Saddest Fourth of July weekend ever!
Time to pick ourselves up and get back in the game.
I love this older fellow wearing old guy pants.
Cole sounded sicker than a dog today, so I don’t know that we’ll see a nighttime post from him. Looks like he started one about 3 hours ago and either got distracted or went back to bed.
Totally open thread!
War for Ukraine Day 1,128: The Cost
Lapassionara
Fired up, ready to go!
WaterGirl
“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
~ Mark Twain
WaterGirl
@Lapassionara: I have that red t-shirt from 2007-08! Got it in Iowa when I was working for the campaign before the Iowa caucus.
They Call Me Noni
How serious should we be taking Elon Musk’s threat of starting a third party? Seems to me that’s a pretty hefty lift. He’s got plenty of money to throw at it but dies he even know where/how to start? Does he have a cadre of people to guide and advise him in this endeavor? My gut tells me he’s just blowing off steam but who knows.
WaterGirl
@Lapassionara:
Lapassionara
@WaterGirl: you rock, WaterGirl. We are fired up and ready to go, and you are the best!
WaterGirl
@They Call Me Noni: It almost sounds like you are concerned that he might actually do it?
At first blush, it seems to me that it could only be a good thing if he spends his zillions of dollars taking voters away from Republicans candidates.
Lapassionara
@WaterGirl: I love this story!
Suzanne
Got home earlier today from a few days of PTO. I actually got to read a book. An entire book. (Parents of littles get how exciting this is.) Anyway, feeling somewhat replenished and ready to go.
Jackie
WaterGirl, the gentleman in the photo is 102 years old! He’s flattered you called him “an older fellow!” That could have been my dad sitting on his walker seat holding that sign.
We have to keep fighting for him and ALL Veterans who fought against fascism.
WTFGhost
We need a meme, where John Roberts appears to be saying “he who comes to buy equity must come with green hands.”
(The actual legal principle is, “he who comes before equity must come with *clean* hands.” The SCOTUS scoffed at that principle in some of its recent decisions.)
WaterGirl
@Lapassionara:
I remember when the “fired up” lady in her church hat showed up on the scene.
You stirred up some memories with your fired up comment. Now I’m remembering being in Colorado for 18 days before their caucus in Jan 2008, and getting the news that Ted Kennedy had endorsed Obama.
All of us gathered around a computer watching the endorsement. Elated!
In Iowa they had us in pairs, just 2 people assigned to each precinct, so the people saw the same two people traipsing around in the cold and snow, day after day.
In Colorado, I worked inside, and I remember my first moments at the computer wondering what “Go TV” was.
Scout211
My gut tells me he needs some extra attention and adulation right now and his big idea of starting a new political party will morph into something else, a new big idea that gains him an another dose of attention.
Melancholy Jaques
@WTFGhost:
“He who seeks relief must come with clean hands” was written in large block letters on the inside of the door to a stall in a men’s room at my law school.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: When my dad was still alive, we had one department store in this college town where I could go to buy the “old guy” stuff my dad wanted.
Old guy pants, old guy socks, etc. There was a bunch of old guy stuff that was hard to find, but it’s been so long I can’t recall what they all were.
My dad has been gone for 30 years.
BlueGuitarist
WG: You’re the best.
As Another Scott would say: made me look.
Mr. Ray Carter, Beaufort, NC, No Kings, June 14.
(Pacific theater veteran, Okinawa,)
https://www.facebook.com/didyoucatchthis/posts/at-102-wwii-veteran-ray-carter-joins-no-kings-protest-to-fight-fascism-once-agai/688284337307206/
WaterGirl
@Melancholy Jaques: That’s funny.
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist: Was it you who sent me a bunch of protest pictures, of which this is one?
I just uploaded 10 or so to the media library and I’ll be posting them one at a time. I stumbled on them today when I was search for a different file on my laptop. :-)
WaterGirl
@BlueGuitarist:
My dad served in Okinawa. I wonder if they knew one another?
