Economy Update: This week, initial unemployment claims fell to their lowest level since 1969.
Further evidence that Americans are getting back to work. https://t.co/mN2B1IaVQ2
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 24, 2022
A majority of Americans want to Biden to do more but don’t want to face the consequences. Got it. https://t.co/FVof7B8Wbd
— Patrick Chovanec (@prchovanec) March 25, 2022
Biden White House wrestling with how to keep Ukraine crisis from causing a spike in global hunger and political unrest. My story with @JenniferJJacobs & @josh_wingrove via @bpolitics https://t.co/kCZoTcZjDr
— Mike Dorning (@MikeDorning) March 24, 2022
…The prospect of international food shortages is “going to be real,” Biden said Thursday at a news conference in Brussels after a G7 meeting that addressed the looming crisis, which could also spark political instability in poorer nations. Biden said he’s urging European and other nations to drop trade restrictions that could limit exports of food.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion last month has put at risk exports of wheat, corn, sunflower oil and other foods from Russia and Ukraine that account for more than 10% of all calories traded globally. In North Africa and the Middle East, which rely heavily on wheat from Russia and Ukraine, that percentage is even higher…
At the summit, Biden said he raised the possibility of a “significant major U.S. investment” in food and other humanitarian assistance. Biden also said he and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau discussed ways to boost wheat production in their countries and speed up exports.
The disruption of crucial food supplies has already prompted protests in Iraq over food price increases that government officials blamed on the Ukraine war. Egypt, the world’s biggest wheat importer, turned to the IMF for assistance Wednesday as food and fuel price surges put pressure on public finances.
The fallout is reminiscent of the last major spike in global food prices that became a catalyst for the 2010-2012 Arab Spring, which toppled long-ruling governments in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. It also ignited Syria’s brutal civil war and the resulting refugee crisis in Europe…
"Deterrence didn't work. What makes you think Vladimir Putin will alter course based on the action you've taken today?" @EenaRuffini asks Pres. Biden at NATO Headquarters after he announces new sanctions on Russian entities.
"Sanctions never deter," Biden responds. pic.twitter.com/5hR20LEdTi
— CBS News (@CBSNews) March 24, 2022
UKRAINIAN WARTIME HUMOR
Question: why are all the Russian vehicles we capture in Ukraine marked with a “Z”?
Answer: the other half of the swastika was stolen by corrupt Russian contractors— Brian Whitmore (@PowerVertical) March 24, 2022
The more POWs Ukraine sends back, the worse for Putin. For a lot of reasons, including morale. It's hard to keep guys returning to the rear from telling what they've seen. https://t.co/FQAQFl3CqY
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) March 25, 2022
Russian state TV obsessively asserts that Zelensky is not in Kyiv, but elsewhere abroad. Why does it matter? Because they think that Ukrainians are fighting for Zelensky and not for their country. As members of the cult that worships Putin, that's what makes sense to them. pic.twitter.com/l6kJ0SUgAi
— Julia Davis (@JuliaDavisNews) March 25, 2022
Back in the U.S.A…
Jackson appears to remain “on track” for confirmation, senators say https://t.co/ekLTa6vPn4
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) March 24, 2022
Speaking of bad faith, #MoscowMitch:
MCCONNELL: “I cannot and will not support Judge Jackson for a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court." pic.twitter.com/0gbkbZgYJN
— JM Rieger (@RiegerReport) March 24, 2022
republicans have spent 4 days doing QAnon shit in the judiciary committee and it gets reported like "Ketanji Brown Jackson embroiled in controversy"
— Law Boy, Esq. (@The_Law_Boy) March 24, 2022
Betty Cracker
Still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that a SCOTUS justice ruled against releasing documents that implicated his wife in a coup attempt — and didn’t violate any rules because there ARE no rules. Guys, I’m starting to think running a government on the honor system is a bad idea!
danielx
So for Mitch, another day ending in ‘y’.
Edit: on the other hand, he hasn’t come up with a previously unknown Senate rule saying anybody not nominated by a six foot tall redhead from Dayton on a Wednesday is unacceptable.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
No it’s a good idea. The problem is Republicans run the government on the dishonor system.
bbleh
@Betty Cracker: remember Wilhoit’s Law. There are no rules that bind Republicans. Quite the contrary: Republicans violating rules is Bold and (if you’re in business) Disruptive.
Baud
I glad that white America is in a happy enough place that they can reflexively disapprove of a Democratic president again.
Baud
@danielx:
Meh. I’d be concerned about Jackson if Mitch did approve of her.
bbleh
It’s probably also useful to remember that the media have their own priorities, ie, maintaining reach and access (plus secondary ones like enhancing their status with their peers and social groups). Calling Republicans subversive, bigoted, tantrum-throwing children will alienate Republican viewers/subscribers and thus lose share and reduce revenues, and it will impede access to Republican politicians. Conversely, calling their tantrums “controversy” is not only “even-handed” but also adds drama, and drama attracts viewers/subscribers, especially those less interested in actual information.
Democratic politicians can’t depend on the media to do their job for them. Durbin did some good work on the committee calling out Republican misbehavior, but every Democratic politician should be echoing those words, referring to them, and hammering that story hard enough that the media are obliged to cover it. Democrats need to make that the story. This is what Republicans do, and that’s why they’re winning the media battle.
Soprano2
I’m hoping that oil prices will start coming down, because honestly I think that’s the biggest impediment for Biden and Democrats. The price of fuel affects everything. It doesn’t matter that you got a 5% raise if your expenses went up 10%, and as unfair as it is the people in charge of the government get blamed for that even when they have little or no control over it. I keep seeing people on FB complaining about American oil production being low, and I keep telling them that it’s because oil companies are trying to lure back investors by keeping production low so the price of oil will stay higher. I even post articles about it from sources that aren’t liberal, but I can’t get people to believe it. They honestly believe Biden has forced these companies to quit producing oil, because this is what the press has been telling them happens forever, that Democrats hate oil and gas producers. What I’m afraid of is that this belief will spread to low information voters, who will vote for Republicans under the belief that it will make their lives better (or at least lower gas prices). (Good Lord I can’t type this morning….)
Leto
Link has a printed copy of the email. It’s something. Eat the rich? Eat the rich. I’m sure they taste better than whatever Applebees calls “food”.
NotMax
FYI. One of those cited in the linked article is a former deputy prime minister.
Some prominent Russians quit jobs, refuse to support war.
Numbers of not so prominent people resigning in protest are anyone’s guess.
Benw
@Betty Cracker: I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the number of people who were willing to throw everything away, including American democracy, for Donald freaking Trump.
germy
germy
Geminid
When Vicksburg surrendered in July of 1863 Ullysses Grant had to figure out what to do with 25,000 Confederate prisoners. Rather than tieing up transport sending them North he released them under parole. Grant’s reasoning was that they were demoralized and would spread that demoralization.
