Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Let’s finish the job.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Republicans would impeach Biden if he bit into a whole Kit Kat rather than breaking the sections apart.

Dear media: perhaps we ought to let Donald Trump speak for himself!

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Never forget that he train is barreling down on Trump, even as he dances on the tracks.

In my day, never was longer.

I was promised a recession.

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

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

This fight is for everything.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

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

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Well, whatever it is, it’s better than being a Republican.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

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Thursday Morning Open Thread

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  5. 5.

    Immanentize

    Hello All.
    @NotMax:
    We had a bunch of neighborhood kids early, but then turned out the lights and hid from the teenagers who come after 8

  8. 8.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The most disgusting food in the world – in pictures

    You will love the Mouse wine, a drink infused with dead baby mice from China, and the Kopi luwak, or civet coffee, which is coffee that includes coffee cherries eaten, part-digested and defecated by the Asian palm civet. Also Licorice, which I totally agree is pretty disgusting and Jell-O salad, which I grew up eating and fondly remember.

  12. 12.

    Ken

    @NotMax: That’s why it’s important to plan carefully, and buy candy that you like, or that can be used as aThanksgiving dessert ingredient.

  13. 13.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Good morning ?!

    I had a grand total of 15 trick or treaters, pretty well split between little ones and younger teens (all of whom favored a lot of blood in their costume choices). It turned out to be an almost perfect fall day for them, sunny and in the low 50s. First time in 10 years I’ve had any, since I never got them out in the country in Michigan.
    Edited to add: and my treat was enjoying a glass of wine on the porch while waiting for them.

  17. 17.

    Schlemazel

    @OzarkHillbilly:
    I love licorice but understand it is not everyone’s favorite. OTOH soup made from the head and feet of shheep would be delicious, lot of silky collagen and the meet is very tasty. Cuy is good also though the image is not what you want while eating it.

  22. 22.

    Ocotillo

    I hope the 200,000 new voters in Texas are Betomania. Wife was telling me there a lot of people coming in who thought they were registered but evidently had not voted in years and were purged.

  23. 23.

    Shantanu Saha

    I went out with my son (in a home-made Harry Potter outfit), so we left a bowl outside the front door. By the time we got back, it was half-empty, probably from the younger kids who were out when we were. As we came back, we saw the teens begin to get into gear. Half an hour after we got back, the rest of the candy was gone.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    Dems should tell their voters that if they vote in four consecutive elections they won’t be contacted by GOTV people. A little carrot to encourage consistent voting.

    I never get contacted, so I know it works.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Schlemazel:

    OTOH soup made from the head and feet of shheep would be delicious,

    Agreed, and I don’t know why cuy would be considered disgusting. Menudo looks like something I’ve already eaten in my travels SOB. When ever I went down there I had a long standing practice to order things I had no idea what they were. Sometimes I paid a price but most times I was richly rewarded with a taste treat I had never had before.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    In May 2016, Vice President Joe Biden dropped into Columbus to tout a federal new rule: overtime pay would be required for salaried workers who make up to $47,476 a year.
    The change was expected to boost the paychecks of 4.2 million Americans who work as mid-level managers in places such as big box stores, restaurants and the like.
    In September 2016, Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine joined a lawsuit with 21 state attorneys general to block the regulation, which business groups loathed. The suit was successful.
    The overtime regulation is now a central issue in the Ohio governor’s race.

    The overtime rule! You know the low quality Trump Administration will do a horrible job with it:

    Meanwhile, the Trump administration just concluded “listening sessions” to gather public comment on what the earnings threshold should be for salaried workers to be eligible for time-and-a-half for hours worked over 40 in a week. So far, more than 214,000 comments have been received, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. A new version of the rule is expected in January.

    Great issue for us- state AND federal. Applies in both.

  28. 28.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @OzarkHillbilly: @NotMax: Funny that a museum in Sweden included licorice because Scandinavians apparently love their licorice. When we were in Denmark you could buy it everywhere, and the cafes had multiple licorice flavored coffees and teas. Actually that trip got me drinking licorice-root tea again, which I hadn’t had in decades.

    I’ve heard about the civet coffee. Isn’t that also the most expensive coffee in the world?

    Haggis is actually pretty good. But blood sausage aka black pudding squicks me out.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: The Dems here send out a card with your voting history. Since I’ve been out here I’ve only missed one primary (2010 iirc).

  32. 32.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    Haggis is actually pretty good.

    One of these days I’m gonna get to try it. I figure anything that is so reviled in print but so loved by the people who eat it can’t be all bad and probably is pretty good..

  35. 35.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    More on “disgusting” food. I’m a big fan of science author Mary Roach, who writes books that are laugh out loud funny while also being incredibly informative. In her book “Gulp” about human digestion she mentions that we humans used to eat a lot more organ meats, and have lost a lot of nutritional value now that we don’t and they are considered gross and disgusting. She talks with the Inuit, who have very little besides meat in their traditional diet.

