President Biden is now enjoying himself at Moomers in Traverse City pic.twitter.com/tTqMWUseAk
— Bo Erickson CBS (@BoKnowsNews) July 3, 2021
Rounded out our day at @MoomersIceCream! Of course @POTUS wanted to stop for ice cream. (And so did I ☺️) pic.twitter.com/yn4XxXe5kZ
— Sen. Debbie Stabenow (@SenStabenow) July 3, 2021
Traverse City is at its best this time of year, and I have fond memories of past Cherry Festivals. (Spousal Unit grew up there, although as a resort town it was considerably less sophisticated back then.) And I’m proud I got to vote for Debbie Stabenow in her first local political races.
Joe Biden cherry-picks audience to promote bipartisan infrastructure deal https://t.co/oYqGAMhxVN
— The Guardian (@guardian) July 3, 2021
… The Democratic governor of Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer, greeted Biden’s midday arrival in Traverse City, which is hosting the National Cherry Festival, an event that has attracted presidents in the past. As they toured the cherry farm in nearby Antrim county, Whitmer told reporters she had not spoken to Biden about any infrastructure projects for Michigan specifically.
“I’m the fix-the-damn-roads governor, so I talk infrastructure with everybody, including the president,” she said. In recent flooding, she said, the state saw “under-invested infrastructure collide with climate change”.
“So this is an important moment. And that’s why this infrastructure package is so important. That’s also why I got the president rocky road fudge from Mackinac Island for his trip here.”…
[Side note: That confection is popular enough that the derisive local term for tourists is ‘fudgies’.] .
Biden’s host at King Orchards, Juliette King McAvoy, introduced him to the two Guatemalan couples, who she said had been working on the farm for 35 years. He told them he was proposing a pathway to citizenship for farmworkers. Biden then picked a cherry out of one of their baskets and ate it.The trip to Michigan was part of a broader campaign to drum up public support for the infrastructure package and other polices geared toward families and education…
Because butchered clips of this quote are being passed around…
Asked if it’s fair Sha’Carri Richardson suspended over marijuana, Biden: “The rules are the rules and everybody knows of the rules going in. Whether they should remain the rules is a different issue, but the rules are the rules.”
“But I was really proud of the way she responded.”— Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) July 3, 2021
President Joe lucked out — Dr. Jill Biden was in New Hampshire, where it rained on & off all day…
@FLOTUS in Portsmouth: As part of the “America’s Back Together” tour, Dr. Jill Biden will meet with NH National Guard members Saturday afternoon before heading to a barbecue with @SenatorShaheen and @SenatorHassan @seacoastonline https://t.co/87NbRdPY2a
— Ian Lenahan (@LenahanIan) July 2, 2021
A special moment at today’s Portsmouth event as @flotus sings Happy Birthday to Michael. He turned 32 today! ?? @WMUR9 pic.twitter.com/ji0NzEOrCd
— Nicol Lally (@tvnicol) July 3, 2021
(Taken at Strawberry Banke Museum)
OzarkHillbilly
Ida know, maybe he should marinated a little longer.
tom
Can you imagine Trump talking and genuinely smiling at kids like Biden is doing in those pictures? Unthinkable.
That part of Michigan is deep red, so I hope his trip was well-received there.
Mustang Bobby
I spent my summers up in Northport on Grand Traverse Bay, a year working radio in Frankfort in 1978-1979, and six years (1990-1995) in Petoskey when my dad had a window and door business in TC and I was the northern sales office manager. I bought my legendary 1988 Pontiac 6000 Safari (that I still drive) from Hertz Car Sales at Cherry Capital Airport, and I did my first professional acting at the Cherry County Playhouse in 1970 in a play as Vivian Vance’s son. I listen to Interlochen Public Radio’s classical music station via the net at work. Joe Biden should be the kind of politician to speak to the good people up there even though there was (and remains) a fairly high quotient of wing-nuttery up there, and seeing pictures of Moomers and hearing about the cherry festival makes me nostalgic for those days. Thanks.
OzarkHillbilly
That video.
Steeplejack
Thanks to the blog powers for having a non-garden open thread on Sunday morning. Takes the pressure off when issues are boiling.
None boiling at the moment, but I couldn’t pass up this colossal self-own by Boris Johnson. What a maroon!
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s terrifying.
eclare
@Steeplejack: So, “chilled meats” is the biggest issue?
OzarkHillbilly
Miami condo collapse: reports reveal board’s long debate over repairs
I will never buy a condo.
Steeplejack (phone)
@eclare:
“The wurst is behind us.”
OzarkHillbilly
@eclare: I had to go change my pants after watching that.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
It’s like the building collapse, but with mud.
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: The only shocking thing about this was that Mr Kaestel was white.
I think Arkansas is merely Western Mississippi.
WereBear
@Steeplejack: I’ll take “breathtaking lack of self-awareness for eight zillion, Alex!”
Baud
@WereBear:
That’s why he got clemency!
raven
@Mustang Bobby: Somehow myself and three other guys had a cabin up there Thanksgiving 70. We go stopped by the MSP on the way up, tossed the bag and drove 50 miles back down only to find the bag but the goods had blown out! It was fucking cold, much colder than the previous T-Day at the Palm Beach Pop Festival at the Beeline Raceway! (it was cold and wet too)
eclare
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s like the fires out West, I just can’t even comprehend seeing something like that in person.
WereBear
@Baud: These extraordinary insights are why I always vote BAUD in the primary.
Steeplejack
@WereBear:
He’s a shameless egomaniac who thinks he can bullshit his way through anything. Like Trump but in a different key. And he pretty much has.
The comments on that thread were brutal, which was nice to see.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, unlike Trump, BoJo has legitimately won elections.
WereBear
@Baud: In the stupid people category… “We’re Number ONE!”
Nicole
@Steeplejack: Oh my God, that Boris Johnson video was even worse than I imagined. Horrifyingly hilarious.
Happy 4th, everyone! I’m taking the kid for an early morning riding lesson and decided to treat myself to one, too. Putting on my old riding breeches this morning, which I bought 15 years ago was… humbling. Sigh. Time marches on, for sure. At least the boots still fit.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Baud:
The “best” (ugh) videos are in this thread. Note the third one in particular.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Jesus. Heard about it yesterday, but that was the first time I’d seen it. Utterly terrifying.
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack (phone): I can’t help wondering if the driver of that van in the first one is still alive.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Ice cream Joe and Dr. Jill are pretty good at this people thing
Steeplejack (phone)
@OzarkHillbilly:
He looked like he got a good head start. I was worried about the guys on foot running in the third video (which was the first one I saw yesterday).
It’s unimaginable to be confronted with that in the middle of an ordinary day.
germy
@Steeplejack (phone):
OK Moomer
OzarkHillbilly
@Steeplejack (phone): He got a head start, I don’t think it was anywhere near good enough. He’d have been far better off backing up instead of driving into the path. Some of those pedestrians are gone for sure.
Steeplejack (phone)
@OzarkHillbilly:
Split-second decisions. I thought maybe truck guy could get past the end of the mudslide as it slowed down and stopped.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Steeplejack (phone):
I went back and looked at that first video. It didn’t show the mudslide slowing down. Wishful thinking on my part. Oof.
Maybe we’ll get stories on the survivors in the videos.
Steeplejack (phone)
@germy:
?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
“I was appalled to see that a weapon wielding group of anti-trans protesters, who I totally do not support, were shouted down and hounded out of a California neighborhood by supposed ‘leftists’ who didn’t want to hear their earnestly heartfelt opinions. Why don’t those supposed ‘leftists’ confront the real power centers at the Pentagon and Goldman Sachs? They’re total fakes, which I’ll demonstrate over the next 212 tweets.”
– by Glenn Greenwald
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Steeplejack (phone):
That thing had to be moving at a solid 60-80 MPH.
raven
17,000 in the Peachtree and Sen/Rev Warnock finished and is being interviewed.
rikyrah
Happy July 4th??????
germy
“Saying the quiet parts out loud” is how TFG got elected, and maybe it’ll also be his undoing?
OzarkHillbilly
MMQBing here.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
JPL
@germy: Once again they are going to plead ignorance of the law. It saved Don Jr. last time, and might again. Weisselberg won’t be able to use that excuse, since he’s an accountant.
germy
@JPL:
During his campaign, TFG said that no one understood the tax laws better than he did.
Maybe this can be used against him, too?
Suzanne
@OzarkHillbilly: I am torn. I have long thought that I would go the condo or townhome route when I’m older. I don’t enjoy yard work or having lots of outdoor space. But I lived in one for a while, and my mom was on the board when I was a teenager, and LORT was it a gigantic hassle. But single-family-home ownership isn’t a great model for a lot of people and we need to figure something else out. Especially with this housing market doing what it’s doing.
One interesting thing I read today: this piece in the NYT indicates that there may not have been enough steel in the concrete. I think I shared an experience of mine, in which an existing masonry (load-bearing) building on the site of a building I designed was demolished. And while the abatement and demolition was going on, we found that there was absolutely no horizontal reinforcement in that masonry. I did a renovation project in another building and when they tore out the interior, they found that the building had no sheathing or weather barrier, and water had been blowing in for years.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: I thought ignorance of the law was no excuse, but I guess that rule doesn’t apply to the rich.
satby
From the previous thread: Happy Birthday to Kristine
debbie
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Good god, 212???
satby
@rikyrah: Good morning! ?
