Democrats should hold a press conference and announce that if Mike Johnson has no interest in running the House they'd be happy to do it for him
— Kevin M. Kruse (@kevinmkruse.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 8:25 PM
I assumed Speaker Johnson was just preternaturally grateful that Trump’s tantrums handed him a position he’d never have been able to achieve on his own merits, but maybe there *is* something to the rumor that Trump has a blackmail hold over him. Even the NYTimes is getting suspicious — Annie Karni, “Keeping the House Absent, Johnson Marginalizes Congress and Himself”: [gift link]
… Speaker Mike Johnson’s decision to put the House on an indefinite hiatus that is now stretching into its second month while the government is shut down is the latest in a series of moves he has made that have diminished the role of Congress and shrunken the speakership at a critical moment.
It’s an approach born of political expedience that could have far-reaching consequences for an institution that has already ceded much of its power to President Trump. And Mr. Johnson, who without the president’s backing wields little influence over his own members, has chosen to make himself subservient to Mr. Trump, a break with many speakers of the past who sought in their own ways to act more as a governing partner with the president than as his underling.
“I’m the speaker and the president,” Mr. Trump has joked, according to two people who heard the remark and relayed it on the condition of anonymity because of concern about sharing private conversations with him.
Mr. Johnson has done little in recent weeks to contest the point…
His strategy of indefinite hiatus means that Mr. Johnson has not engaged in the typical political theater that speakers often employ during shutdown fights to jam the party out of power: scheduling tricky votes on bills to reopen parks or pay certain categories of federal workers, like agents for Immigration and Customs Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection.
Democrats had been bracing for him to do so. But instead, he has spent much of the shutdown appearing daily at news conferences at the Capitol, hammering them for refusing to fund the government and making the case that Republicans need not negotiate. He is insistent that the House has nothing to do but wait for the stalemate to end. And he defends a growing list of extreme moves by Mr. Trump.
Let’s all remember how successful Newt Gingrich’s 1995 shutdown was for him, and his party. (Not as though Johnson might be dreaming of a future ambassadorship to the Vatican, is it?)
The absenteeism, people around Mr. Johnson said, is a strategic calculation that the best way to keep his unruly rank and file in line is to place them on an extended leave.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich, who often serves as a sounding board for Mr. Johnson, said in an interview that if the House were in session, “other issues will begin to clutter this up, and there is some small danger that some Republicans might begin to have a mixed message on the shutdown.”
In fact, such dissonance has already begun bubbling up even with everyone working remotely. The divide among Republicans over whether to extend expiring health insurance subsidies — Democrats’ central demand in the shutdown fight — has highlighted a political vulnerability for the party.
It has all created a strange dynamic on Capitol Hill: Mr. Johnson appears to be using the considerable power of the speakership to render the House irrelevant…
In keeping the House out of session, Mr. Johnson is using a relatively new rule put in place by Republicans two years ago. In 2023, they jettisoned a requirement that a resolution be passed in the House to authorize an extended legislative break, effectively handing the speaker power to declare such prolonged recesses unilaterally…
More broadly, Democrats attribute Mr. Johnson’s moves to his unquestioning deference to Mr. Trump, who has an iron grip on congressional Republicans and this week told G.O.P. senators that after they pushed through his marquee tax cut law, “We don’t need to pass any more bills.”
“It is clear that Donald Trump has effectively abolished the House of Representatives,” former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, said in a statement for this story.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, recently pleaded with Mr. Trump to come back and negotiate with Democrats because “we know that House and Senate Republicans don’t do anything without permission from their boss, Donald J. Trump.”…
One also gets the impression that Senator Thune is not happy with Johnson’s blatant Trump sycophancy, either — for what little that’s worth. Thune is no intellectual giant, but he’s twice little Mike’s size, and perhaps has been strongly tempted to shove his House partner into a congressional coatroom locker.
I do wonder how much of this you can link to Johnson's rise to the speakership. Thune doesn't have a huge spine, but he's clearly tanked nominees that are unacceptable and isn't willing to just blow up the Senate because trump wants him too.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Johnson though. Backbencher becoming a speaker because he's a compromise that has no actual support and all the groups would be happy to remove.
He basically only exists at Trump's whim – he's not actually a person who's risen in the house leadership to the position. A figurehead at most.— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Mccarthy at least rose through the ranks and so had an interest in his own position. Johnson is what happens when you give a leadership posting to someone who actually has 0 caucus support. His only way to stay in the job is with Trumps support.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 7:39 PM
Johnson, basically, has to effectively get rid of his own power and beg for Trump's favor to remain in his job. His incentives are actually backwards.
— Schnorkles O'Bork (@schnorkles.bsky.social) October 25, 2025 at 7:30 PM
===
"I'm not trying to dodge the question," says Mike Johnson, dodging the question.
— The Briefing with Jen Psaki (@briefingwithpsaki.bsky.social) October 23, 2025 at 10:38 PM
Baud
The media reaction still seems muted compared to what it would be if a Dem did this.
lowtechcyclist
@Baud:
This is my surprised face.
JWR
Well, Trump is once again globetrotting, this time in Asia, stopping what, his ninth war? So now would be a great time to take possession of the House! Hell, see what the Seditious Six have to say about such a move.
Tony Jay
London, 1644. A Nation holds it breath as Charles Stuart, King of England and firm believer in the Divine Right of monarchs to rule as they will, sends armed representatives to Parliament demanding that the Commons dissolve itself and return all power to the Crown.
Speaker O Be Pure And Joyful Johnson rises in the chamber. A hush descends. Scribers from the capital’s three most widely read Pamphlets wet their quills. Hands tighten on the hilts of swords.
“Sure thing, Boss. Whatever you say.”
And lo, the phrase “What the fucking fuck?” was born’ed.
Baud
Everyone on the Republican side, from top officials to the lowliest MAGA, knows that once there’s a crack in the loyalty to the Great White Hope, the whole edifice will start falling down. That’s the core of Trump’s staying power.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone😊😊😊
prostratedragon
@Tony Jay: Mike Johnson’s birthday (and mine, alas) is January 30, one of the strangest dates in the calendar.
rikyrah
@Baud:
Truth
lowtechcyclist
I think the Dems should force the issue by showing up this week, declaring Congress to be in session, electing Jeffries as Speaker (who then swears Grijalva in), voting to release the Epstein files, voting to permanently extend the ACA tax credits, appointing Dem chairs to all the House committees, etc.
Now it’s true that Thune would just refuse to recognize the legitimacy of any legislation passed by the House, so extending the ACA tax credits would be play-acting. That’s OK – the point would be to show that the Dems were ready and willing to conduct the people’s business and avert what would be a disaster for millions of Americans.
But as far as any strictly House business was concerned, I’d think Republicans would have to actually show up to tell the Dems they couldn’t get away with this. And in the meantime, Dem committees could start conducting investigations and stuff. And IIRC, the House can release the Epstein files by itself. (Correct me if I’m wrong on that.) So the Rethugs would have to show up and declare the House to be in session just to stop all that. At which point they could force Johnson to swear Grijalva in, she could sign the discharge petition, thereby forcing a real vote on the Epstein files.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
rikyrah
Mr. Grossman is correct. The Founding Fathers saw Trump coming.
What they did not see.– Never could have anticipated an entire political party turning their back on the Constitution.😒😒
Baud
Ramalama
@Tony Jay: whew, what a journey. A chortle issued from my orifice.
Ramalama
@lowtechcyclist: I love this…especially In this golden bros time of asking for forgiveness over asking (or waiting for) permission.
frosty
@Tony Jay: Good perspective from across the pond where there’s some real history.
I’m still remembering your comments a few days ago on No Kings and how it’s the perfect slogan for our country in these times. It really is.
Suzanne
I hadn’t considered this angle. It’s difficult to imagine, at this point, anything that could be disqualifying for a Republican. We’re the only ones who hold our candidates to any kind of standards.
frosty
@Baud: If the core of your power is to avoid any little crack then that’s not the most solidly built edifice is it?
Especially if your management style is to swing hammers and dare the cracks to appear.
WTFGhost
Since this is an open thread, I figured I’d share something I won’t share anywhere else, for the reasons made clear below…
I’ve recently had a revelation, that there’s a special trick to simple, unafraid, love in the moment, where you are able to simply open your heart, and don’t care about anything but loving. Do you know what the trick is? I don’t either, I just know that I can do it, and not everyone can. In the movie Radio (2003/Cuba Gooding Jr. in the titular role), the football coach says Radio’s been teaching them love, because the way he treats everyone, always, is the way folks wished they’d treated people even sometimes. And I’m like, “wait, what? people need to learn that?” I mean, I guess I knew that, but no one had said so, so I didn’t ever think about it.
I don’t want to go “noble savage” on Radio; being intellectually disabled doesn’t give you a good heart, but, I think being intellectually disabled helped him maintain that simple, unafraid, love-in-the-moment. I’m not intellectually disabled, but, my neurology destroys my cognition, and my ability to communicate. I have frequent aphasia – literally, my brain will not form the words I need to express myself. That said, a common goal of meditation is to quiet the “talky brain,” to go into a state where you could speak, if you chose to, but you don’t need to think in words, you can simply act. So maybe my neurology, for all that it destroys my life, makes me able to love easily and purely.
So my mind was boggled when I found a song that summed up my situation so perfectly. When your brain can misfire, causing a misunderstanding, and, then, you might be functionally mute, you can’t socialize with ordinary people in any ordinary way. If it were anxiety robbing me of my ability to speak, I could fix that, but it’s not; it’s neurological. So, with my view of simple, unafraid, love:
You float like a feather; In a beautiful world I wish I was special; You’re so fuckin’ special.
But I’m a creep
I’m a weirdo
What the hell am I doin’ here?
I don’t belong here
Liminal Owl
@Tony Jay: As I read this, a memory popped up. The RWNJ on whom I had a huge crush in college (ugh), who claimed to be a libertarian, also identified as a Charles I partisan (drank toasts to “the King over the water,” mourned on the anniversary of the execution, etc.). Is there any way to make sense of that combo, or was he just trolling, do you think?
Baud
@frosty:
Trump’s edifice is relatively solid. It’s why he has had staying power for so long. But I think it’s tied to him. He hasn’t done anything to institutionalize his movement.
Eyeroller
Yet another loophole in the Constitution is that each chamber make its own rules and they can be as absurd as the majority wnts. The Speaker should not have this kind of absolute control. But it was based partly on the lack of strong democratic experiences of the time and partly on significant blind spots of some of the more dominant Sainted Founders. It wasn’t really that they “didn’t anticipate” parties (parties already existed). They just refused to accept that their lovely philosophical structure was so dependent on “norms,” plus of course they were having trouble reaching agreements as it was.
I agree that the Dems should just declare that the Speaker doesn’t have this power, show up, do things. So what if the Rs scream about it. This is the kind of performative political theater that the base wants to see and generally doesn’t get because of rigid adherence to “our friends across the aisle” norms It also might get some media attention.
Suzanne
@rikyrah: Good morning, happy Sunday!
Last couple of days have been very busy with normal work and household stuff. Mr. Suzanne and I are going to head to Costco here shortly. They open an hour early for the executive members. We joked that we should calendar it as “executive time”. I just like it because I’m anti-people.
Suzanne
@Baud:
Agree. But institutionalizing his movement is 1) not anything he cares about, and 2) likely impossible. That’s the downside of vibes politics. There’s not a core principle to unite around.
satby
When the country returns to sanity in the future, by the time we pass all the laws needed to prevent a corrupted party from doing all this again we’ll have essentially a new Constitution. Because the first one should have been stronger; but the last time this happened the bad guys chose succession.
