Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The new temporary speaker of the house is a spiteful little shit.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

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

T R E 4 5 O N

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

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

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

No one could have predicted…

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

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

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

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

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

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

I was promised a recession.

I conferred with the team and they all agree – still not tired of winning!

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

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

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

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

“Squeaker” McCarthy

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Dog Blogging / Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

Thursday Afternoon Open Thread

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Sometimes we need funny animals:

Majestic and heroic!

I’d post videos of my own dogs, but you’ve seen them flopped in their beds in the exact same position before, so it would be like a live re-run. Maybe I’ll build an agility course. It would probably do us all some good.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

124Comments

  1. 1.

    Gelfling 545

    Taking my dog Flora off for a visit to her dog cousins Milo & Daisy and some time in their big suburban back yard.

  2. 2.

    The Dangerman

    Sometimes we need funny animals

    Sometimes you feel like a nut. Sometimes you don’t.

    /deep

  4. 4.

    A Ghost To Most

    Watching the procession of McCain’s hearse, I think that would make a badass Ghostbusters vehicle.

  5. 5.

    Jeffro

    That was awesome. My brother’s dog would do that. Mine would probably take a shot at jumping through the inner tube (especially if there was a picture of a fox on the other side) but I don’t think she would clear it these days.

  6. 6.

    Kay

    Wells Fargo WFC -0.27% & Co. has fired or suspended more than a dozen employees in its investment bank and is investigating dozens of others over alleged violations of the company’s expense policy regarding after-hours meals, according to people familiar with the matter.
    At issue is whether Wells Fargo employees ranging from analysts to managing directors in New York, San Francisco and Charlotte, N.C., doctored receipts on dinners that they charged to the bank, the people said.

    No one gets fired when Wells Fargo executives rob tens of millions of dollars from Wells Fargo customers, but boy steal a dinner from Wells Fargo and heads will roll!

    We have a white collar crime problem. They have a corrupt, thieving culture at the tippy-top. They steal from their customers. They have to be punished or they’ll continue to steal. We don’t have a lazy and dishonest worker problem. We have a lazy and dishonest executive problem.

  8. 8.

    lahke

    My workplace blocks Twitter, so I have to get out my phone to see this stuff.

    Anyone know if the Boston meetup is still on for Saturday night? Original plan was to find a restaurant near the Hynes convention center at around 7:30 so that visiting commentor Big R (? not sure of nym) wouldn’t have to wander around Boston. Anne Laurie, who ordinarily keeps us all organized for these Boston affairs, will be out of town. Betty, could you make us a post?
    Thanks.

  11. 11.

    chris

    Bert would go through the tube if his ball went first. Without that he’d just give me his “you first” look.

    It’s 32C/90F (feels like 102!) here right now, thankfully the heat is supposed to break overnight. Going to town to get a good coffee and dunk the dog in the harbour. Salt water wash smells best.

  12. 12.

    TenguPhule

    @Kay:

    We have a white collar crime problem. They have a corrupt, thieving culture at the tippy-top. They steal from their customers. They have to be punished or they’ll continue to steal. We don’t have a lazy and dishonest worker problem. We have a lazy and dishonest executive problem.

    Step 1: Fix the laws.

    Step 2: Fix the AGs

    Step 3: Fix the LE

  13. 13.

    cmorenc

    @Kay:

    We have a white collar crime problem. They have a corrupt, thieving culture at the tippy-top. They steal from their customers. They have to be punished or they’ll continue to steal. We don’t have a lazy and dishonest worker problem. We have a lazy and dishonest executive problem.

    Bu..bu…but wasn’t Wells Fargo reborn as a bank in 2018? That’s the spin Wells-Fargo is trying to sell us on teevee – that the old wine will taste so much cleaner and free of impurities in the new bottles.

  15. 15.

    TenguPhule

    @cmorenc:

    that the old wine will taste so much cleaner and free of impurities in the new bottles

    I hate to tell you this, they drank all of the old wine and just pissed in the new bottles.

  19. 19.

    Mary

    I used to do agility with my dog, who is fearless and smart and loved every single obstacle except the hoop/tire. She just didn’t understand why she should jump through a hoop when it was so much easier to run under it.

