My online philosophy, made graphic:
Grim fairy tales… pic.twitter.com/G1kEhM8zpt
— Quantum Flux, PhD. JAFO (@QuantumFlux1964) November 29, 2021
Dr. Fauci and former presidents Barack Obama and Teddy Roosevelt made a surprise visit to Kimball Elementary to encourage folks to get vaxxed pic.twitter.com/02Mk5AgIg6
— Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (@CleveWootson) November 30, 2021
— Cleve R. Wootson Jr. (@CleveWootson) November 30, 2021
Yellen: Food insecurity dropping 24 percent for families after Biden's Child Tax Credit "a profound economic and moral victory for the country"
— Jeff Stein (@JStein_WaPo) November 30, 2021
Congressional Republicans say they care about lowering costs and addressing inflation for the American people.
Not a single one backs the Build Back Better Act – a plan that 17 Nobel economists agree will ease long run inflationary pressures and make our economy stronger.
— President Biden (@POTUS) November 30, 2021
I live in a blue suburb in a red state.
All those smartasses who slapped "I did that!" stickers on their pumps are now awkward trying to figure out how to remove them from the company owned equipment without damaging it…
— STEMtheBleeding (@STEMthebleeding) November 29, 2021
satby
This is why I won’t engage in the frenzied doom posting that occasionally breaks out here. Extremely capable people are in charge, my job as a citizen is to support them with all the tools at my disposal.
PST
Fluctuation in gasoline prices has always been recognized by economists as disconnected from other prices and a notoriously poor measure of inflation. It isn’t even all that closely correlated with crude prices. It’s its own thing, always responding to particular changes in refining capacity and transient changes in demand. There’s a reason for leaving it out in “core inflation” calculations. So ignoring the drop isn’t bad; it was making such a BFD out of the increase that felt like mere propaganda.
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Leto
Sec Blinken on Morning Joe, saying that (in response to an article in the Financial Times: Putin gives the US “red lines” regarding Ukraine) if Russia invades Ukraine, they’re on their own. He said they’re not part of NATO, we can give them some support beforehand, but they’re on their own.
rikyrah
Uh huh ????
BlackWomenViews Media (@blackwomenviews) tweeted at 0:29 AM on Wed, Dec 01, 2021:
Congresswoman #LaurenUnderwood is a tireless leader in the fight to tackle Black maternal mortality. I appreciate her highlighting how VP #KamalaHarris is STILL an invaluable partner in this fight. Having a champion in the WH now makes a world of difference. #BlackWomenLead
(https://twitter.com/blackwomenviews/status/1465931006972735500?t=1sIrVjYz_HUzFGClF_8nNA&s=03)
debbie
@Leto:
And Putin is the boss of us exactly how?
It’s long past time that he be treated as the criminal thug he is, not the world leader he yearns to be.
AxelFoley
Blech
Starfish
@satby: We are doomed. John Cole is going to bury us in frog pictures sometime this winter.
lowtechcyclist
Man, I missed this memo entirely. What was this about?
Immanentize
@satby: I’m with you. Yesterday I violated my first rule of Balloon Juice — I read and felt compelled to respond to a doom dealer comment that was just reactionary, “we are all doomed.” My bad. Well, we are in some deep horse doo doo, but there is value and even fun in working to clean out the stable.
SiubhanDuinne
In light of today’s Supreme Court hearing on the Mississippi abortion bill, Alexandra Petri has some thoughts:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/30/supreme-court-abortion-mississippi-case-satire/
Geminid
@rikyrah: Lauren Underwood is great, an exemplary member of the talented House Class of 2018. Underwood declined to join any of the Democratic “ideological” caucuses- Progressive, New Democrat, Blue Dog- which is a statement in itself.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Thanx for that obit.
OzarkHillbilly
@lowtechcyclist: Obama, talking about infrastructure etc: “You didn’t build that.”
NotMax
In recognition of Barbados’ initial day of being Lizless.
VOR
@lowtechcyclist: when gas prices were higher, people put stickers on the pumps. The sticker I saw was Biden pointing to the price/gallon saying “I did that!”. The fact they were defacing someone else’s property never seemed to occur to the MAGAts.
Leto
@debbie:
Because his actions dictate our response. We won’t do anything to stop Russian aggression outside of sternly worded responses/letters. Ask the people of Georgia, as well as the Crimean peninsula. We did put sanctions on people, but Western Europe is still dependent on Russian gas. Russia was kicked out of the G8, but they’re still one of the 5 permanent UN members. I guess what I’m saying is, if Russia invades all/parts of Ukraine, we were warned ahead of time that we (the US) gave the ok on that.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@PST: People react to gas prices though. Their need for it is pretty inflexible if they commute. And they fill up regularly enough that they know what they’ve been paying.
Gin & Tonic
@satby: That’s an unusual usage of the word “occasionally.”
OzarkHillbilly
@VOR: So, I was wrong? Again?
sigh….
Gin & Tonic
@Leto: They know that.
Immanentize
@SiubhanDuinne:Here is a fairly plausible thought piece regarding how Dobbs might turn out after the opinion comes out in late June:
Dobbs in Seven Parts
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’ve mentioned before the FOX is often on the TV in the cafe in my building. Lately it’s been on less often, possibly because Mr DAW and others from our Secret Democratic Cabal know where the remote is tucked away and change the channel. Yesterday, the remote had been disabled. You couldn’t even use it to turn the TV off. It was locked on FOX. Mr DAW called the guy who’s in charge of all the tv, internet, etc in the building and he said he’d take care of it. We’ll see.
I’m in the cafe for four hours today doing a book sale. If FOX is on all that time, I’m going to lose my mind.
rikyrah
We knew this…in real time
The Hill (@thehill) tweeted at 6:51 AM on Wed, Dec 01, 2021:
JUST IN: Trump tested positive for COVID-19 days before debate with Biden: Meadows book https://t.co/k8W632YUAc https://t.co/wL5JydmjGr
(https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1466027110640857093?t=U7Rjpnl3dmy2XxMiXWmzBg&s=03)
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: It was something, wasn’t it?
