Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

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

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Bark louder, little dog.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

They’re not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Let there be snark.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Accountability, motherfuckers.

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

When do the post office & the dmv weigh in on the wuhan virus?

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The words do not have to be perfect.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Let’s finish the job.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Just Peregrinating

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Just Peregrinating

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What’s on the agenda as we “restart” an abbreviated week?

***********

… “There was only one issue. That’s unusual. It’s usually a wide range of issues,” Collins said in an interview after the parade. “I heard, over and over again, encouragement for my stand against the current version of the Senate and House health-care bills. People were thanking me, over and over again. ‘Thank you, Susan!’ ‘Stay strong, Susan!’ ”

Collins, whose opposition to the Better Care Reconciliation Act helped derail last week’s plans for a quick vote, is being lobbied to smother it and make Congress start over. Republicans, who skipped the usual committee process in the hopes of passing a bill quickly, are spending the Fourth of July recess fending off protesters, low poll numbers and newspaper front pages that warn of shuttered hospitals and 22 million people being shunted off their insurance. It was a bill, Collins said, that she just couldn’t vote for…

Few Republicans have responded like Collins, who let voters know where to find her. Last month, when Congress broke for the long holiday, just four of the Senate’s 52 Republicans — Collins, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) — announced appearances at Fourth of July parades. Just three — Cruz, Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) — said they would hold public town hall meetings. All have criticized the bill; three “no” votes would sink it…

“The last thing we’re going to do is give in to a lot of left-wing activists and media,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told a radio interviewer last month. “With these security situations, I don’t know how any member of Congress can do a town hall.”

The senators who did appear at Fourth of July events found ways to minimize the risks. Apart from Cruz, all appeared in fairly remote areas; Murkowski and Collins stopped by island towns far from the states’ population centers…

Reader Interactions

169Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “The last thing we’re going to do is give in to a lot of constituents,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)

    FTFY, asshole.

  2. 2.

    satby

    They all know he’s non compos mentis and they’re all just enabling it. How do we fight that?
    And Collins will vote as Murderous McConnell tells her to.

  4. 4.

    ThresherK

    With these security situations, I don’t know how any member of Congress can do a town hall.

    How about a bunch of “militia” with assault rifles and Gadsden flags standing juuust outside police perimeter? Would that make ya feel safe, Skippy?

  7. 7.

    Luthe

    @satby: I don’t think the Founders considered the possibility of half the representatives in our representative democracy being evil, else they would have come up with a few more ways for the people to intervene a bit more directly in governance.

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    Security situations?
    PHUCK OUTTA HERE???

    Those phucking right wingers were showing up with weapons all throughout 44’s term, and you still had townhalls.

  9. 9.

    TriassicSands

    That canine video is a much better way to start the day than with some clip of you-know-who.

    What a beautiful little pup. Do you suppose s/he is “helping” or mocking her/his unsuspecting human? Naah, s/he’s way too sweet to be mocking. Put that little doggie in a swimming pool and watch her/him go. But can s/he do the backstroke?

  10. 10.

    Kay

    After a prolonged recovery that culminated in two years of record sales, the American auto industry is slowing down, with fewer buyers in dealer showrooms and fewer workers on the factory floor.
    Automakers said this week that sales dropped in June for a sixth consecutive month, falling by 3 percent from a year ago, a trend that analysts do not see letting up anytime soon. And as demand falls, there is less work in the nation’s auto-assembly plants — primarily those that build traditional passenger cars.
    Last year, those plants hit a peak of 211,000 workers, a 55 percent increase since the depths of the recession in 2009. That figure has dropped by more than 2 percent so far this year, to 206,000 workers in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and could shrink further as sales continue to fall.

    So it’s cyclical and everyone who works in the industry knows that, but Trump doesn’t have any clue how it works and he brags so much he’ll have trouble explaining what will be be “bad news”- they’ll be laying off and people will working fewer hours which means less overtime and so much less income because overtime is really how they benefit from high sales.

    It isn’t just “US automakers” and “assembly plants” – it’s all one big chain. Parts makers are a huge piece of it and they make parts for all automobiles, “foreign and domestic” – I put those words in quotes because they don’t really mean anything- again, all one big chain.

    The thing is though, they will have done better under Obama when we compare the next few years to the last few years which is why I had trouble believing Trump’s appeal was due to economic anxiety.

  11. 11.

    clay

    Stop picking on Trump! Anyone could’ve missed the giant stretch humvee parked right at the end of the staircase!

    (They clearly want him to have to walk as little as possible.)

  13. 13.

    TriassicSands

    @Luthe:

    …else they would have come up with a few more ways for the people to intervene a bit more directly in governance

    The 2nd Amendment might read a bit differently.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    @Luthe: The Founders caved to this particular evil in many ways. The current struggle is about undoing all that.

  15. 15.

