Who are you gonna believe — me, or your lying eyes paystub?
NEWSNATION: It's estimated that more than 32k of your constituents will lose access to healthcare, nearly 19k will lose food stamps. If that's true, how is this bill good for your constituents?
MIKE LAWLER: Those numbers aren't true … Dems are putting out numbers they're making up out of thin air— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) July 3, 2025 at 7:41 PM
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A. People will experience the effects
B. Even without this bill Repubs were screwed; remember, they were slaughtered in 2018, & 2022 they had the worst midterm of a party not in the White House since 1934
C. It’s easier to convince ppl they’re being screwed than that they’re being helped…/1— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:13 AM
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D. Midterms are generally more about turnout than persuasion. People whose local hospital or grandma’s nursing home are closing may not vote Dem but they may not come out to vote Repub either
E. There’s actually paid media; by spending $ on ads Dems can circumvent the press— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 2:18 AM
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(Assuming there are elections) this plus the inevitable recession and they’re toast. Oddly confident of this
— Gore Vidal Sassoon (@jimmyjazz1968.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 1:23 AM
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I mean
— Gore Vidal Sassoon (@jimmyjazz1968.bsky.social) July 4, 2025 at 1:27 AM
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Great piece…if you think people making over $100K are the GOP’s base (Harris won them), if you think Medicaid cuts won’t have big immediate effects (they will), if you think people making +$100K have no loved ones on Medicaid (many do) & if you think healthcare of $100K+ won’t be affected (it will)
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 6:36 PM
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Jeffries: I think it was because the framers of this great country, they were fed up with project 1775. So they implemented project 1776.. Understand what our journey teaches us is after project 2025 comes project 2026. And you will have an opportunity to end this national nightmare
— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) July 3, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Independence Day
Baud
Thank you for keeping America informed, AL. If more people read your posts, we’d be living on a Golden Age rather than the Age of the Golden Toilet.
satby
@Baud: right? Especially appreciate the presentation without rage farming or performative emoting. We need less of that everywhere.
Baud
@satby:
That’s my job.
Hunter Gathers
Trump and the Republican Party have pricked the side of a mighty beast and have entirely failed to run.
schrodingers_cat
@satby: Also without being preachy. Preachy sets my teeth on edge.
NotMax
Not looking forward to tonight. Historically, neighbors on one side throw a major shindig, setting off snaps, crackles and booms from about 8 at night until 1 in the morning, accompanied by music pumped up to 11.. Can hear ash and debris raining down on the metal roof of this cottage The next day trip around the yard to pick up stray pieces of cardboard, metal, paper and wire winds up filling about a quarter of a kitchen size trash bag. Don’t want to pass over those with the riding mower.
Princess
Very interesting article in the Globe and Mail about why the murder bill isn’t going to tank the US economy as a whole even as it impoverishes a lot of people. The bulk of the article was about the economic strength of the southeast and how it can weather the trade war with Canada, even as the midwestern states get crushed by it. Then there was this as causes for growth:
”The first is the size of U.S. economic stimulus. With a federal deficit of US$1.9-trillion this year, Washington is juicing growth – and has been for two decades. The budget bill that just made its way through Congress is expected to add at least US$3.3-trillion more to the federal debt over the next decade, in addition to the trillion-dollar annual deficits that were already projected.
The U.S. is also bolstered by its wealthiest families. The top 10 per cent of households now comprise 50 per cent of total consumer spending, according to data from Moody’s Ratings, the most since the data was first collected. So long as stock markets keep rising and house prices follow, the wealthy don’t have much reason to pause. And the budget is expected to cut their taxes.”
10% of Americans do 50% of the spending. Makes sense but it blew me away.
schrodingers_cat
OT art break: Thumbnail sketch of Marginal Way, Ogunquit ME. I was there earlier this week. May turn it into a bigger piece on 100 percent cotton paper or on canvas later.
Splitting Image
I agree that it is difficult to forecast how many Republicans might turn on Trump or the rest of their party for this bill, but I think the best guideline is the old joke about how a downturn is when you’ve heard about people being laid off, a recession is when you know someone who has been laid off, and a depression is when you get laid off.
I think that if a Republican hears about people losing their health care, they will dismiss it as fake news. If he knows someone who has lost their health care, he will say that it is the Democrats’ fault. If he loses his own health care, all bets are off.
Which brings us back to the question of how bad things get, and how quickly.
Walker
2024 showed that Dana Houle does not really have the best political instincts. Their commentary on poll data was “unskew the polls” level wrong. In this case I am extremely skeptical that paid ads in traditional media has any real affect these days.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
A very interesting diary from Teh Orange:
https://www.dailykos.com/story/2025/07/04/2331675/-Here%E2%80%99s-a-Radical-Idea%E2%80%A6
Interesting piece overall that I’m sure plenty of people won’t agree with.
Baud
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The moral issue is debatable. It strikes me as factually correct. We’re here because they don’t care about people outside their tribe.
H.E.Wolf
[in very small, embarrassed voice] mea culpa
trollhattan
Voting % by income graph tells a tale.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Sigh. Two old guys in their red hats are sitting in the coffee bar this morning. Sometimes my neighbors tempt me.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: the marginalized community in question is rural America, and they have an oversized effect on the vote.
H.E.Wolf
Update from previous post’s comment thread: I sidewalk-chalked the heck out of our sidewalk! Four excerpts from songs.
O beautiful for spacious skies… [Always start with a woman writer]
This land is your land, this land is our land… [I took a little liberty (pun for NotMax) there]
Lift every voice and sing… [Black National Anthem]
We hold these truths to be… [it’s a “Hamilton” lyric!]
I hope folks passing by will find themselves earwormed in a good way. :)
ETA: made a determined effort to fix the formatting.
ETA: make that 2 determined efforts!
prostratedragon
@schrodingers_cat: Yes!
hells littlest angel
Sadly, we don’t know what their answer to this question will be.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@trollhattan:
The results of the 2024 US presidential election: Democrats became a whiter and richer party and the GOP a more working-class and multiracial party.
https://x.com/owasow/status/1930315361976557815
Trump’s biggest demographic gains happened among lower-income donors, not wealthy ones. Among the bottom 50% by wealth, women gave 300%+ more than in 2012, noncollege white voters 500%+, PoC 400%.
Another analysis on where donations came from:
https://x.com/owasow/status/1930315361976557815
Basically, Dems pulling in the majority of people (or maybe households I’m not sure) earning more than $100K but under that, we were in the minority. And many of those under-$100K types used to vote Dem.
