The duo of Rachael & Vilray draws on, and in their own sly way, extends the Great American Songbook tradition, guitar-jazz style. They play their new, old-sounding songs in-studio for the #Soundcheck Podcast: bit.ly
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This seems like a bad ruling to me.
(Bloomberg) — A Pennsylvania state court judge ruled that presidential immunity is broad enough to protect Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, even if he didn’t really believe the conspiracy.
Judge Michael Erdos in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on Monday granted Trump immunity on two claims made in a 2021 lawsuit by voting-machine supervisor James Savage.
Savage claimed Trump damaged his reputation by falsely claiming he tampered with the 2020 election result, which resulted in death threats and two heart attacks. Savage’s third defamation claim — tied to written remarks Trump made after leaving office — isn’t protected by immunity, the judge said, and survived Trump’s motion to dismiss the case.
Richest American cities in 1949: Cleveland, Milwaukee, Chicago, Toledo, Dayton, Akron…. from @SaysSimulation fyi @Kurt_Steiner pic.twitter.com/nbUpDZ9QWi
— Jon Lauck (@jlauck1941) July 31, 2023
Judge blocks Idaho AG from prosecuting doctors for alleged ‘abortion trafficking’
Labrador is an evil asshole. Nice to see him stopped for now.
An Idaho district court judge Monday ordered the state’s Republican Attorney General Raúl Labrador to refrain from charging physicians who refer patients to out-of-state abortion providers, Politico reports.
Politico Senior Political Affairs Reporter Josh Gerstein shared a link to the judge’s decision Monday via Twitter, writing, “BREAKING: Judge enjoins Idaho AG from enforcing state’s abortion ban by prosecuting doctors for referring patients to abortion providers out of state.”
The ruling comes months after Idaho Republican Governor Brad Little signed a GOP-backed bill that created “a new crime of ‘abortion trafficking,’” establishing “a minimum two-year prison sentence — and a maximum of five years — for anyone found guilty of committing it.”
Following the Republican lawmakers’ bill proposal in March, Idaho Senate Minority Leader Melissa Wintrow (D-19), toldThe Washington Post the bill “cheapens the term ‘human trafficking’ and that’s shameful,” and that “Human trafficking is a terrible crime where one person takes another person against their will. It is very different from helping a young woman seek medical care without her parents’ knowledge.”
My long-time bud goes in for triple bypass Wednesday. He’s in pretty good shape so maybe it’s hereditary. 5 hours… they must have their shit down.
A record scratch clicking at 78RPM wouldn’t sound out of place with this music.
re: #2 ckkatz
Ohio and the midwest didn’t make the top 25 in 2022:
veranda.com
Did not know this -
Cyndi Lauper sang the Pee-Wee’s Playhouse theme (by Paul Reubens, Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh & Groundling/Pee-Wee writer/actor George McGrath) but she made ‘em keep it secret. Completely unhinged performance, just beautiful. https://t.co/BXsSe5Nn1A
— Ken Layne (@KenLayne) July 26, 2023
re: #8 ckkatz
Did not know this -
[Embedded content]
Neither did I. I don’t know how well the secret was kept. I see posts on it from 2018. There may be earlier ones.
The big thing is, Cyndi didn’t want people to know she sang the theme, because she was afraid it might hurt her album sales, so she was credited as “Ellen Shaw”.
Yep, and Erik inadvertently has us thinking about that. He reminded us what people like him are. The people who filled the pools with cement called themselves Christians too, while choosing hate. They’re the worst representatives for Christianity.
— Jeff Flanagan (@JeffMFlanagan) August 1, 2023
re: #7 jaunte
Yes!
Growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 1970s. I got to watch the decline and collapse of the Rust Belt up close.
I got watch and know folks who had lived in their neighborhoods for three generations with all generations working for the same employer. And who just wanted to live their lives out as their parents had.
The collapse destroyed lives and wreaked havoc on entire neighborhoods and Western Pa small towns. It was a slow motion disaster that played out over several decades.
It’s probably a bad idea for @VP to respond to the Debate Me, Bro! taunt but it would be funny to see her ask them about the Civil Rights Act of 1967 or how Thomas Sowell was a political ladder who helped the civil rights movement
— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) August 1, 2023
*leader
— Medusa Ponders the Future (@wistfulwitness) August 1, 2023
re: #12 ckkatz
And now we’re getting to the point that heat will begin to destroy the Sunbelt cities.
That process will outlast me, but I’m not sure exactly how to send my kids north.
re: #12 ckkatz
Yes!
Growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 1970s. I got to watch the decline and collapse of the Rust Belt up close.
I got watch and know folks who had lived in their neighborhoods for three generations with all generations working for the same employer. And who just wanted to live their lives out as their parents had.
The collapse destroyed lives and wreaked havoc on entire neighborhoods and Western Pa small towns. It was a slow motion disaster that played out over several decades.
Same here. All the mill towns outside of Pittsburgh died. 40 years have gone by since Millken and his parasites looted the pension funds from USSteel, J&L, Wheeling-Pittsburgh, Armco, Spang-Chalfant, HK Porter, Wyckhoff and other steel companies.
The Invisible Hand Of The Free Market NEVER delivered the compensation that President Pruneface promised. But the right wing churches moved in to turn what was once bright blue Democratic Western PA Ruby Red Republican.
re: #13 Captain Ron
“…You got a positive Yelp review. That’s, in essence, what you just got.”
“…if these rankings speak to the quality of education students get in Florida, [Akil Bello, Director of the National Center for Fair & Open Testing] advises you may want to look somewhere else.
“Basically, somebody just called Florida pretty,” he said, “One of the problems with politicians endorsing these rankings is that they’re misleading the public. They’re suggesting that these rankings are providing real information about the quality of education when in truth they’re not,” he said.
abcactionnews.com.
Sounds like Putin is preparing for a long war by creating legislation to draft more Russians into the military through a general mobilization.
In theory, Russian population is 3-4 times that of Ukraine. Apparently the Kremlin believes that it can continue the war and outlast Ukraine and the West.
The article claims that economically, Russia is doing well enough to continue the war. Although there may be a distinction between the average Russian and the ruling elites.
A remaining question is whether the society and the draftees are willing to sustain the sacrifices needed for a full mobilization of society. It sounds like the ruling elites are comfortably insulated, though.
.@AlexGabuev: “The legislation enabling the Kremlin to send hundreds of thousands more men into combat reveals a sad truth: that far from seeking an off-ramp from his disastrous war in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is preparing for an even bigger war.” https://t.co/xCMUJoEItx
— Shashank Joshi (@shashj) July 30, 2023
I swear he’s 12.
I ♥️ Canada pic.twitter.com/95321VIi8r
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2023
Well look who is financing Cuckoo For Cocoa Puffs!
Robert F Kennedy super PAC getting more than half its money from Trump-loving billionaire
POLITICO reported that a super PAC supporting Kennedy got more than half its money from a Donald Trump-backing billionaire.
“The group, American Values 2024, launched the same month Kennedy set out on his own longshot bid against President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary. It officially reported raising $9.8 million through the end of June,” reported Jessica Piper. “Of the $9.8 million reported, $5 million came from Timothy Mellon (RICHARD MELLON SCAIFE’S KID), a longtime GOP donor who gave $1.5 million to a Trump-aligned group last fall, according to campaign finance records.”
This comes as Mellon is openly advocating for Kennedy in a touted press release, touting him as “the one Democrat who can win in the general election.”
Mellon, a Wyoming resident and heir to the eponymous banking family’s fortune, doesn’t appear to be interested in an actual Democratic victory, though. He has given millions to a Trump-aligned super PAC, and in 2021, he contributed $53.1 million to far-right Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s private fund to construct a border wall, almost 98 percent of the total at the time.
In a self-published autobiography, Mellon engaged in racist rants against Black people, calling them “belligerent” and “unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations.”
Kennedy, who has long pushed conspiracy theories attacking the safety of vaccines and has echoed Alex Jones’ assertion the government is putting “gay chemicals” in drinking water, faces outrage for pushing an anti-Semitic claim that the COVID-19 virus may have been ethnically engineered to spare Jews.
re: #17 ckkatz
My belief from day one is that Putin is planning on this lasting for many years.
The failures of the Russian military are not that important.
The goal is a defining idea, an essence of Russianness as envisioned by Putin and his allies.
It’s a religious war.
These things can go on for a century.
I think many Americans overlook the ideological nature of this war.
re: #15 Joe Bacon ✅
I had one of my occasional sad dreams last night about going back and revisiting Pittsburgh. Something that I have not had the heart to do for almost 30 years. Even in the dream I knew that there was nothing left to connect with there.
re: #22 ckkatz
I had one of my occasional sad dreams last night about going back and revisiting Pittsburgh. Something that I have not had the heart to do for almost 30 years. Even in the dream I knew that there was nothing left to connect with there.
The last time I went home was when Dad died in 2002. Ambridge was economically dead. A friend drove me through Aliquippa, Monaca, New Brighton, Beaver, Midland and Beaver Falls Once bustling towns, now nothing but abandoned storefronts, homes, mills torn down streets with endless potholes. Economic death all over Beaver County.
Then she drove me thru Sewickley which used to be where the wealthy people lived. Same thing. Shocked to see the Rolls Royce dealer was gone and the marble building where the Rolls were showcased in disrepair. Oh and the Beaver Valley Mall…well on the way to becoming yet another Dead Mall…
And it’s a Republican stronghold now…
The online harassment of women, sometimes called cybersexism or cybermisogyny, is specifically gendered abuse targeted at women and girls online. If you’re being targeted, here are some resources at @WMCSpeechProj to support you: https://t.co/7jUl9HJpZo
— Women’s Media Center (@womensmediacntr) July 28, 2023
Mara Wilson @marawilson.bsky.social
One of the first days filming Matilda, a man who looked very familiar turned to me, completely deadpan, and said “Did you hear the one about the bed?”
I said no.
He said, “It’s not made up yet.”
It still makes me smile. The first of many stupid but funny jokes from Paul Reubens.
re: #23 Joe Bacon ✅
… and the Republicans have done nothing to make things better!
You can’t make this up…
Massie Suggests Maybe DeSantis Should Get Indicted To Strengthen His 2024 Bid
“I’ve said we gotta figure out, we got to find some judge in Florida that’ll indict DeSantis quick, to close this indictment gap,” Massie said in an interview with the in The Miami Herald. “It’s a truism that anytime someone is being persecuted, their camp rallies to their defense.”
Massie is hinting at the mounting indictments former President Donald Trump is facing and the repeated claims he made suggesting his legal problems helps his poll numbers by riling up his base.
Desantis, whose campaign is reportedly facing financial issues, is struggling in the polls. A Monday New York Times/Siena College poll of likely Republican primary voters found just 17% of those polled would vote for DeSantis if the election were today, while 54% selected Trump.
“It’s very difficult,” Massie responded, when asked how DeSantis and the mountain of other Republican presidential candidates should proceed as MAGA support grows for Trump as his legal troubles mount.
“I feel sympathy for Trump. And I understand why people are gravitating towards him in this time,” Massie said. “It’s a referendum on the swamp versus Trump, and it’s seen as, if you don’t support Trump in this moment, some of the voters see it as being swampy. If you’re not with him, you must be with the other guys. And it makes it tough.”
Massie added that he thinks the Florida Governor is taking the right approach by standing by the former President and showing him sympathy as his legal perils grow.
I’m watching a three part series (The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes) about the Adolph Eichmann tapes made by a Nazi journalist (originally from the Netherlands) who lived in Buenos Aires near Eichmann. The transcripts were partially used (and mostly excluded) in his trial. It’s fascinating.
On these tapes, Eichmann says he doesn’t like people who won’t take credit for the great work they did during the Holocaust only to lie his ass off at his trial. All the shit he said he didn’t say, he said.
If you have a chance to watch it, I highly recommend it.
re: #22 ckkatz
re: #23 Joe Bacon ✅
My hometown is a shadow of its former self.
A once thriving town, it’s lost a third of the population since I left (many of us young ones left).
A once useful and classic downtown (with department stores, etc.) now hollow, with the big box stores off on the distant edges in the cornfields.
Even the Carnegie library - not big but a classic - was in shambles, fortunately found a future as condos and not torn down.
This transition, which started in the late ‘70’s and really took off in the ‘80’s, is why American politics is what it is today.
Resentment brewed, now it is a bitter taste.
I’m thinking by 2070 life will be different, but it is not going back to the way it was in 1970.
re: #26 Captain Ron
… and the Republicans have done nothing to make things better!
Now in Western PA all Republicans have to do is say Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and beat the Stop Abortion Drum.
Outside of Blue Pittsburgh Republicans get elected in landslides.
The FDA Commissioner is calling misinformation the most common cause of death in the US.
He’s probably not wrong. https://t.co/cpFHqj4Nkf— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) July 31, 2023
re: #27 Joe Bacon ✅
These assholes have done an amazing job at redefining administrative competence and the rule of law as ‘swamp’
“Why can’t strongman do whatever he want?”
“SWAMP!”
“None of the companies agreed to make anyone working on generative AI detection efforts available for an interview.”
Well hello red flag. https://t.co/7l9AL8ieRJ pic.twitter.com/RWpOFQZl9M— Caroline Orr Bueno, Ph.D (@RVAwonk) July 31, 2023
My Wife Unit made me fish and rice. She put hot sauce on it for me. But she put the hottest stuff on in proportions that are more appropriate of Srirracha or Cholula. So I drank all her damn water.
re: #37 goddamnedfrank
To be frank, I’m sort of out of energy to push any social media sites.
Blue Sky - still influenced by the dude bro who sold his former creation to elmo.
Mastodon - so many soviets, so little of interest (to me).
Threads - wake me when it has a browser interface and is using ActivityPub.
FB - hardly on it anymore.
Post - never got on.
Spoutible - I tried but it seems to be non-working too often and almost no one is there.
