Whenever you see Republicans offering messaging advice to Democrats you know the Repubs are losing.
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) September 9, 2025 at 11:50 AM
===
The police in Illinois work closely with the ATF to get guns off our streets, with the FBI to arrest gang members, and with the DEA to destroy the fentanyl trade.
So why is Trump sabotaging our ongoing work with federal law enforcement partners?— Governor JB Pritzker (@govpritzker.illinois.gov) September 9, 2025 at 3:12 PM
===
"hoax" in Trumpspeak always means "my enemies are saying this so you are instructed to ignore it." Kinda the fash version of 'this is a distraction.' Same intention but with an added 'meddlesome priest' implication.
Greg Sargent, at the New Republic — “Trump Is a Weak and Failing President, and It’s Time to Say So”:
President Donald Trump understands better than anyone else alive that his hold on his supporters—and on plenty of swing voters too—depends on the mere perception that he’s strong, wins everywhere, always acts boldly, and wields absolute mastery over his eternally feckless, disoriented enemies. Last month, after an anemic July jobs report, Trump fired the steward of jobs data, magically transforming the story from one about the Trump economy’s weakness into one about him decisively crushing a newly designated foe.
On Friday, however, the new jobs report found that only 22,000 jobs were created in August, far fewer than the 73,000 created in July. A downward revision of the previous month shows 13,000 jobs were lost in June. Shockingly, firing the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics could not disguise the impact of Trump’s own policies: As economists noted, most signs suggest his tariffs are an important reason for the slowdown.
All this suggests that Democrats have a fresh opening to undermine the foundation of Trump’s political strength by portraying him as a politically weak, failing, diminished, naked-emperor figure—and some new internal polling conducted by Senate Democrats hints at why.
The polling—conducted for the Senate Majority PAC and provided to The New Republic—probes voter attitudes toward Trump, his tariffs, and the economy. It finds that 56 percent of likely 2026 midterm voters nationally say Trump’s tariffs are hurting the economy overall, with 44 percent saying they’re hurting a lot. Only 32 percent say they’re helping. Among swing voters—defined as voters who switched in either direction from 2020 to 2024—57 percent say they’re hurting…
Between this new polling and the awful jobs numbers, Democrats no longer need to fear any Trump meta-advantage on the issue. An appeals court has found most of the tariffs to be illegal (though this will go to the Supreme Court), meaning they’re failing legally too…
This Democratic polling shows the party now sees Trump’s failing tariff regime as a big liability. “The polling does show that instead of creating strength or a sense of economic security, it is doing the opposite,” Lauren French, a spokesperson for Senate Majority PAC, told me. “When you are reckless on the economy, you don’t actually project strength.”
Trump relentlessly runs his messaging through a strong-versus-weak frame. He constantly uses the word strongly in descriptions of everything he does. For years he has attacked his foes as sickly and enfeebled. Trump’s most deranged displays—the silly claims about crowd sizes, the dumb imagery of his face attached to cartoonishly steroidal bodies, the vile agitprop about occupying U.S. cities—have an over-the-top quality that itself seems designed to convey an overbearing, resistance-is-futile aura.
Trump regularly runs his performance on issues through this frame too, but reality is shattering the illusion. Trump insists Russia wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine with him as president—and blusters that his feckless predecessors gave Ukraine away—but Vladimir Putin has humiliated Trump by keeping up the killing. Trump’s propagandists glorify his militarization of cities, but while it does constitute a massive abuse of power, Trump’s lawyers are unprecedentedly struggling to indict people swept up in his crackdown…
“Democrats need to attack this dimension of Trumpism—the essential story Trumpworld tells about him being ‘strong,’” says Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who often argues for this. “The way they see politics is they operate in the strong/weak, winning/losing framework. We have to understand that and take it away from them.”…
Much more at the link.
Baud
If Mikey is right that it’s a losing issue, we lose. Better to be oppressed than to self-oppress.
Baud
Supreme Court argument on Trump’s tariffs in early November.
Eunicecycle
But why doesn’t Mike insist troops are sent to some cities in Louisiana that have a higher per capita crime rate than Chicago? Yield, man! Plus “yield” is weird.
Doc Sardonic
Interesting that Pastor Mike used the term yield….. Fundiegelical code for give up the cookie and give Daddy what he wants.
Eunicecycle
@Doc Sardonic: maybe that’s why it sounded weird to me. I’m not a fundievangelical.
Old School
@Baud: The tension on whether the Supreme Court will rule 6-3 in favor of the Trump administration is quite palpable.
Doc Sardonic
@Eunicecycle: No, it’s deeply weird, you got the right reaction/vibe. That was intended for the Fundie menfolk to nod solemnly and approvingly, anyone but them should pick up that very squicky feeling much like stepping on a hairball barefoot.
Baud
@Old School:
I’m mostly curious to see how they limit it to Trump.
bbleh
And yet, see Josh Marshall today re Senate Dems wanting a “deal” centered on (supposedly) preserving (most of) Obamacare in exchange for not fighting a CR (as though such a deal would be honored by the administration after the fact).
Until there is a shift in the attitude of the DC Dem “leadership,” we can hope and cheer for Dems to “attack this dimension of Trumpism” and other national-level efforts, but imho a focus on state and local efforts is far more likely to pay off
@Doc Sardonic: @Eunicecycle: it would have been less weird if Pastor Mike had been wearing pants. Those close-shot pix with dark backgrounds hide a lot …
hueyplong
@Eunicecycle: In his world and context, “yield” may be the exactly correct word. It’s precisely what he wants blue cities to do. That smarmy shit needs to go perform seemingly impossible acts of self-gratification.
