Archives for 2014

Friday Recipe Exchange: Chicken Buttermilk Biscuit Pie

by Anne Laurie| September 12, 20149:30 pm| 25 Comments

From our Food Goddess, TaMara:

They were predicting snow today, it did not show up, but it’s unseasonably cold. SNOW. I am not ready. But it does put me in the mood for cool weather recipes. Soups and tonight’s featured recipe, easy Chicken and Buttermilk Biscuit Pot Pie.

Life has been hectic, I’ve been busy with house hunting, work and of course the puppy, so I’ve kept meals simple. I haven’t linked to it in a while, but I have a bunch of tips for keeping meals quick, easy and full of flavor right here, which may come in handy now that school and activities are back in full swing.

For the dog lovers, Bixby updates are here and here. He’s now 33 34 lbs and so smart, he’s been a breeze to train.

On to the recipes. Soup is what I miss most in summer, so as soon as the temperatures dip, I break out the soup recipes. Here are three for you:

Cream of Chicken Soup (recipe here).

Spicy Black Bean Soup (recipe and full dinner menu here)

Chicken Tortilla Soup (recipe here)

What’s the weather like in corner of the planet? What’s on your plate for the weekend? Hit the comments and share some of your favorite fall recipes.

For tonight’s featured recipe, I brought together some of my favorite comfort foods into one dish. If you don’t have an oven-safe skillet, you can transfer the chicken mixture to a baking dish and top with biscuits.

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Open Thread: Getting A Little Too Overt, Dude…

by Anne Laurie| September 12, 20145:34 pm| 174 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, War on Terror aka GSAVE®, Assholes

Then, slowly, he unDresden'd her with his eyes. pic.twitter.com/PrCzH47JfM

— Cuffé (@CuffyMeh) September 12, 2014

No, that’s not him on the screen, but The Hill says it was Edward Snowden’s would-be nemesis:

… Hayden was director of the CIA and the NSA under President George W. Bush…

The general cautioned that air power alone might not be enough to defeat the al Qaeda offshoot.

“We need to be wary of a strategy that puts emphasis on air power and air power alone,” he said.

“The sooner we take the fight into Syria against [ISIS], the better off we’ll be,” he added.

Asked about the remarks on Friday, State Department deputy spokesman Marie Harf said Hayden is “well aware” of the tools that the U.S. has to take down terrorists.

“General Hayden, all joking aside, knows very well the counterterrorism tools that we have at our disposal from when he was CIA director — some of which we obviously don’t utilize any more, as we’ve been clear, but some of which are tools we still have at our disposal, including, of course, direct action. So he is well aware of how you take the fight directly to terrorists.”

Harf reiterated that the the United States won’t be using American ground troops to fight ISIS…

My emphasis, because I have a sharp ear for the unspoken. Also bleakly entertaining, from a commentor at NYMag: “And like casual sex, someone probably overpaid for it.”
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Apart from waiting for the end of the world (just like every night!), what’s on the agenda for the start of the weekend?

Open Thread: Getting A Little Too Overt, Dude…Post + Comments (174)

It Doesn’t Matter If You Have A Black Friend

by Elon James White| September 12, 20142:09 pm| 63 Comments

This post is in: This Week In Blackness

We hear white people use some version of this excuse all the time: “It’s okay, I have a black friend.” And maybe you do. Or you have a black wife or husband or girlfriend. Or someone in your family is black. But regardless, that’s not a “get out of ignorance free” card. A supporter of Syracuse student-athlete Hannah Strong tried to use the excuse that she hung out with a lot of black people so it made this okay:

Over the weekend, a video was posted of Syracuse University student-athlete Hannah Strong, who is white, shouting the double-barrel slur(s) “faggot-ass nigger” at someone off camera before telling them not to record her and calling them “nigger” once more. It’s a short, shaky clip that starts with her berating a black man who has his hands in the air for some reason, and it is no understatement to say it’s unclear from the video what was going on there, with the one exception that she definitely used two of our most hateful slurs.