The Confederate army had to give up all their muskets, and their commander asked Grant if he could have 500 back so his Provost Guard could keep his men from running off. Grant told Pemberton, Sorry, you’re on your own.
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
They can subpeona Ginni Thomas’ phone records and call her to testify. She’s very powerful and well connected in far Right circles. They’ll find more than Mark Meadows – members of Congress, governors, state election officials, etc. At least then those Americans who care to will get some idea of how deep and wide the rot is.
Kudos to the New Yorker and The Washington Post. Good work.
Betty Cracker
@Benw: I get that most Republicans prefer their racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia, etc., straight up rather than watered down. But yeah, I’ll never understand the appeal of that particular figurehead if I live to be a thousand.
germy
Here’s a tweet from January. Somebody named “thee snek” figured it out months ago:
OzarkHillbilly
Enough ketchup and even they become palatable.
pajaro
@Betty Cracker:
I’d like to see articles of impeachment filed against Thomas, as I think that ruling that sought to cover up his wife’s complicity in crime was deeply corrupt.
I do plan on calling my Congress critters office to express my view, no matter how little the gesture may be worth.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Welcome back. How was the weather in New Orleans?
germy
Leto
@OzarkHillbilly: considering how the cost of food will rise with the war in Ukraine, might not be a bad idea to stock up on ketchup now. Or invest in ketchup futures.
Gin & Tonic
@germy: Oprah Winfrey has a lot to answer for.
Jeffro
@Benw: that has always been my biggest mind-boggle. Like, for 6-7 years now.
but he gave them what they wanted more than anything else: an openly white supremacist no-apologies completely vicarious asshole reign.
Jeffro
@Gin & Tonic: she seems to be a questionable judge of character.
germy
They’re so warlike it was inevitable they’d start fighting each other
Kay
@pajaro:
I don’t support it. I see the frustration with the lack of accountability and share it but impeachment just isn’t a good legal or political tool. It’s a mess- vague and unenforceable definitions, a bad forum with weak process- obviously your call but just demanding her phone records and compelling testimony will at least reveal what we’re up against before they try to overturn the next election, which I think they will do with one or more senate races in November, most likely in Georgia.
germy
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m reluctant to blame her for the sins of stupid men.
Dr. Phil had psychics on his show. He also did a segment on “physical beauty” and had a smirking older man measuring faces with a caliper.
She doesn’t pick the best people, but I blame them. They’re the shitty people.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I wouldn’t diminish the importance of the first thing.
SFAW
@OzarkHillbilly:
Nobody else here did*, but I noticed that you were in an area where the weather turned dangerous. Glad to see you and the family are OK.
* For values of “nobody else here did” == “everyone was worried.”
Baud
@germy:
If they keep that up, they’ll become Democrats in no time.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: Either perfect or way too humid. I have been told there was a rash of tornadoes but I really couldn’t say as I slept right thru all the excitement. My nose really appreciates being back tho, wasn’t at all ready for all that pollen/mold/whatever was in the air down there.
Matt McIrvin
@danielx: I can certainly think of one American principle dating from the Founding Fathers that would exclude her. Two, come to think of it.
dww44
couple of minutes ago on Morning Joe I was thinking watching Bob Woodward on the Ginny Thomas affair. Bob Woodward keeps talking about our broken politics that is as broken on the left as it is on the right. Both Eugene Robinson and more strongly, Joe Scarborough, kept pushing back that there was no equivalency. Woodward failed to buy in. Hats off to Joe though.
Even more strangely to me , Woodward thinks that Biden needs to step up with a plan to shore up our democracy.
Baud
@dww44: On the right, you have sedition. On the left, cancel culture. Both sides are broken!
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’m surprised NO would have more pollen than the Ozarks. Maybe you’re just not used to it.
How were the grandkids?
OzarkHillbilly
@SFAW: You guys ain’t gettin’ that lucky. I’m like the plague, always turning up where I am least wanted.
zhena gogolia
@germy: She picked Dr. Phil in the first place!
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Matt McIrvin
@Benw: Keep in mind, many of them sincerely believe the conspiracy tales of Biden stealing the election, and believe that they are the ones protecting democracy and we are the ones trying to destroy it.
OzarkHillbilly
Spring wise, we are a few weeks behind NOLA so they have more pollen than we do just now. Some of it is no doubt different from what we have around here. The same for mold. I really don’t know what it was, just that I was chasing after my nose everywhere I went (just wouldn’t stop running, donch’ya know).
eta: and Liriel is an armful of smiles and hugs. I have a granddaughter who actually preferred to sit/play/walk about with me as opposed to my wife. I’m not sure what to make of her obvious lack of judgement.
Matt McIrvin
@dww44: Woodward may believe some of the Republican stories of Democratic voter fraud.
germy
@zhena gogolia:
Dr. Phil defended her when the hamburger guys sued her for defamation or something. He was so smooth and effective she decided to give him a chance on TV.
She’s very good at what she does, but she’s not a good judge of character, which is why I couldn’t go along with people yelling “Oprah for president!” (can you imagine her staff?) but ultimately bad men should be blamed for their own bad behavior
Irishweaver
@dww44: You know things are at rock bottom now when Joe S. is complaining about something!
@dww44:
catclub
@Baud:
 
Yeah the producer of The Apprentice has a lot to answer for. So do all the idiots who thought it was factual.
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
Ken
I don’t think the Associated Press is following their style guide. Shouldn’t their article (quoted in the tweet from the White House above) start something like
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits last week fell to its lowest level in 52 years
as the U.S. job market continues to show strengthbut employers report difficulty finding workers as questions about inflation continue to be reported.Ken
@Leto: I was going to say Ukraine doesn’t export all that many tomatoes, but then realized you were talking about the other main ingredient of ketchup, high-fructose corn syrup.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Yeah, but there’s also stupid, orange, impulsive, girdle-wearing, piss-colored multi-dimensional combover-having, serially bankrupt, etc. I mean, did they have no other celebrities to choose from? Sure they did. I can think of several who would have been every bit as awful but less embarrassing. I guess Trump’s advantage is that he just grabbed for the brass ring first.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
It’s hard to believe the Russians would be doing prisoner exchanges if they thought they could win this. So, hopefully this is a sign the war is now into the negotiation end game.
Also, another thing to consider – when this war is over all these Russian vets are going to go home pissed at their society with have no fear of silly guys with tattoos and secret policemen. Turbulent time ahead, and possible a real fascists pusch there. Little Vova and his Chekist buddies are terrified of a general doing a coup, but Hitler and Mussolini were only corporals. So I guess the 2030s are going to be a rerun of the 1930s.
Kay
Not true. “Taxing the rich” has dropped out of Manchin’s plan. Now he’s down to a slight increase in the corporate tax rate, so he’s lurched further Right just since his December fake offer. Preserves most of the Trump tax cuts, especially those for ultra-wealthy individuals.
They do this all the time with Manchin. They just add in that he wants to raise taxes “on the rich” when he says nothing of the kind. Pure invention.
