Jason Sattler, aka LOLGOP on Bluesky, published an important essay yesterday on Elon Musk’s social engineering con to reelect Trump in 2024 and how Musk plans to use his ill-gotten gains to fuck with the upcoming elections. I almost never say “read the whole thing,” but seriously, read the whole thing.
It’s titled “America Needs to Prepare for Elon Musk Like He’s a State-Sponsored Cyber Attack.” That’s a good way to put it because in terms of resources and connections, Musk is the equivalent of a state actor. Sattler starts by reviewing how Musk pulled off the con in 2024:
Let me walk you through what it actually did, because the details would repulse a society with anything like a healthy gag reflex, and because they reveal the one thing Musk actually believes in: his power to loot America dry, a position that puts him in exact sync with the man he spent more than any individual in the history of the planet to elect.
Muslim voters in Michigan saw pro-Israel ads praising Kamala Harris for marrying a Jewish man and backing Israel’s military. Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, targeted by the same operation, saw ads claiming Harris wanted to cut off U.S. arms to Israel. Young liberals got headlines about how Harris had sold out the progressive movement. Working-class white men in the Midwest were warned she’d impose race-based hiring quotas. Black voters in North Carolina were told Democrats were coming for their menthol cigarettes.
Every one of those messages, totally contradictory and engineered around each target’s specific fears and identities, came from the same organization, routed through a dark-money structure designed to hide that fact. 404 Media documented the Snapchat ad buys in granular detail: same PAC, same campaign, opposite messages, sorted by ZIP code, with Musk as the obscured original donor behind a dark-money nonprofit. In information security, this is called spoofing.
As Sattler points out, this kind of appeal works because it’s microtargeted and emotionally charged. Crucially, it’s also anonymous, so the recipients don’t know they’re being played for suckers.
This isn’t a new tactic. Russia and other state-sponsored actors microtargeted communities in the runup to the 2016 election to help push Trump over the finish line (remember the “super-predators” thing?).
That was arguably the most successful enemy action since bin Laden baited the U.S. into self-ruinous lashing out 15 years earlier. But now the calls are coming from inside the house, microtargeting and mass communication are much easier to accomplish with AI tools (conveniently controlled by right-wing oligarchs), and the thoroughly corrupt president Musk purchased is fully onboard with the project.
Sattler says media literacy campaigns won’t work to counter this kind of threat, and there’s no opposition party messaging solution either because Musk isn’t looking to persuade. Instead, he’s using his vast wealth and the regrettably still-influential media platform he purchased to sow chaos, hatred and division so he and his sleazy pals can steal our democracy and loot our treasury, as they’re doing right now.
You can’t out-podcast someone whose goal isn’t persuasion but degradation of the epistemic commons itself. It still places the entire burden of defense on individual persuasion and completely ignores what Musk is actually trying to do. He isn’t trying to win people over. He’s trying to poison enough of the electorate that any result Republicans don’t like can be plausibly contested. Those are different attacks, and they require different defenses…
When someone receives a message precision-engineered around their specific identity and fears, delivered through a channel that appears organic and independent, their media literacy doesn’t protect them. Not because they’re unintelligent, but because that’s how human cognition works under emotional strain. Musk’s team has studied this and is building for it. Every false-flag ad is a spear-phishing email optimized for exactly the psychological moment when critical thinking fails.
Sattler compares media literacy strategies to the mostly ineffective user training companies do to try to stop workers from clicking spear phishing links. He notes that training doesn’t help because sophisticated scammers embed personal information designed expressly to defeat critical thinking skills.
Recognizing that, cybersecurity experts focus instead on making attacks harder for scammers to execute, taking the burden off the potential victims. Sattler proposes something similar to deal with Musk and other scammers in the political arena:
The political equivalent is mandatory, real-time disclosure of the ultimate funding source behind every digital political ad, not the shell nonprofit or the PAC name, but the actual billionaire. You don’t ask voters to do anything. You just make the spoofing structurally harder to run.
That sounds like an excellent solution, but it won’t work in the short term at the federal level because it would require legislation written and passed by people who aren’t benefitting from Musk’s scam, i.e., Democrats, who are currently out of power.
In the meantime, Sattler points to a couple of grassroots actions that have thwarted Musk. One is the Tesla Takedown protests that dented Musk’s car brand and sent him scurrying away from public-facing DOGE activities with his tail between his legs.
The other example was when Wisconsin beat back Musk’s attempt to buy a state Supreme Court seat in 2025. Judge Susan Crawford whupped the Musk-backed candidate by explicitly running against Musk:
Crawford made Musk the opponent, not Schimel, the actual name on the ballot. She ran against the money, against the interference, against the sheer gall of the richest man on earth treating a state judiciary like a personal acquisition. Her campaign wasn’t a fact-check operation or a media literacy seminar. It was a sustained, morally direct counter-attack that named the con loudly and repeatedly until the name stuck.
Musk is already gearing up for another round. He donated tens of millions already to support Republicans in the midterms and has strategized directly with Trump, Vance and Wiles, according to Sattler. So we can definitely expect more fuckery.
But Trump is now deeply unpopular, as is Musk. Sattler suggests that Democrats who are running against Musk-backed Republican opponents (which is all of them, basically) hang Musk around their necks like Crawford did. Sounds like a good plan to me.
Open thread.
Belafon
And almost every one of these is still an argument occurring on bsky.
Baud
It works because our society is primed to hate us. Otherwise, we could employ the same strategy against them.
Another Scott
LOLGOP is a smart dude.
He came up with “Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated” and other great memes.
Thanks for the highlights and the pointer, BC.
Best wishes,
Scott.,
Betty Cracker
@Belafon: You’re right, and it makes me wonder how much of that is organic and how much a continuation of the same op. Some of both is my guess. The fissures people like Musk exploit are real. Whether we allow people like Musk to widen those fissures so Republicans can sleaze their way to power is up to us, I guess.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The US Military points out that propaganda only works if the target of the propaganda is predisposed to the argument being made, so I am not that sure how outing the source will change things.
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon: I had friends on Facebook calling Biden and Harris antisemites allied with Hamas at the same time as people on Bluesky were calling them puppets of Israel. It was pretty remarkable and I guess it’s not surprising to hear that the same campaign was pushing both lines.
Suzanne
@Belafon: Another argument I saw on Xhitter: men with children were told that Trump would cancel child support payments.
Yep! They went for the all-important Deadbeat Dad vote.
I have wondered how much influence that had.