  20. 20.

    HeleninEire

    LOL. Really, I am literally LOL. I love Paul Bronks and am so happy I found his Twitter during these trying times.

    I swear to the Goddess I thought it really was gonna be majestic.

  23. 23.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Jeffro: I, for one, welcome our new acting out asshole firecracker overlords. They are exploding individually, rather than in strings. This is encouraging.

  24. 24.

    jl

    @cmorenc: Most of the big banks should have been ‘reborn’ through bankruptcy proceedings (or whatever substitute could have been patched together) during the 2007-2008 financial crisis.

    I had a few friends in the Wells Fargo doing finance, and I noticed it when they all left over the summer before the big scandals hit the press. They said the place had changed and they could take the BS anymore. What they described at the time sounded pretty bad, but now I realize that they were using a lot of euphemisms for what was going on. But the rottenness in the mortgage side of the business was seeping into its ordinary consumer finance.

    Remember that during the financial crisis, Wells Fargo protested that it was pure as driven snow, nothing was wrong at all, and they were totally sound and ethical. They accused the feds and regulators of dragging them into the resolution programs for no reason and against their will.

  28. 28.

    jl

    Also too, I think the dog is sure it was doing it right, and could present a good case if only it could speak English.

  29. 29.

    pamelabrown53

    @cmorenc: @#13

    IMHO, all the big banks are equally corrupt. In fact, if you go to “Kevin Drum @ Mother Jones” he shows a second chart demonstrating that with the huge corporate profits from the Republican Tax Cut, Big banks lead the way with outlandish profits. (Sorry, I can’t seem to link).

    BTW, I had an interesting and frustrating transaction with Wells Fargo just last Saturday: I was trying to transfer 5k from my account to my son’s to cover a short-term expenditure. Both my account and son’s were Wells Fargo. So, it was an intrabanking transaction. There were no holds on any of my funds and I was told that the money wouldn’t be available to my son until Tuesday. Something about a “regulation” that prohibited them from pushing the transfer button because the amount was over $400.00. I’d be gobsmacked if I’d received better service from ANY of the big banks!.

    Breaks my heart to see the newly created Consumer Protection Agency dismantled. Kay, is right: white collar crime is under prosecuted and until this changes, we regular people will reap the rotten fruits of their corruption/destruction.

  33. 33.

    jl

    @pamelabrown53: Some recent bedtime reading for me was ‘Contemporary Financial Intermediation’ Greenbaum Thakor and Boot. Very good plain English refresher on banking and a half hour at a time is good medicine if you have problems getting to sleep. It covers old school banking and shadow banking. Takes a broad view of banking as anything toe performs a bank function.

    The last part of the book is on the relationship between banks, shodowy and otherwise, and financial sector, and research on whether, after a certain point, those sectors get too big and hurt productivity. Authors say that is probably true in the US today.

    It occurs to me that on big news shows, the authors would get outraged off the set as commies and socialists. That is how warped public discussion of the economy is these days.

  34. 34.

    burnspbesq

    @pamelabrown53:

    Don’t recall ever having that issue arise with Citi when I was regularly sending four and five-digit amounts to the kid to pay tuition and rent.

  35. 35.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Jeffro: Now now, they can’t ever say that because the guy never explicitly said “I’m doing this because Trump said so”, so therefore there’s literally no connection between Trump and the shooter. How DARE you attack our servicemen and God by saying so?!

  37. 37.

    pamelabrown53

    @TenguPhule: @32.
    REALLY. The sum total of your response is to be an asshole? Why we bank where we do is not always so straightforwardly simple.

  38. 38.

    TenguPhule

    @pamelabrown53:

    white collar crime is under prosecuted

    Because the goddamn requirements to convict on white collar crime are so damned hard and ordinary juries fucking suck when it comes to elaborate financial schemes.

    We’d love to go after some of these crooks, but this shit is lot harder to convinces 12 jurors about then murder under the current statutes.

  39. 39.