Leto
@germy: generally I agree (bad judge of character, people should be accountable for their actions) but she personally profited off their continued shitty behavior. Her production company produced all that dreck. Like so many others, she’s ok as long as they’re making her money. She had the power to remove their platform but $$$ rules all.
Speaking of money ruling all: Joe Manchin Is a Walking, Talking Advertisement for the Real Consequences of Citizens United
The senator told oil and gas executives that politicians are there to be sublet for their needs.
Soprano2
@Jeffro: And he’s wealthy and gets away with everything. He’s their dream, really – a wealthy open racist who gets away with everything he does no matter how outrageous it is, who is literally worshiped by millions of people.
catclub
Clint Eastwood is 10 or 12 years too old. A younger one could have won. Schwartzenegger blocked by constitution. Tucker Carlson will probably run.
germy
Baud
@Ken:
Probably a newbie.
germy
I’m glad I’ll be dead of old age before Nick Fuentes is elected president.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I was thinking about that Manafort Ginni Thomas exchange that came out yesterday and it occured to me; if you think about as two gifters talking, Gini is trying to scam Donald Trump for money by hinting her husband would rule in Trump’s favor on the election. Which is still all the more reason Justice Thomas has to go, a SCOTUS justice involved in scams.
Leto
@Kay: From the article I linked at 52:
“Mother’s milk.” I guess he attends the same church as Mike Pence. Ugh.
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: Welcome back.
Geminid
@germy: I saw recent polling of Pennsylvania’s Republican Senate race showing hedge fund manager David McCormick with 25% support to Oz’s 15%. A female media personality was a close third and former ambassador Carla Sands and real estate develoer Jeff Bartos had high single digit support. A recent editorial by Josh Rogan called into question Oz’s suitability as a Senator because of his dual U.S. and Turkish citizenship, and I expect there will be advertising hitting Oz on this issue if he closes the gap with McCormick, which seems doubtful.
Oz also has disavowed articles warning of the health consequences of fracking. He blames his co-writer.
germy
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh, you’re back! Yay! Hope the tornadoes gave you and your family a wide berth. When are you going to tell us about your granddaughter?
ETA: Never mind. Hadn’t seen your #41 when I posted my comment.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It isn’t just Justice Thomas. They don’t believe that are at all accountable to the public:
They won’t police themselves, so therefore they need to be policed.
Ken
@Leto: Well, what’s the alternative? Choosing the Senators and Representatives randomly from the voter rolls, letting them serve one term, and then forbidding them from any future public office, so the whole job is as appealing as jury duty?
…
Hmm…
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Carlson is only a celebrity with the Right. Eastwood, Schwarzenegger and even Dumb Ass Donny have their fans on the left. If wasn’t for his age and citizenship status I wouldn’t rule out Schwarzenegger; those anti-Nazis videos show the dude isn’t just some Far Right Culture Warrior. Dumb ass Donny, as always, screwed himself as always by going full Wingnut.
And come think of it, Schwarzenegger acting positively ex-presidental the last five years. I think he’s doing that to troll Trump.
Kay
@Leto:
I’m just fascinated how they keep adding terms to Joe Manchin’s “offers” that are not actually in there.
“Increase taxes on the rich” disappeared. It was in the December “offer” and now it’s gone. He’s not negotiating with anyone in the House or Senate so these offer modifications are coming from some unknown source. I don’t know who the other party across from Joe Manchin is. It isn’t anyone in the US Senate. He seems to be negotiating with his donors and they’re doing great. They’ve gotten just about every demand met.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, this, the SCOTUS is feeling more and more like some weird US version of the Vatican.
Baud
@Kay:
The two parties to the negotiation are Joe Manchin and the media.
zhena gogolia
@OzarkHillbilly: So happy you had a nice visit with your granddaughter.
Ken
@catclub: @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Why are you ruling out Schwarzenegger? Surely the natural-born-citizen clause is as meaningless as the emoluments clause.
OzarkHillbilly
Let me apologize right now.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
They’re really going to refuse to say where he is, even amid the revelations of his completely corrupt conflicts of interest?
What nerve. Put some rules in. They can’t self police anymore. They blew it and no longer have earned this much deference.
germy
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
Rosalyn Carter famously said about Reagan, and it drove his supporters nuts, that he made us (white people) comfortable with our prejudices. Trump taught the Rs they didn’t even have to pretend anymore, took them from dog-whistles to hog calls. We saw the results at the KBJ hearings, starting with Lindsey Graham’s opening statement: you’re all gonna call us racist, we don’t care anymore.
and not just “the best people”, as he said in his 1/6 speech, “the real people”, the real Americans. That’s why their votes count and others’ don’t.
Benw
@Betty Cracker: @Jeffro: I think they’re basically addicted to open racism/sexism now.
@Matt McIrvin: and in the same vein, it means they don’t even believe in the same TFG that we do – their view of him is completely divorced (3 times, ha!) from reality.
OzarkHillbilly
@zhena gogolia: We did have a good time.
eta: (tho 8 months is too long w/o seeing baby girl).
ian
@Baud:
Can you explain further? To me it seems like a terrible idea at least since Bush V Gore. Recuse yourself only if you see fit. That only constraint is getting 2/3 of the senate pissed off to overcome partisan loyalty, which seems increasingly unlikely.
Baud
@ian: It was a play on words.
Matt McIrvin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: At this point there is no way Arnold Schwarzenegger could get the Republican nomination, even were he constitutionally permitted. The party is committed to a path far to his right that would reject him utterly. And I don’t think the Democrats would have him either–too much baggage. Sexual-harassment/unwanted-groping allegations.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@catclub:
I can’t remember which NPR reporter, interviewing the author of a book about reality TV and celebrity culture, when the conversation inevitably turned to trump, said her sixth (?) grade teacher used to show them that week’s Apprentice every Friday afternoon.
Steeplejack
@dww44:
I saw that. Woodward stopped in midsentence because Robinson apparently was giving him such ? over the “both sides” bullshit. (They were seated live around a table.) Robinson weighed in, and then Scarborough piled on even more strongly. It was good to see.
On a negative note, all of the regulars sort of bit their lips at the prospect of Ginni Thomas being subpoenaed by the January 6 committee, like “Can we even go there?” Ugh.
Sure Lurkalot
@Benw:
I am obsessed with this thought. There’s no capacity in my brain that connects the asshole to “charisma” or any positive quality. The word that comes to mind often is a 6th grade one…gross. He’s just fucking gross.
Matt McIrvin
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Graham does care, though, or he’d be dropping N-words and calling for lynchings. There are layers of theater.
The Moar You Know
@catclub: and will fail. He’s missing an essential ingredient of the Trump Secret Sauce: sleaze. You’ll never hear any stories about Tucker raw-dogging some porn star, or getting sued by one for that matter.
