jhstoo
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jhstoo.bsky.social
jhstoo
@jhstoo.bsky.social
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jhstoo.bsky.social
Dems pols could do worse than to call Trump's GOP "the Scrooge Movement".

And they will.

Why won't Dawg let us have a new party?
Golden Book: "Why won't God blow up the sun? Do my prayers mean nothing to him?"
December 13, 2025 at 12:38 AM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Wow ... shamelessly stolen from Simon Rosenberg's Hopium Chronicles today:
Spencer Hakimian Xitter post: "BREAKING: The tourism industry is COLLAPSING because of Trump." Collection of graphics from various European countries showing that the number of visitors from each country is down since Trump took office by 15-35% depending on country.
December 12, 2025 at 10:57 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Read it and weep.

Or maybe be incandescently furious.

Go read the whole thing ...
It’s remarkable that Nuzzi (according to multiple reviewers) seems to think even now that her having an affair with a subject she was covering and whose political goals she was working to advance without disclosure in subsequent profiles and who she was running ratfucking operations on behalf of represents merely “private” misconduct, like she had an affair with some random person she met on a dating app. It’s even more remarkable that she thought it was plausible that it would remain private. And her belief that Kennedy would just fade away would be the most remarkable and damning thing if she probably wasn’t lying about that. Since this story involves a lot of people behaving very badly, we should praise Oliver Darcy, a reporter who could smell bullshit and wouldn’t be intimidated despite being vulnerable to the Trumpian threats of Nuzzi and her well-connected crisis team: Olivia pulled together a small group that would serve as a sort of crisis communications war room for her as the scandal widened in the coming days. Rachel Adler, Olivia’s agent at Creative Artists Agency, would serve as her main representative to the media. Matt Dornic, then unemployed but formerly CNN’s corporate spokesman and best known for managing a magazine profile that led to the head of CNN losing his job, would help manage the press. According to several people involved in the discussions, Olivia’s team initially batted around a few ideas to make Oliver go away. Status was tiny and just getting off the ground. They doubted Oliver had libel insurance and thought they could scare him into backing down with legal threats. “They decided to deny it because he’s small and can’t afford a lawsuit,” said a participant in these early discussions. […] etc
December 12, 2025 at 6:28 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Noticed after being distracted that I left out a couple of points the writer makes that I wanted to mention.

First and most important: TRUMP.IS.LOSING.

Second, the Dem Establishment is showing the same moral cowardice as so many Titans of Industry™, per the screenshot below ...
That fundamental cowardice and weakness stands in sharp contrast to the many Americans who have bravely stood up at an individual level — from the “Portland frog” to the many who have shouted down ICE and CBP officers in their local neighborhoods, sometimes at great personal risk. America’s frogs have fought harder for democracy than the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill. (Photo by Mathieu Lewis-Rolland/Getty Images) This all stands especially true of the Democratic Party leadership: It’s impossible not to notice how many rank-and-file and up-and-coming Democrats, from the Newark mayor to Illinois congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh, who was beaten by ICE officers, to New York comptroller Brad Lander, have put their bodies on the line, even as Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries continue to pretend that they’re operating in some normal situation on Capitol Hill. Even as late as this week, Hakeem Jeffries can’t be bothered to support an impeachment resolution condemning Donald Trump for calling for the execution of Democratic Members of Congress.
December 12, 2025 at 5:43 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Yep! Good work, Trumpaloos. You've made America an international pariah.

I'm confident that you're all proud of the great job your Orange God has done for us all.
Anders Östlund writes: The United States has a clear message for you: Don't come and visit. Tourism to the U.S. will evaporate.
December 12, 2025 at 1:46 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Good summary of the state of play by Steve Benen.

Being a petty person - you're supposed to act surprised... - I am posting this quote from the top of his piece, b/c I've been hearing that the idea that Dems agreed to end the shutdown in exchange for a vote on ACA extension is Just Plain Wrong™:
As part of the agreement that ended the government shutdown last month, Republican leaders in the Senate promised a vote on a Democratic bill to protect health care consumers and to extend existing Affordable Care Act subsidies. On Thursday afternoon, GOP leaders kept their promise and brought the Democratic bill to the floor for a procedural vote. It needed 60 votes to advance, but it received 51. A rival Republican bill, which included some conservative reforms but which wouldn’t have protected ACA subsidies at all, also needed 60 votes. It received 51.
December 11, 2025 at 10:29 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Amma gonna go out on a limb here and speculate that maybe - MAYBE! - having as president a guy who's a malignant narcissist and appears to be suffering from FTD is, you know, suboptimal.

www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-con...

