Having contributed money to all sorts of Dems over the years, I am bombarded with fundraising emails, texts, and the occasional phone call even. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat. So I'm asking for advice here:
Is there an effective way to communicate to candidates begging for "help to meet our goal before the FCC deadline tomorrow" and similar pitches? Specifically, to say something like "Publicly and loudly declare that deMAGAfication is your first priority, and then you get my support"?
I know campaigns need money to "get their message out" but if it's a namby-pamby let's-not-offend-anybody consultant-generated message, they can kiss my ass.
What cleek, russell, hsh and wj said. And coincidentally I've been listening to Phil Ochs for the first time in a long time, but I'd never heard this, which seems appropriate to the times:
I had that epiphany in 1968. The GOP took up the Lost Cause banner and combined it with their feed the rich ideology to embark on the road to fascism. Protestors gunned down at Kent State, now Minneapolis. I don't know about you, but I detect a pattern.
My own point of view is that ICE and the CBP in their current form need to be disbanded. They are a public menace. We need to manage immigration, but not like this. Shut it down and start over from a clean slate.
My inclination would be to shut them down and lay off everybody working at either. Those who worked there pre-Trump are welcome to reapply. But no promises. Those hired under a Trump administration? Don't even bother to apply, because that's an automatic reject.
The pattern I see, and I would expect everyone else here sees, is that this administration, when they aren't going after imaginary problems, find solutions to real problems that are worse than the problems. That or they have solutions that might work, but they execute them in such a thoughtless and hamfisted way that the solutions still end up being worse than the problems.
ICE is going into our cities and making things far worse than they would be if ICE instead sat around playing cards in a warehouse. They aren't catching nearly enough truly dangerous people. On the contrary, ICE are truly dangerous people. And it's not entirely their fault. It's partly due to the dumbasses in charge putting them in situations they're ill-suited for.
"The killing of Renee Good is truly shocking – could this be a tipping point?"
I second cleek's "nah".
Based on the reaction so far, folks are generally responding to Good's killing exactly as you might predict.
MAGAs and right-leaning people in general respond with some mixture of "she tried to kill the cop", "she should have complied", "she had no business being there in the first place". Or just that old favorite, FAFO.
Folks holding, for lack of a better term, a progressive point of view see it as further evidence of an autocratic regime gone out of bounds.
Folks who, for whatever reason, don't want to line up on one side or the other generally think it's terrible, a shame that such things "happen".
Most news sources stick to a neutral stance. Either "this happened' with no further comment, or some version of "both sides".
I don't think this will move the needle, in any direction.
My own point of view is that ICE and the CBP in their current form need to be disbanded. They are a public menace. We need to manage immigration, but not like this. Shut it down and start over from a clean slate.
This is funny
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/us-spy-chief-gabbard-excluded-from-maduro-plan-over-past-views
The move to cut Gabbard out of the meetings was so well-known that some White House aides joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for “Do Not Invite,” according to three of the people. They asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. A White House official denied there was any such joke.
Thanks, nous. I just thought it was ironic that they want to ban an author whose central work literally could be used as a blueprint for what they are aiming for as a nation.
But then it has always been risible how conservatives try to claim ancient Greece for themselves and the "West" when upon closer inspection it turns out they were a pretty colourful bunch to put it mildly. The same goes for authors like e.g. Goethe.
On the evidence of now 5 years of Trump administration(s), there seems no way to guess in advance what, if anything, will turn out to be a tipping point. One only notes that numerous events which might reasonably be expected to be a tipping point have turned out not to be.
No doubt 20/20 hindsight will allow future historians to write "Obviously...." But us living thru events? No way to make a meaningful prediction.
A bit late with this reply and a bit out of order
bc wrote And while I am reluctant to respond to what appears to be another litmus test of some sort,
This is a bit off. The reason we are asking these questions of you isn't to 'test' your TrumPh, it's to try and understand what is going on outside this bubble. I'm not sure why you think you aren't going to get questions.
Setting that aside, saying that Noriega had all his arguments knocked down is not what I was interested in. If we are entering an era of show trials, it matters not one bit what arguments are given. I'm wondering how parallel Noriega and Maduro are.