@Suzanne: I used to think the same thing, and since I’m older that decision is closer on the horizon. Now, not so sure I’m going that route when I get too old to maintain a house and yard.
debbie
@germy:
Really? Paying for school reduces taxes? In New York? ? ? ?
Geminid
@raven: Sounds like those Georgians got their Fourth of July off to a great start. I bet Senator Warnock was good.
debbie
@Suzanne:
What are the odds that any of those high rises in Florida fully meet code?
OzarkHillbilly
A long, and nightmarish read:
‘They said I don’t exist. But I am here’ – one woman’s battle to prove she isn’t dead
Kafkaesque.
Suzanne
@satby: One major frustration I am having is that it is difficult to find good contractors who want to work on single-family-home projects. I am having to book people months out. I don’t blame them, since these projects are by nature smaller and therefore less profitable. And most tradespeople would rather work for bigger subcontractors. But this is definitely not something I could do if I was older and less experienced in this realm.
Another issue: buildings have a lifespan like anything else. At a point, it is probably wiser to scrape and start over. That is incredibly difficult. I know there are plenty of builders who will build on your lot, but there are far fewer full-service companies who will help homeowners navigate demolition, permitting, design of the new structure, and construction. Not to mention the upfront costs would be beyond what most people can afford.
NotMax
July the fourth obligatory. “Look ma, no hands!”
And a holiday relevant bonus, also too.
Gin & Tonic
@Suzanne: Single family homes can be fun that way too. I spent $22k to tear down and rebuild a 2+ story chimney because the original builder omitted the little metal brackets that help anchor masonry to the sheathing.
Suzanne
@debbie: That’s a gnarly question. Code changes in most jurisdictions every 3-5 years. I am sure that it met code when it was built. But codes have gotten more stringent — by a lot — since it was built.
The vast majority of building elements do not have to be updated or replaced when the code changes. Quite frankly, it would be impossible both technically and financially to do that. There have been some exceptions to that (radio signal boosters after 9/11, fire sprinklers in some jurisdictions), but for the most part…. that’s the risk of an older building.
Another thing to note is that smaller buildings are allowed by the code to be the least safe since they are easiest to egress. So single-family-homes are probably the most hazardous buildings you’re ever in.
Nelle
@satby: I’m not so sure that paying for lawn and snow clearing, vs HOA fees, would be such a bad thing. I’m inclined to stay where i am and just pay someone to do thise things.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Loopholes in the tax law were created for the trumpettes. I just hope that Allen and his attorneys listened to the trump’s this weekend. They made it clear that they aren’t going down for their CPA’s crimes. Allen might have some thoughts on that.
satby
Now giving my 114 year old house the stank eye.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: You know where I notice stuff like that all the time? Fire stairs in older buildings. And by older, I mean anything built before about 1998. I notice too-short guardrails, too-big gaps, handrails that stick out incorrectly, too-narrow treads…. I often wonder how many people have stumbled and fallen over the years.
satby
@Nelle: I’ve paid for lawn service for years. I’ll add snow removal maybe in a few years more, but the best part about being a senior citizen is opting out of going anywhere during bad weather if I don’t want to ?!
Suzanne
@satby: Yeah, I hear you. I often hear civilians say, “They just don’t build like they used to!”…. and there are definitely things I have seen that make me very grateful that we do not.
Baud
@Suzanne:
Building material costs money.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@OzarkHillbilly:
Hey, can a dead person be put to jail for murder at French law? Because I’d be considering two people as my targets – that claimant and the claimant’s lawyer. Maybe some of the judges who retreated behind “I can’t fix this”.
WereBear
@satby:
Every time I look into condo-type living, I snag on how I want pets, solitude, and lack of hassle. It’s also outrageously expensive with the fees, which can suddenly escalate when the board — when tends to be obsessed with appearances, “property values,” and being tinpot dictators — decides there must be a giant upgrade project. And then you MUST pay it…
I think I’d be better off hiring someone to do the lawn cutting and essential shoveling. And knowing my own lack of physical grace: safer, too :)
JPL
@Suzanne: BTW I appreciated your comments after the collapse of the Florida condo. Balloon Juice really is a full service blog.
debbie
@Suzanne:
Everything everywhere usually included grandfathering-in clauses in NYC, so I’m guessing there are plenty of disasters-in-waiting beyond Florida.
Anya
@Steeplejack: I am currently living in Little Brexit Island (the things we do for love), and I am flabbergasted daily by the utter corruption, lies and incompetence of Boris Johnson’s government. They continue to be popular and to continue to win despite all of that. There is literally a scandal a day that would crush any government but they fight it with whipping up xenophobia and outright racism. The government recently came up with a report that the use of terms including “white privilege” have contributed to the “neglect” of white working-class pupils in the education system, Can you imagine such a thing? They are like the republicans, if you can imagine it, except they don’t deny climate change so that’s something, I guess…
rikyrah
@JPL:
????
Don K
@tom:
Historically this area is pretty damned red, but Grand Traverse county tightened to 50.5/47.5 Trump over Biden last year, and Leelanau county actually voted for Biden, so I guess the times may be changing.
Today’s high is forecast for 89 in the Detroit area (91 in Traverse), but yeah, this is the time of year when Michigan shines (generally not blazingly hot, with coolish evenings).
It’s notable how the state has embraced the cherry as a signifier of “Michigan-ness”. Literally every local restaurant in the Detroit area has a Michigan Salad on the menu, topped with dried cherries and walnuts. The local grocery where I shop has Michigan chicken burgers, with cherries embedded in the patties.
Anya
@OzarkHillbilly: This is incredible. Someone can just go to court and declare someone dead? Poor woman. I hope this is made into a movie and she gets lots of money from it.
Haydnseek
@Mustang Bobby: Pontiac 6000! There’s one sitting in my garage right now. My mother worked for Nelson Pontiac in El Monte, CA for years and bought a new one with her employee and friend of the owner discount. Mint condition.
She’s no longer with us but I’d like to get it out of my garage just to free up some space. Wouldn’t take much to get it running again……..
Suzanne
@WereBear: I think it is really location-dependent. At the condo communities I lived in, the monthly dues were really low and everyone wanted to keep them that way (I think about $120/month, and that included all the landscaping and the pool). We never had any special assessments, all maintenance and improvements were paid by the dues. But my aunt had a townhome for about fifteen years and I think she had five special assessments during the time she lived there. The value for her was that she never had to coordinate any of the work, and she only has indoor cats, so her small deck was all that she needed. So I think it can work for some people and at some places. The trick, of course, is finding those places.
I think we have to figure out a stronger legal structure that makes condo living reasonable. It is more sustainable environmentally to have people living a bit more densely. And it really is ideal for a lot of people…. single people, especially women who didn’t grow up with handy skills, older people. And it’s an effective means of entry into homeownership for a lot of people.
NotMax
@WereBear
When she finally came around to accepting she was living in far too much house, Mom lucked out in finding a two bedroom unit in a co-op building. In the same town.
Post-war building; three stories, nine units total, indoor garage. Mortgage on the building had been paid off decades earlier. Monthly fee not especially onerous and enough of a contingency fund built up by the board that when something major comes up it can be handled without breaking the bank (came in handy when they had to replace the elevator a couple of years ago). And as it’s a co-op, thus a shareholder member of the board, the portion of the monthly fee which is applied to property taxes by the co-op board is deductible on her taxes.
Suzanne
@debbie: It’s not exactly grandfathering, because future renovations and improvements have to meet the current codes.
Yes, there are problems in every state. The building codes have gotten more stringent in many respects. Energy demand, water use, accessibility, egress capacity and maximum occupancy…. not just structural. One of the biggest ones I deal with, since I design hospitals, is that current codes no longer allow for shared hospital rooms in most healthcare settings, because it has been demonstrated that sharing a hospital room is a primary vector of infection (hey, in the pre-pandemic times, this wasn’t as evident to people).
Old buildings are old.
@JPL: Aw thanks, my pleasure.
Sure Lurkalot
I have owned 2 homes, both townhouses. When condo/townhome projects are built, the developer sets the fees low to attract buyers and there aren’t many repair needs to start. When the project is sold to a certain percentage, the HOA gets turned over to the owners who are not experienced in maintenance and repairs or financial planning.
I have experienced all the malfeasance…underfunding, embezzlement, diversion of funds to benefit board members, large special assessments, etc.
My architect spouse was on the board for years and struggled with the other members and homeowners about needed projects. He now has an advisory position and there will be a big fight over a reserve study which is long overdue and which will point to increased monthly assessment.
But frankly, owners of single family homes are also not zealous about setting aside money for eventual expensive replacements like roofs and windows. We are a kick the can down the road society, evidenced by the D- grade of our nation’s infrastructure.
