Good morning.
I don't know who did this, but I love you.— Richard Kadrey (@richardkadrey.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 10:01 AM
===
is this what trump means when he keeps saying he has record numbers?
edition.cnn.com/2025/11/03/p…— Rachel Maddow (@maddow.msnbc.com) November 3, 2025 at 1:54 PM
In Washington Post polling, a double-digit percentage of Republicans shifted from strongly to only somewhat approving of his presidency since February — a kind of shift that could crack the door open for GOP criticism and defections.
www.pbump.net/o/the-number…— Philip Bump (@pbump.com) November 3, 2025 at 11:46 PM
Americans broadly disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling his job, and a majority say he has gone too far in exercising the powers of his office, according to a Washington-Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll.
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost.com) November 3, 2025 at 3:30 PM
===
Guess what’s happening in Donald Trump’s backyard?
A health care affordability crisis.
Quick reaction from the airport in Florida:— Elizabeth Warren (@warren.senate.gov) November 3, 2025 at 7:17 PM
Per Politico, “Senate Democrats head to Trump’s ‘backyard’ to press him on Obamacare”:
… “We’re here, particularly in Miami-Dade, because you’re ground zero for absorbing the pain from the Republican cuts,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren said before a crowd gathered at a local health care union headquarters. “You are the ones who will lose more people off health care altogether and more people who will see their premiums go up than any place else in the country.”
Warren, along with Sens. Tina Smith of Minnesota and Chris Murphy of Connecticut, criticized President Donald Trump and Republicans for refusing to extend the more generous subsidies originally created as part of a 2021 pandemic relief bill.
“We are in Donald Trump’s backyard to make the point that people’s health insurance premiums are doubling because of him,” Smith said, referring to Trump’s residence at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach…
Murphy argued the federal government already had enough funding to help Obamacare customers, pointing to the ballroom Trump is building at the White House, as well as the $20 billion economic rescue package the U.S. is sending to Argentina. The ballroom’s estimated cost is $300 million.
“Donald Trump could reopen the government tomorrow if he just decided to fix this problem,” Murphy said. He added that though Democrats “want to get the government open,” they won’t vote for what he called “an immoral budget that throws millions of people off their health care.”…
===
You can either say “the Democrats are standing in the way” or you can say “finally we get to stop funding this program”. You can’t do both.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 6:17 PM
===
Gov. Abbott, courting an audience of one…
Closing the Texas border to MAGA asylum seekers.
— Dana Houle (@danahoule.bsky.social) November 3, 2025 at 4:55 PM
On The Road – UncleEbeneezer – Enchanted Fall Color 2025: EC Drive (Part 1 of 4)
no body no name
That last caption is wild. Tariffs on moving.
Suzanne
That first picture is a riot.
I am a huge fan of Rothko. Maybe the first modern artist that I really grokked. Looking at them printed in a book or on the screen does nothing, though. Their scale, and the way the light makes them glow and almost shimmer….. mean that they really have to be experienced in person. For those who don’t know….. Rothko built up hundreds of thin layers of paint for each one, so each painting is very heavy. But that technique gives them a depth and presence that is almost overwhelming if you stand in front of one.
I like to stand barefoot in museums. Makes me feel more, like, grounded..
Nukular Biskits
Good mornin’, y’all.
Setting aside the unconstitutionality, HTF do you impose a tariff on anyone moving to TX from NYC?
MagdaInBlack
Pastor Mike obviously does not believe in the afterlife. To be honest, he doesn’t appear to believe in much of anything.
p.a.
Too lazy to verify, but any of our brilliant journamalists note, or even Dem pols note ON AIR, that (IIRC-again, too lazy to check) every shutdown has been Rethug majority congress???!!! Just another rhetorical point to make while the try the “Schumer shutdown” bullshit.
Ben Cisco
@Nukular Biskits: You don’t, it’s just noise.
“Tariffs” is the new buzzword – the new “MAGA” – it’s simple, it’s stupid, it’s right on brand for this bunch.
mappy!
Municipals and other elections today folks. Poll workers start at 5AM and finish at 10PM. Support them. Go vote.
no body no name
Dick Cheney is dead!
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits: More like, “setting aside the dumbassery”. Tons of upwardly mobile professionals do some time in New York (and Silicon Valley) to build their resumes/portfolios, and then relocate to other states….. bringing their high-salary, high-experience selves. Those people are the economic engine of the Sun Belt.
The places that want to be hostile to newcomers are basically committing economic self-harm.
ETA: The NIMBYs complain about it, but it’s the inexorable pattern.
lowtechcyclist
On Trump’s cap, shouldn’t ‘USA’ have the word ‘FUCK’ right above it?
lowtechcyclist
@no body no name:
Really? One more grave to piss on!
Suzanne
@lowtechcyclist: Come piss by me.
no body no name
@lowtechcyclist:
cnn.com/2025/11/04/politics/dick-cheney-death-obit
Jeffro
@no body no name: you know, in more normal times, I might be like, “woot!”
But now I’m just looking forward to trump embarrassing himself with whatever he tweets later about it
Nukular Biskits
@MagdaInBlack:
This is the metric by which I evaluate conservative Christians; i.e., does their walk match their talk?
In most cases, the answer is a resounding “No”.
If conservative Christians (by which I generally mean conservative white evangelicals) truly believed what they claimed, then there is no way they’d be pushing/supporting Trump, for example.
Nukular Biskits
@Ben Cisco:
IKR?
I mean, Abbott himself isn’t stupid … but he apparently thinks Texans as a group are.
MagdaInBlack
@Jeffro: He will show his whole ass, but it wont embarrass him.
Suzanne
I have decided to interpret Dick Cheney’s death on Election Day as a Good Sign.
E.
Gonna be fun to watch Trunp navigate the funeral hoopla.
Nukular Biskits
@Suzanne:
I see the exact same thing here in MS: Conservative Republicans railing about liberals in other states … but begging corporations to relocate here (and bringing those liberal employees) while at the same time desperately trying to stop the flow of young talent leaving.
MS has a serious brain drain. And, as a native Mississippian of over 6 decades, I don’t blame them at all for leaving.
JPL
@Suzanne: As I often say, there’s always good news.
MagdaInBlack
@Nukular Biskits: They believe what they are told to believe, good little authoritarian followers that they are.
J.
Love the free Rothko. Now let’s free America from the Trump/MAGA tyranny!
JPL
@E.: OMG Melania will be wearing the lamp shade again
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits: Very common. The pattern of the professional workforce is often that young people (recent college grads through up to around 35) want to move to cities with good professional opportunities for their career growth, then they get to the age where they want to have kids and buy a house and stuff, but still need to access professional jobs, so they go to the suburbs of maybe a second-tier city like Dallas or wherever.
And there are dumbasses on both the left and the right who say things like, “young people don’t have a right to live here” and “don’t California my Arizona” and all manner of other stupidity. Instead of accepting that urban growth is both inevitable, and actually good for everyone if handled well. But it entails change, and lots of people do not like change.
