Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

Republicans do not trust women.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

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

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

American history and black history cannot be separated.

The willow is too close to the house.

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

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

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

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

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

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

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Wednesday Morning Open Thread

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This is a young male wolf whose buddies are never gonna stop ragging him…

Kind-hearted Estonian workers rushed to rescue a dog in distress from a freezing river on Wednesday – unaware of the fact they were actually about to bundle a wild wolf into their car.

The men were working on the Sindi dam on the Parnu river when they spotted the animal trapped in the icy water.

After clearing a path through the ice, they took the frozen canine to a clinic for medical care.

Only then was it revealed they had been carrying a wolf.

The Estonian Union for the Protection of Animals (EUPA) said the wolf had low blood pressure when it arrived at the veterinarian’s office, which may have explained its docile nature after the men carried it to their car to warm it up.

Speaking to the Estonian newspaper Postimees, one of the men, Rando Kartsepp, said: “We had to carry him over the slope. He weighed a fair bit.”

“He was calm, slept on my legs. When I wanted to stretch them, he raised his head for a moment,” he added…

The wolf recovered from its brush with death within the day and, after being fitted with a GPS collar by researchers from the national environmental agency, was released back into the wild…

Mr. Kartsepp, on the other hand, probably got a few free drinks after his story!

Elsewhere:

Reader Interactions

155Comments

  3. 3.

    Jay

    @NotMax:

    Could be worse. Pakistan claims to have shot down two Indian jets, captured a IAF pilot and bombed 4 sites in Indian Kashmir.

  16. 16.

    Jay

    @p.a.:

    The EU has already said that,

    The EU will accept a revocation of Article 50, no more, no less.

    They have already started putting Deal Brexit and Hard Brexit rules in order.

  17. 17.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @p.a.:
    As many as it takes if they don’t want to give Putin and the forces of reaction a win. When the US federal government is under unified Democratic control, I advocate for it to use every diplomatic/economic strategy at its disposal to correct this nightmare and counter Russian efforts to exploit weaknesses in our societies; in turn the same will be done to Russia and I don’t think it will be able to weather the attacks as well as Western nations such as the US have been able to.

  21. 21.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    Just out of curiosity, commenters of Balloon Juice, as a thought experiment, if our allies decided to perform an active measures campaign to disrupt the American right/US Republican Party, justifying this as necessary for global peace and security, would you agree and accept their interference?

    I guess the reason I ask is because I assume at least some R’s believe Russia interfered in our democracy and don’t mind because it benefited them.

    I was wondering if the reverse would be true, if nations that have our best interests at heart were doing the interfering.

  26. 26.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @satby:
    That’s fine. I personally wouldn’t like it even if it meant the possible destruction of the GOP, but there’s no guarantee it would work smoothly. After all where would all those GOP voters go?

  27. 27.

    Jay

    @Amir Khalid:

    US Ship: Please divert your course 0.5 degrees to the south to avoid a collision.

    CND reply: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

    US Ship: This is the Captain of a US Navy Ship. I say again, divert your course.

    CND reply: No. I say again, you divert YOUR course!

    US Ship: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS CORAL SEA*, WE ARE A LARGE WARSHIP OF THE US NAVY. DIVERT YOUR COURSE NOW!!

    CND reply: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

    May’s strategy in a nutshell.

  28. 28.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid: Good evening Amir!
    It doesn’t seem much like anyone is, true. I wondered if public opinion seems to have changed as revelations dribble out about the Russian interference in the referendum. My U.K. friends are studiously non-political on this subject on FB.

  31. 31.

    Jay

    @JPL:

    Yes and no. Cheeto Benito is sucking all the air out of the room in the US but the World keeps turning.

    Blech to you too.

  32. 32.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka) ??

    @Jay:
    Probably not, but it’s just a hypothetical. I wanted to see what liberals thought compared to some right-wingers of intervention in their favor.

  33. 33.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @NotMax:

    Insomniblech.

    Me too. tho I did eventually fall back asleep, still kept me in bed 2 hrs longer than usual this morn.

  34. 34.

    PsiFighter37

    Wish I could bring popcorn for the Cohen testimony today…that’s going to be fun to watch. I expect the GOP will debase itself even more than usual to try and muddy the waters.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jay: I can’t think of a single instance in which a nation acted that it did not think it was acting in it’s own best interest.

