Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Consistently wrong since 2002

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

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

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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

Republicans do not pay their debts.

Second rate reporter says what?

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Some Pics and an Open Thread

Some Pics and an Open Thread

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Pens Win in OT!

winning

Also, here is a sweet pet pic of Lily and Thurston:

thurstonlily

He always knows where the camera is, the little shit. Here’s Steve on the ledge next to my lazyboy peering down at me:

steve

And finally, a new entry in the “view from your la-z-boy” genre:

viewfromyourlzyboy

And yes, those are wool socks with Teva’s and a knit blanket. Fuck you, it’s comfortble you judgmental pricks. Not to mention, someone spent a lot of time knitting that blanket just for me, so that makes it even more special. Assholes.

Also, I logged into my comcast account online and finally learned how to disable all unavailable and anonymous phone calls, as well as added a couple numbers from the Fraternal order of Police who seem to call me twice every damned day. It’s super easy. just log in and it is self explanatory.

Reader Interactions

102Comments

  4. 4.

    MomSense

    Steve! Happy to see him and the pups.

    I will never disparage a hand knit blanket. They are the best.

  6. 6.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    G is out of town until tomorrow and Charlotte is slightly freaked out. I need to eat dinner, but she won’t get out of my lap.

    When we took her to the vet, he immediately said, “Wow, this is a really anxious cat,” so now we try to remember to reassure her when unusual things happen. But we’re not always good at remembering to do that.

  8. 8.

    kindness

    People can give you all the shit they want for wearing socks with Tevas. Still don’t look like my Uggs which I’ve started wearing this week. Gettin’ nippy at night here in N Cal.

  12. 12.

    Boudica

    I just logged into my Verizon account and it does let you block anonymous callers and up to 100 numbers!

  16. 16.

    Cermet

    Rather late since I get up at 3:00 AM … surprised to see that Cole is still posting on BJ – thought he had given up of late … .

  20. 20.

    poptartacus

    fuck you and assholes
    defensive much?
    who gives a shit what you wear around the house?
    cute dog pic though

  21. 21.

    srv

    Ruh-roh:

    “Judicial Watch has confirmed the existence of draft indictments of Hillary Clinton for her lies and obstruction in the Whitewater bank-fraud investigation,” the group’s president Tom Fitton wrote in the statement. “The Obama administration is refusing to release these records out of concern for Hillary Clinton’s privacy. Hillary Clinton’s privacy cannot be allowed to trump the public’s interest in knowing more about whether she obstructed justice and lied to a federal grand jury.”

  22. 22.

    Urza

    Ok, disabling is easy, how about if you dont actually know how to log into your account cause it was created so long ago and you never ever use the email they gave you?

  24. 24.

    Woodrowfan

    @srv: they’re in the same box as the “whitey tapes” we kept being told were about to be released that would sink Obama…

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Woodrowfan: If Judicial Watch is back, can Dan Burton and that heavyset boy who helped him shoot at gourds be far behind? When will we begin the deforsting of Victoria and Toensing and Joe DiGenova?

    (Come on, Bryant, you’re due…)

  27. 27.

    beltane

    @srv: Judicial Watch has confirmed the existence of draft indictments of Hillary Clinton drafted by Judicial Watch. Pure genius.

  28. 28.

    gf120581

    @srv: Whitewater? Man, the Benghazi Committee really is fucked if they right wing trolls are being forced to dredge up the oldies.

  29. 29.

    Eric S.

    I’m getting ready for a trip downstate through the weekend. Dad is having some minor hand surgery. I’ve packed the bag and Ozzie the Cat is less than pleased. In trying to provide lap time but he’s more intent on causing havoc.

  33. 33.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @beltane: Ken Starr has already sent his regrets, as he’s playing Roger DeBris in a Waco community theatre staging of The Producers and doesn’t want to miss rehearsal (…two, three… kick! turn! Turn, turn, kick! turn..).

  34. 34.

    CaseyL

    Always good to see photos of the Cole Family, Furred and Socked Division.

    Way back when Steve first came to live with you, you’d rave about how he’d love all over you, purring and drooling and talking. Does he still do that?

  36. 36.

    cmorenc

    @John Cole:

    Also, I logged into my comcast account online and finally learned how to disable all unavailable and anonymous phone calls, as well as added a couple numbers from the Fraternal order of Police who seem to call me twice every damned day. It’s super easy. just log in and it is self explanatory.

