US Politics, May 2023: May 1 never happened

Low! A ton of amazing punk, hardcore, and crust bands, too.

I still can't quite believe I moved from MN to WI

If the formula held true (bad weather = good music) then I would expect Fargo/Moorhead to eclipse Minneapolis/St. Paul.

Really Alaska and/or Antarctica ought to be dominating the indie scene hands down, and yet Jewel inexplicably fails to dominate the culture

Bad weather + state support for education, including the arts

A number of Seattle musicians have told me, on separate occasions, that they credit that city's music scene to the bad weather and lots of people having basements where they can jam ad infinitum.

Re DJP’s point, there is a reason why so many literary non-profits are based in Minnesota— the state has a fair amount of resources dedicated to funding such ventures.

Florida, Southern California, and Jamaica have nice weather and therefore have produced exactly zero notable bands

exactly what we’ve been saying

The Florida death metal scene, Paramore and Lynyrd Skynyrd would like a word.

But just one as they have a lunch engagement

Lol I read that backwards.

AS YOU WERE

I don't think Paramore is from Florida.

So now Cornel West's work appears on the WSJ op-ed page.

Take heed

'Cause I'm a lyrical poet

Miami's on the scene just in case you didn't know it

My town

That created all the bass sound

https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.18169-9/13770461_10153986912238138_7270787845348080798_n.jpg

https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.18169-9/13770461_10153986912238138_7270787845348080798_n.jpg?_nc_cat=103&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=9267fe&_nc_ohc=L5Nivi9rQhgAX_MsAA1&_nc_ht=scontent-ord5-2.xx&oh=00_AfBjlxFHQ0mneCVDKq61hgh0apL0EsTLTEwRUxVq9bXSRw&oe=6489897C

Pictured, top to bottom: Fred Durst, Florida

I am pretty sure Neanderthal could, in fact, wax a chump like a candle

a well-timed tornado watch kept Trump away from visiting here this weekend

not that I’d prefer a tornado, but….

Even at the height of 2000s right-wing Islamophobia you could anticipate this turn. pic.twitter.com/ORfU0ORkDY

— Adrian (@blagojevism) May 15, 2023

This is where we remember how much Adolf Hitler admired (and tried to emulate) the way the U.S.A. dealt with its indigenous people: continuous serial relocation, concentration into undesirable areas, occasional spurts of genocide.

Similarly, yeah duh, of COURSE U.S.ian Christian theocrats are going to admire the ability of Islamic theocratic to impose their worldview on entire nation-states. It is exactly what U.S.ian Christian theocrats would love to be able to do in Alabama / Mississippi / South Carolina / Texas etc.

The sense of "they're just jealous" was pretty palpable even then

compare the Handmaid's tale outfits to burqas and, well, you get the idea

many xps, i moved from MPLS to PDX and work in grants, and the funding environment is strikingly different here. it's taken some getting used to. but i'd also echo the sentiment that having 6 months a year inside + basements makes for a good deal of MN's cultural output. i'd also say it explains some of the angst/melancholy in these bands

Florida's lack of basements probably delayed Tom Petty's career trajectory by at least five years.

This is where we remember how much Adolf Hitler admired (and tried to emulate) the way the U.S.A. dealt with its indigenous people: continuous serial relocation, concentration into undesirable areas, occasional spurts of genocide.

Learning about this fascination was the best part about Caste.`

the democrats appear to be getting their asses kicked with the debt ceiling. not only are they giving in (after doing the same in the obama years to calamitous effect, and knowing it), but they gave in before the gop took any political damage from holding the country hostage in exchange for cutting social service spending. they're just going to do the same thing during the next federal budget negotiation (which is the time when it's actually appropriate to negotiate about the federal budget, amazingly)

Where are you reading about the latest movements?

not latest movements, more just that they're openly negotiating now

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/14/politics/debt-limit-talks-biden-republicans-cnntv/index.html

Negotiators have been able to pinpoint some areas on which congressional staff and the White House can find common ground, including revising the permitting process, rescinding unspent Covid-19 relief funds and potentially cutting spending, the sources said.

this Giuliani thing that just dropped into the news, uh...

Ugh

the details are horrifying. what a fucking creep

The allegations of sexual assault and harassment are horrifying enough, but the suit also makes a wide range of other allegations: That Rudy was selling pardons for $2 million a piece (and sharing proceedings with Trump), that he urged her to refuse to cooperate with the FBI, etc

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) May 15, 2023

Fucking hell.

there's a screenshot from the second Borat movie in the lawsuit pdf

He sat on the bed and pulled down his pants. The following
screenshot from the film Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm depicts Giuliani acting in a similar manner
to how he acted with Ms. Dunphy

read the Daily Beast article, horrifying

we kind of had suspicions that Giuliani was a demented, barely-coherent goblin that was drinking all the time but there it is in legal print

finished skimming the pdf up through the 22nd cause of action bit in the lawsuit and I feel like I need to take a shower now

just the grossest shit

"America's Mayor"

Table, I almost posted that earlier! It was my first reaction after skimming the first few paragraphs of whichever story about this before closing the browser window in disgust

same

Where are you reading about the latest movements

Excuse me but I am not sure how much I wish to speak about the latest movements

The movements are regular, I hope?

They’re a bit nutty

Lose yourself in the movement the moment you own it you better never let it go

You only get one shot do not miss your chance to blow

Cause opportunity comes once in a lifetime

With 62% of precincts reporting (not necessarily 62% of the final vote!), Donna Deegan (D) leads Daniel Davis (R) 54–46% for Jacksonville mayor. Jax is currently the largest US city with a GOP mayor. https://t.co/nShpW303Kh

— Nathaniel Rakich (@baseballot) May 16, 2023

Huge relief. Duval flipped in 2020, one of Florida's only Dem gains.

Great news for Florida; I’ll take whatever good news I can get!

Completely unrelated thought but I’ve been thinking about split ticket voting and how voters tend to try to avoid giving all the power to one party. We usually think of it in terms of the Presidency and Congress. But I wonder if this historically conservative Supreme Court (as execrable and horrifying as it is) might give Democrats a slight but longer term advantage in elections when it comes to this tendency. When there is this ever-present feeling of dread and oppression from having a heavily conservative, reactionary and repressive branch of the government, which seemingly answers to no one and can invalidate any precedent and anything put in place by the other branches, maybe there will be a tendency to lean toward voting Democratic in order to help balance the power. Maybe?

The important thing to remember is that SCOTUS as Liberal Protector of Constitutional Rights didn't begin until the Warren Court and not even until the brief period between 1962-1969. Besides glimmers between 1937-1939, the Court has been a business-friendly racist shit show.

OTM, except that you can probably date that period from 1954, when Brown was decided.

Ouch, this pains me a bit:

Then came the most notable part of the conversation: Newell recounted that when the other reporter asked Feinstein how her return to Washington had been received among her Capitol colleagues, she seemed to deny being gone.

"No, I haven’t been gone," she reportedly said, before adding: "You should follow the — I haven’t been gone, I’ve been working."

Newell said Feinstein "turned feisty" when she was asked to clarify whether she meant that she had been working from home. Her office had maintained that she was receiving updates about Senate business while she was recuperating in San Francisco.

“No, I’ve been here. I’ve been voting,” she reportedly said. “Please, you either know or don’t know.”