Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

He really is that stupid.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Let me file that under fuck it.

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

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

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

“Just close your eyes and kiss the girl and go where the tilt-a-whirl takes you.” ~OzarkHillbilly

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

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

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

The media handbook says “controversial” is the most negative description that can be used for a Republican.

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

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

This fight is for everything.

So fucking stupid, and still doing a tremendous amount of damage.

You are here: Home / Pet Blogging / Cat Blogging / Monday Morning Open Thread: Happy News

Monday Morning Open Thread: Happy News

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Pet rescue update, from commentor Aleta:

A very nice guy drove up to our door this afternoon with a wonderful cat from Minnesota. (It was like that sweepstakes prize that they promised would knock on the door. Except this happened.) It happened because of this blog and because debit is outright amazing.

We had thought he would arrive tomorrow, but Steve the driver had to get up here and then quick out of state before a snowstorm tomorrow.

Infinite Kitty has been his code name, so now we’re calling him Finn and Finney. He spent 2 1/2 solid days in the crate. Steve’s report to me was: “He HATES really HATES HATES HATES crates.”

Finn’s been bouncing around the room with me here for hours now. He’s smart, social, polite, hungry, sweet, playful, determined, gorgeous.

It’s good to see him relax more and more with every half hour. I’ll send some pics to a FPer tomorrow and also put them at a link in case they are busy.

If I know from ginger boi-cats, she *will* be busy. Good luck to Finn and to his new Maine housemates!

More upbeat clips to start the week:

(And I’m dedicating a post later this morning to Speaker Pelosi, who won this year’s Profiles in Courage Award.)

Reader Interactions

168Comments

  1. 1.

    TheMightyTrowel

    FINN! Welcome to your new forever home!

    When I brought my two home from RSPCA they were both excited and freaked out to be in a new place. They ran all over the place and sniffed everything, then, within about 30 minutes, they just… evaporated… no kitties anywhere. That was when I freaked out thinking somehow I’d ALREADY LOST MY NEW CATS… after a mild anxiety attack, a lot of searching and some wandering around the garden looking under bushes, Mr. Trowel called me into the guest bedroom where our two new kitties had snuggled together and fallen sound asleep in the impossibly small space under one of the bedside tables. It’s been 3 wonderful years of hilarious cat hijinx like that, but somehow they all end in a ball of snoozing, cuddly cats.

  2. 2.

    Patricia Kayden

    Yay for Finn. And thank you Stacey for saying the obvious. Trump’s wins in PA, WI and MI are questionable. Given the outcome of the midterms, I doubt he’ll win those states next November.

  8. 8.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Nancy Pelosi is awarded the 2019 Kennedy Profile in Courage award

    House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was named the recipient of this year’s Profile in Courage Award by the John F. Kennedy Library Foundation. The award, which has been called the Nobel Prize for public figures, is given for an act, or a lifetime, of political courage.

    In a statement, Caroline Kennedy called Pelosi “the most important woman in American political history.”

    The first female to be elected Speaker, and the first person elected Speaker in non-consecutive terms in over 60 years, Pelosi has served in the House of Representatives since 1987. The California Democrat worked with a Republican president to pass an economic bailout package in 2008, and with a Democratic president to pass landmark healthcare reform in 2010, despite strong opposition in both cases.

    “So, the courage that that takes, really, I think, makes her an example and an inspiration for generations of Americans, men and women,” Kennedy said.

    “Coming from Caroline, that’s an enormous compliment,” Pelosi told “Sunday Morning” correspondent Martha Teichner. “However, going with it are shoulders for other people to stand on. I’ve stood on many women’s shoulders, who have paved the way for us. And now we have to pave the way for others. So, it’s about the future.” (link)

  9. 9.

