I can’t wait to read the 196 comment thread Anne Laurie’s post that I just woke up to!
I hope you haven’t been fighting among yourselves over what Obama said or what Obama should have said, or how he might have said the right thing better than he said it!
I have to run out to an appointment for Henry, and I see there is nothing currently happening in the back room, so here’s at least a new post to talk about whatever you want.
Totally open thread.
On The Road – Elma – Japan and Cruising the Pacific to LA Part 1
hueyplong
I generally work under an assumption that Obama is a little more on top of pending issues than I am. Probably not the Internet Way.
frosty
Hahaha you sweet summer child!
I can’t believe I wasted the morning reading all 196 comments. And adding a few, sigh.
Professor Bigfoot
Hey, this IS Balloon Juice, after all!!
If there wasn’t, someone would be saying “WHO ARE YOU, AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH OUR BLOG???”
Chief Oshkosh
I suggest the everyone skip last night’s version. I think several people had something at dinner that didn’t agree with their digestive systems.
lowtechcyclist
Well, I said what little I wanted to say about Obama in the other thread, so I’ll just say it’s a wet, humid morning here in southern Maryland after last night’s rainstorm. I’d like so sit out on the deck, but the chairs are still too wet to put cushions on.
Chief Oshkosh
I hope President Obama continues in as many various venues as possible.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
We’re a coalition, not a cult. Circular firing squads are a regular occupational hazard.
On the bright side, we’re much less vulnerable to poisoned Flavor-Aid.
frosty
WG, according to this article, which was linked in comments in the previous post, your post title puts you in the minority of Americans.
yougov.co.uk/society/articles/52557-how-do-attitudes-to-swearing-differ-in-australia-the-uk-and-the-…
prostratedragon
Informal polling:
Teresa
lol Someone somewhere always has to correct another adult.
That he told them to get out of the fetal position and toughen up, literally made me smile.
Raoul Paste
Has Obama had his Secret Service protection taken away?
Soprano2
I assume this is said ironically. LOL It brought out some nasty shit, that’s for sure.
Bupalos
Losing teams fight amongst themselves. It’s just what they do.
Obama is a fairly irrelevant politician/ex-politician at this point. Smart guy, but there are a million smart guys and gals and they don’t really seem to be any better at strategery these days than any random Bluesky account. I don’t have much interest in criticizing him or defending him as far as the fight going forward. I see it as an inside-politics nothing burger. I guess the meaning of it is supposed to be “Obama is back” but he isn’t. He’s lending his celebrity status to fundraise for the DNC, which is good. But hardly worth noticing, and that this is a “news story” is even a little confusing or distracting.
Bupalos
@prostratedragon: Confusing “on two coasts plus a city in the middle” with “from coast to coast” is how we got here.
Melancholy Jaques
An observation related to Obama and not a criticism of him or anyone else.
It’s striking to me how little influence Obama has. He was and remains the most popular Democrat of my lifetime, but people do not appear to be motivated by the things he says. He campaigned pretty hard for Clinton and Harris, but especially in the latter case, his voters did not respond. I think it’s because they are women, but of course there are other explanations out there.
Obama says things that are true & useful. It may be that he is not perfect, but no one is. What I wonder is why nothing he says produces results among the people.
ArchTeryx
*shrugs* People really don’t like a lot of Obama’s policy choices, and his one great achievement has been pretty much defunded by the GOP. It exists now only as a hollow corpse.
The specific aren’t important any more. He’s just another ex-pol at this point, fundraising among rich people.
Shalimar
@frosty: Fucking hell right. Apparently, I am in the minority of Americans on most issues.
ArchTeryx
@Melancholy Jaques: Because precious few white people in this country want to take advice from a black man, IMHO. And there’s been endless pixels spilled about why he couldn’t push Harris over the line.
Lapassionara
Here’s the positive view: O’Bama didn’t mention clinging, or guns, or religion. So that’s a win.
Here’s another thing: when Democrats tried telling people how strong the economy was, in comparison to other nations, we were told to shut up, but when Trump says “America is doing GREAT,” silence.
