Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

Republicans do not trust women.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

The press swings at every pitch, we don’t have to.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

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

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Consistently wrong since 2002

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

How stupid are these people?

Fight them, without becoming them!

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

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

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Reader Interactions

219Comments

  1. 1.

    Major Major Major Major

    It’s times like… always, but also this, that I’m glad most of my male friends are gay.

    Today I’ve been writing automated tests, which are about a 10x longer than the code they’re testing, but really I’ve been hanging around here because of that. I guess I should get back to work!

  3. 3.

    Alain the site fixer

    In case you missed it folks, all-new:
    1) rotating quotes above the main content
    2) tweaked sidebar
    3) built-in pie filter.
    4) comment help/instructions

    These are on the desktop site right now, coming to mobile in the next day or two.

    And Betty, the pie filter doesn’t work if you are logged into the site’s backend.

  7. 7.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Betty Cracker: Yeah, me too. When we were testing, I couldn’t figure out why one machine worked fine and the other had wacky results; apparently the theme subtly changes the structure of comments if you’re logged in and that threw the algorithm. I also don’t block ads except on my mobile (to save charges!) so I can see what things are supposed to look like. So I really, really hate that video ad, for example!

  8. 8.

    Mike J

    Planned Parenthood‏ Verified account @PPact
    Senate Republicans are now torn on “defunding” Planned Parenthood in their bill.
    Keep. The. Pressure. Up.

  9. 9.

    Yutsano

    @Alain the site fixer: It would be nice to support the site but too many ads out there have either malware or are gates for Trojans. And the advertisers have zero incentive to clean that up.

  11. 11.

    Mike J

    The cursor behavior when mousing over the Comment Instructions link is weird. It goes from an arrow to a text selection cursor. Also, even though the text clearly says to click it, it doesn’t really look clickable. I understand why you don’t want it to look like a traditional link (people will be afraid they’ll leave the page). I don’t know what the solution is off the top of my head, but it looks like it needs a minor tweak.

    Are the comment numbers supposed to be alone on a line rather than next to the commenter name?

  12. 12.

    Ella in New Mexico

    When I was a child, we had to make do with stuffy old standard Kens or add G.I. Joes to the mix.

    OMG Yes! My Ken’s arms and legs didn’t bend and his molded plastic hair was sad.
    But GI Joe was like a frigging oversize giant next to Barbie. His legs were wider than her torso! God only knows how she’d ever have birthed a baby with a head size inherited from THAT Dad.

  13. 13.

    Hal

    I tried reading Infinite Jest years ago and couldn’t do it. Now I can barely remember what it was about. I did read the Corrections. Lots of cabbage.

    Anywho, here’s Charlie Pierce on getting rid of Pelosi.

    esquire.com/news-politics/politics/news/a55791/nancy-pelosi-replacement/

    If you’re proposing to replace Pelosi, prepare for the inevitable result. The pressure on the replacement—from Republicans, certainly, but also from the elite political media—to work “on a bipartisan basis” with the zombie-eyed granny starver and his band of cutthroats, or to find “common ground” with the folks down at Camp Runamuck, is going to be well-nigh overwhelming. And that’s not even to mention the both-siderist frenzy that will erupt during the fight to elect a new leader. Dems In Disarray is a Beltway classic. This would be its loudest revival performance in years. And, in any case, if you’re demanding that Pelosi be dumped because of her usefulness as a Republican cartoon, aren’t you already pretty much admitting defeat?

    Oh, and Tim Ryan of the dems are toxic in the U.S. line of thinking…

    More than likely, it would be someone like, say, Tim Ryan from Ohio, who talks the salt-o’-the-earth talk about economic anxiety, but who flipped on abortion in 2015, when it became convenient to do so, and who won an NRA endorsement in his first campaign. This development would not be to their liking.

  14. 14.

    Roger Moore

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Today I’ve been writing automated tests, which are about a 10x longer than the code they’re testing

    Isn’t that the way it always is? A really comprehensive test needs to cover a lot of different behavior, so it shouldn’t be surprising if it’s a lot bigger than the code it’s testing.

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Today I’ve been writing automated tests

    Wait. Automated tests don’t write themselves? ;)

    Funny, though, I’ve spent more time here today because of systems problems at work.

  16. 16.

    JPL

    @Hal: What about Adam Schiff? I like Seth Moulton a lot, but I’m not sure he’s ready for prime time.

  17. 17.

    Roger Moore

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    But GI Joe was like a frigging oversize giant next to Barbie. His legs were wider than her torso! God only knows how she’d ever have birthed a baby with a head size inherited from THAT Dad.

    If the size difference were that big, conceiving might be rather painful, also, too.

  19. 19.

    Albert Z.

    @mai naem mobile: I don’t really care for man buns, but I have long hair. The pony tail or the man bun are ways to control and “neaten” long hair. So when I hear people say they hate manbuns or ponytails, what I hear is “cut your hair, hippie!” Then again at 50 years old, no one seems to pay much attention either way to how I wear my hair.

  20. 20.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Cool. Just tried the pie filter for the first time. Added and successfully removed a commenter, and I’ll bet that commenter never even knew s/he had lost her/his pie. A fun new toy :-)

  21. 21.