Finally, a piece on the recent Pew report:
https://x.com/JonathanCohn/status/1938415193765163200
satby
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: exactly. And white Americans who assume only poor people of color will be affected when white Americans are predominantly the recipients of Medicaid. The FO will be harsh.
prostratedragon
“Ellis Island,” Lara Downes and Simone Dinnerstein
Steve LaBonne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: It’s important to understand that this is the same demographic shift that has crippled social democratic / center-left parties in many countries- they became parties of the well-off professional classes. Because this is a worldwide problem, any US-specific analysis and attempted response is likely to miss the mark.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@H.E.Wolf: My building did its July 4 stuff yesterday so staff could have today off. There was a BBQ and then music from a band that’s been here before–2 Irish guys who usually play Irish music. It seemed an odd choice for July 4 but they played music by American composers. They ended with God Bless America. Given the bill that passed earlier in the day, I didn’t feel it.
Ruckus
@Baud:
So now the truth comes out…..
Steve LaBonne
@satby: We have to do what we can to prepare them to place the blame correctly, but they will never believe anything we tell them until the leopards actually eat their faces.
CaseyL
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
This sort of thing baffles me so much and so completely, I have to wonder (if only in a thought-experiment sort of way) if everything I know, or think I know, is wrong.
Ruckus
@Hunter Gathers:
You used the correct word, but I believe that it could be used in a more performative way.
PRICKS is who they are, pricked is what they’ve done.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Steve LaBonne:
And I think that’s mostly the point of the Daily Kos diary: connect dots for people who have trouble connecting dots even while the leopards are eating their face.
Now, will it make a difference? I know many of us think not given the propaganda stew many in this targeted demographic live in.
Hungry Joe
For a preview of what’s going to happen to rural and semi-rural health care, check out Brian Alexander’s remarkably prescient book “The Hospital: Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town” (St. Martin’s Press, 2021). From the cover flap:
”By immersing the reader in the fight of one hospital to continue serving its community, and in the struggles of patients who walk — or are carried — through its doors to survive the economic and political forces arrayed against them, Alexander strips away manufactured complexity and wonky debates to expose the human cost of the war being waged on Americans by the medical industry, politicians, and big business.”
It’s a heart-rending, infuriating, and necessary read. And all this was before the Big Beautiful Barf.
narya
Ken White’s story about the 4th of July, with some additions for the current moment.
Baud
@Steve LaBonne:
@CaseyL:
Right wing intersectionality. Every group wants to oppress someone so they band together to create a culture of oppression (even if that means allying with their oppressors).
That’s why you see an increasing gender divide as well.
Elizabelle
@schrodingers_cat: Beautiful drawing. Wonderful use of color.
Steve LaBonne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I wish I knew of a country where the left has been able (or frankly, willing) to reverse that trend but I can’t think of one. Maybe Mamdani can at least show us where to start.
trollhattan
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
The, not inference but empirical demonstration that the wealthier are more motivated/able to vote is damning. Vote suppression surely at play but to what degree is not easy to parse. Motivation is also at play.
Then too, is the strong correlation between education level and income, making Republican assaults on higher education even more fraught. “Keep em’ ignorant; keep em’ inside the tent” seems to be a strategy. Lord help us.
Ruckus
@Splitting Image:
I think that if a Republican hears about people losing their health care, they will dismiss it as fake news. If he knows someone who has lost their health care, he will say that it is the Democrats’ fault. If he loses his own health care, all bets are off.
Which brings us back to the question of how bad things get, and how quickly.
This needs to be repeated – because it says it all. rethugs don’t care if they screw everyone else right into the ground, as long as they get what they want.
Hell, they might consider that screwing everyone else is exactly how they get what they want….. oh wait.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
It’s not a strategy.
It is their guiding light.
schrodingers_cat
@Elizabelle: Thanks, I was trying out a new sketchbook. Unfortunately the paper couldn’t handle the wash and started pilling. So I had to switch to markers.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@trollhattan:
All of that.
Harrison Wesley
@Steve LaBonne: I thought Trump was going to deport him.
eclare
@Baud:
So true. Thank you Anne Laurie!
Ruckus
@Baud:
The moral issue is debatable. It strikes me as factually correct. We’re here because they don’t care about people outside their tribe.
It’s worse than that, they don’t give a damn about anyone but themselves, and really the second side of that is that they think screwing everyone else is their best path to get there.
They may not know or understand it but they believe that a monarchy is far better than a democracy, because it gives them a way to screw everyone else. It’s as simple as they deserve everything and everyone else deserves nothing.
The conservative concept since day one, screw anyone who does not believe in screwing everyone else. Their goal is to feel superior, and as they can’t get there in a positive way, they’ll do it in a negative way.
Baud
@Ruckus:
No lie told.
CaseyL
@Baud:
But I don’t understand how that happens: how and why people abandon the idea of improving their own lives in favor of embracing the idea of ruining other peoples’ lives.
It can’t be something as simplistic and blatant as “I’ll support you destroying other women as long as we can collaborate on destroying Jews, even if that means my own family suffers.”
What shapes a person to the point that becomes an attractive offer? I mean: we know what the formative influences were in 1930s Germany.
What were the comparative formative influences in the US? – to the point that millions of people who turned out for Biden in 2020 didn’t turn out for Harris in 2024?
eclare
I have just decided I can’t do the 4th with my relatives. They would not be loud about it, but they are all Republicans, and I can’t be around that today.
I have ordered a pulled plate to get my necessary bbq.
zhena gogolia
Great quote from Jeffries.
Baud
@CaseyL:
Excellent question. Off the top of my head, a few things come to mind.
Good topic for a dedicated thread.
zhena gogolia
@NotMax: Oh, I hope they all have Covid and are too tired to party tonight.
CaseyL
@Baud:
@CaseyL:
I keep trying to find some underlying logic or reason, and I do realize there simply might not be one.
But if there is in fact no underlying logic or reason, then I just come back to my half-satirical theory that the human species simply comes to a collective decision every so often to commit species suicide and kill as many other humans as possible.
zhena gogolia
@H.E.Wolf: You’re never preachy!
mappy!
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Locally 2024 was interesting in that some traditional R towns went overwhelmingly for Harris (the suburbs effect) but retained R down ticket majorities (held the house and senate effect). My somewhat purple town (the rural didn’t go to college effect, want cold beer and warm toilet seat crowd) went overwhelmingly for Taco (as it did in 16) but our down ticket Congressional Representative (D) was the top vote getter. Go figure.
I’ve combed through voting records working various local and state campaigns and it’s impossible to predict what lights a fire. I’ve seen Presidential voters coming out 4, 8, 12 years apart, some voting once and never again. Many split the ticket.
At any rate, what the magat elite probably don’t see coming are the effects of the tariff tax and groceries. Everything’s going up. It doesn’t make it to the media but voters notice it at the checkout. The checkout line is the new media.
bbleh
@Splitting Image: I’m less worried about voters than I am about the mechanisms of voting, both legitimate and monkeywrenched.