  46. 46.

    Baud

    @Jay:

    Progressives generally don’t accord to the idea of fucking with democracy, period.

    Hell, we don’t accord to the idea of possibly touching someone’s upper butt area when taking a picture with them.

  48. 48.

    Betty Cracker

    From WaPo’s account of Cohen’s upcoming remarks:

    “I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying, ‘The meeting is all set.’ I remember Mr. Trump saying, ‘Ok good…let me know,’” Cohen’s remarks say. “What struck me as I looked back and thought about that exchange between Don Jr. and his father was, first, that Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world. And also, that Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone – and certainly not without checking with his father.”

    LOL! I’m sure that’s true.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    I think everyone who is rational knew this- there was more than enough already to know it- but it’s nice to have a witness at a public hearing state it:

    As I earlier stated, Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the
    WikiLeaks drop of emails.In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump’s
    office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone.Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr.
    Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of “wouldn’t that be great.”

    Which means this was a lie:

    WikiLeaks is publicly distancing itself from longtime Donald Trump associate Roger Stone, who for months during the 2016 campaign claimed to have a backchannel communication with the group’s founder, Julian Assange.
    In an email exchange with CNN’s KFile, a representative for the group denied that Stone had any such backchannel, and accused the political operative of making the claims to raise his public profile.

    I thought it was kind of interesting how Trump tells people to lie. I wonder about that- what’s the atmosphere or process in his organizations where everyone lies, constantly. Cohen describes it as Trump stating the lie he wants told as “truth” to his low quality hires and then the people in his company or administration get the message and go and repeat it. You wouldn’t think it would be that easy, but it is. So it really isn’t “gaslighting”. They’re aware it’s not true. They’re afraid of him or they want something out of their association with him so they all go along. I’m always interested in that piece in sick organizations or corrupted entities- how the infection spreads and becomes a kind of culture. We always focus on the whistleblowers or the resisters but there are many, many more who just go along. What happens to them inside the culture?

  54. 54.

    A Ghost To Most

    Given Cohen’s opening statement, I still put the under/over for T leaving as Noxin Day, August 9.

  59. 59.

    Baud

    I continue to be struck by how matter-of-fact the media reporting on Trump is, in contrast to the fainting couch reporting when it came to Hillary’s emails.

  60. 60.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jay:

    Eg. Marshall Plan 1.0 vs Marshall Plan 2.0

    A functioning and prosperous Europe was in the US’s best interests.

    Article 5, Afghanistan

    Coming to the aid of an ally when in need is in their own best interest because someday the shoe will be on the other foot.

    “Mission Accomplished” Iraq.

    Translation: “We have secured Iraqi oil assets for exclusive use by US and UK petroleum industries in perpetuity.” The great irony being, they were so stupid they actually thought that was true, that the Iraqis would be sooooo grateful they would give no bid contracts to US and UK firms to run their oil fields.

  61. 61.

    R-Jud

    @Steeplejack: Thanks!

    @Amir Khalid: That’s really the only possible conclusion to draw at this point. My daughter and I have US passports, so can jump ship if things really tank hard over the next several months. But I’ve lived here nearly 14 years now, and it would be very painful to leave.

  63. 63.

    Baud

    If Trump doesn’t give Kim a one-free-strike deal at the summit, I’ll consider it a win. #BarForMediocreWhiteMen

  64. 64.

    Kirk Spencer

    @Kay: See the Milgram experiments to start.

    A lot of people will convince themselves they’re doing the right thing – or that they don’t really know what is happening and the people in charge won’t do the wrong thing.

    Some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but fortunately for us all not all of the people all of the time.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @Jay:

    Right, but MOST people do this inside these organizations. The whistleblowers are the tiny exception to the rule of going along. I think it’s more complex than “most people are bad” though. I think the organizations select for this weakness when hiring or gaining adherents. So we look at a the organization and say “people are bad” when really there’s a sorting process going on before they even become part of it. Trump hires for people who he can manipulate. It wouldn’t be hard to find out. Tell them a smaller lie and see what they do. Sop when we’re like “what happened to Lindsey Graham?” Nothing happened to him. He was already like this. He just needed to be selected IN to where he belongs.