    Cermet

    Thanks for the proper and correct encouraging words. The orange fart cloud will not win come 2020 if dems turn out like they did in 2018 (percentage wise) AND proper effort is made to ensure those previously dem leaning states that barely went for the orange fart cloud – PA in particular – are won. Right now the battle in Florida is critical to prevent the typical voter suppression by the re-thug party.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Speaking of cats, via Kevin Drum:

    Yesterday the Washington Post ran a piece about Dean Nicholson, who is currently bicycling around the world. He started in Scotland, and eventually made his way to Bosnia—where a kitten by the side of the road stole his heart and became his companion for the rest of the journey, riding along in a pouch on the front of the bike. A couple of pictures from Nicholson’s Instagram page are below.

    Nicholson’s Instagram page. Plenty of kitten touring pics there.

  14. 14.

    Immanentize

    Little Finn makes me want a kitten to drop by and befriend Toast. Maybe next Fall….

  18. 18.

    rikyrah

    Miriam Heddy‘s Tired Of Purity Politics? (@miri_iron) Tweeted:
    @Bravewriting @saletan @washingtonpost Black ppl: The rising tide isn’t lifting all boats.
    White ppl/GOP: You’re just not rowing hard enough!
    White ppl: The rising tide isn’t lifting all OUR boats.
    @PeteButtigieg/white journos: See, that’s why Trump voters blew up the system & burned down the house!
    ??‍♀️ #WhitePrivilege t.co/rrJXOQlaST twitter.com/miri_iron/status/1114576725164396544?s=17

  21. 21.

    rikyrah

    Lynn V (@lynnv378) Tweeted:
    I’m done with 2020. Y’all gonna fuck around a nominate a White dude. Y’all got folk attacking Barack Obama, the first Black President, folk attacking Hillary Clinton, who 94% of Black Women & 82% of Black men voted for & folk chasing the mythical white voter. A fucking shitshow. twitter.com/lynnv378/status/1114947396482621441?s=17

    Lynn V (@lynnv378) Tweeted:
    Y’all gonna spend the next months ignoring Black & marginalized voters while chasing after these unicorn white voters who ain’t vote for Democrats in decades and who ain’t coming back. Then y’all gonna act surprised & wonder why Black & marginalized voters tune this shit out. twitter.com/lynnv378/status/1114948400880005124?s=17

  22. 22.

    rikyrah

    ReclaimingMyTime (@MonieTalks_1) Tweeted:
    Erasure is real. And media folks are at the forefront of pushing it.

    Last I checked, Julian Castro served as mayor of San Antonio, as executive of a city in the red state of TX, a city far larger city than South Bend.

    But only Buttigieg, huh…smh t.co/vL1EHjC87T twitter.com/MonieTalks_1/status/1114969732426412032?s=17

    ReclaimingMyTime (@MonieTalks_1) Tweeted:
    Aside from former SA mayor Julian Castro being erased….this is on par with “progressives” mocking Southern black voters as the Confederacy, dismissing their primaries as distorting reality & ignoring that PBO won the presidency TWICE without a plurality of the white vote. t.co/gg8Pu8UnGF twitter.com/MonieTalks_1/status/1114971517845164038?s=17

  23. 23.

    Baud

    These numbers are understandable nationally, but not in her home state. I’d be curious if Harris has the same issue in California. (The Hill)

    Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) on Sunday placed third in a 2020 presidential poll of her home state of Massachusetts, trailing Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and former Vice President Joe Biden.

    In a poll of likely Democratic primary voters in the state, 14 percent picked Warren as their preferred Democratic nominee for president.

  24. 24.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    Can Bernie Sanders win the nomination, decline to accept it, and run as an independent? That’s what he does in Vermont. “Sore loser” state laws wouldn’t apply, because he would be the winner, not the loser.

    The DNC passed a rule barring that, but how would they enforce it?

  25. 25.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think everyone knows if she doesn’t win early she’s out. She’s someone who I think might actually be running to influence policy. Elizabeth Warren is playing a long game :)

  26. 26.

    Baud

    @Kay: He could probably get away with it if he wins the nomination. He and Trump would unify America in hatred of us. At least the parts of America they mutually care about.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud:

    He could probably get away with it if he wins the nomination.

