Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

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

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

“woke” is the new caravan.

Not all heroes wear capes.

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

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

It’s not hopeless, and we’re not helpless.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

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

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

People are weird.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / I’m tired as hell, I’m not the cat I used to be

I’m tired as hell, I’m not the cat I used to be

by | 92 Comments

This post is in: 

With a new baby, I don’t have the time and energy to write more than a few real posts a week, but I want to keep the fundraising going and I don’t want it to be just me putting the thermometer up an saying GIMME.

So I thought I’d try something new. You olds may not be hip to this, but there’s a thing that the kids in music do today called “feating”. You can google it. I’m going to be feating some commenters that I think will write fun, interesting posts, much better than I can do right now! They’ll throw up the Balloon Juice Nowhere To Hide thermometer in the post. This way, at least you’ll get something for your money.

We will start off with Jewish Steel, a great guy with good taste in music. He’ll start sometime over the weekend.

If you don’t like posts of the people I’m feating, blame me, not them! Maybe go a little gentler on them in the comments than you usually do.

In the meantime, let’s hit our goal for Conor Lamb in PA-18. Donnie Dementia was raising money for his opponent yesterday.

Goal Thermometer

Update. Here’s a picture of the dog guarding the baby.

Reader Interactions

92Comments

  3. 3.

    rikyrah

    The Republicans Welcome a Government Shutdown
    by Martin Longman
    January 19, 2018

    It is the silly season again. As a government shutdown looms at midnight, everyone is engaged in the blame game. So, let me add a little clarity to where the blame lies for a shutdown.

    In order for a bill to become a law, it is mandatory that both the House and the Senate pass it and that the two bills are absolutely identical to each other. As things stand, the House has passed a continuing resolution to keep the government operating. The Senate could just take that bill and without changing a single word of it bring it up for a vote and pass it. If they were to do that, the problem would be solved for now. They could take those two bills and send them to the president for his signature.

    However, if the Senate wants to make any changes to what the House produced, then the resulting bill, assuming it then passed the Senate, would have to go back to the House, and the House would have to approve it without changing a thing. The two chambers can ping-pong the bill like this for as long as they want, or they can form a conference committee to iron out the differences in the two bills. Either way, eventually they have to agree on one set of legislative language.

    If House Republicans are serious about avoiding a government shutdown, then they need to be prepared to do some more work in case the Senate needs to makes changes to their continuing resolution in order to get the necessary votes. But the House is adjourning and leaving town.

  5. 5.

    BellyCat

    Doug!: If your Little One is anything like ours — waking every 1.5 hours all night as an infant, and at almost two, he stills wakes up one to three times every night — it’s amazing you can post at all!

    Hang in there. I’m told it gets easier (but suspect this may be a vicious rumor)…

  6. 6.

    TriassicSands

    There’s no reason to wait and actually read anything by those you are “feating.” I hate them all already.

    OK, not really. It will be interesting to see what some people have to say when given space on the front page. Variety is the spice of life or so I’ve heard.

  8. 8.

    schrodingers_cat

    Did anyone read the shitty both sidery op-ed by Fareed Zakaria on immigration. No Fareed, no matter how much you suck up to the nativist Rs they are going to judge you by your country of birth and the religion your born into.

  13. 13.

    Amir Khalid

    In the middle of the road, you see the darndest things …
    Sometimes I wish I could put something in the pot, but alas! I am a foreigner lacking both money and a money-laundering operation.

  15. 15.

    rikyrah

    The Situation with DACA Is Urgent
    by Nancy LeTourneau
    January 19, 2018

    Last night the House passed the Republican short-term spending bill on mostly a party-line vote. Then the Senate took up a procedural vote to prepare for consideration of the measure today. I watched as both Senators McConnell and Corbyn made remarks over and over again about how the Democrats were insisting on including a measure related to “illegal immigrants” (never referring to DACA or Dreamers) along with the suggestion that there is no urgency to the matter because Congress has until March to deal with the issue. Here is what McConnell tweeted:

    Just so #Senate Democrats know, #DACA does not begin to face a deadline until March, at the earliest. The deadline to fund the government and the Children’s Health Insurance Program is TOMORROW. pic.twitter.com/JTS3p2sgnQ

    — Leader McConnell (@SenateMajLdr) January 19, 2018

    One might ask why anyone has to chose between the two. But the truth is that, because Republicans were more interested in tax cuts than children’s access to health care, CHIPs funding expired on October 1, 2017. States have been using other funds to keep the program alive since then.

