Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Schmidt just says fuck it, opens a tea shop.

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

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

Maybe you would prefer that we take Joelle’s side in ALL CAPS?

He really is that stupid.

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

Republicans don’t trust women.

A consequence of cucumbers

Joe Biden can go out like FDR, not by dying in office, but by crushing the fascists.

Russia bombs Ukraine’s maternity hospitals; Republicans in the House can’t sort out supporting Ukraine.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

No one could have predicted…

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Republicans don’t lie to be believed, they lie to be repeated.

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

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

The Supreme Court is corrupt. Democrats must win in November and force court reform.

Fuck that bum, let’s go Joe!

Usually wrong but never in doubt

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

You are here: Home / Books / Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Happy News

Wednesday Morning Open Thread: Happy News

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Not necessarily in order of importance…

… Writer Jill Twiss and illustrator EG Keller are collaborating on “The Someone New,” HarperCollins Children’s Books announced Wednesday. Scheduled for June 4, the book is a parable about welcoming outsiders. It tells of a forest in which a chipmunk worries that the entrance of a snail will ruin the world he knows. The publisher will donate some proceeds to a charity aiding immigrant children.

Twiss is a staff writer for John Oliver’s HBO program. She and Keller worked on “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Presents a Day in the Life of Marlon Bundo,” which spoofs a picture story by the wife and daughter of Vice President Mike Pence by making Bundo a gay rabbit…

 
Nancy Pelosi knows Elijah Cummings is an excellent mentor for young firebrands…


 


 

Reader Interactions

125Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    “the evidence the WHO has been gathering in North Kivu —

    My first thought: “I thought the Who was back in the studio.”

  2. 2.

    Baud

    The Atlantic

    Pete Buttigieg, the Millennial mayor of South Bend, Indiana, will formally launch an exploratory committee on Wednesday and make official the presidential run he’s been not-so-subtly edging toward for the last year and a half. His run will be explicitly about a generational contrast not just to the people in power, but to most of the people running in his own party.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I have a question for the morning crew. If your presidential exploratory committee comes back with a report titled “For the Love of All that is Holy, DO NOT RUN,” are you legally required to follow their recommendation?

    Asking for a friend.

  7. 7.

    Kay

    I went to a multi-county Dem Party meeting last night and the candidates from rural counties think Issue One hurt them.

    This is Issue One:

    State Issue One, one of the hottest topics on the ballot did not pass according to AP.
    If it did, it would’ve changed how drug offenders are punished, by reducing charges from a felony to a misdemeanor,
    The issue would’ve also made the possession, obtainment and use of drugs a misdemeanor, with no jail time, for first and second offenses committed within a 24-month period.
    Along with that, it wouldn’t allow judges to send people to prison if they violate probation, unless they commit a new crime or miss an appointment.
    Issue 1 would’ve also cut prison time for drug offenders if they complete a rehabilitation program except for those convicted of violent crimes.

    It was 60/40 “no”

    I don’t know if it’s true that it cost them, but I hadn’t heard that before. A few conspiracy theorists among them believe it was deliberately put on the ballot by Republicans.

  8. 8.

    Mel

    The effectiveness of the vaccine is enormously good news. I wonder if there are strategies in place or enough funds available to start quickly expanding the vaccination program / extending the geographic reach of the program.

    From what I understand, healthcare workers were running into some big obstacles in terms of vaccinating exposed or at risk folks during outbreak containment efforts, especially in rural areas, due to (understandable) distrust of foreigners, and due to many areas being extremely difficult to access because of conflict zones and difficult terrain.

    Training more local and regional residents to carry out or assist with ongoing education outreach and vaccine administration seems like the best way to ensure that the vaccine reaches the maximum number of people.

    It would be a sheer delight to see Trump’s demanded wall money get allocated towards Ebola eradication efforts. Special bonus: the impotent rage of the anti-vaxer subset of Trumpsters.

    Alas, a girl csn dream, right?

  9. 9.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: It didn’t stop trump. A lot of things didn’t stop trump. His perpetuating actual illegal acts did not keep him from the Presidency. So I guess not.

  12. 12.