    And win the election too. I think turning down the nomination at the convention leaves him with the Sisyphean task of getting his name on all 50 state ballots in less than 3 months.

  31. 31.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: I fully expect him to sign an executive order on his first day as President stating he is no longer a DEM.

  34. 34.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: @Baud:
    Not really not that, but polling people who are not yet running is pretty lame. If Biden does not run, do his people immediately go to Sanders? I don’t think so. I live in Massachusetts and I really don’t see the huge Bernie contingent. I haven’t looked at the poll, but was it a traditional poll or an on line poll? There has been a lot of Sanders freeping. Or, maybe people really want him to be president.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @Immanentize:

    It’d be surprising if Biden doesn’t run at this point.

    The poll was featured in the Hill, so it’s probably a crap poll.

  40. 40.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    Yes — how is this different from the Buttigieg comments that have sparked such outrage? I don’t get it. She seems to be saying Bernie woulda won.

  43. 43.

    rikyrah

    Answer:
    To harm the Democratic Party ??

    Revenge politics is a dish best served cold. (@KAMALAMODE) Tweeted:
    So @BernieSanders outright agrees with Donald Trump on immigration, refuses to release his tax returns, and has a voting record that benefits guns, Russia, and protectionism.

    Why is he running for the Democratic nomination? twitter.com/KAMALAMODE/status/1115008105144676352?s=17

  44. 44.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I think turning down the nomination at the convention leaves him with the Sisyphean task of getting his name on all 50 state ballots in less than 3 months.

    No, they’d just convert it to Independent. That’s literally what he does in Vermont.

  49. 49.

    zhena gogolia

    @rikyrah:

    Oh, God, for a minute I thought it was Kamala Harris saying that and my heart stopped.

    She’s too smart to say that, thank God.

  53. 53.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: I don’t know election laws in all 50 states but I’m pretty sure he can’t do that here in MO.

  54. 54.

    zhena gogolia

    @Baud:

    To be fair, I’m going by the tweet. I haven’t see her comments in context.

    Buttigieg doesn’t seem to get that kind of fairness.

  56. 56.

    Chyron HR

    @rikyrah:

    Democrats know they need to win without white male voters, who will literally vote for a sundowning Nazi rapist over a Democrat.

  57. 57.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    It is very funny that Bernie Sanders and his supporters object to “rigging” when Sanders rigs his own races to clear both the Democratic lane and the Independent lane of competitors. If a Democrat challenges him in a primary Sanders just goes the Independent lane and vice versa. It’s anti-competitive. Bernie deliberately monopolizes three quarters of the ballot.

  61. 61.

    Baud

    @zhena gogolia:

    Well, to be fair again, he specifically called out her slogan and said 2016 was all about her. That’s more direct than “strategic errors.”

  63. 63.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Buttigieg

    Is clever. He’s managed to present himself as a “Democrat in Indiana” when he’s the mayor of a city in Indiana that always elects Democrats. I don’t have any objection to people manipulating these media categories of candidates in ways that benefit them, and he has done that. They all should do it. It’s a race. They want to win.

    Whoever we get has to be good at this politics thing :)

  65. 65.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Elizabeth Warren is popular in the blogopshere because of her policy proposals appeal to high information voters.

    Now she has to come up with something to appeal to low information voters. By definition, low information don’t vote on policy, rather their voting decision is based on emotion, excitement, feelings, charisma, slogans, etc.

    If this was baseball, I would say Warren has a really good fastball, but now she has to develop a secondary and tertiary pitch to become a complete pitcher.

  66. 66.

    Kay

    @zhena gogolia:

    Castro should do it too- “I’m a Democrat who wins in Texas”. Texas! Wow. They bought it with South Bend/Indiana. They’ll probably buy it again.

  67. 67.

    gene108

    @rikyrah:

    The absolute lack of attention Sen. Booker, Sec. Castro, Sen. Warren, Sen. Harris, Sen. Gillibrand, and Sen. Klobuchar have gotten compared to Biden, who is not running officially, Mayor Buttigieg, and Sen. sanders, who was crushed by Hillary, in 2016, pretty much assures me the media will put their whole body on the scale to support Teump, because he is a white man.

