One of Florida’s many curses is the giant, indestructible flying cockroach, but something much worse will soon be winging its way to the state. From the Tampa Bay Times:
As President Donald Trump’s last-ditch efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election fail, his actions and words are increasingly pointing to one likelihood: When his presidency ends, Trump will return to South Florida and remain a force in Republican politics…
“If the president says he’s going to run in 2024, he’ll probably clear the field. He’ll be the Republican nominee, and he’ll spend the next four years running,” U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio, viewed widely as a potential 2024 candidate, said Sunday on NBC’s “Impact” with Jackie Nespral.
Though Trump’s influence is already waning and will weaken further once he is out of office, his rally this past weekend in Georgia displayed his continued importance for Republican politics. Trump’s remaining power comes from his populism, and his unique ability to amass a coalition of previously apathetic voters, blue-collar workers and Latinos…
I’m not sure we fully know the makeup of that coalition yet (exit polls are hot garbage), but it seems to be uniquely Trump’s. Valued commenter H.E. Wolf passed along a link to a plausible explanation of why that is here. That said, some good could come out of Trump’s loser retreat to the peninsula:
Trump’s potential as a 2024 candidate is also disrupting the plans of presidential hopefuls. His presence in Florida would complicate the upward mobility of Rubio, Gov. Ron DeSantis and U.S. Sen. Rick Scott, all of whom reportedly have Oval Office aspirations.
If Trump cock-blocks those three pricks, he’ll have accidentally done the country a service. DeSantis in particular is a danger, combining Trump’s stupid prejudices and weakness for flattery with dogmatic Reaganism and just enough competence to pull off a coverup.
Also:
This is the state where she’ll try to run for office. https://t.co/PuDitoNYWo
— Steve M. (@nomoremister) December 8, 2020
I don’t think a run would be successful, at least not for a statewide office. The Trumpenprolitariat like Trump’s personal crudeness and bluster, and the vapid, breathy-voiced daughter can’t credibly convert into a South Beach Sarah Palin. But yeah, Steve is right, she’ll probably try. Le sigh.
Open thread!
JPL
Well bless their hearts… Unless the law was changed, FL was one of two states that you could declare bankruptcy, and your house is protected.
Baud
Florida man and Florida woman.
Chief Oshkosh
Man-o-man, the FAA is going to LOVE dealing with all the airspace issues this’ll create. In the big scheme of things, maybe not the biggest shitball that Trump will create in retirement, but certainly another reason to feel sorry all you folks in south Florida…
On the up side, think of all the new headlines that will start with “Florida man…”
mrmoshpotato
Haha, Dump is ratfucking his own bastard party. Fuck ’em!
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: Asses and clowns, Trump and trash.
mrmoshpotato
@Chief Oshkosh:
Fixed.
S. Cerevisiae
Is it wrong to hope their island is washed away by sea level rise?
Kent
Florida sounds like it is going to be the sacrificial anode for the US.
Those are the pieces of zinc that you attach to boats stored in the water so that they attract all the galvanic corrosion and decay instead of the rest of the boat. And Miami is the perfect place to attach it I guess.
Sorry Floridians.
JPL
So a hawk swooped down for food, but didn’t see my dog. The hawk was stunned and couldn’t lift off in time, but I don’t think it is necessarily injured. I’m giving give it an hour before I check though. f..k..
2020 sucks.
West of the Rockies
I think the vast majority of Republican politicians greatly overestimate their appeal to voters on a national scale. Cruz, Rubio, Nikki Haley, Piggy Pompeo, Ben Carson. None of them can run (waddle) with Trump.
trollhattan
@S. Cerevisiae:
‘Tis mandatory. “Dear Lord, please now to be releasing the giant wave upon our Kushner tormentors. Amen.”
kindness
Count me in for one wishing Florida’s Palmetto bugs were the worst thing any of us would have to think about. Sigh…………
J.
Can you run for office from jail?
geg6
I read somewhere that they are headed to FL for the holidays and will just stay there. Sorry they will be polluting your state, Betty, but, as you are well aware, your state is famous for its assholes. Just a few more to add to the pile.
CaseyL
The giant flying cockroaches and ghastly heat/humidity were deal breakers for me; the horrible politics and RW/machismo culture would have been deal breakers if the bugs and climate hadn’t gotten there first.
I feel deep sorrow and sympathy for the few sane people living in Florida. People like my Mom, my BFF Sherri, and folks like Betty, who’ve decided to stake their claim and call the place home.
I honestly don’t know how they do it.
