Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

No Kings: Americans standing in the way of bad history saying “Oh, Fuck No!”

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

The revolution will be supervised.

In my day, never was longer.

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

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

You are here: Home / John Cole Presents "This Fucking Old House" / Monday Night Open Thread

Monday Night Open Thread

by | 100 Comments

This post is in: 

This is absolutely not what Pink Floyd meant:

The Supreme Court agreed on Monday that the Trump administration can proceed with dismantling the Education Department by firing more than a thousand workers.

The order is a significant victory for the administration and could ease President Trump’s efforts to sharply curtail the federal government’s role in the nation’s schools.

The Trump administration has announced plans to fire more than 1,300 workers, a move that would effectively gut the department, which manages federal loans for college, tracks student achievement and enforces civil rights laws in schools.

The Education Department began the year with more than 4,000 employees. The administration also fired some probationary workers and offered employees the ability to resign. Altogether, after the terminations, the Education Department will have a work force of about half the size it did before Mr. Trump returned to office.

At some point someone is going to just ask the right wing junta on the court why the legislature even writes laws if no one has to follow them once they are signed? Why even exist. Just have your god king trump.

***

I continue to be amazed but probably shouldn’t that what looks like something that might tear apart the Trump coalition is the Epstein mess. Betty described it in detail already and I think AL touched it too the other day, so I am not going to bother talking about it, but what it shocks me is that these fucking idiots are surprised. I’m fucking not. No, MAGA, liberals are not surprised the guy who has more pictures publicly available of himself with Jeffrey Epstein than with Melania (his third wife, an illegal immigrant who was also a nude model from the 90’s NYC Epstein eurotrash model era, who he met when cheating on his second wife Marla Maples, a model/actress who Donald Trump pressured into appearing in Playboy, who he met while cheating on his first wife, Ivanka Trump) did not in fact release the Epstein files like he said he would. We are not surprised at all. We might have even told REPEATEDLY you that he is a liar and he wouldn’t.

Fuck these idiots. And this? This is what breaks them? Not all the other awful shit?

***

AC is fixed for the sum of $195.00 and I almost kissed the guy when that is all it was. It wasn’t without drama, of course. I called yesterday and left a message and they called at 8 am this morning and said they could be out today if I would stay home, so I did, waiting for them to call and say they were close. And then, because of fucking course it did, a storm blew up a transformer two blocks over and the power went out. So I just sat there hoping the power would come on before the repair guy got there. At one point I went to the post office to check my mail, and of course when I got back, the guy was there, having not called like they said they would, and was already halfway through the repair without power. Just a capacitor or something and it was under warranty. So only 195 bucks. I had to wait until the power came on to test it, but sure enough, it’s working.

SO I got that going for me.

Reader Interactions

100Comments

  2. 2.

    Jackie

    $195! What a deal!!! When does your warranty expire? I’d extend it! Happy Monday, Cole!

  5. 5.

    J. Arthur Crank

    AC is fixed for the sum of $195.00 and I almost kissed the guy when that is all it was.

    I think this would rise to the level of a fanny slap.

  9. 9.

    Another Scott

    Woot!

    👍

    Here’s hoping your Frigidaire is a similarly easy and cheap fix!

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  13. 13.

    Another Scott

    @eclare:

    For those of you keeping track of refrigeration in the Cole household, the ac is out, the refrigerator only stays cool on the bottom shelf (freezer works, though!) and the ice machine is out.

    Best wishes,
    Scott.

  14. 14.

    Sally

    They should just Doge Congress, since it is not in use anymore. That would save lots of money.

  15. 15.

    bbleh

    The irony is, education is almost irrelevant to the Education fiasco.  It’s all just kulturkampf for the anti-intellectual rubes and authoritarianism for the royalist/Dominionists on the Court.  It could just as easily be, say, the Department of Energy (at least until the Dementia-Patient-In-Chief was reminded that they build the nukes).

    Apropos of coming disaster, looked up the numbers on Medicaid.  Over 1/3 of WV residents are Medicaid beneficiaries, a lot of whom are old folks who won’t be able to afford nursing home care anymore and are gonna have to be cared for by family.  And of course that money supports a LOT of jobs.  It ain’t gonna be pretty…

  18. 18.

    lowtechcyclist

    Glad your A/C is back up, John! There should be a BTTF flux capacitor joke here, but I can’t come up with it.