Youtube - at least I can watch videos, even if commenting is not really effective for much and the “Communities” tab is just lame.
Google+ - remember that?
USENET - that was the good old days.
re: #38 jaunte
I’ve been convinced that these kinds of atmospheric phenomena are what’s behind visions of god(s) in the past.
re: #29 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
My hometown is a shadow of its former self.
.
Through the 70’s to the 90’s, the same was true for Eau Claire. The Uniroyal tire factory closed. Presto was a shadow of its former self. Armour meats was bought out and eventually closed. The paper mill almost closed several times. The downtown was a mess of mostly dying stores being killed by the malls.
Now things are turning around. The University has always been the bedrock of the community and it still is. Smaller industry, a greater variety of service and sales, supporting the farming communities in the area, along with a concerted effort at gentrification by the city in the downtown area. There is a huge riverside park where abandoned warehouses and former steelworks used to be. There is a new built from the ground up children’s museum. There is a new central post office near where the old one once stood but at twice the size. Old railroad bridges have been rebuilt as pedestrian and bicycle bridges.
Justin Vernon of Bon Iver has helped drive some of this (especially relating to the music scene) but there are others pushing the town forward again.
Cities can make a comeback but, as with everything, it takes work and care and not letting the right wing take over.
re: #29 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
My hometown is a shadow of its former self.
A once thriving town, it’s lost a third of the population since I left (many of us young ones left).
A once useful and classic downtown (with department stores, etc.) now hollow, with the big box stores off on the distant edges in the cornfields.
Even the Carnegie library - not big but a classic - was in shambles, fortunately found a future as condos and not torn down.
This transition, which started in the late ‘70’s and really took off in the ‘80’s, is why American politics is what it is today.
Resentment brewed, now it is a bitter taste.
I’m thinking by 2070 life will be different, but it is not going back to the way it was in 1970.
This was just reposted.
A pennsylvania state court judge ruled that Trump had presidential immunity to lie about election fraud. I believe he is wrong because when a President is running for reelection it is as a candidate and not in his official capacity as President. Hopefully this ruling will be reversed on appeal, though it has no precedential value outside Pennsylvania.
re: #39 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
To be frank, I’m sort of out of energy to push any social media sites.
Blue Sky - still influenced by the dude bro who sold his former creation to elmo.
Mastodon - so many soviets, so little of interest (to me).
Threads - wake me when it has a browser interface and is using ActivityPub.
FB - hardly on it anymore.
Post - never got on.
Spoutible - I tried but it seems to be non-working too often and almost no one is there.
Youtube - at least I can watch videos, even if commenting is not really effective for much and the “Communities” tab is just lame.
Google+ - remember that?
USENET - that was the good old days.
I really don’t like Jack’s involvement in BlueSky but the culture is by far the youngest and most vibrant. I’d like to check out Spill because one of my favorite things about the old Twitter was being able to follow a bunch of Black women and read points of view shaped by completely different experiences from the one’s I grew up with and am surrounded by. In a similar way that’s what I like about BlueSky so far, the way sexual minorities have heavily shaped its culture so far. All the other options either strike me as fractured, dysfunctional or utterly soulless.
For all guitar hero lizards….
Doth My Lute Hath The Courage To Shred?
not really, but close. maybe yes. He shreds
Looks like Russia’s much-vaunted “blockade” in the Black Sea is more of an embarrassing wet fart…
A trio of civilian cargo ships—one each from Israel and Greece plus one with Turkish-Georgian registration—ran the Russian blockade in the Black Sea on Sunday and anchored at one of Ukraine’s grain ports on the Danube Delta.
Twenty-two days after Moscow canceled a deal with Kyiv—which had allowed Ukraine safely to export tens of millions of tons of grain—and then threatened to halt maritime traffic to Ukrainian ports, the world has called the Russians’ bluff.
“Reports of three civilian ships sailing to Ukraine unhindered may suggest that Russia is either unwilling or unable to enforce such searches at this time,” the Institute for the Study of War in Washington, D.C. noted.
A flock of NATO aircraft carefully monitored the ships as they sailed toward Izmail, a small Ukrainian port just across from Romania on the Danube River. The vessels presumably will load grain in Izmail then sail back into the Black Sea and onward to foreign ports.
The Israeli vessel with the ship-tracking handle Ams1, as well as the Greek vessel with the handle Sahin 2, sailed north from the Bosporus Strait, while the Turkish-Georgian Yilmaz Kaptan sailed west from northern Turkey.
Overhead, no fewer than four NATO warplanes patrolled: a U.S. Navy P-8 patrol plane, a U.S. Army Challenger with a surface-scanning radar, a U.S. Air Force RQ-4 drone and an E-3 early-warning plane from NATO. None of the planes routinely carries weapons, but NATO fighters—including Italian Eurofighters and Romanian F-16s—were nearby in Romania.
The three cargo ships made no effort to obscure their intentions. They all switched on their radio transponders, making their location and course visible to anyone with access to the internet and ship-tracking websites.
re: #45 I Would Prefer Not To
For all guitar hero lizards….
Doth My Lute Hath The Courage To Shred?
not really, but close. maybe yes. He shreds
Just don’t call him a lyre.
re: #43 No Malarkey!
A pennsylvania state court judge ruled that Trump had presidential immunity to lie about election fraud. I believe he is wrong because when a President is running for reelection it is as a candidate and not in his official capacity as President. Hopefully this ruling will be reversed on appeal, though it has no precedential value outside Pennsylvania.
Yep, the Imperial, Unitary Executive. “If the President does it, it’s not illegal.” Would he receive immunity if he has a political rival murdered? If not, then where is the line between lying/defamation being okay and murder being wrong?
We’re back from Cheyenne. Wow, where’d all these threads come from while we were gone?
The moon was HEWJE coming home this evening. Also red (was there an eclipse).
Because around twilight is a really bad time to drive around here (large animals), my wife is on watch for large animals. Neither of us saw the bird strike coming in near Pine Bluffs, Wyo. That damaged my windscreen.
In the last couple miles before home, in the same place I hit the elk, my wife saw some rustling in the brush between NE-92 and the North Platte River.
She screamed “BEAR!”
I tromped down on the brake pedal and the Smart screamed to a halt. A deer bounded across the road right in front of the car.
I asked her why she shouted “bear.” She said that was the first thing that came to mind. (At least bears are believable here; if she’d have said “rhino” I might have thought she was joking and not emergency stopped.)
re: #51 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷
She screamed “BEAR!”
I tromped down on the brake pedal and the Smart screamed to a halt. A deer bounded across the road right in front of the car.
I asked her why she shouted “bear.” She said that was the first thing that came to mind. (At least bears are believable here; if she’d have said “rhino” I might have thought she was joking and not emergency stopped.)
She only got the ‘d’ backwards. And if she’d have hollered ‘dear’, you’d have said, ‘Yes, honey?’
re: #51 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷
Welcome back!
Good to hear that you did not connect with a deer (or bear for that matter). Iirc, your car has a history.
re: #55 ckkatz
Was this the 2019 incident?
I don’t know. I used to follow German Dam at twitter, so it caught my eye. He’s not at Mastodon, that I see. I have not seen any news from Venezuela.
re: #17 ckkatz
re: #21 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
My belief from day one is that Putin is planning on this lasting for many years.
The failures of the Russian military are not that important.
The goal is a defining idea, an essence of Russianness as envisioned by Putin and his allies.
It’s a religious war.
These things can go on for a century.
I think many Americans overlook the ideological nature of this war.
I disagree. My observation would be that Americans frequently view ideology as paramount and do not understand that in situ, most unfree undemocratic governments and cultural hegemonies have no consistent system of ideas that effect governance, and most “belief” in ideologies in colored by contextual factors and material conditions that filter the high abstractions. Pretty much the whole War on Terror was built on a fundamental misunderstanding of how Islamic fundamentalism works, how different fundamentalists relate to one another, and even just the bare-bones history of how fundamentalism gained it’s influence.
The idea that the high abstractions were the issue, rather than a succession of identifiable material conditions, permitted the construction of a paranoid armature in which all Muslims were potentially suspect as terrorist-supporters, but specific Muslims with wealth and power that had allocated money to the expansion of fundamentalism were our best allies. That your average Taliban fighter was just a guy who preferred a local, comprehensible hegemony that hadn’t bombed his cousin’s wedding to a distant, seemedly more hostile hegemony that did bomb his cousin’s wedding was a big part of why none of our planned shit worked.
Similarly, discussion of Russia has long centered on the idea of sinister ideologues like Dugin guiding…but Dugin’s Eurasianism, has never really been adopted by the state beyond nominal acknowledgements, and most of what Russia does is simply consistent with the strategies and priorities of kleptocracies. And in particular, far too much is made of Putin himself: a specific competence at retaining power has been parleyed into a general competence such that all Russia plans are seen as chess when in fact a bunch of shit they’ve done has been ineffectual, counterproductive, or just plain bad, if you look past the mystique.
Indeed, a big part of the mystique of Russia is not about anything Russia has done competently, but about creating an external, conspiracist explanation for the rise of fascism in metropoles that considered themselves immune to fascism. France cannot be a flailing neoliberal state clinging to a series of colonial African holdings and thus retained the racist and imperialist seeds from which fascism grows; Britain cannot have shot itself in the neck implementing Thatcherian privatization of it’s industry, denied the obvious outcomes of this choice, and thus invited fascism to solve a “mystery” of national collapse; American fascism cannot have been the natural outcome of a century of borrowing fascist…explicitly Nazi…concepts and grafting them to a preexisting nationalism (and protofascist narrative of Confederate victimization); all of these things are the result of Russia meddling. This extends to Putin himself. Putin was a mediocre KGB agent notable mostly for fantastical corruption, a guy who was in the right place behind an utterly incompetent drunk and ended up with power by being The Guy Next To The Important Guy.
None of this is based on some grand plan, except that the notion that the opponent is hypercompetent is preferable to the possibility that our systems are generally kind of rickety, and our paramount values have been ignored and neglected for so long that people are looking for explanations for why shit don’t work. Russia is doing just the exact same shit every dictator does because they only have a light attack (constant nationalist and personal promotion), a heavy attack (state terror), and one special move (start a war and get young men killed to further stoke nationalism).
So is that sincere ideology or cynicism?
Trick question….ideology is meaningless in a autocratic system where a small cadre of individuals can whimsically decide how to define core values and terminology of the state. Ideas have no fixity because the leadership cadre cannot to called to account when they contradict themselves. Putin no more has a coherent value system than a banana republic generalissimo: the un-acted-upon actor, the dictator, cannot be constrained even by their own declared values. Dictatorship is synonymous with poorly-constructed, hothouse-orchid ideologies and texts—Juche, the Green Book, whatever mad spam various Central Asian potentates invent blending steppe culture and Communism—precisely because a way to shore up your absolute power is to construct a system in which you are the interpreter of truth and morality (by virtue of being the prophet or “philosopher”) and there is no other authoritative source of interpretation.
Putin has frequently cozied up to various quack thinkers like Dugin, but has committed to no particular vision beyond basic nationalism, with the standard condiments and side-dishes of nationalism that have been served for centuries. He’s been getting more socially conservative as he’s needed to ratchet down pertinent observations about his failures; he’s gotten more fascist sounding as he’s needed to explain failures of his state without accepting accountability. Social conservatism and fascism, with their central premise that all bodies belong to hegemons (as interpreters of the normal and the volkisch) is incredibly useful for compelling compliance when you have nothing beneficial to offer.
(…which is why so many leaders are leaning into nationalism and/or going fash, and those that aren’t going full fash are still leaning into panopticism and erosion of press power. Everyone’s experiencing the same end-of-empire systemic failure where all the capital has been raked up into a few private piles, and all the promised dividends never arrived because capitalism always bends towards monopolistic control.
They don’t need to be coaxed or bribed by foreigners, they have a completely coherent vested interest in not admitting they facilitated an enormous wealth transfer to a few crony institutions and that they plan to keep doing this evens as people burn to death)
But is any of that ideological? Still a trick question, because powerful people all play with notions of morality and good conduct, then use the words and rituals but alter the meaning to suit preservation of their power. Putin’s ideology is that anything that supports his unchecked power is True and Good, full stop. Orthodoxism, Russian ethnic pride, Tsarism, Communism, anti-Western-European sentiment, anti-Central Asian sentiment, anti-Islamic sentiment, homophobia—Putin has taken all of these things and turned them into the same thing. It’s the miracle of cis-substantiation: all things are actually just signposts that Putin cannot be replaced as leader.
Putin’s actual power that keeps him in place has been distribution of spoils: in past enough value went into the international capital flow that the world powers were content, and enough money went to his crook underlings and oligarchs that they’re appeased and don’t try and replace him with a different guy. But he’s fucked the money flow in the way dictators often fuck up, by forgetting that there’s a point where the international order will get tired of your edgelord bullshit and the piles of dead photogenic children become socially awkward.
Leveling a bunch of Chechen villages and calling everyone dead a franc-tireur in the middle of the War on Terror was…distasteful but barely registered in the larger morass of the era. But the fuckery in Ukraine was just too obvious, the clever-clogs annexation moves too clumsy, the Ukrainians too white, the attempts to do a blitzkrieg “clean” victory immediately turned to dogshit by a mix of rank incompetence and just the absolute inability for the gangster-adjacent pyramid scheme masquerading as a military to act like professionals. Putin has done the two worst things: all his troll psyops shit hasn’t made his clumsy warmongering less embarrassing internationally, and he’s demonstrated to his goons that he can fucked up distributing the spoils.
At this point, the war has to proceed because if it ends, then the embarrassment and the fuck up are permanent. As long as the violence escalates, Putin can argue that a point will come where Russia can re-balance their international relationships from a position of strength: if the throne of skulls is high enough, and the thirst for venture capital and cheap LNG is high enough, then the international order can just be made to look the other way.