Big Picture Pathologist
I may have missed it, but it seems that mass shootings have become so commonplace that it doesn’t appear that a front pager or commenter has brought up what happened at the school in Michigan in this blog. At least, not since yesterday morning.
I’m not indignant or disappointed with anyone, just soberly realizing that what used to be a big deal now can wait until it’s been processed, or that we have so many problems going on that this is just another thing to put on the pile.
I also don’t begrudge the need to emphasize the need to feature positive news and thoughts, like the posts of late have been doing.
It’s just… noteworthy
satby
@Gin & Tonic: ?? so my attempt at being diplomatic failed huh? Not the first time.
NotMax
@Immanentize – @satby
Tunnel. Light. ’nuff said.
;)
Another Scott
@Leto: I don’t see the US giving any “ok”, but I also don’t see the US taking the bait of making off-the-cuff “pay any price, bear any burden” commitments that are not supported by our foreign policy and getting in yet another unwinnable quagmire.
Sec. Austin readout of call with Poland leader re NATO’s Eastern flank
Also, IIRC, there are US and NATO troops in Ukraine frequently (training missions, etc).
FWIW. We’ll see.
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
There is always a plug…
Betty Cracker
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Have you tried using a smartphone as a remote? Some TVs will let you do that.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: Figured all parties in this knew each other’s commitment levels, etc, just wanted to share that info here. Honestly I’m not sure what else we can do to stop Russian aggression wrt their former client states as they’re continuing with the Medvedev Doctrine. That’s not even mentioning their criminal cyber activity, their assassination program, or their energy (gas) program.
Gin & Tonic
@Leto: Please note your future tense is inappropriate. Russia *did* invade and occupy part of Ukraine, and the US did nothing. Over 13,000 Ukrainians have died since then in defense of their country. Ukrainians know what’s what. And Putin knows that attempting to occupy the entire country by “conventional” military means will be a bloodbath.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: Beautiful, and so saddening.
satby
@Big Picture Pathologist: The lack of current news, and especially breaking news, has been noted by several people. To me, it makes this place less valuable to me than before. It is possible to amuse/ distract/ respite ourselves into a stupor.
OzarkHillbilly
@Big Picture Pathologist: Ummm,what happened at the school in Michigan? Cause I haven’t even seen it reported in the news.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Betty Cracker: No, but Mr DAW tried our remote and it didn’t work.
@Immanentize: That’s a little more obvious if there are other people around.
Immanentize
@NotMax: Starlight Express: Truly one of the strangest productions of all time — would have suited the late 70’s more, methinks.
Leto
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Something else you could try would be to enable the parental controls and block the channel. People routinely do this with their elderly parents, and maybe their kids too (who it was originally designed for). Have Mr DAW see if that’s been enabled, if it already has a PIN established, and if it doesn’t… well, should give you hopefully a days rest for the BS.
lowtechcyclist
@VOR:
Thanks, that makes sense now. I didn’t see any of these stickers, but then I only need to fill up about once every 3-4 weeks these days.
Of course it wouldn’t.
SiubhanDuinne
@Immanentize:
From my IANAL perspective, this line of argumentation seems likely. Thanks.
OzarkHillbilly
And that’s a problem?
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: another school shooting, three kids dead as of last night, 15 year old taken into custody. Evidently this one had days of red flags not investigated before the event.
rikyrah
The picture ?
Dr. Vivek Murthy, U.S. Surgeon General (@Surgeon_General) tweeted at 4:12 PM on Tue, Nov 30, 2021:
Like so many parents, I was thrilled and relieved when my 5-year-old son got his #COVID19 vaccine last week. He was a little nervous when the time came but all smiles afterward. He’s been proudly showing off his “I’m vaccinated” sticker! [1/5] https://t.co/c42SfrN8XT
(https://twitter.com/Surgeon_General/status/1465806018668122116?t=PVZySPIPtIM3x7ppV-azNA&s=03)
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: This is a serious question because I am uninformed on this — the Russians got a land connect to Sevastopol by invading Crimea. What would they really gain by invading and occupying all of Ukraine? Or is it primarily just a post-Soviet grudge match?
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott: Cut Russia out of SWIFT and they’ll fold within 48 hours.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Leto: I love the idea. FOX is pouring poison into the nation’s ears.
Here, I suspect the FOX crazies would go complaining straight to management (just like we did). If they’re aggressive enough to try to lock FOX in, they’re not giving up without a fight.
Management should take that TV out of there. Everyone has one at home.
Immanentize
@satby: Gun came from his Dad who bought it (it seems) illegally a few days before.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: I don’t relish being beaten by someone’s cane
Betty Cracker
@satby: Can’t speak for anyone else, but the endless kvetching about DOOM and complaining about content that doesn’t meet each individual commenter’s personal expectations makes me less motivated to post.
Every word on this blog is produced by unpaid volunteers. The last few years have been tough on every single one of us.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: They do not have a land bridge, they only have a bridge bridge, over the Kerch strait. That is vulnerable. Also, Crimea has no reliable water without the mainland. But mainly, Putin believes that Ukrainians are really just junior Russians who have been deluded by the West into believing they are a different people.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Ken
Hmm, I hope that vaccination program doesn’t backfire.
TEDDY ROOSEVELT: Now you are all going to get vaccinated, aren’t you?
SMALL CHILDREN: (terrified whimpers, smell of an unfortunate accident)
(Mind you, that reaction isn’t limited to small children. And it’s not just because TR is a giant muppet with a bandanna mask.)
Another Scott
@Gin & Tonic: I appreciate your advocacy and reminders of what is going on over there. It’s horrible.
But I don’t think that there are any easy solutions.
Especially with winter coming and Europe so dependent on Gazprom. Putin usually seems to do stuff like this in the fall/winter when he has maximum leverage. And western Europe seems more than happy to continue to give him that power on the promise of “cheap” gas…
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: Thank you.
