Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

One way or another, he’s a liar.

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

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

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

The only way through is to slog through the muck one step at at time.

Republicans in disarray!

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

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

“Perhaps I should have considered other options.” (head-desk)

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Open Thread: New Year, Old Memes

Open Thread: New Year, Old Memes

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118Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    No screwing around with Medievals. I don’t know how they survived all that fear and terror.

  4. 4.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Kathleen:
    Yay! Maine is now officially a Blue State, at least for now.

    Also of interest:

    In 2015, the tribes pulled their representatives from the legislature in protest of growing tension between the tribes and the state government, including Governor Paul LePage. There appears to be no plan to have the representatives return to the legislature for the 128th session, as stated on June 20, 2016.

    Now that Dems control state government, hopefully there will be plans for the 129th session to have the Native American Reps return.

  6. 6.

    Baud

    CNN

    Democrats are making presidential tax returns a focal point in one of their first pieces of legislation, an effort to build the case to the American people that time is up on President Donald Trump keeping his own tax returns from the public, shutting what could be a window into his personal wealth.

    According to two sources familiar with the discussions, Democrats will include a provision in their new bill that would require presidential nominees to disclose 10 years of tax returns shortly after they become the nominee. Vice presidents would also be required to disclose a decade of returns. The tax returns would then be posted on the Federal Election Commission’s website for public viewing.

  9. 9.

    Kathleen

    From @electricbrotha, FTFNYT has actually produced a worthwhile article

    Everyone in this story sounds more interested in protecting Bernie Sanders than they are with dealing with the sexual harassment that occurred during his 2016 campaign. Ragnarok Lobster (@eclecticbrotha)

    Here’s his link to NYT story:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/02/us/politics/bernie-sanders-campaign-sexism.html

    Here’s link to story from the young woman featured in the article:

    https://medium.com/@mashamendieta/be-your-own-hero-because-bernie-is-not-it-c4add2e08029

    ETA: rikyrah & I are on the same wavelength!

  10. 10.

    SiubhanDuinne

    R.I.P., Captain Daryl Dragon. Hate me if you will, but I had a real soft spot for The Captain and Tennille 40-odd years ago. Love and smooth sailing from a Muskrat.

  14. 14.

    Raven

    Hangin at the crib before we meet a old buddy, musician a deep water diver, for dinner at a Lebanese joint here in the Easy. It’s supposed to rain again tomorrow so I’ll hit the WW2 museum and the boss lady will go artsy. Shitty Sugarbowl for the Dawgs but that’s the way to cookie crumbles.

  15. 15.

    Schlemazel

    @debbie:
    I would have died a horrible painful death for conditions I had or soon will be, cured of. No way am I a fan of the “good old days”

    Got my surgery date, Feb 4. Found out that the U doc had sent a sample wash in when he sent his biopsy & it also came back benign. So the surgery will be for reconstruction which is 100x better than the MAyo doc wanted to do because he was sure it is cancer despite 3 separate negative results. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel

  17. 17.

    germy

    @debbie:

    Yeah, well, I’m mourning Officer Judy. Great straight man. I didn’t know until now he was Albert Brooks’s older brother.

    And their father was a comedian who literally died onstage during a roast. He gave a short, humorous speech and then keeled over from a heart attack.

    Their father also got a writing credit on a Robert Benchley “miniature” from the ’30s called “See Your Doctor”

  22. 22.

    Kathleen

    @Schlemazel: I’m so happy for you! Good for your for following your instincts and standing your ground,

    OT, but I saw your comment a few threads back about how involved your father was in DFL politics in Minnesota in the 60’s. Were you by chance at the DFL convention in Minneapolis in 1965 where the battle between Rolvaag & Keith supporters exploded?

  23. 23.

    Schlemazel

    @Raven:
    sorry about the outcome it had to be painful to watch but I hope you got some enjoyment out of being at the event

  25. 25.

    MomSense

    @Kathleen:

    When Matt Dunlap came in the crowd went nuts! It’s quiet now- judges and justices are seated and we are waiting for the Maine main event.

    I’m sitting on the floor very close to the front near a very stern looking justice. I almost confessed how far over the speed limit I drove getting here.

  29. 29.

    Kathleen

    @rikyrah: Make sure you read the second link as well. It gets worst. This calls for one of rikyrah’s famous
    BWAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA’s!

  33. 33.