Trump’s evangelical based really liked those stories, not that they will ever admit it.
sixthdoctor
I have no doubt that the Republican party and donors is doing everything behind the scenes to keep Thomas on the bench until the midterms regardless of his health. Then I realized there’s a precedent in the classic 1989 documentary Weekend at Bernie’s…
Kay
@Steeplejack:
She should absolutely be called and her phone records should be demanded. They cannot investigate this properly without those records. The odds are between slim and none that Meadows was the only high ranking Republican involved and the only way to find out is to get her phone records.
No one is going to impeach Clarence Thomas and Ginni Thomas will also be given a pass. The very least the public deserve is the names of the Republicans who were involved in this. She has those.
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: This ridiculous dude who inherited all his wealth and lives in a gilded cage in New York is in touch with you “real Americans.”
How is some dude who has never been fishing the candidate for “rural America?”
MisterDancer
And it’s really critical to note that they are happy to toss aside being “openly” racist (i.e., the 1980s until roughly the early 2000s) if that’s a route to maintaining power. That’s critical to note not because they suddenly stopped wanting to be racist, but because other systems of enforcing and amassing political/financial power, like harming women over Reproductive Rights, were more acceptable.
It’s why I keep saying that I have to judge people, in terms of personal safety, not by what they say, but how they act. Some of the most harmful racists will swear on a Bible they love Black folx, but haul out every excuse why they “have to treat ’em they way they need to be treated” — and indeed, infantilizing Black folx was a major component of how racism ended up so utterly toxic and widespread in American culture…
…just as “what about the children?” and undermining the Agency of LGBTQIA+ people(esp., right now, Trans folx) is so critical to the modern Right’s attempts to hold power. And why, in what is not a coincidence, Putin uses infantilizing and colonialist language in talking about Ukraine.
Trump represented an American approach to rolling back to that horrific vision of power and control. Worse is how many are eager and willing to burn democracy to the ground — but as Jim Crow shows, they’ve always been like that, y’all. Full-blown democracy for all is very, very new to America (and even then…), and it’s important to keep that in mind when you discuss these things, lest you distort how powerful these forces are, historically.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Timothy Snyder on 1/6, trump and Putin
The Moar You Know
@Matt McIrvin: at the start of Schwarzenegger’s second term, he did his level best to break all the unions in California. Made Scott Walker look like a rookie. Fortunately, he first went after the one private sector union that had enough money and resources and public sympathy to break that effort – the nurse’s union.
Once he failed at that the California GOP declared him persona non grata and refused to work with him for the rest of his term. That was the only reason he drifted “left” (spoiler: he is not in any way of the “left”).
Starfish
@germy:
This meme response to @thee_snek was really funny.
Betty Cracker
According to a CNN alert I got just now, Manchin says he will vote for KBJ’s confirmation, “essentially ensuring her seat on the bench.” I hope Sinema doesn’t take that as a slight. She might decide to channel John McCain’s ghost and vote NAY.
Baud
@The Moar You Know:
The “left” has expanded to include anyone who isn’t a fascist.
We really need better terminology.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
I’ll take it. I wasn’t too worried, but worried enough. Now hold the vote before someone dies.
Geminid
@The Moar You Know: I would classify Schwarzenegger as “middle.” Not “right,” certainly not “left.”
UncleEbeneezer
@Betty Cracker: He is their id personified. Stupid, racist, loud, wrong, mean, never held accountable, praised/rewarded for it. He is their fantasy of unlimited privilege. A toddler-mentality If-I-Were-The-Boss fantasy, in real life. If you’ve ever watched children play with action figures/dolls, the fantasies of killing, locking up etc., everyone they don’t like, are disturbingly common. Most people grow out of it. Deplorables never do. And people like Trump encourage them not to. This is what being a “good person” is to them. Vindictive, petty, mediocre etc.
jonas
@Betty Cracker: The Founders assumed that the future leaders of the country would have, I don’t know, a similar sense of honor as they did.
The shamelessness, hypocrisy, and corruption of our current class of (esp. Republican) politicians would have given Washington, Hamilton, or Madison an aneurysm.
Kay
@Steeplejack:
If they can’t even do that- basic transparency about the extent of the corruption- we’re really and truly lost.
Justice Thomas and his wife aren’t threatened by it- they’re untouchable. It’s just information. Maybe Americans don’t care but they should still find out.
Anyway
@germy:
Oprah is susceptible to woo (and not strong on science). This is a feature of the wellness industry as well (one they promote/exploit).
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: He’s too centrist for the current political moment. That makes him possibly useful on the margins as a spokesman for ideas Republicans reject. And he’s taken that role, which is good. But it’s not a leader role.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Agree completely. It was just disappointing after all this time to see pundits still bridling at the prospect of the high and mighty being held accountable for anything, or even inconvenienced.
In a similar vein, I saw a clip of Sen. Whitehorse’s exchange with the Alabama attorney general yesterday, where the latter repeatedly evaded a direct answer to the question of whether Joe Biden is the duly elected president. It was a chilling glimpse of how far the seditious mold has spread.
Ohio Mom
@germy: I hope that someone is keeping a day-to-day timeline comparing the war on Ukraine to the trucker’s temper tantrum.
For example, yesterday’s entry might compare the relief of the return of the highly regarded Ukrainian POWs who told off the Russian warship with the truckers squabbling and waving guns at one another.
Both the war and the protest started at the same time, one is a serious defense of freedom and autonomy, the other is extremely silly and self-indulgent, and a side by side comparison would underline that.
BC in Illinois
My concern for Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation has been alleviated:
– – Joe Manchin
His tweet has a longer statement.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Anyway: she’s also a Randian/libertarian. I only watched her show a handful of times, but one was on “hidden poverty”, or something like that. The main story was an upper-middle-class woman whose husband died suddenly, so she lost his income and health insurance, diagnosed with cancer, there went her house and savings, and she was living in her car. Robert Reich said something like, “Most people don’t realize how they are a couple of rounds of bad luck away from poverty!”. Oprah declared: “I don’t believe in luck, Bob! “Luck” is when preparation meets opportunity!” You just knew she said that to herself in the mirror every morning.
(another time I watched was when she had the cast of 30 Rock on her show, and she so clearly was not listening to a word they said. She would look up and start laughing when she heard the audience laughing. It was weird)
Edmund Dantes
@Kay: what? Manchin moving the goalposts? That’s umpossible
Matt McIrvin
@UncleEbeneezer:
I will confess: that voice exists in my head. It might even be louder than when I was a kid. I think most people have it. The question is whether you let it control you.
Omnes Omnibus
@Baud: It was a meaningless statement by McConnell. Everyone already knew he wasn’t going to support her. The while fucking thing is a sham. At this point, it is simply hazing for the judge and her family.
Steeplejack
@Steeplejack:
Video of Whitehouse and the Alabama attorney general.
Anyway
OT – I don’t watch any political TeeVee – doesn’t work for me but I made an exception and watched some of Judge Jackson’s Tuesday night committee hearing. I knew how impressive she was and wanted to get a first-hand look at her and boy, she was great. Such wonderful temperament and grace. I happened to catch Sen Padillia and Blackburn’s time – OMG I’d never seen Blackburn before. shudder.
