Felt like we could use one.
Do yourself a favor and watch the Bill Burr special on Hulu/Disney.
War for Ukraine Day 1,115: Another Russian Double Tap Strike on Ukrainian First RespondersReader Interactions
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Comments are closed.
Come for the politics, stay for the snark.
Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.
Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)
Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.
Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.
Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.
Second rate reporter says what?
Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.
“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”
This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.
I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.
So very ready.
Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!
The gop is a fucking disgrace.
If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!
There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.
You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.
The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.
Petty moves from a petty man.
If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.
Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.
This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.
Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.
Weird. Rome has an American Pope and America has a Russian President.
When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.
sentient ai from the future
oh right like i’m gonna sign up for hulu or pay for disney+
*checks thepiratebay
sentient ai from the future
so it’s an open thread.
jenn burleton is my friend but one i have only made recently via my trans child.
jenn is in portland, oregon, where tolerance is expected and state level resources are expended to enforce that even against the federal government, as has recently happened.
but she was still forced out of the advocacy role she herself built.
youtu.be/7FSE2QyFCSg
Socolofi
ESPN+ does support the NHL, which is mostly Canadians and some Canadiens. And any company DeSantis hates that much is probably worth something.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
Something I think worth keeping in mind: almost every D in the House voted against the CR and a big chunk of the Senate did as well. The story goes that a lot of the House feels slighted because they felt they went out on a limb and then got left there.
If you have a representative or a senator who voted against the CR, consider calling their office and thanking them or congratulating them or basically expressing your support for them. A lot of the times Ds shoot away from the left or from unity or whatever because when they do politically dangerous things they don’t get support or encouragement from us. Let them know if you approve of the fight they put up.
Even if you’re disappointed in the Senate, this whole thing has shown us where a lot of Democrats stand, and that’s valuable going forward.
Mai Naem mobil
Has there ever been a product situation like Tesla and Edolph? I know there are people who were long term endorsers of products like Bill Cosby and Jello pudding but I can’t think of a situation where a product has become toxic because of the CEO. Maybe Lance Armstrong and Live Strong?
brendancalling
I have at long last properly arranged the living room, and while the front room has a ways to go, it’s almost there. It needs a rug to tie the space together.
Mai Naem mobil
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: its not just that the 10 Senate Dems went along but the vote was 54-46. Shaheen and Peters are retiring. My bet is Durbin will retire as well. They didn’t even make JD come in and break a tie. They couldn’t even get Orange Pig to turn the screws on Rand Paul. Rand Paul who has done zero/zip to help the Dems ever. At least fucking pretend to fight.
Eolirin
@Mai Naem mobil: There are very few situations where the CEO is this stupid and also this deeply associated with the product brand.
It’s like if Steve Jobs started killing chickens on stage while yelling racist epitaphs during an Apple Keynote. And then he got to keep being the CEO. Shit like this just doesn’t happen.
Though I think Mark Zuckerberg and Meta are maybe a little similarish? Though it’s less that Zuckerberg is damaging the brand by association, and more that he’s made some very bad and morally questionable decisions in running the place and there’s been blow back over it. It’s usually less about him personally though, so…
Eolirin
@Mai Naem mobil: There are 53 Republican senators. Which one Democrat voted yes? Fetterman?
There was never going to be a tie breaker vote required.
sentient ai from the future
@Eolirin: youtu.be/8fcSviC7cRM
NotMax
@
Enron? My Pillow?
Eolirin
@sentient ai from the future: I mean it was the 90s, everyone was on cocaine. :p
Eolirin
@NotMax: My Pillow! Yeah that one counts.
Enron, I think not so much. That was just fraud.
NotMax
Fix.
@Mai Naem mobil
Enron? My Pillow?
YY_Sima Qian
As expected, CBP & ICE are the leading Fascist elements in the USG:
And
cain
By the after march 28, apparently all the data from your alexa is going to be processed in the cloud rather on the device. So, basically your stuff will be used for training.
I’m not sure that I want Bezos any where near my private life.
YY_Sima Qian
Also reposting from the earlier thread:
Dems’ ability to criticize the disastrous results of the CR will be undermined by having 8 members voting for cloture (clink the link for the more comprehensive list of institutions/agencies to be defunded):
Parfigliano
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: Filing a DOGE Privacy Act Request is putting up more resistance then DEM Senators who voted for cloture on the CR could be troubled to do.
JoyceH
In case anyone imagined that DOGE had the faintest idea what they’re doing — they just cancelled funding for dog food for TSA’s bomb sniffing dogs.
sentient ai from the future
@cain:
xkcd.com/1807/
also:
andrerh.gitlab.io/echoroot/
and all the way back in 2019:
instructables.com/id/Project-Alias/
Melancholy Jaques
@sentient ai from the future:
I really thought he was going to shout that he lived in a van, down by the river.
Eolirin
@YY_Sima Qian: That framing is a bit silly to me though; if the government had been shut down Trump would have done crazy things to take advantage of that too. Would we be saying Dems have undermined their ability to criticize Trump, say, redefining SSDI payment processing as non-essential during a shutdown because they didn’t vote for cloture?