That seems significant.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: won’t happen as Medvedev said, back in 2014, that that action would be “tantamount to a declaration of war.” How Disastrous Would Disconnection From SWIFT Be for Russia? (Jun 2021)
Percysowner
My daughter’s best friend from high school called last night and asked to stay at their house while she is giving a presentation this weekend. Because my granddaughter is too young to be vaccinated, my daughter had to decline because M isn’t vaccinated. She isn’t a Trumper at all. She is just concerned because she has many medical issues and “doesn’t want to put a new toxin into her body”. Also she “doesn’t see anyone”, you know except for giving a presentation indoors this weekend and hoping to get more massage clients for her work. She was all verklempt that “we will never see each other again”, even after my daughter told her that getting together outside and masked works.
As a note, M is on a raw food diet because if you cook the food you kill the “living water” inside. Apparently the living water is better for you than dead water. She also doesn’t really believe in doctors. She’s the first person I know who won’t vaccinate. It’s very weird, but the WOO is strong in that one.
Nettoyeur
@Gin & Tonic: Now that is interesting.
Starfish
@Big Picture Pathologist:
The discussion when this happens is the same every time. Why don’t we have reasonable gun control laws? Because some congress critters love the gun lobby more than they love the kids.
One thing that is different this time is that we are in a pandemic. Some people talk about “mental health” in this generalized way, and I find it somewhat irritating.
School this year has been hard on kids. Part of it is related to growth and development. Schools were preparing kids for big transitions to K, to middle school, and to high school. The kids in school now did not have as much support in figuring out those transitions, and it really shows.
Another part of it is that everyone in school really is struggling this year. There have been an unusual number of fights in some middle schools this year.
You add guns to whatever is going on, and this is what you get.
Yesterday, someone posted this video of Chris Murphy going off about the school shootings in the context of a bunch of Republicans being up in their God-bothering nonsense because they are going to try to get the Supreme Court to agree to the 15-week abortion ban today.
Ken
We’re not up to ω yet, but the two omicrons may indeed be strong in her.
NotMax
“So what did the fence offer for the loot?”
“Offer? He still hadn’t stopped laughing when I finally gave up and left.”
:)
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: I know Ukrainians who will say, privately, fuck Crimea. It has some gorgeous coastline, and, yes, it is a warm-water port (less important with the Arctic melting) but otherwise it is a shithole, which is an economic drain on whoever controls it.
burnspbesq
The capital markets are behaving in a very Republican manner, freaking out when the data say no freak out is called for.
In other news, a parents’ group in Spotsylvania County, VA is planning a book-burning for the night of the next school board meeting. They are asking parents to have their kids check out “offensive” books from school libraries for burning. I’m guessing that willful destruction of school district property is a misdemeanor, but I kinda doubt we’ll see any arrests.
Leto
@Dorothy A. Winsor: that sucks and I’m sorry you guys are going through it.
@satby: So far there have been 641 mass shootings in the US, as of yesterday. Which ones do you want them to cover? This current school shooting was covered last night by my local news station (Philly station), covered on the national news, as well as the cable news shows. Sen Murphy was on Chris Hayes last night, again, talking about what a fucking senseless thing this is because the US/Republicans won’t do a damned thing about it. Morning Joe is currently showing the cell phone footage of the terrified kids trying to escape the school. It’s a front page article on most of the major newspaper sites as of this moment. Anyone who doesn’t know about it just doesn’t want to know about it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Neither do they.
Nora
@lowtechcyclist: I saw some of those on gas pumps in my blue area. Picture (not very good) of Joe Biden saying “I did that”, pointing to the gas price. I pulled two of those off the pumps and told the people running the gas station that they should make sure people don’t put things like that on their gas pumps, or else other people, like me, will stop patronizing that station.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Percysowner: Good for you for laying the burden of her beliefs on her, rather than assuming them for her.
debbie
@Gin & Tonic:
I know I’m no expert, but Putin values being perceived as a world leader, so why not kick Russia off the Security Council too?
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: I am sorry the complainers discourage the hardworking front pagers here.
The doomposters are easy for me to ignore. I just wish they were not so insistent that other people share their pessimism.
debbie
@Immanentize:
Speaking of guns, if the SC tosses precedent out the window with Roe v. Wade, can’t Citizens United and whatever has allowed rampant proliferation of guns also be revisited?
OzarkHillbilly
@SiubhanDuinne: and according to WTAP:
In addition to their son, the parents just lost any dreams they might have had.
jonas
Well, not literally nothing — along with the EU and other allies, the US imposed some pretty draconian sanctions on Russia, which Putin was (and remains) absolutely livid about. Getting rid of those sanctions — among others — was one of the main motivations for Russia’s interference in the election to help Trump in 2016. You can argue that sanctions are pretty weak tea, but what was the alternative at the time? Starting a shooting war with Russia?
Immanentize
@debbie: Cannot be done. Russia as a permanent member of the security council is part of the UN Charter. And frankly, it’s a good thing they are on it.
Nelle
For the past eleven months, almost every newscast has shown needles going into skin and muscle. I’m not squeamish, but gawd, it’s boring and uncreative. However, if one is squeamish or needle phobic (I have a daughter who would pass out ), this is not helping. It’s a few seconds of a life, yet the camera lingers on needle being pushed in, over and over, as if that is the most significant part of vaccination. Lazy, lazy, lazy. And magnifying brief discomfort. Rant over. Temporarily.
OzarkHillbilly
@burnspbesq: Fines, disciplinary actions and the withholding of any diplomas or school records until they are paid will do.
jonas
@OzarkHillbilly:
Really tragic. Any loaded weapon in a house has a far greater probability of killing/injuring the owner or a family member (accident, suicide, domestic violence, etc.) than stopping some random criminal, anecdata from the NRA magazine notwithstanding. Or in this case, being used in a mass shooting by your deranged kid.
Fuck around and find out, as they say.
debit
@Big Picture Pathologist: What is there to say? More kids have died and nothing will be done. We can cry and scream and rage, but in the end nothing will change.
I am not a doomsayer, but after Sandy Hook it became clear: if the slaughter of a bunch of little children wasn’t horrific enough to make a change, nothing ever will be.