    Mike J

    Any problem with moving the pie filter code from rawgit to b-j? I hate having to make another exception for javascript execution, and a third party place where anybody can put code wouldn’t be at the top of my list of trustworthy sites. Also saves a dns lookup, hitting another host, and makes it load in a bundle with http/2, speeding things up overall.

  23. 23.

    LesGS

    One morning, when my kids were in the 7 to 10 range, I looked out my back window and noticed a number of small objects hanging from the branches of my lemon tree. On closer inspection, I discovered they were the disarticulated remains of their Barbie and Ken dolls, dangling at the ends of strands of yarn.

    I have a feeling that if one of these Bros had been introduced to our household, *I* would have been the one doing the disarticulating and suspending.

  24. 24.

    mai naem mobile

    @JPL: Adam Schiff has his hands full with Russia. I think he’s presidential material . How about Jackie Speier or Jan Schakowsky? BTW, I am completely against this. Nancy Smash is doing fine and nobody will do it any better. Also, no to Steny Hoyer.

  26. 26.

    Peale

    @Roger Moore: IDK. My Steve Austin Doll was quite the ladies man when it came to Tiffany Taylor. I think Barbie could handle a military man.

  29. 29.

    JPL

    @mai naem mobile: She’s good at her job, but remember she will be splashed on a TV screen all across the nation, next year. I don’t understand the hatred, but I’m going to try to find out, by politely asking neighbors. .

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    @Albert Z.:
    I understand ponytails, but not manbuns*. What’s the point of growing your hair out if you’re going to wrap it up into buns? Why not just cut it and save yourself the effort? Of course I take this to the logical extreme and go with a buzz cut, so perhaps I’m not the best person to ask for hair care advice.

    *Or womenbuns, either.

  31. 31.

    jl

    I don’t even notice man buns anymore. Which shows what horrible things those horrible San Francisco values can do to a person.

  34. 34.

    Peale

    @Albert Z.: I associate man buns with korean boy bands and these days I wonder why so many grown white guys are trying to catch the korea wave.

  40. 40.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    LOL, that’s actually one of the things I was wondering about, if the pie-ee knew that the pie-er had pied him (since the gig’s up, I’ll just use the masculine pronoun). Well, it was you, but mainly because when I tried it you were the only one in this thread with more than one comment and I wanted to see if the message about pie stayed constant from one to the next.

  41. 41.

    Yutsano

    @Roger Moore:

    What’s the point of growing your hair out if you’re going to wrap it up into buns?

    There are practical applications. A friend of mine is a chef in a restaurant and he has hair down to his butt. Wrapping it in a bun then putting the hairnet on works out for him very well

    As a histper marking it’s more how nature says do not touch.

  42. 42.

    jl

    @Roger Moore: You need to follow the guy (or gal) around to see if he/she always keeps it up in a man bun or fem bun, or lets it down sometimes.

    But then, kind of expected, these buzz cut people tend to make this kind of generalization.

  44. 44.

    cokane

    Is infinite jest bad? I’ve always felt split on DFW’s writing that I have read and that’s such a long work. His profile of right wing radio jockey John Ziegler was brilliant, but equally tedious to me (and i couldnt finish it) was his cruise ship story.

  45. 45.

    Elizabelle

    Manbun. LOL. But I think Cock Ring Ken’s place is still safe in Mattel history. Remember him?

    Are those other Kens for real? Is the one at the far left (how cruel!) Joe Scarborough? Mika’s almost a Barbie doll, so that’s pretty inspired, if it is Joe.

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    @Roger Moore: I have long hair and occasionally wear it in a bun. Mostly when it’s hot and I don’t want a hair scarf on my neck, or when I’m cooking a lot and want to minimize the chance of shedding into the food. One of the things I like about having long hair is that you can change styles!

  48. 48.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @JPL:

    Yes! Thank you for asking. Found them as soon as I got home last night. They were on the floor, big as life, in a place I had searched about 70 times yesterday morning! I haven’t a clue why I simply didn’t or couldn’t see them earlier. Anyhow, I’m very glad to be reunited with them.

  49. 49.

    Roger Moore

    @JPL:

    She’s good at her job, but remember she will be splashed on a TV screen all across the nation, next year.

    Do you think that’s going to change just because she loses her status as minority leader? I don’t; the right wing noise machine will demonize her anyway.

  53. 53.

    The Moar You Know

    Ahh, the manbun. My “casual” hairstyle choice of the early/mid 1990s. So not happy to see it back.

    What cured me was getting into bike racing. Couldn’t have the bun as you then can’t wear a helmet. Found out real quick that without the bun, all you’d see most of the time was your own hair whipping into your eyes. Not good while riding cliffside. Or in traffic. Or anywhere.

    Borrowed my neighbor’s clippers on my 29th birthday and cut all that shit off and never looked back. Wish in retrospect I’d done it a lot sooner – women went from being interested in me to hurling themselves at me.

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    @Roger Moore: Yeah. Nancy Pelosi rocks. Keep her. Maybe she’ll be Speaker again.

    Or president. My dream is the whole GOP leadership falls, house of fools and miscreants they are, and Nancy is left standing as Speaker of the House. Madame President.

    If the rightwingers hate her: “how sad.” (That’s one of her favorite expressions. Delivered very matter of factly.)

  57. 57.

    Albert Z.