(you know, that thing they regularly do because some nutjob with too much flair is sitting on a uranium mine or an oil field)
Like, let me hammer this home: most genocides are driven by material incentives, with a thin patina of emotive identity politics atop it. The mass murder is just the final form of theft: you take their stuff, you steal their labor through enslavement, you take their lives. The “hate” of the genocidaire is a sentiment downstream of a base assumption about property and ownership: the Wrong Kinds of People should not have nice things, and the at Right Kinds of People are entitled to what their inferiors have.
The Nazis hated the Jews, but most of that hate was centered on the premise that Jews possessed capital that should be held by Germans: they escalated to camps and mass murder because these were more efficient means of extracting values from Jews and other targeted groups, but their initial plans were, quite literally, just to steal all the valuables. Genocides are an act of robbery as much as they are an act of murder…actually all of racism is heavily tinged with anxiety about ownership and various formulation of “I am permitted your stuff, and sometimes even your body” and that has to be factored in when some fucking asshole atop a nation declares that Group X are all trash people that deserve nothing.
Like, to be an actual Putinist Russian vatnik you have to reject consistency of ideas in favor of emotional texture: the base assumption is not a solid idea that demands analysis but a strong feeling that denies analysis. There’s no ideology, just vibes; deeply self-involved, consciously small-minded, deliberately cruel vibes that are intertwined with a conceit that they are literally owed something.
Actually, the whole thing is like ISIS: if someone can just keep making up new “rules” to justify the shit you’re already doing, they’re existing in the realm of bullshit and time spent trying to determine good or bad faith is poorly spent. Russia just keeps making up new stories about why Ukrainians don’t get to keep their country, and it’s a perfectly valid to observe that maybe no particular argument is in good faith, and the only thing that’s really retained is the base assumptions that Russians get to take Ukrainians’ stuff. It’s a giant fucking robbery, accompanied by myriad smaller robberies conducted by individual pillagers, and the killing and destruction is effectively just a way to make theft easier.
Ukraine is also about material incentives: the seized eastern portions have a lot of natural gas reserves, the Black Sea ports are valuable as infrastructure, and Russia is basically an LNG petrostate with monopolistic control over the resource in continental Europe. Having failed to control Ukraine through political influence, just fucking the country up is good for Russia’s financial future.
I don’t understand my neighbors. It’s 62 outside, inside my house it’s 74 and their AC has been on since it got to 85 with a peak of 93 out and it is still on. My AC never came on and it never got above 78 inside and at sunset I opened windows to cool it off. I’m glad I don’t have their electric bill it must be over $500 a month. PG&E, yay?
There was about forty miles of grain cars parked on the main line of Union Pacific from Pine Bluffs to Sidney. I get the impression someone is expecting a large harvest around here.
re: #57 wrenchwench
I don’t know. I used to follow German Dam at twitter, so it caught my eye. He’s not at Mastodon, that I see. I have not seen any news from Venezuela.
Not being on much other social media is really a pity.
I looked him up on twitter and see that he only advertises being on instagram. But my attempt to navigate to the link provided gets a “Sorry, this page isn’t available.” error.
Stephen Miller hung out a digital “whites only” sign.
Stephen Miller’s far-right legal org is now advertising explicitly for “white” clients.
I wrote about his group’s effort to extend this June’s #SCOTUS college admissions decision into corporate America last week at Law Dork: https://t.co/g4tB4IKyZA pic.twitter.com/UOKujEBcU7— Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner) August 1, 2023
re: #12 ckkatz
Yes!
Growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1960s and 1970s. I got to watch the decline and collapse of the Rust Belt up close.
I got watch and know folks who had lived in their neighborhoods for three generations with all generations working for the same employer. And who just wanted to live their lives out as their parents had.
The collapse destroyed lives and wreaked havoc on entire neighborhoods and Western Pa small towns. It was a slow motion disaster that played out over several decades.
Ditto here growing up in Gary: that used to be the Golden Age of the American Worker.
re: #29 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
My hometown is a shadow of its former self.
A once thriving town, it’s lost a third of the population since I left (many of us young ones left).
Ditto ditto…they used the crumbling remains of City Methodist church (a once-beautiful gothic church) in Sense 8
re: #46 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
Our future - a 3D printed organic network interfaced to the world.
It’s either that or go extinct.
Assimilation or extinction?
re: #58 The Ghost of a Flea
Russia has long seen itself as the Third Rome, the last bastion of Christianity and Western Culture in the face of a Secularist onslaught from the West and a Barbarian Asiatic threat from the East.
re: #66 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Russia has long seen itself as the Third Rome, the last bastion of Christianity and Western Culture in the face of a Secularist onslaught from the West and a Barbarian Asiatic threat from the East.
The joke’s on them…the Russians are the “barbarian Asiatic threat from the East”. They just can’t - or more likely, won’t - acknowledge this.
re: #58 The Ghost of a Flea
Whew, that’s a rather lengthy essay for this early in the morning.
You wrote:
Putin’s ideology is that anything that supports his unchecked power is True and Good, full stop. Orthodoxism, Russian ethnic pride, Tsarism, Communism, anti-Western-European sentiment, anti-Central Asian sentiment, anti-Islamic sentiment, homophobia—Putin has taken all of these things and turned them into the same thing.
Yes, certainly, all those things.
Yet I maintain that Putin needs more than a few sycophantic kleptocrats to keep going.
It is my contention that people need to believe… something. We hunger for meaning and we construct beliefs to help us with that.
Putin may be as mechanically manipulative as he wants, but unless he can convince enough Russians to follow him he could not have gotten this far.
The masses of Russians have to believe something, even if they are lies. Just like the rest of us.
(Aside - it’s analogous to the insistence of American’s to describe those who fought for independence from England as “patriots”. It is so much better sounding than “terrorists”, “rebels”, “insurrectionists”, etc. We humans always cast the past or present in a way that benefits us.)
Ideology does not imply sincerity. Nor does it imply a grand plan. It’s not even about some ontological truth.
We tell ourselves stories because that is how we humans think.
And so Putin tells his people stories, about the (Orthodox) God approving of what they are doing, about how patriotic are those who go and die, and so forth.
Your claim about LNG petrostate politics is certainly on the money. But like in any society and its attendant economics, the distribution of that wealth is justified through belief systems.
re: #65 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Assimilation or extinction?
Resistance is futile.
re: #67 Dr Lizardo
The joke’s on them…the Russians are the “barbarian Asiatic threat from the East”. They just can’t - or more likely, won’t - acknowledge this.
Again, after the fall of Rome to barbarians and Constantinople to the Infidels, Moscow decided that it was the sole Protector of the True Faith.
Their obsession with Crimea has a lot to do with its historical and cultural heritage as an outpost of Greek civilization, Russia also likes to see itself as the True Heir of Classical Civilization as well.
In the end, this is all an ideological smokescreen to give some sense of higher, noble purpose to the otherwise dismal existence led by most people there.
from the previous thread
re: #2 KGxvi
I’m all for cities and counties building public swimming pools. Not sure we need a federal program for them, though.
Not all counties or cities have a lot of money.
Swimming pools are also infrastructure, which the federal government has a long history of helping states and counties with.
re: #70 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
The only civilization the Russians are the inheritors of is that of Golden Horde, their delusions notwithstanding.
Well, it’s 3:15 am and I’m watching the USWNT play Portugal and we just have no clue.
No connectivity between the midfield and the front line. We just don’t deserve to win. Sixty minutes in and it’s 0-0.
The Dutch are beating the hell out of Charlie Cong 6-0.
Portugal have looked the more likely all night. They’ve just subbed Pino in. Maybe 38-year old leadership will help.
Incoming heavy weather. Thunder rolling over the town.
Storms are boiling up in a line south of US-26 and moving north into us.
They are openly pushing for genocide of white people in South Africa. @CyrilRamaphosa, why do you say nothing?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2023
All of a sudden, Elon is concerned over hate speech.
re: #75 Targetpractice
Every child had a pretty good shot
To get at least as far as their old man got
But something happened on the way to that place
They threw an American flag in our face
re: #76 DodgerFan1988
What the fuck do wokeism, secularism and Critical Race Theory have to do with the history of White Conquest and Apartheid in South Africa?
Please don’t drink borax. pic.twitter.com/xjGZ1vcgmD
— Dr. Jonathan N. Stea (@jonathanstea) July 31, 2023
re: #29 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
My hometown is a shadow of its former self.
A once thriving town, it’s lost a third of the population since I left (many of us young ones left).
A once useful and classic downtown (with department stores, etc.) now hollow, with the big box stores off on the distant edges in the cornfields.
Even the Carnegie library - not big but a classic - was in shambles, fortunately found a future as condos and not torn down.
This transition, which started in the late ‘70’s and really took off in the ‘80’s, is why American politics is what it is today.
Resentment brewed, now it is a bitter taste.
I’m thinking by 2070 life will be different, but it is not going back to the way it was in 1970.
My hometown in Michigan is the same as it was when I grew up.
That said, the Gilded Age economic system Ronald Reagan brought in for unrestrained capitalists to strip mine towns and businesses and then shift the blame to Democratic policies has a couple generations of people blaming the wrong target, instead of Republicans and their locusts (rich supporters).
Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán played the passport game - or, in other words, he fucked around and now he’s finding out:
The United States on Tuesday sharply limited Hungary’s participation in its visa waiver program over security concerns regarding new passports issued between 2011 and 2020.
After coming to power in 2010, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government implemented a major policy change that granted citizenship to ethnic Hungarians abroad — including in Romania, Slovakia and Ukraine. Domestic critics say Orbán’s controversial move was designed to boost his electoral prospects.
David Pressman, the U.S. ambassador in Budapest, told POLITICO in an interview ahead of the announcement, “There are hundreds of thousands of passports that have been issued by the government of Hungary as part of the simplified naturalization program without stringent identity verification mechanisms in place.”
The U.S. government has been engaging the Hungarian government on this “security vulnerability” for many years and across multiple administrations, Pressman said. But “the government of Hungary has opted not to close” it.
“This is a really unfortunate day,” Pressman said. “This is not the outcome the United States sought or is seeking.”
Well, we are through to the knockouts, but the Portuguese were the better team.
We were lucky and I was totally bored.
re: #82 austin_blue
Well, we are through to the knockouts, but the Portuguese were the better team.
We were lucky and I was totally bored.
So women’s soccer is marginally less boring than men’s soccer?
re: #78 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
What the fuck does Critical Race Theory have to do with the history of White Conquest and Apartheid in South Afreica?
Same as it ever was: Scaring the white folks into believing that black folks are preparing a “race war” that will see their neighborhoods invaded, their homes broken into, their valuables stolen, and their families brutalized and killed. And that the only way they can avoid this is to pick the white…er, right side by supporting whatever jackbooted methods are offered to enforce “law and order.”
This shit’s so old that President Pruneface was helping perpetuate the idea that apartheid collapsing would mean South Africa dissolving into a civil war because…wait for it…some of the groups pushing for freedom said unkind things about the white Boer minority population.
The US variety is the assholes who still maintain to this day that Malcolm X’s “Ballots or Bullets” speech was a call for a “race war” rather than the harsh recognition that the pressure for civil rights reform was such that if America’s black population felt they couldn’t achieve such at the ballot box then they might do so with violent revolution. Or, more recently, the assholes chanting about “frying up cops like bacon” being used to present all police reform efforts as anti-cop and anti-white.
re: #83 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
So women’s soccer is marginally less boring than men’s soccer?
I’d say so!
re: #82 austin_blue
Well, we are through to the knockouts, but the Portuguese were the better team.
We were lucky and I was totally bored.
The current women’s team is not as good as past USWNTs. They’re still better than the joke men’s teams we send but that’s not saying much this time.
re: #84 Targetpractice
The first graffiti I can ever remember seeing - this was in Glendale, California - was spray-painted on the back of the building, facing a parking lot. I still remember it almost half a century later.
“Albert is dead because of the pigs”.
re: #86 William Lewis
The current women’s team is not as good as past USWNTs. They’re still better than the joke men’s teams we send but that’s not saying much this time.
True, true, but we just sucked tonight.
No heart, no soul, no plan. Disjointed, disappointing, dismaying.
A dramatic change in the predicted track and strength of Typhoon Khanun.
The Joint Typhoon Warning Center now predicts the storm will pass southwest of Okinawa today around 1200Z (2100 Okinawa time), with 120 knot winds. The strongest winds will be to the north (near Okinawa). After it passes the island travelling north-west, it is expected to cut sharply north-east and weaken to a tropical storm. This however is low confidence, as some models still show the storm driving into Shanghai.
Three-Hour Update Position Graphic (JTWC)
Tropical Cyclone 4B (a tropical storm) formed within the last twenty-four hours in the Bay of Bengal and is now right on the coast of Bangladesh. It has 35 knot winds.
Further west in the North Atlantic, Disturbance One is moving north away from the Leeward Islands in the middle of the ocean. The National Hurricane Center gives it a 40% chance of development into a tropical cyclone.
South of Cape Race, Newfoundland and east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, Disturbance Two has formed which the NHC gives a 10% chance of forming into a tropical cyclone as it moves north-east, before it moves over colder waters.
In the Eastern Pacific, Disturbance One is a long way from any land and has little chance of developing.
Tropical Storm Dora has formed from the depression which was over SE Nicaragua. This storm is expected to intensify into a hurricane as it moves west and south away from the Mexican coast. Its current wind speed is 35 knots, but as it moves out to sea it is expected to reach 95 knots in three days, before weakening slightly as it approaches the Central Pacific Hurricane Center area-of-responsibility. The end of the five-day forecast period has Dora at 135.5°W and 80 knots.
Tropical Storm Dora Public Advisory (NHC)
Tropical Storm Dora Predicted Track (NHC)
Maybe something more traditional is better for the wee hours:
re: #91 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
Reload for proper link.
re: #84 Targetpractice
I remember Newt Gingrich, master baiter, stating that Obama had a “Kenyan world view”.
