Reminds me of those Walter Duranty pieces in the NT Times in the early 30's praising the "efficiency" of Stalinism, I assume other press outlets did the same with Germany and Italy under the fascists, the "Trains now run on time" sorta thing.
Do you have some enterprise that will require the tracking of large numbers of people as they are transferred from one facility to another? Have I got the punch cards for you!
Britain and France move left while America’s media, apparently permanently infected with Murdochism, joins hands with our homegrown fascists to drive us back to the 1950s…um, 1850s? Huh, looks like 1750s is the goal now.
Oh, but the sheer joy...you mix it up, you wrap it up real real tight, put a loop of nichrome wire in there, hook it up to a battery....and kablooey! Instant neighborhood, nay, town wide fame. As Red Skelton so aptly put it, "Be the first kid on your block to be the last kid on your block".
Of course, were it modern times, I'd STILL be in prison. Oh yeah, I was the town nutjob from early in life. Popularity comes in many forms. And all thanks to Star Trek. No really. "Arena". Changed my life, and paved my way to infamy.
Why can't we have nice things? Moral hazard, my friends. Moral hazard.
For example, if we made it so the unemployed were not in danger of being made homeless, why, nobody would ever work! And where would we be then? So you can see why those Frenchies are wrong to coddle their shirkers. Indeed, we should eliminate the entire social safety net because that's the only way to encourage all of you losers and peons to actually work! Vote Republican!
Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde was caught on tape (on phone?) at a county fair, some woman prodded him with a complaint that Obamacare allowed "kids" to stay on their parent's health insurance til age 26, Hovde responded that it's "delaying the maturation of young people" who are all "sitting on their parent's couches". Dude, it's health care, not a guaranteed monthly income, you've got your Obama mixed up with your Yang.
Well, you see, [clears throat] when a very, very rich man loves his very, very rich wife very, very much, he gives her a special hug, and that's how their offspring earn all the nice things they have.
I'm getting to something else, but in the meantime I shall admit here that whenever the 'workers' are 'shirkers' I go straight to Dr Seuss's If I Ran The Circus (which, now I write that, I realize could be the alt. title of this here REBID).
Our shirkers LOVE shirk! They say "Shirk us! Please shirk us!"
Quelle horreur, not Hugo Chavez (takes a long drag on cigarette: that’s a name I haven’t heard in years)! It seems the legacy/establishment media have thrown in every scare-monger other than an accusation the Leftists are puppets of George Soros.
It's hilarious how the global money people talk about “the markets” as if those metrics are your ailing grandmother on life support. Don’t make too much noise, don’t step on the line to the oxygen tank, don’t forget the medication every four hours, and don't support progressive policies, you might hurt The Markets.
I wonder if they noticed that Venezuela is having elections at the end of this month, andthat Chavez has been dead for about 11 years, speaking of dictators?
One of the big things The Markets love is authoritarianism, which brings Stability. Nobody gonna be agitating for the worker when it might mean the death penalty.
A kind of stability, yes. Until the Dictator has a hankerin' for YOUR business, and then you will soon be receiving An Offer You Can't Refuse. All owners of high-class golf resorts take note.
I ran out the tap or something yesterday so this is going to be tough...
Firstly, the French have three blocs: the fascists, the centrists and the lib/lefties. (Not sure that the lefties are all that lefty but whatever.) No one has a majority so alignments and stuff will be needed to get anything done. Obviously these coalitions to get stuff done are highly unlikely to be offer a lefty/fascist collaboration (so to speak) so maybe there'll be frequent center/fascist aligning? Which is to say practically speaking a lefty bloc that is much less significant than made out to be. All the more so as it came to power in huge part as a No vote to both Le Pen and Macron.
An to stay on brand, I'll note that as ex-Goldman Sachs, I'm sure Macron isn't too unhappy with how well the fascists did as long as they didn't (finally) become the dominant party. It's not like they have any major enough issue with neoliberalism as to push for something that would upset les pouvoirs en place (merci, Google; couldn't have done that without you).
As for any comparison to us: 😂
[moments later after regaining the breath from the laughing too hard]
I must point out the obvious: France is far more advanced than we are and the gap is ever growing. For one things, votes matter there. Here I think they still might as a rule but it's kind of too close to tell.
Meanwhile, I'm busy being perturbed by the Munro affair and all the fuckedupedness it illustrates in far too many ways. (Not a dis of her as an artist, I'm referring to what can be called with unusual kindness from moi as the human level. I dunno, maybe it gets to the problem with assumptions and ignorant assumptions at that. Which would bring back towards the state of the nation and stuff.
Please note the leftists and centrists made a deal before the second election that if the fascists might win a seat, the lower vote getting left or center politician would drop out and try to get their supporters to vote for the non-fascist, so it seems likely the non-fascists will continue to work together
How the election played out the way it did is one thing, how things proceed from there are something else entirely.