    @Roger Moore: Yep. I love to let my freak flag fly but not when I’m at work. And not when I’m running. And my daughters hate it if it’s not under wraps. So I’ve come to understand it as a practical solution rather than a fashion statement. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.

  58. 58.

    Baud

    @Hal:

    And, in any case, if you’re demanding that Pelosi be dumped because of her usefulness as a Republican cartoon, aren’t you already pretty much admitting defeat?

    These people would be the first to call Dems weak and feckless.

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    They’re still demonizing HRC and Obama.

    They’re still whining about hippies and the 60s, for FSM’s sake. I’m surprised they don’t drag Woodrow Fucking Wilson out of the crypt.

  61. 61.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    The pie message was the same in both. Somehow I imagined that there would be a comment about how you can’t find your apple pie, and then the next would be how much you love lemon meringue pie and then yet another in which you allow you don’t care all that much for coconut cream pie. But it’s all good. I don’t think anything needs fixing.

  65. 65.

    narya

    Here’s another thing: While yes, we need leadership, and yes, we need some basic principles around which we are organized (e.g., affordable health care for all; public education for all; food on the table for all), the notion that a single strategy will work in all House races is crazypants. What’s important in THIS district, where THIS person is running? And GOTV and actually running candidates is more important than Democratic lockstep. It’s been less than 24 hours and I am already tired of the “Dems didn’t win in GA06 or the other one so they will have to burn it all down and become Republicans if they want to win.” Bite me, I say.

  66. 66.

    Iowa Old Lady

    Irrelevant to anything in the thread, but a friend stopped by to tell about his experience volunteering at the big golf tournament in Wisconsin. Volunteers work 4 hour shifts, and he was in the merchandizing area doing line control–the kind of thing where he points and says “that register is free.” He said there were 30 cash registers and the line was long and constant. He also did re-stocking for one shift, hauling out lanyards. He said that in 4 hours, he probably stocked 1000 lanyards. Apparently there’s big money in merchandise.

  67. 67.

    Elizabelle

    Of course, Buzzfeed has done a feature on Ken. 15 Surprising Things You Didn’t Know About Ken

    Ends with this one:

    15. In 2009, Mattel, clearly having not learned its lesson from the Earring Magic Ken** debacle, introduced “Sugar Daddy Ken” (for real) from its Palm Beach line.

    ** aka Cock Ring Ken. And I think Mattel must be trolling us.

    Does anyone remember “Allan”? That must be a collector’s item. I remember Barbie’s friend “Midge.”

  69. 69.

    frosty

    My son decided he wanted a Barbie, so what the hell, we got him one. Who knew that thanks to her friend GI Joe and all his gear she would become Combat Barbie!

  70. 70.

    MazeDancer

    The Real Life Man Bun Ken Bros are doing their best to destroy all hope today. It’s like now we have to fight two Bannons – the White House one trying to destroy the nation for anyone but white men and the Anti-Dem ones doing ditto.

    Rebecca Traister reported about hundreds of new activist suburban women in Georgia who are now determined to fight hard for every Dem in every GA race and it feels like the Bros are telling all those women “You’re doing it wrong”.

  71. 71.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @LesGS:

    One morning, when my kids were in the 7 to 10 range, I looked out my back window and noticed a number of small objects hanging from the branches of my lemon tree. On closer inspection, I discovered they were the disarticulated remains of their Barbie and Ken dolls, dangling at the ends of strands of yarn.

    When I was 10, my 8 and 7 year-old brothers snapped the arms, legs and head off a Barbie of mine and for some weird reason, they cut an incision into a Teddy Bear, put the torso inside, then sewed him up.

    Kids do the darndest things. :-D

  72. 72.

    jl

    @narya: I totally agree. Some bigshots in the Democratic party explicitly said that Dems can make up for lost working class votes by going after moderate GOP voters. I saw a quote from Schumer someplace earlier today, I forget where. I think that was a mistake.

    I think it would be an equal mistake to go Bernie and think that his economic inequality message is a cure all. Also a mistake to think that Parnell strategy can be transplanted to the Ossoff race and work better, or vice versa.

    I think the Dems need a simple, easy to communicate, message, and a platform that give specific proposals to make things better for middle and working class. Moderate suburban disgruntled suburban GOP soccer moms, and working class people of all backgrounds will respond to that kind of message. Wallop GOP for cynical manipulation.

  73. 73.

    Roger Moore

    @Yutsano:

    There are practical applications. A friend of mine is a chef in a restaurant and he has hair down to his butt. Wrapping it in a bun then putting the hairnet on works out for him very well

    Sure, but I bet he lets it down again when he gets off work.

  75. 75.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Yutsano: Hence the newly-moved and relabeled link in the sidebar to Donate to make up for ad-blockers.

  79. 79.

    efgoldman

    @Baud:

    Wilson was really racist. They like him.

    It would be just like them to blame him for Versailles, and therefore the Nazis.

  81. 81.

    germy

    A Short Guide to Comparative Religions

    Taoism: Shit happens.

    Confucianism: Confucius say, “Shit happens.”

    Buddhism: If shit happens, it isn’t really shit.

    Zen Buddhism: What is the sound of shit happening?

    Hinduism: This shit happened before.

    Mormonism: This shit is going to happen again.