Ten Bears
Funny how when states like Oregon’s state congress* flee to avoid being a part of the depredations they send the state goonies after them to drag them back home
I try hard not to be profane outside my own blog. Not my place. right? Not always successful but I try. Sometimes there’s just no way to emphasis the mess we’re in and how to get out
So my blog resolution today is music videos. No cursing …
*Most of whom are women so, naturally, by the hair
NotMax
Weekend watch.
Gold for olds.
Passengers Over 60 Must Know THIS Before Flying (Nobody Warns You!).
Bonus weekend weird long watch.
The Prophecy That Made the World’s Worst Band Famous.
Shalimar
@lowtechcyclist: I like that plan, but I also think it is better for Democrats in 2026 if Johnson keeps doing what he is doing. The potential Epstein blackmail/client list will come out before the next election. The closer that is to the actual election, the more chance it will still be in people’s minds then. I really don’t understand why Trump through Johnson is pursuing this crazy strategy that will fail.
frosty
@Baud: “He hasn’t done anything to institutionalize his movement.”
Of course he hasn’t That would mean recognizing other people, other actors, other perspectives. Not something a narcissist is going to do.
Spanky
Let’s say, hypothetically, that the Squeaker is discovered one morning to have asphyxiated while, uh, “in the possession of” a wetsuit and two dildos. And this while the House is out of session. What happens then?
Shalimar
@Spanky: Marjorie Taylor Greene becomes the new Speaker by virtue of the Republican principle of being the loudest.
Trivia Man
@Suzanne: but does pastor mike think it’s disqualifying? No shame is a rare super power. If mike is ashamed of something then it could be a powerful threat. Not everyone has the ability to casually shoot someone on 5th avenue without losing sleep.
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: The ultimate hilarity would ensue if Johnson’s in the Epstein files, in terribly compromising ways.
@Ramalama: In my day, I’m not sure you were even allowed to say that on TV.
@rikyrah: EVERY FRICKIN’ DAY! EVERY DAY YOU DO THIS!
Uh. Good morning, sorry about the caps lock, I guess that sounded a bit more aggravated than I intended it to.
New Deal democrat
Since I haven’t seen this mentioned by anyone else, I wanted to call attention to T—-p’s imposition of 10% additional tariffs on imports from Canada, in response to Ontario’s commercial featuring Ronald Reagan
i sincerely hope that act of sheer petulance makes it into a brief filed with the Supreme Court on his claimed “emergency” authority to unilaterally impose tariffs.
AM in NC
@rikyrah: Exactly.
And this didn’t start with Trump/MAGA. Look at Gingrich’s advice to Johnson, as reported in the NYT story. The ONLY thing that concerns him is GOP party power. NOTHING about the health/welfare of Americans or our Constitution. It’s Republican power über alles, forever and ever, Amen.
satby
@Shalimar: because right now it’s not failing for them. And the response from our failed media is “what a novel and exciting new game the Republicans are playing!” not “the Republicans are violating their oaths to the Constitution and allowing an out-of-control president to run amok”.
Trivia Man
@lowtechcyclist: a shadow government but out in public. Full pomp, even if it is in a rented Hyatt ballroom. See how long before a couple Maverick republican back benchers start showing up because its massive exposure and attention.
satby
@WTFGhost: rikyrah has been opening with Good morning for at least a decade and far longer than you’ve been around. It’s a bit of tradition many appreciate.
@rikyrah: Good morning sweetie ❤️
Trivia Man
@Eyeroller: We dont have the power to call a session? Maybe we do, maybe we don’t – you need to show up and call a session so we can find out.
Shalimar
@WTFGhost: ditto
BretH
@WTFGhost:
fascinating and sort of beautiful. Thanks for sharing that.
Chief Oshkosh
FTNYFT, didn’t read the whole article. Does the author ever getting around to mentioning the impact of delays wrt the Epstein Files?
WTFGhost
@AM in NC: Yeah, and a person has to be a really, really, exceptional kind of stupid to think that one party rule leads to anything but corruption and stupidity. What else would it do? Generate *more* ideas, when raw partisan muscle flexing means thinking is for losers? Root out corruption, when that would diminish party power, hello SANTOS!!!?
Suzanne
@Trivia Man: Yeah, that’s the question, right? Does dead girl/live boy stuff still matter? I have no idea.
I know how many of my friends from my school days — many of whom grew up in right-wing Mormonism and evangelical Christianity— are still scarred by it, how shame and expectations haven’t ever really left them,
Raoul Paste
It’s infuriating that the reporting doesn’t emphasize that Johnson is keeping the government shut. Can’t open it until you can vote on something.
That fact should be pounded into every American
Geminid
This being an October day ending in Y, I will bring up the Maine Senate race!
On Thursday, an adjunct of the University of New Hampshire released a “Pine Tree” poll showing Graham Platner leading Janet Mills by a whopping 58 to 24 percent among likely voters. Then last night, SoCal Polling released one showing Mills ahead 51 to 46 percent.
The UNH poll was taken October 16-21 and the Platner tatoo snafu broke on the 21st. The SoCal poll was taken after the tatoo controversy made the news.
There must be more than timing behind these disparate results, though. I suspect polling deficiencies on one or both pollsters’ parts. But other polling outfits can be expected to weigh in because right now at least, this may be the most closely watched primary contest this cycle.
Suzanne
@WTFGhost: We appreciate rikyrah’s good mornings. It’s blog tradition.
I have one colleague who wishes people “great morning” and I just love it and him. These two bring the positivity.
Baud
@Shalimar:
Yeah. I care more about Epstein being in the news because of their stonewalling more than what’s in the files.
Baud
@Geminid:
Huge gap. The other development was that Mills officially announced her run.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: That’s a level of self-awareness and intelligence that is entirely lacking in the vast majority of the group that comprises “top officials to the lowliest MAGA.”
We’re on the third generation of nincompoops raised on Limbaugh/Fox/Intertoobes. The Republicans and conservatives in general have self-selected for this population and representation.
Kathleen
@Spanky: In today’s media climate NYT will do “Lifestyle” piece about the newest trends in dildos and wet suits that put the goose in the step of the powerful.
Matt McIrvin
@Liminal Owl: Most American “libertarians” are authoritarians. What they want is just no government checks on greed or bigotry–they have certain specific types of power they regard as illegitimate, and it doesn’t extend to private tinpot tyrants leveraging their wealth to lord it over their servants. Some are nostalgic for slavery. It does not surprise me at all that one would be a monarchist.
He could probably also argue that Cromwell’s Puritan dictatorship was more personally oppressive to everyday Englishpeople than the monarchy was, and there’s definitely a case for that.
Shalimar
Tesla just shared more about its AI vision. These are the 3 biggest takeaways.
What I found noteworthy is that driverless taxis are expected to be a $7 billion market by the end of the decade. Dominating that market is Musk’s current pie-in-the-sky bullshit, and even if he owned the whole market, it isn’t enough to justify even 10% of the company’s current P/E of 311. It’s the biggest bubble of transparent crap I ever remember.
Kathleen
@Spanky: NYT Lifestyle Section will publish puff piece about how the hot new trends in dildos and wet suits are putting the goose in the step of the powerful.
lowtechcyclist
@NotMax:
If I have to watch a 15-minute video to learn these tips, they will stay unlearned. Why, oh why, can’t people just write out what they supposedly want you to know?
Grrr. Argh.
Steve Paradis
Chief Oshkosh
@Suzanne:
You two need to check your inboxes. I think the White Christian Nationalists just sent you a Zoom invite.
MagdaInBlack
@WTFGhost: Good Morning 😊
prostratedragon
@Geminid:
Also, on Friday another candidate dropped out and supported Mills. She gave as reason Platner’s seeming to say that policing rape in the military was an annoyance to ambitious male officers.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I believe FSB have something on almost ALL of them.
Remember Maria Butina, the NRA, and the buckets of cash that went to GOP politicians?
Remember when Paul Ryan suddenly retired around that time?
I believe Putin has something on pretty much the entire Republican Party. Trump generally doesn’t have to USE it, because most of his party APPROVE of his white supremacist policymaking… but just in case any one of them develops a spine.
Curiously, this makes me think Michael Massie is clean.
JWR
@Raoul Paste:
And yet the media keeps on keeping on with that “Repubs demand this, while the Dems demand that” nonsense, as if either party could give a little and open the place for business..
RevRick
@rikyrah: What the Founders didn’t foresee was a President who had at his command a well-armed, informal army of gangster thugs in that party’s ranks, who would be willing to enforce his will by credible threats of murder. At a moment’s notice.
When the Constitution was written, it took weeks for news to get around. Now, everyone knows instantly. And they can move across the country in hours, not weeks and months.
Matt McIrvin
@Chief Oshkosh: The situation always reminds me of the Church of Scientology. L. Ron Hubbard and the original inner circle knew perfectly well that they were running a scam, and they were good at leveraging the material to perpetuate it, with well-targeted propaganda, legal harassment and intimidation. But these days, the people running the show were raised within the cult, are in some sense true believers in the nonsense, and it blunts their effectiveness.
lowtechcyclist
@Trivia Man:
If at all possible, they should meet in the House chamber. If it is locked while the House isn’t in session, the Dems should just bring along a locksmith. Or maybe Pelosi still has a set of keys from when she was Speaker.
Monty
I would say Washington did see Parties ceding power to a strongman figure. That was his last great warning to the new nation.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: “Death of Stalin.”
It’s going to be darkly hilarious.
It is funny how many old Soviet jokes apply here, now.
”The obituaries are in the back of the paper, Comrade.”
”Not this one.”
Professor Bigfoot
@Spanky: What happens then?
A weekend at Bernies, natch. 😉
Matt McIrvin
@Spanky: Johnson is replaceable; there are plenty of sycophants. It’s the end of Trump himself that is the big question mark.
stinger
@rikyrah:
I live alone, except for pets, and it’s nice to have someone wish me Good Morning every day! Good Morning to you, rikyrah!
Matt McIrvin
@Shalimar: Greene is off the party line on Epstein and willing to buck Trump on several issues. I don’t think she gets control, or if she does it’s a major schism.
schrodingers_cat
Too the surprise of no one Jacobin comes out in support of Platner.
Professor Bigfoot
Because most Americans these days can neither read nor write.
(I exaggerate, but good God it sure feels that way sometimes)
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Heh. Anyone who cares was already voting for Platner.
Shalimar
@Matt McIrvin: It was a joke suggestion, not serious. Even Republicans aren’t stupid enough to give her power.
Matt McIrvin
@Monty: Yes–I get the impression that the Founders did see strong political partisanship as a problem.
Their response to that danger was… to kind of hope it wouldn’t happen.
And then the Constitution was passed, and about five seconds later, they all lined up into antagonistic political parties, because they weren’t taking a systems view of the incentives that cause parties to form.
All the checks and balances in the Constitution depend on institutional loyalties being stronger than partisan ones. But that often has not been the case in US history.
I think one thing that distorts our view is that for people the age of most of the commenters on this blog, what we think of as the default is the US politics of the post-World-War-II period when partisan polarization was blunted, not by anything high-minded, but by the fact that both parties had a white-supremacist wing and race/civil rights was the most important divisive issue. But the Democrats pushing through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 started the realignment that ended that state of affairs.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: Absolutely no one.
The Cult of the Strong White Man simply will not die, because the majority of white men almost cannot help themselves.
Obligatory #NotAllWhiteMen, just for you, AWOL.
Matt McIrvin
@schrodingers_cat: What we are seeing right now is absolutely a resurgence of the kind of culturally-right-wing “far leftism” I was talking about a while ago, whose most extreme form was the pro-Trump* leftism of 2016.
*(or anti-anti-“Mr. Trump, who I do not support”)
added: What they want to do is to undo the partisan realignment I just mentioned that was started by passing the Civil Rights Act.