    TriassicSands

    @clay:

    As was pointed out yesterday by someone, it’s big and black, so Trump naturally took evasive action.

  19. 19.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    Parts makers are a huge piece of it

    And they’re all in MEXICO!!!! Stealing OUR jobs!!!

  21. 21.

    Kay

    I feel like Obama deserves more credit for the economy than he gets because unlike a lot of Presidents he had to actually engineer a recovery – a really massive recovery from a giant fall- so I have this (maybe naive) hope that just like Trump’s Carrier job rescue was smoke and mirrors Trump’s “jobs” expertise will be exposed as smoke and mirrors when a slowdown starts hitting paychecks which happens almost immediately.

    Clinton said during the campaign Trump wouldn’t “wear well” (which is a very midwestern thing to say, BTW) and it means the person is a bullshitter- all flash, no substance.

  22. 22.

    satby

    @Kay: my son just started in Feb. at the Toyota plant outside of Lexington. They have to work as contractors for 6-12 months before they’re considered for permanent hire, and I worry they’ll cut them before he gets a chance. They expect a lot of people to retire this year though, so as long as the plant doesn’t shut down entirely he may make it into a full time gig.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    They’re not all in Mexico! That Trump says this shows how ignorant he is. We actually have a Mexican-owned company that makes interior components for Honda. It’s very complicated! Very fact-based :)

    It’s not 1982. That’s really the crux of Donald Trump’s problems. It is not 1982.

  25. 25.

    TriassicSands

    @Kay:

    …which is why I had trouble believing Trump’s appeal was due to economic anxiety.

    My trouble is always in figuring out how Trump had any appeal at all.

    We can probably rest assured that Trump will not mention this little glitch in his grand plan. More to the point, how would he even find out about it? It’s not going to be on Fox and Friends.

  34. 34.

    Kay

    @satby:

    It probably depends on what they make. If gas prices go up and they make smaller cars he’ll be okay- I think most of the growth was larger vehicles and trucks because gas is cheap. There was pent-up demand- people hung onto cars longer and there’s a big chunk of the population who just don’t drive 10 year old cars. They buy new ones. He’ll get used to the cyclical nature. The key is not to take on debt during good times. They should pay down debt when they’re working a lot.

    I’m really sensitive to it because I don’t make money unless they make money. I could tell they were feeling good-spending. I got coffee at McDonalds yesterday morning and I got a flier to apply for a job with the coffee. I said “thank you! I’ll consider this career!” :)

    They’re desperate. I think I could have parked my car, walked in and worked the drive-thru.

  35. 35.

    debbie

    @satby:

    I can’t believe he didn’t see that huge vehicle right in front of him. He’s so preoccupied with the injustices being heaped on his excellent self that he’s paying zero attention.

  37. 37.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    It’s not the treaties; it’s not Mexico. It’s that people are switching over to SUVs and pick-up trucks because gas is so cheap. Even I know that.

  40. 40.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Pick up trucks got much fancier, too. They’re nicer- more like cars. So you can have whatever “tribe” signal a pick up sends and it’s not all bumpy and uncomfortable. They’re really pretty luxurious now. I’m amazed at what they cost.

  42. 42.

    TriassicSands

    @Ben Cisco:

    Hey, I don’t need Trump to tell me everything bad is on Obama. I’ve got people all around who can act as stand-ins for the Narcissist-in-Chief.

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    Vatican police have raided a cardinal’s apartment where a drug-fuelled homosexual orgy was taking place.

    Police entered an apartment at the former palace of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (or Holy Office) last month not far from the Vatican City.

    The occupant of the apartment is alleged to be a priest who serves as a secretary to cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, the head of the Pontifical Council for Legislative texts and a personal adviser to the Pope. Source

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    It amazes me that Right wingers who own giant companies never get it. I love hardware stores. I make completely unnecesary trips to hardware stores just to wander around. The people who work in factories ALSO love hardware stores. Menards is jamming right now, because they have money to spend. The place is packed. Menards is this vehemently Right wing company and you’re just like WTF? Obviously they need money to spend there! Do they not know where their customers get money? The tax cut on people who make over 250k? NOT their customers.

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    I got a flier to apply for a job with the coffee.

    Was talking with my neighbors the other day and he mentioned that all the sawmills around here are getting desperate for help. “Nobody wants to work anymore.” I had to point out to him that working in a sawmill is very physical (uncured lumber is heavy), hot in the summer/cold in the winter, nasty (one ends up with sap and sawdust in places you didn’t know your body had), noisy, and dangerous. Who would want to do that job for just a little more than minimum wage (most start at $10/hr)? Maybe they should offer more money, isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? Supply and demand?

    He said, “Huh, I hadn’t thought of that.”

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    They always think people don’t know, too. Like no one knows that’s a hard job. Like they don’t spend 90% of their time complaining to other people about their jobs and comparing endlessly.