The CR isn’t making Trump do the things Trump is doing, and allowing cloture to prevent a shutdown isn’t an endorsement of those actions.
YY_Sima Qian
@Eolirin: That is obvious to us. Good luck making that counter factual case (we prevented worse) to the general public.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Mai Naem mobil:
@Parfigliano:
It’s late, I’m dumb and a little loopy (but those last two are always true): diss/agreement, Yes/No?
Jax
Hi, I’m Jax. I’ve been a lurker around here a few times. I’m a regular over on outsidethebeltway.com since like 2008.
OTB has recently gone dark, I suspect it’s because one of the front-pager’s might lose his job given the current….political climate.
Trying to find my friends. OzarkHillbilly (RIP) was a mutual friend on this site, I think Jon and Mister Bluster might be as well? Are you out there?
Mai Naem mobil
@Eolirin: you’re right on the final.vote but they did give them extra votes for cloture that they didn’t need to and yes I understand the putting having a target on your back if they there’s no spare votes.
JaySinWA
Dead man talking:
“DOGE Has 10 Staffers at Social Security in Hunt for Dead People,” the headlines read this past week.
I found a dead person on Social Security. Right here in Seattle, on Capitol Hill.
seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/heres-a-dead-person-on-social-security-in-seattle-with-plenty…
Mai Naem mobil
@NotMax: I forgot my pillow and ofcourse it’s another tfg situation. I don’t remember Enron being connected to the CEO like Edolph is.
John S.
Holy shit, I just finished watching the Bill Burr special (filmed in Seattle). I almost hurt myself laughing so hard.
cain
@sentient ai from the future:
Nice..I think you can piece together all kinds of stuff now using that alexa.
I’ve also noticed that they have made it really annoying. No doubt to get you to move to their next gen product
Mai Naem mobil
@JoyceH: Mitt Romney will be right there to load those dogs up on the roof of his car and transport them to Kristi Noem so she can shoot those lazy layabout dogs. All this will ofcourse be carried live on FOX.
prostratedragon
The Egg War?!!! or, Dear Denmark, whatever you do, don’t send those eggs!
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: My brother in law from China had a green card for twenty five years. This year he decided he needed full citizenship. His pension is from here not China. I am kind of relieved although the Muskrats terrify me
ETA : I hope he hasn’t closed off ties to China, but his child and grandchildren are here so hadn’t much choice. Difficult to love two countries whose governments are at odds.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Good luck w/ his naturalization process! I hope that it is as smooth as it would have been pre-Jan. 20, 2025. Clearly, having valid visas or being a permanent resident means nothing to this reactionary bunch. We’ll see much naturalized citizenship means.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s all done. They even turned up at the naturalization ceremony to fast forward the passport process. This was after the election but before inaugurating our Felon.
sab
@sab: His grandfather was at almost Norman Bethune level of importance in Chinese medicine. Generations of practice in traditional medicine but grandfather went to western medical school in Shanghai in the 1940s and was instrumental in combining traditional and modern medicine because he had kept a lifetime of case notes under both systems.
My Sis married into an interesting family.
Splitting Image
@Mai Naem mobil:
Dov Charney at American Apparel?
Lily
@YY_Sima Qian: Sorry to say, Dr. Rasha Alawieh has now been deported. My understanding is that a judge ordered a stay, which arrived while a plane she was on was on the tarmac, but the plane took off anyway. From Logan I think.
Mai Naem mobil
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: I agree and I have called both my rep and senators but the Senate stuff needs to stop looking like Kabuki theater stuff. The past 9 months have really made me feel like I’m being conned and I’m not talking just about tfg who I always thought of as a late night get rich quick infomercial conman.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I don’t know why something you say is obvious to us is such a hard sell to the general public. We are not so much smarter, and the general public is not so much dumber. I think in ways, the general public is effectively smarter because they do not overthink these matters like many of us do.
sab
@Splitting Image: I am commuting an hour north every day during accountant tax season. Tesla drivers used to be sensible. Expensive car expensive to fix. So they were noteworthy for being sensible and polite in traffic.
Lately I have noticed some striking MAGA traffic rules don’t apply to me behavior by Tesla drivers. Big shift there.
JaySinWA
@sab: Maybe the Telsa drivers are looking for an insurance buyout?
sab
@sab: I may be off a generation on who went to western medical school. Who knew U Penn set up a medical school in Shanghai after WWII?
Mai Naem mobi
@prostratedragon: nah, sell the eggs for crazy money with extra special US premium and send the premium money to Ukraine. Call it the Donald Ukraine Thanks You tax. DUTY tax.
sab
@JaySinWA: Every Tesla driver I know is desperate to unload the car.
Spelling is hard. So many choices, most of them wrong.
ETA I fixed “desperate”.
Jay
cbc.ca/news/world/trump-alien-enemies-act-of-1798-tren-de-aragua-venezuela-gang-1.7484892
All your “institutions ” are failing.