    I need to look into whether and how it’s possible to do exactly that with my ATT U-verse account. Of course, a big hole in that approach is that many unsolicited, unwanted callers use spoofed rather than anonymous or unavailable numbers – I even occasionally get calls purportedly coming from my own land-line number the call is incoming on (!) And there’s only one phone in the house that’s connected to the residual land-line we keep precisely to have a legit number to give out where such contact info is required by some entity we need to deal with but don’t want to have actually calling us up.

  38. 38.

    Ruckus

    @cmorenc:
    Who needs a landline? Haven’t had one for over 10 yrs and no one has ever had a problem with this.

    ETA Just remembered that I did have one for 11 months when I lived where there was no cell signal. Think I used it once.

  42. 42.

    srv

    Charlie Crist, a former Republican governor of Florida, said on Tuesday he would seek election to the U.S. Congress as a Democrat, his latest bid at a political comeback.

    Crist, a one-term governor from 2007 to 2011, lost a bid last year to reclaim that office as a Democrat. He ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. Senate as an independent after leaving the Republican Party in 2010.

    Now Crist, 59, is hinging his latest bid on a House of Representatives district expected to become favorable for a Democrat based in his hometown of St. Petersburg, located in the Tampa Bay region on Florida’s Gulf Coast.

  43. 43.

    Eric S.

    @efgoldman: Ozzie hopped into the bag immediately.

    When I get home he’ll put on airs of ignoring me and being mad. He will cry and meow a lot but it won’t last. As soon as I’m seated on the couch he’ll be on my lap.

  44. 44.

    trollhattan

    @gf120581:
    If they’re dredging up mouse droppings from literally the last millennium, it means they got nuttin’ and the whole goal is noise in front of some camera. Next indictment: being mean to Donna and Meghan in high school, junior year. “What a socsh!”

  45. 45.

    benw

    Aw, sweet pet pics. That is a cat who loves you.

    Also, the Death Star:WTC analogy doesn’t work if you think it through.

  47. 47.

    divF

    @trollhattan:
    I’m at a White-House-sponsored nerd meeting too, but it’s strictly us B-listers. Tyson’s Corner Hilton, no one above the rank of an OSTP policy analyst.

    At least they are providing lunch and decent coffee / snacks.

    ETA: One of my colleagues noted the vast sea of blue sports coats that filled the meeting room.

  48. 48.

    srv

    The French Canadian surrenders:

    Canadian Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau has confirmed he will withdraw Canadian fighter jets from the air strikes against Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria.

    He informed US President Barack Obama of his decision hours after leading his Liberal party to victory in the polls.

  49. 49.

    amk

    @srv:

    pathetic that after all that chest thumping from your boy, you are pinning your boy’s hopes on this nothingburger bs.

  50. 50.

    Amir Khalid

    Thurston looks happy and well-behaved. I take it there’s been no more talk of giving him away.

  51. 51.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @divF:

    Just wait until you get called in front of a House committee because it turns out they served you the $4 muffins instead of the $3 ones and now that entire department’s budget is being scrutinized.

  53. 53.

    benw

    @divF: look on the bright side, I’m a gov’t funded nerd, too, and the chance of me getting invited to a WH sponsored meeting is 0 out of 0 percents. I guess that makes me a D-lister. :) Enjoy your meeting.

  54. 54.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    Is every reference to a La-Z-Boy the actual chair, or is some of that directed at Steve and Thurston?

  56. 56.

    Aleta

    @Eric S.: I had a cat who would turn his back to me for an entire day after I’d been gone traveling. Once I was skyping in and he did the same. My voice through the speaker phone, same.

    On the other hand, when he disappeared into the woods while I was 1000 miles away, I cat-called into a public pay phone for 15 minutes while my friend at home walked through the underbrush holding up his cell on speaker. The cat finally came. The pay phone was next to the bar in a backwoods eatery near some Canadian wilderness, by the way, and not a single person looked up, or took any notice of me afterward.

  57. 57.

    srv

    @amk: You’re naive if you think it’s the other party playing games:

    Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday took a swipe at Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton, saying it’s “naive” to think the country can be governed without working with Republicans.
    …
    “End this notion that it is naive to think we can speak well of the other party and cooperation,” he added. “What is naive is to think it is remotely possible to govern this country unless we can.”

    It’s teh White House that’s holding up that Judicial Watch FOIA request.

    Kiss-kiss, bang-bang:

    Biden said that only two of the officials President Obama consulted at the time — Leon Panetta, who was serving as CIA director, and then-Defense ­Secretary Robert Gates — gave definitive views on whether to launch the risky Navy SEAL attack on the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.
    …
    Biden’s account differs sharply from the recollections of Obama, Panetta and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whom he would have to defeat in order to claim the Democratic nomination in 2016.

