Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

Washington Post’s Catch and Kill, not noticeably better than the Enquirer’s.

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

Someone should tell Republicans that violence is the last refuge of the incompetent, or possibly the first.

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

This fight is for everything.

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

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

Books are my comfort food!

Let me file that under fuck it.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Because of wow. / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Out of Our League

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Out of Our League

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In related news, Not The Onion… but the BBC — “Does the US have a pet tiger problem?”:

Taj was a four-month-old tiger cub when purchased at a Texas truck stop by the driver of an 18-wheeler lorry. But after Taj began tearing up the truck’s cab, the driver contacted Austin Zoo to get the animal off his hands. The zoo now looks after the fully grown 17-year-old Bengal tiger male.

Taj is one of as many as 7,000 tigers living in the US either in zoos or privately owned, according to some estimates. That’s nearly double the estimated 3,890 tigers still prowling in the wild around the world.

Many of America’s tigers could be in people’s backyards as pets, and often aren’t registered, especially in states like Texas. No-one really knows just how many tigers there are out there.

At the heart of this surprising tiger turnout is the very American notion of a God-given right to do one’s own thing, including owning a pet – no matter how exotic – being an individual liberty that the state should not mess with…

It is easier to own a tiger than a dog that has been labelled dangerous in the state of Texas, which could have between 2,000 and 5,000 tigers.

“Texas is a conservative state and values personal liberties and the right to keep what you want,” says Pamela Boich of the Texas Human Legislation Network, an animal welfare lobbying group…

Floods and hurricanes notwithstanding, Texas’s climate is usually very amenable for tigers, meaning they can live outside year round, without the need for winter quarters, says John Gramieri, general curator at Austin Zoo…

And here we thought the imported boa constrictors in Florida were an ecological disaster!

Considerably further down the ‘dangerous wildlife’ scale…

The Washington Post quotes an academic expert:

… Suzanne MacDonald, a York University psychologist who studies urban raccoons… wasn’t worried. Why? Because raccoons — as their black masks might suggest — have “quite a few superpowers,” she explained not long after the drama ended Wednesday morning. The most obvious of those talents: a crack climbing ability.

The furry carnivores, which are native to North America and have thrived in its cities, possess limbs with great strength and five-toed paws with long claws and immense dexterity. Those allow the animals to break open clams and trash bins, and to scale construction cranes, chimneys and soaring trees. Their hind feet can rotate 180 degrees for easy descent. Vertigo almost certainly doesn’t afflict them…

MacDonald said it probably got into that spot thanks to another power that is only sometimes super: neophilia. Urban raccoons, unlike their rural brethren, tend to approach new things. That can get them warm nesting spots in attics but also get them sheepishly stuck atop cranes. This animal — which the company that trapped it early Wednesday told the Star-Tribune was a young female — probably started out by pursuing eggs in pigeon nests on a lower ledge of the office complex, MacDonald said, then got spooked and went up when construction workers offered it a makeshift ladder to help it reach the ground.

“They don’t plan things out. They don’t say, ‘If I climb this building, I will be stuck.’ They just do the thing and regret it later. It makes them very successful in the city, because they grab onto things and do things and fiddle around with things,” MacDonald said. The animal would have been tired and thirsty, but probably not too scared, hundreds of feet above the pavement, she added…

Gotta say, that is one of the scruffiest trash pandas I’ve ever seen, going back to my early 1970s experiences at a large Midwestern land-grant university where one particular bandit got so comfortable with being fed on the loading dock behind the Ag hall that he’d come into the janitors’ lunchroom if they missed his nightly appointment. Frankly, in the video below, the new viral celebrity kinda looks like she’s contemplating staying right there in that tidy little cat-food-enabled carrier…

Reader Interactions

122Comments

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    Dakota Johnson’s grandmother used to believe that big cats, lions and tigers, made good house pets. So this American peculiarity goes back quite a few years.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Tigers patrolling the halls will make our schools safer.

    Yeah, that’s the ticket.

  6. 6.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “This is something I’m trying to get better at,” Musk said. “I’m a fairly optimistic person.”

    Another way of saying, “I’m a lying sack of shit.”