The field is tilted electorally against Dems, especially in the Senate. And there are a LOT of unscrupulous state- and local-level Rep election officials who are more than happy to deny, delay, and otherwise screw up voting and counting.
Midterms almost always hurt the party in power, and remember that 2024 was VERY CLOSE. It won’t take many votes to switch some things, as long as those votes are cast and counted fairly.
schrodingers_cat
@H.E.Wolf: What @zhena said
chemiclord
To address Points A, B, C; that was never the problem. The problem is object permanence. The “Average American Voter” has the memory of a sedated, demented, goldfish. Sure, they’ll “remember” this. Sure, they’ll probably flip the House back to Democrats in their rage. Hell, it may even carry to 2008. But by 2010, they’ll have forgotten everything they learned, and when (not if) Democrats haven’t fixed everything to this idealistic past they think they remember from their childhood, they’ll be ready to hand things back over to the GOP.
Because the Average American Voter is an idiot who actively refuses to learn shit. And we’ll continue to refuse to learn until the Republicans have razed everything to the ground and rule over the ashes.
As to Point D; that’s exactly the problem. That’s the “Average American Voter” right there; incurious, inept, unwilling to pay attention for more than five seconds, and will happily gobble up what they want to hear from whomever tells it to them. That’s it’s someone else’s fault their lives are hell, and that if you just follow this one great leader, they’ll be returned to this great era that they weren’t even fucking alive for. They do it every, single, fucking time.
As to Point E: I continue to be amazed that people can’t understand that the media (paid or otherwise) is only going to let the people see what they want the people to see. That’s why on social media people continue to rage that “Democrats aren’t fighting back” even as said Dems are fighting back every single damn day. Because they literally never see it, and don’t have the desire to actually learn about it on their own.
H.E.Wolf
@zhena gogolia:
@schrodingers_cat:
Awww, you two. Thank you. You make me feel much better! I do get soap-box-y, and I worry that it’s an easy hop to preachy from there. :)
bbleh
@CaseyL: @Baud: concur re all 3, and #3 especially recently given the explosion of social media and the flood of information to previously insulated communities and their resulting fear, but I always put #2 first — as Johnson said, “give him someone to look down on and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Bruce K in ATH-GR
I distinctly remember how different July 4th was sixteen years ago from today.
Sixteen years ago, July 4, 2009, I was proud to be an American.
Today, July 4, 2025 … I’m ashamed.
zhena gogolia
@H.E.Wolf: Your comments always cheer me up.
chemiclord
@CaseyL: It’s called “white supremacy.”
LBJ famously noted it, and the “White Working Class” demonstrates it every time. They aren’t angry about “not getting what they are owed.” They, in fact, think they’re getting exactly what they’re owed. They are angry that those (insert slur here) are getting things too, and that “those people” don’t deserve.
They will never vote to improve their lives, because again, they are living exactly the life they think they’re due. They vote to keep minorities underneath them in the social order.
H.E.Wolf
@H.E.Wolf:
(What I want to avoid is launching myself, Mighty Mouse style, from soapbox to pulpit.)
Professor Bigfoot
I think Adam was one of the first to say that we are at war, we just didn’t know it.
I believe this is the 7th anniversary of various Republican politicians spending Independence Day in Moscow.
Trump gets financing from Russia. NRA hands out bundles of “donations” courtesy of Moscow. And now the United States stands on the edge of declaring itself an ally of Russia.
hrprogressive
Nah. I wouldn’t believe a single poster claiming the Trump Fraud Bill will hurt the GOP this far out.
The Democratic Party isn’t up to the moment, and “vibes voters” thought Fascism was better than a black woman as POTUS.
The GOP doesn’t suffer the consequences they should because
1) Their corprofascist shareholders in the media and other spheres of life insulate them from such criticisms
2) Millions of people are openly Fascist and want what they are selling
3) Tens of millions more are idiots
4) Tens of millions more are so disillusioned by the Democratic Party aiding and abetting the death of the American Dream that getting people to “Vote Blue!!111one” is a much taller order than it already was.
I wouldn’t put any stock into any of these commentators.
People are going to be ruined and killed because of this.
Which is exactly what so many people either want, or are at least apathetic enough about that they didn’t care to try and stop it.
trollhattan
Here’s a fun thing for the number-obsessed: “Voting and Registration in the Election of November 1972” published by the US Dept of Commerce, Social and Economic Statistics Administration. Compares 1972 (Nixon-McGovern) to 1968 (Nixon-Humphrey) and 1964 (Johnson-Goldwater).
1972 was the first election open to 18YOs.
https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/1973/demo/p20-253.pdf
H.E.Wolf
That is very kind of you!
I’ve always thought that “be of good cheer”, in troubling times, is (my kind of) radical defiance and tenacity. Bulldogs sit back in admiration when I get my teeth into something. :)
NotMax
@Steve LaBonne
Paraguay post-Stroessner?
Freemark
@mappy!: Spaghetti-Os went up 20%. People with kids are certainly going to be noticing.
Baud
@Freemark:
Uh oh.
craigie
@chemiclord:
I think most white folks believe they are not racist because they are not actively burning crosses on people’s lawns. Anything short of that is not racism, as far as they are concerned.
And my other theory about all this is that these self-proclaimed non-racists are not bothered by, say, black people owning a big house, as long as every white person who wants a big house gets one first. After that, those other folks can have one.
I think that’s what goes on, consciously or subconsciously, in people’s heads. Success for minorities is fine, as long as first all white people have succeeded.
glory b
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Sac State professor’s new study finds Black men did not move from Democratic Party to Trump | Sacramento State
Captain C
@Princess: So the MSM is going to do what they were accusing Democrats of doing in 2024: tell people that things are good and they shouldn’t believe their lying eyes about their own condition. Every accusation is a confession…
BlueGuitarist
@Baud:
👍
glory b
@hrprogressive: I read that Dems in the senate (in the minority) nonetheless represent 41 million more people than Republicans in the senate.
CaseyL
@glory b: So the problem is white people, which is not a surprise.
@chemiclord: So their lives are built on misery and spite, have been for generations, and they won’t break out of the cycle.
Well, crap.
NotMax
@Captain C
“Pay no attention to the grassroots ‘Murcans starting a Go Fund Me to afford an omelette at a diner in the heartland.”
//
BlueGuitarist
@glory b:
Thanks!!
Professor Bigfoot
@CaseyL: Depressing, ain’t it?
JMG
The American economy is very big, and it takes time for events to effect it, even big events like this bill or the covid disruption. But to say people won’t react to economic developments is to assume facts not in evidence. If somebody loses their job, or health insurance, or both, they’ll know it. If the nursing home where their surviving parent lives closes, they’ll know it. And even the dimmest, least informed, shortest memory voter knows who’s in charge now.