    Companies have reputations for how they treat employees the same way they have reputations for products. It’s the same fucking thing.

  56. 56.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I point and laugh at Lincoln pickup trucks. Really? You’re going to haul a load of lumber or gravel in that??? That said, not only does my latest p/u (1/2 ton dodge) have power windows, it has heated seats too! Took me months to figure out what those funky little buttons were and even then it was by accident. Now I’m spoiled. The first thing I do on a cold winter’s day is push that button and toast my buns.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    The interconnectedness of the great wheel ‘o commerce? It seems so simple to me- like a cartoon. “Let’s review- they can’t buy the fake-stone fireplace surround without money“

  60. 60.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: yeah, they’ll complain about how lazy people are but try to get away with paying them as little as possible, and then wonder why those jobs stay vacant or have high turnover. A decent wage for a days work is the last thing they consider.

  61. 61.

    TriassicSands

    @satby:

    Yeah, but I’ll bet the house is smaller that a full size pick-up!
    (I’m only kidding…a little.)

  62. 62.

    Immanentize

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: it’s great! I instantly recognized it as a collage of your LA pics and your milky way trip to the desert. If this is something you care about, this one I would think would have big commercial appeal? LA? STARS? Amirite?

    Nice job.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly: I don’t have heated seats in my Prius. I’m now feeling economically anxious.

    Maybe I should be anti-heated seats in 2020. Ride the resentment to the White House.

  68. 68.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Immanentize: It’s a good concept, but the wrong Milky Way pic because it’s not wide enough(basically I stretched the edges of the shot to make it fit). I’m going on another photo shoot out in Joshua Tree in a couple of weeks so I may be able to capture some better source shots. I’ve got quite a few LA night shots to work with.

  69. 69.

    TriassicSands

    @Ben Cisco:

    I assume you’re talking about ads. I saw one the other day that made me sick. I guess you can’t pick your parents or your advertisers.

  72. 72.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: @Baud: Every time I get in my wife’s car during the winter I needle her with, “You should get heated seats.”

  73. 73.

    satby

    It’s a beautiful 63 degrees out, and I should be out pulling weeds before it gets too warm. But I just want to sit on my porch sipping coffee. I love gardening, but I hate weeding.

  75. 75.

    Ben Cisco

    @TriassicSands: Acutally, not so much. I have to keep my blood pressure down, so no ads. I was referring more to the under-the-bridge dwellers we get infested with from time to time – there was no way to avoid them on the mobile site until Alain’s latest efforts. Since then, the air’s much better. So fresh, so clean.

  77. 77.

    TriassicSands

    @satby:
    Enjoy your new, nice old house.

    Have mercy on those weeds — they just want to live (and take over the whole yard.)

  78. 78.

    bystander

    @NotMax: Not to be conspiratorial, but the Pope appointed Pell to get to the bottom of the Vatican’s banking mess, and boom! sex charges. And now this secretary throws himself a meth-bang, doesn’t know how to be discreet in an effing papal apartment and gets caught.

    I smell Putin.

  79. 79.

    bystander

    @NotMax: Want to bet Hillary Clinton is behind those sales? She sold our entire uranium supply to Russia, you know.

  81. 81.

    Immanentize

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: I looked at again (I’m on my phone) and I see what you mean. That said, I don’t think spreading the milky way larger across LA will work as nicely as the angled strip you currently have? Don’t get greedy?

    And remember, Neil Degrasse Tyson will be counting the stars to make sure none were copied in at the edges (he said he did this in the movie Titanic — the photoshopped copied sky made him crazy).

  82. 82.

    Iowa Old Lady

    The thing about Trump wandering away from the limo is that no one mistake is worth picking at. It’s like “nut picking” — finding one crazy comment somewhere and holding it up as representative of a whole group of people. But we judge a person’s mental state by how a bunch of actions add up. It’s like how media show a commenter one video and ask if that incites violence, and the commenter says it’s a joke or it’s just a small thing. It’s how those small things add up that creates an effect.

  83. 83.

    Sab

    My dad has is 93 with dementia and even he could have found that limo without help. YIKES.

  85. 85.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Immanentize: Heh, they weren’t copied, so I’m safe with Neil Degrasse Tyson. The Milky Way portion wasn’t stretched, just the edges so you get star trails. The idea of reshooting is to get a Milky Way shot that I don’t have to stretch. Anyway I made some mistakes when I shot those pics and want to try again. It was a fun shoot.

  86. 86.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Iowa Old Lady: Yeah but still, the “Oh, that big stretch Limo with the presidential seal on it is for me? Whocouldaknowed?” moment is still priceless.

  88. 88.

    Kay

    @Iowa Old Lady:

    I actually believe in “gaffes” though because they often represent a larger idea about the person that is taking shape. The limo wouldn’t matter at all unless there were already questions about his mental state.

