Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

We are learning that “working class” means “white” for way too many people.

When tyranny becomes law, rebellion becomes duty. ~Thomas Jefferson

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

Let me file that under fuck it.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Fear and negativity are contagious, but so is courage!

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Live so that if you miss a day of work people aren’t hoping you’re dead.

If you’re gonna whine, it’s time to resign!

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

Optimism opens the door to great things.

’Where will you hide, Roberts, the laws all being flat?’

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

In my day, never was longer.

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

Monday Night Open Thread

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This post is in: 

Today just felt like a slog and still does- everything I do feels like I am moving underwater and my brain is just tired and greyed out. Yet we persist. I’ll add to this if I have something to say.

*** Update ***

I thought of something- the Supreme Court is such a train wreck and the incoherence of the ideology of the majority has me so confused and enraged because I have no idea what their end game is? What do they imagine? How do they think this is all supposed to fucking work?

Reader Interactions

109Comments

  1. 1.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    It was cold as fuck in Rochester this morning. I couldn’t get my driver side door open at 6:30 a.m. and I had to go through my back seat passenger door. Good times.

  2. 2.

    Eric S.

    For work reasons, I have to drive to MKE from Chicago tomorrow morning, spend the night and come back Wednesday. It was sprung on me early afternoon today. And I’ve a head cold. It’s not severe but damn I don’t want to spend a night away from home.

  3. 3.

    piratedan

    been fighting the seasonal illness thing, first from head cold transitioning to chest cold, hot and cold running mucus, raw skin stuff from so many sneezes and blowing of the nose.  Knowing thankfully that its likely not the flu, just quietly miserable trying not to turn into a big baby.

  5. 5.

    HeleninEire

    Yes. It is all difficult.  I have 10 weeks until I retire forever.  For all my life I have paid attention to what’s going on around me. Because that is important.  But…I am thinking that when I finally retire I will just spend my time reading fiction.  I’ll piss around, maybe move to the middle of Ireland and just spend the rest of my days not caring.

  6. 6.

    Professor Bigfoot

    Colder’n’shit here in NE Ohio; and I’ve just been hiding inside from the cold.

    Now I have to go buy a black jacket or suit suitable for a funeral; one of my old college roommates mom passed last week at 96 (wow, Mrs. D!) and we were all close to her.

    I HAD all those clothes, but I lost 60 pounds and now I ain’t got bupkis that doesn’t make me look like a kid in his father’s clothes.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    Getting around to viewing the latest Ken Burns production.

    Hearing in the intro “The American Revolution is brought to you by” could have been worded better.
    ;)

  21. 21.

    Anthony

    Someone joked online the Chief Justice may need to think about the case of Roberts v. A Thousand People With Baseball Bats.

  23. 23.

    Gvg

    Sounds like how I have felt a lot the last few years. Being diagnosed with severe sleep apnea was a big surprise and the night on the machine was the best relief I had had in a long time however after a few months while I felt better I was whining that I didn’t feel all better. I finally saw a specialist who explained that since I had probably had it for years and that 31  breathing interruptions an hour meant an average of every two minutes so it was really not restful sleep. That damaged my body and it would take time to heal. She also suggested I try to sleep even longer. It’s harder than it sounds, even when I am tired, I start to wake up at night. I have always thought I was a night owl. Now I wonder if my body didn’t like bedtime…

    Anyway, if you are tired John, try sleeping more. I know you were diagnosed before I was. Go to bed a bit earlier, sleep a bit later, keep track. Maybe naps. Different things. Whatever works for you.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    @WaterGirl

    Yup. A few spritzes along the length of the door seam on the side as well as across the top seam usually will loosen things up in about 20 or 30 seconds.

  25. 25.

    Gin & Tonic

    It was cold as shit in lower Manhattan this morning, standing outside in the howling wind and 27-degree temps for 45 minutes just to get inside the Federal Building, only to stand inside for another half-hour to go through a security check conducted with a small fraction of the customary charm and humor of the TSA (it is contracted to a private security company which seems to require not much more than the capacity to fog a mirror.)

    Inside, we unfortunately had to view portraits of Trump and Vance on our way to the elevator (Trump chose that stupid glowering, downward-looking shot that I won’t share because I think we’ve all been subjected to it.)

    Once inside, in the The Fish Rots From the Head department, nearly every Federal employee was unremittingly rude and nasty (even factoring in that this is NYC, it was surprising.) One of the few exceptions was the young man who was wearing white linen slacks. Yes, in fucking December, when it’s 27 degrees out. Obviously raised by wolves or something.