As for the stat that 10 percent of people do 50 percent of consumer spending, it depends on what that term means. Is housing included? Then sure. But 10 percent of the people cannot be buying 50 percent of the roughly 15 million cars and light trucks sold each year. That’s unpossible.
Professor Bigfoot
@craigie: I sincerely believe that for the majority of white people, this is an entirely subconscous desire, formed by literally decades— centuries— of propaganda fed them that says Black people are “lazy and shiftless” and anything they might have that’s more or bigger or better than ANY white man MUST be somehow illegitimate.
They don’t do any kind of introspection or self reflection about why they make the choices they do, they just… do.
trollhattan
@glory b:
Would not surprise me.
California gets one senator per 20,000,000 residents.
Wyoming gets one senator per 295,000 residents.
kindness
My assumption is that going forward Republicans will blame every closure & inconvenience on Democrats. I have no faith in the MSM. They will lead every story with Republicans say Democrats caused these closures. At best they’d bury the facts at the 20th paragraph. I have slightly more faith in the American people to know that is utter bullshit. They again, the American people have failed me too many times in national elections.
me
For fucks sake… White House to host UFC fight, Trump announces
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Well, this seems obvious to me. Many Republicans have convinced themselves that no one who really matters will be hurt by the Medicaid cuts because there are millions of undocumented people who don’t deserve it on the rolls, as well as millions of able-bodied people who refuse to work. None of this is true, but they sincerely believe it.
Gvg
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I do think a lot of people just do not see connections nor remember things well. A lot of things that seemed obvious to me as a child seemed to baffle or slip right by other children and adults. However I never understood physics when i encountered it later…now I deal with a lot of academic progress petitions at the college level, and a lot of testing the students turn in involves all the different ways memory works for different subjects and then reasoning using recall. It’s a complicated issue and people are not all alike. It’s not even a simple one dimensional measurement and all of the testers try to use at least 2 different tests then evaluate if the results were valid. Which is a long way of saying many people don’t reason and in most situations don’t find out they are wrong. School has regular tests on subject matter, but after school you don’t get a report on how you are doing except from the people around you, and if they are all doing the same opinion it’s possible to walk right off a cliff without any warning.
Geminid
@mappy!: I am curious: who was that downticket Democratic Representative who got the most votes?
bbleh
@chemiclord: yeah pretty much this unfortunately. Although I’d say they also think they’re not getting QUITE what they deserve because Those People and the Dems who support them are being GIVEN my HARD-EARNED TAX DOLLARS™ in HANDOUTS.
And they marinate constantly in a soup of this stuff, from the broadcast media they consume to the social media they use to their friends who think likewise.
Only thing that’s gonna change their minds is an all-out depression, and I’d really prefer that didn’t happen. Better just to write them off as potential converts and work to activate people who lean our way.
Baud
@Soprano2:
People believe what they want to believe.
CarolM
@Walker: I’m sure you’re right, but I just wonder what would happen if any left/liberal leaning groups did put some resources into ads throughout the year that would counter biased “news” reporting? Especially at times like this, where a potentially catastrophic bill just got passed but many people aren’t paying any attention and therefore have no clue what’s coming? I don’t see much of that at all and I think it needs to be tried out before we can say for sure if it ineffective. But I don’t watch TV and spend all my social media time on Bluesky so I may be unaware of any progressive outreach toward the mainstream media.
Soprano2
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think it’s dumb not to try.
glory b
@Hungry Joe: Again, I add to the list, “Dying of Whiteness” by Jonathan Metzl.
Which also answers the question of why so many blue collar voters switched to the Republican party.
opiejeanne
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I live in western Washington, King county just outside Seattle. We had our monthly quilt guild meeting last night, about 100 members showed up (half of the total membership but we’re on the smaller size: a nearby guild has more than 400 members) , and our guest speaker was the director of a program called KidVantage. They take requests from schools and churches and social workers for much-needed items like kids’ clothing, shoes and socks, diapers, baby formula, food, and even toys and books, and many more items that make life less stressful for children in poverty, their parents, pregnant moms with no support system, etc. They take donations of items as well as money, there are corporate partners who donate time and money (MicroSoft gives their employees $25/hour to volunteer). Our public service group donated 33 quilts to them last night, since quilting is our focus and she explained how handing a mother a quilt for her and her child, opens the door to conversations and trust.
At the end of the meeting a woman at the back of the room asked the Big Question: how will the Big Ugly Bill affect the work of this organization. The answer was that they are trying to get a handle on that, that the tariffs are already hurting the program (and every woman in that place nodded her head because almost all fabric is imported and the prices have risen), and she said for right now the only thing they can compare it to is when the Covid stimulus money ran out and their revenue was cut by 40%.
They do get discounts on some items, group of actresses started a charity that makes disposable diapers, but there is no discount on formula. The cost of a 3-day supply of powdered formula is at least $40 and the soy-based and other special formulas start at about $50 for the same amount, and that can size has been shrinking for years.
There were no men present last night until the end, picking up their wives (me included because I can’t drive yet with my broken right ankle), and I found it a little hard to talk about with my husband because I couldn’t remember the numbers of families helped, any of the numbers really, plus I was running the electronic part of the presentation (mostly clicking through to the next slide) and I was distracted.
Getting back to why I posted this to you, it was the mention in your post of how to talk to people about this. This woman, Helen Banks Routan, told us that when speaking to the people who are in the other camp, getting them to care is about putting the child first in the conversation as an individual, as a baby. This baby needs formula and diapers and her sister needs shoes and socks. You don’t talk in abstract numbers, 1200+ families helped is an abstract number, just like the numbers of people who will lose Medicaid is an abstract number. You need to humanize it, bring it down to a single child or two, not their parent(s), focus on the kid(s) in small numbers.
The pity is that this organization can’t reach into places like Sultan because they don’t have the resources and the schools there are full of children in need
If you are interested in reading about the program, it’s here: https://kidvantagenw.org/
Jay
one dozen rats at a keyboard
@panasonicdx4500.bsky.social
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“The New York Times collaborated with a white nationalist eugenicist hacker and agreed to keep his identity a secret to publish a Zohran Mamdani hit piece” is a way bigger story than “18 year old Zohran Mamdani ticked ‘African American’ on his Columbia application because he was a citizen of Uganda”
July 3, 2025 at 6:40 PM
Everybody can reply
8K reposts
277 quotes
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Librettist
Down market Democrats passed because their candidate got shivved.
The beatings will continue until that gets addressed.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
Or, more musically, a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
Ben Cisco
@glory b: Thank you for this.