Rusty
@YY_Sima Qian: The second case was particularly horrific. He was intensively questioned, stripped naked, thrown in a cold shower, put back in a chair and eventually hospitalized. This is torture, we are torturing green card holders (just to be absolutely clear, I would find it completely immoral no matter what the status of the person this was done to). This is the behavior of a deep authoritarian state. Repulsive, obscene, repellent, sickening.
Lily
Here is the updated, disgraceful story of US treatment of Dr. Rasha Alawieh:
providencejournal.com/story/news/local/2025/03/15/rhode-island-doctor-rasha-alawieh-deported-despite…
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: In my house husband and I are stridently disagreeing on the point of CR vote good or bad.
ColoradoGuy
@Mai Naem mobil: The comparable thing that comes to mind is Charles Lindbergh, who gradually became more and more Nazi-adjacent, and wrote op-eds urging the USA to abandon the British. He went from astronaut-levels of All-American Hero to palling around with lowlifes like Hitler and Herman Goering.
But he was never a CEO of anything, more of a PR guy for the early airlines. And Henry Ford paid no price at all for his virulent antisemitism.
Melon Husk torched his Tech Messiah image beyond repair. He may have some credibility left with the Gamergate crowd, and the Claremont Institute hothouse weirdos. The Occupy Mars thing is now right alongside the (obvious) Hyperloop scam.
TurnItOffAndOnAgain
@Mai Naem mobil: That’s fine; I was just a little unsure what that has to do with my post.
Jay
@Lily:
If you are in the US, on any kind of Visa, or Green Card,
get out while you can.
sab
Rules don’t apply to anyone not a citizen on US soil. I went to law school fifty years ago and there were different rules then. The Federalist Society decided only rules they made counted, and their Supreme Court people agree. They make the rules. Forget history and stare decisis.
Jay
@sab:
rules no longer even apply to US citizens on US soil.
sab
@Jay: I know. Yikes
District and Appeals Court judges still follow their rules, but then cases get to Supreme Court and the only rules are what non-lawyer major fundraiser Federalist Society guy Leonard Leo thinks they are.
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: I don’t know, defending one’s position by arguing the counterfactual of a worse outcome is almost always a loser, because the counterfactual remains theoretical. It is not just in politics, & it is not just in the US.
Historically, Dems taking the course of least harm generally pisses off many partisans for conceding too much, while getting no credit from the “normies” for preventing a hypothetical. It is a very tricky balance strike & very tricky narrative to make persuasive, to blame the Repubs for all of the damage done, under the auspices of the legislation that Dems let pass because the hypothetical alternative was worse. Most people are not that analytical.
In this case, whether the alternative of government shutdown is worse is debatable, at least the balance is not lopsided. But in any case, the Senate Dem leadership (specifically Schumer) kneecapped whatever case they could have made by doing a 180 in < 24 hrs, & w/ the communications from House & Senate Dems failing to complement each other.
Like I said elsewhere, voting Yes on cloture is a defensible choice, even though it is one I believe is wrong (tactically & strategically) for this moment of grave national peril, & there is a case that can be made to the public & the partisans alike. For that case to be effective, the messaging from House & Senate Dems, outside groups, & the union for federal workers, have to be in sync & reinforce each other. That is not what has happened.
brendancalling
@Eolirin: You ain’t kidding! Dude is grinding his teeth down to stumps!
I’m still up at 2:30 AM here in Philly, so you’d think I’m flying on blow myself. I’m not—I HAVE been smoking weed all day however—and I just got done reorganising the 1st floor. Yes, I’m SURE I haven’t been dipping into the Bolivian marching powder.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Congratulations to him! Still has to watch his back in these perilous times. The current USG is not out there looking after his interests, more likely to be the persecuting party.
Melancholy Jaques
Took your advice. It was good. Second the recommendation.
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: You have to go where your pension is. And where your grandkids are. Modern life in a multinational world.
It sucks when people in all the worlds are very nationalistic.
Jay
@sab:
And they have no army.
Canada has asylum.
YY_Sima Qian
@Jay:
@sab: Green card holders have always been more vulnerable, just that the abuse had been relatively infrequent & seldomly got media attention:
Any wonder, then, that the number of international students from the PRC to the US has been dropping fast, & leading Chinese academics are decamping from the US back to the PRC at an increasing pace?
& now the house GOP is proposing to ban from granting PRC nationals student visas.
Interestingly, the PRC is not among the nations whose visitors face heightened visa restrictions, in the new draft list proposed by Trump’s State Dept., at least for now. (gift link to NYT article below):
Don’t know why Bhutan is on the banned list alongside the likes of Iran, NK, Cuba & Venezuela.
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: That is why my parents are US citizens.
Getting US citizenship actually makes it easier for him to actually retire in the PRC (should he & his family choose to do so), w/o worrying about losing his legal status.
YY_Sima Qian
I guess foreign universities will stop taking USG money:
No One You Know
@TurnItOffAndOnAgain: Done. Although my Senators are solidly opposed. It’s always helpful to notice positively. Everyone has rime to take a compliment.
YY_Sima Qian
@Rusty: I suspect the Lebanese doctor had posted pro-Palestinian messages on social media, & the latter case has a marijuana possession misdemeanor charge that had been dropped.
