Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. let’s win this.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

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

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

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

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Happy News

Wednesday Evening Open Thread: Happy News

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The Rochester Balloon Juice Meet-Up should be getting underway at the Tap & Mallet.

Too also…

(The BBC points out there have been temporary suspensions before. But one assumes the whinging on the so-far-“Left”-they’re-in-97%-agreement-with-the-Wingnuttiest-Right is epic.)

Reader Interactions

135Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    It’s the rapid advances in the human condition that have precipitated our current depressing political situation.

  3. 3.

    Yutsano

    Speaking of which…need to drop you a reminder re: Seattle meet-up. Saturday seems to be the best day for folks so we might just need a meeting spot and time.

  5. 5.

    Gin & Tonic

    This Cohen guy sounds like a decent human being, considering what a shitty lawyer he is.

  13. 13.

    kindness

    Assage has to decide which jail he wants to sit in. The one he’s in now where his jailers want him gone or an English or American jail. For my part I don’t want him in the US at all. Let him live freely somewhere else.

  15. 15.

    Major Major Major Major

    He’s right, and it’s very easy to lose sight of that, especially for those of us who follow the news (too?) closely. Keeping up with the daily fiascos can be very enervating, and I find some perspective definitely helps reinflate me sometimes.

  18. 18.

    Anotherlurker

    @schrodingers_cat: Of course men in uniform never lie! Each and every one of them is is hero who defends the 2nd (and only amendment that counts!) Boy Scouts, one and all!

  20. 20.

    Raoul

    Other happy news: Scott Walker has given up on his dastardly, anti-democracy special session to block the by-elections he knows the Rethugs will lose.
    The blowback (aka internal polling??) must have been brutal. This guy doesn’t usually back down from ratfucking the public.

  22. 22.

    kindness

    @Gin & Tonic: It was a figure of speech that fit in well with the rest of the sentence. And really, he is in a jail in that he isn’t free to leave because he fears being jailed. Odd how yin/yang that is, eh?

  23. 23.

    Gelfling 545

    @Baud:
    “the doc made Trump look good”. This is beyond the scope of medical science as it currently exists.

  27. 27.

    schrodingers_cat

    In not so uplifting news T plans to penalize legal immigrants with children by penalizing those who may have used federal subsidies for their children in their immigration applications. Party of family values, you guys. Hate is a value too.

    ETA: I know that lots of international students use the WIC programs.

  28. 28.

    Roger Moore

    @Baud:

    So, basically, the doc made Trump look good in exchange for the VA spot?

    That’s what conspiracy mongers will tell you, assuming that just because there’s a quid and a quo there’s some kind of quid pro quo going on.

  29. 29.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Major Major Major Major: Agreed. Never watched the show not interested in the revival. Not going to click on stories about the show either.

    ETA: Whenever I have heard Roseann on some late night shows, I had to mute her she has a horrible voice. Why would anyone subject themselves to that willingly.

  31. 31.

    Ohio Mom

    @Baud: I don’t watch TV anymore but if I did, and I watched Roseanne, it would have been solely out of morbid curiousity. I think one episode would have been enough.

  33. 33.

    Mnemosyne

    @Baud:

    So, basically, the doc made Trump look good in exchange for the VA spot?

    Yup. And yet we were all assured that a military doctor couldn’t possibly have a motive to falsify his report.

    Quid, meet quo. ?

  35. 35.

    NotMax

    Quick programming note.

    For those who like crime thrillers, the Czech series Mamon (originally on HBO Europe) is available to watch via Amazon Prime. Weaves an intricate tale of corruption over a compact run of six episodes.

  38. 38.

    cokane

    really important perspective to keep in mind and remember that much of that ground has been won in the poorer countries in the world and even more specifically among their female populations.

  39. 39.

    Gravenstone

    @Baud: Doubtful. The faux Trump physical happened before the latest revelation about Shulkin that landed him on Trump’s shitlist broke. Hard to offer a job you didn’t realize would be open.

  42. 42.

