darn Trumpers are ruining with their badness.

      Reply
    50. 50.

      mrmoshpotato

      June 30, 2025 at 7:56 pm

      Of all of them, Murkowski is the only one that makes sense. Of course she is an obviously horrible person because she KNOWS and has said how bad the bill is and how many people it will hurt, but I suppose she could make a shitty argument that all the good stuff Alaskans will get in the deals to buy her vote will outweigh the negative, so at least she is looking out for her state, something the others can not will not do because they hate their own constituents and suck orange ass.

      Fixed.

      Reply
    51. 51.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 7:59 pm

      @currawong: I think this is a fundamental misunderstanding.

      I think they’re voting as if they know the electorate they will face is going to be even more compromised and Trump-curious than this one.

      Taking away people’s health coverage is actually how you turn them fash.

      Reply
    52. 52.

      sab

      June 30, 2025 at 8:00 pm

      We just had a weekend dinner celebrating husband’s and my dad’s nurse’s aide’s birthday (also now a family friendl.)

      Three olds .  Five fortyish. One eleven year old. She is on the autism spectrum. Only child at the party. She held her own. Appeared to enjoy herself. Charmed the rest of us.

      Ten years ago we were told she would probably never learn to speak. She would probably smear feces on the wall. She would probably always scream and rant.

      She doesn’t do any of that. She was sweet and charming although a bit shy but determined to plow ahead if she had a point to make.

      We are very lucky, so is she. Also a lot of people came forward to help her blossom to where she is. Her mother. Her sister. Her speech therapist. Her occupational therapist. Her school. Her teachers. Her accepting  and helpful classmates.

      Robert Kennedy Jr the predator wants to abolish all that government help (that works) because helping these kids takes away from his grift of suing vaccine makers. These kids don’t destroy families. They are part of families. Robert Kennedy Jr destroys families by keeping them from assistance that works.

      Reply
    53. 53.

      Gvg

      June 30, 2025 at 8:03 pm

      It seems to me that republicans in general, both elected and voters, don’t have the same knowledge base. They have been picking their own preferred facts for so long that they mostly don’t know reality, history, economics or the Bible. Every time we manage to avoid disaster they think we cried wolf, but I don’t want to live through another dust bowl, Great Depression or world war. I don’t want to starve to prove I am right and I don’t want American power lost to Russia and China. I really don’t want to go back to worrying about nuclear war. I have been noticing the ignorant were running the party since about 2000. They grew up on Gingrich and Limbaugh. Now it’s about the 3rd generation of know false stories. So both their voters and politicians mostly don’t believe they are hurting themselves (I think). They think it’s going to improve things. I don’t understand why they haven’t already observed better.

      Reply
    54. 54.

      mrmoshpotato

      June 30, 2025 at 8:03 pm

      @Moondoggus:

      I have been thinking about why the Republicans are so set on kicking people off of Medicaid. I go back to JD Vance’s book, and his attitude towards the white working class male. If you listen to some of these senators talk, they want to get the white working class male to stop playing video games, get their ass off the couch, and get to work. They think this bill does that.
       

      I would argue that these fuckers think the government shouldn’t do anything but make the rich even richer.

      Look at the career of zombie-eyed-granny-starver Paul Ryan.  Even more ghastly given that he was able to afford college because of Social Security survivor benefits from the death of his dad.

      Reply
    55. 55.

      The Truffle

      June 30, 2025 at 8:04 pm

      @Gvg: I volunteer with a group that works with young candidates. Comments like that are why I steer clear of comment spaces.

      The positive energy around Mamdani is very real. So is the drive among millennials and Gen Z people hoping to run.

      Bupalos

       

      I don’t see fash-curiousness among the people I spoke to as a volunteer. Just the opposite.

      Reply
    56. 56.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 8:08 pm

      @Spanky: People do this “A.P. is a national treasure” thing and this is the first thing where I felt like she actually really nailed something on the front end.

      The future of the left is Bernie/AOC/something-more-radical… or it is nothing.  And I mean, I think it’s even odds whether or not the party exists in 6 years. People here trying to cling mostly are trying to coast on history. The Democratic Party has been mostly destroyed.

      I chuckled when I heard Chuckie NY Dollarsigns doing (and maybe sullying) really good, clean, AOC messaging about billionaires. You could almost hear him kicking stacks of money under the tablecloth. The sooner the Democratic party figures out that it’s brand (meaning most of it’s existing politicians) is obsolete and poisonous the better.

      Reply
    57. 57.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 8:09 pm

      @The Truffle: I’m not sure I get what you’re responding to, I’m just going to underline this:

      The positive energy around Mamdani is very real. 

      It is. We need to embrace this.

      Reply
    58. 58.

      Geminid

      June 30, 2025 at 8:10 pm

      @cain: I first learned about donor kebab a couple years ago when I started studying up on Türkiye. I read about the first doner kebab stand in Germany, opened in the mid-1960s. I also saw the first known movie footage of a Turkish doner stand in operation. It was dated 1908.

      Syrians call their version “Shwarma.”