Leto
@debbie: Because they’re a permanent member of the UN Security Council:
United Nations Office at Vienna FAQ
Immanentize
@debbie: Everything is always potentially up for review. So yes they could. Although I suspect citizens united might now be so firmly entrenched — money is speech — in so many laws it would be very hard to dislodge. Holder, however, could be overturned allowing stronger federal regulation of firearms, but it seems we are moving in the opposite direction this term.
burnspbesq
Charlie Pierce thinks yesterday’s oral argument in the D.C. Circuit didn’t go well for a certain private citizen with delusions of Presidency. I listened, and I have a similar view.
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a38392882/trump-january-6-committee-executive-privilege-case/
Big Picture Pathologist
@Betty Cracker:
Sorry if it came across as a kvetch. AFAIC you’re a national treasure, the main draw to BJ who regularly puts in Herculean efforts both with your morning COVID updates and your late night musings. I truly thank you for your unfailingly reliable productivity.
I just wish half of our country returned to a baseline level of decency and reason so that this outlier event didn’t even remotely approach being just another headline.
I was reading BJ ever since Scoobie Davis reported on Cole’s Road to Damascus moment, so we’re talking 2008 or so. To say this blog kept me sane all this time is an understatement. The front pagers and commenters are all tremendous people, and like-minded citizens are the biggest reason why this country is still worth a damn.
This was just a cynical, (and in retrospect) poorly-judged musing out loud on how those of us who care have to keep our wits intact lest the doomscrolling of the news sap our will to fight. After the past year and a half — even without the GOP shenanigans — self-care remains no less critical. I want to eventually return to a time where something like this got the coverage of Columbine or hell, even 9/11
burnspbesq
@OzarkHillbilly:
Respectfully disagree. Only jail time will have the necessary deterrent effect.
Immanentize
@burnspbesq: Agree. 3.5 hours of argument! Frankly any decision except one in favor of the current administration would end our practice/myth that the presidency is an office that a person holds rather than a person who is in office.
Amir Khalid
@Immanentize:
Russia once had an empire; and as I understand, Putin wants all of it back. Maybe he wants to be Tsar Vladimir I.
debbie
@Immanentize:
The man needs a time out.
jonas
I’m afraid your right — at least as long as one of the two main political parties remains a sociopathic death cult. You’d think “let’s not make it easy to gun down innocent children” or “let’s work together so tens of thousands of old and vulnerable people don’t needlessly die from a virus” would unite us, but sadly, no.
Nelle
I have thanked Anne Laurie but failed to commend you, Betty Cracker, for all the snorts and guffaws that you inspire. You are invaluable. And i love your bird photos too, your musings on life and your sense of place. Thanks.
jonas
@burnspbesq:
JFC, they don’t even pretend not to be Nazis anymore.
mali muso
Interesting sight this morning as I was driving to work in my small/mid-sized Virginia town. A white guy walking down the sidewalk with a sandwich board on his body that read “Evangelicals are Nazis by another name” on the front and “Evangelicals hate us for our freedoms” on the back. Not really what I expected to see. Can’t say I disagree with him.
SiubhanDuinne
@Nelle:
Oh, I’m so glad you said this! As it happens, I am severely needle-phobic. I hate seeing still photos or even drawings of needles piercing skin. And I can literally feel my stomach lurch whenever I see these incessant images on TV of “shots in arms” (also ask me how much I enjoy hearing that phrase repeated ad nauseum). I’ve learned, over the past year, to avert my eyes veryveryfast whenever there’s Covid reporting on TV. And yes, I’m vaccinated and soon to be boosted — I’m phobic, but not suicidal! But even for people who don’t mind injections, I can’t imagine that these nonstop, repetitive images and clips are persuasive.
Big Picture Pathologist
@satby:
Every platform has a right to feature whatever content it wants, and as I said I don’t expect a wish-fulfillment experience when I come here.
Although current affairs are given plenty of coverage it helps to remember this blog is just as much a reflection of people’s thoughts and feelings on a given day. Most days I personally sure as hell don’t wish to dwell on the tragedy du jour, and I have the luxury of not feeling expected to do so (every blogger here has a far better work ethic than I do, hands down).
I respect the hell out of those that look at the daily chaos out there and fight valiantly to sustain hope and determination. However, compassion fatigue is a real thing, and I know even sidestepping topics for a later time (or never) shows how the strategy by the well-off and their enablers hoping that by having us contend with so much we get discouraged can work, to some degree. I despise the entirety of the latter group from the bottom of my heart
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Did we already do this?
so Meadows has decided to cash in and retire from electoral politics?
Immanentize
@burnspbesq:
@jonas:
I would like to go to one of those book burnings with a large bunch of bibles, complaining they are filled with CRT and start throwing them on the pyre.
Then again, I also want to not get shot.
jonas
@burnspbesq: The lede seems to be that Trump’s lawyers are not really relying on actual legal arguments, but — in true Trump fashion — just trying to gum things up with appeals to waste time and run out the clock. Which is a kind of win for him. Hopefully that won’t be the case, but like Pierce, I’m not so sure it won’t work, either.
CindyH
@Leto: yep – I see it covered on all local news stations and every internet news site I check, plus on my iPhone News.
Starfish
Can we have a Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health thread?
narya
Yellen’s tweet brought a tear to my eye; that is freaking awesome. It breaks my heart to know that so many folks live with food insecurity, that so many kids don’t have access to good food, in a country with so much wealth. And even if we had less wealth, it is incumbent upon us, IMO, to ensure folks have healthy food to eat.
Also: while I don’t use the pie filter, usually, I will admit that occasionally there are commenters whose comments I don’t read quite as closely. I value this space so very much, and I refuse to let folks who go to some version of THERE destroy my enjoyment.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
The father is absolutely culpable*, and the blood of his son’s dead and wounded schoolmates is on the hands of both of them.