Did he mean that in the sense of Kenya, a former British colony which fought for and gained its independence, or did he mean it in the sense of armed Mau-Maus going around and hacking up white settlers?
This is a pre-emptive warning in case of any Wagner PMC adventurism in the direction of the Suwałki Gap:
US Ambassador to the UN @USAmbUN has stated that any attack by the Wagner Group on NATO will be treated as an attack by the Russian Federation on NATO.
This is absolutely the correct response and that line needs to be spelled out explicitly for Moscow.https://t.co/lCc37ylBz5— Patrick Fox (@RealCynicalFox) July 31, 2023
re: #54 ckkatz
The Rachel Maddow show Monday night had an interesting ‘A’ segment on the current GOP troubles.
It is a rare thing to watch a major political party collapse in real time. We’ll have to see if the deep-pockets donors to the GOP step in to save the state parties, or if they decide there are so many nutbars in them that they throw in the towel and try to organise a new conservative party. (The Libertarian Party might have seemed to be a good fit, but being taken over by the Mises Caucus they’re full of nutbars, too.)
As for Harlan Crow and Tom Scafie supporting JFK, Jr., the message needs to get out to the centrist “pox on both your houses” and those who don’t pay attention to politics that a couple of conservative libertarians are trying to get the title and deed to JFK Jr. like they have on Justice Clarence Thomas.
re: #93 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
I remember Newt Gingrich, master baiter, stating that Obama had a “Kenyan world view”.
Did he mean that in the sense of Kenya, a former British colony which fought for and gained its independence, or did he mean it in the sense of armed Mau-Maus going around and hacking up white settlers?
The latter. I think his dissertation was on how African nations were better off under white domination.
re: #96 Barefoot Grin
The latter. I think his dissertation was on how African nations were better off under white domination.
Because they learned valuable skills that would help them in later life?
Will take the par and live to fight another day.
Wordle 773 4/6*
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re: #97 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Because they learned valuable skills that would help them in later life?
Yes, so long as the white hand would be there to guide. //
re: #79 Dave In Austin
Who is that nut and why hasn’t her video been yeeted into the sun by TikTok yet?
Don’t eat borax: The dangerous TikTok health trend to treat joint pain - explainer (Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2023)
Where do people think this stuff up? Cures diabetes and cancer? Helps you with Vitamin D deficiency? (You could just take a Vitamin D supplement if that was a problem.)
This isn’t the first time a borax craze went viral over TikTok, with people since 2020 touting “Laundry Stripping,” a technique for removing excess gunk, oils, etc. At the time, several experts came out against it, noting how toxic borax can be when not handled appropriately.
However, this latest craze has nothing to do with laundry. Rather, people on TikTok are outright consuming borax. And it isn’t for a fad or meme, rather, they are touting possible health benefits, specifically reducing joint pain.
But what even is borax anyway and what makes it unsafe? Why do people think consuming borax can have health benefits and treat joint pain? Here’s everything you need to know.
(more)
I also notice in the video she doesn’t actually drink it. She just says she does.
What in the PennsyltuckyKinservatieIncestor nonsense is this? https://t.co/VSUEwVX9W1
— Sgt Joker (@TheSGTJoker) July 31, 2023
🤷♂️ pic.twitter.com/ciTdLy2O25
— karen r☮️ 🥸😎🌈🩺🟧 (@karenr01932165) August 1, 2023
Reddit’s r/ReligiousFruitcake
Praising God for destroying lifesaving medicine
Christians praising the destruction of the Pfizer warehouse by a tornado in North Carolina, resulting in the destruction of fifty thousand pallets of medication which were ready to be shipped.
Interesting story - and somewhat confirms something I heard from a student of mine earlier today in Beijing. He loves to talk about domestic Chinese politics and though he’s never explicitly said it, he seems to have little patience with Xi Jinping and his ruling clique.
China replaced two leaders of an elite unit managing its nuclear arsenal, triggering speculation of a purge.
General Li Yuchao who headed the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Rocket Force unit and his deputy had “disappeared” for months.
Former deputy navy chief Wang Houbin and party central committee member Xu Xisheng were named as replacements.
This is the biggest unplanned shake-up in Beijing’s military leadership in almost a decade.
“The latest purge is significant… [as] China is undertaking one of the most profound changes in nuclear strategy in decades,” said Lyle Morris, a foreign policy and national security fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute.
So, the rumor on the Chinese grapevine is that apparently, General Li Yuchao, who was in charge of missile procurement, bought foreign chips instead of homegrown. Seems the general and his deputy set up a few shell companies to fake purchases of domestically made chips and then skimmed a little profit off the top.
So now, China’s Central Military Commission has been freaking out behind the scenes for the last several weeks over the possibility, however remote, that the United States has all the data to all those missiles these two corrupt chowderheads were in charge of.
And this is a newly formed military unit that’s supposed to be an elite unit. 😄
re: #104 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷
Pfizer says supply of some drugs may be disrupted after NC tornado (Reuters, July 24, 2023)
Some seventy homes were also destroyed in that tornado. God is good.
The plant produces no vaccines (I presume why Christians are cheering its destruction).
What it does produce is about 25% of the sterile injectable medication in the USA.
NEW YORK, July 24 (Reuters) - Drugmaker Pfizer Inc (PFE.N) said over 30 drugs, including injections of painkiller fentanyl and anesthetic lidocaine, may see supply disruption after a tornado destroyed a warehouse at its Rocky Mount, North Carolina, plant last week.
The company sent a letter late last week to its hospital customers saying it had identified around 64 different formulations or dosages of those more than 30 drugs produced at the plant that may experience continued or new supply disruptions.
The company has placed limits on how much supply of those drugs its customers can buy.
It said the list was “based on Pfizer market share and inventory levels of less than 3 months across our Pfizer distribution centers and the wholesale chain.”
(more)
The same Christians will be the first to whinge if they can’t get the medications they need.
A fire is raging in the industrial zone in Moscow. Some warehouses are on fire.
📍55.66266722212822, 37.88856276618143 pic.twitter.com/2bMrwbmPaV— NOELREPORTS 🇪🇺 🇺🇦 (@NOELreports) August 1, 2023
re: #108 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷
More on that from the New York Daily News
VIDEO: Professional dancer stabbed to death by bigoted stranger for voguing shirtless with pals at Brooklyn gas station: witness (July 30, 2023)
re: #45 I Would Prefer Not To
For all guitar hero lizards….
Doth My Lute Hath The Courage To Shred?
No. No no no. Either “doth my lute have the courage” or “hath my lute the courage.” You can’t just slap “-th” on the end of random verbs and call it “olde englishe” for the love of God.
Peeve mode off.
re: #108 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷
Muslims who said their religion was offended by a gay professional dancer dancing while pumping gas in Brooklyn (2:44, CBS New York)
Gosh, the MAGA dilemma: who do we hate more, gays or Muslims?
re: #110 Grunthos the Flatulent 🇳🇿
No. No no no. Either “doth my lute have the courage” or “hath my lute the courage.” You can’t just slap “-th” on the end of random verbs and call it “olde englishe” for the love of God.
Peeve mode off.
I do thank thee
re: #111 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Gosh, the MAGA dilemma: who do we hate more, gays or Muslims?
Yes.
re: #110 Grunthos the Flatulent 🇳🇿
No. No no no. Either “doth my lute have the courage” or “hath my lute the courage.” You can’t just slap “-th” on the end of random verbs and call it “olde englishe” for the love of God.
Peeve mode off.
Thou art a grammar Nazi. /s
re: #113 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷
Yes.
I recall after the Pulse night club shooting (perpetrated by a Muslim) Trump tried to come out as “the greatest friend the gay community ever had”.
re: #93 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
I remember Newt Gingrich, master baiter, stating that Obama had a “Kenyan world view”.
Did he mean that in the sense of Kenya, a former British colony which fought for and gained its independence, or did he mean it in the sense of armed Mau-Maus going around and hacking up white settlers?
It was equal parts classic “They don’t know how good they got it” dog whistle and “Those damned foreigners.” The idea being that Obama had grown up with a “foreign” mindset because not only had he not been born in a “real” American state (yes, they still treat Hawaii as a foreign land), but also that he’d spent years growing up abroad and around the influence of his father rather than having a “real American” childhood where he’d grow up appreciating how things were “better” today than they were “back in the day.” Basically a variant of the mindset that sees old conservative blacks bitching that kids “got it too good” today because law reforms mean the cops have to at least pretend to have legally valid reasons before they crack your skull open.
re: #19 I Would Prefer Not To
I swear he’s 12.
[Embedded content]
I ♥️ Canada pic.twitter.com/95321VIi8r
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 31, 2023
Just me?
It looks like Elons saying he loves anal
re: #27 Joe Bacon ✅
You can’t make this up…
Massie Suggests Maybe DeSantis Should Get Indicted To Strengthen His 2024 Bid
“I’ve said we gotta figure out, we got to find some judge in Florida that’ll indict DeSantis
Aside from the stone stunning stupidity of it all, Here’s another representative of government who doesn’t know how government works
re: #118 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
Oh, no, he’s definitely doing that intentionally. He’s such an immature twit, I guarantee he framed that shirt that way on purpose.
re: #110 Grunthos the Flatulent 🇳🇿
No. No no no. Either “doth my lute have the courage” or “hath my lute the courage.” You can’t just slap “-th” on the end of random verbs and call it “olde englishe” for the love of God.
Peeve mode off.
You can’t-th?
re: #105 Dr Lizardo
Interesting story - and somewhat confirms something I heard from a student of mine earlier today in Beijing. He loves to talk about domestic Chinese politics and though he’s never explicitly said it, he seems to have little patience with Xi Jinping and his ruling clique.
So, the rumor on the Chinese grapevine is that apparently, General Li Yuchao, who was in charge of missile procurement, bought foreign chips instead of homegrown. Seems the general and his deputy set up a few shell companies to fake purchases of domestically made chips and then skimmed a little profit off the top.
So now, China’s Central Military Commission has been freaking out behind the scenes for the last several weeks over the possibility, however remote, that the United States has all the data to all those missiles these two corrupt chowderheads were in charge of.
And this is a newly formed military unit that’s supposed to be an elite unit. 😄
Wow, I wonder if they watched the Russian debacle and thought, “hey, we’d better do an inventory and investigate whether what we say we have is what we really have.”
re: #27 Joe Bacon ✅
You can’t make this up…
Massie Suggests Maybe DeSantis Should Get Indicted To Strengthen His 2024 Bid
Trump’s one strength is that he can survive doing and saying things that would wreck the dampaign or even the entire career of nearly any other politician.
We have been observing that from the very outset.
re: #106 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷
I hope some of it is viagra.
re: #122 Barefoot Grin
Wow, I wonder if they watched the Russian debacle and thought, “hey, we’d better do an inventory and investigate whether what we say we have is what we really have.”
There was a case of Russian Pantsir artillery vehicles which are supposed to run on expensive Michelin tires but were found abandoned with cheap Chinese knock-offs.
Which indicates that somebody pocketed the difference in price and hoped nobody would notice.
re: #125 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Suspicion has run rampant that Russia’s vaunted and much-feared nuclear stockpile may be in a similar predicament, with corrupt generals pocketing the money needed for basic maintenance, leaving their weapons effectively inoperable. I wouldn’t want to test that theory, but the fact that people are even raising the possibility suggests that the Russian Bear has largely been de-fanged on the global stage.
The Special Counsel’s office notified Judge Cannon that they’ve made a third production of discovery to Trump & Nauta. It includes ” additional CCTV footage from [MAL] that the Government obtained from the Trump Organization” on 5/9 & 5/12/23. 1/https://t.co/e8q1P9ZFG7
— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) July 31, 2023
I spend some time most mornings watching NHK World. Yes, it features news about Japan, but it’s the only place I can get semi-regular news about SE Asia through Ukraine. CNN and MSNBC are pretty much full on Campaign 2024.
re: #128 Barefoot Grin
I spend some time most mornings watching NHK World. Yes, it features news about Japan, but it’s the only place I can get semi-regular news about SE Asia through Ukraine. CNN and MSNBC are pretty much full on Campaign 2024.
For example, right now there’s a feature on a pop-up cafe that moves around hiring people with speech impediments to be waiters. It’s called “Slow Order Cafe.” Customers are instructed to be patient and not interrupt the waiters. Before that was a feature on wives and children traveling between Kyiv and Warsaw.
re: #128 Barefoot Grin
I spend some time most mornings watching NHK World. Yes, it features news about Japan, but it’s the only place I can get semi-regular news about SE Asia through Ukraine. CNN and MSNBC are pretty much full on Campaign 2024.
I should probably start reading dw.com again for the same reasons.
Why No Amount of Evidence Will Make Republicans Admit Trump’s Guilt
The concept of “crime” has been redefined in the conservative mind to mean activities by Democrats. They insist upon Trump’s innocence because they believe a Republican, axiomatically, cannot be a criminal.
So when I was up during the wee hours, I was looking at twitter, but I’m going to try to stick with the boycott the rest of today. If Jack or Fani indict Trump today, however, all bets are off.
re: #30 Joe Bacon ✅
Now in Western PA all Republicans have to do is say Jesus, Jesus, Jesus and beat the Stop Abortion Drum.
Outside of Blue Pittsburgh Republicans get elected in landslides.
Can verify this as someone born and raised in NW PA (Between Pittsburgh and Erie). I left in late ‘79 as everything was closing down here. Came back in late ‘91 and been back since. The political situation sucks here with the criminal repubs taking all they can but hiding behind Jesus. They fucked my little town and then left free and clear with their kickbacks for bullshit “renovations” to town. Same on the county level. But hey, they have an “R” by their name.
re: #131 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
Why No Amount of Evidence Will Make Republicans Admit Trump’s Guilt
Abandoning Trump at this point would be seen as an act of betrayal in a party that puts a premium on personal loyalty (even if that is a one-way street), and as caving into the Deep State Witch Hunt.