      Reply
    59. 59.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 8:12 pm

      @Geminid: You are going to Open Up a Whole Thing if you try to seize the word “shwarma” for Syria.

      Reply
    60. 60.

      columbusqueen

      June 30, 2025 at 8:15 pm

      Good news! Went to my NP today, & I’ve lost 9 pounds & my A1C is down to 6.3. Woot!!

      Reply
    61. 61.

      mrmoshpotato

      June 30, 2025 at 8:15 pm

      @stinger: Roll the GOP down a hill in a pork barrel.

      Reply
    62. 62.

      Baud

      June 30, 2025 at 8:16 pm

      @columbusqueen:

      Hot damn!

      Reply
    63. 63.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 8:18 pm

      The thing about “carbon footprint doesn’t matter, because that’s an INDIVIDUAL measure, and only GLOBAL GOVERNMENT MASSIVE measures matter….” … measures that can never happen without individuals…

      This is how you get here: “I might as well eat that steak and fly to Paris” which it just so happens is what you were going to do before you were thinking about it!! See! By not thinking or taking any action… You’re practically an environmentalist!!! NATURE!!!

      Even better: It was an UNNATURAL CORPORATE CONSPIRACY to make you feel like not eating that steak and flying to paris was meaningful. It wasn’t because that was an individual thing you could do, and there is definitely nothing individual you can do, you are completely powerless. So you definitely you did much better by eating that steak and flying to paris and just doing whatever the fuck you thought you wanted to do… because otherwise you were GREENWASHING.

      Meanwhile, turns out the molecules act the same. Almost like they don’t care whether or not you have something to say.

      Reply
    64. 64.

      Omnes Omnibus

      June 30, 2025 at 8:23 pm

      @Bupalos: I would fly to Paris and have the steak there.  Just saying.

      Reply
    65. 65.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 8:26 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: Oh I know that about you. Don’t worry.

      I just wonder why. You feel like the most online personality I’m in contact with. Spew that carbon!!! It’s all a conspiracy about making you think…that… the problem isn’t someone else!

      Reply
    66. 66.

      gene108

      June 30, 2025 at 8:26 pm

      @Bupalos:

      The reason they are there and serve as rocket fuel for fascism is because their communities were destabilized and they received bad education in a country that educates by median income. They were left to rot in rotting communities. These people were failed as 3 year olds,

      Bullshit!

      Cities were fucked over when manufacturing moved to the suburbs or to rural areas, and white flight emptied out the middle class.

      Urban crime got bad in the 1970’s and kept increasing until the early 1990’s, when for reasons no one can fully explain it started declining.

      Cities have been recovering for the last 25 to 30 years.

      The atmosphere for this movement was prepared by the opioid epidemic, which itself flowed from the depressing realities that neoliberalism drove home.

      Yet the same neoliberalism didn’t turn cities hotbeds of fascism curious crackheads that wanted to fuck over anyone who wasn’t like them.

      All we have for them, all we can offer is “if you’re too stupid to leave, then fuck you!” Often and mostly voiced by people with much more social and economic privilege.

      That’s EXACTLY what the rest of the country told people trapped in poverty and crime in places like NYC, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., etc. during the 1980’s.

      There were hundreds of essays (thousands? tens of thousands or more) written about how lazy inner city people were, because they didn’t get jobs, relied on welfare, and/or why they couldn’t just pack up and move to better places.

      The path for rural America to revitalize is via immigration, so the unoccupied homes, store fronts, etc. can be used again.

      Yet they have been consistently voting to strangle immigration for decades.

      If rural white areas want to recover, they can. Cities did after decades of high crime, drug use, and rising poverty.

      Reply
    67. 67.

      Anyway

      June 30, 2025 at 8:29 pm

      @Geminid: Syrians call their version “Shwarma.”

      Gentle request – maybe omit culinary terms from your Middle Eastern mansplaining. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

      Reply
    68. 68.

      Zelma

      June 30, 2025 at 8:30 pm

      @RevRick:

      Sounds like my family – except we had spaghetti (Chef Boyar-dee) on Saturday and pork chops (always prepared in an onion gravy) rather than hot dogs.  Also meat loaf.  And overcooked vegetables with every meal.

      Reply
    69. 69.

      Bupalos

      June 30, 2025 at 8:33 pm

      @gene108: I mean, I’m amenable to this. I don’t disagree from a rational perspective.

      What people not From There don’t get (I’m presuming, but yeah??!”) is that when you hollow a place out, and when the 3 year olds that are supposed to care about that community don’t get educations and maybe get just flat abused…. they can’t, don’t, won’t do the math.

      And it’s fucking gross to be like “you should realize this solution… this solution that we who would never think to live in that hellhole can easily see, BECAUSE WE WEREN’T ABUSED BY THE EVOLUTION OF THE ECONOMY…”

      Like seriously, where did you grow up and are you an above, below, or average kind of person?

      Reply
    70. 70.

      no body no name

      June 30, 2025 at 8:37 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus:

      I never said to do that.  I merely pointed out the social class that could stop this is not going to do it because they want to keep their social status.  This is something that has happened through history.