Spanky
@no body no name: I never thought it would happen, frankly. My only sadness is that his evil seems so, so quaint in these times.
p.a.
@JPL: The Cheney showing in state will be an interesting dynamic, if the Orange shitstain even shows up. And if he makes a speech…😂
Suburban Mom
It is a lovely morning here. I’m doing a GOTV phone bank today and good weather usually helps turnout. Hoping this means the universe wants NJ to vote blue. Or at least that prospective voters will be in a good mood and will pick up their phones.
Princess
It will be interesting to see what level of public mourning Trump’s Republicans party does or does not do for Cheney. I assume his death will be ignored, which is kind of wonderful no matter who is doing it.
Nukular Biskits
@Suzanne:
One of the reasons so many are leaving MS is lack of opportunity. This is compounded by the regressive nature of the politics here.
Mississippi Today has been running an interesting series on this.
Do I expect MS conservative Republicans to change? No. If anything, they seem to be doubling down. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of those asshats suggests imposing a “tariff” on Mississippians leaving the state for better opportunities.
Suzanne
@Princess: Mr. Suzanne and I, for whom 9/11 and the Iraq War were the real forge of our political identities and alignment, were just commenting about how differently we would have felt about this news if he had died in, say, 2015.
no body no name
@Jeffro:
He will. Cheney showed up for the commemoration of January 6. He’s on the shit list with Trump. There will be gloating.
getsmartin
@Nukular Biskits: Truth. Over the years, I’ve pondered the wisdom of my decision to remain here after school. I tripped right into a decent career with a multi-national company, though, so here I have remained. I’ve always said that living an hour from New Orleans makes living in Mississippi tolerable.
Matt McIrvin
Cheney was a monster who seems to have been appalled at Trumpism but who helped set the precedent for it with his “1% doctrine” bullshit. Every time MAGA leaders call someone a “terrorist supporter” as automatic justification for any atrocity they want to commit, that’s the Bush-Cheney regime bearing fruit.
The main reason I don’t celebrate the deaths of these guys is that there are always more of them.
artem1s
@JPL:
No way does Darth Jr. let her, her spawn, or her john anywhere near Darth’s funeral.
Nelle
@mappy!: My 81 year old husband is off to do his job as a poll worker. It’s a loonngg day.
PsiFighter37
Adios Dick Cheney. No tears shed here.
MagdaInBlack
@Princess: Well, Cheney voted for Kamala, so he is anathema, I would assume.
Suzanne
@Nukular Biskits: What I find most frustrating about the current “discussion” about where people live is that everybody hates it. People in small towns complain that their children leave for the cities, and then people in the cities complain about the pressures of too many people. You get this anti-education attitude on the one hand, like “Why doesn’t everyone want to work at the coal mine?” bullshit. Then, on the other, NIMBY nonsense like “this apartment building will block my view of the park, and by the way, I hate young people who like hip restaurants”.
Darwin pointed out that we change or we die.
Nukular Biskits
@getsmartin:
Where is “here”, if I may ask?
Like you, I fell into a good-paying job with decent benefits years ago, working for a contractor at Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula. It’s put supper on the table, paid off a house and put two kids through college. I ain’t rich, but I’m doing okay.
Compare with most of the people with whom I graduated high school, though, I’m one of the elite.
Nukular Biskits
@Nelle:
Kudos to him!
JPL
@p.a.: All of Trump’s favorite people will be there. I might have to watch
Nukular Biskits
@Suzanne:
Change is indeed the only constant and a lot of folks simply can’t abide by it.
It’s human nature, I suppose.
Tony Jay
Dick Cheney’s body finally follows the road blazed by his heart and soul.
Might as well bury him with a load of seeds. The world can reap what he sowed literally like it has figuratively since 2000.
chrome agnomen
Cheney. another guy whose face the leopards ended up eating. in his case, the right-wing leopards.
Splitting Image
@MagdaInBlack:
I don’t have a higher opinion of Dick Cheney than I did 20 years ago. But I do have a higher opinion of Dick Cheney than anyone who voted for Trump.
getsmartin
@Nukular Biskits: I’m over in Pass Christian and worked for DuPont-Chemours (hired in at 22, fresh out of college). I managed to escape with a pension a couple of years ago, so indeed I was one of the fortunate ones. I know Ingalls and Chevron have been excellent employers for many years. BTW, the only thing keeping us here now is my wife’s teaching career with USM. She needs about three more years to maximize her PERS benefits.
Matt McIrvin
@Suzanne: Part of it is that increasing wealth/income inequality means that the changes almost always fuck over the poor. It’s the whole paradox of gentrification: we can’t have nice things because if nice things ever arrive, the people who live there can’t afford them and get driven out, so good things are actually bad. But it’s inequality that makes that happen.
p.a.
@Splitting Image: Low bar, but yes I agree.
I wonder about those public voices who moved beyond even Cheney, like Jen Rubin: she’s clearly done a real turn-about, but I don’t know if she’s done a public mea culpa, introspective evaluation on “I helped enable this.” Not saying “I demand this from them”, just wondering if it’s been done by her, or Frum, or… etc.
Barbara
@Suzanne: The National Gallery in DC has a permanent rotating exhibit of Rothko works from all periods of his career. It somehow acquired or received more Rothko works than any other museum. You’re not that far away. I too love Rothko’s color block work. It’s like staring at subtle color changes of the ocean as it undulates.
Bupalos
Clustering in 4 out of cities while depopulating many states is not just “urban growth,” it’s also urban stagnation and brain-drain. Moreover it’s just not what our system of ddemocratic federalism is designed for, and is partly responsible for the increasingly perverse, increasingly oligarchic political results we see.
Chief Oshkosh
@Nukular Biskits:
FTFY
Dorothy A. Winsor
Cheney was only 84. It feels like he should be much older, like he’s been around forever.
Or maybe I’m old enough that I’ve lost perspective on 84
Suzanne
@Matt McIrvin:
Agreed. And thus we must use policy to protect people from being driven out. But that policy can’t include opposition to growth…. because that leads to scarcity, which leads to high prices, which leads to people being driven out.
Also, and I say this with a great amount of personal experience….. the worst NIMBYs are wealthy white suburban Republicans who don’t want Those People to be even within eyeshot.
lowtechcyclist
@E.:
He’ll find a way to make it all about himself, because that’s what he does.
Matt McIrvin
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He’d had heart troubles for ages and I think that contributed to the idea that he was clinging unnaturally to life through the Dark Side of the Force, like Henry Kissinger.
rikyrah
@no body no name:
Never thought that it would happen.
And, that’s all I gotta say about that 😒
EarthWindFire
Since it’s an open thread, VA’s State Navigate is speculating that there will be a supermajority in the State House after tonight. First time ever that they’ve forecasted this.