    Stoicism: This shit is its own reward.

    Protestantism: Let this shit happen to someone else.

    Calvinism: Shit happens because you don’t work hard enough.

    Pentecostalism: In Jesus’ name, heal this shit!

    Catholicism: Shit happens because you deserve it.

    Judaism: Why does this shit always happen to us?

    Zoroastrianism: Shit happens half the time.

    Atheism: No shit.

    Seventh Day Adventist: No shit on Saturdays.

    Existentialism: Absurd shit.

    Agnosticism: What is this shit?

    Nihilism: Who gives a shit?

    Deconstruction: Shit happens in hegemonic meta-narratives.

    Christian Science: Shit is in your mind.

    Jehovah’s Witnesses: Knock, Knock, shit happens.

    Scientology: Shit happens on page 152 of Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard

    Hedonism: There’s nothing like a good shit happening.

    Rastafarianism: Let’s smoke this shit.

  82. 82.

    opiejeanne

    @Baud: Where did you last see it?

    I tried pie-ing someone here as an experiment and I can still see their post. Not sure what I’m doing wrong.

  88. 88.

    NoraLenderbee

    @Elizabelle: Yes, I had an Allan doll. The Allan was the first to get bendable legs, IIRC. I had a Midge, too, handed down from my sisters.

  89. 89.

    MoxieM

    @Roger Moore: I don’t wear them any more, but they are kind of fun. (I had the women bun version.) And when the weather is hot, it gets long hair off your back. And, if your hair is really long (mine was) you can wet it before you pin it up and it’s a cooling thing. Also, too, in my dissolute yoot, I was a very dedicated Modern dancer (yeah, yeah), and long hair in a bun was required (I have said I’m old? and white?). The hair requirement has changed I believe, and thankfully even ballet is beginning, gradually, to be more inclusive, see: Misty Copeland.

  93. 93.

    Alain the site fixer

    @opiejeanne: What OS/browser/device? If it’s old or a Kindle, I could see the necessary local data storage not working.

  95. 95.

    Alain the site fixer

    @NoraLenderbee: or is it, “Shit happens, thanks be to Allah”?

    ETA: I mean, you did hear about the Chinese man who had 28 lbs of full-to-bursting lower intestine surgically removed because he’d never shat. Poor, poor man.

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    @JPL: I cannot understand why we would possibly want to listen to the other side when they are telling us to get rid of our leaders. It’s like playing volleyball and listening to the opposing team when they call the ball on your side as in or out. They are not on our side. We need to stop listening to the Republicans.

    They will attack anyone, no matter who it is. IF they want Nancy Smash gone, that’s just one more reason to keep her.

    (Not crabbing at you in particular about this!)

  104. 104.

    WaterGirl

    @Albert Z.:

    @Roger Moore: Yep. I love to let my freak flag fly but not when I’m at work. And not when I’m running. And my daughters hate it if it’s not under wraps. So I’ve come to understand it as a practical solution rather than a fashion statement. I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.

    Reading that as a standalone comment – without clicking back to see what Roger Moore had said, one would not necessarily think that your comment was about hair. Just sayin’.

  105. 105.

    narya

    @Elizabelle: are you kidding? Yes! Except the Alan that my sister and I had had “bendy” legs, so we always referred to him that way (Alan with the bendy legs). Also, Scooter, and . . . another young one. (ETA: Wait! Wait! the other one was Scooter!) And Francie. We used our vast array of dolls as action figures in the stories we made up. Also too: my grandmother, who was a dressmaker, sewed a lot of the clothes for our dolls, because the stuff you could buy was expensive (to us) and poorly made. And the shoes always got lost.

    Ummm . . I mean, yes, I think I remember other dolls in the Barbie universe . . .

  106. 106.

    Peale

    @jl: IDK. There is not one voter type who is going to win. Former Republican voters who are uncomfortable with Trump might be easier to convert into regular Democratic voters in a lot of places because, well, they are already voters. They may be lower hanging fruit right now. And did I mention that they already vote?

    Other groups within the coalition are probably maxed out. We need to continue to get them to the polls, but there isn’t really much more we can get out of African American and emerging new voters. If we’re getting 90% of African American women, how many more are we likely to find? Hillary did very well with new voters – I think she was +70 with them. The problem is that drawing in first time voters to mid-terms hasn’t worked out all that well for the Democrats. Finding people who have never voted isn’t that difficult. Finding people who registered to vote and didn’t vote isn’t difficult. But if they aren’t interested in voting at all, running a message aimed at getting them out might be less effective than trying to convert people who are already regular voters for the other party.

  108. 108.

    germy

    WASHINGTON (AP) — President. Candidate. Businessman. Three of President Donald Trump’s roles converge next week as he holds his first major re-election fundraiser at his hotel in Washington.

    Trump officially kicked off his re-election campaign on Inauguration Day by filing Federal Election Commission paperwork, making it the earliest such effort by a sitting president.

    It’s paying off: The campaign raised more than $7 million by the end of March from appeals to small donors and the sale of merchandise such as the ubiquitous red “Make America Great Again” ball caps.

    The June 28 fundraiser at the Trump International Hotel in Washington is for larger donors. The Trump campaign and the Republican National Committee will share proceeds.

  110. 110.