Baud
I’d rather merge than yield, if you know what I mean.
Archon
Question, after these past 9 months who is on the Trump train still that could possibly be off of it say in December or next November?
Baud
@Archon:
People who have died from measles.
schrodingers_cat
@bbleh: I have zero patience with anyone who criticizes Ds for what Rs are doing. And that includes the sainted Josh Marshall.
zhena gogolia
@schrodingers_cat: Same here.
Suzanne
Duh.
Deputinize America
So the feckless, dumbass thugs of the IDF manage to fuck up international order by bombing Doha, and didn’t kill their targets. Par for the course – it’s always collateral damage and “we’re investigating ourselves, but don’t think we did anything wrong” for those poorly trained amoral simpletons.
Bill Arnold
@Doc Sardonic
Daddy, or God? Trump is God?
Yielding, in a biblical context, refers to the act of surrendering or submitting to God’s will, authority, or guidance. It involves a conscious decision to set aside personal desires and align oneself with divine purposes. Yielding is often associated with humility, obedience, and the relinquishment of control, allowing God to direct one’s path.
Omnes Omnibus
@Suzanne: Yeah, you understand it. I understand it. No one is trying to bring us on side. We are already there. Most political messaging has nothing to do with us.
Scout211
p.a
@Deputinize America: I read the US gave Qatar a heads-up*, so shame on them if the raid worked.
*Not sure how much I believe from ANY usual Western source about ANYTHING in the Mideast.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@hueyplong:
I believe the impossibility can be alleviated with proper application of a serrated steak knife and a corkscrew.
Suzanne
@Omnes Omnibus: I am fully aware of political reality, but I have to confess that when I think about broadening our appeal to better attract waffly normies…. I think about how dumb it is and it makes me sad.
MAYBE IF YOU WEREN’T DRAWING DICKS ON THE DESK IN HIGH SCHOOL, YOU COULD HAVE FIGURED THIS OUT.
SpaceUnit
Personally I think we ought to just keeping pounding the Epstein / pedo narrative. It’s really getting under his skin.
Tormenting that asshole for the next fourteen months seems as good a strategy as any.
MagdaInBlack
@Bill Arnold: Since they profess to believe trump appointed by God:
Yielding to Authority:
The Bible also addresses the concept of yielding to earthly authorities as part of a believer’s duty. Romans 13:1-2 instructs, “Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which is from God. The authorities that exist have been appointed by God. Consequently, whoever resists authority is opposing what God has set in place, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.” This passage emphasizes the importance of respecting and submitting to governmental powers as an extension of one’s submission to God
Suzanne
@SpaceUnit:
Concur 100%.
hueyplong
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: That’s a start, but a little too smooth. The point isn’t for him to enjoy it.
Geminid
@bbleh:
Josh Marshall’s prescription is for Congessional Democrats to drive a harder bargain, during a government shutdown if neccesary– and possible, which is not as clear to me as it is to Marshall. But why would that deal be more likely to be honored by the administration than one made before a shutdown?
Look, we won’t know how the Continuing Resolution drama will work out until the last few days of this month; maybe the last few hours. But the way I see it, Josh Marshall’s opinion is no more credible than that of anyone here, and the opinions that matter to me are those of the 212 House Democrats and 47 Senate Democrats.
Ishiyama
@MagdaInBlack:
“Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s; render unto G-d what is G-d’s.
hueyplong
@SpaceUnit: In terms of odds of success, I place much more reliance on the efficacy of stroking out the pig as opposed to mass protests the pig’s entourage will make sure he doesn’t see on TV (unless some protesters get killed, which would be as likely as anything else to get him off at this stage of his life).
Bill Arnold
@MagdaInBlack:
Yeah, that is very concerning. The Trump-thing is much closer, even just judging by words and deeds, and arguably the progressive corruption of many of those surrounding him[1], to the antichrist in Revelation.
[1] Some were already sufficiently evil.
MagdaInBlack
@Ishiyama: Yes, but they don’t follow that Christ, he’s too woke.
zhena gogolia
@SpaceUnit: I agree.
Baud
@SpaceUnit:
Also the most fun of the strategies.
lowtechcyclist
@MagdaInBlack:
It’s funny (for certain values of ‘funny’) how they bring that one out when a Republican is in the White House but it disappears when a Dem is there.
Scout211
Think about it more in terms of making the facts more obvious to the many people who are working two jobs, raising kids, caregiving to their parents, trying to cope with paying the mortgage, the rent and keep their family afloat. They aren’t necessarily waffling, they just don’t have time or energy to pay attention to politics.
But they do want things to work, like government and benefits and healthcare and social security, etc. So messaging to those normies can be powerful if they can be shown that everything that they expect to just work, is being taken away from them and everyone else.
I am personally surrounded by normies in my extended family and my friends. It doesn’t bother me that they don’t want to pay attention to politics. But they do listen when it becomes clear how the Trump policies will hurt them.
In fact I don’t even think we need to broaden our appeal. We just need a message that will get through to the normies as it applies to them.
