Speaking of insanity, how about the voters that keep voting for more of the same? In listening to focus groups, it's clear people are profoundly ignorant - and what they do "know" is often dead wrong. This is just not sustainable. Unfortunately the answer that voters may give is to send an equally ignorant, unstable, corrupt, malevolent monster to lead the country. That would be a fatal choice for America. Perhaps we're not so exceptional after all.
You are exactly right. We live in a largely uninformed/misinformed country. A Harris poll in May of this year showed, among other things, that 56% of Americans thought we were in recession, when we had experienced constant GDP growth ; 49% thought the stock market was down, when it went up more than 20% in 2023 and as of May was up 12% in 24; 49% believed unemployment was at a 50 year high, when it was near record lows.
I phrase it differently. Ignorance is curable. Everyone of us is ignorant about something. The problem is WILLFUL ignorance: don't confuse me with the facts.
a maga acquaintance reposted a long anti-biden screed after his UN speech earlier this week. I posted Heather Cox Richardson's response to the same speech and suggested he read it for another viewpoint. The maga person said basically "no thanks, he got all his news from Apple News and there was plenty of both sides there". Uh huh. but did he ever read them? I let it drop.
Thanks to the media and social media, the amount of misinformation (aka bullsh*t) people have to sort through is incredible. Some people have just given up and therefore just take whatever their Facebook, X/Twitter, Fox Noise, MSNBC, CNN et.al. feed sends them and that is the truth, whether it is or not.
Other than the half hour network news programs (you remember those antiques on CBS, NBC and ABC), MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, etc. are all OpEd programming because the news doesn't draw viewers. Winding people up draws viewers.
It probably doesn't matter who the R Speaker is. The problem is that Rs in the House have descended into madness in the MAGA era. They don't want to govern. They want to "perform" & generate love/campaign contributions via social media hits. And this problem is self-perpetuating. Sane Rs leave or are cowed. Serious conservatives keep out of politics b/c they don't want to be associated with the likes of MTG, Boebert, Roy, etc. We all pay the price of dysfunctional government. (PS: We may soon see the same in the Senate.)
Considering that Mike Johnson and his son are each other's porn watching accountability partners, I would say that his life has sucked for a long time.
And the "blue tribe's" disbelief of easily provable *facts* (men cannot become women, children should not be sterilized and mutilated on the basis of pure medical quackery, women are entitled to the privacy, dignity, safety, and security of single-sex spaces) is truly disgusting.
Funny that *I* mentioned easily disprovable economic FACTS and you spout your culture war *opinions*, as if they’re “facts”. To quote one of my favorite films RE your “facts” and the definition of that word, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Once Harris wins, Liz needs to get busy immediately considering a name for a new "from the ashes" political party that must rise. Lord knows the MAGA crew will never due. The new party needs to be populated by conservatives around three large issues: (1) keeping our nation secular and preserving the founding principal of "separation of church and state" (which means, no room for the religious fanatics that have pushed the crazies who run have destroyed conservativism in the name of building a Christian Nation; (2) denying the principle that owning all the Guns you might dream of is what the Second Amendment is really all about (hell, even Wyatt Earp knew that idea was crap, and 3) obliterating being allergic to the idea of an appropriate tax code - and replacing it with and idea that will keep the unbelievably delusional hyper wealthy, greedy, crackpots (like Elon Musk) in tow.
Preserving Religious Freedom - yes - but religious oppression, hell no. This hemisphere was founded to get away form the religious persecutions of Europe and the church.
Self-protection using reasonable weapons and hunting for sport - sure. But not at the expense of legitimizing every nutso who want to start his/her own army.
Finally, taxes - let's get real. Populations are blowing up everywhere before our eyes. To be a good citizen requires people with common sense to acknowledge that there is no free lunch - for anyone, and that includes the super rich and big corporations. The more money you make, the more you need to pay for schools, general safety, fundamental medal coverage, senior needs, etc., etc., etc. Time for conservative ideology to get off the gravy train and tell Norquist to go pound salt. It is time to reach an agreement with moderate Democrats on a plan that feeds, protects, and educates all people, from cradle to the grave. The benefits are simple - giant reduction in massive poverty, economic instability, fear, anger, violence, and the desperation that feeds human kind's perpetual treadmill of cultural and historic waste of human skills and talents that unending wars bring the human race. No one needs to be a billionaire, and certainly not a trillionaire. If they say they do for the good of humanity - they are full of "you know what." Do I care about Mike Johnson and his miserable life - not really. Someone with that much power, not wanting to better the condition for Americans, is not worth my concern.