    Leto

    Lawsuit: Oregon construction worker fired for refusing to attend Bible study

    Ryan Coleman’s lawsuit states that he discovered only after he was hired as a painter for Dahled Up Construction that the job entailed more than just fixing up homes. According to Coleman and his lawsuit, owner Joel Dahl told him all employees were required to partake in regular Bible study sessions led by a Christian pastor during the work day, while on the clock.

    Coleman told Dahl that the requirement was illegal, but Dahl wouldn’t budge, according to the lawsuit. In order to keep his job, Coleman obliged for nearly six months but ultimately told Dahl he couldn’t go, the suit says.

    “I said ‘I’ve kept an open mind, and it’s just not my thing.’ And he said, ‘Well, I’m going to have to replace you,’” Coleman told The Oregonian/OregonLive.

    “He said ‘You’re not going to tell me how to run my own company,’” Coleman continued. “I said ‘I’m not trying to tell you how to run your own company, but you’re not going to tell me what god to pray to.’”

    …..

    “This is so illegal,” said Corinne Schram, a Portland attorney representing Coleman. “Unless you are a religious organization like a church, you cannot force your employees to participate in religious activities.”

    Dahl’s Albany attorney, Kent Hickam, doesn’t dispute that Dahl requires all of his employees to attend Bible study, but says it’s legal because Dahl pays them to attend.

    “Mr. Dahl feels that it’s unfortunate that he (Coleman) is now trying to exploit Mr. Dahl’s honorable intentions for unjustified financial gain,” Hickman said.

    …..

    Coleman said he’s served prison time for delivery of methamphetamine and child neglect but has now been clean and sober for nearly four years. Earlier this week, he won back full custody of his two children, he said.

    Coleman’s past left him fearful that he wouldn’t be able to find other work, so he said stuck with the weekly, hourlong Bible study sessions for six months, until he took a stance and said he wouldn’t go.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    I’m watching Larry Fitzgerald speak and while I have no idea of the guy’s politics, I am envisioning an alternate reality where the vast majority of the GOP wakes up and realizes it doesn’t have to be a gang of thugs and vicious assholes in order to be “conservative”. Not so far. fucking. out there. Ah well…

    And now Uncle Joe already holding back tears…

  44. 44.

    Miss Bianca

    @cmorenc: @pamelabrown53: And I closed my account at Bank of the West *two months ago* and I get a statement from them this week charging me $25.00 in overdraft protection. On a closed account!

  45. 45.

    trollhattan

    @pamelabrown53:
    Weird, I thought the threshold was $10k?

    Was the source savings or checking? Unless something has changed since I took econ checking accounts are “demand deposits” that banks have to give you immediate access to, while they can hold funds in savings and others for IIRC up to 30 days. A pressure valve to prevent runs on banks such as in the Depression.

  46. 46.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Just saw something on Twitter about Bank of America requiring customers to suddenly provide passports to prove they are citizens. If they don’t do so in time the bank freezes their account and denies them access to their funds. Anyone else heard about this?

  48. 48.

    efgoldman

    @Kay:

    No one gets fired when Wells Fargo executives rob tens of millions of dollars from Wells Fargo customers, but boy steal a dinner from Wells Fargo and heads will roll!

    Wells Fargo bought our mortgage.checks every month to “Wells Fargo Criminals”.
    They deposit them.

  51. 51.

    trollhattan

    Zounds, suddenly the president is fiscally responsible.

    In a letter sent to House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday, President Trump announced that a majority of civilian federal employees will not receive pay increases next year, undoing the original 2.1% pay increase that was set to take effect in 2019.

    The details: The president explained the change is an effort “to put our Nation on a fiscally sustainable course, and Federal agency budgets cannot sustain such increases.” No change has been announced for pay increases of military troops, which are still on track to receive a 2.6% bump according to the Military Times, marking their biggest pay raise since 2009.

    Nothing says “Fuck you” quite like freezing wages during a time of accelerating inflation.

  52. 52.

    TenguPhule

    @Litlebritdifrnt:

    Just saw something on Twitter about Bank of America requiring customers to suddenly provide passports to prove they are citizens. If they don’t do so in time the bank freezes their account and denies them access to their funds. Anyone else heard about this?