    It is the claim that there is no urgency for the Dreamers that was unconscionable. Finally, Sen. Durbin stood up to say so.

    There is urgency when it comes to our Dreamers. There’s an urgency in their lives because of the uncertainty of tomorrow. Will they be deported or given a chance to continue their lives in America?

    Yes, there is an urgency to pass the #DreamActNow. pic.twitter.com/kPH2xeRlW4

    — Senator Dick Durbin (@SenatorDurbin) January 19, 2018

  21. 21.

    Nicole

    Awesome photo. Good doggie!

    Our wee one didn’t sleep through the night until 13 months. I wish you a much shorter period of the up-in-the-middle-of-the-nights. Around the time he was 9 months I had a tiny bit of a breakdown one night, and realized it was because I hadn’t slept more than 5 hours at a stretch since a few days before he was born and it felt like I would never get 7 hours at a stretch again.

    But it passes.

  24. 24.

    efgoldman

    @MomSense: @Doug!:

    Aw, the pup has her/his own pup now. So sweet.

    I’m sure your dog is a sweetie and loves everybody, but if someone s/he doesn’t know or trust gets near the baby there will be some serious guarding.
    When our daughter was an infant, there was a sweet neighborhood lab/hound coal black that apparently had lived in our house at one time. He would come in, sniff around, and plop himself in front of the bassinet; we never asked him to, he just did.

  25. 25.

    lurker dean

    thick-skulled idiot chuck todd has weighed in, the problem is BOTH SIDES!

    Just a remarkable lack of urgency here in DC with hours to go before shutdown. Where’s bipartisan WH meeting? Where’s POTUS leadership? Where is the bipartisan Hill shuttle diplomacy-like leadership talks. Where’s plan b or c? Both parties prefer to spin than talk?— Chuck Todd (@chucktodd) January 19, 2018

  27. 27.

    No Drought No More

    Isn’t saying “new baby” a redundancy? Congrats in any case. People raising children in todays world have the guts of lions..

  28. 28.

    Lyrebird

    @Nicole: Oh heavens yes the sleep deprivation can be awful… I remember very little of my little one’s first six months at home.

    I hadn’t slept more than 5 hours at a stretch since a few days before he was born

    More than 3 hrs continuous sleep without some waking or crying was what I dreamed of. When I went back to work I took these glorious half hour naps on the carpeted floor…

    But yes it passes, it’s so worth it, and CONGRATS Doug! and Mrs. Doug!

  29. 29.

    opiejeanne

    @Nicole: Oh, terrible. All three of ours slept through the night by two weeks. We got lucky, except for the middle child’s brief bout of colic. We thought we would go mad, colic is so awful. Hours of screaming as if being tortured and NOTHING works. I later heard that in the UK they use peppermint water and that it works. Sometimes. It only lasted a day and a half. I hear of kids who have it for six months or longer.

    We suffered from “traitor’s throat” with all three, our name for when the kid wakes up needing a change or a bottle and only one parent hears it.

  31. 31.

    Barbara

    My first child was premature and didn’t sleep through the night for nearly two years (she did wake up fewer times as time went on) and my second began sleeping through the night after two days. I thought I had died and gone to heaven. However, my third did not reliably sleep through the night for 16 months, for which I was totally to blame (by keeping him in the same room). So congratulations and don’t worry about sleep because it is just amazing how fast babyhood passes. Enjoy them while they are totally adorable and can’t talk back or wander off to get in trouble.

    Looking forward to reading the new posts.

  33. 33.

    Barbara

    @lurker dean: Chuck Todd must be a slow learner. A bipartisan meeting with the White House would increase not lessen the chaos because Trump adores being the center of attention and tends to keep raising the bar or changing his mind in order to keep himself the main story. Which is why we are where we are now. The less involvement from the president, the better.

  36. 36.

    jackmac

    It does get better with babies and sleep. And the first time your little one sleeps through the night you’ll wake up in a panic worried that something is wrong!

  37. 37.

    germy

    Associated Press headline:

    Dem, GOP leaders already blame each other as shutdown looms

    Both sides, people!

  38. 38.

    Spanky

    @germy: Well, the problem with that headline isn’t bothsiderism so much, since it’s factually true. The problem I see is that the msm is, as usual, focusing on who gets the blame rather than what each side’s position actually is.

    Optics over consequences, 100% of the time.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    Awww, what a cute baby and sweet doggie! I like your idea of featuring commenters. Been reading Jewish Steel’s comments on various blogs for ages now — excellent choice!