Tony Jay
@Anya:
It’s maddening, isn’t it? People only ‘know’ what they’re told by the Infotainment industry, and since 99% of that is firmly in the Tory camp and/or under the thumb of Tory placemen it’s astonishing how deliberately misinformed the British population is. It’s taken corruption and arrogance on this mammoth scale to even begin cutting through the protective safety blanket of friendly coverage Flobalob and Co are wrapped in, and God only knows if that will last now that their PR machine knows some maintenance is needed.
tom
@Don K:
I didn’t realize TC and Leelanau was starting to trend blue. Some friends of mine have a house on Torch Lake, and all you see on US-31 driving up there are Trump signs.
Good to hear. Hope it keeps up.
O. Felix Culpa
@Sure Lurkalot: My last home was a condo in Chicago. We had a good board that kept up (as best I could tell) with maintenance and building a decent reserve fund. I realized over time, though, that I was at the mercy of board elections, HOA increases, and special assessments that I had no control over. Owning a house has its own special
joyspains and I’m not sure which is worse, but at least I can (usually) determine my own home improvement schedule, contractors, and related costs.schrodingers_cat
Happy 4th. This is my fourth 4th as a citizen.
tom
@schrodingers_cat: Happy fourth 4th to you!
germy
The problem I have as a single family homeowner is finding competent (and honest) contractors.
Recently, we had a leaky roof. I called a company, the guy came out a week later, looked at the roof, and told me he’d email an estimate in two days.
A week later I still hadn’t heard from him, and he didn’t return my email or followup call. I wasted about three weeks on this guy, and during that time we had more than a few heavy rainstorms.
I ended up calling a different roofer, a guy I’d hired in the past, and he sealed up the leak. He also found another problem and addressed that, too. (A major part of the roof was held down with only one nail.) But he’d been on my roof about five times over the past seven years, and never noticed the problem.
Sloane Ranger
Happy 4th July to all American Juicers!
Anya
@Tony Jay: Honestly, it’s enraging. My husband says I should stop reading about it because it just makes me angry. I am just so disappointed in how determined people are to be ignorant. What is the excuse to not see all the incompetence and the corruption? How are people getting satisfaction from Johnson and his band of corrupt assholes constantly shitting on “others”? How does that improve their lot in life? Every day, I see an interview with someone who voted for Brexit basically saying “I expected magic ponies but now I am losing my business,” WTF.
MazeDancer
Watching the 0bama’s “We The People” on Netflix.
First episode is H.E.R. doing Marvin Gaye with just as much out there protest as possible. Wowza.
2nd ep is Adam Lambert belting about the Bill of Rights.
America as the radical, ever-perfecting change vehicle for freedom!
Happy Fourth!
Dorothy A. Winsor
Biden is visiting Crystal Lake, IL on Wednesday. That’s the town where my son and DIL live. The county went R but Crystal Lake is represented by Lauren Underwood and Sean Casten. My son will be at work but my teacher DIL is very excited.
O. Felix Culpa
@schrodingers_cat: I remember that day! Brought tears to my eyes–and does again. Happy 4th and citizenship day to you!
Suzanne
@germy: Y E S. Getting good workers is a giant pain in the ass. Quite frankly, the good ones usually work on commercial buildings.
germy
@Suzanne:
In a condo situation, does the board have a list of people they hire? Or is it up to the residents?
O. Felix Culpa
@germy: In my case, I was responsible for any interior work on the condo and could hire my own repairpeople/contractors. No help or lists from the board provided. Exterior or common area work was handled by the board.
mrmoshpotato
@Steeplejack: Oh BoJo! You bonehead! Hopefully that, now available, £350 million a week can help the situation. ?
raven
@Dorothy A. Winsor: There was a horrific tornado there on Palm Sunday, 1965. My dad and I went up and helped clean up.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: The sad fact is, crimes that are committed by white collar criminals often have very high mens rea or “intent” requirements. Whereas “ignorance of the law” only applies to the small folks.
There is a supposed reason — white collar crimes are mostly regulatory (pay your taxes!) and called mallum prohibitum (wrong because they are prohibited) where as street crime are generally considered mallum is se (evil in themselves).
It just works out that way doncha see?
O. Felix Culpa
@raven: Oh wow. I didn’t know about the tornado in Crystal Lake. The latest tornado that hit Naperville/Woodridge in the western suburbs passed just a block from my old house. My ex still lives there and thankfully no major damage done to his property.
Immanentize
@debbie: odds set at the zero bound.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize:
Heh. The cynic in me says how conveeeeenient.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@raven: Wow. Great pictures, especially for a pre-cellphone era.
Suzanne
@germy: It depends. In the one I lived in where the condos were two-story, the condo board maintained the “core and shell” of the buildings, so they hired teams to do the roof work, stucco maintenance, and the grounds. One big project that we had to do was sidewalk grinding, because desert trees are often very shallow-rooted and they destroy sidewalks. The board of that one had some longtime contractors that they maintained relationships with. Any interior work had to be done by the homeowner. I also lived in one that was more townhome-style, units chained together. That one took care of the grounds and the building exterior, but not the roof. It was weird. The one my aunt used to live in maintained the whole exterior, but she got a special assessment to replace all of the decks, but since they did the whole complex, she didn’t have to coordinate any of it. Her board just gave her a notice of when the work would be done and to take her chairs in. It’s really important to be aware of where your responsibility begins and ends in that style of living.
Quite frankly, I am wondering what is going to happen to all the 55-plus home communities as the Boomers age and pass on.
artem1s
this guy has always been one of my favorite politicians, candidates for POTUS, and legislators. He’s had his missteps like anyone who has been in public service for decades. But he’s a walking example why it’s critical to not be forever parsing your words just because it will get filmed by someone and some asshat in the media will twist them. Luckily his team has decided those attempt are an opportunity to educate, not a liability. Imagine what a narcissistic shitshow TFG would have made of selling a crucial infrastructure bill in any state, let alone in a state with a Blue governor; and the horrific mess he would have made of the press conference with DeSantis.
Any info on how many Demon-crat pedo members of Congress are in Russia attempting to get a selfie with Putin today? None!? Obviously fake news!
mrmoshpotato
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
“How could I have killed them? I’m dead!”
Immanentize
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
People will Talk, one of my favorite films to help answer a similar question — can you be charged for murder for killing a person you were already sentenced for the murder of?
Poor Mr. Shunderson.
germy
@Suzanne:
So many younger people can’t afford houses. Maybe demand will change them to “all age” communities.
O. Felix Culpa
@Suzanne:
QFT. I was lucky with my condo board and building, but not everyone is. It’s also important to read the minutes of board meetings and examine their financial reports, which were required to be disclosed for property sales. That way you can see how diligent (or not) they are about property upkeep and adequate reserve maintenance
ETA: Although I had a good experience in my condo, I’m not sure I’d choose that form of housing again. Too much dependency on other people and overcoming barriers to collective action.
Wyatt Salamanca
Does anyone think Kevin Drum has a point here or that he’s completely full of shit?
h/t https://jabberwocking.com/if-you-hate-the-culture-wars-blame-liberals/
What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?
@satby: I wouldn’t worry about something that old. THOSE buildings were built to last. I mean, I’ve stayed in apartments in Italy that in buildings that are at least 1,000 years old. Buildings built like that will require some maintenance but if important repairs are kept up with they last indefinitely.
Soprano2
I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but I agree with Biden about Richardson. Even if you think it’s a dumb rule (and yes, it’s a dumb rule), it’s still the rule; why was she so stupid about it? That’s what I don’t understand. Unless she can prove that it was incidental exposure, and not her actual usage of pot that caused the failed drug test, it was fair for her to be disqualified. Since she said “I’m human” in response, I doubt it was incidental exposure. They can’t bend the rules just because she’s the best runner. And don’t cite Phelps, because as far as I know he didn’t fail a drug test after a trial or performance, although yes he did openly use drugs. I don’t see racism here, I see a woman who was foolish about pot use.
Immanentize
@Suzanne: my house is a 1910 center entry dutch colonial. I would take the building construction, it’s stability, and it’s beauty over any new construction home today. Yes, upgrades are needed occasionally, but at least it had armored cable instead of knob and tube.
Suzanne
@germy: The problem with a lot of those 55+ communities is the same as the condos, lots of shared assets to maintain and it’s really hit-or-miss if the board is wise and responsible.
Geminid
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Although Lauren Underwood had a close call last year, it looks like she and Casten will now stick around for a while. They are two more members of the talented House Democratic class of 2018.
That year the Democrats flipped a lot of suburban districts. Virginians Spanberger, Wexler, and Luria won three. Texans Allred and Fletcher took suburban districts near Dallas and Houston, and Lucy McBath flipped a seat in the Atlanta suburbs. Casten and Underwood won two more in “Chicagoland.”
Spanky
@schrodingers_cat: Wow! It’s been 4 years already? But yeah, I remember some calculating that being a citizen during the tfg’s reign of error would be the best course. And here we are!
Let us all celebrate democracy’s ascendance!
(“While we can”, he said to himself.)
mrmoshpotato
@eclare:
Do you know of bigger issues with Brexit? ?
