You know, before the (fingers crossed) jail time.
Of course Paul Ryan couldn’t even be creative in his departure. LOL
I’m off to buy some plants. But looked like we could use an open thread before I dashed off.
I’m planning on a recipe post later in the week, here’s my Easter Cake to tide you over until then.
And because I like you, bonus “pile-o-puppies”
Current mood at my house. LOL. Scout went through the METAL part of the screen door this week. Puppies..
Open thread
Brachiator
I don’t know if anybody posted about this earlier (been away and working), but…
RE: a recent series of posts about malapropisms. A guy on a recent episode of Wheel of Fortune, looked at a completely spelled out puzzle, and blew it.
The puzzle said, “Flamenco Dancing Class.”
The guy smiled and confidently announced, “Flamingo Dancing Class.”
He didn’t quite understand why he was buzzed wrong and the next contestant nailed it.
Everybody have a nice day. As nice as cute puppies dreaming puppy dreams.
Fair Economist
After his retirement, will we get a Behaving Private Ryan?
rikyrah
I love the picture of Scout and her bestest buddy. Hilarious :)
They just chilling…LOL
JPL
Cake and puppies, these are a few of my favorite things.
opiejeanne
Lovely cake and pile of doggies.
Frankensteinbeck
Another mention, just because the early morning threads are not great for it.
I know I have readers here, or at least relatives of readers. The final Penny Akk volume of the Please Don’t Tell My Parents I’m A Supervillain is finally out. You can get it here for your adorable sprogs, and please leave a review! I found out Amazon alters their algorithms based on how many reviews you get.
rikyrah
Coconut cake with lemon?
Yummmmmmm
LAO
It National Pet Day! A fake holiday I can really get behind.
TaMara (HFG)
@Frankensteinbeck: Oh, man that reminds me, one of our Authors In Our Midst has a new book out and you can get it free today.
Here is the link. Creatures of Appetite – Todd Travis
I’ve been so busy I completely forgot. Boo- me!
TaMara (HFG)
@Frankensteinbeck: And YAY! you!!
CaseyL
Puppies! Just saw on the news that more and more college dorms are starting to let students bring their goggies to room with them:
Dogs in Dorms
rikyrah
After fulfilling his lifelong dream of exacerbating economic inequality, Paul Ryan is ready to depart for the private sector https://t.co/VXeiEk9oFC
— New York Magazine (@NYMag) April 11, 2018
Betty Cracker
@Brachiator: Speaking of flamenco vs. flamingo, I was waiting for a take-out order at the Columbia Restaurant in Tampa a while back. It’s a wonderful place that is famous for its food, service, atmosphere and flamenco show. So, there were a bunch of folks hanging around the reservations stand waiting to be seated, and a dude loudly asked how much were tickets to the “flamingo dancing show.” In the course of the ensuring conversation with the maître d, it became clear the guy thought there were literal dancing pink birds at the Columbia, and everyone burst into laughter. I kinda felt sorry for the guy, but he took it well.
Mathguy
That is a gargantuan sofa to have room for those two pups.
rikyrah
Charles Gaba crunches the numbers and finds that middle-class people buying their own insurance this year are paying nearly $1,000 more on average b/c of Trump’s health care sabotage.
He also has state-by-state breakdowns.https://t.co/QiEHwQR2JS
— Sam Berger (@SamBerger_DC) April 11, 2018
rikyrah
Ryan knew that Donald Trump is a racist and a conman who shouldn’t be allowed within a light year of the role of commander in chief, but supported him anyway gambling that he could use him to pass unpopular policies
— Seth D. Michaels ? (@sethdmichaels) April 11, 2018
rikyrah
The enormous movement of younger voters towards Democrats this cycle is one of the biggest stories in American politics today. Size of the shift not well understood, but it is huge. Dems led by 9 in 2014, 33 today. Total gamechanger. My take – https://t.co/lt3j3tF5ZK
— Simon Rosenberg (@SimonWDC) April 11, 2018
The Ancient Randonneur
@Betty Cracker: Did you see that Dennis Ross announced he is not running for reelection?
oatler.
@Betty Cracker: As recreated in “Fantasia 2”.