    James Powell

    @cokane:

    but equally tedious to me (and i couldnt finish it) was his cruise ship story.

    Further evidence that all taste is taste. I’ve read “A Supposedly Fun Thing . . . ” more times than I can recall and I laugh my ass off every time. Infinite Jest hasn’t aged as well.

  111. 111.

    opiejeanne

    @Elizabelle: I have a Midge doll. I also have a Ken with fuzzy hair, and he still has all of it. I think my Barbie is from 1961, and I still have her and some of the clothing and accessories. The stupid pearl earrings for Barbie dyed her earlobes greenish.

  112. 112.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @opiejeanne:

    ROFL, he just typed in the pie text so you (ETA: and apparently also Majorx4 and Alain) would think exactly that!

    The genius part was putting in the little sideways chevron thingie, whatever it’s called. Anyone that creative, clever, and low-down deserves to be President.

  114. 114.

    FlipYrWhig

    On top of everything else that would be dumb about Tim Ryan being D House leader is how easy it would be to confuse him with Paul Ryan.

  115. 115.

    schrodingers_cat

    @JPL:So you want to throw her under the bus because of what Rs think? Why should people vote D when they can’t stand up for their own? How do you know that next leader won’t be demonized.

  116. 116.

    D58826

    Listening to the presser on the ‘terrorist’ attack at Flint airport. A police officer was stabbed outside of the screening area by a man yelling Allah is great. . The officer is expected to survive and the attacker is in custody. The FBI is treating it as a terrorist attack even though they haven’t actually came out an said it. At the moment there is no indication of a wider plot. And Der Fuhrer has been vindicated. The attacker is a foreign born Muslim terrorist. Extreme Vetting and the terrible 9th circuit that allowed this to happen. OH wait the guy is Canadian? Never mind.

    If it wasn’t that lives could nave been lost this would actually be funny

  121. 121.

    D58826

    @schrodingers_cat: The GOP will demonize the next leader if he/she were a combination of Jesus/Virgin Mary/Mother Theresa/ and Gandi. We laugh when the GOP goes after their Rinos and then turn around a come up with a list of ‘Dinos”

  123. 123.

    Alain the site fixer

    @El Caganer: Of course YOU’D know about that! :)

    I do love Atrios and you for introducing me to the term and every Christmas, I remind my mother of this charming Spanish tradition. lol

  124. 124.

    Cacti

    As best I can figure, Nancy Pelosi’s primary contributing factors to out-of-touchness are her lack of being male and Republican.

  125. 125.

    efgoldman

    @SatanicPanic:

    Glenn Beck tried!

    I would have to adjust my media consumption. I see the words “Glenn Beck” and the “ignore.. ignore… ignore…” alarm goes off.

  127. 127.

    WaterGirl

    @jeffreyw: I pitted the last of my sour cherries today. It’s year 4 for my sour cherry tree and after less than a dozen cherries each year, I got a TON. Possibly a metric fuck-ton, whatever that is.

    So far I have made cobbler and some peach/sour-cherry popsicles that are the best popsicles I have ever had.

  128. 128.

    dm

    Anyhoo, kids today got it easy. When I was a child, we had to make do with stuffy old standard Kens or add G.I. Joes to the mix.

    When I was a child, we didn’t have David Foster Wallace, we had to make do with Thomas Pynchon.

  130. 130.

    WaterGirl

    @schrodingers_cat:

    How do you know that next leader won’t be demonized.

    Correction: the only thing we DO know is that the next leader would most certainly be demonized.

  132. 132.

    opiejeanne

    @Alain the site fixer: It was Baud being a dork. I figured out what he did but it took me a few minutes, partly because I wasn’t sure what I’d see if I pied someone. I tried it on someone else and got the joke. Dur.

  134. 134.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: I have to confess that I skimmed over most of the ken doll information. Is there really a last name and a backstory for these dolls?

  136. 136.

    D58826

    @D58826: additional details he is a 51 year old Canadian. He did not have an airline ticket. He just crossed the US/Canadian border, and went to the airport. After loitering a bit out side t he TSA checkpoint he attacked the officer. He was taken down by others within a minute or two. He was not in any of the terrorist databases.

  137. 137.

    Mike in NC

    Finally checked into our motel in Savannah after several hours of frustrating driving through rural, run-down Real South Carolina. Lost track of how many Baptist churches and Dollar Generals we passed by. Getting to I-95 from our town is an insane nightmare.

  139. 139.

    Another Scott

    WaPo has a copy of the draft Senate AHCA bill:

    A discussion draft circulating Wednesday afternoon among aides and lobbyists would roll back the ACA’s taxes, phase down its Medicaid expansion, rejigger its subsidies, give states wider latitude in opting out of its regulations and eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood.

    The bill largely mirrors the House measure that narrowly passed last month but with some significant changes. While the House legislation pegged federal insurance subsidies to age, the Senate bill would link them to income as the ACA does. The Senate proposal cuts off Medicaid expansion more gradually than the House bill, but would enact deeper long-term cuts to the health-care program for low-income Americans. It also removes language restricting federally-subsidized health plans from covering abortions, which may have run afoul of complex budget rules.