Barry
@Suzanne: ”
I hadn’t considered this angle. It’s difficult to imagine, at this point, anything that could be disqualifying for a Republican. We’re the only ones who hold our candidates to any kind of standards.”
Perhaps in college he persuaded his frat brothers to not r*pe a 10-year old?
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
It really seems to shine when they are dealing with older women.
Baud
@Barry:
Racial justice and equity.
Professor Bigfoot
This is an important insight.
I don’t even know if the Weekly Sift is still running, but this old post breaks down the history of that conversion.
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: I think, judging by my two millennials, is that regardless of the ability to read*, most Americans prefer to sit and watch. I blame the invention of television.
* and I think most do have the ability
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Yes, for these particular folks gender may actually be a stronger trigger than race to set off their lunatic organ. It’s called brocialism for a reason.
prostratedragon
@RevRick: Some of the FF were familiar with bodies like the Hellfire Club and Masons, though. Might be why Franklin would have said, “a republic, if you can keep it.”
Professor Bigfoot
@frosty: Intellectually I know you are correct; indeed, from the Millenials AND the Zoomers I know they really CAN read.
They just don’t.
I would prefer to spend 5 minutes reading an article and get on with the day than spend 15 minutes sitting through video blather. I know that makes me a dinosaur; but… these kids today… ;^D
ETA— this puts me in good company. Ancient Romans complained about “these kids today.” 😂
ETA2– also, even a dinosaur recognizes the utility of video resources in acquiring new skills— but that ain’t this.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Probably right. At least for present purposes.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: A phenomena I have noticed on social media is that many people behave like history began when they started paying attention to politics.
Chief Oshkosh
@rikyrah: Good morning!
I love your morning greetings.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I think you misspelled Jerkobin.
Eyeroller
@Trivia Man: We do not. The Speaker has sole authority over that. That’s one of those absurd rules I mentioned. Maybe the House could or would vote to return, but they can’t vote if they’re not in session.
But if one tries to google this (I was trying to check my facts here), apparently Squeaker is blowing up their shutdown strategy by keeping the House out of session. People rightly ask, why are the Republicans not trying to do something?
There is some deadline in early November after which the discharge petition expires, so presumably he’s waiting for that.
schrodingers_cat
@Professor Bigfoot: @frosty:Both mediums have their strengths. One is not a perfect replacement of the other.
suzanne
John Fetterman is here at Costco with me this morning. We’re in the fridge section.
Betty Cracker
@New Deal democrat: IIRC, Trump’s peevish outburst after the Canadian ad ran included the accusation that it was intended to influence the SCOTUS case. I expect the corrupt Repubs on the court to rubberstamp the boss man’s claim that he has unlimited tariff powers and bless the extremely bogus “emergency” pretext under which those powers are claimed.
(Reconstructed reply to replace the one that was eaten by the goddamn fucking Redis error that is now apparently an inescapable feature of the blog experience.)
satby
@Professor Bigfoot: agree. But then, lots of those informative videos are actually sales pitches for some scam or other when you do sit through them. Which results in both cynicism and gullibility, depending on the viewer’s priors.
Geminid
@prostratedragon: I think that in the long run, Platner’s comments on rape will hurt him the most.
Eyeroller
@Geminid: Polling this far out from the primary is almost meaningless (since we have an election soon I keep forgetting this is going to be well into next year).
Most likely, all the noise around Platner initially caused name recognition/novelty factor to dominate, but now reality is setting in. Rumors were that there’s a bunch more oppo research on him.
Fetterman only had that one particularly notorious incident in his past (brandishing at the black jogger) which he was able to explain away. This one may be caught in time.
O. Felix Culpa
@WTFGhost: WTF, dude? And you was just writing about love and such. Why the unnecessary cruelty?
As others have said, it’s a lovely and time-honored tradition.
Betty Cracker
@suzanne: Are you 100% certain “Fetterman” isn’t actually Sinema and Manchin stacked up in a 3XL hoodie, gym shorts and slides?
Geminid
@suzanne: Halloween come early!
schrodingers_cat
@Matt McIrvin: Absolutely BS and T are the messengers well chosen by the Kremlin.
Baud
@suzanne:
Is he buying crudites?
satby
@Betty Cracker: When I looked up how to fix that, the fix has been known for years. But it requires (apparently) some database cleanup that may conflict with keeping this joint the same. Did not dig deeply, over my paygrade.
sab
@satby: I missed that because of the pie filter. Normally I don’t discuss who is in my pie filter because it seems rude. Thank you for calling attention.
suzanne
@Betty Cracker: He stands out, even though almost everyone is wearing a hoodie, myself included.
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Redis is an agent of the Creep State.
Eyeroller
@lowtechcyclist: I watched the first few minutes. I am the same age as the confused old lady who was featured (an actress, of course). You see, we old people are all creatures of habit and we don’t understand things like weight and size limits for luggage. And we don’t just want comfort at our age, we need it, so we are vulnerable to expensive upgrade offers.
It was actually kind of insulting.
frosty
@Professor Bigfoot: I’m with you on all of this. Just let me read it…. Until you look at the manual with puzzling drawings and incomprehensible text.
I figured out how to use the DeLonghi espresso machine in this hotel via YouTube!
WTFGhost
@Suzanne: Um… yes, I was joking what with the all caps, and the exclamation mark was to make it look enthusiastic, not screaming, you see.
Does it help if we remember I just pointed out my brain doesn’t always work well, so some of my jokes fall really badly flat, and I have no idea what can be done to make things right?
Deputinize America
In NYC, did my Mafia tour – which was fantastic. I suspect the guide embellished a bit (grew up in neighborhood, knew some players as a kid, injured in a weird flooring collapse on the job, medically retired, engaged in some pretty bent behavior through the late 90s), but he was engaging, informative and really entertaining. Food was surprisingly good – I wasn’t expecting much. We started at John’s on 12th, finished at Benito One for the eggplant.
Highly recommended!
frosty
@suzanne: He’s hard to miss, isn’t he?
MagdaInBlack
@schrodingers_cat: That is totally the phenomena of the maga people I know. Never paid a bit of attention until trump, when it got “dramatic.”
Another Scott
@Eyeroller: There seems to be a huge market for actors who can play broken down 50-60 year olds. I see several in the ubiquitous mini elliptical thing that is advertised all the time on the Tennis channel.
It does make one wonder about the thought process…
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Professor Bigfoot
@schrodingers_cat: Oh, I’m just being saurian. ;^)
I admit I HATE having to wade through a video to learn something I could pick up quickly; but some things need to be SEEN— sometimes over and over and — wait, how did he get that bolt in there go back!— but most of the stuff we talk about here could be IMHO more easily accessed at text.
But then, I’m textual AF— I just realized it’s why I’m on Bluesky and don’t often even look at any of the video based platforms.
’Tis a dying art, the written word, but I refuse to go quietly into the night!
(“sure, okay gramps, have you taken your meds today?”)
Cliosfanboy
@Liminal Owl: I’d guess they were someone who told themselves how smart they were by being contrary. “I’m not one of the sheeple.”
OTOH, I remember a prof in grad school who cried when he talked about The Fall of Constantinople in 1453. He also found a wife in South America because American women weren’t deferential enough, thought Feminists were Nazis (this was a decade before Limbaugh), and bought gold Krugerrands to support Apartheid South Africa. Very strange man.
Professor Bigfoot
@suzanne: Have you asked him if he’s lost his goddamn mind, the big dummy? ;^D
(no, don’t do that. we not like them, and besides, he one big roebuck lookin’ MF 😂)
Eyeroller
@frosty: TV is probably part of the reason, but mobile devices are probably the biggest factor. Though millenials may be a bit old for that, so could be TV plus computer monitors.
But it’s been measured and for a reasonably competent reader, it takes about twice as long to listen as to read a transcript. So people are wasting a lot of time now, mostly for no information gain. The video in question just showed a lot of (repeated) stock footage of airports, people boarding planes, etc. while the narrator droned on slowly (presumably so us old people could understand it). There were no demonstrations that I saw before I ran out of patience. No added information.
Edit: the narrator may have been an AI reader, actually. The delivery was very flat.
Professor Bigfoot
@satby: Luckily for me my default reaction is, “You’s a lyin’ MF.” 😂
suzanne
@frosty: He sure is.
I pointed him out (surreptitiously) to Mr. Suzanne, who is 6″ taller than I am, and Fetterman makes him look small.
O. Felix Culpa
@WTFGhost: Maybe don’t make those kinds of “jokes”? Then you won’t have to try to make them right.
frosty
@suzanne: He’s hard to miss, isn’t he?
frosty
Oops. New one. “you are posting comments too quickly “
satby
@Eyeroller: 😂 I just had to laugh at your on target snark. This 70yo lady backpacked across Ireland for her birthday taking only public transportation and at one point camping in a tent on the wild Atlantic Way. #notalloldpeople
trnc
Side note – how anonymous is this? If someone said something this specific to me and I quoted it, I’d better hope he said it to 1000 people. I get that Trump doesn’t read, but I assume there’s some asshole whose job it is to look for leaks and report on them. I can’t help but think things like this are of the “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” variety.
suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot:
No, he’s out in his private capacity, and I also don’t really feel like mustering up the emotional control I would need to summon.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: After REDIS ate the same OTR post twice I’ve been hesitant to try again. All those pics and text are a lot of work to see blown away into the ether!
WTFGhost
@O. Felix Culpa: I won’t apologize to you, because my disability hurt your feelings – I do my best, if you don’t like it, go stare at people in wheelchairs, and ask people without hands how they jerk off. I was making a joke, that obviously fell flat, because what I “heard” when reading it, was different from what other people heard, when they read it. It’s an unavoidable part of my disability.
If @rikyrah: misunderstood my joke – I have made similar jokes to (and hopefully “with”) @rikyrah: before – I would, and *do*, of course, offer my immediate and sincere apologies, but I hope it was clear that I was clowning. One’s caps lock key can be stuck; but one can then retype the words, once the problem is fixed, you see. No, I didn’t say the joke was *funny*, but some people find clowns and hence, I suppose, clowning, scary.
Another Scott
@trnc: Sounds like a “John Barron” story to me. A deliberate leak. It’s what he has done for decades.
(I haven’t clicked the link.)
Best wishes,
Scott.
lowtechcyclist
@Professor Bigfoot:
Not just the kids. If NotMax thought it was worth sharing, why didn’t he just write a few words summarizing at least one of the hints, to give us an idea of whether it would be worth spending 15 minutes watching the damned video?
The Greeks beat them to it by centuries.
When I was assembling my e-bike from the pieces in the box, watching a short video was invaluable: there are things that really need to be shown rather than described. But like you say, this ain’t one of them.
WTFGhost
@O. Felix Culpa: My apologies, you evil motherfucker. I failed to treat you with the contempt you deserve. I’m sharing information that used to leave me quaking in fear, because I know if I don’t socialize I’ll die, and you’re worried about your pissant feelings.
I wouldn’t say anything like this on my behalf, but you’re going to punch down on another disabled fellow, and I’m here to punch back in advance.
ETA: changed you’re ->your.
Cliosfanboy
@suzanne: In PA or DC?
Kosh III
I come from a family of readers, I read Gone With The Wind in the sixth grade and War and Peace as a freshman. Note. W&P was sooo much better than having to slog thru Great Expectations.
I will watch if necessary but yeah, let me read it.
AND Good Morning y’all.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Eyeroller: That tracks with my experiences, but then again, I’m apparently an anomalously fast reader. I was once asked to do a translation, but the person who wanted the translation insisted this was how it was going to go: she would read out the text to me in the original language, and I would type in the translation as it went, on the fly. I did not react well to that, pointing out that translation word-from-word is much different from sentence-by-sentence, and major differences in grammar would require significant pauses as the translation was restructured into proper English.