It would mean admitting (out loud) that Trump was lying to them and that they went along.
re: #133 No Malarkey!
So when I was up during the wee hours, I was looking at twitter, but I’m going to try to stick with the boycott the rest of today. If Jack or Fani indict Trump today, however, all bets are off.
I mostly expect Georgia’s indictments to drop next week sometime. The DC indictments are another matter entirely; that could happen any day now. I understand the reticence to let go of Twitter, and I hope your boycott holds, but I’m still cheering for the DC grand jury to bring the pain.
They get it but they don’t because they can’t
from newsmax
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told Newsmax Republicans are “toast” if they can’t attract young voters in 2024….
Sununu was asked about the key to winning the country’s first primary, in New Hampshire.
“Not worry about policy. The have to show some character, and they got to listen,” said Sununu, who added he has spoken to some of the Republican candidates, including DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., about how to impress New Hampshire voters.
“I was talking to DeSantis about this and all that. I said, ‘Don’t worry about the policy stuff. We’ve got that. You’ve got to be about character, about looking people in the eye and you got to show that you’re not just viable to stand on the stage”.
Except they don’t have policy, they have outrage, they have culture wars, they have slash-and-burn tax cuts, but no policy.
re: #135 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Abandoning Trump at this point would be seen as an act of betrayal in a party that puts a premium on personal loyalty (even if that is a one-way street) and as caving into the Deep State Witch Hunt.
It would mean admitting (out loud) that Trump was lying to them and that they went along.
At an Iowa fundraising event Will Hurd said, ‘Trump is running for president to stay out of jail.’ He was roundly booed.
re: #139 Barefoot Grin
At an Iowa fundraising event Will Hurd said, ‘Trump is running for president to stay out of jail.’ He was roundly booed.
A more accurate statement is, “Trump is running for president to try to stay out of jail.” I have sincere doubts that it will work, but the essence is correct. Trump did, in fact, declare his candidacy nearly two years before the election itself, purely for the purpose of making the legal argument, “You can’t prosecute me, I’m a leading candidate for President!”
re: #138 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
They get it but they don’t because they can’t
from newsmax
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told Newsmax Republicans are “toast” if they can’t attract young voters in 2024….
Sununu was asked about the key to winning the country’s first primary, in New Hampshire.
“Not worry about policy. The have to show some character, and they got to listen,” said Sununu, who added he has spoken to some of the Republican candidates, including DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., about how to impress New Hampshire voters.“I was talking to DeSantis about this and all that. I said, ‘Don’t worry about the policy stuff. We’ve got that. You’ve got to be about character, about looking people in the eye and you got to show that you’re not just viable to stand on the stage”.
Except they don’t have policy, they have outrage, they have culture wars, they have slash-and-burn tax cuts, but no policy.
Of course
You have to look em in the eye discussing policy
re: #39 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
To be frank, I’m sort of out of energy to push any social media sites.
[snip]
Counter Social is my go to.
re: #142 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
Of course
You have to look em in the eye discussing policy
Seriously though
If you have to explain to someone running for president the fundamentals of how to politic, he’s toast and you’ve lost
re: #140 Nerdy Fish
A more accurate statement is, “Trump is running for president to try to stay out of jail.” I have sincere doubts that it will work, but the essence is correct. Trump did, in fact, declare his candidacy nearly two years before the election itself, purely for the purpose of making the legal argument, “You can’t prosecute me, I’m a leading candidate for President!”
Wasn’t very effective, huh?
re: #138 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
They get it but they don’t because they can’t
from newsmax
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu told Newsmax Republicans are “toast” if they can’t attract young voters in 2024….
Sununu was asked about the key to winning the country’s first primary, in New Hampshire.
“Not worry about policy. The have to show some character, and they got to listen,” said Sununu, who added he has spoken to some of the Republican candidates, including DeSantis and Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., about how to impress New Hampshire voters.“I was talking to DeSantis about this and all that. I said, ‘Don’t worry about the policy stuff. We’ve got that. You’ve got to be about character, about looking people in the eye and you got to show that you’re not just viable to stand on the stage”.
Except they don’t have policy, they have outrage, they have culture wars, they have slash-and-burn tax cuts, but no policy.
He’s right in certain pockets. But I would take last summer’s Gunstock Mountain blowup as an example of why he’s wrong. The ski resort is community owned. Somehow, a few Free State Project types who ran as Republicans got on the board of directors and tried to change the resort into an entirely private enterprise. The township and county are heavily Republican, but they came together to force these hardcore hard-right guys off the board. In comments on local media and twitter, people were openly hostile to the hard right trend. I doubt they’d vote for a Democrat for governor or President, but they make take a pass on DeSantis or Trump. And even in the pockets of Trump support, there has been a backlash to meddling in school boards by hard rightist or Moms for Liberty.
re: #145 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
Wasn’t very effective, huh?
We’ll see. Like I said, I have sincere doubts it will work. It sure as hell didn’t stop him from getting indicted. And the Georgia courts have all just laughed out loud every time he’s told them that they should suppress this obviously political witch-hunt, which does not bode well for his attempts to prevent those indictments from turning into criminal trials.
I think Trump knows deep down that he is most likely going to be convicted on at least some of these countless counts but as long as he is a political candidate he can claim that it was all “politically motivated” and declare a moral victory.
England really playing well against China. 4-1 at this point.
re: #148 Nerdy Fish
We’ll see. Like I said, I have sincere doubts it will work. It sure as hell didn’t stop him from getting indicted. And the Georgia courts have all just laughed out loud every time he’s told them that they should suppress this obviously political witch-hunt, which does not bode well for his attempts to prevent those indictments from turning into criminal trials.
That doj memo, bullshit though it is, refers to the president.
Running for president is not being president.
He’s a private citizen. He gets all the protections as anyone else. No more.
re: #149 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
I think Trump knows deep down that he is most likely going to be convicted on at least some of these countless counts but as long as he is a political candidate he can claim that it was all “politically motivated” and declare a moral victory.
I’m unsure. I believe the man is seriously delusional in multiple ways. It could be medical, it could be psychological, it could just be a long history of surrounding himself with toadies and yes-men, but I am convinced that the man truly believes he is untouchable and that history will declare him the world’s biggest wiener winner. I think the “politically motivated” schtick is his way of coping with reality, since he can’t just pretend it isn’t happening anymore.
re: #149 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
I think Trump knows deep down that he is most likely going to be convicted on at least some of these countless counts but as long as he is a political candidate he can claim that it was all “politically motivated” and declare a moral victory.
Yeah the only reason was political
If you discount all the others
Like the actual criminality
Reminder: no one is saying he didn’t do these things. Just that he shouldn’t be prosecuted.
re: #153 Nerdy Fish
I’m unsure. I believe the man is seriously delusional in multiple ways. It could be medical, it could be psychological, it could just be a long history of surrounding himself with toadies and yes-men, but I am convinced that the man truly believes he is untouchable and that history will declare him the world’s biggest
weinerwinner. I think the “politically motivated” schtick is his way of coping with reality, since he can’t just pretend it isn’t happening anymore.
His most formative influences were his father, Roy Cohn, and Norman Vincent Peale. I think he combines a ruthless understanding of reality as it pertains to him with a NVP-inspired belief that he can then bend reality to his will. Quintessential con man.
re: #138 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Sununu is still willing to back Trump if he’s the nominee even after the indictments and likely guilty verdicts to come.
That’s the core problem. Everything else is secondary to that moral/ethical/legal failure of epic proportions.
They put party above nation, let alone the rule of law.
Yesterday, they showed a video where someone threw water from a cup at Cardi B. She responded by throwing her mic at the woman before security responded.
Las Vegas is looking into whether Cardi B should be charged with battery.
re: #156 Barefoot Grin
His most formative influences were his father, Roy Cohn, and Norman Vincent Peale. I think he combines a ruthless understanding of reality as it pertains to him with a NVP-inspired belief that he can then bend reality to his will. Quintessential con man.
Also the essential belief of modern Republicans: “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” How many times have we seen them literally say something similar to this?
re: #157 lawhawk
Sununu is still willing to back Trump if he’s the nominee even after the indictments and likely guilty verdicts to come.
That’s the core problem. Everything else is secondary to that moral/ethical/legal failure of epic proportions.
They put party above nation, let alone the rule of law.
Sununu has no core values. He was pro-Planned Parenthood until such a position made his position on NH’s Executive Council untenable, then he was against. He was pro-vaccine (and actually did well) but started to shy off after getting harassed by the anti-vax crowd. And you’ve nailed it with Trump.
re: #7 jaunte
Ohio and the midwest didn’t make the top 25 in 2022:
veranda.com
steel, auto was mostly gone. I wonder what else….even stuff like television, typewriters had all long gone off shore by the 80’s. Basically, everything.
Good morning, everyone…what’s cookin’? Oh…Moscow.
Remember the other day Congressman Ronnie Jackson was detained briefly by Police at a Rowdy Rodeo
His office emphasized that Jackson was not drinking at the time of the incident.
Awfully carefully worded there
And to decide that they had to make that statement at all…
re: #164 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
Remember the other day Congressman Ronnie Jackson was detained briefly by Police at a Rowdy Rodeo
His office emphasized that Jackson was not drinking at the time of the incident.
Awfully carefully worded there
And to decide that they had to make that statement at all…
That they made the statement before anyone who was there could comment otherwise is quite telling.
Last night on Truth Social, Trump attacked Fox News, Bill Barr, Chris Sununu, Bret Baier, Asa Hutchinson, Ron Desantis and Karl Rove. What a joy it must be to have a team player like Trump as the leader of your party!
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) August 1, 2023
re: #22 ckkatz
I had one of my occasional sad dreams last night about going back and revisiting Pittsburgh. Something that I have not had the heart to do for almost 30 years. Even in the dream I knew that there was nothing left to connect with there.
the only advantage to going back to Wilkes-Barre is the knowledge that it’s been kind of a shithole since at least the tunnel disaster that effectively ended large-scale coal mining. It’s not really a decline so much as a kind of submarine plateau.
re: #122 Barefoot Grin
It could well be - either that, or they realized they needed to start taking a fine-tooth comb to various elements of their own military forces with an eye out for any potential corruption. To make sure the sheer magnitude of grotesque corruption which has bedeviled the Russians thus far isn’t going to end up bedeviling them.
re: #165 darthstar
[Embedded content]
Ahhh.. the rejection of Responsibility… the hostility towards Consequences.. the embrace of Grievance… hallmarks of Libertarianism.
Libertarianism. Championed in the abstract by 20th Century pseudo-intellectual giants… turning out in real life to be the ideology of a toddler.
Part of why I like browsing the unfiltered feed on Mastodon in the mornings is the return of social media being a place of random humor and fun…
re: #59 Captain Ron
I don’t understand my neighbors. It’s 62 outside, inside my house it’s 74 and their AC has been on since it got to 85 with a peak of 93 out and it is still on. My AC never came on and it never got above 78 inside and at sunset I opened windows to cool it off. I’m glad I don’t have their electric bill it must be over $500 a month. PG&E, yay?
what was the humidity? Mostly because of the guitars, even when it’s 74 in here, I’ll sometimes have to run a/c on “dry” just to suck some of the 76% humidity out of the room.
The leadership political action committee founded by Donald Trump paid $108,000 to Melania Trump’s stylist in the first six months of 2023 for “strategy consulting,”
re: #168 steve_davis
the only advantage to going back to Wilkes-Barre is the knowledge that it’s been kind of a shithole since at least the tunnel disaster that effectively ended large-scale coal mining. It’s not really a decline so much as a kind of submarine plateau.
It’s such a beautiful area, but yes there is a kind of darkness I feel when we travel through. Same with the drive from around Buffalo past Toledo and down to Columbus, OH. I just don’t enjoy getting off the highway for a meal (and apologies to Eventual Carrion, but somehow Erie always seems to be a point where we need gas and/or a meal, and it feels really dark just off the highway there). I know it would be different if we explored. I know, for example, that there are neat college towns like Wooster. My own hometown of Champaign, Il looks like a shithole from I-74, but is quite lovely and has a thriving downtown now after years of neglect. Having an institution of higher learning can ameliorate to an extent the effects of post-industrialization, but not always. I’ve been to Richmond, IN several times where Earlham College is located. It may have changed, but when I was there the town/gown divide was stark.
re: #73 austin_blue
Well, it’s 3:15 am and I’m watching the USWNT play Portugal and we just have no clue.
No connectivity between the midfield and the front line. We just don’t deserve to win. Sixty minutes in and it’s 0-0.
The Dutch are beating the hell out of Charlie Cong 6-0.
Portugal have looked the more likely all night. They’ve just subbed Pino in. Maybe 38-year old leadership will help.
I was thinking that the U.S. was kind of in the worst of positions—they’re expected to win; they’re in a game where a win or draw doesn’t matter; they knew pretty early that they were going to finish second pretty much regardless of whether they beat or drew Portugal. Even Magnus Carlsen occasionally plays uninspiring chess when he’s in a round that isn’t actually counting for very much. My guess is they’ll look way more together in the next game.
When allies of former President Donald Trump launched his new legal defense fund, they created a group with few restrictions on how much it can raise, even fewer on how much it can spend, and the ability for deep-pocketed donors to remain anonymous,” the Daily Beast reports.“In essence, Trump’s legal costs have gotten so high that he’s been forced to find a new way around campaign finance laws—a route that will allow him to draw massive donations from megadonors who could not otherwise write checks large enough to replenish his attorney costs.”
Things are getting really really tense in west Africa right now surrounding the coup in NIger and the potential involvement of Niger’s neighbors. Not enough in the news about it—I need to start paying more attention.
re: #112 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
I do thank thee
I think the gentleman doth protethteth too muth.