Jay
One aspect of the OBBB that I have noticed we have not mentioned, is the effect of the SNAP cuts, downstream. We have mentioned the impact on Farmers, the impact on families, but,
Came across a thread this morning. Guy doing some research discovered that in 21 counties in Arizona, over 60 % of the residents rely on SNAP, (one county, 82%). He then looked those counties up on the maps of food deserts. The picture was not pretty.
So, he wondered, what happens to the 1,2, sometimes 3 grocery stores in a county, that are already dealing with food inflation, when a major source of revenue is gone?
opiejeanne
@Hungry Joe: About a month before the Pandemic was even glimpsed on the horizon we watched a documentary on Netflix about a tiny hospital in rural Oklahoma that was struggling mightily because they only had one doctor, they were lacking funds to maintain the equipment they had let alone replace any of it with better, newer tech, and the next nearest hospital was hours away. A week later was when YY-Sima Qian started talking about this mysterious illness late at night, well really late for anyone on the east coast, and late-ish even for the west coast jackals but some of us had insomnia.
WereBear
Don’t they say that when a nation turns 250, their frontal lobes finally engage?
opiejeanne
I first heard this song about Annie Moore in a tiny pub in Clonakilty, Ireland:
https://youtu.be/iUg7Bt8h8GU?si=wJQdooyEDP7dJjNI
opiejeanne
@Librettist: Which candidate was that? Are you talking about Biden? If so, let’s put the bulk of the blame on the media.
A lot of the rest can be chalked up to: I would vote for a woman for President, just not “that” woman, and it’s always going to be “just not that woman”.
Librettist
They are knocking the public and not-for-profit healthcare systems out of the box, and turning the sector over to private equity.
Enjoy your Amazon AI PCP, fellow citizens.
All hail Bezos!
opiejeanne
@Librettist: Welcome to the Catholic church-owned systems of hospitals.
different-church-lady
LAWLER: “Dems are putting out numbers they’re making up out of thin air”
[31,999 of his constituents lose healthcare]
LAWLER: “SEE? I TOLD YOU THEY WERE LYING!”
different-church-lady
@Librettist: Right in the tycoon’s face.
chemiclord
@CaseyL: They themselves won’t break out of it, no. They have been indoctrinated to their way of life since quite literally the birth of the nation.
But there are two reasons to not give up hope.
1) We already outnumber them, and fairly handily. If everybody showed up, and committed simply to find the best possible way forward every single time, the left would win quite literally every single time.
2) Their way of life is barely sustaining their numbers. Each generation, their percentage of the whole is dwindling. It’s why they are so desperate to cling to power and entrench themselves… because they see the writing on the wall. A continued democracy is the death of their movement. There will always be “conservatives,” but their particular flavor of conservatism is approaching the brink.
It is a twisted alchemy of shamelessness on their part, and a combination of impatience and reticence on ours, that keeps opening the door for them to take power.
different-church-lady
@Jay: Pretty sure the NYTs employs more than one dozen.
different-church-lady
WaPo:
THEY’RE NOT DOING THIS BECAUSE THEY THINK IT’S POPULAR, YOU DUMB TOOLS. THEY’RE DOING IT BECAUSE THEY LIKE TO HURT PEOPLE.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@schrodingers_cat: I love ❤️ looking at your art, but opening up X makes me nauseous. (I did it anyway to see your Maine beach scene). Would it be possible for you to post in Instagram or Bluesky? But anyway, thanks for posting.
mappy!
@Geminid: Two Sub Joe.
TONYG
Mike Lawler, representing the southernmost chunks of “upstate New York”. I worked in an IBM office in that part of the state for a couple of years about a decade ago. There’s apparently a phenomenon in New York State in which the parts of the state that are north of Westchester County magically transform into Alabama. Lawler’s constituents will happily suffer and even die as long as they’re convinced that blacks and Latinos are suffering more.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@opiejeanne:
Thanks for the link, the thoughtful comments and first hand experience.
Another angle on this is attempting such dialogue woman-on-woman. Keep us menfolk the hell outta the picture on both sides of the proverbial aisle.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@TONYG:
I’m sure you’ve seen the references here, many many times, to that area of PA between Pittsburgh and Philly called ‘Pennsyltucky’.
Ah, the good ole urban/rural divide. This is a useful graph on that writ large:
https://x.com/keithdorejel/status/1889351561207312437
Ksmiami
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’m no longer polite. Out of fucks to give. Plus I’m white and I can shame people
RevRick
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Actually, it’s just the same mindset of the Appalachian arc. You find it in the Northern reaches of New Hampshire and Maine.
BlueGuitarist
@glory b:
i think that the current
47 Dem caucusing senator (including King (ME) and Sanders (VT)
represent about 24 million more people than the 53 R senators based on 2024 population estimates, or 28 million more based on 2020 census or apportionment population.
(DC really should have Senators and voting representative)
Jay
@Librettist:
@opiejeanne:
This will also impact For Profit Hospitals and the Catholic Hospitals, also Hospitals in Blue Cities, if the patient stays alive long enough to make it there.
Remember the good old days before the ACA when For Profit Hospitals would either turn away the ambulances carrying the uninsured, or bribe the drivers, and have them take the patient to a Public or Non Profit Hospital hours away?
Well, they can’t do that anymore.
a) Laws were passed.
b) There won’t be a Public or Non Profit Hospital with in 3 counties.
So, what happens with the uninsured?
What ever Hospital/Clinic they arrive at, by law, must diagnose and stabilize them.
So, who pays for that? Everybody who is still insured, either through higher insurance premiums, or higher treatment costs.
Then, what happens to the stabilized and diagnosed uninsured?
Well, the ambulatory will be kicked out of their beds in the ICU and ER, back out onto the streets. That won’t be pretty.
The non ambulatory, well, in the beginning, they will be transferred to an Extended Care home where they will be kept stabilized until they pass. Once the Extended Care Homes are full, then they will continue to occupy ER and ICU beds, until again, they pass.
I expect some Hospitals will apply the same changes, for a while, that they did during Covid. They moved low care Recovery Patients out to Old Age Homes and Extended Care Facilities, and turned entire wards into “Covid” wards. When they ran out of beds in the Old Age Homes and Extended Care Facilities, they started stacking up non-Covid Patients in the hallways and tents in the parking lots.
The big difference between now and then, particular to the US For Profit Medical system, is that Covid patients either got better, because they were treated, or they passed, freeing up a bed. And as Covid dropped and the new variants were less deadly for many, the crisis passed.
However, the non-Ambulatory, are not going to be treated, many won’t be able to be treated, just stabilized. So they won’t be freeing up that bed until they pass, which for quite a few, will be decades from now. And of course, there will be a constant intake of new “patients”.