  69. 69.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    We saw the 2018 Robin Hood last night. The critics hated this movie, but we both enjoyed it. I even liked the deliberate anachronisms. They kept me entertained.

    Two of my neighbors were upset they weren’t showing the Errol Flynn version. LOL. I live in old people land.

  70. 70.

    gene108

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:

    Warren has a compelling personal story, but she’s been a public figure for around 10 years, from she worked at the White House for Obama, and I think the media is bored with her.

    She talks about policy, which makes their brains hurt. She should be more fun and have a cook out for them on Martha’s Vineyard, with a big sign saying “Alan Dershowitz NOT INVITED”, with tire swings, a cook out with hot dogs and burgers, a pool, and some water pistols, so they can have water gun fights, like they were kids.

  71. 71.

    Kay

    @gene108:

    Is it good attention for Sanders and Biden though? We’ve talked about Bernie dodging releasing his taxes and Biden groping people. Also- Biden’s inability to make a decision. The flip side of “attention” is they’re not getting any criticism either.

  72. 72.

    rikyrah

    Comey Is The Reason Trump Is President (@Bravewriting) Tweeted:
    Why do Trump voters deserve more empathy than Hillary voters?

    They got what they asked for.

    We’re resisting and opposing the world that they created.

    Have some empathy for us Red State Hillary voters who were trying to save you from the fresh hell we’ve lived in for years. twitter.com/Bravewriting/status/1115079330118242304?s=17

  73. 73.

    snoey

    @Kay: Buttigieg does have some serious skills, or he would be listed with Hickenlooper and Inslee instead of Harris and Warren

  75. 75.

    MomSense

    @Baud:

    No, my son and I were watching in real time. There’s no additional context. My son said it upset him that she didn’t at least talk about voter suppression because of what Kemp did to her campaign in Georgia.

  77. 77.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay:

    Whoever we get has to be good at this politics thing

    And it sure helps if they’re good at being a white male. ;)

  78. 78.

    Nelle

    @rikyrah: I value what you bring here. Thank you. Even I am forgetting Castro at tome and he’s the only one I’ve contributed to (to make sure he gets on the debate stage at this point). I’ll plead for mercy on that one, having just sold a house and moved from one state to another but the imbalance of media attention is jaw dropping and once again controlling the framing.

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    @OzarkHillbilly

    3 months? Less than that. Ballots are printed well before election day to accommodate absentee and early voting. Republican convention scheduled to end on August 27, so the wheels aren’t set into motion to finish creating and print ballots, voter guides, etc. until after that. AFAIK, in most states those tasks are stamped finished by end of September.

  80. 80.

    Kay

    @O. Felix Culpa:

    I don’t agree that Harris is being ignored. In many ways I think she’s the front runner right now and is being treated as such. Bernie is his own category and I complained that they gave no negative attention to Sanders and now he is getting some, so I don’t see it as a net positive for him.

    IMO they haven’t even scratched the surface of Biden’s vulnerabilities- IMO the handseyness is the least of his problems, so Harris supporters should welcome a focus on Biden.

  81. 81.

    tobie

    @zhena gogolia: I wrote to the Washington Post this weekend to ask about their election coverage. On Saturday night their website had not one, not two but three front-page articles on Buttigieg, all fawning. On Sunday they added an op ed by Jennifer Rubin that was ostensibly about all the candidates but which made little effort to hide the fact that it was plugging Buttigieg’s candidacy. Was there any reporting on Kamala Harris, Jay Inslee, Julian Castro, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker in that time? No. The post appeared to put up a front-page article on Warren but if you clicked on it you got the message, “This file has been posted in error.” Buttigieg was of course interviewed on Sunday on Good Morning, America where he once again managed to insert some digs against the Democratic Party (according to him the party has been unable to define itself as anything but not-Republican) and praise Trump voters, who are good people but whose party was hijacked by thugs. Buttigieg is getting some scrutiny in the twitterverse and blogosphere because he’s being plugged like no one’s business in the media. It’s fair. He’s running on his rhetoric so he’s being analyzed for his rhetoric. It’s really that simple.