  26. 26.

    Jackie

    @WaterGirl:

    @WaterGirl

    Spray bottle containing three parts vinegar to one part water acts as a homemade recipe for a deicer.

    But then your room will smell vinegary.

    I could see using it for frozen car doors… but would the vinegar damage car paint?

  30. 30.

    Jackie

    Good for Nicolle! Saw this today:

    President Donald Trump once again insulted a female journalist to her face in the Oval Office, and MS NOW host Nicolle Wallace is now calling on White House reporters to stand up for their colleagues.

    During the Monday episode of her show “Deadline: White House,” Wallace urged the press to “never normalize the verbal violence” Trump has been known to heap onto women in the media. She then recounted multiple recent instances of Trump insulting female reporters.

    “December 6th he called Kaitlin Collins ‘stupid and nasty.’ On November 27th he said ‘are you stupid’ To CBS journalist Nancy Cordes. On November 26th, he called the New York Times’ Katie Rogers ‘ugly.’ On November 18th, he called ABC’s Mary Bruce ‘terrible and insubordinate’ — to whom I’m not sure — November 14th, he told a Bloomberg reporter, ‘quiet, piggy,’: Wallace said.

    “This is sick s——. This is sick. And anyone in the room is in the room todo a job for their viewers or their readers,” she continued. “But they should go home tonight and think about whether their sisters or theirdaughters, or their moms, or their sons or their husbands, or their fathers think that there’s something else they should do the next time he calls a female journalist obnoxious, terrible, stupid, nasty, stupid, ugly, terrible, insubordinate, or piggy.”

    “Because maybe if Donald Trump can’t live without being on TV, and maybe if they said, ‘you know what, we’re going to have some solidarity,’ like they did with him wanting to change the names of oceans,'” she added. “We’re either going to normalize this and then you’re going to hear all sorts of prominent people calling women all sorts of names — I’m sure by the time I get off TV I’ll have a few of those myself — but we’re either going to normalize this and usher in an era of unprecedented misogyny, or that press corps is going to act as one and say, ‘no more.'”

    The above link is a YouTube video of Nicolle’s comments on her program.

  31. 31.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Scout211: ​Yes, she is a citizen. Will be applying for a passport tomorrow.

    I wasn’t pleased with the totality of the experience, though. The questionnaire she had to fill out was weird (who uses the term “habitual drunkard” in 2025?) and seemed designed more to have a file that can be used to de-naturalize you later. The oath was very, very long, with some odd passages. The officiant, the person who congratulated them from the podium and dictated the oath that they repeated, had the emotion of someone reading you Aunt Clara’s cornbread recipe.

    So of course, after 6 1/2 years of hurrying up and waiting, we were delighted that the process was complete, and went for brunch with mimosas afterwards, but it was missing in both pageantry and solemnity, IMO. But I’ll never tell her I felt that way.

  35. 35.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Anthony: The simple fact is, the Seditious Six assume (probably rightly) that there is nothing we can do to them, bc we would need to take the law into our own hands.  That law which …. (sigh) in their hands.

  36. 36.

    Gin & Tonic

    Here is the oath:

    “I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.”

  37. 37.

    Scout211

    Speaking of naturalization, Trump decided to punish immigrants from 19 countries who were in line to recite the oath and become citizens.  The horrid, horrid government officials  pulled them out of line.

    Immigrants were moments away from pledging allegiance to the United States in Boston — the final step of the long process to becoming a U.S. citizen — when government officials pulled them out of line, according to a new report.

    The scene unfolded at Boston’s Faneuil Hall on Thursday, Dec. 4, according to the report from WGBH, a National Public Radio member station.

    As people who were already approved to be naturalized — having completed the lengthy U.S. citizenship process — lined up to pledge allegiance, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) officials told them they could not continue due to their countries of origin, the outlet reported.

    . . .

    One of the nonprofit’s clients, a Haitian woman who has had a green card since the early 2000s, “said that she had gone to her oath ceremony because she hadn’t received the cancellation notice in time,” Breslow told the Boston outlet.

    Haiti is on the list of 19 countries with full or partial restrictions, which also includes Afghanistan, Myanmar, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan and Venezuela.

    “She showed up as scheduled, and when she arrived, officers were asking everyone what country they were from, and if they said a certain country, they were told to step out of line and that their oath ceremonies were canceled,” Breslow said of her client.