    IANAL but ISTM that if Congress establishes a governmental agency, passes laws saying it needs to be doing A, B, C, … , X, Y, Z, and provides funding for roughly enough staff to do those tasks, then there might be differences between the parties on what it means to be doing A through Z, but the Executive Branch which is supposed to be executing the laws that Congress passed shouldn’t be able to make changes to the agency that make it flat-out unable to do all those tasks. That really does get into “why bother to pass laws in the first place” territory, and that question should damn well be put to Roberts and the rest of the Seditious Six.

  19. 19.

    OlFroth

    I have to pass a Trumpy house every day on my way to take my daughter to horseback riding camp.  The guy has Trump signs and flags all over his lawn, along with a “Fuck Joe Biden” sign.  Today I noticed all the signs are gone.  Wouldn’t be surprised if the Epstein scandal is what finally broke him.

  21. 21.

    bbleh

    @OlFroth: really?  You sure he didn’t just … um … get called home by the Lord?  Because if so that is an encouraging data point!

  22. 22.

    VFX Lurker

    @OlFroth: I have to pass a Trumpy house every day on my way to take my daughter to horseback riding camp.  The guy has Trump signs and flags all over his lawn, along with a “Fuck Joe Biden” sign.  Today I noticed all the signs are gone.  Wouldn’t be surprised if the Epstein scandal is what finally broke him.

    If I may ask, in which state did you see this?

    (I realize “California” can be an answer — we have more Trump voters here than any other state. Plus tons of crazy up north in Shasta County).

  23. 23.

    kindness

    The Epstein thing is a curious thing for MAGA to latch on to so furiously.  I suspect MAGA believed it was Democrats and liberals who who child molesters.  MAGA demanded that justice be served.  MAGA seems not to have figured out, it is their own leaders who partied with Epstein, as they still are demanding the lists be made public.  MAGA is a cult of idiots after all.

  24. 24.

    Jeffro

    throw this at your MAGA relations and social media peeps and rejoice when they try to tell you, “no…no…that would be different”

    Just think: in 2029, President AOC can unilaterally cut half (or more!) of the Defense Department’s budget, saving America over $500B a year! Congress? What Congress? Go for broke, AOC!  ((And it’s all thanks to the John Roberts Supreme Court!)

    “The move by the 6 conservative justices represents an expansion of presidential power, allowing Mr. Trump to functionally eliminate a government department created by Congress, without legislators’ input.

    It comes after a decision by the justices last week that cleared the way for the Trump administration to move forward with cutting thousands of jobs across a number of federal agencies, including the Departments of Housing and Urban Development, State and Treasury.

    The order by the court was unsigned and gave no reasoning, as is typical in such emergency applications. No vote count was given, which is usual for emergency orders, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote a dissent, joined by the court’s other two liberals, Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson.

    The three argued that Mr. Trump had overstepped his authority with his “unilateral efforts to eliminate a cabinet-level agency established by Congress nearly half a century ago.”

    “Only Congress has the power to abolish the department,” Justice Sotomayor wrote in her 19-page dissent.”

    #SameStandards

  25. 25.

    bbleh

    @lowtechcyclist: @Betty: I think their answer would go back to the “Unitary Executive” theory, which as I understand it holds that the Legislative CANNOT tell parts of the Executive what to do except by VERY specific legislation (and not even then in some cases), and absent such VERY specific legislation the (Republican) President is in charge of the Executive and may do as he wishes.

    So sure, Congress can CREATE the DoE, and give it some general goals and mandates, but unless they, say, specify its headcount or the precise duties its staff must accomplish, then it’s up to the President to decide how to do things, including reducing headcount if he wants.

    And of course, they didn’t touch the substance of the case; they only forbade the courts from interfering with the (apparently not sufficiently clearly improper) functioning of the Executive until the case has been Duly Considered, ahem ahem.

  26. 26.