Gloria DryGarden
It’s Tuesday
Doc Sardonic
@Bill Arnold: In the Fundiegelical world God and Daddy are pretty much interchangeable, Paul covered that in his letter to the church in Ephesus, Ephesians 5:22-33, however most Fundie preachers gloss over or ignore the exhortation from Paul for men to sacrificially love their wives as Christ loves the church.
Baud
@Scout211:
I’d go as far as saying we should try to narrow our appeal.
Geminid
@p.a: According to Roi Kais,* Qatari officials say they were notified of the attacks while they were in progress. That is consistent with other reporting that Israel only notified the U.S. once their planes launched the missiles that struck the villa where Hamas officials were meeting.
* Roi Kais is Arab affairs reporter for the Israeli news site Kan News. Kais happened to be in Qatar today, and he described Qatari officials as “furious.”
Scout211
Is this a Baudism or do you really think this?
satby
So I discovered you can unroll threads on Blue Sky, and Ken White, now dba as Stand With Chicago Hat has a great one here.
Ishiyama
@MagdaInBlack: Jesus wept.
Baud
@Scout211:
The tough part is selecting a way to narrow that’s broadly popular.
lafcolleen
ICE has been showing up at Chicago area courthouses.
ICE was at Daley Center (main civil courthouse downtown) in traffic court today.
Also at traffic court in suburbs today.
My colleague was at Rolling Meadows suburban courthouse. She got deets from a Sheriff there. Sheriff’s office seemingly not involved.
ICE agents are coming in unidentified vehicles, going up to courthouse masked and then once inside are unmasked but in civilian clothes, no markings. Not sure whether they are going thru security or using IDs to bypass.
Were targeting traffic court and reportedly took 2 people away.
cook county has a pretty robust online court info system – so ICE could have easily run people’s names and DOB to discover upcoming court dates.
ICE was at the domestic violence courthouse on 9/3.
Quaker in a Basement
Talk about things that aren’t “winning messages”! I’d include “Trump was an FBI snitch who turned in Epstein! Wait, no he wasn’t. I made that up.”
satby
@Geminid: Agree with you.
When the only skin you have in the game is looking foolish if your opinion is wrong, you can throw any old take out there. When your interest is actually advocating for your constituents, many of whom would be hurt badly by a shutdown, it’s a more difficult call. And Republican promises are vaporware whenever they’re made, so I’m glad I’m not in Congress.
Suzanne
@Scout211: I understand and I fully acknowledge that you’re right.
This is where I get sad, though. Nothing ever just works. Everything that is effective, elegant, and well-maintained took a ton of work to get it to that point and keep it there. And carelessness is almost as destructive as outright demolition.
So, yes, to Omnes’s point…. This is where I conclude that the messaging strategy is not designed for me and must be much squishier.
chemiclord
@Scout211:
Not Baud, but I personally DO think that our various coalitions underneath the left leaning umbrella tend to over focus on snipe hunting in the political wilderness looking for disaffected Republican moderates or secret socialists among the white working class, rather than actually work with the people already in the tent.
They Call Me Noni
@Scout211: would be most useful if the next batch includes financial records. Follow the money. Always follow the money.
Trivia Man
@SpaceUnit: In addition, even hard core republicans are audibly questioning what he is hiding.
satby
@chemiclord: Yep
@They Call Me Noni: double yep. The thing the felon has always been most secretive and protective about are his finances.
Bill Arnold
@Quaker in a Basement:
He may well have been a snitch, using the FBI to attack Epstein in a dispute over a property that Trump wanted to use for money laundering, and did (probably).
What he probably wasn’t was an informant, which is a deeper and longer relationship with law enforcement.
TerryC
Someone needs to go into a courthouse men’s room after a bunch of MAGA ICE thugs have been waiting to kidnap people and detail how messy and smelly it is.
matt
I was recently in a place that shoots fentanyl into the veins of Americans every day – a hospital.
They Call Me Noni
@Trivia Man: He is covering for powerful men who have been giving him a lot of money. It’s not complicated, but when it comes out it will be extremely sleazy.
cain
@bbleh:
that can’t be right because yesterday he did a thing praising Ezra Klein who apparently Dem leadership listens to saying that they absolutely need to push for everything.
Heavens.
The few times you have leverage you need to go for the jugular.
ETA edited out some stuff.
Mai Naem mobile
A cup of McDonalds coffee went up by 50 cents over the weekend. That’s like 33%. Regular hot coffee. Not the latte or mocachino stuff. I remember reading somewhere that one of the reasons the Dems lost congress in 1946 was the price of coffee. I honestly don’t think Orange AHole’s cabinet is so wealthy and so totally out of touch, they don’t ‘get’ inflation. I’m in AZ so one gets used to buying drinks(non-alcoholic) for hydration, especially during the summer. The price of drinks is up like 75 percent in the last 18 months. That’s ridiculous.
cain
@Deputinize America:
I was reading that they did indeed kill the Hamas leadership? Then again that came from Israel directly…
Trollhattan
Attn. Pastor Mike. When they coming to save your asses?
cain
@Mai Naem mobile:
I’m wondering what kind of brain spasms Fox News watchers are getting being in the disinformation bubble while colliding with real life and seeing prices go sky high while the administration/fox news is claiming cheap everything.