Benw
@mrmoshpotato: in a sane world, those three unlikeable, smarmy assholes would be laughed out of the room if they wanted to be dog catcher. Even the asshole republican voters don’t like those assholes. The asshole the assholes like is Donald “Major Asshole” Trump.
Betty Cracker
@JPL: Damn, I hope it is okay. If it’s hurt, a raptor rescue org might be able to help.
jonas
@S. Cerevisiae: Oh, it will be.
Ian G.
It’s hard to imagine how much further Trump’s physical and mental decline can go between now and 2024. Would the MAGAts still support a drooling wheelchair-bound Trump who can barely speak? Of fucking course they would. I can’t wait for that spectacle.
And anything to stymie the aspirations of more competent Pinochet figures like Josh Hawley and Tom Cotton.
Anonymous At Work
Aziz, light!
Running for office, Princess Barbie will get zero traction. It’s not the name that appeals, it’s her father’s in-your-face shithead and proud of it behavior.
geg6
Speaking of assholes…
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/trump-campaign-lawyer-tests-positive-for-covid-after-attending-wh-party
Elizabelle
Patricia Kayden posted this tweet on the morning thread.
Why are our media betters never writing that something along these lines could be in the cards?
I think Trump may be in serious legal trouble from January 20th on, and not the “power broker” so many mouthpieces envision.
Redshift
@JPL: According to Kurt Eichenwald, houses are protected in Florida not only in bankruptcy, but also in lawsuits. He says it’s very common for crooks to buy hugely expensive homes in Florida for that reason.
JPL
@Betty Cracker: When hawks panic, they sometimes have trouble lifting off. Best advice so far, is wait a hour before checking. I hope that’s the case, because no one answered at the nature center.
mrmoshpotato
@geg6:
“More assholes incoming.”
“Yawn. Throw ’em on the pile.”
Immanentize
@Anonymous At Work:
Your point one is one of he biggest lies I have ever read. Unless “South Florida” does not include any part of South Florida except for your yard.
boatboy_srq
Ayuh. And he’s inbound to spend the holidays down at Tsar-a-Lago.
Oh, wait, you meant palmetto bugs, didn’t you?
laura
The trump crime family needs to move on from “real estate” and each has found “politics” as a useful vehicle for self enrichment. If I were in charge, I’d direct Graydon Carter to reanimate the lifeless Spy Magazine as a one stop, go to source in covering the shady travails of every one of them.
sab
@CaseyL: Amazing sunrises and sunsets.
Immanentize
Ms. Cracker!! Any insights into how the DeSantis raid on the health professional woman who was scaping COVID data is being received in Florida?
mrmoshpotato
@geg6: SAD!
Immanentize
@Betty Cracker: Isn’t the Raptor Rescue Org. Located in Toronto?!
LuciaMia
@J.: In Florida? Probably. You just cant vote for yourself.
mrmoshpotato
@JPL: What’s the deal? Did the hawk catch anything?
Immanentize
@geg6: And, I read she had previously reported she had COVID in June?! Worrisome.
opiejeanne
@JPL: If I read that correctly, there’s not even a house there, yet. They just bought some land.
For $30 million.
geg6
@Immanentize:
Seriously. I’ve never seen so many bugs and I’ve been pretty much everywhere in South FL except the west coast. Only been to Tampa, Bradenton and Panama City on that coast. Perhaps there are none of these insects further south on the west coast.
mrmoshpotato
@Immanentize: I bet the Kraken gave her COVID.
geg6
@Immanentize:
Or she lied. Which would seem in character.
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne: Is this Rich Assholes’ Island in international waters, so they can’t be arrested?
Immanentize
@geg6: I’ve been to Everglades City pretty often and that place has the prehistoric fliers just like the east coast
Immanentize
@geg6: lied yes, but about which time?
gvg
@CaseyL: I was born here. Heat and humidity don’t bother me much. I really hate being cold. I can’t express how much. I didn’t care for the Western dryness when I have visited and I need green. It comes down to no where else seems quite right.
It didn’t used to be this republican. I can’t really explain it but it seemed like all the charisma drained away from democrats when Lawton Chiles died. Republicans have rigged things so they keep winning but the state is actually pretty even.
The Moar You Know
@Immanentize: Not at all. She is lying. As is Rudy. As have most of these people who have claimed to have it in the Trump admin, people who are well in the “COVID kill zone” as regards age, obesity, etc, who claim to have it and then appear in public days later with no lingering issues whatsoever. They always get it at very convenient times, that’s the tell.
geg6
@Immanentize:
I would bet on the first time. She’s been running all over the country with COVID Nosferatu. Of course, she’s got it now.
