Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Let there be snark.

The willow is too close to the house.

The lights are all blinking red.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

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

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

He wakes up lying, and he lies all day.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

People are weird.

SCOTUS: It’s not “bribery” unless it comes from the Bribery region of France. Otherwise, it’s merely “sparkling malfeasance”.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

When we show up, we win.

Shut up, hissy kitty!

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Thursday Evening Open Thread: He’s Certainly Earned It…

Thursday Evening Open Thread: He’s Certainly Earned It…

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… and it may actually distract the Twitchykin from attacking Hillary, at least for a few hours on Saturday. Per The Hill:

… Obama is celebrating his 55th birthday Friday night with a star-studded celebration at the White House, with Beyoncé and Jay Z attending. Kendrick Lamar, the president’s favorite rapper, will also show up, according to the New York Post.

R&B star Usher will perform for the first couple and their guests.

It’s Obama’s last birthday as president, and he is planning to go out in style.

Several stars from the worlds of entertainment, sports and music have scored an invite. The guests include comedian Ellen DeGeneres, singer Stevie Wonder, Vogue editor Anna Wintour, singer and actress Jennifer Hudson and basketball legends Magic Johnson and Alonzo Mourning…

The party is taking place one day before the Obama family leaves for its annual vacation on Martha’s Vineyard, Mass.

Obama’s birthday falls on Thursday, and he is keeping things strictly business, according to his public schedule…

Happy birthday, Mr. President, and may nothing more immanently serious than Donald Trump’s campaign interrupt your vacation.

***********
What else is on the agenda as we prepare to wrap up another busy week?

Reader Interactions

242Comments

  6. 6.

    Mike in NC

    Love the ad on the right sidebar for ‘Donald J. Trump for President, Inc.’ Not the usual scowling fucknut that we see every day.

  8. 8.

    magurakurin

    The latest Marist poll has big numbers for Clinton and this tab for the under 30 voters.
    Clinton 41
    Johnson 23
    Stein 16
    Shitgibbon 9
    I applaud them for not going for the Shitgibbon. But Gary Johnson? I’m guessing some of them were Bernie people and if so, then they really aren’t paying attention to what Johnson is all about at all. Some quick items that Johnson is for:
    1. No income tax for corporations. Zero. In fact, no income tax. Just a flat consumption tax for everything. The most regressive form of taxation there is. Hmmm.
    2. Zero government involvement in health care. Zero. Total private system. Yeah, that’s almost like Sanders’ proposal of a single payer plan supported entirely by income taxes. Huh?
    3. No regulation on guns at all. None. Natch.
    4. No regulation on internet providers. No to net neutrality. The internet will become a pay to play venue.
    5. TPP he is a big fan of it and free trade…all those anti-TPP signs at the DNC…how many of them are now Johnson curious? more than a few I’d wager…doh!
    6. More coal plants and more Nukes.
    7. He wants to abolish the Department of Education and end all federal student loan programs and go to total private loans (uh..banks) Sounds just like Bernie, no?
    Policy matters. So, all you youngins, need to read what these people say. I know Hillary is the Devil, but if she does half of what she has set forth in her policy statements she will still be 10,000 times more liberal/progressive than Johnson. Just sayin’.

  9. 9.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    O/T, but I hope you saw that I watched, enjoyed, and saved the operatic birthday greeting you shared … was it only yesterday morning? Anyhow, thank you. It was perfect!

  10. 10.

    burnspbesq

    In case you haven’t seen it, the own goal that sent Aberdeen crashing out of the Europa League is at least as funny as Cole’s run-in with a bad board.

    Oh, dear

  13. 13.

    BR

    @magurakurin:

    I think his support for legal weed is probably a big driver that overshadows all this other stuff.

    btw, net neutrality is basically pointless at this point — the structure of the Internet has changed too much since it was first proposed. The only thing that matters is breaking Comcast’s monopoly.

  15. 15.

    hovercraft

    @magurakurin:
    If Hillary gets in trouble she can always ‘Todd Aitkin’ him, run ads just listing his tax, gun, energy plans, and no government regulation, and say America you can’t vote for this man he’s just your typical republican. This would give republicans who don’t want to vote for Trump a place to go.

  16. 16.

    Major Major Major Major

    @BR:

    net neutrality is basically pointless at this point

    Lawrence Lessig on line 3.

    @magurakurin: A lot of the young Bernie fans were white men who, for… some reason…, don’t like Hillary Clinton all that much. A few of them were probably Democratic votes we could have picked up, I doubt many will vote at all, going from anecdata–and they probably wouldn’t have voted anyway.

    Bernie wasn’t inspiring the youths with Sozialismus, he was just a shiny object that hated banks.

  17. 17.

    Ruckus

    @magurakurin:
    Johnson of course isn’t a progressive, he’s a regressive.
    But I also became convinced that Sanders wasn’t a progressive either. You have to have plans to actually progress to be a true progressive.

  24. 24.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Ruckus: Have you been “fortunate” enough to get Bernie’s “Our Revolution” e-mail? It’s a fundraising e-mail for his new PAC-like organization. He opens talking about how “elections come and go”. No mention at all about the election coming up in November. No mention of how he (and “we”) need to do everything we can to beat Donnie and elect Hillary.

    It pissed me off, it did.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.
    (Who shouldn’t have been surprised.)

