i see the charm offensive is underway
— not an art thief (@famousartthief.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 12:46 PM
====
Grotesque.
— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 1:23 PM
===
“I am sorry I don’t have a plane for you”
The President of South Africa deftly reminds us that he has a lot of experience in dealing with White Supremacists and autocrats.— Simon Rosenberg (@simonwdc.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 1:53 PM
Per the Washington Post: [gift link]
… Trump amplified false claims that White Afrikaners have been victims of a genocide, even showing video of crosses and earthen mounds that he said represented more than 1,000 grave sites of murdered farmers. The mounds were in fact part of a protest against the violence, not actual graves.
Ramaphosa stared straight ahead, occasionally moving in his seat and looking over at Trump, who wouldn’t make eye contact as a clip played of crowds repeatedly shouting, “Kill the Boers,” a reference to White farmers descended from colonists who built and led the nation’s brutal apartheid regime.
While Ramaphosa and several of his deputies agreed with Trump that curbing violence should be a priority, they also noted that it is a problem across all of South Africa — not just in rural areas and certainly not just against White people. And they rejected Trump’s claim that the government is responsible for the murder of White farmers — a group he has characterized as victims of violence, and of discriminatory laws.
The remarkable exchange was broadcast live around the world and showcased Trump’s selective, and racially polarizing, view of entrenched challenges in a country that endured nearly half a century of state-sanctioned segregation. The stance also reflected a theme of his second term: that efforts at equity have tilted the world against White people, denying them opportunities to unfairly elevate minorities.
The Oval Office meeting had been billed as a chance to reset the trade relationship between the two countries after Trump’s tariffs, and came as tensions escalated over the president’s interest in Afrikaners. Trump in recent months expelled the South African ambassador from the United States and slashed aid to the country over the issue, which has long been a focus of Elon Musk, a South-African born senior adviser to Trump who was in the room Wednesday…
“Who are you with” and “You’re a terrible reporter” are the last remaining clues that a question with any merit was asked.
@nbcnews.com— Carl Quintanilla (@carlquintanilla.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 1:48 PM
====
All African countries are the same to Donald.
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 5:12 PM
====
Don't look away, don't normalize: this is the virtually unconstrained leader of the world's most powerful country ambushing the president of South Africa with conspiracy-fueled racist propaganda promoted by his unelected billionaire maybe-appointee who has caused the deaths of children through DOGE.
— Elizabeth N. Saunders (@profsaunders.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 12:58 PM
====
Thoughts on yet another disgraceful Oval Office undiplomacy session (you know it's bad when the BBC commentator comes back with "quite an extraordinary meeting there"). First, the tell is that Vance, Hegseth, et al. couldn't even bring themselves to raise their hands and chime in. 1/
— Elizabeth N. Saunders (@profsaunders.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 1:28 PM
===
Second, this ambushing a visiting foreign leader with a cued-up video, with no sourcing, would not get a passing grade on a high school history assignment. This is the leader of the world's most powerful country with the widest intel reach, shredding what's left of US credibility on live TV. 2/
— Elizabeth N. Saunders (@profsaunders.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 1:28 PM
——-
What does "this is what Elon wanted" mean?
Is there no one who can tell him that Elon is wrong about this? Not one Republican or a family member? Ivanka?— digby (@digby56.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 1:11 PM
===
Note: This, as @joshtpm.bsky.social and others have noted, is direct evidence that all the stories, including the Hotline mid-day update that went out while this was happening, are BS.
Musk is still pulling the strings. He got the President to embarrass all of us by doing this in our name.— Clean Observer (@hammbear2024.bsky.social) May 21, 2025 at 1:15 PM
zhena gogolia
Sorry, have to look away.
zhena gogolia
Got my message from the New Yorker with a hot article by David Remnick on the “coverup” of Joe Biden’s aging.
Where are you now, David? Huh?
NotMax
Le sigh. Efficiency? Fuhgedaboutit.
Suzanne
I did numerous news checks during the day today (which I should stop), but just got to actually watch those clips. OMFG.
Eunicecycle
@NotMax: and the cost of electricity is skyrocketing. Large AI facilities seem to be part of the problem.
Ryan
But Mr. Trump, don’t all South African lives matter?
comrade scotts agenda of rage
@Eunicecycle:
One part.
Other massive drags are data centers for Big Tech (M$ for example) and Big Virtual Retail (Amazon the obvious example).
And crypto. Fucking crypto.