Sentence-by-sentence is probably the best way of translation that I know how to do, and that can’t be done just by listening (especially when the noun and verb in a sentence are separated by over a page of text, as I’ve seen happen more than once).
Cliosfanboy
@Professor Bigfoot: I find that if you can turn on the transcript on Youtube you can get the material much faster.
satby
I am delighted to see that the push for civility here has resulted in a lot of pissy little entitlement. Well done!
Gotta go plant daffodil bulbs. Save your angst, I won’t see it.
WTFGhost
@satby: Yes, I was making a joke – the bit about a “stuck caps lock” doesn’t actually make sense, in context, I could have just retyped, right? But if you mentally uncapslock, you could see exclamation marks for enthusiasm, me being happy to see my blog-buddy @rikyrah: saying good morning. Meh, it fell flat, because as I mentioned in this same posting, my brain malfunctions. I can’t tell that what someone normal will hear, I can only guess.
Thank you for explaining; sometimes, folks like me do need explanations.
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot:
A (mostly) non-political thing I use to entertain myself online is to geek out about roller coasters, which have a subcultural online fandom of their own. I was just watching a video in which a quite young guy was lamenting how kids these days have lost all common sense. He was describing the idiot antics of a teenager who somehow climbed up the support structure of a roller coaster to retrieve his lost phone.
I left a comment about a death I heard about that happened on Seabreeze’s Jack Rabbit coaster in 1930. A 19-year-old rider was killed when he was standing up on the front car of the coaster train trying to hit tree branches with a cane. He fell over forwards and got run over by the train. Yeah, extreme teen stupidity has, I’m afraid, always been a thing.
Deputinize America
In history, Pastor Mike is the dude standing in the back of the crowd wielding axe handles in order to clear out the sit-in at the Woolworth’s counter, looking on with a performative expression of concern. He shakes his head sadly over news of lynchings and the slain civil rights workers, somberly intoning that people pushed things too far.
Tony Jay
@frosty:
@Liminal Owl:
I think it boils down to “Lost Causes attract Lost Souls.”
Deep in their hearts, most people want something to believe in, and a lot of people don’t really care to delve too deeply into what that ‘something’ is.
Cliosfanboy
@prostratedragon: Which the RW always thinks is anti-Democracy, but in reality was anti-Monarchy. “If you clowns can resist appointing some strong man as king.”
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
Assuming he has a ‘long run’ and isn’t polling down in single digits before Thanksgiving.
RAM
Trump either does or should have plenty on Johnson. It’s pretty clear by now that every out and loud right-wing Christian male has a closet full of degenerate behavior of one kind or another. Every one of those guys really give me the creeps.
Deputinize America
@WTFGhost:
I read that as “slut laps cock” initially, which will never not be funny.
RaflW
We need to launch a citizen campaign to dissolve and re-elect Congress. Democrats (and those who caucus with them) would be exempt from dissolution since they do not support Mike Johnson’s utter bullshit.
I don’t care that it can’t happen and there is no mechanism. Politics is at least partly about driving issues. And I am saying ‘campaign’ (petitions, clip boards, speeches, protests) not a legal challenge.
And a central issue right now is that Johnson is abeting Trump’s efforts to appear as a monarch. The House being shuttered grants Trump far more leeway, at least in realpolitic terms – though not ‘legally’ as if that matters very much – than even if the House is open for desultory, subservient business.
I think this abdication of House governing now includes avoiding Epstein, but is becoming a situation where Trump, Johnton and shitheads like Vought & Bannon have gamed that the US sort of stumbling along in a pantomime of ‘functioning’ w/o the House is meant to be an object lesson in accepting a singular head of state model.
lowtechcyclist
@Eyeroller:
I think it’s meaningful in one respect: I don’t see that Platner can bounce back from all this. Whatever support he loses, is lost for good.
Eyeroller
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: IIRC you do some form of technical translations (legal?). That’s a pretty specific skill and would require high precision and fealty to original meaning.
Translating on the fly is a different skill and usually called “interpreting.” Doesn’t sound appropriate for what you describe.
And if you were translating literature, even by sentence may be too short. A paragraph or even more may be required to translate the nuances, especially if the grammatical structures are significantly different, e.g. between two unrelated languages.
Professor Bigfoot
@suzanne: I was joking… really…
(no, I really was. WE NOT LIKE THEM.)
Baud
@Tony Jay:
Agree. The world is seeing an epidemic of that right now too.
RaflW
@lowtechcyclist: Do Dems not have anyone else on the bench? I get that opposing a sitting Governor in a Senate primary is a big lift. But if there’s no one else, and he’s damn well damaged goods, can folks cut their losses and focus on defeating Trumpism?
Susan Collins sucks rotten golf balls. But there are so many opportunities to be fighting our opponents across the nation, rather than this internecine shit that I find deeply frustrating. As I’ve said several times: Let Maine deal with Maine’s problems. If there’s a real grassroots desire in Maine for an option rather than Mills, who is it?
Gvg
At some point, some Republican with a brain and ambition is going to build a coalition in the caucus and dump Johnson. J only got the job because they couldn’t agree on a replacement and had grudges. No idea if a new leader would go along with Trump or not. Suspect mostly because most of what he is doing is what they want, but they should buck him on some things that are not popular and not traditional Republican things and or were not what they ran on.
A smart potential Republican speaker would figure out how to maneuver the situation so that it seems like the democrats are to blame for the Epstein files getting released, but enough republicans go along that Trump can’t really threaten. Somehow it’s a threat to Trump, maybe enough to weaken him. Hiding them makes them all look guilty and I doubt they all are, but they are afraid of Trump. If they lose a few members to jail or non re-election then they have time to get other candidates going and aren’t all tarred (maybe). A speaker needs to have plans, Johnson doesn’t. That no one is challenging him says no one else does either. They are all lost.
Their theories haven’t worked in reality, and now they don’t know what to do. I think that is why they are feeding power. Trump is used to ignoring reality. He likes power and fires people who tell him reality, for decades before this.
Matt McIrvin
@RaflW: We already dissolve and re-elect the House every two years! It’s supposed to help with crap like this! The problem is that almost every district’s rep is popular with the people in that district. If he’s being an asshole it’s because his constituents are the same kind of assholes.
Eyeroller
@RaflW: I think just being an active “shadow government” would achieve a lot of that without being quite so extreme.
There are plenty of criticisms of Democrats, some more valid than others. One that comes up pretty regularly is that they tend to react, not to drive narratives. Maybe because they are inclined to want to get the work done without a lot of drama (a word that has suddenly become a lot more common, BTW, or so it seems).
But the media is always hungry and already inclined to be a “puke funnel” for Republicans. But some part of that is because Republicans are so willing to feed it.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Yeah, no one wants to deal with fact that the Republican voter is 100% unified by what their party is doing.
lowtechcyclist
@Eyeroller:
Thank you for your service!
Matt McIrvin
@Eyeroller: And there’s a whole think-piece industry devoted to lecturing Democrats about how they need to compromise on this or that to meet the people where they are, instead of trying to drive sentiment in a more constructive direction. If you pay attention to those your thoughts are going to be steered toward reaction.
(I have been told that Jonathan Chait wrote another whole chin-stroking essay in the Atlantic about the need to throw the trans people under the bus. I’m not sure it’s constructive to tell me these things.)
kalakal
@Liminal Owl: Only if his idea of a Libertarian State is one with an absolute ruler ( Divine Right of Kings anybody?) who closes down parliament, raises taxes illegally, attempts to force his religion on the populace ( provoking at least one war) , revives customs that have been made illegal, arrests opposition leaders on spurious charges, abandons foreign allies, and eventually bankrupts the place, in part due to his own lavish spending* .
*tbf Charles did have pretty good taste in art
Matt McIrvin
@Cliosfanboy:
I’ve mentioned before the old online friend who eventually became a priest in a far-right Eastern Orthodox splinter sect. At one point he expressed his belief that the ideal system of government, which he thought should be reestablished worldwide, was that of the Byzantine Empire, with a basileus as God’s representative on Earth who answered directly to God.
kalakal
@lowtechcyclist:
Historical precedent suggests they should look for a nearby tennis court.
Unfortunately that precedent also led to a lot of bloodshed.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Marjorie Greene came into this Congress with a grudge against leadership. She was a McCarrhy loyalist, and campaigned against fellow member Bob Good because he was one of the 8 Republicans who let McCarthy down and put Johnson in the Speaker’s chair.
Greene has since broken with her party’s line on Israel and joined Thomas Massie in opposing aid to that nation. She may sense the shift among party rank-and-file on this issue. More and more Republicans are saying that “America First” means “America Only” and that it’s time for Israel to stand in its own. Anshel Pfeffer, who writes for Haaretz and The Economist, has noted this trend.
Greene signing the Epstein discharge petition, and going public with her disagreements with Johnson on health care, are her latest breaks with her party rstablishment.
I don’t think Greene will make a play for leadership, because she knows her colleagues won’t stand for it. But I think she believes that in the medium term, Johnson will be out of power. Greene may also be thinking long-term, and planning for the post-Trump Republican party.
frosty
@Tony Jay: “Deep in their hearts, most people want something to believe in, and a lot of people don’t really care to delve too deeply into what that ‘something’ is…”
So you’re saying that the safest response is “I believe I’ll have another beer.”
Jeffg166
@JWR:
Happy to hear he is schlepping his 79 year old body around the world again. I wonder how much adderall use he is up to daily. The wear will take its toll. Hopefully very soon.
WTFGhost
@Matt McIrvin: The people who feel that way, that we need to compromise, have to consider context carefully.
Do we sometimes need to compromise, when cornered, in a discussion or election or in legislation, where we must speak, on an issue, because not to speak is to betray a group utterly? Postulate that there are times, but I’d say, even then, people capitulate too much, or too far, or too often.
So with that in mind, in what way, in what manner, are Democrats forced to discuss, e.g., trans issues? If we discuss trans issues, at all, we are choosing to meet Republicans on a battlefield of their choosing. They’re sure they can stoke bigotry better than we can build tolerance.
What if a Democratic politician responded to anti-Dem transfolk ads with ICE-cops demanding to know if children have heard anything about the TRANS MENACE because “if ANYONE tells you it’s okay to be TRANS, WE’LL ARREST YOUR MOMMY AND DADDY!” as the child screams and collapses crying. Would that stoke anti-Republican bigotry, faster than anti-trans bigotry? Maybe. What if you could make some side-splitting parody of the Republican attack ads, making the Republicans look ridiculous. Could that neutralize attacks on transfolks? Possibly.
So the whole question of whether we need to compromise is often wrongheaded. Sometimes, we’re letting them choose the battle, and the weapons, and we should change the rules, by engaging differently.
Soapdish
Tony Jay
@frosty:
I’ve yet to come across a situation where that doesn’t at least work as a starting point. I’m having a beer right now. It’s very nice. My mood is good. The world is worth saving.
frosty
@kalakal: This is a new one on me. Pre-secession? Link?
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I think Platner is in to stay. He has a firm base of support among the Jerkobin crowd, and his strategist has a mean streak; a tough guy.
If Platner does stay in, the debates should be “lit,” as we youngs like to say.
Soapdish
@Eyeroller: The video in question just showed a lot of (repeated) stock footage of airports, people boarding planes, etc. while the narrator droned on slowly (presumably so us old people could understand it). There were no demonstrations that I saw before I ran out of patience. No added information.
I almost immediately change speed on videos to 1.5 but in this case I changed to 2.0 which enabled me to get the three (it turned out to be obvious) points the video claimed to be making in about a minute.
It really just reinforced what Prof. Bigfoot was saying.
