The Bob Cesca Podcast: The Proctology of the Free Market

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Today’s program from our podcasting affiliate, The Bob Cesca Show:

The Proctology of the Free Market — Elon Musk tells advertisers to go eff themselves while insisting that Disney is blackmailing him. What will eventually happen to Twitter? Trump was apparently not eating after January 6. New York State appeals court reinstates gag order against Trump who continued to attack Judge Engoron’s family. Trump tried to illegally take money out of the Trump Organization. Network news coverage of “vermin” versus “deplorables.” Laura Ingraham doesn’t understand speed limits. Jake Tapper destroys Jim Jordan. Who’s playing young Trump in a movie? Good news for abortion rights in Florida. With Jody Hamilton, David Ferguson, music by Vixen Noir, The Metal Byrds, and more!

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423 comments
1
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:11:41pm

Ben Carson is only marginally less qualified to serve as President than DJT, which makes him a logical choice for the GOP VP candidate.

2
Vicious Babushka  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:16:48pm

re: #1 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Ben Carson is only marginally less qualified to serve as President than DJT, which makes him a logical choice for the GOP VP candidate.

I still think DJT will choose RFK, Jr. to please the Qturds.

3
PhillyPretzel ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:20:27pm

I really hate to say this but Musk in that photo looks like he is wearing lipstick.

4
Yeah Sure WhatEVs  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:26:17pm

re: #3 PhillyPretzel ✅

I really hate to say this but Musk in that photo looks like he is wearing lipstick.

He does have an older woman vibe. Not as old as me but solid woman in her 50s.

5
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:26:38pm

re: #2 Vicious Babushka

I think he’ll look for someone even more spineless than Pence.

6
Romantic Heretic  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:28:44pm

re: #5 jaunte

I think he’ll look for someone even more spineless than Pence.

I don’t think any jellyfish is stupid enough to take the job.

7
gocart mozart  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:30:19pm
8
FormerDirtDart 🍕🐀 No Capt'n 😷 Trips  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:34:36pm

Nov 30 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge late on Thursday blocked Montana’s first-of-its kind state ban on the use of short-video sharing app TikTok from taking effect on Jan. 1.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy issued a preliminary injunction to block the ban on the Chinese-owned app, saying the state ban “oversteps state power and infringes on the constitutional rights of users.”

TikTok, which has more than 150 million U.S. users, is used by more than a third of Montana residents, the company says.

Reporting by David Shepardson Editing by Chris Reese

9
William Lewis  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:39:39pm

TIL that one of the all time great photographers, Lee Miller, is getting a big budget bio pic coming out next week. Lee stars Kate Winslet as Lee.

10
DodgerFan1988  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:40:44pm

re: #7 gocart mozart

[Embedded content]

11
Eclectic Cyborg  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:50:43pm

re: #8 FormerDirtDart 🍕🐀 No Capt’n 😷 Trips

Go on, Republicans. Ban TikTok. That will REALLY get out the youth vote.

12
BlueSpotinAL ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:53:40pm

re: #132 retired cynic

Charlie’s essay on the death of Kissinger is a wonderful read, if you have access to it. I don’t subscribe to many blogs, or such, but Pierce’s political blog on Esquire is one that I will hold onto until the end. Unfortunately, I can’t “gift” access to any of his essays. All I can do is encourage you to sign up. (That means coping with Esquire’s horrible membership program for reading and commenting. Join the griping club!)

or use the Bypass paywalls clean extension in chrome (just to read, obvs), like I just did

13
goddamnedfrank  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:57:29pm

LOL you could use this statement to sustain a superconductor it’s so cold:

14
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 3:58:36pm

@thomaszimmer.bsky.social

Few people can claim to have done more to further the reactionary mobilization against egalitarian democracy than Leonard Leo. It’d be great if those tasked with defending popular sovereignty and constitutional government could be trusted to mobilize their considerable power to hold Leo to account.

15
Belafon  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:06:19pm

re: #13 goddamnedfrank

Do you have a link?

16
Jay C  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:07:49pm

re: #13 goddamnedfrank

Wait: that was IT? The whole of the President’s statement on Henry the K kicking the bucket?

Looks like Joe knows a few things about being *diplomatic* as well.

And as an aside, primeval Ancient as Joe Biden is usually caricatured as, it’s notable that when he was “a young Senator”, Henry Kissinger was already (or nearly) SoS, and at the height of his influence.

And as another aside, read Josh Marshall’s TPM essay on “Why Did So Many People Hate Henry Kissinger So Much?” (spoiler: it’s not the obvious….)

17
Hecuba's daughter  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:08:16pm

Last night, a Bernie-loving friend who hated Hillary with a passion but then said he held his nose to vote for her asserted that the problem with voting for the lesser of two evils is that the choice is still evil. We didn’t have time then to explore exactly what he meant there — but it seemed like the kind of Sarandon view that led to the Bush election in 2000 and Trump election in 2016. Maybe next week we can discuss his actual meaning there. It is chilling to think there are people with that point of view who may withhold their vote from Biden because he isn’t perfect and their friends may promote that argument.

Years ago a different Bernie-loving friend said that he watched a show where Hillary was in a more intimate setting and was very impressed; he thought that if she had been on more of those types of programs, it would have been sufficient to get her a victory.

A Republican — any contemporary Republican — as President will bring our democracy to an end; it’s just that some are more likely to preserve the surface trappings of the rule of law and our traditional foreign policy, while Trump will abandon it all for an outright fascist regime allied with Putin and dictators worldwide. Not that our traditional foreign policy was enlightened but the Trumpish version will be far worse.

18
goddamnedfrank  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:09:27pm

re: #15 Belafon

Do you have a link?

Here

19
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:12:03pm

@kevinmkruse.bsky.social

“He kept offering his views” is the kind of passive aggressive thing I’d read in a letter of recommendation and immediately close the file

20
gwangung  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:19:13pm

re: #17 Hecuba’s daughter

Last night, a Bernie-loving friend who hated Hillary with a passion but then said he held his nose to vote for her asserted that the problem with voting for the lesser of two evils is that the choice is still evil.

And?

IT’S STILL LESS EVIL.

DO THEY NOT GET THIS?

21
Decatur Deb  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:20:01pm

re: #20 gwangung

And?

IT’S STILL LESS EVIL.

DO THEY NOT GET THIS?

Math is hard.

22
Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:25:42pm

re: #11 Eclectic Cyborg

Go on, Republicans. Ban TikTok. That will REALLY get out the youth vote.

But Nikki said the kids would understand after having it explained to them.

23
Hecuba's daughter  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:27:33pm

re: #20 gwangung

And?

IT’S STILL LESS EVIL.

DO THEY NOT GET THIS?

That’s the problem — I’m not sure that they do. It’s at though they may think of the evils as both infinite and, in mathematics, half of an infinite number has the same value. But again, we didn’t have any opportunity to discuss this further at the time. Maybe I’ll send him an email on this — so we both have time to formulate a response.

24
Backwoods Sleuth  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:28:14pm

I just played Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” for MrBWS

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

He never heard of Leonard Cohen (despite being familiar with the song) so now I am remedying that oversight in his musical education.

25
piratedan  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:29:02pm

re: #14 jaunte

I’d have no issues with subpeonas issued with hot and cold running US Marshalls. Followed with a statement that refusal to appear will incur a not insignificant financial penalty that will be compounded daily.

Let him run his ass to a jurist on his payroll to fight the US Senate… good use of his money.

26
Vicious Babushka  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:37:47pm

Mastodon

27
EPR-radar  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:38:36pm

re: #14 jaunte

Of course Leo won’t comply with any Congressional subpoena. From his point of view, it’s like serfs demanding accountability from the Lord of the Manor.

28
DodgerFan1988  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:45:03pm


Huge if true.

29
Eclectic Cyborg  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:45:20pm

re: #24 Backwoods Sleuth

Allow me to contribute:

Leonard Cohen - Treaty (Official Audio)

30
IngisKahn  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:47:45pm

You can’t have a politician who is not “evil”. That’s just the way power works. If you don’t make questionable “compromises”, then the one who does will win the power from you.

This has been your scheduled reminder to check out sortition based government.

31
Decatur Deb  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:49:42pm

re: #30 IngisKahn

When Puritopians solve the Trolley Problem, all the endangered victims and the switchman are dead.

32
nines09  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:54:44pm

re: #24 Backwoods Sleuth

This is a great look at the man.

Leonard Cohen - Tower Of Song (Live in London)

33
gocart mozart  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:56:28pm

LOL Also, Max Miller is a serial liar. en.wikipedia.org

34
A Cranky One  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:57:35pm

35
BeachDem  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:57:49pm

re: #24 Backwoods Sleuth

I just played Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” for MrBWS

[Embedded content]

He never heard of Leonard Cohen (despite being familiar with the song) so now I am remedying that oversight in his musical education.

I’d follow with “Sisters of Mercy.” My favorite. Then you can watch “McCabe and Mrs Miller.”

36
Hecuba's daughter  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:59:05pm

re: #24 Backwoods Sleuth

I just played Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” for MrBWS

[Embedded content]

Video

He never heard of Leonard Cohen (despite being familiar with the song) so now I am remedying that oversight in his musical education.

Most people are more familiar with the version played by cover bands such as Pentatonix, which omits one of the stanzas.

37
Unabogie  Nov 30, 2023 • 4:59:17pm

re: #20 gwangung

And?

IT’S STILL LESS EVIL.

DO THEY NOT GET THIS?

I always pose the question like this:

Either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be president on Jan 20th, 2025. Do you have a preference between them?

If they answer yes, then great! They should vote their preference and not expect the rest of the country to do it for them.

If they answer no, then they are not serious people, and they don’t actually care about marginalized and vulnerable people around them.

38
Dangerman  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:00:53pm

re: #31 Decatur Deb

When Puritopians solve the Trolley Problem, all the endangered victims and the switchman are dead.

As well as the one holding the book

39
Dangerman  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:02:02pm

re: #37 Unabogie

I always pose the question like this:

Either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be president on Jan 20th, 2025. Do you have a preference between them?

If they answer yes, then great! They should vote their preference and not expect the rest of the country to do it for them.

If they answer no, then they are not serious people, and they don’t actually care about marginalized and vulnerable people around them.

+1

40
Hecuba's daughter  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:03:15pm

re: #29 Eclectic Cyborg

Allow me to contribute:

[Embedded content]

Video

One of my favorites:

Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker (Audio)

41
Dangerman  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:03:19pm

re: #37 Unabogie

I always pose the question like this:

Either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be president on Jan 20th, 2025. Do you have a preference between them?

If they answer yes, then great! They should vote their preference and not expect the rest of the country to do it for them.

If they answer no, then they are not serious people, and they don’t actually care about marginalized and vulnerable people around them.

Correct
There’s no ordering off the menu

42
Hecuba's daughter  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:07:22pm

re: #37 Unabogie

I always pose the question like this:

Either Joe Biden or Donald Trump will be president on Jan 20th, 2025. Do you have a preference between them?

If they answer yes, then great! They should vote their preference and not expect the rest of the country to do it for them.

If they answer no, then they are not serious people, and they don’t actually care about marginalized and vulnerable people around them.

If they prefer Trump, then they aren’t serious people and they don’t care about marginalized and vulnerable people around them. Of course, one could argue they are serious — serious psychopaths.

43
Jay C  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:11:27pm

Odd: must be one of those effects of being an Old (i.e. I have a land-line phone), but I was just polled by Quinnipiac Polls - mainly on how Eric Adams is doing as NYC Mayor (NB: he didn’t get a great review). SO now we know just who it is who actually gets polled by the major players: Me!!!

ADD: re: #39 Dangerman

Yeah, several of the questions I was asked I had to say “no opinion” on, since they were either stuff I didn’t know about (i.e. my opinion of how the City Comptroller is doing his job), or questions where the categories were too simplistic for a yes-or-no answer. Presidential selection though, is a LOT more obvious….

44
A Cranky One  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:13:50pm

45
Captain Magic  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:22:08pm

re: #24 Backwoods Sleuth

The late Jeff Buckley cover is considered one of the Top 500 songs by Rolling Stone.

46
Joe Bacon ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:24:52pm

Ah excused from Jury Duty…time to DEE…COM…PRESS!

47
wrenchwench  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:25:07pm

I posted this pic yesterday;

me

…and today I hear that one of the folks I visited on that trip to NYC passed the day before yesterday. Same age as Shane MacGowan. Too young.

48
piratedan  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:25:49pm

re: #46 Joe Bacon ✅

any chance that they’ll finger you for the crime instead?

49
Backwoods Sleuth  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:26:42pm

I knew Johnny Cash didn’t write this but this explains so much about “Hurt”

The Greatest Cover Song of All Time?

50
gocart mozart  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:26:47pm

Edited for more LOLs.

51
Vicious Babushka  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:35:03pm

Forget about “Holocaust Denial.” “Oct. 7 Denial” is already a thing.

Mastodon

52
Decatur Deb  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:35:38pm

re: #24 Backwoods Sleuth

I just played Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” for MrBWS

[Embedded content]

He never heard of Leonard Cohen (despite being familiar with the song) so now I am remedying that oversight in his musical education.

One of his recordings he didn’t write:

“Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing
Through the graves the wind is blowing
Freedom soon will come
Then we’ll come from the shadows”

Leonard Cohen - The Partisan (Audio)

53
FormerDirtDart 🍕🐀 No Capt'n 😷 Trips  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:37:24pm
54
IngisKahn  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:42:41pm

re: #53 FormerDirtDart 🍕🐀 No Capt’n 😷 Trips

Don’t worry. Elon thinks motorcycles are scary and refuses to make one.

55
Captain Ron  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:43:44pm
56
Hecuba's daughter  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:45:56pm

re: #51 Vicious Babushka

Forget about “Holocaust Denial.” “Oct. 7 Denial” is already a thing.

[Embedded content]

On Twitter, she has hidden her page, obviously because she must have been getting a lot of pushback. What a terrible person!

57
goddamnedfrank  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:46:32pm

Been trying to snag this for awhile but it’s been very hard to find at a decent price.

58
Decatur Deb  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:53:52pm

re: #54 IngisKahn

Don’t worry. Elon thinks motorcycles are scary and refuses to make one.

The hottest ebikes are/were built by a girl (PhD Mech Eng). The new one is rated at 1000 hp with a target speed of 400mph.

greenenvyracing.com

59
🐈 Crush White Nationalism 🐈  Nov 30, 2023 • 5:57:13pm

re: #58 Decatur Deb

The hottest ebikes are/were built by a girl. (PhD Mech Eng). The new one is rated at 1000 hp with a target speed of 400mph.

greenenvyracing.com

That’s a nice-looking vehicle.

60
Eclectic Cyborg  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:01:40pm

re: #32 nines09

This is a great look at the man.

[Embedded content]

That whole damn show is amazing. I really love the Hallelujah rendition on it. Jeff Buckleys version was good, but no one can do this like Leonard did it:

Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

Damn fine artist. Damn fine Canadian.

61
Belafon  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:02:18pm

re: #50 gocart mozart

Edited for more LOLs.

[Embedded content]

I love that he’s showing them how weak they are.

62
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:03:33pm

@tiffanyclay.dev

+1 for The San Antonio Express News lmao

63
Charles Johnson  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:24:34pm

Wow, Trump is attacking Judge Engoron’s wife at his shitty website, over and over.

Maybe do something that would actually stop him. Like throw him in jail for contempt of court like any other criminal defendant is what I’m thinking.

64
piratedan  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:27:46pm

re: #63 Charles Johnson

I agree, anyone else doing this bullshit would not be tolerated. Treat him like a citizen, that’s what he is.

65
Charles Johnson  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:29:02pm

Yikes. This looks really bad.

Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan Over a Year Ago - The New York Times

66
darthstar  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:32:14pm

Mastodon

67
Charles Johnson  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:36:15pm

re: #66 darthstar

I expected Biden to recite the usual diplomatic/bureaucratic stuff. Pleasantly surprised to see that he’s not unaware of the, um, issues with Henry Kissinger and his bloody fucking history.

68
mmmirele  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:43:07pm

Today was a milestone anniversary for me at work. Twenty-five years ago today, I was officially hired by my evil too big to fail employer. In commemoration of the event, I’m getting a Lucite plaque mailed to me and a bunch of points to buy something nice (really, it’s nice stuff and the dollar equivalent isn’t bad at all) from a gift catalogue. I haven’t been able to enjoy any of it because this stubborn cough, which I originally thought was a side effect of acid reflux, actually isn’t, because it’s a wet cough now. I signed off work after two hours because I was coughing and coughing and had a headache.

69
sizzzzlerz  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:43:31pm

re: #46 Joe Bacon ✅

Ah excused from Jury Duty…time to DEE…COM…PRESS!

I know the feeling. It be like you could dance your way out of the courthouse.

70
Belafon  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:45:07pm

re: #66 darthstar

There are people in the replies, and a bunch of news stories, who think Biden is praising Kissinger, but they fail to remember that Biden never met with Kissinger since he became president.