    Brachiator

    @Major Major Major Major:

    can’t say I want to do anything that might benefit a Trumpist, such as watching her show.

    Never watched the original show, so am not interested in the reboot. However, John Goodman is an acting treasure. I wish him well whatever he does.

    Hmmm. Apparently, exploring Trumpism is built into the series. From Jezebel.

    But if you’ve heard anything about this 10th season of what was once the edgiest of network sitcoms, you know that the most pronounced angling for relevance is in its decision to make protagonist Roseanne Connor a Trump supporter, just like the woman who created and plays her, Roseanne Barr. Much of the premiere was taken up by a feud between Roseanne and her sister Jackie (Laurie Metcalf), a pussy-hat wearing Hillary Clinton voter (as the two bickered, they did so with pronouns, never explicitly naming Trump or Hillary).

    I still have no interest in watching. Unless I hear that Goodman is doing some amazing shit with his character.

  44. 44.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Baud:

    I can think of very few things that interest me less. Never liked her as a comedian, never cared for her sitcom.

  46. 46.

    trollhattan

    @Doug R:
    Saw a Barr interview a couple months ago and she’s either ’round the bend for Trump or it was very good performance art.

    Hard pass on show, regardless of my love of things John Goodman.

  48. 48.

    Ohio Mom

    @efgoldman: I saw that post. By the end of the comment thread, I was convinced Carter was actually a very good president, that too many of us have fallen for some awful conventional wisdom about him.

  49. 49.

    WaterGirl

    Good news is good!

    And I have some of my own, as well. Another appointment with the orthopedist today at the 2-week mark. Broken bone is lined up perfectly and she can see from the new x-rays that the break is starting to heal Another NON-weight-bearing cast today and I see her again in 2 weeks for a repeat of the x-ray and another non-weight-bearing cast.

    After the appointment, my friend who brought me there in my car went to the parking lot and pulled up to pick me up. She turned off my car, and then it wouldn’t start. Jumping the car didn’t work, called my car guy and none of his suggestions worked, got the car towed, she found a friend who could pick us up, Took about an hour and a half, which was a drag, but I don’t care because the good news from the doctor is what really matters.

    No surgery > car troubles!

  50. 50.

    Thoughtful David

    So I see the chief executive of the Southern Baptist Convention executive committee has resigned over a recent “morally inappropriate relationship WaPo” and hopes to rebuild the trust of his wife and daughters. He immediately called President Bill Clinton to apologize for attacking him for years for Clinton’s indiscretion, and then to Hillary Clinton for having used her husband’s indiscretion against her. He immediately followed that with a tweet sent out calling for Trump to resign and calling Trump a “slut.”
    I kid, I kid.

  53. 53.

    Baud

    @Ohio Mom:

    that too many of us have fallen for some awful conventional wisdom about him.

    They do that with all our Dems, especially Hillary, as we learned. They’ll try to chip away at Obama too. They do not give up.

  54. 54.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    For those who like crime thrillers, the Czech series Mamon (originally on HBO Europe) is available to watch via Amazon Prime. Weaves an intricate tale of corruption over a compact run of six episodes.

    Is this subtitled?

  55. 55.

    RedDirtGirl

    @Baud: I thought at first that Trump’s private physician, with the wild hair, was now head of the VA!

  56. 56.

    efgoldman

    @Baud:

    Read a story that said it got good ratings.

    Remember Baud’s and PT Barnum’s favorite saying: “There’s a sucker born every minute.” And Mencken’s “Nobody ever went broke Underestimating the intelligence of the American public.”

  59. 59.

    Mike E

    @Baud: it’s about the same as back when I could take it or leave it (I left, mostly)…no Tr*mpers we’re aided by me during the viewing of said program as far as I know

  60. 60.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Maybe it’s just me, but I can’t figure out what you are referencing. is there news that the “Trump weighs 239 pounds and is in great health” doc just got a post at the VA? Seriously?

    Everything is for sale, apparently.

  61. 61.

