I think, barring some new discovery, Lisbon has won the contest for, ‘where do I go when the US goes fascist?’ I know everyone loves it, it’s not exactly a new discovery, but damn, what a great city.
When the American mountaineers Bradford Washburn and Robert Bates summited Canada’s third-tallest peak in 1937, bad luck forced them to jettison hundreds of pounds of gear – including tents, fuel ice axes and valuable cameras – on a glacier before they began their ascent.
They then had to rework their planned route back due to poor weather, transforming a celebratory descent into a harrowing trek through Yukon territory.
Almost nine decades later, a long-shot expedition, relying on a mix of amateur detective work and sophisticated knowledge of glacier movements, has finally recovered the lost gear and significantly expanded knowledge of the region’s enigmatic ice giants amid a changing climate.
Firing everyone except for the one person most responsible:
Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.
Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2022
Yes, that’s who’s fault it is! Those pesky activist groups are just so powerful!
Instead of setting fire to Twitter, the WATB could have just given me and 43 other deserving people a billion each.
If he were merely the richest man in the world and not instead a billionaire whose wealth is heavily invested in an existing company that is subject to the whim of the market, a company the value of which has been damaged by Elmo’s Twitter tantrum — if he were spending his own money on the purchase — it might have ended there. But to pull off the purchase, he added a bunch of new debt to a company already reeling under its existing debt load, making the dire financial situation of Twitter even worse, in the middle of a tech downturn.
To make matters still worse, the entire world knows that the richest man in the world just made one of the worst deals in history, buying a company worth maybe $20 billion — a company whose own worth he spent months diminishing — for $44 billion.
It’s got to rankle a thin-skinned egotist like Elmo, knowing that all the pinheads he attacked at the beginning of this process just watched him get utterly fleeced in a business deal.
The richest man in the world just got his ass handed to him, and in his first act after consummating this forced marriage, he fired the people who handed him his ass in such a way that Elmo will either have to pay severance or settle lawsuits for the way he fired them.
Angelo Carusone@GoAngelo
1/ There is some pretty substantial context about Twitter’s 2023 revenue and advertisers that I think partly help explains why Musk is really losing it…
One unmentioned benefit, is that it would undercut the R house agenda, why investigate someone who’s leaving?
Vice President Kamala Harris is currently the Democrat’s top alternate candidate, Democratic officials tell Reuters, with the majority of polls showing her second after Biden, and well ahead of most other oft-mentioned names. Michelle Obama, a voter favorite, has shown no intention of jumping into the race, and vice presidents who seek presidential nominations historically win them.
But Harris’s approval ratings, once well over 50%, have languished at or below 40% in most polls. Her poor showing in the 2020 presidential race and lack of standout policy success as vice president have raised doubts she can defeat a Republican opponent.
Harris’s office had no comment.
A trio of governors from deeply Democratic states – California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ J.B. Pritzker and New Jersey’s Phil Murphy – have already contacted potential donors and staff in the case that Biden stands down, according to two sources familiar with those efforts. None of the three would run against Biden in a primary, and they may defer to Harris, too, the sources said.
Early in the 2020 campaign, I had hopes that Harris would emerge, alas she self immolated and never made it to Iowa. Yesterday there was a loud back and forth regarding Hillary as a candidate, Harris maybe a poorer campaigner than Clinton and not have the former SoS’s policy and administrative chops.
It would be a disservice to Dem voters if qualified alternate candidates sat out the process and cleared the field for any candidate beyond Biden choosing to run again.
As of 12:00 am Friday, 29% of ballots sent to registered voters had been returned (next release of information will be Monday and cover Fri, Sat, and Sun). The partisan registration split on those is unaffiliated 37%, Democratic 33%, Republican 29% (numbers don’t add to 100 because of my rounding). Unaffiliated voters are lagging. 70% of ballots already returned were from voters aged 55+. Young people aged 18-34 are an atrocious 8%. In-person early voting has been insignificant, on the order of 0.2%.
