Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Republican also-rans: four mules fighting over a turnip.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

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

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Bad people in a position to do bad things will do bad things because they are bad people. End of story.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

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

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Tuesday Open Thread

Tuesday Open Thread

by | 52 Comments

This post is in: , , ,

It is not within my power to give you a pupdate, but here is a crappy picture of a pair of old boxer dogs drooling and farting on my sofa:

In comments under other posts, we’ve whacked at the piñata column hacks J. Martin and M. Haberman hung up at the NYT this weekend –- the one that criticized Hillary Clinton for following President Obama’s “narrow” path to electoral victory rather than President Clinton’s “broad” path.

Much stupid fell out when that piñata was breached, and uber-hack Ron Fournier cultivated a nugget of the original stupid until it surpassed its antecedent. I was going to mock it thoroughly but got distracted by more interesting tasks, such as cleaning the dryer lint trap.

Shorter Fournier: Mean partisan Democrats like Hillary Clinton give independents a sad, and that’s very sad. Anyway, here’s an open thread to discuss things that are more interesting than anything Ron Fournier has ever said. Which is everything.

Reader Interactions

52Comments

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    Is everything well chez John Cole? The lack of pupdates is starting to worry me.

  3. 3.

    Punchy

    KS House Legy looks to deign ‘n’ ditch and leave Brownback holding the turd sammy. Would be great comedy to see how Gubbnah Sam yanks 6% of already-screwed education budgets and blames it all on gays and Funions.

    Of course, a majority of Kansans would believe it.

  4. 4.

    Keith G

    Fournier brought a bit of that game to Face The Nation. Host John Dickerson and Jamelle Bouie (both on the Slate masthead) pushed back.

  5. 5.

    Betty Cracker

    @SiubhanDuinne: We think she has hypothyroidism. She visited the vet this morning for blood work, and we’re anxiously awaiting results. She’s gained weight and is logy, so something is off. Poor thing.

    @Amir Khalid: As far as I know it is. I think he’s on “staycation” still — hopefully he’s ventured out into the sunshine and is hanging out with friends and animals, too busy to meet our pupdate demands.

  6. 6.

    Gin & Tonic

    Narrow, broad, the only path that counts is the one that gets you to 270. They don’t give style points.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    @Keith G: I’m surprised Dickerson pushed back. All I know about him is the occasional column I’ve read at Slate, but I have him in the Broder acolyte category.

  9. 9.

    Elizabelle

    Hate to say it, but Bobo picked up the “oh noes Hillary! theme.”

    It is David Brooks, though. Low-hanging fruit.

    My take: no one seems to be considering that a lot of voters — including the much loved “moderates” — have concluded that the Republicans are crazy train.

    Take it away, Bobo: The Mobilization Error

    Scott Walker is trying to mobilize existing conservative voters. Jeb Bush is trying to expand his party’s reach. [Ponder that one.]

    The Democratic Party has no debate on this issue. Hillary Clinton has apparently decided to run as the Democratic Scott Walker. As The Times’s Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman reported this week, Clinton strategists have decided that, even in the general election, firing up certain Democratic supporters is easier than persuading moderates. Clinton will adopt left-leaning policy positions carefully designed to energize the Obama coalition — African-Americans, Latinos, single women and highly educated progressives.

    …. This strategy is bad, first, for the country. America has always had tough partisan politics, but for most of its history, the system worked because it had leaders who could reframe debates, reorganize coalitions, build center-out alliances and reach compromises. Politics is broken today because those sorts of leaders have been replaced by highly polarizing, base-mobilizing politicians who hew to party orthodoxy, ignore the 38 percent of voters who identify as moderates and exacerbate partisanship and gridlock. If Clinton decides to be just another unimaginative base-mobilizing politician, she will make our broken politics even worse.

    For realz?

  13. 13.

    piratedan

    @Elizabelle: like Bobo would be able to find his way thru an Applebee’s salad bar without hitting the sneeze guard. He give Kristol a run for his money as being the most wrong about the most things. Wish I could fail upwards like him, I could at least donate to some more charities….

  14. 14.

    MattF

    @Elizabelle: No, I’m not going to read what David Brooks has to say about Hillary Clinton’s political strategy. Brooks is the very model of a right-wing-crazy-train fellow traveler, and therefore simply not worth reading. The day that he rejects any element of the daily talking-points email is the day I’ll reconsider. I’m not holding my breath.

  15. 15.

    Elizabelle

    The most-recommended NYTimes reader comment to Bobo’s column, by “gemli”.

    The Times would be a better paper if it exiled Brooks and gave gemli and perhaps a rotation of its top reader commenters the column.