Trump just says whatever pops into his head, whether it's about a giant Canadian water faucet being the solution to California's water woes or that old crowd favorite, Hannibal Lecter.
I do have one question, though: Does Hannibal Lecter have tears in his eyes when he calls Trump "Sir"?
Why are we still calling it the 'Republican Party'? There aren't many traditional Republican values left. Call it what it is, the 'Trump Party'. TP or Charmin for short....
The House GOP has been stunningly disastrous as the majority party. Least productive Congress since, something like the 1880’s, I read? On what grounds can anyone make the case they should remain in the majority?
If there ever was a less sympathetic figure in US politics today, I don't know.
Sorry Mom, but the guy is a putz.
He proudly showed the world that him and his"son" monitor each others porn viewing remotely. No, really, he does. Someone should dig deeper into the "son" but that's not the worst.
The guy is a walking time bomb ready to implode at any minute. Hakeem keeps on saving his sorry ass, time and again. He should just join the democratic caucus and get it over with.
How any sane voter can even consider giving these lame R's the gavel is beyond me. Other than naming a few post offices, what has this do-nothing congress accomplished?
Zero. Which is less than zero.
Sorry Speaker Mike, go back home and boil some crayfish. I assume you can't screw that up.
“He knew exactly what he was getting into. I mean, he had to step over the corpse of McCarthy’s political career to take the Speaker’s gavel!”
Agreed Chris, it doesn’t matter who the speaker is, the Republican caucus in the house is as functional as Trump’s campaign, which speaks volumes.
That said, I think you miss the point on Johnson. I doubt he has a clue as to why he can’t get his caucus in line. After all, this is the same guy who claims god spoke to him, and told him that god and America needs his leadership as speaker. He actually said this! Okay, perhaps he said it a little differently, but I definitely captured his spirit and context.
And let’s not forget, he’s also the same guy that believes dinosaurs roamed the earth with man, so there’s that!….:)
I recall Nancy Pelosi holding 2 appropriation bill votes open for hours and eventually recessing indefinitely in 2022. To me, that isn’t as much a partisan symptom (although they were due to the Squad) and rather the rise of the power of individual or small blocks of Members leveraging power in tight majorities. Even last week, you saw Mike Rogers holding Johnson to task.
I would expect more of this if majorities stay within single digit differences. The social media bullhorn breaks Member dependence on leadership for fundraising and even sometimes control of the narrative. But it is a big mistake to assume this is a fleeting or even one-side partisan issue (nonetheless, many will make both assumptions because partisan blinders are real).
It pushes my Christian compassion to have any sympathy for Mike Johnson and the situation he finds himself in. He knew what he was getting into and willingly chose to go for it! Something about "you made you bed now lie in it" comes to mind.
I really think Democrats have to accept a national voter ID law to register to vote. Not sure what the problem is. I think Republicans have to accept that voters do not have to prove citizenship EVERY time they go to vote.
Even in very liberal Massachusetts, it takes a lot of effort for a noncitizen to somehow get the right to vote - you have to get a SSN, which you can get only if you are lawfully present in the United States, so not undocumented. Or you can get the right to vote if you have a federal ID compliant drivers license, which you can only get if you prove citizenship. So, Democrats, what exactly is the problem? And, Republicans, get it together already.
The question is "what ID?" There are people, believe it or not, who can not access a birth certificate. There are people like me who do not have a driver's license. (I have a state issued ID instead.) There are states like Texas that will accept your gun license as proof but NOT your student ID.
The answer, I think, is allow a variety of things to register to vote and that have the local board of elections issue their own IDs which people could then present when they vote. (Or enter an ID number on a mail-in ballot.)
Sane republican house members should switch parties or become independent. Or at least for for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker. Oh well, only in my fantasies.
Much of this is the result of partisan gerrymandering. Too many representatives in different House districts would be primaried successfully if they actually tried to get something done instead of doing performance art. Yet another detrimental result of gerrymandering, especially the more extreme forms of it.
Speaking of insanity, how about the voters that keep voting for more of the same? In listening to focus groups, it's clear people are profoundly ignorant - and what they do "know" is often dead wrong. This is just not sustainable. Unfortunately the answer that voters may give is to send an equally ignorant, unstable, corrupt, malevolent monster to lead the country. That would be a fatal choice for America. Perhaps we're not so exceptional after all.
You are exactly right. We live in a largely uninformed/misinformed country. A Harris poll in May of this year showed, among other things, that 56% of Americans thought we were in recession, when we had experienced constant GDP growth ; 49% thought the stock market was down, when it went up more than 20% in 2023 and as of May was up 12% in 24; 49% believed unemployment was at a 50 year high, when it was near record lows.