Just another episode in IOKIYAR.
hueyplong
@Shalimar: No, you’re not. Americans — the fuckers — notoriously lie in response to such polling.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Not that unusual. Obama had lousy midterms when he was president because he wasn’t in the ballot. The 2018 midterms were good for Dems even though Trump tried to get his cult members to come out. The fact is, endorsements only go so far with voters.
Bupalos
@ArchTeryx: While I know this is more visceral for you, but Obamacare isn’t a hollow corpse. At least not yet. It’s taking on a lot of damage, but the structure is still there and is popular and worth fighting for.
Baud
@Lapassionara:
Republicans are too smart to try to move the Overton window by opposing their leaders. Propaganda (or marketing if you prefer) works.
Kristine
@frosty: How about “most hours?”
While driving, most minutes.
suzanne
Fighting?! We don’t do that here!!!
Baud
@suzanne:
This is the war room!
Melancholy Jaques
@Bupalos:
Smart is not doing well these days. Neither is Truth.
We continue to be frustrated because things that should work do not and things that should have destroyed that asshole did not. A person who incites a violent attack on congress should not be elected anything. The lying, the brazen corruption, the stupidity should all have eliminated him. And not by us, but by other Republicans. Two of them tried, but they couldn’t make it work.
We blame our leadership and we blame each other, but what we are faced with is an American electorate that has rejected nearly every thing that they supposedly value.
It doesn’t surprise me that the smart people aren’t doing any better than random bluesky posters.
Bupalos
@Melancholy Jaques: I think politicians and their strengths are matched to their time. The era of centrist technocracy and ‘arc-of-history’ Fukuyamian naiveté is just resoundingly in the past. Obama doesn’t really have the tools for where we are now.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
I don’t mean endorsements, I mean what he says. People do not respond. They aren’t going to respond to what he said about toughening up either.
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
What would a response look like to you other than swaying an election? I don’t know how I would know whether or how many people are responding positively to his message.
Melancholy Jaques
@Bupalos:
Who does? What tools are working? I don’t see anything working other than bigotry and hatred.
Baud
@Bupalos:
Obama is not running for another office again. If someone else has the tools to save us, it would be cool if they started using them. Until then, we’ll just have to try to save ourselves.
Bupalos
We also blame the American electorate as if this authoritarian/populist/nativist turn isn’t a global reality, but yet another expression of American exceptionalism. America may be in some ways (including by political structure) uniquely subject to these forces, but the triple whammy of spiraling inequality, global warming, and technology-driven social disruption is the source of our new political era. Not a uniquely bad electorate or bad people.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: Like this?
Baud
@Bupalos:
The American electorate is responsible for election outcomes here. I don’t think people have suggested that Trump voters are worse than fascist voters overseas. Although maybe they are. I have done a comparison.
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
Precisely.
tobie
@Lapassionara:
This was my biggest beef with the campaign in 2024. We had unprecedented wage growth (especially in the lowest income brackets), GDP growth, re-shoring of manufacturing, factory construction, increases in ACA subsidies and SNAP benefits, and, compared to other developed nations, low wage growth. The fact that neither Harris nor Walz managed to underscore the return of good-paying jobs in manufacturing irritated me to end and was political malpractice IMO.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bupalos: Well, old bean, it just so happens that the American electorate is the one that does the voting in this country.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
So no the Republicans are arguing that that the real villains in Epstein are girls and their lawyers, who were black mailing innocent billionaires.
Josie
@Bupalos:
For once, I actually agree with you. I might have to rethink some of my past comments.
Quiltingfool
I waded through the comments, and it went about as I expected. Professor Bigfoot mentioned “Magick Negroe” and, imho, I think lots of people thought President Obama would just fix everything Republicans broke in a very short amount of time. And when he didn’t do the magic Negro thing? Fix everything in under two years? Welp, we’re done with him. He was supposed to fix everything ALL BY HIMSELF, and he didn’t do it. We’ll just stay home and pout.
Fuck those people. I voted for Obama twice because I like smart and wise people in charge. I didn’t harbor unrealistic expectations. Running the country is hard work and big changes takes time – and support. Now, I’m not saying I liked everything he did. I wasn’t crazy about the Education Secretary he chose, but compared to Republican Ed Secretaries, somewhat better.