71
Backwoods Sleuth  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:45:35pm

Good Night Lizardz…

Arlo Guthrie/ City Of New Orleans

72
Charles Johnson  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:46:05pm

re: #70 Belafon

There are people in the replies, and a bunch of news stories, who think Biden is praising Kissinger, but they fail to remember that Biden never met with Kissinger since he became president.

Sweet summer children.

73
sizzzzlerz  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:47:58pm

re: #70 Belafon

There are people in the replies, and a bunch of news stories, who think Biden is praising Kissinger, but they fail to remember that Biden never met with Kissinger since he became president.

Why would he?

74
Nerdy Fish  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:47:59pm

re: #72 Charles Johnson

Sweet summer children.

The lawyers are all going, “Hot DAMN, whoever wrote that deserves a raise.”

75
Belafon  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:49:59pm

re: #73 sizzzzlerz

Why would he?

Every president prior at least through Clinton did. That’s the point. Biden broke the “must consult Kissinger” tradition.

76
Joe Bacon ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:52:33pm

Awwwwwww

Florida Democrats kick Mr. Gelato off the ballot!

Dean Phillips Cries Foul as Florida Dems Leave Him Off Ballot

Dean Phillips’ long-shot campaign against President Joe Biden is running into another snag as Flordia plans to forgo a Democratic primary contest—leaving Phillips enraged and off the ballot. “Americans would expect the absence of democracy in Tehran, not Tallahassee,” Phillips told Politico. “The intentional disenfranchisement of voters runs counter to everything for which our Democratic Party and country stand. Our mission as Democrats is to defeat authoritarians, not become them.” Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried shot back: “We are dismayed by Dean Phillps’ conspiratorial and inappropriate comments comparing the state of Florida to the Iranian regime as part of his knee-jerk reaction to long-established procedures.”

thedailybeast.com

77
Vicious Babushka  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:53:02pm

re: #65 Charles Johnson

Yikes. This looks really bad.

Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan Over a Year Ago - The New York Times

Hubris.

Does not excuse Hamas, though. Fuck them forever.

78
Nerdy Fish  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:53:36pm

re: #76 Joe Bacon ✅

God, I can’t wait to be rid of this asshole. I was actually okay with him as my representative, for a while. Not anymore.

79
Decatur Deb  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:53:44pm

re: #74 Nerdy Fish

The lawyers are all going, “Hot DAMN, whoever wrote that deserves a raise.”

Whoever wrote it would not recognize it by the time it gets through the staffing process.*

*Applying rules restored since the Trump/Twitter balagon.

80
jeffreyw  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:56:05pm

Mastodon

81
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:56:34pm

re: #80 jeffreyw

And she plays a mean game of chess.

82
Joe Bacon ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 6:57:51pm

re: #81 jaunte

And she plays a mean game of chess.

Then I await her formal challenge! 😉

83
jeffreyw  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:00:48pm

re: #81 jaunte

And she plays a mean game of chess.

I’d play her like I would a Wookie.

84
vgranucci  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:02:16pm

From a couple threads back:
re: #108 William Lewis

I, for one, am grateful that the motherfucker failed in your case & even more elated that you survived him. From “A Civil Campaign” by Lois McMasters Bujold:

[Embedded content]

Your honor is intact; you outlived the bastard.

This old sergeant salutes you, sir.

Upvote for the Bujold quote. (Note to self: Time to do a reread of the Vorkosigan novels.)

85
piratedan  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:04:41pm

re: #84 vgranucci

good call…. you kind of forget how good they all are and I mean ALL of them, the personal arcs, the tragedies and the triumphs… damn good stuff.

86
Joe Bacon ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:06:49pm

Turning Point USA official charged with campus assault on LGBTQ instructor

Kalen D’Almeida, a figure in the far-right student group Turning Point USA, has been charged with assault of an LGBTQ instructor at Arizona State University, reported KPNX’s Brahm Resnik on Thursday.

D’Almeida has been charged with misdemeanor harassment, assault and disorderly conduct, according to court documents obtained by Resnik. Also charged is Braden Ellis, who reportedly worked as D’Almeida’s videographer.

The attack, which began when TPUSA members confronted the instructor and was caught on film in October, was investigated by ASU police as a possible hate crime, reported 12News at the time.

“ASU security video of the incident released late Friday shows instructor David Boyles appearing to lunge at the TPUSA videographer. He is then shoved to the ground by the TPUSA personality who was peppering Boyles with questions about sexuality. Boyles appears to hit his head on the stone plaza,” said that earlier report. “Boyles is a founder of Drag Story Hour. He teaches writing and a course on LGBTQ+ youth in pop culture and politics.”

TPUSA, headed up by the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, was a firm backer of former President Donald Trump, and many of its members have triggered controversy around the country, including a chapter president at the University of Missouri who last year was caught posting racial slurs on Snapchat.

In recent months Fox News, which once worked closely with TPUSA, has appeared to distance itself from the group.

rawstory.com

87
A Cranky One  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:10:04pm

88
A Cranky One  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:18:45pm

89
Nerdy Fish  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:18:59pm

re: #88 A Cranky One

[Embedded content]

Couldn’t be me.

90
Jay C  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:24:03pm

re: #76 Joe Bacon ✅

Awwwwwww

Florida Democrats kick Mr. Gelato off the ballot!

Dean Phillips Cries Foul as Florida Dems Leave Him Off Ballot

Dean Phillips’ long-shot campaign against President Joe Biden is running into another snag as Florida plans to forgo a Democratic primary contest—leaving Phillips enraged and off the ballot. “Americans would expect the absence of democracy in Tehran, not Tallahassee,” Phillips told Politico. “The intentional disenfranchisement of voters runs counter to everything for which our Democratic Party and country stand. Our mission as Democrats is to defeat authoritarians, not become them.” Florida Democratic Party chair Nikki Fried shot back: “We are dismayed by Dean Phillps’ conspiratorial and inappropriate comments comparing the state of Florida to the Iranian regime as part of his knee-jerk reaction to long-established procedures.”

thedailybeast.com

OK, TBH, my sympathies (limited as they are) are with Dean Phillips: longshot or not, and however much an asshole as he is, I think he should get his chance on a ballot*. What is the FL Dems’ rationale for not having a primary? Is it a matter of procedure - rules, filing, petitions, etc.? Money (do Parties have to pay for their own primaries)? Something personal (Dean piss off the wrong official somewhere)?

*epic fail or not….

91
teleskiguy  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:35:02pm

@kilgoretrout.bsky.social

what kind of sicko submits himself to total humiliation in a fake debate by this guy

bsky.app

92
Patricia Kayden  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:37:15pm

93
teleskiguy  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:42:46pm

Got Bluesky invites. Five of ‘em at the moment.

94
Belafon  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:43:44pm

re: #90 Jay C

OK, TBH, my sympathies (limited as they are) are with Dean Phillips: longshot or not, and however much an asshole as he is, I think he should get his chance on a ballot*. What is the FL Dems’ rationale for not having a primary? Is it a matter of procedure - rules, filing, petitions, etc.? Money (do Parties have to pay for their own primaries)? Something personal (Dean piss off the wrong official somewhere)?

*epic fail or not….

I suspect the answer is the parties don’t really do primaries against incumbants.

95
goddamnedfrank  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:45:47pm

re: #65 Charles Johnson

Yikes. This looks really bad.

Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan Over a Year Ago - The New York Times

The way this is being leaked and described looks incredibly orchestrated, suspect Netanyahu is going to use it to again try to lay 100% of the blame on the IDF and Shin Bet, and say that neither he nor his cabinet were ever told about the intel. He already made a move in that direction a month ago then walked it back, and the trailing end of a temporary ceasefire makes for an opportune time for him to shake things up and purge perceived opponents from senior positions in the officer corps.

96
Captain Ron  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:49:29pm
97
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:56:29pm

re: #96 Captain Ron

Why are Newsome and DeSantis putting on this show?

98
Joe Bacon ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:56:50pm

99
mmmirele  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:57:19pm

First of all, let me make clear that I generally dislike Julie Roys, because she’s anti-transgender. THAT SAID, she is the one person who has demonstrated enough care and concern in the larger Evangelical community that she’s one of the few people survivors of sexual abuse in Evangelical churches feel safe going to.

A month ago, Mike Bickle, the head of the International House of Prayer-Kansas City was accused of sexual misconduct. (kshb.com local tv station)

Last Sunday, people who were formerly part of IHOPKC entered the 24x7 prayer room in a silent protest: (kmbc.com local TV station)

Now Julie Roys has reported the VERY LONG story of a young woman who was taken advantage of in the late 1990s. This is a really hard read, Mike Bickle is just crazy.

EXCLUSIVE: Woman Says IHOPKC Founder Mike Bickle Used Prophecy to Sexually Abuse Her

In 1996, at age 19, “Jane Doe” decided to move to Kansas City to intern with her father’s friend, Mike Bickle. The 42-year-old prophetic pastor’s preaching about King David had touched her heart.

“I just remember feeling like he knew the same Jesus that I knew,” Doe told The Roys Report (TRR) in an exclusive interview.

Soon after she arrived, she said Bickle told her he had a dream about her. After a Sunday service, in front of Bickle’s wife, Diane, Doe said Bickle prophesied that he was David and Doe was Esther.

“He gives me the biggest word of my life,” she told TRR. “It was, ‘You’re not just an Esther, you are going to lead thousands of Esthers.’”

A few weeks later, Bickle called Doe from Asia to say the Lord spoke to him about her, she said. This time, though, she said he sounded drunk.

“He begins to tell me that the Lord has spoken to him and that Diane is going to die and that we’re going to get married,” she said. “As he’s talking to me, I’m thinking, ‘Is he drunk?’ And he did start talking about the alcohol that was in the fridge that he had been drinking.”

From 1996 to 1999, Doe said Bickle put her up in an apartment by herself, gave her a key to his office, engaged in sexual interactions with her, and told her about the dream, again and again. He also began establishing the International House of Prayer Kansas City (IHOPKC).

There is a LOT more where that came from: julieroys.com

The article makes clear the lack of accountability Bickle had and how he weaseled out of whatever minimal church oversight he got by founding IHOPKC.

And there are little cults like this everywhere.

100
Hecuba's daughter  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:58:11pm

re: #95 goddamnedfrank

The way this is being leaked and described looks incredibly orchestrated, suspect Netanyahu is going to use this to again try to lay 100% of the blame on the IDF and Shin Bet, and say that neither he nor his cabinet were ever told about the intel. He already made a move in that direction a month ago then walked it back, and the trailing end of a temporary ceasefire makes for an opportune time for him to shake things up and purge perceived opponents from senior positions in the officer corps.

But it was Bibi’s administration that transferred forces protecting against Gaza to the West Bank — and wasn’t that transfer against the advice of the IDF leadership?

101
Nerdy Fish  Nov 30, 2023 • 7:58:17pm

re: #97 jaunte

Why are Newsome and DeSantis putting on this show?

DeathSentence is hoping to boost his flagging polling numbers by scoring a cheap win against a big-name librul. Newsom, on the other hand, is playing for 2028, trying to start getting his name out there early so people are more likely to throw his name into the ring as the time approaches.

102
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:03:12pm

Another block on Bluesky

103
Hecuba's daughter  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:04:46pm

re: #101 Nerdy Fish

DeathSentence is hoping to boost his flagging polling numbers by scoring a cheap win against a big-name librul. Newsom, on the other hand, is playing for 2028, trying to start getting his name out there early so people are more likely to throw his name into the ring as the time approaches.

This was the reality show they agreed to months ago. DeathSentence was hoping at that time to get more publicity in a single one-on-one match. The primary debates where you’re on a stage with umpteen other candidates provides little opportunity to stand out, especially when there’s nothing distinctive or interesting about your presence or ideas.

104
Belafon  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:08:36pm

A di-skittle molecule:

105
goddamnedfrank  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:10:29pm

re: #100 Hecuba’s daughter

But it was Bibi’s administration that transferred forces protecting against Gaza to the West Bank — and wasn’t that transfer against the advice of the IDF leadership?

He’ll just say something like “If the Army and intelligence services hadn’t withheld vital analyst reports from us we wouldn’t have ordered them to do that.”

He may even be half right, the problem of course is that the root cause of the failure stems from the priorities his administration set, to fund and empower Hamas in order to cynically thwart any progress on peace while focusing the vast majority of Israel’s security efforts on expanding the illegal West Bank settlements. The bureaucratic failure to give weight to the captured plan and the analysts’ reports is directly downriver from that.

106
silverdolphin  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:13:13pm

re: #90 Jay C

OK, TBH, my sympathies (limited as they are) are with Dean Phillips: longshot or not, and however much an asshole as he is, I think he should get his chance on a ballot*. What is the FL Dems’ rationale for not having a primary? Is it a matter of procedure - rules, filing, petitions, etc.? Money (do Parties have to pay for their own primaries)? Something personal (Dean piss off the wrong official somewhere)?

*epic fail or not….

Essentially, the Florida Democratic party says that Phillips did not let them know in time that he was a candidate. They state their rules require the state to submit the names of primary candidates to the state before the end of their state convention which ran from Oct 27-29. Philips annoinced his candidacy on Oct 27 but did not contact the state to inform them he was running until Nov 9 (his words ) or Nov. 22 (the party’s word).

So they submitted to the states with only 1 name on the ballot, State law allows them to not have a primary if only one person is on the ballot.

Sounds to me that Phillips did not have a very good exploratory committee. He started his campaign too late. If he had announced a week earlier, he would have had the state party on the ropes here.

107
gwangung  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:19:49pm

re: #106 silverdolphin

This is the sort of BASIC, nuts and bolts things a credible candidates handles in their sleep.

Then again, this just shows Phillips is a Republican at heart….

108
Jay C  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:23:58pm

re: #106 silverdolphin

Essentially, the Florida Democratic party says that Phillips did not let them know in time that he was a candidate. They state their rules require the state to submit the names of primary candidates to the state before the end of their state convention which ran from Oct 27-29. Philips announced his candidacy on Oct 27 but did not contact the state to inform them he was running until Nov 9 (his words ) or Nov. 22 (the party’s word).

So they submitted to the states with only 1 name on the ballot, State law allows them to not have a primary if only one person is on the ballot.

Sounds to me that Phillips did not have a very good exploratory committee. He started his campaign too late. If he had announced a week earlier, he would have had the state party on the ropes here.

Thanks: that was kinda what I figured - I don’t think the state Party in FL (or anyplace else, likely) is going to go out of its way to bend its rules too much to accommodate some out-of-state Congressman deciding to run a challenge campaign against an incumbent President pretty much on the spur-of-the-moment. One would think any *serious* candidate (however much of a longshot) would have done his research on filing requirements, dates, etc. well ahead of time: but given that Dean Phillips’ “campaign” so far has been pretty much a complete clownshow, it should only be expected….

109
silverdolphin  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:24:12pm

re: #105 goddamnedfrank

He’ll just say something like “If the Army and intelligence services hadn’t withheld vital analyst reports from us we wouldn’t have ordered them to do that.”

He may even be half right, the problem of course is that the root cause of the failure stems from the priorities his administration set, to fund and empower Hamas in order to cynically thwart any progress on peace while focusing the vast majority of Israel’s security efforts on expanding the illegal West Bank settlements. The bureaucratic failure to give weight to the captured plan and the analysts’ reports is directly downriver from that.

If he did not see anything about these plans, he should be faulted for not having a system to get him that info. I think it isvery likely we will see a Daily Brief presented to him stating “Hamas Determined To Strike in Israel”.

110
piratedan  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:28:05pm

re: #109 silverdolphin

my guess is that he and his associates fucked up.

They kept think Hamas couldn’t touch them and they were an available foil to keep them in power and are now paying the piper and trying to spin it to keep the war going and themselves in power.

here’s hoping that they’re fucked and will be booted from power.

Also hope that the next group will be serious about Hamas and grinding them into dust.

111
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:32:06pm

IDF Brig. Gen. Turgeman, 2017:

Unlike top IDF generals, including the chief of staff and the military intelligence chief, Turgeman’s great fear is the moment Hamas internalizes the meaning of the new underground obstacle being built on the Gaza border. The senior generals believe Hamas is sufficiently deterred to contain the obstacle’s construction. Turgeman disagrees.

“We plan to build the entire the strip, and the more they realize what is happening, the more they’ll try to disrupt it,” he says. “They are realizing that that’s it, we’re shutting off the strip, and this time hermetically, from the bottom.”

You believe they’re starting to understand that?

“I can see that they’re surprised by the scope. At first, we built opposite the community spaces. We wanted to close the spaces linked to the communities. Now they see we’re planning to close the seam, and they’re beginning to realize that this is going to shut off the entire strip.”
ynetnews.com

112
silverdolphin  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:33:13pm

Inflation cools to near zero in October

POSTSCRIPT: Now that inflation is going down instead of up, I notice that neither the New York Times nor the Washington Post even bothers to report it on their front page. Even the Wall Street Journal mentions it only under a headline about consumer spending slowing down. And we wonder why people don’t seem to know that inflation is way down?