Immanentize
@mrmoshpotato: Only if Miami Beach is a different country than Miami. Which might well be.
laura
Echoing Imm’s question about the realtime Silkwooding of Rebekah Jones by Governor DeSantis – is it just so much republican business as usual or is this a BFD?
opiejeanne
@mrmoshpotato: LOL.
It’s not even in the ocean. Look at it on a map.
geg6
@laura:
Sure seems like a big deal to me. But what do I know?
mrmoshpotato
So which of these motherfuckers actually isn’t a crook?
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne: What’s the actual name of it? Soviet Shitpile Island doesn’t bring back anything on Google maps.
opiejeanne
@mrmoshpotato: Indian Creek, FL.
Brachiator
Trump would also be stepping on the aspirations of his helmet hair apparent, Mike Pence. So, not just Florida hopefuls.
opiejeanne
A resignation in protest of the raid on Rebekah Jones’s house yesterday:
https://twitter.com/RonGOPVet4Biden/status/1336339189374152704/photo/1
Amir Khalid
@J.:
Apparently incarceration is not a bar to seeking public office in America — I’m told Eugene Debs ran for POTUS from his jail cell. So Trump could run from the hoosegow, I suppose, although I’d rate his chances as no better than Debs’. I just wonder how he’s going to do that big campaign rally thing.
Barbara
@mrmoshpotato: Some are calling this the craziest suit of all, but I am still waiting for the craziest of the crazy: when someone sues a state or federal court for being part of the conspiracy to rig the election. Then I will give it the Irene Trotter award — based on a real case I had as a law clerk, where a woman brought three lawsuits that were not frivolous, lost all of them, and then started suing the state courts that had decided the cases in federal court. And when they were thrown out on appeal, she began suing the district court and then, eventually, the court of appeals (that’s how it came to us, in a sister circuit). Basically, she was a widow who had been ground down by her husband’s accidental death at a hotel (the subject of two suits) and a reduced pension (the subject of the third), and evidently just could not accept her losses. So, fear not, it could get even crazier.
Roger Moore
@Elizabelle:
I will believe it when he’s indicted.
Betty Cracker
@Immanentize: My sense is it’s being received like everything is these days — filtered through a political lens. Democrats are outraged. Republicans are not. The cops say Jones is the one who sent the anonymous email to state health officials. She denies it and says they are targeting her and her data sources. I tend to believe her since DeSantis is a serial liar like his political idol.
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne: Gotcha. So how long until all of the Trump trash tries to go all “sovereign citizen” on us?
Anonymous At Work
@Immanentize: Fort Lauderdale area. Seen ants by the billions, plenty of gnats, geckos in all shapes and sizes (“Really large gecko or really small iguana” is a legitimate game here), but haven’t seen a single roach.
mrmoshpotato
@Barbara: Oh goody! Ugh.
opiejeanne
@mrmoshpotato: I wouldn’t bet on when, but I think there’s a finite amount of the right kind of stupidity/insanity for that to happen.
Betty Cracker
@opiejeanne: Saw that! The official says he’d consider Jones a hero even if she was the one who sent the anonymous email. I agree. We need more officials to stop participating in this deadly fraud.
germy
Brachiator
@The Moar You Know:
If Rudy doesn’t have the ‘Rona, he is carrying the charade to new heights by being admitted to Georgetown University Hospital.
germy
geg6
@Anonymous At Work:
I never saw a cockroach in my life until my sister moved to Stuart area. I was horrified the first time I saw one in her house. No matter how many times the exterminator came, they always came back. And don’t get me started on the palmetto bugs. Ugh. I don’t know how you live there. I just couldn’t. Between the bugs, the reptiles and the crazy, Florida just isn’t for me.
mrmoshpotato
@opiejeanne:
stupidity/insanity – Eric and Don Jr?
JPL
@mrmoshpotato: I could have multiple dead bodies in my yard. just sayin.
My son is coming over to check. The hawk was chased from the woods to the hedge near the house. I can’t see it, but I’m not thrilled about using a rake to clear the leaves. The chase was at least 60 to 80 ft. Squeaking, barking and old lady yelling, just a normal day in the neighborhood. The dog is only eighteen pounds, too.
germy
This guy worked on trump’s TV show and got to watch him on a daily basis. He seems to understand how his… mind …. works.
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Yeah, it’s like the excuse that your grandma died, that people used in high school. You can really only use that once, or twice at most.