    It was “a master class in emotional intelligence”, raved the business magazine Inc, and “a powerful lesson in authentic, heartfelt leadership”.

    Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, had emailed his entire staff following the May 2017 publications of separate investigations by the Guardian and a workplace safety organization showing high injury rates at the company’s northern California electric car factory.

    “No words can express how much I care about your safety and wellbeing,” Musk wrote. “Going forward, I’ve asked that every injury be reported directly to me, without exception. I’m meeting with the safety team every week and would like to meet every injured person as soon as they are well, so that I can understand from them exactly what we need to do to make it better. I will then go down to the production line and perform the same task that they perform.”

    Musk, an accountability Houdini, had turned the fact that some of his employees were dealing with life-changing injuries into glowing press about his leadership. If only his promises were true.

    “He didn’t meet with me,” said Richard Ortiz, a former Tesla factory worker who was injured at work in July 2017.

    “That’s PR; that’s bologna,” said another current Tesla employee, who said Musk had never met with him about the three pinched nerves in his arm.

    “He didn’t meet with me, and my incident was filed,” said a third Tesla employee, who was injured in October. “If he was truly going to meet with all the employees who got injured, he would be here for half the year.”

    Whether Musk ever intended to follow through on his word to meet “every injured person” is an open question. But in conversations with more than 10 current and former Tesla employees over the past month, workers described the consequences of having a boss whose bombastic promises – to shareholders, to customers and to them – frequently go unfulfilled. While the billionaire’s loose tongue and overly optimistic pronouncements may still excite his legions of fans and customers, many factory workers feel that they have become collateral damage.

    Of the workers who spoke to the Guardian for this article, six had been injured at work. None of them ever heard directly from Musk or had him perform their task on the assembly line.

    Of the 10 workers whose names Tesla provided, the Guardian was able to reach four, including Guajardo. None of the four had ever been injured, but they all praised Musk and said they had seen him at the factory.

    Ortiz, an outspoken supporter of a unionization drive at the factory, argued that even if Musk had performed every injured workers’ job, it’s unlikely the experience would have helped the CEO truly understand the challenges and dangers of the work.

    “Anyone can do anything for an hour,” Ortiz said. “You have to do it like we do it, 12 hours a day, six days a week … Live the life we live. That’s where the wear and tear comes from.”

  16. 16.

    Ben Cisco

    I was tasked with loading a “newsletter” onto one of the two TVs in our lunchroom. The one placed for optimal viewing just happenedto be the one that was turned to Faux Newz after the 2016 election.

    VICTORY IS MINE!

  17. 17.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: they never give up, do they?

    Well, here’s hoping that PA Dems are smart enough to make that a major issue this fall. Throw some serious sunlight on that nonsense!

    (Actually, “Sunlight Democrats” isn’t the worst catchphrase in the world…automatically implies – correctly – that the GOP is aligned with dark forces)

    Just spitballing ?

  19. 19.

    Kay

    Even more startling than the Senate results was what polls found in the Ohio governor’s race, where DeWine (a former US senator and state attorney general) and Cordray (former state attorney general and Obama consumer watchdog) are running to replace Gov. John Kasich.
    DeWine had been considered the slight favorite in a state that has been trending red, with no statewide elected Democrats except Brown, and where Donald Trump won by 8 points in 2016. But both surveys actually found Cordray ahead:

    No one thought Cordray would be ahead at this point because DeWine has literally been in one or another elected office his entire life so name recognition alone should put him ahead.

    We’re having this big drama in the county party, though. It’s not Left versus establishment. It’s older (in years) establishment versus the people who started running things with Obama’s election, who are also establishment. I’m in the second group, although I never ran anything formally. My sense is the older Democrats blame Obama for the Trump win. They’re not Bernistas, this is a different thing. They would be to the Right of Obama. They lost their big power play this month which somehow ended up as my getting a seat on the central committee. I don’t really want one, it’s easier for me if I don’t have an official role but I got caught up in the dispute and they needed a placeholder in the moment.

  22. 22.

    WereBear

    Actually, large cats can be tamed (domestic cats are not domesticated much at all, genetic studies have revealed.) The real problem is how much meat they eat; it’s lots of money or roaming the roads for road-kill.