    Raven

    @Schlemazel: yea we had fun, it was a bizarre set of circumstances that basically gave the game to Texas but it meant more to them and it showed. The place in the quarter is sweet except I have to carry the dogs up and down a steep flight of stairs. Did I say it was really noisey with the leather bar across the street that stays open til 5am!

  41. 41.

    Schlemazel

    @Kathleen:
    Yes but not on the floor, I was only 13. I remember that as an ugly fight. More memorable to me, At the DECC I was working in the office for Bob Short (my dad’s pick & I never understood why). There were a couple of votes & no decision Short ran into the office with a couple of guys from the other campaigns. I was invisible so I got to hear some high-level horse trading. It didn’t work out for Short

  44. 44.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Kathleen:

    “I don’t think he has to be the vehicle or the platform for the movement that emerged from his campaign,”said Sarah Slamen, who worked for the campaign in Texas, was the state coordinator in Louisiana and helped build out Our Revolution, a progressive organization born from Mr. Sanders’s presidential campaign.

    “Do you know how hard that is for me to say after working so hard for him?” she said.

    Ms. Slamen quit the organization at the end of 2016 after she said she was berated by a male member of the Our Revolution steering committee for suggesting an organizing plan. In emails reviewed by The Times, she raised issues about sexist behavior with committee members who saw the incident and Our Revolution’s national board of directors. She said she received no reassurance that anything would change.

  46. 46.

    Schlemazel

    @rikyrah:
    Thanks, it was funny because the Mayo guy is one of the top guys in the world & the U guy was reluctant to disagree with him. I sort of walked him through the results a couple of times and his resolve stiffened. I think I am going to be OK

  47. 47.

    Schlemazel

    @Baud:
    I was thinking of him today. He showed up for a couple of threads & seemed to indicate things were going better for him. I was wondering if anyone has heard from him. I have not been a real regular so I miss stuff

  49. 49.

    JanieM

    @JanieM: Complexifying my own response: I’m not saying the tribal representatives won’t be back; I have no idea. But it’s an overly easy, under-nuanced assumption to think that just because Mills is a Democrat, the tribes will automatically decide to come back. There’s a history of conflict specifically between Mills and the tribes over the water issue, from her tenure as AG. So we’ll see.

  51. 51.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @rikyrah: I love our incoming Congressional freshman class. I sent a fanboy note today to mine, Mary Gay Scanlon, basically saying that I don’t know how that pick a legislative priority, it’s sll urgent, but I look forward to her and her colleagues starting to clean up all the messes.

  52. 52.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @rikyrah: I love our incoming Congressional freshman class. I sent a fanboy note today to mine, Mary Gay Scanlon, basically saying that I don’t know how that pick a legislative priority, it’s sll urgent, but I look forward to her and her colleagues starting to clean up all the messes.

  53. 53.

    Schlemazel

    @Raven:
    It is a fun town but not one for rest & relaxation. My advice is don’t stay near the quarter.

    I sat & watched my favorite team lose a national championship to a team they should have beaten. It took a day to get over the disappointment but I still remember what a great time we had in the stand with friends and even supporters of the other team. OTOH, I was also at 2 championship games I though we would not win but we did & that is a sweetness that lasts a long time

  54. 54.

    JanieM

    Momsense — glad you’re at the Civic Center. I relinquished my ticket when I ended up with a tsunami of work today, followed by a migraine. If I had thought of it I would have tried to see if you wanted to meet up ahead of time, but it wouldn’t have worked out anyhow.

    Enjoy!!!! It’s such a relief to have Mills taking office! May we have a similarly happy transition nationally one of these years.

  55. 55.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @JanieM:
    I honestly didn’t know about any of this until you linked that article. Thanks for letting me know.

  57. 57.

    Mnemosyne

    @Baud
    @Schlemazel

    IIRC, both of ef’s grandkids were coming for the holidays, so he’s probably spending maximum time with them and not saving any energy for us jackals.

  62. 62.

    debbie

    I stand corrected. Never mind. I’m surprised MBS would be interested in a painting of the founder of Christianity. Not very Wahhabi of him.

  63. 63.

    Miss Bianca

    @rikyrah: Oh, my…this is finally coming out in the FTFNYT?

    Is our worms finally turning?
    Is our worms finally learning?

  64. 64.