Mai Naem mobile
@Geminid: the only way to do a bargain with this GOP and Orange Ahole is to have some kind of poison pill that goes into effect if they change the bargain down the road but I can’t think of what that could be. The Dems don’t have any leverage to pull that off.
cain
I’m curious on what happens if the govt shutdown – a lot of those govt agencies are not going to get paid, it will frustrate the hell out of Miller since ICE won’t get paid either.
A govt shutdown is always blamed against the party in power. I don’t know what downsides we have by sticking to what we want and when it happens get the agreement from congress. Of course, Trump could blow it out of the water because he doesn’t listen to congress anyways. But curious what this would do.
Mai Naem mobile
@cain: i have no idea. I know grocery item manufacturers have been pulling shrinkflation that masks some of this stuff but you can’t mask the price of gas. Gas has gone up by ~ 35 cents in the past few months. Utilities as well so even if you have an electric car you’ll see it there. And freaking insurance has gone nuts and I’m not in Florida.
Geminid
@cain: Reports are all over the place. There were initial claims that the strike wiped out Hamas leadership in Doha including Hamas chief Khalil al-Hayya. Hamas is reported to say that al-Hayya’s son and his office director were killed, but other officials were not.
There’s video out of the supposed strike site. It shows a two story villa with the lower floor scorched as if there had been an explosion within. It doesn’t look like anyone inside could have survived, but who knows who was there?
But there are a dozen Middle East news sites that will provide good reporting on this in coming hours and days, and they can give us a good idea of what happened.
Israel launched a similar attack in Yemen a week or so ago. They killed the entire cabinet of Houthi controlled Yemen, and we know that because the funerals two days later were a big deal. Coverage of that strike was all over Middle East news sites but it hardly got attention here.
Bill Arnold
@Mai Naem mobile:
Also, anyone driving anywhere populated in the USA sees the price of gas in large glowing numbers at least several times per day.
If they are hardcore Trump cultists, they might be wondering why all their local gas stations have increased prices even though Daddy Trump says that the price of gas is dropping.
But everyone else is reminded that Mr. Trump is a liar.
Mai Naem mobile
@cain: i was listening to Mick Mulvaney on Bloomberg. He sounded like a giddy teenage girl missing a Taylor Swift concert. ‘I wish I was with Russell Vought at OMB! All the cuts we could make!’ These people are just awful awful human beings. Mulvaney was of the opinion that govt shutdowns don’t get remembered because everything goes back to normal once govt reopens. Mulvaney thought the shutdown would be great because Orange Ahole would get to choose what he wants to keep open. I kind of want the Dems to not give the GOP the votes but the GOP messaging is so good. They’ve already started calling it the Schumer shutdown and it’s not even shut down yet. Schumer ofcourse is always worried about his Wall Street pals because they might not be able to another yacht next year.
Geminid
@cain: If there is a shutdown, I expect Trump will pay whomever he wants to including ICE, and not pay whomever he wants to including IRS and National Park Service employees. Why would he do otherwise?
Trollhattan
@Bill Arnold: I make a point of telling my EV-driving cube neighbor every morning that I happened to for gas on the way to work.
Figure it makes his day a little better. I do ponder all the monster pickups in the lot and how their gotta gas up mornings are? 36 gallons? Cool.
Professor Bigfoot
@satby: I agree with you both, including the part that says, “boy, I’m glad I’M not in Congress and have to make these calls.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: Gasoline is one of the only commodities whose price will remain steady or drop this year and next. At least, that’s what industry analysts project. Prices for just about everything else will rise though.
Geminid
@Professor Bigfoot: Happy birthday! It sounds like a happy one.
Ed. A birthday with nice weather if it’s anything like here in Virginia.
Bill Arnold
@Mai Naem mobile:
This is just basic alliteration.
Need to work on lists of
Donald
Trump
different-church-lady
I thought that thread was supposed to be about wishing Professor Bigfoot a happy birthday.
different-church-lady
That is so much like “Just lie back and enjoy it,” that I don’t know how to feel clean.
WTFGhost
@Baud: The Trump admin has to make arguments? Wow.
@hueyplong: It helps if you understand “yield” = “submit”.
@Bill Arnold: All true, but, keep in mind, if you have faith that God is a good, wise, loving, ruler, submitting to his will makes sense. Here, though, we have a lying sack of human excrement, wrapped by a human-appearing body, saying he knows God’s will. Well, that’s horse shit. That said, in my younger days, I did believe God was good, loving, kind, and wise, so, I felt that His will would be that I also be good, loving, kind, and wise, and that, otherwise, He wasn’t going to micromanage – or, if He really wanted me to do something, He’d figure out a way to make it clear (see also: “good, loving, kindly, wise”). Now, I have a kind of polyamorous relationship with the God of Abraham – “you seem like a great guy, most of the time, but, I’m not ready to commit,” – so I guess I sometimes want to defend some Christian ideas as reasonable.
@Bill Arnold: I know there’s a biblical claim to look to the fruits of those who claim to speak in Jesus’ name. What happens around them? Do the hungry get fed, the poor get shelter, do the sick and imprisoned get treated well? In Trump’s case, it’s trivially obvious that he’s *not* speaking for God.
@Gloria DryGarden: TAKE THAT BACK! HOW DARE YOU?
Oh, wait. Never mind. It is Tuesday.
different-church-lady
@Baud:
With those creeps?
different-church-lady
@WTFGhost:
I still want her to take it back.
Baud
@WTFGhost:
The argument could very well be “I am Trump!”