Eolirin
@Shalimar: You understand that Dems are now in a situation in which they cannot get anything at all without starving 40 million Americans right? Because there can not be any negotiation if the House is going to just stay shut down until the governnent opens back up. And the only person who has to stay strong in the face of that is Mike fucking Johnson. Even if the Senate agrees on something he can unilaterally block that agreement.
We cannot have SNAP funds go away for a month, let alone more than that. It will kill a lot of people.
Baud
@Eolirin:
If you want Dems to cave, just say it.
We keep debating whether Dems should be strong. Being strong means that Republicans hurt innocent people.
Cliosfanboy
That’s a good way to put it.
Cliosfanboy
@Tony Jay: You’re drinking right now? But it’s so early in the… oh, wait. Never mind. ;)
Soapdish
Me: “It’s seven o’clock in the morning.”
Tony Jay: “… Scotch?”
Professor Bigfoot
@RAM: I was just observing to Mrs. B that the worst, most obvious racists I ever had to work with in my career were also the loudest, most “Christian.”
Totally tracks.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: You say that the MAGAs control all the levers of power. And then you say that “We” need to do something.
I’m sure you see the contradiction.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Deputinize America
@Baud:
Out of curiousity, what are the voting participation – if any – among those hurt most by GOP priorities? At some point, they have to step up themselves.
Also, there’s no reason whatsoever for any urban D to support rural development, ag subsidies, rural broadband and rural infrastructure on roads, irrigation and power lines. “We can’t afford it and cannot justify harming our constituents on demographics that never come through for us after receiving the lion’s share of government largesse – perhaps if they supported a number of our priorities, we could talk” is a fine phrase for the future.
Aziz, light!
@RAM: I don’t believe Trump has or needs any kompromat against Johnson. Trumpism (and whatever succeeds it) is the only viable path to a Christianist theocracy. That’s his singular motivation.
The House will be shuttered until the discharge petition is kaput. Mission almost accomplished.
Professor Bigfoot
Getting people to do any kind of introspection about their own motivations, desires, and beliefs “is a mug’s game.”
If there’s one thing I constantly go on about is being mindful. Understanding yourself enough to recognize what’s rational, and what’s just been wired into you by this white supremacist, patriarchal society.
But y’all don’t wanna hear me, you just wanna dance. ;^)
Matt McIrvin
@Professor Bigfoot: Modern white Protestant evangelism as we know it has its origins in the Southern Baptists splitting from the American Baptists and you know what that was about.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Eolirin: Quoting the first Republican President:
The only way to prevent SNAP being cut off is unconditional surrender to the Trumpists, because they’ve shown that any “deals” with them are worthless. And yet somehow their evil choices become our fault.
Eyeroller
@satby: I now have a vague memory that when the site crashed a few(?) years ago, the database got corrupted and a full rebuild would have lost most or all of the old posts. So the site is limping along with the old one. I am not sure that is related to the Redis errors–that is usually just a connection error, but the hosting service may not have things configured optimally.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Platner started out as the second Fetterman but now I think he might be the new, more toxic Bernie: the guy who gets the brocialists on side for a “left” wedge in the Democratic coalition. He might run for President as a way to hole the Democratic Party below the waterline in 2028.
Eolirin
@Another Scott: No, I mean the country cannot have that. We’re not talking about a small number of people. And we’re not talking about inconvenience. Food pantries and states cannot compensate. This is existential for millions of Americans.
Fair Economist
@frosty: In the past I would post to a gaming discussion board that liked to eat posts. Eventually I developed the habit of writing the posts in a another program and pasting them in. Is this an option with Redis? I did use a plaintext editor, which required I used markup language, but that’s not very complex.
NotMax
@lowtechcyclist
Diff’rent strokes. As a not frequent flyer, I found some of the content informative. Granted it did try to cover all the bases, from the mundane to things folks may not know about or are entitled to but reluctant to ask for. Actually, just listened while puttering around with other stuff.
As always, YMMV.
Eyeroller
@Fair Economist: Redis is just the backend database. If it’s eating posts, it’s because the connection to it got dropped by the frontend server before the database was updated. So the manner of entry shouldn’t matter.
Professor Bigfoot
@Eolirin: The Democratic Party cannot save white people from themselves.
At some point you have to accept the agency of the American* people.
It sucks, but how else do we get them to change?
La Nonna
From here in Italy it looks like the coup/takeover is complete, no need to bring Congress back into session for anything, Trump just does whatever he wants to, spends/pockets whatever he wants, does private business from public office, totally unconstrained. The Republicans seem just fine with this, the Supremes have no power, and CBP/ICEos out of control. No need for the Insurrection Act, it’s already done.
dc
@rikyrah:
Good morning to you!
NotMax
@frosty
Have found (on a PC) when Redis rears its head. refreshing that page in the browser (Firefox) takes me to the original thread, with my comment now appearing there just as if there was no interruption.
Eyeroller
@NotMax: The airlines nickel-and-dime (or tens or hundreds of dollars) everyone. It’s not some conspiracy to take advantage of cognitive failures of older people. That pitch was what annoyed me.
What may be the case is that old people might tend to fly less frequently than younger ones, and are perhaps less savvy about finding online bargains and such.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: Virginia is back-stopping SNAP. Other states may be doing similar things.
We’ve been here before.
Remember the 2013 Debt Ceiling Crisis?
The monsters are always trying to use threats against the people to demand Democrats go along with policy decisions that they cannot pass on their own. We’ve been here before.
If it’s not SNAP, it will be something else. We know this. There is always another manufactured crisis waiting after this one.
Schumer and Jeffries know what they’re doing.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Eyeroller
@NotMax: Refreshing it forces a new connection. I’ve seen the same thing (refresh and the post appears) and as you note, most of the time the database has, in fact, been updated and it’s the retrieval that failed. It does seem that occasionally the connection is lost before the post is entered.
jonas
@Jeffg166: He’s supposedly used adderall for decades and here we are. This is probably going to end with him being schlepped around dead on marionette strings a la Weekend at Bernie’s and MAGA — and the MSM — still won’t give a shit. (FTFNYT: “Do Democrats have an answer for Corpse Trump? Two new polls suggest it’s complicated.”)
Eolirin
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: It’s not our fault but that doesn’t change the dynamic. SNAP cannot be allowed to be cut off long enough to kill close to 40 million people. There’s no way for it to be turned back on if Johnson doesn’t let the House open back up except to allow the cr already in the senate pass.
Fair Economist
@Matt McIrvin: I don’t understand how anybody familiar with Byzantine history could be a fan of its system of government, with constant succession crises, high taxes, sectarian warfare, and a long overall decline – partly driven by the fact that Byzantine subjects were often fine with Muslim rule because Byzantine rule was so unpleasant.
Eolirin
@Another Scott: There is no way to backstop snap for long. It’s run rate is billions a month. And places like Lousiana, where there are the most SNAP recipients per captia aren’t going to do that.
Understand this isn’t even about the Republicans being willing to cave. They can see the damage and blink before the Dems and it won’t matter if Johnson tells the rest of his party to fuck off.
That should terrify everyone who cares about preventing mass death.
Fair Economist
@Eyeroller: The point is to have the material of the post on your own computer. If Redis eats it, just copy and paste it in again. You lose 30 seconds instead of 30 minutes.
They Call Me Noni
@Deputinize America: This all day. We are in the FO phase of FAFO. I hate that people will be hurt but they are getting what a majority of them voted for or decided not to vote at all and not paying attention and making a decision is a decision in itself. I don’t know of any other way to break the fever. In my Republican run state those who hold the purse strings are going to have to make some very difficult and public facing decisions. Elections have consequences.
Baud
@Eolirin:
Passive voice doesn’t change the fact that Americans voted to have Republicans exercise political power. It’s in their hands.
Deputinize America
@Eolirin:
I envision a solution to the Mike Johnson problem that needs to forever remain unspoken, and that solution would be illuminating, for the encouragement of others.
Chief Oshkosh
@Matt McIrvin:
I don’t know that that is what happens these days. Unpopular idiots get elected because of gerrymandered districts all the time. Even their own voters don’t like them much, if they think about them at all. It’s just straight party line all the way.
Deputinize America
@They Call Me Noni:
You can’t green lantern anything unless handed the ring, and Team D doesn’t have the ring.
Deputinize America
@Chief Oshkosh:
“I hate both parties, which is why I always vote Republican” is a common mindset.
jonas
And then they got a second wind organizing against sthe 60s counterculture (esp. feminism/abortion) and stuff like the IRS forcing fundamentalist institutions like Bob Jones University to integrate.
All the shit Trump and Vought are doing to bring down American higher ed is essentially revenge for what SCOTUS and the IRS did to segregation academies/universities 50 years ago.
NotMax
@Deputinize America
“One ring to screw them all.”
//
WTFGhost
@Eolirin: It’s true, Johnson could kill a lot of people, and, if there isn’t enough noise over those deaths, then we really are screwed until US fascism collapses under itself. But that is the other reason not to obey in advance. People need to see Republicans killing people, before they’ll be disgusted with them for killing people.
@Eyeroller: Technically, redis works with the database, using key-value lookups for higher speed of database access. I could be wrong, but I don’t think it’s the back end database, just, the WordPress interface, using redis to optimize stuff, so the database doesn’t get overloaded as easily. One of the fascinating things about databases is, just smoothing out the load can vastly improve throughput, even if performance (how quickly your action completes) might be slower.
Harrison Wesley
I would expect a SNAP cutoff to lead to a huge spike in crime. Desperate people will do a lot of things they normally wouldn’t dream of.
UncleEbeneezer
@WTFGhost: The scary part is how many humans can’t/won’t do this. Not just in their political worldview but even in their personal lives. Then there are tons that can empathize but refuse to actually change.
frosty
@Fair Economist: It’s an option for for comments, as is copying before hitting send. OTR has structured entry of images and text and I don’t see any way around it. Nevertheless I’ll risk it again. Sometime soon. 🤞
Matt McIrvin
@La Nonna: The one thing the Trumpists cannot do is compel love or respect from the population. And, oddly enough, that drives them NUTS. It actually is a problem for them.
It also seems like they genuinely did not expect it. Conservatives were usually raised in authoritarian households where the stern father doling out punishment, often physical, is the expression of parental love. The rest of us either were not raised that way, or openly rejected it. Our negative reaction to the Stern Father getting out the belt causes a BSOD in the right-wing mind. That’s not what we’re supposed to do.
They DID manage to successfully demand compliance from a lot of the corporate media. They thought that that would do the trick, but it didn’t.
I don’t know how we get back from this. It might be a civil war that kills a lot of us. It might be the breakup of the United States that some liberals and conservatives have been (foolishly) wishing for for decades. Might be, at best, some kind of bloodless revolution with a slow-multi-decade restoration of the rule of law.
An important thing to understand is that US government is super federated and the blue states are doing their best to govern themselves as they always did internally, and generally telling Trump to go pound sand when he punishes them with run-amuck ICE agents and demoralized National Guard troops. The basis for any future lawful US government, if it exists, is going to be established from the local roots up.
Eolirin
@Baud: It’s not though. Dems can turn SNAP back on right now if they just accept nothing in return for it. They do not lack agency here. This is a choice. It’s a really bad and terrible choice to be forced into, and it isn’t Dem’s fault to be forced to it, but it’s not like Republicans just voted to get rid of the program over Democratic opposition. Then there’d be nothing to be done and a lot of people would for sure die.
But there’s still only two ways to resolve this; one requires Johnson bring the House back into session and the other requires Democratic capitulation.
Anyone talking about how Johnson keeping the House out of session is bad for them isn’t recognizing the effects of that decision. They’re very very bad. They’re literally the worst case for anyone that cares about governance over politics as sports. It almost doesn’t matter that it may hurt them electorally, and that’s assuming we even get to have elections that count. It means Johnson and by extension Trump can force Dems to choose between mass death and complete capitulation and even his own party can’t do anything about it.