(No idea whether there were hundreds or thousands serving over there.)
BlueGuitarist
@WaterGirl:
I sent a few but this wasn’t one of them.
Betty Cracker
Your headline says it all. We know what Trump and his cult of personality want: a right-wing kleptocracy that is incompetently run according to the whims of one malignant narcissist. Do we consent to that? As a people who aspire to be free, is that okay? Fuck. No. So we fight back. No other choice.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: Totally agree. We have to hold the line. Just like the cops on Jan 6; we have no other choice but to try to hold the line.
Old Man Shadow
Last vacation, I got sharp abdominal pain two days in. Then sepsis. Then a week long hospital stay, surgery, and lots of fun stuff.
That was May…
This weekend, I got aching neck and lower back pain, mild headaches, and fever spikes from 101 – 103.5.
Is there a god of leisure time I might have offended? Is it Bacchus? Does Bacchus get offended? Can I make a sacrifice of a nice glass of chianti to win back his favor?
russell
Hey, wait, those are old guy pants?
Gvg
@Scout211: what’s important is if he DOESN’T give tons of money to republicans in the next go round. He did this time and I think it did help them. I don’t think he knows what he is doing, but somebody will want his money and try to manipulate him. The more splits another grifters the better. They were too united last time.
I really want the money people to get hurt by the religious people badly. Also th real business people to get hurt by the false economic theories of bullshit that republicans have latched onto for decades now and think are conventional wisdom. People need to stop tolerating flakes and helping others respect expertise.
More feuds among the enemy please, even if they don’t make sense to me.
it’s not like Musk can switch to Democrat. Evidently even he isn’t stupid enough to think we would welcome him now. Although maybe he paid a few people to write things to see if we would respond positively? I seem to remember a couple of stories and some pols saying a few nice things, but the public just wouldn’t go along so it got dropped.
I think he doesn’t have any choice but to make noises about a third party for his prides sake.
WaterGirl
@Old Man Shadow: Holy shit, I’m so sorry about all of that.
WaterGirl
@russell: Yep!
Like George Washington, I cannot tell a lie.
jackmac
My 26-year-old daughter — usually the upbeat and optimistic one — said she just couldn’t celebrate the Fourth in the wake of all that has happened. It made me sad and I really had no response to try to lift her spirits.
Jackie
@BlueGuitarist: Yikes! I love this FB post about Mr Ray Carter, and caught myself making less than complementary comments at certain individuals. My FB replies are going to be ugly, but I had to defend Mr Carter from some of the scum who would gladly claim bone spurs if our military draft was still active.
BlueGuitarist
@Betty Cracker:
2 approaches to the lavender lemonade cocktail:
https://mymillennialkitchen.com/lavender-lemonade-cocktail/
https://food52.com/recipes/87627-best-vodka-lemonade-recipe
BellyCat
This (white) man’s sign MADE MY DAY. Worth studying closely beyond his (amazing) age: the word “again” is in rainbow colors.
When you are 102 years old, no choice is not well considered.
This man’s fervor reignited my candle!
H.E.Wolf
In the words of Eleanor of Aquitaine – in the play and subsequent film, “The Lion in Winter” – when she is facing a possibly unwinnable battle:
“What would you have me do? Give out? Give up? Give in?”
And of course, her answer is: None of the above.
Me neither.
Omnes Omnibus
There is a Jewish saying, maybe from the Talmud, that fits here: It is not up to you to finish the work, but you are not free to abandon it.
mayim
@WaterGirl:
When we cleaned out my father’s condo after he died, we found 17 green striped shirts <all but one had vertical stripes>. Long sleeve, short sleeve, heavy almost flannel, lightweight fine cotton ~ I didn’t know that many variations existed.
Wearing one of the green striped shirts at the NYS Sheep & Wool show <Rhinebeck>, taking photos while I inhaled fiber fumes.