The French apparently have a sensitivity re fascists to a degree we of course don’t. So uniting to block Le Pen et cie isn’t necessarily a long term commitment parliamentary proceedings-wise. As, like, always, time will tell.
I enjoy the hard politics writing! I really appreciate your perspective.
I think in a lot of ways this is the same event as the insanely vitupative Biden coverage. I like to tell myself that it's a sign that their coalition is exploding or imploding and they're only tactic is to attack kindly old competent grandpa. Which I mean, if you shoot puppies to make points that might seem like a good strategy.
A whole lot of their cohort are old AF ( seems like they wouldn't take too kindly to the senile Joe isn't worth throwing out an ice flow talk.) their leaders are insane degenerates and every time the people get half a chance to vote honestly about things they get their ass beat.
Great summary from Roy Edroso of the program of the French Popular Front that was the lead party in Sunday's parliamentary election. And also some spot-on mockery of how the US mainstream press - he calls it the Prestige Press here - has responded to the election. Whatever political game Macron was playing by forcing a snap parliamentary election, Sunday's election turned out to be a great example of pro-democracy parties uniting against a strong anti-democratic one (LePen's National Rally) and of a left alliance that one the biggest plurality by offering up an attractive political program.
I never quite understood how Macron came to power. He was Hollande's Treasury/Economics Minister, and the French hated Hollande's economic policies. So then they voted for the architect of the policies they hated and got more of those bad policies which they hated even more
Americans are increasingly unable to take collective action. We wouldn't have CFT if the Republicans in 2015 had been able to join forces and unite behind one of the other candidates but each one was yelling "Me! Me! ME!" Democrats are only a little better - witness the upholding of anti-democratic foolishness like the filibuster and blue slips. Fox and Murdoch share most of the blame but it's the fruit of our rugged individualism and the myths that support it. The lone gunslinger cleans up the town or the one good cop cleans up the force (what happens after he leaves and the bad guys come back?). The one thoughtful man sways the jury (how do we get him on every jury?). You can't build a country that way, or as Ben Franklin put it, hang together or hang separately.
I recall a few quotes from French leaders; and maybe the most apposite is de Gaulle:
"How can one rule a country with 264 kinds of cheese?"
His answer was "with a firm hand", apparently;
The other, from Gen. August Ducroit: surveying the Prussian army surrounding Napoleon III's forces, at Sedan, seems a bit closer to our situation: "Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdes...."
I'll step in here and offer a "You're welcome" for the temporarily absent Mr Rubble. If he does return and disagrees and says FUCK THAT SHIT! I would not deign argue...
Project 2025 will clear that up. Porn will be outlawed, distributors iimprisoned.
If that one thing, THAT ONE THING, was made clear to the American people, we'd have jack shit to worry about in November. That ought to be in every damn ad.
Any national challenge that required majority collective action, or coordination on the level of WW2 (or, say, the Works Progress Administration) would simply tear the country apart. No more United States.
Not that we aren't sundering at a pace already. Its just that if stress tests get worse - by accident and/or by design - the contraption will come apart, and authoritarians will take over. Shock Doctrine, but in every sphere.
No putative world older could prevent it. Nobody would have to win a war against us.
Hell that's nothing. The insane Lt. Governor of North Carolina, a black guy mind you, wants to eliminate all science and social studies in grades one through five.
He's also a Holocaust denier, by the way, and yesterday said the military needs to come out "because some folks need killing".
The New Dark Ages, coming soon to a country near you....
Well the man said, this is not out of spite, or hatred, just that gays, Mooslims, atheists and Black Democrats need killing. Simple as that. Ain't no meanness involved, just good Christian action.
Maybe there's a hard limit to the appeal of open racism? Sure, the taboos have all been broken, candidates can now say stuff that was considered beyond the pale ten years ago, and that means the hard right in France goes from zero seats to more than a hundred. There's a hard 20-30% who want their racism loud n' proud, but there's also a solid 60-70% who will vote, volunteer, donate because they're repelled by it.
Same goes for Nigel Farage and Reform UK, and maybe (dear God, let's hope so) for Trumpism?
Over the years, there's been a lot of talk about how Marine LePen has been "softening" the party she inherited from her father, but the open Muslim-hatin's got to stay, that's what's gotten them as far as they have come, but there's also clearly a solid majority who's so repelled by it that they'll vote for damn near anyone else to keep these fuckers out of office.
I suspect racism is rather stronger in some areas (the rural south, and midwest: "extended Appalachia: but there are increasingly enough non whites and non racist whites to begin to balance that out.. it will in the next few elections absent fascism.
I think it's like most young people and homophobia, they hear that shit come out your mouth, they're just done with you, don't bother to explain about the tax cuts.