*IANAL
jonas
@Immanentize: I wouldn’t be surprised if a couple of kooks don’t show up with Qurans, though, just to add fuel to the fire, so to speak.
lahke
@Big Picture Pathologist:
You’ve conflated two front pagers– Anne Laurie gets credit for what you listed, and Betty is the queen of Florida birds and politics, and butter lambs.
dnfree
I saw one of those “I did that” stickers on the dairy section of the grocery store last week, Biden smiling and pointing at an empty shelf. I spent some time trying to peel it off , and it wouldn’t come. Very sticky. I did manage to scrape the head off so you couldn’t tell who it was. I didn’t want a crowd to gather.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: from The Guardian link
“Devout Christian”. And Jesus said unto them: Starve the poor, despise the sick, sow hate and resentment wherever you may go, but verily I do tell you, in my Father’s house there is no place for potty mouths who say swears”.
and at this late date, Meadows is hoping we all forgot about the de facto mask ban in the White House
jonas
@SiubhanDuinne:
IANAL either, but some quick googling showed that, yes, in Michigan, you can be charged with civil and criminal negligence for injuries caused by letting someone under 18 gain access to your unsecured firearm. So yeah, I think the parents may be in some trouble on this one.
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: So I guess now I can say that he was literally trying to kill Joe Biden, and it’ll be the truth!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: more
regained its light bronze hue…
Geminid
@SiubhanDuinne: The fathers legal culpability depends on whether Michigan has a law* that makes it a crime to leave an unsecured firearm in a home where there are minors. Although other laws might still apply. In any event, I expect he will be found civilly liable and bankrupted by the victims’ families.
* The Democratic legislative majority in Virginia passed such a law in 2020. That was a modest step, but you have to start somewhere. The new Republican majority may try to repeal this and the other five gun safety laws passed in 2020. I think the Democratic majority in the state Senate will block these efforts. This may blow back on the Republicans. Democrats did well running on gun safety in 2019, and they should similarly do well in 2023.
jonas
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This makes it virtually certain that Trump himself was the one who gave Chris Christie Covid and nearly killed him — knowing he was positive.
Guy still won’t say he wouldn’t vote for him again, though.
Zelma
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Pull the plug. I had an experience at my car dealer. I think HGTV was on and some guy came in and turned the TV to Fox. I asked him not to but he refused. I walked out of the waiting room and told the service manager that I would not sit in that room. He allowed me to wait in his office. The next time I went in for service, the TV in the waiting room was playing some innocuous feed and could not be changed. Make noise.
OzarkHillbilly
@burnspbesq: Dream on.
Big Picture Pathologist
@debit: Yes, you are so right.
It does appear many tragic events (COVID deaths, shootings, etc.) are just going to have to affect more people personally before they give a damn.
I’ve had three people in my circle of family and friends die from COVID, and they were all antivaxxers. I would think that the inner circle of those unfortunates had to have been affected by that. I’m far too diplomatic to approach those people to see if they regret enabling those resisters, but I do see in, say, the Herman Cain Award subreddit group that enough stories will persuade the right people to do the right thing and get vaccinated.
Oxford, where the shooting took place, is in a Michigan county that has been blue for the past few elections. However, the city itself is pretty rural and I’ll wager quite Trumpy. So, the people in that community now see that gun violence is no longer an abstract concept. By the time the issues we care about affect many of those who think they are immune, we might see less pushback in our attempts to try to tackle them
dnfree
@Betty Cracker: I appreciate every post by the front-pagers. I often learn something here that I haven’t seen anywhere else. I don’t need to come here to learn about or discuss yet another mass shooting, unless there’s some reason to.
I had a boss once who used to say “some people would complain if you hung them with a new rope”. It makes absolutely no sense, but I think it referred to people you had done something for, and they complained it wasn’t good enough rather than appreciating the attempt.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@jonas: I assume some enterprising ink-stained wretch is going to contact those military families The Beast exposed, then tried to blame after the fact
lowtechcyclist
@Immanentize:
Nah, don’t go the CRT route. Just describe some of the smutty stories in it. “For instance, one chapter of this book has a story about two women who get their daddy drunk so they can take turns fucking him, which they proceed to do….” (Gen. 19:30-38, for those keeping score at home.)
Describe a few of these stories without saying what book you’re talking about, and they’ll be screaming for you to throw it on the pyre.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Gin & Tonic:
Wow. That’s paternalistic AF
dnfree
@Zelma: just Monday I had the same experience! TV in customer lounge tuned to Fox. I asked the person collecting payments, who sat right by the TV to change it. She asked what I wanted and I said something neutral, not necessarily news. Some places have the weather channel or a home improvement channel. She said it’s usually on home improvement. The remote is in the waiting area, so a customer had probably changed it. She changed it so we were watching very well-off people having their homes gutted and redone, inside and out.
Chief Oshkosh
@PST:
Sure, ignoring the drop isn’t bad, unless, of course, you want to win some elections.
“Can’t anybody here play this game?”
Ramalama
@rikyrah: Black maternal mortality rates are a scandal.
Didn’t Atul Gawande – New Yorker writer (staff?) and also doctor in Boston – didn’t he write something a long while ago about patient outcomes doing much better when doctors used checklists? I wonder if he’s included Black patients in these checklists.
OzarkHillbilly
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: A new shipment of makeup came in.
Big Picture Pathologist
@lahke: It appears I did, and that’s on me.
I have chronic sleep deprivation, so that makes my memory and focus far worse than what I’d like.
Fact of the matter is, every post here is valuable to maintain a healthy balance, and frankly if it were wall-to-wall doom I wouldn’t be checking in as much.
In fact, I look forward to visiting BJ a lot more lately than Lawyers, Guns, and Money.. :/
OzarkHillbilly
FTFY
jeffreyw
jonas
@lowtechcyclist: Almost as good as the story of the levite’s concubine in Judges, whom her partner allows to be gang-raped to death by a mob of Benjaminites (another Israelite tribe) to save himself. The levite takes the woman’s corpse, dismembers it, and shows each part to the other tribes, urging them to make war on Benjamin in revenge. They do, nearly wiping out the Benjaminites, but then feel sorry for the few surviving men, so they go to a nearby city, kidnap a bunch of women, and give them to the Benjaminite men as a goodwill gesture.
That concludes today’s sermon from the Good Book. Amen.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@burnspbesq:
In the headline and subheadline, it’s said that Trump’s team isn’t trying to win on the merits but run out the clock; that just because the argument is absurd doesn’t mean it won’t achieve the desired results
Do you think he’ll be able to successfully run out the clock?