Suzanne
@Immanentize: Again, some aspects of older homes are superior, certainly the fine carpentry from that era was great. But some aren’t. There’s also survivorship bias: your house may have been well-built but plenty of others from the same time, probably ones where poor people lived, were not…. and now those may be gone.
Soprano2
@Wyatt Salamanca: On social issues I think he’s right; Republicans haven’t changed much except for a grudging acceptance of gay marriage, which they would undo in a heartbeat if they could. As for “wokeness” and “cancel culture” it doesn’t matter what our candidates do, they’ll still get branded with the most extreme positions of the left. I’m not sure what Drum thinks they’re supposed to do about that. For example, most Democrats don’t support literal defunding of the police, but they get tarred with it anyway.
Tony Jay
@Anya:
Decades of tabloid hysteria and the need for someone or something to blame for the existential sense of ‘Things are shit and getting shitter for everyone except the rich’ that followed the ‘08 Crash. There’s an entire Infotainment industry on multiple platforms waging Total War on the very idea of blaming the people actually responsible for said shitness, so blaming ‘those people’ (for whatever value of ‘those’ floats your particular leaky boat) seemed very attractive to millions of people.
And that leads us to here. Which is a very bad place to be, and even worse when in the company of people who insisted this was the way to go while dismissing all of your warnings as some kind of partisan whining.
Your other half is right. Trying to make any kind of sense out of it is a doomed mission that will only drive you potty. A plurality of British (English) people went mad and blew Jon the country. Then now turning to you and asking how things got so tatty around here is supposed to be maddening. It shows that you’re actually same.
Immanentize
@Wyatt Salamanca:
The relevant question is not whether Democrats have moved left. It is whether the country as a whole has moved left — for very good and perhaps existential reasons. In other words, are Democrats following the population, which is what politicians are supposed to do? Drum ignores that question.
I fucking hate ill-thought-out, half-assed contrarian hot takes. His whole theory depends on dividing the world into Democrats and Republicans as essential human attributes. That is not my experience?
E.g. his first example — same sex marriage. Hell yes the Democrats have moved a lot compared to the Republicans, but that’s because the whole country has left the Republicans behind on that issue
rikyrah
@schrodingers_cat:
Happy to have you in this fight for America??????
Spanky
@Suzanne:
There’s a model for that already. All those schools that us boomers went to were quickly no longer needed, and were sold off and repurposed. My elementary school became a nursing home, and I had uncomfortable thoughts imagining spending my final days in my second grade classroom. Fortunately (?), it went out of business and got bulldozed. There’s only a grassy field there where I spent so many of my days 60 years ago.
rikyrah
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Lauren Underwood????
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Wyatt Salamanca:
He has a point. Curb stomping performative left concern trolls needs to be part of the equation; the moment somebody starts whimpering “but what about the needs of the homeless” when it comes to any employment or housing development program, that shit needs shut down completely.
rikyrah
@Soprano2:
I am very impressed with how Richardson took responsibility, and kept it moving. She shut down outrage Twitter and their pundit Grifters.
Tony Jay
@Wyatt Salamanca
Looking at it from all the way over here I’d suggest that Mr Drum look up the term ‘Overton Window’ and think again about where ‘the centre’ actually is and which political coalition is doing the hard work of trying to straddle it.
dmsilev
A sweet morning read:
The Carters will celebrate their 75th wedding anniversary in a couple of days
NotMax
@Immanentize
Shunderson: “Where… Where should I begin?”
Praetorius: “Tell them when you were condemned to death for murder.”
Shunderson: “The first time?”
Praetorius: “Of course.”
Shunderson: “Well, the first time was in Canada… in 1917. It was Christmas. It wasn’t a very merry Christmas.”
Praetorius: “Don’t editorialize. Just tell the facts.”
Immanentize
@Suzanne: On the flip side, poverty is a great preserver. Homes/buildings built in what were or would become “poor” or working class neighborhoods survive because the market for building in those areas did not exist in a way to encourage demolition and rebuilding. The entirety of the Art Deco District in Miami is one example — it exists today because its value dropped in the early sixties preventing whole sale re-building. Hooray for middle class retirees from NYC!
Immanentize
@schrodingers_cat:
May the Fourth be with you!
Suzanne
@Spanky: If you think that most municipalities will allow residential zoning to be converted to, well, anything else…. let me have some of your really good shit.
I can hear the NIMBY screaming from here.
Soprano2
@Suzanne: We have a house whose original part was built in 1907. It’s not superior. A house is a hole in the ground that you pour money into, but it’s more private than living in an apartment.
Immanentize
@Soprano2: It is a sad and stupid rule. Based not on science but in great part fear of poor and minority folks having access to free intoxicants. And the Olympic Cmmt has it in their power to waive her month suspension and allow her to compete.
But it does kind of go in the “fuck around and find out” category. Just like I hope Trump tax evasion does.
sdhays
@debbie: I expect this is another spoof that’s too close to reality.
NotMax
@Immanentize
Did you and Immp manage to get your clams?
WhatsMyNym
HOA laws vary greatly from state to state, you need to be aware of the laws in your state before even considering looking at place that has an HOA and/or CC&R’s.
The 2018 report had photos of problem areas, it was in terrible shape. There had been previous fixes/patches which didn’t help in the long term.
The YouTube channel Building Intregity has been following the condo building collapse as info is made public. They’re a SW Florida based consulting engineering firm trying to educate the trade, owners, and public about these very issues.
Suzanne
@Immanentize: OTOH, there is heaps of research about how cities intentionally tried to drive out poor neighborhoods by any means possible. Building highways, slum clearance, urban renewal, rezoning, condemnation, and just plain loss to fire and other hazards. It’s been interesting what’s happened on the Jersey Shore since Sandy. In short: formerly middle- and working-class housing was destroyed, and it’s being redeveloped for rich people instead. Same as it ever was.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize:
Not if Robert Moses had anything to say about it.
Immanentize
@NotMax: i love Shunderson’s final speech:
Miss Bianca
I grew up in Michigan, and have fond memories of the northerly parts of the state. Never spent much time in Traverse City, alas.
Man, that ice cream cone. Yowzers!
Immanentize
@NotMax: We did! From the local because the rain still coming down. They were excellent! Happy National Fried Clam Day indeed!
Cameron
Won’t be moving to my new apartment until next week, so I’ll get to experience the dubious pleasures of TS Elsa in familiar surroundings. Should be an opportunity to do some serious pre-exit cleaning, ’cause I sure as hell ain’t going outside in that.
germy
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Good morning! I vacationed only once in Traverse City, but it was lovely and the cherry products plentiful.
Ken
What this tell me is that letting the rich get away with their crimes goes back to the Romans. I know some people here know Latin; what’s “It was only a technical crime”?
Kay
@Soprano2:
I don’t think he’s right even there. He points to Iowa and Ohio as his examples of where Republicans stayed the same and Democrats moved Left. I can’t speak to Iowa but that’s just incorrect in Ohio.
The mainstream GOP position in Ohio on abortion is now “ban it”. That has happened in the last 5 years. I watched it happen. The mainstream position in Ohio on guns is now “no regulation”. Again- last 5 years. There is no comparable move Left – there are no Ohio Democrats who propose overturning Roe in a Left direction and there are no Ohio Democrats who propose banning guns.
My opinion? Centrists lost their fucking shit over “cancel culture”, which was mostly happening in elite spaces- selective colleges, private schools, prestigious jobs and workplaces, and Republicans seized it as a weapon and are now using it. Drum wants to blame Lefties, but Lefties weren’t the people who started a cancel culture panic and flooded elite media with it- centrist liberals were. Now that it’s boomeranged and conservatives are banning whole areas of discussion in public education, centrists want to blame Lefties.
Here’s my question. When do centrists examine their own positions? Why aren’t they stronger? They spend all their time blaming Lefties but it isn’t Lefties who are holding up Biden’s whole agenda- it’s centrists. Their whole fucking deal is supposed to be that they are “effective”. Joe Manchin isn’t “effective”. He can’t deliver votes. He announced the “centrist” position on voting rights with great fanfare and got all kinds of kudos from the centrist media but he cannot deliver. Every single liberal senator would have voted for Manchin’s VRA bill. They weren’t the problem. Centrists and Righties were.
I’m told again and again that the Lefties are ruining everything but when I look at actual legislation that is passed it is the Left of the Party who are carrying centrist legislation. Show me the votes.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ken: Dives sum?
Immanentize
@Suzanne: look at San Antonio — both phenomena right next to each other. I lived in the King William neighborhood south of downtown that was 1890s-1920s construction. Preserved by poverty. But a part of that area was grabbed and torn down for the HemisFair 1968. It took a huge number of fine homes off the board and is really a kind of wasteland now….
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: He was happy to build where poor people couldn’t go, too. Hence his Long Island bridges too low for busses to get under.
O. Felix Culpa
@Immanentize: The area around UIC campus in Chicago is another example, much to the original Mayor Daley’s shame. Decent neighborhood housing and small businesses torn down for a brutalist hellscape, which is not friendly to students, faculty or administration.
