“I can hear those champagne bottle corks popping in Moscow — like it’s Christmas every fucking day": US Politics, February 2024

Old and busted: "defining deviancy down"

The new hotness: "defining dementia down."

Biden's obviously the candidate, but who would the dems field now if he had to drop out? Would it be Harris?

IF he resigns or dies, Harris becomes president, then the party would have to nominate her this summer.

There's a kook in the building next to me that has a KENNEDY 24 sticker on his Escalade... he's nearly always drunk and I've seen him driving erratically

it's probably RFK

There's a kook in the building next to me that has a KENNEDY 24 sticker on his Escalade

Kirsty MacColl song.

I would like it to be Harris for reasons of my own, but perhaps the universe will conspire to elevate somebody like Buttigieg or Newsom.

We almost came perilously close to a woman president in the recent past, but every force in the universe seemed to align to prevent it.

(Nota bene: not specifically defending HRC or Harris or Warren or even Haley - none of whom are perfect - just noting that we've proven ourselves capable of nominating and electing extremely imperfect dudes over and over again.)

name one

Whatever else, Trump isn't perfect.

Kirsty MacColl song.

doffs cap

DudePerfect ‘24

Whatever else, Trump isn't perfect.

― poppers fueled buttsex crescendo (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, February 8, 2024 4:53 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

It's the imperfections that make something beautiful.

--Bob Ross

DudePerfect is just WordPerfect marketed to Jordan Peterson fans

"but I am wondering if Scott was aware of Gerosa Records?"

well of course its in my hometown! i was buying records from brian at the record broker in danbury when i was really young and i bought punk records from him when he used to sell at the elephant's trunk (i went to the very first elephant's trunk flea market...) (i got my first copy of fresh fruit for rotting vegetables from him in the early 80s...) and then at his own store. the best time to shop at his store was in the mid-90s when he was all in on CDs but still had tons of great records and he was selling them so cheap because nobody wanted them anymore. i got so much good stuff. that was when i was living in new milford with my brother during the whole grunge/bunnybrain/matador years.

"Trash American Style was too scary for me as a teen"

aww, it wasn't scary. unless maybe if ray capo was there and tried to teach you about krishna. $5 jandek records all day long at trash. you couldn't beat it. their original location was in brookfield too across from the post office. and of course trash was the breeding ground for bunnybrains. they had cool shows there too. i saw ted milton at trash! and my dad is dead. i will probably see malcolm at the northampton record show in march.
everyone should come to that record show! its gonna be fun. you can watch me bugging byron coley all day. i haven't done a show in years. maria just did one in new haven. we are slowly getting back on that smelly horse.

on the one hand, seems kind of bad
on the other, history has shown that the machinery of the state keeps chugging along (mostly) even with a complete non-entity up top so meh

this is insane pic.twitter.com/g9EYtK3reG

— royal acai enema naturopath (@lib_crusher) February 8, 2024

aka the Edith Wilson Clause

Best case scenario is still Weekend at Bernie’s-ing him across the line and then he keels over on 1/21/25

that sounds authoritative, but who or what's being cited?

Special counsel's observation. I don't doubt it, actually.

It's almost like all of those us who think he's too damn old to run for president are right.

it's getting a bit late to pull someone else off the bench. too bad kamala proved to be such a lackluster campaigner in 2020. a wide open primary season for the nomination would have sorted out the sheep from the goats. ofc, i'm still going with anyone but trump.

Would unironically support a party coup that set up Clinton Trump Part Deux. She still seems to be sharp as a tack and it would make for the funniest possible race.

Hey, you know who turns 35 this December?

https://variety.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/BUK_8738-e1691715895373.jpg

xp That would be . . . interesting. Not sure how funny it would be.

These questions came up during Covid in 2020 as well.

If Biden dies between now and November, I think the DNC nominates a new candidate by a majority. By custom it would be the sitting president, but I'm not sure they can't open it up to Gretchen Whitmer and others due to the unique circumstances.

And re Clinton - no it was not funny the first time and would not be funny now.

"America is already great" and "Pokemon go to the polls" were hilarious

if you hadn't said "unironically" I might be laughing

It would be quite satisfying to see HRC beat Trump, but who wants to roll those dice?