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@jeffreyw:
Hey! You’re muscling into Mama Cole territory! Work your own side of the street!
jonas
Russian nationalists have always believed that they are the first and greatest Slavic nation and that, Ukranians, Poles, Serbs, and others are, yes, in effect, “junior” Russians and should pay their motherland proper respect.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Immanentize:
I’ve always been confused about precedent. How do SC justices decide to overturn precedent? And when is “let the precedent stand” supposed to come into play? Is it all arbitrary?
Big Picture Pathologist
@dnfree: I agree with what you said 100%.
Being a middle-aged guy, I was just lamenting that in my lifetime there’s been a notable shift NOT in whether a mass shooting event gets news coverage (this did), but whether the constant stream of right-wing social fuckery has given decent folk too many things with which to contend.
I should add that I had a privileged upbringing as a child so not constantly reminded of social ills around me, but nonetheless the increased frequency of school shootings and the implications thereof is uncharted territory, and as a parent I’m concerned of the long-term implications*
*I’m aware that is an EXTREMLY privileged take, and cold comfort to relatives of gun violence victims
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker: I for one would miss your posts, which I think are timely, relevant and responsive to current events and breaking news. In addition to your acerbic wit and your ability to juxtapose brain images that, in short, crack me up as only a Betty Cracker can do.
No comparison, you have the best words!
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@satby: There is a lot to be said for considering what’s the worst possible outcome and then considering how to react to it.
So the worst is; the GOP wins the midterms, and make Trump Speaker of the House for some insane reason (which is hard to believe that Trump would want Speaker after being President, but Trump’s mind moves in self defeating and petty ways) Well, the Speaker has to work, can’t just delegate and blamestorm like Trump does (compare and contrast Pelosi to McCarthy) So, while it’s certainty the GOP would try to impeach Biden for reasons, it’s questionable Trump would be able get the votes to pass it in the House (he was never able to get the GOP to vote together before) and a certainty that even a GOP controlled Senate wouldn’t vote to impeach. Likely outcome is two years of Trump hiding in Marlargo, endless budget crises until Trump pathetic need for praise and refusal to do any work drives him to effectively make Pelosi speaker again (like in 2018) and that’s all assuming Trump doesn’t just lose it for good from what ever brain rot he has going or ends up in jail himself.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Immanentize:
@Leto:
What about when the Republic of China was removed from it’s seat on the UN Security Council to be replaced with the PRC in the 70s?
Ken
@jeffreyw: Like powdered milk when we’re all waiting for our heroin.
Big Picture Pathologist
@OzarkHillbilly: A highly appreciated repair
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
attention, “unprecedented”, “historic”, he gets to make McCarthy eat shit, can take the floor of the House whenever he wants (I think?), delegate the real work to a flunky (McCarthy, Meadows, Stefanik?), gets to sit behind Biden at the SOTU (honestly, I think that mental image would convince him to take the job)
Another Scott
@jonas: Zooks!
I wonder if that story is like other parts of the Bible where two (or more) stories are woven together to try to make it the standard version for competing traditions. e.g. Noah’s Ark:
There’s a book out there, “Who Wrote the Bible?”, IIRC, that breaks down passages like that and shows that they’re 2 separate versions woven together (as best they could given the obvious contradictions).
“Kool story, bro!!” ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
@Ramalama: @rikyrah: Rep Lauren Underwood championed legislation to help with black women’s mortality rates, and it was signed into law yesterday. Maddow interviewed her about this last night.
DanielsBob
@rikyrah: Saw her on Maddow last night. Very Impressed. I used to live on the rural West edge of that district. With her representing it I wish I still did.
RobertB
@dnfree: Not happy unless they’re not happy.
cmorenc
@Dorothy A. Winsor: At my local branch of our upscale YMCA gym in north Raleigh, there is a bank of four TVs above the heavily used aeobic exercise machines – one of which used to be always tuned to FoxNews, an adjacent one of which used to be always tuned to CNN (but without audio unless you connected via headphones using either bluetooth or a dedicated radio channel). Nevertheless at countless workouts, many members had to stifle the urge to throw something at e.g. Tucker Carlson (or Jake Tapper), and voiced respective objections – and so a couple of years ago, the Y staff permanently changed the channels on the two TVs that had been showing Fox/CNN to the relatively innocuous HTV and Food channels. Everybody seems happy with this arrangement; available TV is duller, but without creating any gratuitous stress on anyone’s workout vibe.
rikyrah
Charlie Baker isn’t running again for Governor of Massachusetts?
Hmmmmmm
AL, any thoughts?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@rikyrah:
Awesome news!
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The Speaker Trump scenario isn’t happening because the point would be to make him President in advance of 2025, and the most realistic mechanisms for that involve assassination plots. It’s a fantasy.
What I’m more concerned about is that the Republicans take a bunch more state legislatures/governorships and put laws in place making it legal and aboveboard for them to nullify any unfavorable result in the 2024 presidential election, so there is no way to avoid Trump or DeSantis being installed then.
Immanentize
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
It is actually really hard to find cases in which the modern court has just overturned prior decisions. For example, it was only a few years ago that the Court disavowed the holding of Koramatsu. But they still held onto the reasoning of the case — just in case they needed it in the future. So outright overturning a significant precedent is both rare and very disruptive to the Court’s mantle of integrity.
satby
Point of order, my comment was about current events generally, not yesterday’s specific current school shooting. About which I agree: it’s all been said. But sometimes sorrow needs outlet anyway.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: also don’t see my first comment relating at all to not being prepared for bad electoral outcomes. I specifically said it’s my job as a citizen to do what’s within my power to support the competent people we have now.
Immanentize
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Just as the Soviet Union was removed and replaced by Russia, the obvious successor State.
Starfish
@Ramalama: I don’t think we are going to checklist our way out of some racism.
How much time are doctors spending with the patient? How much time are nurses spending with the patient? Are complaints of pain treated as serious or drug-seeking behavior?
If a patient thinks they are being treated wrong, do they have someone with medical expertise in their family who can go to bat for them?
Sometimes, medical expertise does not save people. A lot of people are learning this now the hard way.