    Old story from June or July. Last I heard, the lawsuit is still in progress.

  53. 53.

    TenguPhule

    @trollhattan:

    Nothing says “Fuck you” quite like freezing wages during a time of accelerating inflation.

    Except cutting hours because “expenses are too high”

  54. 54.

    pamelabrown53

    @jl: @#33.

    Thanks for the suggested reading as I’m an insomniac who could definitely benefit from the info. Maybe I could get a dualbenefit: absorbing some important info. while getting more sleep.

  55. 55.

    TenguPhule

    @trollhattan:

    Trump announced that a majority of civilian federal employees will not receive pay increases next year, undoing the original 2.1% pay increase that was set to take effect in 2019.

    Unions will go to court and pray that the judges they get for the case are not Trump appointed.

  56. 56.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jeffro: I’m watching Larry Fitzgerald speak and while I have no idea of the guy’s politics

    Was he the one talking about the “Sedona Institute”, where John McCain brought thought leaders together to address important issues such as poverty, health care, and climate change? A couple hours earlier, somebody was going on about how challenged others to bring out the best in themselves, and never shrank from a fight. I heard it in the car and thought, not for the first time in the last week, “This John McCain sounds like a helluva guy, if only he had held some influential office in the United State government, especially over the course of the last year.”

  59. 59.

    efgoldman

    @pamelabrown53:

    I’d be gobsmacked if I’d received better service from ANY of the big banks!.

    All you guys need to find credit unions for your accounts. In most states they provide all the same services as money center banks, especially on line services.

  61. 61.

    TenguPhule

    @efgoldman:

    In most states they provide all the same services as money center banks, especially on line services.

    Except Treasury bonds. Those you still need a certified bank to buy from.

  62. 62.

    pamelabrown53

    @trollhattan:

    Checking. And I, too, thought the limit was 10k. It just mystifies me how a bank can “hold” on to my money and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. Sure many of you have experienced something similar.

  63. 63.

    Betty Cracker

    @Leto: My husband once quit a job because the owner was an evangelical nutcase who kept trying to shove religion down everyone’s throat. I tried to talk him into suing the bastard, but he didn’t want to. I know some wonderful lefty Christians, so I try not to paint with too broad a brush, but when I’m looking for a contractor or service of some kind, I automatically bypass any business with a fish symbol. They’re more likely to be crooks and degenerates than those who don’t feel the need to shout their religion from the rooftop, IMO.

  64. 64.

    Brachiator

    @pamelabrown53:

    IMHO, all the big banks are equally corrupt. In fact, if you go to “Kevin Drum @ Mother Jones” he shows a second chart demonstrating that with the huge corporate profits from the Republican Tax Cut, Big banks lead the way with outlandish profits. (Sorry, I can’t seem to link).

    Big banks may be bad. But I don’t see that small banks would be any better.

    Good, effective regulation would help. And I agree it’s ridiculous that the regulatory agencies have been neutered by Trump and his goons.

  68. 68.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Most citizens don’t have passports. Then what?

    And we’re hearing that citizens of Hispanic descent who apply for passports get arrested, de-citizened, and deported to countries they’ve never seen.

  70. 70.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Betty Cracker: My last Sargent in the Air Force tried to force everyone under him to attend his Sunday night Bible study. He made my last months of service miserable, while simultaneously trying to get me to reenlist. My distaste for those people really intensified then. I no longer find even the slightest humor in their wilful ignorance.

  71. 71.

    efgoldman

    @trollhattan:

    Nothing says “Fuck you” quite like freezing wages during a time of accelerating inflation.

    This bullshit has “Mick Mulvaney” written all over it.

  72. 72.

    HeleninEire

    @efgoldman: haven’t been around much in the past few days. Is efgoldmangrandson (and I just got tell ya spell check changed that to egg old man grandson) among us?

  73. 73.

    jl

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: McCain’s record is very very mixed, with very good and very bad. But compared to what we have now, even from so-called GOP moderates, preferable.
    His last vote saved what we have left of Obama health care reform.
    I’ve read both that he voted for and against the big GW tax cuts. I guess figuring it out takes some vote parsing. I’ll need to read up on it.
    Good efforts on campaign finance reform, which he pursued after nearly getting indicted in the 80s S&L scandals.
    Then there was his war mongering, but his good intentions on immigration and refugees (if they could get all the way here after the messes his type of policies made in their home countries).