They also give Good Kim a 81% chance of winning today. Good pick, WG!
projects.statenavigate.com/25-26/states/va/forecast.html
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone 😊 😊 😊
piratedan
well, I guess we can all raise a glass now that Darth Vader Jr. has left the stage. I still suspect his biggest regret may be in knowing that all the Constitutional damage he caused only benefitted the very same people he loathed and took for granted instead of setting the Neo-cons up for power. Appreciate that his daughter, while odious in her beliefs, felt that the country was more important than allowing a compromised imbecile be in charge. Shame she couldn’t convince more of her cohorts to follow.
All them dudes thought they could ride the tiger.
ah well, in early at work so I can go vote at lunchtime. First time as a Virginian to cast a ballot.
Suzanne
@Bupalos:
Well, that’s literally not happening. Cities in most states are growing. Even Pittsburgh, which had been shrinking for almost forty years, is now growing again. Boise and Minneapolis and Salt Lake City…. all growing.
lowtechcyclist
@Spanky:
Indeed. I said here not too long ago that I’d rather even have Darth Freakin’ Cheney as President than Hair Furor.
This time, I’m not gonna jinx things by saying there’s no way we can do worse than Trump. Because I sure thought that about Bush and Cheney.
Fair Economist
@Suzanne: Is there a liberal/conservative divide there? I’m happy with where I live (Southern California sprawl, but a bikeable area). Seems like most people on this blog like where they are.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Metro areas are growing is a more accurate way to put this.
p.a.
@Suzanne: I’m not a conspiracy nutbag, but it’s historically interesting (read: unfortunate) that the system as it currently operates concentrates progressive electorates into small geographical areas given the system allows overrepresentation of geographical areas over population. Electoral college is, sadly, the national law of the land, but the gerrymanders works to the same effect at the state & local level, illegitimately.
And yet as a RI resident, our progressive Senatorial representation is punching way beyond our demographic weight.
Snarki, child of Loki
CLEARLY, the tradition established in the Afghanistan Special Military Operation, during Cheney’s time in office, should be followed.
Drone-strike the funeral.
rikyrah
@Nukular Biskits:
I will point out that Mississippi ‘s racism drives away a solid group that would be naturally inclined to stay in the state- the graduates of the number of HBCU’S in the State.
piratedan
@lowtechcyclist: I heard that, I mean Stephen Miller… just saying.
Although sometimes I think we’re just examining different shades of shitty. That said, I don’t believe that Cheney had the hard-on that this current administration has for punishing the poor or minorities of every stripe and class. Cheney was more concerned with making sure that American interests remained supreme in the world, so who knows what he would have moved to if that had been successful.
Suzanne
@Fair Economist: There’s a left NIMBY contingent, but most NIMBYs, IME, are center-y or conservative.
I remember a dustup in one of the Phoenix exurbs when I lived there. White homeowners opposed construction of a Boys and Girls Club. Straight-up saying that they didn’t want poor children — who in that area, are mostly Latino — coming to their area.
The parcel was along an arterial roadway and was on an empty lot. No displacement would have happened. Just….. brown kids nearby!
I managed a senior living project in another Phoenix exurb. Partially funded by HUD for low-income seniors. Another empty lot along an arterial roadway, no displacement. The City and the residents did everything they could to kill the project. Tried to add a ton of architectural ornamentation to make it financially infeasible. Required public meetings. Rich white Mormon homeowners nearby opposed the project, one on the grounds that they might have to witness a person smoking outside.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
No. Cause I definitely thought that he was older too.
geg6
@Splitting Image:
Same.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@p.a.:
All deliberate and is a feature, not a bug, in the eyes of those (the right) that massively benefit by this.
And as mentioned above, the current issues stem from massive wealth inequality that’s been the logical progression of Reaganomics embraced by both sides (with various different names/labels attached, “Abundance” is just the latest example of that by the so-called left) over the last 40+ years.
Latest example is a graph out from Moody’s showing the Top 10% of earners now account for 50% of spending.
Dorothy A. Winsor
If you haven’t seen “Vice,” the movie about Cheney, I recommend it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Earlier this morning, I read that someone working full time for the Federal minimum wage makes an income that’s below the poverty line. That’s immoral.
ExPatExDem
The fact that Dick Cheney became a pariah in his own Republican Party probably hurt him more than anything any of us could say about him.
While he never faced any real accountability for his crimes, there is a cold comfort in knowing that even the worst of people come with an expiration date.
Librettist
The social media trollbots are out in force. Too little, too late….
I guess the ‘big idea’ is to nationalize the NYC Mayor, just like (still dead) Rush did back in the Mesozoic.
piratedan
@Suzanne: economic racism…. people find folks outside of their perceived economic strata “icky”.
I’ve had conversations with people about housing the homeless as they bitch about people camping out in City Parks, you know, take over old abandoned houses. Fix them up, make them livable low cost housing move those camping in the parks into something resembling a safe secure environment and return parks back to “the people” if they don’t want to “mingle” with the homeless and they just look at me as if I come from another planet.
Joe Falco
Time to bury Cheney inside his vault. It’s what he would’ve wanted.
Matt McIrvin
@piratedan: It turns out some of the neocons truly believed that they were saving the world for liberal democracy. They were too trusting of the hard men they thought were necessary.
Geminid
@Tony Jay: Hey, Mr. Jay, I don’t know if you saw, but Jeremy Corbyn participated in a phone bank event for Zohran Mamdani last night. It was organized by the New York City DSA chapter.
Fair Economist
@Suzanne: In my city the only development is where state law forces it down the throat of the local NIMBYs, who control the city council. There is a respectable 55+ development going up on a stroad a few blocks from me, about 300 units. It’s not the classic 5 over 1; it’s these 4 story buildings around one double loaded corridor; sort of like a wing for a hotel. But that only happened because state law says commercial district zoning also allows mid-density residential.
geg6
@Fair Economist:
I hate where I am. But that’s because I want to live in the city, not the hellscape of an exurb that I currently do. It f I can’t live in NYC, I want to live where I’m happiest: in Pittsburgh. Not just close to it.
Jeffro
Very exciting to think of having a Dem trifecta here in VA for the next several years!
Good things happen when you run candidates in every district!
Fair Economist
@geg6: Is urban Pittsburgh that expensive? Or are you tied down by some obligations?
Rusty
The Washington Post has disabled comments on Cheney’s obituary. We are all supposed to bask in his greatness I guess, instead of pointing out his evilness.
p.a.
@geg6: Youtuber City Nerd speaks to urban & transportation issues and has multiple shows on many subjects praising Pittsburgh & Philly as relatively affordable, successful urban areas. (Chicago also). Relatively, I guess, compared to the usual suspects; Boston, NYC, SF/SJ, Seattle…
Suzanne
@Fair Economist: We had a fight in my neighborhood a couple of years ago. There was a private school for the deaf, and they moved to a new location, and a residential developer came along with a plan to build a mix of single-family and low-rise townhomes on the vacated land. Again, no displacement. But the township required a specific small number of the units to be affordable. Holy shit, the freakout.
