Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

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

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

I am pretty sure these ‘journalists’ were not always such a bootlicking sycophants.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the gop

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Reader Interactions

184Comments

  1. 1.

    chris

    Snow! It just snowed for about five minutes here in southwest Nova Scotia. Something I’ve never seen in the 18 years I’ve lived here. Can’t wait to hear all the dumb global warming takes.

  2. 2.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I’ve often commented that cats’ unerring instinct to find soft places to put their butt (so my theory is that the mulch feels warmer and softer than the grass), even if the “soft place” is a single sheet of paper on the floor, comes from their jungle ancestors. You see, back in the jungle, this skill was important because… um…

    and the analysis tends to end there.

    Side questions. Why is a single piece of paper considered a soft place? What about a computer keyboard?

    I’m sure there are some Ph.D. dissertations to be mined from these questions if any BJers are so inclined.

  10. 10.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    Stoopid question time. Twitler was tweeting about “sending in the troops” to secure the US border earlier. Hazy memory is telling me that it would violate the “posse comitas” act or something. Am I right or am I just misremembering?

  13. 13.

    waratah

    John thought you might be interested to know that Beto has a dog named Rosie actually she was named after Theodore Roosevelt, at the time Beto may or may not have known she was a girl. They also have a cat called Silver the color looked close to 4Majors cat.
    Beto talked his daughter to picking Silver who was older than the kittens Molly fell in love with. Betos wife said she left them for three hours and came home to find a frog with crickets for feed. Amy finally decided to feed Molly’s love of animals by taking her to a wild life rescue to help. Why do I know this because as someone that has not watched reality TV I am hooked on Betos Facebook feeds.

  14. 14.

    Aleta

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: a single sheet of paper on the floor

    I had an idea once that it was about boundaries. They’re spatial and they just enjoy bounded spaces. (And changing their perspective.) The ways that they’ve come up with to enjoy being in the world are visual, tactile and spatial. Quiet stimulation.

  19. 19.

    p.a.

    Maine coons are damn handsome cats.
    I’ll start restocking the feeders soon. This necessetates resetting the mouse traps too.

  20. 20.

    jeffreyw

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Other cats disagree! How does your new tuxie get along with Homer?

    Those other cats don’t live here. We’ve had Ollie for nearly 2 years now so a lot of the new has worn off of him. He wishes Homer would die in a fire, if I read him right.

  24. 24.

    jeffreyw

    @Gravenstone:

    Did Homer let out a hearty, ‘Land ho!’ while he was up there in the crow’s nest?

    I’m not sure what he was thinking in that moment. I do know that shortly thereafter he was crying for help in getting down.

  30. 30.

    Ella in New Mexico

    As some of you know, I’m in the last two semesters of my Family Nurse Practitioner degree and I’m doing clinical work at a university-based family health care clinic associated with a high school in ABQ.

    Yesterday we had a “explosive device” alert and he entire school, the clinic and our patients were emergently evacuated to safety at a middle school down the road, to which we all shuffled, in 40 degree temps and 20mile/hr winds, in an orderly fashion. We were stuck there for four hours, waiting for the all clear permission to go get our things and cars and leave.

    It was quite an experience in observing just how much things have changed in my country since even one generation ago. No one freaked out, no one panicked. Cops and first responders were calm, purposeful, focused, on our safety but polite. School staffers from teachers to secretaries to principles were all totally organized and on task. All of the kids were cooperative, well behaved, more bored than afraid, surfing their cell phones for Snap chats and Twitter posts to get updates on the event. We even got a free school lunch out of the deal (that’s for another conversation).

    Our clinic staffers (we’re required to but would have done it anyway) stayed with all of the patients who we were seeing at the time of the alarm for the entire four hours until they could get shuttled to a nearby stadium to be picked up by family. We sat together and talked, like neighbors, of course about the event but also about day to day things. We played charades and colored with the little ones with their moms and in general just tried to keep them happy and occupied, which frankly, wasn’t hard because no one was throwing a hissy fit.

    All I can say it this : It was such a humanizing experience of the power of community, the one we saw among ourselves after 911. One I’ll never forget. It’s still there. From the 2 year-olds to the octogenarians in our group, it appears people have adapted to our new world order of random threats of mass catastrophe and mayhem pretty easily, it seems. We are such good people, on whole.

    Today we were told it was actually a mistaken student electronics project gone bad, not an intentional explosive device, which is reassuring and I’m not at all mad that I wasted 8 hours of clinical time now that i’ll have to make up because, hey, safety first.

  31. 31.

    Avalune

    I hope this is ok to put here. I’m Commentor Leto’s wife. Yesterday morning he was in a serious accident. He was on his motorcycle and a woman turned in front of him. He couldn’t avoid her. He has what feels like endless surgeries ahead of him and a long recovery. Some of you guys were friends to him and I wanted you to know.

  32. 32.

    WaterGirl

    @Ella in New Mexico: I’m trying to figure out if I’m reading you correctly. You are thinking that a “ho hum, this is no big deal” approach is a positive thing? I’m glad everyone was collegial, but I find that horrifying.