Jinchi
Trump clearly hoped Biden would catch it from him. Having Biden die of covid was probably his best shot to save his presidency.Remember all the mockery Biden’s insistence on covid protocols at the debate.This also happened:
Now we know that Trump knew he had tested positive at the time. (Pretty sure Meadows was maskless at the debate as well.)
rikyrah
@Jinchi:
We knew that in real time, yet we were poo-pooed by the MSM.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: I think it was possible that Baker read some tea leaves and found out he might lose the Republican primary, because crazies.
Matt McIrvin
@Jinchi: Well… it turns out he tested positive, then took another test and tested negative, and that was the go signal.
Knowing Trump, I’m not sure there was any grand puppetmaster plot there, more “I am strong, I don’t give a shit, I’m going to that debate”.
Matt McIrvin
Also, where is gas dropping 30-40 cents over the past week? I don’t see that motion on GasBuddy in most places. The rise has stabilized but any drop is more modest.
WaterGirl
@Gin & Tonic: I am slightly embarrassed to admit that i don’t know what SWIFT is. Is that something you could explain in a couple of sentences?
Leto
@WaterGirl: see my link at comment 57
Edit: for the acronym itself, Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.
Jinchi
Democrats have been really bad at winning the Governorship of what most Americans consider a solidly blue state. There was a 16 year Republican run between Mike Dukakis and Deval Patrick. (Bill Weld, Paul Celluci, Jane Swift and Mitt Romney).
James E Powell
@WaterGirl:
Disconnecting Russia from SWIFT.
SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer
@WaterGirl:
I googled earlier, because I didn’t know either. This was the clearest and most concise explanation I found:
Dusty Confetti
As someone who lives about twenty minutes from Oxford High School, I can confirm that the northern part of Oakland County is significantly more “Trumpy” than the southern part. Same goes for the county I live in next door – Macomb – home of the infamous “Reagan Democrats”.
(It’s no coincidence that Eminem is from the southern part of Macomb, while Kid Rock [ack, ptui!] is from my hometown in the north, a place so Trumpy Trump made two campaign stops here. But I digress.)
My first reaction upon hearing news of the shooting yesterday was “Huh, guess it was our turn at the wheel this time?” but I broke down and cried on my way home from work today, still.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I googled it earlier, because I didn’t know either. This explanation was the shortest and clearest I found:
Immanentize
@WaterGirl: SWIFT is the inter-bank transfer/lending system on which Russia is heavily reliant. When Iran was kicked off SWIFT due to oil distribution sanctions, their economy took a quick nosedive. I read somewhere that cutting Russia out of the system would cause a 5% GDP loss as they are so reliant on the system for influx of western currency. That said, although we would not have a big economic effect, the US would lose the most money if such a sanction was enacted.
frosty
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Good for you and your Secret Democratic Cabal. Ms. F and I do the same thing in every waiting room we have to sit in. Nobody has said a word about it.
Matt McIrvin
@Jinchi: My diagnosis of Massachusetts’ Republican governor problem:
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: He doesn’t really believe that. He doesn’t really believe anything. Everything is a tool for his greater power. Why the man needs any more power and money is beyond me, but apparently he does.
Leto
I think we now need to recognize the two SuburuDianes, and what they each bring to the blog. ;)
Jinchi
Having Biden catch Covid wasn’t a grand puppetmaster plot. Any idiot could come up with it (and he did). But it was pretty clear that they were taking the gamble at the time. Trump continued complaining about the covid rules even after he fell ill, and Pence’s team mocked Kamala Harris for insisting on it.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: I try not to be Pollyanna, I really do, but I don’t see how having a RWNJ as SOS or a majority in the state legislature as being insane partisans nullifies the fact that we elect our representatives. It only works in circumstances like FL 2000 where the result is too close and trickery allows them to decide which hanging chads to count or not. We don’t have hanging chads any more.
The Voting Rights Act and Article V Section 2 of the Constitution and all the rest still applies.
We need to remember that TFG had the DOJ, the SCOTUS, the DOD, the states, and all the rest, and he lost. They lost every single legal challenge. He may have more states next time (but I don’t think that’s a given – there are too many in that party who think they should be next and won’t hold his coat any more), but they don’t have the executive any more and they still have huge hurdles to climb.
Bottom line – if it were this easy to throw out election results, it would have been done already.
We have to continue to fight them every single day, but we need to do what we can to make sure that elections aren’t close enough to steal.
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
dnfree
@Dorothy A. Winsor: could you go to your association board and ask that policy or rules or whatever would specify the TV be tuned to a non-political or non-news channel, like weather or home improvement? That’s what I see now in a lot of medical offices and car dealerships.
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: It’s not the posts that are so doom-heavy (I think y’all have a decent amount of optimism), it’s really the comments.
rikyrah
Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha) tweeted at 8:08 AM on Wed, Dec 01, 2021:
TFG wasn’t just trying to get Joe Biden sick at that debate. His entire family showed up unmasked and refused to put one on. They were trying to take out everybody in that room.
(https://twitter.com/eclecticbrotha/status/1466046533862891522?t=WekzCe3XcSTU98heJ1QwtQ&s=03)
zhena gogolia
@UncleEbeneezer: Yes, that’s my feeling too. You can always pick and choose what posts to read, but comments can quickly get infected with depressing prognostications.
I love the respite threads too. I don’t expect “breaking news” from BJ. I subscribe to the NYT and WaPo for that. I want BJ to correct the perspective I get from MSM, and it does that well.
James E Powell
@Matt McIrvin:
Sounds similar to Maryland & Jersey.
Edmund Dantes
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Trump already blamed them in real time.
frosty
Ukrainians might be a little more willing to be junior Russians if Stalin hadn’t starved millions of them in the process of collectivization.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: We used to say that a PV/EV split would only happen if the election was really close, but that’s not true any more–Trump won in 2016 despite being millions down in the popular vote. I think we can assume they’ll push everything as far as it will go.
The reason they lost in 2020 was that the standard interpretation of the Constitution’s “in such a manner as the legislature thereof may direct” was that states have to specify legally how they’re going to select Presidential electors in advance–the legislature doesn’t just get to pick them by fiat.
But if they pass a law saying “the legislature DOES just get to pick electors by fiat”, then they can do it. That was what was missing in 2020, but it probably will not be missing in 2024.