WaterGirl
@laura: It sure looks like a big fucking deal to me. I hope Biden’s DOJ looks into it.
jc
So Trump will spend the next four years braying out lies and bullshit claims about his arch rival, the evil Dr. Biden, who will respond by ignoring the useless garbage Trump spews, and when it gets intolerably vile, Biden will go all out with: will you shut up, man. Which will make Trump even crazier, and the media will be highly entertained, giving Trump tons of free publicity to further poison democracy, seeing as it sells products and generates profits. How democracy dies.
germy
Well, it’s not like anyone else needed the bed…. /
Brachiator
@Amir Khalid:
Trump would remind me more of a low level mobster running his operations from jail than a political figure running for office despite incarceration, but you are right on target.
Of course there have been a number of famous politicians who have been elected to office while in jail. For example, Boston pol James Michael Curley.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@opiejeanne:
Wish he hadn’t done that – this world needs some guardians to hold the line.
mrmoshpotato
@jc: If the fat, orange, walking shitpile lives for another 4 years…
opiejeanne
@geg6: I never saw a cockroach until I was about 20. The big black “water bugs” in Riverside, CA were running all over the sidewalks in the old Square Mile part of town, where we had just bought a house.
We never saw them in that house, but our next house was in a more upscale part of town, the Wood Streets, and they came in under the back door into the family room. . We didn’t know about them until we had a new baby who needed to be fed in the wee hours, and we flipped on the lights. The damned things would freeze for a few seconds, thinking we wouldn’t see them against the light blue carpet. Then they’d all run for the back door, anticipating my shriek.
We did figure out how to exclude them from the house, but it took some work and a lot of bug spray into the holes in the back porch where they seemed to be living, plus a new draft-preventer gizmo that fit flush when the door was closed.
When we removed the metal cabinets in the kitchen remodel, we found one small German brown, and no evidence that we had a next of them.
Geminid
@JPL: it’s a good thing the hawk did not get its claws on your pup. Hawks can really mess up dogs or humans.
Just One More Canuck
@geg6: She said earlier that she was ‘doing the right thing for God’ by continuing to try to overturn the election results. It looks like God disagreed
opiejeanne
@jc: Dr Biden is Jill.
leeleeFL
@CaseyL: In my case, my apolitical Daughter, who has predicted what is happening for decades, moved here in 2000, and took the First GrandBaby, threatening to have more! (she did) I had no choice but to come here, if seeing my Babies was gonna be possible. Le Sigh! (luv that, Betty!)
germy
Georgetown Hospital Staff Saddened By Elderly Patient Repeatedly Insisting He Used To Be America’s Mayor
comrade scotts agenda of rage
“South Beach Sarah Palin”
You are the best.
geg6
@opiejeanne:
They are so gross. I’m glad the only place I’ve ever seen them is in Florida. From what I saw from the 12 years my sister lived there, there is no escape regardless of your level of cleanliness or the number of times or ways you try to exterminate.
opiejeanne
@Just One More Canuck: Why are these Christianists such nihilists? They think they can force God’s hand to bring on Armageddon?
Narrator: no, they can’t. But the real question is why would they want to?
All of this Final Days nonsense is relatively new and not based on sound theology, plus Jesus already told them to shut up about it.
Mai Naem mobile
I don’t think Trumpov will be alive for many years. Even if he is alive he will either be physically or mentally disabled to the point where he won’t be doing rallies or much else. I don’t see the Trumpovs becoming a dynasty. Say what you want about the Bushes and Kennedys but they weren’t dumb.
CaseyL
@gvg: Oh, it is different if you’re a native!
My lifelong friend Sherri is also South Florida born and bred. When she came out here to Seattle in the summer, she’d basically dress as though for the arctic because Seattle summer weather can still be in the 50s-60s.
Dade County (now Miami Dade County) politics have been nuts for as long as I can remember, because of the Cuban refugees: their one and only issue was how strongly a politician opposed Castro. Period. Local issues meant nothing to them. I remember mayoral races where the candidates were careful to point out that they had been born in Havana. This was back in the 1970s-80s.
I think Chiles was the outlier, to tell the truth. One of the most infamous elections during the Red Scare era happened in Florida, when GOP George Smathers ran against, and beat, Democrat Claude Pepper by accusing his daughter of having “thespian tendencies,” and Pepper himself of “masticating at the dinner table.” Just totally mendacious bullshit, relying on the basic, deep ignorance of Florida voters.
opiejeanne
@geg6: I was bewildered when a neighbor called them water bugs. She explained that “nice people” don’t have cockroaches, they have water bugs. Then she laughed.
Betty Cracker
@CaseyL: I’m a 7th gen Floridian. If I was from someplace else, I probably wouldn’t have moved here, but for better or worse, it’s home. There’s a lot of worse, but there are also fantastic things that I appreciate about the state. Mostly it’s family that keeps me here though. I left for a few years but missed my people too much, so I came back home.