    Jeffro

    @OlFroth:I have to pass a Trumpy house every day on my way to take my daughter to horseback riding camp.  The guy has Trump signs and flags all over his lawn, along with a “Fuck Joe Biden” sign.  Today I noticed all the signs are gone.

    That’s wild.

    I realize it’s not really “data”, but other than one loon’s house* that I pass while on my way to help with a very rural area’s mobile food pantry each month, I have not seen a single trumpov yard sign out there for, well, six months.

    (said loon has an oversize sign that says “PRAY FOR TRUMP”…it’s satisfying throwing it the bird each month, both coming and going!)

    same thing with the flags, bumper stickers, all of it.  bupkis.

    lotta fertile ground out there for any Dem willing to grab it!

  27. 27.

    Jeffro

    @bbleh:absent such VERY specific legislation the (Republican) President is in charge of the Executive and may do as he wishes.

    pertinent part bolded

  29. 29.

    Layer8Problem

    SO I got that going for me.

    Which is nice.

    Oh yeah, and fuck the six Supreme Court conservatives.

  30. 30.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I think there’s people out there who think most  of DOE $$$ goes to special ed stuff and they don’t give a crap because their kids are smart and don’t need special ed stuff so ya know it sucks to be you if you need special ed $$$. . They’re in for a surprise when they find ‘special’ ed also includes stuff for gifted students like AP classes. I can’t wrap my head around how after COVID Americans don’t realize how dependent our whole system is relies on other parts of the system working.  It’s kind of like a modern car. One tire blown out  car no work. Battery no work car no work. Fuel system broken, car no work. Seat ripped out. Car no work.

  31. 31.

    Ohio Mom

    I spent some time this afternoon checking on some sites I’ve been ignoring, and am very depressed as a result. I read one piece arguing that the most salient aspect of the Big Ugly Bill isn’t the tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy, or the decimating of the social safety net, but that it creates a secret police. Which isn’t going to limit itself to “illegals” and people who look like them.

    Then I read about what the Ohio Legislature has done to our state’s tax code, and Ramaswamy’s plan to get rid of the income tax and also either reduce or eliminate property taxes. What is this state supposed to run on? Air?

    I can’t see anything that will stop him from becoming governor, and how much of a hit can Ohio take before it can’t function? To sound like the broken record I am, my kid needs state-funded supports. We really are too old and not flush enough to move to another (Blue) state but maybe that is our future.

    On a happier note, at least Ohio Son aged out of public school years ago. Special Ed is on track to be in total shambles after the Department of Ed ceases its enforcement operations. Cue all those Republican parents discovering the leopards are eating their kids’ faces. I’d say I’d enjoy the schadenfreude but schadenfreude is only satisfying momentarily.

  32. 32.

    lowtechcyclist

    @bbleh: ​

    So sure, Congress can CREATE the DoE, and give it some overarching goals and vague mandates, but unless they, say, specify its headcount or the precise duties its staff must accomplish, then it’s up to the President to decide how to do things.

    I don’t know about DoE in particular, but in my former bailiwick, the mandates weren’t all that vague. A survey would be required by one piece of legislation (e.g. the Health Survey Act of 1957), which would be amended over the years to give greater specificity about what this survey was expected to do.

    But even if the mandates are somewhat vague, there surely comes a point where by no stretch of the imagination can they be accomplished anymore with the remaining staff. And that would seem to me to be the point where no amount of Unitary Executive bullshit can take the Executive past without making a joke of Congress.

    And of course, they didn’t touch the substance of the case; they only said the courts can’t interfere with the (not clearly improper) functioning of the Executive until the case has been Duly Considered, ahem ahem.

    Meanwhile, the Executive is free to act as if the ultimate decision will go its way, and if it doesn’t, well, too bad, so sad, no getting the toothpaste back in the tube.

  35. 35.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Jeffro: There were some people in the neighborhood (Massachusetts) who had Trump signs all over their lawns during campaign season and even during the lame-duck period, but they all disappeared shortly after Trump reentered office.

  36. 36.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Betty: ​

    Sotomayor pretty much wrote what you said in lawyer talk. And she is truly outraged.

    I would imagine. Law? Constitution? Precedent? None of it means anything to the Seditious Six. Even the pretense is essentially gone at this point. Wonder what “we just make it up as we go along” looks like in Latin.