I am so happy about KBJ and can’t wait for her to be confirmed and sworn in.
Starfish
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think you need to go read about Oprah Winfrey’s early life. She is the rare person who became a billionaire after starting out in really poor circumstances.
BC in Illinois
@BC in Illinois:
From Manchin’s endorsement of Judge KBJ:
I also have spent time in West Virginia (Interstate 64). There are others on this blog whose deep love for West Virginia and whose disposition may also supremely qualify them for higher office.
sixthdoctor
Glad to see Manchin’s statement. My feeling is the only crossover vote (if any) will be Collins since she’s not running soon and she’ll want cover for the Roe ruling this year. I think Murkowski would vote yes in a non-election year but she’s getting enough looney tunes Qanon heat on her already…
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I’m glad no paddles were involved.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
Conservative moral failures are human moral failures. The difference is their society works to amplify the worst parts of the human condition, while our society tries to overcome them. We are all still imperfect because we’re all human, but that doesn’t mean the two sides are equivalent.
Betty Cracker
@Steeplejack: Saw that yesterday — it was great work. I was unable to watch what happened next, but from what I read, the Alabama AG never got around to attempting to impugn KBJ’s integrity after being so thoroughly pantsed by Whitehouse.
sixthdoctor
So much for my Weekend at Bernie’s sequel.
Betty Cracker
@Starfish: It’s not uncommon for people who pull themselves up from grinding poverty and overcome rancid societal prejudice to achieve great success to decide that if they can do it, anyone can. A retrograde Supreme Court justice who was just released from the hospital believes that.
Geminid
@Baud: There are many ways to describe political leanings, even just using the conventional single-axis continuum of “right” to “left.” Poll constructors at the Wason Center ask Virginia registered voters to self describe and give them five choices: Very Conservative, Conservative, Moderate, Liberal, and Very Liberal.
Numbers for a poll taken this January were: Very Conservative, 4%; Conservative, 20%; Moderate, 34%; Liberal, 26%; and Very Liberal, 9%.
Virginia does not register voters by party, and the poll asked voters what “you generally consider yourself.” The numbers here were Democrat, 33%; Republican, 27%; and Independent, 33%.
tam1MI
@Soprano2: I’m hoping that oil prices will start coming down, because honestly I think that’s the biggest impediment for Biden and Democrats.
Oil prices have been coming down. As of last week, according to Bloomberg Business, the oil market is officially in Bear mode. Wonder why it is that this isn’t showing up in prices at the pump? None dare call it “price gouging”…
Roger Moore
@Betty Cracker:
He was what was presented, and they were that desperate. The Republican party has been a cult in search of a leader at least since the days of Reagan. A lot of Republican leaders- to their credit- didn’t want to be cult leaders and refused to act like one once they achieved power. A few Republican leaders- Sarah Palin is the one who springs to mind- were happy with the idea of being cult leaders but failed at the achieving power part. Trump is really the first one to both want cult leadership and “win” an election, so he was who they wound up with. It should tell you a lot about Republican rank-and-file that Trump’s manifest incompetence wasn’t enough to deter them.
trollhattan
@Leto:
Saying the quiet parts out loud? Puts the pizazz back in the word “cynical.” Is Pankratz a real name, or a script writer’s overcaffeinated gag?
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: I agree. I think understanding that background helps make her politics a little more understandable than these libertarians who have always been rich. talking about how they are self-made.
The Moar You Know
@Steeplejack: I am not sure if the situations are different, but I’d have given the same “no direct answer” as the AL Attorney General if anyone had asked me 20 years ago if George W. Bush was the legitimately elected president of the united States. I still maintain to this day that he was not.
MisterDancer
Let’s be clear, here — being born poor and/or Black, doesn’t automatically make you wise.
Bill Cosby, Clarence Thomas and Ben Carson leap to mind as three Black Men born into poverty who made some shit choices, as Adults. Of the 3, at least Cosby had a long history of giving back to the community, even as he used that as a shield for his horrific acts and, eventually, myopic scolding of the Black community. The other two just jumped right into the scolding and abusing political power bits.
It is 1000% possible to come out of horrific circumstances and take from it the understanding that you somehow made it by your own hard work, and assume anyone else can do it. Hell, the entirety of the GOP’s modern rhetoric is focused on hammering that point home in every way possible, and it’s not unexpected that someone can be in some ways Progressive/Liberal, but carry that idea with them, in tandem.
jonas
@Soprano2: From what I’ve been reading, the problem is rather that US oil production, refining, etc. is actually maxed out currently. They can’t start new up wells because they don’t have the manpower, the equipment, etc. And even if they could pump more oil, we don’t have the refining capacity to make more gasoline (the totally convincingly real “technical issues” that crop up in West Coast refineries each spring like clockwork aside).
Benw
@Sure Lurkalot: so gross!
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: It truly is mind boggling.
Geminid
@Roger Moore: Writing in 2020 for Virginia conservative magazine Bearing Drift, retired Army officer M.D. Russ emphasized that Trump did not hijack the Republican party: “Trump just answered the casting call.”
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: No “I’m a leftist not a liberal, the shitlibs are squishes, furthermore Tucker Carlson is a good socialist” option, I see.
Baud
@Geminid:
I don’t know if I would self-identify as Liberal or Very Liberal. It depends on the other Americans I happen to be looking at on a particular day.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
In some respects, I can understand this. All of us, whether we’re well-off or poor, have probably come across people who have made poor choices that resulted in self-harm. So if you’re someone who went from being poor to being filthy rich largely through your own efforts, it must be tempting to see others make bad choices and extrapolate that to conclude that everyone who isn’t filthy rich also made bad choices — choices that are perhaps not apparent but nonetheless must be there. All other factors in the equation conveniently fall away.
gvg
@Leto: Why would that idiot think high gas prices mean they can lower wages? Higher gas prices man wages will need to go UP.
Omnes Omnibus
@gvg: Lowering wages in some people’s mind is like cutting taxes. All circumstances justify it.
BretH
@OzarkHillbilly: Palmetto bug poop
Geminid
@Baud: It is subjective, and the poll doesn’t try to define these terms for those queried. The numbers have relative value, and are interesting to compare over time.
Virginia itself is not but so typical a state. It has a higher proportion af African Americans (20%) than average (11%), and more than average military and federal civilian and military employees, including retired. Also, more first and second generation immigrants as well as more college educated persons than average.
Starfish
@MisterDancer: The modern GOP’s rhetoric does not align with their actions. They have made it harder to come up from poverty. They have left the most minimal social safety net in complete tatters.
The insane Republicans in Mississippi are trying to get rid of income tax because the COVID relief funds left their state better off than usual.
They are holding ARPA funds hostage for the elimination of the income tax.
God forbid that they use the money to expand services for the poor in any way.