  27. 27.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    I got confirmation this evening of something I’ve (along with the rest of my family) suspected for months: my mother has early stage Alzheimer’s. The good news is that my father is on the ball; if you absolutely must have Alzheimer’s, Ann Arbor is a good place to live because the university have a very good clinic for it; and six months ago, my parents moved into a senior citizens community that is well equipped to help deal with it.

    It’s still going to suck.

  29. 29.

    Hildebrand

    I would sincerely like to sleep without nightmares. Every night for months now I wake up from some ghastly dream that has me shaking. I would like them to stop – somebody get on that, please.

  32. 32.

    hilts

    California Democratic Rep. Karen Bass has launched a change.org petition calling for Donald Trump to a undergo mental health evaluation. Bass, who was a physician assistant and a clinical instructor prior to her political career, said the Republican presidential nominee may have narcissistic personality disorder, which could severely influence his actions as commander in chief.
    “Donald Trump is dangerous for our country. His impulsiveness and lack of control over his own emotions are of concern. It is our patriotic duty to raise the question of his mental stability to be the commander in chief and leader of the free world,” the petition states.

    https://www.change.org/p/diagnosetrump

    Former Sen. Gordon Humphrey (R-N.H.) says he is considering voting for Hillary Clinton over “sociopath” Donald Trump. Humphrey, who served in Congress from the ‘70s to 1990, told NBC News on Thursday he is confident that Trump has major psychological issues, and said that the prospect of the Republican becoming the commander in chief is “frightening.” “I am ever more confirmed in my belief that Trump is a sociopath, without a conscience or feelings of guilt, shame or remorse. And he is pathologically insecure, recklessly attacking anyone who does not confirm him as the best there is,” he wrote in an email to the news network.

    h/t The Hill

  34. 34.

    SFAW

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:

    I got the same mail, tried to reply to say “WTF? Why aren’t you using this mail to talk about supporting Hillary in the General?” But, interestingly enough, the mail cannot be replied to, nor forwarded. And when you go to the website, there is no “Contact Us” page, where I might register my peevitude.

    Interesting. Man o’ the people, I guess.

  37. 37.

    magurakurin

    @Ruckus: but at least his proposals, however unicorn like, were fully progressive. But Johnsons’ ideas are not progressive at all. I had no love for Sanders and still don’t, but any of his supporters who are turning to Johnson aren’t paying attention to policy. It’s like you all are saying…he was just a shiny object that hated Killary and promised to take out Wall Street…whatever that actually meant.

    But surely, some of them can still see the light. I hope they do.

  41. 41.

    BR

    @Major Major Major Major:

    It wasn’t when first proposed, but it is now — the Internet’s AS peering structure has changed too much for it to matter, and the networks that are violating net neutrality principles are access networks that have regional monopolies (i.e. Comcast). I spent quite some time working with several fellow experts on this, and we concluded that most of the public policy discussion on net neutrality hasn’t kept up with the technological reality. The one exception was the FCC — they ruled that Comcast effectively can’t shut out others from using their lines (though I think Comcast took them to court — I haven’t followed the case).

  42. 42.

    Ruckus

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
    It took a bit of back and forth, swearing, typing in a shouty voice and such but I got them to take me off the old fart’s mail list. But one of the last emails I got was him still asking for money after he fucking lost because he needed to take the fight to the convention. It still pisses me off that I fell for his bullshit, even if it wasn’t for all that long.

  45. 45.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hildebrand:

    Ugh. It’s probably worth getting a checkup just to make sure there’s no underlying physical problem (like asthma). If your insurance will pay for it, a sleep study would probably help, because things like sleep apnea can cause nightmares.

    If you get a clean bill of physical health, I taught myself lucid dreaming, and now it’s very rare for me to be unable to fall asleep again after a bad dream because I know I’ll be able to wake myself up if things start getting too bad.

  46. 46.

    sukabi

    @magurakurin: Johnson’s plan sounds EXACTLY like what the repubs have been pushing for years, with the exception of religion…. so I’m guessing that the folks lining up for him are what’s left of the “moderate” republicans.

  47. 47.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @SFAW: Yeah, Man of the People!

    Bigly.

    :-/

    He doesn’t seem to me to be acting like someone interesting in directing his supporters and national prominence toward actually doing something in government. He seems to really believe that it’s enough to talk and have rallies and policies will just fall into place.

    I’m getting the feeling that he’s not going to run for re-election to the Senate in 2018. Let’s hope that Hillary and TeamD have enough votes in the Senate next year (and in 2019) that he can play Independent and Man of the People™ and Our Revolution all he wants, and thing can actually get done anyway.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  49. 49.

    magurakurin

    @Mike J: Some data and charts here at Gallup

    Eisenhower and Clinton are top for second term average. For the end of the second term looks like maybe Reagan…over 70.

  50. 50.

    Major Major Major Major

    @BR: I think that’s what I was referring to when I said the ‘common carrier’ thing. The ISP’s lost recently at the DC circuit.

    That was June. That would be, uh, part of the whole ‘net neutrality’ thing. Maybe there are people tilting at Glass-Steagall-like windmills out there, but I haven’t been reading them. (Note: I don’t read especially much on NN these days, since, as you say, anything evil would have to be limited to… exactly what the big ISP’s are doing.)