Lower than the last year of Trum’s Presidency. But the media does not care now.

113
silverdolphin  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:39:05pm

Global Well-Being and Mental Health in the Internet Age

e show that the past 2 decades have seen only small and inconsistent changes in global well-being and mental health that are not suggestive of the idea that the adoption of Internet and mobile broadband is consistently linked to negative psychological outcomes.

Comparing internet usage with mental health, either positively or negatively, showed no correlation outside scientific error. The internet appears to be, based on current data, have any effect on mental health.

114
Jay C  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:39:27pm

re: #109 silverdolphin

If he did not see anything about these plans, he should be faulted for not having a system to get him that info. I think it is very likely we will see a Daily Brief presented to him stating “Hamas Determined To Strike in Israel”.

If there was, I’m sure somebody, somewhere (as in most intelligence organizations) kept a receipt.

115
Captain Ron  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:45:53pm
116
piratedan  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:47:08pm

re: #112 silverdolphin

that cudgel is dull, time to find a new cudgel….

hmmm, he’s old…. ummm, he sucks milkshakes thru a straw….. errr…. he has a black lady as his VP…. YEAH!

117
goddamnedfrank  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:47:54pm

118
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:48:05pm

re: #112 silverdolphin

Trum’s Presidency

Good one; he does insist on denying the pee.

119
Captain Ron  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:53:39pm
120
silverdolphin  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:53:41pm

re: #110 piratedan

my guess is that he and his associates fucked up.

They kept think Hamas couldn’t touch them and they were an available foil to keep them in power and are now paying the piper and trying to spin it to keep the war going and themselves in power.

here’s hoping that they’re fucked and will be booted from power.

Also hope that the next group will be serious about Hamas and grinding them into dust.

Here is my hope, which would cement Biden as the greatest President in the last century. He has been working on a land route via train to connect India and Europe. It would have goods sent by ship to a railhead on the western side of the Arabian Penisula. It would track northwest across the Peninsula ending at Haifa.

Sounds like a crazy hope but Biden has been working on it in the background and anounced it a few weeks ago. It could transform the economies of many of those fossil fuel economies as other southwest asia get involved. It would likely result in all sorts of new companies lying along the tracks. I hitnk it would also put a lot of economic energy into Gaza for a 2 state solution (somehting else Biden has now supported)

He seemed to have Saudi Arabia and Israel on the cusp of normalizing relationships (which is why, IMHO, Hamas took this time to attack, in order to break this up). Now this might all be pie in the eye but just like the Marshall plan revitalized Europe after WW2, such an economic plan would bring much of these economies into the 21st century.

It is a crazy, pie-in-the-sky idea but if anyone could pull it off, Biden could. And it would make some people very wealthy ;-)

121
Romantic Heretic  Nov 30, 2023 • 8:57:45pm

re: #24 Backwoods Sleuth

My wife and I consider this ‘our song’.

Leonard Cohen - Dance Me to the End of Love

122
silverdolphin  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:06:01pm

re: #115 Captain Ron

[Embedded content]

Also called Walking penumonia, this is not a nice disease at all. I had it and it took almost a month to resolve. Antibiotics do not realy work.I had a tremendous, dry cough (usually diagnostic) that bent me over. Yes, these were not polite little coughs, AHEM. They were gut-wrencing, bent over, hacking lungs up. Really disrupted meetings. I do not to ever have this again.

123
Targetpractice  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:06:50pm

re: #105 goddamnedfrank

He’ll just say something like “If the Army and intelligence services hadn’t withheld vital analyst reports from us we wouldn’t have ordered them to do that.”

He may even be half right, the problem of course is that the root cause of the failure stems from the priorities his administration set, to fund and empower Hamas in order to cynically thwart any progress on peace while focusing the vast majority of Israel’s security efforts on expanding the illegal West Bank settlements. The bureaucratic failure to give weight to the captured plan and the analysts’ reports is directly downriver from that.

I’ve been expecting his ploy to be similar to the Bush Admin after 9/11 and the screaming match that erupted between the WH and the intel community over who was at fault, the excuse being something along the lines of “We get warnings all the time, practically every day, we can’t chase every one of them down with the limited resources we have (*hinthint*).”

In Bibi’s case, the reality is he was counting on a flare-up of violence from Hamas, he just wasn’t expecting it to be as explosive as Oct 7th. Gunfights and suicide bombers perhaps, but nothing that would take more than a few hours to stamp down and give the IDF the excuse necessary to conduct “operations” in Gaza for a few days. Just enough to burnish his “Defender of the Realm” reputation and throw in the face of his critics in the Knesset.

124
Joe Bacon ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:12:42pm

‘Her goose failed to lay the egg’: Judge delivers brutal takedown to Kari Lake

Failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake lost in court again this week, but the judge’s message this time was a brutal takedown.

Arizona elections reporter Jen Fifield explained on her “AZ Law” site that Lake sought to get ballot envelopes from the Maricopa County elections office as part of her ongoing lawsuit claiming the 2020 election was fraudulent. Lake believes that the envelopes have records containing a voter’s signature” and they could be used to verify mail-in ballots.

The 12-page ruling says, among other things, that Lake’s ongoing lawsuits are like the greed in the fable “The Goose that Laid the Golden Egg.”

“Ms. Lake regards the electoral process much like the villagers in the famous fable regarding the goose that laid the golden egg, except that her goose failed to lay the egg she expected,” the decision says.

“She insists that something must have gone wrong. If only she could cut open the electoral process and examine each of its 1.3 million pieces, she says, she would be able to figure out what happened and show that the prize has been there waiting for her all along.

“And even if she doesn’t find what she’s looking for, she suggests, the act of disassembly will strengthen everyone’s confidence that the machinery produces reliable outcomes. We will know it lays the right eggs.”

At its core, democratic self-governance demands that the votes be counted whether or not it is the “egg” desired, she said.

“But it is about much more than that,” the judge continued.

“At the hearing, one of the citizen witnesses who got a visit from the election skeptics took a crack at expressing what it means to her. She shared that her father, a Second World War veteran, had ‘always instilled in my sister and I the importance … the value of living in this country, of living in a democracy, of having the opportunity and the responsibility to vote, to believe that our vote counted.’ ‘I have always believed voting is a highly symbolic and reverent act, that it involves thoughtfulness and, in fact, privacy, I don’t share information about who I vote for.1 … I keep it an important part of my life.’”

rawstory.com

125
retired cynic  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:13:14pm

re: #122 silverdolphin

I had it for about six weeks back in high school. Missed a lot of school.

126
Dr Lizardo  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:14:44pm

IDF resumes combat against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Full IDF statement: IDF: Hamas violated the operational pause, and in addition, fired toward Israeli territory.

The IDF has resumed combat against the Hamas terrorist organization in the Gaza Strip.


127
Joe Bacon ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:15:49pm

re: #122 silverdolphin

Also called Walking penumonia, this is not a nice disease at all. I had it and it took almost a month to resolve. Antibiotics do not realy work.I had a tremendous, dry cough (usually diagnostic) that bent me over. Yes, these were not polite little coughs, AHEM. They were gut-wrencing, bent over, hacking lungs up. Really disrupted meetings. I do not to ever have this again.

I had it twice first December 1981 and then a relapse in October of 1982. Both times Dr prescribed Vibratabs for 10 days to clear it but damn it left me weak! Would NOT wish it on anyone!

128
jaunte  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:17:35pm

@pwnallthethings.bsky.social

It is just past 07:00 now in Israel/Gaza.

We have *not* had a confirmation from Qatar that the truce has been extended.

There has been a report of a rocket launch from inside Gaza, there are now sirens, and it appears the truce has ended

129
retired cynic  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:18:32pm

Darn in. So much for wonderful auroras tonight. Not only is it totally socked in with clouds, but the clouds are leaking on us.

It would have been nice to have seen some fancy colorworks!

130
sizzzzlerz  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:22:11pm

re: #129 retired cynic

Darn in. So much for wonderful auroras tonight. Not only is it totally socked in with clouds, but the clouds are leaking on us.

It would have been nice to have seen some fancy colorworks!

The sky gods are tricky bastards, aren’t they. They totally screwed me over during the October eclipse when the sky clouded up in the middle of the desert in nevada.

131
darthstar  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:45:57pm

Last time I was in this town with my folks…10 years ago…miss you, dad.

132
darthstar  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:47:17pm

re: #131 darthstar

Last time I was in this town with my folks…10 years ago…miss you, dad.

[Embedded content]

My wife with my mom who rocked the devil horns.

133
darthstar  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:49:54pm

We’re not staying at the Aria (mom’s favorite place), but the Vdara next door (no casino). Mom knows the names of the people who monitor the high roller slot rooms at Aria by name, and they her. No, I didn’t tell her I was coming down here.

134
silverdolphin  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:50:42pm

We were talking about the Pogues because of the death of their lead singer. Made me watch this again, the best and sadest modern Christmas song, IMHO. No treacley stuff here. It details the rise and fall of a relationship over several Christmases.

Fairytale of New York (feat. Kirsty MacColl) [Top of The Pops Dec 1987]

135
darthstar  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:51:01pm

fedi.astrid.tech

136
darthstar  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:51:20pm

re: #135 darthstar

Shit…catGPT doesn’t embed.

137
darthstar  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:52:13pm

Mastodon

138
Captain Ron  Nov 30, 2023 • 9:54:46pm

139
Captain Ron  Nov 30, 2023 • 10:07:31pm

Judging by the audio to the live video of the Gaza border, jets are flying but drones are not yet audible. 25mm and tank fire is pretty consistent and light to moderate so far. Now hearing AK automatic weapons fire.

140
Captain Ron  Nov 30, 2023 • 10:31:59pm

141
Joe Bacon ✅  Nov 30, 2023 • 10:49:53pm

Need some classic Don Martin to get me laughing…

142
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 12:47:05am

COP 28 opened in Dubai yesterday, but one will hardly notice that in US media outlets.

That the COP is happening in the world’s leading oil producing region is an irony not lost on many.

Lots of stories on climate change but on the whole they get little attention.

I come across many videos on small channels on Youtube that want to discuss the climate, but their videos get few views, outside of a handful of channels that can garner at least a few tens of thousands of view.

An SBS story from a few days ago:

Italy’s top climatologist has urgent warning for the world as glaciers vanish | SBS News

..

In it the Italian climatologist is reported as having given up debunking AGW deniers in Italy, including in the government.

Most of the attempts to cover climate change fail at one really, really big point: why should people care about what happens after they die?

And this really exposes one of the species-wide weaknesses we have: there isn’t really an urge to act upon a future that is past one’s own productive lifetime.

And that is what haunts climate change activists. No matter what noise they can make, without address this problem of the lack-of-immediacy there simply is not the will to do what is necessary.

So weather events get big pushes on media to drive home the point… but such things don’t really work, I propose.

It’s an odd thing, I suppose. In some ways I think trying to be too proactive is actively selected against, as far as a species is concerned. Evolution stacks the cards to reproduce today, raise the next generation, and then repeat ad nauseum.

Trying something like a multi-generational optimization strategy is just not how living organisms evolved.

143
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 12:55:07am
For the United Nations Climate Change Conference, known this year as COP28, the stakes are high — and so is the controversy, given that the oil-rich United Arab Emirates is the host.

Nations kicked off the two-week proceedings with an immediate achievement, approving the blueprint for a fund that would provide money to vulnerable nations hit hardest by climate change. But it remains to be seen whether wealthier countries, which are not mandated to contribute, will supply the sums that would make the fund meaningful.

Key updates:

Historic ‘loss and damage’ fund approved for nations harmed by climate change

COP28 President Al Jaber makes case for oil and gas

When the president of the meeting is pro-oil and gas, you know you’ve lost the war.

144
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 12:58:08am

COP28 President Al Jaber makes case for oil and gas

In his opening address, Al Jaber made an overt case — highly unusual for a COP leader — that fossil fuel companies can “lead the way” in the global energy transition, and that others can “follow and catch up.” Al Jaber said he would work to “ensure the inclusion of the role of fossil fuels.”

145
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 1:17:26am

Here’s a presentation (there are many at this COP) that will not play well in the US:

Why G77/SIDS should address meat overconsumption in OECD/China, asking for CO2-meat taxes for the Loss & Damage Fund

I am unable to imagine an American culture that gives up on meat.

146
No Malarkey!  Dec 1, 2023 • 1:28:54am

re: #61 Belafon

I love that he’s showing them how weak they are.

Yep, the problem for the GOP expelling Santos for being a lying crook is that their entire caucus are lying crooks.

147
No Malarkey!  Dec 1, 2023 • 1:32:08am

re: #65 Charles Johnson

Yikes. This looks really bad.

Israel Knew Hamas’s Attack Plan Over a Year Ago - The New York Times

Piled on top of the fact that Bibi was supporting and subsidizing Hamas for years to keep Palestinians divided and prevent a two state solution while Israel engages in the de facto annexation of the West Bank, I hope it puts an end to his sorry political career.

148
No Malarkey!  Dec 1, 2023 • 1:38:14am

re: #80 jeffreyw

[Embedded content]

Oh yeah, definitely watching that on the Imax screen!

149
No Malarkey!  Dec 1, 2023 • 1:44:31am

re: #97 jaunte

Why are Newsome and DeSantis putting on this show?

Gets them both attention in case something happens to the geriatrics who are the presumptive nominees of their parties. And I say that with all due respect for President Biden, who has done a great job and deserves to be reelected, and all due scorn for Trump, who deserves to die alone and penniless in prison.

150
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 2:05:00am

re: #149 No Malarkey!

DeSantis and Newsom are certainly preparing themselves for the 2028 election.

151
JC1  Dec 1, 2023 • 2:11:02am

re: #54 IngisKahn

Don’t worry. Elon thinks motorcycles are scary and refuses to make one.

He’s not wrong. By far the deadliest common mode of transportation, isn’t it?

152
No Malarkey!  Dec 1, 2023 • 2:16:23am

re: #150 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

DeSantis and Newsom are certainly preparing themselves for the 2028 election.

I think DeSantis’ career will have aged like rotting fish by 2028. He took his shot and blew it.

153
JC1  Dec 1, 2023 • 2:19:44am

re: #121 Romantic Heretic

My wife and I consider this ‘our song’.

[Embedded content]

Great song, but the inspiration behind it is hella sad…
en.m.wikipedia.org

“
Although structured as a love song, “Dance Me to the End Of Love” was in fact inspired by the Holocaust. In a 1995 radio interview, Cohen said of the song:[1][2]

‘it’s curious how songs begin because the origin of the song, every song, has a kind of grain or seed that somebody hands you or the world hands you and that’s why the process is so mysterious about writing a song. But that came from just hearing or reading or knowing that in the death camps, beside the crematoria, in certain of the death camps, a string quartet[3] was pressed into performance while this horror was going on, those were the people whose fate was this horror also. And they would be playing classical music while their fellow prisoners were being killed and burnt. So, that music, “Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin,” meaning the beauty thereof being the consummation of life, the end of this existence and of the passionate element in that consummation. But, it is the same language that we use for surrender to the beloved, so that the song — it’s not important that anybody knows the genesis of it, because if the language comes from that passionate resource, it will be able to embrace all passionate activity.
“

154
JC1  Dec 1, 2023 • 2:21:46am

re: #133 darthstar

We’re not staying at the Aria (mom’s favorite place), but the Vdara next door (no casino). Mom knows the names of the people who monitor the high roller slot rooms at Aria by name, and they her. No, I didn’t tell her I was coming down here.

These 2 aren’t part of your group, are they?

155
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 2:40:44am

Watch the COP ceremonial opening live:

unfccc.int

..

156
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 2:42:14am

Still pushing the hopium about the Paris accord.

And that limiting warming to 1.5C is still possible.

Both are just false.

But politicians rarely can speak the truth in public.

157
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 3:30:18am

re: #156 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

We need to start rethinking how to cope with a new climate. Redesigning (or even relocating) cities and agriculture for starters.

158
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 3:45:21am

re: #157 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

The US isn’t going to have the political will to make the big changes until Miami and New Orleans are underwater.

Which is about 100 years away, though enough hurricanes may force the issue earlier.

159
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 3:46:44am

re: #158 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

The US isn’t going to have the political will to make the big changes until Miami and New Orleans are underwater.

Which is about 100 years away, though enough hurricanes may force the issue earlier.

A couple of major Midwestern crop failures would also facilitate the process…

160
Nerdy Fish  Dec 1, 2023 • 3:48:39am

Meh. It’s a word. I messed up a guess, so that’s on me.

Click to Reveal

Wordle 895 4/6*

⬛🟨🟨⬛🟨
🟩🟨🟨⬛⬛
🟩🟩⬛🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

161
Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:00:06am

Lithuanian President just mentioned Russia’s “ecocide” against Ukraine.

Good for him. Someone who actually spoke to a specific problem that most politicians avoid at these meetings.

162
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:05:57am

The Cold War left one unique ecological relic: the former inter-German border turned into a nature preserve as it was left untouched for decades. Critters and flora survived and flourished there that were wiped out by agriculture and human settlement on either side of the border.