  40. 40.

    TriassicSands

    The Post is reporting that the American people, by a 20 point margin, blame Trump and GOP for a shutdown.

    Eighteen percent think both sides are equally at fault. It’s a good thing for these people that breathing doesn’t require conscious thought — they’d all have suffocated long ago.

  41. 41.

    Gin & Tonic

    @TriassicSands: Me, I’m just glad that the prospect of the shutdown has spoiled Trump’s plans for the weekend. I know that makes me petty and mean, and I don’t care.

  42. 42.

    Yarrow

    @TriassicSands: Yep. Trump and the Republicans are going to get the blame for the shutdown.

    JUST IN: @ABC News/WaPo poll finds substantially greater Republican risk in a government shutdown, with 48% saying they’d blame Pres. Trump and the GOP, vs. 28% for congressional Democrats. https://t.co/595oItk2mz— ABC News (@ABC) January 19, 2018

    Those tax cuts aren’t going to mean much if your paycheck stops due to the shutdown.

    @Gin & Tonic: Right there with you.

  44. 44.

    JMG

    Saying both sides are at fault is the laziest possible conclusion requiring the least amount of thought or need to acquire information.. So it’s worth noting that while 18 percent of Americans hold that position, a far higher percentage of the news media and political journalists do.

  45. 45.

    Jeffro

    BOTH SIDES!!

    Hey no pun intended but this Stormy thing has…legs…

    The possibilities for journalistic investigation include:
    – how this (and similar affairs/payoffs) leaves Trumpov open to blackmail from any/all sources (including Russia)
    – how this might have involved business and/or tax fraud (where did the money come from? why an LLC? hey didn’t I read something about the Trump Organization setting up hundreds if not thousands of LLCs?…)

    As is to be expected, there is not. word. one. about Ms. Daniels over on Faux…it’s amazing (and telling, no?) that they’ll put up endless amounts of denials and counter-claims about the Russia investigations but not one single item about ol’ Stormy.

  46. 46.

    Yarrow

    @efgoldman: Kay hasn’t lost access to the front page, has she? People ask her about writing posts for the front page instead of only commenting and she doesn’t respond. Maybe she doesn’t want to write for the front page or something.

  47. 47.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    @efgoldman: My mother ran a boarding house when I was a tiny baby and while she was busy with the guests she would leave me in the capable paws of Dee-Dee our fawn boxer. She would watch over me like a hawk while I crawled around the living room. Mum recounts that one day when I was practicing my crawling skills I crawled into the kitchen while she was cooking breakfast for the guests. Dee-Dee followed me, looked up at mum and then picked me up by the nappy (diaper) and carried me back into the living room. So began my lifelong love of boxers.

  48. 48.

    germy

    A little too convenient that Chelsea Manning will primary @SenatorCardin, one of most active Senators on foreign policy & leader in making policy/legislation to respond to Russian aggression, for MD Senate. Guess that's what Dem Tea Party is going to look like: Snowden party.— Molly McKew (@MollyMcKew) January 13, 2018

  49. 49.

    Ruckus

    @Spanky:

    Optics over consequences, 100% of the time.

    Far easier for the media to show you what they see than to actually do the work of what is wrong, what will go wrong, who is actually responsible and why. And because they seem to be lazy and not willing to do the work, what you get most of the time is 5 minute pablum. And the people that pay them don’t ask for better and/or demand that they don’t say anything against the bosses chosen one, so crap must be good enough. So crap it is.

  50. 50.

    Jeffro

    Also I see that JD (“Hillbilly Elegy”) Vance has declined to run for the Senate as a Repub. Whatsamatter, JD, did the tide just roll way, waaaaaayyyyyy out from the shoreline for some reason? It’s a little unnerving, isn’t it?

    LOL

  51. 51.

    Nicole

    My News function sent a little post showing some kind of survey had respondents overwhelmingly blaming the GOP for a shutdown.

    I’m pleasantly surprised, because FSM knows the media has been trying to put the blame on the Democrats. I mean, it’s ridiculous.

  53. 53.

    efgoldman

    My kid, who was dumped (along with five others when they pulled the plug on Consumerist) got a good new job. Details next week. Proud I am

  54. 54.

    jeffreyw

    Yay for baby with dog pics! My fave genre, after sammiches!

    The pharmacy called and they managed to persuade the Bad Ins Co to OK the nausea meds, so we are hooked up, there.

    I’m sure I am not alone in hoping Amir the K could be cajoled into some pithy observations from his side of the globe! Offer him the keys, stat!