It IS true that reproductive rights / women's health care bring out the votes. Racism (and other threats now sufficiently dire) could draw more percentage points out of the woodwork. Like vermin, a certain guy would say! Can the polls capture such things?
Could be whistling past the graveyard, but someone said "Young people would rather pick up a live grenade with the pin pulled than answer a call from a number they don't recognize."
Sure they can. Pollsters use a model for the electorate that is supposed to represent who is going to show up and vote. That is how the bad pollsters like Rasmussen get their Republican skewed results far from the election. As the election nears they choose a more representative model. Thus, polls can capture anything as long as the electorate model is good.
Of course, mostly they use a model based on recent elections but past performance is no guarantee of future success. This is also why the choice of way to reach the polled and the people that don't answer are not really relevant as long as most of the major parts are covered.
"I suspect racism is rather stronger in some areas (the rural south..."
Uh, yeah, and even the not so rural South. In my youth the N-word was merely descriptive. Hasn't changed much over these past fifty years to my observation.
I can never see, or hear the name of, Nigel Farage without seeing him on the cover of Punchable Face magazine. I forget who did the graphic (John Oliver?) but that was priceless, and so, so true. The McDonalds in one town Farage was speaking in banned milkshake sales that day, to which Burger King said "once more into the breach". I love those people.
I think not too long ago there was a contest to come up with a list of the worst Nigels in Britain. Long list. Don't remember who won, but I'm sure Farage was in the mix.
"The Biden campaign said later Saturday it will no longer suggest questions to interviewers."
"President Trump held a rally in Virginia and afterwards participated in local interviews that spanned numerous topics, not just related to the debate," campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said. "Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his campaign are bullying media into asking pre-screened and approved questions and trying to pass it off like it’s normal behavior. It’s not."
Do I really have to tell you folks what I think of all this.
During the presentation of the five so-called “Macron” Ordinances on August 30, 2017, Minister of Labor Muriel Pénicaud declared that “the objective of the reform of the French Labor Code is to give more freedom and security to both companies and employees”. This statement encapsulates the spirit of the reform: The French Labor Code must no longer only protect the interests of employees but it must also protect the interests of companies.
It's beyond ridiculous. Mélenchon's party is only one of many parties in the coalition, anyway, which also includes traditional Socialists and Greens as well as Communists (who are sometimes said to be to Mélenchon's right). Of course the prime minister should come from the NUPES, that's who won the election, but it will be somebody with more friends than Mélenchon.
If you believe in democracy, then of course you can have "extreme" positions like a 30 hour work week or a 100% wealth tax, with the understanding that this is an opening position on the normal negotiation that makes up the democratic process. Like a union going to the bargaining table, of course you go in with your maximum program, you'd be a fool not to.
That's why I don't like this lazy equating of the "far left" and the "far right" when the real question is democracy vs. military-tribunal show trials for your political opponents.
Puts me in mind of a passage from Thomas Pynchon’s 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘺:
“I know this fellow back in New Jersey,” said Scarsdale Vibe, “who collects railroads. Not just rolling stock, mind, but stations, sheds, rails, yards, personnel, the whole shebang.”
“Expensive hobby,” marveled the Professor. “Are there such people?”
“You have to have some idea of the idle money out here. It can’t all be endowments to the church of one’s choice, mansions and yachts and dog-runs paved with gold or what have you, can it. No, at some point that’s all over with, has to be left behind … and still here’s this huge mountain of wealth unspent, piling up higher every day, and dear oh dear, whatever’s a business man to do with it, you see.”
“Hell, send it to me,” Ray Ipsow put in. “Or even to somebody who really needs it, for there’s sure enough of those.”
“That’s not the way it works,” said Scarsdale Vibe.
“So we always hear the plutocracy complaining.”
“Out of a belief, surely fathomable, that merely to need a sum is not to deserve it.”
“Except that in these times, ‘need’ arises directly from the criminal acts of the rich, so it ‘deserves’ whatever amount of money will atone for it. Fathomable enough for you?”
“You are a socialist, sir.”
“As anyone not insulated by wealth from the cares of the day is obliged to be. Sir.”
About wealth piling up to the point where it's literally unspendable, there was a study of the richest families in Italy today, most of them had been on the "Richest families in Italy" list since the 17th century. Think of all the wastrel, idiot sons that had been sired along the way, all the compulsive gamblers, coke heads, incompetent businessmen, two world wars, and STILL these people were rollin' in it. Because they owned all the best land and those properties just kept pumpin' out the rents through thick and thin.
Totally OT, but wow. Heard a skit from Matt Mitchell where he goes through the decades of TV, with soundtrack. 50's - Andy Griffith Show, 60s - Munsters, 70s - Sanford and Son, etc.