Baud
At least we don’t have to be embarrassed by his laugh.
different-church-lady
WOULD THAT CIRCLE BELONG TO YOU PERSONALLY, FUCKFACE?!?
different-church-lady
I’M SO FUCKING HAPPY THE COUNTRY ELECTED AN INSANE OLD MAN BECAUSE THEY THOUGHT THE OTHER GUY WAS AN INSANE OLD MAN!!!
bbleh
Yes Elmo probably had some role in arranging it, but this is mostly just race-baiting. Race-baiting (including immigrant-bashing) is THE glue that holds the Republican Party together, and the Orange Guy is an enthusiastic believer. He got a chance to lecture a Black guy about how oppressed and unfair the world is to White people, and for a big chunk of his base, that’s pure catnip, Elmo or no.
mrmoshpotato
What a complete pile of orange shit.
Baud
Why did the SA president come here?
Doug R
@different-church-lady:
1.5% more people who bothered to show up to vote WANTED THIS.
Martin
Looks like the WH is gearing up to eliminate Optional Practical Training (OPT). I had a fair bit of involvement in that program as it’s an extension from an F1 (student) visa to typically an H1B work visa. OPT requires that an employer has a position for a student, and the student gets a recommendation from their academic institution for OPT. This can last up to 3 years for STEM students.
To illustrate how important OPT is for US industries, while we were above average on this metric, there were years where we had zero, literally zero domestic students in some STEM graduate programs – even pretty important ones like electrical engineering, meaning that without OPT we would have provided effectively zero trained engineers to domestic industries. There were two broad reasons for this phenomenon:
We know what the result of this is for domestic employers – they set up offices overseas to reach this talent. This both removes those workers from the US economy but also undermines one of the bigger draws to US universities – opportunities to get a domestic job. What is likely to result is the STEM graduate program pipelines shutting down (as if the grant funding hasn’t already contributed significantly to that) because it’s unlikely that US employers are going to be able to promise high enough pay to domestic students with the advanced degree to overcome the marshmallow benefits of a job after the BS degree. Typically other disciplines fill their graduate programs because job opportunities in the field with just a BA/BS are limited. That’s not the case in STEM, and it particularly won’t be the case if the US is hoping to lead some kind of manufacturing surge.
Once again, no evidence of an economic plan in sight, just the WH enabling the hangers-on to do their ideological nonsense, even when it openly contradicts their other stated economic goals.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: He is white and male, no other qualifications were necessary.
mrmoshpotato
@different-church-lady:
And their other choice later on was a WOMAN!
Jeffro
if every WH visit by another country’s PM or president is going to turn into a WWE-style smack-talking fest, 1) I wouldn’t be surprised, and 2) I’d hope that all the other PMs and presidents would just stay home and save themselves the trouble.
Jeffro
@Eunicecycle:
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
all of this
first politician to come out against all these massive electrical drains/money laundering scams/greenhouse gas emission accelerants gets my vote
(*correction: first Democratic politician…I know the GOP pols are more than happy to lie and then proceed as usual)
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
He’s not just those things. He represents those things.
RSA
I see Trump is holding up a printout of The American Thinker, quite a far-right rag. If this is where he’s looking for conspiracies, he’s found a rich vein. [Wikipedia link]
Jeffro
It’s not explicit, but many indicators of “a return to serfdom” seem to be there.
eclare
@Baud:
That’s what I don’t get. Did the SA president think the meeting was going to go well?
Jay
@Baud:
The meeting was supposed to be about Tariffs FFS and Trade.
eclare
Great photo today, WaterGirl.
Baud
@Jay:
That makes sense at least. I wonder if he got something out of the ordeal.
eclare
@Jeffro:
Every world leader should shun the US.
Scout211
Good question, especially since the whole world watched how he treated Zelenskyy. I found this news story on DW.com.*
. . .
. . .
*Deutsche Welle, commonly shortened to DW, is a German state-funded television network, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the Federal Government of Germany. The service is available in 32 languages. DW’s satellite television service consists of channels in English, Spanish, and Arabic.
Baud
@Scout211:
Thanks.
Someone on Reddit said Ramaphosa was kind of Trump like too, but that commenter could have easily been a racist liar.
Jackie
@Jeffro:
First Zelenskyy, now the president of S. Africa. I hope other countries and nations are taking note, and suddenly discover they have conflicting schedules… like the sudden need to wash one’s hair.
Shalimar
@different-church-lady: How the fuck did I get in the alternate reality where Biden didn’t drop out in July and it matters what he did after that?
Citizen Alan
Never in my life would I have imagined feeling this way about being an American. Just absolute shame and humiliation. I will never stop hating the creatures who put him into office. I will hate them from beyond the grave.
Baud
@Shalimar:
Fake scandals about Dems sell.
Chetan Murthy
@Citizen Alan: Thank you for expressing so well how I also feel.