ETA: They’ve upgraded the landscaping on campus in recent years to create a more welcoming impression, but many classrooms–some of which have fixed concrete amphitheatre-style desks–remain godawful. And the loss of a thriving neighborhood is permanent.
Sure Lurkalot
@germy: The age restriction is often in the zoning…can be changed but the process is more cumbersome than a bunch of homeowners deciding to end the restriction.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: I have often thought that the history of development — NOT architecture — is a fabulous way to look at history. I wish more people knew about it. Every bit of our sociology and ecology is laid bare by how we have built human habitats over the years. It’s political in the most fine-grained, non-partisan way.
schrodingers_cat
@Immanentize: That’s funny. Thanks and you too!
Miss Bianca
@Nicole: LOL!
Meanwhile, one year into horse ownership with my OTTB mare, I am ruefully discovering that I probably got more actual riding time in back in the days when I was still riding *other* people’s horses!
She is going into 30 days of rides with my trainer while I am putting in 12-hour days at the theater this month getting ready for my Shakespeare production. I look forward to her transformation! She’s got gorgeous movement, just needs some time under saddle with a more skilled rider than I. I talked with Juan about doing some dressage with her. Being that she’s so smart, I bet she will pick it up fast.
Kay
@Soprano2:
It is almost a given that Sherrod Brown will support Joe Manchin’s voting rights bill- so much so that no one even questions if Manchin will have the liberal votes. Everyone knows the liberal senators will vote “yes”. The one and only question is will he get the Right wing Democrats and 5 Republicans.
So who is holding up what here? We’re going to blame Bernie Sanders for holding up the centrist agenda even though Bernie Sanders is a wholly reliable D vote and in fact we’re begging Sinema to do something? If your whole pitch is you’re “effective” you better fucking BE effective.
schrodingers_cat
@Spanky: I went back forth on it from that fateful November night all the way into January. I sent my application on the last day of Obama’s presidency.
debbie
@schrodingers_cat:
Congratulations!
germy
Ken
Of course the tree would (if it could think) just be thinking “hardpan seems a little denser than usual here”.
One of my favorite Pratchett lines is from one of the witches novels, where Magrat is doing some magic and “suddenly the hammer that can drive a marshmallow-soft mushroom through six inches of concrete struck through her”.
schrodingers_cat
@rikyrah: Thanks! I find Black people especially Black women inspirational, they embody the best ideals of this nation. If not for the Civil Rights Movement, I wouldn’t have been able to become a citizen. We owe that generation of Civil Rights Leaders everything.
germy
@Sure Lurkalot:
I agree, changing zoning is never easy.
StringOnAStick
@tom: My husband’s uncle spends summers at their place in Torch lake, and he got to chat with POTUS about health care yesterday at the festival. He’s a retired MD and quite liberal.
Miss Bianca
@Don K: The cherry thing has been going for a while. Michigan Cherry ice cream was my favorite flavor back when I was a tad.
Immanentize
@germy: That was such an awesome party! One nutty guy was wearing a bear costume!
Miss Bianca
@Wyatt Salamanca: Completely full of shit, IMHO.
Suzanne
@Immanentize: That’s what makes development interesting. It’s so local, but the economic and social forces are common themes everywhere.
On the whole, though, over centuries and most cities, poor people’s housing is typically destroyed and not replaced. Yes, there are exceptions. Poor people have almost always been driven to the crappiest parts of cities, like flood plains or next to heavy industry. And usually their housing is older and despite your older home being nice, usually older buildings are less likely to survive disasters like fires or storms. Then, because redevelopment is expensive and cities aren’t thrilled about poor people anyway, the replacement buildings are for wealthier people or businesses. And this is to say nothing of gentrification.
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Seconded.
Mike in NC
Happy Independence Day. Hopefully a future holiday to be celebrated by our children will involve the arrest, trial, conviction, and execution of Donald Trump for treason.
O. Felix Culpa
@Mike in NC: Maybe our very own American Guy Fawkes Day?
ETA: Although I’m not on board for execution. Jail time would be fine. Can’t support capital punishment even for that guy.
WhatsMyNym
@Wyatt Salamanca:
I stopped reading him years ago. He’s gotten worse.
Baud
@schrodingers_cat:
???
Ken
Well, there’s certainly nothing wrong on the fisheries front. Or transportation. Or medicine. Or recreation. Or farming. Or finance. Or manufacturing. Or labor. Or data security. Or travel. Or entertainment.
Even food is doing fine, other than the aforementioned chilled meats, and that’s only because the EU is being irrational and insisting that if you go from London to Liverpool to Belfast to Dublin, you must have crossed a border somewhere along the way.
Miss Bianca
@O. Felix Culpa: Good morning to you! I hope you’re feeling better.
Suzanne
@germy: I am wondering if those 55+ communities will allow younger people to buy in, and if they’ll give up some of the amenities. Gen X is smaller and broke-r than the Boomers, and a lot less interested in golf. It doesn’t seem like a sustainable model.
debbie
@sdhays:
Hope you’re right. ??♀️
tom
@StringOnAStick:
How cool for your husband’s uncle to get a chance to chat with POTUS!
O. Felix Culpa
@Miss Bianca: Thanks! I’m still a little sluggish (who can tell the difference, some might say) but on the mend.
realbtl
My Montana builder couldn’t believe my CA architect’s plans. She put in CA earthquake standards for everything. His comment was “This place isn’t going anywhere.” I kind of like that.
germy
Ken
Wouldn’t that mean there would be less housing for seniors? Based on the argument I’ve seen a few times, that allowing younger people to buy-in to Medicare would result in shortages of health care for seniors.
zhena gogolia
@debbie:
Yes. He constantly does this. He makes up tweets by Glenn Greenwald. They aren’t real.
You’d think the real thing would be bad enough.
Ken
Except possibly straight up when the Yellowstone caldera next lets go, but even California earthquake standards wouldn’t help with that.
germy
@Suzanne:
I don’t know what the future of housing is for young people. I do know that many of them are priced out of single family homes right now.
debbie
@germy:
?
germy
My point was that this would happen after the current generation of seniors has crossed into eternity.
germy
I like this cat’s enthusiasm.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Whoever he is, he’s awfully good. No reason to think that GG wouldn’t tweet an overly long thread like that, considering his horrifyingly long blog posts.
Low Key Swagger
@dmsilev: Today is our 28th, and I was all swole-up (is too a word!) about it until I read that. Man they set the bar high!
debbie
@germy:
Around here, they still convert old warehouses into living spaces. The young’uns flock to them.
J R in WV
@OzarkHillbilly:
Yeah, a stunning and unstoppable horror . . .
WhatsMyNym
@realbtl: The small house I had in San Jose was built to the new regulations after the ’94 Northridge earthquake. Plenty of steel holding the wood frame structure together. Even a few steel beams.
schrodingers_cat
@O. Felix Culpa: Thanks! Happy 4th to you.
germy
“Let’s pit fixed-income old people against low-income young people” (Cato Institute and Federalist Society)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@germy: I haven’t read Kevin Drum regularly in a very long time, but I was surprised to see him go with that kind of lead-with-your-chin provocateur headline and framing. I would think lost his own audience with the title of his post.
JPL
@Immanentize: I hate you. bah humbug
WhatsMyNym
@germy: I’m a late boomer. Most of the people in my age group couldn’t afford to buy in CA until their late 30’s, even with 2 incomes. That was true in other expensive metro areas as well.
ETA: I was able to afford to buy because of the housing bust earlier in the ’90s lowered prices and the developers had started building again.
JPL
@schrodingers_cat: …..and then you voted for Biden! Congratulations and celebrate.
germy
@debbie:
Are they apartments or condos?
Steeplejack (phone)
@schrodingers_cat:
????? Happy to have you as a citizen of this country and of this blog!
Ken
Ah, the “pried from their cold dead hands” option. That could work, providing the rising seniors don’t also get all “Precious, precious” as they move into the communities.
NotMax
@Wyatt Salamanca
Put it this way – as is so often the case when he waxes editorial, the
glasscolostomy bag is half full.germy
@WhatsMyNym:
I’m also a late boomer (wife is early gen x) and we didn’t become homeowners until I was about 33. It was a “drive til you qualify” situation, so we ended up in the exurbs in a particleboard raised ranch and long commute times.
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
Increasingly, pot use is either legal or decriminalized. Yeah, it’s the Olympic Committee and the supposedly holy games, but it is stupid to ban something which may be legal and which has no impact on athletic performance.
I don’t believe in “rules are rules.” Rules must serve some practical or ethical purpose.
debbie
@germy:
Both, actually. Downtown has been repeopled!
Suzanne
@Ken: Well, there are going to be fewer seniors. The Boomers are a larger generation than Gen X, so when they die or want to sell out, there’s fewer prospective buyers and potentially a collapse in that market. But the Millennial generation is bigger. The problem is that a lot of those senior communities are built with a lot of expensive amenities that younger cohorts either don’t care about or can’t afford. So I am speculating about what will happen. Rezoning away from single-family homes is really unpopular in most places. But they could potentially remove the age restrictions without changing the zoning. The problem there is then providing services for younger people, especially schools and recreation centers and stuff…. Which means an increase in taxes.
frosty
@Immanentize: Mine is a 1923 foursquare. Lightly built, studs on 24″ centers, sags to front and rear from the main beam in the center of the house. Originally knob and tube, some BX, some Romex. When we built an addition and found out we still had K&T I had to replace it before the contractor would do any more work.