Eyeroller
@Steve LaBonne: In the US, and I’d assume this may be true to at least some extent in other countries, a major correlation here is with education. People with higher educational attainment generally earn more. There is a reasonably well-established body of psychological research indicating that conservatives tend pretty strongly to be concrete thinkers. Something like 85% of the human population thinks concretely and can’t do or have trouble with abstract, analytical thinking. Leftism is generally associated with interest in abstract policies (“wonkiness”) and analysis of outcomes. Education seems to be required for those thinking modes to be ingrained.
cain
They were fed up with the British raising taxes to pay for the war between colonists and the french when British govt were already broke fighting the french elsewhere. The colonists asked the British govt to help them and so they did. They wanted to recoup some of the losses. It’s kind of funny that led to an insurrection because they didn’t want to help pay for it.
Project 1776 was all about “fuck you, we won’t pay!”
BlueGuitarist
@TONYG:
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Harris narrowly carried Lawler’s district (+.6), Biden carried the district by 10 points.
Geminid
@mappy!: I guess that narrows it down some. Does Rep. Two Sub Joe have another name he goes by?
Steve LaBonne
@cain: Along with slavery and genocide, wanting services and not wanting to pay for them is a through-line of American history.
Geminid
@BlueGuitarist: Lawler may run for New York Governor next year instead of defending NY17; I guess on the principle of if you’re gonna fail, fail upwards.
At least, Westchester Democrat Tom Watson (guitarwatson.bsky.social) has talked about this possibillity.
mrmoshpotato
Also Fuck The GOP Friday, but that every Friday, and every day ending in -day.
RevRick
In my opinion, today’s Democrats are the spiritual descendants of the Puritans who settled Massachusetts Bay Colony. Don’t believe me? Well, would you find yourself nodding your head in general agreement to the following proposition about a good society?
“For this end, we must knit together as one…; we must hold each other in brotherly (sic) affection; we must be willing to rid ourselves of our excesses to supply others’ necessities; we must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberality. We must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own , and rejoice together,mourn together , labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and common work….” John Winthrop 1630
I’m pretty sure those aspirations resonate with most of us here. Not necessarily in all particulars, but definitely on the whole.
Ohio Mom
@Princess: I was counting on a deep downtown to flip the House, at the very least. Also, if I am going to be impoverished, I want lots of company.
TONYG
@BlueGuitarist: Ha. So I guess that Lawler figures that it’s a good strategy to loudly support a president who is very unpopular in his own district. Some of these guys never learned arithmetic in second grade.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I think she makes a great point. Thanks for the link.
Jay
On the good news side, the Vice-President of Transneft, ruZZias pipeline owner/operator, Andrej Badalov “committed suicide, jumped, fell, was pushed, was thrown out of”, from the 17th floor of the high rise building he lived in.
Funny thing though, Andrej Badalov lived on the 10th floor of the building.
TONYG
@Jay: Well, there also be the option that if the patient is non-“white” then armed, masked men in “tactical gear” (who might or might not be ICE) will show up at the hospital to take the patient away. The patient will then be transported to a gulag in South Sudan (or just quietly killed). For the time being the guys dressed up as ICE are at least pretending that they’re going after only undocumented immigrants, but soon that fig leaf will be removed. Once there is no more rule of law, the armed men can do whatever they want. I wish I was kidding.
MrPug
As a big critic of Democratic leadership, very much Jeffries, I do like to give credit when it is due and this speech, what I’ve heard of it, was very good.
Ohio Mom
@eclare: Good on you for taking care of yourself.
I sometimes wonder if I wouldn’t be better friends with my cousin who lives in Louisville — a mere 90 minute drive away and my geographically closest extended family member — if her husband wasn’t the right-wing ninkenpoop he is.
WTFGhost
“So, Ghost,” no one asks, “you should be feeling real, existential, despair, what with your entire life depending on justice, and you’ve just seen that much of the country would wipe their butts with ‘justice’ if they could find a handful to use. Why aren’t you depressed right now?”
Simple. I *am* depressed right now. I have all the symptoms – that’s “Major Depression” right there. We don’t mope all the time.
Okay, but, why am I not letting the horrors of what just happened touch my soul?
Simple, again: I say “oh, no, you don’t, you can’t *have* my soul! Now, you’re messing with a SON OF A BITCH, y’hear?” (Those of you who have heard the song “Hair of the Dog” understand that reference.)
I know I should be scared, worried, and anxious, but, right now, while the wound is fresh, I can take the adrenaline, and I can forge it into a sword and a shield, and let anger flush those things away.
I am being, in fact, completely irrational… but in a way that allows me to control the direction of my irrationality.
It helps that I wrote a parody song yesterday, so I also have something to laugh at, in my own mind.
Now, someday, maybe even today, I’ll tire out, and I’ll fall into quiet anger, frustration, grief, anxiety, etc., but, this is a war, and I won’t show my injury in the face of the enemy, unless forced. Part of me remembers CS Lewis’ advice, “don’t scold like a school girl! Soft words and hard knocks are the only voices for a fighter,” and then, I imagine I’m about to run roughshod over a few of them, to deliver some hard knocks.
I’d advise you to consider similar things. I sincerely believe we’ve been in a cold civil war since at least 9/11/2001, and I would argue, since 1994, when Newt Gingrich put out a memo saying “lie about the Democrats, all the time, just use NASTY words to describe them; praise Republicans all the time, using *POWERFUL* words to describe them.
At that point, the Senate locked down all legislation – the first time that I remember a purely partisan action, taken to harm the United States, in the hopes of advancing a political party’s interests, not the interests of the American people. That’s the first step: “we won’t let *you* do anything, but when we have power, we’ll do *everything.*”
Someone said, paraphrased, in a democracy, this is sometimes called “tolerance”, where you consider it okay to lose an election. The Republican Party, the Grumpy Old Peckerheads, stopped having “tolerance” as of that moment. (end paraphrase.)
A lack of tolerance is the presence of corruption – it must be. Now, obviously, if the DemocratIC party (if you doesn’t know the name, keeps it outta ya mouth, asshole!) was horribly corrupt, there would be a reason to take such “intolerant” actions, right?
Except – when people say “let’s pretend the Democrat [sic] Party is totally corrupt!” they forget they’re playing. They just slip into character, without realizing they’ve been lying all this time. It’s like, they need to be drunk as a skunk, get a small hit of E, go down stairs to pee, feeling like a god, and then, suddenly, realize you’ve pissed all your honor away, like the noxious sewage stream flowing from in you, to outside.
I think that’s when “Leon” Musk hits the vitamin K, to dissociate before that stuff starts to stick. Whaddaya think, amiright?