The difference between stupidity and ignorance: An ignorant person goes out of their way to remain stupid.
I phrase it differently. Ignorance is curable. Everyone of us is ignorant about something. The problem is WILLFUL ignorance: don't confuse me with the facts.
a maga acquaintance reposted a long anti-biden screed after his UN speech earlier this week. I posted Heather Cox Richardson's response to the same speech and suggested he read it for another viewpoint. The maga person said basically "no thanks, he got all his news from Apple News and there was plenty of both sides there". Uh huh. but did he ever read them? I let it drop.
“an ignorant person”; “their way”
What’s the word for people who can’t correctly pair singular and plural?
You need to learn modern English usage. Bill wrote in the correct way for when you don’t know the person’s gender.
Misinformed is more what we are dealing with.
Thanks to the media and social media, the amount of misinformation (aka bullsh*t) people have to sort through is incredible. Some people have just given up and therefore just take whatever their Facebook, X/Twitter, Fox Noise, MSNBC, CNN et.al. feed sends them and that is the truth, whether it is or not.
Other than the half hour network news programs (you remember those antiques on CBS, NBC and ABC), MSNBC, CNN, Fox News, etc. are all OpEd programming because the news doesn't draw viewers. Winding people up draws viewers.
It probably doesn't matter who the R Speaker is. The problem is that Rs in the House have descended into madness in the MAGA era. They don't want to govern. They want to "perform" & generate love/campaign contributions via social media hits. And this problem is self-perpetuating. Sane Rs leave or are cowed. Serious conservatives keep out of politics b/c they don't want to be associated with the likes of MTG, Boebert, Roy, etc. We all pay the price of dysfunctional government. (PS: We may soon see the same in the Senate.)
Considering that Mike Johnson and his son are each other's porn watching accountability partners, I would say that his life has sucked for a long time.
And his wife is doing “conversion therapy “ in the home! Little Mikey escaped with his worn Bible and Dad/Son Porn Sharing.
Because only watchers of porn have good lives?
No, but the fact that he and his son have to do that for each other is sad.
I can assure you that is not at all how they think about it.
The blue tribe's lack of understanding of the red tribe is truly profound.
And the “red tribe’s” disbelief of easily provable *facts* (not in a recession, unemployment not high, stock market not low, etc) is truly disgusting.
And the "blue tribe's" disbelief of easily provable *facts* (men cannot become women, children should not be sterilized and mutilated on the basis of pure medical quackery, women are entitled to the privacy, dignity, safety, and security of single-sex spaces) is truly disgusting.
Funny that *I* mentioned easily disprovable economic FACTS and you spout your culture war *opinions*, as if they’re “facts”. To quote one of my favorite films RE your “facts” and the definition of that word, “I do not think it means what you think it means.”
Once Harris wins, Liz needs to get busy immediately considering a name for a new "from the ashes" political party that must rise. Lord knows the MAGA crew will never due. The new party needs to be populated by conservatives around three large issues: (1) keeping our nation secular and preserving the founding principal of "separation of church and state" (which means, no room for the religious fanatics that have pushed the crazies who run have destroyed conservativism in the name of building a Christian Nation; (2) denying the principle that owning all the Guns you might dream of is what the Second Amendment is really all about (hell, even Wyatt Earp knew that idea was crap, and 3) obliterating being allergic to the idea of an appropriate tax code - and replacing it with and idea that will keep the unbelievably delusional hyper wealthy, greedy, crackpots (like Elon Musk) in tow.
Preserving Religious Freedom - yes - but religious oppression, hell no. This hemisphere was founded to get away form the religious persecutions of Europe and the church.
Self-protection using reasonable weapons and hunting for sport - sure. But not at the expense of legitimizing every nutso who want to start his/her own army.
Finally, taxes - let's get real. Populations are blowing up everywhere before our eyes. To be a good citizen requires people with common sense to acknowledge that there is no free lunch - for anyone, and that includes the super rich and big corporations. The more money you make, the more you need to pay for schools, general safety, fundamental medal coverage, senior needs, etc., etc., etc. Time for conservative ideology to get off the gravy train and tell Norquist to go pound salt. It is time to reach an agreement with moderate Democrats on a plan that feeds, protects, and educates all people, from cradle to the grave. The benefits are simple - giant reduction in massive poverty, economic instability, fear, anger, violence, and the desperation that feeds human kind's perpetual treadmill of cultural and historic waste of human skills and talents that unending wars bring the human race. No one needs to be a billionaire, and certainly not a trillionaire. If they say they do for the good of humanity - they are full of "you know what." Do I care about Mike Johnson and his miserable life - not really. Someone with that much power, not wanting to better the condition for Americans, is not worth my concern.