  82. 82.

    plato

    Trump didn't even let Nielsen announce her "resignation," Axios reports. While she was racing to put out the letter, Trump tweeted that she gone."She was undercut at every turn," a source close to DHS said. "The White House is eating their own." t.co/LMvR1NglGl— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 8, 2019

    In a way, I am enjoying how the scummy thug treats his underlings. The asskissers totally deserve it.

  83. 83.

    tobie

    On another note entirely: the video AL posted of HRC at Ain’t Too Proud is a sheer delight. She looks so happy–and she’s so real in letting the cast know how happy they have made her. This made by morning.

  84. 84.

    Major Major Major Major

    We lost because of a strategic error… We can win with the best candidate.

    So we’re okay with Abrams saying Hillary made mistakes (or possibly was a mistake)? Just keeping track of which candidates are allowed to say things like that.

  85. 85.

    NotMax

    Line worthy of a spit take just now overheard in a 1929 movie running on TCM.

    “I can’t love Kate the way a husband should, Ruth, not since you polished my wrench.”

  88. 88.

    Immanentize

    Question for the beloved hive mind — any sign of Satby lately? I miss her something awful…

  89. 89.

    Kay

    @plato:

    In a way, I am enjoying how the scummy thug treats his underlings. The asskissers totally deserve it.

    I am too. They’re learning from it, too. He’s training them in subservience. The new batch are even bigger asskissers and bootlickers than the last batch.

    There’s a lot of rungs of “low quality”- we haven’t near hit bottom yet. The only reason he hasn’t appointed an actual Fox personality is they make millions of dollars on Fox, so staying on the payroll at Fox and working for Trump makes more sense than changing their location.

  91. 91.

    Kay

    Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost will join a growing number of states fighting a Texas judge’s decision to scrap the entire Affordable Care Act.
    But Yost, a Republican, won’t be siding with fellow Republicans who filed the lawsuit or Democratic attorneys general who have joined together to support the Obama-era health care law.
    Yost said in an interview he agrees that the individual mandate to buy health insurance is unconstitutional but disagrees that the rest of the law is also therefore invalid.
    Yost plans to file a friend-of the-court brief in the 5th Circuit Court of Appeal. The brief will argue the individual mandate can be removed from the law without eliminating protections for pre-existing conditions, insurance caps and other parts of the law. About 1.9 million non-elderly Ohioans have pre-existing conditions, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

    Ohio (state) Republicans have been quietly and consistently moving to the middle. It’s interesting in light of the constant claims that Trump is wildly popular in the rust belt. Something’s going on with this- he’s weaker than they’re letting on.

    Mike DeWine went from True Trumpster to compassionate conservative about 15 minutes after he was elected. DeWine has absolutely no ethical standards. If he’s sneaking away from Trumpism he’s doing it because he’s believes it’s politically beneficial to him.

  94. 94.

    Immanentize

    @Kay:
    So, in some ways, has Kemp in Georgia. But that was post-racist George Wallace’s trick. Run right, govern center, blame it on the federal government.

    ETA. I do hope you are right about their vulnerabilities.

  96. 96.

    karen marie

    @Kay: I am baffled that Warren is not taken more seriously as a candidate. I am equally baffled that Sanders is.

  98. 98.

    oclday

    @rikyrah:
    I understand the desire to condense what went wrong in 2016 to something that will be catchy on Twitter. But that is a miss remembering too. Part of it was a strategic error, sure, but, it was also Comey, the Russians, a third Democratic term, following the first African American president, misogyny, the Clinton baggage and on and on. Stop blaming Clinton and place the blame where it belongs, the American people, we failed her.