WaterGirl
@mayim: he had good taste! I like the blue in there, too.
Timill
@mayim: Glad to see your GFM finally made goal…
Albatrossity
What’s not to like about any of these possibilities? The only downside would be a world shortage of popcorn!
WaterGirl
@Albatrossity: great perspective!
frosty
Thank you for all of these posts, WG. I love the protest picture you picked.
mayim
@Timill:
I was very happy to see the goal made. Guessing Scout, my goofball kitty, will be less happy, as he’s going to the vet out of it ;-)
I tried to keep the goal down to the immediate crisis ~ and I’m so grateful that people were so generous! I figured I’d be happy if I managed even 35% of the goal ~ so reaching it was absolutely and wonderfully amazing! I’m still way too stressed over life but now able to breathe enough to try to figure everything else out.
frosty
That’s the way to do it. I 2004 they told us to keep knocking the same doors up and down the streets to flush voters for Kerry. I thought that was ridiculous and started keeping track of who already voted and how on a piece of paper. Pre MiniVan.
LOL we all started somewhere!
Captain C
@They Call Me Noni: I suspect some of the usual Third Way, performative and/or reactionary centrist grifters will be happy to
take his moneyhelp.BlueGuitarist
@Jackie:
I’ve never had a Facebook account….
good for you for speaking the truth
Mai Naem mobile
I have to wonder if the Texas flood deaths are going to be laid at fElon’s door since he was in charge of DOGE. I’m just wondering how Abbott and his pals would deal with this…blame tfg or fElon being that rElon provides a lot of jobs in Texas but tfg intimidates all the GOP.
H.E.Wolf
@Omnes Omnibus:
Yes. Amen.
WaterGirl
@frosty: we had voter cards in Iowa. Marked as a 1 if they were definitely going to vote and vote for Obama. They were a two if they thought they would vote for Obama., etc.
Yeah, I felt pretty stupid about the go TV thing. Just goes to show we should never assume that people know things they might not know.
Splitting Image
@They Call Me Noni:
I’m sure that Musk will have no trouble finding a cadre of people to guide and advise him in this endeavour. Most will advise him to set up a large slush fund and put a trustworthy advisor in charge of it.
On the other hand, if any of his advisors are worth the money he’s paying them, they’ll advise him not to start a third party. I would rather see him waste a few billion before he finds that out.
rk
@WaterGirl:
I wouldn’t be too sure of that. Democratic voters are a fickle bunch and can never be really counted on, even to show up. A whole lot of Democrats who voted for Biden did not vote for Kamala or did not show up. The percentages for Kamla in the blue states went down significantly compared to Biden.
Anything can happen with a third party. In a country that elected Trump twice anything stupid is possible.
Archon
@Scout211: I do think it’s possible that Musk legitimately feels betrayed by Trump and the Republicans. This is a guy that literally blew up his brand to save a few billion in DOGE only to have Republicans add trillions to the national debt? And take away EV credits while doing it.
He got played and superrich people have the time, money, energy and ruthlessness to get even.
Martin
@Scout211: Yeah, that’s my sense too. I think the problem Democrats are having is that they lost a lot of their tech billionaires this election and are trying to figure out how to win them back, because they believe they need the money. And I think Democrats should go to war with those tech billionaires instead, because they are unreliable and pull Democrats off of popular positions and generally voters hate them.
The GOP is to some degree a turf war between old billionaires and new – the industrialists and inheritors vs the tech bros now that the tech bros have largely abandoned the Democrats (which was inevitable). So I don’t know who Musk picks up in this fight – my guess is nobody since the new money is in charge and I don’t see they abandoning Vance for Musk, and I don’t see the old money supporting Democrats, and god help us if Democrats try to court them.
NotMax
Well, it’s tough to top the excitement of that military parade in June.