Refreshing my memory, Noriega was captured after a full-scale invasion (Reminding us that shit rises to the top, it was Bill Barr who wrote the legal justifcation for the invasion) The US did not recognize the election of Noriega and the Panamanian government declared a state of war between the US and Panama, so Noriega was technically a POW. It was also in the middle of the 20 year process of returning the Panama Canal to Panama, with a huge US military presence and a neutrality treaty that allowed the US to intervene militarily if the Canal was closed or transit was interfered with. I don't know how much I would agree with that, but that was negotiated during the Carter admin,
I also note this comment by bc Denmark has historically been way behind on NATO commitments.
Using the word 'historically' is pretty interesting, especially since Denmark is one of the top bilateral donors to Ukraine, last year agreed to 2% and will reach 3% this year. But if your gripes are 'historical', like Maduro, it doesn't matter for shit what you do now, the administration can simply resurrect something they didn't like from the past and use it to justify whatever.
I've always thought that Plato's arguments by analogy are tosh. But it never occurred to me that they could be censored for not being sufficiently fascist.
The second point looks implausible, given that he walked round her car and stood in front of it. But it would be a tiny lie compared with all the others.
he was told on Tuesday that he needed to excise some teachings of Plato from his syllabus.
I wonder if I could win a sucker bet here. I'd bet most** of those exercised by Plato have never actually read any of it. Beyond, perhaps, whatever quotes out of context an AI might include in response to a query about possible "woke" material in the college curriculum. Any takers?
** Actually, if any have I would be surprised. But there are always a few college students who, for whatever reason, have had occasion to read with utter incomprehension.
JD Vance is supporting some dangerous and fucked up shit. He's saying that federal agents have "absolute immunity" in pursuit of their orders, and he's also claiming that we should have sympathy for the officer who executed Good because that officer had been injured in a previous action where he was drug along by a moving car.
If the second point is true, then that officer had no business being cleared for duty like this because he is clearly psychologically unsuited for his job.
And if the first point is allowed to stand and be put into practice...
I don't know whether it's utter spinelessness or extreme political correctness on the part of those 4 NYT reporters that prevented any of them from asking: "Mr. President, are you saying l'etat c'est moi?" Not that I think He, Trump would understand that question, of course.
The US press corps seems to be composed exclusively of invertebrates. My impression is that British reporters, once upon a time at least, might have asked "Mr. President, are you nuts, or what?" But for all I know even they are too politically correct, nowadays.
* When university philosophy professors are told to avoid Plato, academic freedom is losing: “Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M University, was thunderstruck when he was told on Tuesday that he needed to excise some teachings of Plato from his syllabus. It was one way, his department head wrote in an email, that Dr. Peterson’s philosophy class could comply with new policies limiting discussion of race and gender.”
Would be new to me that Plato was a liberal. But of course the Allegory of the Cave could be (mis-)interpreted as woke.And in the same book he contemplated equal rights for the women of the ruling class. On the other hand his idea of "Unable to work for three days? You should commit suicide in order not to be a burden on society!" would fit well with RW economics.
President Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.
Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Mr. Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “An open thread”
Having contributed money to all sorts of Dems over the years, I am bombarded with fundraising emails, texts, and the occasional phone call even. I'm sure many of you are in the same boat. So I'm asking for advice here:
Is there an effective way to communicate to candidates begging for "help to meet our goal before the FCC deadline tomorrow" and similar pitches? Specifically, to say something like "Publicly and loudly declare that deMAGAfication is your first priority, and then you get my support"?
I know campaigns need money to "get their message out" but if it's a namby-pamby let's-not-offend-anybody consultant-generated message, they can kiss my ass.
So: any suggestions?
--TP
"
What cleek, russell, hsh and wj said. And coincidentally I've been listening to Phil Ochs for the first time in a long time, but I'd never heard this, which seems appropriate to the times:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgrehW44g5s
On “Moving towards Epiphany”
I had that epiphany in 1968. The GOP took up the Lost Cause banner and combined it with their feed the rich ideology to embark on the road to fascism. Protestors gunned down at Kent State, now Minneapolis. I don't know about you, but I detect a pattern.