Jeffro
@eclare: them AND their tourists AND their athletes
#StayOut
MagdaInBlack
I said a week or so ago that I was no longer surprised by anything they/trump did. I am, however, still horrified.
eclare
@Jeffro:
And their wealthy college students who used to help US universities by paying full price for the privilege of a US education.
Go to Canada, the UK, Europe…
Jeffro
Have to agree. I often try to offload these feelings by saying/typing things like “it’s MAGA and the orange moron acting this way, not ‘America’ ” but in the end this is how our country – our deeply divided, rigged for the rich and crazy-ass country – looks to the rest of the world
hurry UP, karma!
in the meantime, I am trying to think of ways to express (generally, and also directly to MAGAts’ faces) that “rule or ruin” works both ways…
…after the outright arson of the past four months, they need to understand: I’m more than happy to keep punching them and rolling around in the ashes if it means they don’t get what they want
different-church-lady
@Shalimar: You know what you did.
Jeffro
@eclare: that too
one of our biggest ‘exports’, flushed because it lined the (supposed) liberals’ pockets instead of trumpov’s
maybe they can used taxpayer dollars to try and promote Trump University 2.0 to the world’s best and brightest and see how many takers they get?
Elizabelle
That filthy performance in the Oval Office today, and our media whores are “oh noesing!” about Joe Biden. Fuck them.
In a gentler tone: do any of you know how to get a snail mail letter to President and Mrs. Biden? If you don’t, I will call one of the Delaware Senators’ offices tomorrow morning and see if they know.
I just want to write to him weekly telling him how much I appreciated his hard work and sacrifice on our behalf. What he is seeing has to be even harder than President and Mrs. Obama having to turn the White House over to popular vote loser Trump in 2017.
I am not proud of this country. We have many fine people, but we need more Americans to be serious about being citizens. A nation of morons and juveniles, it would seem. How sad.
Jackie
@Citizen Alan: Ditto.
We (our country) have indeed become the Ugly Americans (again.)
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle: Elizabelle, if you find out, could you let us know here? Heck, I have a cray-cray idea: we could write a group letter from the commentariat here, and all sign it!
Just an idea.
Jeffro
@Elizabelle:
@Chetan Murthy:
checking with DE contacts now…back shortly!
Elizabelle
It’s not just MAGA. It is apathy and ignorance, when citizens could rouse themselves to be better informed.
It’s the constant lying and targeting on social media; the whole rightwing wurlitzer.
Today I am thinking of that day last year in the Oval Office when the reporters were screaming at Biden, absolutely screaming at him, and how concerned he looked; maybe a little bit of disgust and sadness too.
I miss Biden’s decency. And his doing his best for the average American, and how he was able to pull so many wins — most of them not well reported — by virtue of knowing the system and working its participants.
About ready to stop reading US news sites. Already never look at broadcast and cable.
Melancholy Jaques
@Baud:
His health. He came here for the waters.
cain
The whole media thing about Biden is all targeted at Dems, they love thinking that the Dem electorate is going to be wringing their hands over this horrible thing.
They don’t seem to understand that the milquetoast Dems from the 90s are long gone. The current set of Dems are not those people.
A 50% nation boycott of the media will do us good. Destroy their ability to pay their journalists.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: You and I are thinking along the same lines.
Will do.
Chetan Murthy
@Elizabelle: I subscribed to the FT and Economist since April 1. And I read The Guardian and TPM. FTFNYT? FTFWaPo? Why bother.
eclare
@Chetan Murthy:
Oh, that’s a great idea!
Baud
@Chetan Murthy:
Nominated
Martin
@Jeffro: They don’t even have that much of a plan. Note, the Google antitrust case started under Trumps first term, and may result in some serious consequences for the company (or not, who can tell). Trump telling Walmart to eat the tariffs goes against that narrative as well. There simply is no underlying economic theory here, just a bunch of half-assed ideas that Trump and the people around him have that yeah, average out toward serfdom because many of the individuals advancing those ideas are seeking that, but they are also often quite contradictory. Writ large it’s just nonsense. Road to serfdom would be an improvement in the sense that it’d at least be predictable and consistent.
bbleh
@Jeffro: @eclare: @Baud: @Scout211: @Jackie: I can’t imagine they, or their advisers, don’t assume something like this MIGHT happen. I would think Ramaphosa especially, knowing about Elmo and knowing about Trump’s and Republicans’ racism in general, would have foreseen the possibility.
Therefore, they have their own reasons for coming, and those are almost certainly primarily domestic. Sure they MIGHT get the Orange Guy on a good day, but even if he makes promises, who says he’ll remember them, or keep them if he does?