Betty Cracker
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’m not an expert on how this works, and like everyone else, I’m susceptible to messaging that reinforces my priors. But I think the credibility (or lack thereof) of the source matters.
For example, say I got an email that said, “Support Congressman Jones, who believes like I do that women’s rights are human rights.” It would land differently for me if the sender was Donald Trump than it would if it was Hillary Clinton.
MattF
Very much in favor of running hard against Musk. It’s true and it works.
ETA: Say ‘He’s lying’, rinse, repeat.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s what I think what really happened; Trump was promising everyone a magic pony and Harris made the unforgivable sin of telling the voters magic ponies don’t exist.
Jeffro
it would take a LOT of work and a LOT of repeating by essentially every Dem everywhere, but another way to defeat this is to talk about it publicly, at every opportunity
oh, and also run hard on nationalizing Musk’s businesses…why not? he’s a threat to every American (even the Republicans, whether they realize it or not)
Suzanne
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yeah, agree. But there was some definite demographic slice-and-dice happening that we shouldn’t overlook, as well.
p.a.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: No one likes feeling manipulated, especially when the manipulators hide themselves, even if the argument resonates.
And the Musk fisking can work: tRump/Epstein sure is.
Baud
Musk isn’t the only one stinking up the place.
Ten Bears
Stick a bone in its’ nose and send it back to Africa …
WTFGhost
Yes, this is one of the perils of microtargeting, and giving up too much privacy without being aware of the consequences. We fall into patterns, and, those patterns sometimes influence our thoughts more than we realize. I know there are times when I’ve been caught by being a white male, and it influenced my thinking more than I wished it had. Well, I’m more cautious now, but, god damn it, people do patterns because they work. In the right demographic, I might be a free thinker, but even if I am, the other 80-90% of my demographic won’t be, and they can be influenced… sometimes subtly.
Ooh, here’s a good example of my white privilege: I didn’t like anti-Reagan people because they were “sew meen” and I hope you see by the meme-spelling I’ve learned that they were very accurate, and the truth was what was mean. But that’s the point; I was disengaged, and it never even occurred to me to consider “well, what if Reagan is a dyed-in-the-wool, USDA prime asshole? Wouldn’t people have a right to be nasty to him?” So, in that time of my life, I could have been nudged toward Reagan (or a protest vote) by negative ads against him. And I wouldn’t even realize they had an effing ring in my nose.
Either this year, or by 2028, we need an overwhelmingly positive, uniting message, one that doesn’t give a flying fig at a rolling doughnut – not even to make a flying fig doughnut, which means there’s a real moral impetus – doesn’t give a flying fig at a rolling doughnut for what “Republicans” want, but might do some outreach to people who are of a conservative bent, who think the Republicans are cray-cray.
Divisiveness, even if it wins, leaves the country with a great big sucking chest wound, draining into the abdominal cavity, with intestinal involvement, and did we mention the patient had appendicitis before the sucking chest wound? Well, we did now. I mean, just think how stupid you have to be to be a loyal Republican now! Think how vapid your brain has to be, to accept the pathetic lies they tell. And yet there are a lot of people who will praise them for “Standing Firm,” as Quayle put it, and if that’s not damning with faint praise, I don’t know what that term might refer to.
We need something that shines the light in the shadows, and lets people see into the whitewashed sepulchers, we need people to see the filth and corruption and the outright ugliness of evil and hatred all mixed together, so they can reject it totally, and say “let’s start working together.”
I’d like a pony and a red wagon, as well.
chemiclord
Alternative title: Elon Musk tells people what they want to hear.
Castor Canadensis
We see the same thing in Canada. My town group gets a steady stream of anti-liberal and anti-Carney propaganda. A group for my city gets specifically anti-Poilievre propaganda. Research during the last election found cases where they came from the same place. I don’t have any reason to believe that’s changed.
A Ghost to Most
If you haven’t started preparing by now, you probably won’t.
gene108
I wonder how much more effective Musk’s micro targeting ads will be with all the info he stole from the government via DOGE?
Baud
There goes that Supreme Court seat.
Neldob
@gene108: ay, there’s the rub.
lowtechcyclist
@MattF:
1) Where has it worked? Has it been tried in any of the races last November or since then>?
2) I’m not sure normies would get it. If I didn’t know what I already know, I’d be going “wtf does Musk have to do with this? He’s rich, but so are a bunch of other people. Why Musk?”
ETA: And yeah, you can explain, but it’s not a trivial bit of explanation, and there’s a lot of truth to the old “when you’re explaining, you’re losing” meme.
cain
@Castor Canadensis:
Ultimately we need to figure out how to manage algorithms and information that tech companies are gathering. I sincerely believe it is a national security issue.
Eyeroller
@lowtechcyclist:Upthread it was noted that the Democratic candidate in a recent Wisconsin Supreme Court election ran hard against Musk and won handily even though he was pouring money in and the polls were tight.
Musk would be the best target because of the billionaire/Epstein class, he is most blatantly trying to buy elections, he well known, and he is increasingly unpopular.
p.a.
@Baud:There goes that Supreme Court seat.
Hmmm… this tells me, to my surprise, there’s a “no foreign entanglements” cohort in Texas MAGA he’s courting. Surprise because: Texas. Figured (I’m no Texas-knower) they’d be 100% for “inflict pain” options. Maybe just domestically…
JustRuss
@Baud: It’s like she almost gets it. Not sure what I’ll do if MTG pulls a John Cole.
hueyplong
@p.a.: I can’t possibly discern how facts are received (if at all) by RWs in Texas, but the state is home to a bunch of military bases and it’s possible there are folks who’d just as soon not see their friends/loved ones deployed purely so as to give Hegseth a woodie and inspire in the pig nostalgic thoughts about how he used to deploy his mushroom back in the day.
Betty Cracker
@lowtechcyclist: It worked in the Wisconsin state supreme court seat mentioned in the article and OP, and ordinary people showing up in front of Tesla dealerships dragged down Musk’s overvalued car brand. (The protests probably would’ve caused more financial wreckage if the stock market wasn’t basically astrology for men.)
I think the protests deserve at least partial credit for Musk temporarily scuttling back under his rock. But before he did, he showed his entire ass to the whole country and trashed much of the unearned good will he had accrued. Exposing Musk as the money bags behind Trump and Repubs unpopular agenda won’t get through to everyone, but I think it can be useful.
Josie
@lowtechcyclist:
Talarico in Texas has named Musk and Thiel among others, IIRC, as billionaires who are pouring money into races to keep people divided so that they don’t notice that their pockets are being picked.