CBP & ICE on Fascistic power trips.
Jay
@YY_Sima Qian:
In the 80’s worked for a pretty progressives tech company.
At the time, I worked as the Master Production Scheduler, at our sub, in Milwaukee, 3 weeks a month, then, because of the time difference, as a Purchaser 4 hours a day on top.
Cab ride out to YVR. Pakistani trained as a CS engineer. Talked some, gave him our head of CS Engineering’s card. Told him to use my name.
Came back to YVR, to find him on the production line.
Better pay and way better benefits than as a cabbie.
Company paid for his Canadian CS Engineering Degree.
4 years on , he was #2 in CS Engineering.
At Depot, I met “International Students”, who were morons, family money, and some, who I was like , WTF, why are you working at The Orange?
But I am old,…….
YY_Sima Qian
The Trump State Dept. has also expelled the new South African ambassador, who had just presented his credentials to then President Biden on 1/13. Rubio called Ambassador Rasool a” race baitor”.
Presumably this is done at the behest of Musk & other white South African origin TechBros, as retaliation to South Africa passing legislation that made it easier for the government to expropriate land in the public’s interest.
Baud
@Geminid:
No one here is going to refuse to listen to AOC because of the Senate vote. The collective guilt thing is selectively applied.
It’s also self inflicted damage, since it teaches normies to apply collective guilt to the whole party whenever some Dem does something they don’t like.
Normies aren’t paying attention to the Senate vote. Only right wing media and angry Dems will use this to distract people from what Trump’s doing.
Baud
Via Reddit
Baud
Site was down for about 10 minutes.
prostratedragon
@Baud: The article speaks of necessary inspections and other technicalities to be addressed before a deal could even be struck. Haven’t the Clever Hans crew over here fired all those?
Baud
@prostratedragon:
They have redefined free range hens to mean raised on unregulated farms.
Baud
Via Reddit, thanks WaterGirl
BellyCat
@Jax: Losing your longterm digital support group must be devastating. I’m sorry.
Baud
Via Reddit, there’s still some joy to be had in this world.
prostratedragon
@Baud: What that be, a modifier shift to an occluded or unvoiced subject?
@Baud:
GuFAW!!
Matt McIrvin
@Mai Naem mobil: It *should have* happened to the Ford Motor Company, but it didn’t because that shit was normalized in the 1920s and 30s.
Matt McIrvin
@JoyceH:
Hey, if Trump gets a 9/11, it could be as good for him as it was for Bush.
kalakal
@Mai Naem mobil:
Gerald Ratner springs to mind
He made a couple of jokes about his company ( one of the largest high street jewellery chains in the world) in 1991 and wiped half a billion off the share price overnight, he was sacked and the company went into financial restructuring
Gerald Ratner
and the fateful line
Matt McIrvin
@ColoradoGuy:
I’m assuming his star has risen among right-wing lunatics. They don’t seem to be a majority but they could still win to a degree that it doesn’t matter.
Princess
@Mai Naem mobil: You’re confusing the cloture vote with the final vote on the bill.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: Weird list, seems heavily tilted toward keeping Black people out, though even there there’s some arbitrariness that is hard to explain. Given Trump’s preferences the most surprising one to me is Russia.
Baud
@kalakal:
Nominated!
sab
@YY_Sima Qian: Yikes. My city has a big Bhutanese refugee population that has completely restored one of our most blighted neighborhoods. We are a blue city and this is a success story. So of course the Republicans will ban Bhutanese.
kalakal
@Baud: He also pre-empted the Lettuce Liz jokes by 30 years
TS
@YY_Sima Qian:
I sure hope so. Half of the US has always appeared to believe US Law applied to every country in the world, now the administration believes that as well. Our Labor (dems) party should be happy that trump is helping them win an election because their RW opposition will do all that trump demands, and like Canadians, most Australians do not want that to happen.
kalakal
@YY_Sima Qian:
Why do I feel that this attempt at worldwide thought control will work as well for US research as Lysenkoism did for the Soviets?
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s also because South Africa was considering a deal with Starlink and just said “no thanks” rather than move forward.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: …but since I had also heard rumors that they were going to ban travel from Nigeria, it’s interesting that that one’s not on the list.
WereBear
@Jax: Welcome. That’s tough. I had one that was really great, then the hosting tent got bought and ruined…
WereBear
@prostratedragon: King Baby does act like an abusive spouse…
but I repeat myself.
sentient ai from the future
bhutan might be a musk flex, starlink recently started offering service there and local telecoms are responding by dropping their rates which undercut him
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@sentient ai from the future: So that has a Starlink angle too? Jesus we’re torching all our diplomatic ties to prop up Musk enterprises. What could go wrong?
Ohio Mom
@Jax: Welcome! Stick around.
I’d say we don’t bite but I’m not sure that is true of all of us. Especially in these fraught times.
Just ignore any biters you come across, that’s what I do.
Ohio Mom
@JaySinWA: I foresee a lot of survivors — widows and minor children, adults with disability — getting bounced off the rolls.