    Most tigers who are turned in or confiscated are woefully undersized and malnourished.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    @Kay: Good news about Cordray.

    Old people blaming Obama is as dumb as young people blaming Hillary.

  28. 28.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It’s horrible but the truth is this split is playing out as “non college educated versus college educated”. That’s how it lines up. Maybe that’s not the determining factor but it is 100% true. Team A, non college, Team B, college. I can tell they feel disrespected – offended somehow. I like a lot of them. I don’t want them to feel disrespected. It might have been better had they won.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @?BillinGlendaleCA:

    In all seriousness, I think he ended up being a net negative, but based on what I know now, I don’t place him among the top causes. The Russians, the media, and voter suppression rank higher.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @WereBear: A neighbor of a fellow carpenter had a lion. Overnourished (fat) and under exercised (kept in an app 12×24 cage) and probably mostly ignored. Pretty damned pitiful.

  31. 31.

    Betty Cracker

    My mom lived in a densely packed neighborhood in central Tampa, and a family a couple of blocks away kept a tiger and other exotic animals in their backyard. If the wind was right, you could hear it roar. This was in the early 90s, and I think the city eventually made them give the animals up. I guess it’s no crazier than allowing random people to keep military-style weapons that can fire hundreds of rounds a minute.

  36. 36.

    Dr. Jakyll and Miss Deride

    BillinGlendaleCA:

    As a Sacramentan who works across the street from the Capitol (in a building also worth photographing), I’d like to know when you plan to get here. Please keep us posted!

  38. 38.

    Kay

    @IvankaTrump
    Follow Follow @IvankaTrump
    More
    Thank you @SenAlexander & @PattyMurray for your commitment to #PerkinsCTE. Had great mtgs w/ @SenatorEnzi @DougJones @SenatorHassan & ⁦@SenatorBaldwin⁩ to advance this critical leg & ensure access to high-quality vocational ed for 11M+ Americans!

    They give Ivanka Trump the stuff they don’t give a shit about- child care and public education. That she’s too stupid to realize this is part of her privilege. Trump has no respect for or interest in these “soft” issues, which is why he turns it over to her.

    A person who had ever had a job she had to apply and compete for would know this. Education and child care are the backwaters of hard Right policy- they could give a shit, so she gets those.

  39. 39.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Sad but too true: Jogger who trashed homeless man’s things charged with robbery in new dispute

    Sintay’s actions reignited debates about racial profiling and gentrification in Oakland, a liberal California city with a rich black history that is currently suffering through an extreme housing and homelessness crisis. But unlike many of the other recent cases of white Americans harassing people of color or mistreating disenfranchised people, Sintay is now facing law enforcement consequences.

    But then, it’s always been this way.

  40. 40.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I know you’re not talking about Sherrod, but I saw another of his ads last night, talking like a GOPer on trade (anti-TTP, etc.) and unions. He’s charting new territory for an Ohio Dem.

  41. 41.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I know, I agree, the disrespect thing is a problem. I don’t know how to be more personally respectful to them. I’m at max “respect” :)

    I brought in a sheriff’s deputy last year- Rex- he’s a former Republican. He works security at the courthouse and what I know about him is he’s a gossip and an instigator at the courthouse. I suspect he’s ginning this up.

  43. 43.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    They like to win, so if it looks good they’ll stop griping. None of them liked Obama until he won.

  44. 44.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    No, sorry. Not anti-union at all, but coming across like a trade protectionist, much like the Trumpies.

  46. 46.

    Platonailedit

    @Kay:

    offended somehow.

    But how exactly? Wondering what exactly that makes them pissed off at Obama. Even after he is gone.

  47. 47.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:
    Obama responsible for Dolt45???
    Obama caused their neighbors to show their lack of character by voting for someone obviously unqualified instead of a supremely qualified Hillary.??

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    That’s been his position for 30 years. He vocally opposed TPP at the time of passage. That will be a mainstream Democratic position here.