  55. 55.

    Ruckus

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
    Hopefully it goes as good as can be expected. My dad had it for 19 yrs and mom struggled with it towards the end (94 yrs old) so I have first hand experience. There is some good news, drugs that help with the symptoms for a few years, and much research is going on. I have a good friend who is working with someone about better ways to care for people with Alzheimer’s. UCLA has been studying this for sometime, we had my dad in their research program.
    Good luck for everyone. This is, as it progresses, hard on everyone, not just the person suffering, so make sure that everyone involved takes care of themselves along the way.

  56. 56.

    Hildebrand

    @Mnemosyne: Yep – got a thorough exam last week. I have atrial fibrillation (have had since I was 35), but beyond that, healthy as can be. Doctor wonders if it is stress related, but beyond hoping to land a full time teaching gig, I don’t have much stress.

  60. 60.

    Mnemosyne

    @Hildebrand:

    I would definitely ask if you can get a sleep study and see if you have an undetected apnea problem. In the meantime, a dream journal can really help defuse things when a nightmare wakes you up. If you can’t remember anything about them after you wake, that may be another sign that it’s sleep apnea.

    ETA: Please note, IANaMD. I just have friends with sleep apnea.

  61. 61.

    divF

    @debbie:

    Good grief, is Anna Wintour still around?

    Back in the 80’s at least, the prose in Vogue was described as being like “a tornado in a wastepaper basket”. One of the phrases that captured this for us was a item in a fashion article, which stated that “bugle beads are not the prevailing message”. A fashion Koan, if you like.

  62. 62.

    Ruckus

    @magurakurin:
    Saw it noted somewhere today that 91% of Sanders supporters have flipped to Clinton. Don’t know how that number was arrived at but I’d bet that somewhere around 10-20% of his support was rodent copulation so this seems about right.

  63. 63.

    randy khan

    @BR:

    1. By any reasonable measure, Comcast does not have a monopoly. The worst case is that under the FCC’s 25 Mbps definition of broadband, it has something under half of the market. More realistic definitions of broadband put Comcast’s market share at less than 25%.

    2. The most interesting part of the broadband story is what a lousy job the telephone companies have done. FiOS is great and U-verse is pretty good, but Verizon basically stopped deploying FiOS years ago, when it reached only a fraction of Verizon’s original footprint, and U-verse is similarly limited. You could argue that the cable operators as a group are dominant, but it’s almost entirely because the phone companies decided to invest their money in wireless. I kind of expect that the end game will be wireless versus cable, but there’s a good argument that landline service is complementary to wireless, so maybe that’s not how it plays out.

    3. The history of network neutrality is quite convoluted, but the Comcast case you mention ended up being a loss for the FCC because the court concluded that the FCC hadn’t actually adopted rules. So it adopted rules, which got reversed (although it was something of a Pyrrhic victory for Verizon, which opposed the rules), and adopted new rules using a different regulatory theory in 2015. The new rules were upheld by a 3-judge panel of the the appeals court in June, and last Friday the industry groups that challenged the new rules have asked for a hearing by the entire court. My guess is that the full court says it’s not interested, after which the industry groups will give the Supreme Court a try.

  71. 71.

    hovercraft

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym:
    With early detection you have better options, but it still sucks, I’m sorry. My dad had alzheimer’s it’s tough on everyone. The most important thing is to make sure that your Dad has as much support as possible. Best of luck to your entire family.

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    @Hildebrand:
    Maybe ask your doc about B vitamin deficiency. Mine put me on B-12 because my meds have a tendency to lower it’s retention worse than normal. And B-12 is essential for proper brain function. It has made a noticeable difference from the first day. I do sleep much better and my dreams are not generally nightmarish. Maybe nothing but well worth the cost of B-12.

  75. 75.

    Hildebrand

    @Mnemosyne: My thanks for the advice. Mrs. Hildebrand has been watching like a hawk, no apnea, barely any snoring. Just at least one pulse-pounder a night – and they are vivid, I remember them clearly. Last night was a house in a tornado that was chasing me, the night before an unseen assailant with a shotgun. Charming stuff.

  78. 78.

    BR

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Ok. I differentiate between the old “common carrier” terminology and something more narrow and impactful, which is breaking access provider monopolies. There’s currently no problem in other types of providers — there’s plenty of diversity in long-haul / tier-1 providers, as there is in hosting, cloud services, etc. And lots of network peering innovations that make some of the old “fast lane / slow lane” policy discussions irrelevant. It really does just come down to access networks these days.

    The other thing is that the broader net neutrality policy that has been pushed for a long time is nearly impossible to enforce (even if you wanted to), and simultaneously it’s not an ideal policy for what a truly neutral network would look like. (A truly neutral network would be one that embraced something akin to information-centric networking, which is an unworkable but conceptually clean Internet design.)

  79. 79.

    CaseyL

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: Very sorry to hear that, and sending best wishes your way. Hopefully the new drug regime will help!

    @Ruckus: Or people who never voted, or only voted third party. Most of them seem to be going for Anti-Vaxxer Homeopathic Quack this time around.

  85. 85.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: true story, my grandfather who spent most of his life in Denver basically hated Nebraska and everything in it. I was never quite sure why.

  86. 86.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Hildebrand: Try to laugh more, and watch the news less. Seriously.