  34. 34.

    WaterGirl

    @Avalune: Oh, no. I am so sorry to hear that.

    Thank you so much for letting us know. Will you keep us up to date with how he’s doing? Again, I am so sorry.

    edit: Please take care of yourself as well as taking care of Leto. This must be so terribly hard on you, as well. Do you have a good support system locally?

  35. 35.

    Anonymous At Work

    Idea for a new thread: BALLOT INITIATIVES
    Florida is facing some real POS things recommended by Scott’s lackeys to keep Democrats from doing anything even if they win.
    Arkansas just had a major POS initiative stripped from the ballot (“tort ‘reform'”) and kept a minimum wage hike on the ballot.
    I figure more than a few states will have misleading and/or evil initiatives aimed at keeping Democrats from exercising any power they manage to win. A few spotlights on the “Hugs and Sunshine and Puppies and Ending Regulations on Polluters” items on ballots might be helpful.

  37. 37.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Avalune: That’s so awful! I hope he’s doing ok.

    We lost someone in our family to the same kind of accident. People just don’t look and they really don’t look for motorcyclists.

    Prayers for his recovery and your strength to deal with the upcoming challenges.

  38. 38.

    Amir Khalid

    @Avalune:
    It’s right that you let us know. I’m sorry to learn about this misfortune. You know he’ll be in our thoughts, and everyone here will be pulling for him to make it through this with the minimum of pain and impairment.

  39. 39.

    Mnemosyne

    @Avalune:

    Oh no! I’m so sorry to hear that. He is a friend of the blog and we all wish him the best.

    If you guys need anything, there are links on the front page where you can email the front-pagers directly. I’m sure that Anne Laurie, Betty Cracker, Adam Silverman, or any of the other front-pagers would be willing to create a post where you can update us.

  40. 40.

    debit

    @Avalune: Oh my god, I am so sorry. Thank you for letting us know, and please give updates as you can. And please let us know if there’s anything we can do: cards, donations, whatever. Hang tough, Leto.

  41. 41.

    JPL

    @Avalune: Thank you for letting us know, and please let him know that we are thinking of him. If you don’t mind, keep us updated, and take care of yourself too.

  45. 45.

    debit

    @schrodingers_cat: Same. Homer won my heart with the first picture of him and that massive cast on his tiny little leg.And his expression was all, “You think this thing is going to slow me down? HAH! I will fuck your shit up!”

  46. 46.

    Mnemosyne

    @WaterGirl:

    I was reading it more that everyone was keeping calm and carrying on, which is better than people freaking out and panicking.

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    One of my friends from college is an RN who just started working on becoming an NP — I think it’s a master’s degree here in CA? She’s still in the early stages, so she has not yet reached the OMFG what was I thinking when I decided to go back to school?!? stage of graduate school.

  47. 47.

    japa21

    @Avalune: Ditto to what everybody else said. Give him our best wishes and, as has already been stated, take care of yourself as well. This is one case where the words “thoughts and prayers” is appropriate.

  49. 49.

    JPL

    @debit: As soon as we know more, maybe Anne can put Avalune’s comment on a separate page. I do feel that although we are a motley crew, we are connected.

  51. 51.

    Another Scott

    @Ella in New Mexico: I heard a story on the radio recently (in the last month? On either an NPR station or the BBC late-night) about this Twitter thread (or something similar). What especially got me about it was a statement that the school doesn’t do fire drills any more because the amped-up fear of school shootings and terrorism means that everyone is too traumatized to leave the building and gather in safe areas outside.

    :-/

    Naturally, we don’t know what we think we know about actual school shootings and incidents with firearms – NPR – The School Shootings that Weren’t. We don’t know what the real problems are, nor how to fix them, without better data.

    Hang in there, everyone.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  56. 56.

    Mike in NC

    @Avalune: Sorry to hear about that accident, and hope Leto does well.

    A sunny and mild day here, which is hard to believe after such a godawful summer. Went to vote earlier. No line and the people working there all thanked me profusely for showing up. I would have crawled over a mile of broken glass to cast those ballots.

  61. 61.

    Roger Moore

    @Anonymous At Work:

    Idea for a new thread: BALLOT INITIATIVES

    It’s an interesting idea. Here in California (the home of the crazy ballot initiative) the really awful one is Prop 6, which would both roll back a recent tax increase on motor vehicle fuel (to be used for transportation funding) and require voter approval for any similar tax increase in the future. It’s especially bad because the tax increase is desperately needed.

    The only possible good side is that the originators of the initiative may have slightly overreached in a way that may hurt them. If they had just tried to roll back the increase with a referendum, the peculiar rules in California would have put it on the ballot in a confusing way that favors the side trying to repeal. Instead of having “yes” be a vote to overturn the legislature and “no” be a vote to uphold it, a referendum has “yes” be a vote in favor of the law in question and “no” be a vote against it. Since there’s a substantial bias in favor of “no”, that gives referenda an automatic leg up. But by adding in a constitutional question about future gas tax increases, the question is now “yes” to overturn the tax and add constitutional provisions to make future taxes harder and “no” to leave the tax in place. The bias in favor of “no” may be the difference in a hard-fought election.