163
Shropshire Slasher  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:07:29am

Two people in my family have graduated from this college. Chalk this one to the law of unintended consequences. With the passage of the Excelsior Scholarship, little colleges like these can’t compete with free.

After 103 years, The College of Saint Rose is closing its doors.

The school’s Board of Trustees voted Thursday to close at the end of the academic year after the May 11 graduation. Saint Rose interim President Marcia White confirmed the decision in a letter to the campus community Thursday evening.

timesunion.com

Hat tip to Lawhawk who posted a story about this the other day when the local news stations weren’t reporting on it, and I couldn’t find anything on google because I misremembered and tried googling Siena closing.

164
Dr Lizardo  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:20:02am
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has blown up a second train in two days on the Baikal-Amur railway line deep inside Russia, sources have told Kyiv Post.

A source in Ukraine’s military leadership said it was a carefully planned operation that took advantage of the chaos caused by a strike a day previously in the Severomuysky Tunnel.

“The Russians were twice trapped by the SBU — another fuel train exploded on the Baikal-Amur railway line,” the source said.

In order to circumvent the damage caused by the first attack, Russian trains began using another route that passes through the “Chortov Most” (“Devil’s Bridge”), a semicircular viaduct on the Northern Bypass of the Baikal-Amur line.

“This is precisely what the SBU was counting on: when the train was passing over this 35-meter high bridge, the explosive devices embedded in it went off,” the source said.

kyivpost.com

165
Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:30:47am

Birb, here

Click to Reveal

Wordle 895 3/6

⬛⬛⬛🟨🟨
⬛🟨🟨🟩⬛
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

166
Dr Lizardo  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:38:02am

re: #164 Dr Lizardo

This is a photo of Chortov Most (Devil’s Bridge) that the Ukrainians hit.

Apparently, traffic on the Baikal-Amur line, which is the main rail link between Russia and China, has come to a complete halt. It’s gonna take the Russians awhile to get that up and running again, especially given the season - and that hugely remote area.

Good work.

167
Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:41:18am

re: #166 Dr Lizardo

Simmering, something, logistics are how an army works.

168
Mike Lamb  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:43:35am

re: #59 🐈 Crush White Nationalism 🐈

That’s a nice-looking vehicle.

[Embedded content]

Looks like something out of Ace and Gary: The Ambiguously Gay Duo.

169
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:47:14am

SBU to Putin: “Wham BAM, thank you ma’am!”

170
Dr Lizardo  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:48:55am

re: #167 Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅

Simmering, something, logistics are how an army works.

Not just that, but it exposes the vulnerability of those Siberian gas pipelines. And I’m sure it makes Xi Jinping a bit nervous - after all, he’d be thinking he could get around any naval blockade with materiel and most importantly, natural gas deliveries to provide much-needed energy.

This action shows just how exposed those pipelines are - thousands of kilometers, unguarded….and easily sabotaged.

Off to work myself. Back later.

171
Mike Lamb  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:52:49am

re: #152 No Malarkey!

I think DeSantis’ career will have aged like rotting fish by 2028. He took his shot and blew it.

Just wish his humiliatuon would hurt his standing in Florida. But otherwise, yes, he isn’t recovering from this absent a lobotomy.

172
Decatur Deb  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:56:54am

re: #168 Mike Lamb

Looks like something out of Ace and Gary: The Ambiguously Gay Duo.

Unambiguously straight. Eva, in green, is the builder/driver. Her husband is the other half of the design team.

173
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:57:49am

re: #171 Mike Lamb

Just wish his humiliatuon would hurt his standing in Florida. But otherwise, yes, he isn’t recovering from this absent a lobotomy.

Isn’t he term limited at this point anyway?

174
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 4:58:17am

re: #172 Decatur Deb

Unambiguously straight. Eva, in green, is the builder/driver. Her husband is the other half of the design team.

aha, he provides the necessary thrust

175
Nerdy Fish  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:00:16am

re: #173 Eclectic Cyborg

Isn’t he term limited at this point anyway?

Yes, which is why he’s running for President. I don’t know if he was hoping to pull a Mike Pence and missed, or if he genuinely thought that he had a shot at dethroning the man who would be king, but either way, his political career is currently over.

176
Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:03:26am

re: #175 Nerdy Fish

Senate, next.

177
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:03:59am

Mornin’, gang.

178
Decatur Deb  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:04:35am

re: #174 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

aha, he provides the necessary thrust

Eva Hakansson out of Nomex, on top of their new trike.

179
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:07:43am

re: #178 Decatur Deb

Eva Hakansson out of Nomex, on top of their new trike.

So he provides the necessary thrust…

…and she likes it on top

180
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:09:01am

re: #176 Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅

Senate, next.

He’s such an embarrassment that even with the gerrymandering and voter suppression I don’t think he could win another state-wide election. He got in under Trump’s coattails in the first place, and barely. I doubt he’d survive a solid Republican primary challenge.

As for the Newsom debate, only one of those two is a 2028 hopeful and it’s not DeSantis. His high pitched whine and inability to take criticism without flinching is going to be so stark next to Newsom, who has nothing to lose with this skit, that even his small donors will flock to Haley. The GOP got to know him, and they really really don’t like him.

181
Nerdy Fish  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:10:21am

re: #176 Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅

Senate, next.

Except that election in Florida isn’t until 2026, so he’s got 2 years to sit and cool his heels.

182
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:13:12am

re: #77 Vicious Babushka

Hubris.

Does not excuse Hamas, though. Fuck them forever.

Not just hubris, but when combined with the intel that Israel received from the Egyptians and others about an imminent attack, the failure is absolutely on the heads of Mossad, Shin Bet, and Bibi. They failed and should be gone - and Bibi prosecuted for his criminal conduct before, during, and after the war.

183
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:13:26am

re: #181 Nerdy Fish

Except that election in Florida isn’t until 2026, so he’s got 2 years to sit and cool his heels.

If DeSantis can manage to keep a low profile and try not to say or do anything too embarrassing then he will stand out among his party full of clowns, embezzlers, pedophiles, wife-beaters and general fuckups.

184
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:16:12am

OT. Good juju appreciated.

WVY4S213MVMxNnQySTRvQkticjZrTVZ6Wm51b1FwMGtwV1JjR3NxSU5pallSWXlPRTRscnliVnVWTHBBdlE5cmk1WDFlUG95a09BL0dDTVlyb1Z1bGhNUm9NMGVNTVN5RWxKbTdlcUZYNTN2ZHdYSDNMOUlpcDM5eTRZam9jSVJsMmlIUWhCNE00NTBCTlJ4OWV3ejd4Mm9tblc0MDRLMjdTK0ZERitNdXR2S3UvMEhydXlFcFpna0JYaUZ6d0dhZW5sdm9BT3o3Z203U2FCZTh0S3NFU0lJeUcvUnpXZGFhV0NDNTFoWEcrUzRrM3JkZE5pT3JrMU1LTFpFbFF0bWJHNWY1SEEvcnRJeHl5cHlHbityczlxc1YvbUZUZ0VVcllETXZEYmRldm89OjpVoBFiLIIv9GcFzMcitvRD

185
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:16:42am

re: #163 Shropshire Slasher

CSR was in deep trouble well before the Excelsior Scholarships. They were not making headway on their accreditation problems that began well before the pandemic caused enrollment to drop.

The school’s two most important programs are the nursing and teaching curriculums, and that’s a loss that will be felt hard across the region and beyond. I still think the reason the school collapsed was because they spent millions on buying up speculative properties around the campus, and didn’t have revenue to cover. That’s ultimately what led to the downfall.

186
Patricia Kayden  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:17:18am

187
Michele: Out of the closet, Into the fire  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:17:47am

{{EC}}

188
Nerdy Fish  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:18:04am

re: #183 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

If he can manage to keep a low profile and try not to say or do anything too embarrassing then he will stand out among his party full of clowns, embezzlers, pedophiles, wife-beaters and general fuckups.

The problem is, he’s kind of shot his wad. He’s in the national conversation now (not necessarily in a good way, but that’s not the point). He’s making a play for today; if he has to sit quietly for 2 years, by the time he runs for the Senate, he’ll be derided as a has-been. I’m sure he’ll still find ways to be a nationwide disgrace, but he’ll be out of the political conversation.

189
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:18:23am

re: #186 Patricia Kayden

Musk as Cohagen.

190
Nerdy Fish  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:18:27am

re: #184 Eclectic Cyborg

{{{EC}}}

191
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:25:52am

re: #180 darthstar

Holy shit it happened last night? DKos has the clips. Newsom destroyed him. I’ll bet Casey fantasized about Gavin last night.

dailykos.com

192
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:27:53am

re: #188 Nerdy Fish

I’m sure [DeSantis will] still find ways to be a nationwide disgrace, but he’ll be out of the political conversation.

He will be too stupid and oblivious to notice.

193
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:28:58am

re: #184 Eclectic Cyborg

cjJIWGs4elprempWOXgrVm5yMjJnU3NFSGhMZGpPNnpjZmJpOHAveGpFNi9xZGRlYW9TbG1HOG1UUDF2aVMwYjMwV1Vrby9jLzBDQkcyVlVEcDMzMTJxYk9NUXArcUIrQ2NRWWs1TjFRTjZ3MjY0REJwWENnT1I5T05vUXBFZDM3bFBIaDAwbWdsN0Y5WERVM2pEWkZsNUtSVVJKMFNxSjlOY0N0cGpkWUtnPTo6HXqKxzRnzfD0busl5gdpKA==

194
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:29:54am

re: #192 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

He will be too stupid to notice.

Nikki will point it out to him. And the raft of resignations on his campaign staff before Xmas will be something to watch.

195
Decatur Deb  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:31:18am

re: #179 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Sometimes a trike is just a trike.

196
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:32:01am

re: #195 Decatur Deb

Sometimes a trike is just a trike.

Freudian symbol for a three-way?

197
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:38:58am

re: #196 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Freudian symbol for a three-way?

There’s been a bit of innuendo in this thread this morning, and I approve, but I would like to say one thing about that e-trike…

IT LOOKS LIKE A GIANT FUCKING DILDO

…I mean, they could sell latex models of that thing on their website.

198
GlutenFreeJesus  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:40:50am

re: #28 DodgerFan1988

[Embedded content]

Huge if true.

I said after it happened, there’s no way they didn’t know. Bibi let it happen so he could level Gaza.

199
Decatur Deb  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:43:31am

re: #197 darthstar

Horni soit qui mal y pense

200
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:43:35am

Worth a click through to see the video of how it works.

Mastodon

201
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:46:29am

re: #198 GlutenFreeJesus

I said after it happened, there’s no way they didn’t know. Bibi let it happen so he could level Gaza.

I believe it’s a crime in Israel to conspire against Jews with terrorists. There’s already been criticism that Israel’s defenses were poorly positioned for the attack. If that turns out to be documented by recent orders, Bibi could face a little more than mild criticism.

202
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:49:57am

I was going to look for more details on the Russian tunnel attack by the SBU and came across this heartwarming story…

Mastodon

203
GlutenFreeJesus  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:50:07am

re: #201 darthstar

I don’t think he conspired against as much as just let it happen. But I’m sure the argument could be made.

204
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:53:10am

re: #203 GlutenFreeJesus

I don’t think he conspired against as much as just let it happen. But I’m sure the argument could be made.

He knew, and did nothing.
He knew, and let it happen.
He knew, and his policies enabled IDF cohesion to collapse due to the judicial overhaul bill that most Israelis opposed.
He knew, and his policies enabled Hamas to gain advantages.
He knew, and his actions after the attack have caused tremendous harm to Israel.
He knew, and his actions before the attack caused tremendous damage to Israel.

There is no scenario where Bibi’s conduct and actions are not a root cause (not the root cause) of the Hamas attack. He was fine with it happening, and his focus on enabling West Bank Israeli extremists has only made it worse.

205
Shropshire Slasher  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:53:35am

re: #202 darthstar

I was going to look for more details on the Russian tunnel attack by the SBU and came across this heartwarming story…

[Embedded content]

India tunnel collapse: First trapped worker rescued from Himalaya tunnel

206
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:54:09am

Mastodon

207
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 5:58:52am

re: #197 darthstar

Family Guy | Peter’s new car

208
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:03:30am

re: #205 Shropshire Slasher

India has seen a number of major construction accidents in their infrastructure projects in the past couple of years. Besides this tunnel collapse, there was a series of bridge collapses, including one bridge that collapsed twice at two different phases of construction and with a significant death toll.

The country is rushing to build infrastructure, and deaths are acceptable.

209
Shropshire Slasher  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:05:52am

No drones were hurt in the making of this video.

Ukrainian drones drop bombs on Russian vehicles on the frontlines

210
Patricia Kayden  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:06:49am

re: #184 Eclectic Cyborg

Yy9tYmVPT1h1YW9jWU00N01yclgzajV5U1FBRjl5NTQyM2ZNNWd5NXNVMWxhd1ZuVGdkQzdGSkE0ejFSUS9xTTo6eGg2dznY+DE/sh2TmG33Gw==

211
Shropshire Slasher  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:07:48am

re: #208 lawhawk

Yeah but they can fix anything!!

How to Make Truck Rim Plate From Old Ships Sheets And Repair Broken Rim

212
Patricia Kayden  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:10:00am

213
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:10:03am

This dude just walked into the waiting room at the hospital:

I bet he’s a ton of fun at parties. 🙄

214
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:12:42am

re: #213 Eclectic Cyborg

I hope your wife’s surgery go off without any problems and she has a speedy recovery. And as to that guy with that t-shirt pay attention to your book/newspaper (or whatever you brought with you).

215
dharmamark  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:12:56am

The drink that refreshes!

216
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:14:07am

re: #213 Eclectic Cyborg

This dude just walked into the waiting room at the hospital:

I bet he’s a ton of fun at parties. 🙄

Thoughts and prayers indeed

217
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:16:18am

re: #215 dharmamark

The drink that refreshes!

Is Zima still a thing?

218
Shropshire Slasher  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:18:44am

re: #217 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Is Zima still a thing?

I got heartburn reading your comment.

219
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:19:15am

The search for neutrinos.

The ghost particle: searching for the mysterious neutrino - with James Riordon

220
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:23:03am

I wouldn’t want to be a train in Siberia these days…
c.im

Ah…another non-renderer. Ukraine blows up second Russian train with fuel and weapons.

221
BeachDem  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:23:15am

re: #215 dharmamark

The drink that refreshes!

I remember it well. We’d fill a pitcher then gather around with straws and on the count of three DRINK. It was quite refreshing

222
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:25:51am

re: #220 darthstar

I wouldn’t want to be a train in Siberia these days…
c.im

Ah…another non-renderer. Ukraine blows up second Russian train with fuel and weapons.

Stage two of a planned attack, apparently. Slava Ukraini.

In order to maintain train traffic, Russian authorities initiated a detour route via the Devil’s Bridge, also located in Buryatia, precisely as anticipated by the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). As the train traversed this elevated 35-meter bridge, the concealed explosive devices were triggered, the source told Ukrainska Pravda.

223
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:28:01am

Purty place to burn a train.

224
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:29:22am

re: #184 Eclectic Cyborg

K09haTJPUXlaUWlMT1JLUXNnNUtUbTdSeW9pamJjWU5TV3hOdHVoNlBtTm1xR0xsY1hnMHdEVThEU2xJTGd5NDo6tNob5LbuIHRQUwZV27RSRQ==

225
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:34:46am

re: #218 Shropshire Slasher

I got heartburn reading your comment.

I just remember that I was visiting the ‘States in the early 90’s when ZIma was being launched and having one of those you-can-never-go-back-home moments…

226
Hecuba's daughter  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:35:27am

re: #160 Nerdy Fish

Meh. It’s a word. I messed up a guess, so that’s on me.

[Embedded content]

Birbie here!

Click to Reveal

Wordle 895 3/6

⬜🟩⬜⬜🟨
⬜⬜⬜🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Group: 3,3,4,4

227
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:37:09am

The party of Law & Order folks!

Trump supporters want criminal charges against cops who protected congressmembers from rioters

alternet.org

228
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:37:28am

Shit..I’ve absconded with two eagles in a row.
Wordle 895 2/6

🟩⬜🟩🟩🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

229
A Cranky One  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:39:31am

230
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:41:23am

re: #229 A Cranky One

There are some people who would buy it.

231
Hecuba's daughter  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:42:16am

re: #180 darthstar

He’s such an embarrassment that even with the gerrymandering and voter suppression I don’t think he could win another state-wide election. He got in under Trump’s coattails in the first place, and barely. I doubt he’d survive a solid Republican primary challenge.

As for the Newsom debate, only one of those two is a 2028 hopeful and it’s not DeSantis. His high pitched whine and inability to take criticism without flinching is going to be so stark next to Newsom, who has nothing to lose with this skit, that even his small donors will flock to Haley. The GOP got to know him, and they really really don’t like him.

Gerrymandering doesn’t affect the outcome of statewide races, but voter suppression certainly does. It would be delightful if his career were permanently over and we never had to hear from him again. But then that’s true of 95% of the members of the GOP.