  38. 38.

    Jay

    ‪Aaron Reichlin-Melnick‬
    ‪@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social‬
    · 47m
    This has been the talk of the removal defense community for days.

    Long story short, what the Trump admin is alleging is that a 1996 law made every undocumented immigrant who crossed the border illegally “mandatory detention” and categorically ineligible for bond, no matter how long they lived here.

    ‪The Washington Post‬
    ‪@washingtonpost.com‬
    · 50m
    Exclusive: The Trump administration has declared that immigrants who arrived in the United States illegally are no longer eligible for a bond hearing as they fight deportation proceedings in court, according to documents reviewed by The Post.

    ICE declares millions of undocumented immigrants ineligible for bond hearings
    A memo from ICE’s acting director instructs officers to hold immigrants who entered the country illegally “for the duration of their removal proceedings,” which can take months or years.
    http://www.washingtonpost.com

    15

    212

    View full thread

    ‪Aaron Reichlin-Melnick‬
    ‪@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social‬
    · 31m
    ICE’s new legal interpretation is wrong. At least one federal judge in Washington has already held as much, in a case brought when some immigration judges at the Tacoma detention center adopted this interpretation. Challenging it broadly may be difficult, given restrictions on detention lawsuits.

    2

    14

    ‪Aaron Reichlin-Melnick‬
    ‪@reichlinmelnick.bsky.social‬
    · 27m
    If immigration judges begin to adopt this interpretation nationwide — or are ordered to do so by Pam Bondi, their boss — it will mean even less due process. It will mean more people flown around the country and jailed far from lawyers, loved ones, and hope.

    And that’s the goal.
    Forcing them to remain in detention facilities often in far-flung areas such as an alligator-infested swamp in Florida or the Arizona desert would make it more difficult to fight their cases, because they will be unable to work or easily communicate with family members and lawyers to prepare their cases.
    “I think some courts are going to find that this doesn’t give noncitizens sufficient due
    process,
    ” said Paul Hunker, an immigration
    lawyer and former ICE chief counsel in the Dallas area. “They could be held indefinitely until they’re deported.*
    ALT

    5

    33

    bsky.app/profile/reichlinmelnick.bsky.social/post/3ltxn7me77k2a

  39. 39.

    bbleh

    @Omnes Omnibus: as previously noted, I think Roberts et al. have been in smash-and-grab mode for 6-8 years, so yeah-and-waddaya-gonna-do-about-it?

    @lowtechcyclist: there surely comes a point where by no stretch of the imagination can they be accomplished anymore with the remaining staff.  True, but the substance of the case hasn’t yet been litigated, so How Could Anyone Really Know?  (And stop calling me Shirley.)

  41. 41.

    Jay

    Will Bunch

    ‪@willbunch.bsky.social‬

    Follow
    The newspaper that told the truth about Watergate and the Pentagon Papers will now “communicate with optimism about this country” in its time of rising fascism

    ‪Ben Mullin‬
    ‪@benmullin.bsky.social‬
    · 9h
    Here’s the full memo:

    July 14, 2025 at 9:38 AM

    Everybody can reply
    1.6K reposts
    139 quotes
    5.3K likes

    354

    1.7K

    It was “democracy dies in the Darkness”,

    Now it’s “Hello Darkness, my old friend”.

  45. 45.

    Eric S.

    @Ohio Mom: please please understand this isn’t a “fuck the red state Democrats.” I believe we need to do what we can to protect everyone. But, what is the breaking point when you look to move? There are dozens, hundreds, of factors beyond politics why we live where we do, but what do you think drives you out?

  47. 47.

    lamh47

    ‘Sup BJ.Tmrw got phone screen interview with HR recruiter for one of the out of state jobs I applied for! I’m confident that my experience will carry me, but it’s def going to be my minimum desired salary that may be a stickler. I’m conficent my 20+yrs of experience is worth the $$

    I’m confident that my experience will carry me, but it’s def going to be my minimum desired salary that may be a stickler. I’m conficent my 20+yrs of experience is worth the $$

  48. 48.