  75. 75.

    TenguPhule

    @pamelabrown53:

    . It just mystifies me how a bank can “hold” on to my money and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it. Sure many of you have experienced something similar.

    Normally holds are for when you deposit a check over a certain threshold like $4,000 and they want to make sure the funds for the check are actually there. So they limit your access to that $4,000 for 2-3 days until the check clears.

    $400 is Wells Fargo fucking with you.

  76. 76.

    Leto

    @Betty Cracker: My wife worked for a moving company whose owner was an absolute asshole. His wife was cut from the same cloth. They both made the workplace environment toxic. BUT! That didn’t stop them from trying to polish up them Jesus-y credentials by bragging about how much they donated each week and just how loved they were by the church. Of course a bit later he admitted to basically just using his church membership as another vehicle for networking/business. *this is my surprised face. I am surprised* She wasn’t there for long, but we both derived great satisfaction when we learned that the place went out of business.

  77. 77.

    Mike R

    small request would all you animal lovers wish bon voyage to a great horse on his way across the rainbow bridge. He was always a gentlemen and gentle with all who interacted with him. So long Cheyenne my friend.

  78. 78.

    TenguPhule

    @HeleninEire: Depends on the bond type.

    EE bonds are .10% (of course you only pay 50% of the face value of the bond so actual return is more like 5% after 20 years)

    I bonds are 2.5% last I checked.

  79. 79.

    efgoldman

    @HeleninEire:

    Is efgoldmangrandson (and I just got tell ya spell check changed that to egg old man grandson) among us?

    Decided he wasn’t waiting for Mom and Dad’s plans, was born on the 23rd. Home, healthy, mom, dad, oh-so-proud big sister all doing great. Cat not so sure.
    Appears to be a very mellow baby, like his big sister and his mother.

  80. 80.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @jl: His last vote saved what we have left of Obama health care reform.

    I think his vote for the tax cuts, which has the potential to do great damage to the ACA, came after that. He could have held that vote back in exchange for protection of Mueller, public hearings on Russian interference, emoluments, etc. Given his stature in the Beltway, he could have called for these things in the last month and had an impact. He could have announced that in the event of his return to the Senate, he would not vote for Kavangagh without the things I listed above. Would have given cover to the “red state Dems” and maybe even Collins and a couple others. With McCain, as with Flake and Corker, he had to be willing to slow his own agenda to really rein in trump, and like them, wasn’t willing to do so. What is so frustrating about him is that he came so close to being the man I suspect Joe Biden is describing as I type, and he chose not to go all the way.

    And his bailing on his stated positions on climate change and Gitmo from the ’08 campaign were based in nothing but personal spite toward Obama.

  82. 82.

    A Ghost To Most

    It would be awesome if the bagpiper broke into “You Can’t Always Get What You Want”.

  83. 83.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @jl: the personal stories about him, from everyone from Charlie Pierce to Joe Biden to O’Bro Cody Keenan to all the reporters who worshipped him just underscore that he was a mensch in his personal life, a frequently stellar human being, and what a loss of potential greatness his actual Senate career was. He and other Republicans fetishize Churchill, the distance between the lion in the wilderness, roaring against the menace to the East, and the inadequate tweets about the Rough Beast in the Oval Office that sent thrills up Jon Meacham’s and Andrea Mitchell’s legs, and little else, highlight the gap between the ideal and the man.

  84. 84.

    trollhattan

    @Mike R:
    Aww, sorry! Riders become really attached to their horses, know a city cop who was in the mounted unit and he was really gutted when he lost his partner. Boy, are there a lot of stories!

  86. 86.

    Kent

    @pamelabrown53: I use USAA and my daughters have USAA accounts. I have never once had the slightest issue with instantly transferring much more than $400 between accounts using my phone app. I do this all the time for my daughter who is in college out of state. I have also transferred money to and from USAA to other non-USAA bank accounts and have received instant credit for amounts under $5000. In other words, I can use USAA to pull $4000 from my local credit union account and USAA gives me instant credit for the transfer.