They think they’re in some kind of game, and, like, “maybe God will intervene before we do anything too, too, too, stupid,” but, it’s too late, they’ve been hate-filled for over a decade now, so much so that they bent over backward to do anything for someone who would speak as hatefully as possible about Democrats, as if Democrats were evil, villainous horrors, and not the friends and neighbors, the people that you meet, when you’re walking down the street, they’re the people that you meet, each daaaaay.
(Sorry, I sometimes channel Mr. Rogers. I wish it was Mr. Steve Rogers, not Mr. Fred Rogers, but, the spirits do their picking, and, generally pick real people.)
The very least we need to do is, metaphorically speaking, knock these smirking, smug, chuckleheads down on the floor, then given a right good kicking. Metaphorically speaking. Does anyone know any Mac Nac Feegle? I could have a job for them. Metaphorically speaking, I mean.
Where was I? right, it’s a CIVIL WAR. They don’t think Democrats deserve to have power, even if they win. They will punish good Democrats and Republicans for doing their jobs honorable, and, they’re using the cops and the DoJ to attack their enemies. This is a state of war, where your Democratic life is worthless, the moment it offends the powers that be, in a way they can smack down.
It’s not a hot, shooting, war, but remember, krybaby killer kyle decided it was, and scored a mill in wingnut welfare, for murdering two people, and maiming a third.
So it is a real war. They won’t shoot us on the street as we walk down Fifth Avenue, yet. They’ll wait until we take a walk on Baby Ruth or something.
I’m sorry – puns and literalisms are one of my defense mechanisms.
I accept that, with all its ramifications, including “it’s not okay to be Republican. It just isn’t, I’m sorry, they’re all bad people, whose elected officials kill people, all to throw big bucks at billionaire hedge fund owners, and Super-PAC funders, and other rich ne’er do wells.”
So someday soon, I’ll collapse under the weight, and feel bad. That’s like the weather, it happens, and you hunker, you shelter, and, even if it sucks, YOU CARE FOR YOU. Don’t remember if you showered yesterday or today? Take a shower, even if you have to scold/threaten to spank, your inner child to do so. Eat food – nourishing food, find a bagged salad or something. Drink a lot. Make sure most of it is *NON*-alcoholic :-). And then, when your tears are dried and you’re ready to put warrior-face back to the world, go out on display again.
“It was a big, bad, fugly bill
“baddest thing from the Capitol Hill
“Badder than a disco da-ance
“And mean as VonSchitzen-pants!”
My thoughts on the matter, for what they’re worth, and a bargain at *half* the price!
mappy!
@Geminid: You count the yes votes. If you don’t have them, you go around… till you get them. Patience. Persistence.
Two Sub Joe
sab
@Geminid: Google says he’s Joe Courtney, CN 2d.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@JMG: I assume they are talking about total spending; i.e. one billionare buying a mega yacht is spending a whole lot more money than thousands of people buying a car or house.
ruemara
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: They’re not wrong. A big part of why I got my communications job was explaining that you keep framing things as some altruistic bullshit when people are insensitive selfish jerks and you need to tell them what will affect them.
Jay
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
You forgot to tag in Princess.
Allegorical story.
Malcolm Maxwell started building small sailboats (14- 26 feet) and runabouts, (16-18 ft) in the mid 70″s. Made great, affordable products for the middle class, starting at $5k running to $26k went bankrupt in the early 80’s.
In the late 80’s, Malcolm got some new backers, opened up a new production facility, making popular 35-50′ Powerboats and Cabin cruisers for the top of the Middle Class and single digit Millionaires, running from $75k to $150k. He went bankrupt again in the mid-90’s.
A few years later, more new backers and the launch of Queenship. 75′ to 200′ luxury semi custom Yachts for the 100 millionaire and Billionaire class. Starting at $1.5 million, running up to $40 million. Employed a crew of 150 and 130 subcontractors. Wound up with a 5 year backlog of orders.
Did so well, that in the mid ‘Aughts, Queenship was bought out by a Dubai Investment Corporation, who moved everything to The Netherlands and renamed the company.
They make custom yachts from 200′ to 500’, starting at $80 million and so far, up to $450 million. They have a 3 year waiting list.
Matt McIrvin
@different-church-lady: The anti-immigrant line genuinely worked in 2024. A majority of Americans *wanted* mass deportation– polls consistently showed that. It’s just that they don’t like the reality of it because what they imagined was a fantasy based on lies. There are not, in fact, tens of millions of violent criminal aliens in America–so to make those numbers, they have to commit atrocities.
opiejeanne
@Jay: I referenced Catholic run hospitals because of the implications for women’s health.
Geminid
@mappy!: Thanks. I thought it might be Connecticut. Your state and Virginia are the only two where submarines are built now, and we don’t have any “Joes” in our House delegation.
There’s a “Jen” whose district neighbors the big shipyard in Newport News, but that’s Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans (VA02). My Congressman is a “Gene,” freshman Rep. Eugene Vindman (VA07).
@sab:
Jay
@Matt McIrvin:
based on the high end estimates of undocumented immigrants in the US, (12.3 million), and the know crime rate for undocumented immigrants, (1.2%), that’s 147,600 criminal undocumented immigrants at worst.
That’s a little different from the MAGgot claims of 65 million criminal undocumented immigrants.
Jay
@opiejeanne:
The Medicaid cuts and fallout are going to utterly trash everybody but the Billionaires health care.
The Planned Parenthood cuts are going to trash women’s health care, even in the Bluest of Blue States.
And Brainworm’s gutting of the NIH is already killing all medical research that isn’t only about rich white men’s problems.
Pretty soon, the only “recommended and approved” prescription drugs will be prostate pills and Viagra.
chemiclord
@Matt McIrvin: Well, here’s the thing. They didn’t have to hit those numbers. These are people perfectly fine with lying. They could have simply told news outlets, “Oh yeah, we totally deported [x] criminals this week,” the media would have published it uncritically, and Democrats would have looked like crime apologists if they ever tried to question the numbers.
But they get off on the cruelty, and so do their voters. They needed to see the physical bodies being stuffed into crates and sent to prison camps. That’s why we’re here, with a small number of people crying that it shouldn’t have been their faces getting eaten.
WTFGhost
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): That is, technically, consumer spending. And, you might be right.
Now, that said, I’m happy to see a spendthrift billionaire. If Musk was burning a couple-three billion a year, that would be good for the economy. I mean, I’d feel like, if we had a 1% Market Value tax on people who owned more than 1 billion dollars in assets, I’d be okay saying “but if they spend 10 million – 1% – maybe we’d let them deduct that from the wealth tax.”
So someone with a 100 billion dollar net worth could spend a billion a year on anything – who cares? – they don’t have to pay a wealth tax. Maybe they’d buy big yachts, to go with their micropenes. (I was told that’s the correct Latin suffix, and it confuses the eff out of censors!) Who cares? That’s a lot of jobs, building yachts, showing up, learning a trade, and getting better at it. It’s not sinecure work, so it’s a good learning job, even if it’s not a good career, because next year billionaires will flock to artworks.