Ohio Dad made much more money than I ever did, so I’m on his account, as is Ohio Son as a disabled adult. We each get the equivalent of half of his benefit, and when he dies, if we survive him, we’ll get bumped up to 75%.
I’m not going to claim there are no dead people receiving benefits, just that it would be an extremely small number and they will spend more money looking for them than finding them.
satby
@Baud: Thank you! Out in the world of non-obsessive political watchers I find most of them never know who to specifically blame when votes fail. It’s frustrating because it also means the Democrats don’t get lasting credit when an important vote gets passed.
WereBear
@kalakal: Imagine my delight when I found out Crazy Eddie really was.
Ohio Mom
@cain: A good number of disabled people use Alexa and what’s the other one, Siri. If they are mobility impaired to do things like turn things on and off, if they are forgetful for whatever reason, to remind them to take meds, etc.
I have no experience with either system, have no need for anything like that and plan to avoid them. You just gave me another reason.
Baud
Via reddit, five alarm fire for RFK Jr.!
sab
@sab: I was being snide in my comment but it might be accurate.
We had a neighborhood that suffered badly in the 1960s riots and never recovered. The entire commercial district was boarded up except for a couple of bank branches. For fifty years. We rebuilt every high school except that one,
Then we started to get Bhutanese refugees. They came into that neighborhood because housing was cheap, and there was an “international institute” ( that is is also its actual name) that helps immigrants with language and also just life skills (where to buy affordable household needs like furniture and pots and pans.)
Twenty years later that boarded up neighborhood is thriving. The boarded up commercial properties are all active again. The city just passed (by popular vote) a huge property tax increase part of which will let them rebuild their high school like all the others already had.
The Bhutanese started it. Congolese have added to that. Basically all foreign refugees did it. Saved a neighborhood
ETA We also got a championship high school soccer team when before we had no soccer team
sentient ai from the future
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?: i am speculating, its the responsible thing to do
Ohio Mom
@Rusty: I thought I read that it turned out he had the flu on top of being tortured, and that what ultimately sent him to the hospital. I hope he was in a very contagious phase and breathed hard on all of them. And that they skipped their flu shots.
sab
@Rusty: I had always thought green card holders were basically Americans without voting rights. Another norm smashed.
kalakal
@sab: That’s essentially what we are/were
WereBear
@Ohio Mom: The only real grip we had on corporations was suing them, and now they don’t care about good PR. Customer service has been dead so long the tombstone arrived.
Compelling us to BUY is the last power left.
sab
I live in Ohio which has descended into having a Dixie level of bad government. We were in my youth good at governing. Good schools. Good governance. Not at all recently. Now it is all just smash and grab. Rampant corruption. Unresponsive state agencies. Every government official on the take from out of state and out of country bad operatives.
Citizens United opened a firehouse of corruption.
ETA The huge problem is that when people get mad at bad government they vote for the anti-government party. The Republicans. Who are responsible for the bad government.
TBone
Deleted for more coffee
The successful cure was announced in 2023 at a cost of $2.2 million per
nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fda-approves-cure-sickle-cell-disease-first-treatment-use-gene-editin…
Maybe that’s why we don’t hear of frequent success.
prostratedragon
@Baud: Fantastic news! Apparently, genetic treatment of some of the patient’s own stem cells, so that they will make proper hemoglobin.
WereBear
@sab: That is what they fear the South will learn. And our criminal aristocracy, where the 1% ruled the agrarian South, are still operating.
Confederate-run states are collapsing. These creaky empires built on wage theft, land theft, people theft. And they were already getting welfare to keep them alive, because red states do not care. People fleeing for a while now.
Republican lack of regulation, combined with climate change, means their homes are too expensive to live in. But they did save money on the state income tax.
Yes, and it’s a better tax because you pay more when you make more money. Instead, red states will whittle income to death with rising expenses.
sab
@WereBear: I am a bigot (anti- South). My parents were Western Reserve Ohioans who moved South (North Carolina, Kentucky, Florida). I really think that culture is beyond toxic. And it spreads.
Western Reserve Ohio was basically New England. Education. Abolition. Hard work. President Grant.
Baud
@sab:
The other option has minorities.
Baud
Via reddit
Steve in the ATL
@Baud: is it ok to say “fucking moron” on Sunday morning?
Baud
@Steve in the ATL:
It is in my church. It’s actually part of the standard homily.
To be fair, before the election, there were stories about people not voting blue because they blamed Dems for Dobbs. So it’s not exclusively a MAGA problem.
sab
@Baud: Sob, yes. We as Americans are just pathetic as humans. Racist to the core.
TBone
Comment of the Day so far
(Elno announced yesterday that we’re going to Mars by next year, while Donold & Co. are now working on dismantling local Community Development Banks.)
YY_Sima Qian
@sab: Interesting. I am surprised that there is such a thing as Bhutanese refugees. Bhutan supposedly has some of the highest happiness ratings in the world, going on for decades.
Geminid
@YY_Sima Qian: I do not think members of the general public– so-called “normies”– care about this cloture vote issue like many of the more politically engaged Democrats do. I’m not sure the “normies” even notice the debate over this cloture vote even though many people here–myself included– can’t stop talking about it.