Old School
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@JustRuss: I will accept any ally no matter how wrong they were and/or profoundly annoying and/or misguided, if it takes down the Trump/Vance/Techbro regime. Its that existential a threat.
hueyplong
@Old School: Really wish the neck discoloration were caused by Satan swiping an ill-kempt set of nails across it as he crept up from behind to call the pig home.
It’s the romantic in me
ETA: If I’m on the same wavelength with BC, I’d best start writing down thoughts before this passes.
Betty Cracker
@Old School: I hate to say it, but that gladdened my heart when I saw it. Even if it’s not a hoped-for sign of a significant ailment, it means that odious prick is miserable. Good.
Melancholy Jaques
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Add to that people’s reluctance/refusal to admit that they have been conned.
zhena gogolia
@hueyplong: 😂
Belafon
@JustRuss: If she does, she’s angling for the Kristen Sinema slot.
Geminid
@JustRuss: I don’t think you have to worry sbout Greene doing a John Cole and turning Democrat. What I see is her staking out a position in a post-Trump Republican Party
Ed. The GA-14 special election primary to replace Greene will be held March 10, eight days from now. It’s an open, “jungle” primary with the top two finishers advancing to an April runoff.
hueyplong
@Belafon: Seeing MTG in oversized, colored glasses and a heroin addict’s fantasy of a 1950s outfit would be what they might call Sinematic.
Archon
@JustRuss: i think Greene is banking that MAGA is an actual philosophy and not a cult of personality around Trump. I doubt it but if she is correct than she will likely be the leader of the post-Trump MAGA Republican party.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: @Archon:
Agree on both points!
Belafon
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: To put what someone said in story form, new allies should get treated like this:
“Oh, hi, welcome to our side. Here’s the reading material, and” – looking through the internet – “it looks like you spent the last six years demonizing us. Your probation period, which just means your suggestions go on the bottom of the pile, will last six years. Glad you’re here.”
cmorenc
@Baud: Prime candidate for next SCOTUS seat, if Trump gets to nominate it, is Aileen Cannon. No one (beyond the incumbent SCOTUS6) gave Trump a greater 2024 election assist than Cannon, who effectively spiked the Stolen Documents case, the knowing illegal retention and concealment of which happened *after* Trump was out of office (and thereby beyond even the SCOTUS6’s immunity grant)- and there’s a strong potential Jack Smith had strong evidence of receipts for whom Trump was selling the info from those classified docs post-Presidentially. Which is part of why she continues to block release of Jack Smith’s report.
H.E.Wolf
For anyone who wants a small, concrete task to help thwart Musk again:
There’s a WI Supreme Court election on April 7, and PostcardsToVoters.org is writing for the liberal candidate, Judge Chris Taylor.
I like the photo of Judge Taylor and her dog that’s on her campaign website!
chrisforjustice.com/homepage-new#meet
Miss Bianca
@JustRuss: I know, kinda shocking to watch this break from psychotic breakage happening in real time.
However, Cole may have been a conservative Republican, but from what I remember from his posts Back in Tha Day, he never made any claims or observations as just plain bonkers as “Jewish space lasers”. So…while I entertain a flicker of hope that MTG might wake up and become Woke all of a sudden, I ain’t counting on it.
ETA: (I just don’t think she’s bright enough.)
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: It sure looks like shingles to me. I hope the prick is miserable.
Miss Bianca
@Betty Cracker: “the stock market as astrology for men” is now part of my permanent mental furnishings and oh, gaaah, now I’m alternately sniggering and going, “wait, *I* have investments in the stock market…what does that mean for *me*?”
Castor Canadensis
@Old School:
Vampire bite marks?
Has anyone seen him outdoors in the daytime lately?
trollhattan
@StringOnAStick:
Peter Thiel gave him a hickey. You know how he gets.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@Betty Cracker: “if the stock market wasn’t basically astrology for men.”
I love this phrase. I think I’m going to put it in my back pocket.
Suzanne
@Archon:
She, for one, genuinely believed that MAGA did not involve starting foreign wars. I don’t know why anyone ever thinks that FFOTUS has a memory longer than that of a goldfish.
StringOnAStick
@Miss Bianca: i passed that “the stock market is astrology for men” comment on to a friend who laughed and said it describes her dad so accurately that she’s not sure how to handle it. There’s a certain kind of well off Boomer guy (and it is almost always a guy) who makes all decisions and moral judgments based on what the sainted “free market” “”thinks””. Conflating up and down ticks of stocks as the way to scry moral judgments is the ultimate example of what Granny Weatherwax decried as the core human sin.
Geminid
@Castor Canadensis: Or, has anyone seen some queasy vampires hanging around
Ed. Trump did look like a vampire in the pics of him returning to the White House last night, in his long black overcoat.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@chemiclord: This is targeting people’s fears, the place where there reason does not reach. Nobody seeks that out.
hueyplong
@Archon: “i think Greene is banking that MAGA is an actual philosophy and not a cult of personality around Trump.”
And yet another example of the reluctance of the conned to admit it.
Betty Cracker
@H.E.Wolf: This is totally beside the point, but the judge looks like a cross between Rhea Seehorn and Maria Shriver!
@Miss Bianca: I stole that from someone on Bluesky. Made me giggle too. So true!
HopefullyNotCassandra
@gene108: hopefully his ai hallucinates a bunch of nonsense
Old School
@hueyplong: @Betty Cracker:
I enjoyed one of the replies pointing out that even with his various bruising and rashes, his right ear still looks perfectly normal.
Ramona
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Let’s assume that one is predisposed to think critically, then getting the message repeatedly emphasizing that one’s preferred candidate doesn’t share a value personally precious to you dampens your enthusiasm and even though you will not vote for the opponent, you may not evangelize as wholeheartedly for your preferred candidate.
Even though you personally shall vote for your preferred candidate, the collective wave of enthusiasm does not spill over into the larger collective.
An important factor multiplying the spoofing is that mainly the MSM, putative neutral arbiter of collectively agreed upon truth, subtly, and not so subtly, undermines the reputation of your preferred candidate and refrains from emphasizing the truly egregious nature of their opponent.
The capacity to restrain one’s personal enthusiasm is part of what constitutes critical thinking. The holding back of evangelizing for one’s preferred candidate arrests the spread of enthusiasm to those who don’t think critically and are more prone to unexamined emotion governing their decisions. This could possibly result in many in a swing state sitting out the election.