    Gvg

    @Matt McIrvin: I consider that normal, the way elections are supposed to be. Signs should not reappear until next campaign season. That they stay up for years was when things got bitter and dangerous. I noticed it during Bush jr’s time and even when Romney lost some of the signs stayed up. Not as many though. McCain not at all, he didn’t spark this bitter deadender attitude.

  50. 50.

    Jay

    Mueller, She Wrote

    ‪@muellershewrote.com‬

    Follow
    DoJ argues that all Epstein’s co-conspirators are immune except Ghislaine Maxwell, and that SCOTUS shouldn’t grant cert on the appeal of her conviction.

    ‪Adam Klasfeld‬
    ‪@klasfeldreports.com‬
    · 4h
    New:

    The DOJ opposes Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid for the Supreme Court to review her sex trafficking verdict. The brief finally hits the docket.

    Read it here. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24...

    July 14, 2025 at 1:45 PM

    Everybody can reply
    395 reposts
    35 quotes
    860 likes

    115

    430

    bsky.app/profile/muellershewrote.com/post/3ltxayfwdac2z

    youtube.com/watch?v=4JkIs37a2JE

  52. 52.

    tobie

    @Ohio Mom: Sherrod Brown would probably be the only Dem with a chance in the Governor’s race but I wouldn’t blame him if he didn’t want to take this challenge on after having worked so hard for the state for so many years.

    Someday we may understand how things went so horribly wrong in this country. We don’t have the big picture yet but the right has been galvanized since Reagan to gut the New Deal and they have deployed an unrelenting media campaign from talk radio to FOX News to Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. The scope of this effort over decades is hard to comprehend.

  53. 53.

    Jay

    @lamh47:

    Congrats, getting the interview these days is one of the hardest parts.

    Wage, salary and benefits are just a negotiating point.

  54. 54.

    JoyceH

    Sigh. Hey guys? The news featured Trump sitting in the Oval and there’s MORE gold. More doo-dads on the walls and the carved detailing on the marble mantle piece has been gilded or painted gold. Can’t anybody make him stop?

  55. 55.

    Jay

    @JoyceH:

    Nope. Begged, borrowed or stole the FIFA Trophy, but at least, it’s a $200K sculpture plated with 24 Karat gold, not cheap spray paint.

  56. 56.

    u

    I’d like to think that the “Epstein file” stuff will break the MAGA coalition — but I’m not confident.  These are extremely stupid people and (for some goddamn reason) they have chosen Trump to be their cult leader.  In order for them to abandon Trump they would have to admit that they were idiots to have worshipped him in the first place.  I think that they have neither the intelligence nor the honesty to do that.

  57. 57.

    u

    @Jay: When I was about eight years old, kids would make “jewelry” for Mother’s Day out of uncooked pasta spray-painted gold.  That’s about Trump’s style.

  58. 58.

    JoyceH

    @Jay: I suspect that if we could get our hands on a copy of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders, we’d learn the obvious truth that gilding marble is a symptom of something really dreadful.

  60. 60.

    Jackie

    @u:

    When I was about eight years old, kids would make “jewelry” for Mother’s Day out of uncooked pasta spray-painted gold.  That’s about Trump’s style.

    Thanks for making me laugh! You’re absolutely right!

  61. 61.

    JoyceH

    @u: In vacation Bible school, we glued pasta shells onto cigar boxes and spray painted the whole mess gold. Classy!

  64. 64.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid:Well, you made John McGuire, and you can break him too.

    ha!  great point

    I’d love it if one of our delegates or senators with higher name recognition and staff and fundraising skills decided to take on McGuire…there will literally never be a better chance…but let’s see where things stand in Dec/Jan

  65. 65.

    Jeffro

    @Gvg: yeah but during trump 1.0?  they stayed up.  During Biden’s term?  they were RIDICULOUSLY all over the place

    trump 2.0?  why, you’d think no one had ever heard of the guy

  66. 66.

    Jeffro

    @JoyceH:Can’t anybody make him stop?

    (purposefully not listing the things that could stop him d…right in his tracks…)

    so, YES

    c’mon, karma!

  67. 67.

    Ohio Mom

    @Eric S.: If Ohio runs out of money to properly fund the network of disability agencies and organizations, that’s my bottom line.