  36. 36.

    Matt McIrvin

    We have an official two-hour trick-or-treat window from 5-7 PM which is usually not on Halloween proper, but on the closest weekend, usually before the 31st. This year, there was terrible weather predicted for Saturday so the mayor moved it at the last minute to Sunday.

    Weather was chilly and overcast, but even so, we got just over 100 kids showing up, which I’d say is brisk business though not the biggest one we’ve had. The lady in the other half of our duplex is That Lady who gives out full-size candy bars, one per visitor, and she gets them in packages with a precise count, so she was able to keep track of the exact number. The crowd is always intense for the first hour, dominated by the wee little ones, and drops off right around the 6 PM mark when it starts to get dark. Next door lady gave up around 6:55 when it seemed like nobody was coming any more, and she was at a round 100 at that point. A few stragglers then actually appeared in the final minutes, so I think we were at about 105.

    The mix seemed to run more toward horror creatures and less superheroes than last year, though both were present in quantity. One inflatable T-rex. One Link from Legend of Zelda, who didn’t get it when I handed over the candy saying “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.”

  37. 37.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    It’s amazing what you have time to talk about in elections when you’re not talking about “brown and black people invading” stories, huh? Preexisting conditions and the overtime rule- the things Donald Trump doesn’t want to talk about.

    This can be done. We can get around them and make the real things they don’t want to talk about campaign issues, because it’s happening. Trump apparently can’t distract Floridians from environmental issues despite his best efforts.

  39. 39.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I’ve never missed an election, voted early this year and was a Democratic Party precinct captain in my old district before I moved, and I’ve been bombarded with GOTV texts, emails, calls, etc., this cycle. I guess they’re not taking any chances.

  40. 40.

    Kirk

    I look at that 200,000 1st time voter number (now approaching 300,000 I’ve heard) and get excited. I calm myself with remembering it’s less than half a percent of the 4.7 million Texas voters of 2016.

    But it’s still encouraging.

  42. 42.

    JeanneT

    I had about 30 trick or treaters – having some new families with kids moving into our neighborhood really bumped up the totals. In 2016, I had 6, max. Last year I was the only house on the block with a porch light on, and no one came by, so eventually I just turned it off. It was fun to see the flocks of kids walking around – and most of the parents were in costume, too. Everyone seemed to want to play and be silly for an evening..

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I get canvassed every Prez election year. One year when my middle son still lived here he was canvassed and he was listening to the whole pitch not telling them he already voted and I finally yelled from the couch “he voted!”- he’s infuriating. Apparently it’s a secret.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    They beat it to death, though. I’m not sure they could have talked about it more. Ask anyone – they all know about it. That’s a good example of how hard it is to break through- how long have we been yelling about ECOT? A DECADE :)

  47. 47.

    germy

    This is Debbie Cox, the county clerk of Ford county , Kansas. She is jeopardizing the voting rights of 13,000 , mostly Hispanic residents of Dodge City Kansas. When the ACLU emailed her to get her to do the right thing, she forwarded that email to Chris Kobach with an "LOL" pic.twitter.com/DgYE4Q3Mr5— Terrypdx (@terrypdx1) October 27, 2018

  48. 48.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: Nice to hear that T or T isn’t just a fading memory from my childhood. When I was a kid there were always hordes of youngsters going up and down the street. In my parents last years they’d only get 5 or less visitors. The neighborhood grew old.

  49. 49.

    Jager

    A guy in my hometown had a gorilla costume he would scare kids into peeing their pants. The last year my Jr High pals and I trick or treated he came hopping bowling around the side of his house. My friend Ron, who was one of those 13 year old boys who was already a grown man, chased the guy down, tackled him and came back with King Kings head.

  56. 56.

    PsiFighter37

    @Baud: Not sure that is accurate. I was getting text messages ahead of the NY primaries, even though I’ve voted in every election save for one (maybe the 2011 primaries? It was an off-year all around is all I remember).

  59. 59.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax: I’ll wait to eat the real thing. I’ve had some horrible experiences with canned “delicacies.” (don’t ever ever EVER try the caviar)

    My wife has found that La Tienda is a pretty good source for Spanish sausages and cheeses. I can testify that the Sobrassada and Botifarro are dead on what you eat over there. I am particularly fond of sobrassada:

    Sobrassada (Catalan pronunciation: [suβɾəˈsaðə]; Spanish: sobrasada) is a raw, cured sausage from the Balearic Islands made with ground pork, paprika and salt and other spices. Sobrassada, along with botifarró are traditional Balearic meat products prepared in the laborious but festive rites that still mark the autumn and winter pig slaughter known as a matança (in Spanish, matanza) in Majorca and Ibiza. The chemical principle that makes sobrassada is the dehydration of meat under certain weather conditions (high humidity and mild cold) which are typical of the late Balearic autumn

  61. 61.

