Tikka is not amused:
Meanwhile: this is the kind of thing a good representative does:
This isn’t headline legislation. It’s not going to transform lives tomorrow, or next month. It’s not going to answer the question of why, in a modern, extremely wealthy and technologically sophisticated country, everyone isn’t sure of their next meal. It doesn’t even make a difference to many folks in the slice of the problem under scrutiny: elite colleges, for example, are pretty good about making sure everyone’s on a meal plan.
But it does move the ball. Maybe just a little — but you take the small steps when you can get them along with (and especially in between) the breakthroughs. There are lots and lots of students for whom college is a struggle. Food insecurity doesn’t help, or rather, it just makes life worse, perhaps derailing education altogether. This is an attempt to ease that burden, not now, not fast, but sooner than it would have been without this one senator’s intervention.
In other words: good leaders do good in plain view and way below the reader radar. Let’s elect more of them this fall.
Jerzy Russian
Suggested captions:
Come over here and explain to me what happened to my testicles.
Come any closer and I will chew off your head and shit down your neck.
schrodingers_cat
Floofy belly of doom.
Tom Levenson
@Jerzy Russian: Pretty much.
schrodingers_cat
@Tom Levenson: Such a handsome boy, I will remain a diehard fangirl, furevver and ever.
HILFY
Obviously the requested tummy rub is not being performed on schedule. The household human had better get on the job, stop fooling with that electronic gadget.
Thanks for the cat pic first thing in the a.m. That makes the Saturday start better.
zhena gogolia
@HILFY:
And as soon as you start to rub the belly, “the beast will unsheath its claws” (Dostoevsky, The Devils).
zhena gogolia
@HILFY:
So you think it’s Saturday too? I was railing that I didn’t get my Sunday Times magazine this morning, until my husband calmly pointed out that it’s Friday.
Tom Levenson
@zhena gogolia: ‘zacktly. I have the proof upon my body.
schrodingers_cat
@Tom Levenson: He doesn’t want you to rub his belly, he wants you to draw him like one of your French girls.
NotMax
Certainly may be true, but I think you meant radar.
;)
No Drought No More
On the heels of Schumer’s DACA debacle, I think it would be a good idea for him to stepped aside as minority leader. Whether he was outfoxed outright, or simply credulous enough to believe Mitch McConnell, he should cop to it publicly. By citing his falling short in defending Dreamers, his voluntary relinquishment of the leadership would make the perfect bookend to Nancy Pelosi’s marathon defense of them in the House. It would also make the democratic rank and file proud…
schrodingers_cat
@No Drought No More: Ds can’t protect the Dreamers on their own, they don’t control the Senate or the House or the WH for that matter.
Gravenstone
Tika setting the famed kitty death trap. Touch my belly, I dare you!
Gravenstone
@No Drought No More: You are aware that McCain-Coons was en route to passing cloture, until Shitgbbon Inc. began actively lobbying the Senate against it, right?
Yutsano
@No Drought No More: If you’re suggesting Minority Leader Patty Murray, I can get behind that. But not from shivving Schumer. In fact Schumer is doing quite well as a Minority Leader. Which makes me question your motivations.
schrodingers_cat
I agree with Greg Sargent, T and his R minions in the Senate own this disaster. We have clarity on who wants what, the votes are in.
Brachiator
@No Drought No More:
It’s not just about defending Dreamers. It’s about the larger issue of immigration.
Schumer should just lay down a challenge. The GOP leadership and even Trump the Chump claim that they care about Dreamers. It should not even be on the table and so crafting suitable legislation should be a piece of cake. Failing that, the president could re-issue an executive order.
If the Republicans want to sacrifice Dreamers, it is entirely on them.
ETA: Tikka looks like a totally Boss Kat.
But her emails!!!
@No Drought No More:
Schumer did just fine. DACA went up for a vote in the Senate. Republicans under pressure from Trump killed it. Do we not know how the Senate works and what the term minority leader means?
Yutsano
@schrodingers_cat: Tikka is awaiting his sushi grade ahi and belly rubs with follow-up scratching post time.
Amir Khalid
I’ve said this before: Tikka has the eyes of Lee Van Cleef.
Villago Delenda Est
@Amir Khalid: Whatchoo mean “bad”, hombre?
debbie
Has Tikka ever seemed to be amused?
debbie
@Amir Khalid:
Link doesn’t work, but I know who you mean. One scary guy.
WaterGirl
When I was in college, there was one summer where I pretty much lived on the tomatoes given to me by the neighbor who had a big garden. They were the staple of every meal but breakfast, and I built my meals around the tomatoes, with other things to round that out a bit
Repatriated
@zhena gogolia: Protip: Wear a worn-out leather jacket (that you don’t mind sacrificing) and draw your hand up into the sleeve.
You get to pet the floof, cat gets to play with claws out, no blood gets shed. Win-win!
A handy source for suitable leather jackets is the ones you wear when trying to get the aforementioned cat into a pet carrier.
Repatriated
@Repatriated: …after forgetting the easy way: Remove the top, and it becomes an irresistible “box to sit in”.
Otherwise, it’s a “confined space of doom”.
Tom Levenson
@debbie: Oh yeah. I give him a fair amount of grief, here and in TRW. But he can be a sweetie.
When he chooses.