    It’s this huge thing in child abuse. They look at the entity- the Catholic school or the juvenile detention facility or the family and they say “how did all these adults go along with this?” Because they were selected or they self-select for that quality- the fear or the weakness or the self-interest. The whistleblower is the oddball. The person the selection process should have excluded, but didn’t.

  71. 71.

    Karen S.

    @satby:
    Yeah, turnout for Chicago’s elections was terrible, but at least neither of the choices in the mayoral runoff will be named Daley.

  72. 72.

    Kay

    I found my next book- The Chickenshit Club, or “why we don’t prosecute white collar criminals anymore, when we used to:

    Winner of the 2018 Excellence in Financial Journalism Award
    From Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Jesse Eisinger, “a fast moving, fly-on-the-wall, disheartening look at the deterioration of the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission…

    Apparently we didn’t always. We started to in the modern era in the 1970’s and that continued to about…. ENRON and then we stopped. Which is good because it means we can start again. Now. We should start now.

  73. 73.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: Good morning. Good to be around when you are here.

    Packing this week. Heading back to Spain (Madrid this time) and then an extended spell in Germany, to help my friend move. Excited about being over there for actual spring. (Have been there for very early and late, but never spring spring).

  75. 75.

    Elizabelle

    @Baud: I think so too. Mueller time may arrive while I am gone, but will be entranced with whatever happens. Will be on the lookout for headlines about La Casa Blanca and its atormentando.

    Could not tell you what those words would be in German, but they will be watching and laughing, hard.

  78. 78.

    TS (the original)

    Trump continues to ban the press from his overseas appearances because they ask questions. Another reason he likes Russia/NK – no freedom of the press.

  79. 79.

    A Ghost To Most

    Jackie Speier just laid out in plain words that T was involved in a conspiracy with Russia. (CNN)

  81. 81.

    Jay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Marshall Plan 1.0 ran for two years. It was a mess. US contractors made fortunes, Europe didn’t recover and Communists and communists were taking over.

    The Marshall Plan 2.0 was a sucess. The US put up the money at a loss, the EU “locals” decided where it would be spent, and economic recovery for the EU happened, and other than forstalling “communism”, the US lost money.

    Canada jumped in on Article 5. For that, we’ve lost 1,958 so far, spent $18 billion only to get sandbagged atthe first Loya Jurga by the Dubya Dubya Me Too Administration.

    We’ve never had an al Quida attack in Canada. Where’s the profit? Cheap Afghan heroin?

    When “Mission Accomplished” turned out to be utter bullshit, the UN tried to “step in” and mitigate. They got bombed out. Other “allies” tried to step in, to keep ‘Murikka from fucking things up more than they already had, wasted time, wasted lives.

    Fuck y’all.

  82. 82.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Elizabelle:

    Heading back to Spain (Madrid this time)

    You have my wife’s sympathies (she hates Madrilians, says they all act as tho they are the most Spanish of the Spanish, that every other Spaniard is less) Wave to Majorca for me.

  83. 83.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Well, I think it can be disheartening but it’s these organizations. Not most. Most schools don’t pull kids out of class to provide sexual favors to adults. Those are the exception. So really it’s not “people are bad”, which is really a way of excusing or minimizing. It’s a relatively small group of people who are bad, but they cluster in these organizations and we just happen to have one of those as a presidential administration. It could have been a convenience store or a county water board or an elementary school or a multi-national corporation. In this case it’s the presidential administration, so it’s more profound and damaging.

  84. 84.

    Elizabelle

    @satby: Gonna be doing museums (The Prado, etc), markets (free ranging for tapas and vermouth), and overnight trips to Toledo and Segovia. Trying not to spend much $$$ but soak up the sun and culture.

    Norwegian picked up a great JFK-Madrid route. I wish you could be along! Some year.

  85. 85.

    satby

    @Karen S.: Well, I’m agnostic on the question since I don’t live in the city anymore (I would lean to Lightfoot, myself) but I worked at Mayer, Brown, & Platt when Bill Daley was a partner there and he was a pretty nice guy to everyone. And he’s at least competent at running things. But the old time machine politics era is way over. And I bet he’s not all that sorry he lost, TBH.

  86. 86.

