[Arrowhead]

"Evil progressives controlling the weather" is a new one on me, too.

If an enormous snow hurricane abruptly ploughs through Essex and Lincolnshire on polling day during GE2029, at least we'll know who the culprits are.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Since Reagan degraded the public school system.

Perhaps the most significant change ... to reduce the emphasis on "educational equity," an area in which the federal government has played a significant role during the past two decades and increase the emphasis on "educational excellence." Particularly since publication of A Nation at Risk, legislation has been intense at the state level in increasing graduation requirements, using competency or proficiency tests for students and teachers, reinstating homework and attendance requirements, and stiffening college entrance requirements.

Similar effect to that which Nickerless Timothy aspired in his Grammar School aspirations.

[Samanfur]

Meteorologists have been receiving death threats, and their radar and other equipment is being attacked, because it's apparently how they do the controlling.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

It's not just that they lack education, they have been persuaded to see education as a conspiracy in which they are cast as victims.

The Know-Nothing Party is back?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing

[Youngian]

There was a conspiracy theory when I was a kid after a couple of rough winters that the Soviets and/or Chinese had some secret technology that was controlling the weather.
A high level fear in the Cold War paranoia of 1950s America
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/ ... n-1777409/

[Abernathy]

.

[Tubby Isaacs]

He's on a roll with saying he'll make things tax deductible at the moment.

He tried to cut big chunks out of FEMA when he was president before. On balance, funding FEMA properly might be a better policy than tax breaks for generators.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Would be nice if this checked out. Could swing a very dicey Senate race the Democrats' way.

Montana park ranger says Senate candidate Tim Sheehy lied about combat wound
Sheehy has claimed that he was wounded in Afghanistan, but ranger says he investigated accidental shooting in park in 2015

[Philip Marlow]

Like Reagan’s second term on ketamine.

(He’s talking about Trump obviously.)

[The Weeping Angel]

Compare and contrast the way the US media cover Trump's cognitive decline vs Biden's age.

[Youngian]

Like Reagan’s second term on ketamine.

(He’s talking about Trump obviously.)

Trump, Tiel, Carlson, Musk are all the same to middle America, white men who'll cut your taxes. Nothing much matters beyond that. Harris better prey turnout is high among her key demographic support.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Depends what you mean by Middle America. Whites with college degrees (in city and suburbs) should give a decent amount of votes to Harris. See for instance Nebraska 2nd district which gets a vote in the electoral college. Polls have Harris outperforming Biden there, and he did very well.

[Philip Marlow]

Meanwhile in Republican dreamland…

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/october ... fter-dobbs

In July 2022, a month after the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation removed the US constitutional right to an abortion, Georgia imposed a ban on terminations after six weeks. In August 2022, as ProPublica reported recently, Amber Nicole Thurman, a resident of Georgia in the ninth week of an unwanted pregnancy, travelled to North Carolina to get an abortion. She was given mifepristone and misoprostol, but some of the foetal tissue remained in her body and she needed a dilation and curettage to remove it. She presented at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia, in urgent need of medical care, but was denied treatment – a felony under the new law – until it was too late. Within a day she was dead.

A judge in Georgia recently struck down the six-week ban. But total or near-total bans are still in place in sixteen other states. Florida, where I grew up, enacted a six-week ban in May. ‘We don’t want to be an abortion tourism destination,’ Governor Ron DeSantis said.

[Crabcakes]

Compare and contrast the way the US media cover Trump's cognitive decline vs Biden's age.

My theory is the US media - other than always looking for a tight race to make it exciting, or simply being paid to shill for one side over the other - work on what’s the change. If an elderly Biden is in, it’s a normal guy who is now past it who might make mistakes he wouldn’t have 10 years ago. If Trump is in, he’s always been a fucking maniac. Being an old and clueless fucking maniac is like worrying about whether you’re being stabbed 48 times by a 6-inch knife or a 7-inch knife - if you vote for him, you’re already OK with the non-stop facist crazy.

[Abernathy]

There was a story on radio the other day about the TV executive of the network that put on “The Apprentice ” publicly apologising for making Trump a household name and creating the totally false image of him as some sort of brilliant business genius, thereby contributing to, if not actually enabling, his victory in 2016. There can be no doubt that Trump as TV celebrity helps him garner support.

It won’t get through to the die-hard Trumpist fuckwits, of course, but it’s something.

[RedSparrows]

Compare and contrast the way the US media cover Trump's cognitive decline vs Biden's age.

My theory is the US media - other than always looking for a tight race to make it exciting, or simply being paid to shill for one side over the other - work on what’s the change. If an elderly Biden is in, it’s a normal guy who is now past it who might make mistakes he wouldn’t have 10 years ago. If Trump is in, he’s always been a fucking maniac. Being an old and clueless fucking maniac is like worrying about whether you’re being stabbed 48 times by a 6-inch knife or a 7-inch knife - if you vote for him, you’re already OK with the non-stop facist crazy.

This is expressive of the bigger problem, though: that he's fucking stupid, fucking demented, and fucking cruel. None of these should fly just because he's captured the minds of a loud enough minority.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Meanwhile in Republican dreamland…

https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2024/october ... fter-dobbs

In July 2022, a month after the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation removed the US constitutional right to an abortion, Georgia imposed a ban on terminations after six weeks. In August 2022, as ProPublica reported recently, Amber Nicole Thurman, a resident of Georgia in the ninth week of an unwanted pregnancy, travelled to North Carolina to get an abortion. She was given mifepristone and misoprostol, but some of the foetal tissue remained in her body and she needed a dilation and curettage to remove it. She presented at Piedmont Henry Hospital in Stockbridge, Georgia, in urgent need of medical care, but was denied treatment – a felony under the new law – until it was too late. Within a day she was dead.

A judge in Georgia recently struck down the six-week ban. But total or near-total bans are still in place in sixteen other states. Florida, where I grew up, enacted a six-week ban in May. ‘We don’t want to be an abortion tourism destination,’ Governor Ron DeSantis said.

Florida's got a ballot initiative on abortion, which would be good if it passed. Unfortunately the state have made sure it needs 60% to pass which is very hard to get.

[Philip Marlow]

By way of something more lighthearted, Pelosi is apparently teetotal, making the original tweet complete horseshit in the first place, but the number of replies along the lines of ‘7 drinks in 4 hours!? OMG I’d be puking my guts up and reporting to the hospital!’ are quite the insight into a different drinking culture.

[kreuzberger]

That's probably for the best, given that so many of them are armed to the teeth.

[Crabcakes]

To be fair, if I had to drink stuff like Coors lite I’d be shooting up the place 24/7