BUT: they are seen with the President of the US in the Oval (translation: World Leader), they almost certainly can leverage the outcome — whatever it is, good or bad — at home (if good, Deal Maker, if bad, fighter for [insert country] against Evil Oppressor), and probably likewise with other nations (“see M. Macron with what we are dealing? Surely you can assist us!”). And probably half a dozen other things that people who have the political skills to run a country can think of that I can’t.
Elizabelle
@Chetan Murthy: Good for you. Cancelled the WaPost, but still have access until August. Going to cancel the FTF NY Times unless they give me the bare minimum subscription price for everything — they just snuck in a full price charge last month.
I despise Sulzberger and Joe Kahn, but would you believe I regularly check the FTF NY Times for its archives. Yeah, they got a lot of things wrong previously too, but it’s interesting to see what was in the news at the time.
I check the BBC first for news; they are rather reserved. The Guardian eventually, although they still despise Biden and jump at any opportunity to join the “oh noes!” chorus.
Believe it or not, the LA Times has been kind of good lately. Their owner may not be interfering as much.
I have The Economist too, but don’t read it. Some of their headlines that seem supportive of Trump make me hurl. Maybe they are teasers …
But a news blackout is sounding like sanity.
eclare
@Jeffro:
A good friend of mine managed an apartment building close to UCLA in the mid-nineties. She said the majority of tenants were rich college kids, mainly from Asian countries.
Old School
Wondered what the Congo picture was:
Huh. I wouldn’t have expected Trump to have been against that.
Dan B
@Baud: Seconded!
Chetan Murthy
@bbleh: Pres. Ramaphosa -must- come, if there’s even a -small- chance of getting that trade act renewed. It’s too important for South Africa for him to desist. It doesn’t matter how mad the emperor is: the leaders of client states still must come and pay homage.
It is what it is.
eclare
@bbleh:
Good point about how being abused by FFOTUS on camera could get other countries to help SA. I hadn’t thought of that.
Elizabelle
@cain: I think it’s deliberate.
You might hate what the Republicans are doing, but you don’t even want to think of supporting the Democrats (in disarray).
I despise Big Media’s lies and propaganda.
different-church-lady
@Old School: WHO THE FUCK GAVE TRUMP ACCESS TO THE PRINTER?!?
Kirk
I only found two organizations acting as forwarding agents. Neither is the presidential library. I do not yet have confirmation that they will forward all snail mail through security and on to him, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.
Joe Biden
c/o The Biden Institute
44 Kent Way
Newark, DE 19716
Joe Biden
c/o Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children
P.O. Box 7819
Wilmington, DE 19803
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Baud: He’s pretty corrupt so in that sense is like Trump. Lots of money turned up in his vacation home and nobody wants to admit where it came from. Also his government hired a consultant to diagnose the problems with the electric grid. The guy did a study and said the problem was corruption and it went too high up for him to fix. Then he wound up in the hospital – he’d been poisoned but survived. So…yeah, Rhamaposa is not a great guy but still what Trump did is inexcusable, Everything he alleged about the RSA government repressing whites is complete BS. The country certainly has serious problems but when it comes to the government actively persecuting people the US government right now is worse. The corruption in SA is bog standard line my pockets type corruption – the government isn’t targeting specific groups for punishment the way we currently are.
different-church-lady
@cain: Most Dems right now are like, “WE KICKED HIM IN THE FUCKING NUTS!!! WHAT THE FUCK ELSE DO YOU WANT FROM US?!?”
Chetan Murthy
I got the FT and Economist for only one reason: b/c I will have to start actually making investment decisions (instead of just investing in broad US market indices). In all probability, investing overseas (hence those two). But for sure, the Economist ….. As a friend used to say back in the 90s when I used to read it regularly:
“The Economist never met a bloated, sclerotic public bureaucracy it liked, and it never met a bloated, sclerotic private bureaucracy it didn’t like.”
They wear their politics on their sleeve. I would only trust their money-relevant reporting. Foreign policy? Social issues? Ha fuckin’ ha.
Elizabelle
@Jeffro: Yay! You come through again.
And I do like DW.com (Deutsche Welle). Will get in the habit of checking them before looking at the big US papers.
International media is far more honest.
Scout211
Definitely. And just a few days ago, Ramaphosa made a public statement that he and his advisers had to have suspected would trigger Trump and his sidekick, Elon.
Elizabelle
@Kirk: Thank you, Kirk.
Will def share any information Team Delaware will share.
p.a.
Just finished watching A Face in the Crowd. I’d seen numerous clips, but never the full movie. When Patricia Neal’s character surreptitiously turns on the camera to expose Lonesome Rhodes’ bigotry and contempt, his followers are horrified and turn against him.