    Gemli:

    I’m sure Hillary Clinton appreciates Mr. Brooks’ heartfelt concern for her campaign strategy, but frankly she won’t have to move to the left or to the right. All she’ll have to do is stand still while the Republican candidates self-destruct. It’s what they do, and they’re very good at it.

    Brooks’ advice is more than a little ironic, since it laments the extreme polarization of politics that has caused the utter and complete stagnation of government. He worries that mobilizing the base isn’t good politics. I worry that he’s lost his mind, and doesn’t remember that the country is in a shambles because the party he shills for lives only to crush the coalition-building, uniting, populist Obama.

    Republicans no longer dog-whistle to their base, since that’s too subtle for some of them. Now they prefer the fog horn, or possibly the smoke detector, or some other shrill, grating message that uses fear and misinformation to drag the country further to the right.

    But people are fed up with fundamentalism, with gay bashing, with outrageous income inequality, with science-deniers, with candidates who pledge not to raise taxes on the wealthy while our infrastructure crumbles, with voter suppression, with closing schools, with war-mongering, and in general with everything that the retrograde right stands for.

    The mood seems to have shifted. Who knows? Hillary Clinton may have more to fear from Bernie Sanders than from Jeb Bush.

  16. 16.

    Elizabelle

    @MattF: Wise choice. I only bother with about one in every six Brooks columns, but this was egregious (his forte) and topical.

    Not watching cable TV news and not reading David Brooks does wonders for one’s mental health and processes.

  17. 17.

    Roger Moore

    @Elizabelle:

    My take: no one seems to be considering that a lot of voters — including the much loved “moderates” — have concluded that the Republicans are crazy train.

    Or that policies that reduce inequality are likely to be broadly popular, so that people espousing them are courting not just “moderates” but even the less crazy Republicans.

  18. 18.

    Alison

    Okay folks, I need some tech help, and I’m hoping among you nerds there is someone who will know what to do about this so that I can avoid the costly event of throwing my laptop off the balcony into the pool.

    (Normal Me probably wouldn’t be able to throw it that far. Boiling With Rage At Persistent Tech Problems Me could probably land the damn thing in the next town.)

    So – maybe six weeks to two months or so ago, I started having this issue – I’d be online, doing my normal stuff – Gmail open, also Twitter and Tumblr, maybe a couple other pages – and everything’s fine, ho-hum. Then I’d try to refresh a page or open a link, and……nothing. My cursor would turn into the little blue circle, but the page wouldn’t refresh or the new tab would stay blank. I’d wait and wait, and nothing. I noticed in the bottom corner, the status bar said “Resolving host” except it would never “resolve”. At first I figured it was just some random glitch, so I restarted my laptop and then it was okay. Until it wasn’t again…and again and again and again. Sometimes it goes a day or so without happening, but usually it happens at least once a day, usually 4-5, sometimes 10 or more times a day. And the only thing that fixes it is just closing out my browser and letting my computer sit doing nothing for 5-10 minutes.

    I’m sure it’s an issue with my laptop, rather than an Internet connectivity issue or a browser-specific issue (I use Chrome), because my mom’s desktop and my iPhone have no Internet issues when this occurs, and when I tried to use Firefox or IE, they also wouldn’t work.

    I Googled about it and found numerous sites saying to go to chrome://net-internals/#dns and click the “clear host cache” button, and then to open a command prompt and enter ‘ipconfig /flushdns’. So I do those things, and maybe occasionally it works? But usually, no, I still just have to close the browser and wait a while and reopen it. This is, as you might imagine, incredibly annoying and inconvenient.

    Does anyone know what the fuck is causing this problem? It started out of nowhere – I didn’t do any upgrades or anything. And is there any way to actually fix it, other than force-closing Chrome and screaming into the ether?

    (If it matters, I’m on an HP laptop with Windows 7.)

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    @Elizabelle:
    I think The New York Times is forced to run silly conservative columnists like Brooks and Douthat (and before Douthat, Kristol) because that’s the only kind of conservative columnist it can find. Kristol’s first month of columns were so full of crap, it must have been tempted to fire him on the spot; it kept him on for the full year of his contract instead.

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    even in the general election, firing up certain Democratic supporters is easier than persuading moderates.

    Wow. What does this even mean?

    This is just lazy and stupid punditry.

  22. 22.

    Belafon

    I’d really hate for Hillary to win by getting a majority of the electorate to vote for her and be way over the top in electoral vote count. Instead, she should try to win by having a third party candidate suck up a bunch of the vote.

  24. 24.

    boatboy_srq

    @Amir Khalid: Good point. IIRC, within the Reichwing echo chamber, the NYT is one of those DFHSoshulist papers that is leading the Liebrul Media: any Conservatist worth his/her grits’n’gravy wouldn’t be seen reading that rag, let alone working for it.