//
Nettoyeur
@They Call Me Noni: Ross Perot was a rich businessman who ran a 3rd party in 1992, with a lot of the gripes about spending that Musk has. He got enough GOP votes to throw the election to Clinton.
Chetan Murthy
@Archon: I don’t pay much attention to his antics: the only time Isee anything about him, is when it shows up here or at LG&M. Last I checked, he was threatening to run candidates in G(r)OP primaries. I guess, now that he’s gonna start a new -party-, he’ll be competing in the general election? Huh, that’d be pretty amusing, I’m so a-skeered Elon, so a-skeered, Mr. Musk, please don’t do that, I’d be really, really frightened!
Martin
@Archon: Yeah. But if he didn’t see this coming he’s even dumber than I thought. The whole appeal of Trump is that he has no policy attachments. He is the most openly transactional person imaginable and will basically implement whatever policy comes from people who give him adulation. That’s a target rich environment for grifters like Musk – he gets to do the presidential things of his dreams just by handing over some cash and praise. The problem is he’s not the only one vying for Trumps attention. He is by far the richest one, but he’s also not very good at being a suck-up. He’s got his own ego to stroke. He’s no Stephen Miller in that regard who understands the assignment very well.
Kayla Rudbek
@They Call Me Noni: if it works as badly as SpaceX or the Boring Loop company or self-driving Teslas, that would be a good thing (apparently Musk’s companies work better when there’s a buffer between him and the actual decision making)
Archon
@Martin: No way Elon saw this coming. You also have to factor in the idea that he is absolutely convinced Republicans would have lost Congress and the Presidential election would have been a coin flip without his hundreds of millions of dollars tipping the scales. He thought he would have a free hand to remake government as basically co-President, instead he’s unceremoniously dumped then his DOGE cuts are made a mockery of with the BBB? All this while the brand hit he took has Tesla on the cusp of imploding?
Fool or not for being unable to see this coming but if you were Musk you’d be out for blood too.
Martin
I think the risk from Musks party thing is that Democrats get scared of the potential for that to pull in money and back Mark Cuban to be nominee in 28.
rikyrah
Can’t be afraid. Just Angry
RevRick
@Scout211: If he goes ahead with his scheme, he will learn Duverger’s Law the hard way. We are not a parliamentary democracy; we have a Presidential one. That means that electoral coalitions are created in opposite ways. In a parliamentary system, the coalitions are formed after the election. This allows for a multiparty system. Presidential democracies, on the other hand, demand that the coalition be formed before the election, since Presidential elections are binary. (Minor parties do exist, but they mainly function as shaking one’s fist at the clouds).
I know, what about Ross Perot in 92 with his Reform Party or TR in 1912 with his Bull Moose?
Aside from the fact that both efforts failed, what would have been the result if they had won? They would have faced Congresses without an ounce of loyalty to them, and unless they aligned themselves with either the Dems or the GOP, they would accomplish nothing.
Layer8Problem
Musk has entirely too much money and much too high a regard for his own intelligence. He’s pissed off that he didn’t get everything he wanted from the orange guy and Republicans don’t respect his brilliance. He still has piles of fanboys who think he’s a tru-life comic book character and who would be more than happy to ride whatever new “political party” he gins up over a cliff. He can do a ton of damage by primarying Republicans, running inflammatory commercials, and splitting the vote. I say “Please proceed, Elmo.”
RevRick
@Nettoyeur: Analysis of who voted for him showed that he pulled about equally from Democrats and Republicans.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Martin: If he could beat the other guy, I wouldn’t give a shit.
RevRick
@Gvg: While Musk gave a ton, Miriam Adelson was not far behind, and there was a boatload of other billionaires supporting the GOP.
NotMax
@RevRick
Same after the fact analysis about Nader in Florida in 2000, BTW.
WTFGhost
@jackmac: Well, there’s no message to lift a person’s spirits, but, remind them that if we sit out the parts of life that are good, we forget just *why* we fight so hard… because the good parts are all that good, that meaningful.