    It’s this exactly:

    by how a bunch of actions add up.

    People often won’t see things if those things go against an idea they have already formed. When I started at the post office as a manager I used to get there early. I’m generally on time but I would regularly be there 15/20 minutes early because I was paranoid about “meeting the truck” which was my job. Later I stopped doing that but my entire time at the post office I was the person who was there early. That’s why gaffes matter- they represent an idea people already have. They aren’t forming an idea from a single fact. They’re putting together small things and then one thing comes to represent the opinion. Katrina didn’t kill Bush. It was a series of things that led up to “uncaring and incompetent”- that was just the visual representation of an idea that was already formed.

  89. 89.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Last night on Twitter, along with urging various nations in Northeast Asia to go to war with North Korea, President Trump retweeted a gushing tweet from someone named Jacob Wohl, a name I hadn’t heard before. A quick look at his twitter profile shows Wohl presents himself as a financial management wunderkind and epic Trump supporter. He’s already a mini-star in conservative media and no doubt about to grow in such stardom with a retweet from the President. (It’s worth wondering, how did Trump find Wohl.) He also appears to be a veritable mini-Trump, racking up a reputation for defrauded investors, various boffo shenanigans and a batch of regulators on his trail.

    Wohl says he’s been called the Wohl of Wall Street but claims the comparison is unfair. WohlofWallStreet is also the url of his personal website.
    …..
    From looking at Wohl’s site and various interviews, it’s really not clear to me that Wohl runs a ‘hedge fund’ in any sense that most financial professionals understand the term. Perhaps there’s a fund he’s not discussing. But it seems more like taking money on account, investing it on behalf of clients and, as we’ll see, often refusing to give it back.

    It’s not just the NFA. The State of Arizona isn’t crazy about Wohl either. Back in September 2-16 the Arizona state Corporation Commission issued a cease and desist order against Wohl, an associate and all his investment businesses barring them from activities in the state. The order lists a series of instances of alleged fraud, false or deceptive claims and bad acts. Reading through the 22 page order suggests Wohl’s racket is appear on Fox and other media outlets to drum up business and then using various deceptive claims to take people’s money. A former employee has also claimed Wohl hired “instagram models” to encourage potential investors. (No. Idea.)

    Oddly, one of the media appearances hyped on his site wohlofwallstreet is actually a comically devastating send up of Wohl as a classic flimflam artist.

    Hoo boy. Birds of a feather and all that.

  92. 92.

    Baud

    @Kay: That’s what Fox and other purveyors of right wing propaganda try to do when reporting on Democrats — create a narrative based on selective presentation of information. That’s why it’s so harmful when non-right wingers buy into that spin.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    But sometimes it is true, to a greater or lesser extent. Joe Biden talks a lot and he exaggerates. That’s why the speech he cribbed was so damaging. It fit into a sense people already had. Some of this is quite literally “reputation”- it’s the reason people want a good one. It’s the incentive and it’s the incentive Trump lacks because he was able to NOT CARE about it. Normal people have to care about it!

    I read the Trumpsters want a “reset” on Europe. They found out that Trump’s antics over there create a reputation- it’s not a joke. It matters if people trust him. He isn’t king of the world and he can’t bullshit his way out of everything.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    So it’s cyclical and everyone who works in the industry knows that, but Trump doesn’t have any clue how it works and he brags so much he’ll have trouble explaining what will be be “bad news”

    No problem–he’ll just say that it’s all a lie and sales are better than ever.

  96. 96.

    wuzzat

    @NotMax: I just… what’s going on with these people? Let’s ignore everything else that’s horrible about this for a second… in exactly which version of reality does this work out well for Higgins? The Bannonites are pissed that he’s acknowledging that the Holocaust happened and was bad, and everyone else is pissed because he’s insensitive, disrespectful and apparently has no idea how Nazi Germany actually happened.

  97. 97.

    Matt McIrvin

    @TriassicSands:

    My trouble is always in figuring out how Trump had any appeal at all.

    He was willing to be totally bigoted in public to a degree that nobody else on the national scene would. There are a lot of Americans who really don’t like foreigners and want them all to go away, a lot of Americans who want cops to be able to murder black people at will. That’s pretty much the whole deal.

  98. 98.

    Keith P.

    Animal question – I’ve been putting birdseed out daily lately. Some mixed, sometimes straight black sunflower seed. With the latter, I get a ton (7-10) birds and 1-4 squirrels (who tear the seeds to shreds). I see them eat all day. However, in the morning, some animal has shit all over the black sunflower. Every spot where there was some left, even where I threw it into the grass. The turds are about the size of small grapes and look like they are mainly dried grass. Question is, which animal is this? It’s not a bird and probably not a squirrel. That leaves either raccoon or opossum. I haven’t seen any raccoons in days, so I’m guessing it’s opossum. Does that kind of behavior sound normal (shitting on food) for possums?