    Kirk

    So I should note I’m trying to keep it calm because the depression around here after 2016 was a thing.

    That noted, the thing that keeps me vacillating the most is the straight ticket option on Texas ballots. I’m hearing a lot of claims that this will help Cruz. But I’m old enough to think “coattails” and wonder if the high profile Cruz-O’Rourke deal might not just incidentally turn Texas blue all over.

    Pardon, time to calm down and go to work. But still I dream.

  62. 62.

    TS (the original)

    @OzarkHillbilly: When I was at college it was the vegetable of the day – 5 days a week. Couldn’t face it then – still can’t now. granddaughter eats them out of the fridge (I am obligated to buy them when she visits) – strange children exist in all families :)

  63. 63.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: Trick or treat is serious around here. But I’ve been reading the comments on the mayor’s Facebook feed, and it seems some neighborhoods in town don’t get any. I think it depends on the mix of families and the street’s reputation for safety and candy distribution.

    Holding it earlier in the evening on the weekend, so it’s easier for little kids and parental work schedules aren’t as much of an issue, really helps, though I know some traditionalists grumble about it. It’s common for kids to come in from other streets or even other towns, either with local friends or just on spec–in past years my daughter has double-dipped, trick-or-treating locally on our designated day and then going up to do it with family in Hampstead, NH on Halloween. This year she went to a school friend’s Halloween party on Sunday and they all went out together on the friend’s street.

  66. 66.

    Elizabelle

    Abigail Spanberger’s campaign hits the big time. Gets to eject its very own embedded “Project Veritas/James O’Keefe” volunteer, an apparently pregnant woman who had wormed her way in but was found out.

    WaPost: Democrat says Project Veritas infiltrated her campaign in Va.’s tight 7th District

    RICHMOND — A conservative group that creates undercover “sting” videos infiltrated the campaign of Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat in a tight race with Rep. Dave Brat in Virginia’s 7th District.

    The campaign said a young woman working for Project Veritas posed as a Democratic volunteer and spent every day over the past several weeks in Spanberger’s suburban Richmond campaign office, performing basic office tasks — and peppering her office mates with questions that eventually raised red flags.

    Campaign staffers on Wednesday confronted her and asked her to leave, a video released by the campaign shows.

    (It’s a good video.)

    … Spanberger’s campaign said [Ms.] Jorge showed up a few weeks ago and said her name was Monica Nelson. She said she was five months’ pregnant and looking for something to do after overcoming an illness early in her pregnancy.

    In an email sent to the campaign’s deputy director Sunday, she pressed for a one-on-one meeting with Spanberger so she could pitch her idea for a website “to encourage moms to follow their political passions.”

    The campaign grew suspicious and found her image on a website that identified her as Marisa Jorge, a veteran of several previous Project Veritas stings.

    In a video provided by Spanberger’s campaign, Bye confronted Jorge on Wednesday.

    “We understand that you are here under false pretenses, and that we need to ask you to leave, and that your name is Marisa Jorge, and that you’re with Project Veritas,” Bye says.

    Jorge calmly says, “Okay, thank you,” and leaves immediately.

  68. 68.

    Platonailedit

    b2a3m9g8.stackpathcdn.com is fucking up the desktop site.

    Does anyone else have this problem in firefox or chrome browser?

  70. 70.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Platonailedit: I have found that this site is very hard on Chrome. I’m on the latest Chrome under Windows 7, all patches and updates, and after a fairly short period of time reading here, Chrome is up to nearly 100 % of CPU.

  72. 72.

    Gin & Tonic

    Oh, and on my iPhone with Safari, I can literally watch the battery capacity drop by 1-2% every time I refresh the page. Clearly it’s the ads. I’m hesitant to use ad blockers, but if this persists I will have no choice.

  73. 73.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: re: haggis. It’s best deep fried, which is how it was served as an appetizer when I was in Glasgow. I also had the traditional version. It was fine, a bit bland because it’s basically a savory oatmeal with organ meats.

  74. 74.

    Walker

    @Kirk:

    Except that there have been many reports of people voting straight ticket and the electronic machines flipping the senate votes to Cruz.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    Great! Just so people will be more paranoid, hate each other more, and volunteer less. We should all infiltrate the opposing campaign and lie about why we’re there. Good work, conservatives. One more valuable contribution to our civic life by the insane Right wing.

    Project Veritas is a grift. They release tape of public events Democrats are doing and sell them to vulnerable chumps in the base by telling them they’re “exclusive!” and “secret!” – who don’t these people get a real job?