  65. 65.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Mnemosyne: Hahaha tell her when that does hit, it’ll pass. The patients magically transform you. :-)

    @WaterGirl: Well, it’s more a commentary on how yes, we adapted, but yet we are still essentially just decent people, looking to live a normal life, and still so connected as human beings.

    @Another Scott: Very eye opening, and more what I expected yesterday and didn’t see.
    I wonder if that’s because of a couple differences. First, these are high school students, as opposed to a younger group who would likely be less able to cognitively manage the event.

    Second, this school is in Albuquerque’s South Valley, which is heavily poor and generationally Hispanic. There are a ton of social problems in this part of the community, and many of my patients have lived tough, tough lives, always. Older ones saw discrimination, oppression. The younger ones see drive by’s and drug crimes, broken families, sexual and physical abuse. And yet the “good folks” still outnumber the bad. They just have learned to dodge better than the wealthier folks up in our NW ABQ area.

    I have to admit that I think people from a different world might have been more rattled. Many of these folks just took it as only slightly out of the norm.

  66. 66.

    Marcopolo

    First, just finished my daily 60 GOtV postcards. Our (my local Indivisible group) last day for writing is this coming Monday. I think I am actually going to miss it.

    Second, there are some good folks who created Data for Progress after the 2016 election. Here is some of their “About us” text.

    Hillary Clinton decisively won the popular vote in 2016.

    She did not win the presidency.

    Though American politics is conducted at the state and congressional district level, polling and analysis are largely done at the national level. We reject that model, and will use state-of-the art techniques in political science and data science to bring layers of nuance and depth to polling

    They are currently doing 4 rounds of campaign fundraising (first round here–they are now into round 2) that are identifying key state legislative races around the country. Key means flipping these seats means flipping a state house or senate from Red to Blue. If you want to broaden your donations beyond the US House & Senate, give them a look.

    Here’s the link for Round 2.

    Round two is at about $35K atm. By the way, that first round of fundraising, which I think was only announced 48 hours ago has brought in $265,000 for the eight candidates. Thirty-five thousand dollars is a shit ton!! of money for most state legislative races. It’ll be fascinating to see how the folks they are targeting do in November.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    email from my son in Chicago:

    a stack of post cards to send to voters in critical districts and it’s one of the more funny ways to me to get people to go out to vote. I’m keeping it super positive! I even did some googling about their town to throw in some fun details about them.
    It seems silly but I feel like I have to do what I can! Things are so bad! I can’t believe they’re attempting to cheat at the census. Like where is the floor for these people?

    If they sucked him in they’re doing well- he hates everyone. I have never gotten a letter or postcard from him in his life.
    He was always a good student. I guffawed when I saw he went for the extra credit with “local details” :)

  71. 71.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Avalune:

    Oh no! Best wishes to Leto for a swift and complete recovery. I’m so sorry to hear this. Please, I know you must be frantic with worry and distraction, but please don’t neglect to take care of yourself. And I hope you’ll stop by with periodic updates. Thank you for letting us know.

  72. 72.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    I would have to search for the link, but I once read a fascinating story that told two concurrent stories about the police in a few rural/exurban towns trying to catch a serial rapist who was crossing jurisdictions, and a young woman who was prosecuted for making a false rape report. The twist, of course, was that she had actually told the truth, because they found the trophies the rapist had taken from her (including a photograph he had taken of her during the crime).

    Part of the issue was that she was a former foster child who had come from a REALLY rough background, so having a stranger break into her apartment and rape her was only, like, the 5th most traumatic thing that had ever happened to her, so she was able to compartmentalize it better than someone who didn’t have that traumatic past. But her failure to act the “right” way was what made people — including her former foster mother — think she was lying about it.

  73. 73.

    Marcopolo

    @Marcopolo: So there is now reporting on the fundraising that is being done by these folks:

    KRISTIN BAHNER AND her campaign manager, Taylor Winkel, were out knocking on doors Tuesday night, as they have been most nights as part of their bootstrap bid to flip a Minnesota legislative seat — and potentially flip the state House from red to blue.

    As they wrapped up, Winkel told Bahner that they should go over the campaign’s finances that night. With two weeks until Election Day, they didn’t want to leave anything untapped.

    They later connected by phone and, after looking through their books, decided that they had enough to hire a canvasser at 15 hours a week, or perhaps spend a bit on digital advertising. It wasn’t much, but with an expected voter turnout of 20,000, every little bit counts.

    But then Winkel had a thought: “Wait,” she told Bahner, “we haven’t checked Act Blue since Friday.” Bahner logged on to the platform that processes small donations.

    “I look at it and I go, ‘Is that a typo? That can’t be right,’” Bahner said she told Winkel.