    “People are devastated, and they’re frightened,” she added.

  40. 40.

    Jackie

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Inside, we unfortunately had to view portraits of Trump and Vance

    FFOTUS’s mugshot that he’s so proud of.

    I was worried about your DIL today; apparently many waiting in line today were turned away per FFOTUS’s decree that those expecting to become citizens were from “the forbidden countries” that he declared ineligible after the National Guardsmen shooting. I couldn’t remember which country your DIL was from.

  41. 41.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Gin & Tonic: That’s pretty much what I swore in 1982, though back then, it also included that if called before the HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee), I would appear.

  44. 44.

    Eric S.

    @mrmoshpotato: A good idea for many! However, I live in the north side near the I90/I94 interchange. I can drive to Milwaukee as fast as I can take the El to Union Station.

  45. 45.

    Jay

    Democracy Now!

    ‪@democracynow.org‬

    Follow
    A leaked DOJ memo obtained by
    @kenklippenstein.bsky.social
    reveals an effort to build a list of supposedly “anti-American” groups and individuals, an escalation of the administration’s crackdown on dissent. The list targets “not just the left” but “anyone who isn’t a Trump supporter,” he says.

    1:41

    0:12 / 1:53

    Dec 8, 2025, 6:40 AM

    web-cdn.bsky.app/profile/democracynow.org/post/3m7ib5iu7st2w

  46. 46.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Eric S.: A lot of good restaurants in the area.  You can also check out the Public Market which should be just across the river from you.

  47. 47.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Professor Bigfoot: can the tailor cut it down for you, remake your old suit? I’d ask at the tailor shop, before buying anything.  Then you’ll be prepared, in case more of these occasions occur.

    That was very clunky alliteration. Congratulations on dropping 60 pounds, that’s impressive.
    The pants would be a fairly simple alteration, from what I know about sewing. The jacket  would take a bit more work, and time, but seems doable. Good luck. Sorry for your friend’s loss, and yours.

  48. 48.

    Jackie

    FFOTUS is threatening new tariffs – this time to Mexico (again.)

    President Donald Trump threatened new tariffs on Mexico on Monday, accusing the country of violating a decades-old water treaty and warning he would impose a 5 percent levy unless it quickly releases water he said is owed to the United States and needed by Texas farmers.

    In a post to Truth Social Trump said in part, “Mexico continues to violate our comprehensive Water Treaty, and this violation is seriously hurting our BEAUTIFUL TEXAS CROPS AND LIVESTOCK. Mexico still owes the U.S over 800,000 acre-feet of water for failing to comply with our Treaty over the past five years.”

    “The U.S needs Mexico to release 200,000 acre-feet of water before December 31st, and the rest must come soon after. As of now, Mexico is not responding, and it is very unfair to our U.S. Farmers who deserve this much needed water,” he continued, adding,

    “That is why I have authorized documentation to impose a 5% Tariff on Mexico if this water isn’t released, IMMEDIATELY. The longer Mexico takes to release the water, the more our Farmers are hurt. Mexico has an obligation to FIX THIS NOW.”

    Thank you for your attention to this matter!””

    newsweek.com/trump-threatens-tariffs-mexico-water-treaty-dispute-11177299

    He’s gotta reward Abbott for his rigged gerrymandering.

  50. 50.

    Jay

    Reposted by Christopher Webb

    ‪StrictlyChristo 🇺🇦🌻🚫👑‬
    ‪@strictlychristo.bsky.social‬
    · 2d
    What did the Nazis do with valuable items of Jewish people they deported or sent to concentration camps? They did the same thing that Nazi ICE rats are doing with the property of Hispanic people.

    0:14

    0:07 / 0:21

    40

    674

    Reposted by Christopher Webb

    ‪Christopher Webb‬
    ‪@cwebbonline.com‬
    · 9h
    Not only is ICE snatching hard working people who are trying to earn a living, they’re taking their money too?

    A witness recorded ICE agents taking a cash box from a taco stand in La Puente during an operation where four people were arrested.

    1:48

    0:19 / 2:08

    bsky.app/profile/cwebbonline.com

  51. 51.

    gene108

    I have no idea what their end game is?

    To undo the New Deal, the Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1957, and 1964, the Voting Rights Act, to deny birthright citizenship to U.S. born children of immigrants, make America a white conservative Christian ethnostate, and I’m sure there’s more I can’t of.