Another Scott
@Chief Oshkosh: Yeahbut…
Things don’t change until they do.
Grocery stores shutting down because their SNAP customers don’t have any funds, long lines outside soup kitchens, farm commodity prices collapsing even more, these things cannot be hidden for long.
The number one imperative for a politician is to get re-elected. 47 crowing all day about his ballroom isn’t going to have much sway when things are falling apart even faster in, say, Baton Rouge. Politicians know that they have to get more votes than the other guy/gal.
Governing.com (from August 1):
47’s horrible bill baked in a lot of these horrible actions.
Democrats cannot be stampeded now into supporting them. They need to work to change the dynamic, and that’s what Schumer and Jeffries are doing.
FWIW.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
jonas
Mostly because guess which color most SNAP recipients are, esp. in the Deep South. Now up in places like upstate NY, that’s not necessarily the case, but those folks have been well-trained to automatically blame immigrants or shiftless, undeserving POC (and the Democrats they believe represent Those People) in situations like these.
UncleEbeneezer
@schrodingers_cat: He hates the same people I hate, give me that ballot– Jacobin
Baud
@Eolirin:
Agreed. Dems can capitulate. If that’s what you want, then say it.
Frankly, we’re in this mess because a lot of (mostly privileged) people on our side convinced themselves that Dems were weak and uninspiring because Dems tried to manage the horrors that Republicans wanted to bring rather than fight them.
If more people like you had fought those voices that were denigrating Dems, then maybe we’d have achieved some realistic consensus by now. But it’s too late. IMHO Dems capitulating now will only drive away people and cement Republican rule for generations, which will kill a lot more innocent people. So we’re stuck.
frosty
@Fair Economist: Eyeroller: Sure. I always have OTR pix and text ready to go, but it’s not a 30-sec copy and paste. More like a half hour (3 min per pic x 10 per post). It’s aPITA to do twice.
ETA I’ll see if WG has any ideas.
Omnes Omnibus
@Eolirin: Do you trust the GOP as currently constituted to actually restart SNAP if the Dems fold? I don’t.
Matt McIrvin
@Omnes Omnibus: That’s the antidote to mugger logic: if the mugger seems crazy or greedy enough that it won’t matter whether you hand over your wallet, his proposition no longer works as intended.
Downpuppy
@Suzanne: What we know of Weasel Johnson’s family & finances is that none of it makes sense and he’s hiding something big. The odd part is that nobody seems to be any closer to figuring it out than when he first became Speaker.
lowtechcyclist
@RaflW:
I agree. So why did you have so much more to say about it than I did?
jonas
@Baud: Like I’ve said before, this is exactly like the moment in Superman II where Zod and his companions discover what they think is Superman’s true weakness: “He cares. He actually cares for these Earth people!” And then they proceed to preoccupy him with having to save a bunch of people they put in danger.
In this case, as terrible as the choices are, I think capitulating would be more harmful in the long run because then everyone, particularly Republicans, will know precisely how far they can push things before Dems crack, and then they’ll just double down on that in the future. It will, as you say, cement Republican rule forever.
jonas
@Downpuppy: Whaddya want? For reporters to actually ask questions and investigate things about the people running this country? Pfffft. Please.
(ETA: applies to Republicans only. As if that needed to be said. When it’s a Democrat then you go full on Woodward and Bernstein)
Baud
@jonas:
I’ll be surprised if Dems cave in this anytime soon. So people are just going to have to figure out who they want to blame. Then we’ll know, at least.
Matt McIrvin
@jonas: That’s the villain’s tactic in ALL the good Superman stories. Lex Luthor does it all the time. Superman has some physical weaknesses (Kryptonite, magic etc.), and they may figure in the story, but the interesting thing about him is that he really cares about people and you can always menace enough of them to keep him distracted.
But that’s also his strength, because it means Superman has a lot of friends who have his back when he’s down, and villains like Lex always forget about them.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: Meanwhile, … WARNING TheHill.com:
The MAGAts have the majority and they have agency. They can find a way to get votes to fix this problem – it’s their job to do so.
Democrats’ price for any votes should and must be very high. Because we know that they will try to break or reverse any agreement, among other things.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Another Scott:
I don’t understand how they’re introducing bills if they’re not in session. I didn’t think that was possible.
no body no name
@Baud:
I disagree. Trumpism existed before Trump and it will remain after Trump.
Eolirin
@Another Scott: They also can’t be recovered from. If those grocery stores are forced to close they’re not opening back up again absent significant cash infusions to do so. If farms are pushed under, they’re not suddenly going to magically restart after they’ve been sold off to developers to have data centers built on them or something. There are tipping points that if we cross them will start to have ripple effects the we won’t be able to stop or fix.
And killing 5% or more of the population over the span of a few months is definitely one of them.
Harrison Wesley
@Baud: It may be the concept of a plan for a bill .
They Call Me Noni
@Deputinize America: Very true. My hope is that people who weren’t paying attention will be shaken out of their stupor and take an interest in voting for change. Real and lasting change.
Another Scott
@Baud: I think committee work continues even when the legislature as a whole is not in formal session. Let’s see…
That seems to be the case.
Congress.gov – search for SNAP.
All introduced legislation in 119th Congress.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
That’s what Dems lack.
Baud
@Another Scott:
Thanks. Makes the lawsuit to seat Grijalva more compelling.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: Yup.
Elections have consequences.
And it sucks.
The majority has the responsibility to fix the problem – that’s how legislatures work.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
NotMax
@Baud
AFAIK there’s still pro forma sessions taking place.
Baud
Via Reddit
stinger
@Eolirin:
Like you, I am a compassionate person. I care about the suffering of others, especially children. But capitulation now means capitulation forever. If Democrats can’t hold out to get affordable health care coverage for millions of Americans, there is no issue on which Republicans won’t know that Democrats will cave.
And even if they put it in writing to reinstate SNAP, I wouldn’t trust them to carry through.
Sorry for the double negative — to be clear: If they cave now, Republicans will know that Democrats will always cave.
Eolirin
@Omnes Omnibus: They don’t have a say in that. If the Trump administration doesn’t restart SNAP when it’s congressionally mandated and the courts let them get away with that it’s out of everyone’s hands.
But there’s no point in this shutdown if you think they’re going to operate like that either, because no legislation matters so why bother to try to restore ACA subsidies?
New Deal democrat
@Bruce K in ATH-GR:
This is absolutely true of Japanese, which after putting the subject of the sentence first, has almost the complete inversion of English word order, with adjectives after nouns, post-positions instead of prepositions, and the verb last, with tense at the end of the verb, and negation even after that.
Which leads to some unique Japanese humor, such as the company President announcing to the employees, “Our company important production targets all hit has … “
And with the salarymen all smiling and nodding in approval, finishes:
“… not.”
trollhattan
You hate to see it.
We were canvassed by a Yes on 50 person yesterday, super rare for a one-item ballot.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
Along with that or maybe because of that, the non-Democratic public response seems to be either “so what?” or “oh really? I did not know that. Is it important?”
Baud
@Melancholy Jaques:
Yeah, I think the media manufactures different “vibes” for our vibes based society. They don’t have to go full Fox News in terms of content.
They Call Me Noni
@Eolirin: A majority (though very slim) of the voting public voted for this. They did not pay heed to the educated, qualified Black woman and all of her mouthpieces warning them of exactly what is happening now. So they wanted this. Millions of people who did pay attention are going to suffer too and this is the real tragedy here. After T1.0 they thought T2.0 was the better option and I am tired of feeling sorry for them. They can boil their Trump flag and red hat in puddle water and gnaw on that while they’re gleefully cheering on their cult leader as far as I’m concerned.
So I will will buy extra groceries each week for the local food pantry and take care of me and mine as best I can in the meantime.
Eyeroller
@WTFGhost: I think I said that the connections were being dropped, which is (usually) a frontend problem. But the frontend may be poorly optimized to work with the backend. And a possibly corrupted database could also cause problems. But I am not a DBA.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Libertarianism is not an ideology. It is a series of poses, an ethic of mooching off the commonwealth while simultaneously deploring it. It is fairly defined as “Free me from the shackles of that which I find bothersome.” (That’s a Charlie Pierce quote from way back)
The libertarian belief that you can get something for nothing. It underlies pretty much their entire philosophy. So much so that they weasel speak about personal liberty and personal freedom to cover up for the fact that they want all the benefits of living in a developed nation without actually having to pay to have a developed nation.
Also known as IGMFY.
dailykos.com/stories/2016/9/25/1572955/-Why-corporate-special-interests-created-modern-libertarianis…
The fact that a libertarian can’t name the leader of any successful libertarian country is all you need to know about the idiocy that is libertarianism, and the army of free riding Beavis and Buttheads that champion its stupid cause.
New Deal democrat
@Omnes Omnibus:
@stinger:
@Baud:
Once you capitulate to a hostage-taker, they only return for more hostages.
The House GOP stopgap bill which failed in the Senate due to the filibuster, expires on November 21, less than 4 weeks from now. So capitulation at best would buy less than a month at this point. With each passing day, it becomes less and less relevant. By contrast, the sting (both in real consequences and in electoral terms for the GOP) becomes stronger.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: That remains to be seen.
Among politicians and pundits and people who scream about things online, maybe. Look at the people in the street though.
goodmatt
@Shalimar: Tesla’s real product is gullible dumbfucks and their easily harvested investment dollars.
Matt McIrvin
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Libertarians generally believe that they personally would live like little kings if the government wasn’t keeping them down and giving unfair advantages to inferior people. And that ressentiment is what animates them.
jonas
@Melancholy Jaques: The GOP media noise machine (Fox, AM radio, Sinclair stations, other right-wing cable outlets, X, etc.) would make sure everyone was informed and all worked up about it. Nancy Pelosi or any Dem speaker would have been crucified a thousand times over for this shit, plus another thousand times for the Epstein coverup. Instead we get the noise machine blaming Democrats 24/7 through blatant lying, and the MSM just trying to keep its head down and not make waves by pointing out Johnson’s 1. lying to their faces and 2. complete bad faith in everything.
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin: They’re all “above average.”
Kind of like drivers all believe other drivers are worse drivers.
jonas
@New Deal democrat: There’s an old joke about an English lady on tour in 19th-century Prussia, and she sits in the visitors’ gallery in the Reichstag one day with a German-speaking friend to hear a speech by Bismarck. She asks her friend to translate the proceedings, and as Bismarck begins talking, the friend is just listening intently, but not saying anything. Bismarck continues on, and still nothing. The English lady leans over and whispers, “Please, can you tell me what he’s saying.” “I’m sorry,” replies the friend, “he has not yet gotten to the verb.”
Betty
@NotMax: The flying video is useful, but it doesn’t reduce my contempt for the airline industry. The one complaint I will always have about Jimmy Carter. He fell for the airlines’ caterwauling about regulation and, boy, have they made the most of deregulation.
trollhattan
Breathe deep, Marylanders and neighbors.
The stank of freedom™.
jonas
@Betty: I think airline deregulation was inevitable. People bemoan the deterioration of service, but also forget that flying during the “golden age” of jet travel was, yes, a first class experience, but with first-class prices to go with it. You can fly cross-country now (albeit with shitty service in a cramped seat) for a couple of hundred bucks. In 1960, it was like the equivalent of $2000.
Eolirin
@New Deal democrat: This is as significant as the debt ceiling. Imagine if one of the true believers for a default were able to unilaterally prevent any negotiation to prevent a debt default from happening outside of Democrats having to accept a clean CR.
Would we even be having this conversation? It’d be obvious that they’d capitulate at the last second. I’m going to assert that if it comes down to it they’ll do so here as well, even if SNAP is allowed to temporarily lapse.