232
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:45:14am

Reports suggest truce in Gaza has collapsed and dozens are reportedly dead after Hamas renewed violence and Israel has retaliated.

233
A Cranky One  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:48:04am

234
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:49:04am

People increasingly think it’s over. It’s a dumpster fire.”

— A person close to Gov. Ron DeSantis (R), quoted by the Washington Post, on his presidential campaign.

Happy Friday!!

235
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:49:19am

re: #233 A Cranky One

lol.

236
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:50:29am

Tiger Beat On The Potomac continues with their endless Trump bias.

politico.com

Trump’s campaign thinks it’s getting a surprise assist from Dean Phillips

Joe Biden’s primary opponent is making the ex-president’s electability argument for him.

237
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:51:34am

re: #234 Dangerman

Things that are a dumpster fire:

The GOP presidential field is a standard bus on fire.
The Trump campaign is a dumpster fire that the base thinks is a Texas Tech bonfire to celebrate, when it’s really a disaster already in progress.
The individual campaigns are garbage can fires, because none of them add up to the dumpster fire or the bus on fire.

238
A Cranky One  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:52:07am

239
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 6:59:15am

I do not know who did it but all I have to say is thank you for putting me at 84,000 Karma. Tonight there will be a buffet. Champagne will served at 4 PM.

240
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:01:20am

re: #232 lawhawk

Reports suggest truce in Gaza has collapsed and dozens are reportedly dead after Hamas renewed violence and Israel has retaliated.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Expect attacks at Chanukah observances this year.

241
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:02:12am

re: #240 Eclectic Cyborg

This doesn’t surprise me at all. Expect attacks at Chanukah observances this year.

What is the latest on the story reported earlier that London has banned a public Channukah display in order to “prevent violence”?

242
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:02:23am

re: #240 Eclectic Cyborg

I hope not but you are probably right.

243
jeffreyw  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:03:45am

Good morning!

244
Belafon  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:03:46am

Someone put this notice up on Nextdoor:

If you have an iPhone and have done the recent iOS 17 update. They have set a new feature call NameDrop to default to ON. This allows the sharing of contact info just by bringing your phones close together.

To shut this off go to Settings, General, AirDrop, Bringing Devices Together.

245
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:04:39am

re: #244 Belafon

I already did.

246
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:04:56am

re: #176 Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅

Senate, next.

Desantis has to wait till 2028.
He’ll need a job meantime

247
Belafon  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:05:02am

re: #243 jeffreyw

[Embedded content]

Good morning!

Every time I see this cartoon I think of the South Park episode where we find out we’re just entertainment for the rest of the universe.

248
steve_davis  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:05:20am

re: #209 Shropshire Slasher

No drones were hurt in the making of this video.

[Embedded content]

Video

that first one was painful to watch. “Let me just roll away from…I mean towards the….fuuuuuck……..”

249
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:05:56am

re: #247 Belafon

Every time I see this cartoon I think of the South Park episode where we find out we’re just entertainment for the rest of the universe.

We are the Truman Show of the the Universe

250
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:07:09am

” Like Speaker Mike Johnson, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) lists no checking or savings accounts on his financial disclosure form, prompting NewsChannel 5 in Nashville to ask where he obtained the $320,000 he told the FEC that he loaned to his 2022 campaign.”

newschannel5.com

251
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:09:23am

WaPo ping: Sandra Day O’Connor has died.

252
Shropshire Slasher  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:09:48am

I hate it when I print plan sheets on 11 x 17 and forget to change it back to 8 1/2 x 11.

253
wrenchwench  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:10:21am

Today’s lesson: Bias.

Mastodon

254
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:10:55am

re: #239 PhillyPretzel ✅

I do not know who did it but all I have to say is thank you for putting me at 84,000 Karma. Tonight there will be a buffet. Champagne will served at 4 PM.

Outstanding!

255
Yeah Sure WhatEVs  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:11:53am

re: #166 Dr Lizardo

This is a photo of Chortov Most (Devil’s Bridge) that the Ukrainians hit.

[Embedded content]

Apparently, traffic on the Baikal-Amur line, which is the main rail link between Russia and China, has come to a complete halt. It’s gonna take the Russians awhile to get that up and running again, especially given the season - and that hugely remote area.

Good work.

To bad it’s still standing. I was hoping for a gaping hole. 😁

256
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:12:39am

re: #255 Yeah Sure WhatEVs

To bad it’s still standing. I was hoping for a gaping hole. 😁

I assume that is a photo of it before the attack.

They are not likely to release one of after

257
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:14:56am

re: #255 Yeah Sure WhatEVs

To bad it’s still standing. I was hoping for a gaping hole. 😁

It’s covered with snow right now so that image isn’t current…neither is the one I posted upthread. Video of the fire looked like it was pretty wide spread below the tracks, so we’ll have to wait to see if cars derailed.

258
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:16:46am

re: #256 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

I assume that is a photo of it before the attack.

They are not likely to release one of after

Sunny day satellite photos will be available soon.

259
wrenchwench  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:17:57am

The usual four. Wordle 895 4/6*

Click to Reveal

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟨
🟩⬜🟨⬜🟨
🟩⬜🟨🟨🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

260
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:19:26am

Mastodon

261
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:20:15am

My morning skeets are here if you want to see them, Sandra Day O’Connor has passed, Burke Trial continues, Opinion piece against importing Hindu Nationalism, Another Christian RW terrorist pleads guilty, That forward from Speaker Johnson, Tom Tomorrow’s latest ‘toon, & Duke university explaining why they are dropping basecamp.

262
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:21:17am

also — XKCD has a youtube channel now

What if we aimed the Hubble Telescope at Earth?

263
A Cranky One  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:26:51am

264
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:28:09am

re: #263 A Cranky One

hmm. I do not want to know what is going through his mind.

265
Yeah Sure WhatEVs  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:31:48am

Awww. Sandra Day O’Connor passed away at 93.

RIP

266
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:32:23am

re: #262 Randall Gross

also — XKCD has a youtube channel now

When Hubble first went up, it had a problem that it was “nearsighted”. This was during the FIrst Iraqi War and my brother pointed out to my nephew (who worked for the CIA back then) that it would re really good at spying into Iraqi trenches.

The nephew could only respond “no comment!”

alas, the film tells us that it would not have been.

267
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:32:32am

Trump does not have immunity from civil lawsuits per the DC Circuit Court. We are still waiting for Judge Chutkan’s decision regarding absolute immunity from criminal charges.

BREAKING: A federal appeals court has ruled that Donald Trump can be sued for inciting the Jan. 6 crowd. He is not “immune” because he was president, the circuit rules. Details of the ruling to come soon.

For your reading pleasure…

268
Vicious Babushka  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:32:53am

re: #241 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

What is the latest on the story reported earlier that London has banned a public Channukah display in order to “prevent violence”?

They changed their minds & decided to allow the Menorah.

269
gocart mozart  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:33:01am

Sympathy For The Devil 4K - Film Clip: The Whoo-Whoo’s | ABKCO Films

270
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:34:21am

OT - Update on Ms. Cyborg:

YnI2eG84VisraFdNL1FocFN1cGhTWkR0YzI1L05CK0tkYzBWd0g2RGcwY1o1cUIvR2N6YVd3OEM4OU1xbXdrRzFKNWxNb3U1bTVkUDRvNFZxdndkQ3E1dEtTSVdueElvMVBmbXd2S2FrVWkxWWpQWFpHS2NzVjA5T2RwRXgzRkQ4TVVwbXNnYzdGeGNTUzRiRERkb2FVMExHWjIwTk9rVTl5aGhYWGhHUzRBSFRWVUdCS3R4dkRlVDhDN2xaaHVQUjdhYlNYa0JlTHhlM0RHUzBIVUFHQ0h0YlhUdEwyN3FWUkZNY2krZnRqSEd3RnBrY2lZMkxnVitiZnRGcEt5MS9HNi9va3N3VDRwbUVTdEx6U29jTWRNNVcwSittZkcwbFJWOWhJZTVuU1owZ1RjbW5RNi83MXZCT0hKNnN1YnM6OjYoa/YZfrK/5dws6qDccrg=

271
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:34:34am

re: #268 Vicious Babushka

They changed their minds & decided to allow the Menorah.

The Light wins again. Glad to hear that. Cannot let the bastards have the final word.

272
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:35:37am

re: #267 Joe Bacon ✅

i didnt realize that court employee family members were included in the gag order.

that means the judge’s wife is covered.

trump is screwed.

273
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:35:48am

re: #262 Randall Gross

We already have done this - it’s called the US Keyhole satellites (KH-11). The US NRO operates those spy satellites that have optical capabilities in the same fashion as the Hubble, and they’re optimized for visualizing terrestrial targets.

274
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:37:00am

re: #273 lawhawk

We already have done this - it’s called the US Keyhole satellites (KH-11). The US NRO operates those spy satellites that have optical capabilities in the same fashion as the Hubble, and they’re optimized for visualizing terrestrial targets.

Yeah, he covers mentions that in the video.

275
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:39:25am

Deutsche welle on offshore spaceports
dw.com

276
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:40:24am

re: #272 Dangerman

i didnt realize that court employee family members were included in the gag order.

that means the judge’s wife is covered.

trump is screwed.

I really hope Engoron throws him in jail. There is ample proof now other deterrents will not work.

277
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:40:32am

Israel Tells Civilians to leave parts of S Gaza as fighting resumes
bbc.com

278
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:43:00am

re: #276 Eclectic Cyborg

I really hope Engoron throws him in jail. There is ample proof now other deterrents will not work.

Then DJT can really play the Innocent VIctim of a Police State Witch Hunt card.

279
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:43:21am

Elliot Erwitt, photographer passes
bbc.com

280
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:46:50am

French Jews Fear they must hide Identities
spiegel.de

281
FFL (GOP Delenda Est)  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:47:05am

re: #273 lawhawk

We already have done this - it’s called the US Keyhole satellites (KH-11). The US NRO operates those spy satellites that have optical capabilities in the same fashion as the Hubble, and they’re optimized for visualizing terrestrial targets.

If there is clear sky and the satellite in place and at the right angle they can get very fine detail views of things.

Someone I graduated with worked for the NSA in the 1990s. Most of the stuff he worked with was highly classified and he would not talk about or mention. He did once say that he saw an unclassified photo a satellite took of a Bazooka Joe “comic”* and that it was legible.

I presume in the past 30 years there has been some improvements made to the systems involved.

* - An old (probably still around somewhere) candy brand that were individually wrapped pieces of “eh” quality bubblegum where a small comic was printed on wax paper and between the gum and the paper wrapper.

282
FFL (GOP Delenda Est)  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:48:56am

re: #278 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Then DJT can really play the Innocent VIctim of a Police State Witch Hunt card.

It’s going to get played anyways. And once it is played we find out how much the cult is willing to do about it. And once that subsides my bet and hope is that the judges stop playing paddy cake with him. A basis of law is that no one is above it.

283
Vicious Babushka  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:49:13am

Antisemitic vandals in Pittsburgh attack posters of Gaza hostages

Mastodon

284
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:49:40am

re: #278 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Then DJT can really play the Innocent VIctim of a Police State Witch Hunt card.

No doubt, but there has to be a line drawn eventually. Some Judge will have the be the first to order Trump jailed.

I do not envy that person, but I really believe this is something that needs to happen.

285
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:53:46am

bsky.app

286
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:53:53am

re: #284 Eclectic Cyborg

No doubt, but there has to be a line drawn eventually. Some Judge will have the be the first to order Trump jailed.

I do not envy that person, but I really believe this is something that needs to happen.

He is also illegally shunting money (up to $40) in funds from Trump Organization accounts to his private account that he is not supposed to be touching at all.

287
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:55:46am

re: #285 Randall Gross

Oh, so they find this behavior unacceptable when THEY’RE the ones being swindled?

Got it.

/

288
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:57:30am

re: #287 Eclectic Cyborg

Oh, so they find this behavior unacceptable when THEY’RE the ones being swindled?

Got it.

/

Exactly, and they aren’t going to say anything about the Trump shuffle recently revealed.

289
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:57:47am

re: #283 Vicious Babushka

Antisemitic vandals in Pittsburgh attack posters of Gaza hostages

[Embedded content]

Even more depressing are the QAssholes demanding that the Tree Of Life killer be released from prison because…”he was framed”…

Sick, sick freaks.

290
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:57:54am

Turned on the TV with 30 seconds to spare…Santos is getting expelled.

291
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:58:05am

re: #283 Vicious Babushka

boosted

292
Jay C  Dec 1, 2023 • 7:58:23am

re: #270 Eclectic Cyborg
re: #285 Randall Gross

[Embedded content]

bsky.app

I guess that explains some of Max’s bile he directed at Mendacious George in Congress yesterday….

293
BeachDem  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:00:00am

the first non-glowing Nikki story I’ve read in a while:

Supposed ‘moderates’ like Nikki Haley would blow up government, too

It’s tempting to believe most Republican presidential candidates — including the latest media darling, former ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley — are more “moderate” than front-runner Donald Trump. And if your low-bar definition of “moderate” is “unlikely to foment an insurrection,” then sure.

But when it comes to how they’d actually govern, many of their policy proposals are essentially a warmed-over Trump agenda. Among them: plans to dismantle the federal government’s basic functions and abilities to serve regular Americans.

Haley…has pledged to impose a “term limit” on all civil servants, so that every public worker would be fired after a maximum of five years. Not just elected officials in Congress or the Senate. Everyone in federal government. This sounds like a clever idea until you think about it for, oh, two seconds.

Gift link
wapo.st

294
Vicious Babushka  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:00:42am

Mastodon

295
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:03:27am

Gov. Hochul will call a special election to fill the seat.

It narrows the GOP majority, which means even fewer extremists in the GOP can shut things down in a snit.

296
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:04:26am

Mastodon

297
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:04:52am

bsky.app

298
Nerdy Fish  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:05:34am

re: #295 lawhawk

[Embedded content]

Gov. Hochul will call a special election to fill the seat.

It narrows the GOP majority, which means even fewer extremists in the GOP can shut things down in a snit.

All it took was a dozen federal charges and an ethics investigation - by his own (themselves corrupt) party members, mind you - that hinted at even more. Or as Republicans call it, Tuesday.

299
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:07:17am

re: #298 Nerdy Fish

All it took was a dozen federal charges and an ethics investigation - by his own (themselves corrupt) party members, mind you - that hinted at even more. Or as Republicans call it, Tuesday.

32 federal charges. Expect him to take a plea deal and try to offer his resignation from Congress in lieu of jail time.

300
calochortus  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:08:02am

re: #299 darthstar

32 federal charges. Expect him to take a plea deal and try to offer his resignation from Congress in lieu of jail time.

Isn’t it a little late to resign?

301
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:08:25am

Majority of GOPers were fine with Santos remaining in Congress. 2 Democrats voted against expulsion. I’m waiting for the roll call to see who voted and why, because I’m curious as to their reasoning.

I know that before the ethics committee issued their findings, Raskin and a few others wanted the process to play out and for the evidence to be presented from the committee showing how and why Santos should be gone.

This is a political move, not a criminal one (that’s what the felony counts he’s facing and why he’s indicted for multiple felonies).

Were the holdouts waiting for a criminal trial outcome? Or did they put party over nation (as the GOP does these days, since this is likely a precursor to the Trump felony convictions and the GOP support for Trump regardless of whatever crimes he’s done).

302
No Malarkey!  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:09:02am
303
Nerdy Fish  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:09:53am

re: #300 calochortus

Isn’t it a little late to resign?

I was going to say, I believe that ship has now sailed.

304
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:10:54am

Roll Call 691 is up - Williams and Scott opposed as the two Democrats.

—— ANSWERED “PRESENT” 2 —-

Green, Al (TX)
Jackson (IL)

—— NOT VOTING 8 —-

Crawford
Jackson Lee
Johnson (OH)
Kelly (PA)
McCarthy
Ocasio-Cortez
Phillips
Rodgers (WA)

305
calochortus  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:11:16am

re: #303 Nerdy Fish

I was going to say, I believe that ship has now sailed.

Maybe he’ll offer to go without lying down on the floor of the House and having a tantrum?

306
Eventual Carrion  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:11:36am

re: #11 Eclectic Cyborg

Go on, Republicans. Ban TikTok. That will REALLY get out the youth vote.

A well regulated freedom of speech

307
Belafon  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:13:09am

re: #296 darthstar

[Embedded content]

I figured she would be the next Republican nominee for the office.

308
Brother Holy Cruise Missile of Mild Acceptance  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:14:35am

Oh Hi.

309
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:15:33am

re: #300 calochortus

Isn’t it a little late to resign?

They didn’t expel his alter ego.

310
A Cranky One  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:15:45am
311
Eventual Carrion  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:15:58am

re: #14 jaunte

@thomaszimmer.bsky.social

[Embedded content]

Must be nice to be above the law.

312
Jay C  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:16:40am

re: #309 darthstar

They didn’t expel his alter ego.