    Basically, undo the last 150 years of everything done to make America a more equal and equitable place.

  52. 52.

    Jackie

    @Jay:

    Not only is ICE snatching hard working people who are trying to earn a living, they’re taking their money too?

    That’s to be expected. Not surprised at all.

  54. 54.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Jay: A long, long time ago, I saw a movie about the Nisei and their being sent to camps, being dispossessed of their farms, businesses, homes.  The only thing I remember is a Japanese woman (a housewife) confronted with a white person who wanted to buy her china: she was so outraged at the lowball offer, she started throwing each piece of china on the ground, -hard-, shattering them one-by-one.

    At least, that’s how I remember it.  It was a -long- time ago.

  56. 56.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: so if I didn’t vote for him, or wish to reinstate all the civil rights I enjoyed 2 years ago, or if I believe in freedom of speech for human residents of my country, not just corporations,

    that would increase my likelihood of being on their list?
    only 1/3 of the country voted for him. At this point, the percentage that would vote for him is even less.
    i don’t want to be on a list, though I’d be in good company with all y’all.

  58. 58.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @HeleninEire: I worked for a long time too, and taking care of other people’s money and assets took its toll. It was harder to unwind than I expected but I can loaf around without much guilt these days. That said, being outside in the woods, I find a lot of peace and serenity.

    Personally, some village in Ireland sounds terrific. I’ve never been but I visited Wales and stayed at an old country inn and pub near a big river for a few days. It was splendid.

    Congratulations!

  59. 59.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jackie: water rights are complicated, can get contentious. Meanwhile, I think there’s a drought on, water levels are low.

    I hate to see that man use the word beautiful in any sentences or usage. He makes it dirty, using it as wrapping paper for his lies and twisted up realities.

  60. 60.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @HeleninEire: that sounds so restful.
    I wish I could invite myself to come weed your garden and read your cast off books, and not care about anything. Just nature and food, and books.  Much better than setting out to sea on an ice floe.

  61. 61.

    Jay

    In 2024, US Soybean exports to China were $26.8 billion dollars. Total US Ag trade to China was $35.4 billion. US Farmers are getting $12 billion dollar bail out, which, coupled with what China is buying, shorts them $11.4 billion short compared to 2024.

    And not a penny is going to “family farms”.

    In 2025 Farm Bankruptcies are up 56%

    Many Restaurants are pulling salads from their menus. Iceberg lettuce is too expensive.

  62. 62.

    cain

    @Jackie:

    I have been hearing young boys telling girls ‘quiet piggy’. Those boys are going to regret it when girls start looking interesting.

  64. 64.

    TS

    Current SCOTUS think the GOP will be in power forever & they will do all in their power to make it so. Watch them knock back the California new districts when trump & co appeal. It will be called retaliation – not allowed.

  67. 67.

    cain

    @gene108: good luck with that. They will be left the dumbest assholes. They will have to rely importing smart people who definitely aren’t coming to a country where once their use is over the get deported.

  69. 69.

    Jackie

    Ooooh!

    Honduras’s top prosecutor has issued an international arrest warrant for former President Juan Orlando Hernandez, intensifying legal and political turmoil just days after the ex-leader walked free from a United States prison.

    Attorney General Johel Antonio Zelaya announced the move on Monday in a post on X, saying he instructed the Agencia Técnica de Investigación Criminal, the main investigative body of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, and urged Interpol “to execute the international arrest warrant against former President Juan Orlando Hernández”.

    Zelaya’s announcement comes as Hernandez was released from a 45-year prison sentence in the US after President Donald Trump pardoned him.

    Hernandez’s wife, who insists he is innocent, said he will not return to Honduras immediately due to safety concerns and that he is currently in a “safe place” in the US.

    aje.io/n40w8y

    This could be interesting: American president pardons and gives safe haven to an international drug dealer.

  70. 70.

    Jackie

    @prostratedragon:

    Good for Nicole, and I hope she is heard.

    I do, too. Male reporters need to step up to the plate in solidarity to their female counterparts. FFOTUS’s attacks on women is unacceptable. (I hope.)

  71. 71.

    Jay

    Raider
    ‪@iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social‬

    Follow
    Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human Rights Violations at “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome in Florida

    Torture and Enforced Disappearances in the Sunshine State: Human Rights Violations at “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome in Florida
    Amnesty International visited “Alligator Alcatraz” and Krome detention centers to document human rights violations.
    http://www.amnestyusa.org
    3:38 AM · Dec 8, 2025

    bsky.app/profile/iwillnotbesilenced.bsky.social/post/3m7hwxwt7pk2c

  72. 72.