    I notice that I incorporate the news and so forth in my dreams at times. I have a clock-radio as my alarm clock, so I wake up to NPR’s Morning Edition. If I don’t get up as soon as it goes off, I’ll dream about whatever horrors are going on in the news.

    I’m sure that turning off the news and not listening to the radio is too simplistic a solution, but laughing (do you like Futurama or The Simpsons?) can’t hurt.

    Laughter science!

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  87. 87.

    Ruckus

    @Hildebrand:
    Don’t know your age and not asking but stress can affect you different as you age. I have what’s known as essential tremor, and even minor levels of stress can make it temporally worse, no matter how minor that stress feels to me or what caused it.

  88. 88.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @magurakurin:
    The Purity Brigade have been here for eight years telling us what ‘taking on the banks’ means. If you are not putting bank CEOs in jail, as far as they’re concerned, you are fixing nothing and in the banks’ pockets.

    @randy khan:
    Their ace in the hole was Scalia being alive. I imagine they’re a bit confused now.

  89. 89.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Adam L Silverman: pre-Broncos? Big college football fan?

    @Frankensteinbeck: If you are not putting bank CEOs in jail,

    Uh, yeah, I think you mean “banksters”, Mr Neo-Liberal Sell Out Goldman Sachs Whore?

    ETA: Stupid autocorrect is not aware of all internet traditions

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    I only say I think it’s ADHD when that’s what I think it is. I encourage people to get tested because it frequently goes undiagnosed in girls and women, and a lot of people don’t realize that boys/men can have the inattentive type.

    And, frankly, we have quite a few people here (including Anne Laurie and myself) who have been diagnosed as adults after struggling with it for a long time. So, no, I don’t feel bad for telling people maybe they should get tested for ADHD if I see them saying or doing the same kind of things I do.

    Cole absolutely should be tested for it. He fell through a floor today because he wasn’t paying attention. Hello?

  93. 93.

    Hildebrand

    @redshirt: I need to keep a better journal of them, but they seem to be fairly scattershot. It doesn’t appear to be one particular thing, though certain themes tend to hit the rotation (unable to protect someone, supernatural threats, creeping doom of unknown origin), but I have never had a repeat fright. Timing is likewise random. The brain is a weird thing.

  95. 95.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Mnemosyne:

    Cole absolutely should be tested for it. He fell through a floor today because he wasn’t paying attention.

    He stepped on a bad board. About which he was informed after the incident. How is it on him but for your conviction?

  96. 96.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: I don’t get it. If the “it” has to do with the Mission Impossible movies, I’ve never seen them.

  98. 98.

    GregB

    One of the great things about this election, providing Trump doesn’t ignite a civil war by ginning up his armed idiots over phony fraud claims, is the fact that the longer the election drags on the more Republicans get moved into the loser corner.

    All of these boobs not distancing themselves from Trump are basically destroying their future in national politics.

    Please proceed.

  99. 99.

    jonas

    Trump’s White House birthday bash would feature Charo, Insane Clown Posse, and a Pat Boone tribute act.

  100. 100.

    redshirt

    @Hildebrand: Trying to understand these nightmares is step 1 in overcoming them. The suggestion to keep a dream journal is a good one. But follow this template: The minute you’re conscious, even in the middle of the night, you must write down what you were dreaming about. You can never trust yourself to remember it later. So keep the notebook, pen, and a small flashlight if necessary nearby.
    It’s a big hassle but the only way it can work. After you do it for a while it won’t seem like such a imposition.

  101. 101.

    Mnemosyne

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Once is coincidence. Twice is happenstance. Three times — to the to the power of 10, in this case — is ADHD. How many more stories of Cole injuring himself in novel ways do you need to hear before you believe?

  104. 104.

    burnspbesq

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    It used to piss me off when no one who was arguing for “banksters” to be put in jail could point to any section of Title 18 that had been violated. Now I understand that they don’t give a flyimg fuck about justice or solving problems. All they want is vengeance.

  105. 105.

    Anoniminous

    @Hildebrand:

    Since this has gone on for months you should see a psychologist or therapist. Long term sleep deprivation is not good, it lowers neurotransmitter reserve levels, and can cause some really nasty psycho-physical disorders up to and including dementia.

  106. 106.

    divF

    @Adam L Silverman: When Madame was a med student, she got a cut-rate subscription to the weekly New England Journal of Medicine. In their “Case Records of the MGH” section, they would give a history of a patient, and then come to a point where you had enough info to make the diagnosis. Autoimmune diseases were the rage in the late 80’s, so lupus was a favorite. Also Wegner’s granulomatosis, which they used so often that even I could spot it.

  108. 108.

    Hildebrand

    @redshirt: A good plan. Ok, folks, thanks for all of the advice and tips – off to try to get some non-nightmare sleep. I am appreciative.

  109. 109.

    Adam L Silverman

    @NotMax: Ahhh, okay. Now I’m tracking. I’ve seen episodes of the show, just didn’t know that was the actor’s name.

  110. 110.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: From his Navy experience, he didn’t like Texans. OTOH, he gave me a single barrel Iver-Johnson 20-gauge shotgun when I turned 12 and 1898 Mauser rifle with a cut-down to sporting stock the next year.

  111. 111.