    Uncle Joe & Hitlary are going to the mat.

  60. 60.

    NotMax

    That your video wallpaper is a picture of a bottle of skin lotion speaks volumes. :)

    Actual La-Z-Boy? Or is that WV slang generic for any recliner?

    (Typed while sitting quite comfortably in an honest to gosh La-Z-Boy desk chair.)

  62. 62.

    trollhattan

    Hey everybody, if you’re Mormon you don’t necessarily have to hate on the gheys anymore.

    The Mormon Church staked a deeper claim to middle ground in American society on Tuesday, advocating for compromises between protecting religious liberties and prohibiting discrimination, and criticizing Kentucky clerk Kim Davis for refusing to license gay marriages.

    “We may have cultural differences, but we should not have ‘culture wars,'” Mormon leader Dallin H. Oaks declared.

    “On the big issues … both sides should seek a balance, not a total victory,” he said. “For example, religionists should not seek a veto over all non-discrimination laws that offend their religion, and the proponents of non-discrimination should not seek a veto over all assertions of religious freedom.”

    The speech marked another landmark moment in the conservative religion’s transformation from a faith that frowned on gays and lesbians to one becoming more welcoming and compassionate, albeit in small steps that may seem nominal to outsiders. As with the Roman Catholic Church under Pope Francis, the conservative Mormons are trying to assert a softer position in society, while holding firm inside the church to its own doctrines against gay marriage and homosexual activity.

    Next: 2.4 beer–not necessarily the work of the devil.

  63. 63.

    srv

    Hillary has taken her sendmail.cf skillz to trolling Roger Stone – but someone hasn’t filled her in on VPNs:

    The political consultant’s new book, “The Clintons’ War on Women,” is the top-rated political history seller on Amazon, but the online retailer was flooded last week with one-star reviews.

    “My publisher [Skyhorse] confirmed with Amazon — they were all from the same URL, at Hillary’s HQ in Brooklyn,” Stone — whose clients have included Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump — told me. “Why are they so afraid of this book?”

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    @trollhattan

    the proponents of non-discrimination should not seek a veto over all assertions of religious freedom

    Obscurantism. All assertions? Never happened.

    Plus it’s not a veto, it’s the frigging law.

  67. 67.

    MattR

    @Ruckus: Not only do I have a landline, but I have a corded phone. I use the landline regularly since I work from home and it is more convenient than a cell phone, but the corded phone only comes out when we lose power. Was a real sanity saver to be able to chat for hours without worrying a dead battery when my condo complex was without power for more than a week after Sandy.

  69. 69.

    amk

    @NotMax:

    it’s the frigging law.

    No, it’s the ‘middle ground’ as per pathetic msm. We will give you that particular right to be treated as a human but in return you will have to put up with all the bs from us, the god botherers.

  72. 72.

    NotMax

    @amk

    Uh-huh. Just as if arguing that the driver of auto X has the “right” to creep along at 20 mph on the interstate, so long as the driver of auto Y has the “right” to swoosh by doing 100.

  73. 73.

    Comrade Luke

    If you are on Instagram, I highly recommend following the account foster_kittens.

    That is all.

  75. 75.

    Matt McIrvin

    @efgoldman: I think Prop. 8 actually planted the seeds of all this. I get the impression there was a lot of internal dissension in the Mormon Church over whether they ought to have been doing that, and the negative publicity they got in the years since they won that battle genuinely took them by surprise.

  76. 76.

    amk

    @srv:

    Uncle Joe & Hitlary are going to the mat.

    So?

    And you don’t have the guts to go full godwin, do ya? pathetic.

  77. 77.

    Matt McIrvin

    @srv: Hey, psst, why don’t they go after Hillary Clinton’s husband? I heard he’s been known to screw around! Why isn’t Drudge on this?

  78. 78.

    Mike J

    @Matt McIrvin: They didn’t even consider black people to be human until 1979. Most Mormons are decent people in their everyday interactions, and I think they still feel sheepish it took them so long to acknowledge the humanity of people who aren’t like them.

  79. 79.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I don’t get this

    Sahil Kapur ‏@ sahilkapur 6h6 hours ago
    Boehner says he’d like to clear the plate for the next Speaker on the debt limit & highway bill plus ExIm via discharge petition.

    Why the hell does Boehner need a discharge petition? He’s still speaker, and either way he’s, I assume, counting on Dem votes to get things passed. That I get, but even with a discharge petition, some R’s are going to have to go on record, including him. Why not just bring it to a vote?