He got to the 2000s and I came up flummoxed. I'd heard it, sounded so familiar, but I had nothing. A kind soul on YouTube said "it's the theme from The Office". No way, I thought, I never saw an episode of The Office in my life - no really. But damned if he wasn't exactly right (damn cool theme, too). How I could have possibly have heard that, I have no idea. Cultural osmosis is a magical thing.
It’s funny how a “free press” does not actually support freedom — it’s sort of like la liberalisme was bullshit all along.
I can’t wait for some of Melanchon’s policies to filter thru — next election, we’ll see Macron courting votes from Le Pen instead.
Reminds me of those Walter Duranty pieces in the NT Times in the early 30's praising the "efficiency" of Stalinism, I assume other press outlets did the same with Germany and Italy under the fascists, the "Trains now run on time" sorta thing.
The Soviet Union did get stuff done pretty quickly. The proof was in the pudding, and there was lots of it! Some eggs got broken is what I heard.
Efficient, if you posit that some people 'n' things have no value.
Many omelets were made!
omelettes, Shirley
"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
Donald Trump on his Covid response?
Wow. You're old.
Mr. B, fingernails scraping down the chalkboard, nauseating the unruly kidz...
I'm so old, when I was in high school I dated Carbon!
Yeah. That snooty Nitrogen wouldn't react with anybody.
C'mon, you guys. EVERYBODY dated Carbon and Nitrogen periodically...
But damned ol' Helium wouldn't date ANYBODY.
well, one of nitrogen's reactions with oxygen would have you laughing in short order
He learned to count, so he could do the math
Yeah, no, I think the GDNYT felt Herr Hitler was an efficient effective leader who business could be done with.
As did a number of our finest, upstandingest businesses.
Do you have some enterprise that will require the tracking of large numbers of people as they are transferred from one facility to another? Have I got the punch cards for you!
Like the business of the Presidents Bush father/grandfather
The NYT were also big Hitler backers, too
I was informed on good authority that Mussolini did not in fact make the trains run on time...
Except the Reporter Special. THAT train ran on time & under budget (and all the other trains were sidetracked for the duration).
Melanchon is mostly a bogey-man figure without much power. It is far more likely that Olivier Faure will lead the left
Britain and France move left while America’s media, apparently permanently infected with Murdochism, joins hands with our homegrown fascists to drive us back to the 1950s…um, 1850s? Huh, looks like 1750s is the goal now.
Everybody’s in the pocket of Big Pewter…
To hell with Obamacare, I'll trade you some saltpetre for a good leeching.
Bloody hell! 2 more marks!
Oh take the trade, Grouchy. Add a little sulfer, a little charcoal, and you get something....wonderful.
Ur not the boss of me... :)
Oh, but the sheer joy...you mix it up, you wrap it up real real tight, put a loop of nichrome wire in there, hook it up to a battery....and kablooey! Instant neighborhood, nay, town wide fame. As Red Skelton so aptly put it, "Be the first kid on your block to be the last kid on your block".
Of course, were it modern times, I'd STILL be in prison. Oh yeah, I was the town nutjob from early in life. Popularity comes in many forms. And all thanks to Star Trek. No really. "Arena". Changed my life, and paved my way to infamy.
2 engraved marks.
Starmer is more Centre than Left, I'm given to understand
His economic plan is new neo-liberalism
Neo-neo, con not much brio
I think just the 50s. I'm not sure if that is CE or BCE
Why can't we have nice things? Moral hazard, my friends. Moral hazard.
For example, if we made it so the unemployed were not in danger of being made homeless, why, nobody would ever work! And where would we be then? So you can see why those Frenchies are wrong to coddle their shirkers. Indeed, we should eliminate the entire social safety net because that's the only way to encourage all of you losers and peons to actually work! Vote Republican!
I miss Charles Pierce's columns on Brooks' dog, Moral Hazard. (or am I misremembering it?)
You have it right. An Irish Setter named Moral Hazard.
Thank god the brain still works a little good. I can remember things…
Along those lines, Lucky Ducky from Rueben Bolling’s comic “Tom the Dancing Bug.”
Apples/oranges but Bolling is frequently brilliant.
Wisconsin Senate candidate Eric Hovde was caught on tape (on phone?) at a county fair, some woman prodded him with a complaint that Obamacare allowed "kids" to stay on their parent's health insurance til age 26, Hovde responded that it's "delaying the maturation of young people" who are all "sitting on their parent's couches". Dude, it's health care, not a guaranteed monthly income, you've got your Obama mixed up with your Yang.
Well, *some* of us can have nice things, with no such hazards. Not that anyone should look into their affairs.
Well, you see, [clears throat] when a very, very rich man loves his very, very rich wife very, very much, he gives her a special hug, and that's how their offspring earn all the nice things they have.
Indeed. It's the rest of us who are fucked.
How about when the very, very rich man loves his very, very hot secretary?
Offspring from that union may not earn the same benefits.
Desk set!
"Tell me, boss – is this considered part of your official duties?"