I just want you all to be really fucking clear that what you’re willing to casually dismiss as collateral damage to political posturing is the death of tens of millions of Americans to starvation over the course of a few of months
And it’s the Dems taking hostages here this time. In an attempt to prevent 14 million Americans from losing Healthcare. Which is noble and important. But that loss is already baked in. This loss isn’t.
Baud
@Eolirin:
100% clear. I for one will put all the blame on the party in charge.
Eyeroller
@jonas: I’ve heard something like this attributed to Mark Twain.
Most languages are subject-object-verb order, though subject-verb-object is a close second. Proto-Indo-European was SOV. Most of the Western branch switched to SVO but there’s a remnant in German where dependent clauses are SOV.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Eolirin: And surrendering to goddamned fascists is an acceptable price to pay? Because make no mistake, that’s where we are.
October 28, 1940. The Italian ambassador appears before the prime minister of Greece, and demands Greece allow occupation by Axis powers – effectively capitulation – or else there will be a war in which a lot of Greeks will die.
The prime minister of Greece says “no”.
And a lot of Greeks died in the war.
Was the prime minister of Greece wrong to not capitulate?
japa21
@Eolirin:
I don’t see any causal dismissal. Also, can you provide a link to the numbers you are projecting? Serious request.
Eolirin
@Baud: Cool. I don’t actually care who you blame and neither will all the dead people.
Preventing that outcome is more important than the politics.
kalakal
@frosty: The outbreak of the French Revolution. When the members of the Third Estate of the French Parliament turned up to the Estates General on sunny morning to find themselves locked out, they adjourned to a nearby Tennis Court.
Tennis Court Oath
Baud
@Eolirin:
The fact that people think dealing with fascists is just politics is the problem that has caused the deaths of thousands and will kill off thousands more.
Baud
surfk9
@trollhattan: Our Democratic club here in purple Lodi has been doing a lot of canvassing as well as postcards. We actually emptied the local post office of stamps last week.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: And yet, what the GQP wanted in 2013 in return for passing a debt ceiling increase didn’t happen.
In your hypothetical, what happens if Democrats capitulate here?
The horrible July 4 bill raised the debt ceiling by $5T to $41.1T. It stands at $38.0T right now, 10 months into his administration. Before the virtually guaranteed recession brought on by his stupid and dangerous policies.
What do you envision the debt ceiling dynamic will be like in 1-2 years if Democrats fold now? They’ll have to fold then too, because the monsters will behave monstrously?
The only way out of this is for the legislature to start behaving like a legislature again. That means listening to constituents. That means respecting their oaths. That means taking into account the views of the other party and compromising.
Until then, things are going to continue to suck. Surrendering will only make things worse and delay our getting out of this mess.
My $0.02.
Hang in there.
Best wishes,
Scott.
trollhattan
@surfk9:
👍 👍 👍
Eyeroller
@japa21: Yeah, this sounds alarmist.
The situation is bad and people will suffer, but what makes anyone think that tens of millions will starve to death in a few months? Most people would not be completely deprived of food during that time. It would be hardest on children and on adults with some types of disorders, but an otherwise reasonably healthy adult and even most children can survive a surprisingly long time with little food. And most Americans have fat reserves. And I don’t see how all the most vulnerable dying would add up to 5% of the population, as was claimed.
One of the biggest issues with the poor in America is an inability to prepare food completely from scratch, either because they don’t know how, their lives are too chaotic, or they lack facilities. Rice and beans are extremely cheap (still) and filling and will keep one going for a long time, but they require preparation and also that kind of food is not what most Americans are accustomed to eating regularly.
I can certainly imagine an uptick in crime in some areas. But the white rural population on SNAP seems mostly concerned with not having a full Thanksgiving dinner.
Eolirin
@japa21: 40 million people rely on SNAP and food banks are slammed and already struggling to keep up with demand. And they’re mostly servicing populations that receive SNAP.
Where do you think they’re going to get enough food from to avoid becoming malnourished and then critically ill? A large percentage of that population is children.
That’s before the knock on effects of pulling that much money out of the ag economy every month kicks in. SNAP pays out over 9 billion a month. If a grocery store has a lot of SNAP recipients and is forced to close because they lost most of their costumers, where do you think that community is going to get food from? Lots of rural areas don’t have much distribution infrastructure. Those closures could create permanent food deserts even after funding is restored. We’ve already seen savaging of other food assistance programs, including USDA support to food pantries. And of course there’s also been a lot of food cost inflation between tariffs and climate change related disruptions. So this population is even more vulnerable right now.
If you’re getting SNAP you also aren’t making enough money that you can do things like afford housing and gas and car payments and food at the same time. There’s no slack in your budget. As it is snap is generally insufficient to cover a food budget by itself. So you’re already struggling to eat adequately if you’re on it, and are likely already relying on food pantries. Losing such a significant portion of your food budget is going to be impossible to recover from.
This is one of those necessary programs without which a lot of people can’t survive, that the federal government is the only possible source for, like social security is for seniors.
State budgets cannot afford to compensate these kinds of dollars for long.
It won’t be instantaneous, but a sizable percentage of that 40 million will not have enough to eat to live if the funds are cut off for too long.
Eolirin
@Eyeroller: You have no idea what living in poverty is like.
Another Scott
BlueVirginia.US:
In the comments:
Democrats are not the holdup here in actually addressing the issues caused by the July 4 bill.
Hang in there, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Eolirin: Caution – it’s generally a mistake to make assumptions about the personal lives of fellow commenters. And it distracts from trying to address the issues.
(I remember when the literal only thing to eat in the house was an old box of sugar-free Jello pudding mix. Does that matter?)
Best wishes,
Scott.
MCat
@Tony Jay: Thank you. Perfect. I love it.
Tony Jay
@Fair Economist:
Yeah, but it was a very looooonnnnnng decline, and just as the Muslim Caliphate arrived on the scene as the attractive new superpower, Byzantium and Persia had just finished pouring their entire treasuries into a generation long war that had shattered trade and left much of the middle-east a burnt-out hellhole. The Persians didn’t survive it, the Byzantines did, but at a hell of a cost and with a much reduced taxation base just as they were facing threats on about half a dozen borders.
That they survived for so long and were able to fight so hard against so many enemies is, IMHO, a testament to how efficient and adaptable their form of government was.
lowtechcyclist
@Eolirin:
So you’re saying that in just a few weeks after SNAP funding expires, there will be 40,000,000 excess deaths in America?
No there won’t. I’m not saying there won’t be a humanitarian crisis, but to wildly exaggerate its potential scale doesn’t do your argument any favors.
Remember how the morgues in NYC were overwhelmed in early 2020 and they had bodies stacked up in refrigerator trucks? You’re saying it would be like that nationwide, except there would be nowhere near enough refrigerator trucks or people to remove bodies. Whole cities and towns would reek of death too badly for people to continue to live in. There would be mass funeral pyres everywhere in order to keep up with the bodies. That’s what 40 million people dying in America between now and Christmas would be like. The logistics of handling 666,666 deaths per day for those two months would be overwhelming, there wouldn’t be time to mourn.
You’re saying that’s how it will be if the Dems don’t cave. No it won’t.
Harrison Wesley
@Eolirin: I get what you’re saying; I was a grant writer for Philabundance for about 10 years. The problem I see is that the Republicans will probably cut SNAP even if the Democrats give in. I really don’t know what would be the right position on this.
Bill Arnold
One of POTUS’s Article 3 powers is
“and in Case of Disagreement between them[both Houses], with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper;”
I.e. he can adjourn Congress under circumstances that Johnson can arrange, and the adjournment ends when he “thinks” it should.
lowtechcyclist
@Eolirin:
Actually, there’s a third way to resolve this: the GOP-controlled Senate, for the second time just this year, creates an exception to the filibuster: this time, it’s one that applies to this CR rather than to judicial nominations.
The Senate Republicans can turn the government back on anytime they damn well please. It wouldn’t require the House to act, and it wouldn’t require a single Democratic vote in the Senate. It’s all on them.
They Call Me Noni
@Eolirin: I do. I remember eating oatmeal three times a day because that’s all we had. A big pot of spaghetti had to last all week. Peanut butter on a piece of bread was a treat. For these reasons as an adult who can afford it I keep a well stocked pantry and freezer, shop sales and clip coupons. This is the house where the three grown grandsons come to grocery shop when their cupboards are bare and payday is a week away. Beans and taters ain’t glamorous but they sure are filling and I can assure you they all know how to cook ’em.
But at some point we have to all stand up and back the people who are willing to fight on principle. We are not the people who are sticking a fork in the electrical socket.
barbequebob
@lowtechcyclist: here’s one aspect. Old people tend to be more willing to pay for comfort and hassle free travel. Perhaps because they can afford it at that stage of life? I pass on the cheap tickets that do not allow me to reserve a seat in advance and limit me to a backpack. So yes, age is a factor, but lots of young people who can afford it will pay extra for comfort and hassle free travel too. If you’re poor you get a seat next to the toilet, or you take a bus.
Super Dave
Any time someone prefaces their statement with “I’m not…” whatever follows is EXACTLY what they intend.
Nelle
@Eolirin: Late to this thread. I speak as someone whose oldest cousin, born in 1920 in what is now Ukraine, starved to death in 1921 due to the famine there. I grew up with stories of my father, as a child, hunting for frogs and bugs, to eat. My uncle and aunt were stunted due to malnutrition and my aunt only lived to the age of 17. Food access is a big deal to us, a generation later. We live with that knowledge.
I also know that there is no satiating the urge of Trump to destroy all of us and capitulation only brings temporary relief. There is no perfect answer, no golden way out of the mess.
I saw a suggestion that those who are able to, should partner up with a SNAP recipient. Become their partner, take them shopping for the duration, buy their groceries. Doesn’t change the whole picture, but changes life for that family. Consider doing it. And hammer the phones to Congressional offices.
No deal made with Trump is trustworthy. He loves the cruelty of depriving others, and then ostentatiously wasting money on himself. His track record suggests that if he knows that it is important enough to capitulate on, that is what he will jerk away the next week. Just because.
Matt McIrvin
@lowtechcyclist:
Right. We wouldn’t LIKE that outcome. It would be bad. But it would end the shutdown without the Democrats caving, or the Republicans giving them what they want.
The Republicans don’t want that because they want to be able to share the blame for the unpopular things in this bill, and because they want the Democrats to break and grovel and look weak.
But everyone needs to remember that they could do it at any time, and it makes the claim that the Democrats own the shutdown absurd.
Ishiyama
@Deputinize America: I see what you did there, Monsieur Voltaire.
Matt McIrvin
@Fair Economist: For that guy, it was all about obedience to God. Absolutely nothing else mattered. He was a true believer who thought unquestioning obedience was an important lost virtue.
(It was one of the things that made me think the far right has this really deep submissive streak.)
Ishiyama
@Tony Jay: I studied Byzantine History in one class in college. I recall a pattern of competent, prudent rulers husbanding the resources of a dwindling empire, only to be replaced by a reckless, egotistical warmongers, trying to recapture lost glories. And I also recall that their foreign policy consisted of subverting the political stability of their neighbors, and bribing other nations to attack their neighbors in the rear. Byzantine diplomacy is still a byword.
Kosh III+
“We cannot have SNAP funds go away for a month, let alone more than that. It will kill a lot of people.”
Fact which should be emphasized more is that the single largest demographic for SNAP is minors, almost half. The next largest is the elderly, then the disabled, then elderly disabled.
Able bodied adults without children are a miniscule number and in Tennessee ABAWDs can only get 3 months SNAP in a three year period unless working at least 20 hours per week.
But it’s the children, the children.