You never know what you’ll find when you open up these older houses. I’ve owned three now, every one built before WWII.
CaseyL
HOAs can be a major PITA; it depends on the HOA.
The one for the townhouse complex where I live (and I was on its Board for 10 years) is pretty hands-off regarding what people do with their units. Someone had an HVAC installed without approval – I was Board President at that time, and was pretty pissed off that they hadn’t gotten permission first, because the installation involved making holes in the exterior walls, but finally shrugged and let it go when no one reported any leaks. People have been replacing their old exterior doors with whatever they like, without trying to match the rest of the complex. One of the few times we really cracked down was when someone decided to cover their windows with T-shirt “curtains” – and even then, all we could do was fine them.
We finally went to a property management company. One big change they’ve made is levying assessments for large projects. Our complex is a cluster of seven 3-unit buildings: we used to do large projects one building at a time, saving up money to do the next. No assessments needed – but that did mean a lot of “deferred maintenance” because it took 5-7 years to complete a project. Now, no one wants to wait for their building’s turn, everything needs to be done at once, so we get assessments nearly every year. Big ones.
Besides the obvious review of bylaws and financials, I strongly advise seeing if you can get access to previous HOA meeting minutes, to get a sense of how effective, responsive – and intrusive! – the Board is.
Also, if you can find a 55+ townhouse community or even a manufactured home community, that seems the best compromise between having to take care of everything yourself and having a sense of separation/privacy. Note that a manufactured home community still leaves you responsible for all of your own unit’s repairs, interior and exterior, but the grounds and some utilities – usually W/S/G – will at least be taken care of for you – via the monthly dues, though, not for free!
JPL
@germy: Thank you for sharing that. What a remarkable person and president. He showed the world the good you can do. Clinton and the charity that he founded continues that trend. imo
Uncle Cosmo
A little story from my European travels you might find interesting:
I went to Stuttgart in August 1999 to see the total eclipse** and the night before met a couple from Fulda who invited me to stop by when I traveled north. Rudiger and Susannah showed me through their very nice large suburban house, and then he asked, “How much would a house like this cost in the USA?”
I thought of my brother’s slightly smaller place in Columbia MD and said $200K.***
“Double that,” Rudiger said, and when my eyes widened, continued, “But this one will still be standing long after your American house has fallen down.”
Their house was fairly typical European construction, stucco over a very sturdy cinderblock core. Compared to one o f our wooden-frame houses, he was probably right. My guess is the exterior would need significantly more maintenance to keep its good looks – but in my observation, homeowners all across Europe seem much less concerned with how their home looks to passersby than how comfortable it is inside, and pay for upkeep accordingly.
** Unfortunately we were rained out.
*** In 1999 dollars, remember. Double that, at least, for a current price.
Geminid
@Wyatt Salamanca: I would disagree with Drum’s thesis that Republicans are relatively static on hot button social issues. From what I’ve seen in Virginia, Republicans have lurched to the right this past decade, and have more or less conceded the center to the Democrats who now dominate statewide politics. Where Republican are in control, they have attempted to institute radical restrictions on women’s health rights, and passed a number of new laws allowing permitless concealed weapons carry. They will try to sneak such a bill through in Ohio. There are many more examples of Republican rightward movement.
I think Drum is ignoring the Republicans’ radicalism, and is exaggerating the leftward trend among Democratic voters.
ian
@Wyatt Salamanca:
If it is the same Kevin Drum who told us to not worry about voter suppression, because it only is just a little, I think we can safely disregard what he has too say.
Brachiator
@Ken:
How is this irrational? With BREXIT, Boris Johnson took the UK out of the Customs Union and the Single Market. But the agreement he signed recognizes that Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are in the Single Market.
So you have to have a border somewhere. This is what Boris Johnson demanded. He got what he wanted.
Or were you just throwing some snark?
WhatsMyNym
@Ken: @Suzanne: Most of the 55+ communities I’m aware of are far from areas that have jobs. Even around the Seattle metro area they’re built on cheaper land near golf courses and/or water.
frosty
@schrodingers_cat:
Congratulations and welcome! Glad to have you hear (USA and B-J both).
Suzanne
@Uncle Cosmo: Masonry buildings (single-wythe) that are common in Europe are also all-but-impossible to build in the US now due to energy codes. They also don’t have the same kind of pressing need to build a lot of houses cheaply like we do, because their population isn’t growing as fast. Also, concrete masonry has its own environmental problems. All of this is to say: it’s complicated.
Leto
@J R in WV: reminds me of videos from Katrina, right down the road from where we were sheltering. 6-10ft walls of water moving through the beach front casinos and town. The sheer amount of debris, along with objects you’d never think would be there, just moving around like nothing. So shitty.
WhatsMyNym
@Uncle Cosmo: Concrete is expensive here and wood relatively cheap; opposite in most of Europe . Unreinforced masonry is useless in earthquake zones and high winds.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Kay:
Right on! ✊
debbie
@Geminid:
I wonder if the problem is that the Republicans’ lurching goes back to Reagan, long before the period covered by the graphs. I’d like to see information from 1980 to now.
Suzanne
@WhatsMyNym: Concrete masonry buildings are also T E R R I B L E in terms of requiring a lot of heating and cooling, because they hold onto heat when it’s hot and coolth when it’s cold. So most jurisdictions don’t allow them anymore unless there is an additional continuous insulation layer. Which adds cost and requires maintenance!
Another Scott
@Suzanne: Supposedly in Japan people hate old homes and tear them down and start fresh every 20-30 years. (Of course, it’s more complicated.)
Maybe there’s something to that…
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@Another Scott: It is a complicated issue. If you care about climate change, and I presume most of us do, cycling the building stock that frequently is a disaster. There is a lot of embodied energy in every building. The US also doesn’t have a culture of that, and so we don’t have companies who can take homeowners through that process.
I am generally of the opinion that there needs to be a lot of different solutions. I also think we have to live more densely than we do, on the whole, to make more efficient use of resources, and that probably means letting a lot of small towns go. But there are plenty of people, on both sides of the political aisle, who find that unacceptable.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@germy: don, jr, will never top world’s worst cover band plays ‘cocaine’.
Cameron
Sounds like I really missed out yesterday. Not.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jul/04/the-new-circus-comes-to-town-fiery-support-for-donald-trump-at-rain-soaked-florida-rally
WhatsMyNym
@Suzanne: I was over in England when natural gas became widely available and folks were installing central hot water heating systems. Thankfully in most houses you had a sub-floor of boards that allowed you to pull up just the ones you needed to run the pipes.
Houses could be very cold and damp before that in the winter.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@Wyatt Salamanca: evil dex?
Kay
@Steeplejack (phone):
Sherrod had an Ohio meetup and he told us he believes the center/Right of the Democratic Party will come around to reforming the filibuster because voting rights are an existential issue for Democrats.
The assumption in the room was every single liberal or Lefty would vote for whatever the centrists agreed to. It isn’t even mentioned in Democratic circles- it’s a given. At the end of the day every single liberal will move the ball once the “effective” centrist faction get off their ass and do what they claim they can do, which is deliver centrist and GOP votes.
Just once I would like to a centrist criticism of analysis of their own work. Maybe “defund the police” threatened swing state House members. But shouldn’t swing state House members at least LOOK a the holes and weaknesses in their own platform and political approach? If I’m a D member and I barely held the seat I won 2 years ago I wouldn’t be lobbing bombs at AOC. I’d look at my own work. Is it good? Could it be better? How was my campaign? Could I run it better? There’s never any of that. It’s “things are looking uncertain! Let’s blame the Lefties!”
Gin & Tonic
Watch the video embedded in this tweet:
A group of kids, look to be about 7-8 years old, gather to play soccer on a dirt field in a very working-class neighborhood of Kyiv. Before starting to play, they stop to sing the national anthem. Ukraine may have lost to the evil empire yesterday, but their performance in the tournament is still a source of considerable pride.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay:
Deleted for format fail, but here are the votes from the Democratic primary
Joe Biden: 19,000,000+
Bernie Sanders; 9,679,213
Elizabeth Warren: 2,831,472
Drum took a whole lot of words to say, Biden, not Bernie, Obama, not “The Squad”, and he said it with an overdose of contrarianism, but that’s what he’s saying
Another Scott
@Anya: It’s infuriating to see this stuff from thousands of miles away.
Fortunately, the loyal opposition is on it!!
:-/
(Yes, it’s fake (note the HappyToast in the background), but I get the impression that it’s often accurate from occasionally hearing PMQs on C-Span radio.)
Hang in there.
Cheers,
Scott.
Kay
@Steeplejack (phone):
This is a second offense for Drum. My memory is longer than 20 minutes, so I remember that when Republicans cynically attacked the IRS on the wholly invented issue that the IRS was “targeting” conservative groups and Drum idiotically validated their invented issue and scolded us all on the First Amendment.