Oh, you mean “Congressman Anthony Devolder”?
(I’m sure George had a sign ready to put up outside his office just in case)

313
sizzzzlerz  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:17:21am

There was a time when a fraud like Santos wouldn’t have even made it past the primary. Not today. He not only wins the seat but his party waffles on whether or not he should be expelled. They refuse to get rid of him the first time, only to realize what a liability he is. Then they take action. Pardon me if I don’t seem impressed with their ‘ethics’.

314
Belafon  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:18:23am

re: #302 No Malarkey!

I think she failed as a Justice on a few things, including:

Interfering in the 2000 election even though I suspect Bush would have won anyway.

The disastrous concept of vertical monopolies, where the court allowed gas producers to force gas stations to sell gas at their price and not one set by the station.

315
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:19:15am

Fresh from the request line, this one goes out to Mr. George Santos!

Ray Charles - Hit The Road Jack (Official Lyrics Video)

316
Belafon  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:19:53am

re: #310 A Cranky One

I’ve got three or four of those. That’s what parchment paper is for.

317
Yeah Sure WhatEVs  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:21:09am

re: #305 calochortus

Maybe he’ll offer to go without lying down on the floor of the House and having a tantrum?

Or he’ll handcuff himself in there a la Looney Loomer. That has a butt of Santos style to it.

318
Yeah Sure WhatEVs  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:21:40am

re: #310 A Cranky One

They’re not supposed to look like that?

319
BeenHereAwhile  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:23:16am

re: #32 nines09

This is a great look at the man.

[Embedded content]

Video

My next favorite Leonard Cohen song after Tower of song.

Leonard Cohen - Dance Me To The End Of Love (Live in London)

320
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:23:50am

re: #317 Yeah Sure WhatEVs

Or he’ll handcuff himself in there a la Looney Loomer. That has a butt of Santos style to it.

He’ll be next seen with a briefcase full of cash trying to board a plane to Rio de Janiero

321
A Cranky One  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:24:17am

322
sizzzzlerz  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:25:00am

re: #315 Eclectic Cyborg

Fresh from the request line, this one goes out to Mr. George Santos!

[Embedded content]

Here’s another

YouTube

323
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:25:16am

re: #293 BeachDem

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

324
A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:27:44am

re: #160 Nerdy Fish

Meh. It’s a word. I messed up a guess, so that’s on me.

[Embedded content]

Me, too.

UFpsR0lwVUJpdTBudUYvSy9DTXNzSHkzZkpyWE8rL2p4dzZlQjE4WWEvamZqaW43Y1pkbmRMcHJaSnA5VGFSS0Q1NWxqbXBHQmJTcVVRN3h1OFE1R2REZUdzUWV1NUN5NVN4NS9iMHd6aXpiSTNUakkyWmg1bHdSNWVKc05LSi9rVVdJQVBQbkZTNTBWaEpLaGZ6VTY5OHBLMWRuTDhVdEI4ak52SGlranZRPTo68u81kzsbkSRMHqHguT+XVw==

325
No Malarkey!  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:27:57am

re: #323 Joe Bacon ✅

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

She has to say something crazy every day to move past DeSantis, just in case Trump croaks or flees the country.

326
calochortus  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:28:30am

re: #323 Joe Bacon ✅

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

Obviously civil servants are in jobs that take no specialized knowledge, so they’re all interchangeable. Good citizens can just fallow their farms for a couple years, fill those jobs and then go back to farming with the sense of a job well done.

327
Brother Holy Cruise Missile of Mild Acceptance  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:30:49am

so threads has informed me that Gavin Newsom bodied Ron DeSantis on Fox last night.

328
Belafon  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:34:33am

re: #323 Joe Bacon ✅

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

Then you don’t have to pay retirement.

329
A Cranky One  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:34:53am

re: #327 Brother Holy Cruise Missile of Mild Acceptance

NEWSOM: I’m here to tell the truth about the Biden/Harris record and compare and contrast it with Ron DeSantis’ record…points of contrast that are as different as daylight and darkness. You want to bring us back to pre-1960s world. America, in reverse. You want to roll back hard earned national rights on voting rights, on civil rights, LGBTQ rights, on women’s rights, not just access to abortion, but also access to contraception. You want to weaponize grievance. You are focusing on false separateness. You in particular, Ron, want to create a cultural purge intimidating and humiliating people you disagree with. You and President Trump are really trying to light democracy on fire. So Sean, there are profound differences tonight. And I look forward in engaging. But there’s one thing in closing that we have in common, that is neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.

330
Dave In Austin  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:37:20am
331
Dave In Austin  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:38:03am

re: #302 No Malarkey!

[Embedded content]

There’s the 3rd…….

332
sizzzzlerz  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:38:26am

re: #323 Joe Bacon ✅

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

Of course, she realizes CIA and NSA employees are civil servants. Nothing specialized in their knowledge base that can’t be turned over with newbies every 5 years.

333
Shiplord Kirel: From behind wingnut lines  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:41:46am

I just saw that we won’t have George Santos to kick around anymore. Too bad but even the repugs finally decided that he was a disgrace and an embarrassment. Now, if they just have the same realization about Trump….
House expels GOP Rep. George Santos over ethics violations

334
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:42:18am

NY politicians are scrambling to figure out who to put on the ballot for the special election after Santos was expelled this morning. Democrats have a couple of candidates who are well funded and/or well known, including Tom Suozzi, who held the seat before Santos beat him.

GOPers have a tougher road, since they were bamboozled by Santos and don’t care since all that mattered to them was winning the seat by any means.

335
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:44:17am
336
sagehen  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:45:12am

as long as we’re doing Leonard Cohen… the Montreal Ballet did a program to his music. Here’s an excerpt:

DANCE ME - Les ballets Jazz de Montréal/Léonard Cohen

you have to be a PBS member to watch the whole thing online, but they do re-air it occasionally

pbs.org

337
sagehen  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:47:20am

re: #323 Joe Bacon ✅

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

Does that include cops, firefighters, building inspectors, food inspectors, flood control engineers, etc?

338
KGxvi  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:52:05am

re: #327 Brother Holy Cruise Missile of Mild Acceptance

so threads has informed me that Gavin Newsom bodied Ron DeSantis on Fox last night.

I saw much the same reaction. I’m wondering though, what the response was from Republicans? Was it a typical presidential style debate where the guy you support won because, well obviously? Or are they seeing it as a disaster?

I didn’t watch, but from jump street this seems like an incredibly stupid move, politically, for DeSantis. Why is he debating someone who isn’t running for office? There’s nothing he could have done, from the view of an objective viewer, that would have been a “win.”

339
KGxvi  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:52:51am

re: #330 Dave In Austin

yeah, general rule - if the court of appeal didn’t even bother to write a full opinion, you were really wrong on the merits.

340
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:53:48am

re: #335 lawhawk

The North Shore Leader did what the New York Times wouldn’t.

341
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:54:48am

re: #294 Vicious Babushka

[Embedded content]
Hamad additionally told CBS that Hamas had kidnapped 10-month-old Kfir Bibas and his four-year-old brother Ariel in order to force them to “impose pressure on their government, to tell them that you pushed us to hell.”

pretty much the definition of terrorism right there

342
Romantic Heretic  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:56:02am

re: #167 Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅

An amateur studies tactics, an expert, logistics. - Helmuth von Moltke The Elder

343
wrenchwench  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:57:22am

I posted a week’s forecast last thread. 100% chance of rain. They’ve added another feature: Flood Watch through Tuesday.

344
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:57:26am

Okay - this is what verbal vivisection sounds like…”and in closing, there is one thing we have in common…neither of us will be our party’s nominee in 2024”

345
Romantic Heretic  Dec 1, 2023 • 8:59:00am

re: #184 Eclectic Cyborg

OT. Good juju appreciated.

[Embedded content]

KzlqdnRadUhTVjNrMEdxeWRubW1JeXkyVTkvWGttS04wK09mclJUdVBxT2Z3aGJEREZzQlJmV2IyZEF6citCODo6NpPEWCioSJ/kmpmlKKbRjw==

346
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:00:06am

re: #334 lawhawk

NY politicians are scrambling to figure out who to put on the ballot for the special election after Santos was expelled this morning. Democrats have a couple of candidates who are well funded and/or well known, including Tom Suozzi, who held the seat before Santos beat him.

GOPers have a tougher road, since they were bamboozled by Santos and don’t care since all that mattered to them was winning the seat by any means.

imo they are not scrambling
they’ve been thinking about this for weeks/months

347
William Lewis  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:00:40am

Well, holy analog photography batman.

Harmon Technology, the parent company of Ilford, the famous producer of black and white film in the UK, has introduced a new color film

Harmon Phoenix 200 is an ISO200 color film made in their plant in England. They state this is only their first color film. Due to the agreements made when they puchased Ilford, they can’t call a color film Ilford but that’s OK, as long as it’s an alternative to Kodak, I’m a happy camper.

It sounds very much like a first attempt - from one article I’ve read “”It’s prone to halation, grainy for a 200-speed film, it is very contrasty, and has a small dynamic range,” he tells us. “Phoenix 200 requires a little more attention at the scan and photographers should communicate with their lab tech to make sure to scan this film using Harman Technology’s scanning guidance. Once corrected at the scan, the colors are super punchy and very pleasing.” Bill continued to share that you basically want to treat it like slide film.

“I firmly believe photographers will use these limitations to their advantage and create impactful work with it!”

It’s not especially cheap at $13.95/36 exposure roll but I ordered 2 rolls to test anyway.

348
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:02:05am

re: #312 Jay C

Oh, you mean “Congressman Anthony Devolder”?
(I’m sure George had a sign ready to put up outside his office just in case)

Anthony Devolder?
Audrey Farber?
Betty Joe Bialowski?
Oh, you must mean Nancy!

349
BeachDem  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:02:19am

re: #332 sizzzzlerz

Of course, she realizes CIA and NSA employees are civil servants. Nothing specialized in their knowledge base that can’t be turned over with newbies every 5 years.

Nikki is a moron—a self-aggrandizing, lying, opportunistic moron. That’s a fact!

350
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:03:44am

re: #323 Joe Bacon ✅

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

Didn’t Ramyswamy want to fire every other civil servant based on a lottery or SS number or such?

351
Jay C  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:03:51am

re: #334 lawhawk

NY politicians are scrambling to figure out who to put on the ballot for the special election after Santos was expelled this morning. Democrats have a couple of candidates who are well funded and/or well known, including Tom Suozzi, who held the seat before Santos beat him.

GOPers have a tougher road, since they were bamboozled by Santos and don’t care since all that mattered to them was winning the seat by any means.

Minor edit: Santos didn’t beat Tom Suozzi for NY-03 in 2022: Suozzi didn’t run for re-election (and I think there were also re-districting issues) - the only Suozzi-Santos match was in 2020 (Suozzi won 56-43). I had forgotten that, as it means *somebody* (R or D) had had an extra two years to research Mendacious George’s BS resumé - yet he still got elected in 2022…

352
mmmirele  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:03:53am

re: #202 darthstar

I was going to look for more details on the Russian tunnel attack by the SBU and came across this heartwarming story…

[Embedded content]

When the attempt to bore through to the trapped miners failed, the government turned to so-called “rat miners” (that is, miners who work on illicit mining operations and know how to run very small tunnels) to get the trapped miners out.

My ex longtime boyfriend was in an auto wreck last night. He’s fine, the other driver is fine, their vehicles, not so much. They had to be towed. I told him that his insurance company was likely to total his vehicle due to sheer age—it’s a 1992 Suburban and definitely not in pristine condition. So he’s dealing with that and called me, which is fine. I was happy to hear from him. I’d only been trying to call him since Mom died…but he has been TURNING HIS PHONE OFF …. grrrrrr. The only way to get hold of him is to text him, apparently. I told him he needed to get a new vehicle, one that was built in the 21st century (he didn’t like hearing that and whined about buying a car with only a few days notice). In the meantime, he should just rent a car, I said, and then spend the next six months dithering about buying a car. Apparently the accident scared him about his mortality so he’s going to make arrangements to put beneficiaries on his bank accounts and 401K, which is fine. I told him he’d need Social Security numbers for that.

Oh, and we both found out that law firms that handle accident cases only want injury cases. Representing someone in a crash that hurt nobody apparently makes no money for these ambulance chasers. Blargh.

353
BeenHereAwhile  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:04:07am

re: #84 vgranucci

From a couple threads back:

Upvote for the Bujold quote. (Note to self: Time to do a reread of the Vorkosigan novels.)

(from imperfect memory reading years ago)

“And where have you been my dear?”

‘Out shopping (and pulls a head out of her bag and rolls it down the conference table in front of those at the table).’

354
FFL (GOP Delenda Est)  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:10:22am

re: #353 BeenHereAwhile

(from imperfect memory reading years ago)

“And where have you been my dear?”

‘Out shopping (and pulls a head out of her bag and rolls it down the conference table in front of those at the table).’

Followed by directly addressing two opposition officers who are there, “End this stupid war.”

It really helps the series to read the first two novels since it makes really clear why Cordelia is seen as so formidable. There are a couple of asides here in there in the later novels about this or that thing she has done. I also recall a minor non-Barryonan character harping upon her Betan Survey Service and how qualified she would need to be in order to be captaining a survey ship.

355
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:11:20am

re: #350 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Didn’t Ramyswamy want to fire every other civil servant based on a lottery or SS number or such?

Why yes Ramadamadingdong said he would fire civil servants if the last digit in their Social Security number was odd.

Hey Ramadamadingdong YOU CANT FIRE ME BASED ON THAT YOU FUCKING DUMBASS!

356
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:14:00am

357
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:14:10am

re: #350 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

Didn’t Ramyswamy want to fire every other civil servant based on a lottery or SS number or such?

these sweeping platitudinal ‘proposals’ are not to be taken seriously

they couldnt possibly do these things

further, none of these nudniks will ever be president

tfg is the dangerous one because he ‘could’ be president.
he’s running and has a base.
that’s all you need to get into ‘could’ territory

none of these others are even close to ‘could’

358
The Ghost of a Flea  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:14:54am

re: #325 No Malarkey!

She has to say something crazy every day to move past DeSantis, just in case Trump croaks or flees the country.

I think this is too glib.

The forming consensus on the Right is that institutional capture is the new strategy, and that means that functions of government done by experts…or just by people wanting to do their job without reference to an larger ideological position…must be transferred over to someone vetted for ideology. The functional aspects of the org chart of government—dividing labor, coordination, accountabiilty—are to be made distantly second to creating an ideological hierarchy.

This is a position that’s been floating about for awhile but in smaller digestible parts: question the competence of experts in diseases, question the sensitivities of the military, question that professional bureaucrats are secretly undemocratic in nature, invoke the “deep state” in reference to the institutions of the state that need continuity across elections. Within the big-tent “woke” panic there is a challenge that officials cannot perform their roles without ideological vetting; in the trans panic any official not immediately complying is dangerous.

(there’s a whole other discussion here about how this is also how dominionists see their path to power: a Faustian process of acquiring power, then using the authority of the law to deconstruct the base premises of the law)

But now that position is being mainstreamed and Haley is presenting her vision of how you initiate that institutional capture. It’s seems like a compromise compared to the hyperbole of Vivek Ramaswamy but it’s of the same substance: it’s the promise to donors and voters that once Republicans control the government they will re-arrange how administration happens such that all things will become ideological.

And all of the above is assuming an actual plan to render US government into a top-down ideological engine, because it’s just as likely that the rhetoric is being thrown out there to justify more of what’s already happening—nothing gets done, everything is a spectacle, elections become wagers on existing corrupt and biased systems. If this kind of thinking just creates a mess rather than institutional capture, it’s still a win because they have no constructive policy and do better in opposition.

Conservatives’ ideological agenda extends far beyond conventional government and into the realm of the cultural, so their vision of “government’ does not fit the footprint of what you learn about in civics class. The important thing for their cultural agenda is holding coercive power of any kind, and the dispersal pattern doesn’t matter beyond all forms of power being held by The Right Kind of People.

You can see in their past positions that they saw a path to holding power by privatizing it—the government loses a form of coercion or incentivization, but that power is handed over to on-side institutions whether that’s actively-ideological ones like churches or passively-ideological capitalist institutions. But that wasn’t their preferred strategy, it was just the one that worked in the breach (because, again, the object is purely the assignment of power—and capital—to the in-group), since privatization gives conservatism a shell of deniability that their goal is inequality.

Conservatives worldwide have adopted a more open illiberalism—I don’t know if that’s desperation or confidence, but it’s definitely their way of trying to keep ahead of observable contradictions between how the world is supposed to be working and how the world is actual doing—and this kind of language is a new front in that illiberality.

At minimum, Haley is signaling she is the same kind of illiberal…she’s telling the people that see themselves as owed ideological oversight (be that reactionary voters or elites who actually play at this activity already) of the government that she’ll play their ball game.

359
A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:15:06am

re: #323 Joe Bacon ✅

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

That’ll contribute greatly to US aviation (air traffic control), military readiness (support jobs, if not active duty military), protecting elected officials (secret service)….