And people say I have a dirty and foul mind

It doesn't matter. Like Dionne said, that's what veeps are for

The GOP isn't the only party that can run an aging hack for reelection.

I left my scarf there in the U.S. White House

the third place/religion conversation reminded me of this On Point segment, which I read the transcript of a couple weeks ago:
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/01/24/the-great-dechurching-why-so-many-americans-are-leaving-their-church

The creepy bit that smacks of the worst parts of evangelical culture, while being divorced from traditional organized religion:
And then in this story, the New York Times story, there was a very, like you said, revealing quote from an Iowa voter, Sidney Hatfield who says she was raised as a Baptist, she prays to God every night, but doesn't go to church anymore, has attended a lot of Trump rallies because, and here's her quote, "He's the only savior I can see."

I think I’m some arch-humanist in saying this, but I don’t fault the idea of being spiritual without religion, I fault spirituality without non-political fellowship. Obviously many churches are by nature exclusive in some way, but I think defining faith by exclusion is both necessary in doctrine and catastrophic in practice. It’s the parts of any group that are heterogenous, and the attempts to reconcile that with the group as a whole, that define how robust your organization may be. The weird Trumpist evangelism is somehow both, some syncretic thing that pulls in the older immigrants who hate new immigrants, the people who lament their dying towns but hate newcomers, etc.

god knows i don't want to actually read this thread but just fyi whenever i see it i cannot help but think

and i can see those fighter planes
and i can see those fighter planes

so thanks for that

also lol 'a man breathes into his saxophone'

to go back, the thing is that churches aren’t the third place for rural america anymore and haven’t been for a while. truly rural spaces don’t have churches that people regularly go to! it probably has a bit to do with how we define rural. driving around the northeast I was struck my the fact it was rural but even on the highways you’ll run into some small set of organized couple of buildings every so often. but as a new coworker said about once visiting the Midwest, “you have a lot of land out there”

you get to some areas and the small towns are just gone. it’s not church/grocery/post office/bar or some subset of one or two things, it’s just maybe one. and it’s seldom a church

lol moo kid also otm

damn autocorrect but I’ll allow it

i car trekked last summer looking at some hunt3r roots places along the ohio valley from sewickley pa to far western ky, almost to mo. uh, the third place is def dollar general, by my visual review.

it's often the only thing in town but for shambles and gas stations.

north- and central-eastern ohio was FAR more depressing than i could have imagined, it's pretty dense with dire ancient housing in disrepair and opioid treatment centers, more gas stations. no i've not read that cunt jd vance.

western wv land is fucking beautiful, all i could imagine was that mountain biking and road biking and bikepacking there would rule.

my grandma was raised born in central ky in like 1900, lived in a place called caneyville. i imagined that area of ky as a hillbilly hellhole, and as a 16 y/o newlywed pregnant with my mom while in flight from her parents to northern ohio to work in the depression in 1930, it probly was.

but now? v scenic rolling lush green farmland. with periodic churches and dollar generals. frankly nicer by driveby than i'd imagined.

What a vast, variegated place this country is.

I lived, for like seven months, in Hazleton

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/02/09/latinos-pennsylvania-politics-00139944

Honestly I don’t really find this surprising. There is a saying in various minority communities about skinfolk not being the same as kinfolk, and just as there are conservatives in the Caribbean, Central and South America, there are immigrants who are conservative, too.

That they’ve been brainwashed into voting for racist schmucks who want them dead is concerning, but not surprising.

Hell, it's been my story since the Reagan years. I find liberal Hispanics anomalies.

I do think that your experience is more geographically-bound than others, Alfred— nearly every Cuban-American I have ever met has been a reactionary.

Now, to be clear, their kids are another story.

i did not watch the biden press conference last night, is it as bad as I'm hearing it was

Ive decided it doesnt matter bc a) february and b) ol donnie is about to get the bill for trump co ie there wil be something else to overreact to, possibly even today

I'm more livid at Democratic self-owns re appointing Merrick Garland, Bipartisan Super Genius.

Nominating, rather, but you get the idea.