10 thoughts on “Happy Thanksgiving”

  1. Happy Thanksgiving mahabloggers!

    My favorite subject "FAUX news and wing-nut media" even infiltrates this, my favorite holiday! Every year we order a Turkey from this high end butcher shop, mostly because we only want a 10lb (it's just me, my wife and my mom) and also because they are fresh and just better but are about three times what a butterball costs at the grocery. Anyway there is always a long line on Wednesday morning. Today was no different. An older women (about my age) was in line behind me, she immediately starting complaining about how much Turkeys cost this year. Me thinks she's a FAUX news viewer, she had that look, and apparently FAUX news is running the $90.00 turkey story in heavy rotation. Anyway she complained to me I ignored her, she complained to the person behind her they ignored her. We got got into the store (the line was outside the store like a rock concert) and she started complaining about the price of the rolls (mind you this is a fancy store, stuff aint cheap), then she saw the hams, oh my she says I can't believe how expensive everything is this year, who can afford these prices? I turned around and said: actually most food prices have come down quite in the past few months, gas prices are at a two year low for this time of the year. She says: well it sure doesn't seem that way? I said well when the economy is good and people are buying things the prices tend to go up, it's called capitalism, if you don't like that perhaps you should join the communist party! She's gasped for air, "oh my" she said "how dare you". Everyone in line who heard me started to chuckle. I turned my back and never heard another peep from her! I wished her a happy thanksgiving on my way out the door, she gave me a nice scowl!

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  2. I'm loving the pushback, @uncledad! Conservatives want everyone to be as miserable as they are – they can't stand it when someone isn't buying their negative reality, and instead smiles and wishes them well.

    I'm reminded of the last scene in Yellow Submarine (the movie): [in alarm] "Blue Meanies have been spotted near this theater! The only proper response is to go out singing!"

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    • yes, I tried to ignore her a few times but she was either spoiling for an argument or looking for some ratification of her bullshit. I choose not to do either just gave her some facts and smiled. Maybe "join the communist party" was a bit much, it just slipped out!

  4. Happy Thanksgiving to All!

    I think Uncledad hit on a Thanksgiving theme we can take forward into the next year and beyond. As he pointed out, prices for a Thanksgiving meal are down this year from last year, likewise gas prices. So is unemployment 3.8% compared to 14.7% under TFG. Total US weekly fatalities due to Covid are about 1200 compared to 25K when Biden took office. In this year, labor scored three major victories – one with the writer's strike, one with the nurse's strike, and one with auto workers. When unions win, non-union employers raise pay and evaluate working conditions out of fear of unionization. The number of fully electric cars sold in 2022 nearly doubled in 2022 compared to the previous year. We have a renewed commitment from auto builders to continue to offer cars that run on renewables. As each year breaks the record for "Hottest Year on Record", a shift to renewables is a good thing.

    Democracy itself is on the ballot in 2024. Is the OUR government (and by "our", I mean all voters) or are we citizens in service to the strong, the rich, and the ruthless? I can't find the quote that we (Meaning the United States) don't need a king because we are a nation of laws. This year is the test of that as a wannabe king is called before the courts for his actions. "We are a nation of laws." needs to be the reply to the implicit defense that one man who wants greater power than any president has ever been allowed is somehow exempt from responsibility. 

    I believe that the US will turn from fascism next year, that the movement toward fascism will fracture and turn on itself. In the coming decades, we may see a commitment by younger generations for the US to live up to the values we've fallen short of. They have the power if they will exert it. The presence of cynicism, so common among the young, is proof of values they know should be the standard and they know is not. I am thankful because I have hope for the future.

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  5. Some good news – Harry Litman discusses the 14th Amendment case in Colorado, both parties have appealed to the Colorado Supreme Court. Litman reveals that this court is made up of Democratic appointees. Whatever they decide is for sure going to the USSC.

    @Doug wrote I believe that the US will turn from fascism next year, that the movement toward fascism will fracture and turn on itself.

    I'm hopeful too, but we can't rest until this movement is pushed back, decisively. The good news is we've seen this movie before, and don't need to get spooked. Ruth Ben-Ghiat wrote

    …Some have wondered why the Trump campaign is being so open about the repressive policies they intend to implement. This “transparency” is in line with authoritarian history: Autocrats often tell you who they are and what they intend to do to you before they take office. They do this as a challenge to norms, and they do this as a threat.

    Such frightening announcements aim to inject extremist ideas into the mainstream and create a climate of trepidation and powerlessness that discourages mobilization by the opposition. "I'm telling the Filipino people, it's going to be bloody," Rodrigo Duterte told journalist Maria Ressa during his 2015 presidential campaign. He lived up to his promise. The extrajudicial violence he unleashed in the Philippines as part of his "war on drugs" has made him the subject of an ongoing International Criminal Court investigation.

    As a historian of authoritarianism, I find the plans of the 2025 Trump advance team to reshape America's government and population by force and executive fiat familiar….

    ….All of this would be scaled up during a second Trump administration. The recruiting of enablers and accomplices of future state persecution is taking place before our eyes. If Trump returns to the White House, we cannot say we were not warned. He is telling us clearly that he will finish the job he started in his first term: wrecking U.S. democracy.

    Heather Cox Richardson provides a poignant retelling of JFK's assassination, 60 years ago, through the words of Lady Bird Johnson. Kennedy was in Dallas to smooth things over in the state's Democratic party, which was under attack by the usual bigots, for helping black people. There's an important twist near the end of this story that was new to me:

    …Lady Bird later recalled: “I looked at her. Mrs. Kennedy’s dress was stained with blood. One leg was almost entirely covered with it and her right glove was caked…with blood—her husband’s blood. She always wore gloves like she was used to them. I never could. Somehow that was one of the most poignant sights—exquisitely dressed and caked in blood. I asked her if I couldn’t get someone in to help her change and she said, ‘Oh, no. Perhaps later…but not right now.’”

    “And then,” Lady Bird remembered, “with something—if, with a person that gentle, that dignified, you can say had an element of fierceness, she said, ‘I want them to see what they have done to Jack.’”

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    • Moonbat – My hope for the future is not tainted by complacency. I heartily agree that the fascists will win if we let up on:

      1) telling the truth

      2) turning out to vote or

      3) fighting the attempts to rig elections through gerrymandering and voter suppression. 

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      • Yeah, agreed.

        Yesterday or the day before I heard someone from Third Way, interviewed on MSNBC.  Said that No Labels has a new strategy: Get a third party candidate on the ballot with a moderate republican at the top of the ticket… in enough states where the state election laws/rules or the state administration or legislature would have to declare the election inconclusive… with the goal of making sure the electoral college cannot produce a clear conclusion… in order to throw it to the House. 

        It doesn't make much sense to me, but I wouldn't put it past the fascists. Scares the hell out of me.

        Got my fingers crossed.

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    • Makes you wonder why someone would ride shotgun in a suicide vehicle. Seems to me that it would make more sense for the passenger get his own car laden with explosives. Why waste a suicide bomber?

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