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) intends to present the draft to wary GOP senators at a meeting on Thursday morning. McConnell has vowed to hold a vote before senators go home for the July Fourth recess, but he is still seeking the 50 votes necessary to pass the major legislation under arcane budget rules. A handful of senators from conservatives to moderates are by no means persuaded that they can vote for the emerging measure.

    Aides stress that the GOP plan is likely to undergo more changes in order to garner the 50 votes Republicans need to pass it. Moderate senators are concerned about cutting off coverage too fast for those who gained it under Obamacare, while conservatives don’t want to leave big parts of the ACA in place.

    FWIW.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  140. 140.

    gene108

    Any prominent Democrat will be tarred and feathered.

    They did it with Harry Reid.

    They did it with Ted Kennedy.

    They’ll do it for whoever replaces Pelosi.

    It doesn’t matter, who or what the new-Pelosi believes in or talks about. They will be out of touch, crazy liberals, who want to gay marry you to a turtle and abort all the babies and give all your money to blacks, so they can buy iPhones and t-bone steaks.

  142. 142.

    efgoldman

    @schrodingers_cat:

    How do you know that next leader won’t be demonized.

    Any prominent Dem in leadership or with leadership potential will be slagged. It’s what they do – as predictable as heat in August.
    I’m surprised they haven’t started going after Schiff yet.
    Ignore the fuckers.

    Fuckem

  145. 145.

    RPh

    So there is now a “Ken” for all douche phenotypes? This should help teach little girls how to spot them later on at least.

  146. 146.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    Really? Give in to the GOP? Because of course that will be a one-time only thing.

    Instead of blaming Pelosi for not doing what the GOP continually accuses her of, the DNC should run a campaign, at least online, pointing out her successes and calling out GOP lies.

  147. 147.

    Elizabelle

    @WaterGirl: Yes, apparently. Who knew?

    @narya: I never saw or heard of “Allan” until tonight, the Buzzfeed story. How cool that you caught his limited release. Yeah, my sisters and I had Barbie and Francie, and Skipper, and all manner of the girl dolls. But never any of the guys. We kind of aged out by the early 70s.

  148. 148.

    bupalos

    Meditating on the Trumpcare disaster, it occurs to me that there are two reasons Republicans are going through with this:

    1. Healthcare is already confusing, and they can phase it in over time and people won’t really know what parts of which law were responsible for why their life is now fucked up and they are worried.
    2. They likely aren’t going to get another chance to undo healthcare, they aren’t going to lose all 3 branches but the odds are they’re losing at least 1 soon, and are almost sure not to control all 3 again before ACA is so deeply embedded that the math would be much worse.
    3. Because it’s going to be really really really hard for dems to undo the undoing here.

    It’s a potentially catastrophic political move for the relative handful of R’s that are in competitive districts, but 1 softens it, and 2 and 3 make it “worth it” anyway for people who’s primary career concern is feeding the bodies of lesser humans to rich people.

    This will be a political opportunity, potentially a chance to smash Republican power for decades BUT I think the key to that is overcoming (3). Dems near sole focus has to be reestablishing something like the ACA or better, something with better coverage with more money out of the pockets of the wealthy. That last part is key. In order to break the Republicans, this whole nasty coalition of the country club set with the KKK and frog people needs to create horrible pain for the wealthy (by which I mean an actual decrease in their wealth via taxation.) I’m not really usually a “pay back” kind of person, but Dems need to make sure this sticks and hurts. And they need to be single minded on it. They need to create the plan and start running hard on it NOW, it needs to be almost the entire party’s raison d’etre.

    There is no end to what the wealthy allied with the KKK and frog people will do if they don’t pay for this, if they don’t suffer a loss and if that coalition isn’t broken up.

  153. 153.

    WaterGirl

    @Elizabelle: “Who knew?” is right! I am not sure i ever had a single doll as a kid – dolls were of absolutely no interest to me.

    Stuffed animals, on the other hand…

  155. 155.

    Kay

    @Another Scott:

    Good for them. Good job. Allowing Republicans to hide a health care bill was really the ultimate capitulation on transparency. It makes allowing Trump to hide his taxes look good in comparison.

    The NYTimes is busy covering Trump’s comeback tour. Expect some planted Team Trump bullshit coming out tomorrow. This “anything for access” strategy they’ve settled on is really paying dividends for the public, I must say. Now that we have two Politicos isn’t one of them redundant?

  156. 156.

    piratedan

    its pretty obvious why they want Pelosi gone, if you go back to 2009-2010, its the last fucking time shit got done, can’t have that… showed the the government could actually govern, the infrastructure bill, ACA, investment in Science… all shit that the GOP loathes, she herded cats better than anyone in the last 50 years.

  159. 159.

    bupalos

    @jl:

    think the Dems need a simple, easy to communicate, message, and a platform

    Republicans are about to give it to us, if we’re smart enough to pick it up. Those of us that don’t die of what they’re about to give us. Dems just need the courage to say ONE thing, instead of tilting at every windmill.

  160. 160.

    Mnemosyne

    @Roger Moore:

    What’s the point of growing your hair out if you’re going to wrap it up into buns? Why not just cut it and save yourself the effort?

    Because sometimes you just want your hair up and out of your face temporarily, not to cut it all off.

    Since women get to do fancy things with their long hair, it seems weird to say that men with long hair are forbidden from doing similarly fancy things. Long hair is just hair, so do it up however you want.