"As long as we stay in the office, it's official!"
I'm getting to something else, but in the meantime I shall admit here that whenever the 'workers' are 'shirkers' I go straight to Dr Seuss's If I Ran The Circus (which, now I write that, I realize could be the alt. title of this here REBID).
Our shirkers LOVE shirk! They say "Shirk us! Please shirk us!"
Quelle horreur, not Hugo Chavez (takes a long drag on cigarette: that’s a name I haven’t heard in years)! It seems the legacy/establishment media have thrown in every scare-monger other than an accusation the Leftists are puppets of George Soros.
It's hilarious how the global money people talk about “the markets” as if those metrics are your ailing grandmother on life support. Don’t make too much noise, don’t step on the line to the oxygen tank, don’t forget the medication every four hours, and don't support progressive policies, you might hurt The Markets.
I wonder if they noticed that Venezuela is having elections at the end of this month, andthat Chavez has been dead for about 11 years, speaking of dictators?
He's still alive enough to rig our elections!
Uncle Joe, take note!
One of the big things The Markets love is authoritarianism, which brings Stability. Nobody gonna be agitating for the worker when it might mean the death penalty.
A kind of stability, yes. Until the Dictator has a hankerin' for YOUR business, and then you will soon be receiving An Offer You Can't Refuse. All owners of high-class golf resorts take note.
SOOO many options for gravesites. Let the National Razoring begin!
I ran out the tap or something yesterday so this is going to be tough...
Firstly, the French have three blocs: the fascists, the centrists and the lib/lefties. (Not sure that the lefties are all that lefty but whatever.) No one has a majority so alignments and stuff will be needed to get anything done. Obviously these coalitions to get stuff done are highly unlikely to be offer a lefty/fascist collaboration (so to speak) so maybe there'll be frequent center/fascist aligning? Which is to say practically speaking a lefty bloc that is much less significant than made out to be. All the more so as it came to power in huge part as a No vote to both Le Pen and Macron.
An to stay on brand, I'll note that as ex-Goldman Sachs, I'm sure Macron isn't too unhappy with how well the fascists did as long as they didn't (finally) become the dominant party. It's not like they have any major enough issue with neoliberalism as to push for something that would upset les pouvoirs en place (merci, Google; couldn't have done that without you).
As for any comparison to us: 😂
[moments later after regaining the breath from the laughing too hard]
I must point out the obvious: France is far more advanced than we are and the gap is ever growing. For one things, votes matter there. Here I think they still might as a rule but it's kind of too close to tell.
Meanwhile, I'm busy being perturbed by the Munro affair and all the fuckedupedness it illustrates in far too many ways. (Not a dis of her as an artist, I'm referring to what can be called with unusual kindness from moi as the human level. I dunno, maybe it gets to the problem with assumptions and ignorant assumptions at that. Which would bring back towards the state of the nation and stuff.
All to say: Macron walking arm in arm with the Nouveau Vichy (Now Even More Sparkly!)
Please note the leftists and centrists made a deal before the second election that if the fascists might win a seat, the lower vote getting left or center politician would drop out and try to get their supporters to vote for the non-fascist, so it seems likely the non-fascists will continue to work together
As I've noted before, LePen is literally on Putin's payroll; this is known, and is a contributing factor.
So she’s a Republican?
That’s one of the few things I’m clear on.
How the election played out the way it did is one thing, how things proceed from there are something else entirely.
The French apparently have a sensitivity re fascists to a degree we of course don’t. So uniting to block Le Pen et cie isn’t necessarily a long term commitment parliamentary proceedings-wise. As, like, always, time will tell.
I enjoy the hard politics writing! I really appreciate your perspective.
I think in a lot of ways this is the same event as the insanely vitupative Biden coverage. I like to tell myself that it's a sign that their coalition is exploding or imploding and they're only tactic is to attack kindly old competent grandpa. Which I mean, if you shoot puppies to make points that might seem like a good strategy.
A whole lot of their cohort are old AF ( seems like they wouldn't take too kindly to the senile Joe isn't worth throwing out an ice flow talk.) their leaders are insane degenerates and every time the people get half a chance to vote honestly about things they get their ass beat.
They Shoot Puppies, Don't They?
Ask Kristi Noem.
Pass. Hard pass.
I would make a "Get Kristi Noem!"'joke but that might be too deep a reference...
Great summary from Roy Edroso of the program of the French Popular Front that was the lead party in Sunday's parliamentary election. And also some spot-on mockery of how the US mainstream press - he calls it the Prestige Press here - has responded to the election. Whatever political game Macron was playing by forcing a snap parliamentary election, Sunday's election turned out to be a great example of pro-democracy parties uniting against a strong anti-democratic one (LePen's National Rally) and of a left alliance that one the biggest plurality by offering up an attractive political program.
