But didn’t you come in a commonwealth car?

A regular account, I think, but the front fell off.

I’m not sure if you don’t know or if your question is a setup to try to convince the person who responds that she didn’t actually kiss ass, but she’s been cozying up to Trump in the name of putting the work above her ego, and it’s lead to some embarrassment for her. I wouldn’t necessarily say she’s been kissing ass, but I mean, she’s playing the game.

Before I say what I came here to say, I want to digress with a story I heard about Whitmer.
In the opening, uncertain, days of the pandemic, when it looked like there were going to be unknown outcomes from the economic slowdown, and Michigan’s governmental revenue (via taxes) was going to take a hit, Whitmer made the hard call to furlough many state-level employees.
… Right after the Federal Government passed an increased unemployment assistance bill, and Michigan re-scoped unemployment to include partial furloughs, starting at 6 hours a week. Whitmer took every state worker in Michigan that earned less than about $350 a day and automatically signed them up for unemployment, and furloughed them one day a week off for 12 weeks. My friend more or less got 12 weeks of 4 day workweeks, with 6 days worth of pay. (It might have been 8 weeks - my memory is crap, but even still.)
With an awful lot of respect, I say that I think she’s a clever operator, and she can ‘play the game.’ Trump did set her up a few weeks ago, but I trust that whatever angle she’s working, she’s probably got a good plan. I know that sounds a lot like compromising centrist talk, and that’s fine - that’s what Whitmer is. I haven’t seen her backpedaling on important issues (yet). (Which is weird, now that I think about it. Fuck she runs a good media game.)

Anyway - like 2 1/2 weeks ago, She was in DC for a meeting with Trump and he ambushed her with a press conference where he signed a bunch of awful executive orders.
Whitmer Shows how Democrats are playing with fire in cozying up to Trump.
‘A hug?!?’ Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s optics with Trump could cost her in 2028.
Whitmer defends her working relationship with Trump: ‘Put service above self’

Which is to say - I can see why people think she’s kissing his ass. But like, she’s gotta govern, and has to live in this reality. She’s not kowtowing to him as far as I can tell. She seems to be rather deftly doing what she has to do, while (it seems, so far) not compromising herself or her policymaking.

I was wondering same!

Maybe it’s something to do with hotels…?

It’s not like the guy they voted for is a rare qualified pick from the Trump camp.

It’s David Purdue, a failed pillow company CEO, as well as ceo for other textile companies. More recently he dabbled in politics as a Republican senator from Georgia, failed gubernatorial candidate, 2020 election denier, climate change denier, and generally an idiotic sycophant.
The textile experience gives him a small amount of plausibility as a choice, but everything else far outweighs that. Just another loser grifter in Trump’s orbit.

Right. In real life you can look someone in the eye and see some semblance of humanity (or at least fear). Online, it doesn’t matter what you say or how you’re perceived, because people get to hide in their perceived anonymity. And you never know when some psychopath with no morals or sense of decency is going to have you swatted.

The following should be taken as a bit of a ramble because I want to express this idea I have, and I don’t think it should be taken as any sort of attempt to correct or challenge what you’re saying because I don’t think what you’re saying is in any way incorrect.

I think the right wing shift is a mirage that is being perpetrated by corporate-owned media. That’s not to say that every media outlet is racist or is explicitly attempting to push a narrative, but I think that the large corporations in the U.S., at least, that own news media have a vested interest in not offending both monied and powerful interests. In that regard they are avoiding reporting on topics that will rally the public, or are outright changing how they report on certain topics.

Which is a lot of words to say that I think what we’re seeing is false consensus driven from the top down, rather than a ‘bottom up’ shift in opinion. I think many of the normal folks are ill-informed, or outright propagandized.
Doesn’t change the outcome, or the opinions held by so many, though… sigh

Well, one line of my comment was about her being part of the CIA torture apparatus. The rest detailed how she, personally and with the help of the Democratic Party, did fascist things like subvert the will of the people by preventing real political choice.

This isn’t a situation where we can pick the lesser of two evils and hold our nose. I’m outright saying she’s part of the problem — so fuck her and her insistence that we focus on only the kings they want us to be concerned about. And fuck her desire to step away from our moral duty to protect others from discrimination.

I will not abandon my principles for word games.

I went looking for the alt text because, well, I love the Easter-egg nature of the alt text he provides. Got chills as soon as I realized what he’d done.

So much respect for him.

Ah , see, that take is rationalizing. She’s a former CIA torturer who worked under Bush. Within Michigan she once moved into a lobbyists house to avoid getting primaried after redistricting. (The lobbyist’s house was in a safe democrat area that the Democrat party did not field a local candidate for.) Her ascension to state senator was equally questionable - all the other candidates dropped out after meeting with party officials.

It’s clear she’s the Democrats new Joe Manchin, put there to avoid progress and force concessions if they ever win a plurality. All the Michiganders I know vehemently hate her.

She also is only in office because she kept district hopping to avoid getting primaried until she was up for a senate seat, whereupon the Democratic Party pushed out or made concessions to all the other better candidates so they would drop. She’s widely reviled.

Oh, you’re right - I recalled the article and just grabbed the first one that fit when I skimmed it.

I think my point that this is a clear message that the regulators are unable to regulate right now is still valid, but I will update my previous comment for clarity.

Since you’re bringing up language points, I’m wondering if you’d be willing to take a left turn with me.

What are your thoughts about applying the phrase “extraordinary rendition” to their situation?

I feel that it’s appropriate, but I haven’t seen anyone using it.

But now it’s not just milk and the legally allowed amount of blood, pus, urine, dirt, fecal matter, cleaning agents, and the things the FDA USDA found and did nothing about.
Now it’s an unambiguous statement that unknown quantities of unknown substances in your food will not trigger enforcement actions! (Regardless of the regulating body)

It’s brainworm infested bear meat.

I don’t know what sort of dirt Bill has, but he’s got to have some sort of leverage over at HBO, given how fucking hard they try to push his show onto people.
Single-handedly, his show has made me wish there was a ‘block show’ feature so I never have to see his stupid face again.

And it has nothing to do with the expiry on the special appointment coming up where Trump will either have to make him a real federal employee with all the legal exposure that confers or let him go.

As others have pointed out, he’s already compromised systems, downloaded what data he could for Peter Thiel/Palantir, broken those organizations to the furthest extent he is able, and likely will have continued access to the data through illegal means in the future for himself/his handlers.

He’s not ‘leaving politics’ because those mean liberals, he’s leaving because as a useful idiot, he’s fulfilled his use and maybe realized he was being used as an idiot, but likely not.

No, because there isn’t a single IP range or user agent, and many developers are going to lengths to defeat anti-scraping measures, which include user agent spoofing as well as vpns and the like to mask the source of the traffic.

Not without prosthetics.

The mask really gets in the way of eating ass, though.