    Elizabelle

    @OzarkHillbilly: Will do. Hope to see Barcelona and other points at the end of the trip. Love, love, love Catalunya. Had never been to Madrid, and when that flight popped up with gentle pricing (cuz it’s brand new)…

  89. 89.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: and I love Barcelona! I’m toying with the idea of a grown-up gap year, with several months living in different countries doing various volunteer things. And going back to Barcelona is on that list.
    Edited to fix Kindle’s scrambling of what I wrote.

  90. 90.

    Jay

    @Kay:

    Doesn’t grok.

    I was always a shit disturber.

    It’s a way of thinking completely alien to me.

    But it’s probably real. Brainless drones and lickspittles.

  92. 92.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Elizabelle: Have a glass of Spanish Burgundy on me.

    So I will join the old men down in the sad cafe
    The sun goes up the sun goes down, shadows cross our face
    As we sing of how it might of been oh and how it used to be
    And the moon shines through the bottles of Spanish burgundy
    And we drink until we sleep and we sleep until we dream
    We dream of Barcelona girls and Spanish burgundy
    And we drink until we sleep and we sleep until we dream
    In every dream her lips did taste of Spanish burgundy

  94. 94.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    My son voted for Preckwinkle. He thinks she’s practical and experienced, which is what he wants. He’s happy with the result though- he just wanted to make the cut.

  96. 96.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay: That’s a great comment, as are all of yours about institutional fail and how entities get corrupted and hollowed out.

    So when we’re like “what happened to Lindsey Graham?” Nothing happened to him. He was already like this. He just needed to be selected IN to where he belongs.

    This. And he’s allegedly one of the “good ones”, to hear the press (which is also corrupted and craven, much of it).

    The Chickenshit Club. Hadn’t heard of it before; Eisinger is going to have enough for a whole new book. (Review says he didn’t delve much into Trump administration, for lack of time.)

  97. 97.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jay: If my own experience with the Catholic Church taught me one thing, it is that willful ignorance is a hell of a drug.

  98. 98.

    Jay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yup, but I didn’t mean it in the sexual way.

    The current sentiment in most of Canada is that if Venezuela invades,

    We’ll check for valid visas at the border.

  100. 100.

    Karen S.

    @satby:
    I voted for Lori Lightfoot yesterday and I’m doing the same in the runoff. I like her a lot. I hope that enough of the old guard machine guys (they were mostly guys) are gone so she can actually get good things done. I never knew much about Bill Daley. I couldn’t see how he’d help the city move forward. That crook Ed Burke was reelected, but I think his power is somewhat diminished.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    I thought it was amusing. For all the screeching about Cohen being not credible they’re a little FRANTIC in TrumpWorld. Sending the low quality lackeys out with reckless stunts reeks of desperation.

    I never believed they “don’t care”. They care. They work hard each and every day to distract and cover up because they care a lot. Saying they “don’t care” assumes they have an edge they don’t have. It gives them power.

  105. 105.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Kay: Also sometimes people who don’t fit in get hired by mistake, but they’re unhappy and they leave. That’s how organizational cultures perpetuate themselves. Once it gets started, it’s very hard to change, even with draconian action from new management.

  106. 106.

    Kay

    @Elizabelle:

    I think there’s two tiers. There’s the passive going along and the active participation, and that’s selected for too. So Lindsey went from larger “I will go along” and then made the cut for the smaller, worse bottom tier.

    There’s two levels, one big and one smaller and the smaller one is below the larger. Lindsey himself says the inner circle is small. It’s selective. It’s just not selective for quality. It selects for the opposite.

    I think what happens in the larger tier is people distance themselves- see: Susan Collins. She’s in it but she thinks she can be APART from it. She can’t, but that’s the “compromise” position.

  107. 107.

    Elizabelle

    I look forward to Cohen’s testimony today.

    And how perfect was that, to schedule it while Trump is over at his dog and pony show in Vietnam with Kim Jong-Un. It’s probably even better scheduling than the original February 7 we all marked on our calendars …

  109. 109.

    Elizabelle

    @Kay: I am thinking, too, of Covington Catholic High School. Which circled the wagons to protect the adults and the school’s fundraising. And now that horrible kid is suing the WaPost (and I hope that goes horribly for him and his adult enablers).

  115. 115.

    Karen S.

    @satby:
    Oh, I know he will. Sigh. I was just a kid then, but I have vague recollections of news reports (print and broadcast) of the shenanigans the white aldermen, all machine guys, got up to when Harold Washington was mayor. It really was shameful. In retrospect, I suppose that helped prepare me for how lots of white people would behave when Obama was elected.