I never quite understood how Macron came to power. He was Hollande's Treasury/Economics Minister, and the French hated Hollande's economic policies. So then they voted for the architect of the policies they hated and got more of those bad policies which they hated even more
Americans are increasingly unable to take collective action. We wouldn't have CFT if the Republicans in 2015 had been able to join forces and unite behind one of the other candidates but each one was yelling "Me! Me! ME!" Democrats are only a little better - witness the upholding of anti-democratic foolishness like the filibuster and blue slips. Fox and Murdoch share most of the blame but it's the fruit of our rugged individualism and the myths that support it. The lone gunslinger cleans up the town or the one good cop cleans up the force (what happens after he leaves and the bad guys come back?). The one thoughtful man sways the jury (how do we get him on every jury?). You can't build a country that way, or as Ben Franklin put it, hang together or hang separately.
I recall a few quotes from French leaders; and maybe the most apposite is de Gaulle:
"How can one rule a country with 264 kinds of cheese?"
His answer was "with a firm hand", apparently;
The other, from Gen. August Ducroit: surveying the Prussian army surrounding Napoleon III's forces, at Sedan, seems a bit closer to our situation: "Nous sommes dans un pot de chambre, et nous y serons emmerdes...."
How can one rule a country with 3,239,703 types of porn?
Also with a firm hand. Nudge, nudge, SAAAAY no MOOAAH!
I'll step in here and offer a "You're welcome" for the temporarily absent Mr Rubble. If he does return and disagrees and says FUCK THAT SHIT! I would not deign argue...
"Candid photography"
... when I was a youth I thought they said "candied," which works as well.
Project 2025 will clear that up. Porn will be outlawed, distributors iimprisoned.
If that one thing, THAT ONE THING, was made clear to the American people, we'd have jack shit to worry about in November. That ought to be in every damn ad.
Trump's dream is a hundred unemployed porn stars lined up before him at the White House, all begging for work.
Ahhhhh, that's why he bought off on it.
Any national challenge that required majority collective action, or coordination on the level of WW2 (or, say, the Works Progress Administration) would simply tear the country apart. No more United States.
Not that we aren't sundering at a pace already. Its just that if stress tests get worse - by accident and/or by design - the contraption will come apart, and authoritarians will take over. Shock Doctrine, but in every sphere.
No putative world older could prevent it. Nobody would have to win a war against us.
If public libraries didn’t already exist, we would never create them now.
Former librarian and archivist here. Not only would we never create them, we'll destroy the ones we've got.
Try figuring out how archives can be run at a profit. What kind of mission would that entail. Not that anyone who matters gives a shit.
Fuck, they want to abolish the National Weather Service. Because Accuweather, which gets all its data from the NWS.
It's much cheaper to just have Trump draw lines on a map with a Sharpie
Only because he refuses to accept the salary. If you factor all the other costs in, 'cheaper' falls by the wayside...
Until he gets bored, then I guess we just won't have weather.
Didn't we lose harvests at one point when the GOP did their government shutdown tantrum and farmers weren't getting weather info they required?
Thanks a lot, Biden!
Science is liberal. Gotta cut that shit out.
Candace Owens describes it as "the cult of science"
https://www.mediamatters.org/candace-owens/candace-owens-im-not-flat-earther-im-not-round-earther-actually-what-i-am-i-am
Hell that's nothing. The insane Lt. Governor of North Carolina, a black guy mind you, wants to eliminate all science and social studies in grades one through five.
He's also a Holocaust denier, by the way, and yesterday said the military needs to come out "because some folks need killing".
The New Dark Ages, coming soon to a country near you....
Hearted but furiously. And that dude is likely to be the next guvnor.
Sadly, Yes. He is one grade A nutjob.
But like the man said a while back, "too small for a country, too large for an insane asylum".
Let's just say that when the party admits the Black Republicans, some lowering of the bar may be necessary.
Well the man said, this is not out of spite, or hatred, just that gays, Mooslims, atheists and Black Democrats need killing. Simple as that. Ain't no meanness involved, just good Christian action.
Which sucks, because I keep arguing a new WPA is what we could really, really use.
Admittedly, I decided that before the COVID Year Of Chaos.
The filibuster and blue slips are more about power for the individual Senator than anything else. But that fits your thesis very well
That's kinda what I mean.
Ok I get that LFI is accurate and all that, but I prefer the English translation, France Unbowed, or FU.
Are there hats? Can I buy one on the internet?
No but you CAN get this devastatingly ironic coffee mug.
It's France, can I get that in a demitasse?
Tasse, demitasse, hemidemitasse, whatever...
Tee hee. (broad Texas accent) "He sent fo-ah quavahs, two semi-quavahs..."
Still trying to figure out that voice actor. The Close Encounters credits are indeterminate.
ETA: Welcome to the particular hell of the voicechaser.