Matt McIrvin
@Doc Sardonic: Bend the knee! Evangelicals are very into bending the knee.
Bill Arnold
@Bill Arnold:
Oops, my tags got eaten.
Donald <bad things starting with letter D>
Trump <bad things starting with letter T>
WTFGhost
@Mai Naem mobile: They can call it any kind of effing shutdown they want to – no one will remember next year. What’s important is, it will make the economy even worse than it was going to be just because Trump is mucking things up, and doesn’t even know what he’s doing, or what he wants – he just expected tariffs would lead to a lot of bribes!
Where was I? Right – shutdown = worse economy = worse 2026 for Republicans, and yes, I know, we’re the good guys, but, America voted Republicans into office, we need to tell them “this is what Republicans do!” and the worse 2026 is, the better for sanity and democracy. America FA, so they need to FO, and then, hopefully, we can get the real pedophile enablers out of power.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud:
They may think they don’t have to–Trump or someone like him will rule forever, and if a future Big Daddy does or doesn’t want tariffs, that’s fine either way.
Jackie
@Trollhattan: And…
Shreveport, LA is Johnson’s hometown.
different-church-lady
@Trollhattan: The price of gas is going up so fast these assholes won’t have any money left for sports betting.
chemiclord
@cain:
Trump voters tend to split into two groups.
People with enough wealth and privilege that they never particularly feel price increases.
People who are so poor that price increases are merely additional costs they can’t afford to begin with
lowtechcyclist
@different-church-lady:
What thread was that? I must’ve missed it while I was out doing stuff.
Anyway, happy birthday, Prof. Bigfoot! From what you said this morning before I started running around, it sounds like you got an excellent day for it!
Matt McIrvin
@Mai Naem mobile: If you’re a good enough soldier, you will see a number going up and make yourself believe that it’s going down.
(Like crime. Nobody in their right mind who lived through the past few decades could believe that violent crime is worse today than it was in 1979. Except all these people do.)
different-church-lady
Be a hell of a lot easier to take it away from them if we could keep them from winning.
JaySinWa
@Scout211: In other Epstein news the House discharge petition is up to 216 of the 218 required signatures. The four Republicans that have signed all signed on the first day of the petition, so no movement from the Republican side. clerk.house.gov/DischargePetition/2025090209
mrmoshpotato
@cain:
I think we can be sure that Ted Cruz will flee to Cancun.
cain
@Geminid: They’ve been very efficient in killing their opponents I would say that much. I can’t help but think that Mossad got some help from either U.S. intelligence or SA/Egypt.
different-church-lady
@lowtechcyclist: Erp, posted that on the wrong thread. Should have been one thread below, where Watergirl described how things went off the rails.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
They may be wary of a future Republican whose secretly a liberal. Or maybe an Ike type of Republican.
Jackie
piratedan
ah, yeah…. I would very careful about adopting the advice of old Pastor Johnson, when he uses yield, its an equivalent to submit, it means recognize your defeat, you have lost.
anyone taking bets that Pastor Mike is a submissive?
they can sit there with there secret smiles knowing that they are just grabbing people, sowing chaos and fear, there’s no efficiency, no real effort here to actually fight crime, right wrongs…. just total bullshit and in a way I am thankful that I have not witnessed any of this shit because I fully expect it would trigger me into being an angry old white guy assaults ICE agents with shovel and has to be shot to death so that Guatemalan dishwashers can be arrested.
that would give the blog a bad name and I would regret that….
cain
@Mai Naem mobile:
According to this article – mediaite.com/politics/house-democrats-worry-that-schumer-will-sht-the-bed-in-upcoming-showdown-with-…
House Dems are worried that Schumer will do the same thing he did last time which is make a deal where the Dems didnt get anything for it.
This statement though is quite irritating:
This feels like a “politics as usual” shrug that he’ll weather because he took the tough vote – given today that the military is going into blue cities, and ICE is deporting anyone even U.S. citizens – we are not operating normally.
JaySinWa
The problem is “we” don’t seem to know what “we” want. The one concrete thing they seem to be asking for is heathcare funding. That’s not enough, I agree we should be asking for a maximalist position on paying for everything we have voted for, but so far that isn’t resonating with the PTB in the leadership.
ETA and stop this occupy some of the cities nonsense.
different-church-lady
@Jackie:
How dare he! Those things are reserved for white people!
Geminid
@cain: I noticed that the Israelis said today’s operation was directed from the headquarters of the Israeli air force and of the Shin Bet security service. Notably, their Mossad intelligence agency was left out. That may be because Mossad head David Barnea carries out a lot of Israel’s diplomacy with Arab states including Qatar.
I’m not sure the Israelis needed any help spotting the villa and timing the attack. It wasn’t that challenging an operation. The location of the Hamas leader’s home was likely an open secret, and they could have timed it based on signals intelligence
Ed. The Saudis and the Egyptians very vehemently denounced the attack, and I think they meant it. They don’t like Hamas, but even if tactically successful the attack served no strategic purpose. To the contrary, it set back negotiations to end the Gaza war which both nations want to see ended
On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu does not want the war to end, which could be why the attack was made.
Professor Bigfoot
@lowtechcyclist: It was an absolutely GORGEOUS day, not a cloud to be seen, high temp mid 70s, just a perfect day to go carve apexes.
Tomorrow promises to be much the same, so I may well be doing it all again.