  80. 80.

    srv

    Your fear of nature gives cancer to reefs:

    ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – A common ingredient found in sunscreen is toxic to coral and contributing to the decline of reefs around the world, according to new research published on Tuesday.

    Oxybenzone, a UV-filtering chemical compound found in 3,500 brands of sunscreen worldwide, can be fatal to baby coral and damaging to adults in high concentrations, according the study published in the Archives of Environmental Contamination and Toxicology.
    …
    Oxybenzone alters coral DNA, makes coral more susceptible to potentially fatal bleaching and acts as an endocrine disruptor, causing baby coral to encase itself in its own skeleton and die, according to the findings.
    …
    The damaging effects were seen in coral in concentrations of oxybenzone as low as 62 parts per trillion, which is equivalent to a drop of water in six and a half Olympic-sized swimming pools, according to the researchers.

    In Hawaii and the Caribbean, concentrations were 12 times higher, according to the sea water testing.

  85. 85.

    BR

    I’m reading some of the recent quotes from Biden and getting a bit worried (especially the working with the Republicans bit). I think a few months ago I would have enthusiastically supported him, but now I’m really thinking it’s best if he stays out of the race. I don’t think he’s going to add anything, and the way the media will cover him and the rest of the field as a result will hurt more than it’ll help.

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @BR: you’re not the only one

    ohn Cole ‏@ Johngcole 5h5 hours ago
    After his display today I really do not want Joe Biden to run.

    and me three, it’s like he’s bitter about losing a race he hasn’t entered

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @efgoldman: Because this is ratfucking of the first order, whether he’s running or not.

    My take, too, a side of him I never suspected and don’t like.

  91. 91.

    mclaren

    @efgoldman:

    They will just keep doubling down until they either get their way or they are defeated.
    Unfortunately, defeating them will take maybe a hundred almost-but-not-quite-as-completely-crazy conservative Republicans to decide that the fate of the country…

    Nonsense.

    All it will take is president Obama unilaterally raising the debt ceiling by executive order.

  92. 92.

    mclaren

    @efgoldman:

    Is there a back story to this shit? Is there something one or the other Clinton did (or he believes they did) to him in the 90s? Because this is ratfucking of the first order, whether he’s running or not.

    Joe Biden is a corrupt creepy authoritarian sociopath. Haven’t you people realized that yet?

    Everything Joe Biden does is for the power and bank account of Joe Biden, and everyone else be damned. Ever time an innocent victims dies in a drone attack or gets his life destroyed or goes to prison unjustly, it’s like a sweet sweet strawberry in Joe Biden’s mouth.

    Joe Biden delectates in suffering and personal destruction the way other people enjoy eating jellybeans.

  93. 93.

    danielx

    @Mnemosyne (tablet):

    wouldn’t there be a statute of limitations on Whitewater by now?

    Ain’t no statute of limitations on scandal, just ask Peggy Noonan. Or Maureen Dowd, for that matter,

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @Amir Khalid

    Step-brother, many years ago now, had the same brain surgery as Biden, and instantaneously became after that someone with zero filters regarding communication, extremely diminished listening skills and an impatient doofus in social situations. Have long noticed the same tendencies in Biden.

  97. 97.

    Aleta

    @NotMax: And grief can do funny things to the perceptions, or affect how one puts together information for a period of time.

    Biden was way off the track and into the mud during the Clarence Thomas hearings, too.

  98. 98.

    NotMax

    @Aleta

    Neglected to include a marked increase in emotional suggestibilty as a post-surgery change as well.

    Have never understood the source of the Biden love evinced here.

    Likeability is not acumen.

  99. 99.

    sm*t cl*de

    @srv:

    “My publisher [Skyhorse]’

    Now there’s a familiar name from watching the anti-vaccination tin-hat gibberers.

  100. 100.

    raven

    If all goes well the critters will be in our new rack tonight. . .well Bohdi will sing Lil Bit has to say in her box at night!

  101. 101.

    Anne Laurie

    @efgoldman:

    I also can’t believe that he cleared this with Obama’s political operation before he opened his mouth.

    Yeah, like “clearing statements in advance” has been part of Biden’s skill set… not just over the last seven years, but ever. Letting his mouth get in front of his superego has always been part of the Good Ol’ Joe Biden charm!

  102. 102.

    Thom Rogers

    As for blocking calls, since you have VOIP, you might want to check out a nifty tool called “nomorobo” on Google. Brilliant!

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