Exposing the force behind the spoofing, especially if it’s a single individual like Musk, serves as more information to add to one’s critical assessment and this additional information acts as an antidote to the enthusiasm-dampening effect of the spoofing’s near subliminal emphasis of the shortcomings of one’s preferred candidate’s with respect to one’s personal values.
In a system of collective decision making, spoofing on such a grand scale undermines the honest candidate with a consistent message ironically because this candidate is more likely to be favored by critically thinking individuals who accommodate the discomfort of deliberately exposing their preferred position to doubt while this same spoofing boosts the dishonest candidate with inconsistent messages tailored to specific groups.
I do like LOLGOP’s viewing this matter from the epistemic underpinning of collective decision-making.
p.a.
We sure as hell know he wasn’t looking for a transfusion from the decrepit orange pustule.
hueyplong
@Old School: The creature can regenerate ears, but the process appears not to work with the hands, ankles, and neck. No wonder it worries it won’t be on this planet much longer.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@p.a.: there are a number of libertarians in this country who vehemently dislike foreign entanglements. Remember Ron Paul and Ross Perot. Libertarians live in every state.
Some supposed lefties too, who currently sport massive egg on their faces. I am looking at you Glenn Greenwald and Jill Stein.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Josie: Texans know who Mr. Musk is.
Miss Bianca
@StringOnAStick: Let’s just say that, as smart a man as my father was, he made *terrible* financial decisions, one of which was thinking he knew how to play the stock market.
Let’s just say that I, as smart as I may think I am, and as potentially prone to terrible financial decisions as he was (like father, like daughter), I at least have enough sense, having once *put* my money into investments, that I tend not to imagine that I know better than, or even as much as, the financial advisors at my investment company.
I’ve learned that much in my old age!
HopefullyNotCassandra
@Belafon: first we need to beat fascism. I welcome anybody who will help us achieve that.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@StringOnAStick: hey! There is a vaccine for that!
kindness
With all due respect, those voters that repeated Genocide Joe/Kamala the Killer were total suckers. Especially when one considers Kamala’s alternative, Trump, and how he acted in his first term. Within Republican voters, being an ill informed idiot is normal. Democrats expect people to pay better attention and sadly America has told us a couple times they won’t do that.
Ramona
@lowtechcyclist: The OP gave an example of where it worked: Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election where Musk publicly went all in for the Republican aligned candidate and the Democratic aligned candidate ran against Musk and won with a budget much tinier than the millions Musk threw to her opponent.
HopefullyNotCassandra
@HopefullyNotCassandra: their reason.
Suzanne
@Ramona: I appreciate your analysis. I have shared Anat Shenker-Osorio’s piece about how voters make up their minds here before, and you touch on something that she describes and names “Magnetism”. Essentially, that candidates excite the most plugged-in voters (likely the most aware of issues and active followers of political media), and then those voters spread their excitement to others in their network. The process you describe is accurate to what I have observed, and it shows how dangerous this propaganda can be…..even for those who don’t see it directly.
hueyplong
@kindness: You’d think literally everyone would have immediately suspected that middle school names like “Genocide Joe” and “Kamala the Killer” were inventions of GOP/Trumpian sources.
Ramona
@Belafon: We should be treating the Lincoln Project guys like this.
Geminid
@HopefullyNotCassandra: I’ve seen a split developing in the Republican Party, between a MAGA faction loyal to Trump, and a growing “America First/America Only” faction. This is playing out in House primaries this year, most notably in Rep. Thomas Massie’s in Kentucky.
Another example would be the primary in FL-08, on Florida’s Atlantic coast. There, Aaron Baker is challenging Rep. Randy Fine, who won his seat a year ago in a special election to replace one of the Reps who joined the Trump administration, Waltz or Ratcliffe.
As in Massie’s contest, support for Israel is an issue in FL-08 and this war amplifies it.
Belafon
@Ramona: Yep.
Ramona
@Suzanne: Thanks Suzanne!
I greatly appreciate your appreciation!
Interesting Name Goes Here
@hueyplong: Unfortunately, as we discovered, stuff like that is steroid-infused catnip to Republicans and Progressives.
Musk and the GOP are focus-grouping new nicknames and pejoratives to deploy against sane people as we speak. The whole AIPAC thing had legs for a bit, but I think people are starting to catch on that it’s really just being used against black people as the new N-word.
Kathleen
@Old School: You know the people who say “I wouldn’t wish xyz on my worst enemy!? I am not one of those people.
Interesting Name Goes Here
By the way, since we’re talking about elections, the Senate GOP is doing what everyone figured would happen when Progressives went hard for the Nazi tattoo guy:
bsky.app/profile/charlesgaba.com/post/3mg3z7nk4r22k
Geminid
@Suzanne: I think Trump really is different this term. Trump 1.0 was very risk-averse when it came foreign adventures. He had seen how Bush’s Iraq war ruined his second term. The drone strike on IRGC General Soleimeni in early 2020 was an exception that tended to prove the rule..
This iteration of Trump is very different. He’s more like a deranged elephant.
trollhattan
@Kathleen:
Heh.
I wish each antivaxxer would have to endure the covid bout my vaxxed self went through.
Geminid
@Interesting Name Goes Here: Charles Gaba is really bearing down on Graham Platner, and I’m all for it.
Kathleen
@trollhattan: I’m with you! My bout with Covid was mild but it basically killed a friend of mine.
Betty Cracker
@kindness:
I think that observation supports Sattler’s point rather than rebutting it. Human nature is what it is, as the cybersecurity folks discovered when they tried to educate people out of falling for phishing scams at work that compromised systems.
You have to address the threat at the perp level. That’s not to say media literacy, user education, etc., is useless, but we can’t put it all on users/voters. We’ve seen that fail at critical junctures.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@Geminid: More people need to be. And I can think of a few in particular who need to use their voices for something other than preening for cameras and college rallies.
But that’s no fun to them, so in the evergreen words of DJ Khaled:
“Congratulations. You played yourself.”
Belafon
@Geminid: The wild thing is, there are four other Democrats, besides him and Mills, that are running. He successfully drowned out all of the other candidates.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
but I think it can be useful.
I don’t think it will hurt in the least and may do a lot of good.
TerryC
@StringOnAStick: Hmm. What can you NOT safely cover up with some kind of makeup?
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: Platner’s primary opponent Mills fails the closest thing to a litmus test I have, i.e., stated opposition to abolishing the filibuster. Still, if I were in Maine, I’d vote for her anyway in that primary. I’ve seen enough out of Platner.
gene108
@Archon:
Cults have an organizing philosophy behind them. A cult of personality puts the leader above the philosophy.