    When Ohio Son was in elementary school, a family with two autistic boys who had been living in Texas moved into our neighborhood. For months the mother kept saying, “There are SO many services here!” I should have asked her about life in Texas but I didn’t think to back then.

    Eventually they moved back home to Massachusetts, a state that I was once told does not provide services to autistics who also do not have intellectual disability. Since Ohio Son has a low average IQ, that’s two states off my list, Texas and Massachusetts.

    Ohio Dad and I aren’t going to live forever, we need to know there will be an established disabilities services system for him. We have friends and family in some Blue states, and a few of them have children in Ohio Son’s generation but whether any of them would agree to keep an eye out on him…

  69. 69.

    JoyceH

    @NotMax: ​
     

    I think the cigar boxes were supplied by the teacher, there were certainly no cigar smokers in my family.

  70. 70.

    WTFGhost

    @NotMax: I don’t think so. Their uncle stuffed cigars into their little beaks, and then fanned the cigar-lit portion with an astonishingly effective bellows, causing them to inhale a large amount of cigar smoke, all of a sudden, and then turn green, and lose all muscle tone (as well as most of their bone’s firmness, possibly). It was only then that the adult in the room realized the cigars had been meant as a gift, and were not intended to be smoked. Meh, it happens, and you end up with threesomes on a killing spree after lifetimes of abuse by their uncle.

    Wait, I’m sorry, that’s the “Post-DJT  toxic-timeline” which we’re trying to avoid, that’s right.

    Seriously, have you read some of the Huey, Dewey, and Louis adventures? If they decided to use all of their duck powers for evil, they could do a lot of damage.

  71. 71.

    JoyceH

    BTW, the thread above, the Ukraine thread, has pictures of the new bling on the Oval Office fireplace. Tacky, tacky, tacky!

  72. 72.

    Ohio Mom

    @tobie: I do not get the feeling Sherrod Briwn is interested in anything except enjoying his retirement — I forget how old he is, he’s no spring chicken.

    Ohio has an aging population, and that means we are getting Redder. Not enough young people are interested in staying here or moving here. We are stagnant.

  74. 74.

    WTFGhost

    @Ohio Mom: Alas, I remember, when I left Columbus for Seattle, as a bodyguard in a brothel… okay, okay, wait, I was actually working for Worldcom, but, the brothel story is a little less embarrassing. Seriously: it felt like Columbus was kind of hollowed out, more than it should be, what with OSU *right there*. Jumping to Seattle when I got the chance was a grand idea.

    About four months later, the stock scandal hit, and it took me most of a year before I got hired by a different firm, in the mortgage industry, which seemed more honest and ethical than Worldcom, at first….

  76. 76.

    Splitting Image

    @WTFGhost:

    I don’t think so. Their uncle stuffed cigars into their little beaks, and then fanned the cigar-lit portion with an astonishingly effective bellows, causing them to inhale a large amount of cigar smoke, all of a sudden, and then turn green, and lose all muscle tone (as well as most of their bone’s firmness, possibly). It was only then that the adult in the room realized the cigars had been meant as a gift, and were not intended to be smoked. Meh, it happens, and you end up with threesomes on a killing spree after lifetimes of abuse by their uncle.

    Wait, I’m sorry, that’s the “Post-DJT toxic-timeline” which we’re trying to avoid, that’s right.

    Seriously, have you read some of the Huey, Dewey, and Louis adventures? If they decided to use all of their duck powers for evil, they could do a lot of damage.

    The most frightening thing about Donald and his nephews is that he’s actually the responsible one in the family. He may be a short-tempered lout, but he did his best for the kids after their mother dumped them on his doorstep and disappeared. Scrooge can afford to help out but won’t, and Gladstone is too lazy to lift a finger.

    Transylvania has nothing on Duckburg for sheer horror.

  78. 78.

    Melancholy Jaques

    I’m in downtown fucking Deadwood and there’s only one fucking restaurant open after 9 o’clock and they don’t have a goddam steak on the menu. Where are the Swearengens of yesteryear?

    I got to town late because fucking Waze sent me on a route through the Black Hills that included several sections of “road” that aren’t quite done yet.