“We can’t have affordable units! They’ll bring drugs and crime!”
Respectfully, friends…. look around! The drugs and crime are already here!
So: we can’t have luxury development because it drives people out. We can’t have affordable development because it brings the wrong people in.
Deputinize America
@Suzanne:
I had the privilege of going to the Rothko/Monet exhibition in Giverny back in 2022, after a tour of Monet’s home and grounds. Loved it!
geg6
@Fair Economist:
It is very affordable. However, I am stuck here caring for my partner with dementia. My great joy is that my niece, who works at UPMC Children’s Hospital, is moving to the city from her parents’ home and she got an extra bedroom for me to stay when I do go into the city, usually with her, for dinners, concerts and theater.
tobie
@Suburban Mom: You’re doing yeoman’s work. Thank you!
ExPatExDem
@Rusty: Of course they did. smh
Librettist
Why Clooney hit on the Hunter Biden bait, idk, but it’s not a good look.
narya
Since we’re talking about exurbs/suburbs . . . my recent foray into Salt Lake City was interesting. So many people in the group (some from FL, NC, PA as well as SLC) kept going on and on and on about OMGTheTraffic! I rolled my eyes a lot–not a single person lives in a city of any size, but they THINK they do, so we two Chicagoans were practically a foreign entity. I bit my tongue a lot. I did have fun saying I’d never owned a car–because I live in a Real City, I can use public transportation; they could not comprehend that at all. (I left out the Real City part.)
On a different topic: 90-year-old mom voted already in the PA judge elections, so, yay Mom. (She has also outlived Darth, so there’s that.)
Jeffro
right??!?
this is the Nimby Creed, always: “IF you can guarantee me that someone just like me, in every way, is who’s going to move into my neighborhood…then I, king of all that I survey, will allow it.”
“but only one of them”
Hildebrand
@no body no name: The wrong monster died.
Don’t get me wrong, I won’t mourn the evil bastard, but the universe missed the mark.
I will enjoy how ugly this will be in Republican circles.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Denver is one of the poster children for all the market urbanist bullshit that was started by an astroturf group in CA funded by Peter Theil about a decade ago.
Massive displacement and total opposite impacts on affordability as was being sold by the Theil-funded grift is all around us.
The great irony is that our shit mayor and shit city council do all kinds of things, like mandate tiny fractions of affordable units into new builds, but then allow developers to “buy out” of those mandates. And they, the developers, whine about that.
The sector that supports such mandates and thinks they’re a sop as it is? Long-time residents. We old fart residents welcome just about any true affordable project while at the same time the entitled, white transplants do everything in their power to keep pushing black/brown people out to second/third ring burbs but then most of the anecdata being shared here has a different geographic nature to it being second ring burbs and beyond in terms of opposing such builds.
Geminid
@Jeffro: Did you see what that dumbass Glenn Youngkin said this weekend at a John Reid rally?
Youngkin came in with a smile, but he’s going out with a snarl.
Wilson Heath
Much as I would like dipshit tax-avoiding billionaires and centimillionaires get the most minute taste of what actual refugees encounter to see if there is capacity for basic human empathy to be revived and acted on, wow. Abbot’s “plan” is so facially unconstitutional it’s impressive.
Does that matter anymore with this Supreme Court and the 5th Circuit being the non-civil rights era 5th Circuit? Billionaire sues a state over taxes—who do you think has the edge when black letter law is on their side?
RevRick
@no body no name: And all true New Yorkers will say, “Thank God we dodged that bullet.”
Kathleen
@p.a.: In all the Rethug shutdowns we’ve had not one media propagandist has ever referenced the fact the shut downs only happen when Rethugs control House or Senate. ONLY TIME. But they’re too lazy to provide any context.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Dick Cheny’s dead, what did someone expose him to sun light?
Old School
Back in the day at The Carpetbagger Report, every time a post made mention of Dick Cheney, a commenter would comment “God damn Dick Cheney’s shit-stained soul to Hell.”
I’m thinking of that commenter today and hope they are having a good day.
RevRick
@Nukular Biskits: Jesus said a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. If you look at the tree of white Evangelicals, you will find a horror story of oppression and violence. They are what happened when Calvinists made a demonic bargain with slavery.
Kathleen
@Dorothy A. Winsor: He looked like he was 84 20 years ago.
Deputinize America
Wife and I both work in Louisville – she’s a transplant, but I grew up there. We do love the city, and do most of our couple activities there.
Our house, which we have done things to and love for its (mostly) single floor plan is paid off and convenient for us despite being in an exurb that has turned into a pulsing red pustule (it had been purple when we moved here 25 years ago). We go to the grocery here, and our vet and his wife are our frequent traveling companions and good friends. Other than them, we don’t socialize here in this county.
Jeffro
@Geminid: I did not see that.
Wow Glenn – what, specifically, makes Hashmi so much more liberal than other Democratic senators and her ticket-mates?
Or are you alluding to the unforgivable combination of female x Muslim, Mr. Youngkin? Is that it?
He and Reid can get lost.
LAC
@ExPatExDem: That’s the eulogy – succinct and to the point. Enjoy a game of tag with Scalia in hell, creep.
SFAW
@p.a.:
And yet the smallest state (geographically) has about 50 percent more people than the largest (geographically) state. Which, in the end, means … no effing idea.
Ben Cisco
@Nukular Biskits: In his defense (yuk!), he hasn’t exactly been presented with evidence to the contrary.
EarthWindFire
@Geminid: We always knew there was evil in those down vest pockets lol.
Deputinize America
@Librettist:
I think it’s great that they’re nationalizing the NYC mayoral race. As the trash gets picked up on time, roadways get fixed, emergency services work, parks have a nice appearance and people go happily about their lives, the absence of turmoil under “a communist” will be evident.
SFAW
@RevRick:
Sorry, but until the votes are counted …
Apologies, but I remember there were myriad comments on this here blog. on 11/8/16, talking about what President Clinton’s administration will do. So I’m more than a bit cautious about chicken-counting.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Peak Dick Cheney was when he shot that guy in the face and the guy wound up apologizing to him
Paul in KY
@no body no name: He ended up voting for VP Harris and slagging TACO bad. A bad man, but had some principles.
Geminid
@p.a.: Montana is one of the largest states in terms of geographical area, while Rhode Island is one of the smallest. After last round of Reaportionment, Montanans were awarded a second House seat, so now they punch at the same level as Rhode Island.
But you Rhode Islanders need your population to grow faster if you want to keep punching this hard! There was speculation before the last Census that Rhode Island might fall below a threshold and lose a seat. That could happen sfter the next one. Then you’d be like Delaware, Vermont, Alaska, the Dakotas and Wyoming. Idaho might also have one House seat.