    ? Martin

    Latest Marist poll crosstabs:

    Clinton 41%
    Johnson 23%
    Stein 16%
    Trump 9%

    This is the GOP nightmare and why more Republicans haven’t abandoned him. The GOP is facing an existential split. The GOP doesn’t have a ton of support to begin with (if they did, they wouldn’t be fucking with voting as aggressively as they are), and if they split between Trump and Ryan, and walk away in November with no WH, it’s unclear that the Ryan wing will get the Trump voters back, and that’s half the party right now.

    Complicating this, they’re drawing single digits of young voters, and they’l never come around without really major changes to the party. They are so colossally fucked right now.

  112. 112.

    Adam L Silverman

    @burnspbesq: Also, most people don’t know that banksters used to be a coded phrase to refer to Jewish moneyed interests – investment, banking, etc.

  113. 113.

    Hildebrand

    @Anoniminous: That’s the kicker – I probably get 7-8 hours of sleep a night – I just always have at least one nightmare a night. I can fall back to sleep, but I always have at least one (and I never fall back into the same nightmare).

  114. 114.

    NotMax

    @jonas

    What, no Britney Spears? No Milli Vanilli?

    And of course, Scott Baio wheeling out a yuuge cake, covered in edible gold leaf. (Either Baio or the cake, take yer pick.)

  116. 116.

    NoraLenderbee

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: I’m so sorry. We went through this with my mother. My dad refused help for a long time. It sounds like yours is as well prepared as possible. Take care of yourselves–it is a marathon.

  118. 118.

    Helen

    Re: Insomnia. I have been an insomniac my whole life. Really. I remember being 8?? years old and not being able to sleep. There is a big psychological component to it, i.e. “why am I not sleeping…I should be asleep.” Then I read the definition of insomnia. It says you can’t sleep AND it affects you in your everyday life. And the ding ding ding went off in my mind. I am perfectly fine the day after I sleep only 3 or 4 hours. Maybe I am not a 8 hour person.

  119. 119.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Adam L Silverman: My first guess would be “college football rivalry”. Speaking as someone with a dad on the other side, though he doesn’t hate Colorado that much.

  122. 122.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Omnes Omnibus: Makes more sense than being attacked by a brisket. Though we’ve probably just jinxed Cole. The next bizarre story will be how he’s dry rubbing a brisket for smoking and something, something traumatic injury…

  124. 124.

    danielx

    Definite fixer upper, and a block away from me, so I am going to gut it and renovate over the winter and probably move in in April-May, hopefully. Nice fenced in yard for the pets.

    I know it’s off topic from the thread below, but – is there any way to stage an intervention before this, this…this recipe for disaster commences?

    The thought of Cole with power tools is unsettling at best, and then the whole demolition gig: you know, crowbars, large hammers, sawzalls. It will be bad enough reading all the pissing and moaning about the various surprises (none pleasant) awaiting anyone who remodels an older home. (“I’ll take aluminum wiring and hundred amp service for $500, Alex!”. Yeah, 500, you wish.) But judging by past history, if he embarks on this project Cole is likely to suffer traumatic amputation of one or more bodily appendages if not at least partial paralysis. Won’t somebody think of the animals?

  125. 125.

    redshirt

    @Helen: I bought a FitBit primarily because I wanted to track my sleeping patterns as best the device could track them. I rarely get more than 4 hours sleep according to the device, and the pattern of sleep is consistent, so I’m more likely to believe it.

  126. 126.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Matt McIrvin: Given that my grandfather never made it out of middle school because he had to do whatever work he could during the Depression to feed his siblings, I doubt it. I don’t think he had any attachment to any university or college, let alone their sports programs.

  127. 127.

    Dadadadadadada

    @hilts: I applaud the sentiment, but it’s too early to be yanking Donny Rotten out of the race. There’s still enough time left for some slim chance of the GOP regrouping enough to make November competitive, and we don’t want that. Once the ballots are printed (various deadlines are coming in the next few weeks), we can start entertaining these very entertaining ideas. October would be the best time, really.

  128. 128.

    divF

    @Adam L Silverman: To me, autoimmune diseases are the scariest – they are your own body’s defense mechanisms turning on you. Also, a common treatment is high-dose steroids, which is nasty in itself.

  130. 130.

    Anoniminous

    @Hildebrand:

    See a psychologist or therapist, like seriously. I know enough about the brain to know this is something that needs professional attention. Otherwise you could end up with a persistent and irrational fear of Nebraska and if that happens where would you get your over-priced mail order steaks?

    :-)

  133. 133.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Adam L Silverman: Can’t be helped. I wonder if there is some karma left from his old days? He is doing (reasonably*) well now.

    *I am more liberal interventionist than most here.

  134. 134.

    Matt McIrvin

    @magurakurin: For 32% of young voters to be basically conservative in temperament sounds about right. I think what’s going on here is just that young right-wingers almost all think Trump is gross.

  135. 135.

    Adam L Silverman

    @divF: I’m tracking. I’ve had a few friends with different ones. From mild versions to very severe ones. Not something I’d wish on anyone.

  138. 138.

    Mnemosyne

    @divF:

    G just let me know that they’re going to be showing “Bigger Than Life” with James Mason around these parts. It’s basically an addiction story where they put him on a high-dose steroid and he becomes more and more maniacal the longer he’s on it. I won’t ruin it for anyone, but James Mason directed by Nicholas Ray is pretty damn amazing.