    Cermet

    The #1 issue in the Congo is the world’s need for their minerals (mostly for electronics and especially cell phones) which feeds the vast civil war still killing many of thousands every year (over the last fifteen years, easily 10 million have died thanks to these wars.) The vaccine is great news but distribution is extremely dangerous in many areas due to the active fighting. Those that do this work are brave to say an understatement.

  14. 14.

    Mel

    Looks like an Ebola monitoring snd education program was started in North Kivu last fall, focusing on teachers and school administrators reaching out to their local communities. School staff took training in how to monitor their students for signs of Ebola related illness, and they then also began community education outreach.

    Wonder if this program could be paired with or used as a backbone for local vaccination efforts?

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    The children of an Islamic State fighter who were abandoned in Syria have been reunited with their mother, a month after the Guardian tracked down their family in Trinidad.

    Mahmud and Ayyub Ferreira, now aged 11 and seven, were abducted by their father and taken to Syria in 2014, where they spent several years living in the so-called caliphate before ending up in the hands of Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces.

    On Monday, they were released into the care of their mother, Felicia Perkins-Ferreira, who had never left Trinidad before travelling 6,000 miles from the Caribbean to be reunited with her sons in north-east Syria.

    After crossing the Iraqi border with the human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, the family was flown to Switzerland with the help of Roger Waters from the rock band Pink Floyd.

    The two boys and their mother cried when they were reunited in the Syrian Kurdish administrative capital, Qamishli, hugging each other close. Perkins-Ferreira cleaned their faces with baby wipes and changed them into the clean clothes she had brought with her.
    ……………………………
    On the long drive back across the border to Iraq, Ayyub and Mahmud slept on their mother’s lap. She slept, too, she said.
    ……………………..

    Kidnapped the day after Ayyub’s third birthday, the boys spent several years in Isis territory before the US-led coalition closed in and their father sent them out of Raqqa towards Turkey with their Belgian stepmother. They were found on the side of the road by the Kurdish-Arab Syrian Democratic Forces and held at Camp Roj with the families of dead or imprisoned militants. The boys’ father is believed to have died in the fighting and their step-mother is being held in a different Kurdish camp.

    The brothers were so traumatised by their experiences they could not remember their mother’s name, but they clung on to pictures of her, which the Guardian used to find Perkins-Ferreira in Petit Valley, a quiet suburb just outside Trinidad’s capital, Port of Spain. She had received only intermittent news of her sons over the past four years.

  17. 17.

    Immanentize

    And, Good Morning All.
    Yesterday I was reminded how crappy it is driving around when the snow and ice have reduced the number of lanes on roads (imagine for those in non-nordic places what it’s like without turn lanes or when four lane roads become two.)

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: I especially like it when people use the oncoming traffic lane as a left turn lane, because they know it’s around here somewhere.

  22. 22.

    satby

    @Baud: @OzarkHillbilly: he’s popular as mayor, but if he ran I’m sure it would be more to increase his name recognition. He seems to have been a good mayor considering the state his city is in. I haven’t lived in South Bend long enough to contrast how it was before, but it has some good things going on.

  24. 24.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Kay:
    I’m not sure if it did either, but I thought it was overall good policy that reactionaries were able to demagogue. I think the fentanyl hypothetical was enough to kill it for many people.

  25. 25.

    Raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: They love to play Baba O’Rielly at Georgia games. For years they would have a PSA by the AD admonishing people not to drink and drive. Then they’d break into Teenage WASTED!!!!

  26. 26.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    I don’t understand their thinking, to be honest. I never heard any scary GOP ads about criminals wilding through suburbia.

  27. 27.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Shane Goldmacher
    ‏Verified account @ShaneGoldmacher

    Packed house for Gillibrand at a DSM brewery

    3:34 PM – 19 Jan 2019

    14 Retweets
    86 Likes

    She drew Big, Big crowds at multiple events on a freezing football weekend in Iowa.

    Photo #1

    Photo #2

    Photo #3

    This bodes well for our candidates.

  28. 28.

    Baud

    @satby:

    One of the downsides to the proposed debate format where everyone gets a chance to be on stage is that lots of people will be in it for self-promotion.