It is not like large chunks of Jackson were without basic water or anything.
Served
@Kay:
At this point, we might as well codify immunity for certain elected/public officials. At least then we’d be honest with ourselves.
Soprano2
Judging by what I saw on the FB page of 1A this morning, TGF supporters think they scored a real hit because Judge Jackson said she couldn’t define the word “woman” (they’ve turned it into the idea that she doesn’t even know what a woman is) and that she couldn’t tell Ted Cruz whether or not he would have standing if he claimed to be Asian (guess I missed that bit of “brilliance” on his part). I think she just should have said that she couldn’t express any beliefs or opinions about any issue that might come before the Supreme Court.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Coming late to the thread. California morning.
Butter emails 2.0
sixthdoctor
Is our media learning? No, but this gave me a good laugh.
catclub
Will moderate Susan Collins and Murkowski just happen to vote in lockstep with the rest of the GOP on her? Romney?
tam1MI
@jonas:
The Founders assumed that the future leaders of the country would have, I don’t know, a similar sense of honor as they did.
The shamelessness, hypocrisy, and corruption of our current class of (esp. Republican) politicians would have given Washington, Hamilton, or Madison an aneurysm.
They cannot have been that naive. They had Aaron Burr right in front of them!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’ve lost all track of time, but I swear it’s more than twenty years ago there was a long-form, well-sourced magazine profile of Thomas that reported a friend of his as saying that he hated being on the USSC but stayed on because he knew his resignation would give his enemies pleasure. The same one that reported he put a garage-sale price sticker on his diploma from YLS, with “10 cents” written on it.
lowtechcyclist
It’s simple! Higher unavoidable expenses mean they won’t have extra money in their pockets, so they’ll be more scared of losing the job they have, so you can cut their pay and they’ll still stay.
Perverse by any measure that takes employees’ welfare into account, but who does that anymore? It’s all about who has whom over a barrel. We’ve had a brief moment where workers had the upper hand, and employers want to get past that as soon as possible.
lowtechcyclist
Nah, Mitch will tell them that since she’s gonna be confirmed regardless, they’re free to pretend they’re moderates on this vote. I wouldn’t be surprised if all three vote to confirm her.
artem1s
@Baud:
the celebrity bit is only part of it. It’s also the whole ‘run everything like a business’ and ‘we need to put a businessman in charge of the governement’ schtick. The whole trust fund baby generation of white men, who would be working at a fast food chain if not for daddy’s money, needs someone like TFG around to uphold the myth. Remember when W was their favorite sooper genius businessman who was going to save us all from the squishy lie-iberal Democrats and their hand wringing over equality? TFG is just another iteration of their trickle down myth of the Rambo-esque hero who will fix all the white people economic anxiety and turn ‘Merica back into a Galt’s Gulch utopia.
Betty Cracker
@sixthdoctor: Just read something in the Daily Beast that suggests it may be harder for Cawthorn to hang onto office than originally thought. Apparently he threw over his old district to run in a newly drawn, even wingnuttier district (how?!?) and recruited someone to run in his old district. But the courts threw out the redrawing, so now he has to go back to the old district, and the person he recruited isn’t leaving.
Bottom line, he’ll probably retain office, but instead of a sure thing, it’s only a likely thing. It would be great to never hear of that smirking Nazi again, but we probably won’t be so lucky.
Another Scott
@Betty Cracker: Yup.
Humans rewrite their memories all the time, also too – that’s how the brain and memories work. And people are just beginning to understand how brain’s forget:
Selective memory, like selective knowledge, can be a terrible thing.
But, of course, it’s impossible to pull one’s-self up by one’s bootstraps:
Nothing like taking an impossibility as one of life’s most important lessons! ;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
Another Scott
@Another Scott: s / brain’s / brains
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
VOR
@Steeplejack: I think they ought to just flat out ask every Republican: “Do you think it is even possible for a Democrat to win an election, any election, without cheating?” A lot of these people are in an information vacuum. All the media they consume is hopelessly biased and they are convinced they are the majority.
re: Trump’s appeal. Back in October 2016, right before the election, I had a conversation with a Trump supporter. He was convinced everyone in politics was corrupt so the fact TFG was a serial liar and corrupt meant nothing to him. He expected TFG to destroy everything he touched, and thought that was a positive outcome. I sarcastically said “so just burn it all down” and he replied, “Yes”.
zhena gogolia
@Anyway: She’s terrific. I think she’ll be my favorite Supreme Court Justice of all time.
Brachiator
@MisterDancer:
I want to push back immediately against part of this. Cosby, Thomas and Carson were born black, and so had to fight back against oppression, but they were not all born into poverty.
I don’t care for Clarence Thomas at all, but aspects of his early life are fascinating. He and his family spoke Gullah as their first language, which was an added hurdle to jump.
People need to be wary of homogenizing the black experience. This inevitably leads to lots of false conclusions.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@artem1s:
Not just them. When I was growing up, my father belonged to the second tier country club in our Leafy Suburb. The members were mostly men (all men, widows were granted ‘social memberships’) from the WWII and Silent generation, first in their families to go to college (if they went to college), on the GI Bill. Insurance agents, car dealers, dry cleaners, a few lawyers and doctors. Their identity as ‘self-made men’, not like those snooty Ivy Leaguers over at First Tier Golf and Tennis, was very important to them. They loved them some Ross Perot back in the day, cause they saw themselves as his peer. Because he seemed like a regular guy made good. Poppy Bush had First Tier CC written all over him. My old man had left that club by 2016, but I’m sure that among those guys who were still alive, they loved trump even more than Perot.
Same with Romney. He radiated toff, they might have voted for him, but he didn’t inspire identification the way trump, for all his bragging about his Ivy League diploma, with his coarse manners, dumbed-down vocabulary, ill-fitting suits, conveyed a guy who came up from the bottom. Even though technically, trump’s money was ‘older’ than Romney’s. Those Yukon whorehouses that were the seed money for the slum-lordry.
Geminid
@lowtechcyclist: I can think of a few other Republicans who might vote for Judge Jackson.
Murkowski is up for reelection this year, but I don’t think a vote for Jackson will alienate many Alaskans who aren’t mad at her already for her vote to convict Trump after the second impeachment trial.
Alaska’s new election format is bound to favor Murkowski. She does not have to win a Republican primary. Rather, she will compete in a “jungle” primary, in August I think. The top four finishers go on to the November general election. That will be decided through ranked-choice voting.
Geminid
@Brachiator: I believe Justice Thomas was raised by his grandfather, a farmer. Thomas said his grandfather was very disappointed when Thomas chose not to go to a seminary to become a Catholic priest.
bluegirlfromwyo
@Leto: And while you’re having your check to check employees work more hours at a lower wage, check in on their morale. WTAF? The utter entitlement of these assholes. You couldn’t pay me enough to manage an Applebee’s.
Villago Delenda Est
@danielx:
Moscow Mitch can go pound sand. Forever.
Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)
@Jeffro: @Benw: No the most important thing he does for his magats is NEVER admit he was wrong. Just scream (or whine) that the inconvenient facts are Fake news and move on.
They can never acknowledge they are wrong, I they do their whole world would crash down in a soggy ruin of wingnut tears and that is unthinkable.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid: I’m very disappointed too! ;-)
Villago Delenda Est
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: TFG’s wealth was inherited from his father, who inherited his wealth from his pimp draft-dodging father.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Villago Delenda Est: I prefer to believe it was Oma Drumpf who ran the brothels
Jeffro
@germy: Bors is right
Geminid
@Betty Cracker: Me too. Thomas would still be a problem, but I’m not Catholic so he’d someone else’s problem. Like Pope Francis’s.
Jeffro
Yup. They don’t have to follow
the sameany rules – rules are for Democrats.If you’re a Republican, you don’t have to listen to Democrats, follow laws or mandates that they’ve passed, or restrain what you say about/do to Democrats, in any way.
Matt McIrvin
@Geminid: Virginia politics is weird. It took moving out of the state for me to realize just how unusual it was. It has aspects of Old South and diverse, high-education, immigrant-heavy Northeastern megalopolis politics, combined together, and the proximity of Washington DC and the much greater-than-usual military presence contribute as well. It’s this combination of things that would naturally produce a deep-red or a deep-blue state, all jumbled up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: I wonder if Collins still feels the need to burnish, if only for her own self-image, her reputation as a thoughtful moderate, or if now that she’s in office for another five years, and has endorsed Paul LePage, if she’s decided to go YOLO as the full-on partisan she really is. I figure it’s fifty-fifty.
I’d put Romney at about a thirty percent chance of voting to confirm, mostly because I’m sure he despises Cruz, Blackburn et al
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Geminid: a right-wing, African-American zealot? Benedict, if not JP II, probably would have given Father Thomas a red hat.
Brachiator
@Geminid:
Yep. I also note that Gullah speaking people were often able to hold on to more of their African past and cultural practices, which helped provide some psychic defenses against racist oppression.
UncleEbeneezer
LMAO!! ???
JL Cauvin– Ted Cruz secretly wants to pay Ibram Kendi to read books to his wife while he watches
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
It’s a GREAT IDEA — when there is actual honor among thieves — for the thieves.
Not so much when there are actual human beings involved – those are messy and will often act solely as if the world revolves around the stick up their butt. But you knew that…..
Jeffro
I remember one of my more thoughtful college buddies saying back then that “eh, it won’t be so bad…we need somebody in there to really shake things up”
The privilege it takes to even think that, much less say it, blows my mind.
Matt McIrvin
@Baud: “But we can stop it! We just have to tell ourselves… I’m not… GOING… to KILL! Today! That’s all it takes, knowing that we won’t kill today!”
–James T. Kirk
MisterDancer
@Brachiator: I will take back, to some extent, “born into poverty” as a phrasing that was chosen too rapidly. Yet they certainly all three experienced poverty as children, which I trust still underlines it’s impact upon their vision of the world and politics.
Although Cosby’s Wiki page doesn’t talk much about his background, growing up in poverty is a major component of a lot of his stand-up material. I have never heard different, and you’ll forgive I lack the stomach to dig much further into his background.
For the other two, I will quote their wikipages, which I consulted before posting my prior comment:
And
I hope this helps clarify why I said what I said, even if I was, yes, incorrect as to the details.
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: One thing I noticed after the 2018 midterms was how Democratic victories in the 11th, 7th and 2nd Districts tracked with Democratic gains in mostly suburban districts in New Jersey, Michigan, Georgia Texas and and Kansas. Democrats were ascendant that year in suburban Southern California also.
All that is to say that there may be some convergence now between Virginia’s politics and that of the rest of the nation. Now a divide seems to be opening between economically dynamic areas, like these suburbs and states, and more static places like Ohio and Wisconsin. The former have trended Democratic since 2000, while the latter have become redder. That trend in Ohio and Wisconsin may have bottomed out, though. I guess we’ll see if it has this fall.
Ruckus
@Leto:
Eat the rich. I’m sure they taste better than whatever Applebees calls “food”.
Can I go for option C, none of the above? Considering that something tastes better than applebees isn’t very enticing.
Jeffro
Btw folks – no surprise of course, but just to confirm – there is not a single word about Ginni Thomas’ texts/coup-plotting on Faux News dot com.
There IS, however, a headline article that Clarence Thomas is both 1) out of the hospital and 2) recently slammed “court-packing”.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Very interesting story. Thank you for sharing it.
Maybe part of Trump’s false appeal is that he presents an image that his base find comfortable and something that they can relate to. And yet, when you hear him talk, Trump often disparages people who are “lower” in status than he is. And he loves to brag about his connection to the wealthy upper class.
He knows how best to manipulate both worlds for his own purposes.
Britain’s PM Boris Johnson is an insufferable Eton elitist who gives off vibes that he is a crumpled suit wearing man of the people.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
SFB was on TV! He was the “star” of that shit show and that makes him important, he wore a suit and tie! He fired people, something they thought would be cool to be on the other end of rather than the end they were normally on.
It was grand – if you don’t actually do any actual thinking about it at whatsoever.
Geminid
@MisterDancer: I wonder if Raphael Warnock’s parents knew Mr. Anderson. Warnock was raised in Savannah. I think his father was a preacher.
Anyway
@Soprano2:
Yes, this is why I take issue with Baud’s contention that SC hearings don’t matter as normies aren’t paying attention to the grandstanding. That “who is a woman” (sic) bit is going to get huge play among normies and it’s going to have the Rethug spin. That’s one reason for example, for Durbin to have done a better job as chair of the committee. Their attention-seeking bits aren’t confined to Faux – it gets to the real world as well and the framing can get picked up by regular (susceptible) folk.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ruckus: you’re in California, I believe? So you would know better than I, but as I recall it wasn’t uncommon for voter-on-the-street type interviews to suggest that people thought Governor Arnold was somehow going to physically intimidate the legislature into bending to his will. Cause he was a tough guy.
Thinking back, I’m surprised trump didn’t use his “You’re fired!” catchphrase more on the campaign trail
Just One More Canuck
@BC in Illinois: Baud/Cole 2028
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
SFB’s main political point that they admired was his racism. He’s one of them, and he’s open about it. He doesn’t think he’s one of them but then he seems to have zero actual idea what others think about him. He is a racist idiot. He’s one of them, even if he thinks he’s miles above them, his idea of thought is severely lacking in structure, effort, ability and outcome.
boatboy_srq
That factors for the GQP, QAnon and Jan6 US experience as well. The Reichwing was all for Lord Dampnut (first, and their individual selves next), not the US as a whole.
burnspbesq
Speaking of emails, am I the only one wondering why it’s taking so long for Judge Carter to finish his in camera review of 111 of Eastman’s emails? He’s got at least three analytically separate and legally sufficient grounds on which to find that they aren’t subject to attorney-client privilege, and the work product claim is frivolous.
boatboy_srq
@Betty Cracker: One of the disadvantages of a government formulated by largely honorable people. They could conceive corruption, thirst for power, excesses in an established military, foreign intervention, but not the absolute amorality of the modern GQP. Democracy is envisioned as government inspiring the best in humanity; it has few protections against the the depravity of sociopaths.
prostratedragon
@germy: Aaaaamen!