Dark Brandon strikes again - stock market off to best start to the year in decades.
re: #95 Anymouse 🌹🏡😷
It is a rare thing to watch a major political party collapse in real time. We’ll have to see if the deep-pockets donors to the GOP step in to save the state parties, or if they decide there are so many nutbars in them that they throw in the towel and try to organise a new conservative party. (The Libertarian Party might have seemed to be a good fit, but being taken over by the Mises Caucus they’re full of nutbars, too.)
As for Harlan Crow and Tom Scafie supporting JFK, Jr., the message needs to get out to the centrist “pox on both your houses” and those who don’t pay attention to politics that a couple of conservative libertarians are trying to get the title and deed to JFK Jr. like they have on Justice Clarence Thomas.
RFK, Jr., not JFK. I think JFK, Jr. was killed piloting an airplane off the coast, wasn’t he?
re: #183 steve_davis
RFK, Jr., not JFK. I think JFK, Jr. was killed piloting an airplane off the coast, wasn’t he?
That’s what they want you to think, yeah….
/
re: #183 steve_davis
RFK, Jr., not JFK. I think JFK, Jr. was killed piloting an airplane off the coast, wasn’t he?
Yes, but he has come back from the dead and/or been replaced with a lizardoid changeling
re: #183 steve_davis
RFK, Jr., not JFK. I think JFK, Jr. was killed piloting an airplane off the coast, wasn’t he?
Yeah, back in July 1999. Spatial disorientation.
re: #185 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Yes, but he has come back from the dead and/or been replaced with a lizardoid changeling
lol! I’d already managed to forget that recent congregation of folks in Texas (?) expecting JFK, Jr. to appear. Didn’t some poor bastard get mobbed because the crowd thought he looked like JFK, Jr.?
re: #187 steve_davis
lol! I’d already managed to forget that recent congregation of folks in Texas (?) expecting JFK, Jr. to appear. Didn’t some poor bastard get mobbed because the crowd thought he looked like JFK, Jr.?
Oh man, there’s so much crazy out there, it’s easy to lose track of it.
re: #188 Nerdy Fish
Oh man, there’s so much crazy out there, it’s easy to lose track of it.
Dangerous and potentially violent levels of crazy.
re: #189 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Dangerous and potentially violent crazy.
This is why I’m glad we have spooky three-letter agencies in our government, whom we pay with our tax dollars to keep track of all the crazy, so we don’t have to.
re: #190 Nerdy Fish
This is why I’m glad we have spooky three-letter agencies in our government, whom we pay with our tax dollars to keep track of all the crazy, so we don’t have to.
All stooges of the Deep State who should be defunded!!!
/
A majority of Republicans, both men and women, think that men should be misogynistic pigs, and they support Trump. Being found guilty of raping E. Jean Carroll probably boosted his standing with the GOP Base.
re: #187 steve_davis
lol! I’d already managed to forget that recent congregation of folks in Texas (?) expecting JFK, Jr. to appear. Didn’t some poor bastard get mobbed because the crowd thought he looked like JFK, Jr.?
There’s a clown Vincent Fusco Jr who claims to be JFK Jr that gets mobbed at QAsshole rallies.
The same Vincent Fusco Jr who was involved in a car crash that killed a person and he was let off the hook.
re: #182 lawhawk
Dark Brandon strikes again - stock market off to best start to the year in decades.
Why a bull market in stocks is bad for Joe Biden.
Meet “MAGA Mickey.” pic.twitter.com/DpmM3fg4K0
— PatriotTakes 🇺🇸 (@patriottakes) August 1, 2023
re: #62 No Malarkey!
Stephen Miller hung out a digital “whites only” sign.
[Embedded content]
Has Glenn Greenwald contracted to help out with his endeavors? Sounds like his kind of thing.
re: #64 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Ditto ditto…they used the crumbling remains of City Methodist church (a once-beautiful gothic church) in Sense 8
So not in my home town of Chicago, where Sense8 placed the ruins.
re: #41 William Lewis
Through the 70’s to the 90’s, the same was true for Eau Claire. The Uniroyal tire factory closed. Presto was a shadow of its former self. Armour meats was bought out and eventually closed. The paper mill almost closed several times. The downtown was a mess of mostly dying stores being killed by the malls.
Now things are turning around. The University has always been the bedrock of the community and it still is. Smaller industry, a greater variety of service and sales, supporting the farming communities in the area, along with a concerted effort at gentrification by the city in the downtown area. There is a huge riverside park where abandoned warehouses and former steelworks used to be. There is a new built from the ground up children’s museum. There is a new central post office near where the old one once stood but at twice the size. Old railroad bridges have been rebuilt as pedestrian and bicycle bridges.
Justin Vernon of Bon Iver has helped drive some of this (especially relating to the music scene) but there are others pushing the town forward again.
Cities can make a comeback but, as with everything, it takes work and care and not letting the right wing take over.
Detroit.
re: #197 Hecuba’s daughter
So not in my home town of Chicago, where Sense8 placed the ruins.
Gary is in effect the extreme South Side of Chicago, which is how I describe it to people unfamililar with the region.
re: #19 I Would Prefer Not To
I swear he’s 12.
[Embedded content]
Please don’t insult 12 year olds. They are vastly more mature that Xlon.
re: #131 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
Why No Amount of Evidence Will Make Republicans Admit Trump’s Guilt
.
According to the pollster, among Republicans whose main source of “news” is Fox, a staggering 91% say the former president has not “committed serious federal crimes,”
So again
No ones saying g he didn’t do it
They’re settling on “not serious”
After Investigation and Complaints, Twitter Removes ‘X’ on Headquarters
Workers on Monday dismantled a giant “X” sign that was only briefly displayed on the roof of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco after residents complained and the city issued a violation notice for lacking proper permits, according to local officials.
re: #111 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Gosh, the MAGA dilemma: who do we hate more, gays or Muslims?
Dinesh would say gays; he tried to get an alliance between Muslims and Christians over a decade ago by promoting the idea that 9/11 happened because of our secular decadence.
Chris Christie on Tuesday railed against Donald Trump “for using donations to his political operation to help pay his myriad legal bills,” CNBC reports.
Said Christie: “Most of the money that middle-class Americans have given to him, he’s spent on his own legal fees.”
While
Desantis is given an opportunity today in NH to go at Trump spending $40 million of donor money on lawyers. He is asked about Christina Pushaw’s statement that “MAGA grandmothers were scammed out of money.” He refuses to comment. He isn’t up for this fight at all. pic.twitter.com/cfSuMMzMfu
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 31, 2023
Par today.
(Minor spoiler.)
RmMvamJHVDBSa2UwakI2UTlOMGI4TkFtY1VkOXh4NVBoSnl4TXVLeXlEdW0rWDVIVDdKbUh4YXlyOWNmYWNFVWd3QVFBbjE1TzZDbzhNQmJCT3V6QU54eXlrcGNuME9jRWN5NmU3UUhUYWkzZTdqRHI1WERIOFV2eCsrQ3BjRm0vRk9WZUdkclErWUFHRHFxdUxwMlNDNEZYVkk0cW9WMmFuNzVzRmV0SFNYTEo3K2NmYWtYMDBiRjk3RjNqM3FVR2ZEYWlackxoN3FtZ0xFNjB4QytqaWJIS3d3dzlkMjNvUThyUGlnTGk1d3Y4TVlRNFZDdmdtdUZEdjR5RFREWjo6VDjh/lSwjwaKrHKVnXecOg==
re: #204 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
While
[Embedded content]
The Republican dilemma. They can’t defeat Trump if they refuse to attack him, and they can’t defeat Trump if they attack him. The GOP is a runaway train careening towards a collapsed bridge, and I’m here for it.
re: #119 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
Aside from the stone stunning stupidity of it all, Here’s another representative of government who doesn’t know how government works
Could Massie be mocking the GOP base? After all, he voted to accept Biden as President.
re: #205 A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS
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
re: #168 steve_davis
the only advantage to going back to Wilkes-Barre is the knowledge that it’s been kind of a shithole since at least the tunnel disaster that effectively ended large-scale coal mining. It’s not really a decline so much as a kind of submarine plateau.
bU8xczhCWERIOFJYczdBbDZjSnE2RGl2QTVlT09sQWYwZ2VTM01vTmNkV05weENPZ2pDZXh2WmN6MHRMWVpuWFpPd3FhOUcxNjdId1JXSFUzL3FEU3RCdGVCSkQrd3dnWTVmZmQ5RDdMeEtoTUk5ZHBMaWlSUmhiRU1YZ2UyUHR5ajhmNHVMNlZlSmFuckNmcW1nZlBLWHA2QndOaXlmL002dUU4cVVQdlZEYkc1dk5tUmdqeStJeW51WVFJeUZNaHNpb1lBZ29YK2RKU2JWcGZaLzRoNnZSY1I5RnQyY3hNVkFtR0VjSkZQVT06Olab1bglfr5fvUOQWXwunRA=
Here is the advantage of Wilkes-Barre: it’s not in Florida.
re: #203 Hecuba’s daughter
Dinesh would say gays; he tried to get an alliance between Muslims and Christians over a decade ago by promoting the idea that 9/11 happened because of our secular decadence.
9/11, like AIDS, was all about God punishing us for allowing gays to marry.
/
re: #209 darthstar
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OWNGWXVCUVBJU05mbGlRV3VIU09sMzFHanMyYmhoK1g3TTA2a0ZLRWVjeDZNM0ExbzJuYWhjbU9SMzlnRHM3WEFmTDRPVGtWWEM3dUF4REtnd0ZkTjBQSWNyZDNRMVpkNkZsK3YwSko0ejQ9OjpkLep/30UlioceR/S6eQ4d
re: #205 A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS
Par today.
(Minor spoiler.)
[Embedded content]
Pushed me to 5/6
Wordle 773 5/6
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🟨⬜⬜🟩⬜
⬜🟩⬜🟩⬜
🟩🟩⬜🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
re: #153 Nerdy Fish
I’m unsure. I believe the man is seriously delusional in multiple ways. It could be medical, it could be psychological, it could just be a long history of surrounding himself with toadies and yes-men, but I am convinced that the man truly believes he is untouchable and that history will declare him the world’s biggest
wienerwinner. I think the “politically motivated” schtick is his way of coping with reality, since he can’t just pretend it isn’t happening anymore.
Trump’s not delusional. He’s lied and crimed his entire life and escaped any serious repercussions. He’s no different from a Mafia don (except they pay their attorneys and listen to their advice). He’s even managed to accumulate a large and devout cult following. He knows exactly what he’s doing and has decided that he would destroy the country if necessary to avoid prison.
He’s following the Rove philosophy of “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
re: #210 Vicious Babushka
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
re: #212 A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS
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V2xLb0JKSEoycFBhd3lUaXVQMjBQQ3lUYlhQSEZCWkIyZjF6S3RISTRtb1ArKytyRS9YM0lvdzJBbFhSKzFVSmE4WGYrTzlZaEpLVzVnd0lQbFg1NVRCREtJVm04RkJNbERVblk5eHptUUIwN0RMNnFVVUtGL3NWQ0RzZGxCUUxxeHNXdEg3enVKUHZLTEVUbVFtZlNTWmEzTXhoakVabmt3bGR6dnNvRnpRZmlmVkR5WDlWbk5jcXdwNWpKYS9vOjrNHs8BVm8Aht7/z0wIDG2R
re: #215 Hecuba’s daughter
“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”
Karl Rove is an evil Genius and he did much to inspire the Breitbarts, Alex Joneses, Ben Shapiros, Drudges and Hofts of the Modern Social Media Landscape
Hooray! I have shingles.
For my roof and garage. Crew has been waiting since yesterday for the shingles so the roofing job can be completed.
re: #216 steve_davis
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
re: #220 A Cranky One
Hooray! I have shingles.
For my roof and garage. Crew has been waiting since yesterday for the shingles so the roofing job can be completed.
Paying people by the hour to wait around for materials? Shingles doesn’t care.
re: #224 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
I had that the other summer, it was awful…
I had it years ago, when I was in my forties; it was very painful.
re: #226 No Malarkey!
I had it years ago, when I was in my forties; it was very painful.
It was not painful, it just laid me out flat for a week…
re: #205 A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS
Par today.
(Minor spoiler.)
[Embedded content]
birbie today. Also minor spoiler based on your minor spoiler.
Wordle 773 3/6
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩
Of my group: 3,3,4
That’s exactly what happened to my group the other day: the one person who solved in 3 used the more common word! Today, the less common word was excluded by my 2nd word
re: #220 A Cranky One
Hooray! I have shingles.
For my roof and garage. Crew has been waiting since yesterday for the shingles so the roofing job can be completed.
I have piles!
of work I am putting off doing.
re: #212 A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS
I just went back and looked and, while I got it (in 5) my guess to your near miss was wrong…I should just go fish.
re: #230 darthstar
I just went back and looked and, while I got it (in 5) my guess to your near miss was wrong…I should just go fish.
Excuse me?///
Henrietta Lacks’ family finally has the opportunity to define and benefit from her legacy! 🎈✊🏾 pic.twitter.com/1vfV5JBzoT
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) August 1, 2023
General wordle comment tied to spoilers
Not today, but the other day, the more common word had a less common letter. The 3 of us who were led astray selected the more common letter, not word. That often happens — players focusing on letters, rather than words. Ye old — not seeing the forest for the trees. That approach is fine for the first word or 2, but after that maybe not so much
So when Trump wants to move it to a red state, that wasn’t political, but when Biden wants to keep it where it is, that’s political. Mkay Tommy…
:)— Matt Bartruff (@MattBartruff) August 1, 2023
re: #226 No Malarkey!