  83. 83.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @tobie: Someday we may understand how things went so horribly wrong in this country. We don’t have the big picture yet but the right has been galvanized since Reagan to gut the New Deal and they have deployed an unrelenting media campaign from talk radio to FOX News to Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. The scope of this effort over decades is hard to comprehend.

    not even sure how to think about it or apply remedies. But this is true, afaict.
    First step, get truth in media, and shut down the big fake news companies. I wish it sounded easy, or doable.

  87. 87.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @lamh47: Good luck! I’ve got an interview tomorrow myself.

    437 resumes sent out so far and this is only the second actual interview, so hoping this one pans out. Pays less than I’d like and is in-office five days a week with a commute, but mama gotta eat.

  91. 91.

    WTFGhost

    @lowtechcyclist: don’t worry about the pun. When I drive my car at 88 miles an hour through his living room, you’ll see some serious shit!

    @kindness: I think, if there had been no QAnon, then Epstein would be easily forgotten, but, because there had been a QAnon, people were demanding the exposure of all the child molesters, and that must include some of Epstein’s ‘friends’!

    QAnon allowed a person to completely sublimate all criticism of Trump, because he’s taking down the global pedophile conspiracy, and… and… and that’s why he fought so hard for the STOLEN 2020 election, and kept fighting until 2024, so now, he’s finally here, and… and… and… he’s supposed to be naming and shaming people, and he’s whining that we should just get over it?!?

  92. 92.

    Matt McIrvin

    @tobie:

    Someday we may understand how things went so horribly wrong in this country. We don’t have the big picture yet

    It’s all the white reaction to Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

    That’s an oversimplification but not much of one.

  93. 93.

    Matt McIrvin

    @WTFGhost: But QAnon itself provided the solution to that problem: just imagine that Trump was doing it in secret but all the people he was executing were being replaced with vat-grown identical clones. Maybe they couldn’t keep believing that forever?

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: This is one reason I wish Sally Hudson had not run against Creigh Deeds.* As a state Delelegate, Hudson would been well-placed to challenge Rep. McGuire. Since Virginia legislative terms go odd-year to odd-year, she wouldn’t have had to give up her Delegate position which is part-time anyway.

    But Cameron Webb would be a stronger candidate, I think. Webb really impressed me when he ran against Bob Good in 2020. VA05 is rated R+8 or 9 now so it would be considered a “stretch” district. But if Webb ran a good race next year and got his name back out there, I think he’d have a decent chance in 2028. Webb struck me as possessing the elements of a young Barak Obama.

    * For all of those unfamiliar with Central Virginia politics, Sally Hudson is a bright, young U.Va. economics professor who ran for an open state Delegate seat in 2019. She won, and was developing a reputation as an up-and-coming “progressive” politician when she decided to run against veteran state Senator Creigh Deeds in 2023. She lost, and now she’s back on the sidelines.

    I don’t exactly like Hudson, but she’s “got game” and could have mounted a spirited challenge to first-term Congessman John McGuire (R-SEAL).

    But maybe Sally Hudson will still run next year. If Cameron Webb did also, that would make for a very interesting primary.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    @Ohio Mom: Yes, economic stagnation could account for much of Ohio’s shift rightward this century.  Virginia has shifted in the opposite direction, and a big reason for this I think is that Virginia has been economically dynamic. That has added more college-educated people and immigrants, and they have expanded the Democratic electorate while Ohio’s has shrunk.

  97. 97.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Anyway, that helps me put it in perspective as not so much “things went horribly wrong in this country” from some prior state of innocence, as “we can’t have nice things”. There was this really quite gigantic move to put a colossal injustice right, but it was an injustice that much of the country had an emotional investment in–of course there was catastrophic pushback! It took decades to have its full effect.

    Really the specific case of Trumpism is arguably more reaction to the immigration reforms of 1965, but that’s all part of the same thing. It’s an effort to restore the racial hierarchies and restrictions of the Jim Crow era.

  99. 99.

    mrmoshpotato

    who he met while cheating on his first wife, Ivanka Trump

    Great typo, because, as everyone knows, the orange shitstain wants to bone his own daughter.

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