    We’ll also have a split on Cordray with guns. He has an A rating from the NRA, sadly. We already have Democratic women here who are upset about it- it;s all women. If they’re single issue gun regs voters they have a decision to make. The decision should be easier because DeWine is pretending he’s a gun nut. So they get Cordray or phony and pandering gun nut.

    It’s tough because Cordray isn’t gonna get a single hard Right vote so that A NRA rating is all downside.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    Don’t know if anyone mentioned this from that reporter on Hayes’show last night that went into that detention camp for the children..
    You have the government prescribing drugs for these children ???
    I know that I have said that I have been in a constant state of rage since November, but the situation with these children ? ? .
    I just can’t. I have never felt such hatred in my entire life as I do now.

  53. 53.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I listened to the reveal podcast about this. It was so heartbreaking to hear one of the injured worker’s talk about what happened to him and then listen to the company spokesperson bullshit about the problem.

  54. 54.

    Kay

    @Platonailedit:

    Oh, it’s so complicated and I’m inarticulate on it – I just feel it. My client base are white working class. I literally listen to them all day. I don’t define working class by income. IMO the division is higher education. One of the woman they tried to knock off the county central committee works for a tiny religious college. I bet she makes 30k a year. She had genuinely hard times a decade ago when her husband died, young and suddenly. I mean “short of food” hard times. These guys who resent her make twice that. It isn’t the money.

    Here, only about 25% of people have college degrees so it’s more of a class marker than it might be in other places. People can both respect education and also resent you for it. They can hold those two feelings at the same time.

  55. 55.

    Kay

    @Platonailedit:

    I think the way to cut the knot for Democrats is for them to be “pro” respecting the work that people do, no matter what that work is. I think when Democrats say “we have to retrain for 21st century jobs” people hear that as “my work doesn’t count”. All work counts. It all has value.

  57. 57.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    It’s tough because Cordray isn’t gonna get a single hard Right vote so that A NRA rating is all downside.

    Over the years I worked with a lot of hard core union carpenters who voted guns first, so it isn’t all downside. Which is not to say there is any real upside to it.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @Platonailedit:

    Here’s just one example. The paying for college discussion among Democrats in ’16. For a huge segment of the population community college is college. They don’t go away to school. They don’t live there. So the whole discussion shouldn’t be around “people who leave high school and go away for a 4 year degree”. That’s some small portion of “first generation” but people who drive to college and them drive home are a MUCH bigger group. The smaller group can’t be what we make policy around. There’s this other HUGE group. Speak to them. No one else does.

  61. 61.

    evodevo

    @Amir Khalid: We had the experience in the early ’90’s in our little Ky town – the local drug dealer got himself a lion cub and the next 4 years were hell for all of us neighbors. We walked the dogs armed with SKSs and the horses stayed spooked the entire time. There were NO state laws regulating the sales/possession of exotic wild animals – there were AFTER we all pulled legislative strings to get something passed. It’s regulated NOW, but didn’t help us at the time – they were grandfathered in when the law passed. It finally, at the age of 4, got pissed off one AM and attacked the owner, who shot it. We ALL celebrated.

  62. 62.

    Platonailedit

    @Kay: 21st century jobs are the reality that everyone has to face, whether they like it or not. To blame dems for it is ridiculous when the other party is basically digging your and your family’s grave by defunding even your community college degrees, healthcare and other safety nets created by dems. Guess these ‘hard working’ folks, dems or not, lack the perspective.

  64. 64.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: Kay, a comment maybe a week or more ago, you said that the guy who the olds wanted as the Chair failed to show up at the meeting where they were trying to effect the coup…. You also said you liked the guy. Is there any way he can help broker a truce (if not peace?). It sounded like he was respected and his failure to show up demonstrated… Well… What?

    I must admit this is like a serial show for me somehow. Sorry you are living it.

  67. 67.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Platonailedit:

    Guess these ‘hard working’ folks, dems or not, lack the perspective.

    Yes they do, and in politics that means one has to speak to their perspective. Hillary tried to (Coal is dead.) and got nailed for it. Not sure how to get around that.

  68. 68.

    Immanentize

    @Kay: This is so true. My brother got “retrained” (he has an Associate’s degree). He was offered the opportunity, and he took it, but he hated it because, frankly, “training” which pissed him off. But now he is not a machinist, but a CAD mechanical designer. And employed.

