Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

I was promised a recession.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

How can republicans represent us when they don’t trust women?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Not all heroes wear capes.

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

T R E 4 5 O N

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

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Reader Interactions

52Comments

  1. 1.

    raven

    After a whirlwind run up the Blue Ridge Parkway it’s home and feetsball. Go Illini, Go Hokies, Go Dawgs!

  3. 3.

    Woodrowfan

    Any North Carolina Juicers know the voting ID requirements in NC now? My Mom lives there in a nursing home. Her driver’s license will expire soon and she will not be getting a new one. She votes every election and is still a die-hard Democrat. (I tease her that she was the only person in her home that voted for President Obama that wasn’t one of the African-American or Hispanic staff. She sighs and says “probably.”) I don’t want her to miss the 2014 midterms…

    thanks

  6. 6.

    jon

    @Woodrowfan: Is there a permanent early-voter mail-in list? That might be the best option for someone in a nursing home, unless you’re willing to take her to the polls.

  7. 7.

    Amir Khalid

    We need Randinho back with his weekend football threads, is what we need. As I type, EPL defending champions Manchester United are down 1-0 at 19th-placed (of 20!) Sunderland. United must be badly rattled to have conceded so early.

  9. 9.

    John M. Burt

    Got all of you folks beat for sports today: my six-year-old has a soccer game.
    I am completely serious when I say that kids under about, say, 14, are the best soccer players to watch. So much more graceful and elegant than those big adult galoots.
    Not that my kid is one of those graceful and elegant one, but he’s still young.
    Raven, thank you for sharing.
    Woodrowfan, I have no advice, only good wishes. I will hold your mother in the Light.

  11. 11.

    PurpleGirl

    @raven: Nice pictures.

    I have a friend who used to have a car (she lives in Manhattan and once worked in CT) and she likes driving the Taconic Parkway and certain other secondary roads heading into the Hudson Valley. You have vistas on that road that are as beautiful.

  14. 14.

    Flanders

    Go Blue, beat the Gophers!

    Also:

    Go Huskies, beat the Cardinal! (n.b. “Beating the Cardinal” is different from “bopping the bishop.”)

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    @Woodrowfan:

    I’d suggest getting your mom a state-issued ID card, which can probably be issued at the DMV.

    Otherwise, it will be very hard for your mom to get on an airplane, should the need ever arise.

    (We realized my mom had an expired drivers license, no idea where her passport is, expired military dependents ID card ….)

    Be sure to get the ID card while the driver’s license is still valid, or recently expired. You don’t want to have to come up with a certified birth certificate, or other documents to prove that an 80+ year old is legally present in the US.

    Virginia DMV has access to online birth certificates for many states; however my mom’s state records were only online to 1935 or so …

  17. 17.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven:
    @raven:
    Those are lovely, especially the tunnel exit. Do you think they’ll be peak in another week or so? I was thinking of driving up to Brasstown Bald next weekend.

  18. 18.

    JGabriel

    TPM:

    ‘We never wanted a shutdown,’ [House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA)] added.

    Yeah, right. The GOP never wanted a shutdown:

    Washington Post

    “We’re very excited,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.). “It’s exactly what we wanted, and we got it.”

    “It’s wonderful,” said Rep. John Abney Culberson (R-Tex.), clapping his hands to emphasize the point. “We’re 100 percent united! … Ulysses S. Grant said, ‘Quit worrying about what Bobby Lee’s doing and let’s focus on what we are doing,’ ” Culberson added. “We are focusing on what we need to do and not worrying about what the other guy is going to do. … That’s how Ulysses S. Grant won the war.”

    TPM :

    Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA): “They’re all giddy about it…”

    NPR (sorry, ran out of links):

    As 800,000 federal employees were set to be furloughed due to a government shutdown on Tuesday, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ), with a net worth of around $6 million, was positively cheerful about the situation, telling NPR that it was his “idea of fun.”

    Bunch of jackasses.

  21. 21.

    RobertDSC-PowerMac 466

    I’m messing with my Macs today. It’s the first full weekend off I’ve had since July. The GOP shutdown has decimated many of the people I work with at the main job and the secondary print shop is slow, so I don’t have to go in at all.

    Right now I have four screens to re-arrange among three Macs. The Mac I’m writing on has a 1600×1024 Apple Cinema Display right now. I normally have a 1280×1024 Studio Display on it but with re-arrangement, I’ve given this Mac an “upgrade”.

    It’s looking suspiciously like a Matrix operator’s console right now, lol.

    And as always, fuck the GOP.

  23. 23.

    Belafon

    A University of Phoenix commercial was on. The premise was everyone’s on a subway, and its getting off at your career stops that Phoenix can help you with. The first stop was at a hospital, and right after the people get off, you hear over the hospital intercom “Doctor J. Hamilton.” It was a clip from Operation Mindcrime. It cracked me up, though I had to play both the commercial part and the beginning of Eyes of a Stranger to prove it to my wife.

  26. 26.

    PurpleGirl

    @raven: I don’t remember seeing trucks on it. One thing about the Taconic is that it’s an older road and it used to have lots of curves, it wasn’t very straight. During the 1970s they began to straighten it (at least in Westchester Co.) and widened it. It’s on the eastern side of the state and inland of the Hudson River.

    The Thruway, on the west side of the Hudson, was built as the speedier road and it does allow trucks.

  27. 27.

    raven

    @PurpleGirl:

    According to data compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, the Taconic was the second deadliest road in Dutchess County after US 9 between 1994 and 2008. New York State Police blamed travelers exceeding speed limits, wildlife crossings and trucks being directed onto the parkway by their GPS navigation devices. The state was planning to post more explicit signage making it clear that trucks are not allowed on parkways in New York.[86]

  29. 29.

