«Biden has appointed the incredibly qualified Lisa Cook to the Federal Reserve Board.»

MAGAs will pretend "something wrong with her" to legitimize their overt bigotry toward black women.
Keep putting black women in front of those pale MAGA faces, Joe.

@1 According to racists, the only reason they are racist is because liberals are mean to them. Naturally the burden is on the oppressed to try and be civil to oppressor.

--

Regarding the CA water shortage, maybe shut down all the pointless goddamn golf courses? Nah, let's ask the people living paycheck to paycheck to sacrifice even more.

The well's about to run dry y'all - in more ways than one.

"According to racists, the only reason they are racist is because liberals are mean to them."
🤑

@3:

Which of course belies the glaringly obvious fact that if racists weren't racist liberals wouldn't HAVE to be mean to them...

pointing out all
the Meaness
IS what's
mean.

oops

Let’s eliminate the filibuster, what could probably go wrong?

After all, Harry Reid’s elimination of the filibuster for judicial appointments didn’t backfire on the Democrats at all….

Since getting a lawn I've been letting it turn more into a meadow as time goes by. I only mow a few time in the spring then let it go as the weather drys out. I read a Rupert Sheldrake article decades ago that showed that meadows with higher biodiversity remained greener than meadows with less. It does seem to be the case with my yard. To my surprise a few years ago crickets showed up and they weren't around in rural King County when I was a kid in 70s and 80's. They are a nice addition to the aural landscape, even if they are a portent of impending global doom, while not at all proving out Sheldrake's morphic resonance theory.

We're getting rid of the parking strip grass and putting in drought resistant plants. I'm overjoyed. Not high shrubs or trees though, vegetation should be low on parking strips.

The Democrats do not have enough votes to the end the filibuster.

"connection failure(s)" of all sorts are indeed the cause! Or maybe it's just my browser. Good report, Will.

If you don't think the GOP will nuke the filibuster the minute they regain control of the Senate, you're crazy. They've gone all in on crazy and there's no turning back. Might as well try to accomplish some good while possible.

@12 Mitch won’t end the filibuster because he doesn’t need to. He is the expert at 1) Using the existing rules to promote his agenda. He broke no rules by blocking Garland’s nomination and broke none in fast tracking Barrett’s.
2) manipulating the Democrats to break the rules first.
Republicans are bullies. They are experts at goading their target into taking that first swing, meaning the target committed assault and the bully is just an innocent victim.

Reid changed the filibuster allowing judicial nominations to proceed with a simple majority. McConnell simply expanded Reid’s rule to include the Supremes.

Sure the Democrats could end the filibuster in 2022. But damn they better hope that McConnell isn’t majority leader, McCarthy isn’t speaker and Desantis isn’t president in 2025….

@6 Dems eliminated that filibuster because McConnell was using it to block all of Obama's judicial appointments. If they hadn't done it, then all those seats would have been empty when the GOP took the Senate back and they'd be packed with dozens more test-tube grown fascists.

So no, it didn't "backfire" on them at all.

Also, the GOP caucus doesn't need Mitch McConnell's permission to eliminate the filibuster. If you think they would let Dems block their national abortion ban with the cloture rule.. well given your hopelessly totebagger views on everything else, I bet you would think that.

The Climate 1.5 news is actually a lot worse than you think.

What they're actually saying is:

There is a 50% chance EACH YEAR that we will exceed 1.5 C increase from the prior median temp.

AND you can only achieve 1.5 C IF YOU CUT EMISSIONS NOW. By 50% by 2025. By 80% by 2030. By 90% by 2035. And by 100% by 2040.

ALL OF THEM. Skip one and the costs to reduce INCREASE DRAMATICALLY.

So, does this mean you should build high speed rail and only use low emission planes for all your flights over water?

YES.

So, does this mean you should bike or use transit to get around?

YES.

Oh, and in case you didn't know, carbon offsets don't work (buy direct solar and wind from your utility instead, using the same amount of $) and carbon sequestration (or carbon capture) also doesn't work (BECAUSE IT INCREASE EMISSIONS).

Have fun!

@15

You are absolutely correct that the filibuster doesn’t hamper Republicans as much as it does Democrats because the Republicans objective is hamstringing the federal government.

Republicans don’t really give a fuck about abortion, gay marriage, or civil rights. They just want justices who will turn back the entire regulatory structure of the Federal Government.

However without the filibuster they would be perfectly happy to throw some bones to the misogynistic bigots who vote GOP.

So is it wise to eliminate the filibuster less than 9 months away from a Republican takeover of the Senate?

in the future the facilities at Boeing field will house thousands of Seattle residents, working their fingers bare spinning copper coil for motors to build drones to defend us and our water supply from water extremists from Utah, AZ, CA, Idaho, East WA...basically everywhere with a desert and tons of old white people with lawns.
future!