  29. 29.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Yes. It wasn’t appropriate for that thread, but I’m very angry about all those non- and misdiagnoses he received.

  36. 36.

    satby

    Mexico is having a gas availability crisis. The president here shut down pipelines targeted for theft without an adequate substitute way to supply the gas stations. There was a horrible incident where a tapped gasoline pipeline exploded, killing 90 people and injuring 58 (60 people are missing and presumed dead). Long lines and rationing has had been going on since before I got here, so the planned trip to Guanajuanto is cancelled so that we can go to a closer colonial area city today.

  38. 38.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: my trip has been wonderful in spite of the crisis. It’s a beautiful country with wonderful people. I wish more Americans saw last the resorts and the sensational headlines about crime from our news media.

  42. 42.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby:

    colonial area city today.

    Spellcheck hell!!!

    I got to spend a couple days in San Luis Potosi. Stunningly beautiful colonial era architecture.

  44. 44.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Not to contribute too much to people’s feelings of existential dread or anything, but anecdotally, I’ve been getting the feeling of money draining from the economy, in a way not unlike the late stage Bush administration from 2006 to the end.

    Based on the last several months, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of cash out there among working folks or small businesses. It appears that wages are stagnant, mobility is nil and small business profits are down – trickle down is working like it always has.

    Anybody who has called needing work has no available remaining credit lines. They’re all deferring to tax season – something I haven’t seen since the runup to the global financial collapse and its aftermath.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Galbraith, who ran for US House, said people associated it with the “far Left”. I asked him some questions to get him to tell me more but that’s all he knows. If it had just been the regular post-mortem griping I would have ignored it, but this was three candidates saying it and candidates talk to thousands of people.

  48. 48.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach didn’t open his own wallet to pay for six hours of legal education a federal judge ordered he take due to his “repeated and flagrant violations of discovery and disclosure rules.”

    Instead, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported Tuesday, Kobach used state funds. A spokesperson for the secretary of state’s office confirmed that it paid $359 for an audio version of the legal education course, according to the report.

    I am shocked, shocked I tell you!

  49. 49.

    Baud

    @Kay: I thought the far left was really popular there.

    Speaking of, did anyone see that Winner is now practicing identity politics?

  54. 54.

    satby

    @Baud: well, Buttigieg hasn’t got a lot of options in a determinedly red state like Indiana. He’s got to go somewhere as a politician, but there won’t be a Senate opening or governor race for years. I don’t see much of a future for Democratic candidates in Indiana outside the cities, because it’s got a core of proud to be deplorables that have to die off because they’ll never change.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I was and am afraid of Trump in terms of my finances, so I’m ready for the Trump Crash. He’s reckless and dumb and he hires poor quality people.

    I think a downturn will be good for young people as far as housing prices dropping, and they deserve a good deal- it will be the first one they got.

  59. 59.

    raven

    @Baud: It’s my hunch. The human suffering and “the whole thing is stupid” will ring the dems humanitarian bell.

  61. 61.

    satby

    @Baud: @Baud: @OzarkHillbilly: I can heartily recommend Mexico City. We’re going to Zacatecas today, not just my exchange son’s immediate family, but also his mom, his sister and at least one of her three sons. The whole extended family has really spoiled me on this trip.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @raven:

    Yeah, empathy is one of our weaknesses. If it we’re just about the wall, I could see the Dems caving. But it’s become about hostage taking as a strategy. I’m less worried about the Dems in Congress than I am about the rank and file, who have a history of getting frustrated with long battles, giving up, and wanting to move on to the next thing. Public support is key.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    We’ll see Trump tank if the economy falters. That;s the only thing holding him at 40. He’ll always have 25, because they all keep that. He doesn’t have any goodwill or trust accrued to bolster him in bad times. He hasn’t banked anything.

    Obama needed the good will and general personal approval he had banked going into 2012, and he had it. That’s when all Obama’s outreach to moderates and low info “independents” (that drove us crazy) paid off. He kept enough of them to get re-elected. Make hay while the sun shines, Trumpsters, because nothing lasts forever.