(Outer borough by itself maybe not so much — some of my best friends, etc.— but add any one of the other three…)
Ruckus
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I don’t recall that but than I wasn’t big on rethuglican anything long before then (or since). As rethuglican governors go he was more centrist than most so he wasn’t as bad as could be. I also had been living in another state when he ran to replace Gray Davis so I didn’t/couldn’t vote for him.
Brachiator
@tam1MI:
Excellent point. But remember that this was a relatively small group who all knew one another. Burr and Hamilton both practiced law in New York, and their clients and interests often overlapped.
They believed that they could identify and freeze out dishonorable knaves.
But yeah, the realities of politics quickly negated some of their dreams. These people originally did not believe in political parties and saw them as disharmonious factions, and yet soon established parties as soon as they could.
Geminid
@Ruckus: SFB will have a “Save America” rally tomorrow in Commerce, Georgia. The principal guest speaker will be former Senator David Perdue, who Trump talked into running against the non-compliant Governor Kemp. Other speakers will include Senate candidate Herschel Walker and crossfit dingbat Margery T. Green.
Commerce is a town just off of I-85, 70 miles northeast of Atlanta. The event will be held at the Banks County Dragway.
Roger Moore
@Starfish:
Sure, but people like that can be unwilling to consider how important luck can be. They want to believe their success is completely a result of their own hard work and don’t want to consider all the stuff that had to turn in their favor. I don’t want to discount that Oprah had to work like hell to get where she is, but that wasn’t enough. She had to catch a lot of lucky breaks along the way, and dismissing that as “luck is just opportunity meeting preparation” or whatever is an attempt to avoid thinking about that luck.
Betty Cracker
@burnspbesq: It’s almost as if no one in power wants any of the elites who were involved in the Jan. 6th insurrection to be held accountable.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: especially as a response to a story about someone who lost everything due to a death in her family and a cancer diagnosis, which person she, Oprah, has asked to appear on television to share her story. Whatever hardships the indisputably smart, talented and hard-working and prepared Ms Winfrey had overcome, it struck me as a tone-deaf, even cruel, response.
But I’m not one to get emotionally invested in imaginary celebrity (or political) friends.
Except Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman. I was surprised to find myself sad that they had separated.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Looking for KBJ news, I see no updates or commitments, but this is interesting:
Thune’s not nobody (whether or not he should be) and I doubt he would say that if he wasn’t sure
Ishiyama
Nothing could be further from the truth. They were history buffs and looked at every prior failure of popular government. The Federalist Papers are only a sample of the debates about how to fix the system so that it wouldn’t so easily yield to human ambition/corruption/faction.
Roger Moore
@tam1MI:
No, they really didn’t. If you read what they had to say, they were very cynical about human nature. They tried to write the constitution in a way that would pit different groups against each other so each would be constrained by the others’ unwillingness to give up their own power. But they also recognized that it’s impossible to write a constitution that will survive on its own. The constitution is just a bunch of words that need human agency to give them any force. If you turn the government over to a bunch of venal and incompetent elected officials, no amount of clever structure can prevent them from wrecking things.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The recall was a circus and a lot of average voters loved Arnold’s tough guy image, but they did not expect him to roll up into Sacramento and knock heads.
They did appreciate that he promised to get opposing parties to work together. And to that end, he horrified some conservatives by including Democrats as his advisors.
People forget that California political history includes people who bucked both parties. Most notable is Earl Warren, in the 1942 governor’s race.
Arnold tapped into a similar energy.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Brachiator: my above-mentioned imaginary friend Danny DeVito, a substantial Dem donor and two-time Bernie endorser (since our friendship is imaginary, it survived this) campaigned for his buddy Arnold
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I can imagine Louie from Taxi going up to Sacramento and knocking heads for his buddy Arnold.
catclub
The latest description of Russian TV is that HunterBiden was running biolabs in Ukraine. Basically putting all the QAnon conspiracies together.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@The Moar You Know:
Carlson will fail, not because of the sleaze, but because Trump is better at faking macho strength. The sleaze is the reason Trump lost the popular vote in 2016. A number of evangelicals could not bring themselves to vote for him the first time. The second time, they were cheering him because of the judges and the anti-trans rules he put in place. They justified the sleaze using some examples of fallen men who did God’s work in the bible
Carlson is a sneering weenie, and even his fans can see it.
Steeplejack
Fake Irishman
@tam1MI:
it does take a while to ship the crude, refine it into fuels and ship it to gas stations.
Fake Irishman
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
i would give the over/under as two GOPs voting yes Graham is a no, but has often joined Collins and Murkowski as yeses on past Biden nominees, including KBJ. 52-48 would be my guess, which, coincidentally is the same vote for Clarence Thomas.
Soprano2
@The Moar You Know: It was a difference of around 500 votes in one state, so it’s completely different. I’m like you, in that you’ll never hear me say that George Bush was elected in 2000. He was appointed to the presidency by the Supreme Court, but I would explicitly say that.
Dopey-o
I wonder if a little digging might turn up some stray rubles in Ginni Thomas’ bank account… Jane Mayer has a good piece in the New Yorker today about Clarence Thomas’ conflicts, quoting several legal experts.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: The Founders tried to use institutional tribalism as a check, but they imagined that institutional loyalties would be stronger than partisan loyalties. That assumption lasted about ten seconds after the ink dried.
Gravenstone
@Leto: How exactly does that logic work? Living paycheck to paycheck because starvation wages. Reduce wages in the face of inflationary pressure will lead to employees staying with the clown paying starvation wages? That’s not even underpants gnome level thinking.
Gravenstone
@Gin & Tonic: Between twit Oz and twat Phil, yeah she does.
Gravenstone
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Those returned POWs will likely just be issued new gear and shoved back into combat.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
The institutional loyalties thing worked better than you’re making out. Yes, there were plenty of times Congress went along with the President even though it was theoretically against their interest. But there was enough pushback from Congress trying to protect its interests, and especially from Supreme Court justices who continued to show some independence after getting their lifetime appointments, to make that side of things work OK.
J R in WV
@germy:
Why wasn’t the convicted criminal taken away in handcuffs in custody. Do they let child porn convicts hug their female relatives?
J R in WV
@BC in Illinois:
I would accept a nomination to a high court. I am as qualified as Clarence, tho I do not have a law degree, I do have a bright mind and am well read, sort of an autodidact, legally.
;~)
You are welcome!
The Lodger
@Gravenstone: Twit and Twat, the Crappet brothers?