O. Felix Culpa
@Betty Cracker:
Heh. I moved seven thousand miles away and stayed for ten years. I missed some family members, but then there were others…
opiejeanne
@CaseyL: I’m a native of SoCal but I have adapted. We lived in the East Bay of SF for 9 years and I realized that if I didn’t put on a pair of shorts when it hit 60, I might not get to wear them all summer.
It gets a little warmer over here on the east side, 80s-90s all last summer, over 100 one year, but I tend to put on my shorts at about 60 if there’s any sun. At 50 in the sun I shed my sweatshirt because I’m too warm at that point.
Kent
My heart skipped a beat. I first read this as “Dr. Biden is ill”
rikyrah
This is what I have been trying to get someone to explain to me. Not just these clowns, but, Cruz, Cotton, Pompeo…these demons are going to put their ambitions on ice for Dolt45?
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
I feel the same way about my corner of Western PA. Lots of crazy idiots around here, but so are my family and several of my best friends. Otherwise, I’d be somewhere else, but not too far and most likely in the city. I love how pretty the landscapes are around here and having actual seasons. I’ve been a lot of places, but this area has the kind of natural beauty I love. And, even in the middle of Pittsburgh, the natural beauty is apparent all around you.
Central Planning
If those trump turds are all moving to south Florida, I’m going to have to start a petition to circumcise America’s wang.
Betty Cracker
@rikyrah: They really don’t have much choice. I think they’re all probably hoping Trump drops dead or flames out — not because they oppose Trump’s policies but because he’s in their way. But they can’t piss off his voters, who are their potential voters.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
There may be a nasty fight for the nomination. I look forward to watching it. I will bring lots of popcorn.
CaseyL
@Betty Cracker: 7th Generation! Your family must have been among the first non-Native American/non-Caribbean people in Florida!
@opiejeanne: My native land, if I can call it that, was Philly. I don’t remember minding the weather, even the snowy winters. Moved to Miami Beach at age 12, and never reconciled to the climate there, though it did bother me less at first, more and more as I got older. When I first moved to Seattle in ’76, Seattle’s climate was a welcome-home to me. I don’t even mind the overcast (mostly).
schrodingers_cat
Noble general update:
Warrior “monk” is shilling for the UAE arms deal
He is as much a monk as Modi is a fakir.
Baud
@Just One More Canuck:
God voted for Biden/Harris.
SiubhanDuinne
Don’t know who all else is interested, but Biden’s rolling out his health care/COVID team. Surgeon General-designate Vivek Murthy is speaking now: HHS Secretary-designate Xavier Becerra spoke a couple of minutes ago.
Steve in the ATL
@Betty Cracker:
That condition is recognized in the DSM-5, right?
Zing!
Brachiator
@Mai Naem mobile:
Who knows what Trump’s evil spawn might be planning. Ivanka, Don Jr and even Young Jared might consider running for some office during the mid-terms. Or, if Orange Daddy passes away, Don Jr might foolishly believe that he can run for president.
patrick II
My original thought was how could one state foster such horrible candidates with Oval Office aspirations. But then I thought about it and realized the whole republican party is that way. Pick a state and their favorite Republican son with aspirations is just about as horrible. Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, whomever. They are stuck. As an aside, I think Rick Scott is the smartest guy with a chance. I watched him work the Florida Puerto Rican vote to win his senate seat and became impressed with his snake charms people ability.
WaterGirl
@Kent: My heart skipped a beat, too. I thought the same thing as you.
FelonyGovt
@SiubhanDuinne: And of course, Tom Cotton and other GOP slime are already complaining about Becerra because of his support for abortion rights and the ACA.
catclub
Thailand! Sri Lanka
catclub
Second time: Dr Biden is Chill.
Frankensteinbeck
Well, if Marco Rubio says it, it must be true.
Yeah, no. Trump is going to be abandoned in the wilderness by his voters. The analogy I finally hit on that describes how his voters behave is that they’re cruelty junkies. For four years, Trump has provided them with nonstop highs of making everyone they hate miserable. They have defended that drug fanatically. Hell, defending it increased the high because it’s giving the finger to everyone they hate. They would do anything for Trump, their dealer.
The thing is, they wouldn’t actually do anything for Trump. They would do anything for the drug. Trump is about to run out of supply, and he’s going to discover that the relationship was entirely transactional. When he can’t deliver, it will be “Trump who?” By 2024 he’ll be a nobody, and much too senile and self-absorbed to restart the “Mexicans are rapists and murderers” train that got him going in 2016. And he’ll be the guy who screwed up and didn’t deliver in 2020.