I had it years ago, when I was in my forties; it was very painful.
ditto. it was in the eighties. (not me, i was in my thirties)
re: #240 Captain Ron
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“…no administration has done more to damage our military readiness in my lifetime.” That’s some chutzpah from the guy singlehandedly stalling the careers of hundreds of military officers.
re: #241 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
ditto. it was in the eighties. (not me, i was in my thirties)
Are they still holding off on the vaccine until a person is over 60? I was in my 50’s.
re: #224 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
Had it last year. It was awful, and it showed up just weeks before I was scheduled to get the vaccination.
It was 6 weeks of weird pains/aches. Thankfully, it wasn’t on my face or neck, or else it would have made caring for the lil one hard.
re: #243 wrenchwench
Shingrix is available starting age 50, with a booster ~2/3 months after first dose.
re: #235 Vicious Babushka
[Embedded content] Trump’s “Defenses” Aren’t Aimed at the Courtroom
which is, while fun to poke holes in, doesnt really matter much
and no, he is not ‘swaying’ the jury pool at all.
as to ‘witch hunt’ specifically. it no longer matters what the words meant or what he means. as with so many other phrases, they’re just generic placeholders of angst and anger and quantifying ‘the other’.
desantis cant even define ‘woke’ adequately.
see also: leftist, socialist, communist, groomer, radical, crime family, etc
re: #245 lawhawk
Shingrix is available starting age 50, with a booster ~2/3 months after first dose.
I had the booster about two weeks after the first. (if I remember correctly). The shot hurt like hell, but much less painful than shingles.
re: #240 Captain Ron
Dude is really shocked that Biden did this after he’s held up critical military promotions for months?
You don’t get to have it both ways, douchebag.
re: #245 lawhawk
Shingrix is available starting age 50, with a booster ~2/3 months after first dose.
I had the one-shot, older vaccine. I asked my nurse if I should get the new one too, she said ask a pharmacist. Which I have not done yet.
re: #248 I Would Prefer Not To
I had the booster about two weeks after the first. (if I remember correctly). The shot hurt like hell, but much less painful than shingles.
I had several shingles attacks before the vaccine came out. One of the side effects of Humira. They are no fun. Since I got the vaccine I still get attacks but they are far milder than before.
re: #242 Barefoot Grin
“…no administration has done more to damage our military readiness in my lifetime.” That’s some chutzpah from the guy singlehandedly stalling the careers of hundreds of military officers.
who was president for some of that?
Americans are now less likely to express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the U.S. military, with a noticeable decline that has persisted for the past five years, according to a new Gallup Poll.
re: #247 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
which is, while fun to poke holes in, doesnt really matter much
and no, he is not ‘swaying’ the jury pool at all.as to ‘witch hunt’ specifically. it no longer matters what the words meant or what he means. as with so many other phrases, they’re just generic placeholders of angst and anger and quantifying ‘the other’.
desantis cant even define ‘woke’ adequately.
see also: leftist, socialist, communist, groomer, radical, crime family, etc
All of Trump’s missives and statements are furthering the grift to raise money towards his defense and hope he can win the WH to short circuit all the investigations and prosecutions of his criminal conduct.
When seen in that light, they have no defense that would make its way into his legal filings opposing the cases. He’s attempted to have cases delayed or thrown out and those have been rejected by the courts. He’s going to trial on these criminal cases, and he has no defense.
He’s gotta hope for jury nullification to avoid guilty sentences. That’s where he’s at. Even the judges are going to have a hard time finding in Trump’s favor because the evidence is so overwhelming and the legal positions Trump takes are unsupported by precedent (and yeah, the SCOTUS and all, but even they have opened the door on Trump prosecutions in a variety of ways).
re: #243 wrenchwench
Are they still holding off on the vaccine until a person is over 60? I was in my 50’s.
no idea
re: #249 Eclectic Cyborg
Dude is really shocked that Biden did this after he’s held up critical military promotions for months?
You don’t get to have it both ways, douchebag.
of course he does. that’s what outrage is.
also, his intransigent position is the righteous one, by definition //
re: #255 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
no idea
Lawhawk has it covered. With help from the CDC. I also (re)learned that the old one was Zostavax. That will make me sound smarter to a pharmacist.
re: #250 wrenchwench
I had the one-shot, older vaccine. I asked my nurse if I should get the new one too, she said ask a pharmacist. Which I have not done yet.
Yes, I was told. I got both the older one and the newer one years later. And the Shingrix shots made me sick, something no vaccine has ever done to me before or since. But I’ve seen shingles in action in other people, and I DO NOT WANT!
Did You Think The Right Actually Cares About Sex Trafficking?
Yeah, Here’s Andrew Tate!
Take sex trafficking. Around the time that Trump was running for president, the Right decided that they were really concerned about sex trafficking. Not because of anything real that happened, mind you —this all very specifically started because of weird shit they made up about John Podesta and his brothers, stemming from the fact that they found it highly suspicious that two old Italian dudes would talk about pizza so much. It was also very specifically about attacking Hillary Clinton. It’s not like these people read actual articles about actual child sex trafficking and cared so much about the children that they grew concerned — which might involve having to actually vote for funding for shelters for teen runaways and the like. They just really hated Hillary Clinton.
Since then, they haven’t shut up about child sex trafficking — not real child sex trafficking, because that’s messy and probably involves having compassion for people they don’t much like to have compassion for, but imaginary child sex trafficking. The “buy a Wayfair cabinet, get a bonus child sex slave for free” kind of child sex trafficking.
However, it seems they are willing to put even that aside, along with many of their other “causes,” in order to rally behind Andrew Tate, who — unlike any of their silly imaginary targets — is actually facing charges of sex trafficking.
Of course, they’re also willing to put aside how importantly they feel about chastity and how much they hate premarital sex and all their other Christian morality about sex and sexuality to support him as well, but they had no problem doing that with Donald Trump, either. It’s not really a hard and fast rule so long as they personally like the “fornicators” in question.
Or, rather, if the “fornicators” in question do enough to hurt the people they want to see get hurt to cancel it out. In Tate’s case, he attacks feminists and trans people, encourages young men to embrace toxic masculinity — which, naturally, involves con-artistry, treating women like shit, and openly bragging about rape and sexual assault. You know, the exact sort of qualities that so dazzled them when it came to Donald Trump.
re: #250 wrenchwench
I had the one-shot, older vaccine. I asked my nurse if I should get the new one too, she said ask a pharmacist. Which I have not done yet.
My doctor said that since I’d had the older one, he didn’t think the newer one was necessary.
Voyager 2 probe has lost contact with Earth after programming error had the probe tilt antenna 2 degrees off axis. Expectation is that it will resume sending data after an October reset.
re: #261 lawhawk
Voyager 2 probe has lost contact with Earth after programming error had the probe tilt antenna 2 degrees off axis. Expectation is that it will resume sending data after an October reset.
It’s a miracle we could still contact it after 47 years.
re: #260 A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS
My doctor said that since I’d had the older one, he didn’t think the newer one was necessary.
CDC disagrees. There’s also a time factor, at least for the new one—7 years. It’s been 8 since I got the old one, so by time alone, it’s worth doing. I’m gonna wait for the Bell’s to go away enough to wear contacts again. Then another COVID, a flu shot for the first time ever, and Shingrix. That should take me out of circulation for a while.
re: #262 Joe Bacon ✅
It’s a miracle we could still contact it after 47 years.
It’s a looooong way from home. It’s amazing we can still hear that thing screaming at the top of its little plutonium-powered lungs.
re: #261 lawhawk
Voyager 2 probe has lost contact with Earth after programming error had the probe tilt antenna 2 degrees off axis. Expectation is that it will resume sending data after an October reset.
At the very moment it encounters the first Vulcan probe headed into our solar system…
re: #265 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
At the very moment it encounters the first Vulcan probe headed into our solar system…
‘dude, don’t take this exit, wait for the next one”
re: #260 A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS
My doctor said that since I’d had the older one, he didn’t think the newer one was necessary.
IIRC, the first one was about 50% effective, and the new one over 90% effective. Take my memory with a grain of salt.
re: #265 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
At the very moment it encounters the first Vulcan probe headed into our solar system…
Sure hope it’s Vulcans and not Daleks…
re: #261 lawhawk
Voyager 2 probe has lost contact with Earth after programming error had the probe tilt antenna 2 degrees off axis. Expectation is that it will resume sending data after an October reset.
Extraterrestrials viewing voyager’s message on their social media holograms will see sex pictures.
NSFW
re: #265 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))
At the very moment it encounters the first Vulcan probe headed into our solar system…
Or comes back to us as V’ger.
This is probably the equivalent of a queen sacrifice in 4D Chess. https://t.co/Al0yj5JWMK
— RichNeville (@RichNeville) July 31, 2023
so are they calling this ‘X-it’?
the replies at this article on huffpo are pretty good
re: #274 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
The sign was clearly a temporary installation given it was held down to the roof by sandbags. There might be a permanent replacement on order but with permits and stuff.
re: #240 Captain Ron
As veteran, I have some sense of military group think. It’s safe to say that the majority of AF/SP personnel would MUCH rather be stationed in Colorado Springs than Huntsville, AL.
re: #269 Vicious Babushka
Aliens will look at that disc and say…wow they’re naked all the time?????
re: #276 Dr. Matt
As veteran, I have some sense of military group think. It’s safe to say that the majority of AF/SP personnel would MUCH rather be stationed in Colorado Springs than Huntsville, AL.
No abortion vacations!!!
re: #275 Nojay UK
The sign was clearly a temporary installation given it was held down to the roof by sandbags. There might be a permanent replacement on order but with permits and stuff.
I don’t know if Elon is sane enough to get permits or have it emit a reasonable amount of light instead of blinding people.
re: #275 Nojay UK
The sign was clearly a temporary installation given it was held down to the roof by sandbags. There might be a permanent replacement on order but with permits and stuff.
i dont assume anything anymore
re: #277 Joe Bacon ✅
Aliens will look at that disc and say…wow they’re naked all the time?????
i see two eyes and a lemon-sucking puckered mouth on the left side
re: #182 lawhawk
Dark Brandon strikes again - stock market off to best start to the year in decades.
Didn’t 1987 start off in a similar fashion?
Lots of irrational exuberance with regards to AI. NVDA with a trillion+ market cap. TSLA closing in on a trillion again. So much of this rally is hype and meme driven that we shouldn’t put too much stock in it.
re: #270 Vicious Babushka
This you? https://t.co/rdGU61sepC pic.twitter.com/dLdEXWR2sX
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) August 1, 2023
re: #281 Dangerman (sigh…only in America)
i dont assume anything anymore
With Elon, in particular, it is entirely possible that this was his idea of a “permanent installation,” precisely because it was something he thought could get done without permits or process.
re: #261 lawhawk
Voyager 2 probe has lost contact with Earth after programming error had the probe tilt antenna 2 degrees off axis. Expectation is that it will resume sending data after an October reset.
NASA has reestablished communication.
re: #277 Joe Bacon ✅
Aliens will look at that disc and say…wow they’re naked all the time?????
“And they included directions to their place? PARTY TIME!!!”
re: #284 Captain Ron
[Embedded content]
All of these jobs are being done.
My holds are NOT affecting national security.
Good dog, this is too fucking easy:
And the Space Force mission is being done.
KEEPING the SF HQ in Colorado Springs is NOT affecting national security.
re: #186 Dr Lizardo
Yeah, back in July 1999. Spatial disorientation.
Flew into conditions he had no business flying into and killed 2 innocent people along with him. One of them was a friend of a friend.
re: #284 Captain Ron
All of these jobs are being done.
My holds are NOT affecting national security.
We need a military capable of planning long-term policy and not just reacting to events.
For that, you need permanently appointed personnel, not just temporary placeholders.
“The jobs are being done” is fine for a Chick Fil-A backline but not good enough for the world’s largest military.
re: #288 Dr. Matt
Good dog, this is too fucking easy:
And the Space Force mission is being done.
Moving SF HQ to Colorado Springs is NOT affecting national security.
Problem with your statement: SF HQ is already in Colorado Springs. The facility is about to achieve operational readiness this month. Tuberville wants it relocated to a new facility in Huntsville, which will delay operational readiness by a decade.
re: #269 Vicious Babushka
Extraterrestrials viewing voyager’s message on their social media holograms will see sex pictures.
NSFW[Embedded content]
At least they’ll have some good music to listen to
re: #291 Nerdy Fish
Problem with your statement: SF HQ is already in Colorado Springs. The facility is about to achieve operational readiness this month. Tuberville wants it relocated to a new facility in Huntsville, which will delay operational readiness by a decade.
Corrected above.
Members of the grand jury hearing evidence in the special counsel probe of possible 2020 election interference by former President Donald Trump and others arrived at a federal courthouse Tuesday morning, fueling speculation that an indictment against the former president could come later in the day.It has been two weeks since Trump announced he was a target in the federal investigation into the efforts to overturn President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory. The probe, lead by special counsel Jack Smith, is also focused on the events surrounding the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.
Trump’s receipt of a target letter gave the strongest indication yet that the former president would likely be charged in the election probe.
The grand jurors met last Thursday, but left for the day without any hint that they had voted to return indictments.
On Tuesday morning, they headed up to their area on the third floor of the E. Barrett Prettyman courthouse in Washington, D.C., according to NBC News reporters in the building.
re: #283 JC1
Markets are driven by two emotions: greed and fear. Greed for more money, fear a person will lose what they have.
Currently greed is ascendant but that can change at a moment’s notice.
re: #244 lawhawk
Had it last year. It was awful, and it showed up just weeks before I was scheduled to get the vaccination.
It was 6 weeks of weird pains/aches. Thankfully, it wasn’t on my face or neck, or else it would have made caring for the lil one hard.
My wife got it in her late 20s and she was trying to breastfeed our seven-month old. It was hell for her.