On “An open thread”
My inclination would be to shut them down and lay off everybody working at either. Those who worked there pre-Trump are welcome to reapply. But no promises. Those hired under a Trump administration? Don't even bother to apply, because that's an automatic reject.
"
The pattern I see, and I would expect everyone else here sees, is that this administration, when they aren't going after imaginary problems, find solutions to real problems that are worse than the problems. That or they have solutions that might work, but they execute them in such a thoughtless and hamfisted way that the solutions still end up being worse than the problems.
ICE is going into our cities and making things far worse than they would be if ICE instead sat around playing cards in a warehouse. They aren't catching nearly enough truly dangerous people. On the contrary, ICE are truly dangerous people. And it's not entirely their fault. It's partly due to the dumbasses in charge putting them in situations they're ill-suited for.
"
"The killing of Renee Good is truly shocking – could this be a tipping point?"
I second cleek's "nah".
Based on the reaction so far, folks are generally responding to Good's killing exactly as you might predict.
MAGAs and right-leaning people in general respond with some mixture of "she tried to kill the cop", "she should have complied", "she had no business being there in the first place". Or just that old favorite, FAFO.
Folks holding, for lack of a better term, a progressive point of view see it as further evidence of an autocratic regime gone out of bounds.
Folks who, for whatever reason, don't want to line up on one side or the other generally think it's terrible, a shame that such things "happen".
Most news sources stick to a neutral stance. Either "this happened' with no further comment, or some version of "both sides".
I don't think this will move the needle, in any direction.
My own point of view is that ICE and the CBP in their current form need to be disbanded. They are a public menace. We need to manage immigration, but not like this. Shut it down and start over from a clean slate.
"
>The killing of Renee Good is truly shocking – could this be a tipping point?
nah.
Americans' capacity for apathy is unlimited. just look at school shootings.
this will be both-sided and dissected by the clowns in the news/entertainment industry until something else comes along to distract us.
"
This is funny
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/us-spy-chief-gabbard-excluded-from-maduro-plan-over-past-views
The move to cut Gabbard out of the meetings was so well-known that some White House aides joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for “Do Not Invite,” according to three of the people. They asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. A White House official denied there was any such joke.
"
Wj, yes. My comment was very much an expression of hope that something good might come out of this tragedy.
"
Thanks, nous. I just thought it was ironic that they want to ban an author whose central work literally could be used as a blueprint for what they are aiming for as a nation.
But then it has always been risible how conservatives try to claim ancient Greece for themselves and the "West" when upon closer inspection it turns out they were a pretty colourful bunch to put it mildly. The same goes for authors like e.g. Goethe.
"
Plato is out at Texas A&M because of the Symposium, not the Republic. It's Aristophanes' speech about the Myth of the Androgyne.
Too gay for Texas.
"
On the evidence of now 5 years of Trump administration(s), there seems no way to guess in advance what, if anything, will turn out to be a tipping point. One only notes that numerous events which might reasonably be expected to be a tipping point have turned out not to be.
No doubt 20/20 hindsight will allow future historians to write "Obviously...." But us living thru events? No way to make a meaningful prediction.
"
The killing of Renee Good is truly shocking - could this be a tipping point?
"
Well, the "Republic" - at least when taken literally - is actually a blueprint for a totalitarian state, so I don't really know what they're on about.
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
A bit late with this reply and a bit out of order
bc wrote
And while I am reluctant to respond to what appears to be another litmus test of some sort,
This is a bit off. The reason we are asking these questions of you isn't to 'test' your TrumPh, it's to try and understand what is going on outside this bubble. I'm not sure why you think you aren't going to get questions.
Setting that aside, saying that Noriega had all his arguments knocked down is not what I was interested in. If we are entering an era of show trials, it matters not one bit what arguments are given. I'm wondering how parallel Noriega and Maduro are.