Trump is losing the ability to convince otherwise dedicated MAGA’s his interests are what’s more important than whatever organizing principle MAGA’s think they have, ever since he refused to release the Epstein files.
cmorenc
@Baud: Weird thing about MTG is that contrary to most MAGA folk, she actually has a good old southern gal type of integrity, albeit toxic in its misplaced loyalties.
hueyplong
@cmorenc: Gotta say, I’m fairly suspicious of the phrase “good old southern gal type of integrity.” I’m old enough to remember when that essentially meant “no Negros in our schools.”
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I agree with you about her biggest downside. FWIW, I also doubt she would be the 50th vote to keep it. If she wins, she may only serve one term, so it’s not like she’d be worried about explaining it to the voters.
And while I’m still opposed to the filibuster, it had not escaped my notice that that’s the only thing stopping through SAVE act right now. Once it’s gone so we can implement our agenda, I hope the voters will keep us in power.
Baud
@cmorenc:
@hueyplong:
One of her last acts in Congress was pushing an anti-trans bill.
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker: Interesting, very important question about Platner: if he does wind up being the D nominee for the Maine Senate seat, would we Ds be better off with Senator Platner or retread Senator Susan Collins? For all his flaws, I’d take Platner. Collins is a classic hypocritical concern troll who often says the right words, but only very rarely every 4th blue moon fails to do the damaging wrong thing. And other more palatably reliable D Senators would run the committees in a majority, not Platner.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Have you met voters? Especially the ones bathed in privilege who can take moral stands that throw vulnerable populations under the bus to preserve their purity?
Miss Bianca
@Belafon: Are those the ones left? I thought at least a couple dropped out right after Mills announced and said they were endorsing her.
But if there are still some others left in the race, you’re right about that “Who me? Fash-curious?” dude sucking up all the available oxygen and donations that aren’t going to Mills.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
I try to keep to myself.
Scout211
It’s all good, people
Sure. It’s all clear to us now.
Ramona
@Suzanne: Propaganda’s danger stems from its ability to work unseen under the radar. This unseen, unexamined, subliminally operating feature of propaganda is the flipside of our human cognition’s capacity to subconsciously integrate large amounts of information into a pattern of meaning.
Critical thinking, in my experience, can only operate after the subconscious integration of information has already happened and when one takes the deliberate and often uncomfortable step of examining one’s assumptions and asking what do I think I know, how do I know what I think I know and accepting the possibility that what I know will have to be updated near continually to better correlate with reality which given human limitations we can only comprehend in a limited way even though great advantages derive from even a limited model of reality as long as this model is exposed often to honest doubt and continual updating.
I often try to emphasize to people that the essence of scientific thinking is doubt. By doubt, I mean honest and rigorous doubt, not the haphazard “the moon landing was faked” lazy pronouncements type of doubt.
Suzanne
My new favorite thing on social media: LizaMinnelliOutlives.
#TeamLiza
Miss Bianca
@cmorenc: In the sense that Fetterman, Manchin, and Sinema were all (just barely) better than a Republican, I guess I’d say “probably, yeah”…in the same sense that it’s, say, better to have scabies than the plague. But would I bet the house on Platner *not* turning into the kind of infuriating, contrarian disappointment-as-a-Dem that they proved to be? Nope. I wouldn’t even bet my crappy ol’ car.
Ramona
@Suzanne: Suzanne, where have you shared the link to Anat’s piece on “Magnetism”?
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
that odious prick is miserable
Couldn’t happen to a more deserving jackass / prick.
Because there sure isn’t one in public vision.
Suzanne
@Ramona: I have shared it on past threads, but here it is again.
StringOnAStick
@TerryC: Exactly. Shingles eruptions are painful, they ooze swo you can’t cover them with markup, and the nerves that are being attacked are very pissed off so any stimulation they receive goes to DefCon 1 immediately. Ask anyone who has had shingles just how much fun it was, and that sure looks like shingles to me.
Suzanne
@Ramona:
There is far too much “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” type thinking, IMO. And the inverse, “whatever people like me believe is correct”. Which is, I suppose, the downside of “magnetism” thinking.
Matt McIrvin
@Scout211: My guess: They’re not naming the “common cream” because it’s ivermectin (being used for a legit purpose, to treat rosacea, but they don’t want the COVID horse paste jokes).
Baud
I hope it’s leprosy.
StringOnAStick
@Scout211: The cream they are talking about is a topical chemo used to prevent skin cancer; my husband had to use it on his face and the redness is caused IT DID NOT LOOK LIKE THAT. Nice try, WH lying doctors! Also, you use it all over and the redness is all over, not just located in one area. Their explanation is BS.
Geminid
@cmorenc: Oh, we’d be better off with Platner than Collins. But a friend and I discussed Platner yesterday and I agreed with his appraisal, that Susan Collins would make mincemeat out of Graham Platner.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: He knows that seat is reserved for Cannon, so no need to up his pandering. In fact, he may see some advantage to shitting all over Trump since Trump doesn’t have anything he wants. I’ll take the win, if so.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yeah, I’ve thought about that in relation to the SAVE Act too. I figure Thune and the remaining handful of Repub senators who are capable of abstract thought realize how much the filibuster shields them from blowback and harms Democrats, so they see it as the more useful tool. We’ll see.
@cmorenc: At first, since I know some of Platner’s antagonists have smeared and exaggerated the flaws of other progressive candidates, I wondered how much of the case against Platner was that kind of bullshit.
Now I think I’ve seen enough to conclude there’s fire under all that smoke, so I’m glad I don’t have to make that Hobson’s choice. I’d go with the “any Democrat is better than any Republican” rule, but I’d have to hold my nose to pull that lever for sure.
different-church-lady
As I realized this past cycle: you can’t come up with a direct counter to what people see on social media because (a) everyone’s getting something different based on the algorithm, and (b) you can’t see what they’re seeing.
Suzanne
@Geminid: I am a hard no on Platner. Not because I think Mills is likely to win. Because I think he’s deeply sus. I don’t think either of them are going to beat Collins.
I feel similarly about Texas. Crockett and Talarico supporters are tearing at each other online, and I think it’s incredibly bad, and neither of them are going to win anyway.
H.E.Wolf
@Betty Cracker:
I’m so out of the loop that I don’t recognize either of the people you mentioned… but I thought the dog looked like a younger version of Walter, the dog that Cole found in his WV house!