But hey, West Virginia elected 6 House members in 1960, and now they’re down to two. That’s the only state whose population is lower now than it was in 1950
Ed. But while Rhode does not nearly have the largest House delegation, I think it has the youngest.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Paul in KY:
OTOH, it might have simply been an old man seeing the end and trying to get into heaven.
trnc
“Trump’s backyard” should from here on out be referred to as “Outside of Trump’s ballroom.”
SFAW
@narya:
Back in the late 1980s, a bunch of us (from my company) took an engineering seminar/course at UWisc/Milwaukee. One of my friends had been there a couple years earlier, and mentioned “there’s no (vehicular) traffic.” I said, “Come on, Milwaukee is a major city, etc etc”
So the first morning we’re there, we all walk from the hotel to the venue. This was the heart of “downtown” Milwaukee. During Rush Hour. I looked around for cars. Saw maybe 20 driving.
Coming from Boston, I was kinda slack-jawed at the lack of … cars/people/what-have-you.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: Me too!
JML
Dick Cheney was an awful person, a purveyor of evil, and he was utterly unrepentant about it. The fact that he wasn’t as horrible on gay marriage as most of his peers and recognized the dangers of Trump doesn’t excuse him for his own power grabs, lying and fabricating “evidence” to drag the nation into wars, and authorizing and approving torture among his many many sins. He made neither the country nor the world safer. An evil SOB. His constant attacks and lies about Obama were vile and while he may have opposed Trump, he enabled his rise.
I’ll admit, I was surprised that he was 84, but that’s probably because he looked like he was 70 back when he was first running for VP. Despite him mostly vanishing from public life (good) over the past couple of decades, it felt like he was going to go on forever. Hope someone double-checks to make sure the crypt-keeper is actually dead and dusted and he didn’t make a deal with Peter Thiel or something.
sab
@mappy!: School board elections here: four seats open. Two of candidates are Moms for Liberty ( yikes!).
One bond issue ( mental health etc) and one county charter amendment to limit amount property taxes can be increased annually.
Paul in KY
@Spanky: ‘Quaint’ is a good term for his villainy.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Here’s something a PA resident I know posted this morning about material she received leading up to today:
And all I got were slick, glossy mailer ads by the charter school grifters shilling for their school board candidates. I never object to those because I hope it’s more money their wasting going after somebody like me who would chuck them into the sun if I had that ability.
tobie
The race I’ll be watching today is the gubernatorial race in NJ. If Mikie Sherrill wins, it will be a sign that people have had it with this (mal)administration.
H.E.Wolf
@mappy!: ”Municipals and other elections today folks. Poll workers start at 5AM and finish at 10PM. Support them. Go vote.”
Blessings on all poll workers, especially the elderly folks who work long days at the polling place. When I think of patriotism and service to country, that’s whom I think of.
trnc
There is no shortage of craven professional christians.
RevRick
@Suzanne: Those who oppose the Boys/Girls Club are prioritizing white comfort.
Paul in KY
@getsmartin: When I was at Keesler, proximity to NOLA and also to Fort Walton Beach made it tolerable. Plus the nice catfish houses.
BretH
@Geminid:
The fleece vest is sent away to be ironed in preparation for his Presidential run, I fear.
Deputinize America
@Geminid:
This WVa numbers are shocking to me. Looks like it’s been draining people from 1950 on – which means that it isn’t an appealing place to work or stay.
I thought Charleston was larger than it apparently is.
H.E.Wolf
I think Dallas qualifies as first-tier now, because beloved commenter lamh36 is there! :)
Professor Bigfoot
@Splitting Image: I’ve always called him Dick “Ernst Stavro Blofeld” Cheney.
The guy may have been a Bond villain, but treason was a bridge too far even for him.
trnc
AND the Unitary Executive theory.
ETA: In fact, I’d probably put UE at the top of the list. The 1% doctrine is terrible, but I would say that Trump has gotten way into 0% doctrine territory because he and his minions don’t believe they need any justification at all.
Hmmm – Trump’s O% Doctrine – might be a way to use Cheney’s passing to compare and contrast.
Bupalos
@Suzanne: There has been some backlash to the hyper-clustering that has happened in the last several decades, when interstate mobility became easier and traditional bonds of community loosened. It kind of depends what time scale you’re looking at. I’m not making a claim that eg. Trump and oligarchy is the result of interstate brain-drain of the last 10 years, but rather the last half-century plus.
mostly just a reaction to the idea that competitive economic migration in a system is win-win. Whether we’re talking globally or nationally, there are definitely losers and destabilizations that happen when the more privileged (economically, intellectually, etc) up and leave for greener pastures for themselves.
satby
@Deputinize America: Beautiful state, lousy job prospects, even worse local and state government. Nothing to stay for.
schrodingers_cat
@RevRick: One could say that about all of Christianity can’t one? How many atrocities were conducted with the blessings of the church (Catholic and Protestant) during the last 500 years if not more.
sab
@Dorothy A. Winsor: How was he able to get a new heart at 73? I bet there were much younger people on the waiting list.
Ohio Mom
@Geminid: I believe it’s rich Republicans moving into Montana that is pumping up the population. Historically, Montana has had something of a libertarian streak, the newcomers are pushing it toward pure Republican, with all that implies — that’s why Tester lost to that Republican (forget his name).
M31
Remember when Cheney wrote an article about why the US didn’t invade Iraq in the first Gulf War and then had it scrubbed right before the second Iraq war?
Good times
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@satby:
It was that way when I left for college in 1979 and what’s ironic is that it’s gotten more beautiful since then as it’s generally cleaned up in a lot of ways but worse in all the other ways you describe.
Very succinct.
Trivia Man
Question for the hive mind. I know someone who is homeless in Arizona, they need a way to get mail order medications with no address. Suggestions? Is the VA a possibility?
M31
the Iraq war cost the US between 2 and 4 trillion dollars and only made the world worse and less safe.
That’s when I realized that actually there is plenty of money to do ANYTHING.
Free college for everyone AND high speed trains all over the place? Plenty of money for that.
your liberal wishlist? Plenty of money for that.
fuck Dick Cheney and hope he’s enjoying being roasted in hell
schrodingers_cat
The monstrosity of Cheney has been completely eclipsed by T2.0 and yet they get the same deference that Cheney and W got from our press corpse. That’s because of the stranglehold Rs have on the white majority. The press treats them as the rightful rulers and Ds as usurpers
Even if that means undoing almost 80 years of foreign policy and 100 years of economic policy. If the white majority demands it our press corpse will enable it.
Professor Bigfoot
@piratedan: IMHO, Ernst was a constitutional villain.
Whatever villainy he could get up to while (at least nominally) honoring his oath the Constitution, believe it, he was on it.
But he drew the line at treason.
I am gonna give the villainous SOB that much.
sab
@Suzanne: Bupalos is in Ohio, which is umfortunately an exception. Only Columbus is growing. All our other cities are shrinking or folks moving to the suburbs.
schrodingers_cat
@sab: I know satby was trying to get in touch with you yesterday. If you want click this link to my blog email and send me an email and I can connect you.