Just sayin' ...
Only 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds. That is down from 40% in March and marks the lowest economic approval he’s registered in an AP-NORC poll in his first or second term. The Republican president also has struggled to recover from public blowback on other issues, such as his management of the federal government, and has not seen an approval bump even after congressional Democrats effectively capitulated to end a record-long government shutdown last month. [chart showing changes in approval from April thru Dec 2025] Perhaps most worryingly for Trump, who’s become increasingly synonymous with his party, he’s slipped on issues that were major strengths. Just a few months ago, 53% of Americans approved of Trump’s handling of crime, but that’s fallen to 43% in the new poll. There’s been a similar decline on immigration, from 49% approval in March to 38% now. [chart of Trump's approval ratings on immigration in 2025]
December 11, 2025 at 3:32 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Good summary of a really good essay by Kthuglhu aka Paul Krugman. As much abt psychology as abt econ. Sample below:
On Monday Politico interviewed Trump, asking him, among other things, what grade he would give the current economy. His answer: “A-plus-plus-plus-plus-plus.” In fact, until very recently Trump wouldn’t even accept the reality that ordinary Americans don’t share his triumphalism. When Fox News’s Laura Ingraham asked him a month ago why people are anxious about the economy, Trump replied: "I don’t know they are saying that. The polls are fake. We have the greatest economy we’ve ever had." Krugman continues: Since then Trump and his minions seem to have come around to admitting that Americans are, in fact, unhappy with the state of the economy. But if the economy is A+++++, why don’t people see it? The problem can’t possibly lie with him — so it must lie with you. “The American people don’t know how good they have it.” I put that line in quotes because it isn’t a caricature or a paraphrase. It is, in fact, literally what Scott Bessent, the Treasury secretary, said the other day: "We’ve made a lot of gains, but remember, we’ve got this embedded inflation from the Biden years, where mainstream media, whether it’s Greg Ip at the Wall Street Journal, toxic Paul Krugman at New York Times or former Vice Chair, Alan Blinder, all said it was a vibecession. The American people don’t know how good they have it."
December 10, 2025 at 6:43 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
www.msn.com/en-my/news/o...
The majority of liberal staffers responded with devastating results for their own party. When quizzed on which of the top 'Big Four' congressional leaders is most effective, including Schumer, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Republican Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, the left-leaning aides chose a Republican. A majority of respondents, 50 percent, said Thune was the most effective leader, while the Republican speaker was rated as the second most effective leader, with 33 percent support. Just 17 percent of the respondents said either Jeffries or Schumer was the most effective leader in Congress. A minuscule 6 percent of the Democratic staffers said Schumer was the most effective of the 'Big Four' leaders.
December 10, 2025 at 4:54 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Just a matter of time before ICE thugs massacre unarmed protesters ...

www.democracynow.org/2025/12/9/he...
In Minnesota, students and staff at Augsburg University in Minneapolis say federal immigration agents pointed guns at a crowd that gathered to protest the arrest of an undergraduate student on Saturday. In a statement, the university wrote that the ICE agents lacked a signed judicial warrant, which is required for them to enter private buildings. It was just one of several reports of ICE agents physically threatening and wrongfully detaining people swept up in what ICE is calling “Operation Metro Surge,” targeting Minnesota’s Somali community, which President Trump described in a racist tirade last week as “garbage.”
December 10, 2025 at 12:53 AM
jhstoo.bsky.social
This is soooo good, by Jeb Lund.

"nobody ever bought into the fantasy of falling asleep in public, losing all verbal self-control and saying out loud all the vile things your party used to pretend not to believe."