We have some truly horrific shit going on right now, and folks are bitching about Obama? Cracker, please.
I think it’s time for me to assemble some fabric into a quilt. Keeps me from thinking dark thoughts; but I am watching “Man in the High Castle,” so…
Here’s a photo of a commission quilt I shipped off last week. Not the best photo, because the quilt was enormous (116×116). Lots of cats. It’s on my Pinterest board, and there are other pictures of parts of the quilt.
I think I made a dollar an hour on this one, but I enjoyed every minute!
pin.it/2aZfCN9Ra
p.a.
Open thread, so, to maybe redirect the discussion:
a small orb weaver spider has decided to set up shop and use the lid of my mailbox as one of her supports. So far she’s been consistent and rebuilt (I believe they do that daily anyway), and I take care when retrieving my mail to move slowly so she can get out of the way and then close up the cover. So far the postperson has not caused any ill effect either when opening the box. (Urban wall-mounted, not post-on-the-street-mounted box.)
Any animal-in-your-living-space stories? Hopefully no “squirrel in the attic” events.
The Audacity of Krope
I remember saying something about “bitching about bitching.” This elevates that whole concept.
trollhattan
Barack contains multitudes.
debit
@Chief Oshkosh: looks like it was the pie. So much pie.
ArchTeryx
@Bupalos: I also work directly in Medicaid as a financial analyst. “Hollow shell” is exactly how I would describe Medicaid at this point. And with the expiration of most subsidies at the end of this year, precious few people are going to afford the premiums. Even David Anderson thinks the chances of a death spiral are pretty high thanks to the sheer amount of sabotage in the Big Ugly. They decided they couldn’t repeal it directly, so they defunded it instead. In the end, the law will still exist, but who is going to be able to take advantage of it? A huge number of the current Medicaid recipients will be shut out. The states will rapidly go backward on the expansion because now they have to PAY for it. Etc.
Suzanne
@Quiltingfool:
This right here.
Bupalos
Just trying to redirect from a comment about blameworthiness to what I think of as lines of thought more relevant to digging out of our political morass.
As always, this idea isn’t generally received well in spaces like this where the “correct” (and overdetermined) assignment of blame is kind of the prime directive.
Miss Bianca
@p.a.: I got bats behind most of my window frames (not in the house, tho.)
And the odd assortment of insects and spiders that make it past the dogs.
ArchTeryx
@Suzanne: It’s one way to pass the time, and about as useful as most when you’re completely shut out of power.
I don’t think complaining about Obama is a worthwhile pursuit, but we’re hosed whether or not we do it, so… people gonna bitch about him, I guess.
prostratedragon
@Quiltingfool: Wonderful quilt!
Suzanne
@ArchTeryx: Can I note — not directed at you or anyone specific — the term “bitching” is just such a sexist bummer? English has more words than any other language, and yet there doesn’t seem to be another one to imply pointless and fruitless complaint.
The Audacity of Krope
@ArchTeryx: One person questioned the venue, then one person lied about his policy record before launching into a racist screed, and one never before seen person went on an illiterate screed.
On the other end was a whole lot of very good pushback and even more pearl-clutching over unapproved opinions.
Baud
@Bupalos:
That space is the whole Internet. If you want something different, try real life.
Bupalos
@ArchTeryx: I do wish people would grapple a bit with the reality that Trump’s growth market and the marginal difference from ’20-’24 that gave him back the presidency was non-white voters switching to Republican/post-Truth populism. That we just keep repeating our old lines louder is not helping.
The Audacity of Krope
@Suzanne: I was called a bitch innumerable times this past weekend. It was one of the best weekends of my life.
Betty Cracker
@p.a.: I have a spider story! I’m not as considerate to the spider as you are to yours (kudos), though I do take care not to harm it.
There are lots of banana spiders in the swamp. Kinda large (can grow to palm size), scary looking and mildly venomous. I have a live and let live attitude toward them as long as they stay outside, but they keep threatening to engulf a hummingbird feeder I have hanging outside my upstairs front porch.