    Winkel responded, “Well, I did send out a newsletter and make a fundraising pitch.”

    “No, Taylor, I think this is a little more than our average fundraising letter,” Bahner recalled saying. “I dug into the reporting feature” — which gives details of each contribution — “and I’m like, ‘Holy cow, this is literally a Minnesota miracle.’”

    Winkel took a look for herself, and sure enough, thousands of dollars were flooding in from across the country. Bahner looked closer at who was giving. An engineer from NASA. A nurse manager in Seattle. A floor worker from Best Buy. A retiree from Ohio.

    Bahner’s campaign in Minnesota’s 34B District, it turned out, was the beneficiary of a project put together by Data for Progress, a scrappy left-wing think tank that operates outside the orbit of the Democratic Party. Earlier on Tuesday, the group had suggested on Twitter that if progressives wanted to “give smart,” they should donate to eight state legislative campaigns around the country where the winner could tip the balance of power in the chamber. Contributors have the option of equally splitting their donations eight ways, or deciding how much to allocate to each of the candidates.

    Give it a read. Always good to see the positive Democratic election stories.

    I have to run now but everyone have a great day!

  76. 76.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Litlebritdifrnt: A) “What could go wrong when we send in the troops to settle a policy issue?” King George III 1773

    B) That’s an awfully long border.

    C) The border state National Guards already do that.

  77. 77.

    laura

    @Avalune: thank you for this distressing news about your husband and jackal. Caregiving is hard and I hope that you have an army of support. This blog is full to the rafters with the kindest and well informed group that are just a few words away from offering both practical advise and balm for the soul. Come back when you can and get a {{{{hug}}}} as needed.
    I wish you and Leto much strength in the coming days and weeks. Rest when you can, fight when you must.

  78. 78.

    oldgold

    Looks like the ‘tree’ is actually a pussy willow.

    Unlike a willow tree, this plant has no bark.

  79. 79.

    Kay

    @Marcopolo:

    He’s more moderate than I am. He grew up here where it’s really conservative and he took shit for being “liberal”, then he went to a liberal college where they thought he was a rural conservative. He’s interesting about the Trump voters, though. He thinks people romanticize rural Republicans. He says “don’t tell me what they’re like, I went to high school with them”. He couldn’t wait to get out of here.

  82. 82.

    WaterGirl

    @Kay: That makes me happy, Kay! I might resemble the “not sending personal cards and letters” remark, so he gets extra credit from me.

  84. 84.

    RedDirtGirl

    @Avalune: Thank you so much for thinking of us. Send him lots of Balloon Juice love, and keep us posted on his recovery!!!!!!

  85. 85.

    Ella in New Mexico

    @Mnemosyne: Wow! All the more reason we need to help people from all parts of our community move up into places that make a difference–cops and prosecutors who’d grown up in her world might have been less likely to write her off as “making shit up”

  86. 86.

    WaterGirl

    Well, this is distressing. An email report from our campus police:

    It was reported that the student was using the Uber rideshare service to travel from Champaign to Urbana (sister cities) when the driver pulled over in a parking lot and sexually assaulted the student. The driver has since been removed from the rideshare service. Police have the driver’s information and are actively investigating.

    Does Uber let just anyone drive? Are there background checks for drivers?

  87. 87.

    Yutsano

    @Avalune: Oh my gosh! How terrible for both of you! Please do feel free to give him all our well wishes. Much love and healing light to both of you right now. Please let us know if you need anything.

    But I will say for when he’s stuck in the hospital, try to find some old streams of Robotech. Embracing his inner geek will help.

  89. 89.

    geg6

    @Avalune:

    Oh my goodness! That’s terrible! Sending Leto and you all my most positive thoughts for his surgeries and recovery. Let him know we are thinking of him.

  92. 92.

    Mnemosyne

    @Ella in New Mexico:

    It’s another of the reasons why I think that prosecuting people who report being raped is a really, really bad idea unless the prosecutors can show that there was actual malice in the false report. There are WAY too many ways for that threat to be used against actual victims. IIRC, the fact that she was convicted of making a false claim actually set back the investigation of the serial rapist because the investigators removed her case from their files, and it turned out to have valuable information that might have helped them catch the guy sooner.

    And the MRAs never seem to have a good answer for what’s supposed to happen when a victim makes a mistaken identification and the wrong person gets prosecuted. Does that victim get prosecuted for a “false identification” since an innocent person went to jail based on her mistake?

  93. 93.

    Mary G

    @Avalune: That is terrible, so sorry for the ordeal ahead for both of you. Sending him good wishes and prayers. Thank you so much for letting us know and feel free to put as many updates as you have time and energy for as his recovery progresses, and like many others have said, take care of yourself too. It’s almost as hard to be the uninjured person, because you feel so helpless.

  94. 94.

    WaterGirl

    @R-Jud: The idea holds a certain appeal, but is it gruesome? Because I’ve had more than enough gruesome this week to last a lifetime.

  96. 96.