    Find another bank

  88. 88.

    Brachiator

    @A Ghost To Most:

    My last Sargent in the Air Force tried to force everyone under him to attend his Sunday night Bible study. He made my last months of service miserable, while simultaneously trying to get me to reenlist. My distaste for those people really intensified then. I no longer find even the slightest humor in their wilful ignorance.

    Reason Number 122 of why I would never have served in the military.

    At one company I worked for, a supervisor tried to do something similar, force people to attend Bible study, after work and during work hours. She never tried this shit with me. OTOH, she did try to undermine anyone who opposed her. But she could be easily dealt with.

    The sick thing is that she ended up married to one of my friends and co-workers. But that’s a whole nuther story for another day.

  89. 89.

    The Moar You Know

    Breaking news: 68-year-old crank has been arrested for making death threats to reporters at the Boston Globe. As part of his death-threat monologue, he accused the press of “being the enemy of the people”

    Now, wherever did he get that idea?

    It would be nice if journalists would note that their fellow journalists HAVE ALREADY BEEN KILLED as a result of Trumpov’s goading. But hey, Annapolis, that was sooooo 15 minutes ago…

    @Jeffro: Again, this almost religious belief that what you do on a computer or phone is super seekrit private and no one can see:

    The FBI said that even though Chain blocked his caller ID, they were able to trace the calls to his address in California and used public databases to confirm that he lived there. In addition, Chain made two calls from his cellphone that were unblocked.

    From 2011 to 2016 I was working as a digital forensics tech and expert witness. There is no privacy. In addition to that, doing shit like this on a cell phone, which not only tracks your calls but your location, is literally the worst way to go about phoning in death threats.

  90. 90.

    catclub

    @TenguPhule:

    Except Treasury bonds. Those you still need a certified bank to buy from.

    so is mytreasury.gov a bank? I think you can buy all types of treasury bond/notes/savings bonds there.
    BTW the asshole is hitting federal civilians again:

    The general guess is revenge for the Court ruling against him and in favor of federal employee unions.
    He also froze hiring until he found out that was not helping get his minions hired.

  92. 92.

    efgoldman

    @HeleninEire:

    Congrats. When will you see him?

    They’ll be here for several days around Xmas. This year SIL’s family gets them for Thanksgiving; just was well – we get baby’s first xmas, and 5-year-old big sister doing the whole santa thing.

  95. 95.

    Aleta

    @Mike R:

    He was always a gentlemen and gentle with all who interacted with him.

    That says so much. I’m deeply sorry for your parting from such a good soul.

  96. 96.

    katep

    @pamelabrown53: Chase won’t let me put cash in my daughter’s account, any amount. Because – money laundering. I told them if someone is laundering money a couple hundred bucks at a time, they aren’t very good at it.

  97. 97.

    The Moar You Know

    small request would all you animal lovers wish bon voyage to a great horse on his way across the rainbow bridge. He was always a gentlemen and gentle with all who interacted with him. So long Cheyenne my friend.

    @Mike R: It would be a privilege. Godspeed, Cheyenne. We’ll see you on the other side soon enough.

    Also, while I’m here and it’s appropriate and fitting, Godspeed, Nola, you wonderful dog you, who was always so nice to Hannah, Spencer, and Binkley. We are all going to miss you so damn much. We’ll see you on the other side with Cheyenne.

  99. 99.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Brachiator:
    To get to college, it was my only option. I was an Ill fit, to say the least, but I served my time more or less honorably, had a bunch of great friends, met my wife, and got the hell out. No regerts. VA loans are nice.

  101. 101.

    pamelabrown53

    @katep: @#96.
    Hah!. Money laundering for less than 400 bucks per pop: ridiculous. My guess is they’re trying to foment anti-regulation sentiment. When they fuck with us little folks, then we’ll be on-board to go back to no regulations..

  103. 103.

    efgoldman

    @A Ghost To Most:

    To get to college, it was my only option.