Now back in sweats, and there’s coffee and cake in my near future.
‘Twas a lovely day; and again I thank the entire Jackaltariat for all the well wishes, they are GREATLY appreciated!
satby
@JaySinWa: that won’t resonate with people not getting paid, losing healthcare coverage, unable to contact SS or Medicare if they have problems, etc. Americans aren’t exactly known for being willing to sacrifice for a higher purpose, or people would have masked up and gotten vaccines. The blowback will be immense and everyone in government will get blamed. But there’s an entire media apparatus to say it’s the Democrats fault. There are no good choices here
And to be crystal clear: we lost almost all the choices last November.
Matt McIrvin
@piratedan: A thing I’ve noticed about the toxic masculinity of authoritarians is that it includes a willingness to abase themselves in shockingly obsequious ways before a bigger bully. That’s all part of the package.
Hoodie
I’ve been wondering about this tariff stuff for a while specifically because it seems like the biggest own goal of Trump’s agenda but he doggedly clings to it in spite of its unpopularity. A few days ago the Obama bros had an interesting discussion with Heather Cox Richardson about the historical analogies to this period, specifically to the 1850s and the Kansas/Nebraska Act. She pointed out that the unpopularity of this act, as it exemplified a stranglehold that slave-holding interests had on the national government, with their desire to extend slavery to new states representing an existential threat to small businesses and small farmers (e.g., the slave holders with large enterprises were the agribusiness of the time) who might compete with them. Lincoln was able to position himself as a champion of small businessmen and farmers against these monopolists. Ultimately, northern business interests realized that the Confederacy was a threat to them.
This makes me wonder if this tariff stuff is not just some quirky obsession of Trump but also an attempt to weaken blue state interests, in particular, the type of businesses that rely on open markets, global supply chains, etc. A lot of those are small businesses that provide value add to globally produced products. Trump’s plan makes no fucking sense from the standpoint of rebuilding manufacturing in the US, as there is no way to efficiently and effectively produce most modern manufactured goods on a purely domestic basis, i.e., without a global supply chain. However, it does make sense as a political weapon used to stifle particular democracy-inclined political interests associated with things like global supply chains. In other words, the tariff regime could be viewed Trump’s equivalent of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. He wants to extend slavery to all economic sectors. Who’s immune to tariffs? Raw material producers (e.g., domestic oil and gas) and, unsurprisingly, tech companies like Facebook, Google, etc. The former are on board with Trump because Trump stands to protect them from competition from more climate-friendly – and ultimately more efficient – forms of energy production, while the latter are being strong armed on things like antitrust.
In light of this, the tariff issue could be central to unifying interests against Trump because it has a direct negative impact on consumers and ultimately screws domestic manufacturers, as we’re now seeing. Because of this, Democratic Party strategy should probably have a strong element of economic democracy built around a coherent narrative about what the GOP is up to with things like tariffs.
cain
@Geminid: That seems kind of dumb on their part. I assume Hamas thought that they’d be protected. But given they weren’t even protected in Iran…
I won’t be shedding a tear given how much aid money they have stolen meant for the Palestinian people. Living large while their people suffer.
cain
@Professor Bigfoot:
Happy Birthday! Glad it was a good day with great weather :D
Matt McIrvin
@Hoodie: I think there are not subtle motivations behind this. Trump is STUPID–maybe not stupid about certain lizard-brain things, but he’s stupid about history. What he believes is that in the good old days, the US government was funded by tariffs so there was no income tax. So if we just put the super high tariffs back, we could eliminate the income tax, and foreigners would somehow fund the country. That’s it
(Why do other Republicans go along? Because Trump believes it. They’re authoritarians. They follow the Man.)
cain
@satby:
They will blame Dems regardless and also take credit for the accomplishments as well with nary a peep out of the media.
Bill Arnold
@Geminid:
That’s >1,069 miles, with some overflight of other countries. (Reportedly, 15 fighter jets involved.)
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
Hoodie
@Matt McIrvin: True, but Trump does have a sort of feral cunning about power. He’s also now surrounded by power-seeking types who could probably steer him to implement such an agenda. For example, I could see Vought and Stephen Miller wanting to do something like this and it wouldn’t be that hard to get Trump to go along simply by telling him that it will make him more powerful. His narcissism makes him vulnerable to manipulation. I’d also say it’s always been dangerous to underestimate him.
Geminid
@cain: When Israel hit the Hamas leader in Tehran, Iran was a hostile country that was fighting a hot war with Israel through their proxies in Lebanon and Gaza.
Qatar is a different story. At the time of this attack, Hamas was engaged in intense negotiations with Israel via the Qataris and Egyptians, and that gave them reason to believe they were safe in Qatar.
But Hamas claimed credit for yesterday’s attack at an Israeli bus stop that killed six people and injured a dozen more, and that was the justification used by the Israelis for the Doha attack. They also said the attack had been planned over several months though.
Geminid
@cain: When Israel hit the Hamas leader in Tehran, Iran was a hostile country that was fighting a hot war with Israel through their proxies in Lebanon and Gaza.
Qatar is a different story. At the time of this attack, Hamas was engaged in intense negotiations with Israel via the Qataris and Egyptians, and that gave them reason to believe they were safe in Qatar.
But Hamas claimed credit for yesterday’s attack at an Israeli bus stop that killed six people and injured a dozen more, and that was the justification used by the Israelis for the Doha attack. They also said the attack had been planned over several months though.