So, once a week I take a branch and rip down the spider’s carefully constructed web before refilling the feeder. I don’t harm the spider, but it won’t take the hint and build elsewhere! I’m not willing to relocate the feeder because it’s the perfect spot for observing h-birds while chilling on the porch.
The stand-off continues.
Quiltingfool
@Quiltingfool: To see that quilt, you can click on my nym, which takes you to my Etsy store, click on “117 sales” and you can access all the photos there.
I am making quilts to use up fabric I already have. Some fabrics, like Laurel Burch cat fabrics, are so hard for me to use because I love the fabric and I don’t want to cut it up!
I’ve been thinking about making a “Cats of Balloon Juice” quilt. I’ve been making appliqué patterns from photos, and I’m getting a bit better at it. Now I just need to acquire photos! And a better printer!
Suzanne
@The Audacity of Krope: I like my hair pulled in certain contexts, but when a coworker did it, I had a problem. Ya dig, I’m sure.
The Audacity of Krope
@Suzanne: Yes, I suppose you’re right.
Although, my situation actually probably covers more separate contexts than you are probably thinking about.
MobiusKlein
@p.a.: We get butterfly cocoons on the stairs rails down to the backyard.
Amazing they don’t get broken after a day, but hang on for quite a bit
Bupalos
@Baud: Very much agreed, that has been the early history of the internet. New tools take time for humanity to adjust to, and things change.
They Call Me Noni
@Quiltingfool: Gorgeous!!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
Another Scott
@frosty: Only 57%? When “bloody” is a swear word??
Unpossible.
Best wishes,
Scott.
p.a
@Betty Cracker: Hmmm… I know mantis will take hummers.
Uncle Cosmo
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Harrison Wesley
@Suzanne: How about “bellyaching?”
stinger
@p.a.:
Moments ago I had to sweep a mouse out of my kitchen! Shrieking the while!
Quiltingfool
@Suzanne:
I hear you. And I agree! So,
…people griping? whining? complaining? about Obama? Cracker, please.
Pick your poison! More choices would be great!
lowtechcyclist
@Miss Bianca:
I got bats in my belfry. But I like ’em there.
rekoob
@Suzanne: “Cavil” came to mind, although I suppose it doesn’t convey the same spirit that the other word does. For those of a literary bent, there’s always “Sturm und Drang“.
Betty Cracker
Regarding Obama, I’ve got no expectations of him beyond what I believe any citizen should do in a perilous time, i.e., do the best you can where you are with the resources you have. But thinking of him makes me sad these days.
The sadness is NOT because of anything Obama did or didn’t do, but because of what we’ve become since he left office. I thought better of us in his era, especially at the start of it. I miss that.
stinger
@Uncle Cosmo:
Yay for ‘Enery! Hope everybody’s happy!
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Same here. I feel like we took our narrow window of opportunity for granted and wasted it.
On the bright side, dailykos became such an ugly place after Obama’s win that I ended up here.
MagdaInBlack
@p.a.: Here at work we have some low growing evergreen type bushes on the east side of the buildings. They are full of little spiders building their funnel type webs. In the morning the spiders all sit on their dew covered balconies (the entrance to the web) basking in the sunshine. I think it’s pretty cool =-)
Geminid
@Suzanne: I like “griping” instead of “bitching.”
Betty Cracker
@MagdaInBlack: I love that image — spiders on their dewy balconies! :)
Baud
@Suzanne:
I’ll miss having a bitchin’ good time.
The Thin Black Duke
White America hates hates HATES when black people say “No”. If you ask me, Obama isn’t obligated to do anything at this point in his life. He did his time and he’s tired. Obama deserves to rest. White America knew what was at stake and didn’t care. White people either voted for Trump or kept their white asses home, end of story. White America broke America, White America gots to fix it.
WV Blondie
An observation: when I’ve been taunted a couple of times about Felon47 running for a third term, I’ve said okay, we’ll run Obama. That’s reduced them to a frothing mess! (And yes, I know it wouldn’t happen, but it reinforces the impossibility of the MAGA fever dream.)
schrodingers_cat
@The Thin Black Duke: Well said.