    Hungry Joe

    Dog attack update: After three and a half interminable weeks, Alice the Dog was freed from the horrid Cone. Her wounds have healed well, and there was no infection. Because she was on heavy pain meds for the first four or five days, she wouldn’t eat, and eventually had to be offered human food — warm chicken and rice/tuna and rice. Her response: “What the HELL? Eleven years you’ve been holding out on me!” Soon we started giving her dog food again, which she refused. Went on a hunger strike. We waited. We won.

    But she is back to normal, and we feel like we’ve been given a new life with her. She seems unaffected by the whole thing; she’s once again the happy goofball who loves everybody. My hand has almost healed, too — still a little tender, but I’ve got almost all the movement back in my thumb.

    As for the attack dog … well, the neighborhood remains alarmed, and people may be putting together a petition. I can’t comment or participate because we’ve engaged an attorney and he says, stay out of It. But we’ll get our vet/medical expenses (about $4,000) back, and almost surely more than that, even after the attorney’s fees. Our goal is to hit her homeowner’s insurance so hard that it’ll be impossible for her to get coverage as long as she has that dog.

    The Humane Society, which picked up the Animal Control contract when the County of San Diego outsourced it to save money, showed up five days after the attack to inform the owner that the dog was now in its fifth day of a 10-day quarantine. They showed up on the tenth day to check, determined that the dog isn’t rabid, and that was that. Because this was the first report of the dog’s hurting a human (though it has attacked other dogs, including Alice a few months ago), there’s nothing more they can do. So Alice and I — she’s taking walks again! — continue to treat that part of the neighborhood as radioactive. I never before carried pepper spray, but I do now. Sometimes, rounding a blind corner, I get anxious unless I’ve taken it out and have my thumb on the trigger. I hope that goes away.

    But Alice is back. Sleeping not ten feet from me. Snoring. “Hey, Alice! Knock it off!” SUCH a good dog.

  65. 65.

    Kathleen

    @Barbara: As I posted on MSNBC’s Tweet on the story, “It’s about damned time”. Several Cult Members responded that Hillary must be running again, DNC out to get him, blah blah blah. I blame Hillary and Obama.

  66. 66.

    ruemara

    I swear to god, I’m going to go into my network server room and smash fucking everything with a goddam mallet. I can’t print (haven’t been able to since summer) and I’ve lost access to the main server and when I try to remap the drive, it won’t let me. I just lost my asset server, which was working fine an hour ago, as the main server was working this morning and the IT guy is, of course, on vacation. Which is only notable from being not on vacation in that stuff is breaking when he’s not present. I’m trying to be patient but 70% of last year was consumed by tech problems.

  68. 68.

    Kathleen

    @Schlemazel: I was 15 and was horrified by Keith’s campaign’s antics (we were Team Rolvaag). I had forgotten about Bob Short. Name sounds vaguely familiar. Would you mind refreshing my memory?

  73. 73.

    MomSense

    Amazing invocations and poem by our Poet Laureate – song of the unsung. Now we have the Franklin County Fiddlers!

  76. 76.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kathleen: Wow, that second article.

    I am still so incensed by all my white leftist friends who were all rah-rah for Bernie and tried to argue that being for Bernie meant they were the *real* feminists, and that my arguing that they should be voting for HRC meant that I was guilt-tripping them with “essentialism” – “it’s so unfeminist to claim that voting for the woman is the feminist thing to do! We’re beyond all that now! Anyone who doesn’t see that Bernie is the real face of feminism is just some bitter old dried up bitch!”

    OK, I exaggerate. A little. Am I still bitter? Hell, yes. And hell, maybe I am a bitter old dried-up bitch…but I WASN’T WRONG.

  77. 77.

    MomSense

    Then two little girls Janet met at a boys and girls club rocked the house with This Girl is on Fire. Now the Portland string quartet closes out the entertainment with a the besutiful Tis A Gift To Be Simple.

  78. 78.

    khead

    “I can pick anyone I choose. And I pick Ben Richards. That boy is one mean motherfucker.”

    Great synopsis – if you can call it that – of “The Running Man” here if you’ve never watched or you are too young. Richard Dawson was pretty awesome in this flick.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    Well, I’m getting a new roof in 2019. So that’s very exciting. Black, off-black or blackish- brown. Don’t all clamor around with your choices! One at a time.

    My neighbor Caleb said, and I quote, “don’t get anything weird” What does he take me for.

  82. 82.