  99. 99.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    What I love about it is how that whole “peace thru manly strength” thing pundits pushed w/Obama was Prez was utter and complete bullshit. North Korea does what North Korea does and having a large and loud white man at the helm doesn’t make a bit of difference. They have to let it go. They have to let go of the Great Man Singular Person theory. It’s childish. It’s fine when you’re in 6th grade and looking for heroes but Christ almighty grow up.

    They admire the wrong things. They are poor judges of character.

  100. 100.

    low-tech cyclist

    “The last thing we’re going to do is give in to a lot of left-wing activists and media,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) told a radio interviewer last month. “With these security situations, I don’t know how any member of Congress can do a town hall.”

    Back in 2009 and 2010, with Teabaggers showing up en masse to yell at Dem Congresscritters about death panels, the Dems still had town halls, still showed up at July Fourth parades.

    There’s so many snowflakes on the right, the GOP caucus is practically a snowstorm.

  101. 101.

    MomSense

    I was wondering if Collins wanted to be in Eastport for the Pirate Festival but I think that is in September.

    She was in Washington County which has one of the worst infant mortality rates in the country. Actually they are now slipping to be in line with Croatia and Romania. The sad thing is that in the 90s we had the lowest infant mortality rate in the country. Now it’s a divided state with the Southern counties of York and Cumberland having some of the best health indicators in the country while the northern counties have some of the worst.

    To put this in context, we have a Medicaid expansion referendum question on the November ballot. LePage has vetoed Medicaid expansion 6 times and we’ve come within one vote of overriding. Interestingly it is the Republican legislators who represent the counties with the worst health indicators who keep voting to deny health care to their constituents because freedumb.

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: “There are a lot of Americans who really don’t like anybody who isn’t white….” FTFY, you’ll get my bill in the mail.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    I feel sorry for the person who yelled “stay strong, Susan!” at the parade. Oh, God. Such false hope in the unicorn-like “moderates” in the GOP. They thought they spotted one! Look at the rainbow horn and the stars around her head!

  106. 106.

    Another Scott

    @Keith P.: Sounds like a deer to me, but I’m no expert on scat.

    I’ve got a couple of “squirrel-proof” birdfeeders in the back. If I filled them (~ 10 pounds each) with normal black-oil sunflower seeds, they would be emptied by the squirrels and birds in 1-2 days. I started using hot meats about a year ago, and it made a huge difference. It lasts 1-2 weeks now, and the squirrels (and chipmunks and mice) leave it alone.

    The peppers are disliked by most mammals but the birds love it. There’s no mess from mountains of hulls to clean up, either. It might help with your critters, too.

    Good luck!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Remember when he couldn’t plug the hole in the ocean floor where oil was spewing? WTF? They had every engineer in the country working on it and MSNBC was insisting “leadership” would carry the day. It was a hole in the earth.

  109. 109.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I have hope the lying thing will hurt him. I don’t care what anyone says. :Lying constantly is not a delightful eccentricity and there will come a time where he will need to be believed and he won’t be. Rightly. He’s a liar.

    They all talk about what an ace negotiator he is. The truth about negotiation is much less glamorous. It’s hard and trust is essential. He’s dealing with pros. They’re not gonna fall for the bullshit and threats he has relied upon his whole life.

  110. 110.

    Iowa Old Lady

    @Kay: You mean they think that sending him back will fix things? Like he can somehow do a mass memory wipe on them? Empirical evidence suggests otherwise.

  111. 111.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    In my neck of the woods, the fancy (wicked expensive) pickup trucks are the ones with the trump bumper stickers.

  112. 112.

    ThresherK

    @Kay: Yep. Why do I get the feeling that Collins’ version any constitutent interaction is all “Stay strong!” and “Thanks, Susan!”, no matter how she votes?

    Nobody in Maine mentioned Obamacare or the ACA by name, apparently.

  113. 113.

    Keith P.

    @Kay: Yeah, and right-wing radio hosts kept suggesting that we nuke the hole shut. Good times.

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Keith P.: It sounds like rabbit or deer shit to me, depending on the exact size. Both shit pellets, and while rabbits are exclusively grazers while deer are browsers but if grass and alfalfa are the available foods that is all they will eat. It definitely isn’t coon shit as theirs is more dog like and longish. Can’t say for sure about possums as I don’t recall being able to say “This shit is possum shit cause I saw it come out of one’s butt”. They are omnivores and you should see remains of bugs and fur in their scat but not impossible that vegetarian was the menu for that day.

    As far as the shit being on the seeds, that sounds like some critter saying “This is mine and I’m coming back for it, so the rest of you, paws off!”

  115. 115.

    zhena gogolia

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Sad but true.