Matt McIrvin
@Ramona: The trouble is, being a critical thinker saps your political effectiveness.
Sales people often avoid learning too much about the product because, they say, it inhibits their ability to be “sincere” with the prospective customer.
Lies are stronger than truth in a head-to-head political fight because they can be anything you need them to be. Their only weakness is that they eventually collide with reality.
H.E.Wolf
@Geminid:
Off-topic: I finished “Passin’ Through”, and enjoyed it. Thank you for the long-ago rec!
I also read “The Iron Marshall”; and that suffices for now. I’m returning to David McCullough’s biography of Harry Truman… and then maybe I’ll re-read some Acheson memoirs. I like Acheson’s dry sense of humor.
Geminid
@Suzanne: I think Janet Mills would have a fighting chance against Collins. I haven’t seen much of Mills, but she seems feisty and she’s won statewide at least four times. Assuming there are primary debates, I hope to check one out so I see can Mills in action.
Kirklin
@Suzanne: my sample size is obviously small and biased, but I’m not seeing the Tallarico-Crockett venom anywhere in person
It makes me think a least some of the smoke is from rodent copulation.
Betty Cracker
@different-church-lady: Credit where it’s due, you saw this tsunami of shit coming before most of us on this here blog.
Miss Bianca
@Suzanne: Eh, I don’t know. I’m trying to avoid pre-disappointment on those fronts. I *might* end up pleasantly surprised, after all…
All I know is, I would vote for Mills over Platner, Platner over Collins, and as for Texas…got no opinion about which Dem candidate is better, they both seem like decent hard-working folks to me, and either one would be a vast improvement over whoever the GOP barfs up. Natch.
Baud
@Kirklin:
I see a decent amount of it on Reddit, which is heavily in support of Talarico. But a lot of that is, in fact, rodent copulation
ETA: Texas Dems are engaged. Turnout is very high.
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: Ah yes, Passin’ Through and his misunderstood Blue Roan. I’m glad you liked it. Those sure were some villianous villains. And they seemed so nice!
stinger
@Matt McIrvin: The “preventive” cream doesn’t seem to be doing much. It certainly isn’t preventing a bad rash. I have rosacea with “redness”, and the redness is reddish skin, not a rash, and it’s on my face, not on the side of my neck!
Belafon
@Kirklin: Same. They have chosen not to go after each other. I don’t know if that was an actual agreement or an implicit one, but they are both running against the Republicans from what I have seen.
Ramona
@Suzanne: Thanks Suzanne!
I’m sorry for making you dig up that link and resharing it.
Baud
@Belafon:
They’re not solid people and solid Dems, from what I’ve seen. They appreciate the bigger picture.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: It’s possible Platner could beat Collins if he wins the primary. He seems like a pretty talented communicator, and he’s got some skills or he wouldn’t have weathered all the crap that’s been uncovered about him. Unlike Mills, Platner could play the anti-gerontocracy card.
I also wonder how effective Repubs’ taunting about the Nazi death’s head tattoo and shitty comments about black people and women will be if THEIR base gets wind of it. They might vote for Platner because of instead of despite that stuff!
Belafon
@Miss Bianca: I chose Crockett, but I will have no problem voting for Talarico. He has a very strong anti-ICE ad running.
Citizen Alan
@cmorenc: I’ve said for years now that Aileen Cannon is either going to end up in prison or on SCOTUS.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I think the strategy would be to get cross over Dems, who have shown a willingness to support Collins in the past.
JanieM
@Geminid:
And which elections were those? If you mean her terms as AG, the AG in Maine is elected by the legislature, so that isn’t quite the same as a statewide popular vote.
cmorenc
@hueyplong:
By “good old Souther gal type of integrity” I simply meant you could rely on them to have honest, consistent principles, not that the principles were necessarily the right or best ones. But you knew where they consistently stood, and they weren’t based on adherence to any cult of personality. Like MTG they might fawn on you so long as they believed you were up to their standards, but they would turn on you when they discovered you weren’t.
prostratedragon
Look at a fucking map, you idiots, Part II 🧵:
cmorenc
@Betty Cracker: True, the Platner thing is a prickly dilemma if it does come down to Platner v Collins, and I agree his background provides her with lots of campaign ammo. But he’s the candidate we’re stuck with, keep in mind that 51D senators, even with another prickly Fetterman-like character among them, that’s still better than 50Rs + Vance in the big scheme of things.
stinger
@WaterGirl: Congrats to BJ for making the Mary Peltola goal!
What’s next?
Bill Arnold
FWIW, low-resource open-source LLMs can be used by propaganda automation as well, and they can be run on local hardware fully under the propagandist’s control. And the hardware can be just high-end gaming video cards.
Ramona
@Suzanne: Anat’s piece that you’ve shared is really resonating with me! It is meaty and clearly argued! Thank-you again for going through the trouble of making it available tome now!
I’m going back to reading it now. Just wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying it!
weekendreading.net/p/bringing-a-survey-to-a-gun-fight
Kirklin
@prostratedragon: A Very long time ago I did a logistics review of options in support of an invasion of Iran.
Our least difficult option is to seize and hold the south and west coast plus about 30 miles in.
Picture holding the US west coast up to and slightly into the mountains, starting from Baja, and all supplies coming from China.
We did not and do not have the military capacity even with civ-mil agreements.
Betty Cracker
@cmorenc: 100%.
Another Scott
@Kirklin: Balloon-Juice.com – Is there anything it cannot do??
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Jackie
@cmorenc: Do you think the Senate would confirm Cannon? Or is she a bridge too far for even most senate republicans?
WaterGirl
@cmorenc: We’re not stuck with him yet!
I assumed there was an invisible IF in your comment? :-)
Suzanne
@Kirklin:
Hard, hard agree. I have historically tried to read a lot of people I disagree with, even hate-read….. and that has led me to stay on Xhitter, for the purposes of “awareness”. Knowing the enemy, and all that. But since the election, I find it has actually made me feel even worse and more pessimistic and more alienated from other Democrats. Which, then…. leads me to think that They want me to feel that way. They want me to be demoralized.
Suzanne
@Ramona: OMG it was no trouble at all. Glad you’re enjoying! I found it really insightful, too.
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: The Platner campaign has raised plenty of money. Figures for 2025 Q4 were Platner $4.6 million, and Mills $2.5 million.
Michael Kruse wrote what I thought was a very sympathetic profile of Platner that Politico Magazine published in December. The origin story of the Platner campaign really struck me.