    WaterGirl

    @Avalune: Please let us know what we can do beyond caring and sending our good wishes and support. What can we do to actively help?

  97. 97.

    Ohio Mom

    @Kay: “I have never gotten a card or letter from him…”

    My 97 year older aunt died recently, and when her children were cleaning out her apartment, they found every letter from camp, birthday card, graduation/wedding/birth announcement, thank you note, etc. all of us nieces ever sent her. Nothing from the nephews because obviously they were never into corresponding. At all.

    @Avalune: What everyone else said. Also, Welcome to your new career of Patient Advocate. Everyone spending time in a hospital needs one.

  98. 98.

    raven

    @Ohio Mom: My dad kept all my letters from Korea and Vietnam and it’s intertesrting to read them and remembering how selctive I was when wrting.

  99. 99.

    Fair Economist

    @Avalune: Thank you so much for letting us know. All my best wishes for his recovery. Ask if there is anything we can do to help!

  100. 100.

    Kay

    @Ohio Mom:

    My husband writes letters. Notes, too. It’s nice. When we were friends before we were “in a relationship” he used to send me postcards from ski resorts, all the places he went. I’m so bad. I was like “WTF is this now?” I treat mail like a job. Like a duty.

    I think the postcards are a good idea. People hate campaign calls. Let’s not do things people hate.

  101. 101.

    Avalune

    Thank you all for the well wishes. I’m having a hard day today. He has surgery tomorrow and Tuesday and I don’t know about the rest I could only process so many. Our son is being flown in in a couple days by the Red Cross. It will be so good to see my baby boy. Leto’s work and my work are putting together a Go Fund Me I think. I don’t have any details atm but I will keep you guys posted. I know he only recently started commenting but he was a balloon juicer a long time and he talks about y’all like family.

  103. 103.

    dmsilev

    @WaterGirl:

    Does Uber let just anyone drive? Are there background checks for drivers?

    Uber claims they check out prospective drivers. However, there are a long long list of examples of sexual assaults, robberies, etc. from Uber drivers. So, Uber’s claims are somewhat dubious to put it mildly. My understanding is that Lyft is a bit more in depth in their screening than Uber and actually most “traditional” taxi companies are considerably better than both.

  104. 104.

    Mary G

    Well, looks like our days of being under the radar are passing. Weigel did a profile of resistance voters last week; now Time Magazine has a big long form article on people like us instead of more Trump voters in rural diners, called How the Anti-Trump Resistance Is Organizing Its Outrage:

    On a swampy Monday in July, Eberly and her co-leaders are rolling up little slices of turkey and pepperoni and putting together skewers of tomato and mozzarella. It’s steaming hot, and her air conditioner is broken. The midterms are more than three months away. But company is coming. Soon her platoon will drive up in their minivans, leave their shoes at the door and get to work writing postcards in support of McCready. They’re drinking a special cocktail for the occasion: a champagne-and-peach-juice drink called the Im-PEACH-ment.

    It has a lot of encouraging information about how different groups are approaching different voters; for college age voters, baby goats are important. We need baby goats for all!

  111. 111.

    Miss Bianca

    @Avalune: OMG, that is horrifying. So sorry to hear this, I was in a bad, bad bike accident myself years ago and it was a very similar scenario – a guy turned left in front of me and bounced me off his windshield, so believe me when I tell you that I feel his pain. THanks for telling us and let us know if there is anything we can do.

  112. 112.

    J R in WV

    @Avalune:

    Thanks so much for coming here to tell us about your partner Leto’s incident. I won’t call it an accident, sounds like it wasn’t an accident at all, but serious neglect.

    Modern medical care is so advanced it may not be so hard for him as you expect. Please do keep us informed of his progress, and let us know if you need help or support, because we can do that.

    You will be really busy at least, but do stop by from time to time. Like everywhere on the web, we have some real oddball people here at times, but mostly a real good group of people.

  116. 116.

    Mary G

    Stock market heading south again:

    the irony of the Dow crashing on Trump's watch is that since it's not in Saudi Arabian money he won't be affected— Chris in California (@CoastalElite28) October 18, 2018

    CNN Money says it’s because Mnunchin backed out of MBS’s “Davos in the Desert” summit.

  117. 117.

    LuciaMia

    After the sale of my house, I did a little cautious investing with some of the proceeds. Just in time for the stock market to crash nearly as bad as 2008. Wheeee!

  119. 119.

    Mnemosyne

    @Mary G:

    I did it with Lyft so I could get to my post-surgery appointments BUT I only did it during daylight hours. I would be very, very wary of getting into a car alone with a stranger after dark.

    I think Lyft gives you the option of requesting a female driver if you ever get into a pinch when you need to call one. At least half of my Lyft drivers were women, and I’m guessing they accepted the ride when they saw that I was a woman.

  120. 120.

    opiejeanne

    @Avalune: Oh no! I am so sorry to hear this about Leto. I hope that he is able to be made comfortable and that his surgeries go smoothly.