    1969, Army basic, 1969, our NCOs, DIs and officers wentut of their way to accommodate non-xtian trainees.I never stood Saturday inspection once.

    VA loans are nice.

    At that time, USAR and USNG trainees had to sign away all of our GI benefits in exchange for serving six months and going home. Some states (mine) say I’m a veteran – feds don’t.

  104. 104.

    Mike R

    Thanks all,was feeling down, just finished burying my friend in his pasture, and to Nola hope you and Cheyenne have a romp together he liked cats and dogs.

  105. 105.

    Kent

    @pamelabrown53:

    My daughters all have youth accounts with USAA that are linked to mine. They get VISA debit cards that have no fees of any kind and no overdraft fees…the card just stops working and the charges are denied if they have insufficient funds. I use them to load money into their accounts for allowance. Or say, for example the 15 year old was vacationing with her friend’s family at a resort out of town and texted me because she needed a bit more $$$ to buy a gift. So I could instantly put $50 more into her account with my phone.

    When the oldest daughter turned 18 her youth account automatically converted to an adult account but I still have the linkage to push money in and out of her account.

    USAA has been great. Sometimes they let anyone obtain bank accounts with them. Sometimes they require that you have a military linkage. Their policy seems to shift from time to time. I opened my account 10 years ago when we lived in TX.

  107. 107.

    efgoldman

    @A Ghost To Most:

    That bites. You served too.

    Given times, if was a fair trade off. Six years of monthly drills and two weeks every summer in exchange for not going to Vietnam.
    The Chicago convention police riots were fifty years ago this week.

  108. 108.

    A Ghost To Most

    @efgoldman:
    Yeah,that Vietnam thing. It was all but over when I went in, and Air Farce made it unlikely I’d go. My first and only duty station was Omaha.

  110. 110.

    catclub

    @pamelabrown53: There is some app that the youngs use for payments – I wonder if that takes a cut when you transfer money. I think not, but it was slow the one time I used it. I
    It is easy to imagine banks interpreting the Anti-money laundering rules in the most (small) customer unfriendly way.

  111. 111.

    Betty Cracker

    @lahke: If you send me an email (bettycrackerfl-atsign-gmail-dot-com) with the desired content and let me know when you’d like it posted, I’ll be glad to help. What I can’t do is organize the event in any way; I suck at that. Also, I’m likely to be off the grid for much of the weekend, but I can schedule any posts you get to me before 5 pm tomorrow in advance. After that, I can’t promise I’ll see any requests. Sorry to be so unhelpful!

  113. 113.

    A Ghost To Most

    @efgoldman:

    The Chicago convention police riots were fifty years ago this week

    The week that turned me into a Democrat, at the age of 12.

  114. 114.

    Brachiator

    @A Ghost To Most:

    To get to college, it was my only option. I was an Ill fit, to say the least, but I served my time more or less honorably, had a bunch of great friends, met my wife, and got the hell out. No regrets. VA loans are nice.

    Your choice made a lot of sense, and I am happy that things worked out for you. I guess it just underscores that there are many paths to get where you are going. Fortunately, I didn’t have to consider the military, but I know that I would have been a poor fit, a malcontent, and a troublemaker. But I have uncles and cousins who served and for whom the military was exactly the right place at the right time.

  115. 115.

    A Ghost To Most

    @Brachiator: Agreed. I hated it, but had a step-brother and (future) BIL who both lasted 24 years.

    I also benefitted from timing; random piss tests started just as I left.

  118. 118.

    evodevo

    @Leto: Just me, but I would have attended and started asking all those uncomfortable questions about biblical contradictions that an atheist can throw out there in such discussions. I doubt whether I would have been employed for very long, however… It’s a good plan for when the school system starts offering bible classes, too …

  119. 119.

    efgoldman

    @A Ghost To Most:

    The week that turned me into a Democrat

    I voted GOP at the local and state level a few more times – Ed Brooke for senate, Frank Sargent (not really a Republiklown as anyone now would understand it); that’s it.

  120. 120.

    chopper

    @trollhattan:

    i love how he’s screaming up and down about how the economy is going gangbusters under him, but now i have to skip out on a pay raise because of ‘serious economic conditions’.