If for instance, this administration lays off a couple hundred people working on the Hanford nuclear site cleanup, those workers will blame Trump and the Republicans, and not Chuck Schumer and the nine other Democratic Senators because they could not have stopped those layoffs by denying cloture. They would have in fact accelerated them.
When a local auto dealer and a boat salesman talk about how sales just fell a cliff, the boat salesman isn’t gonna cite some American Prospect article showiing that 30% of the blame attaches to Chuck Schumer and company; and the auto dealer isn’t gonna come back with, “that Slate op-ed says it’s 50%!”
They’ll know who to blame, and that will be Trump and the Republicans.
If Rep. Dan Newhouse summons up the guts to hold a town hall and his constituents start yelling about the layoffs at Hanford, and layoffs at Bonneville Dam and the Pacific Northwest National Lab, Newhouse isn’t going be able to shine them off by offloading blame onto Democratic Senators. If he starts talking the “bipartisan cloture vote” they’ll just yell louder.
I think the reverse will be true for my Congressman, Eugene Vindman (VA07). When Vindman is out on the hustings slamming the treatment of federal workers in his district– and VA07 is full of federal workers and contractors– and somebody raises the cloture issue, Vindman can correctly tell them that this matter is irrelevant and a distraction from the main issue: the damage done by Trump and the Republican Congress.
Some of Rep. Vindman’s more politically engaged Democratic constituents might still be grumbling and griping about Chuck Schumer. Vindman can tell them and everyone else that while he might strongly disagree with Schumer’s and the others’ votes on cloture, those votes do not in any way absolve Trump and the Republicans of their responsiblity for the damage. A lot his Democratic constituents will not even need to be told that. And plenty of 7th District Democrats will be like: “Cloture vote? I guess I must have missed that.”
Baud
Via reddit, y’all will like this. Especially TBone.
mayim
@sab: Lewiston, Maine, has had a similar return to having a vibrant downtown and excellent high school soccer team with an influx of Somali refugees. In the 1980s, after various mills closed to move south, downtown Lewiston was a ghost town. Rents for both housing and storefronts was cheap, so refugees were settled in Lewiston, leading to a fair bit of tension between the new [black, Muslim] residents and the local population [mostly Catholic, with French-Canadian ancestry, the children/grandchildren of immigrants who came to work in those mills].
The stores run by the immigrants have lead to other businesses also opening on Main Street. The other important contributor to Main Street’s revival: the city library decided to stay on Main Street and renovate their building instead of moving to somewhere at the outskirts.
WereBear
@Baud: People want to punish the people they feel are safe to threaten.
Like the fool sheriff deciding to frame someone to “calm down the town” for his upcoming election, but the real killer still lurks.
sab
Husband just woke up. Wants his brunch. High light of my week.
WaterGirl
@Jax: I’m sorry you have lost your peeps and I hope you find them again. You are welcome here!
Baud
@WereBear:
100%
TBone
@Baud: oh how right you are – I hope that goes viral immediately!!! That guy needs milions of new followers!
sab
@mayim: I think we stole a bunch of your guys. We had some Mainers move in last few years.
Proving we want these people so much we are poaching other states immigrants,
I hate J D Vance. Every chance I get to tell his toddler that her dad is horrible person I will do.
Another Scott
@Baud: +1
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@sab: During Bush’s second term, when everything was going to hell, I remember Republicans literally trying the line “when government is screwing up so badly, do you REALLY want to vote for the party that wants you more dependent on government?”
Just blatantly “vote for us because we suck”.
I remember saying at the time that the obstacle to a Republican one-party state was that you can’t have a government with just an opposition party. But someone argued that the Communist Party of the USSR kind of had the same stance, in which the authorities in control were perpetually “revolutionary” and anyone opposing them was counterrevolutionary.
Matt McIrvin
@YY_Sima Qian: I have always been REALLY suspicious of that “happiness rating” stuff. It sounds like a society where people are pressured to claim they’re happy. Like Helen A’s Happiness Patrol from Doctor Who.
satby
@Geminid: but the screaming about spineless Democrats by other Democrats will still undercut the unity we need for the meaningful steps that can be taken. So, mission accomplished there.
Besides, though some claim otherwise, a shut down would be devastating to deadly for people, and the current regime would be under no real pressure to reverse it quickly.
Matt McIrvin
@WereBear:
Not really. The ones in Greater Appalachia are losing population but Texas and Florida, which have the worst governments of the lot, are still booming as far as I know.
In fact, if you talk to Republicans they’ll talk about how people are fleeing the blue states and going by population change, they have a point, particularly for New York and California–though I think this is driven more by expensive real estate than anything else.
I suspect it’s not so much that people want tyranny (though a lot of conservatives do), as that the repulsion of it is still exceeded by the attraction of lower cost of living.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I would guess 90% of people who move don’t do so because of politics.
Matt McIrvin
@mayim:
Well, you can’t say the Trump administration can’t multitask–they’re working on getting rid of the immigrants AND the library.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: Yeah, I think it usually has to do with money, weather, or both.