    SW

    If they had any respect for precedent even their own recent rulings I would say that they are creating a powerful executive that they are likely to regret with the next liberal administration.  Right now progressives should be loudly formulating plans for the next administration to aggressively use this enhanced executive power to turn the country around including reform of the corrupt Supreme Court.

  73. 73.

    Jay

    @Jackie:

    This could be interesting: American president pardons and gives safe haven to an international drug dealer.

    ETA, War Criminals, Mass Murderers, Crypto Criminals, Pedo’s. Deposed Blood Thirsty Dictators, etc.

    “Give me your Despots, your Deposed Kings, / Your Mob Bosses yearning to sell drugs, / The wretched refuse of your Hague Prison. / Send these, the cruel, Billionaires Yachts to me, / I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”.

  78. 78.

    sab

    @Gin & Tonic: Wow. That is a shame. My brother in law was naturalized right after the election ( Biden still president) and the govt officials brought a State Department crew to the ceremony so that everyone could apply for passports right there. It was so welcoming and seamless.  ( He had been here on a green card for decades.)

  80. 80.

    WTFGhost

    Today just felt like a slog and still does- everything I do feels like I am moving underwater and my brain is just tired and greyed out. Yet we persist. I’ll add to this if I have something to say.

    You know, that *specific* feeling you describe, “feels like I’m moving underwater,” that’s when I know I’m fatigued, and it’s not a normal feeling to have. Ditto with the brain being just tired and greyed out.

    Now and again, okay, no biggie, but, if it’s showing up often, its actually showing up *more* often than you realize, because you’re too fatigued to realize you’re fatigued.

    Take care of yourself.

  81. 81.

    Jay

    @Kelly:

    It’s tricky. It’s very, very difficult to remove silicon sprays from surfaces.

    If you need autobody work in that area, (sprays travel), bondo, paint and primer will have a hard time sticking.

    There is a stick lube, that is made with bees wax, that was/is my go to for weather stripping and automotive belts.

    Door Ease.

    Great for lubricating wooden drawers in wooden dressers with no slides.

  82. 82.

    frosty

    @Gin & Tonic: ​Congratulations! And kudos for surviving the process; you all deserved the mimosas.
    When our adopted children were naturalized we got the certificate. No meeting, no greeting, no speakers at a podium. I think it just came in the mail. So I understand your disappointment in the lack of pomp and circumstance. It should be treated like the big deal that it is.​

  83. 83.

    Jay

    Imagine being made to spend 11 days inside a coffin. Imagine being made to spend more than a day inside a box barely two feet large in any direction. Imagine having to curl up, unable to extend any of your extremities, in the claustrophobic conditions of such a box, for more than a cumulative day. You can see pictures Abu Zubaydah drew of himself in the small box. Now imagine this being done to someone you love.

    I say all this because the following description appears in an Amnesty International report released Friday into the conditions of confinement for migrants at Alligator Alcatraz:

    The four men interviewed by Amnesty International, as well as Florida-based organizations, told the organization about the ‘box’, described as a 2×2 foot cage-like structure located outside in the yard of “Alligator Alcatraz” where individuals are sent for punishment. Individuals are put in the ‘box’, their hands are shackled and their feet are attached to restraints on the ground. They are unable to sit down or move positions, and are forced to remain there for hours in the heat with hardly any water or protection from the sun, heat and insects. According to a man seeking safety, “People ended up in the ‘box’ just for asking the guards for anything. I saw a guy who was put in it for an entire day.”
    A “2×2 cage-like structure… [an] extremely small space that prevents sitting, lying or changing position” has dimensions startlingly reminiscent of those the Senate documented in the black sites. The major difference is that in Florida, the Small Box is exposed to the elements and constructed as a barred cage, whereas in Catseye, it was a closed structure inside the larger closed structure of the black site. And in Florida, the box is used as punishment. According to one of the Alligator Alcatraz survivors in the Amnesty report, people were put into the box simply for alerting the guards to someone’s need for medication. “They were taken to ‘the box’ and punished for trying to help me,” the person told Amnesty.

    forever-wars.com/torture-techniques-from-cia-black-sites-were-used-at-alligator-alcatraz/

  84. 84.