This analogy particularly well describes what’s going on right now. Like the junkies they are, Trump voters are scrambling desperately looking for another fix fallen into the couch cushions. They’re screaming denial that no, no, it can’t be over. They seem to have fixed their hopes on the Supreme Court overturning everything, so when SCOTUS slaps Trump down is likely when they’ll be unable to deny anymore. Bit by bit, some of them are peeling away already.
EDIT – Oh, and forget the spawn. The spawn are a joke. They don’t deliver the hate fix Daddy does. The Republican establishment despises them. They have no serious future in politics.
Another Scott
@mrmoshpotato: Yeah, he’s screaming “Mr. President God Emperor Donnie! Please Pardon Me!!”
JuanitaJean:
Only the best people.
Cheers,
Scott.
rikyrah
@FelonyGovt:
I love having someone who has spent the last four years defending the right to healthcare in our courts.
opiejeanne
@CaseyL: When we moved to Castro Valley, just south of Oakland, 1992 Thanksgiving, it rained for weeks and a nearby creek flooded. The fire department had to rescue the people living in the retirement home that backed on the creek.
By the end of February I thought I’d never have dry feet again.
Betty Cracker
@patrick II: Scott is disciplined and smart, I’ll give the bastard that. He’s the most horrible retail politician ever. Have you ever seen him debate? I cringed with vicarious embarrassment through every one of his debates because he’s so fucking awkward and awful. But no one gives a shit, apparently. I don’t know if Scott could scale up to a national campaign the way he has on the state level — it seems like it would be too much ground to cover. I want to say it couldn’t happen, but I’ve counted him out too many times to make that mistake again.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
It’s not that they’re going to put their ambitions on hold; it’s that they’re intimidated by Trump’s hold on the Republican base. They appear to believe that they have no realistic chance of beating Trump if he runs in 2024.
Geminid
@FelonyGovt: on the other hand, Politico Playbook quoted Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA) saying of the Becerra nomination, that although he had reservations regarding the nominee’s experience in health care, “I’m not going to fight it.” But unlike Tom Cotten, Cassidy doesn’t want to run for President.
Zelma
@geg6:
There is something lovely about the western PA landscape. And Pittsburgh is the prettiest city. I’d sit in the cafeteria of the university and look out at the river and all the wooded hills. So green and interesting. Other cities, with their flatness, just seemed so blah.
But when I retired, I moved back to South Jersey and its calming flatness. Also, the ocean. I loved Pittsburgh, but it was just too far from the shore.
Kent
It is gorgeous in that four season Appalachian way. There’s a reason why “Falling Water” is such a famously beautiful spot. Pittsburgh has always been my favorite eastern city. Such a nicer setting than all those eastern seaboard cities sitting on the flat tidelands and floodplains.
Zelma
@Kent:
Yes, the hills are lovely; never more beautiful than when covered with snow. But then you have to get in the car and drive somewhere. I’ve never gotten over sliding all the way down Negley Avenue and praying that the light would be green at the Botton.
JoyceH
@Frankensteinbeck:
THANK you! Man, I get so tired of all these pundits going on about what a political juggernaut Trump is going to be, an unstoppable FORCE OF NATURE!
Sigh. That’s exactly what they said about Palin. And she actually WORKED at trying to remain a force in the GOP. Trump doesn’t work at anything, he expects it to be handed to him.
Yeah, he’s Loomed Large in the GOP for five years – because for four of those years, he’s been the president! Once he’s no longer the president, I think his fan base is going to significantly diminish. Why would people show up and wait in line for hours to listen to a rant that’s all about himself and the same old stuff he’s ranted about for years?
And that’s assuming everything remains the same, which it won’t. With his legal problems and declining mental acuity… well.
By 2022, Trump will be entirely a non-factor. You think Republican candidates will be begging him to come campaign for them in the midterms? Uh… no.
opiejeanne
@Zelma: That sounds like Seattle.
catclub
They all say that there is no way the SC will decide to break the ACA based on the arguments given. But I think it is MORE likely they will break it with Biden as president than Trump. Alito and Thomas for sure.
geg6
@Kent:
I have always wanted to live in Mt. Washington or the West End Overlook area, up on the highest cliffs overlooking the Point, all three rivers and the entire city. Such beauty in such an urban area!
catclub
Rush Limbaugh’s fans would like a word. Rush has been on air since 1980’s, right?
Jeffro
@rikyrah: I’m with you on this.