The annual Colorado Political Climate Survey was released this week. It has incumbent Democrats leading all three major statewide office races: Gov. Polis +16, Sen. Bennett +14, and Secretary of State Griswold +11. All three are +26 or a little higher among women. In a (to me) interesting pair of questions, 71% of Colorado voters believe Colorado’s elections will be fair and accurate, but only 54% believe that to be true nationally.
@Sleeping Dog:
It’s interesting that that’s exactly how some Republicans feel about Trump. If he doesn’t get the nomination, he’ll run as a third party candidate, and he and whoever the Rs pick will lose in 2024.
Well I guess Harris could run as an independent, but her vote totals would be less than a rounding error.
TFG running as an independent is a real threat for R, he has a base and the money. But there are many R professionals who believe that TFG is a sure loser in the general, while almost anyone else could/would win. The next year will be interesting.
@Sleeping Dog: I’m pretty sure nothing will ever bring out the youth vote. Meanwhile the old people come out to vote in droves and make sure the youth are well and truly screwed.
Fewer vaccinations than in the past? I’m not surprised. You can’t rally against one vaccine only. More flu cases? Also not surprised. If people were not concerned about COVID, they’ll be less concerned about flu.
So, I wonder, what is so great about respiratory viruses that people seem so eager to get them?
Republicans will still go after Biden, even if he announces he’s not running again. They’ll do it because a) spite; b) attempts to tarnish the overall “brand.”
Harris doesn’t stand a chance. I like her, a lot, but she can seem even more wooden than Hillary or Elizabeth Warren. It’s the curse of being female in a male-dominated field. You’ve got to be constantly careful about EVERYTHING, and perfect 100% of the time. It’s exhausting and you learn quickly how narrow the leeway is for “acceptable” behavior, so you stay within those boundaries all the time.
Pete Buttigieg remains my favorite, he has such a graceful way of undercutting Republican nonsense. But I’m not sure this is the right time for him (yet).
@Jen:..Republicans will still go after Biden, even if he announces he’s not running again. They’ll do it because a) spite; b) attempts to tarnish the overall “brand.”
Republicans will go after every Democratic President USA until they “even the score” for the resignation of disgraced Republican President Richard Milhous Nixon when he faced certain impeachment and conviction by both Republican and Democratic legislators.
@Michael Reynolds: Green and Boebert are playing what conservatives see as traditional women’s roles. Harris, and Clinton, want to be taken seriously as leaders.
Isn’t that what Sarah Palin did? Pave the way for gun-totin’ gals who can field-dress a moose and then go home and cook a man-pleasin’ meal for their men? Not that she ever did, mind you, but illusion is everything.
@OzarkHillbilly: I only want to object to the press referring to Elon Musk as “Elmo” thereby besmirching the reputations of other more justly famous Elmos such as:
1) The Sesame Street character Elmo–a charming character who became a media star aiding children in their intellectual and social development
2) Elmo of Elmo and Patsy who, with the Turkey River Band have created enduring holiday classics.
3) Elmo Lincoln–the first Tarzanof the silver screen
I’m sure there are others, but all y’all must see my point. I’m all for ridiculing Elon Musk but not at the expense of innocent bystanders.
@Sleeping Dog: I would be snarky about Hillary’s age of only 75 being a strong factor in favor of kicking a geezer to the curb, but that would only start a firestorm of accusations and vituperation about misogynistic, whyte, incels, so I won’t.
@Michael Cain: So 25% of the Democrats and Independents are joining with Colorado’s Republican voters by agreeing that there are other states where public officials are corrupt and partisan enough to throw the elections in their states?
@CSK: While I was in Korea, some people speculated that the youth vote gets blunted by the perception that government doesn’t impact the lives of young people until they get married and have families. Interesting coincidence that one of the drivers for lowering the voting age to 18 was the assertion that people old enough to be sent away to die for their country should be given a say in how it’s run.