Nicole
Audio editing today, on the next new episode of Uncanny County, the podcast I contribute to. In it, I wrote out all of my rage (well, some of my rage) at the 2016 election. I think it’ll be good, but man oh man, do I hate post-production, because it’s just not in my skill set. My fantasy is to win the lottery and hire a sound designer to do all this for me. God bless the folk who do know how to do this stuff and put up lots of youtube videos about it, so I can type into google, “make sound like it’s coming from a TV” and there’s someone there, showing you how to do just that.
ruemara
Hunh. These rats are leaving in the hopes that we’ll take their retirement in lieu of their imprisonment. No deal.
MattF
@rikyrah: There’s a huge shift.
Brachiator
@Betty Cracker:
Ha! Yeah, that’s sad and funny. “Waiter, there’s a feather in my soup.”
No Drought No More
May he live long enough to hike the Appalachian Trail with his great-grandchildren, but come the day he dies, let these words and corresponding date be carved on the tombstone of David Brooks: “For all the hype, the Mueller investigation looks less and less likely to fundamentally alter the course of the [Trump] administration” April 2018.
SiubhanDuinne
Aww. So cute. What a pair of lazy good-for-nothing knuckleheads!
Yarrow
That cake looks delicious! Yum! And the pile o’ doggies–so cute.
@Fair Economist:
We’ll get an Indicted former Speaker Ryan, followed by an Inmate Ryan.
Annie
I’m almost sorry about Ryan. I wanted him to lose his re-election by a humiliatingly huge margin.
Gin & Tonic
@CaseyL: Back, oh, mumble-mumble years ago I lived in a dorm where it was known that rules about behavior were, um, relaxed. Rooms were generally set up in suites, so, say, a double room, two single rooms, a bathroom and kitchen would be one suite. One of the guys in one of the singles during my freshman year had, after a time, a girl (not a student) living with him. She brought her dog – an Irish wolfhound. Not a good dog for a dorm, particularly as the girl worked, so had much less “free time” than us students.
Not really an ideal living situation. Oh, there was also a cat of unclear ownership, whom nearly everyone fed, so it assumed enormous proportions – I think I recall 27 pounds or something.
Brachiator
Ah, here’s a video clip of the hapless sap whose brain and mouth said “Flamingo Dance Lessons” even though his eyes saw “Flamenco Dance Lessons” on a recent episode of Wheel of Fortune. It was a $7,100 malapropism.
Betty Cracker
@The Ancient Randonneur: I did, and good riddance to that teaturd, Trump-chump lackey of the 1%! Ross ran into a buzz saw at a town hall event a couple months back thanks to Trump’s embarrassing and destructive presidency. Hopefully that’s what scared him off. It’s a solidly Republican district, but maybe a Democrat can win! Much better chance without an incumbent.
James E. Powell
Just as the press/media will never acknowledge or apologize for hating Hillary Clinton for no reason, they will never acknowledge or apologize for promoting Ryan as a serious policy wonk who has good ideas and only cares about the debt. He is and always has been a corrupt and immoral asshole who gleefully inflicts suffering on people who are helpless.
EBT
Ryan’s father and grandfather both died in their early 50s from a heart condition. Ryan wants to spend his last few years with his young family.
Kay
@James E. Powell:
They should have a going away party for him. They created him. It’s only fair they usher him out.
Remember the fake plans he used to release that everyone would swoon over? Like 11 pages of nonsense- his sole work output for whole sessions.
Brachiator
@rikyrah:
I just hope the yoots remain energized and come out and vote.
Also, too, in California, you can pre-register at 16 and vote at 18.
Hint to the Democratic Party. Although I recognize the importance of old wise veterans, you gotta get more candidates with youth appeal. There is an intangible factor at play here, so I am not just talking about clones of Justin Trudeau.
Elizabelle
@Yarrow: License Making Ryan.
Kay
@James E. Powell:
They hate Pelosi too, and also Elizabeth Warren. I don’t think Warren should run for President because I would bet 50 dollars they’ll Hillary her. I can already tell.
bemused
I wouldn’t normally read Erick Erickson but he had an interesting piece in the Resurgent, A Congressman’s Profanity Laced Tirade in Safeway Grocery Store which has more detail than his tweets on this chance meeting.The congressman, who did not want to be identified, really did go off on the messes the GOP is in. He called trump an evil, effing stupid Forrest Gump, that he can’t say in public what he is saying in private or he’d get run out of rightwing town and more.