Damn, these people are dumb.

360
Jay C  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:15:38am

re: #338 KGxvi

I didn’t watch, but from jump street this seems like an incredibly stupid move, politically, for DeSantis. Why is he debating someone who isn’t running for office? There’s nothing he could have done, from the view of an objective viewer, that would have been a “win.”

I think the key phrasing here is the juxtaposition of “incredibly stupid” and “DeSantis” in the same sentence.

The DeSantis-Newsom “debate”, I think, was one of those “seemed like a good idea at the time” projects cooked up when Ron’s chances for the nomination were merely “slim”, and his campaign peeps likely thought him getting up to tout Booming Florida vs. Hellhole California (on Fox - with Sean Hannity there to slowly lob him softballs) would boost his national exposure. Well it did - though exposing him as even more of a whiny doofus than ever with little to offer the public outside of another opportunity for ridicule was probably not the outcome they were looking for.

See my first sentence above….

361
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:20:06am

re: #357 Dangerman

these sweeping platitudinal ‘proposals’ are not to be taken seriously

they couldnt possibly do these things

further, none of these nudniks will ever be president

tfg is the dangerous one because he ‘could’ be president.
he’s running and has a base.
that’s all you need to get into ‘could’ territory

none of these others are even close to ‘could’

They could be next.

Because if Trump wins, it’s a matter of time before these has beens becomes the next one to supersede Trump.

362
BeenHereAwhile  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:20:36am

re: #99 mmmirele

First of all, let me make clear that I generally dislike Julie Roys, because she’s anti-transgender. THAT SAID, she is the one person who has demonstrated enough care and concern in the larger Evangelical community that she’s one of the few people survivors of sexual abuse in Evangelical churches feel safe going to.

A month ago, Mike Bickle, the head of the International House of Prayer-Kansas City was accused of sexual misconduct. (kshb.com local tv station)

Last Sunday, people who were formerly part of IHOPKC entered the 24x7 prayer room in a silent protest: (kmbc.com local TV station)

Now Julie Roys has reported the VERY LONG story of a young woman who was taken advantage of in the late 1990s. This is a really hard read, Mike Bickle is just crazy.

There is a LOT more where that came from: julieroys.com

The article makes clear the lack of accountability Bickle had and how he weaseled out of whatever minimal church oversight he got by founding IHOPKC.

And there are little cults like this everywhere.

Annointed by the evangelical penis.

363
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:24:17am

This is on my “Must see in theater” list

FURIOSA : A MAD MAX SAGA | OFFICIAL TRAILER #1

364
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:28:22am

Bye Bye, George!

The Four Seasons - Bye Bye Baby (Baby Goodbye) (Official Audio)

365
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:29:37am

re: #361 lawhawk

They could be next.

Because if Trump wins, it’s a matter of time before these has beens becomes the next one to supersede Trump.

true

im worried about getting through this one first

366
goddamnedfrank  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:31:44am

Good, long overdue:

The Biden administration has informed Israel that Washington will impose visa bans in the next few weeks on Israeli extremist settlers engaged in violence against Palestinian civilians in the occupied West Bank, a senior State Department official said.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet have let them know that the United States will take its own action against an undisclosed number of individuals.

367
The Ghost of a Flea  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:33:01am

Indeed, what Haley is doing is deeply sinister, because it’s the closest any Republican has come to creating a “reasonable” construct for how you turn civil service into an ideological role. Roughly five years conservative flunkies are going to dump money into the pockets of cronies, selectively enforce rules, and at the end they’ll have a shredding party to make figuring out what happened next to impossible, and it will all be *technically* within the rules of the statecraft.

“Fire everyone” is a fantasy of instant total victory, but “shift every five years” can be entertained as some kind of compromise. It also dovetails with the existing Republican plan of using their windows of power to do massive theft and destruction of complex government systems, anticipating that when they are out of majority the constructive work of even fixing what’s damage (let alone building new things) will be made that much hard.

368
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:35:20am

re: #358 The Ghost of a Flea

I think this is too glib.

The forming consensus on the Right is that institutional capture is the new strategy, and that means that functions of government done by experts…or just by people wanting to do their job without reference to an larger ideological position…must be transferred over to someone vetted for ideology. The functional aspects of the org chart of government—dividing labor, coordination, accountabiilty—are to be made distantly second to creating an ideological hierarchy.

This is a position that’s been floating about for awhile but in smaller digestible parts: question the competence of experts in diseases, question the sensitivities of the military, question that professional bureaucrats are secretly undemocratic in nature, invoke the “deep state” in reference to the institutions of the state that need continuity across elections. Within the big-tent “woke” panic there is a challenge that officials cannot perform their roles without ideological vetting; in the trans panic any official not immediately complying is dangerous.

(there’s a whole other discussion here about how this is also how dominionists see their path to power: a Faustian process of acquiring power, then using the authority of the law to deconstruct the base premises of the law)

But now that position’s being mainstreamed and Haley is presenting her vision of how you initiate that institutional capture. It’s seems like a compromise compared to the hyperbole of Vivek Ramaswamy but it’s of the same substance: it’s the promise to donors and voters that once Republicans control the government they will re-arrange how administration happens such that all things will become ideological.

And all of the above is assuming an actual plan to render US government into a top-down ideological engine, because it’s just as likely that the rhetoric is being thrown out there to justify more of what’s already happening—nothing gets done, everything is a spectacle, elections become wagers on existing corrupt and biased systems. If this kind of thinking just creates a mess rather than institutional capture, it’s still a win because they have no constructive policy and do better in opposition.

Conservatives’ ideological agenda extends far beyond conventional government and into the realm of the cultural, so their vision of “government’ does not fit the footprint of what you learn about in civics class. The important thing for their cultural agenda is holding coercive power of any kind, and the dispersal pattern doesn’t matter beyond all forms of power being held by The Right Kind of People.

You can see in their past positions that they saw a path to holding power by privatizing it—the government loses a form of coercion or incentivization, but that power is handed over to on-side institutions whether that’s actively-ideological ones like churches or passively-ideological capitalist institutions. But that wasn’t their preferred strategy, it was just the one that worked in the breach (because, again, the object is purely the assignment of power—and capital—to the in-group), since privatization gives conservatism a shell of deniability that their goal is inequality.

Conservatives worldwide have adopted a more open illiberalism—I don’t know if that’s desperation or confidence, but it’s definitely their way of trying to keep ahead of observable contradictions between how the world is supposed to be working and how the world is actual doing—and this kind of language is a new front in that illiberality.

At minimum, Haley is signaling she is the same kind of illiberal…she’s telling the people that see themselves as owed ideological oversight (be that reactionary voters or elites who actually play at this activity already) of the government that she’ll play their ball game.

You have the right of it, the default mindset for Republicans in this “every privilege is going away from us white christian conservative volken” brave new world is feudal. This goes beyond the spoils & patronage system, they want things to revert to Feudal fealty systems ultimately — and Nikki is placing stepping stones to get there.

369
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:36:29am

“Deep State” has come to have a sinister meaning but it overlooks the fact that a modern government needs career specialists whose tasks and responsibilities extend beyond any one administration.

They have to maintain institutions and projects that are vital to America, and do so over the course of deades which means they cannot just be switched out at random whenever the political weathervane shifts.

370
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:36:39am
371
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:40:18am

re: #369 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

“Deep State” has come to have a sinister meaning but it overlooks the fact that a modern government needs career specialists whose tasks and responsibilities extend beyond any one administration.

They have to maintain institutions and projects that are vital to America, and do so over the course of deades which means they cannot just be switched out at random whenever the political weathervane shifts.

Deep state is just their code word for the government institutions that are not military or police: everything else is a waste of their tax dollars.They have no time for public schools, libraries, parks, lands, Environmental or safety standards bodies, arts, science or any others & would like to burn them all down.

372
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:41:44am

re: #370 lawhawk

This whole “sue the pharma companies for misrepresentation” has been big with the singnut/moonbat conflation for some time.

My sister-in-law, a herbologist, sent me one video from some shyster whose scam is that he is opening a class-action suit but (here’s the kicker) requiring people to put up €800 to “buy in” to it.

Normally class-action suits don’t cost anything, the lawyers get 30% and anyone who can prove a claim of damage gets a share of the balance.

But this SOB has set things up that all he has to do is get 1,000 people to sign up and he can walk away with 700K without having to do anything…

373
sizzzzlerz  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:43:52am

re: #372 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

But this SOB has set things up that all he has to do is get 1,000 people to sign up and he can walk away with 700K without having to do anything…

Trump, is dat you?

374
Charmingly Persistent  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:45:29am

re: #244 Belafon

Someone put this notice up on Nextdoor:

If you have an iPhone and have done the recent iOS 17 update. They have set a new feature call NameDrop to default to ON. This allows the sharing of contact info just by bringing your phones close together.

To shut this off go to Settings, General, AirDrop, Bringing Devices Together.

Must have been on Facebook too because my mom called to find out if she should panic. I said, “you know how if you know the wifi password and someone else with an iPhone comes in, your phone asks you if you want to share the password? It’s like that. It asks and you decide whether to give permission.”

So she turned it back on.

375
Belafon  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:46:37am

re: #370 lawhawk

“Why didn’t it work for people who didn’t receive it?” Paxton wants to know.

376
Hecuba's daughter  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:46:53am

re: #265 Yeah Sure WhatEVs

Awww. Sandra Day O’Connor passed away at 93.

RIP

If she had done the right thing in the Bush v Gore decision, our whole world might be very different and much better with no Trump presidency. But she let politics control her vote.

377
Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:48:23am

re: #371 Randall Gross

Deep state is just their code word for the government institutions that are not military or police: everything else is a waste of their tax dollars.They have no time for public schools, libraries, parks, lands, Environmental or safety standards bodies, arts, science or any others & would like to burn them all down.

Even the military has been getting on conservatives’ nerves lately with their “woke” attitudes about allowing female service members to access health care options not available in the state they are posted to, for pursuing alternative energy sources and recognizing the threat that climate change could pose to America’s strategic position in the world.

378
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:49:14am

Dang. I am using my iPad since my notebook is going through an upgrade

379
steve_davis  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:50:05am

“They said to vote his conscious, and that is what his conscious told him to do.” Rawstory wants something like 80 bucks a year for this unedited bullshit. I mean, goddamn. I can get a year of the Economist for 60 bucks a year.

380
Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:51:58am

re: #310 A Cranky One

I just threw out a baking sheet pan that looked like that.

381
wrenchwench  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:52:45am

Mastodon

382
Unabogie  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:52:53am

re: #344 darthstar

Okay - this is what verbal vivisection sounds like…”and in closing, there is one thing we have in common…neither of us will be our party’s nominee in 2024”

[Embedded content]

Is that what Ron thinks a smile looks like?

383
The Ghost of a Flea  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:53:34am

re: #368 Randall Gross

You have the right of it, the default mindset for Republicans in this “every privilege is going away from us white christian conservative volken” brave new world is feudal. This goes beyond the spoils & patronage system, they want things to revert to Feudal fealty systems ultimately — and Nikki is placing stepping stones to get there.

The other thing is: this is part of the general “it’s cruelty, not stupidity” rubric.

This is probably a bad idea…if you care about the state efficaciously doing work for its citizenry. But it’s exponents are cruel—they have a clear picture in their head of all the kinds of people that simply do not deserve representation, services, or rights.

They’re not scared they’ll be held accountable for the attempt—they have enormous money and cultural force behind them such that they’ll be given do-overs and comfy sinecures even if this falls flat—because they have no respect for the agree-upon systems of accountability and…accurately…can observe that other statesman have done worse things and gotten away with it.

The liberal-centrist assertion that these people are dumb is based on an assumption of common axioms: the “stupidity” is emergent from a misunderstanding of agree-upon ideas of what government is, what morality is, what power should be used for. But conservatives use an entirely different axiom, one in which position has primacy and morality and law are conditional on position. In this worldview, violence is just the most explicit rhetoric of the entirely natural hierarchy.

It’s like claiming that a cattle baron sending his regulators to burn down your farm is stupid. In his head, it’s entirely feasible that he can do this, that he has done the math and his power and his total goon count means he can kill you and take your shit.

384
Unabogie  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:54:16am

re: #381 wrenchwench

[Embedded content]

I love a road bike with flat pedals. That rider gets it.

385
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:55:04am

re: #370 lawhawk

Dear anti-vaxx fucksticks,

You know why Covid isn’t a massive problem anymore? It’s because I and millions of other Americans got vaccinated and boosted to slow the spread of the disease.

You’re welcome, you ungrateful jerks.

386
Colère Tueur de Lapin ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:55:35am

re: #342 Romantic Heretic

An amateur studies tactics, an expert, logistics. - Helmuth von Moltke The Elder

Thank you, that was the quote that I was looking for.

387
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:57:37am

bak.
That was a quick update for Apple.

388
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 9:59:24am

Uh oh!

Why Cornel West Is Broke

Newly uncovered divorce filings reveal allegations of a “secret life” and help explain why the presidential candidate, who has earned millions of dollars over the years, has hardly anything left, Forbes reports.

A review of federal filings and property records confirms that West’s net worth is near zero. Other outlets have previously reported on his troubles paying taxes over the years. But no one so far has explained how someone so successful became so broke. With West in position to affect who becomes America’s next president, Forbes set out to answer that question, digging into heaps of legal and tax documents filed in various jurisdictions over six decades. Turns out much of the damage was self-inflicted.

West blew it—on many things, especially women—leaving little left for Uncle Sam by the time tax season arrived. The liens piled up: $144,000 in 1998, $105,000 in 2000, $205,000 in 2001 and so on. “Almost like a reptile biting its tail,” he says now.

West lived in a Four Seasons condo in Boston, which he later admitted he could not afford, and rode around in a Mercedes or Cadillac. One of his four ex-wives accused West of maintaining a covert apartment in Boston for $5,000 a month to use as a love den. She also alleged that, despite not having any health conditions, he later took a medical leave from his job at Harvard to live a “secret life” with another woman in New Mexico.

In court documents filed in 2002 and 2003, West did not deny burning money on affairs, at least one of which produced a child. (He acknowledged he had an 18-month-old daughter at the time.) And in his 2009 memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, West confirms some of the less-salacious details. But when asked in November to respond to claims he’d “hid or wasted” close to a million dollars, at least some of which went to support extramarital affairs, West offered via email that “The allegations were too ridiculous to attend to-then and now, my brother!” He did not respond to a follow-up inquiry that detailed his ex-wife’s specific allegations.

And it gets juicier…such a naughty scamp…

forbes.com

389
Eclectic Cyborg  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:03:21am

re: #388 Joe Bacon ✅

J Jonah Jameson Laugh - Spiderman

390
Eventual Carrion  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:04:51am

re: #160 Nerdy Fish

Meh. It’s a word. I messed up a guess, so that’s on me.

[Embedded content]

Took me to 4/6 also

Click to Reveal

Wordle 895 4/6

⬜⬜🟨⬜⬜
⬜⬜🟨🟨🟨
🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

391
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:05:31am

re: #244 Belafon

Someone put this notice up on Nextdoor:

Police agencies were passing this bullshit around, making people believe someone could grab your contacts while walking by. I suspect it’s just more fear mongering for public safety (and maybe you’ll think you need us more and add to our budget…) by PD’s.

For the feature to work both phones
have to be nearly touching,
both phones need to be opened through authentication means,
and both phones have to consent to the transfer.

392
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:06:23am

re: #369 Wendell Zurkowitz ((slave to the waffle light))

“Deep State” has come to have a sinister meaning but it overlooks the fact that a modern government needs career specialists whose tasks and responsibilities extend beyond any one administration.

They have to maintain institutions and projects that are vital to America, and do so over the course of deades which means they cannot just be switched out at random whenever the political weathervane shifts.

assumes they share these goals

393
wrenchwench  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:06:24am

re: #390 Eventual Carrion

Took me to 4/6 also

Click to Reveal

nice pic. you almost got the elusive 5 yellows

394
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:07:24am

re: #391 Randall Gross

WaPo had something on that in one of their tech columns. That is why I knew what to do when my iPhone finished its upgrade.

395
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:08:42am

re: #385 Eclectic Cyborg

Dear anti-vaxx fucksticks,

You know why Covid isn’t a massive problem anymore? It’s because I and millions of other Americans got vaccinated and boosted to slow the spread of the disease.

You’re welcome, you ungrateful jerks.

*and a lot of those ones who didn’t get vaccinated died so there are now fewer anti-vaxxers to spread it.

396
steve_davis  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:10:17am

re: #379 steve_davis

“They said to vote his conscious, and that is what his conscious told him to do.” Rawstory wants something like 80 bucks a year for this unedited bullshit. I mean, goddamn. I can get a year of the Economist for 60 bucks a year.

I discovered that the powder version of Bartender’s Friend will bring what seems like a completely end-of-life baking sheet back to life. I had one that had been through the family for so long that the entire sheet was bronzed and always had a vaguely fishy odor when it was reheated. Leaving the Bartender’s Friend as a paste on it for half-an-hour, I discovered it was in fact made of what I assume is aluminum and I was able to read the manufacturer’s info on the back for the first time in I’m guessing 50 years.