Thanks.
Castor Canadensis
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No, he accidentally pulled out his electric cord.
JML
@Professor Bigfoot: yeah, no points for his fragments of principles.
And Cheney certainly wasn’t above lying his ass off in order to get the result he wanted. An evil, vile SOB who was utterly unrepentant until the very end.
Ohio Mom
@Trivia Man: If your friend is a vet, yes, I’d try the VA, I am sure they have social workers who will help him get the services he needs, maybe not through the VA but through other community agencies. His situation is unfortunately not uncommon, this is not a wheel that needs reinventing.
twbrandt
@Suzanne: Even Detroit, given up for dead for so long, is growing
montanareddog
Unfortunately, not visible if you are not logged in to Bluesky:
Just checking Dick Cheney’s dead
Paul in KY
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I thought he was older too. Think he was one of those guys who looked old when he was 29.
tobie
Sean Casten has, as usual, a brilliant thread on the short-sightedness of Republican proposals for AI companies to build their own generators. We did this in the 19th C and it led to various companies (GE, Westinghouse) producing generators with unique voltages and then manufacturing appliances that would only work with their grid.
Paul in KY
@lowtechcyclist: 2003 Paul forgive me, but I’d much rather had Darth Snarly as POTUS again than the thing we have now.
XeckyGilchrist
Cheney is gone, and along with him all the banjos in the local music stores. I fear there will be a severe shortage when the Great Jubilation comes up soon.
Tony Jay
@Geminid:
Ha! I did not know that. Give me a moment here while I contemplate with some pleasure the searing fury that would undoubtedly have ignited in the guts of Der Starmerpartei’s ruling caste. The Blue Labour faction might be all in on the Trump Love, but McSweeney’s minions are so factional and politically inept they’ll probably flood onto The Guardian comment boards to demand Mamdani be banned from the Mayoral race for associating with an Unperson.
Paul in KY
@Fair Economist: I’m in the Central KY, and while it is scenic and OK for a ‘red state’, me and the wife want to go to a big city, preferably in a blue state. Hoping next year will be when we move.
MattF
1) I learned how to spell ‘fascist’ from commenting about Dick Chaney. 2) He apparently participated in raising a daughter pretty well.
arrieve
Ten years ago I would have said Dick Cheney was the most evil politician of my lifetime, with an incalculable amount of damage in his wake.
And the universe said, “Hold my beer.”
narya
@Trivia Man: There are two community health centers in AZ with Healthcare for the Homeless funding, one in Tucson and one in Phoenix. The HCH grantee w/which I’m familiar has served as a mailing address for patients.
Many community health centers do this, even if they don’t have HCH funding. findahealthcenter dot gov will work, or I can find other locations for you if you give me info about where they live.
Aziz, light!
Twenty or so years ago, our esteemed blogfather was lavishing fulsome praise on Dick Cheney.
It happens rarely, but people can change their tune.
Given Cheney’s later sobriquet, hoodathunk there would now be much worse people in the White House?
Paul in KY
@geg6: Please take care of yourself too! Being a caregiver is so hard.
narya
@sab: My mom got a kidney transplant at about that age, maybe a little older, and my mom does NOT have fancy connections with anyone. I do not know the algorithm by which these things are decided, though, and I would not be surprised if there are aspects to it that we might regard as unfair, no matter how glad I am that my mom got lucky.
Castor Canadensis
@Trivia Man: They may have “general delivery”: check tools.usps.com/locations/ and add “Services Available” -> “General Delivery”
Jackie
BREAKING: Bomb threats called into at least 7 NJ polling places on Election Day, multiple locations closed across the state per MSNBC.
sigh…
Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: That first one sounds like a message created by Postcards to Swing States. Many people, including me, have that kind of response to it.
Paul in KY
@Deputinize America: I’ve always wanted to live in the Highlands area. Pretty pricey though.
suzanne
@RevRick:
Yep.
There was another incident here in Pittsburgh….. residents of a wealthy neighborhood (where Bari Weiss grew up, incidentally) came out against a project that would have replaced a low-rise grocery store with a new building. Grocery store on the first floor and apartments above. Why, you may ask? Because rich white homeowners wanted to maintain their view of Frick Park, and didn’t want renters nearby. (Once again, note how no displacement would have occurred, and the only building that would have gone was the crappy low-rise grocery store and its fugly parking lot.)
“Renters” being code for Those People. Those People being people of color, of course.
jonas
@Dorothy A. Winsor: The federal minimum wage is something like $7.50/hr, which would have been shit wages 20 years ago. It’s disgraceful, I agree. But “tipped” wages aside, does any employer actually pay that anymore, though? Even McDonald’s and WalMart are paying twice that in most states these days.
Smiling Happy Guy (aka boatboy_srq)
@Nukular Biskits: Something something Commerce Clause something.
Paul in KY
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Could have been, but what he said was the truth.
jonas
@geg6: I’ve heard from a number of people that Pittsburgh has undergone a major transformation over the past 20 years and is now one of the best mid-sized cities in the US in terms of affordability, culture, transportation, etc. Never been, but I hear lots of good things.
suzanne
@arrieve:
Exactly my feeling.
I would have reacted much differently emotionally in the pre-Trump era.
satby
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Even the blogfather, who loves his state, isn’t planning on staying.
Paul in KY
@tobie: I sure hope she can win. Wish she’d have given her true reasons for not dishing on the cadets she knew that cheated.
I would say her real reason was that she didn’t want retaliation from them or their friends once she was commissioned and doing a probably dangerous job.
Paul in KY
@H.E.Wolf: To me Dallas-Fort Worth is just one city. You can’t tell (really) where one ends and the other begins. There are signs, of course…
Paul in KY
@Professor Bigfoot: All he needed was a big white cat. Good imagery for him at his evil peak. Maybe a Nehru jacket too.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Paul in KY: Maybe part of it was seeing what the movement he had championed ended up doing to his two daughters, in different contexts.
He made enough victims that my sympathy runs out before it reaches him or his inner circle, but his evil has been eclipsed. He’s no longer even the most evil Vice-President America has ever had.
suzanne
@jonas: I moved here to Pittsburgh five years ago for many of those reasons. Sick of heat, too much driving, and Republican governance. PGH is affordable AF, which is an ingredient in its success right now.
I have a link on my other device about how it’s getting more expensive in the city, though.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: A shitton, that’s for sure.
YY_Sima Qian
Best not place too much hope on the EU to be the new champion of a “rules based international order” w/ a nominally liberal bend:
The EU is structurally divided & incoherent, & the leadership of its main powers & the European Commission itself are feckless.
I posted this in another post yesterday, but I think it serves as a microcosmic example of the EU’s geopolitical acumen to date:
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@suzanne: San Jose has one to up that story; they wanted to build low cost housing on a vacant lot in the middle of a housing development. The home owners objected because it would bring Those People into their development. Now, the vacant lot is a homeless camp for druggies who are constantly harassing the home owners with their crazy shit. When the home owners called the police, the police basically told them this is what you all wanted, being crazy as all shit isn’t illegal, so deal with it.
