Melbourne, Australia. Kentucky native. My most controversial stance*: Everyone deserves disaster aid. *for Bluesky
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It‘s an interesting story - that we may never hear - as to why he doesn’t want to run for Senate. I can imagine some reasons (family? legacy?). But personally my opinion has shifted from excitement about his presidential run to thinking no, wait, he really DOES need to run for Senate.
That sounds right to me. I always assumed it was a concocted consultant-led argument to help politicians sound anti-woke without sounding too mean, by taking shots at language rather than singling out a marginalised social group. In that sense, it’s tolerable, but more so awkward & unnecessary.
Slippery slope to them not playing in basketball, which is unfathomable
No mention of Zougris. In my mind's eye, this seems to track from the Tennessee game last season where UofL got manhandled. I could see him coming into physically tough games.
The dilution of competition is one thing. But the risk of injury just keeps going up with more and more games. What’s it going to do to the game’s “brand” when an NFL-bound star player gets a major concussion or a torn ACL in their 15th game of the season?
This is a paid advertisement, correct?
this is like if a far side cartoon grew up to be a real boy
I sure hope there are at least 80 to 85 million of you.
I mean, crazy talented coach who bright is back to prominence. In all honesty thanks for the good times, Rick. But let’s not let a philandering narcissist set the narrative here. He fucked up and left the university with little choice.
I don’t get this. He may’ve dodged direct blame, but the series of events that resulted in the program going off a cliff started on his watch. I feel his “innocence” is based on UofL fans missing winning, and realising that we could’ve legalistically gotten away with keeping him. Am I crazy?
Getting 450K from one of the leading donors to AIPAC really adds some context to Beshear's coy statements about not publicly criticizing Israel. Very disappointing.
I know the name but little else. But in my imagination, he fits a particular niche of artist: the guy whose albums you always see at your unhappily-married aunt's house.
And Martha Layne’s steadfast leadership through the Thirty Years’ War
Ozone action days are here again. Hazy skies will make you cough, my friend. Rev your Super Duty Truck again. Ozone action days are here again.
Joined in the defensive backfield by free safety Jambalaya Jackson.
Yep cost cutting in government is a big thing. My opinion is that it comes at the expense of good representation, which is worth paying for. State legislatures are filled up with trust funds babies and businesspeople because no one else can afford only getting a per diem payment when in session.
I like the sentiment, but when I think more about it, maybe we need to make public service more appealing to normal people and not just megalomaniacs and narcissists.
No one pays attention to my personal opinion, but if I dress it up as punditry and expertise, maybe they will care?
Bluesky in a nutshell. Just share your powerless opinion and be fine with that.
Next year could be UofL's best backcourt...ever? But all the same, I am starting to get the sense that next season could still become the Mikel Brown show, even with all the other pieces.
Trump’s own culpability notwithstanding, the Epstein files are very much like a gambling addiction for followers. Just dig a bit deeper, just pull that lever one more time, and new truths will spill out. Locking up the slot machine will not “solve” this. They’ll keep coming back again and again.
Maybe one way to explain Beshear’s success is that his service is unconditional. He’s served so many who didn’t vote for him, w/o ever asking for their vote. He’s earnED their vote, he didn’t buy it on store credit. Sorry for the long 🧵. As a member of a rural KY community, what do you think?
But it also seems to me that a lot of attention coming from “the left” has is transactional. Like, I feel that too much of the commentary towards these communities is “they should just vote for us b/c it’s good for them, and so that we can get back to ignoring them.” Or am I too aggrieved here?
Thanks for sharing. I thought the interview was good but also sort of frustrating. I feel a lot of _media_ discourse from the left about rural places boils down to confusion, frustration or contempt at how most people there vote GOP. Like, yes, it’s totally irrational, as you and others illustrate…
It's always funny when someone can't defend the arguments they make, and resort to personal barbs and obfuscation. I guess you must just repeat funny trash talk you see online without thinking about what it means.
You’re the one who dropped a vague comment into the thread. It came across as justifying what had been said. You keep saying I misunderstood, but you still haven’t bothered clarifying your point.
You’re referring to people as leeches in the context of government entitlement benefits… don’t play dumb. And “Untwist my panties”? 🙄
I know next to nothing about legal proceedings, but the term “vexatious litigant” seems to have intuitive appeal here. I wonder what an expert would say about this.
I’m not into playing gotcha with fellow randos online. But maybe be careful about posts that can be seen as giving cover for a plainly offensive shitpost that calls poor people “leeches” two weeks after a $4 trillion tax cut for the very richest.
Most of rural USA doesn’t vote. But you know who does? In droves? Dudes like these. So I think it’s foolish to punch down at a bunch of poor people, born into long-impoverished, widely-maligned communities, whom we’ve never met and don’t care to know. As though that will change their vote.
Barking up the wrong tree. Beshear holds a near-weekly hour-long press conference where he talks jobs data and news, disaster recovery and severe weather, and public health (eg vaccination). When the legislature is in session, he explains every bill signing/veto. www.youtube.com/live/KEROO2q...