There was no “targeting” of conservative groups. The morons in media seized on the word “targeting” the IRS used and created a scandal where the was none. They did long term damage too- that’s partly WHY we gutted IRS enforcement.
He doesn’t work hard enough. He has to read more and think more. His half-ass analysis is just not good enough. It’s EASY.
MontyTheClipArtMongoose
@WhatsMyNym: the youth lead exposure finally got him, too.
Geminid
@debbie: You can trace Republican radicalism a long way back. Eisenhower had his conflicts with “the primitives,” as Acheson called them. And the realignment consequent to the Civil Rights brought in scores of millions of southern racists.
I’ve just observed a pronounced shift in the Virginia since 2010, when the “populists” started flexing their muscle. The Chamber of Commerce types who used to call the shots are on the defensive now, and the radicals and their evangelical dominionist allies have the upper hand. But the number of self described Republicans keeps declining, and a February poll by the Wason Center had them at 25%, compared to 34% for Independents and 37% for Democrats. Rather than moving to the right, some Virginians have just stopped identifying as Republican.
Another Scott
@Immanentize: +1
Drum goes into contrarian/”the other side has a point” mode a few times a year. He’s been blogging since the stone age – he knows how to get clicks and “engagement”.
I’ve learned to FIDO (thanks raven!) and haven’t even created a login at his new place.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Brachiator:
Yeah, give your snark detector a tap to make sure it’s working.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is the argument? Joe Biden won the presidential election? Way to not address anything I said.
Who, exactly, is holding up Biden’s agenda? Warren? Sanders? Brown? Is it AOC who is holding the fucking infrastructure bill hostage? How’s Manchin’s voting rights bill going? I believe he guaranteed 10 GOP votes.
Biden’s agenda is stalled so it’s time for the centrists to roll out the Left wing boogeyman. I’ll tell you one thing- when Biden’s agenda becomes unstalled every single liberal Senator will vote for it, no matter how far it’s watered down, and everyone knows it. Every bit of work from now until then will be getting the flightly, demanding, unserious centrists on board.
Ksmiami
@O. Felix Culpa: u chicago- where fun goes to die…
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
With all the problems in this country our flightly, unserious, centrist liberals decided “cancel culture” was the threat? They all had to man the barricades to stop elite private schools and colleges from saying “Black Lives Matter”? What fucking world do these people live in?
Again, if the pitch is “effective” deliver on voting rights. Deliver on infrastructure. Or, start 5000 substacks on how the Oberlin students booed the Federalist Society.
Ksmiami
@Don K: a lot of Dems from Oakland county own places near Traverse city so this visit makes a lot of sense. Order, fun, ice cream has more of an appeal than camo wearing thugs with guns attacking the Capitol
Ksmiami
@Kay: I’m defunding Sinema. More and better Democrats is the only way forward
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I only skimmed Drum’s article, because I think it’s badly written in every way. My take-away was he’s talking about rhetoric more than policy, so I would say you’re the one not responding to what he said. He’s talking about elections, and so am I, you’re talking about legislation. The way around Manchin is winning more seats in teh Senate. Drum and I think amplifying the self-indulgent rhetoric of left-twitter is bad for winning elections.
Kelly
@Suzanne: We have a local carpenter that that does great work but is talking about retiring. His hourly rate is expensive but he’s so efficient he doesn’t cost much more in the end and is totally reliable. We don’t look forward to finding someone new when he finally retires.
Eunicecycle
@raven: I was in that Palm Sunday tornado, only in Indiana.
Matt McIrvin
@Wyatt Salamanca: How this translates to me is that liberals who used to be insufferable squishes have gradually come around to realizing that some fucking intolerable things are actually fucking intolerable. And the right is FREAKING OUT.
All we have to do is embrace enough of those fucking morally intolerable atrocities again, and we’ll be right as rain.
Kay
@Ksmiami:
Do whatever you want with Sinema but the idea that the liberal Senators are “disloyal” to Biden’s agenda or the Democratic agenda is not accurate. It’s not true. They’re the reliable votes. They’re doing all the compromising. Always. Liberals didn’t hold up the ACA and weaken it with each pass- 5 Right-leaning and Centrist Democrats in the Senate did.
I’m willing to accept the reality that the Party isn’t as liberal as the most liberal Senator but I won’t accept that liberals are the problem in getting to 51. They’re not. They never are. We’re always coddling the Joe Leiberman wing.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Another Scott:
Careful now.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: this isn’t about “our centrists” or Manchin. It’s about voters. Voters in Georgia and Arizona and Colorado and Maine. And next time in Georgia and Arizona and Wisconsin and North Carolina and, yes, Ohio. Those voters, I’m guessing, don’t much give a fuck about Joe Manchin one way or the other.
sab
@Suzanne: I had a very leftie college roommate who became a journalist and discovered, much to her own surprise, that covering zoning was fascinating.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Kelly:
Ask him for recommendations?
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
There’s no “way around”. The “way around” is through. They have to succeed at Biden’s agenda. That’s how to win the election. The block to succeeding at Biden’s agenda is not the Left wing.
Just do the work. Do good work and let the “rhetoric” take care of itself. The idea that we can better control the outcome focusing on things like “rhetoric” rather than things like “infrastructure” is really the epitome of punditry. It really doesn’t get any more abstract than that.
germy
Yes, and it’s come to a point where they expect to be coddled.
Enough is enough.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Do they care about Biden’s agenda? If not, I don’t why anyone bothers. If we just fine tune our “rhetoric” the centrist voters will support us whether or not we get anything DONE?
Biden’s agenda is not a theory. You’re telling me Biden is the centrist marker- he’s where most people are. Alrighty then! Let’s go! Oh, wait a minute- it seems there are two senators standing in the way. They won’t pass the Biden’s agenda but on the upside they never say “defund the police”.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: they might, I think probably will, pass parts of Biden’s agenda, and if we’re smart about the “rhetoric” you’re so angrily contemptuous of, maybe we hold the two houses of the legislature, maybe with a couple more D Senators, we can pass more of Biden’s agenda with the next Congress. And not saying stupid, self-indulgent shit that makes us feel our feelings but turns off actual voters might actually make it easier to pass more of Biden’s agenda. And saying stupid, self-indulgent shit that makes us feel our feelings might very well make it easier for Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy to stop us from passing more of that agenda.
O. Felix Culpa
@Ksmiami: Actually, I was referring to University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in the West Loop. The University of Chicago campus in Hyde Park is lovely.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
See, I think centrist liberal pundits ginning up a panic over “cancel culture” and the “crime wave” was stupid and self indulgent. Their insane freak out over “cancel culture” has already come back and bit us in the ass and their insane “law n order” panic will be coming back to bite us in the ass here shortly.
This is not complicated. Just once I would like the people who claim to be mainstream, the people who claim to have a savvy understanding of the electorate, look at THEIR OWN work. It’s a weird sort of entitlement. It’s as if they never have to deliver anything. They can simply sadly shake their heads and scold the minority ideological faction each time we hit a bump in the road.
Betty Cracker
@Kay: A-fucking-men!
O. Felix Culpa
@Kay: There will always be some lefty loons saying some stupid shit. And the Right is hyper-calibrated to amplify that shit, no matter how minor or obscure. Really nothing to be done about that. It’s what they exist for. Instead, the focus should be on amplifying our own core message and accomplishments. What positive difference can we/do we make in people’s lives.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Kay:
The IRS thing was maddening. The IRS wasn’t targeting conservative organizations, except insofar as a lot of them appeared to be doing shady stuff. And the media slavishly reported the “targeting” angle without much pushback.
Matt McIrvin
@Kay: I wonder how much of this is just the damage caused by big-political-media types somehow arbitrarily setting on Twitter as their preferred social-media platform.
Twitter is full of the most insane, apoplectic fringe hot takes on any subject you care to name. The format encourages this. They are not representative of the majority of opinion on anything. But Twitter gives them a direct pipeline to horrify media pundits, just like it gave Donald Trump a direct pipeline to fascinate them.
L85NJGT
@Suzanne:
There’s both structural lifespan, and economic lifespan, and those seldom expire at the same time.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: I think the notion that “centrist, liberal pundits” determine what voters think is some extremely on-line thinking. David Shor is not a centrist, and his analyses aren’t based on Vox columns and MSNBC midday programming. He’s looking at actual election results and interviews with actual voters.
Take the conversation away from the hot buttons of “defund” and AOC. Do you believe Bernie Sanders bellowing about Wall Street speeches had an effect on the 2016 general election, and who do you think it helped and hurt? What cause was advanced?
Ksmiami
@Kay: I agree… and I just don’t understand what so called centrists gain by holding up Biden’s agenda. I’m sick of their ego-centric histrionics when we are facing literal fascists
Steeplejack (phone)
@Kay:
Just want to add that I find your political analysis in general very useful. You clarify things in a way that cuts through the murk and illuminates the underlying issues. Please never think that just because people don’t always respond they aren’t listening—and learning.
I also loved the anecdotes about your travails with the youngest kid through high school and your Margaret Mead observations about teen life. Gonna miss those.