Geminid
@tobie: Sean Casten has a good base of engineering and scientific knowledge. He graduated from Middlebury College with a degree in Molecular Biology. After working for a couple years at Tufts Medical School, Casten studied at the Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth College, where he earned a M.Sc. in Biochemical Engineering and a Masters in Engineering Management.
Casten was also one of the forty Democrats who flipped red districts in 2018.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: I think, at bottom and at this point in history, the reporters know the slant their white owners want and give em that slant. It’s yellow journalism all over again…
tobie
@Jackie: Republican shenanigans. NJ metro counties facing bomb threats.
There have been closures in Hackensack, Newark, Passaic, etc.
schrodingers_cat
@Paul in KY: I recently found out about the Inquisition the Portuguese carried out in India. And they ruled a miniscule portion of India, half the size of Connecticut. And they killed thousands at the altar of their religious zeolotry
And Protestant Christianity is the framework through we which still see the world. By we I mean most of the world that was a part of the British Empire.
RevRick
@schrodingers_cat: No, that reflected the captivity of the church to imperialism. There’s nothing inherent to Christianity that calls for wars of conquest; quite the contrary.
That’s not to say that the church, in its various iterations, hasn’t screwed up massively over the millennia, because it has. But then that’s humans in thrall of imperialism doing ugly human things.
suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
So, here’s a story I’ve shared here before….. I did an expansion of a behavioral hospital in Scottsdale, AZ. Hospital had been there for 40 years without any problems, and their site plan (approved 40 years before) showed a building on a part of the campus at full build-out. The building was not constructed on that part of the site at the time, but it was approved to build there.
In the meantime, Scottsdale gets bougie — full of rich white people — and the property values go up like a rocket. So when we go to actually build the building in the approved spot…… a guy who bought a house two years before decided to try to stop the project. Yes…. a guy who bought a house down the street from a behavioral hospital that had been there for almost 40 years and didn’t do his due diligence decided to do everything he could do to stop the project. And what was his justification? He didn’t want “psychiatric individuals” near his expensive house.
Once again…. Those People!
Shakti
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I had the chance to meet him once. My institution had a Club for Growth chapter and the mean Calvin in charge got Dick Cheney to visit. I skipped. I didn’t want to talk myself into a hole.
I secretly theorized he came up with the Iraq War as a fucked up colonialist way to solve the impeding problem of fossil fuel running out, to buy more time and a softer landing (for the US) — (without actually saying that) but obviously with those guys it’s just greed, and gas guzzling SUVs were popular during the aughts, IIRC.
When Shrub got his 2nd term, the custodian burst out that he hoped all the old people in Ohio died.
:/
@JML: @Paul in KY: Dick Cheney was running on borrowed time since the 1970s. Having access to the best modern medicine kept him alive for as long as he lived.
@arrieve: @suzanne:This is only due to Trump. :/ Otherwise? Dick Cheney is dead and I’m just like “ok.”
It’ll be interesting to see how he’s eulogized, because he is so responsible for the landscape we have now.
YY_Sima Qian
@tobie: The AI companies will then also hoard the power generation capacity (a scarce resource going forward) for themselves, while the rest of the economy suffers outages. Or, they will monetize their hoarded resource by putting exorbitant prices on the access to them.
Things like utilities that represents the basic inputs into modern industry, & basic necessities for modern life, should never have been privatized into the hands of local monopolies.
Mr. Mack
I’ve around 77 acres of beautiful land surrounded by creeks and wooded hollers (as they say round here) open meadows and all the wildlife you’d ever want to see. Raised our kids here, so this is home, despite only being here for 25 years. I can get to almost any service or convenience in under 10 minutes. The catch? It’s in Tennessee. We wonder if we could tolerate neighbors and noise again for the opportunity to be around sensible folks. I think we are going to split the difference…sell off a large portion but maintain as much as we are capable of taking care of. I’m 25 minutes from Nashville and the Opry and there is no piece of land like it that close. When it sells, we will have decisions to make.
schrodingers_cat
@RevRick: What would you call the Pope dividing the world for Spain and Portugal to do their dance of destruction?
YY_Sima Qian
@RevRick: The Church has been captive to Empire(s) since Constantin, & even became its own feudal/imperial entity during the Middle Ages. The various non-Roman Catholic (Orthodox, Anglican, etc.) incarnations have not been much better.
Professor Bigfoot
@YY_Sima Qian: And Vladimir Putin smiles.
schrodingers_cat
@YY_Sima Qian: Indeed. Anglican church was formed because Henry VIII couldn’t get a divorce
And the Dutch and the Brits were not much better (for the colonized) than the Spanish and the Portugese that came before them.
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: There was a cheating scandal with my OCS class. People who had failed the Land Nav test and were being retested were allegedly given hints as to where the map points were by some of the instructors. Big investigation. When I was interviewed, I was so happy to say that I had passed on my first try* and was probably wandering around the Peachtree Mall in Columbus, GA, when everything went down. I also said that I didn’t listen to gossip, so I had not heard anything about anything. In the end, nothing was proven and it went away.
*The only people who finished ahead of me and had hit all of their points were the Ranger and SF types.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: There were so many horrors carried out in name of Catholicism or Anglicanism or Puritanism or Orthodox (varying flavours of that one) in past centuries. Very sad to read about it.
YY_Sima Qian
@schrodingers_cat: Or the Russian Orthodox Church throughout Russian history, including today.
Paul in KY
@Shakti: Iraq was done to stop a secular Arab state from physically threatening Israel. That is it.
Deputinize America
@Paul in KY:
The Highlands are always in flux, as people age out of areas, they decline a bit and things get cheaper for a hot minute. You just have to recognize the signs. Thing is, those homes are generally 80+ years old, and require a great deal of constant tending, both structurally and mechanically.
ETA – and good luck finding a plasterer. I hear that there’s about a three year backlog on getting those jobs done. They command a sweet price, too.
stinger
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
That was my reaction, too.
schrodingers_cat
@Paul in KY: @YY_Sima Qian: .
Religion can be wonderful and provide solace but far too often its an excuse to commit atrocities against people you deem inferior (women and other groups in the society with low social capital)
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Glad you stayed out of that!!
Jeffg166
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He had a heart transplant at 70. He wouldn’t have made it this far if he hadn’t.
Paul in KY
@Deputinize America: I think that when I’m at St. James Arts Fair strolling around with a nice beer and a fine buzz. The houses do look solid and I love the old timey style. Agree on the downsides, though! The good thing would be that my son could go to Manual.
Paul in KY
@schrodingers_cat: True dat.
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY: Terrain association and a quick trot is all it took.
Jackie
@tobie:
I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest those bomb threats weren’t called in by democrats.
cmorenc
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Cheney had cardiovascular issues that required he have a pacemaker to keep his heart from going fatally irrhythmic. So at 84, to a significant extent he was already living on “stoppage time”, to borrow a term from soccer.