Refreshing my memory, Noriega was captured after a full-scale invasion (Reminding us that shit rises to the top, it was Bill Barr who wrote the legal justifcation for the invasion) The US did not recognize the election of Noriega and the Panamanian government declared a state of war between the US and Panama, so Noriega was technically a POW. It was also in the middle of the 20 year process of returning the Panama Canal to Panama, with a huge US military presence and a neutrality treaty that allowed the US to intervene militarily if the Canal was closed or transit was interfered with. I don't know how much I would agree with that, but that was negotiated during the Carter admin,
I also note this comment by bc
Denmark has historically been way behind on NATO commitments.
Using the word 'historically' is pretty interesting, especially since Denmark is one of the top bilateral donors to Ukraine, last year agreed to 2% and will reach 3% this year. But if your gripes are 'historical', like Maduro, it doesn't matter for shit what you do now, the administration can simply resurrect something they didn't like from the past and use it to justify whatever.
"
"The second point looks implausible"
Actually, Ross (the officer who shot Good) had been dragged alongside a car during a previous attempr to arrest an alleged illegal immigrant.
He ended up in front of Good's car because he was walking around it while recording the incident.
This is not a guy who should be walking around with a badge and a gun.
On “An open thread”
Was it for not being sufficiently fascist? Or for not being sufficiently sexist? (Could be both, I suppose....)
"
I've always thought that Plato's arguments by analogy are tosh. But it never occurred to me that they could be censored for not being sufficiently fascist.
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
The second point looks implausible, given that he walked round her car and stood in front of it. But it would be a tiny lie compared with all the others.
On “An open thread”
he was told on Tuesday that he needed to excise some teachings of Plato from his syllabus.
I wonder if I could win a sucker bet here. I'd bet most** of those exercised by Plato have never actually read any of it. Beyond, perhaps, whatever quotes out of context an AI might include in response to a query about possible "woke" material in the college curriculum. Any takers?
** Actually, if any have I would be surprised. But there are always a few college students who, for whatever reason, have had occasion to read with utter incomprehension.
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
JD Vance is supporting some dangerous and fucked up shit. He's saying that federal agents have "absolute immunity" in pursuit of their orders, and he's also claiming that we should have sympathy for the officer who executed Good because that officer had been injured in a previous action where he was drug along by a moving car.
If the second point is true, then that officer had no business being cleared for duty like this because he is clearly psychologically unsuited for his job.
And if the first point is allowed to stand and be put into practice...
"
I don't know whether it's utter spinelessness or extreme political correctness on the part of those 4 NYT reporters that prevented any of them from asking: "Mr. President, are you saying l'etat c'est moi?" Not that I think He, Trump would understand that question, of course.
The US press corps seems to be composed exclusively of invertebrates. My impression is that British reporters, once upon a time at least, might have asked "Mr. President, are you nuts, or what?" But for all I know even they are too politically correct, nowadays.
--TP
On “An open thread”
From maddowblog:
* When university philosophy professors are told to avoid Plato, academic freedom is losing: “Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M University, was thunderstruck when he was told on Tuesday that he needed to excise some teachings of Plato from his syllabus. It was one way, his department head wrote in an email, that Dr. Peterson’s philosophy class could comply with new policies limiting discussion of race and gender.”
Would be new to me that Plato was a liberal. But of course the Allegory of the Cave could be (mis-)interpreted as woke.And in the same book he contemplated equal rights for the women of the ruling class. On the other hand his idea of "Unable to work for three days? You should commit suicide in order not to be a burden on society!" would fit well with RW economics.
"
and now, Customs and Border Patrol shoots two people in Portland OR.
what the actual fuck is going on.
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
Gift link from today's NYT about their interview with Trump
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/us/politics/trump-interview-power-morality.html?unlocked_article_code=1.C1A.Jn36.S3vByKtmLaG4&smid=url-share
President Trump declared on Wednesday evening that his power as commander in chief is constrained only by his “own morality,” brushing aside international law and other checks on his ability to use military might to strike, invade or coerce nations around the world.
Asked in a wide-ranging interview with The New York Times if there were any limits on his global powers, Mr. Trump said: “Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.