    All those mean-spirited, malicious moves that their rabid base loved so much are not going to seem to smart when the economy falters and they need some general good will, and it always falters. It goes up and then it goes down.

  69. 69.

    rikyrah

    @raven:
    I dunno raven. Nancy Smash is out here calling federal workers-hostages- which is accurate. That, coupled with the revelation of what was REALLY in the proposal….

    ABC News (@ABC) Tweeted:
    Speaker Nancy Pelosi: “We cannot have the president, every time he has an objection, to say I’ll shut down the government until you come to my way of thinking…If we hold the employees hostage now, they’re hostage forever.”

    https://t.co/GjzjkZ20Ko https://t.co/GUreuWL4KC https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1087820602168229889?s=17

  73. 73.

    Steve in the ATL

    @OzarkHillbilly: @Patricia Kayden: eh. CLEs are a business expense. Lawyers never pay out of pocket; it’s always covered by the employer, be it law firm or company or government agency. This is the least bad thing he’s ever done.

  76. 76.

    JR

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: On the “good” side, the scale back in the DJIA last year trimmed the Shiller PE down below 30. It’s still very high (meaning valuations exceed earnings by an unusually high amount, even adjusted for the long term) so there’s some way to fall. But for a while we were edging into dot com bubble territory.

  78. 78.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: A buddy of mine and his wife spent some time there and highly recommended it, and while I would truly love to visit some of the museums, and the climate is wonderful, 9 million people…

  79. 79.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    I’m so old I remember when Hillary not holding press conferences whenever the media wanted her to was a national scandal worthy of significant media attention.

  84. 84.

    NotMax

    a forest in which a chipmunk worries that the entrance of a snail will ruin the world he knows

    Different species. Would be more effective as allegory if instead of a snail it was, say, an albino squirrel.

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    @Baud

    It’s your own fault for not being a corporate lawyer.

    Some (raises hand) would greatly prefer a lifetime diet of ground glass with cyanide sauce.

    ;)

  89. 89.

    satby

    @NotMax: wasn’t a lawyer, but definitely don’t miss the corporate life. In spite of the drop in income. Even when I used to get occasional feelers to apply somewhere I would think “nah, do not want” .

  92. 92.

    Lyrebird

    @Immanentize: I hope you get lots and lots of inner sunshine today. Your courage in keeping going is an inspiration, fwiw… I’ve got a little imp of my own as well.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @satby: I love Mexico, if you added up all the time I have spent there it would probably add up to 6 or 8 months, but most of that time has been spent in the jungle or small mountain towns/villages. I’ve made brief sojourns thru Monterrey on a couple occasions and it is insane with a frenetic energy that just puts me on edge (not to mention the rules of the road are far different down there), and it’s only a little over a million population wise. I just don’t think I can handle 9 million.

  95. 95.

    chopper

    @rikyrah:

    there it is. use the H-word. now do it over and over again. treat him like a two-bit bank robber tht fucked up. “donny, show us you’re serious, release the hostages”.

  97. 97.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize:

    until s/he won’t let you anymore

    Fuck that shit. I decided long before I had sons that I would hug and kiss them until the day I die, whether they like it or not.

  98. 98.

    rikyrah

    UH HUH
    UH HUH

    Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s allies announce their first Democratic primary target, conservative Texas Rep. Henry Cuellar
    Eliza Relman Jan. 11, 2019, 1:51 PM

    Justice Democrats, the progressive group that helped Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez win her insurgent primary bid, announced on Friday that it would recruit a 2020 primary challenger to Rep. Henry Cuellar, a conservative Democrat who represents a deep-blue South Texas district.

    Progressives argue that Cuellar is the ideal Democrat to challenge — he’s one of the most conservative Democrats in the House, his South Texas district is safely blue, and he’s even allied himself with Republicans in recent years. Last year, Cuellar controversially fundraised for GOP Rep. John Carter, a fellow Texan, in his competitive race against the Democrat MJ Hegar.

  100. 100.

    JPL

    @Immanentize: My youngest who is now forty still expects an I love you and a hug when he leaves. He’s now expecting a baby boy of his own. You’ll be pleasantly surprised when those hugs return.