  163. 163.

    SatanicPanic

    @debbie: We should do that for all of our pols. No more of this “I’m holding my nose and voting for _____”. Our politicians are the best, Republicans are the worst. Anyone who finds this too difficult to say can kindly STFU.

    ETA- and anytime there’s a John Edwards type where it’s undeniable= “he wasn’t a real Democrat anyway”

  166. 166.

    Brendancalling

    Can I post pictures here? I’ve been in Mexico City all week, and (to swipe a phrase from Vicente Fox) it is FUCKING GLORIOUS.

    I feel like I’m in NYC and Paris, and all in Spanish (que hablo con fluencia). I fly home tomorrow, coming back in September. It’s really cool. I don’t want to leave. If I didn’t have a minor child (five more years til 18) and a girlfriend in Nashville I’d never come back.

  167. 167.

    D58826

    @efgoldman: Given the lousy hand that she has, she has been doing a pretty good job of keeping the caucus united. I know Der Fuhrer helps but the D’s are not famous for unity. Herding cats is easier.

  168. 168.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mnemosyne:

    Since women get to do fancy things with their long hair, it seems weird to say that men with long hair are forbidden from doing similarly fancy things. Long hair is just hair, so do it up however you want.

    And if said person happens to look like a goddamned idiot while they do it, and it is strongly associated with membership in a particularly odious tribe, I’m allowed to make fun of them.

  169. 169.

    debbie

    @SatanicPanic:

    Agreed, but she’s been villainized far more fiercely and for far longer than any other Dem because, I submit, she is a woman.

  170. 170.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: As David reminds us, what matters is how much money they’re planning on spending over the lifetime of the bill. Is it minus $800B from the PPACA like the House bill? Worse? The WaPo story doesn’t tell us.

    We can’t get distracted by all the feel-good verbiage – “It’s more Moderate than the House Bill! Huzzah!!11”

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  171. 171.

    El Caganer

    @Elizabelle: Let’s not leave out “WWC Ken,” accessorized with MAGA cap, ugly tats, and squinty little eyes. (Monster truck for him to roll coal with must be purchased separately.)

  173. 173.

    Tom Q

    The call-themselves-Dems bros who say we should get rid of Pelosi don’t seem to realize the reason she’s an effective campaign tool for GOP in some places is because she’s seen as epitomizing the kind of policies the bros think Dems should be running on 24/7. Because the bros’ problem with Pelosi is her woman-ness, they don’t understand that’s not the root of opposition to her.

    As for the man-bun: hideous. I’m a veteran of the 60s, and have worn my hair long at many points during my life, including occasionally now. The thing is: when it gets to the point it could be put in a man-bun is when I know it’s time for a haircut.

  174. 174.

    SatanicPanic

    @debbie: Absolutely. It’s sad we have to deal with these types on our side, they should be ashamed of themselves.

  175. 175.

    Mnemosyne

    @Major Major Major Major:

    Sure, if you want to. Women make fun of each other’s hair all the time (Well, non-Black women do. One makes fun of a Black woman’s hair at your own risk, especially if one is not Black.)

    I work around a fair number of artists, so around here the man-bun is just what happens when you’re trying to keep your hair out of your face. I realize it’s different with the hipsters who originated it, but I think it’s started growing beyond that crowd.

  176. 176.

    Kay

    Rabid Republicans hate Pelosi. This isn’t news.

    Aren’t special elections base elections? Why would anyone let the GOP base determine what Democrats do? I understand we have one Party far Right government but it seems silly to also have base Republicans run the Democratic Party in addition to the entire federal government. Donald Trump hasn’t gotten rid of a single person except for the actual criminal he hired.

    If Democrats are irrelevant then political media don’t have to weigh in on what we do at all. Don’t they have a secret health care bill they’re supposed to be following? I read somewhere that with great power comes great responsibility. When does that start? After they ram through the secret health care bill? Won’t that be too late? Obamacare got 24/7 coverage. They don’t even know what’s in this thing. No one does. If we can just read the text of the bill when Republicans feel like releasing it then we don’t need commercial media at all. Do they plan on reading it to us?

  178. 178.

    Mike in NC

    @schrodingers_cat: Just taking a break on another long road trip where it rained most of the time. At my age I just can’t hack spending 8-10 hours behind the wheel in one day. By this time tomorrow night we’ll be in Tampa and knocking off a few bottles of Pinot Noir.

  179. 179.

    ruckus

    @SiubhanDuinne:
    I used to wear glasses. Worst thing was having to find glasses in the middle of the night to see the clock. Of course finding the glasses was easy because my eyesight was perfect.
    /sarcasm

  182. 182.

    efgoldman

    @D58826:

    Given the lousy hand that she has, she has been doing a pretty good job of keeping the caucus united.

    And, lest we forget, no more logrolling because no more earmarks. There’s nothing she can give away or take away to influence votes. Historically, “because it’s the right thing to do” has not necessarily been effective.

  185. 185.

    SatanicPanic

    @efgoldman: What about the bully pulpit? I’m told it’s super-duper effective. She just has to deliver speeches, it’s how LBJ did it!

  189. 189.

    Hungry Joe

    I liked “Infinite Jest.” I’m not sure if one of you said that already because I just skimmed some of the comments. Well, whole portions of the comments. Just like I skimmed some of — okay, whole portions of — well, you know.