    I keep thinking how we could have been moving forward with President Clinton, building on the great work Obama did. And don’t get me started on the Supreme Court. Kennedy does look old, doesn’t he? And Gorsuch is so, so bad.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Right, and all the coverage is from the US point of view- US positioning. Germany and France have their own objectives, and rightly so. They can benefit from Trump’s lack of preparation, weakness and recklessness. It may benefit them to have him discredited for a period. This was a fucking insane bet, the bet Trump voters made. They made this crazy assumption that chaos works only one way, to the benefit of the US. There are other players.

  117. 117.

    Keith P.

    @OzarkHillbilly: Hmm, I hadn’t thought about rabbits. I haven’t seen any in a while (and I am up at all hours), but they are in my neighborhood. I was looking at photos, and the best match by far at this point is squirrel shit. However, they must be coming out at night to do it because I watch them eat during daylight, and they aren’t shitting at that point.
    No way it’s deer, though. I’ve got a fence, plus I’ve never seen a deer in my neighborhood in 11 years. Seen tons of possum (nightly) and raccoons and birds, some rabbits and skunks but pretty rare.

  118. 118.

    Another Scott

    @Kay: He’s also dealing with civilizations that have been around for thousands of years. He’s a babe when it comes to negotiations, but he’s too stupid to know it.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  119. 119.

    d58826

    @Iowa Old Lady: And while I for making jokes about Der Fuhrer as often as possible, sometimes one image does stick. Remember Jerry Ford making a misstep getting off AF1. He was forever labelled as clumsy even though he was a star athlete in his youth.

  120. 120.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MomSense: Around here there are more than a few rusty, beat up, unmuffled, on their last cylinder pickups sporting Trump stickers.

  121. 121.

    gene108

    @debbie:

    can’t believe he didn’t see that huge vehicle right in front of him. He’s so preoccupied with the injustices being heaped on his excellent self that he’s paying zero attention.

    He saw it, but since there were so many cameras snapping pictures, he must of thought “OMG!!! I can get my picture taken. And this time I’ll end up on the cover of Time magazine for sure!!!”.

  123. 123.

    Kay

    @Keith P.:

    right-wing radio hosts kept suggesting that we nuke the hole shut. Good times.

    I feel like the arrogance of that led us right to Trump. “I could fix the hole in the ocean floor- it’s easy!”

    Sure you could. 1000 engineers working night and day can’t but you could, with your “leadership”. I always think about a surgeon I met. My son was born with a problem in his left eye. We took him everywhere and ended up at U of Michigan children’s hospital and the “eye man” of the universe- the expert. So I meet this guy and he’s very personable and normal and he sort of leans in and confides in me “we don’t really know how the eye works with the brain”. I was like “sold! hire him! a truth-teller!”

  124. 124.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MomSense: I figure if they are sentient beings it’s the reason they’re still on the trucks, only that need could outweigh the embarrassment.

  126. 126.

    Kay

    44 states have refused to give certain voter information to President Trump’s election integrity commission

    There’s a lot of speculation that Kobach intended to fuck this up to discredit elections, but I don’t believe it. He was a state-level Right wing nut – he was only “national” in Right wing nut circles. His big national debut flopped. Would you really be shocked if a person the Right promoted as an expert was really a fraud and that was exposed when he was promoted? No. You would not.

    Another bad Trump hire. Add him to the list.

  127. 127.

    Lapassionara

    @Kay: they believe in American Exceptionalism, to the extent that they never contemplate that there might be trade offs, or even negative outcomes, for any action the US of A takes, if only the right person, from the right tribe, is president. That is the thinking that got us in Iraq, and that is the thinking that has us in deep *!# now.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @Lapassionara:

    Right? It’s the horrible “quoting things from movies” way of looking at the world. Germany may be an ally but that doesn’t mean they’re a chump. If there’s weakness they can exploit it. They’re probably thrilled to push the US a little back in the ‘ol order of nations and there’s nothing wrong with that.

  129. 129.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: Misery is not among those 44. Our wonderful SoS (Secretary of Slime) Jay Ashcroft is “looking forward to working with the commission on this critical issue”.

  136. 136.

    TS

    @bystander:

    the Pope appointed Pell to get to the bottom of the Vatican’s banking mess,

    The Catholic Church, with Pell at the head, was already under investigation by the Australian Royal Commission into child abuse when he was whisked away to Rome. Some would say it was to get him away from the inquiry. I have been pleasantly surprised that he is (supposedly) coming back to answer the charges (Australia has no extradition treaty with the Vatican State). Will have to save 100 % praise until he actually gets here.

  142. 142.

    hueyplong

    @Kay: “Things that destroy faith in democracy” and their strategy have so merged that you actually can argue that further Russian meddling only matters at the margins.

    Phrased another way, McConnell is no less dangerous than Putin would be if Putin were in McConnell’s place.

  143. 143.