So in the face of bad news, it’s important to open ourselves up to that joy, and sincerely ask ourselves – are we being just a bit pout-y today, can we put the pout aside and let in the light, and the life? Because if the answer is “yes, we can put it aside,” then good… put it aside. Pick up your rage at the injustice again as soon as you’ve done some celebrating.
Okay, but: sometimes, sometimes you ask “am I just pouting a bit?” and the answer is “no, I’m not just pouting, I really don’t have it in me to celebrate.” That’s okay for a short time, but if it sticks around, it turns into despair, and you have to pull yourself free of that. And, the best way to make sure you don’t fall *into* despair, is… celebrating life and living it.
So: all of that is not something that should, by itself, raise your spirits, but, it is a reason one should try to raise one’s own spirits, to keep life, and love, and the whole idea of what we fight for, up front in our minds.
It’s what I’d do, if it were possible, so, trust me, I know how important it is to be able to do so.
Jackie
@Archon: Yup, Muskrat got used and abused and played by FFOTUS. He needs to be welcomed to that club of so many others.
Martin
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: I think we would get massacred, and rightly so.
Jackie
@NotMax:
Different month – even if only two weeks ago. Both holidays equally disintegrated
prostratedragon
@NotMax:
Sweet nostalgia!
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Martin:
Because having money is such a drawback in politics?
Omnes Omnibus
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: Choosing Cuban would be galactic stupidity. OTOH, we probably don’t need to be worried about that right now. Too much time and too many crises between now and then.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, yeah, but I don’t think the point being made is about strategy.
They Call Me Noni
@WaterGirl: That was my first thought and it did seem like a fine endeavor to occupy Mr. Musk’s money but then I read a worrying headline or two about some left leaning people who seem inclined to help.
H.E.Wolf
Electoral-Vote blog weighed in recently on Musk’s 3rd-party ambitions. Co-blogger V (the writer of this particular note) is generally the more pessimistic of the two bloggers, and he’s been studying USA elections for a long time – if he says it’s unlikely to be a big deal, I’m inclined to believe him.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2025/Items/Jul03-3.html
They Call Me Noni
@Albatrossity: The very best of outcomes !! I hope your crystal ball is accurate.
They Call Me Noni
@Nettoyeur: I had forgotten all about him.
FastEdD
I spent the 4th at a street fair registering voters. I am grateful it didn’t get violent. Screw the fireworks, I went home to be with the dog, even though he doesn’t get scared by them. To my surprise there was a large display near my house. I watched from the front porch, and the dog was just barking his head off at them with a smile on his doggy face. It was … okay. He was happy.
They Call Me Noni
@H.E.Wolf: Read the article in the link. The only thing that didn’t sound right to me is that TACO would use money from his new PAC to support any R candidate facing a challenger backed by Musk money. No way he lets a dime of that grift account go.
cain
Kind of late in the night, so I’ll share this story again tomorrow.
My friend texted me and told me she was very upset. Her daughter and husband had gone to the Willamette River and they were accosted by some man who told them to go back to their country. Said he was glad that the president was deporting everyone and then screamed white power and gave the nazi salute.
My friend’s husband is a Jew, and their daughter is half Indian. (my friend is Indian) Extremely upsetting and really shows that people are letting their freak flag fly. Your photo of the old man who fought in world war 2 and is doing it again.
Chetan Murthy
@cain: ugh. that’s terrible. My mom has had shit like that happen to her in Fort Worth (numerous times, actually). I have some vague memory that that part of Oregon is …. not the most salubrious? Sigh.
rikyrah
@They Call Me Noni: Too lazy to put in the actual WORK for creating a new party
rikyrah
@cain:
Outrageous😠😠😠
Chetan Murthy
@rikyrah: Yes. TACO took over the G(r)OP, but there’s no way he could have created a party from-scratch: that takes work and care. Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a skilled carpenter to put one up. I doubt Kums (a)Lone has the skill to build a party.