  116. 116.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    That’s what happened in Theranos. First there was an exodus of ethical people and when they were out it became really bad.

    Just like Balloon Juice.

  119. 119.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay:

    I think there’s two tiers. There’s the passive going along and the active participation, and that’s selected for too.

    The passive tier is the water in which the aggressive swim. They could not survive without it.

  122. 122.

    Princess

    Glad about Lightfoot and Preckwinkle but I’d hardly say machine politics is dead in Chicago. Both of them are in some ways part of it, and plenty of go along to get along candidates won again last night too. I’ll be voting Preckwinkle. I just don’t think Lightfoot has the experience to run a giant, difficult city like Chicago. And not everyone is thrilled with her performance on the police board.

  123. 123.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Elizabelle: People keep speaking of the Church in exclusive terms of priests and little boys. That is only the most visible tip (and sexually horrifying/titillating) of the rot of corruption that runs thru every fiber of that organization.

  124. 124.

    montanareddog

    @Elizabelle: Barcelona is little too overrun with tourists nowadays, sadly.

    A favourite of mine, beautiful but more low key, is Valencia, only a couple of hours by high-speed train from Madrid

  127. 127.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I see it in professional organizations, too. All the surgeons know which surgeons have bad outcome rates and they don’t say anything. Lawyers know which lawyers should have retired 10 years ago and they don’t say anything.

  128. 128.

    Jay

    “ ISLAMABAD/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India and Pakistan both said they shot down each other’s fighter jets on Wednesday, a day after Indian warplanes struck inside Pakistan for the first time since a 1971 war, prompting world powers to urge restraint.

    Both countries have ordered air strikes over the last two days, the first time in history that two nuclear-armed powers have done so, while ground forces have exchanged fire in more than a dozen locations”

    https://www.google.ca/amp/s/mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKCN1QG0IR

  129. 129.

    joel hanes

    @Jay:

    the EU is done with Brexiteers and almost done with the US.

    If they actually adopt the copyright rule they’re mooting, they’re almost done with the internet.

  131. 131.

    Jay

    @joel hanes:

    Yeah, no.

    They are done with Alex Jones, and almost done with the vile Book of Faces and Nazi Jack.

    Canada’s gonna sign on.

    Can’t have facebook pages and twitter feeds an others calling for the murder of the PM.

  133. 133.

    Miss Bianca

    Well, Anne Laurie, I laughed at the wolf story…my friend D and I have been playing “getting to know you” with a stray dog at our neighbor’s who may or may not be a wolf hybrid…sure has a wolfy look…but she came up to us in a matter of minutes rather than weeks, so maybe not. Collar, no tags…we will see if we can find her people.

  134. 134.

    chopper

    @Jay:

    when i scanned this comment i thought you said “good morning, bitch!” and thought damn, he is not a morning person.

  138. 138.

    low-tech cyclist

    The dog/wolf confusion reminded me of this:

    The Phantom (the ghost who walks, man who never dies), dressed in trench coat and hat, walking Devil, his wolf, enters a building.

    Random person: “Sir, dogs aren’t allowed in there!”

    The Phantom: “This is no dog. This is a wolf.” [enters building without further ado]

  141. 141.

    joel hanes

    @Jay:

    As I understand it, under the new rule John Cole would be legally responsible for the content of every comment here, just as Facebook would be legally responsible for the content of every user’s pages.

    If you know otherwise, please provide link.

  145. 145.

    Jay

    @joel hanes:

    Yup.

    Moderated coments.

    No slander, ( EU rules),

    No calls for race war or genocide,

    No Jack or Zuckerburg’s deciding that Nazi’s are okay, ( triolls, bots, incels, etc) are OK, but calling them out, ain’t.

  147. 147.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: Kay, I really wish you’d go back to front-paging. Your comments are always great, but this morning’s musings on corruption as a culture have been off-the-hook brilliant.

  148. 148.

    joel hanes

    @Jay:

    Yup

    Most forums will close because even good faith moderation will not protect the owner if something slips through.
    Do you think Cole will continue to operate this blog if a comment by some asshole is sufficient to bankrupt him ?
    Do you think there will be any blogs at all ? Any place at all in which the public can create content ?