I remember my boss at my first teaching job telling her younger Korean co-worker “You’ll care more about politics when you get married; that’s what happened for me and a lot of my friends.” Other friends and students said similar things over the years I was there. Needing to worry about the fates of others seems to make a difference, and I suspect that regarding a lot of the decisions that people, particularly conservative people for some reason, make about policy and who to vote for “no skin off my nose” is an important factor, sadly.
@CSK: Once election denial stops leading to a sale, Republican candidates will turn to whatever the next thing is. If they really believed that Democrats could rig elections, what would be the point of running?
I think the Republicans honestly get a kick out of nominating and electing people who “look” like Democrats, but are objectively terrible. And not just terrible in comparison to Democrats, terrible compared to most Republicans.
This is also my theory on Hershel Walker.
I suspect the reasons are a contempt of government which lowers the stakes of a terrible person in office, it’s a reinforcement of their racist/sexist beliefs that “all those people are like this”, and owning the libs.
I half expect Ye née Kanye West to get the 2024 Nomination for President.
Judge hoists a couple of election truthers into jail with their own petard.
(snip)
Engelbrecht and Phillips have previously claimed that they and their analysts hacked a server and gained access to Konnech’s data and that the information on the server corroborated their unproven claims of election fraud. True the Vote has not offered any evidence that they successfully hacked Konnech, or that Konnech was involved in any election fraud.
The court order, in part, required True the Vote’s leaders to hand over the allegedly hacked documents, identify the people involved in the alleged hack, and confidentially tell Konnech how they hacked their system. Englebrecht and Phillips were jailed after they failed to comply with those parts, by the judge’s Monday morning deadline.
@dazedandconfused:..Englebrecht and Phillips were jailed after they failed to comply with those parts, by the judge’s Monday morning deadline.…
And to think that they will get an extra hour of jail time when the clocks in Texas are set back at 2am Sunday. If they ever get out of the slammer they might try to sue the State to get their hour back. Of course they might still be in lockup next spring when the clocks are set forward and they can be happy to have their incarceration shorted by an hour.
For what it’s worth, my prediction is that the first woman to be president will be conservative. I think the voters will feel like it’s safer. Not too radical. It’s easier for a conservative to thump the wardrums as a conservative, which people will find reassuring. Think Maggie Thatcher.
I think, barring some new discovery, Lisbon has won the contest for, ‘where do I go when the US goes fascist?’ I know everyone loves it, it’s not exactly a new discovery, but damn, what a great city.
Went to hear some Fado last night.
This is pretty cool: Mountaineers recover cameras lost in 1937 expedition to Canadian peak
Twitter slashes nearly half its workforce as Musk admits ‘massive drop’ in revenue
Firing everyone except for the one person most responsible:
Yes, that’s who’s fault it is! Those pesky activist groups are just so powerful!
Instead of setting fire to Twitter, the WATB could have just given me and 43 other deserving people a billion each.
This is entertaining: Elmo’s Forced Marriage
Please pass the popcorn.
Early voting ended yesterday in Bexar County (San Antonio). Voting is way down:
2022 358188 votes or 29.1% of registered voters
2018 420193 votes or 38.0% of register voters
I have no idea what that means or what it predicts.
And yet, he just can’t STFU.
What if Biden does not run again?
One unmentioned benefit, is that it would undercut the R house agenda, why investigate someone who’s leaving?
Early in the 2020 campaign, I had hopes that Harris would emerge, alas she self immolated and never made it to Iowa. Yesterday there was a loud back and forth regarding Hillary as a candidate, Harris maybe a poorer campaigner than Clinton and not have the former SoS’s policy and administrative chops.
It would be a disservice to Dem voters if qualified alternate candidates sat out the process and cleared the field for any candidate beyond Biden choosing to run again.
@Scott: Here in Colorado, a vote by mail state…
As of 12:00 am Friday, 29% of ballots sent to registered voters had been returned (next release of information will be Monday and cover Fri, Sat, and Sun). The partisan registration split on those is unaffiliated 37%, Democratic 33%, Republican 29% (numbers don’t add to 100 because of my rounding). Unaffiliated voters are lagging. 70% of ballots already returned were from voters aged 55+. Young people aged 18-34 are an atrocious 8%. In-person early voting has been insignificant, on the order of 0.2%.