  69. 69.

    Immanentize

    @rikyrah: I’m sick about this too. I don’t know if you saw, but the Federal Defenders in McAllen Texas are now getting 170+ new cases every Monday…. 170!!

    I am trying to think how I can help from Boston. But the FD should set every one of those illegal entry cases for trial.

  70. 70.

    Jeffro

    @Kay:

    People can both respect education and also resent you for it. They can hold those two feelings at the same time.

    That’s true. Many are good with a ‘certain’ level of education (i.e., finishing high school) but beyond that, it’s just liberal indoctrination/an opportunity they couldn’t afford/both, and the resentment kicks in.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    I tink it’s more layered than that. Democrats can do both things at the same time. They can admire and promote real stars- people who overcome obstacles and get scholarships and go to selective colleges. But they can also admire and promote the MUCH bigger group who just plug away on a kind of zig zag track to middle class. Recognize that the smaller group are unusual- extraordinary. Definitely admirable but not what you make policy around.

  76. 76.

    Immanentize

    @Cheryl Rofer: @Manyakitty:
    ManyaK — There are no juvenile detention facilities in the area — we were going to start an unaccompanied minor project a few years back at my school, but that proved to be a big barrier for students.

    Cheryl, I was thinking something more ‘law-y’ I am an (inactive) member of the Texas bar. I could pay a bunch of money and fire that license back up. The Chief FD for the Western district of Tx, which is almost all the Valley except Brownsville, I think, is an acquaintance. I will report back….

  77. 77.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    Here’s the GOP example of the kind of thinking that gets Democrats in trouble. Remember around 2012 when GOP decided they would only talk about bosses? People who run or own businesses? And Democrats (rightfully) pointed out that MOST people, the vast majority of people, are not owners or managers? And how the GOP message around that tanked, because it was fucking clueless and ignored math- like how many people are in each group?

    Democrats do that too. On work.

  80. 80.

    eric

    @Immanentize: let me know….my job practicing law allows tons of free time to help ;)

    …. but this is worth it!

    I have done unrelated immigration (asylum and SIJ cases)

  81. 81.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    And here’s an example of when Democrats handle work WELL. When Trump was going on and on about the coal miners some Democrats said “but there are many more nail techs than miners!”

    Well, some Democrats. Sadly Hillary Clinton decided to focus on telling the miners “hard truths” instead to talking to HER OWN fucking working class people. Who are the nail techs.

    Who was she talking to? The miners won’t listen and the nail techs think she’s talking to the workers she respects, hard working men, workers who are NOT them.

  84. 84.

    Ohio Mom

    @Manyakitty: I don’t remember where I saw it but somewhere on the internet is map with all the dentention centers. I found out there are two in the greater Cincinnati area (outside of Burlington, Kentucky and Hamilton, Ohio). At I was surprised about this, then I was surprised I was surprised.

  85. 85.

    Kay

    @Jeffro:

    Home health aides. Include nursing home workers. Majority minority, overwhelmingly female and there are a TON of them. Many, many more than coal miners. They’re hard working! No one gives them all these lunchbucket kudos. They’re not in pick up truck commercials.

    Pander to them like Trump panders to miners. Go to where they work. Don’t tell them they have to learn to code. They do important work. Essential work. Value what they do. Right now. Not some aspirational vision of what they should do- what they do.

  86. 86.

    Platonailedit

    @Kay: If only the same hard working folks held both parties to the same demand and standard.

  87. 87.

    waysel

    @Kay: Just out of curiosity, exactly how did Obama cause Trump, in their view? He was so liberal he inflamed the moderates and pushed them into the arms of the GOP?

  88. 88.

    Platonailedit

    A Ugandan inventor has won a major prize for a device which tests for malaria without drawing blood.

    Brian Gitta, 24, won the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Prize for a device that detects tell-tale signs of malaria by shining a red beam of light on the patient’s finger.

    The diagnosis is ready to be shared to a mobile phone in a minute.

    He developed the device, called Matibabu, after blood tests failed to diagnose his own malaria.

  89. 89.