WaterGirl
@Professor Bigfoot: One more happy birthday!
Sounds like you didn’t have the awful heat for your birthday week. Yay!
sab
@Geminid: Just waiting for an excuse to attack. That is okay. Don’t kill Iraelis in Israel and the Israelis have no excuse to attack. Not that that would stop them, but we are playing by our rules, since their rules are war crimes.
Geminid
@Bill Arnold: Israel struck air defense sites in Syria last night and that may have been preparation for this attack. They would have wanted to knock out the radar.
The Israeli planes did not have to fly all the way to Qatar. Their air-to-ground missiles would have flown the last leg. Those have a fairly long range.
Melancholy Jaques
@Geminid:
OPEC+ have been increasing output throughout the year. Reports are that they want to regain the market share they lost as USA oil production increased during the Biden administration. However, they just announced their next increase will be less than expected, so prices ticked up.
Among the many really stupid things American voters believe is that the president controls gas prices. This absurdity has been a commonplace since the first OPEC boycott in 1973 against nations supporting Israel in the Yom Kippur War. For their usual reasons of finding fiction more emotionally satisfying than reality, this belief is more firmly fixed than the sun rising in the east.
Melancholy Jaques
@Jackie:
Did anyone ask Clayton Baker who he voted for? Just asking because back in my lawyers days, my clients were contractors and every single one of them were basically a meaner version of Pat Buchanan.
Gvg
@chemiclord: one problem is that our various democrat leaning constituencies understand each other better than we understand those Republican leaning odd crazies. We CAN understand and therefore criticize confidently our own coalition.
Those other guys seem like a foreign species the last few decades and it’s getting worse. They speak a different language and they see totally different events while walking among us. How do you criticize something you don’t understand, know you don’t understand, and know they don’t hear the words you say. Instead it goes through a misprogramed translator and who knows what comes out in their brains?
TS
@Baud: Not sure why they don’t just issue an order – as they do with everything else trump wants.
What has trump got on these people?
Scout211
Add one more to the discharge petition.
Jackie
Congratulations Rep. James Walkinshaw!
Scooped by Scout211.
Worth repeating though 😊
Scout211
@Jackie: You need to type faster! 🤣
Yes, definitely worth repeating.
Jackie
@Scout211:
Yes I do!🤪
eta I thought I was racing to scoop Geminid to the announcement! LOL
Geminid
@Melancholy Jaques: I follow Oil Price Magazine on these matters. They have lots of good reporting on clean energy developments and the world ecoomy, but they mainly focus on the fossil fuel industry in general and on– you guessed it– oil prices in particular.
Baud
@Scout211:
Nice. Glad it’s official.
Jackie
@Baud: One more signature for the Epstein Files Discharge Petition! 😊
Another Scott
@Scout211: I wonder if they’ll make any hay with his “Little Black Book” that was released around a decade ago.
Lots and lots of “Trump” entries. I don’t see any “Clinton” entries. Lots of entries for “Massage” in various places and countries, also too.
:-(
IOW, don’t be surprised if the folks trying to make this go away push stuff that is already known, saying it’s “old news” and the like.
Follow the money indeed – Archive.IS – Forbes – How Jeffry Epstein got so rich:
(Emphasis added.)
Something something the rich are not like you and me something something.
Grr…
Best wishes,
Scott.
TS
@Scout211: According to this report – he received 75% of the vote
virginiamercury.com/2025/09/09/democrats-retake-connollys-seat-in-virginias-11th-congressional-distr…
Quite a win – or is this normal for this district?
Stacy
@TS: I believe he’s running 15 point ahead of Harris 2024 and ahead of Biden in 2020 I think.
Stacy
@TS: I believe he’s running 15 point ahead of Harris 2024 and ahead of Biden in 2020 I think.
Sorry for the double post
Scout211
@Another Scott: the New York Magazine just posted an article from their archives:
Jeffrey Epstein: International Moneyman of Mystery
(Free article for “a limited time”)
(web archive version)
dww4
@Geminid: Well, I’m more aligned with the Chris Murphy view of things that there is no reason at all to trust Republicans and even less to trust the Trump administration.
Congressional Dems need to be brave enough to play real hardball for a change. IMV, the leadership doesn’t fully ken to the fight we have to wage to save this democracy. They have to adapt beyond their normal roles. I think Jeffries is adapting to that reality more than Schumer but it has taken far too long to acknowledge where the country is.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: @Jackie:
I put up a celebratory post on this, but I see you guys already broke the news.
Bastards! :-Of course, mine comes with music.
sab
Trains W Va to Great Lakes and vice versa have been really bustling this week. My neighbors say that is good for the economy. I don’t know. Just reporting. Lots of trains.
p.a.
Hmmm, make a deal that they won’t uphold, which basically happened last time, or shut down with the possibility tRump will do whatever he wants, which he will do in either event? Then do whatever damages tRump & the brownshirts the most, which I guess is shut down.
Jackie
@WaterGirl: 😂
satby
@cain: of course they will. Given the events of last year’s election, do you trust the people now calling for a shutdown strategy to stay the course in supporting our Congress members when they strike a bargain with Republicans to reopen the government? Because I think the most intense criticism will be from people ostensibly on the left, especially when Republicans or SCOTUS voids any agreement reached. I would make them nuke the filibuster and pass a resolution (or not) by themselves; but if they feel they’ve won concessions before that point that protects their constituents, well isn’t that why they were elected? To service their constituents needs, not the internet’s. Because no matter what they do they’ll be roundly damned.
mayim
@Eunicecycle:
I’m almost certain that Trump doesn’t understand per capita ~ especially not compared to raw numbers. It wouldn’t surprise me if Johnson and many other Republican ‘leaders’ don’t either.