MagdaInBlack
@Steeplejack (phone): I’d like to 2nd that. I always look forward to Kays posts ?
germy
@Ksmiami:
They are being paid to.
Sinema and Manchin are both connected to ALEC.
Conservadems listen to their donors, not us.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Matt McIrvin:
There’s always going to be some platform that is the “preferred social-media platform.” And if it’s not Twitter, whatever it is will have the same amount of crazy nutbaggery going on.
I find Twitter very useful because, despite all the nutbaggery, there is a tremendous amount of insight and analysis that is very useful—and which gets fact-checked, reality-checked, rebutted, debunked and rebunked in real time. Very useful and informative.
Matt McIrvin
@Steeplejack (phone): The good stuff is what keeps me going there. But it’s so hard for discussions NOT to be dominated by the scorching hot takes. The format seems to encourage it–the 280-character limit, the Usenet-like lack of distinction between headlining posts and comments, the way everything consequently gets decontextualized in tiny chunks.
Diceros bicornis
So the Tour de France is heading through my village on Tuesday. Of course I’ll go out to the main road and stand there for an hour to see them whiz by in mere seconds…can’t do a Balloon Juice sign because I don’t have the materials or the skillz, and no one around here sells helium balloons, green or otherwise. I snagged a handful of small green water balloons I can inflate and try to tie to a stick but as their pale color is unlikely to be visible in a video shot I’ve dug out a lurid Chartreuse green shirt to accompany them. Good enough?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Diceros bicornis:
Sounds good. Which is your village? I’ll wave as the peloton passes through.
Matt McIrvin
…anyway, see, “cancel culture” actually is a very real thing on Twitter. If someone with significant reach (or who is just unlucky) says something that is egregiously bad or something that can just be quoted in bad faith to seem egregiously bad, that person may win the booby prize of being the day’s Main Character of Twitter, and get dogpiled by 10,000 or 100,000 people in a manner that seems like an overwhelming harassment campaign if you’re on the business end of it.
Sometimes the recipients deserve it. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes it’s getting the Internet Nazis riled up that does it.
But that’s what it is–a social-media thing. It’s not the Left going too far. The right does it just as much or more so.
dnfree
@Dorothy A. Winsor: those are the two representatives I have set up for monthly contributions. I’m in Casten’s district. I’ll also donate to Raja Krishnamoorthi when the election gets closer. We can be proud of all of them but they’re not shoo-ins.
J R in WV
@Leto:
When my ship was in the Ingalls yard in Pascagoula, MS, Wife and I drove to New Orleans one long weekend, along the coastal highway, I forget the route number now, was 1972.
As we drove along, the scenery was astounding, beautiful beach and Gulf waters on our left, ships aground in the woods to our right from Hurricane Camille. Not boats — SHIPS, big ones. Was amazing and hard to grasp. Nature’s fury…
dnfree
@Suzanne: both of my grandparents lived in small towns in the 1950s in houses that were old even then. Both houses have been gone for years. The house in Buckhannon WV was torn down and replaced by an auto repair place. The farmhouse in Strawberry Point IA was replaced by a cement plant. Neither town is any bigger than it was in 1950.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
When I built my garage/shop, a 24×48 two story, we used styrofoam forms with rebar braces inside, with an 8 inch void inside which we pumped full of pea gravel concrete for the first floor, and a 6 inch void for the second floor.
The 4″ of foam seems to enable the concrete walls to act as a stabliized heat sink, it stays fairly cool into late summer, and a little electrical heat in the winter is all it takes to keep it tolerable all winter long. I turn the heat off in early spring. room for up to 4 cars downstairs.
Then I used Structural Insulated Panels in AZ, R-42 in the ceiling, steel roof and soffits, high e windows, solar panels and a little Honda generator for electric. Haven’t spent summers out there, would need some sort of AC I suspect, but easy to heat in the winter with a tiny wood stove.
The house in WV should have been all masonry with rebar and pumped concrete, but is 6 inch stud walls above the first floor, Drivit stucco on 4 inches of foam insulation. Also easy to heat and cool. Regret using studs now, 12″ Ivany block all the way up would have been better instead of just the first floor. Stronger!
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Happy Birthday America.
If we can keep it.
Geminid
@J R in WV: Hurricane Camille killed over two hundred people when it hit the Gulf Coast in 1969. Then it came north, hit a cold front in Virginia, and dropped enough rain to kill over 150 more. Many were never found. One van was swept into the Rockfish River in Nelson County and washed up in Richmond, 80 miles away. That’s when Virginia started to develop a modern emergency warning system.
Diceros bicornis
@Steeplejack (phone): St Laurent du Pont. Gonna try to be in front of the very big, hard to miss church but if it’s hot I’ll have to go find some shade! Will be waving at helicopters…didn’t see any drones last year but if there are any I’ll be waving at them too…
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
They’re admitting none of the Left agenda is passing- none of the centrist agenda is passing either, but apparently that doesn’t matter, so we’ll stick with the Left.
So what’s the demand of Drum and the rest? What do they want? They want everyone on the Left to shut up? That we’re even having these discussions so upsets the Free Speech Defenders that they will now write 500 columns warning Democrats about rhetoric?
This is a power struggle. It’s two factions of the Democratic Party fighting for control. Both are claiming a popular mandate. I don’t have any problem with that, but OWN it. They should own the centrist position instead of this “regrettably the country is not as far Left as I would like…” bullshit. Just be centrists. We’ll have a Left and a Center and a Right in the Democratic Party. I’m fine with that. Drum doesn’t have to create an imaginary army of the public behind his position. Why not just defend it on the merits? They don’t object to the Left’s “rhetoric”. They object to the Left’s agenda.
Soprano2
@Kay: OK, FWIW I agree with you on the idea of bringing the votes, and with your frustration with the centrists who insist that we have to keep the filibuster no matter what because reasons. It’s dumb and self-destructive on their part, although I understand some of the dance they may be doing here. However, that’s not what Drum is talking about. I read the whole thing he wrote, and he’s talking about how the ends of the liberal and conservative spectrum of belief relate to the average voter. His argument is that the end of the liberal spectrum has moved further away from the average voter than the fringe of the conservative spectrum. Now, you may or may not believe that’s true, but that’s the thing he’s arguing about. He thinks that’s why more black and Hispanic voters pulled the lever for Trump last time – because the more conservatives ones are alienated by the fringes of the Democratic Party, regardless of how important those people might actually be in real life. Where I think his argument loses is that most Democratic candidates are already doing what he suggests by being liberal but not overwhelmingly liberal. How many Democratic candidates ran on “defund the police” in 2020? Hardly any of them. How many of them were tarred with that brush anyway by Republicans – all of them! To me this argues for better messaging, not vilifying the more centrist Democrats we elected. And yes, we have to pass and promote our agenda as being better for Americans, because it is. You often say we don’t sell our agenda enough, and you’re right about that.
The last Pod Save America broadcast had Anat Shenker-Osorio on to talk about how to make Democratic messaging better. She had a lot of great ideas about how to talk about issues surrounding voting and other issues. For example, she said not to talk about “democracy”, because to most people that’s an abstract concept. Instead, she said we should talk about how Republicans are trying to take people’s freedom away by restricting their ability to choose their government representatives. Everyone understands about freedom, and cares about it a lot. That whole interview is well worth a listen for all the great ideas she has.
When I said I agreed with him, it was because I think the average voter has moved more toward the liberal position on many issues, or was already there. Think about how much the rhetoric surrounding LBGTQ people has changed since 2000. And yes, I agree that conservatives have gotten more extreme on other issues since Trump, like immigration, but is it that they’re really more extreme or just that they feel more able to express what they’ve always believed? Even in 2007, Congress was unable to pass a bi-partisan immigration reform bill because the Republicans in the House refused to allow it to come to a vote. Have they moved much more in their beliefs since then? I don’t think they have. As for abortion, the ones I know have always been trying to ban abortion for my whole adult lifetime. YYMV, though.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: why is it that the Left always reacts to suggestions they might want to be more pragmatic and strategic as being told to “shut up”?
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Here’s your “pragmatic” Jim:
The super pragmatic centrists spent the last year wailing and rending garments over “cancel culture” and “identity politics” and the Right has now weaponized their idiot crusade and has given it the force of law, which will be used against public school teachers. Not Harvard professors. Not NYTimes opinion writers. Sixth grade public school teachers. They’re the people who will bear the brunt of this self indulgent manufactured panic over “cancel culture”.
We’re a year out from the midterms and we’ve already settled on the faction who lost them for centrists?
It’s pathetic. It reeks of panic and fear. Biden won and Manchin is the kingmaker. Lefties don’t control anything. Preemptively blaming them every time it looks like a Democrat might lose an election is weak and weasely.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m not taking political advice from the idiots who aligned with the Right and ended us up here:
We’ve ended the scourge of “cancel culture” in America’s elite private schools and editorial pages and…oh my God! Is that a blacklist for public school teachers! OOPs!
Political masterminds they are. That was pure genius.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: @Kay: this dishonest, poo-flinging gibberish reminds me of the transition period, when I figured there must be two different people posting under the name “Kay”.
That’s the charitable explanation.