Personally, given my preferences and the way the climate is going, you couldn’t pay me to move to Hot America to retire, but most people seem to prefer 105-degree weather for some reason.
Another Scott
Have I yelled enough recently that I hate plumbing? No? Well let me do so now.
Our 1963-built home still has the original American Standard toilets. One blue, one grey, one yellow. 60+ years of hard water has taken its toll on the finishes, one of them runs frequently even after changing the easy-to-change bits, they use a LOT of water, etc., so we’re looking into new ones – almost certainly white (it will make future renovation color issues easier).
Look around online, do a bunch of reading over a few weeks… Hey, this TOTO Drake II sounds ideal. Most people say the seats suck, but that’s easy to change. Ok. Hey, they’re about $50 cheaper now at Lowe’s! Do some final measurements again and check the specification drawings again because returning these things would be a big hassle (each 2 boxes, 90-100 pounds total).
What’s this??! The mounting bolts are 11″ from the finished wall??!!11 WTF?? They’re supposed to be 12″ (the confusingly named “rough in” distance to the finished wall)!! Do another few hours of reading… “All the toilets have tolerances +/- a little, and maybe you can slide it forward on the flange 3/8″ or so (if it isn’t moved forward already…)…” Maybe you’ll get lucky and it will just barely fit. But normally you need at least 11.5″. You might have to tilt up the rear of the base with some shims, especially if the wall is tilting into the room any at all…”
Grr…!!
The standard gap between the tank and the wall is around 3/4″ +/-. Losing an inch means that the tank edge would be pressing against the wall (or inside the wall a little). This invites leaks, puts stress on the china and invites future craking, etc. An expensive disaster waiting to happen.
One can get toilets with 10″ rough in, but there are fewer choices. TOTO makes some, but not in the Drake II, and all the 10″ have elongated bowls (rather than round). One bathroom is tiny and we probably can’t spare the additional 2″ of an elongated bowl, especially if we also lose an inch by moving a 10″ rough in toilet an additional inch from the wall… And given the tolerances, the gap between the tank and the wall might end up being over 1.5″, which would be annoying.
American Standard and Kohler (and other no name and name-brands, I’m sure) have round toilets with 10″ rough in. So, we’ll be able to find something that works. And they’re substantially cheaper than the TOTOs. But we don’t want to get something that doesn’t stay clean and clogs frequently. More reading to do…
Grr…
I hate plumbing.
Have a good Sunday, everyone.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: ahhhh you’re giving me flashbacks
BellyCat
@Another Scott: There is an adapter that shifts the center forward into the room by a 1” or so. Might have to raise the toilet slightly.
Best toilets are American Standard so says my plumber friend.
David Collier-Brown
@Jay: Right now, apply as a regular immigrant, and tell them you’re concerned about your future in the US. Understate it, as Canada is very polite, and actually asking for asylum will make you sound paranoid. Even though you do have enemies.
See canada.ca/en/immigration-refugees-citizenship/services/immigrate-canada.html and get advice about what categories will get you in quickest. I suggest Express Entry. Immigrate as a skilled worker.
TBone
@Another Scott: our 1963 rancher was renovated just before our purchase. The brand new (2017) toilets already both needed the rusted out tank bolts replaced, but I only had the hall bath toilet fixed. Of COURSE someone thought the brand new hardwood floors should go in the master bathroom AND the kitchen. Thankfully, Sab hipped me to puppy pee pads, which now protect the master bath hardwood floor in perpetuity because my (finally found an honest, competent) plumber is booked solid and this is not an emergency. For him.
GAH
Our sawzall was stolen by our movers (long story, a lot of things went missing that day) and neither hubby nor I are confident or capable enough to hacksaw through the rusted bolts…
WereBear
@Matt McIrvin: But they aren’t getting federal money. Things people took for granted will stop happening. Citizens will be scolded for wanting them.
And these states are the ones who need it. I am betting their economies, especially NOW, will collapse much sooner than expected.
All those deregulation sprees, buildings fall down, weather happens, and suddenly insurance is multiplied and there are no workers to farm work/pick crops/build things/do repairs anyway.
In states made of retirees and farms.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: I think part of Texas’s population increase can be credited to its huge stock of flat, buildable land. This attracts large companies in the manufacturing and information technology sectors, and the jobs follow.
Land availability in the Carolina Piedmont and Georgia has likewise helped drive the Southeast’s growth over the last few decades. This part of the Sunbelt doesn’t just have a warmer climate, it also has more land available for economic development. I can see this when I drive I-85 from Vlirginia to Atlanta.
TBone
@Baud: Does family politics count? Ha ha
TBone
Mood music blood moon leftover
m.youtube.com/watch?v=mIP-oImO-B8
Geminid
@TBone: You might be able to cut through those rusted bolts with Dremel-type tool. They have metal cutting disks. These are high speed, low torque units so you’d have to go slowly and might need extra disks.
On the other hand, a 4″ angle grinder would do the trick real quick-like. You might scuff up the toilet some if you’re not careful. Grinders are harder to control precisely than Dremels are.
And goggles are a must with either tool. A mask isn’t a bad idea either.