  122. 122.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mike R: oh, sadness! I am watching our horses graze after challenging my thoroughbred to a race (I lost. So did Bo the Quarter Horse). I feel for you. Goodbye, Cheyenne – see you on the other side.

  123. 123.

    J R in WV

    @Miss Bianca:

    Something like that happened years ago when we got screwed by American Express. We went to a foreign place and they had choked off our credit card. This was OK because most of the trip was prepaid, and my Dad was with us, his cards were fine.

    When we got back, I was all over closing out our Amex account, called to do so, got an amount, sent them that amount with the letter closing out the account. They then billed me, because of that amount, they used several hundred dollars to renew the accounts!!! And billed us for that amount.

    All started when one of their people called and insisted on the phone that I give them bank account numbers that contained funds to pay what we owed. I told him no one in their right mind would give a phone caller their banking information, told him that all I was responsible for was sending them a check each month for the amount due. Will never deal with them again. Batshit crazy arrogant.

  124. 124.

    J R in WV

    @efgoldman:

    OK, this is a long dead thread that I had left up on my laptop when I went to bed. I gotta share my USN experience along the lines of forced churching. First Sunday we were settled in enough to be marched into a giant drill hall set up by chaplains as a revival center. And that’s exactly what we got, Southern Baptist Holly rolling ya gotta get with Jesus RIGHT NOW to get saved from all your lousy sins.

    At the time I was pretty sure the biggest sin around was rounding guys up at gunpoint to learn how to fight a war over in SE Asia that many people thought was an evil war crime, and was raised going to a UU fellowship which didn’t have a single member who felt any need to get saved by Jeebus. There wasn’t going to be any going to a Southern Baptist revival every Sunday, and if they needed to be putting me into a Brig when I informed them of my Constitutional Rights about Sundays and my freedom from Religion, well that would be OK.

    My Drill Instructor could NOT believe that a recruit would tell him how things were going to be regarding ANY DETAIL of the next 16 weeks or so. So he responded with very loud instruction about my belief in GAWD and how my personal beliefs did not matter one tinyiest piece of shit compared to his Company Command capability to make me do what the US NAvy in it’s infinite wisdom was going to have me do on Sunday mornings. And I replied that with all due respect, noone could make me attend a church service I sis not want to attend in America, and that he should read the Constitution with particular attention to the paragraph that prohibited the government from establishing ANY religion, no matter how Chaplains and Company Commanders felt about that.

    I stood at brace attention the best I could with the DI standing 4 inches from my face at peak volume for at least a couple of hours, after which I was marched to the big office in the barracks for the commander of all the companies, an actual officer of some flavor, perhaps a Warrant, who took a long turn at attempting to reeducate me about the differences between civilian life and military life. I was looking at the wall over his shoulder being as non responsive as I could, because any response was going to be disrespect and illegal. But I didn’t yield my position, I wasn’t going to any godless church of hate that they had available on the base, it just wasn’t going to happen unless they bound me up and carried my in there. Which I didn’t say out loud — not to give them any extreme ideas they didn’t invent on their own.

    Eventually they made me go to a video classroom all Sunday morning for morality and ethics instruction on video tape, every Sunday. It wasn’t overtly religious, it was better than the Southern Baptist holy rolling preaching, which was supremely not-religious in my book, not about religion but about Chaplains scoring points with their management structure. It was my first exposure to the use of religion as a utter tool of manipulation, full of hate for anyone not going along with the plan for everyone to come on down front and confess your sins to be washed clean in the blood of the lamb, or someone else just as innocent…

    The idea that I was gonna go down there and tell them about any sinning I might have racked up before being incarcerated into Boot Camp at the point of a gun… that wasn’t going to fly even a tiny micron of distance. The whole thing was despicable, and reading the Wartburg blog about church leaders engaging in all kinds of assaults and being praised by the congregation for being strong leaders, strong defined by beating little children with a device leaving bruises on them, and sexually using young members of the church really brought all the revulsion I had at those theocratic monsters using boot camp to attempt to brainwash very naive young men.

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