Movies: Not real life.
NotMax
@Baud
Why bother?
:)
Eric S.
@Citizen Alan: This 1,000 times over.
Chetan Murthy
@NotMax: ha, I remember when that first came out!
Scout211
He doesn’t have access. He has a team of emotional support printing people that run that complicated machine for him. We learned that when he was being tried AS THE FELON THAT HE IS!!
Uh, sorry folks, all caps can be infectious.
prostratedragon
NYT archive.ph link:
He intends to have these services monthly.
NaijaGal
Elect a clown, get a circus. It’s especially galling because no one is going to use the “illegal immigration = crime” framing so popular with this administration for a situation involving descendants of illegal immigrants/colonizers who make up 7-8% of the South African population but own 70% of the land through brutal dispossession of its original owners. And no one in this administration is going to note that the high crime rates in South Africa stem in part from the income inequality produced by Apartheid and that they disproportionately affect Black South Africans, not white farmers. Elon’s psychopathy is truly special – he always wants more and won’t understand the word “stop” until he’s made to. And who’s going to make “the richest man in the world” (the poorest excuse for a human being) stop?
Meanwhile, another Black woman has been released after spending five months in jail for having a miscarriage in Texas while in the bathroom of a fast food restaurant. You may recall that Brittany Watts (another Black woman) was charged for “abuse of a corpse” for miscarrying at home in Ohio last year but a grand jury refused to indict.
This black woman, Mallori Patrice Strait, was finally released after spending five months in jail for an “abuse of a corpse” charge. Miscarry in these states and go to jail if you’re not sufficiently white, wealthy, or otherwise powerful. Waiting for the prosecutors to put together an advisory on the right way to miscarry in your home or while out at a store or restaurant.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Baud: to try and save South African lives from the murderous intentions of MAGA
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: France24 is also good.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Jeffro: it is feeling very explicit
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Citizen Alan: the shame belongs solely to rightwing media and the GOP. Let them wear it.
Mike in Pasadena
@Jeffro: Don’t understand why foreign leaders agree to sit in front of cameras with trumpty dumpty. It is the same every time.
zhena gogolia
@Citizen Alan: Me too.
zhena gogolia
@Chetan Murthy: That’s a great idea!
HopefullyNotcassandra
@MagdaInBlack: this bill in the House is appalling.
Anat Shenker-Osario is calling the GOP House bill the “MAGA Murder bill” and whoa boy does that name fit.
bsky.app/profile/anatosaurus.bsky.social/post/3lpoygvot722u
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: Yeah, someone is going to take seriously a letter signed by Subaru Diane, NotMax, Baud, Another Scott, etc.
HopefullyNotcassandra
@Elizabelle: Lawrence O’Donnell is still doing his level best imho
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: Well, all I’m saying is, a group letter (sure, signed by us with our real names) might be, y’know, a nice and kind touch. But whatevs.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: Real names might work better.
Another Scott
@Elizabelle:
Supposedly this is his address (via a search for “Joe Biden Delaware address” (without the quotes))
HTH!
Good luck!
Best wishes,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@eclare:
I was thinking the same thing. The world simply cannot afford to behave like this is business as usual.
MagdaInBlack
@HopefullyNotcassandra: Thank you for that link. Interesting read on messaging, and I agree with her.
Sister Golden Bear
In today’s edition of The MAGAts Want to Erase Trans People….
The Army is not only going to purge transgender soldiers, they’re going to change their records to use the sex they were assigned at birth. Also, the pronouns used referring to individuals must reflect their sex assigned at birth. Because it’s not enough to destroy their careers, they must outed and humiliated at every point.
Meanwhile, today we learned Texas AG Ken Paxton likely used a little known database that tracks RX records of controlled substances to target gender affirming care providers. Worse, he can access the prescription records of anyone without a warrant in over 37 states with an agreement with Texas. Yeah, that includes cis people.
And because we’re living in The Upside Down, a far-right sued the state of Minnesota to require it to mandate anti-trans discrimination.
I’ll just note that UK’s Supreme Court recently ruled that trans girls/women are not legally girls nor women (nor are trans boys/men legally boys nor men), which is triggering a huge rollback of trans people’s right to exist in public.
surfk9
President Xi is on the phone to SA as we speak
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
I think it is a great idea, real names, States, Countries and a brief comment from each of us, thanking him for his service.
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: Ehh, I’d be happy with some one of us who’s a good writer taking it upon themselves to write a nice thank you to the Bidens and their family, and I’d just subscribe to it.
Jay
@Sister Golden Bear:
So far. the only requirement is that they “self report”.