Gloria DryGarden
There’s a group called leaving maga. I ran across a YouTube, Adam kinzinger, interviewed rich logis about his group, and his experience recreating community and helping others to leave maga.
the YouTube drags a bit, but it seems genuine enough. It gave me a smidgen of hope. The guy’s first step was he “diversified the news media” he was consuming, and he says he gradually saw things more clearly. Interesting.
website listed in the YouTube. I think it’s leaving maga dot org.
jonas
@They Call Me Noni: This is echoes of Ross Perot all over again — billionaire with massive ego decides to remake politics in his own image, yada, yada. Yes, it was a thing, and the media absolutely luuuuuuuuuuved it. The amount of earned media the guy got just from Larry King was bonkers. So it could be a factor, assuming Musk doesn’t get distracted by some new shiny thing in the meantime. The thing is, is Musk’s party, if it actually gets off the ground, more likely to siphon off disaffected Trump voters or disaffected Dem voters? I don’t suspect he’s going to give anyone on the left, even if they’re unhappy with the current state of the Dem party, any reason to vote for him. So, like Ross Perot, his biggest legacy just might be getting more Dems elected, in which case, please proceed, Mr. Musk.
jonas
@They Call Me Noni: This is echoes of Ross Perot all over again — billionaire with massive ego decides to remake politics in his own image, yada, yada. Yes, it was a thing, and the media absolutely luuuuuuuuuuved it. The amount of earned media the guy got just from Larry King was bonkers. So it could be a factor, assuming Musk doesn’t get distracted by some new shiny thing in the meantime. The thing is, is Musk’s party, if it actually gets off the ground, more likely to siphon off disaffected Trump voters or disaffected Dem voters? I don’t suspect he’s going to give anyone on the left, even if they’re unhappy with the current state of the Dem party, any reason to vote for him. So, like Ross Perot, his biggest legacy just might be getting more Dems elected, in which case, please proceed, Mr. Musk.
jonas
@They Call Me Noni: This is echoes of Ross Perot all over again — billionaire with massive ego decides to remake politics in his own image, yada, yada. Yes, it was a thing, and the media absolutely luuuuuuuuuuved it. The amount of earned media the guy got just from Larry King was bonkers. So it could be a factor, assuming Musk doesn’t get distracted by some new shiny thing in the meantime. The thing is, is Musk’s party, if it actually gets off the ground, more likely to siphon off disaffected Trump voters or disaffected Dem voters? I don’t suspect he’s going to give anyone on the left, even if they’re unhappy with the current state of the Dem party, any reason to vote for him. So, like Ross Perot, his biggest legacy just might be getting more Dems elected, in which case, please proceed, Mr. Musk.
jonas
@They Call Me Noni: This is echoes of Ross Perot all over again — billionaire with massive ego decides to remake politics in his own image, yada, yada. Yes, it was a thing, and the media absolutely luuuuuuuuuuved it. The amount of earned media the guy got just from Larry King was bonkers. So it could be a factor, assuming Musk doesn’t get distracted by some new shiny thing in the meantime. The thing is, is Musk’s party, if it actually gets off the ground, more likely to siphon off disaffected Trump voters or disaffected Dem voters? I don’t suspect he’s going to give anyone on the left, even if they’re unhappy with the current state of the Dem party, any reason to vote for him. So, like Ross Perot, his biggest legacy just might be getting more Dems elected, in which case, please proceed, Mr. Musk.
jonas
Sorry for the multiple posts — for some reason it wasn’t posting right away so I hit the button a couple of times! Hope WG can clean that up for me! Thx!
jonas
@Gloria DryGarden: It’s literally cult deprogramming. Fascinating but, yeah, also pretty damn scarry what Trump has done to so many in this country.
Chetan Murthy
@jonas: It’s the 2am (ET) blog batch job daemon! Your post is just the most recent victim!