397
wrenchwench  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:11:06am

Mastodon

398
CleverToad  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:11:07am

re: #184 Eclectic Cyborg

S3dudmllL0hld1UwS1k4eTFpdldJNWxyTVdMcXpxbVRnOGlmYjBsL2R6eEIrd0ZvT25Fd21LdDF5dFNwQzc5VFExTWR3T3BEMkh0MElycUl1b1c1bnlzRnlobGpVNlYyRHZ0Qjg4ejdsVmRQb1JqRTlQZXVBOWFrc0p3SHMzZW9wdVdtYzEydjRabDZ1UWo2VG0xVG1pWmQ3L01IN09sWmIrNVp3K3BTMUlqaUlIU2NoNk14Ty9rVmxVZ3R4TGZDRkNPRUwzc0dpODNHU05Wd2h4UCtFOXl1bkdKbEx2SGxNTGhPUVYzdWlEMHZQdW1kQm5QSGE3V3lsa29RWFdFMGJMcWkza21TSGRtRDFDMTBUNkVmSldCMzBCWVhlWFRmREtqczJTMnRzMVVVM3NNTjlrRmNKSFF2dFRYN2FJYjU6OpX3997cH/ftMcn5LZYm3n8=

399
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:11:34am

re: #388 Joe Bacon ✅

Uh oh!

Why Cornel West Is Broke
…
And it gets juicier…such a naughty scamp…

forbes.com

of course West is a nothing in this campaign. doesnt do anything for ratings or ad dollars. so he’s fair game

would that anyone would have done this level of work on TFG in 2015

dont tell me ‘look at everything that they did report and it rolled off him’
by then it was too late

400
aatharuv  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:12:12am

re: #323 Joe Bacon ✅

Noodnick Nikki wants 5 year term limits for all civil servants.

Yeah that’s really gonna work, isn’t it?????

re: #359 A hollow voice says: Abort SCOTUS

That’ll contribute greatly to US aviation (air traffic control), military readiness (support jobs, if not active duty military), protecting elected officials (secret service)….

Damn, these people are dumb.

She’s actually smart. She obviously wants the US government to outsource these jobs to the private sector, like they do today for various jobs that require much higher pay scales than standard government rates to get people.

And who will benefit? Her donors, of course.

401
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:16:32am

re: #383 The Ghost of a Flea

The other thing is: this is part of the general “it’s cruelty, not stupidity” rubric…

The liberal-centrist assertion that these people are dumb is based on an assumption of common axioms: the “stupidity” is emergent from a misunderstanding of agree-upon ideas of what government is, what morality is, what power should be used for. But conservatives use an entirely different axiom, one in which position has primacy and morality and law are conditional on position. In this worldview, violence is just the most explicit rhetoric of the entirely natural hierarchy.

It’s like claiming that a cattle baron sending his regulators to burn down your farm is stupid. In his head, it’s entirely feasible that he can do this, that he has done the math and his power and his total goon count means he can kill you and take your shit.

I agree that while much of the Trumpenproliat is blazingly stupid that many in their leadership are long term strategists who know how to read that crowd. It’s reminds me of those people who used to “gut up” and walk among the dead to control hordes of walkers on “The Walking Dead.”

402
wrenchwench  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:17:13am

Mastodon

[…]

Reznick was wearing her press pass and carrying reporting gear and a camera as deputies took her into custody around 7:30 a.m. Her arrest came despite being clearly identified as a working reporter, her move to leave the property as requested, and PCSD policies that lay out allowances for journalists undertaking their duties.

Sheriff Chris Nanos told the Sentinel that he was not aware of his department’s written policies regarding “reasonable access” for reporters at crime scenes.

[…]

403
The Ghost of a Flea  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:17:16am

re: #397 wrenchwench

Cop meetings and Davos both have the same aftertaste, that the posh people will gladly discourse on the consequences of their choices as long as it’s understood that they will discern their level of accountability and…obviously…determine whether or not they have earned their planet-burning, life-alienating indulgences.

404
Joe Bacon ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:34:50am

405
PhillyPretzel ✅  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:35:37am

re: #404 Joe Bacon ✅

Yes we know. lol

406
lawhawk  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:36:16am

re: #404 Joe Bacon ✅

That sucks.

That cat should be memed into the national xmas tree falling over.

407
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:37:08am

re: #400 aatharuv

She’s actually smart. She obviously wants the US government to outsource these jobs to the private sector, like they do today for various jobs that require much higher pay scales than standard government rates to get people.

And who will benefit? Her donors, of course.

spend more money for the same services.
what are you gonna cut so taxes dont go up?

408
Hecuba's daughter  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:39:42am

re: #397 wrenchwench

[Embedded content]

Most of the participants in the meeting are those high enough on the food chain that they routinely travel by private planes. High government officials usually travel by government planes at their disposal.

409
Belafon  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:42:02am

re: #407 Dangerman

spend more money for the same services.
what are you gonna cut so taxes dont go up?

SNAP

410
🐈 Crush White Nationalism 🐈  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:44:16am

I ran out of toilet paper this morning. Amazon had a case here by noon, before I needed it.
Reverting to leaves like my ancestors clogs the plumbing, so I’m glad it did not come to that.

411
The Ghost of a Flea  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:47:50am

re: #401 Randall Gross

I agree that while much of the Trumpenproliat is blazingly stupid that many in their leadership are long term strategists who know how to read that crowd. It’s reminds me of those people who used to “gut up” and walk among the dead to control hordes of walkers on “The Walking Dead.”

See, I just don’t think “stupidity” is a good construct from the get-go, because it ignores that Trumpism is articulation of a want on an individual basis, but as a system of interests it’s a naked assertion of entirely-understandable authoritarian politics that’s been built up to by centuries of American culture and American agency within the world. Trumpism is radical redistribution of capital and license to the ingroup because “in the old days” that was what made America powerful. Like the cattle baron, that’s not stupid it’s an amoral calculation of what is possible.

That so many Americans like this idea is not about their standard testing scores, but about culture creating entirely-normalized, often non-partisan base assumptions about how Americans and America should exist in the world. There is presumption…and demand…of a quality of life that is not sustainable without constant subsidization and exploitation, alongside a vehement individualist denial that the subsidization and exploitation create that surplus. We don’t talk about where the two centuries of surplus comes from, and we especially don’t talk about how capital and government coordinate to maintain precarity—the neocolonial project of keeping poor countries poor enough that they can make cheap goods that act as a subsidy for the slowly-getting-poorer citizens of wealthy countries.

Trumpism cuts that Gordian Knot of discourse by just saying: yes, we need to be explicit that we’re rigging the game, and that the rigging is good because we’re inherently good. It’s building on a whole series of bypasses American conservative culture has built: God is now capitalist, there are no systemic problems only individual responsibility and sinister foreign conspiracies,

People keep stepping over the most obvious and continuous thesis of Donald Trump: that America must be cruel and dominating to succeed, and that Americans must embrace that cruelty, value it, to be American. It’s most present in how he talks about war and policing, but it’s the entire basis of MAGA: you shouldn’t just inflict the harm, you should celebrate that inflicting of harm because it gets you what you want.

Reactionaries haven’t been fooled, they simply value power over meaning.

412
Dangerman  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:47:54am

re: #404 Joe Bacon ✅

[Embedded content]

No no, I found the body

413
darthstar  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:49:48am

X lost WalMart as an advertiser.

414
Lilah  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:50:59am

re: #413 darthstar

X lost WalMart as an advertiser.

Well, eff them!

/s

415
DodgerFan1988  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:51:40am
416
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:54:24am

re: #404 Joe Bacon ✅

[Embedded content]

Plastic bulbs are needed for that tree.

417
austin_blue  Dec 1, 2023 • 10:57:19am

re: #151 JC1

He’s not wrong. By far the deadliest common mode of transportation, isn’t it?

ohiotiger.com.

Passenger cars were involved in fatal crashes at a rate of 1.79 per 100 million vehicle miles traveled. For motorcycles, that number was 32.41 per 100 million miles.

Aug 4, 2023

418
Randall Gross  Dec 1, 2023 • 11:01:02am

re: #411 The Ghost of a Flea

See, I just don’t think “stupidity” is a good construct from the get-go, because it ignores that Trumpism is articulation of a want on an individual basis, but as a system of interests it’s a naked assertion of entirely-understandable authoritarian politics that’s been built up to by centuries of American culture and American agency within the world. Trumpism is radical redistribution of capital and license to the ingroup because “in the old days” that was what made America powerful. Like the cattle baron, that’s not stupid it’s an amoral calculation of what is possible.

That so many Americans like this idea is not about their standard testing scores, but about culture creating entirely-normalized, often non-partisan base assumptions about how Americans and America should exist in the world. There is presumption…and demand…a quality of life that is not sustainable without constant subsidization and exploitation, alongside a vehement individualist denial that the subsidization and exploitation create that surplus. We don’t talk about where the two centuries of surplus comes from, and we especially don’t talk about how capital and government coordinate to maintain precarity—the neocolonial project of keeping poor countries poor enough that they can make cheap goods that act as a subsidy for the slowly-getting-poorer citizens of wealthy countries.

Trumpism cuts that Gordian Knot of discourse by just saying: yes, we need to be explicit that we’re rigging the game, and that the rigging is good because we’re inherently good. It’s building on a whole series of bypasses American conservative culture has built: God is now capitalist, there are no systemic problems only individual responsibility and sinister foreign conspiracies,

People keep stepping over the most obvious and continuous thesis of Donald Trump: that America must be cruel and dominating to succeed. It’s most present in how he talks about war and policing, but it’s the entire basis of MAGA: you shouldn’t just inflict the harm, you should celebrate that inflicting of harm because it gets you what you want.

Reactionaries haven’t been fooled, they simply value power over meaning.

I’ma gonna disagree a bit; while I realize & respect your need to reframe to your worldview, at lower level fear and loathing do create teh stoopid, and you only have to look at some of them to realize that not all are the sharpest knives in that drawer — in simplest terms Feudalism is only a short term solution that cannot last in the face of humanity at large and over time. In other words in the longer run of history I truly believe we will all beat those evil notions - maybe not in my lifetime or yours, but sometime.

419
Hecuba's daughter  Dec 1, 2023 • 11:12:11am

re: #411 The Ghost of a Flea

See, I just don’t think “stupidity” is a good construct from the get-go, because it ignores that Trumpism is articulation of a want on an individual basis, but as a system of interests it’s a naked assertion of entirely-understandable authoritarian politics that’s been built up to by centuries of American culture and American agency within the world. Trumpism is radical redistribution of capital and license to the ingroup because “in the old days” that was what made America powerful. Like the cattle baron, that’s not stupid it’s an amoral calculation of what is possible.

…….

I think most of this is simpler and was indirectly articulated by an acquaintance Wednesday night. 7 of us were at dinner in a Middle Eastern restaurant when she revealed that to earn additional money, she had decided to renew her long lapsed teaching certificate so that she could substitute teach in Chicago public schools.

She was assigned to a north side public school in Chicago. Her students might have been in 7th/8th grades? She commented there were no “white” students; instead they were a mix of ethnic groups: Hispanic, African-American, Asian, Arab. She admired how the students of different backgrounds worked together. Clearly, when she said no “white” students, she meant no native-born Anglo-Saxon Protestants. (Personally, I think that was true in the same neighborhood 50 years ago when my sister taught high school there. ) It is the fear of the change in ethnicity of this nation — of Americans of more diverse backgrounds — that is reason for the support for the modern GOP. People want a return to the old days when Anglo-Saxons ruled it all and fear of those who don’t share the same background.

420
BeenHereAwhile  Dec 1, 2023 • 11:30:54am

re: #358 The Ghost of a Flea

I think this is too glib.

The forming consensus on the Right is that institutional capture is the new strategy, and that means that functions of government done by experts…or just by people wanting to do their job without reference to an larger ideological position…must be transferred over to someone vetted for ideology. The functional aspects of the org chart of government—dividing labor, coordination, accountabiilty—are to be made distantly second to creating an ideological hierarchy.

This is a position that’s been floating about for awhile but in smaller digestible parts: question the competence of experts in diseases, question the sensitivities of the military, question that professional bureaucrats are secretly undemocratic in nature, invoke the “deep state” in reference to the institutions of the state that need continuity across elections. Within the big-tent “woke” panic there is a challenge that officials cannot perform their roles without ideological vetting; in the trans panic any official not immediately complying is dangerous.

(there’s a whole other discussion here about how this is also how dominionists see their path to power: a Faustian process of acquiring power, then using the authority of the law to deconstruct the base premises of the law)

But now that position’s being mainstreamed and Haley is presenting her vision of how you initiate that institutional capture. It’s seems like a compromise compared to the hyperbole of Vivek Ramaswamy but it’s of the same substance: it’s the promise to donors and voters that once Republicans control the government they will re-arrange how administration happens such that all things will become ideological.

And all of the above is assuming an actual plan to render US government into a top-down ideological engine, because it’s just as likely that the rhetoric is being thrown out there to justify more of what’s already happening—nothing gets done, everything is a spectacle, elections become wagers on existing corrupt and biased systems. If this kind of thinking just creates a mess rather than institutional capture, it’s still a win because they have no constructive policy and do better in opposition.

Conservatives’ ideological agenda extends far beyond conventional government and into the realm of the cultural, so their vision of “government’ does not fit the footprint of what you learn about in civics class. The important thing for their cultural agenda is holding coercive power of any kind, and the dispersal pattern doesn’t matter beyond all forms of power being held by The Right Kind of People.

You can see in their past positions that they saw a path to holding power by privatizing it—the government loses a form of coercion or incentivization, but that power is handed over to on-side institutions whether that’s actively-ideological ones like churches or passively-ideological capitalist institutions. But that wasn’t their preferred strategy, it was just the one that worked in the breach (because, again, the object is purely the assignment of power—and capital—to the in-group), since privatization gives conservatism a shell of deniability that their goal is inequality.

Conservatives worldwide have adopted a more open illiberalism—I don’t know if that’s desperation or confidence, but it’s definitely their way of trying to keep ahead of observable contradictions between how the world is supposed to be working and how the world is actual doing—and this kind of language is a new front in that illiberality.

At minimum, Haley is signaling she is the same kind of illiberal…she’s telling the people that see themselves as owed ideological oversight (be that reactionary voters or elites who actually play at this activity already) of the government that she’ll play their ball game.

The Iraqi occupation by the W administration is an illustration of “and how did that work?”

Ideologically correct but incompetent people placed in strategic positions.

421
BeenHereAwhile  Dec 1, 2023 • 11:44:10am

re: #388 Joe Bacon ✅

Uh oh!

Why Cornel West Is Broke

Newly uncovered divorce filings reveal allegations of a “secret life” and help explain why the presidential candidate, who has earned millions of dollars over the years, has hardly anything left, Forbes reports.

A review of federal filings and property records confirms that West’s net worth is near zero. Other outlets have previously reported on his troubles paying taxes over the years. But no one so far has explained how someone so successful became so broke. With West in position to affect who becomes America’s next president, Forbes set out to answer that question, digging into heaps of legal and tax documents filed in various jurisdictions over six decades. Turns out much of the damage was self-inflicted.

West blew it—on many things, especially women—leaving little left for Uncle Sam by the time tax season arrived. The liens piled up: $144,000 in 1998, $105,000 in 2000, $205,000 in 2001 and so on. “Almost like a reptile biting its tail,” he says now.

West lived in a Four Seasons condo in Boston, which he later admitted he could not afford, and rode around in a Mercedes or Cadillac. One of his four ex-wives accused West of maintaining a covert apartment in Boston for $5,000 a month to use as a love den. She also alleged that, despite not having any health conditions, he later took a medical leave from his job at Harvard to live a “secret life” with another woman in New Mexico.

In court documents filed in 2002 and 2003, West did not deny burning money on affairs, at least one of which produced a child. (He acknowledged he had an 18-month-old daughter at the time.) And in his 2009 memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud, West confirms some of the less-salacious details. But when asked in November to respond to claims he’d “hid or wasted” close to a million dollars, at least some of which went to support extramarital affairs, West offered via email that “The allegations were too ridiculous to attend to-then and now, my brother!” He did not respond to a follow-up inquiry that detailed his ex-wife’s specific allegations.

And it gets juicier…such a naughty scamp…

forbes.com

Cornel West has always been his own caricature.

422
EstebanTornado1963  Dec 1, 2023 • 11:46:03am

re: #410 🐈 Crush White Nationalism 🐈

I ran out of toilet paper this morning. Amazon had a case here by noon, before I needed it.
Reverting to leaves like my ancestors clogs the plumbing, so I’m glad it did not come to that.

Speaking of, I just noticed that the rolls from Costco are about an inch smaller than before. I knew they were giving less sheets, but this is ridiculous, and of course same price

423
LadyBehir  Dec 1, 2023 • 11:52:06am

re: #404 Joe Bacon ✅

He’s just making it easier to decorate the back of the tree.


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