  55. 55.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:
    For faux news, Stormy is normal business. Nothing newsworthy there. And if too much concern is shown might some enterprising DA do some investigating about them and find the same? They don’t like drumpf out of admiration for his money (they have more), they like him out of admiration for his behavior and how he gets away with it.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    @efgoldman: @Yarrow: I, too, would love for Kay to start front-paging again. I have seen her respond to that suggestion 2 or 3 times.

    Kay, please correct me if I’m wrong, but my takeaway from Kay’s response is that she feels that as a commenter, she can just write something in the moment and post a comment. She feels a different sense of obligation with a front page post – it has to be more thought out and is much more time consuming. People have replied that that doesn’t matter to them, that they would just like to see her on the front page, as is. As far as I can tell, Kay is not convinced that front paging is for her.

    I hope i’m either wrong or that Kay changes her mind.

  58. 58.

    Yarrow

    @jeffreyw: Good news the insurance company did the right thing.

    Amir has been asked about writing for the front page before, hasn’t he? He’s said no, I think.

  59. 59.

    germy

    @Jeffro:

    Also I see that JD (“Hillbilly Elegy”) Vance has declined to run for the Senate as a Repub.

    good news. Because I know the kochs have been searching high and low for the perfect “aw shucks” candidate.

  67. 67.

    BC in Illinois

    A FBook quote from someone whose youngest is two:

    Celebrating the first night in what feels like forever:
    No child woke me up just to inform me they were going to the bathroom.
    No child cried for a missing blanket, doll, animal, or hammer.
    No one woke me up to argue that they can “never, never sleep without an adult in the room”.
    No child climbed into my bed!

    Explanatory note — the 2-yr-old got a play workbench for Christmas. Likes to sleep with the hammer.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @Yarrow:

    I didn’t lose access. I don’t think John takes away access from anyone. I got sick of my own posts. I felt like I was writing the same thing over and over again. Anne Laurie was always my contact for BJ “issues” – she helped me with it when I started- and she offered the other day to help me with the new system if I changed my mind.

  70. 70.

    Yutsano

    @jeffreyw: Excellent news on the pharmacological front! If we’re past the point where ginger is ineffective then getting to the next level after an insurance battle is a good thing.

    I would enjoy Amir’s perspective not only as a Malaysian but also as a journalist. He could discuss good journalistic practices and then critique our current MSM fails. That could be brilliant.

  71. 71.

    Jeffro

    @germy:

    I know the kochs have been searching high and low for the perfect “aw shucks” candidate.

    We’re going to have to watch for that, a lot, in the future.

  73. 73.

    Kay

    More
    News – Trump reached out to Schumer and invited him to WH to try to figure out a deal on spending to avert shutdown, per source briefed

    Trump blinked :)

    Love him or hate him I feel like Schumer is smart and good at his job. I was in Detroit once, with my son, and Schumer came thru the hotel lobby. My son was wearing a Detroit hockey ball cap although he’s a drifty, smiley person who knows nothing about hockey. Schumer sort of attacked him with this rat-a-tat barrage of words and charm based on Schumer’s belief that my son is this big Detroit hockey fan. We were like “what WAS that, that …entourage which just blew thru here?” :)

    I told him THAT is the Senator from NY. He’s high energy :)

  74. 74.

    germy

    Former reality TV star Omarosa Manigault Newman, who was fired late last year from her job as a Trump aide, reportedly recorded conversations about sensitive issues during her tenure in the White House.

    Sources tell the New York Daily News that Omarosa “may have taped confidential West Wing conversations and fears being caught up in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.”

    Omarosa has been regularly dropping hints that she could drop bombshells on the Trump administration in the wake of her firing, as she said she had problems with the way the White House handled race-related controversies such as white supremacist riots in Charlottesville, Virginia.

  75. 75.

    Jeffro

    Odd, isn’t it? Russian-Linked Twitter Accounts Are Working Overtime In Sync With Devin Nunes

    Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations have begun promoting the hashtag #ReleaseTheMemo.
    It’s a reference to a document written by Rep. Devin Nunes that purports to show abuse by the Obama administration of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
    The frequency with which the accounts have been promoting the hashtag has spiked by 233,000% over the past 48 hours, according to an analysis.
    The most-shared URL has been a link to WikiLeaks’ “submit” page.

    Republican lawmakers are pushing for the House Intelligence Committee to release a memo written by the panel’s chairman, Rep. Devin Nunes, that outlines purported surveillance against then President-elect Donald Trump by former President Barack Obama’s administration during the transition period.