Professor Bigfoot
Conservatives will— HAVE— burned down the Constitution they continually claim to revere because it permitted a Black man to be elected President “over” them.
From the destruction of the Voting RIghts Act to the election of Trump, it’s ALL been a reaction to Obama winning two elections.
Heh, it pisses of conservatives that he won, but his winning makes white leftists wonder why he can’t conjure up some magick when they need it most.
Geminid
@Bupalos: Insread of a some novel political dynamic, that shift in nonwhite votes could be due in some or most part to old fashioned misogyny. The shift wasn’t that big and it tended to manifest more in male voters.
Steve LaBonne
@Professor Bigfoot: “My Magical Negro is supposed to come and save me, dammit!”
Kathleen
@The Thin Black Duke: 100%
JBWoodford
@tobie: AFAICT it was more complicated than that. Despite the overall excellent economy, a lot of people who might under other circumstances have voted D were still not doing well. And yes, Harris & Walz tried (again, AFAICT) to communicate that nuance and speak to the people who hadn’t seen the broader economy’s improvement in their own lives, but our media don’t do nuance well.
MagdaInBlack
@Betty Cracker: You and me, Betty. For everyone else here at work it’s “ew, spiders.”
Bupalos
Can you cite a larger one? I’m thinking maybe whites to Republican ’68. The Trump era is seeing very rapid realignment in historical terms and basically none of it aligns with our old model. The variations that are available in the “nothing to see here, just the same as always except moreso” category are endless. Color me unimpressed. Or rather, impressed with the resistance to changing our mindset.
@The Thin Black Duke: This is so weird. “The Nazi’s broke Germany, so it’s up to the Nazi’s to fix it!!” What is that, exactly?
The reason not to clammor for Obama to “fix things” is not that he’s doesn’t owe anyone anything. He does, or at least he acts like he thinks he does, and that’s probably because he’s an actual decent and ethical person, and not a selfish lazy bum. The reason is that Obama has absolutely no ability to fix things now, and represents a politics that is functionally bankrupt in our current era.
ArchTeryx
@Uncle Cosmo:
ALL RIGHT ALL RIGHT I’LL GO ANYWHERE YOU WANT TO JUST DON’T SING ANYMORE!!
Belafon
@Bupalos: Did you read what he said? Even a little of it?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@ArchTeryx: My wife and I are legally married thanks to Obama. To me, that will always be huge. Do not care about people complaining about his timing on gay marriage. They will always find something to bitch about. In the end, his administration made it happen.
Miss Bianca
@The Thin Black Duke: Hear, hear.
ArchTeryx
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: And that is on the docket to get reversed, too. Which I’m betting they will, and thus annul almost all those marriages. These people will stop at nothing to erase his legacy.
Old School
@Quiltingfool: That is a gorgeous quilt.
Bupalos
@Belafon: I read CNN’s entire thing there. I don’t see anything of substance there or that I’d expect to be politically effective. Some vague boilerplate and a very marginal attempt to mediate between I guess Ro Khanna and AOC on Ro Khanna’s behalf? He’s talking to richies and getting DNC donations and it’s probably perfectly fine, but is there some there there that you think I’m missing?
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Quiltingfool:
“And when he didn’t do the magic Negro thing? Fix everything in under two years? Welp, we’re done with him. He was supposed to fix everything ALL BY HIMSELF, and he didn’t do it. We’ll just stay home and pout.”
If Sanders had won both the primary and (however unlikely) the general election in 2016, his biggest supporters would have done the same to him. His current popularity is fueled by his perceived martyrdom. An actual President Sanders would have disappointed them to an extreme.
Geminid
@Bupalos: Your analysis never includes the gender difference between our candidates in 2020 and 2024. That is a big variable to be ignoring.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Us?
Soprano2
@The Thin Black Duke: Nobody but white men are supposed to be able to say “no”. I refuse to participate in cooking and cleaning for the events around here just because it’s been expected that the women will do all of that stuff. They’ve finally made some of the guys do it, too. If women will volunteer for the work, men will gladly let them do all of it.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: But you have opposable thumbs!