There was a comment in thread below about the Nancy Pelosi/cafeteria flap which made me laugh but the congressman mentioned that too. I had no idea it was such a big thing with republicans. He said he didn’t think Paul Ryan was going to stick around and deal with Pelosi and said Pelosi is going eff up the cafeteria.
Barbara
@EBT: I deduce he is one of those people like Jim Fixx who took up extreme fitness pursuits with the idea that he would stave off some kind of familial curse. I think there have been strides in understanding and treatment of heart conditions over the last 30 years (approximately when Ryan’s father died) but if I were him I might do the same thing.
West of the Rockies
I just encountered an interesting article on Mediaite relaying how Eric Son of Eric chatted in a Safeway dairy aisle with a GOP congressman who despises Trump. It was worth a chuckle.
Barbara
@bemused: Saw that at GOS, where I just had to go to see how they were receiving the news of Ryan’s exit stage right.
The Moar You Know
@CaseyL: Let me say I’m all for this. In general.
Our Guide Dogs chapter has a pair of students who have been raising their Guide Dog puppy in their dorm and the results have been…diplomatically, I’ll say “not optimal”. The dog is a great dog and more than adequately socialized to humans – that part they’ve nailed – but he’s not going to be able to be a guide. We are not going to allow this again.
rikyrah
Nunes threatens to impeach Trump-appointed FBI director
04/11/18 10:40 AM
By Steve Benen
It’s been a few weeks since House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) made head-shaking news, so I guess we were due for a report like this one from Business Insider.
Apparently the California Republican, an unnervingly close ally of the Trump White House, wants the Justice Department to give him copies of unredacted documents used to launch the investigation into the Russia scandal.
At issue are materials that document George Papadopoulos’ revelation that Russia had acquired damaging information on Hillary Clinton. The Justice Department and the FBI, perhaps skeptical of the increasingly ridiculous House Intelligence Committee, has been reluctant to play along with Nunes’ plan to undermine their investigation.
But that resistance has only infuriated Nunes, who insisted last night on Fox News, “We’re at a boiling point where we need this.” Asked if he’s willing to impeach the director of the FBI, the congressman added, “Absolutely.”
EBT
@Barbara: Most of those strides involve doctors and surgeons, not running until his heart pops and they find him one morning in a gutter. (before anyone accuses me, that is how they found Fixx)
bemused
@Barbara:
I read just a few comments on resurgent which seemed to lean, Erick you stupid never trumper so I didn’t bother to read the rest.
ruemara
@EBT: He should be fine. We’ve seen no evidence of a heart.
@rikyrah: Cowardly Paul Ryan lets this Russian operative have free reign. Assholes, both of them.
piratedan
Good Riddance to Ryan but I certainly hope that when the shoes begin to drop that just because these guys are taking themselves out of the political arena that we can remember them fondly by confiscating all of their ill gotten gains at a minimum and perhaps they can see the “system” from the inside of a minimum security facility and be left without the warm comfort of watching Fox News because those fuckers are in the same cell block as them.
BruceFromOhio
Those dogs are really too high strung, and need to chill out.
Frankensteinbeck
@James E. Powell:
They will never know they were wrong. They promoted him not out of dishonesty, but out of innumeracy, shallowness, distaste for actual knowledge, and a firm, self-righteous belief that the poor and middle class have it too easy. Nothing in Ryan’s actions have betrayed those principles.
Roger Moore
@bemused:
I have no sympathy. We desperately need people with some gravitas and public stature within the right wing to stand up and say this kind of thing, but they’re too afraid of losing their friends and their cushy job. This isn’t even putting party over country; this is putting your tender emotions over country. What a fucking snowflake!
ruemara
@Roger Moore: The biggest difference between today’s republicans & the Watergate republicans is none of today’s have a scrap of loyalty to this country or a thimbleful of patriotism.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
I wonder why the Justice Department would be reticent about giving the unredacted documents about a counter-intelligence investigation to somebody who is a subject of that investigation. It’s so hard to understand. They need to unseal their indictments against this fucker post-haste.
Mnemosyne
In case anyone hasn’t heard, author Junot Diaz wrote a heartbreaking essay about how he was raped as a child, and how it affected the rest of his life, especially his relationships with women. He never excuses or minimizes the damage he did to other people while he was in denial about his own pain, which is a refreshing thing to see.
It’s very difficult to read — trigger warnings everywhere — but hopefully cathartic for him and his friends and family.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Saw the headline, decided to pass on it for now. I hope he is finding peace.