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Walker:

    It is worrisome but these flipping reports are made every year in all different states. I wonder what it is. I don’t doubt they’re seeing it but it really does show up every cycle. I’d just like to know if it’s real and why it’s happening.

  80. 80.

    Tata

    My first trick-or-treater last night was a little boy, maybe 10 at the most, in street clothes with a long list of tiny numbers printed on paper belted to him. He said, “I’m a million digits of Pi.” Almost swallowed my tongue, I laughed so hard.

    Had lots of trick-or-treaters, even some parents, but it tapered off just after 8. Fortunately, two girls rang the doorbell at 9:30. I told them they’d just won the lottery and I emptied the candy bowl into their bags. No leftover candy = I win!

  81. 81.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Matt McIrvin: There are places up in STL where they have Halloween parties for the kids at YMCA’s, schools, etc. It’s understandable considering the neighborhoods, but it’s still sad.

  82. 82.

    Sloane Ranger

    Just had a breaking news alert on my phone. The Electoiral Commission has referred Aaron Banks, the businessman who put a lot of money into the Brexit campaign, for criminal investigation. Apparently there’s evidence that the money didn’t come from him and he was just a launderer for it.

    The Guardian has been running with stories like this for some time but it’s nice to get separate confirmation. Doubt it will change the minds of many Brexit voters, however. They are doubling and tripling down with every revelation that they were lied to.

  87. 87.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Kay: That’s what we have in RI. Works like a charm and everybody loves it (or at least nobody complains.)

  91. 91.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: Bookmarked!

    @Gin & Tonic: My wife worships the table it is placed on. When she still lived in Majorca, she worked in the office of a construction company and every Xmas the big boss would buy one for the office party. One of the expensive ones. I have pictures of a butcher’s stall in the Palma market with a couple dozen hanging with prices ranging from something I might consider spending to a 2nd mortgage on my house. It’s good, but it’s not that good, to me. My palate is just too blunt an instrument.

  94. 94.

    rikyrah

    @Sloane Ranger:

    Just had a breaking news alert on my phone. The Electoiral Commission has referred Aaron Banks, the businessman who put a lot of money into the Brexit campaign, for criminal investigation. Apparently there’s evidence that the money didn’t come from him and he was just a launderer for it.

    GOOD

  95. 95.

    Elizabelle

    @rikyrah: I saw her a few times. Word that comes to mind: slovenly. LOL.

    Learned through her “work” that James Comey has contributed to Abigail. As has George Soros’ son.

  96. 96.

    Tenar Arha

    @Tata: I’ve got more leftovers than I wanted (I really would have been > fine to only have Twizzlers left). I thought for sure I’d get at least some older teenagers after 8, or I’d have done that to the tweens who were all in furry onsies who were in the last group.

  97. 97.

    CliosFanboy

    had 61 kids, mostly real kids. Also mostly Hispanic. One little boy of about 10 was cute. He was with his mom and a baby sister (an infant dressed as a bunny rabbit). He was explaining this strange Yankee custom of Trick or Treat to his Mom, who was a bit bewildered but being a good sport…

    Last ones about 9:15. a couple little kids with their Mom.

    TONS of leftover candy as my wife and I both bought a bunch, and she always over-buys. So each kid got a full handful. My students will get a lot of the rest. The local food bank likes to get some too.

  98. 98.

    Redshift

    Thanks to the nice weather, we had over 200 kids come through our neighborhood haunted house. (I was Dr. Frankenstein!) I still have something of s voice this morning, and my feet don’t hurt too much. A good night.

  100. 100.

    Redshift

    @Quinerly: I just saw Corey Stewart’s closing ad, and apparently the awful one I thought I’d seen a couple of days ago was just the closing bit. After his brief attempt at “really I’m not a racist” apparently failed, he’s going hard Trump, “if we don’t stop the migrant caravan, millions of illegal immigrant will food our country, being crime and disease! Tim Kaine’s (lovely, actually) “America for all” means he wants Open Borders!” And so on.

    Again, can’t wait to see him get stomped by 20 points.

  102. 102.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @Platonailedit: I’m not having an issue with stackpathcdn that I can see. Or any issue, really.

    I’m running Firefox with uMatrix and blocking: facebook, connatix, ora.tv, culturalconvergencemedia, google-analytics, googletagservices.

    The main slowdown I see is waiting for Twitter to respond.

  103. 103.

    J R in WV

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    We had some black blood sausage in Spain and France that was pretty good. We stopped in little rural bars while moving between caves, and what they had was what was for lunch most days. My first palatable octopus/squid in those little bars full of farmers and retired factory guys moved back home after quitting the factory jobs in town.

    Roadside bars in Spain and France have as good food as high-end restaurants in this country, far better than the salad bar at Appleby’s !!!

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