  190. 190.

    ruckus

    @Yutsano:
    Worked with a fellow who had hair down to the waist, wore it under a ball cap. I’d known him for years before I knew he had long hair, let alone that long, never saw. I will him without the hat.

  193. 193.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Yesterday, at one of the locations where I was poll watching there was a young man working one of the computerized voter lists who wore his hair in a man bun. I usually find them pretty ugly, but this fellow’s was very attractive and suited his facial shape and features.

  194. 194.

    Elizabelle

    @SiubhanDuinne: Ah, it was for me. From the butt cheeks to the presumably Islamic militant brandishing an assault weapon.

    What were you expecting? We speak of Handel voters.

  195. 195.

    Shana

    @Elizabelle: And her little sister Scooter, who was the only one I was allowed. My mom didn’t think it was appropriate for me to have a doll with breasts. Eventually I forgave her.

  196. 196.

    Eljai

    @Tom Q:

    The call-themselves-Dems bros who say we should get rid of Pelosi don’t seem to realize the reason she’s an effective campaign tool for GOP in some places is because she’s seen as epitomizing the kind of policies the bros think Dems should be running on 24/7.

    Yeah! I bet these are the same people who whine “we could have had the public option” while forgetting that the house version of the ACA under Pelosi’s leadership actually had the public option. She also got a few other bills passed through the House, like the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act and the Credit Card Holders Bill of Rights. But a Democrat lost a competitive election in a district held by republicans for decades, so she’s gotta go.

  207. 207.

    Steve in the ATL

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    there was a young man working one of the computerized voter lists who wore his hair in a man bun. I usually find them pretty ugly, but this fellow’s was very attractive

    Go home, SiubhanDuinne–you’re drunk

  208. 208.

    Steve in the ATL

    @dm:

    When I was a child, we didn’t have David Foster Wallace, we had to make do with Thomas Pynchon.

    This is quality work. Kudos!

  209. 209.

    Jack the Second

    @Roger Moore:

    I understand ponytails, but not manbuns*. What’s the point of growing your hair out if you’re going to wrap it up into buns? Why not just cut it and save yourself the effort?

    So you can sexily let your hair down at the right moment.

  211. 211.

    JR in WV

    @Betty Cracker:

    I had a pony tail from around early 90s until last month, when we went to Europe. I wanted the least static coming back through ICE, plus, well, I’m bald, and the PT was smaller and smaller. So I got a hair cut. First barber trip since early 1990s, as I said. Now, all cool in the summer, I may keep it short going forward. We’ll see.

    But never a bun. Not enough hair!

  212. 212.

    PST

    @wesindc:

    Love the Infinite Jest one. I’ve read it 3 times now but it is a slog.

    I have too. I thought it was darkly funny and deeply moral. The humor makes it less a slog.

  213. 213.

    akryan

    TBF to the man-buns, i work in a high school and a bunch of boys really do have them. it’ll one of those things they look back on and say “wtf were we thinking?”. every generation has them.

  214. 214.

    JR in WV

    @jeffreyw:

    Oh man, that is some good looking pie! But my favorites are pecan pie w/ ice cream, sour cherry pie, and a dessert that isn’t pie at all, peach kuchen. which is peaches sliced in half, covered with sugar and cinnimon, baked a little while, and then covered with sour cream w/ egg yokes beaten in, then baked some more, Really good.

    One benefit of the pie filter is that it inspires discussion of pie et al.

  215. 215.

    opiejeanne

    @Elizabelle: They missed the city of Riverside completely but I think there was one Riverside county town on the list.

    Fontana used to be a bit of a dump but my most recent experience with it was probably in 1991 and parts of San Bernardino have descended into hell. The difference in San Berdoo over the past 20 years is striking and sad.

  217. 217.

    jl

    @Peale: Don’t know if you are still here, but I read some research on 2016 election that argued lower than expected turnout from traditional Democratic constituencies is a continuing problem. Working class Obama voters from all races, ethnicities, ages didn’t turnout for Hillary. So that includes the infamous white, but also African-American and Hispanic working class. If the Democrats thought they could take some of these groups for granted, then that was a mistake.

    Maybe the underlying mistake is that seems like there is an assumption that to appear moderate to disaffected GOP voters, you have to careful to soft peddle some issues (like how awful the GOP is), bend over backward to be all moderate and wishy washy and overly polite. Be careful not to offend their delicate middle of the road sensibilities. That might be a mistake too. Too easy for people to interpret that as soft, weak and wishy-washy. If we can get disaffected GOP voters, then they are disaffected and disgruntled with their party for a reason. No reason not to be aggressive and say the damn GOP has played them for suckers, and they ARE right, the GOP are a-holes. Just say it “Yes, there is a reason you are disgruntled, your party has turned into a bunch of conniving swindling a-holes that does not give a rat’s ass about you, and they aren’t changing back to whatever they used to be. So you should tell them to go to hell and vote for us.’

  218. 218.

    Citizen Alan

    @Hal:

    I had the same experience with Infinite Jest and the same reaction. Something about tennis and children fucked up by their rich parents’ idiocies and French-Canadian terrorists trying to weaponize comedy movies. I think.

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