@Archon:
After the Hyundai disaster, I think some people <especially white men who work in and understand how modern factories work> will maybe have their eyes opened. It’s lots of jobs lost in a very red area if that Hyundai plant is abandoned.
cain
@Geminid:
Hamas attacking that bus has got to be stupidest thing you could do. What exactly was the point of that other than to embarrass your supporters.
Of course, Israel is going to make them pay a high price.
cain
@satby:
The problem with trying to protect your constituents interests feels off when the entire system is breaking down and the literally the GOP is allowing Congress to be bypassed.
Trump has the power to just defund everything and if he doesn’t have it his pet congress and scotus will allow him. There is no separation of government now. It’s all one big GOP mess. So might we let them own it all.
Elizabelle
Thinking a good thought of JR in WV, late and missed jackal, and his very good dog as photo in the sidebar.
I hope Mrs. JR is hanging in there.
Geminid
@cain: At least there was some good news coming out Egypt today, regarding Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
From Kan News’ Roi Kais:
Also, grad student Elizabeth Tsurkov has been released by the Iraqi militia that kidnapped her a couple years ago.
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@Geminid: gas prices do not go down when there’s a war in the Middle East
Another Scott
@Scout211:
The writer knew. In 2002. His Florida plea deal was in 2008.
Grr…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
rikyrah
@bbleh:
No deal 😡😡
Geminid
@Chacal Charles Calthrop: There’s been war going on in the Middle East for almost two years now, at various levels of intensity. I think oil prices may be lower now than they were two years ago. They’re certainly not much higher.
Oil prices jumped a couple bucks a barrel today on news of the Doha strike. They’ll likely drop a couple bucks tonight on news that Iran and the IAEA have agreed to renew cooperation.
I just suggest that anyone interested in these questions read Oil Price Magazine. As their name suggests, they’re all about oil prices, current and future. They also cover oil and natural gas projects all over the world. And since the clean energy sector intersects with the fossil fuel industry, Oil Price is a good way to keep up with important developments in that field as well.
Marc
And, Israel feels inherently justified to exterminate every last one of them, if that ends up being the price. Lovely people, learning so much from their past.
kwAwk
My thoughts for today are that that Bill Maher has reached the state of cognitive decline. The Republicans have cracked your Enigma code Bill. They understand your desperate need to be perceived to be in the middle, thus by putting on their crazy act, they’ve succeeded in dragging people like you to the right.
The middle between Ho Chi Mihn and Bob Dole is somewhere around Bernie Sanders. The middle between Adolph Hitler and Hillary Clinton is Sean Hannity. The whole point of Trump’s crazy act is to make moderates on the other side look extreme when they aren’t. It’s like a fulcrum scale or a teeter totter. The farther away you put the weight from the middle, the more force it exerts thus you can put a 300lb boy on one side and he’ll be raised helplessly in the air by a 75 lb girl on the other.
Yes, there may be some bias in late night talk shows these days, but how much of that is really the difference in the comedians, and how much of it is that the average Republican isn’t George H. W. Bush or Mitt Romney, but instead is a Barry Goldwater clone.
Geminid
@Geminid: An Oil Price Magazine story from today:
Trump touted the slogan “Drill, Baby, Drill” in his inaugural speech. Since then oil pricds have fallen almost 20%. According to the article, industry executives contemplating capital expenditures are saying “Wait, Baby, Wait.” One is quoted:
And here’s that b-word again! Another Oil Price headline:
The reporter reviews recent US/Venezuela relations including the US naval buildup and drone strike on a Venezuelan boat; also, the challenges of a military campaign against Venezuela.
cain
@Geminid:
That is good news. Let’s hope we can ensure a peaceful world
Geminid
@cain: A worthy goal which I share. It will take a while. In the meantime, I’m hoping to find out what the hell happened to Iran’s 600 pounds of 60% enriched Uranium. I expect that question is at the top of Raphael Grossi’s list.
Geminid
@Geminid: Israel’s strike at Hamas leaders in Qatar dominates Middle East news sites today. Saudi-based Al Arabiya reports that the UN Security Council will hold an emergency meeting today concerning the attack.
Also, that Emirati leader Mohammed bin-Zayed visited Qatar to express solidarity in the face of Israeli aggression. The two nations have had cool and conflicted relations over the last decade, while the UAE has developed fairly close ties with Israel since normalizing relations in 2020. So bin-Zayed sent a public message to Israel from its closest Arab ally.
Al Arabiya reported that Trump has ordered Secretary of State Rubio to hurry completion the new security agreement between the US and Qatar.
Meanwhile, Qatari Prime Minister al-Thani issued a statement that Qatar was still committed to mediating a settlement of the Gaza war but the job just got tougher.
In Gaza, the IDF intensified its offensive in Gaza City. They’re trying to accelerate evacuation of one million people in the north to camps in the central Gaza Strip, while knocking down more high-rise buildings with some advance notice.
Paul in KY
@SpaceUnit: Should talk about it every day.