The annual Colorado Political Climate Survey was released this week. It has incumbent Democrats leading all three major statewide office races: Gov. Polis +16, Sen. Bennett +14, and Secretary of State Griswold +11. All three are +26 or a little higher among women. In a (to me) interesting pair of questions, 71% of Colorado voters believe Colorado’s elections will be fair and accurate, but only 54% believe that to be true nationally.
@Sleeping Dog:
It’s interesting that that’s exactly how some Republicans feel about Trump. If he doesn’t get the nomination, he’ll run as a third party candidate, and he and whoever the Rs pick will lose in 2024.
@CSK:
Well I guess Harris could run as an independent, but her vote totals would be less than a rounding error.
TFG running as an independent is a real threat for R, he has a base and the money. But there are many R professionals who believe that TFG is a sure loser in the general, while almost anyone else could/would win. The next year will be interesting.
@Michael Cain:
So much for the fantasy that Dobbs would bring out the youth vote.
@Sleeping Dog: I’m pretty sure nothing will ever bring out the youth vote. Meanwhile the old people come out to vote in droves and make sure the youth are well and truly screwed.
And now it’s the flu.
Fewer vaccinations than in the past? I’m not surprised. You can’t rally against one vaccine only. More flu cases? Also not surprised. If people were not concerned about COVID, they’ll be less concerned about flu.
So, I wonder, what is so great about respiratory viruses that people seem so eager to get them?
@Mikey:
The high water mark of youth voting was in 2018, when 31% of them cast a ballot. Actually, this is true all over the world.
Republicans will still go after Biden, even if he announces he’s not running again. They’ll do it because a) spite; b) attempts to tarnish the overall “brand.”
Harris doesn’t stand a chance. I like her, a lot, but she can seem even more wooden than Hillary or Elizabeth Warren. It’s the curse of being female in a male-dominated field. You’ve got to be constantly careful about EVERYTHING, and perfect 100% of the time. It’s exhausting and you learn quickly how narrow the leeway is for “acceptable” behavior, so you stay within those boundaries all the time.
Pete Buttigieg remains my favorite, he has such a graceful way of undercutting Republican nonsense. But I’m not sure this is the right time for him (yet).
@Mikey:
Yup.
Over half of the Republicans running in the midterms are election deniers.
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/republican-candidates-trump-2020-election-doubts/
@Jen:
Explain Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert.
@Kathy:
My wife has been flat on her back for two days with this flu. It’s nasty this season. Very nasty.
@Michael Reynolds:
They both wave guns around a lot?
@Sleeping Dog: Yesterday there was a loud back and forth regarding Hillary as a candidate
Hillary!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46WZfo1yFkI
@Jen:..Republicans will still go after Biden, even if he announces he’s not running again. They’ll do it because a) spite; b) attempts to tarnish the overall “brand.”
Republicans will go after every Democratic President USA until they “even the score” for the resignation of disgraced Republican President Richard Milhous Nixon when he faced certain impeachment and conviction by both Republican and Democratic legislators.
@Michael Reynolds: 1) They are crazy; 2) they aren’t running for President.
@Jen:
A lot of MAGAs would like MTG to be Trump’s running mate in 2024.
@Kathy: I saw that the most recent variants are 5-7 times more transmissible than Omicron 5. There seems to be no upward limit.
@CSK:
Yeah and trump has hinted about it…
@Sleeping Dog:
In a sane world, that would ensure Trump’s defeat.
@Sleeping Dog: @CSK: Oh please, oh please, let it be so!
@Michael Reynolds: Green and Boebert are playing what conservatives see as traditional women’s roles. Harris, and Clinton, want to be taken seriously as leaders.
@gVOR08:
Isn’t that what Sarah Palin did? Pave the way for gun-totin’ gals who can field-dress a moose and then go home and cook a man-pleasin’ meal for their men? Not that she ever did, mind you, but illusion is everything.