  25. 25.

    kindness

    One must notice that all the truly horrible pundit sites do not allow comments under the articles.

    Gee…I wonder why that is, eh?

  26. 26.

    piratedan

    @Brachiator: yeah, but that’s Brooks main claim to fame…. semi-coherent sentence construction passed off as hot conservative political takes.

  28. 28.

    MattF

    @Alison: Did you try changing your DNS server address? This gives instructions for changing to public DNS servers. I should say immediately that I’m an amateur at network stuff, so you should definitely wait for someone who knows what they’re talking about to either agree or disagree with me.

  29. 29.

    Alison

    @MattF: Yeah, I saw something about that but I feel weird about doing that. I’m gonna check with a couple of my tech friends and see what they say.

  31. 31.

    Betty Cracker

    @Alison: Nothing to offer but sympathy. I’ve been dealing with an annoying (but not as disruptive as yours) problem with my laptop for years that I can’t find an answer for anywhere, and yeah, if I had a balcony and a pool, I’d be tempted to fling it in. Car trouble and tech trouble can send me from serenity to rage in a nanosecond.

  34. 34.

    Amir Khalid

    @Valdivia:
    The way Graham’s campaign has been going, I fear the White House is not about to see its first ever FLOTUS duty roster. But if he is indeed elected, maybe President Graham could do like President Buchanan and avail himself of a gentleman companion instead.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    Interesting article in The Guardian, on how secret groups jump threw hoops to contribute over $125 million to climate denial activities.

    The secretive funders behind America’s conservative movement directed around $125m (£82m) over three years to groups spreading disinformation about climate science and committed to wrecking Barack Obama’s climate change plan, according to an analysis of tax records.

    The amount is close to half of the anonymous funding disbursed to rightwing groups, underlining the importance of the climate issue to US conservatives.

    The anonymous cash flow came from two secretive organisations – the Donors Trust and Donors Capital Fund – that have been called the “Dark Money ATM” of the conservative movement.

    http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/jun/09/secretive-donors-gave-us-climate-denial-groups-125m-over-three-years

  37. 37.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: I liked that photo so much this morning that I clicked on it again! It’s really a great shot, I know it’s a still photo but I almost feel as though I watched the pup stick his head out and turn to see what was up.

  38. 38.

    Brachiator

    @Valdivia:

    Lindsey Graham hints that he would have rotating First Ladies if he becomes President.

    Rotating on a pedestal, no doubt.

    I didn’t realize that Graham is not married, and has never been married. Doesn’t this violate some conservative rule about being able to properly represent family values?

  39. 39.

    Hal

    Is it just me, or is the under current in the article that HRC is white and should be trying to win over more white voters? I’m all for Clinton winning WV or ND, but there seems to be a certain amount of butt hurt from people like Manchin who think HRC is ignoring red state voters. What other reason would voters in deep red states have to vote for Hillary if she supports all the same things (at least mostly) that Obama is supporting.

  40. 40.

    Germy Shoemangler

    BREWSTER, N.Y. (AP) – Authorities say a service dog and his blind owner are both on the mend after the dog threw himself into a vehicle’s path to protect her.

    Authorities say the golden retriever, Figo, came between Audrey Stone and a mini school bus Monday in Brewster, New York.

    According to the Journal News, Brewster Police Chief John Del Gardo says Stone suffered a broken ankle, elbow and ribs. She was still hospitalized Tuesday in Danbury, Connecticut.

    Figo underwent surgery and has a leg splint. He’ll remain at a veterinary hospital in Southeast, New York until Stone is able to care for him.

    Police photos show fur stuck to the bus’ front wheel.

    The driver said he didn’t see the pair crossing the road. Two kindergartners on the bus escaped injury.

  41. 41.

    Brachiator

    @Hal:

    Is it just me, or is the under current in the article that HRC is white and should be trying to win over more white voters?

    Yep, this seems to be a running narrative. After Obama, there is this weird insistence that the Democrats field a candidate who is white, and who is clear about his or her loyalty to white people first. This seems to be more important than Hillary even pitching part of her campaign directly to women.

    I’m all for Clinton winning WV or ND

    This consists of 8 whole electoral votes. I think that Hillary, presuming she becomes the nominee, sweep the house, but some states are worth more than others.

    But more to the point, I think that Hillary should reject the idea that the Obama coalition was something special or different, and that more people, including more white people should get on board with everyone else.

  42. 42.

    Elizabelle

    Ridiculous press conference. WH press room was evacuated; the press corpses are asking kind of overheated questions, now that they’re back.