    Aleta

    Students’ test scores rise a few weeks after families get food stamps

    A new study of thousands of North Carolina families published last week in the peer-reviewed American Educational Research Journal, took advantage of a North Carolina quirk: Food stamps, officially called SNAP, are distributed on different weeks of the month based on recipients’ social security numbers. This creates a natural experiment, since some students’ families will receive their benefits close to the state test, while others will receive them two, three, or four weeks earlier.

    Families often run out of money during the month and have to do without or rely on cheaper, less healthy food until their benefits are replenished. … This idea led the North Carolina researchers to expect student achievement to spike right after the benefits were distributed. But in fact, … scores were highest around three weeks after families received benefits, and lowest at the beginning and end of that cycle. The differences were modest, but statistically significant.

    It’s not fully clear why scores spike around that three-week mark, but the researchers suggest that the academic benefits of better access to food, like improved nutrition and reduced stress, take some time to accrue.

    “Students with peak test performance (who received SNAP around two weeks prior to their test date) may have benefited from access to sufficient food resources and lowered stress not only on the day of the test but for the previous two weeks,” Gassman-Pines and Bellows write.

    Other research has linked food stamp cycles and what happens in school, too.  A South Carolina study found that students performed worst when tests were administered at the very beginning or the end of food stamp benefit cycles. A paper focusing on Chicago found students receiving SNAP benefits had more behavioral problems at the end of the month, when food may have run low.
    …
    And while the North Carolina study focuses on how SNAP timing affects students on a specific test day, the researchers point out the consequences going hungry or subsisting on less healthy food may multiply over time.

    “[Students] may be less able to learn because of temporarily lowered cognitive functioning or less ability to pay attention,” the researchers write. “Even if these periods represent only a few days each SNAP benefit cycle, these consequences of these ‘lowered learning’ days over the course of the school year may accumulate over the course of the academic year.”

    -By Matt Barnum, in Chalkbeat Education News. In Context.

  63. 63.

    WaterGirl

    @Raoul: I thought a judge ruled that he had to do it, and gave him only until Thursday (tomorrow) to schedule the special elections.

  64. 64.

    cokane

    @trollhattan: Barr’s long been given to crazy conspiracy theories and over the years has had a crazy pinballing political alleigance. She seems like your typical, low-information swing voter, basically the perfect marks for Trump in 2016.

  65. 65.

    Roger Moore

    @Raoul:

    The blowback (aka internal polling??) must have been brutal.

    Either that or he didn’t relish the idea of going to jail for contempt.

  66. 66.

    Yarrow

    @Baud: I saw a bit about the show on a TV at the gym. They said it was exploring the white working class which, according to the piece, isn’t shown on TV. I thought, hell, just turn to the cable channels. They’re all over that demo.

  67. 67.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    I had the honor and pleasure of coordinating a volunteer team from the Canadian Consulate General in Atlanta to partner with The Carter Center on Guinea Worm eradication. I am beyond thrilled at this news, and so glad Jimmy beat his cancer and stayed around to witness the fulfillment of one of his main post-Presidency priorities.

    This scourge has been around since Old Testament times, at least. The Fiery Serpent. Its eradication is a huge step forward in global health.

  70. 70.

    NotMax

    @SiubhanDuinne

    Heads-up that Friday is opera day on TCM. Films and shorts about opera or with opera stars from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., including an otherwise forgettable movie featuring Lily Pons, Hitting a New High at 2:30 p.m. Eastern.

  75. 75.

    Brachiator

    @NotMax:

    Heads-up that Friday is opera day on TCM. Films and shorts about opera or with opera stars from 6 a.m. until 8 p.m., including an otherwise forgettable movie featuring Lily Pons, Hitting a New High at 2:30 p.m. Eastern.

    Oh, man. I thought “Hitting a New High” was about drugs…

  76. 76.

    debbie

    In 1990, half the world lived in extreme poverty – today it’s less than 10 percent.

    Can’t wait to see how Trump claims credit for this.

  77. 77.

    ruemara

    @schrodingers_cat: I really don’t want to see what a Democratic loss of the House & Senate in 2018 could do to hurt legal greencard holders. They’re not going to stop until they are stopped.