Highly recommended.
The fundamental appeal of Donald Trump was always that maybe it could be you. Some breaks, some TV time, and you’re walking into the Oval Office after remaking your party into thousands of Little You’s. But nobody ever bought into the fantasy of falling asleep in public, losing all verbal self-control and saying out loud all the vile things your party used to pretend not to believe. The kick in the pants of cults of personality is that they’re two-way streets, and nobody wants to feel nationally embodied by someone whose continence is marginal, upstairs or down. It’s mortal to the self-image. Trump’s long sundown is accelerating all too fast for the MAGA remoras riding an all-access pass to feed on America. Stephen Miller knows that without Oval Office access, he’s just a guy who can’t get laid at Undertaker-Con. Kash Patel is just one Trump heartbeat away from vanishing from collective memory before resurfacing as the most humiliated victim on “Catfish: The TV Show.” Trump’s dismal, slurring, near-somnolent harangue of the United Nations in September seems downright spritely compared to our current fare: calling people “piggy,” atavistically racist rants about Ilhan Omar and Somalians, and His Majesty napping through the Cabinet’s praise circle and grand acknowledgement of the ballroom.
December 9, 2025 at 11:44 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
As a dumb engineer with neither breeding nor refinement, Ah gotta say that my life would be poorer without "nothing gold can stay" and "the centre cannot hold", to pick two lines from great poetry.

But hey, what do I know?
"It's a naive domestic burgundy without any breeding, but I think you'll be amused by its presumption."
December 9, 2025 at 11:38 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Great writing by Kristol, Eggers, & others at the Bulwark.

A quote from Kristol's piece on this Admin's crimes (below). Also interesting, commentary (Egger) on Trump's pardon of Hernandez and his ties to our "techbro" oligararchy.

And more! (Hagueseth, David Sacks...)

Recommended.
Bill Kristo writes: "There is one body in our system of government that could provide a recourse, that could make a difference: Congress. It may seem wishful to say—once again—that the rule of law depends on a Congress willing to assert its rightful authority and to hold the executive accountable. It may seem wishful to implore—once again—Republican members of Congress to put country and Constitution over party and political convenience. But could the wish finally be father to the thought?" Perhaps the most significant of the “people” that Trump greatly respects to have argued in favor of Hernández was infamous dirty trickster Roger Stone. Another was convicted crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried. And Paul Krugman notes that Hernández had interesting ties to other Silicon Valley titans who hold increasing sway in Trump’s orbit: guys like Peter Thiel, Sam Altman, and Marc Andreessen.
December 2, 2025 at 3:03 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Sir, I rise to protest this unwarranted and unjust comparison of turnips to Markwayne Mullin! What have turnips done to deserve this invidious comparison?
Norman Rockwell Freedom of Speech / town meeting painting
November 30, 2025 at 2:42 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Whoa!
Airbus on Friday requested airlines take immediate action to upgrade software of its A320 aircraft, warning there could be an issue with flight controls. The aircraft manufacturer said in a statement it found the issue after an analysis of an incident involving an A320 plane found that "intense solar radiation may corrupt data critical to the functioning of flight controls."
November 29, 2025 at 1:39 AM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Great news, if it's true. Xit by Jake Sherman at Punchbowl News ... no further cites, so ... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
More explosive early resignations are coming. It’s a tinder box. Morale has never been lower. Mike Johnson will be stripped of his gavel and they will lose the majority before this term is out.” – A reportedly senior Republican House rep granted anonymity by Punchbowl News.
November 24, 2025 at 8:22 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
OK, there's a magic trick, via Commenter Notsonew at LG&M:
via Commenter Notsonew at LG&M: Title 18 section 3288 says that after an indictment is dismissed the government has six months to reindict regardless of the statute of limitations. Unless the dismissal was because the statute of limitations was violated.
November 24, 2025 at 7:03 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Excellent long-form piece by Jana Kobzova, recommended.
On the positive side, the Ukraine-Russia peace plan advanced by the US government earlier this week shows that Donald Trump remains committed to securing a deal. On the negative side, however, the list is rather longer. Apparently cooked up by American and Russian envoys Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev—though the exact authorship remains murky—the deal would blow through a series of red lines long held in Europe and, until recently, the US too. Borders cannot be changed by force? All countries are equally sovereign and free to choose their foreign partners and alliances? No third party should hold a veto over who becomes a NATO member? All gone in the 28 points shared by US officials, which seem to stem from a different assertion: the strong do what they want and the weak suffer what they must.
November 24, 2025 at 3:56 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Fuck. What is the matter with the Dem Establishment?!?