  121. 121.

    Another Scott

    @L85NJGT: One thing I haven’t understood about this “Obama’s war on coal” stuff is:

    1) As I understand it, WV coal is much more expensive than coal from out West, even accounting for transportation costs and all the rest.

    2) As I understand it, Australian coal is cheaper than western US coal in markets like China.

    So WV coal was going to die even if Obummer hasn’t declared war on coal. Even if natural gas wasn’t cheaper and cleaner. It’s the Glorious Free Market, All Hail His Name™ at work.

    Not Obummer. Not Michael Mann and James Hansen.

    We don’t burn whale oil any more, either….

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  123. 123.

    Roger Moore

    @Kay:
    This reflects a couple of interesting points about claims of liberals not understanding conservatives:

    1) People are far more likely to grow up in a small town (generally conservative) and move to a big city (generally liberal) than the other way around. If you assume that the ones who make the move are more likely to be liberal, that means there are more liberals who grew up around conservatives than the other way around.

    2) The concentration of liberals in a handful of very liberal areas has a similar effect. There are more liberals living in areas dominated by conservative governments than conservatives in areas dominated by liberal governments.

    So who is really living in a bubble?

  124. 124.

    catclub

    @LuciaMia:

    Just in time for the stock market to crash nearly as bad as 2008. Wheeee!

    1.When was that? IN 2008 it crashed almost 50%, I have not seen that recently. or that ‘nearly’ is doing a lot of work.
    2. What is the time horizon for the money you put in? One hopes it is 5years+, so you watch it go down and then wait for it to come back up.
    So far, betting that the US stock market will be down permanently has been a losing bet.

  126. 126.

    catclub

    @Roger Moore:

    There are more liberals living in areas dominated by conservative governments than conservatives in areas dominated by liberal governments.

    I wonder about that, I would guess that 30% or so of Californians are pretty conservative, that alone would be a big number.

  128. 128.

    Another Scott

    In more “least surprising news you’ll read today” news – GovExec:

    Newly released emails and an official White House photo provide evidence suggesting that President Trump himself directed the General Services Administration and the FBI to modify a years-in-the-works plan to move the FBI’s downtown Washington headquarters.

    A letter sent Thursday by Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, and four other Democrats, challenged GSA Administrator Emily Murphy on her congressional testimony that she did not discuss the decision to change the relocation plan with the White House.

    “Many years before becoming president, Donald Trump expressed interest in the FBI headquarters moving out of Washington, D.C., so he could acquire the land on Pennsylvania Avenue and redevelop the property, which is directly across the street from the Trump International Hotel,” the Democratic lawmakers wrote, with copies to Republican committee chairmen. “However, after he was sworn in as president—and became ineligible as a federal employee to obtain the property—he reportedly became ‘dead opposed’ to the government selling the property, which would have allowed commercial developers to compete directly with the Trump Hotel.”

    […]

    Shocked, shocked, …

    18 days to go!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  129. 129.

    JPL

    @R-Jud: It wasn’t gruesome enough..

    “Mr. Kushner has argued that the outrage over Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible killing will pass, just as it did after other Saudi errors like the kidnapping of the prime minister of Lebanon and the killing of a busload of children in Yemen”

    just an error Maybe they only meant to chop off the fingers and not the head

    nytimes

  130. 130.

    LuciaMia

    so you watch it go down and then wait for it to come back up.

    Sure, I know you need to be in it for the long haul. But as a first time investor its a little disconcerting.

  131. 131.

    Mnemosyne

    @JPL:

    Annoying as it is for the rest of us, the Khashoggi story isn’t going anywhere because it happened to a journalist who was part of our current MSM. They’re going to keep covering it obsessively because it happened to one of their own and they’re freaked out about it.

    No one in the MSM ever met that prime minister or those schoolkids, but they worked with Khashoggi. This is personal to them now.

  132. 132.

    catclub

    @LuciaMia: The only advantage the small investor generally has ( and I hope you do) is time. As long as you don’t sell, losses are NOT locked in. Good luck.

  133. 133.

    JustRuss

    @Avalune: Same thing happened to me 30 years ago. Fortunately I was young and healed up pretty well. Just started riding again, probably not the smartest thing to do but I’m not going to live forever and life is to be enjoyed, while you still can.

    Also, Steve’s awesomeness knows no bounds.

  134. 134.

    Kraux Pas

    @JPL:

    just as it did after other Saudi errors

    just an error Maybe they only meant to chop off the fingers and not the head

    If the target interrogation subject would have cooperated, none of this would have happened.

  135. 135.

    Roger Moore

    @catclub:

    I wonder about that, I would guess that 30% or so of Californians are pretty conservative, that alone would be a big number.

    Compare that to the number of liberals in Texas.

  136. 136.

    jonas

    @WaterGirl:

    Does Uber let just anyone drive? Are there background checks for drivers?

    They do do background checks now, but if you’re an assaulter who’s gotten away with your behavior until now and escaped any entanglement with law-enforcement, then there wouldn’t necessarily be any red flags.