Someone on the R side is going to just come out and say it before 2021’s out (my money is on Hawley or Haley): “while we thank the president* for his service and unflagging devotion to conservative causes…surely even he would agree that his ongoing legal/health/sanity issues require his full attention and then some due to the machinations of those evil Demoncrats. The stalwart voters and true Americans of the Grand Old Party deserve a leader who will champion those exact same causes, with perhaps even more energy, and with focus, and with dedication (and a little less tweeting, yuk yuk yuk)…so while we are sorry to see president* trumpov tied up in 816 legal proceedings, 23 sexual assault cases, and 5 pending cases of money laundering, we thank His Orangeness with every ounce of our being and pledge to follow his example, fight for true conservative values, yada yada yada…”
They’ll totally put the knife in, once enough charges have been brought. That way, it’s the Dems to “took Donald out” and “never gave him a fair shake” and “oh what can we do but take up the banner and fight like he would have”. But they’ll do it, and they’ll do it by the day after the midterms at the absolute latest.
geg6
@Zelma:
Had to drive to a friend’s place in Mt. Washington in an ice storm once. Down Greentree Hill on the Parkway West and then up the hill. It was an adventure.
Jeffro
My family lived in coastal Georgia for a few years when I was a kid, and while we certainly weren’t thrilled about the gnats, mosquitoes, and occasional snakes, the cockroaches were the worst.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
If the president says he’s going to run in 2024, he’ll probably clear the field.
Right now, there is no way to know whether Trump’s base will desert him. Your analogy is fun, but doesn’t seem particularly accurate.
That’s odd. Trump’s base still seems to be sticking with him, and GOP leaders are still embarrassing themselves by insisting that Bigfoot exists, the Earth is flat, and Trump won the election.
But we have a marker for one of your predictions. SCOTUS will probably slap Trump down very soon. We will be able to see how Trump’s suckers react to this.
I agree with you here. As long as Trump lives, his evil spawn probably won’t go very far in politics. However, we have not seen any of them make any serious move for public office.
Anotherlurker
@CaseyL: I tried living in Fl. for 3 years. I gave it a good shot, but just couldn’t do it, for all the reasons you listed with the addition of blatant racism among the Midwestern retirees.
Matt McIrvin
@Amir Khalid: Lyndon LaRouche ran for President from prison as well.
Uncle Cosmo
@CaseyL: Didn’t he also accuse Pepper’s daughter of going to college to “matriculate”? (An anti-intellectual twofer.)
Matt McIrvin
@opiejeanne: When people talk about “Dr. Jill” I keep thinking they’re talking about Jill Stein and misreading things.
Tdjr
@opiejeanne: Pittsburgh girl here. I love the area and the 4 seasons but when I visited Seattle I felt right at home. They have a lot of similarities.
JoyceH
@catclub:
Not at all the same thing. Sure, Rush rants, but he rants about current events. I don’t watch/listen to him, but I remember that notorious riff he went on about the young woman who thought birth control should be covered by insurance. What he does not do is spend every broadcast talking about himself and telling the same stories about himself over and over again. However toxic, he does in his own way provide some entertainment value if you like that sort of thing.
Trump doesn’t. He doesn’t have new material. He’s VENTING and focused entirely on the only thing that interests him, himself. He’s BORING. All along, when Trump has been holding these rallies, the media focuses on the size of the crowd, but not on the fact that the audience starts streaming away while he’s still ranting. He even bores his most ardent fans. Once he’s no longer showing up on Air Force One, why should they show up to hear the same rant they walked out on early when he was president?
Tdjr
@geg6: I love taking out-of-towners down some of the streets in Mt Washington and other areas. There are roads here that disappear under your car hood that freak people out! ?
Edited to correct autocorrect.
JaneE
I remember back in the mid ’50’s when I visited my grandparents in northeastern Oklahoma. The family home had been added onto multiple times, and the wall between the kitchen area and the living room was still the original shingle siding from when it had been an outside wall, painted white to match the new kitchen walls. After it got dark enough, my grandmother would get out her flit gun and go into the kitchen. I would hit the lights, and dozens of cockroaches would scatter and flee up under the shingles while my grandmother hit them with insect spray. She always told me how many more she could kill with my “help”. The only other place I saw them was my first apartment after college, and the landlord and exterminators took care of everything but disposing of all the bodies I found when I cleaned the gas stovetop.
I have never been to Florida, but I think Hawaii may rival them for insects and geckos. No iguanas though.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
Correction to my earlier reply.
Meant to say that Trump’s evil spawn probably have even a hint of a political career only as long as Trump lives. If he passes away in the next couple of years, any political fantasies they have will likely evaporate. However, we will see what happens if any of them decide on testing the political waters.