    Trivia Man

    @NotMax: I just started watching Lazarus. Very intriguing, not so much time travel as loops ala groundhog day.  Gives me a lot to ponder.

  85. 85.

    Jackie

    Some Reps growing a spine?

    U.S. lawmakers may withhold a quarter of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget if he does not provide unedited videos of military strikes on boats in the southern Caribbean and eastern Pacific, the latest effort to obtain more information about President Donald Trump’s campaign against Venezuela.
    The Senate and House of Representatives Armed Services committees included the travel budget provision in the National Defense Authorization Act, or NDAA, a massive defense policy bill released on Sunday night and likely to become law by the end of the year.

    The Department of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the provision.
    Members of Congress, including some of Trump’s fellow Republicans, have been demanding more information for weeks about the administration’s plans for Venezuela.

    reuters.com/world/us/us-lawmakers-may-withold-hegseth-travel-funds-force-boat-video-release-2025-12-…

  87. 87.

    Joey Maloney

    I think the SCCOTUS endgame is a radical right-wing Catholic theocracy. But Opus Dei is only one of the factions currently collaborating in the destruction of the Republic. There’s also the racists, the corporatists, the billionaires, and the Protestant fundiwackos too. And of course there’s overlap between the groups. But in general, each of them thinks they’re using the others to accomplish their own vision and they think the others are too dumb to realize they’re being used.

    IMHO.

  88. 88.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Joey Maloney:

    I think their goals are the things that they all have been openly working toward for their entire careers. They oppose every decent thing about the 20th century. They want to get rid of everything from the New Deal & the Great Society. If they don’t nullify them, they will gut them, render them hollow and unenforceable. They want America 1896.

  90. 90.

    WTFGhost

    @Joey Maloney: Pointless “old man at the end of the bar” rant:
    The real bigot-racists, they are products of the old south, okay?
    But there are also those who have always felt some people existed to be used – social Darwinism writ large.

    The latter are nominally non-racists, but they were the people who were deliriously happy with slavery, while it produced a lot of wealth for the USA. They didn’t have any reason they wanted the exploited workers to be Black; they’d exploit anyone!

    But they were the kinds of people who felt that coal miners were lucky to have a job, and a company provided roof over their head, at a company-set rent, and a company store that was the ONLY source for food and other necessities, so nearly all of the pittance-wages went back to the company as excess profits.

    What’s the difference? Well, you don’t have to pay for security, and don’t need to terrorize the workers directly, the way you do with slaves.

  91. 91.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: I feel sick. A Two foot cube, chained, sun, no water, mosquitoes.
    And meanwhile kristi Noem gives charming ads on YouTube about self deporting, and other leaders give voice over that working for ice you’re getting rid of the worse of the worse, and the job is so rewarding. Omg.

  92. 92.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: I feel sick. A Two foot cube, chained, sun, no water, mosquitoes.
    And meanwhile kristi Noem gives charming ads on YouTube about self deporting, and other leaders give voice over that working for ice you’re getting rid of the worse of the worse, and the job is so rewarding. Omg.

  95. 95.

    WTFGhost

    @WTFGhost: Just to follow up…

    If a person feels as if they’re walking uphill, when they’re walking level, that’s a potential sign of cardiac insufficiency. Sometimes, however, it’s entirely neurological, and, I happen to know, it can be pain based. That said, while your heart isn’t giving you grief, this kind of feeling can be equally debilitating. Worse, in a way – if your heart can’t pump enough blood, and you exceed your limits, you know it – I mean, you really know it!

    Well, when I feel like it takes as much effort to walk on the level, as it does walking up a meaningful grade, if I get angry, or sufficiently determined, or sufficiently frustrated, I can make myself walk or even run (semi-)normally.

    Now, you see, that’s why this is so dangerous. That’s why I say, if you notice it happen rarely, it actually happens more often than you realize, because, sometimes you just ooh-ah or hoo-ah or git’rdone or WeverTF you military folks actually say when you’re pushing through a tough moment. You military people especially, right, but people with chronic conditions in general, “just push through the pain,” and that lets you function for a long time, but then you find yourself drawing from a well that’s mostly stones and mud anymore.

    And I’m saying, this very state you describe, perfectly, is potentially extremely scary. One can suffer for months, years, and decades, and lose a huge amount of their time to the brain fog and fatigue that sound much like what you describe.

    Look: the reason I call myself a “Ghost” is that, I used to be human, and I don’t ever think I’ll be that again. Think 20-30 years, I was, at best, pretending to be human, burning up whatever reserves I had.