We bet she had a lot of gay friends, too.

Team Blackness also discussed the Oscar Pistorius verdict, the failings of fat shaming, and a woman with a strong affinity for her spaghetti strainer.

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A Loaded Gun

by John Cole| September 12, 20141:45 pm| 107 Comments

This post is in: Gun nuts, Assholes, Sociopaths

This scumbag needs to be in jail:

George Zimmerman threatened to shoot and kill a driver during a road rage incident in Lake Mary and later showed up at the man’s workplace, according to police.

The road rage incident happened Tuesday, Lake Mary police told Local 6, but the other driver declined to press charges, so Zimmerman was not arrested.

Zimmerman, 30, was acquitted last year of a second-degree murder charge in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

Police said the man, whose name was not released, called police after a truck pulled up next to him and the driver yelled, “Why are you pointing a finger at me?”

Police spokeswoman Bianca Gillett said the man recognized the truck driver as Zimmerman. The man said Zimmerman then asked, “Do you know who I am?” and threatened to kill him.

Two days later, the man said he saw Zimmerman in his truck outside his workplace. He called police but declined to press charges.

I am just dying to know the race of the man Zimmerman threatened to kill this time. At any rate, how many people does he have to threaten and kill before he is removed from decent society? Then again, this is Florida, so the whole “decent society” thing might be a bit of a stretch.

(via)

A Loaded GunPost + Comments (107)

Bow Down Before the One You Serve

by John Cole| September 12, 201412:13 pm| 70 Comments

This post is in: Our Failed Media Experiment, Sociopaths

There are simply no words for this pic.twitter.com/rbWSXVBBlP

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) September 12, 2014

Although they probably won’t get what they deserve.

Bow Down Before the One You ServePost + Comments (70)

Invisible primaries, influence and Iraq

by David Anderson| September 12, 201411:02 am| 76 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Bring On The Meteor, OBAMA IS WORSE THAN BUSH HE SOLD US OUT!!

Jonathan Bernstein describes the invisible primary as being far more important than the visible primaries of people voting as the invisible primary sets the conditions for the visible primary. He sees the selectorate involved in the invisble primary as such:

Remember, we’re in the “invisible primary” stage, in which party actors politicians, party-aligned groups, campaign and governing professionals, activists, formal party officials and staff compete and coordinate over candidates. We’re still two years from the voters of Iowa and New Hampshire getting involved, but for people whose business or passion (or both) is party politics, the nomination contest has been under way for at least a year, and probably a lot more….

The evidence suggests that party actors communicate with each other to some extent through high-profile endorsements. Fundraising matters too, of course, especially to those within the party network. So does recruitment of staff. In each of those realms, the universe of party actors is large, but signs that one candidate is winning a lot of support along with a large share of party-controlled (or at least party-connected) resources is a good sign that a candidate is performing well in the invisible primary.

Balloon-Juice, as a community, is part of the extended party that takes part in the invisible primary. Quickly doing a google search, I see that we’ve raised at least a quarter million dollars on Act Blue in the past couple of years. The commenters and frontpagers here routinely are quoted, massaged and memed in liberal arguments ( eg: peak wingnut, anthrax and tire rims, Equitablog, NY Times and LA Times columnists etc). We have some influence, not much, but some.

The question is how to use that influence as a community if there is a consensus that more bombs and more drones in Iraq is not a particulary wise idea.

Invisible primaries, influence and IraqPost + Comments (76)

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Compromise? There is no middle ground between a firefighter and an arsonist.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Trump should be leading, not lying.

Fucking consultants! (of the political variety)

When I was faster i was always behind.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Republicans do not trust women.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

One way or another, he’s a liar.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

You cannot shame the shameless.

We still have time to mess this up!

Optimism opens the door to great things.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

They think we are photo bombing their nice little lives.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.