    Schlemazel

    @Kathleen:
    Joined the navy in WWII & then went to law school. He bought a failing truck line & then others and created Admiral-Merchant which was a very big deal. He bought the LAkers after Miken retired & the team stank. Moved them to LA. After the Twins moved from DC he bought the rights to the Senators and when attendance stank moved them to Arlington TX.
    He held a seat in COngress in the 40s and lost to Dave Turdburger for Senate.
    His politics were conservative, anti-choice, pro-business. I never asked but I didn’t understand why my hardcore union dad liked him

  84. 84.

    Barbara

    @Hungry Joe: Definitely go after the insurance. I have a friend whose dog allegedly bit a census worker, who sued, and the insurer told my friend that the victim of a dog bite always wins, and that it would no longer insure her if she continued to own the dog.

  87. 87.

    Kathleen

    @Schlemazel: Thank you! My synapses weren’t firing and I didn’t realize the power of The Googlzzzz!. Was he a mover/shaker in the DFL?

  101. 101.

    Ken

    @Kay: One of the trends I notice on the new construction around here is to have two or three different roof treatments – wood shingle, asphalt shingle, copper over the front door. I have no idea why any homeowner would want such a farrago – obviously it’s good for the building trade, at least when it comes time to repair/replace the various bits.

    Come to think of it, I see the same thing on the outside walls – brick, stone, wood siding.

  107. 107.

    Yarrow

    It was telling how many of the men in media who lost their jobs or at least were suspended because of their abusive acts towards women were the same ones who were horrible to and about Hillary Clinton. It’ll be easier to pick them out going forward. Just look at how they respond to women in power.

  108. 108.

    Yarrow

    @Hungry Joe: So glad she’s doing so well and you are too. Sounds like you’re doing all the right things to take care of yourselves and make the neighborhood safer.

  109. 109.

    Miss Bianca

    @Ken: Ha ha! Then get some sheep or goats to graze it! My word, that would make them stare in Ohio!

  110. 110.

    J R in WV

    @Schlemazel:

    Glad your new doc finds the biopsies and other diagnostic data factual. My dad had multiple biopsies of a “growth” on his lung, all negative, but the doctors talked him into surgery anyway. It was an encapsulated infection, all dead from the preop antibiotics, no signs of cancer.

    He had trouble with nerve pain from the huge incision they used to get into his chest for the rest of his life.

    So best of luck, hang in there, keep us posted as you progress!

  111. 111.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Schlemazel: Such good news. Patient persistence can help! (Patient is a noun there).

    @Hungry Joe: Great to hear Alice the Dog is healed. You’re tough folks to make her go back to dog food, but she still loves you. I hope your hand continues to improve.

  112. 112.

    Yarrow

    @Kay: Agree with the others–get the lightest color you can. Some of the materials are better at reflecting the sun back, which keeps the house cooler in the summer.

  113. 113.

    Bill Arnold

    @chris:
    Laughed and smiled at that piece. Teaser, last two paragraphs:

    Gregg Smith, the former CEO of Prince’s Frontier Services Group told me this week he believes “the Israelis, Emiratis and Saudis all had a role and [Erik] Prince was [Steve] Bannon’s conduit to them.”
    There can be no certainty when the game is subterfuge, and we need to wait for Mueller’s final report before we reach any conclusions, but if Leonardo’s Salvator Mundi proves to be a key which helps unlock Trump-Russia, “Savior of the World” could prove to be nothing short of prophetic.

    Very well-told story. (And if true, it would be a wonderful reality joke.)

  114. 114.

    Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho

    @Kay: Gray, bluer rather than green or brown-toned. Neutral and much lighter than black or off-black, even if it’s a darkish gray, and so more reflective.

  116. 116.

    Kay

    @Jay:

    It’s a good house, in that it doesn’t get that hot in the summer. It has plaster walls and big shade trees. I turn on the air if it’s like 100 out or sometimes just to pull the moisture out. I don’t really like air-conditioned air- I hate that freezing, closed up feel. We have an attic fan that is just crazy powerful for some reason- it pulls so hard the door to the upstairs slams closed and you have to prop it open.

    I have a good builder – Caleb my neighbor (who is really very nice despite his comment about my potential weirdness) recommended the contractor he used for his roof. I normally just do what the contractor says to do. The house is white and the roof is dark grey now. I know they have better materials than they did 20 years ago so maybe he’ll have some energy efficient ideas for me.

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