    And all that time, I was doing two things: Struggling to act normally, and, struggling to be the human being that I was (am, maybe) . See, and, the best choice to make here is not to burn the reserves struggling to act normally. It’s to hold on to those reserves so that you can be John Cole, or even John Fucking Cole (please to remember to capitalize it, or it becomes a verb, which is kind of crazy to contemplate), as needed.

    Like, if Tim Walz said he felt like this, I’d tell him he might not be able to keep checking his neighbor’s gutters, because sometimes, he needs to be Tim Walz, the real, fully human, Tim Walz, and that is, alas, more important than being the man who gets on the ladder. He needs to delegate. He needs to encourage the neighborhood kids to check gutters, and organize stickball leagues, instead of listening to the hippity hop and doobing spliffs.

    I may have doobed too many spliffs myself tonight.

    And Imma saying it, just to rub salt in the wound, if you feel a bit of soreness right now: I got married too, and I realized my self care had to go all the way up to 11, but, that didn’t mean pushing past limits that my body was trying to impose. In fact, it meant the precise opposite of that. It meant respecting those limits, and then, talking to them, with total acceptance.

    I, myself, sometimes become fatigued, and I’m a perfect (crude description of lack of male sexual responsiveness elided), I can be horny as if Jesus Fucking Christ laid his whammy on my lizardbrain, so I feel like I got shot at and missed, time to PROCREATE. Total acceptance means, “don’t try to find pleasure. The fatigue is indicative of pelvic region pain that will destroy all sexual responsiveness. The only thing that you can get, by any penile activity, is worse pain and greater fatigue. Oh, yeah, and some of the bullies from your past are calling you a limpdick, and you are having a hard time shutting them out, because you’re so fatigued, you can’t manage your emotions and your troublesome memories as easily, but that’s okay because you know it’s the pain, and the fatigue, talking, and yes, this is a good night to sleep with your hands outside the covers. For reals.”

    Less than total acceptance makes you think you can pleasure yourself, just a bit, really carefully, and quit if it’s clear you’re not getting closer to orgasm. That way may lead to massive neuro issues, and, an orgasm that gives orgasm a bad name.

    Well, newlywed, you don’t get to muck around with that kind of thing, because it’s not deciding when to refrain from hoping libido wins over fatigue. You have a wife. You have to be a husband. You need to care more for yourself now, than you did when you were alone and could have killed yourself stupidly, because, now, your wife would find your body, you see? It’s not just your own fool neck you have to watch out for, it’s the rest of the lives of all the people who care about you.

    So, please take a good self assessment. You don’t just owe it to you any more, if ever you did.

    Meh. Or, maybe I’m being a busybody.

  96. 96.

    Aziz, light!

    @Gin & Tonic: nearly every Federal employee was unremittingly rude and nasty

    They have been treated with utter contempt all year, they have no job security, their senior leaders have been replaced by clowns and cronies, and their missions have been compromised if not crippled. If I were still working I would be hard-pressed to be of good cheer to anyone. But as you said, rude and nasty may be an NYC affectation.

  97. 97.

    Gloria DryGarden

    Cole, when I’m moving underwater, it usually means I am about to be sick with a sinus infection. That particular flavor of tired is my sign. Sometimes I can take preventive actions, if I recognize it soon enough.

  99. 99.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: the feeling is a combination of having the ground dissolve under me, and a queasy sickness layered on top on stories of “witch” tortures, as if they were memories of all my sisters and herbalist ancestors, and a sense of not being able to catch my breath, of breathing in metallic mown grass air post pneumonia, or right before a tornado approaches.

    Is it any less horrifying, if you live in the next country over, and you know your tax dollars didn’t fund it, so it’s not  being done in your name? Or is it the betrayal of humanity against humans, that throws mud on all the lights, everywhere, and affects anyone with a heart?

  100. 100.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @WTFGhost:

    Forest Chorus

    the human dissolved

    in fog or pain

    yet his soul pumped vivid colors

    with every heart beat.

    all the water molecules created a soft slide

    the mitochondria hummed and

    drank

    sips of golden energy

    shared with organelles

    all sending out tendrils of communion,

    of molecules and colors

    rising in a soft whisper, a humming chorus.