Matt McIrvin
In clown news, I hear that Steve Bannon has been asserting in tones of great certainty that Trump will have a third term–not just that he will be allowed to run, but that his election three years from now is already a done deal–and it’s making people spiral on Bluesky. What’s the secret plan? What does he know that we don’t?
He doesn’t know anything. Didn’t he fall out with Trump years ago?
TONYG
@Baud: Just my opinion, man, but … I THINK THAT THE CORPORATE MEDIA SUPPORTS EVERYTHING THAT TRUMP AND THE REPUBLICANS DO BECAUSE WHAT THEY DO ULTIMATELY INCREASES CORPORATE PROFITS.
Kathleen
@Matt McIrvin: They seem to have an on again/off again bromance. I say “seem” because the seemingly shower shy Bannon likes to “f**k” with Democrats and keep Red MAGATS guessing.
kalakal
Completely off topic.
Monday night/Tuesday looks like being catastrophic for Jamaica, Eastern Cuba, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
Melissa underwent very rapid intensification last night and looks set to hit Jamaica as a Cat 5 hurricane on its way NE. This is after dumping a gazillion tons of rain over the intervening period. I fear this will be a very, very destructive storm
Kathleen
@Kosh III+: “PRO LIFE”
Another Scott
Meanwhile, …
O my.
Best wishes,
Scott.
MagdaInBlack
@Matt McIrvin:I saw him talking that shit too.
Remember that Bannon is the ” flood the zone with shit” guy, so who knows.
Kosh III
oops, sorry mods.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Steve Bannon is on the outside now, and Trump’s people have effectively checked his influence on the administration to the point where even looney Laura Loomer has more. So now Bannon tries to maintain relevance with click-bait pronouncements like this one.
Or like his recent assertion that there should be a “Three State Solution” to the Israel/Palestine problem: a Jewish state, an Arab State and a Christian state centered on Jerusalem. This is a preposterous idea, but it won Bannon some attention.
Kosh III
Since there is ONLY a 2 billion dollar rainy day fund, the Tennessee Legislature has refused to fund SNAP.
Last year they gave a massive tax cut to businesses because Bill Fraking Lee said some business might maybe possibly sue.
Frak the Grand Old Posterior.
Tomorrow I will be calling my state Rep and Senator to complain. They are both “Christian” Republicans so I expect nothing except maybe “thoughts and tariffs.”
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
All the more incentive to keep doing it.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@lowtechcyclist: my feelings exactly!
dnfree
@WTFGhost: If it helps, I got your intention to make a joke. I find that sometimes people jump on a commenter here with what seems to me to be undue harshness, sometimes as a result of failure to understand a joke or sarcasm.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: The emotional core in the latest Superman movie was the scene where Luthor is interrogating Superman by playing Russian roulette with a completely innocent man who sole connection to Superman was that he once gave Superman food from his falafel store. Superman’s helpless scream when Lex killed the guy after the second question was just devastating.
I imagine most Republicans who saw that scene mocked Superman for being so weak. After all, Lex didn’t do anything that the Bush administration would not have authorized at Abu Graib if they’d thought they could get away with it.
dnfree
@lowtechcyclist: When I see “Nobody warns you!” I suspect a pointless, drawn-out presentation of some kind. It’s like the many posts that say “What is the biggest cause of dementia? Nobody tells you!”
chemiclord
This is effectively what my biggest concern was as the first potential shutdown loomed; that without the power to call Congress back in session, the Dems would be unable to stop the GOP from effectively dissolving Congress by refusing to call them back.
Which is, in effect, what they have now done.
Point is… I’m not going to blame Dems for not picking my preferred losing scenario.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@frosty: I, personally, do not have the fastest internet connection, and greatly prefer reading posts to waiting for the damn videos to load. Also, people talk too slow; I could read their points much more quickly. Why yes, I am an old.
Citizen Alan
@Matt McIrvin: I mentioned this yesterday to someone. We all know that famous analogy: “Libertarians are like cats. Proud of their fierce independence while completely dependent on support systems that they neither understand nor appreciate.”
And I remember laughing when someone made that comment in the presence of a Libertarian who got angry and insisted “If I was a cat, I’d rather be free out in the wilds than be a housecat dependent on humans!” Someone actually extoling the lifestyle of being a feral cat as a virtue. Such a ridiculous philosophy.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Professor Bigfoot: well put!
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Geminid: God, I would hope so!
Citizen Alan
@Eolirin: So you would have voted for Field Marshall Petain?
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, and the turning point was that it was the last straw for Metamorpho, who was helping Lex under duress. But for that to happen, Superman had to convince him that there was hope. So it was a nice character moment.
Geminid
@Citizen Alan: Yeah, that guy would rather be a feral cat– until a coyote found him.
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: One of my cats agrees. Only whenever she manages to escape (she is supposed to be an indoor cat but is a skilled escape artist) she eventually realizes it gets cold out there and there are scary animals, not just the little ones she likes to abuse.
Anyway
Nah, Bannon is a loyal hate-the -Dems guy and will work hard to make sure RThugs don’t lose influence. He’s close to one of Cheetolini’s spawn – Uday or Qusay – can’t tell them apart. He may not directly have 47’s attention but their interests are aligned.
UncleEbeneezer
@Professor Bigfoot: THIS! The vast majority of people do zero work or introspection or take a critical look at what they believe and how they behave.
Matt McIrvin
@Anyway: It’s kind of interesting that the strategy is to brag openly that the fix is in.
satby
@frosty: wait, when did you get put in charge of posting OTR?
Tony Jay
@Ishiyama:
Yup. As I recall it, after they’d survived the initial onslaught of Islam and the Balkan empires, a series of emperors did the smart thing and rebuilt the military and financial network on a smaller base, then a series of emperors took those assets and ran them straight into the inescapable fact that a lot of Central Asia was moving west looking for land to settle, and had adopted Islam in the process. Once they lost Anatolia to the Seljuks it was pretty much game over for the Empire, but that took a while to sink in.
I don’t think their foreign policy was that different to the early medieval standard, though. Everyone was out to undermine their nearest neighbours and to hell with the consequences. Sometimes that allowed for expansion and consolidation, sometimes – as with Byzantium – it just delayed the inevitable and made the eventual crash much worse.
But yeah, leadership matters. Solid and dull competence builds things, flashy and aggressive incompetence wrecks things.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Tony Jay:
The Justinian Plague is considered among some historians, a key early reason for how the Byzantine Empire played out. Also the plague weakened the Empire so that Islam spread in a way faster and farther than it otherwise might.
And hey folks, let’s not forget the impacts of the 4th Crusade and the sack of Constantinople on medieval Bzyantium.
As a historical miniature wargaming rules and army list author, I’ve read a ton on this over the years but don’t have a specific book in mind offhand to recommend. I actually have a 25mm Early Byzantine army for the rules I use.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, a reminder that reality always – eventually – gets a vote.
Telegraph.co.uk:
Things don’t change until they do. And sometimes they change very quickly.
Best wishes,
Scott.
UncleEbeneezer
@Citizen Alan: I have two cats here that would beg to differ with that silly take. They were both feral but had started coming in through our doggie door and sleeping in our living room and generally becoming socialized to us for a year or so. On Jan 7th we made the unprecedented decision to keep them in for the day since we were worried about the wind storm that was coming. They were not happy about it but when we had to evacuate because of the fire it was the best decision of our lives. They would have almost definitely perished had they been out (as many did, sadly). Since then they’ve been indoor only, moved with us to Taos and seem to be happier than ever just watching the world go by from inside. They even seem to get along better and don’t fight as much.
WTFGhost
Random thought.
Usually, when a person is not on American soil, they are screamed at, and hated forever, if the disrepsect and devalue America.
Trump says “America is a shitty country that holds dishonest elections and has people spying on political opponents, even when I’m in charge of the spies!” digbysblog.net/2025/10/26/can-you-see-whats-wrong-with-this-picture-4/
And no one cares that he’s being a Republican shitbird, not apologizing for America, just, you know, insulting it, without apology. When did Republicans stop talking about America like a shining city on a hill, and instead call it a country deep in the unclean shitter, constantly picking on our biggest, bowel-mouthed, baby, Donald J. Trump. Why, you’d think whoever was President during the 2020 elections should be shot for treason, and two Republicans even tried to carry out the sentence!
Have fun fighting fascism – if it’s not fun, you’re going to have to fight it violently, so it’s better if you mock it until everyone points, and laughs, and demands accountability for lawbreaking from those evil, stupid, people who never understood America at all.
Old School
@satby:
Pretty sure frosty was attempting to contribute to OTR.
satby
@Old School: you could assume that, but not sure how a Redis error would contribute to that.
NaijaGal
@Eolirin: Republicans can pass the existing bill in the Senate by blowing up the filibuster in the same way that they have to confirm Trump’s candidates, as Marjorie Taylor Greene recently pointed out. This is not on Dems.
Timill
@satby: The On the Road submission form looks to use the same mechanism as the Comment form.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Party like it’s 1099!
Matt McIrvin
@Citizen Alan: …oh, and Superman (2025) in fact did have a legion of bizarrely intense online haters, mostly people still butthurt over the passing of the Zack Snyder Superman played by Henry Cavill, whose most common beef was that this Superman is too weak because we see him getting beaten a lot and not effortlessly wiping the floor with his enemies enough. And I get the sense that there was a bit of political culture war in there. Whatever.
It was far from a perfect film, still had some of the standard tics of modern superhero filmmaking, but I did enjoy it a lot.
🐾BillinGlendaleCA
@frosty: Write the OTR text in an editor, like notepad, and save it. Then paste it into FYWP for the OTR. I too, have lost a few OTR posts.
I feel your pain.
cain
Over 1.2 million American citizens died during the pandemic. This country didn’t give a fuck. That’s where we are now. You think this administration gives a rats ass about any of this? You want the Dems to capitulate but then we will have no health care and how many will die from that going forward? If we capitulate to save lives, we will also be giving up our freedom, our safety, and our lives to a group of people who will not return the favor of saving their lives.
cain
@Eolirin: They live in a republic, they need to talk to their representative. If the rep is engaging in performative politics with their lives then they need to vote someone else in who will listen to them.
They have agency! Do a recall petition. Do whatever it takes within the bounds of the state constitution. But this republic is for the people, by the people, and the Dem party is not in charge. It is the GOP completely.
cain
Mossad will likely assassinate anyone who puts forth this plan to include Christians in Israel.
Ramona
@Deputinize America: A version of the trolley dilemma?
hobbitdreams
Deleted.
O. Felix Culpa
Wow, leave the blog for a while and return to discover that you’ve been the subject of a personal attack. Oh well, I guess I’ll go back to clubbing baby seals.
Have a good day, evening, or morning, everyone, depending on your time zone.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: Sometime when you’ve not too busy clubbing baby seals, I would like to hear your thoughts on Deb Haaland’s prospects in next year’s election for New Mexico governor.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: Hehe, I’ll give my arm a rest for a moment to answer your question. My gut says Deb’s chances are great, and a September poll indicates the same.
ETA: The poll is for the primary, which I think she’ll win handily. The general might be a little tougher, just because there’s this weird voter preference for “change” after two terms of the same party. On the other hand, the effect of the One Big Horrible Bill on New Mexicans plus the shutdown is really, really bad, so that might get vibes voters to stick with the Democrats.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: Thanks. I used to be impressed by Deb Haaland. Then I read her Wikipedia biobrapghy and I was more than impressed. Hers is an inpiring story of resilience and determination.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: Oh yes, Deb is a very impressive person. Smart, tough, resilient, and personable. Also very effective in her various roles. Among other things, she lifted the state party out of significant debt inherited when she was elected NM state party chair, not to mention being an excellent Secretary of the Interior.
She has my vote.
Kayla Rudbek
@Tony Jay: “and malt does more than Milton can to justify God’s ways to man”