But you need to back it with guarantees that people get *paid*. Over a Mahablog, I mentioned that while discussing health care policy. Nursing services are often considered something that’s easy to cut. Why? Well, if you’re overbooked as a nurse, no one cares. The nurse must see to all patients, or be properly relieved of that duty, or lose her license. So, forced overtime, understaffing, etc., are all de rigueur.
Okay, so, if we want the Medical Industrial Complex to work, we have to make sure they have to allocate enough money, for enough nurses, for the number of patients, with no expectation of overtime. Same for other non-MD providers.
THEN you can let Medicare and Medicaid bargain, to suck excess profits out of the system, without raining crap down on the heads of non-MD providers. (In a hospital setting, doctors are considered God. Old joke: the difference between God and a doctor, is, God doesn’t go around thinking “I’m a *DOCTOR*!!!”)
You’ll suck excess profits out of pharm, and the extra yacht out of doctors, but, by paying PAs and RNs and so forth, and paying them well, the free market will fill our needs.
Well… same thing with ordinary, non-healthcare, workers. If billionaires are spending, and creating jobs, and those jobs have to have a livable wage and benefits (government or private industry provided), then that really is a good thing.
Jay
@WTFGhost:
Little problem with spend thrift Multi Billionaires.
Other than New Mansions and Private jets, they don’t buy much of anything the US makes. They buy some stuff imported and sold in the US.
That $1.3 million dollar watch, Swiss.
That new and blingier yacht, German, Dutch, Italian or Singaporean.
That new status car, German, British or Italian. The closest they come to “buying American” in this category, is restored US Vintage Muscle Cars, but that antique Bugatti, French, that Silver Shadow, British, that Mercedes Gullwing, German, that Ferrari 250GT, Italian.
That new suit, Britain, Italy or France. Wife’s new wardrobe and accessories, French or Italian. Shoes, Italian. Top Hat, British. Monocle, British, Cane, Italian.
That $15,000 wine, French, that $40 steak, Japan, that $75 dollar Ahi Tuna, Japan, the $30 worth of Truffles, France or Italy, the Caviar, ruZZia, the cheese, French, the apertif’s, France or Belgium, the chocolate, Swiss or German.
Even when they vacation, it’s not Amerocentric. Sure, they might have a house in Miami, and one in the Hamptons and a “ranch” in Colorado, but when it’s a big “Holiday” an “event” Holiday, it’s Venice, Vienna, Paris, the Cote d’Azure, Bali, etc. It’s not Scranton or Memphis.
Citizen Scientist
@schrodingers_cat: nice work!
WTFGhost
@Jay: Well, I know, but, the point is, all of that is *trade* and it does matter. I don’t mean they shouldn’t pay *income tax* on their salaries, dividends, and capital gains; I just mean, if we had a *wealth* tax, and they spent enough, domestically, we might let them deduct some part of their domestic spending – possibly all of it, though it’s hard to *spend* that much! – since they’d be creating economic growth that wouldn’t happen otherwise.
Now, one thing is, you’re right: they want a $50k Rolex, they know someone in Switzerland who can bring them one at lowest possible tariff rates, so, they might not be buying from a US jeweler (or whoever sells fine timepieces), and they consider that form of “cheating” to be “being smart” like Trump thinks, about paying minimal taxes.
Well, if we allow them any deduction, it would be for local spending, so, at least, they’re paying a watchmaker/jeweler for an imported watch, which means more cash flow through the economy, and, might help undo the need for a wealth tax, which is the only reason high ticket consumer spending would ever be deductible.
NobodySpecial
One thing I’ve paid attention to over the last couple of decades is how the way the parties approach elections has completely flipped lately. It used to be that Democrats did well in Presidential years and routinely got slaughtered in off-year elections because the GOP was so great at driving turnout in off years and Dems didn’t bother much.
The last decade or so, that’s flipped. Dems keep outperforming every off year and special election, and the only reason Republicans have held on is because they have had a literal cult leader the last 10 years. Even then they’ve lost a lot and are barely hanging on. 2026 is going to be another blue wave. 2028, their cult leader either will be dead or unable to run, but he also has no juice to push anyone else over the line.
I take hope in the fact that this is the worst they can do, and it’s all downhill for them from here if we do our part.
Matt McIrvin
Not convinced of any of this. Feels different this time. Like voting, laws, the Constitution and even death aren’t going to matter.
2liberal
I once did a research project about the Senate and found 17% of Americans elect 52 US Senators.
opiejeanne
@Jay: You’e missing my point. The Catholic church has been buying up hospitals for the past 20+ years, and they won’t let those go under and they have the means to snatch up a lot more. So, if the majority of hospitals left are operated by the Catholic church, regardless of how much the cost of health care rises, WOMEN will not get proper reproductive health care if their only choice is a Catholic hospital.
WTFGhost
@opiejeanne: See, and, basically, that’s what made me realize I had to be “pro-choice” as much as I personally didn’t like abortion.
At the earliest stage, where abortion foes want to argue, you have a single cell. If it’s not microscopic, you need good eyes to even tell it’s there!
Can I say “destroying that one cell – okay, 2, 4, 8, 16, undifferentiated cells, is death of a human, or, something that offends my sense of what is right?” If I couldn’t “prove” it was death of a human, then… what other crime could it be, that allows the government to invade our privacy in such an intimate manner, especially, given how ugly and tragic pregnancy can be?
Bam… I had to be “I might hate your choice, but, you must be the one who makes it!” pro-choicer. Unlike our Chief SCROTUS, I understand why “viability” is a big, bright, line, because it’s friggin’ obvious, innit? Before then, you didn’t have a living baby who could survive; after, you did. WTF makes it hard to see this as a bright, flashing “something has changed” light? How stupid would you have to be, how much would you have to be colon-blinded to fail to see that, if you were an actual, graduated, passed the bar, *LAWYER*. Or “Law… talking… guy,” which seems more appropriate. Alas, “justice” will always be a hilarious mockery of reality for Roberts.
Also, he wears nothing but rubber panties under his robes.
Steve Paradis
“Nice little lady you got there. Shame if ICE came by and picked her up.”
Kayla Rudbek
@JMG: how many cars do the rental companies buy each year?
Nora
@TONYG:
I live in Lawler’s district. Two things: one, he will lie to your face, and so will his staff, without hesitation. Every accusation . . .
Two, when he was re-elected in 2024, the parts of his district which were in Westchester voted soundly against him. It was only because the district has been drawn to include parts of Rockland and Orange counties that he was able to win at all.