  79. 79.

    Baud

    @Yarrow:

    If Trump weren’t a fraud, I could see it. Somehow I doubt Roseanne will talk about Trump’s favors to Wall Street. We’ll see.

  80. 80.

    WaterGirl

    @RedDirtGirl: Thank you, i am much relived. That’s what they told me 10 days ago, but I worried that the weight-bearing x-ray might show something different. Now I am giving a big sigh of relief!

  81. 81.

    efgoldman

    @Ohio Mom:

    I was convinced Carter was actually a very good president

    He really wasn’t. Huge strength of character, but not a very good politician. Basically he alienated Ted Kennedy and Tip O’Neill – not wise.

  82. 82.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I saw part of it and didn’t care for it. Roseanne was annoyingly and stereotypically pro-Trump and far more selfish than in the original series.

    You’d have hated the sister. She was wearing a pussy hat and arguing politics. Toward the end, she blamed Roseanne for making her switch her vote from Hillary to Stein.

  84. 84.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Anyone around with keys to the front door? Tom L’s post upstairs is having the same issues his last thread did a day or two ago — grey type on black background for the comments. His OP, and all other threads, are fine. Something wonky going on, and it would be a nice thing to figure it out and get it fixed.

    Thanks in advance!

  85. 85.

    trollhattan

    Has Trump offered him a job yet?

    Former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle is seeking release from a Colorado federal prison, saying his guilty plea in a child pornography case was based on an illegal conspiracy charge and should be thrown out.

    Fogle, 40, this week sought a writ of habeas corpus from the federal court in Denver.

    He is serving a 15-year, eight-month sentence in nearby Littleton, following a 2015 guilty plea to distributing child pornography and traveling for paid sex with girls.

  86. 86.

    Gravenstone

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: A reward for job well done, I can accept that. Thinking the posting with the VA is a further promised reward just doesn’t add up for timing. Now Trump being kindly disposed towards Dr. Jackson and pushing him for the posting (because Trump seems to have a vanishingly small circle of people he thinks favorably of), that I can easily see.

  88. 88.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Brachiator: Well, I thought I remember hearing that his character died in the original show. Since the character is now presumably alive, does that count as “something amazing with the character”?

    Being old, I remember when Roseanne Barr was just starting up. Ms. Magazine was singing her praises as a fresh face in standup comedy, which she was. I think the character in the sitcom is basically her standup persona and pretty much who she is, or was.

  90. 90.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Yarrow:
    Didn’t the original Roseanne do that already 20 years ago?

    This reboot is going to bomb, especially if Roseanne, being an asshole T supporter, is portrayed as being right all the time. It’ll still fail even if it let’s another character have equal time to contradict her. The stakes are too high for stupid sitcom jokes to be funny.

  91. 91.

    Gravenstone

    @WaterGirl: The necessarily short run up those special elections is going to make it rough for any candidates. Hope the Dem side had people in mind to run as soon as they challenged Walker in court.

  93. 93.

    Yarrow

    @Baud: I won’t be watching to find out. Just happened to see that piece while at the gym. I have a feeling that last night’s ratings were largely curiosity based and that ratings will fall but I guess we’ll see.

  98. 98.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @debbie:
    Yup. Sounds fucking awful and unfunny. That’s actually very close to how I imagined it was going to go; hacktacular writing that can’t deal in the nuance that our current age requires. Out of touch.

  99. 99.

    PJ

    @NotMax: The Czech series Pustina (Wasteland) is also supposed to be very good, and it looks like it is now available on HBO.

  102. 102.

    evodevo

    @cokane: Yes. This. One reason I quit watching the series back in the ’90’s. Remember the kerfluffle when she accused her parents of molesting her when she was a child? She was under the care of one of those “recovered memory” quack psychologists at the time…she later took it back.

  104. 104.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @efgoldman:

    But he has been a fine former president.

    The Carter Center has been a model for other presidents — not just a library/archive, not just a museum, but a focused, activist organization which can take on public policy initiatives beyond the scope or will of the US Government.