    Platonailedit

    @Kay:

    Pander to them like Trump panders to miners.

    Diminishing returns. You know very well them miners never gonna go dem. I would rather have one party that sticks to reality.

  90. 90.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Immanentize:

    I was thinking something more ‘law-y’ I am an (inactive) member of the Texas bar. I could pay a bunch of money and fire that license back up. The Chief FD for the Western district of Tx, which is almost all the Valley except Brownsville, I think, is an acquaintance. I will report back….

    Excellent! I look forward to hearing what happens!

  91. 91.

    germy

    Tiffany Haddish shares her memory of Roseanne:

    “I don’t know if you know El Segundo [a coastal California town near LAX], but if you’re black and you’re driving through El Segundo, you’re going to get pulled over. I used to visit my friend Anna there, and it got to a point where I was calling the police officers by name. One day, we were walking around the neighborhood, and Anna says, ‘Oh, Roseanne lives there.’ Now, I loved Roseanne, and the next day we walked by, and she was in her yard. I say, ‘Hiiii, Roseanne.’ She looks at me (makes a disgusted face), and ran in the house. I thought, ‘Maybe she don’t want to be bothered today.’ A week later, we walk by again, and I told Anna — she’s Hispanic, but she looks white — she should say hi this time. So she says, ‘Hi, Roseanne,’ and Roseanne goes, ‘Hey!’ I thought, ‘Maybe she got to know us.’ Then I go back, like, a week later, I wave again and say, ‘Hi, Roseanne! I love your comedy,’ and she (makes the same disgusted face) and turns her head. I think, ‘Fuck that bitch.’ That was 2000, maybe 2001, so it’s not new. She been racist, why’d you all give her a TV show?”

  92. 92.

    Manyakitty

    @Ohio Mom: Yeah, don’t think about it so much here in Ohio. Looks like the closest detention center to me is in Bedford Hts.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @waysel:

    It’;s win/loss. Democrats lost a lot during Obama’s terms. State level, primarily. The same thing happened with Clinton, BTW, which they’ll admit. I was much sicker of Bill Clinton by the time he left than I was of Obama. I’ve let it go, obviously, but the truth is I was so, so sick of his shit. Obama wears better, just as a person. I thought Obama was more honest and less egotistical.

  94. 94.

    Manyakitty

    @Kay: This is a brilliant idea. Plus, if the demographics near you are anything like they are here in Akron, these people are mostly women of color. Hmmm

  95. 95.

    Kay

    @Manyakitty:

    I;ve been saying it for years. I made the Obama campaign go to the community college here. The college then had to invite the McCain organizer who was a glowering, angry individual – I’m not clear what he was on about. If you’re gonna organize Ohio State you have to go to community colleges. STNA classes are packed with people – forget coal miners. There’s like 25,000 of them or something. Working class is not limited to people who are heralded in pick up truck ads. Break out of that. Look around. Who does all the work? This invisible army of women that no one talks to or courts. Court them.

  96. 96.

    rikyrah

    The Duchess and the Queen! Meghan Markle and Queen Elizabeth Step Out Together for First Time
    Simon Perry 2 hrs ago

    The Duchess and the Queen have arrived!

    Meghan Markle stepped out in northwest England on Thursday morning alongside the ultimate royal companion: Queen Elizabeth herself. The monarch wore a lime green suit dress by Stewart Parvin and a matching hat by Rachel Trevor Morgan, while Meghan wore a light beige pencil dress with a cape top by Givenchy (her wedding dress designer!).

    The new Duchess of Sussex, 36, and the Queen, 92, disembarked in Cheshire, some 200 miles from London, via the royal train in Runcorn after spending the night aboard. The train is a favored travel option for the Queen and other senior royals because it allows them to work and relax en route.

    Not even a month since Meghan married Prince Harry on May 19, this is the first occasion the Queen has taken her new granddaughter-in-law on an official visit. The joint outing is “happening at triple speed” compared to Meghan’s predecessor, Kate Middleton, royals author Ingrid Seward previously told PEOPLE.