And Trump was pushing for a shutdown!
Trump just says whatever pops into his head, whether it's about a giant Canadian water faucet being the solution to California's water woes or that old crowd favorite, Hannibal Lecter.
I do have one question, though: Does Hannibal Lecter have tears in his eyes when he calls Trump "Sir"?
🤣
😂
Why are we still calling it the 'Republican Party'? There aren't many traditional Republican values left. Call it what it is, the 'Trump Party'. TP or Charmin for short....
I like TP! 😆
The House GOP has been stunningly disastrous as the majority party. Least productive Congress since, something like the 1880’s, I read? On what grounds can anyone make the case they should remain in the majority?
If there ever was a less sympathetic figure in US politics today, I don't know.
Sorry Mom, but the guy is a putz.
He proudly showed the world that him and his"son" monitor each others porn viewing remotely. No, really, he does. Someone should dig deeper into the "son" but that's not the worst.
The guy is a walking time bomb ready to implode at any minute. Hakeem keeps on saving his sorry ass, time and again. He should just join the democratic caucus and get it over with.
How any sane voter can even consider giving these lame R's the gavel is beyond me. Other than naming a few post offices, what has this do-nothing congress accomplished?
Zero. Which is less than zero.
Sorry Speaker Mike, go back home and boil some crayfish. I assume you can't screw that up.
“He knew exactly what he was getting into. I mean, he had to step over the corpse of McCarthy’s political career to take the Speaker’s gavel!”
Agreed Chris, it doesn’t matter who the speaker is, the Republican caucus in the house is as functional as Trump’s campaign, which speaks volumes.
That said, I think you miss the point on Johnson. I doubt he has a clue as to why he can’t get his caucus in line. After all, this is the same guy who claims god spoke to him, and told him that god and America needs his leadership as speaker. He actually said this! Okay, perhaps he said it a little differently, but I definitely captured his spirit and context.
And let’s not forget, he’s also the same guy that believes dinosaurs roamed the earth with man, so there’s that!….:)
I recall Nancy Pelosi holding 2 appropriation bill votes open for hours and eventually recessing indefinitely in 2022. To me, that isn’t as much a partisan symptom (although they were due to the Squad) and rather the rise of the power of individual or small blocks of Members leveraging power in tight majorities. Even last week, you saw Mike Rogers holding Johnson to task.
I would expect more of this if majorities stay within single digit differences. The social media bullhorn breaks Member dependence on leadership for fundraising and even sometimes control of the narrative. But it is a big mistake to assume this is a fleeting or even one-side partisan issue (nonetheless, many will make both assumptions because partisan blinders are real).
It pushes my Christian compassion to have any sympathy for Mike Johnson and the situation he finds himself in. He knew what he was getting into and willingly chose to go for it! Something about "you made you bed now lie in it" comes to mind.
Kudos to you mother in law!
I also appreciate that you don’t swear, Chris. Thanks!
I really think Democrats have to accept a national voter ID law to register to vote. Not sure what the problem is. I think Republicans have to accept that voters do not have to prove citizenship EVERY time they go to vote.
Even in very liberal Massachusetts, it takes a lot of effort for a noncitizen to somehow get the right to vote - you have to get a SSN, which you can get only if you are lawfully present in the United States, so not undocumented. Or you can get the right to vote if you have a federal ID compliant drivers license, which you can only get if you prove citizenship. So, Democrats, what exactly is the problem? And, Republicans, get it together already.
The question is "what ID?" There are people, believe it or not, who can not access a birth certificate. There are people like me who do not have a driver's license. (I have a state issued ID instead.) There are states like Texas that will accept your gun license as proof but NOT your student ID.
The answer, I think, is allow a variety of things to register to vote and that have the local board of elections issue their own IDs which people could then present when they vote. (Or enter an ID number on a mail-in ballot.)
Mike “Moses” Johnson doesn’t deserve anything better than a sucky life. Being a Trump Toady consigns you to the sucky life layer of hell.
Sane republican house members should switch parties or become independent. Or at least for for Hakeem Jeffries for speaker. Oh well, only in my fantasies.
Much of this is the result of partisan gerrymandering. Too many representatives in different House districts would be primaried successfully if they actually tried to get something done instead of doing performance art. Yet another detrimental result of gerrymandering, especially the more extreme forms of it.