Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nikki Haley, who can’t acknowledge ‘slavery’, is a pathetic shill.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

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

This blog will pay for itself.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” is supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

I am pretty sure Katy Tur wasn’t always such a bootlicking sycophant.

Let me file that under fuck it.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

We are aware of all internet traditions.

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Cole, when it comes to calico cats, restraint is overrated.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

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Archives for January 2019

The Two Laziest Dogs on the Planet

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I’ve always believed that the laziest dogs on the planet were greyhounds- there is a reason they call them 50 mph couch potatoes. That is, of course, until I met Riley and Prescott. These dachshunds are, without a doubt, the two LAZIEST dogs I have ever met. EVER.

Every time I try to take them for a walk, I have to wrangle them off the couch, and they look at me with these sad eyes like I am taking them for a beating. Once I finally get the harnesses around their little stubby legs, I have to basically pull them out the door while pleading with them to walk.

They lie down on the elevator on the way down. Then they make me pull them off. And then we go for our drag around the block. Half the time I end up carrying Prescott.

And it is not just me. I have met a couple people who walk the dogs every now and then for my friend on the elevator, and they all say something to the effect of “Hi Riley, hi Prescott,” and then turn to me and tell me “those dogs hate going for walks.” Claudia, who is from Brazil and has raven black hair and blue eyes and were I a resident of Florida I think I would have proposed says that some days she can’t even get them out of the condo parking lot.

My favorite example of this is the other night at around 9:30 to 10, Lily was doing her potty dance- she’s used to a doggy door that she can use whenever she wants, so she was walking from room to room and I realized she had to go, so I grabbed her leash to put it on her. Riley saw me grab her leash, got a look of complete terror on his face, and jumped off the couch and raced into the bedroom to hide behind he bed. There was no way I was forcing him to go for another dreaded walk. When I got back from walking Lily, sure enough, Riley was back on the couch, happy as can be that the “walk” threat had passed.

LAZY.

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St Nicholas Day Massacre

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I saw this riding to work yesterday – it looks like the aftermath of a firefight that went badly for the Santa faction of the War on Christmas.  Speaking of that war, as far as I could tell, Christmas is still winning.  The non-stop Christmas music started before the Thanksgiving turkey was even digested, garish Christmas decorations were everywhere, and everyone still got the same time off they always do.  In the deep red state where I spent Christmas, all I heard was “Merry Christmas” rather than the Christ-denying “Happy Holidays” that you hear in my blue state.

Open thread.

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: True (Truth) Believers

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… I spent Thursday morning at the swearing in of the new Congressional Black Caucus at the historic Warner Theater in Washington, D.C. If you’ve never been to a CBC swearing in before (I hadn’t) it’s quite a sight to see. Black politicos of every stripe line the halls and crowd into the room dressed in something between “Sunday best” and “Friday night, after work, I’m-heading-to-Happy-Hour” style. However unlike Congressional Black Caucus weekend, which is a party for the politically initiated, the swearing in felt like a mixture between the first day of school and an HBCU graduation…

If you’ve ever been to an HBCU graduation (or heard the reactions of the few scattered black parents when that first generation kid walks across the stage at a predominately white institution) you know how loud and celebratory black folks can get. The CBC swearing in was no different. The cheers when the entire panoply of political talent came across the stage were amazing. Specifically whenever Jahana Hayes name was mentioned a group in the back left of the theater went crazy like she’d just shouted out Waterbury, Conn. in a call-and-response lyric. Maxine Waters came on stage and gave the “Wakanda Forever” salute to her colleagues and the audience roared so loud you’d have thought there was vibranium in the rafters. Clearly picking up on the vibe, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) came in and spoke about the great work that the Congressional Black Caucus has done under the leadership of Cedric Richmond and how the CBC was officially the “nuck” for her Congressional “buck” when it came to dealing with Trump…

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Late Night Horrorshow Open Thread: The Shutdown “Strike”

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The person most bedazzled / befuddled by the “Businessman Master of the Universe” role-playing on The Apprentice turns out to be Ranty Granpa, Oval Office Squatter. But, hey! At least he has a Y-chromosome… I mean, votes the (R) box… err, hasn’t said the m-word in the Oval Office… on camera. This week. That we know of. Oh, wait…

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H.R. 1: For The People Act

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Any excuse to post a video of Rep John Lewis, American Hero.

Here’s the full video of the presser

I just called my congress-critter – red as he may be – and voiced my support for this. Believe it or not, he opposes the border wall, so my call may not have been wasted. Oh but for a few blocks and I would have Joe Neguse.

Open thread

ETA: I’m watching Nancy Smash on MSNBC and forgot to mention it. Discuss!