Fair Economist
@Brachiator: I’m guessing he didn’t know what “Flamenco” was so when he looked at the puzzle he probably saw “Flamingo”.
no comment
@Brachiator:
@Betty Cracker:
I was in the car listening to music with my husband, when he said something about emu music.
“What did you just say?”
“Emu music.”
Then he proceeded to describe the whiny, angst-ridden music he was referring to.
“Do you mean emo music?’
To be fair, he never thought any birds were involved. He thought EMU was an acronym or something. Still, I tease him about it occasionally.
bemused
@Roger Moore:
They built it and now they’re whining. They just wanted a president with working digits to be a good boy signing whatever they wanted. They thought they could control their far right radical voters and legislators. They thought wrong but I’m sure they’d do it all over again. No sympathy at all.
Barbara
@Roger Moore: Is there anyone who doubts that Nunes wants those documents to see what they have on him?
danielx
@rikyrah:
Also known as maximizing the potential upside.
Tarragon
@Frankensteinbeck:
Nice! Purchased for me of course.
Brachiator
@no comment:
Love it.
Maybe the Beatles were anticipating emu music when they wrote:
You tell me that you’ve got everything you want
And your bird can sing
But you don’t get me, you don’t get me
James E. Powell
@Kay:
I’m sensing a pattern here.
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
Yeah, it’s definitely a tough read, because he’s very honest about how he cut a swath of destruction through his life because he refused to deal with his issues. Part of his therapeutic process is acknowledging and publicly apologizing for that rather than continuing to stew in his self-hatred for having done it.
G read one of his books in a book club a few years ago and found Diaz’s macho self-destructiveness to be off-putting. Now he understands a little better why Diaz was putting up that front (though he doesn’t like the book any better even in retrospect.)
bookdragon
Aww. Sweetie doggies. My big guy lays upside down on the couch, legs in the air, just like that.
Favorite comment on Ryan today was that he’s retiring to spend more time with what’s left of his spine.
ruemara
@Mnemosyne: I shared that on facebook. I see so much of that damage in people I care about and the way he sought salvation in relationships – that he then destroyed. I’m glad he’s worked so hard on getting better.
A friend has been mad that I won’t give an ounce of sympathy because he has a habit of chasing women 17 years his junior (at best. half his age is not out of the question and once he was debating if a 40 year old could approach an 18 year old). Every reason for why he does this comes from his own internal brokenness. Young women are baggage free and will be more open to building a life with a man with not much money. They’re young and beautiful so that will fix him not finding himself beautiful. They’re simple and respectful (adoring and unquestioning of an older male).
It’s disturbing how a feminist man can utter those words without question, but after reading that, I understood a lot better how a man can twist himself into mental knots to be an utter shite.
Mnemosyne
@ruemara:
Yep, and Diaz is painfully honest about how his internal brokeness led him to seek out and then destroy the relationships that he hoped would “save” him. Now he seems to understand that no amount of love from another person could save him from himself — he needed to use therapy to save and heal himself.
satby
@The Moar You Know: It’s most rescue groups nightmare. Every spring the college student pets are often abandoned when the kids find out they can’t take them home, or can’t rent an apartment with a pet. We get adorable, poorly disciplined dogs and cats that are about 10 months old and have no idea why their beloved owners disappeared.
I hate that trend.
Mnemosyne
@satby:
It may make you feel better to know that, even when I was a stupid college kid, I got my unlawful cat spayed, transported her back across the country with me for the summer, and found her a new home on my own when I got busted.
satby
@Mnemosyne: it does ☺
Not all college kids ditch their pets, of course. But enough so to make it a problem in college towns.
zhena gogolia
@Brachiator:
LOL His face afterwards is white male privilege personified.
J R in WV
@ruemara:
“…It’s disturbing how a feminist man can utter those words without question…”
Simple. He isn’t a feminist, no more than Trump is.
Brachiator
@zhena gogolia:
It’s also understandable exasperation and confusion. The error may not have fully sunk in.
There was a similar situation on Jeopardy, where the answer was the song “Gangsta Paradise,” but the contestant lost because he said, “Gangster Paradise.”
different-church-lady
Looks like I picked the right day to start sniffing glue!
Mel
Thank you for sharing the photo – what happy fur kids! Bixby is such a handsome doggie, and Scout is adorable.
debbie
The others can have the puppies; I WANT THAT CAKE.