    (Found out about this via WaPost website; now watching CNN. The news is them, the journalists, apparently.)

    The reporters are security experts in addition to being stellar journalists.

  43. 43.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    But if he is indeed elected, maybe President Graham could do like President Buchanan and avail himself of a gentleman companion instead.

    I didn’t realize that Buchanan’s First Lady, his niece Harriet Lane, was actually quite a woman.

    The capital welcomed its new “Democratic Queen” to the White House in 1857. Harriet was a popular hostess during the four years of the Buchanan presidency. Women copied her hair and clothing styles…, parents named their daughters for her, and a popular song (“Listen to the Mockingbird”) was dedicated to her.

    While in the White House, she used her position to promote social causes, such as improving the living conditions of Native Americans in reservations. She also made a point of inviting artists and musicians to White House functions. For both her popularity and her advocacy work, she has been described as the first of the modern first ladies, and her popularity at the time is compared to that of Jacqueline Kennedy in the 1960s.

    The presidential yacht was named for her—the first of several ships to be named for her, one of which is still in service today.

  45. 45.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Roger Moore: Sadly, around here I find a lot of people who think the policies are wrong still vote Republican. It’s tribal.

  46. 46.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    Democratic Queen.

    The only things that Americans love more than democracy is royalty.

    But Lane wasn’t just idle and decorative. She married, lost her husband and children, but left quite a legacy to the country (thank you Wiki):

    Thereafter she decided to live in Washington. She had acquired a sizable art collection, largely of European works, which she bequeathed to the government. Accepted after her death in 1903, it inspired an official of the Smithsonian Institution to call her “First Lady of the National Collection of Fine Arts”.

    In addition, she dedicated a generous sum to endow a home for invalid children at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. It became a renowned pediatric facility; the Harriet Lane Outpatient Clinics serve thousands of children today, and the widely used manual for pediatric house officers, The Harriet Lane Handbook, bears her name.

  47. 47.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:
    As I understand, people have always wondered about Buchanan and his former roommate William King. Although I concede that King never lived to see Buchanan become POTUS. And was Buchanan’s niece ever actually titled the First Lady?

  48. 48.

    Hal

    The more I’ve thought about the article, the more I hear Wayne Lapierre saying; “Eight Years Of One Demographically Symbolic President Is Enough.” And as Jessica Williams said; “That’s asshole for black.”

  49. 49.

    RaflW

    Ron Fournier blocked me on Twitter because I dared to comment a bit negatively on one of his columns. Note that I have about 200 Twitter followers and am a nobody (at least half my ‘followers’ are bots &/or marketing b.s.). I think I directed roughly three tweets his way.

    He’s both a hack and a thin skinned d-canoe who wastes his own time plugging his ears from people at the very far back of the peanut gallery.

  50. 50.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    As I understand, people have always wondered about Buchanan and his former roommate William King. Although I concede that King never lived to see Buchanan become POTUS.

    Yeah, I’ve read a number of histories that speculate about Buchanan, probably fairly I think.

    And was Buchanan’s niece ever actually titled the First Lady?

    I knew that Dolley Madison sometimes served as hostess for widower Thomas Jefferson. But I did not know much about Harriet Lane. She turns out to be a little fascinating. And yep, she was the first First Lady, according to some sources.

    Harriet Lane, niece of bachelor President James Buchanan, was the first woman to be called first lady while actually serving in that position. The phrase appeared in Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Monthly in 1860, when he wrote, “The Lady of the White House, and by courtesy, the First Lady of the Land.” Once Harriet Lane was called first lady, the term was applied retrospectively to her predecessors.

  51. 51.

    Steeplejack

    @Alison:

    I haven’t had your problem, but I did a little research and found this plausible solution. You might have to watch the video all the way through, because the narrator gets to the place to make the change a couple of different ways and shows it two different times.

    For me what worked (I’m using Windows 7) was to click on: Start | Control Panel | Network and Internet | View network status and tasks | Connections: Local Area Connection | Properties.

    I note that on my machine the connection is called “Local Area Connection,” whereas in the video it’s called “Ethernet Connection.”

    Hope this helps.

    ETA: The useful “follow along” part (for me) is at 2:00 in the video.

  52. 52.

    NotMax

    @Alison

    Might well be something running in the background that is hogging resources. Which anti-virus do you have installed.

    Also, if you do not yet have them installed, install and run the <b.free versions of Malwarebytes and CCleaner. The first to check for and zap nasties, the second to clear out a lot of detritus that Windows and normal computer usage build up, stuff which is not needed and can just slow things down. Both are perfectly safe and also very helpful to have on any PC. (CCleaner does a bang-up job of clearing browser caches while doing its thing, BTW.)

Comments are closed.