A snitch line will be coming, because that has worked well in the past.
prostratedragon
@Jeffro: I had hoped Ramaphosa would opt out, but I guess he felt he needed to try to get some tariff relief for his country. 🤡 is determined to make these things like that minstrel show he had on tv.
different-church-lady
@Scout211:
I could not be more proud right now.
Baud
Via Reddit
Partially paywalled
Chetan Murthy
@Scout211: I only watch DW videos itinerantly, but just now I’m watching one ( youtube.com/watch?v=a_QbUqrGBo0 ) and …. I’m impressed by the way the interviewer is -pushing hard- on the interviewee in a way I rarely see on US TV.
I’ll have to watch DW (and maybe read their articles) more often.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: What do you mean? Can you elaborate?
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
Trump and Biden were both white guys. But Trump represents whiteness and maleness for those who want to cling to those identities. Biden did not.
Chetan Murthy
@schrodingers_cat: I’m reminded of this (by TNC): web.archive.org/web/20250304221037/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-first-wh…
MagdaInBlack
@Baud: I had not thought of it that way, but it makes sense.
persistentillusion
@mrmoshpotato: Fran Lebowitz was right. “You don’t know anyone as stupid as Donald Trump. You just don’t.”
Kayla Rudbek
@Martin: although the STEM programs should pay more attention to retaining the women students through the pipeline and also get over their ageism and start recruiting non-traditional students. The military-industrial complex is more responsible than one might realize for skewing STEM young, male, and able-bodied (ROTC scholarships) in my arrogant opinion, particularly for computer science and electrical engineering.
Steve LaBonne
I can’t imagine traveling abroad right now. I would feel like wearing a paper bag over my head. It was bad enough being in France in 2018, but people were sympathetic. We fucking did it again so we don’t deserve any further benefit of the doubt.
Steve LaBonne
@Baud: This is what Ta-Nehisi Coates meant by calling Trump the first white President.
Chetan Murthy
@Steve LaBonne: If I travel abroad, I will take with me my Truck Fump and my Ukraine tshirts. Of course, upon returning I will wear a plain black tshirt, b/c I’m not a fool.
persistentillusion
@Jackie: I had a friend in Chicago, who when asked to leave the city’s boundaries always said “I couldn’t possibly, that’s the day I wash my garbage cans.” North of Wabash was Neptune to her.
mrmoshpotato
@persistentillusion:
No one else is Putin’s bitch as much as Dump either.
Omnes Omnibus
@Chetan Murthy: I would go with a white one instead. Just saying.
Chetan Murthy
@Omnes Omnibus: I have my Global Entry interview on 1 July. I’ll wear my Google hoodie to that *grin*.
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
As long as you aren’t being a MAGgot Asshat, the most common response to people finding out you are ‘Merkin, will be sympathy.
Maybe a job offer.
eclare
@Omnes Omnibus:
Red.
mrmoshpotato
@persistentillusion:
And what were her self-imposed west and south boundaries?
Chetan Murthy
@Jay: I’d take a long-stay visa offer.
[I know you’ve said that they don’t deport ‘murkins, but I prefer to stay on the right side of the legal line, ah well.]
Kayla Rudbek
@prostratedragon: I now work as a federal contractor and the place I work has two chaplains and participates in the National Day of Prayer. Somehow I don’t think they’d be all that receptive if I wanted to include Pallas Athene/Minerva, Nike, Kali, the Morrigan, and Sekhmet in the prayer rotation, even if it would be theologically correct. Although it might be fun to include Our Lady of Victory in the rotation and argue anti-Catholic bias when the Baptists objected…
Chetan Murthy
@Kayla Rudbek: Haha, and then there’s The Satanic Temple …..
Kayla Rudbek
@Jay: I suggest reporting Kegseth and the other top MAGA brass as secretly trans, in order to muddy the waters
Citizen Alan
@prostratedragon: every day i become more certain that he is actually the literal antichrist.
Bill Arnold
@prostratedragon:
Appointed by Satan, in Hegseth’s theology.
Chetan Murthy
@Citizen Alan: wait, Hegseth? Or Trump? For sure if there’s a Christian God, Trump is the Anti-Christ. And sure, Hegseth is one of his (lesser) demons.
Steve LaBonne
@Kayla Rudbek: Needs a UU minister beginning a prayer with “Spirit of life and love” to make the Talibangelicals’ heads explode.
Marc
The young, male, able-bodied, and white took over computer science (which originally came from Mathematics, with a lot of women) and electrical engineering (never many women) during the 80s, as they all wanted to be rich and famous like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.
Chetan Murthy
@Kayla Rudbek: Since a serving member might get into trouble, they should publicize the ph#, so we civilians can do it for them *grin*.