You could end the standoff in a rather brutal way any the time of your choosing, but you are choosing not to, so I think it’s more that you are the benevolent giant who is choosing to let them live – as long as they will stay in their designated space.
Scuffletuffle
@frosty: Just under half of Australians?? What the fuck…
AxelFoley
@The Thin Black Duke:
BOOM
WaterGirl
@Quiltingfool: That is an amazing quilt! I don’t think there would be enough money in the world to entice me to give up that quilt.
AxelFoley
@Professor Bigfoot:
BOOM, Part II
Scuffletuffle
@Suzanne: Whinging, hat tip to the Brits…
Steve in the ATL
How can y’all discuss bitching without posting the relevant eighties song?!
(skip the first two minutes if you just want to hear the 60-second song)
suzanne
@Geminid:
“Griping” seems, IMO, to be somewhat less intense than “bitching”? I gripe about a hole in my sock, I bitch about work?
David Collier-Brown
@ArchTeryx wrote:
That’s something to communicate in time for Christmas: ” you will have your premiums rise by 46 to 73%, because Mr Trump defunded the Affordable Care Act by $1,000,000,000 dollars, 80%”. (Not the real numbers)
Get people aware of their problems, watch the problem happen, tell them you predicted that, and now it’s come true.
“Every future ill contains a present ill.” That’s a problem for those who would do evil
David Collier-Brown
@Suzanne: In britain, “moaning”.
It roughly means “complaining, with no intention of doing anything about it”.
Anyway
@Suzanne: I like “whingeing” – better than whining …
Anyway
@Scuffletuffle: GMTA – whinging or whingeing is my go-to
suzanne
@David Collier-Brown: I love “whinging”, but it’s also slightly different in flavor! Seems like it’s “whining about a thing you’re not going to do anything about”, rather than “complaining about this problem beyond one’s reach to solve”.
Words are so interesting. There’s so many, and sometimes there still aren’t enough to say exactly what I mean!
Martin
You nailed it in one, WG. LOL. Sorry about that.
Bupalos
@Geminid: The reason I don’t talk about gender polarization in an analysis of the demographics of how we lost ’24 is that increasing gender polarization on its own is ambiguous an possibly worked slightly in our favor. Women are slightly more likely to vote than men.
In general, the popular notion here that Kamala was at an electoral disadvantage because she is a black woman isn’t very well supported by the numbers. In statistically significant terms, whites overall didn’t move towards Trump between 20 and ’24 while all other ethnic groups overall did. That movement generally correlates above all with general existing income and education disparities. Asians may or may not be an exception to this.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Have you checked your email lately?
WaterGirl
@Steve in the ATL: I normally love you, and will love you again, but right at this moment I hate you for the two words that are repeating over and over again in my brain.
Geminid
@suzanne: I probably should have said, I use “griping” instead of “bitching,” as that is my practice. I avoid the word “bitching” for the reasons you state at #52.
Ben Cisco
@Baud: Same.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Suzanne: whining or whinging (as the Brits say)? Agree with you about bitching.
TerryC
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@MagdaInBlack: I was a known weirdo at work ( which was understandable since I was a programmer in IT) for
1) rescuing worms who had been caught out in the parking lot blacktop after a rain (pick them up and move to plantings along the building)
2) rescue pillbugs (and anyone else I noticed) from certain death in the stairwell
I was also called sometimes to rescue a spider or such from a coworker’ office.
When I was a kid I got shit for rescuing bees from drowning in swimming pools.
I keep telling people it is cheap karma.
Uncle Cosmo
ArchTeryx: Blame Peter Noone (“Herman’s Hermits”). Mi earworm es su earworm. ;^p
dnfree
@Betty Cracker:
I agree. The start of Obama’s era was so hopeful, and his re-election in 2012 made it seem that we had really turned a corner as a country. Then we apparently fell through a trapdoor and haven’t stopped falling, as far as I can tell.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Oh, I just got my reply returned undeliverable – looked like a temporary problem with your mail provider. I resent
Oh, looks like some previous emails I sent you months ago were also not delivered. Hmm…