    Death of the international internet predicted. GIFs at 11:00

  149. 149.

    Wapiti

    @Kay: Trump hires for people who he can manipulate. It wouldn’t be hard to find out. Tell them a smaller lie and see what they do.

    What Cohen describes in his opening statement sounds like it might have happened to Sean Spicer on day 1, talking about inauguration crowds.

  150. 150.

    MomSense

    @Miss Bianca:

    I’m so sorry. The not knowing is such a hard loss.

    Some friends had a wolf husky hybrid who died last weekend. He had trouble socializing with other dogs but my dog is such a tough take no BS kind of dog that they could become friends and actually play. When he tried to be dominant she would fluff up and growl. It only took a couple of times before he gave up. They only knew each other for a year but at least he had a year of having a real playmate.

    It’s not easy to be a hybrid wolf owner and it’s also not easy to be a wolf hybrid. It can be a lonely life.

  151. 151.

    rikyrah

    Ok,

    About this Chicago Mayoral race.

    From the beginning, people thought that this was Preckwinkle’s race to lose, after all, she is President of the Cook County Board. But, she made several mistakes that damaged her ‘brand’, the top two being trying to knock out all the women in the race by challenging their petitions. The second being getting caught up the Ed Burke criminal nonsense.
    Those two things took enough wings out of her sail that made her vulnerable.

    But, folks thought that the other candidate would be Daley, who raise almost 9 million dollars.

    I liked Lightfoot.Went to her website, read up on her, liked her story and how she got to the point where she ran for Mayor.

    Lightfoot got the Northside and the gay community behind her candidacy.
    Preckwinkle had the residual effect of her tax policies, that pissed off the Black community, which is why Willie Wilson made such a strong showing, and actually came in fourth place – off the backs of strong support in the Black wards. A lot of Black folks, like myself, had never really gotten past how Preckwinkle got into office in the first place – by demonizing the Black President of the County Board – Todd Stroger- about a small tax that he enacted to balance the budget. She ran on that that tax was the worst thing ever, and then, after she won…
    SHE KEPT THE PHUCKING TAX. And, it wasn’t bad enough that she defeated Stroger (who wasn’t even my favorite person), she also blackballed him.

    Then, there was the beverage tax that she instituted. It was absolutely outrageous, hit the average person hard, and ultimately had to be repealed.

    Lightfoot came in 6th place in fundraising, but, you got a feeling about those committed to her. ..they were really committed.

    So, here we are…
    Lightfoot, who is a newcomer and really did shock folks…. versus Preckwinkle…the Boss you know, but aren’t that enthused about…..

    It’s not like Lightfoot is a bumpkin…she’s a well-educated woman with a professional life in public service whose roots are from the working class. ..don’t let anyone tell you that she’s unqualified.

    Neither Lightfoot or Preckwinkle live in the ‘ traditional’ South Side enclaves of the Black community. Preckwinkle is Hyde Park, and Lightfoot lives on the North Side.
    And, both women are inter-racially married.

  152. 152.

    Elizabelle

    I do love looking at that wolf. The word bubble would be “WTF?”

    But he’s safe and warm, and now collared and out and about.

  154. 154.

    Miss Bianca

    @MomSense: She looks very wolf-y, but just not sure…and yeah, I hate that people do the wolf-dog crosses, it seems like it usually ends in tears for both dog and people. I tell people that a Siberian Husky is really as close to a wolf as you want in the house! Right now it just helps me take my mind off Luna to try and help this other dog. Plus, my neighbor isn’t psyched about having her hang around…apparently she encourages their other dogs to roam. Le sigh. Like I don’t know what *that* trip is all about!

  155. 155.

    texasdoc

    @MomSense: Yes!! This is a real concern when it happens in medicine, because we’re talking about lives lost, not just money. There’s a story in the Houston Chronicle today about problems at St. Luke’s Hospital, which used to be one of the best in the country for heart surgery/heart transplants but whose program was recently sanctioned by Medicare. Today’s story reports problems with mislabelling of blood samples taken from patients, going on for some time and known by the hospital without appropriate response by the hospital. This lead to transfusing a pt. with mismatched blood, which caused a transfusion reaction which proved fatal. This was aggravated by:
    –inadequate training in recognizing transfusion reactions
    –inadequate staffing=>inadequate monitoring of patients during blood transfusions

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