And he’s not choosing now.
(Actually he is. He’s on his towel next to my computer as I type this and we’re having a very nice moment indeed, thank you very much.*)
*Of course, I just fed him.
Peale
I love how Schumer gets hit with the “We need new faces” complaint. He’s only had the job for one year. Its like our progressive betters have just forgotten Harry Reid and decided that Schumer has been in charge of the Senate Democrats for decades.
donnah
Good for Elizabeth Warren helping lay a groundwork for college student food security. Like Watergirl, my college experience was pretty bare bones. While I was attending a university alongside lots of wealthy students, I was there on a wing and a prayer, my own savings from a full time job, a grant, and a student loan. It was hard to not be envious of girls in my dorm who shopped uptown for clothes and spent their parents’ money on items I considered to be luxuries.
I know what it’s like to get by on starchy college dining hall food and scrimp to get some chips or coffee. I did feel somewhat proud of getting by on what I had, but there were times when I would have liked shopping uptown, too.
opiejeanne
@WaterGirl: I was stunned to hear Olympic skater Adam Rippon say something similar, about living in his coach’s basement while training and eating lots of apples because he had no money. He didn’t explain where he got them but made it sound like that was all he had most of the time.
Roger Moore
@Repatriated:
I leave my carrier out all the time (with the door off) so my cat gets used to it. He’ll sometimes use it as a place to hide.
Roger Moore
@Peale:
If I didn’t know better, I’d think they care more about stirring shit up and knifing Democrats in the back then they do about advancing progressive causes and making the country a better place.
opiejeanne
@donnah: My older daughter was a dance major and for the first year she was on a food plan. A tour of the cafeteria made her comment on something she heard in her department as a warning: The Freshman Fifteen, in reference to the starchy foods in abundance there. There were also some healthy choices but a lot of kids in a hurry and away from a nagging parent for the first time are likely to choose the Mac n cheese or the pizza and walk right past the salad bar and fresh fruit.
Bill
Is there a link to that full letter somewhere?
Tom Levenson
@opiejeanne: While I was on a meal plan the whole time in college, and thus can’t remotely say I suffered, the Polynesian Meat Like Balls were an episodic focus of concern.
donnah
@opiejeanne:
Ha ha, when I was in college, it was the Freshman Ten.
japa21
@Roger Moore: Considering only 3 Dems voted No on McCain-Coombs and it failed by 6 votes, I don’t know how Schumer failed. Specially since the vote on Trumps proposal failed miserably.
rikyrah
Tikka is hilarious
Gin & Tonic
Eating at a diner where the home fries are real chopped up potatoes fried in the griddle. That’s really nice, and unfortunately rare enough that I need to mention it.
FlipYrWhig
@japa21: Clearly he DIDNT. EVEN. TRY.
Minority leader is picked by the members of the caucus. If they don’t want someone who’s going to aim to please some subset of the non-Senate part of the party a/k/a “the rank and file,” meaning aggrieved Twitterati, they don’t have to. Our Progressive Betters hated Harry Reid too. They hated Tom Daschle, they hated Richard Gephardt, they hated Rahm Emanuel. They hate everybody. It’s their thing. So, fuck them, nobody fucking cares what they think, say, or do.
Spanky
@FlipYrWhig: Well hang on. They were right about Rahm.
hueyplong
There are lots of people who should be stepping aside. They are not Democrats.
Maybe we should be concentrating our fire on the other side.
Just One More Canuck
@Peale: Maybe he’s using the same time machine Obama had. Did you ever think of that? Huh?
opiejeanne
I think I have a comment that has disappeared. Can someone free it?
Oh wait, never mind I think it’s on a previous thread.
Cheryl Rofer
This is big.
LAO
@Cheryl Rofer: Here’s a link to the indictment: INDICTMENT
Steeplejack (phone)
This seems like a good thread to complain that I have not been seeing enough coverage of the cat curling at the Olympics.
schrodingers_cat
I am looking for a link of the vote count for the Grassley immigration bill, that had the President’s blessings. Thanks.
Cheryl Rofer
ixnay
@Repatriated: This is a time-honored technique. Start a few days ahead if possible.
Cheryl Rofer
Ron Rosenstein is speaking about the indictments.
debbie
@Tom Levenson:
So you say. But I still wouldn’t turn my back on him.
WaterGirl
@opiejeanne: My guess is that there was an apple tree somewhere close by.
zhena gogolia
@Repatriated:
I use my Tunch sweatshirt.
zhena gogolia
@Cheryl Rofer:
One of them is named Podkopaev, formed from the verb “to undermine.” Hmmmm.
J R in WV
Wow, what a news drop for Friday afternoon. Reading the actual document, into page 17 of 37 pages, here’s a money quote:
I’ve believed Bernie Sanders was a Russian stooge since the first time I heard him speak about a real subject. Now we know that as far as the Russians were and are concerned, he is one of them!
Steeplejack
@schrodingers_cat:
Vox:
Steeplejack
@Bill:
I did a fair to middling search on the Google and couldn’t find anything. Weird.
Maybe e-mail Levenson (“Quick Links” at the top of the page) and ask him.
schrodingers_cat
@Steeplejack: Thanks, I did see that link earlier. I wanted the names of the Rs that voted against, which I found later from the senate.gov website.