    And Russia-linked Twitter bots have jumped on the bandwagon.

    #ReleaseTheMemo is the top-trending hashtag among Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence operations, according to Hamilton 68, a website launched last year that claims to track Russian propaganda in near-real time.

    The frequency with which the accounts have been promoting the hashtag has spiked by 233,000% over the past 48 hours, according to the site. The accounts’ references to the “memo,” meanwhile, have increased by 68,000%.

  77. 77.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: I mean, seriously, it’s time for the IC to weigh in and get Nunes out of there – he’s a threat to national security.

  81. 81.

    Yarrow

    @Kay: Thanks for the response. You ask good questions in your comments. Maybe just a post with one of those questions you ask. You got good responses yesterday in Cheryl’s NRA/Russia thread. It would be interesting to have a post with your questions. Wouldn’t have to be the same all the time and you might get more input.

  82. 82.

    Barbara

    @germy: J.D. Vance’s viability as a candidate is pretty questionable. He spouts a hedge fund approved pull yourself up by the bootstraps economic philosophy while having written a book that essentially trashes the cultural and ethical norms of a wide swath of post-industrial Ohio.

  83. 83.

    Aleta

    @Jeffro: not one single item about ol’ Stormy.

    On 2nd thought, this is a good thing. They’re missing the clicks. If some of their viewers can’t resist the story and look for it elsewhere, also good. I guess extremely ugly attacks on her will begin soon though. Especially since we know there are many other women with stories, incl about abortion, and they have to make an example of her.

  84. 84.

    Mary G

    OK, I am late to the thread and wasn’t going to contribute, because my credit card bill is one long string of Act Blue charges, but Bennie and the doggo changed my mind.

  85. 85.

    efgoldman

    @Yutsano: @Amir Khalid:

    I would enjoy Amir’s perspective not only as a Malaysian but also as a journalist. He could discuss good journalistic practices and then critique our current MSM fails. That could be brilliant.

    I’ve been meaning to ask Amir for months: How, as a foreigner (Malaysian) who spent several years as a foreign correspondent in the US, how he explains this idiot country to his people.

  86. 86.

    Amir Khalid

    @efgoldman:
    I’ve actually never spent more than a week at a time in the US, on assignment. And by the time I was visiting the US, your nation’s idiocies were already well known to the world.

  87. 87.

    efgoldman

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’ve actually never spent more than a week at a time in the US, on assignment.

    Ah. Somehow I got the impression that you were here for a good length of time on semi-permanent assignment. Sorry.
    (It’s probably because your observations and impressions are always spot on)

  88. 88.

    Mnemosyne

    @Amir Khalid:

    And by the time I was visiting the US, your nation’s idiocies were already well known to the world.

    That would cover pretty much any period of our history from 1796 forward. ?

  89. 89.

    worn

    “Feating”, Doug!? Really? Is there a good purpose is leaving out the U & R? Those kids will never think yer cool, even if you go all ployglot and attempt to adopt their lingo…

  91. 91.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

    Coward!

    No, kidding.

    I know you’re far more interested in learning the guitar. Interestingly my neighbor is a professional musician, as a side line. He’s a journalist / copy editor for reals, which now-a-days is precarious. But he works on rebuilding damaged old precious instruments, and plays with another fellow, old time string music from the mountain culture of the US.

    He plays at bars and restaurants, have a CD they hawk. The last time they played in town and we went (some time ago now) Ray Wiley Hubbard came in with some local radio show producer types. Later on he sent Pablo a nice note, telling him that he (Ray) admired their pure old time music, and that they played their (pablo’s) CD on Ray’s tour bus.

    Which put neighbor pablo Over The Moon, as Ray Wiley Hubbard is much admired around here. He rebuilds old damaged fiddles and guitars, and then trades or sells them for a small profit. But really, he’s mostly reclaiming them so that they don’t get tossed away. Quite a good guy, started playing electric guitar blues as a teen, then branched out into old time mountain string music after moving down here into the old time mountains.

  92. 92.

    StringOnAStick

    @Aleta: Yes, there is a Stormy black out at National Equirer. I just got back from the grocery store and the NE is all about that ebil melanin enhanced ex-pres attacking St. Stupid the Unready. The equally trashy checkout line mag “Insight” is all over the Stormy business though, trumpeting sex with the mango moron right there on the cover! For the particular demographic that reads such stuff, it seems like sex scandals generally win the ratings war.

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