  103. 103.

    Spanky

    And some not-news news from the WaPo:

    The United States will be challenged in coming years by nations that exploit “the weakening of the post-WWII international order and dominance of Western democratic ideals” and “increasingly isolationist tendencies in the West,” according to a new intelligence document published Tuesday.

    The document, known as the National Intelligence Strategy, cited Russia as seeking to flex its geopolitical muscle in order to challenge the United States “in multiple regions.”

    Meant to set U.S. spy agencies’ priorities for the next four years, the language echoed the intelligence community’s unanimous conclusion, released in 2017, that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election in order to “undermine the US-led liberal democratic order.”

  104. 104.

    NotMax

    @Rikyrah

    Mmmm. Two week old leftover Big Macs and fries.

    More seriously, yet more evidence that Dolt 45 is the scummiest of scum.

  105. 105.

    rikyrah

    @Immanentize:

    @Lyrebird: thank you and hug that Imp until s/he won’t let you anymore (which is always too soon.)

    Little Imma is still growing. Something will happen while away at school (that he may or may not tell you about), but, it will cause the hugs to return.

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    @debbie:

    The misdiagnoses Schlemazel received. Yes. That haunts me too.

    And he worked hard, and had medical insurance all that time.

  108. 108.

    Gelfling 545

    @OzarkHillbilly: My daughter who is 3L put a bumper sticker on her car signsling her law school. Since she’s not the sticker type I asked what’s up. She said she felt she had to warn people that there was an insufferable know it all in the vehicle.

  113. 113.

    Yarrow

    @satby: I love Zacatecas. If you have time, be sure to visit the mask museum. It’s fantastic. The cable car is totally worth riding as well. Have a wonderful time.

  115. 115.

    rp

    I hope those kids visit the WH. It will erase any doubt about who they really are and we can stop pretending the situation was “complicated.”

  116. 116.

    catclub

    @debbie:

    Nothing’s improved for anyone other than the 1%.

    The how does unemployment come down a lot and median wage incomes start to rise? Admittedly not as good as the 1%, but not nothing.

  119. 119.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: and there are a lot more open storefronts in my suburban neighborhood than one would think. Restaurant, grocery store, retail all have openings. And then I am convinced that there’s something really weird going on with the office rental space around work. Walking distance to at least one metro stop in Northern Virginia and there’s been the same office spaces and restaurant spaces that have been for rent for at least EIGHT years now. How can any landlord afford to keep the space empty that long?

  120. 120.

    Elizabelle

    Did we hear anything about how Savannah Guthrie’s ritual white cleansing interview with Resting Smirk Face went Today?

  121. 121.

    rikyrah

    @Elizabelle:

    The misdiagnoses Schlemazel received. Yes. That haunts me too.

    And he worked hard, and had medical insurance all that time.

    I can’t let go of any of this. Heartbreaking and terrifying.

  122. 122.

    Turgidson

    @Baud:

    I mean, he may be the next Abe Lincoln Churchill Gandhi for all we know, but…young mayor of a lame midsize flyover country city full of Notre Dame students and fans?

    Man, the fact that Hair Furor and a Kenyan Usurper could win the office has given a lot of people delusions of grandeur. At least fuckin Avenatti isn’t running.

  123. 123.

    JanieM

    As to Pete Buttigeig — I know a bunch of millennials who have been following his career for a while, and who will be delighted to know that he’s doing this, even if the main purpose this time around is to get people more familiar with him. He’s a vet and a Rhodes scholar, very smart and articulate, a married gay man who’s been successful as a politician in *Indiana* of all places. It’s early days yet — so what if a lot of people are testing the waters. It’s long past time we started hearing more about younger Democrats. The ones I’d like to snark about are the old straight white men who won’t fucking go away. I’m about to turn 69 and I am delighted that we’re not having another go-round with no one younger than my generation.

  125. 125.

    Raoul

    My partner does the ‘story for all ages’ at his UU congregation sometimes. Earlier this month he read Marlon Bundo aloud, with the illustrations of course, to the assembled kids and adults in the weekly service. A story all can relate to!
    Glad to know another good book is coming from that team.

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