    I voted for Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 1980, and since moving to Atlanta, have worked with him (he and Rosalynn are very hands-on) and his colleagues on several projects where Carter Center and Government of Canada priorities coincided. But I would probably have volunteered in any case. I’m a big fan and I’m glad he’s still around.

  106. 106.

    Baud

    As bad as supporting Trump is, if the show has Roseanne come out as anti-vax, people should boycott the network.

  108. 108.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Baud:
    Agreed. It would be one thing if they were going for an Archie Bunker thing.

  110. 110.

    ? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?

    @Yarrow:
    Oh but don’t you see the genius of it? White tv for the whites and black tv for the blacks!

  111. 111.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @NotMax:

    Never saw (or even heard of) that one, although I have fond memories of I Dream Too Much (Pons opposite an astonishingly young Henry Fonda, and featuring Lucille Ball in an early supporting role), which had one of my very-fave-of-all-times songs, “The Jockey on the Carousel.”

  112. 112.

    debbie

    @Yarrow:

    They had two Roseanne episodes last night, followed by blackish. I assume they will only run one episode in the future; hopefully, they’ll put a show in between.

  116. 116.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    I must confess, I am rooting for Trump against Amazon, Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maximum Culpa.

  119. 119.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Yutsano:

    This is making me look SO FORWARD to the Murphy Brown reboot!

    The last couple of seasons were pretty lame (whenever they make the lead character have a child, that’s pretty much always jumping the fucking shark for me), but I loved MB in its first few seasons. Of course, Colleen Dewhurst was half the fun, and after she died ….

  121. 121.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yutsano:

    I’m pretty sure that Candace Bergen has remained a committed liberal her whole life. Hell, I think she even became friends with her husband’s secret mistress after he died.

  124. 124.

    Another Scott

    @Gravenstone: Yup.

    Just wanting to get his second star (rear admiral upper half) was enough of a reason not to do anything other than what Donnie wanted.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  125. 125.

    zhena gogolia

    @? ?? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ? ?:

    The original was good in the first few seasons. She and Goodman were great together, and Laurie Metcalf was hilarious. But I have zero interest in this version. (even though Laurie M. looked pretty funny in her pussy hat in the picture I saw)

  127. 127.

    Fair Economist

    @debbie: So the female leads for Roseanne are a Trumpist and a purity pony (in character, and IRL for the Trumpist at least)? I am SO skipping that show.

  128. 128.

    Darrin Ziliak (formerly glocksman)

    If we’re going to reboot old TV shows, let’s see a remake of Lou Grant instead of crap like Roseanne .
    I never liked the Mary Tyler Moore show, but loved the spinoff.
    It’d be both topical and a slap in the face to the stenographers who fancy themselves reporters if Lou became editor of a major NYC or DC paper.

  129. 129.

    Old Dan and Little Anne

    I watched Roseanne in its heyday and liked it. I watched the other night wanting to hate it. It turned out to be a bizarre trip down memory lane. I laughed a half of dozen times. Jackie makes a lame liberal and actually vote democrat for Jill Stein because Roseanne convinced her Hillary was to terrible. Fuck that.

  131. 131.

    NotMax

    @PJ

    Shall mentally file away the name. Don’t have HBO, but some of their stuff shows up on Netflix or Amazon Prime later on.

  133. 133.

    sdhays

    @Raoul: I think this thread is nearing death, but… according to WPR, Walker is not backing off. He’s just not bothering anymore with the courts and will just have the bill passed in the extraordinary session retroactively nullify anything he temporarily has to do. I question the legality of the bill since it’s clearly a brazen effort to disenfranchise people, but that’s another issue.

  134. 134.

    sukabi

    @WaterGirl: that’s great ankle news ???…sucks about the car…but you’ve got time to get it fixed…it’s not like you’ll be driving for a while any way.☺

  135. 135.

    Nancy

    ROCHESTER TAP AND MALLET MEET-UP was nice. Hope we can continue to meet. It was wonderful to meet some like-minded people and see the dogs and fish photos.

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