  137. 137.

    catclub

    @JPL: It might turn out that MBS gets thrown out because the Saudis are sick of him, but there is just about nothing the US is willing to do that would force them to suffer. Or to force them to throw out MBS – that is purely their decision.

    We might (under either Obama or Hillary) cut off arms to bomb Yemen.
    But we are VERY unlikely to implement sanctions under the Magnitsky act. We are even less likely to embargo Saudi Oil, or start a Manhattan Project to reduce the world’s dependence on Oil in general.

  138. 138.

    scav

    @WaterGirl:

    Does Uber let just anyone drive? Are there background checks for drivers?

    Do we expect Uber to do any better than the the FBI & the Supreme Court?

  140. 140.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @LuciaMia: Not quite as bad as 2008. My retirement savings lost about 1/3 of their value in 2008 and took the rest of 2009 to recover. So zero growth for 2 years.

    This year when I’m actually trying to live on that savings, it’s lost something like 10% above and beyond what I took out. Enough that I now need income again and have to rethink my plans.

  142. 142.

    trollhattan

    @Avalune:
    Terrible! Here’s hoping he recovers fully; do feel encouraged to keep us posted and stick around to decompress/vent/gripe about…whatever. It’s expected and all jackals are welcome.

    A PSA to any riders–unless things have changed since I was active the illegal left turn/failure to yield right-of-way is the most common motorcycle accident. DRLs can help, but not if somebody’s busy texting while they’re turning.

  145. 145.

    Mnemosyne

    @catclub:

    I think it’s also a fair bet that, if Hillary was president, Khashoggi would still be alive, because either the US government would have done their legal duty and warned him that he was in danger, or MBS would have been reluctant to cross the US by openly murdering a legal US resident.

  146. 146.

    Chacal Charles Calthrop

    @Aleta: the thread has wandered from this topic but if you use tape to mark a square on the floor, your cat may come over and sit on it. I remember a whole twitter thread about it a while back. Evidently it is related to cats’ famous love of boxes.
    Steve, though, is just enjoying the sunlight and the distant possibility of catching a bird.

  147. 147.

    Roger Moore

    @scav:

    Do we expect Uber to do any better than the the FBI & the Supreme Court?

    I expect everyone- including the Supreme Court- to do better than the Supreme Court has done.

  150. 150.

    trollhattan

    @Mnemosyne:
    Hillary would not have tolerated Vlad’s shit nor put up with the Saudi shenanigans, beginning with Yemen.

    Reason #234,654 she’s missed….

  152. 152.

    J R in WV

    @Another Scott:

    West Virginia coal is a dying industry because most of it has already been mined. When the ore/coal is gone, the mine closes, everyone loses their job, the small town dies pretty quick thereafter. Out west the ghost towns are mostly from hard rock mining for metals, here in WV they’re coal towns where the mines were worked out.

    Back in the day they were mining 11 foot coal seams in WV — now there are companies that build mining equipment for low coal, down to 24 inches. But mountain top removal coal mining can hit every tiny seam going down to the bottom of the mountain. That’s been done a lot, not much left. Most of what is left is being mined for the tiny US steel industry.

    There’s no way to bring back mining when the coal has all been mined out. I worked with mining engineers, when I retired in 2008 they were saying 15 years of coal left, notice that’s only 5 more years?

  155. 155.

    germy

    "Mr. Kushner has argued that the outrage over Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible killing will pass, just as it did after other Saudi errors like the kidnapping of the prime minister of Lebanon and the killing of a busload of children in Yemen" https://t.co/KcDtLZ45aW— Katie Rogers (@katierogers) October 18, 2018

  158. 158.

    catclub

    @trollhattan:

    Hillary would not have tolerated Vlad’s shit nor put up with the Saudi shenanigans, beginning with Yemen.

    maybe so, but I have heard even less from European powers repudiating SA than from the US admin. Likewise for European powers not taking shit from Vlad. As long as SA has all that oil and money, and Russia supplies most of the natural gas to Europe, Europe ( and we) don’t have much effective leverage.

  159. 159.

    catclub

    @germy:

    outrage over Mr. Khashoggi’s disappearance and possible killing will pass,

    and he is probably right. one of the few things he is right about in the Middle East ‘peace’ process he is in charge of.

  160. 160.

    eclare

    @catclub: Plus if London raises too much of a fuss, Russia could effectively destroy that economy. Not that it hasn’t already by pushing Brexit.

  161. 161.

    Mnemosyne

    @trollhattan:
    @catclub:

    It’s hard to say for sure, but at a minimum Vlad wouldn’t have gotten the laurel and hearty handshake he got from Trump for his interference. There are apparently actions the executive branch can take on its own through the State Department that would not have depended on a Republican Congress voting to punish Russia.

  162. 162.

    catclub

    @eclare: How? I am curious. I would have thought that London is much less dependent on Russian natural gas.
    I don’t think having the various russian kleptocrats sell their expensive London homes would harm the English economy.