  139. 139.

    burnspbesq

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Up until the 1970s, there was a complete parallel structure in the New York area: WASP and Jewish banks, law firms, and accounting firms. I was the first goy ever hired by the first law firm I worked for, and that was in 1982. My sister was one of the first shiksas at Goldman.

  142. 142.

    redshirt

    @Adam L Silverman: Cole does seem to experience injuries at a higher rate than the norm. However, he himself suggested it was alcohol related in the past, so that can certainly explain what was going on then, and now.

  145. 145.

    Original Lee

    @Tissue Thin Pseudonym: So sorry to hear about your mother. Alzheimer’s does indeed suck. My late father had Lewy Body dementia, which also sucks.

    Good luck and I’ll be thinking of you and your family often.

    You can email me if you need e-tea and sympathy in the future.

  146. 146.

    divF

    @Mnemosyne: Never heard of it before, but James Mason and Nicholas Ray – how can you go wrong ?

    ETA: One of my favorite double bills I went to once at the old UC Theater: Johnny Guitar and Kiss Me Deadly.

  147. 147.

    Steeplejack

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It’s is the contraction for “it is,” which you never use. Its is the possessive form of it.

    Your sentence should have read “[. . .] it’s not lupus, because it’s never lupus.”

    ETA: Peter Lupus was an actor on the original TV series Mission: Impossible.

  150. 150.

    Adam L Silverman

    @I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet: I mean no disrespect to folks who feel passionately on one or more issues, but I’ve always been struck by the Occupy folks, as well as those from some other movements, were all passion with no understanding of process and no strategy to get to the progress they wanted. And that has always reminded me of this clip of Rimmer.

  151. 151.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Steeplejack: I got the contraction thing. It was the Mission Impossible reference I didn’t get. As for typos in comments, youll live.

  152. 152.

    Helen

    So John bought a house today (although 3 things: 1. It never occurred to me that he didn’t own his current house 2. only John Cole, animal lover extraordinaire, could buy a house with an abandoned dog inside, and 3. REALLY??? he fell through the damn porch??)

    But hey, let’s talk about me. I’m moving too. I officially listed my apartment for sale today. The pics and the virtual tour look fab. This place will sell quick, but I told the agent that I am not leaving before Nov 8th. I am having too much fun watching the Republican implosion.

  153. 153.

    Mnemosyne

    @divF:

    I think Criterion has a DVD and/or Blu-Ray now. It’s a pretty fascinating film and Mason goes from good guy to bad guy without ever losing the sympathy of the audience. It’s a little dated in its gender politics, but it’s Ray, so you kinda expect it.

  154. 154.

    PhoenixRising

    @? Martin:

    Clinton 41%
    Johnson 23%
    Stein 16%
    Trump 9%

    So you’re telling me that all Clinton has to do to lock up 18-29yo voters, who will then be Democrats for decades, is suggest that legalizing weed might be smart?

    Whoa. I’m going to get to work on that briefing book. We have the data from 4 states now, and it’s clear that letting adults buy and use as much marijuana as they can afford is beneficial for everyone except the Coors family.

  156. 156.

    Mnemosyne

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Adam, I have a totally random question for you as a Floridian: Silver Airways — good, bad or indifferent? I am starting another campaign to see my nieces that would involve having them fly from Ft. Myers to Orlando, and the only nonstop that does that is on Silver.

  157. 157.

    divF

    @Mnemosyne:
    Thanks – I’ll look for it.

    It’s a little dated in its gender politics, but it’s Ray

    Back reference to Johnny Guitar. What could have been a “powerful women” trope gave way to a “catfight” trope.

  158. 158.

    burnspbesq

    @Adam L Silverman:

    Funny how that works in law firms. ‘Excellence” is a racial code word. Firms that swear that “we hire the best, regardless of race” (Gibson Dunn is the paradigm case) tend to be the whitest.

  160. 160.

    ruemara

    Recovering from being weirdly friendzoned. It’s very annoying, because my instincts tell me more is up than friends, but to me, you talk about other women who are hot, then you really should be out with them, not wasting my valuable gaming time. Which just plays into all the trust issues I had to overcome just to be buddyish with him. Guys who fall for the “hot” girls with a boyfriend who really just want their hotness validated or chase young tail to have their age invalidated (but get pissed when young women act kinda young & stupid with them) do not get to crawl to me for stimulating conversation, emotional support and mature relationships that are free of responsibility or caring on their part. Nuh-uh, not your consolation girl.

  162. 162.

    NotMax

    @Adam L. Silverman

    Vividly remember a picture from the 1960s of an angry woman holding up a handwritten sign at an anti-school integration demonstration in Hattiesburg MS, which read “You’r Last Chance To Unite”.

  164. 164.

    Keith P.

    I’ve been trying to understand the rationale (to the extent that there is one) for Donald Trump’s behavior. I currently am going with him in early-to-mid stage dementia since listening to him sounds like someone who did a lot of cocaine (in spite of him being supposedly drug/alcohol free). However, I was also wondering a bit more about his campaign. At first I thought it was just to boost his brand revenue. But I do wonder – if he doesn’t win, what happens to his campaign’s money? He’s finally raising a lot of money but still not buying any significant ads. Can he tank an election, spending no money (and letting the RNC eat a lot of the bill just on leverage), and then use the money for personal benefit/debts?