@OzarkHillbilly: I only want to object to the press referring to Elon Musk as “Elmo” thereby besmirching the reputations of other more justly famous Elmos such as:
1) The Sesame Street character Elmo–a charming character who became a media star aiding children in their intellectual and social development
2) Elmo of Elmo and Patsy who, with the Turkey River Band have created enduring holiday classics.
3) Elmo Lincoln–the first Tarzanof the silver screen
I’m sure there are others, but all y’all must see my point. I’m all for ridiculing Elon Musk but not at the expense of innocent bystanders.
@Sleeping Dog: I would be snarky about Hillary’s age of only 75 being a strong factor in favor of kicking a geezer to the curb, but that would only start a firestorm of accusations and vituperation about misogynistic, whyte, incels, so I won’t.
@Michael Cain: So 25% of the Democrats and Independents are joining with Colorado’s Republican voters by agreeing that there are other states where public officials are corrupt and partisan enough to throw the elections in their states?
At least that’s what I’m reading there.
@CSK: While I was in Korea, some people speculated that the youth vote gets blunted by the perception that government doesn’t impact the lives of young people until they get married and have families. Interesting coincidence that one of the drivers for lowering the voting age to 18 was the assertion that people old enough to be sent away to die for their country should be given a say in how it’s run.
I remember my boss at my first teaching job telling her younger Korean co-worker “You’ll care more about politics when you get married; that’s what happened for me and a lot of my friends.” Other friends and students said similar things over the years I was there. Needing to worry about the fates of others seems to make a difference, and I suspect that regarding a lot of the decisions that people, particularly conservative people for some reason, make about policy and who to vote for “no skin off my nose” is an important factor, sadly.
@CSK: Once election denial stops leading to a sale, Republican candidates will turn to whatever the next thing is. If they really believed that Democrats could rig elections, what would be the point of running?
@Mr. Prosser: Which one? That FG will pick MTG or that the world will be sane?
@Just nutha ignint cracker: What was the thread where this epic battle went down? I must have missed it.
@Just nutha ignint cracker:
I think there’s a lot of truth in this.
@Michael Reynolds:
I think the Republicans honestly get a kick out of nominating and electing people who “look” like Democrats, but are objectively terrible. And not just terrible in comparison to Democrats, terrible compared to most Republicans.
This is also my theory on Hershel Walker.
I suspect the reasons are a contempt of government which lowers the stakes of a terrible person in office, it’s a reinforcement of their racist/sexist beliefs that “all those people are like this”, and owning the libs.
I half expect Ye née Kanye West to get the 2024 Nomination for President.
@MarkedMan: Trust me; you didn’t miss a thing.
@Michael Reynolds: They are both Republican idiots to the Nth degree. Remember, the GOP love the ignorant.
@Just nutha ignint cracker: Well, in defense of the press, that was written by Marcy Wheeler. She’s a lawyer.
Otherwise, my granddaughters would agree with you: (sesame street) ELMO RULES!!!
@OzarkHillbilly:
Not quite all. New England Republicans are a lot different.
Judge hoists a couple of election truthers into jail with their own petard.
(snip)
@dazedandconfused:..Englebrecht and Phillips were jailed after they failed to comply with those parts, by the judge’s Monday morning deadline.…
And to think that they will get an extra hour of jail time when the clocks in Texas are set back at 2am Sunday. If they ever get out of the slammer they might try to sue the State to get their hour back. Of course they might still be in lockup next spring when the clocks are set forward and they can be happy to have their incarceration shorted by an hour.
Congratulations to Johnnie B. “Dusty” Baker and the Houston Astros for winning the 2022 World Series!
Edit: At 73 Dusty Baker is the oldest manager to win the World Series!
For what it’s worth, my prediction is that the first woman to be president will be conservative. I think the voters will feel like it’s safer. Not too radical. It’s easier for a conservative to thump the wardrums as a conservative, which people will find reassuring. Think Maggie Thatcher.