  163. 163.

    Roger Moore

    @Mnemosyne:
    It’s worth pointing out that the apparent breaking point for MBS was when Khashoggi was mildly critical of Donald Trump. He had been allowed to be critical before, but when he criticized Trump’s proposed foreign policy right after the election he was told to stop speaking out in public. Is it any wonder Trump is unconcerned about his death?

  164. 164.

    Mnemosyne

    @catclub:

    I don’t think having the various russian kleptocrats sell their expensive London homes would harm the English economy.

    It would if they all did it at once, particularly if they have loans through English banks that they default on or simply withdraw their money.

    It would be the housing crash of 2008, but on purpose.

  165. 165.

    eclare

    @catclub: Russian money is all over London/England. A ton of investments, not just real estate. Russia could really damage their economy.

  166. 166.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    1) People are far more likely to grow up in a small town (generally conservative) and move to a big city (generally liberal) than the other way around. If you assume that the ones who make the move are more likely to be liberal, that means there are more liberals who grew up around conservatives than the other way around.

    Agree! Also- a lot of Democrats are a political minority where they live, except we don’t get whole newspaper op eds about how traumatized we are.

    It’s also a lie that public schools are “liberal”. They’re conservative in conservative areas. One of the reasons my son hates this area is his high school civics teacher made him be the token liberal so there would be some diversity in their “debates”. It was like 28 to 1. The same teacher has both the junior and senior section so this went on for 2 years. They had a Canadian student transfer in and then it was my son and this Canadian, Conner. They were both pretty smart, though. I bet they held their own.

  169. 169.

    MisterForkbeard

    @Avalune: I’m late to this, but: that’s awful. Best wishes to the both of you, and please let us know if we can help at all.

  170. 170.

    kattails

    @Avalune: How absolutely awful for him, and for you to have to get that news, at least he’s survived it. Please keep us updated and let us know what might be needed.
    @Gelfling 545: A dusting here last night and it’s stayed cold enough that the shaded stuff is still on the ground. Blustery and maybe 40’s, but there’s still a lot of green on the trees, and this is smack in the middle of New England. Much too early for bird feeders, the bears would just take them down.

  171. 171.

    Kay

    @Roger Moore:

    He’s really amusing on it. That might be an underserved audience, people who grew up in conservative areas and rejected it.

    I was telling him about a horrible crime we had here that is now at trial- it involves a fundie religious sect and a botched home birth due to a belief that the baby would rise from the dead. I said “no one would think it could happen here with such normal-seeming people involved” and he said “everyone would think it could happen there- you’re literally the only person who is surprised”.

    Dark. He has a dark view of his hometown.

  173. 173.

    WaterGirl

    A reminder for anyone who might be interested:

    Beto has a one hour town hall tonight — Cruz declined the corresponding town hall that CNN offered him.

    Tonight 7pm ET, 6 pm central. I requested a thread for the town hall; hoping we et one!

  178. 178.

    texasdoc

    @Avalune: I am so sorry to hear that. I mostly lurk, but have appreciated his comments here on BJ. Unfortunately, drivers tend to pay no attention to those of us on two-wheeled vehicles. I hope he makes a full recovery as rapidly as possible.

  179. 179.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Kay:

    It’s also a lie that public schools are “liberal”. They’re conservative in conservative areas.

    They’d be more conservative if it were legal for them to be racially segregated and openly religiously sectarian, and one, the other or both is generally what is bothering these people.

    I spent my college years learning the hard way that I had to watch what I said to avoid trouble with evangelical Christians and homophobes, which makes all the complaints about campus PC amusing.

  180. 180.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Roger Moore: Every few years we get the chin-stroking article pointing out that conservatives have a higher fertility rate than liberals, so they’re going to conquer every society by outbreeding. The thing is, that’s always been the case, so one has to explain why there are any liberals left today at all. Something must make it much more attractive for children of conservatives to become liberals than the reverse.

  181. 181.

    Antid

    I know there is no chance in hell I will ever convince people who want to let their cats outside to keep them inside where they belong, but please, for the love of god, please don’t have both an outdoor cat and bird feeders. If you do, you are actively luring birds to their death. If you can’t be persuaded to keep your cat indoors, please don’t also have bird feeders.

  182. 182.

    Avalune

    @raven: His body armor and helmet saved his life. He has no head/brain injuries. His pelvis is going to have to be reconstructed Tuesday and as a result of his pelvis injury he lost a lot of blood and had other very bad injuries from the pelvic bones shearing. He also has a fractured knee but they don’t really care about that at the moment. They said most people die from his kind of injury and attribute his current status as combo of armor and his being a fit runner. He’s running a fever that just doesn’t want to stay down but his bp is up and he looks a lot better tonight. They think eventually he will be able to walk again but there are some things that will be very hard for him to accept.

  183. 183.

    TomatoQueen

    @Avalune: So very sorry this dreadful accident happened and holding good thoughts for what sounds like a long journey ahead for Leto and you.

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