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Open Thread: The Political Horse-Race Touts Are Warming Up to Warren

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For better or worse. At least she’s out there!

… Warren showed her early strength again on Tuesday by signing up four experienced Iowa operatives to her campaign team. It’s an impressive haul. Especially notable is the range of experience they have. She added one staffer from Bernie Sanders’s 2016 campaign, two from Hillary Clinton’s, and one from Barack Obama’s 2008 run. That’s the sign of a candidate attempting to run a coalition-style campaign — the kind that has captured every Democratic nomination since 1984…

Of course, Warren won’t be the only candidate who will attempt to build a broad coalition. And it obviously takes a lot more than four good hires to do that anyway. It’s also true that Donald Trump won the Republican nomination in 2016 with a factional campaign that received very little support, and plenty of hostility, from party actors. Still, this is a path that winners have taken.

Beyond that, this kind of news is important for two reasons. One is that the specific skills these folks possess are scarce resources within each party, and those candidates who fail to secure enough of them are at a real disadvantage in the campaign — perhaps enough to drop out entirely before the Iowa caucuses. Another reason is that when campaign professionals side with a particular candidate, it’s a signal to other party actors that they should take that person seriously. As parties compete and coordinate over presidential nominations, we tend to focus on high-profile endorsements and fund-raising from party sources to determine a candidate’s chances. But it’s very likely that decisions such as these matter just as much…

John Cassidy, in the New Yorker, “Don’t Underestimate Elizabeth Warren and Her Populist Message”:

… The rap on Warren is that she missed her best chance in 2016, allowing Bernie Sanders to seize the mantle of populist tribune, and blundered last fall by rekindling the controversy over her ancestry. These are backward-looking critiques, the force of which is yet to be determined. What we know for sure is that, with at least a dozen Democrats thinking seriously about entering the primary, it will take someone resolute, resilient, and well organized to prevail. The successful candidate will need a message that distinguishes her or his campaign from the pack and resonates with Democratic voters. Since the prize is a head-to-head contest with Donald Trump, the winner will have to be someone who doesn’t shy away from confrontation.

On all of these grounds, an argument can be made for Warren, who has been in the Senate since 2012. Ever since Trump launched his 2016 Presidential bid, she has been mocking him. “Let’s be honest—Donald Trump is a loser,” she wrote in March, 2016. “Count all his failed businesses. See how he kept his father’s empire afloat by cheating people with scams like Trump University and by using strategic corporate bankruptcy (excuse me, bankruptcies) to skip out on debt.” At other points, Warren called Trump a “small, insecure money-grubber” a “loud, nasty, thin-skinned fraud,” and “a large orange elephant.”

Trump isn’t the only powerful man that Warren has taken to task. At a 2016 hearing of the Banking Committee, on which she sits, she told the chief executive of the scandal-plagued Wells Fargo that he should resign immediately and “give back the money you took while the scam was going on.” Before the February, 2017, confirmation vote for former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Republicans used an obscure Senate rule to silence Warren as she tried to read a 1986 letter from Coretta Scott King, in which the civil-rights leader opposed Sessions’s nomination to a federal judgeship. “She was warned,” Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, said subsequently. “She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.”…

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City Life is Exhausting

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It’s been a full week of city living for me, and while I am very much enjoying myself, I find myself increasingly weary. This is the closest I have ever come to living in a major city- every other time I have been in a big place like this it has been hotel living, where you eat out every meal and they clean up after you. I haven’t had to grocery shop or do the day to day things. It’s a real change in lifestyle- just schlepping groceries back to the place is a different experience- you don’t load up the family truckster and just come home- you have to pick what you need more carefully because you have to haul it back by foot or pay for a cab, and that doesn’t even go into the storage issues of a small condo.
This place is super expensive, so I have only been eating out once a day, and some nights not even that. Devon and I went out all three nights.

I do enjoy all the sun, though. It’s been just what I needed, although I have found my hours have changed dramatically. I get up at 4:30 and work until the dogs get up, then feed and walk them and work some more. Spend a couple hours in the pool, get some more stuff done, and then next thing you know it’s dinner time, and by nine or ten I am falling asleep in the chair.

This condo complex has a doorman, in this case a doorlady, and she is a pleasant young lady from somewhere in Africa who sounds exactly like one of the characters in No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency. She really has the most amazing smile, and every time I go somewhere when she is working, I come back with a chocolate for her.

I was talking on twitter how I don’t understand why people in real America hate it when people don’t speak English. I love it. I know no one is talking to me. Also, the other upside is that since I have no internal monologue and often say inappropriate things, when I don’t speak the same language as people, there are fewer awkward moments.

I’m rambling.

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