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@jonas: It is. I honest to god think having a book club read through thing here of a good cult-deprogramming book would be useful. Even if only to better understand how that kind of thing gets its hooks in people.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@jonas: Reminds me of a comment I once heard third-hand about a university administrator, who, as one of his detractors put it, “suffered from a malignancy of the ego”. It’s like he just can’t get it into his head that there are some things he’s simply not good at.
prostratedragon
The kind of afterthought that one would usually drop out there casually on the Sunday evening of a holiday weekend:
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@prostratedragon: Given that the FBI and the Department of Justice are now both fatally compromised by Trumpists, I’d demand independent confirmation if they both declared that water was wet.
knally
@BellyCat:
It’s the old maxim about when you get older and bend over to tie up your shoe laces, you stay bent over for a while in case there’s anything else you need to do while you’re down there.
And the elderly gentleman is an inspiration.
Martin
@prostratedragon: Yes, Donald Trump is definitely not on the Epstein client list that does not exist. Definitely.
montanareddog
@RevRick:
I agree with that prediction.
But I disagree with your summary of Duverger’s law. It is not related to parliamentary vs presidential systems; it is a contrast between single-member geographical constituencies/FPTP voting systems vs multi-member district/PR systems.
The UK and the US both have the former system and tend to a duopoly (though less so in the UK since 2010) and one is presidential and one is parliamentary.
Both the presidential and congressional elections in the US tend to respect Duverger’s law and Congress is a parliament (but not a sovereign parliament – one that contains both the executive and the legislative and can dissolve itself).
Aussie Sheila
@Martin:
Your observation about the ‘new’ versus ‘old’ money funding the GOP is right on the ‘money’ imo. That’s exactly it. However it’s all still green, so the fight goes on. However my gut is that the techno fascists are a fickle bunch and very much high on their own supply. The old money arseholes are a tad savvier.
My money is on the old but savvier. The techno fascists will scatter to many different projects once they are ground into the dust via electoral defeat.
Kayla Rudbek
@Aussie Sheila: I’m seeing this now with the Disney lawsuit (old money) against the AI company (trying to be new money, how they’re going to actually make any money when they can’t copyright the output is interesting)
IP Watchdog’s commentary was irritating to read but it does display the techbro line of thinking all too well, at https://ipwatchdog.com/2025/06/27/opinion-legacy-media-trying-kill-ai-innovation/id=189862/
Kayla Rudbek
@Martin: I think that I can name fewer than 10 billionaires who actually seem like decent people (Taylor Swift, George Soros, Mackenzie Bezos, maybe Mark Cuban, maybe Warren Buffet) I’m sure there are probably a few more sane/decent billionaires, but 90% of them are giving the other 10% a bad name (to repurpose a lawyer joke)
WTFGhost
@jonas: Well, it’s not just Trump. First, and foremost, it’s the people who chose to ride Trump, just as Hitler’s people decided to ride him. I mean, I’d bet that Hitler was not so great an orator as is said, and it was just the excited warm-up speakers, and the post-rally reporting, that pumped him into something bigger.
Anyone who heard Trump in the Original German can comment?
Now, in a typical cult, someone who is lonely, and vulnerable, is cut off from the outside world. All sources of reward are tied to furthering yourself into the cult, all sources of rejection come from questioning and pulling away, and, in person, it’s very easy to fall into argumentum ad populum, “all these wonderful people can’t be wrong!”
Well, it’s not Trump and cult members who do this, these days, it’s Fox News and right wing influencers, some of whom are horrified that their preferred leader in hate is not in charge, but really are down with the message of hate (hence “right wing,” In the US, these days).
Since everyone agrees on who the bad guys are, and the Trump supporters speak of him as if he is the second coming, people who used to never have friends because of their crazy right wing views now can bring down the room by saying, HEY HEY EVERYONE: Covfefe! and everyone will roar with laughter at liberals, who are so, so stupid.