Why can't we have a new party. [despairingly]
Golden Book cover art: "Why Won't God Blow Up The Sun? ... do my prayers mean nothing to him?"
November 21, 2025 at 6:02 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
I've been looking for these two quotes, and finally found them.

www.cnn.com/2025/11/20/p...

Vance, on 20 Nov 2025: "give us time [to bring prices down]".

And from CJR,

www.cjr.org/laurels-and-...
“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one,” Donald Trump promised a few months before the 2024 election. Most prices haven’t dropped, even as the rate of inflation has slowed from the post-pandemic binge. That hasn’t stopped Trump and his lieutenants from claiming that prices are lower. One of their favorite examples is the “Walmart Thanksgiving Meal,” which, ostensibly, has dropped from around $7 per person in 2024 to about $4 in 2025. White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett gave it a try this Sunday while being interviewed by Jonathan Karl on ABC News’s This Week. This was, as Hassett would find, a grave error. Here is how that dialogue went: Karl: The president claims that Thanksgiving costs are down twenty-five percent. I mean, does he know that’s not true? Hassett: Well, if you look at Walmart and the few places that put out their prices, Thanksgiving prices— Karl: Wait—wait a minute, I’ve got to stop, because the Walmart comparison’s, like, not a thing. I mean, Walmart had a Thanksgiving package last year. They’ve got a Thanksgiving package this year. The one this year contains much less than the one last year.… So that’s why the price is less.
November 21, 2025 at 5:43 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
[sighs] I honestly thought Yglesias was smarter than this.
Peasant: "We should improve society somewhat." Smartass: "Yet you participate in society. Curious!" "I am very intelligent."
November 20, 2025 at 2:47 AM
jhstoo.bsky.social
This is an amazing report from ProPublica ... bird flu likely to have spread via the air.

Can't get much scarier than this. Various estimates of the mortality rate in humans (25% to 50%), but wiki points out that "a lethal avian strain would surely lose genes contributing to its lethality in humans
The USDA insisted that this particular outbreak was “unique” and “not representative” of the entire wave of bird flu that started in 2022, and that the “overwhelming majority” of infections stem from wild birds. The agency said its biosecurity strategy “remains rooted in real-time data, internationally recognized best practices and a commitment to transparency and continuous improvement,” and that it is “proactively assessing” the possibility of vaccinating poultry for bird flu. Experts told me that understanding what drove this massive outbreak was important, and it didn’t seem like USDA was doing that work. The agency did not evaluate airborne transmission in this outbreak. It also doesn’t make it easy for others to do so, withholding key information that would allow journalists and researchers to evaluate the spread of the virus. As infections surge again this fall, the USDA continues to urge farmers to improve biosecurity while it dismisses a significant way the virus could be spreading. Experts were pretty aligned in saying none of what I had found definitively proves that the wind caused the virus to spread; there’s a difference between correlation and causation, and the virus never follows just one mode of transmission. “It’s hard, it’s really hard — having spent my career studying viruses that spread through the air — to prove that the virus is in the air,” said Seema Lakdawala, who studies the epidemiology of influenza viruses at Emory University. “Yes, the wind might be important, but it may be other things that are moving in the wind, maybe the bugs, some other sort of vector moving along the wind that we have not accounted for.” Nevertheless, other experts I discussed our analysis with — eight in total — agreed that this data presented a plausible case for the wind playing a role in this outbreak. “It just seems so likely to me that this was an airborne thing,” said Brian McCluskey, former chief epidemiologist with USDA’s agency that oversees the response to bird flu. “I mean, how else would it have moved around so quickly?”
November 18, 2025 at 5:16 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
True, and good that it's true, but ...

... I worry about taking that to mean the midterms "will fall into our hands like a ripe fruit", which seems to be the approach of the so-called "leadership" of the Dem Party.