WaterGirl
@Leto: Ah, thank you! That makes sense.
I will confess that I don’t have time to click every link.
WaterGirl
@James E Powell: @SiubhanDuinne, Mob Enforcer:
Thank you!
Leto
@WaterGirl: all good. It’s what we’re here for. Just make sure you don’t ignore SiubhanDuinne doppelgänger at #156 if you value your knees :P
WaterGirl
@Immanentize: Lose money, but stand up to Putin.
That’s an easy choice!
I don’t understand why no one ever calls me for foreign policy advice.
WaterGirl
@Leto: hahaha
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I think Buck was still Paul Ryan’s spokesbot when the Eddie Haskell of the Green Rooms was fawning over trump’s “magnifishient leadership” on the ’17 tax cuts. He’s a corporate flack now.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: No time to check, but I believe that FL’s Constitution in effect in 2000 (and AFAIK, still in effect today) said something about the legislature assigning electors. (That’s ultimately why Gore was doomed when it was close enough to steal, at least according to some views at the time.) They still have elections and the winner of the election decides the electors (when the results aren’t close enough to steal).
Alito’s and Thomas’s views (that the legislature can do what it wants) were in the minority even among the RWNJs on the SCOTUS in 2020 (IIRC).
We’ll see what happens, but we shouldn’t think that we’re doomed if a few more state-houses flip. We’re not. We have power and agency even when we have to fight. And the elections are still quite a ways off…
Cheers,
Scott.
Matt McIrvin
@James E Powell: I was thinking Fairfax County, Virginia (where I grew up, though in those days it was redder than today), but yeah.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Feeling depressed right now in part because I was in on some conversations Elsewhere with people basically saying we’ve already lost, a fascist one-party state is already locked in, voting is not going to do anything at this point.
And a bunch of them in California talking about seceding and just throwing the rest of the US to the wolves, because we’re all fucked anyway and they might as well save their own asses and let the rest of us burn.
ThresherK
Joe Biden tweeted the above, and also at some point tweeted something akin to “BBB is popular; I can’t believe a single Republican doesn’t support it”.
Cue the onslaught of left-wing ninnies who said “Wow, he really thinks the GOP would do that? Is he naive? Didn’t he learn anything from Obama’s eight years?”
“No, you fools”, I said. He is telling our Press Corps that Democrats are going to do things which are popular with voters, and the GOP can’t stand it. And Biden is not relying on the press to come up with “Democrats are working for things which Americans want, but Republicans don’t want Americans to have”.
These same ninnies chose to read one tweet from the President’s account and made it stand in for everything.
Sometimes I think our own side will be the ruin of us.
Matt McIrvin
@James E Powell: …the other thing is that the Democrats have a pretty solid lock on the Massachusetts legislature, so the totebaggers have this idea that a Republican governor will serve as a check on their excesses but that the lege will keep the governor from doing anything really scary. Divided government for its own sake, as an element of bipartisanship for its own sake.
I think they also see the Massachusetts Democratic establishment as relics of old-fashioned dirty machine politics and think of a Republican governor as a counterbalance to that.
smedley the uncertain
@satby: This.
Another Scott
@Matt McIrvin: I have to admit that I found that line of reasoning appealing when I was in my 20s. It was a way to participate but to refuse to actually take a stand and decide what one really believes. “If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice.” And the GQP has weaponized that so that people who are in the mushy-middle are enablers now. We need their votes and need to find a way to get them to make an active choice for progress and to stop simply being savvy contrarians…
(Insert TBogg Happy Gumdrop Land post here.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Geminid
@ThresherK: It’s been a while since I thought the left wing ninnies are on our side. They may pretend to be, but they want the Biden administration to fail. I am glad to see the pushback they het on twitter from real Democrats, especially Black Democrats.
Jinchi
It’s funny, because as the tweet points out, it can easily become one of those “self-own” memes. A sticker of Biden pointing at a fully stocked shelf will bring back memories of shortages during covid under Trump.
lowtechcyclist
@jonas:
The Book of Judges practically deserves its own warning label.
dnfree
@Another Scott: and that book is aptly called “Who Wrote the Bible?”
NotMax
@dnfree
Nah. Everyone knows Who’s on first.
:)
StringOnAStick
@Matt McIrvin: Maybe you could stop reading Lawyers, Guns and Money? That place helped send me into a near suicidal spiral.
dopey-o
It may not be possible to to find the model number of the offending TV, but a little research on the brand name may find you a remote on Ebay that works on multiple models.
My TV came from an estate sale, sans remote. Found one for $8.00. Also, the Roku app on my phone has the voice function.
“Turn off TV!” does the job.
Bill Arnold
@dopey-o:
Late, but there is a device called “TV-B-Gone” that with one button push will cycle through a large number of television infrared OFF codes, and will turn off most TVs unless they have the sensor blocked.
There are also hard or impossible to detect ways to make televisions (or other such electronic devices) unreliable (or broken), that I will not talk about. (That should be enough info for any EE to devise at least two methods.) My father had a PBS habit (and a cover-to-cover NYTimes daily habit) and refused to watch Fox News, but I did once warn him that his TV would stop working if he started watching Fox News.
J R in WV
@debbie:
That would be like throwing Virginia out of the Congress. Russia/USSR was part of the founding documents of the UN!
J R in WV
@Leto:
Yes, all that you quote and say is true — but Russia is able to veto any Security Council action on its own.
J R in WV
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Dude, I’m thinking Gin and Tonic is from Ukraine, or has family from there, so shut up about paternalistic, please. That’s as accurate as can be so far as I can tell. He’s talking about Vladimir, not the Ukrainians.
J R in WV
@Sure Lurkalot:
Now you’ve hurt my feelings; what about my good words?? ;~)
Elizabelle
@Another Scott:
NEVER, EVER EVER forget Palm Beach County’s butterfly ballot that gave Pat Buchanan (!) thousands of votes that the voters intended for Gore.
Without that godawful (and untested first) butterfly ballot, Florida was not close enough to steal. And stolen, it was.
MSM does not want you to remember that. It interferes with their (false) narrative of nice guy GW Bush and wonkster Al Gore.