Michael Teter, and attorney for Epps who joined Mediaite for an upcoming episode of The Interview podcast, responded to the comments from Rogan in a statement to Mediaite:
The fact that people like Joe Rogan continue to propagate the lie that Ray Epps participated in a false flag operation to instigate the January 6th riots demonstrates the widespread and lasting harm that Fox News has done to Ray. Without Fox’s and Tucker Carlson’s lies, Ray would be unknown and unassailed, running his wedding venue business with his wife and enjoying the ranch he and Robyn built. Instead, Ray continues to face the destructive consequences of Fox’s decision to target him with falsehoods. Joe Rogan’s comments are just the most recent proof of the perpetual damage inflicted by Fox.
re: #284 Captain Ron
I hope Denver’s recent gain is the least of Tuberville’s coming punishment.
Oh, man…if they wind up freezing Trump’s PAC money pending a verdict that would cripple him.
re: #302 lawhawk
Smithmas is coming?
Hopefully soon. I wouldn’t expect anything until late afternoon though.
re: #22 ckkatz
I had one of my occasional sad dreams last night about going back and revisiting Pittsburgh. Something that I have not had the heart to do for almost 30 years. Even in the dream I knew that there was nothing left to connect with there.
Last time I drove through Oakland right after I moved back into the area I almost did not recognize it. A lot of new construction in and old buildings out since I went to school at Pitt in the early 1980s.
Not the only place that is going on since during my almost 20 year stay in/near Philadelphia I also saw a number of roughly century old buildings or empty lots (when I moved there) get replaced by new construction. Including both Comcast towers going up right next to where I worked and/or lived.
re: #304 darthstar
Hopefully soon. I wouldn’t expect anything until late afternoon though.
Grand jury’s gotta get lunch, after all.
/half
re: #301 darthstar
Oh, man…if they wind up freezing Trump’s PAC money pending a verdict that would cripple him.
Makes me wish I’d invested some money in a company that makes those little fast-food ketchup packets.
re: #26 Captain Ron
… and the Republicans have done nothing to make things better!
The Republicans ceased selling improvement years and years ago. They sell hatred and bigotry.
re: #306 Nerdy Fish
Grand jury’s gotta get lunch, after all.
/half
“You get orange chicken, and you get orange chicken…everybody gets orange chicken! Except that Trump guy. Fuck him. He gets indicted.”
re: #306 Nerdy Fish
Grand jury’s gotta get lunch, after all.
/half
Around 4pm… just in time for the evening news and rush hour talk radio to get the info.
I’m keying in on who the coconspirators and accomplices named will be, along with unindicted coconspirators to each of the charges involved. We know Trump had a bunch of people furthering his criminal conduct, so it’ll be nice watching a bunch of bad guys getting arrested/charged.
re: #310 lawhawk
I want to see his money get impounded.
re: #279 🐈 Crush White Nationalism 🐈
I don’t know if Elon is sane enough to get permits or have it emit a reasonable amount of light instead of blinding people.
I don’t think Elon gives a shit.
If there’s a poster boy for “eat the rich”, he’s it.
I thought we already had the light bulb wars during the Obama administration.
re: #312 darthstar
I want to see his money get impounded.
If there’s anything that’d give Trump a stroke - quite aside from his shitty health habits - it’s seizing his money.
re: #313 TedStriker
I don’t think Elon gives a shit.
If there’s a poster boy for “eat the rich”, he’s it.
He’s the poster boy for ‘feed the rich to the pigs’…
re: #314 darthstar
I thought we already had the light bulb wars during the Obama administration.
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I think Trump stayed it while he was President, and Biden quietly said, “Nope, we’re doing this.”
re: #314 darthstar
I thought we already had the light bulb wars during the Obama administration.
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And the fancy mustard and tan suit wars. It was an exhausting period in our Nation’s history.
re: #311 jeffreyw
Yunno, I never go out of my way to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities - unless they get in my face with theirs, at which point they make themselves fair game for some vicious dissing.
re: #314 darthstar
Trump attempted to reverse everything Obama did, including water efficiency standards (which is essential to places like Arizona being livable given the water shortages in the Colorado River plateau and water was overallocated because they assumed water flows on unusually wet conditions, and we’re seeing drought conditions in most places.
re: #314 darthstar
I thought we already had the light bulb wars during the Obama administration.
Those were just the warning shots. Now the Bulb Police will be kicking in doors and confiscating EZ-Bake ovens…
re: #315 Dr Lizardo
If there’s anything that’d give Trump a stroke - quite aside from his shitty health habits - it’s seizing his money.
Also, financial fraud…that’s a charge that gets argued on paper. If they file it, they already have hard, physical evidence…and I suspect donors will raise an eyebrow if they realize they’ve been swindled.
re: #319 Dr. Matt
And the fancy mustard and tan suit wars. It was an exhausting period in Nation’s history.
Michelle and her bare upper arms. Such shamelessness unbecoming of a First Lady!!!
re: #323 darthstar
Also, financial fraud…that’s a charge that gets argued on paper. If they file it, they already have hard, physical evidence…and I suspect donors will raise an eyebrow if they realize they’ve been swindled.
The marks never want to admit that they’ve been had.
re: #323 darthstar
Also, financial fraud…that’s a charge that gets argued on paper. If they file it, they already have hard, physical evidence…and I suspect donors will raise an eyebrow if they realize they’ve been swindled.
re: #325 lawhawk
The marks never want to admit that they’ve been had.
Took the words right out of my mouth.
re: #314 darthstar
I thought we already had the light bulb wars during the Obama administration.
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I remember the light bulb wars. It was a highly charged conflict.
/
there’s no such thing as pink…it’s just light red. #pinkisntreal
— Chris Snead (@dalverian) August 1, 2023
re: #263 wrenchwench
CDC disagrees. There’s also a time factor, at least for the new one—7 years. It’s been 8 since I got the old one, so by time alone, it’s worth doing. I’m gonna wait for the Bell’s to go away enough to wear contacts again. Then another COVID, a flu shot for the first time ever, and Shingrix. That should take me out of circulation for a while.
I expect when my next shingles vaccine is due, it’ll be the new one.
re: #328 Dave In Austin
Our Founding Fathers wore powdered wigs, high heels, knee socks and frilly collars & cuffs…
Crackhead Mike flips out again.
‘Now they are killing the parents’: Mike Lindell makes wild claim about abortion providers
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell believes abortion provider Planned Parenthood is now “killing the parents.”
At an event on Sunday for the Christian Flashpoint program, Lindell recalled the genesis of his theory.
“Abortion is about, it’s not just about destroying a child, guys, it’s about destroying the image of God,” one panelist at the event claimed before Lindell interrupted.
“You know, I wanna say something about that, Planned Parenthood,” Lindell said, recalling that he had hosted an anti-abortion event in front of the Supreme Court in 2020.
“And there’s, I don’t know, half a million people out there, and I go, I’m introducing, and Planned Parenthood, now they’re killing the parents, or they’re just killing the parents, right?” he said.
Lindell said he was later confronted about his statement.
“And I go, hello, I said, remember that song, Mama Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to be Cowboys?” he asked. “Planned Parenthood doesn’t let their babies grow up to be parents.”
re: #327 Eclectic Cyborg
I remember the light bulb wars. It was a highly charged conflict.
/
I have a dim memory of it. Can you shed some light on it? Seems like it was a live wire of an issue for right wingers.
re: #333 Joe Bacon ✅
God, and this wackadoodle lives not too far away.
re: #333 Joe Bacon ✅
Mamas. don’t let your babies grow up to be pillow salesmen…
re: #68 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus
The not-posting-at-bedtime-while-all-your-frustration-leaks-out point I’m trying to get at is that “ideology” isn’t a viable explanation when the “ideology” is a Ship of Theseus. If a government or dictator or private individual keeps slightly altering their base premises of why they do something, then the most compact explanation is that the explanatory structure is subordinate to the material objective.
Somewhere in here, I’m emphatic about this because dictatorships and autocracies (and fascism) are culturally marked as exceptional and unreflective of larger systemic issues— there’s just these kingdoms of weirdos and popinjays and we must delve into to their wacky mannerisms to “understand” them in some occult fashion—but in execution all successful dictatorships follow an incredibly simple formula. Autocracies mostly exist by providing services to the other more powerful states in a very tidy “compensation for goods and services” fashion. Their internal policy is any rhetoric, any coercion, that keeps the funnel operating.
The notion that these countries were ever isolated or cut away from the world, that what they do is alien and colored by some hard-to-grasp thought system, does not bear up under examination: their actions point to a leadership caste that has accepted the neocolonial world order in which people in the periphery exist only as bits of utility and are allowed to die or be killed as long as flow of value is not disrupted. Most dictators are the middlemen and strike breakers of an imperial periphery, your occasional hegemonic dictator, like Stalin or Hitler, still has to answer to his natives kleptocrats that expect their cut. They keep the resources and labor flowing to metropoles such that that they extract a healthy vig while their subjects stay in precarity such that their labor can be devalued. That each dictator generate a bespoke “explanation” for the exact same behavior is insignificant, especially when you consider dictators can and do—Ceaucescu and Bokasa for example—switch ideologies and alliances while doing the exact same theft and violence.
A thing is what it does. The ideology of the state is the outcomes it puts money and coercive power towards.
Everything happening with Putin and Russia currently is consistent with this material analysis of dictatorship: Putin has successfully operated a choke point between his dying chunk of the periphery and the metropoles that want cheap gas and cheap trafficked labor; his profit is dependent on enriching the “other” he performatively despises, while his national followers are purposely kept at maximum precarity. The nationalism, social conservatism, fascism, are an ink cloud: the money doesn’t go the volk or volkisch ends, it goes to compensating the goon squad that keep the funnal operating.
Nothing in his various stated ideological positions actually explains what Russia does. Quite the opposite, the “ideology” of the state is a deflection from what it values enough to put time and effort into. The war in Ukraine itself is demonstrative: this is supposedly an existential struggle for the soul of the region, yet another battering back of a non-Slavic destructive force akin to Napoleon and Hitler and the khans…but the conduct of the war is a kleptocratic shitshow dependent on just casually discarding the lives of recruits.
But what if instead we instead viewed the war as a continuation of the neocolonial project of stripmining their own nation? Russia’s core value proposition is using state power to create conditions from which come the cheap gas from the cheapest, dirtiest labor possible. The primary threat to that extraction system is competition: cultivation of LNG stores near and in the Black Sea means the commodity price will go down, and thus the internal and external spoils system will fail to meet it’s theft quota. An extended, bloody war is under these assumptions a win-win scenario: you’re both maintaining the values of your held assets, and cutting overhead by finding a use for all those unemployed men, and creating a crisis that keeps your subjects panicked and looking for structure and meaning?
Much like most modern commerce, this isn’t a long-term plan with careful projections, it’s a scrabble to keep revenue as high as possible for a few more years, at which point alternative flows of revenue—selling outside Europe—might appear. The “plan” is a series of revenue-retention strategies presented as national crisis: invade Ukraine and appropriate their LNG reserve either through direct annexation or through creeping a proxy leader that cedes control; failing that, destroy wealth and infrastructure to such a degree that any attempt to create LNG infrastructure is drastically slowed.
We only rate dogs. This is a Long-Eared Land Shark. They may look cute, but they just got back from a meeting with the orcas. Please use caution, and only send dogs. Thank you… 12/10 pic.twitter.com/uY0vgJl3nz
— WeRateDogs (@dog_rates) August 1, 2023
re: #337 The Ghost of a Flea
the most compact explanation is that the explanatory structure is subordinate to the material objective
I think we should be engraving that on the money.
re: #267 retired cynic
IIRC, the first one was about 50% effective, and the new one over 90% effective. Take my memory with a grain of salt.
I’d heard something similar, I think. Anyway, I’ll be up for another vaccine Real Soon Now, and Zostavax isn’t available, so it’ll be the new one.
re: #323 darthstar
Also, financial fraud…that’s a charge that gets argued on paper. If they file it, they already have hard, physical evidence…and I suspect donors will raise an eyebrow if they realize they’ve been swindled.
It’s a cult. If you’re still donating to him, it’s not for him to be president, it’s tithing.
re: #173 steve_davis
what was the humidity? Mostly because of the guitars, even when it’s 74 in here, I’ll sometimes have to run a/c on “dry” just to suck some of the 76% humidity out of the room.
That’s the main reason I want my A/C to kick on every so often. Temps are often dropping to reasonable levels at night, but the humidity is simply too sticky to have open windows. In fact I’m running a small dehumidifier in my bedroom during the day to try to drop the humidity in there just a bit further. And a few fans are often running simply to push the air around a bit.
re: #175 Barefoot Grin
It’s such a beautiful area, but yes there is a kind of darkness I feel when we travel through. Same with the drive from around Buffalo past Toledo and down to Columbus, OH. I just don’t enjoy getting off the highway for a meal (and apologies to Eventual Carrion, but somehow Erie always seems to be a point where we need gas and/or a meal, and it feels really dark just off the highway there). I know it would be different if we explored. I know, for example, that there are neat college towns like Wooster. My own hometown of Champaign, Il looks like a shithole from I-74, but is quite lovely and has a thriving downtown now after years of neglect. Having an institution of higher learning can ameliorate to an extent the effects of post-industrialization, but not always. I’ve been to Richmond, IN several times where Earlham College is located. It may have changed, but when I was there the town/gown divide was stark.
There are a number of towns like that. My brother went to school at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA (right off of I-79) and the divide there between the university on the hill and the industrial town by the creek was stark.
I also spent part of my youth living in the eastern side of Richmond. Cannot attest to much about it since the family moved from there when I was nine. I have quite vague memories of the neighborhood, bits of downtown, and bicycling with my older brother on some of the rural roads east of the city.
re: #318 Nerdy Fish
I think Trump stayed it while he was President, and Biden quietly said, “Nope, we’re doing this.”
I’m fine with it, but at this point is it really necessary? It is a technology that has just been beaten in the market. LED bulbs are dirt cheap, provide the same light and last longer and use less electricity. The niche of people still willingly purchasing incandescents has to be vanishingly small.
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