      They will preserve their status at all costs.  Then pretend to care or engage in willing ignorance of those below them.  At best they will indulge in performative protests that are about social bonding and won’t change squat before going back to work and the farmers market.

      Things won’t change unless things get dire for them.  The GOP is not stupid enough to let that happen and the six figure crowd is the one group the Democrats will fight for.  So we are stuck.  As that crowd is not willing to sign on to any solution that affects their status which is what it’s going to take.

      Peter Theil is a Nazi and crazy but his companies are populated by good liberals with top educations.  They may protest but they aren’t going to walk out on those jobs.  Those are their right by going to the right schools and getting the right grades.  Removing Theil as a threat to democracy would put them all on the unemployment line and lower wages across the sector.  You think the Democrats are going to do that to the professional class?  If so I want some of what you’re on.  You think we are going to take on the big banks?  LOL NYC is blue and as HRC said breaking up the big banks won’t solve racism.

      We are looking to talk our way out of a situation because fixing it would involve sticking it to the very people the benefit from it.  It’s fine to brag about California or NY wealth but you can’t do that and not admit the tech companies, venture capitalists, bankers, and all the other vultures that create it did so by draining the rest of the country dry.

      I flunk the straight, white, Christian, male test on two levels and I’m a target for MAGA.  However I’m one of the six figure crowd and I’ve worked around these people for a good grip now.  Which makes me part of the damn problem.  At least I have the brass to admit the problem.

      Reply
    71. 71.

      no body no name

      June 30, 2025 at 8:44 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus:

      If you’re going to do this at least go to Japan for A5 Kobe beef.  Of course they sell that at COSTCO now.

      Reply
    72. 72.

      Omnes Omnibus

      June 30, 2025 at 8:49 pm

      @no body no name: But then I wouldn’t be in Paris, would I?  I  don’t see why I need to explain this.

      Reply
    73. 73.

      NotMax

      June 30, 2025 at 8:51 pm

      The famous mac ‘n’ cheese at the Automat included crushed tomatoes.

      Reply
    74. 74.

      The Truffle

      June 30, 2025 at 8:57 pm

      @Bupalos:

      sorry. I was directing it to doomposters and thought you were one of them. New York City was a fun place yesterday. Mamdani, Lander, and Tish James were all out and marching. This and the people stepping up to run need to be embraced.

      Reply
    75. 75.

      Wapiti

      June 30, 2025 at 9:06 pm

      @cain: Can they use it on Andrew Sullivan first? Just a test case, for the courts?

      Reply
    76. 76.

      lowtechcyclist

      June 30, 2025 at 9:09 pm

      We’ve got a carryout near us called Pinky’s that has a mixture of Southern, soul, Cajun, and Caribbean food. They have a good Jamaican jerk chicken sandwich, and yes it’s spicy.

      (Spanky: if this sort of food interests you, they’re on MD 2, just south of Mt. Harmony. They’re on Facebook too.)

      Reply
    77. 77.

      Omnes Omnibus

      June 30, 2025 at 9:14 pm

      @no body no name: Why do I feel like you are just seconds away from a rant about Christianity?

      Reply
    78. 78.

      Miss Bianca

      June 30, 2025 at 9:20 pm

      Open thread? So…help, any wildlife/birb rescuers out there?

      I believe I mentioned in one of Albatrossity’s threads that we had a robin’s nest outside the theater’s back door. Three babies!

      I was leaving this evening and found one of them on the ground, lying down sideways, seemed stunned but still breathing – only half fledged out, the poor little mite. I didn’t know what else to do except grab the ladder, grab the birb (gently, gently), and put ’em back in the nest.

      Chances of survival…?

      Reply
    79. 79.

      stinger

      June 30, 2025 at 9:21 pm

      @columbusqueen: ​
       Yay you!

      Reply
    80. 80.

      p.a.

      June 30, 2025 at 9:22 pm

      @gene108:  Urban crime got bad in the 1970’s and kept increasing until the early 1990’s, when for reasons no one can fully explain it started declining.

       

       

      Combination of decreasing environmental lead (not a statistician but I believe the science is generally accepted), an aging population (crime is largely a youth thing, and then they age out (if lucky) get incarcerated, die.)  Partial explanation, as you say.

      Reply
    81. 81.

      no body no name

      June 30, 2025 at 9:23 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus:

      I’m married to a Christian who goes to a hippy Church.  I’ll condemn Mike Johnson but her folk are mostly good people.  I don’t like casserole though.  Why?

      Reply
    82. 82.

      Kayla Rudbek

      July 1, 2025 at 7:43 am

      @Gloria DryGarden: Daiya sells packets of its vegan cheese sauce so you can make your Mac and cheese with whatever pasta you want.

      Reply
    83. 83.

      Geminid

      July 1, 2025 at 7:59 am

      @Anyway: Now I see the Syrian version of doner kebab is “Shawarma,” not “Shwarma.”

      Reply
    84. 84.

      Kayla Rudbek

      July 1, 2025 at 8:01 am

      @columbusqueen: congratulations!

      Reply

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