Maybe there's a hard limit to the appeal of open racism? Sure, the taboos have all been broken, candidates can now say stuff that was considered beyond the pale ten years ago, and that means the hard right in France goes from zero seats to more than a hundred. There's a hard 20-30% who want their racism loud n' proud, but there's also a solid 60-70% who will vote, volunteer, donate because they're repelled by it.
Same goes for Nigel Farage and Reform UK, and maybe (dear God, let's hope so) for Trumpism?
Over the years, there's been a lot of talk about how Marine LePen has been "softening" the party she inherited from her father, but the open Muslim-hatin's got to stay, that's what's gotten them as far as they have come, but there's also clearly a solid majority who's so repelled by it that they'll vote for damn near anyone else to keep these fuckers out of office.
"Softening" = keeping the bigotry while easing the rhetoric, white shoe supremacy. See also: Nick Fuentes.
Apparently didn't work, at least not in France.
The nutjobs get all the airtime, stirring up clickbait. Then Jean Deaux enters the picture....
Whenever I see the name "Marine Le Pen" I think "Everybody outta the water!"
I suspect racism is rather stronger in some areas (the rural south, and midwest: "extended Appalachia: but there are increasingly enough non whites and non racist whites to begin to balance that out.. it will in the next few elections absent fascism.
I think it's like most young people and homophobia, they hear that shit come out your mouth, they're just done with you, don't bother to explain about the tax cuts.
The kids are just so INTOLERANT these days!
Racism might be more blatant and obvious in some places, but even northeastern places like Boston aren’t exactly free from racism.
Yes, and now that they're not hiding it, it's easier to see that.
I always found that Boston bussing put our crowd to shame, and I live four miles west of Central High.
As someone born and raised in the Most Segregated City In America (Chicago) I have to agree.
You’re now ahead of Milwaukee in that area?
Nah, Milwaukee took the (dubious) crown from us in the Eighties.
It's a horrible city, I hear.
It IS true that reproductive rights / women's health care bring out the votes. Racism (and other threats now sufficiently dire) could draw more percentage points out of the woodwork. Like vermin, a certain guy would say! Can the polls capture such things?
Could be whistling past the graveyard, but someone said "Young people would rather pick up a live grenade with the pin pulled than answer a call from a number they don't recognize."
For what it's worth, I took a poll over the phone (one poll) and I'm perfectly representative of the electorate, as Roy's commentariat can confirm.
Honestly, I'm fine with skipping the election, just write your choice on a piece of paper and we'll go with that, I trust your judgement.
Tee hee. Like I told the esteemed Mr. Rubble, just tell them one little thing:
Project 2025 promises to make porn illegal.
That will be, as we say down this way, All She Wrote Dear John.
I remember reading that the red states consume more porn
Oh hell yeah, repeatedly proven. The worst? (You'll never guess). Utah. I shit thee not. Not a one off, repeated polls come up the same.
Represso of Sunnybrook Farm, or, Say, Those Are Magic Underwear, Arent't They.
All I know is I've declined to answer roughly a hundred poll come-ons in the last couple months.
Can the polls capture such things?
Sure they can. Pollsters use a model for the electorate that is supposed to represent who is going to show up and vote. That is how the bad pollsters like Rasmussen get their Republican skewed results far from the election. As the election nears they choose a more representative model. Thus, polls can capture anything as long as the electorate model is good.
Of course, mostly they use a model based on recent elections but past performance is no guarantee of future success. This is also why the choice of way to reach the polled and the people that don't answer are not really relevant as long as most of the major parts are covered.
"I suspect racism is rather stronger in some areas (the rural south..."
Uh, yeah, and even the not so rural South. In my youth the N-word was merely descriptive. Hasn't changed much over these past fifty years to my observation.
You have to hand it to Old Nige – he's upped his average to .125
He's got a future in the British steel.
Yep...right in his guts.
I can never see, or hear the name of, Nigel Farage without seeing him on the cover of Punchable Face magazine. I forget who did the graphic (John Oliver?) but that was priceless, and so, so true. The McDonalds in one town Farage was speaking in banned milkshake sales that day, to which Burger King said "once more into the breach". I love those people.
I think not too long ago there was a contest to come up with a list of the worst Nigels in Britain. Long list. Don't remember who won, but I'm sure Farage was in the mix.
Radio host who interviewed Biden says aides provided questions in advance
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/06/politics/biden-radio-interview-questions/index.html
"The Biden campaign said later Saturday it will no longer suggest questions to interviewers."
"President Trump held a rally in Virginia and afterwards participated in local interviews that spanned numerous topics, not just related to the debate," campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said. "Meanwhile, Joe Biden and his campaign are bullying media into asking pre-screened and approved questions and trying to pass it off like it’s normal behavior. It’s not."
Do I really have to tell you folks what I think of all this.