TONYG
@different-church-lady: The joke, of course, is that Joe Biden has always been completely sane, and Joe Biden on his worst days is much more intelligent than Donald Trump on his best days. I am so sick and tired of this “Democrat coverup scandal!!!!” nonsense. Apparently Jon Stewart was parroting that bullshit the other day. I’ll add Stewart to the list of worse-than-worthless people.
Mutaman
@zhena gogolia: I didn’t watch the conference. Was Musk wearing a cheese head?
Chetan Murthy
@Marc: I read this article years and years ago. Eye-opening.
newstatesman.com/politics/2019/02/womens-work-how-britain-discarded-its-female-computer-programmers
Jay
@Chetan Murthy:
We pretty much only deport convicted criminals
Oh, if you want to stay “legal”, marry a Canadian, any gender, takes 6 months or less.
Chetan Murthy
He has been -infuriating- to listen to for years and years. But I will give him this: he’s nurtured an entire army of male and female comedians who do excellent work. Sam Bee, Colbert, Roy Wood Jr, Jessica Williams, John Oliver, Trevor Noah, Desi Lydic, Jordan Klepper, Michelle Wolf [PBUH, I bow down, I bow down] and lots of others.
So I can (sort of) forgive him for being kinda shitty. I just wish he’d go back to herding goats or whatever he was doin’.
persistentillusion
@mrmoshpotato: 94 and Cicero respectively.
MagdaInBlack
@prostratedragon: Such a strange and ugly god they believe in, that this god would choose that as their appointed.
Chetan Murthy
OK, this is -funny-: mockpaperscissors.com/2025/05/21/news-that-will-drive-you-to-drink-2294/
After getting the ol’ Kancho from Lord Damp Nut, like a common Zelensky, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa gave the vulgar talking yam a swirly on live teevee……and Vulgarmort was too dumb to realize he’s been dissed as a bribe-taking grifter by Ramaphosa, in what must be the slickest, sickest burn of the year. What is ever more amazing, the Mango Moron says he would take the bribe.
Kayla Rudbek
@Chetan Murthy: here in Virginia, I honestly think of the Southern Baptists as the Establishment religion, even more so than the Episcopal Church, as the enforcement of the right-wing world order and the ones responsible for the crazy liquor laws, the backwardness of the divorce laws, how bad the state unemployment website is, etc.
I go back and forth about whether I should start going to Episcopal services or Unitarian services (and Pope Leo’s election has given me some hope that not all of the US Catholic Church has bent the knee to MAGA). But I would NEVER consider going Southern Baptist.
Traditionally, the Anglican Church was the oppressor in Ireland so I am wary of them, although apparently the Episcopal church and the Catholic Church were getting along in Minnesota according to some of my family history from the Irish-descended side. So maybe I should give them a chance?
Mutaman
@TONYG: “Apparently Jon Stewart was parroting that bullshit the other day.”
This statement is not accurate. In fact Stewart mocked Tapper and CNN’s promotional campaign. Stewart further criticized the notion of a “cover-up,”.
youtube.com/watch?v=LFeUo-nOxQU
thedailybeast.com/jon-stewart-tears-into-jake-tapper-for-keeping-biden-secrets/?utm_source=pocket_sh…
Chetan Murthy
@Kayla Rudbek: Growing up in TX, the Southern Baptists were definitely the nutters. Responsible, as you say, for the damn Blue Laws, dry laws, and all manner of other scumbaggery.
Marc
@Chetan Murthy: My mother had a degree in Mathematics was a computer and eventually a coder (who were all women) at MIT on Whirlwind I from the early 50s until my younger sister was born. My first job at a large software development firm in the early 70s was doing systems, network, and graphics programming, all in assembly language on 8 bit to 36 bit computers. Most of the programmers in my office were women and this was not unusual. As you might guess, it didn’t pay that much back then. Most of the women were gone by the mid-80s. My revenge against all those white techbros is now they have to deal with my kid; she takes no shit from anyone.
Kayla Rudbek
@Steve LaBonne: I was going for the battle/warrior goddesses in that list, although I forgot Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, and then I left out almost all of the non-European/Middle Eastern pantheons. Although it would be entertaining to have the UU ministers there as well.
Chetan Murthy
@Marc: In 2003 I went to a “systems biology” conference for my employer (they were looking to sell into that market). I noticed that the field was predominantly female, and that most of the work was on computers. So, lots of MATLAB, numerical analysis generally, etc. Basically, not that different from CS, except that some of the subject matter was bio/chem in nature, and some of the work for some of the people was wet lab work.
But because it was “life sciences” it coded female, I guess.