I note, though, that Don Jr makes noise as though he thinks he can run for something.
ETA: I was thrown off my the surprise “Stay At Home” order blasting on my cell phone. Hadn’t seen that one before.
catclub
@Jeffro:
the traditional story in my family is, when my parents were very young and living in Charleston, SC, on returning to their dark apartment, he would roll up a newspaper, turn on the lights, and yell “run you boogers, run” .. and presumably killing the slow ones with the paper. She waited for this to finish before entering.
CaseyL
@Uncle Cosmo: Yup – forgot that one. There were so many!
Point being, that Lawton Chiles and Bob Graham aside, the GOP (and its crazy, mean, ignoramus elements) has been the dominant political power in Florida fora very long time.
Whatever lightning in a bottle the Democrats managed to catch with Chiles and Graham were the anomalies.
sab
I remember walking our dog in Florida in the mid 1960s. At night it would be crunch crunch crunch as he stepped on palmetto bugs. He was a bassett. He had large feet.
Geminid
@opiejeanne: re End Times “theology”: I read one author who attributed the modern end time craze to the success of Hal Lindsay’s 1970s bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth. Lindsay still has shows on Christian radio, although they may be posthumous re-broadcasts.
sab
@Betty Cracker: Do you remember that NPR travelling show “Wait wait don’t tell me?” Based out of Wisconsin with a host named Michael something ( Goldfarb?) They travelled around US.
Once they were in Jacksonville, and one of their audience participation people was a very native Floridian. 14th generation, of Minorcan ancestry.
I thought that was so cool. Florida is, by American standards, both so very young and new, and also so very old. Isn’t St. Augustine the oldest city in America by at least a century?
OldDave
@sab: This Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me? It’s still being broadcast, but in a Covid, non-audience sort of way.
Aleta
@catclub: I used to live where the cockroaches would fly fast and low over our faces about 10 min. after we turned out the lights and lay down. I don’t mind insects much but that was unnerving like a little explosion in the dark.
sab
@OldDave: I might have the name wrong. It was the Michael Goldfarb show, not the Peter Sagal show.
louc
@CaseyL: Don’t forget Bob Butterworth and Bill Nelson, too. Though Bill got lazy and that’s why he lost.
I grew up in Plantation and lived half my adult life in S. Florida. (Once you leave, you lose your tolerance for high humidity, btw.) I always thought of Florida as Democratic until Jeb Bush. I blame the Villages because it was deliberately geared to conservative types and it’s a huge voting bloc that wasn’t there in the old days. I miss the Janet Renos and other native Floridians raised in sawgrass that have disappeared from the political scene. I also miss the reliable Century Village retiree community from New York that could negate the Villages. They have died out.
BruceFromOhio
Never underestimate the power of stupid people in groups.
CaseyL
@louc: I never did think of Florida as basically Democratic, but maybe that’s because I lived in Havana North. Cubans never forgave the Democrats for JFK not supporting the Bay of Pigs coup attempt – and now that the old Cubans are dying off, there’s the fresh influx from Venezuela happy to replace them.
*sigh*
It wasn’t until I left Florida for the West Coast that I stopped being a very small Democratic fish in a large GOP pond. Felt very strange to live somewhere that had sane governance I agreed with!
ETA: Washington State did have Republican Governors, once upon a time. But they were all Liberal Republicans, a now-extinct subspecies.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Jeffro:
I agree this will happen. I don’t think it will happen until he loses in 2024. Court cases can be drug out for many years. Given that Trump’s followers are disturbingly rabid, they are perfectly willing to believe that any legal trouble he is in is from the ‘deep state’ coming after him. Plus, Newsmax and OANN want to milk these people for all they are worth. The best way to do that is to leverage their fanaticism into clicks and product sales by keeping the ‘poor Trumpie the victim’ schtick going. His health may well give out before the scams do.
sab
I love Florida. It is extremely lush. Amazing springs everywhere. Seashores with amazing sunrises and sunsets ( peninsula. It has both. Just pick your shore.) Lots of extremely weird wildlife. Gorgeous birds. Temperate climate. Sunsets. Sunrises.
Seacows. I think anoles are adorable. Long interesting history.
Only problem is it is extremely flat, and if you like winter it doesn’t have much.
H.E.Wolf
Very honoured to get a hat tip for the link – thank you kindly. (The blogger who wrote the essay deserves the true credit!)
brantl
@Mai Naem mobile: The Bushes WERE dumb. The dad was marginal, and shrub was as dumb as a red brick.
The Lodger
@sab: it was Michael Feldman and the show was Whad’ya Know?
(Not much! You?)