     

    no matter how ghostly, even in fog

    the trees speak with each other

    through vast delicate tendrils, netted

    across impossible distances

    bringing to each the nourishment and care

    And protection

    in unseen molecular colors.

    your tube of light, like a tree trunk to the stars

    receives the pulsing waves, or particles

    in whichever form you can receive

    your daily photons,

    and your body converts it

    to its own language.

    and so may it be

  101. 101.

    Jay

    @Gloria DryGarden:

    So, in High School, I joined the Seaforths. At 18 I had to leave home, headed south. A year in SF Cali as a bike messenger, then the Yucatan, Darien Gap, my target was Bolivia, knew some people there, wound up in Nicaragua at the start of the Civil War.

    At the Canadian Consulate, a guy I knew from the Seaforth’s, a Military Attaché recognized me. We had a few beers, had a few meals, and he hooked me up with a job with UNHCR. The quid pro quo was just letting them know what I saw, what I heard. In exchange, I got paid fairly well, to drive a jeep with a shallow well drilling rig attached, and a Nicaraguan crew, and drill shallow wells, teach the locals to care for them, teach others how to do the same.

    That whole “hewers of wood, carriers of water” Canadian thing.

    So, I met Estrella. We fell in love, got engaged. She was a school teacher. EU trained. Well, Contra’s hit her school, killed her and some students. Before I even knew that, Contra’s hit my team. I got most of them out, but I lost Marco and Estaban.

    My “contact” talked me out of what I wanted to do. I was barely 20.

    I went back to Vancouver, and it was Reagan Years, so, Army and Navy Occupation, War in the Woods, fighting Nazi’s, running LBGTQ2+ night club patrols and escorts, and an endless ream of part time, minimum wage jobs. Sleeping on busses.

    Wound up eventually getting a shit tech job, just as tech was exploding in Vancouver. Got promoted after promoted. Got Middle Class. Rejoined the Seaforths. Company was great with that, got deployed to Bosnia. Got married to the Ex, got a house, upgraded to a bigger house, volunteered with DERA, FFSBC,  etc, got divorced. Mom died.

    Went poly, Buddhist, DOM, met T, took in Dad, (reason I left home), cats, dogs, another house, then T got a “dream job” that became a nightmare in the interior, but by then we had remote acreage, and stuck it out until foreclosed. Got to become a “cousin” in the Septewemic Band, because of us restoring the land. 2nd “Cousining” for me, Chehalis Shalishan was the first back in the late 80s.

    So, then car life, minimum wage jobs, unhoused. T got a great job, a great crew, unfortunately at a Uni “Think Tank” that had all the worlds problems, going into Covid, on their plate. They were great, they are great. We got to house sit for quite a while. We had “illicit” gatherings during Covid where we would sit outside, 6 feet apart, and tell stories.

    I got a job, kinda fixing stuff. It was renting stuff, selling stuff, and fixing stuff in my “spare time” for The Orange Despot. I stuck it out, trained staff, fixed everything I could, pissed off my managers and DS, in part for making them do their jobs, and in part for shaming them for their lip service to DEI, so, when my Dept became for the first time ever, a profit center, for the first time in Canada, they fired me.

    Oh, and we moved out of the car into an apartment.

    Got another job, fixing stuff, was great at first, then MGMT change and toxic, quit.

    T got cancer, took medical leave, went to a less stressful Admin position.

    Now, I have another job, fixing stuff.

    And on weekends, I still do the “unhoused patrols” with the DERA giving first aid, medical advise, carrying NARCAN and connecting people with services.

  103. 103.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Jay: holy crap. Rugged. That is so much change and challenge, loss, and adjustment.

    my sister went to Nicaragua during the war there. Seemed like a risky time. I was afraid for her. Nothing bad happened to her, the way it did for you, losing your fiancé. I imagine that was devastating.

  106. 106.

    Xavier

    The SCOTUS dream is the long-standing conservative dream where the Government’s only legitimate role is protecting private property rights, and in their view democratic self-government is basically just mob rule.

  109. 109.

    WTFGhost

    @Gloria DryGarden: By the way, thank you for your kind messages.

    Your writing was too much for me to digest – it’s much easier to write/babble than read! But what I could glean from it has been helpful.

    The short form is, “okay, i used to be trying to work my hip, but, Gloria Drygarden suggests that relaxing, and engaging, with various points in the head.”  I don’t remember what you said, but I can feel most of it now. Well, if that’s where stuff got tangled, then relaxing that might untangle a lot more than working the hip, which (I believe) was pulled out of place by the TMJ injury.

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