YY_Sima Qian
@Professor Bigfoot: The EU is not taken seriously as a credible geopolitical actor by any of the other major players, Trump, Xi, Putin, Modi, Lula, MBS, Erdogan, or indeed most capitals in the Global South.
Any of the actions taken by the EU Commission or the key European powers, view in isolation, are defensible/justifiable, but there is no coherent thought behind these actions to ensure that they serve a strategic purpose, & reinforce each other more than undermine each other. Instead, the EU Commission & key European capitals have given to moralizing in place of strategizing/cold realpolitik, & they have no credibility for moral superiority given their feckless response to nearly 3 years of Israeli crimes against humanity/genocide in Gaza.
There seems to be a learned helplessness when it comes to the security dependence on the US that has paralyzed the EU’s ability & will to act w/ any sort of independence on any major international issue. The EU Commission & the main European capitals have not seemed to realize how their inaction wrt Gaza rendered their appeals for action wrt Ukraine hallow, & how their concessions to Trump during the trade negotiations would incentivize the PRC to put the screws on in its turn.
Tony Jay
I’ve yet to come across that idealised belief system attractive enough to human needs to become widespread that couldn’t be twisted, reformed and repurposed to serve the worst aspects of human nature. Sacred or secular, it’s always the same. If it’s dominant it will be infiltrated and corrupted to provide whatever form of justification best suits the greed and avarice of ruling elites.
It’s never the hat they wear that thinks up the sin, it’s the sick brain underneath it.
Almost Retired
@YY_Sima Qian: Interesting. My older son and daughter-in-law are digital nomads in Santa Marta – they even bought property there since they were priced out of their native Los Angeles.
YY_Sima Qian
@schrodingers_cat: Faith at the individual level can be miraculous, but organized & bureaucratized religion suffers from the same pathologies as any other large human construct. So, to be fair, organized religion is not better or worse than other large & complex human constructs, such as nation states.
Shakti
@Paul in KY: Yeah, I could see that. I’m not sure secularism made a difference — the CW is that Israel was a tiny country surrounded by hostile non-Jewish, Arab neighbors — but that wasn’t invoked directly IIRC.
I remember the pretexting — Saddam Hussein had “weapons of mass destruction” and somehow did 9/11 — which was transparent bullshit that people really seemed eager to buy. There was also quite a bit of “there’s a lot of oil in Iraq” going on as well.
And when people kept saying October 7 was an Israeli 9/11 it immediately set off my “this is bullshit and they want to do some fuckshit” detector.
p.a.
I’m sure the FBI is all-in and all-over the investigation into the NJ bomb threats.🙄
Trivia Man
@Ohio Mom: thank you
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: When I was in Army ROTC (before I switched over to USAF) orienteering and using a compass/map was one of the things I excelled in. Thought it was fun to do.
Trivia Man
@narya: thank you, mesa is the current location
piratedan
@Professor Bigfoot: lawful evil for the win?
Trivia Man
@Castor Canadensis: another great idea i passed on to them
Trivia Man
@Paul in KY: he strikes me as a cat hater
Trivia Man
@suzanne: my company was purchased and i was hoping for a transfer to PGH. Did some research to find out which UU church to live near. Instead severance. Boo.
Paul in KY
@Trivia Man: Wouldn’t doubt it.
Geminid
@Shakti: Iraq’s oil resources certainly were a motivating factor in that war, but there was another. Michael Gordon and Bernard Trainor had some interesting material on this in their discussion of Dick Cheney in their book about the Iraq invasion, Cobra Two (2004).*
Cheney was Gerald Ford’s Chief of Staff during the fall of South Vietnam, and Gordon and Trainor said that this experience had a long-lasting influence on Cheney. Cheney believed that the failed war in Vietnam caused Americans in general and Congress in particular to adopt beliefs inimical to the muscular foreign and military policies Cheney thought the times warranted, and he wanted to set that right.
Cheney found a willing ally in Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a former Ford White House rival. Both were proficient bureaucratic operators and new how to shape the policy process in order to achieve their desired result: an invasion of Iraq with resulting regime change. And also, a new paradigm for American power.
So in one sense, Cheney and Rumsfeld engineered that war just to show they could. But in the end, the war was a failure, and Cheney’s larger ambition failed with it.
* Cobra Two is by far the best book I’ve found on the Iraq war. Michael Gordon was military reporter for the New York Times, and Bernard Trainor was a retired Marine Corps General. They cover the planning process in detail, and that takes up the book’s first third. The middle section is about the invasion itself, and the last one is about the aftermath. Both these parts illustrate how the failures of the planning process that Cheney and Rumsfeld shaped came back to bite them and their larger plan.
narya
@Trivia Man:
University
Valleywise Community Health Center – Mesa
Valle del Sol_Mesa_334
Stapley Integrated Care
Adelante Healthcare Mesa
Javelina Health Center
Mountain Park Health Center – Tempe
Cholla Health Center
You can get more details/locations using the find a health center tool, but here are the names that come up when I enter “Mesa, AZ”
Paul in KY
@Geminid: The ‘reconstruction’ failure was on purpose. The whole overarching idea was to fuck up Iraq as a nation-state that could ever threaten Israel (as Saddam’s Iraq had). All the rest is commentary.
Geminid
@Paul in KY: You ought to read Cobra Two sometime. You can probably get a copy fairly cheap now, and your military background would help inform your reading.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: There were many people (who weren’t in on the fix) that did their best to try and have an actual ‘reconstruction’ and so on. They were not the authors of, nor were they privy to, the real plan for Iraq post-Saddam.
E.
@piratedan: it’s okay. You don’t have to defend him. He was an evil monster. It doesn’t matter that he was nice to a cat once or whatever.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@YY_Sima Qian:
Relatedly, I’m continuously disgusted by the EU’s and other US allies’ refusal to condemn the Trump administration’s actions both domestically and internationally.
If it were, say, Iran, they’d have no problem, and indeed have not in the past.
The apparent self-serving hypocrisy is what pisses me off. They’ve shown just how much they supposedly care about human rights and democracy.
My sense is that they would be just fine if the US was authoritarian but relatively stable, so long as it served their interests, the human rights and democracy of Americans be damned. It’s really made me come to resent them for not speaking up. It feels as if we are on our own, that we’ve been abandoned
Citizen Dave
@tobie:
Generation for data centers overwhelms all topics in my work life. Caster is way off here. No one is thinking of making non-60 Hz electricity that syncs with the grid. Los Angeles back in the day was 50 Hz and there was a day when everything went to 60 Hz. Interesting history.
dnfree
@Geminid: What I always remember from the Iraq War was James Fallows’ article “Blind into Baghdad” about the failure to plan for the aftermath. I recall that GW himself didn’t even realize there were two kinds of Muslims in Iraq, Sunni and Shia.