    …………………………………………

    The outing is seen as the Queen’s way of helping immerse Meghan into public royal engagements. “It is the way of the royal family—all part of the training and getting used to being in public life and under public scrutiny,” Elizabeth’s former press secretary, Charles Anson, tells PEOPLE. “Showing people the ropes is a high priority for the Queen.”

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Kay: It’;s win/loss. Democrats lost a lot during Obama’s terms. State level, primarily. The same thing happened with Clinton

    IIRC the huge realignment at the national level, Congress and the Senate, under Clinton was old school Southern Dems– more than one full-on Dixiecrats– either retiring or switching parties (Shelby, Gramm– can’t remember if John Breaux switched as an elected or a lobbyist, or what the fuck Zell Miller did, and when). What happened under Obama was at the state lege level, and when you look at some of those states, it was inevitable. Professional centrists and Evan Bayh types will say it’s because Obama “overreached” and didn’t reach across the aisle; professional leftists say it’s because Obama wanted to be friends with Republicans and never issued that executive order that established single payer. But it is an indisputable truth that Obama has a spotty record in elections in which he was not on the ballot.

  98. 98.

    rp

    Anyone read Greenwald’s latest article? Democrats are jerks because they talk about identity politics and diversity but don’t always support the diverse candidate. It’s some pretty weak-a**ed sh*t, but worth paying attention to because someone wants him to push this narrative.

  99. 99.

    JGabriel

    BBC via Anne Laurie @ Top:

    “Texas is a conservative state and values personal liberties and the right to keep what you want,” says Pamela Boich of the Texas Human Legislation Network, an animal welfare lobbying group…

    The difference between Conservatives and Liberals: Liberals preserve, promote, and protect the right to be smart; Conservatives, the right to be stupid.

  100. 100.

    germy

    @rp: All I know is, the hilarious “Glem Greenwald” twitter account, a brilliant parody, has been suspended.

    GG must have complained.

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rp: I gather the Intercept is also pushing the anti-anti-trump line on NORK. People skeptical of the Singapore photo-op are part of the “war party”

  103. 103.

    rp

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah — it’s all over his twitter feed (same with his circle jerk of Michael Tracey et al). “He defused tensions! Only neocon warmongerers and their Democratic party enablers wouldn’t want the countries to talk! It’s ridiculous to criticize Trump for praising Kim when other US presidents have praised dictators!”

  104. 104.

    germy

    Bill Clinton called me the “preferred Russian alternative”. He knows Russian preferences, having made $500K for a single speech from the Russian bank promoting the Uranium One deal that awaited HRC’s approval. Unlike Bill, I paid my own way & my speech was about making peace.— Dr. Jill Stein? (@DrJillStein) June 7, 2018

    Isn’t that the same conspiracy theory Fox News peddles?

  105. 105.

    Baud

    @rp:

    Way back when, when Bush I nominated Thomas to fill Thurgood Marshall’s seat, Pat Robertson said that if the Dems opposed Thomas, Bush would go down the line of minorities to call the Dems out on their hypocrisy. This sort of anti-Dem propaganda is not new.

  106. 106.

    Dorothy Winsor

    @Kay: I believe CA allows students to go to community college free for two years if they go straight from high school. They treat it as part of public education. That’s obviously not perfect because many adults take classes later, but it’s a start and it would be popular the same way taking college classes in high school is.

  107. 107.

    Baud

    @germy: If Putin wants to invest rubles into trolling Balloon Juice, let him do it. We don’t have to help him out.

  109. 109.

    rikyrah

    If this had happened during 44’s Administration?

    SHEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIITTTTTT!

    THIS didn’t even happen during Shrub’s, even after 2 failed wars and Katrina.

    White House Advertises at a Job Fair
    June 14, 2018 at 6:55 am EDT

    The White House – which has been having trouble filling positions as it bleeds staffers – is now trying to find recruits at a conservative job fair on the Hill. ‘Interested in a job at the White House?’ is the subject line of an email that was blasted out widely to Republicans on the Hill late Wednesday advertising the upcoming event. It promises that ‘representatives from across the Trump administration will be there to meet job seekers of every experience level.’

    A person familiar with the planning said that Johnny DeStefano, who oversees the White House personnel department, and Sean Doocey, a deputy assistant to the president for presidential personnel, are expected to be on hand, among other officials from the West Wing.