Once you’re feeling real joy, once you have real hero worship, it’s hard to break free from that, because then you have to give up all of those good feelings, all of those good times, because, alas, we humans are too easily able to imagine our heroes as paragons of every virtue, and it’s never easy finding out they are sometimes just evil con men.
I mean, think of what it takes to be a Trump supporter right now. They are thinking “just you wait, you evil libs! The economy is about to take off like a ROCKET ship! Yeah, like one of MUSK’S ROCKET SHIPS LIBTARDS! And we know that if Trump said the Iranian nuclear program was demolished, they’ll never, ever, ever be able to restart it! And we know Trump’s tariffs will flood the US with money, we’ll be able to abolish the income tax! Then you’ll feel sorry you were so mean to us!
Don’t think it’s cruel mockery because I’m making them sound like children. No, the cruel mockery was the bit about Elon Musk’s rocket ships. The point is, our child-like emotions are our strongest ones, and they are having childlike joy, and childlike protection of their joy, “we’ll run away and buy a castle and won’t let them in!” And it takes something to break through that childlike innocence, especially when a person is already irrationally protecting it.
Thor Heyerdahl
@Kayla Rudbek: Thanks for the link – I shook my head at the items he tried to say were the same innovation adjacent as AI.
The VCR, Photoshop, search engines!? C’mon man quit huffing your own techbro farts.
They Call Me Noni
@jonas: Good morning. It is a point well made. Well made enough to be repeated! Insert laughing emoji here.
pluky
@BlueGuitarist: Battle of Okinawa!?! Ouch! Its bloody grind was a major contributor to Truman’s decision to nuke Hiroshima and Nagasaki rather than attempt an amphibious assault of the Japanese main islands.
pluky
@Omnes Omnibus: The Talmud, Pirkei Avot 2:16
Kayla Rudbek
@Thor Heyerdahl: IP Watchdog has a very pronounced Republican bias in their reporting on IP issues. So it’s educational to read and find out what the sane billionaires versus the insane billionaires are fighting over. Very irritating professionally at times (the patent law field tends to run about 2/3 Democratic, 1/3 Republican, and apparently Gene Quinn is finding the Republicans to write for him)
Since the blog is focused on intellectual property, it’s all the business Republicans as opposed to the religious Republicans, (although Charles Stross, Cory Doctorow, Ars Technica, Wired, etc make good arguments that Silicon Valley techbros are inventing a new religion aka worship of the Singularity).
I suppose that I’m getting what I’m willing to pay for (I think that most of my other IP law news sources except Ars Technica are paywalled; I should check Bluesky and see if there’s anyone there who writes about patent law)
Kayla Rudbek
@Kayla Rudbek: I should specify that you cannot copyright AI generated content in the USA without additional editing, compilation, etc to add human authorship (e.g. you use AI to generate panels for a comic book, human author arranges the pictures and writes dialogue, the arrangement and text get copyrighted, the panels do not get copyrighted and the US Copyright Office will make that explicit in the registration) and the text of the prompts fed into the AI cannot be copyrighted either. Different countries have different laws, so some countries do grant copyright to AI generated content (I would have to look up the list of which countries do allow it and which ones don’t, but if you can’t get a copyright in the US market, how are you going to make money?)
David Collier-Brown
@RevRick: Yes, but Mr Perot was at least moderately sane (I did some work for Perot Systems, once).
I speculate that Mr Musk will try to create a far-right libertarian party. If so, it would draw mostly from a wing of the Republican party
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
This getting old stuff is getting old….
I’m over 3/4 of a century old and I was the youngest in my immediate family. I’m now the oldest in the extended family. And some of the younger have passed. My dad has been gone for 25 years. But yes this old stuff is getting old – and it’s still a far better situation than if it wasn’t getting there.
Ruckus
@russell:
Yes. Yes they are.
Just remember, if you are an old wear pants.
Actually, even if you aren’t, wear pants…..