Kayla Rudbek
@Marc: I would agree with you there, although by the early 2000s, they were letting Asian and Indian men into the boys club as well
Soprano2
@Suzanne: I watched most of them, they’re horrifying. How long until no one except dictators is willing to come to the U.S.?
Kayla Rudbek
@Chetan Murthy: yep, life sciences is squishy and female-coded, and you need a master’s degree or PhD in order to get anywhere (biochemistry also has the life sciences female-coding and the same effective degree requirements for patent prosecution, as opposed to computer science or electrical engineering where you just need a bachelor degree)
Mutaman
“in order to muddy the waters”
Sail on,sail on little honeybee, sail on.
Mutaman
@p.a.: “J ust finished watching A Face in the Crowd. I’d seen numerous clips, but never the full movie. When Patricia Neal’s character surreptitiously turns on the camera to expose Lonesome Rhodes’ bigotry and contempt, his followers are horrified and turn against him.
Movies: Not real life.”
Not to defend the squealer Kazan, but he did do a pretty good job predicting America, 2025. He just could predict how stupid people would become.
Doc Sardonic
@Chetan Murthy: Not completely nuts……they were/are the bootleggers and purveyors of fine ‘shine. Them laws are to protect their “business” and keep the preachers happy.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: Oui. Thank you. France24 goes on the list.
Elizabelle
@HopefullyNotcassandra: I am sure he is. But. No cable for me.
@Another Scott: Interesting! We shall see.
Elizabelle
@Melancholy Jaques:
You made me laugh. Well done.
Jackie
@persistentillusion: That’s hysterical! LOVE IT! LOL
Jackie
@Chetan Murthy:
@Omnes Omnibus:
MAGA red is the only safe t-shirt. Once you’ve cleared Customs, you can burn it.
prostratedragon
@p.a.: More “those times, not these times.” The movie was based on at least one real life incident.
prostratedragon
@Scout211: What I mean about the tendency of these clowns to get people shouting.
prostratedragon
@Kayla Rudbek: Don’t forget Django, Erzalie, and Obatala.
Soprano2
@MagdaInBlack: I do not understand why Democrats don’t listen to her!
Gloria DryGarden
@eclare: I’m thinking they will. Or they’ll go through the motions so trump can continue to display his character and intelligence.
Im imagining the other members of G7 might meet without the US. A private G6 meeting of sorts. It sucks, but how could they not?
Martin
@Kayla Rudbek: My data showed (much to my surprise) that we sent women to positions that required security clearances at a higher rate than men. That might have been a local phenomenon, but it surprised literally everyone I showed it to.
Martin
@Chetan Murthy: Our research showed that disciplines that could more directly tie the discipline work to social benefits attracted more women. So in engineering you have biomedical, chemical, environmental engineering which are either 50% women or higher than 50% women, tailing down to electrical engineering and computer engineering which were 10%-15% women.
It wasn’t necessarily that those disciplines actually did or didn’t have social benefits, rather the perception of the work done in those disciplines did or didn’t have those benefits (hard to argue with biomedical and environmental having large social benefits, though – kind of in the title).
YY_Sima Qian
Completely predictable:
YY_Sima Qian
@Martin: Even in the best of times (for recent decades, at least), USG has lacked sufficient institutional knowledge, capacity & competence, & the US has lacked the aligned economic incentives, to do industrial policy East Asian style, or early Cold War US style. W/ the prevailing Trumpian misrule, it is absent altogether.
YY_Sima Qian
While Trump is showing Bibi who is the boss, he is also giving cover to Israel’s war crimes & crimes against humanity:
YY_Sima Qian
Espionage intrigue & transnational repression, in Türkiye, by the PRC:
Dirk Reinecke
@Baud: To try and preserve Agoa access, to get some of the cut funding back, to try and avoid worse things.
Ramaphosa does have an advantage over many of the other countries Presidents when speaking to Trump.
He knows how to talk to people who are corrupt. Ramaphosa was vice-president to President Zuma, who was far more corrupt than Trump has even tried to be. Imagine if the US government paid for Maralago.
NaijaGal
Interesting article from BBC on how South Africans have reacted to the White House visit.
catclub
oy
Paul in KY
@Chetan Murthy: Municipal Waste has a good Anti-TFG shirt. Google it.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: Sound advice for these days…
Paul in KY
@mrmoshpotato: Douglass Park on West and Museum of Science and Industry on South
Paul in KY
@Kayla Rudbek: Compared to Southern Baptists, Episcopals are Commies.
dnfree
@Marc: My first programming job in 1966 paid $1.85 an hour. The assembler language on an NCR computer was called NEAT: National’s Easy Assembler Technique. Yes, National Cash Register once made computers.