    Bobby Thomson

    @Major Major Major Major: lol. Slate Pitch Matt. Sanders would have to develop more than five answers to questions. He’s so boilerplate and tissue thin outside his narrow set of hobby horses that Donald Trump(!) would look like Cicero next to him. He can hire whomever he wants, but he will have the same imperious, dismissive attitude that will sink him with real Democrats who have actually talked to black people since 1968. When your only foreign policy argument is “Hillary voted for the AUMF” and your defense of your congressional civil rights record is “I marched with King,” you have serious problems that can’t be papered over.

    The worst mistake Democrats could make is to prepare to win the last election. The theme for the next election is replacing the doddering crazy old man with someone reasonable and safe.

  144. 144.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Mike in DC: it’s vox, they have to explain it like you’re five and just learned about ‘politics’. And fair point! I don’t think that changes the notion that Bernie thinks Bernie is the front-runner though.

    @schrodingers_cat: well, that tweet is within the context of a debate about active/passive, no?

    @Bobby Thomson: yglesias, and slate itself, have gotten much better since yglesias’s time at slate.

  146. 146.

    Librarian

    To me, it looked like he ignored the limo and went looking for a podium that wasn’t there.

  147. 147.

    WaterGirl

    @OzarkHillbilly: There’s not a word that’s awful enough to convey what slime these people are. I just posted my pubic comment on repealing the ACA. I’m sure it could have been better, but I suspect it doesn’t matter what we write – it will just turn into a checkmark in a YES or NO column on some piece of (virtual) paper.

    If you repeal the affordable care act, you will be destroying the lives of millions of people. Millions of people will die. Millions of people will lose their loved ones.

    To even contemplate doing that is beyond horrifying; that you would do that to put more money in the pockets of rich people is not only horrifying, it’s disgusting and reprehensible.

    History will not be kind to you, and your names will live on in infamy. You will do more to destroy this country than any terrorist has ever done.

  148. 148.

    d58826

    Stating the obvious here:
    1. not good that NK has nukes but that horse left the barn under 43
    2. not good that NK has IRBM’s but that one left under 43 and 44
    3. not good that NK is on the cusp of developing an ICBM but that one left the barn under ‘it’s not gonna happen ‘ 45.

    But maybe the military experts can tell me how going to war makes any of that ‘better’

    Self-Restraint’ Is Only Thing Stopping War in Korea, U.S. General Says

    NK has thousands of dug in artillery pieces and missiles that can devastate Seoul
    NK has 10-20 nukes that can be delivered locally (i.e. SK and Japan) with non-missile technology
    Kim and his folks are just crafty enough that they could stuff a nuke into a black market cargo ship (don’t they also have submarines) and sail it into SF Bay on a one way suicide mission

    Now given that again how is going to war going to make any of that better, other than the silence of the dead

    From what I’ve read, what has deterred Kim up till now is his desire for regime survival. Back him into a corner with his survival at stake and he has nothing left to lose.

    What am I missing that John Bolton and Der Fuhrer sre seeing?
    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/05/world/asia/north-korea-war-us-icbm.html?smid=tw-nytimesworld&smtyp=cur

  149. 149.

    catclub

    @Kay:

    Pick up trucks got much fancier, too. …. I’m amazed at what they cost.

    Yep, this. Same sticker as Mercedes Benz Station wagon.

  150. 150.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Major Major Major Major: Since I can’t be bothered to actually read MattY, I don’t actually know if it’s counterpoint or semi-aligned-point. But I’m with the cat on this – the sooner Wilmer goes away for good the better.

  151. 151.

    catclub

    @Major Major Major Major:

    And fair point! I don’t think that changes the notion that Bernie thinks Bernie is the front-runner though.

    Having an over seventy yo slightly senile man in the office now says old age and senility are no bar to being the front-runner.

  152. 152.

    d58826

    @Major Major Major Major: In 2020 Bernie will be 78, HRC 74, Uncle Joe 74. Can’t the D’s fine some one to run who has not reached the point that they are required to being taking money out of the 40k/iras?

    I’ settle for some one 69 in 2020 but serious they have to start developing a younger more talented bench.

  153. 153.

    Ruckus

    @Kay:

    he can’t bullshit his way out of everything.

    He’s never really been able to, it’s just that he played on a relatively small stage, screwing relatively small deals that few noticed. Or cared. But now he’s hit the big time, a stage size that he is monumentally unprepared and incapable for.

  154. 154.

    Major Major Major Major

    @d58826:

    Can’t the D’s fine some one to run who has not reached the point that they are required to being taking money out of the 40k/iras?

    We have many, but the media only likes reporting on the candidate who’s very old.

    @Gin & Tonic: yeah, I don’t think you could construct a better way to divide the party from within if you tried. From without, some white socialism by Trump (like what he actually campaigned on, not what Paul Ryan wants) would be brilliant but fortunately they’re idiots.

  156. 156.