"it didn't work for [Lenin], but it might just work for us!"
She: "Well, did it work for those people?" He: No, it never does, I mean, these people somehow delude themselves into thinking it might, but ... [pause] He: ... but it might work for us.
November 17, 2025 at 8:29 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Great piece by Jim Carroll arguing that this month's election demonstrates Trump's and MAGA's weaknesses.

A good complement to G. Elliott Morris' report on the diffs betw. the 2024 election and this month's election.

Quotes below.
The worst possible Democratic response to these off-year elections would be to conclude that passively letting Trump make mistakes and defeat himself has somehow been vindicated as the optimal policy, to double-down on talking only about kitchen table issues, and to de-emphasize Trump’s lawlessness. As Greg Sargent writes at New Republic, the economic mismanagement and authoritarianism simply can’t be separated from each other: [quote] Trump’s tariffs, his killing of the tunnel project [between New Jersey and New York], his potentially illegal federal-worker firings, his DOGE bloodbath, and more show that the economic carnage he’s unleashed is inseparable from his consolidation of autocratic power. Democrats can say these things are bad because they’re both authoritarian abuses of power and have terrible economic consequences, while vowing to stand up to that lawlessness—and do well with the working class. [/quote] Crucially, politicos did not simply leave it to voters to intuit this connection on their own; as Sargent details, gubernatorial candidates Abigail Spanberger in Virginia and Mikie Sherrill in New Jersey also made this case in advertisements and on the stump. Those in the Democratic Party who have urged the party to keep its head down in the face of authoritarianism and to hope that Trump eventually somehow destroys himself, to focus on narrow “kitchen table issues,” or even to shift further towards a supposed “middle” to capture some of the supposed right-wing cultural swing of the electorate, have utterly misjudged our political situation. Americans have not missed the big picture of the Trump administration — the economic mayhem, the in-your-face corruption, the psychotic attempt to send troops into American cities — and when given a chance to make their voice heard, most declared “fuck that shit.” Even in the face of such a clear electoral indictment, Donald Trump seems incapable of moderating his ostentatious corruption and indifference to the fortunes of ordinary Americans. His obsessive focus on building (or at least pocketing money to “build”) his Bribery Ballroom, which has led to the demolition of large chunks of the White House, may be the most symbolically resonant instance of this. All those Mary Antoinette “let them eat cake” memes may or may not sway public opinion, but they capture a certain timeless quality to his self-aggrandizement that is instantly clear even to those who don’t follow politics closely.
November 15, 2025 at 3:20 PM
jhstoo.bsky.social
Brian Karem at Salon on Trump's increasingly unintelligible word salads..

[Jake Tapper enters the chat room] "Breaking news, folks! Biden is older than he was a year ago!!!"

A quote below:
“He promised to release the files. Now he’s upset someone is starting to leak the information,” a source close to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., explained to me. Others said it’s what you’d expect from a man “no longer able to read the room.” Another indicated the president is mentally unaware of his surroundings. It’s funny watching people come to the conclusion that Trump appears diminished. At the end of his first administration, I noticed him slipping and I thought I was late to the game. In July 2020 I wrote, “Evidence points to major concerns about Trump’s cognitive abilities, in addition to ongoing concerns about his ability to tell the truth, leading to the inevitable question: How screwed is this country if Trump is reelected?” Advertisement: Along with others, I noticed his unsteady gait. The president’s hands were shaking at times. He often seemed listless, tired. Sometimes he babbled like a cicada. Now, five years later, it’s so bad even Trump’s fans are grasping the obvious: Trump II is not Trump I. Pep Secretary Leavitt addressed that fact Wednesday during her weekly appearance in the Brady Briefing Room. With the precision of a trained seal, she accused Democrats of victimizing the president before pivoting to praise Trump when asked about his recent trip to Washington’s Walter Reed Hospital for an MRI. Never fear, she said. The doctors, “all agreed that President Trump remains in exceptional physical health, which you will all see with your own eyes.” She never mentioned a word about his mental health. She literally turned and left us hanging. We have seen the president’s physical and mental decline with our own eyes, and it seems to be going from bad to worse at an increasing pace. Trump’s speeches often don’t make sense. He sleeps in public meetings, and afterward, his staff denies it happened.
November 14, 2025 at 7:08 PM