  165. 165.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: I have never heard of them. The only time I fly into or out of Florida is when I’m on temporary duty going to work on site somewhere. And those flights are all on major carriers. Sorry I can’t be more help.

  169. 169.

    Miss Bianca

    @jonas:

    Trump’s White House birthday bash would feature Charo, Insane Clown Posse, and a Pat Boone tribute act.

    Ok, this wins the Internets for the night. This is making me laugh way too hard.

  170. 170.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Keith P.: The question isn’t whether he can – as in if its allowed, customary, and/or legal, but whether he would? Based on every description everyone has ever written of how he conducts business the answer is probably highly likely.

  172. 172.

    Mike J

    @redshirt:

    More interested in playing Pokemon Go!

    I like to point out to them that if they help walk my precinct they can hatch eggs. And I’ll happily call the PCO for the next precinct over if they need more. (Not everyone gets MiniVAN, so pokemon-ing is compatible with GOTV. Which is completely unrelated to Ruemara’s problem.)

  173. 173.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: Again: Charo wouldn’t get involved with this. If you know anything about her biography, she’d have nothing to do with someone like this.

  176. 176.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    Ugh. Yeah, the only possible answer to that is, Thanks, I already have enough friends before you move on.

    I still say that one of the reasons eHarmony and similar places are so popular is that at least everyone there is up-front about wanting to be in a relationship. There’s none of this futzing around that you can get when a dude* is trying to figure his shit out in the regular world.

    * I say “dude” because it’s more common for dudes to have commitment issues, but it’s certainly not unheard of for women. And I didn’t realize until my mid-20s that the “guy wants to stay single forever” thing isn’t that common with Latinos, or at least the Mexican-Americans I was hanging out with. My female friends stared at me like I had an extra head when I complained about commitmentphobic guys.

  183. 183.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Mnemosyne: I’ll ask around in meat world when the son comes up. Shoot me a test email so I have a contact that works for you. If I get an answer I’ll email you back.

  184. 184.

    Miss Bianca

    @PhoenixRising:

    So you’re telling me that all Clinton has to do to lock up 18-29yo voters, who will then be Democrats for decades, is suggest that legalizing weed might be smart?

    Whoa. I’m going to get to work on that briefing book. We have the data from 4 states now, and it’s clear that letting adults buy and use as much marijuana as they can afford is beneficial for everyone except the Coors family.

    Well, Hillary’s expected to win CO – but that gives me an idea: I’d like to see how much of the 18-29 yo vote she is expected to get!

  185. 185.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mike J: Eh, then you’ve got issues with battery life. Kids these days.

    I’m having one of those days where I just feel like an all-around moron. Like everything good I did today was by somebody else and the real me is the one who couldn’t do the other stuff I tried. Bleh. It really sucks.

  186. 186.

    Helen

    @Adam L Silverman: All we Americans know about Charo is “CUCHI CUCHI” Also that she was married to Xavier Cughat. Wow. that I remember that from my childhood is weird.

  187. 187.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Miss Bianca: It does. I’m pretty sure that some of the contemporary users are clearly not anti-Semites and most likely don’t know the history of the term and its uses. It was originally coined during the Depression by Ferdinand Pecora the lead counsel for the Senate Banking Committee. It was a mashup of banker and gangster. It originally had no anti-Semitic usage, but it picked it up over the years.

  190. 190.

    Miss Bianca

    @Keith P.:

    He’s finally raising a lot of money but still not buying any significant ads. Can he tank an election, spending no money (and letting the RNC eat a lot of the bill just on leverage), and then use the money for personal benefit/debts?

    My God – it’s “The Producers”!! Trump as Max Bialystock!

    OK, something in my head just exploded.

  191. 191.

    Adam L Silverman

    @Helen: If I’m recalling correctly when she was starting out she was, at the very least, sexually harassed if not sexually assaulted. She’s a very tough cookie. The ditzy act is just that – an act.

  195. 195.

    ruemara

    @redshirt: It’s like your switch is stuck on jackass, some days.

    @Mnemosyne: Problem is 40 year olds still wanting 19 year olds and complaining when the 25-19 year olds act like, guess what? But asking you about moving to be closer etc etc. Dude. Not. Your. Consolation. Prize.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I gave up on even trying to pretend I had a problem with this.

  198. 198.

    Mnemosyne

    @Miss Bianca:

    It was always “international Jewish bankers” going all the way back to “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” if not before.

    I have a really interesting book by a guy who switched from right to left (not David Brock) who used to work for Pat Robertson. One of the things that disillusioned him was having to do a copy-and-replace on a new edition of one of Robertson’s books to take “Jewish” out of the “bankers” phrase without changing anything else.

    I think most of the people using “banksters” today don’t know about that nasty history, but it wasn’t a coincidence that his campaign used a six-pointed star against a pile of money on the ad that accused Hillary of being too cozy with the banksters. For white supremacists, “Jewish” and “banksters” are basically synonyms like “Jewish” and “communist” used to be (and probably still are, in some circles).

  200. 200.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne:

    For white supremacists, “Jewish” and “banksters” are basically synonyms like “Jewish” and “communist” used to be (and probably still are, in some circles).