    PurpleGirl

    @raven: Argh! At least further up, the Taconic always felt slower and it goes through some beautiful areas. (Thanks for the citation.)

  30. 30.

    Steeplejack

    @Woodrowfan:

    What Elizabelle said. In the post-9/11 world, if you let your “official” ID expire you will have to jump through unbelievable hoops to get reinstated. I learned that lesson when I moved to Virginia without a car and let my Georgia driver’s license expire. When I went to get a Virginia ID card, I had to provide proof of my identity, proof that I was a U.S. citizen, proof that I was a legal resident of Virginia and proof of my actual address in Virginia. Later, when I went to get a Virginia driver’s license, I foolishly thought that my valid Virginia ID card would cut through some of the red tape. Oh, hell, no. I had to provide all of the various proofs again. The salt in the wound was that because I didn’t have a valid driver’s license they would issue me only a learner’s permit, which I had to hold for 30 days before I could take the driving test to get a real license. (I did still have my expired Georgia driver’s license, which at least showed that I had known how to drive at some point in the past, but they sneered at that.)

    Your mother should be able to exchange her driver’s license for a state ID card with no problem as long as the former is still valid. Trust me, you do not want to let anything lapse.

  31. 31.

    raven

    @PurpleGirl: I guess the difference is that the Blue Ridge is FEDERAL!!!!! OMG. The road was open but the only business, the Mt Pisgah Inn was closed.

  32. 32.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven: Many thanks for that! Maybe I’ll hold off until around the 16th and try my luck then. Also, might not be quite as crowded as on a weekend.

  34. 34.

    PurpleGirl

    @Steeplejack: Who gives out the ID cards in VA? Does their motor vehicle agency issue it the way NYS DMV issues the non-driver ID card?

    When I moved to Woodside from Astoria, DMV said I didn’t have to get a new card… but with the old address that seemed to defeat the purpose of the card. I got a new card and paid a few bucks more for the longer period. It doesn’t expire until 2017.

    ETA: Since NYS recently changed the design of the ID card, I probably should look into getting a new one before I have to.

  35. 35.

    raven

    @SiubhanDuinne: Oh god yes, even the weekdays are bad with the Florida leaf peepers but never on a weekend. You may not have the time but the Parkway is so incredible, you just take your time and there are spectacular overlooks all over.

  36. 36.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @raven: If I work things out right, I can make the time. Next year at this time I hope to be in Ontario. The fall colours are usually at their best around Canadian Thanksgiving (although it’s so late this year they may be past their peak by the holiday).

  37. 37.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @John M. Burt:

    I am rooting hard for your six year old to do the most graceful headshot in the history of the game.

    If joy has a sound, it’s probably those kids kicking that ball around.

  38. 38.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Steeplejack:

    Osama bin Laden accomplished his goal with the 9-11 attacks.

    He sought to destroy America, and he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.

  40. 40.

    cckids

    @raven: Those are just gorgeous. Every fall when I see pics of the leaves changing I wonder again why we moved to the desert.

  42. 42.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Belafon: I always like that too. And the clip has been used in ads before, I’m sure of it. “Dr. Blair, Dr. Blair, Dr. Jay Hamilton, Dr. Jay Hamilton.”

  43. 43.

    Haydnseek

    @Amir Khalid: This Tottenham supporter agrees wholeheartedly. I miss Randinho. I hope he doesn’t wait until the World Cup to resume posting.

  44. 44.

    Shakezula

    Late garden question, pumpkin midwifery edition-

    I have a pumpkin vine that just sort of moped around in the backyard all summer. In the past three weeks or so the plant sprinted all over, put out a couple of female flowers and is now pregnant with a pumpkin that’s a bit larger than a football (American, not communososhlist) and one that’s bigger than a baseball. There are a lot more female flowers on it as well.

    I’d really like to get at least one pumpkin off this plant, if only for the seeds. Should I lop off the other female flowers, or sacrifice a woodchuck to it, or what? It’s growing out of the compost heap so I don’t think fertile soil is an issue. Help?

  45. 45.

    Woodrowfan

    thank you for the link and the comments. I can’t drive her to the polls myself as I live just outside DC and she lives near Asheville. But she has lots of friends and a part-time caregiver to drive her. I will talk to her this weekend and suggest she get her state-issued ID before her driver’s license expires.

    and yeah, a birth certificate might be tricky. She was born on her grandfather’s farm in Kentucky back in the Hoover administration.

  47. 47.

    HeartlandLiberal

    Just got back home from Indiana vs. Penn State here in Bloomington, IN. Most satisfactory, IU beat Penn State solidly. by almost three touchdowns. This is the first time IU has managed to beat Penn State since the latter joined the Big Ten.

  49. 49.

    PaulW

    @MikeJ:

    It’s Rays. We’re not Devils anymore.

    Although we did get our butts kicked. Rays just don’t have the heavy hitting to keep up with Boston’s offense.

  50. 50.

    PaulW

    USF Bulls might actually win a ga… no, wait, Cincy is driving the ball well this 4th Quarter. Damn, we’re gonna lose this one too! :(

    My mom’s out at the Auburn alumni watch party, rooting for the War Eagle! So far, they’re in the lead but Ole Miss is playing back into the game…

  51. 51.

    PaulW

    USF Bulls might actually win a ga… no, wait, Cincy is driving the ball well this 4th Quarter. Damn, we’re gonna lose this one too! :(

    My mom’s out at the Auburn alumni watch party, rooting for the War Eagle! So far, they’re in the lead but Ole Miss is playing back into the game…

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