God, I’m just so tired of this. I want to numb my mind to it all and try to live a nice, peaceful, compassionate life without thinking about the decrepitude of DC and how one might change it for the better. I feel so powerless in that regard. I think rallies and marches don’t really change minds. Didn’t Barney Frank say, after decades on Capitol Hill, that marches don’t accomplish much of anything other than ruining the grass at Lafayette Park?

Only the ballot box really makes a difference, and what are we to do there? Shall vast amounts of us move to states where we DO NOT want to live in order to vote in decent, non-corporate, secular politicians who’ll support bills that benefit all of the people back home? You know, in civics class that’s what we were taught they were supposed to do.

So, Manchin. Let’s all admit that America now has a ruling class (that was never supposed to happen). And so politicians, especially at the federal level, no longer hold their constituency’s best interest as their first priority. Priority number one is getting re-elected whatever that takes. We all know about West Virginia, a state ironically created in its rebellion against slavery, is one of the poorest, neediest, most uneducated states in the Union. One might use the term “hillybilly,” but that word is perjorative in this context. Manchin has to side with the Republicans so often because if he doesn’t, he’ll lose his job. Not a very noble reason to be anti-choice, anti-Medicaid, anti-environment, anti-filibuster, but more than seventy percent of the state voted for Trump in both elections. When you, say, push for coal – which, thank goodness, is a dying industry, you disregard the poisons it creates, the harm that it imposes. The number of shitty, back-breaking, dangerous jobs coal creates shouldn’t even matter. And Manchin uses guns in his campaign ads. Every time that thar Congress comes up with darn legislation that he don’t like, he’s a-goin ta kill it with a riful (then head to his yacht for the weekend).

So like I said, I’m just so tired of it all, but I am NOT moving to West Virginia in order to fix it.

@20:

In this case it would be more like "a penis for a uterus only results in the world becoming far less overpopulated" - which, frankly, if the fascist Right wants to go down this road of forced gestation, which clearly they do - I wouldn't have a problem with.

@21, “I want to numb my mind to it all and try to live a nice, peaceful, compassionate life........”
I can dig it. And at 73, all I can tell you is that it ain’t gonna happen. The one perspective I can give you is this (esp when it comes to Washington): Nothing grows in sterile soil. Literally nothing. Only among germs & rot & strife does life prosper. Worse yet, think about Orson Wells line in The Third Man about the Medici, 500 years of war, & the Renaissance, vs 500 years of peace in Switzerland & the Coocoo Clock.
This is why the joy in life is found in housing the homeless & giving food and clothing to those who are in need. That is why the Trumps among us are so bereft of soul.
Find your joys where you can, and be thankful for what you have. A favorite saying of one of the dearest, wisest women I ever knew was, l cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet.
And yeah, vote. Like your life depended on it.

FFS already-Joe Manchin is no Democrat! He's Mitch McConnell's #1 REPUBLIKKKAN SOCK PUPPET!

@13 PrincessAngeline#2: Amen, sister! If men got pregnant and had to give birth, the number of Planned Parenthood clinics would outnumber the churches and gas stations tenfold.

@20: NEEEAAAAAAAHHHhhhh..(chomp chomp chomp chomp)......spoken like a truly paranoid white male septuagenarian who will never experience pregnancy, childbirth, labor, and delivery, or breast lumps, Bugs.

I honestly cannot believe the eerily well-timing of my full bilateral hysterectomy back in 2020. At the onset of the COVID pandemic, getting scheduled for this life-saving procedure that ended 43 years of indescribably horrible monthly agony was touch-and-go. This was before vaccines were available, and I had to test negative for COVID to be admitted, which luckily, I did. My local hospital only okayed what the administration deemed as "essential surgeries" and nothing they considered as "selective". Then, miraculously, my surgery was approved and there was an opening for five days after my 56th birthday. The nightmare of my reproductive years has been mercifully over ever since. My recently retired OB-GYN should be appointed to the sainthood. I consider myself among the lucky ones.
I don't know who to feel sorrier for, however, with the current GOP-fueled U.S. Extreme Court atrocity regarding the overturning of Roe vs Wade: women and adolescent girls aged 15-45 in their reproductive years, sexually active or not----or little girls from birth to their preteens who have yet to experience their first menstrual period.
This is supposed to be the 21st Century and too many criminally insane men, particularly in red communities, counties, and states are making all the wrong decisions, threatening the lives of countless millions.

@20: Speaking of rocket scientists.....you're not still intergalactically sparring with Marvin Martian and his dog, K-9, are ya, Bugs?