    Funny how both ends of the economic philosophic spectrum got epitomized and elided with Jews – and both seen as threats to the US/world financial system.

  201. 201.

    Mnemosyne

    @divF:

    NEVER HEARD OF FULLER?!?!

    If you like Ray, you will LOVE Fuller. My two starter suggestions for you are “Underworld USA” and “The Naked Kiss,” in that order. If you don’t like them, you won’t like Fuller. He has a strange mix of melodrama and hard-boiled realism that shouldn’t work, but usually does.

  204. 204.

    MomSense

    @Helen:

    Lately I’ve been threatening to sell everything and move to a tent platform park in Tortola. This whole work all the time and be a grown up thing is no fun.

  211. 211.

    Helen

    @MomSense: Am walking out with the biggest bag Aer Lingus will accept. May ship some other stuff but no more than 2 smallish boxes. New moves, new groves. This will be the biggest adventure of my life.

  214. 214.

    RadioOne

    I know nothing matters anymore, but that Sean Hannity segment on Fox News tonight with Ollie North discussing the Iran deal…Wow

  218. 218.

    ruemara

    I don’t know why I’m watching this surgery show, but I am. And I’m cringing. I don’t know how they can film doctors removing real swaths of skin without half the crew tossing their cookies.

  220. 220.

    bjg

    @Adam L Silverman:

    So very late here, but just like in the Katmai Bears comments while I watch the bears being red in tooth and claw, I don’t mind.

    One of my diseases, Sjogren’s, which is Lupis-light, was featured in House, and my sister texted me before it was diagnosed and diagnosed it herself. A win for auto-immune diseases, sort of….

  222. 222.

    MomSense

    @ruemara:

    Ugh. Do you think this person could be intimidated by you (badass that you are) and not coping well? It could be the 40 year old version of the 4th grader pulling your pigtails when he has a crush. If you think he might be worth it, you could try the direct approach and just ask him how he feels and/or tell him how his comments are confusing and hurtful.

  227. 227.

    ruemara

    @MomSense: I don’t know. My intuition says, we got a thing. My head says: 1. I can’t fit the beauty standards of white guy lust. I’m not in my 20’s and I don’t cater to a fragile ego, who frankly, isn’t catering even a little bit to mine. 2. My trust issues make me even more recalcitrant. Crushing on everything with perky bosoms and a bit of banter, then running back for deep convo & connection – means I’m a thing, not a person.

    When people say I keep people at arm’s length, I say, “yeah, can you blame me?” At least he’s a decent person over all. I don’t mind being a friend, I just mind that inanimate object feeling. We’re too similar to be mad at each other. So that’s not too bad.

  232. 232.

    Mnemosyne

    @ruemara:

    I’m probably considered an Old Married Woman at this point (10 years! Sheesh!) but my philosophy is that if you can’t have a frank talk about your feelings and concerns, there’s not going to be a relationship.

    I wouldn’t worry too much about the white guy beauty standards thing, though — they’re actually not as stringent as asshole frat dude types would make you think. But, then, I picked a guy who has a major, longstanding crush on Emma Thompson and finds 19-year-olds to be boring, so what do I know?

  234. 234.

    seaboogie

    @ruemara: Just here to say I hear you – no good advice. Post-menopausal semi-monastic who is grateful to be thus, while I continue to sort out deep old things. If I can finally have a good relationship with my own self, I am so much further ahead than I was when I made unwise choices in relationships.

    But if you are telling yourself that you don’t fit beauty standards of white guy lust, you are telling yourself something to make yourself “less than”. Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that. Been there, done that – left the t-shirt at his place when I left….

  236. 236.

    Ruckus

    @Mnemosyne:
    I find we like someone a lot of times for reasons we can’t explain. It might be how they look and I don’t mean that in an idolized view, just how someone strikes us when we first meet them. It might be the personality. I was engaged to a woman who’s best friend asked me how I could stand her voice. It sounded just fine to me. I don’t think anyone has any actual knowledge of what type of partner they’ll actually like, which may be completely different than the concept they tell themselves.

  237. 237.

    Ruckus

    @seaboogie:

    left the t-shirt at his place when I left….

    Hope it’s OK I LOL.
    That is some good advice in that paragraph. Actually in both.

  239. 239.

    Shalimar

    @Mnemosyne: Hatred of Jewish bankers goes back 1000 years. Christians weren’t allowed to charge interest, so bankers were Jewish. Nobility borrowed money from bankers to finance whatever they needed and eventually got to the point where they couldn’t or didn’t want to pay it back, so they ginned up hatred against Jews and drove them out of the kingdom. Voila, no more debt problem. Happened hundreds of times in various European locales.

  240. 240.

    I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet

    @Adam L Silverman:

    It was a mashup of banker and gangster.

    That’s the way I’ve always used it – I had no idea about the history.

    It’s such a good word when used that way! I should have known that there was a nasty history to go with it. :-(

    Thanks for the backstory.

    I guess I’ll have to come up with something else… Gangbankers?!? Doesn’t have quite the same ring to it…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  242. 242.

    1,000 Flouncing Lurkers (was fidelioscabinet)

    @ruemara: Is there a way you can arrange for Steely Dan’s “Hey, Nineteen” to play automatically around this person? Frequently?

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