A largely misunderstood stat anyway. A ton of it is made up by defence spending, agriculture subsidies, and the fact that the public option is the only option in rural areas. People think they’re dunking on GOP when they give that stat, but they’re really just saying FU to rural USA.
For all the commenters questioning Beshear on jobs, here’s the president of the UAW saying that Beshear would’ve been his top choice as Harris’ VP youtu.be/Ao0FMAY5vh4?...
Goodbye Deplorable. Hello Wonderful Secret. For the first time ever, he needs to be vindicated and that will never happen because it can’t. He broke that. Barring some other major event, this will just chronically drone on. Eating away energy. Until he’s overcome by lame duck status.
Trump sold his drawings at auction three times. www.reddit.com/r/Fauxmoi/s/...
Many academics fashion themselves as advocates. These are not totally distinct discourses. Academics do advocacy work. Advocates get into research. All the time.
Just putting it out there that of all the anti-woke screeds he could’ve gone on (trans athletes, etc), this is very very benign. Language matters but I’d much rather people get upset at how people speak than how people live their lives.
“Keep[ing] the focus on language” seems like a clever strategy, particularly at a time when certain people - including some Dems -are negatively obsessing about actual people, like trans and immigrants.
It struck me that the politicization of the federal workforce plays into this. Beyond just red tape, quotas will come into play. Caseworkers to become enforcers, not facilitators (either under pressure, or by motivation). Their role will be to catch errors and kick people out, not help them stay on.
What this episode has convinced me of: when it comes to Trump’s swirl of disinformation, even his cabinet are not really in on the act. Each one faces their own minefield of uncertainty about when and how to play with fire. And now they’re getting burned. Today it’s Justice Dept. tomorrow…?
Senate races are broken. I would never vote GOP, but take Let Hogan, GOP gov of MD. ~80% approval and still got trounced in a Senate race. And of course we all think/know, “yeah, good, Hogan might be ok individually but GOP are evil”. Which is correct, but GOP voters think the same exact way.
Taking time out from running his steamboat casino.
Holy shit wait for it
Pretty tough imo. Look at Gov Hogan (R) in MD. ~80% approval rating but got trounced in Senate race. For those who vote, US senators are just seen as extensions of the national party. McConnell is is a good example: Unpopular but always reelected. Takes a strong candidate plus protest plus luck.
Totally agreed that they'd make excuses, but seeing as Epstein smuggled his victims out of the country, you might mention the whole trafficking thing... "These children are used as human pawns by vicious coyotes... Women and children are the biggest victims..." en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Ov...
It would be interesting to see some sort of network of preference flows between candidates.
Beshear also gets that you have to think about what you repeat. Too many Dems, in trying to be moderate or conciliatory, end up engaging with RW talking points and narratives. That repetition backfires - it just bakes them into a fabric of background facts, even when the intent is to push back.
Help users connect with paid media with more simplicity and control. I am willing to pay for news, but I want a one-stop shop where I can keep track of how much I’m paying, and can throttle it. Subscription dashboards, micropayments, I’m open to the solution. Bluesky can take a small amount on top.
lol. Take your llm-generated non-responses elsewhere, pal. www.abc.net.au/news/2023-03...
Welcome to the Jungle, Joni, we’re all gonna die!!!
So amazing. #timtam
A convenient (and lucrative) assumption to make for consultants who want to act as guides through the American sociological jungle.
The argument rests on the questionable assumption that there is some magic middle point of deeply held consensus on these issues where the majority of Americans meet up, and that Dems just need to campaign to that.
In theory this should be a big blow to Trump, his style, and any misguided trust in his competence. By playing dumb power games, he winds up with less than he would’ve gotten by working within the system. And with maximum animosity and disruption. www.washingtonpost.com/business/202...
The correct take. I’d add that podcasts (like CNN, etc) need a LOT of material to fill up a LOT of airtime. Quantity over quality. Grievances, conspiracy theories and other right wing tropes thrive there, not because hosts are RW, but because they’re plentiful, and easy to remember and repeat.
A hidden measure in the Republican budget bill would crown Trump king | Robert Reich
I think Beshear and others need to acknowledge that as elected politicians, they have the power to reshape connotations and stigma in a way that normal folks don’t. The key is sounding empathetic. Not just human. Because humans can just as easily be cruel.
It’s also often about accuracy. For example, the term MSM (men who have sex with men) is commonly used in public health contexts to underscore sexual encounters that can be a risk factor. Using the word “gay” in that context would be self-defeating for health promotion purposes.
I get the point here. But these terms aren’t mere academic vanity. This language emerges in service/advocacy contexts when people face barriers to care b/c of stigma. E.g., families of prisoners often face real problems getting help because of their situation. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
It sounds like testimony at a deposition.