This time last year, Graham Platner had no idea he’d be running for office. Then a young couple with connections in the “progressive” political sector pitched a Senate run to him, and he went for it.
They were looking for a “working class” candidate to run against Collins. They had previously “discovered” Dan Osbourne, the union welder who ran for Senate in Nebraska last cycle as an Independent and is running again this year.
The funny thing is, Platner was their second choice. They had started to recruit a union member who worked at Bath Iron Works building ships. He fit the Osbourne template.
But after some long conversations, both sides concluded the iron worker was not cut out to be a candidate. He had a “skeleton” in his closet, something in his past that wasn’t that bad in itself but would still be a handicap in a political campaign.
Then someone told the recruiter couple, “Hey. There’s this guy up the coast who raises oysters. You oughta talk to him.”
gene108
@Belafon:
I think Platner’s roll out message proves the OP topic true. He struck a note that resonated with some voters, who jumped on his bandwagon without doing much critical analysis because of this.
Another Scott
The Senate (apparently all Democrats thus far, except for Thune at the beginning) is having speeches about the Iran attack.
C-Span.org
Blumenthal is speaking at the moment.
Best wishes,
Scott.
gene108
@Miss Bianca:
We underestimate how badly the losses Tester, Brown, and Casey shook Democrats after the 2024 election. Those three had deep roots in their states, did the work to help their states, and still got steam rolled by the 2024 right-wing propaganda machine.
Casey’s loss probably affected how Fetterman is voting now.
Baud
@Kirklin:
@Another Scott:
Balloon Juice should invade a country!
Scout211
Zinke announced he will not run for re-election in Montana CD 01.
And immediately, Conservative radio host Aaron Flint announced his candidacy.
There currently are four Democrats running. Will this be the year that a Democrat wins? It could be at least interesting.
prostratedragon
@Kirklin:
Aaaah!😵💫 Talk about overstretch.
Chetan R Murthy
@hueyplong: And that’s what she’s got, AFAICT. She’s to the -right- of Trump: an authentic herrenvolk nationalist, where Trump sold ’em out for the monied elites. She wants to throw out the immigrants, subjugate Black/Brown, etc, etc, etc. A good ol’ herrenvolk nationalist.
Baud
@Chetan R Murthy:
Trump wants that too. That’s his one true principle other than himself.
different-church-lady
@Betty Cracker: Not really: we all saw the shit coming, we just couldn’t figure out why it was happening because were just operating under an old model. This “insight” of mine (to be charitable) just explains why we were mystified. But (and I’m sketchy on the timeline) I figured it out either shortly before election day or just after.
I dunno if Democratic operatives have figured it out yet, but I know a of us are still operating in an old model where there’s a single “election” instead of millions of bespoke elections. And, it would appear, they’re better at it than we are.
I’m not claiming special insight, I’m just saying it’s an explanation for the “inexplicable.”
different-church-lady
@Baud: Dude, come on: invading is so old hat. Today you just bomb it into rubble.
trollhattan
Germ goblins emerge, right up the hill.
We need to shut down South Carolina until we find out what the hell is going on.
Chetan R Murthy
@Baud: I have to disagree: Trump will throw his Base under the bus, in service of his oligarch backers, and he’s done so many times. I think this is what Ol’ Sporkfoot objects to: he’s hurting the people he’s not meant to hurt — the shitKiKKer white Base.
For Trump, herrenvolk nationalism is a -means-; for Ol’ Sporkfoot (so far) it’s an -end-.
Miss Bianca
@Geminid: And they never discovered…the
skeletonsTotenkopf in *this guy’s* closet before going, “oh, hell yeah, here’s our working-class white guy hero”? Oy.Makes me wonder what the hell the other guy’s deal was. And btw, thanks a fucking lot, “progressive (white) couple.” With friends like this, who needs enemas?
And I am revising my comment to Suzanne to say, “if Platner is the Dem candidate, then yes, say hello to another Collins Senate term.” Because – I think it was you who opined, correctly, to my thinking – that Collins will eat him alive and hardly trouble her digestion with a burp afterwards.
trollhattan
@prostratedragon:
They will be VERY SURPRISED by our amphibious invasion from the Caspian Sea.
JML
@H.E.Wolf: Chris Taylor was a great legislator before becoming a judge; I thought she was going to end up leading the Assembly.
Love to get a Madison Liberal on the WI Supreme Court. Keep that majority locked in! Need to it to finally break the GOP gerrymanders and other shenanigans.
Scout211
CENTCOM on X
Making a death announcement on X? Really CENTCOM? Ugh. I can just feel the warm empathy right there. Maybe they need to learn some emoji that reflects feelings. Or not. Ugh
RevRick
@Betty Cracker: These tactics only work in marginal elections where a few hundred thousand votes one way or the other are decisive. But in a wave election, not so much.
But a much more important factor is who is in power/in charge and who is not. Running a campaign of little grievances really only works well when it’s aimed at the in power people. It isn’t nearly as effective trying to defend a regime that is itself the source of whopping grievances, which is where the Trump regime is right now.
Every GOP candidate for federal or state office is, in some way, complicit with what Trump has done and is doing. He is their albatross and if you can add Musk as an anchor, by all means do it. In fact, I would run attack ads assuming that any dark money ads were coming from Musk. Make him the GOP George Soros boogeyman.
Suzanne
@gene108:
Bang on. All three of them are good normie workhorse Dems and it didn’t matter.
Suzanne
@Miss Bianca:
I don’t know that I’m the one that said it, but I certainly agree. She’s an institution up there.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Voters know who’s making their life miserable: Goliath grocery chains. Big insurers/pharma/tech, etc. Even Dem consultant pollsters like Adam Carlson say:
“Bashing corporations and bashing the 1% millionaires, billionaires – it polls off the charts.”
Our economic story flinches at the moment it needs to land a punch: Naming who’s responsible.
That’s a non-negotiable element that’s too often missing.
-Data shows voters see solutions as more credible when leaders name who’s responsible and commit to fighting back.
-When you don’t establish at the outset that a problem is person-made, it becomes implausible that it could be person-fixed.
Being specific also cuts through. Ticketmaster. Instacart. Monopolistic utilities (like mine, Xcel, I have a story from a data center opposition community hearing here in Denver last week and the reaction people had to the Xcel rep was one step short of pitchforks and torches), price fixing landlords. The list is damn near endless.
It signals ‘I exist in your world’ “The names that you suspect are bad faith actors, I know those names, and I’m willing to say them out loud.”