"Ask any questions you want, not like I plan on answering them!"
The "debate" couldn't have been easier for him, because he just said his usual stuff regardless of the questions.
"What's your favorite food?"
"Border disaster!"
Fentanyl!
Careful now – that makes 2 distinctly different messages. Ballerina – stay on point!
Yo quireo Taco Bell.
Did any of the expert debate analysts on TV mention this?
Who?
CF Donald spans multiple topics in every sentence.
Looked-up stuff:
During the presentation of the five so-called “Macron” Ordinances on August 30, 2017, Minister of Labor Muriel Pénicaud declared that “the objective of the reform of the French Labor Code is to give more freedom and security to both companies and employees”. This statement encapsulates the spirit of the reform: The French Labor Code must no longer only protect the interests of employees but it must also protect the interests of companies.
https://www.soulier-avocats.com/en/the-macron-ordinances-also-aim-at-reducing-the-number-of-employer-employee-disputes-brought-to-court/?pdf=33789
As if companies cannot protect themselves...
They're PEOPLE, people! Let them fend for themselves the way we want all the other people to do! Maybe just buy less avocado toast!
Boom Done!
Let them eat cake.
(This is one of the things the Gillets Jaunes protests was *protesting* about)
It's beyond ridiculous. Mélenchon's party is only one of many parties in the coalition, anyway, which also includes traditional Socialists and Greens as well as Communists (who are sometimes said to be to Mélenchon's right). Of course the prime minister should come from the NUPES, that's who won the election, but it will be somebody with more friends than Mélenchon.
C'est amusant que nous parlons en detail les points minuscule du politiques Frenchie.
Shhhh. You wanna get your ass deported?! Ix-nay on the arley-pa oux-day!
Honhn Honhn Honhn!
I can't help it – I have Franco's phone!
He still dead? Checking for a friend.
If you believe in democracy, then of course you can have "extreme" positions like a 30 hour work week or a 100% wealth tax, with the understanding that this is an opening position on the normal negotiation that makes up the democratic process. Like a union going to the bargaining table, of course you go in with your maximum program, you'd be a fool not to.
That's why I don't like this lazy equating of the "far left" and the "far right" when the real question is democracy vs. military-tribunal show trials for your political opponents.
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/02/politics/trump-liz-cheney-military-tribunal/index.html
Sheesh, talk about taking the fun outta bothsides...
Puts me in mind of a passage from Thomas Pynchon’s 𝘈𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘢𝘺:
“I know this fellow back in New Jersey,” said Scarsdale Vibe, “who collects railroads. Not just rolling stock, mind, but stations, sheds, rails, yards, personnel, the whole shebang.”
“Expensive hobby,” marveled the Professor. “Are there such people?”
“You have to have some idea of the idle money out here. It can’t all be endowments to the church of one’s choice, mansions and yachts and dog-runs paved with gold or what have you, can it. No, at some point that’s all over with, has to be left behind … and still here’s this huge mountain of wealth unspent, piling up higher every day, and dear oh dear, whatever’s a business man to do with it, you see.”
“Hell, send it to me,” Ray Ipsow put in. “Or even to somebody who really needs it, for there’s sure enough of those.”
“That’s not the way it works,” said Scarsdale Vibe.
“So we always hear the plutocracy complaining.”
“Out of a belief, surely fathomable, that merely to need a sum is not to deserve it.”
“Except that in these times, ‘need’ arises directly from the criminal acts of the rich, so it ‘deserves’ whatever amount of money will atone for it. Fathomable enough for you?”
“You are a socialist, sir.”
“As anyone not insulated by wealth from the cares of the day is obliged to be. Sir.”
My plaintive "so much loose cash sloshing across the nation, splashing up 'gainst the border wall and sloshing back again..." goes here.
Does your yacht have a submarine yet? Or just the helicopter? (poor fellow)
About wealth piling up to the point where it's literally unspendable, there was a study of the richest families in Italy today, most of them had been on the "Richest families in Italy" list since the 17th century. Think of all the wastrel, idiot sons that had been sired along the way, all the compulsive gamblers, coke heads, incompetent businessmen, two world wars, and STILL these people were rollin' in it. Because they owned all the best land and those properties just kept pumpin' out the rents through thick and thin.
And the trains USETA run on time...!
Totally OT, but wow. Heard a skit from Matt Mitchell where he goes through the decades of TV, with soundtrack. 50's - Andy Griffith Show, 60s - Munsters, 70s - Sanford and Son, etc.
He got to the 2000s and I came up flummoxed. I'd heard it, sounded so familiar, but I had nothing. A kind soul on YouTube said "it's the theme from The Office". No way, I thought, I never saw an episode of The Office in my life - no really. But damned if he wasn't exactly right (damn cool theme, too). How I could have possibly have heard that, I have no idea. Cultural osmosis is a magical thing.