Gerrypandering
Tone deaf. There's a BIG housing affordability crisis in Australia. Median house prices in the big cities are 10-12 times the median annual salary, and rent has skyrocketed. A lot of this is because a lot of policies that reward property investment, at the expense of owner-occupiers and renters.
I can’t believe ancestry dot com wins the day as the media outlet with the most integrity.
And people asked why Kamala lost… And yes this conference exudes cringy business success guru vibes.
It's absolutely hilarious that Barack O'Bama is more Irish than JD Vance ☘️
Dollars-to-donuts prediction for 2026: Trump institutes a form of knighthood for the US. People kneel before him, he dubs them. The whole lot. Maybe even a round table.
Ay-ee-ay-ee-ay / White farmer genocide / No more Constitution / Tariffs on Shanghai / #enterthewhinger
Good luck with that. You only live once. Be sure to put your blue state on your resume.
But you live in a country that elected Trump, so why don’t you move?
Plenty of people do, and that makes the political problem even worse. Maybe you're the one who needs to move to a more intelligent state.
If there is influence, it’s making them more confident in their beliefs.
Is the dominance of conservative voices in podcasting due to social influence—or social selection? I personally doubt that podcasting makes listeners conservative. Instead I suspect cons are likelier to listen to podcasts, due to differences in education and employment.
This is like getting oil and gas executives to brainstorm solutions to climate change.
The shortages probably don’t affect predicting a tornado an hour in advance (so that people can go to the basement). But rather they affect predicting a major storm event a week in advance (so that governments can take steps to prepare)
Next episode: Marshall sets fire to a warehouse block to cover up a drug deal gone bad.
My guess is you have no experience of Kentucky or disasters. Yet you have an opinion. Actual survivors of disasters don’t talk like this. Withholding sympathy for near psychological trauma? Get real or stfu.
The public has a 2-second attention span and CNN knows this because it’s their business model. But they have to make the most these types of stories because it’s too quick and easy to simply regurgitate everything that’s in already hand-delivered in a book.
Let them figure that out, then. Too many “progressives” are eager to throw their values out the window because it’s just too damn tempting to punch down at a maligned group. It’s categorical attribution, & it’s sidestepping responsibility we all have as Americans for getting to this fucked up spot.
Wherever I think of London and Somerset, I think of the wonderful piece that @stephenfry.bsky.social did there in 2007 youtube.com/clip/UgkxQS5...
Southeastern Kentucky is an area of historic poverty. Linda is blaming impoverished people for their lot in life. That’s doing the oligarch’s work for them. Really, Linda, they make billions - you should at least get your cut.
People who’ve actually lived through natural disasters don’t talk like this.
My picks: 1. Phillip Seymour Hoffman in Along Came Polly 2. Paul Giamatti in the Illusionist 3. Anthony Hopkins in Fracture
There’s a rare class of awful movie that has one performance that’s so good that it mocks the movie as a whole.
Trump would get WWE to produce it, and insist on hosting it himself. Which, honestly, I’d watch.
Did you read that in Hillbilly Elegy? Religious fundamentalism is vile, across the nation, but you’re punching down.
Sadly no surprise. This is the office near where the tornadoes hit. www.weku.org/the-commonwe...
Yes. Some of the most powerless people in the nation, caught up in intergenerational rural poverty. They’re to blame them for their plight, of course.
And that difference is a mechanical engineering degree and a bottle of tequila.
What blows my mind is that some “progressives” will rage against the electoral college in one breath, and then jump on board with the idea that an entire state is somehow a singleminded political entity that can be blamed en masse. If you espouse both, you’re a walking contradiction. No values.
I heard from a cartographer that sometimes these places are copyright traps. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom...
Apparently Comer wants to run for governor 🤮
And since collagen and botulism/botox come from raw meat, those are ok.
Another late-Friday special, perhaps from a leak timed to get the story missed over the weekend and then largely forgotten.
I was joking at the time. www.washingtonpost.com/politics/202...
Hippy Skinner Box
Pete recently made a great point that Dems are too ensconced in reading the tea leaves about whether voters would elect a gay man, a woman, a minority. Just vote for who you want and work like hell to get them elected. Personally, Pete’s not my top choice, but I’d vote for him with enthusiasm.
Oh my joke fell flat. Ok. But he’s gotta be looking at Larry Hogan, Phil Bredesen, even his dad. All very popular opposite-party governors (Hogan 78%!!!). All got absolutely thumped in Senate races by 10+. So I see your point but still I can’t get upset with a guy choosing one longshot over another.
“Robert Prevost doesn’t have the sauce to be pope. We need him in the Curia.” Said no Chicagoan ever! C’mon, Kentucky! ;)
Yeah but it’s been parked in the Emir’s uncle’s garage since he bought it. He takes it out, like, once a year to drive it around on the 4th of July. Crazy low mileage.
I hope it’s Beshear, but it seems to me this could feasibly be people donating to him in his role as DGA chair in 2026. Lots of governor races will be in the ballot. Not a bad way to spend priced dollars.