Gvg
@lowtechcyclist: other rich people didn’t manage to get appointed to slash government spending with access to everyone’s private identifying information and government records which he wasn’t qualified for, wasn’t elected to and he and his lackeys copied and stole some in insecure ways illegally, all because he gave a lot of money to the Presidents campaign. He is richer than anyone else and other mega wealthy people haven’t even tried the shit he has done. He also showed he was pig ignorant about what was waste and wants to cut important benefits and safety nets that ordinary people (like you) worked hard for and need, because he calls that waste, but keep getting huge government payouts for his business that are the chief way he got so rich, for himself. He’ll cut your earned benefits so he can get another tax cut. This guy specifically, you saw him do it. Not every rich person, this one. That’s why this one is a problem. That’s what you tell the normy who asks. Remind them they saw it happen. Because a lot of people really do want to think they will be rich someday….
cmorenc
@WaterGirl: yep, there was an “if” printed in invisible ink.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Am I reading that right? Two US service people were in the area T bombed????
prostratedragon
@trollhattan: To which the mountains back up. Cherce.
Gvg
We could also be running attack ads against the dark money and showing all the different ways secret funding is manipulating us. Multiple ads, different cases. It’s not just politics either, it’s advertising and fraud scams. They are all connected. We have to get it under control and it can’t all be up to the voter/consumer. We need to protect ourselves more.
Scout211
@WaterGirl: I read it as the Iranians attacked the base in Kuwait. But it’s X and space is limited.
Ramona
@Matt McIrvin: Exactly! Being a critical thinker entails the willingness and ability to put a check on one’s emotions at times in order to coldly evaluate one’s preferred options but a successful political movement has to be able to summon emotion. This puts critical thinkers at a disadvantage in politics.
Interesting Name Goes Here
@cmorenc: Some lines aren’t meant to be crossed ever, and nominating someone like Platner is one of those lines. He’s a win-win for the GOP – if he somehow beats Collins, they’ll just find someone else who can do everything he does but is way more comfortable and skilled at being a racist little shit, and when called out on it they’ll just point to Nazi Boy and ask, “Oh, so now it’s an issue?” And of course, if (and most likely when) he loses, they’ll celebrate Collins’ resilience while lambasting Dems for choosing such an obviously compromised candidate. Then they’ll laugh their asses off as Progressives lose their shit once more and threaten to do everything but the right fucking thing (as is their wont) while Graham settles in to his new job as Fox News correspondent.
mapanghimagsik
Fr. Jud Duplenticy: Maybe we need to get back to fundamentals. You know, basic building blocks on how to genuinely inspire people.
Cy Draven: The basics. Like show them something they hate and then make them afraid it’s going to take away something they love?
Geminid
@Miss Bianca: Platner doesn’t strike me as being all that bright. Or maybe he has a mental impairment. He got a full disability pension for service-related injury, and there’s a reason for that.
Platners campaign launch video showed that physically, the guy is quite vigorous. They had him splitting wood, swinging kettleballs, walking out of the ocean with cage full.of oysters on his shoulder; a real-life working man. Producer Morris Katz did a great job, like he’d done for Zohran Mamdani.
But whatever the reason, consciously or not, Platner held stuff back. He might not have thought about all his Reddit posts when they interviewed him The bad ones were four and five years old. Or maybe he thought, “I can just delete them. And nobody’s gotta know about the tatoo.”
The tatoo story only came out because somebody Platner knew 12 years ago, from his bartending days in DC, told Jewish Insider about it. She said Platner told her straight-up that it was a Totenkopf.
H.E.Wolf
The Attorney General of Maine, yes, is elected by the legislature.
Prior to her stint as Maine’s Attorney General, Janet Mills served 4 terms in the Maine state legislature.
After her two terms as state Attorney General, Janet Mills was elected Governor of Maine twice, for 2 four-year terms.
So JanieM and Geminid are each correct about part of Mills’s political career. Let’s hear it for crowdsourcing!
Melancholy Jaques
@Suzanne:
I agree with you. She won by eight points in a state that Joe Biden won by nine points.
Although we are sick to death of Collins and her “concerned moderate” act, I haven’t seen evidence that Maine voters have turned on her or that they are crying out of any Democrat to replace her. The normies that determine the outcomes in the races can turn on a couple of ads highlighting a stupid culture war objection to whichever Democrat wins the primary.
sab
I only work seasonally. Feb 1 until april 15.
Suits me.
My cats are devastated. Where the hell am I all day? Feed and water them then gone completely for hours.
I got home and the dog barked like a maniac so I took her outside. She wasn’t desperate. Just her way to get quality time, outside in the rain.
Anyone who thinks cats don’t care about or notice their owners have never had cats.
My guys, usually aloof, are annoyingly clingy when I return from the wilds of suburban Cleveland. Same guys who ignored me all summer.
Geminid
@JanieM: Ah, I did not know that. I noticed that Mills’s terms as AG were for only two years, but I did not inquire as to why that was.
Geminid
@H.E.Wolf: Fun fact: when Janet Mills was appointed Prosecutor for a three-county circuit and then was elected to that post in 1980, she was the first woman Prosecutor in all of New England.
WaterGirl
@Scout211: Oh, that would make more sense. But still awful that soldiers are losing their lives on a whim from an insane leader.
WaterGirl
@mapanghimagsik: There’s a lot of time for Platner to implode before the early June primary. Let’s hope he continues to show who he is.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Given his age, pretty much any rash like that is going to be a problem. But then his entire life is a problem.
Paul in KY
@Baud: I would think we still could. Maybe not as effective as theirs, but it could be done.
Paul in KY
@JustRuss: That would freak me out.
Paul in KY
@Miss Bianca: I just let the pros do their thing.
Paul in KY
@Geminid: The Epstein stuff must be so awful for him. Yick.
Paul in KY
@cmorenc: Platner (as long as he caucuses with us, etc.) would be way better than Ole Furrowed Brow.
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: I am surprised she’s still alive! Yay! What a role she played/owned in Caberet.
Paul in KY
@Baud: I think that starts at the extremities (nose, fingers, toes).
Paul in KY
@Suzanne: I think if Coryn gets beat in primary that we have a ‘punchers chance’ in that race. Still most probably going to stay GQP. If TACO keeps punking the Hispanics, maybe Talarico could make hay with that?
Paul in KY
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Our candidates need to slag the hell out of the rich bastards. Even those who give us campaign contributions. Is nothing personal, just trying to get elected.