    But her emails!!!

    @d58826:

    Bernie’s not a Dem. I’m pretty sure the others listed aren’t going to run.

    There’s plenty of talent on the back bench, we’re just going to have to wait to who rises to prominence at this point. It’s really too early for a front runner to step up and get a target painted on them by the Republican slime machine. Tactically, the Democrats should pretend that yes, it’s Bernie and let the Republicans start shoveling bovine feces at him so that 1. He’s too damaged to be the nominee come the primaries and 2. All his supporters are so pissed at Republicans, that they’d drag themselves through white hot barbed wire to vote for anyone with a chance of unseating a Republican.

  159. 159.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers (was fidelio)

    @d58826: You insist on seeing “collateral damage” as your fellow humans, whose lives are as important to them as your own is to you.

  160. 160.

    d58826

    @But her emails!!!:

    There’s plenty of talent on the back bench, we’re just going to have to wait to who rises to prominence at this point.

    Isn’t there anything the party can do to push that process along. I’m not saying pick a ‘winner’ but put this talent into spots where they can be seen. Obama’s big break was the 2004 convention speech. Surely there must be other forums/etc that these folks that show their stuff. The GOPers have CPAC (and of course the Adelson/Koch primary) where the hopefuls have to strut their stuff like runway models. I’m not saying that the D’s should go that far but find venues where the media has to cover. I think it was McKinley who ran his campaign from his porch in Ohio? That won’t work today. Candidates need TV face time today so that people become familiar with them. Generate a little buzz at a big speech in NY and suddenly you get booked on Meet the Press. Yea I know but it is the way to get free media exposure. It also will show who’s background and temperament can stand up to a long campaign. Just hate to see someone float to the top on a couple of lucky breaks and then fold like a cheap suit in the fall campaign

  161. 161.

    Amir Khalid

    @Major Major Major Major:
    There’s always a chance Wilmer won’t still be the new hotness in 2020, especially if Jane’s legal troubles get serious enough to create a propaganda opportunity for the Republicans. And there’s not a peep from Yglesias about Wilmer addressing his most glaring shortcomings in 2016: his rep in Congress for having poor people skills and being difficult to work with, his glaring lack of preparation for the executive job, his failure to appeal to the nonwhite part of the Democratic base. Unless he’s doing something about these shortcomings, I would not be happy to see him gearing up for 2020.

  162. 162.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Amir Khalid: those are all very real problems, and I’m very upset with Sanders, but his (deserved!) reputation in congress has nothing to do with the fact that he’s been elevated to sainthood by the media and large/large enough numbers of activists. As @d58826 notes, there’s no Party standard-bearers, and in such an atmosphere gadflies flourish.

  163. 163.

    But her emails!!!

    @d58826:

    John McCain has all the spots on Meet the Press reserved thru 2021.

    More seriously. Media face time is biased to a ridiculous extent towards Republicans. Look at the Russia issue. You would think they would want commentary from Democratic Senators and House members, but commentary has been overwhelmingly by Republicans. If it’s not a Republican, it’s probably Bernie, with Pelosi and Schumer getting about the same amount of air time as Jill Stein.

    You want Democrats on the air? You need to convince Gates, Buffet, or Soros to buy a cable network and outbid Sinclair Broadcasting for Tribune and have them implement an actual balanced coverage policy at their new media empire.

  164. 164.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    They believed the Fox news bullshyt about 44 on the world stage. Because their racism couldn’t accept a qualified, competent Black President, they thought that the world couldn’t either. They forget that the rest of the world suffered through The Bush Years and were desperate for an improvement. Then, they got 44 and couldn’t believe their luck.
    And now, they see 45, and are like What The Fuck?!????
    We bring this up, but it’s important- the hires. Europe chucked up DEUCES not just because of Dolt45, but because of the professionals around him. Even with Shrub, there was a professional class around him that their European counterparts could relate to. Dolt45 has surrounded himself with incompetence and the European countries/G20 know it.

  167. 167.

    The Pale Scot

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Who would want to do that job for just a little more than minimum wage (most start at $10/hr)?

    I have the feeling that I’ve said this before; Out of HS while at community college I worked in landscaping, BOH restaurants, construction. Those jobs paid noticeably better than the CS type jobs my peers had at the time. Now they don’t. Why should I get dirty and tired and make no more than the staff at Best Buy? I’ve read op-eds by local businessman bitching that they can’t find help. Google them and they’re offering 15 bucks for welders when everyone else is offering 18 to start. My MOU type relation is always saying that the one with the cash sets the price, until he’s trying to sell something on Craigslist and he getting lowballed (to him) offers, then it’s the opposite.

  169. 169.

    J R in WV

    @wuzzat:

    Not just insensitive, he calls for genocide of Muslims while decrying genocide of Jews. Crazy. How did he get elected to anything, much less to Congress???

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