Kayla Rudbek
@Mai Naem mobil: Lance Armstrong and the US Postal cycling team
Kayla Rudbek
@JaySinWA: I saw on Bluesky that there’s now an organization that will steal your Tesla and resell it abroad for you https://stealmytesla.com
TBone
@Kayla Rudbek: hahahaha I love it!
Robin Hood!
TBone
@Geminid: I just typed a too long reply about why we can’t do it ourselves but decided to just say thank you instead. Complaint Dept. is closed on Sundays hahaha nobody needs to hear about my ongoing travails.
Kayla Rudbek
@Matt McIrvin: dude, if Mr. Rudbek and I lose our jobs, we are going to move back to Minnesota for the health insurance
Matt McIrvin
@WereBear: I’m guessing Trump is going to try to find some way to funnel that federal money just to states that like him, but with his usual level of competence.
It’s going to be… interesting to see how the Southeast fares in the fall if the National Hurricane Center breaks down. They might get the 1920s experience of getting whacked by tropical cyclones with almost no advance warning.
eta: I expect to see a push to federally mandate that insurance companies MUST provide flood and hurricane insurance to doomed areas that vote Republican.
evodevo
@Another Scott: Been there, done that LOL. Former tenants broke the toilet that was there (don’t ask!) and being white trash po’ got a toilet free from ?someone?, but, as in your case, didn’t fit the rough out. The tenants CUT INTO THE WALLBOARD/TILE, so the tank would fit and we had to deal with that and the short footprint after we threw them out..got a toilet with the proper silhouette from WayFair, cheap. Fits fine. Whew!
YY_Sima Qian
This will end well…
lowtechcyclist
@Another Scott:
Gerber makes good toilets, that’s what we got when we replaced our old 5 gallons per flush era toilets.
I’d always thought they just made baby food. Apparently not!
kindness
Off topic some. Friday night Trump declared the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 in play. How long before he invokes The Comstock Act? You know, the one that would allow him to shut down any mailing (by the USPS & all other carriers) any ‘obscene’ thing. Obscene isn’t defined in the act so anything can be declared obscene. That shoe is definitely going to drop but I wonder when?
YY_Sima Qian
@Geminid: I hope things work out as you expect. I don’t think particular vote is a decisive battle against the reactionaries. The CR runs out in 6 months. There will be plenty of opportunities to salvage the situation going forward, as the Trump gang is sure to implement a raft of deeply damaging & hugely unpopular policies.
However, Schumer specifically made some serious unforced errors, leading to a missed opportunity to extract concessions from the Repubs (such as specifically tying the Dem’s votes for cloture to removing the cuts to DC’s budget, or imposing some oversight mechanism over DOGE), Anything to show that the power dynamic is not that of complete impotence on the Congressional Dems’ part. To win consistently, to overcome the structural impediments (that are set to worsen) from gerrymandering & vote suppression, Dems need to reactivate some portion of the non-voters, especially those who had voted for Biden in ’20. I don’t think consistently displaying powerlessness while in the minority will do it.
Might Trumpian misrule reactivate these voters? Sure, but I think it is risky for Dems to count on the popular backlash against Trumpian misrule to automatically redound to Dems’ benefit, by default.
TBone
@kindness: as soon as we all mail our FOIA Request forms to D.O.G.E. as urged by Rep. Raskin.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian:
As you say, we’re likely to see lots of damage done before September 30, at least if 47 gets his way. GovExec.com (last updated March 14):
In normal times, there’s a lot of churn in the labor force as people leave one job and start another, and 700,000 / 171,000,000 is only 0.4%. But these are most certainly not normal times. Those 700,000 losses could come very quickly. Universities are seeing big cuts, as will just about anything that depends on federal grants and contracts.
Those 700,000 federal workers are unlikely to be able to easily and quickly find employment that takes advantage of their skills because such hiring has basically stopped in many places. Normal federal travel for contract reviews and scientific conferences has stopped – so airlines and hotels and car rentals and restaurants will see drops in revenue. Lots of normal purchases in the federal government of anything under $10k has stopped. And much more. There will be effects from this that have nothing to do with “efficiency”.
As Krugman and others remind us, my spending is your income. One cannot quickly take tens or hundreds or thousands of billions of dollars out of the economy without it having real effects, especially as they begin to multiply. And the monsters know this – they’re trying to break everything in the federal government via these actions.
It’s going to be a slog. It’s not going to be over soon. We need to be thinking and working every day to speed the process to vote the monsters, and their enablers, out.
Thanks.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: I don’t think it’s going to be possible to vote them out; on a national scale, we are not going to have sufficiently free and fair elections. Things might be fine in Massachusetts, but Massachusetts is already blue, and in every purple state where Republicans have a toehold on power, they rig everything in their direction all they can.
We need to figure out strategies for a “people power” revolution. But getting popular backing is a first step regardless–it simply can’t be done in a fifty-fifty nation.
Glidwrith
@kalakal: Jamie Dimon comes to mind. He’s led JP Morgan Chase, one of the architects of the Great Recession, been fined multiple times in court for extremely bad behavior but he makes the board money, so he keeps on criming with his board.