    The flyer lists positions open in the White House as well as a handful of government agencies including Defense, Interior, Commerce, Homeland Security, Health & Human Services, NASA, Energy, and Treasury.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    @rp:

    Democrats are jerks because they talk about identity politics and diversity but don’t always support the diverse candidate. It’s some pretty weak-a**ed sh*t, but worth paying attention to because someone wants him to push this narrative.

    It makes me laugh because the thing speaks for itself. Greenwald believes this is identity politics so of course he looks at race and gender, exclusively! That’s the Right wing identity politics argument.

    He’s essentially saying “why won’t Democrats accept my Right wing stereotype of Democrats and act accordingly?”

    Um, because that isn’t the argument Democrats make?

    He really is Right-leaning in many ways. He would be happiest as a GOP prosecutor. He has a kind of disturbing prosecutorial ZEAL that just leaps right out at me. Very “judgy” as my son would say. It means “judgemental”

  111. 111.

    rikyrah

    The Trump admin are putting children in camps with no access to their parents and they are doing it with impunity.

    This level of impunity is unusual even in autocratic states. When there is child labor or child abuse, officials will usually take pains to hide it.

    Not here.

    — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) June 14, 2018

    This is beyond kleptocracy, this is sadism aimed at children, who the administration have dehumanized through propaganda.

    It is unconscionable and anyone who stands for it OR any official who stands by and does nothing when they can stop it is unconscionable.

    — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) June 14, 2018

    I tried so hard to warn you that this was coming, to take Trump seriously, to do everything you could to stop them because they WOULD take it this far — and further.

    Now you know. You have no excuses, no feigned ignorance. You need to help those families and those kids — now.

    — Sarah Kendzior (@sarahkendzior) June 14, 2018

  112. 112.

    waysel

    @Kay: Is it possible to jettison Rex? I assume ‘former republicans’ will attempt to infiltrate our party to stir up discontent, and foster ineffectiveness. I fear imposter Dems may try to position themselves as poll workers in the next election, as another form of electoral ratfuckery. It’s all easy when you have no real morals.

  113. 113.

    rikyrah

    Hey @WaltonFamilyFdn @Walmart you guys digging how your former store is being used as an effective CONCENTRATION CAMP?

    How about spending a few of your BILLIONS to PURGE @realdonaldtrump & EVERY OTHER @GOP Nazi wannabe & the US Media Propagandist who enable them?

    — Bobfr (@Our4thEstate) June 14, 2018

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @rikyrah:

    “The fair is being hosted by the Conservative Partnership Institute, an organization founded by former Heritage Foundation president Jim DeMint last year….
    A job fair is seen as an unusual step for a White House to take. Typically jobs in the executive branch are coveted career-making opportunities.”

    and Sean Doocey,

    hmmm……

  115. 115.

    Kay

    @waysel:

    God, no. I basically begged him to join. He immediately became a hugely rigid liberal Democrat who lectured me on Kucinich.

    Bad pick but this county went 70% for Trump. It’s slim pickins.

  117. 117.

    waysel

    @Kay: 70%? Ouch! I was raised in Columbus and it saddens me to know so many in my home state are, at best, blithering idiots.

  119. 119.

    JGabriel

    @Betty Cracker:

    I guess it’s no crazier than allowing random people to keep military-style weapons that can fire hundreds of rounds a minute.

    Less crazy, I should think: the animal can return your affection and can’t kill 50 people in 5 minutes.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    @rp:

    Anyone read Greenwald’s latest article? Democrats are jerks because they talk about identity politics and diversity but don’t always support the diverse candidate. It’s some pretty weak-a**ed sh*t, but worth paying attention to because someone wants him to push this narrative.

    Phuck.Outta.Here with Greenwald

  122. 122.

    Origuy

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Downtown Folsom is a pretty cool place with some Gold Rush era buildings. If you want to get out to someplace not crowded, Deer Creek Hills Preserve is beautiful, but not always open, so check the web site.

    ETA. The road to the preserve fords a creek that can have a lot of water in it. This time of year it’s probably dry, but in March it was running over a foot deep.

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