  99. 99.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Kay: Kamala isn’t being ignored, but she isn’t getting the level of coverage Biden, Beto, and Mayor Pete are getting. And you could play where’s Waldo (Waldette?) with Gillibrand, Klobuchar, and Castro. See tobie’s comment at #81. It’s a matter of empirical data. They’re not getting the same amount of coverage. Neither did HRC, for the things that mattered. Fact.

    ETA: Although (maybe because of tobie!) WaPo has a front-page article on Warren: washingtonpost.com/politics/elizabeth-warren-bets-that-slew-of-policy-ideas-will-win-over-trump-wear…

  100. 100.

    Spanky

    @rikyrah: Which is why he tried to hijack the Democratic Party machine.

    Bernie Sanders is not now, has never been, nor never will be a Democrat. He should be thrown off the Democratic ballot.

  101. 101.

    Kay

    @Immanentize:

    Right, but that’s Georgia. We were all told that Trumpism ruled Ohio. State Republicans aren’t so confident, apparently.

    They’re actually doing a bipartisan public school funding bill that is the opposite of Betsy DeVos. They’re way more centrist than Kasich, who was and is far Right economically. They just raised the gas tax because Kasich left them with a 6 billion dollar budget hole with his sleazy fake budget numbers. Quietly, this is happening. Gym Jordan may be screeching about the border but the state contingent are all about kumbaya. It’s interesting, and really contradicts the national narrative.

  102. 102.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    I honestly thought, I could tune out the Dem primary, but the lack of attention does impact fund raising and polling results, which can keep otherwise acceptable candidates out of early debates and killing their chances to succeed.

    I didn’t think I would have to care about the fundraising ability of Warren, Castro, Booker, etc. until close to Iowa and NH, when more info is out about all the candidates, and I can determine who to support, but it seems some candidates better qualified and more in tune with the modern Democratic Party, than Buttigieg, Biden, or Bernie, will lose due to lack of fundraising and name recognition.

    As long as this Presidential primary “season” has become, I think the media wants to accelerate it and narrow down the field, before voters get to decide.

  103. 103.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Baud: @Kay: @karen marie: given that she is a senator there, can we not discount this poll as mere name recognition in favor of Biden/Bernie, like we’ve been doing for other polls? Can we allow that, for whatever reason, a large number of democrats are in fact stating a preference for those two candidates? I don’t get it either, but given their numbers it suggests I’m the one who’s out of touch. I know a few Bernie people but mostly my friends (and I) are waiting to see how things shake out. (If pressed, I would pick Warren)

  105. 105.

    Betty Cracker

    @plato: That’s really the only upside to this ongoing horror show, watching Trump humiliate the horrible people who groveled for a job with his hideous administration. Of course, the schadenfreude is tempered by the knowledge that the outgoing awful person will probably be replaced by someone even worse. The quality of Trump’s hires started low and only moves in one direction.

  106. 106.

    gene108

    @Kay:

    The only reason he hasn’t appointed an actual Fox personality is they make millions of dollars on Fox, so staying on the payroll at Fox and working for Trump makes more sense than changing their location.

    Wonder what Shine’s angle is then?

  107. 107.

    tobie

    @O. Felix Culpa: You’re too sweet! I doubt my letter made a damn bit of difference. Presumably the Post had an article planned but not finished when they put up the headline which didn’t lead to an article but to an error message. Glad to see that’s changed now. Whatever it’s use, I’ll still keep writing when I think the coverage has gotten as skewed as it was this weekend.

  108. 108.

    Major Major Major Major

    FWIW, from 538 about news coverage, this is for the last week in March:

    According to data from the TV News Archive[…] in the past week, Beto O’Rourke got the most coverage of any candidate on cable news, with Kamala Harris, Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker all at least 95 mentions behind. Jay Inslee, Andrew Yang and Tulsi Gabbard got next to no coverage.

    Pete Buttigieg, who saw some favorable polling in Iowa and nationally this past week, was the only candidate who didn’t have a large reduction in media coverage from the previous week, but the overall amount of coverage he received was still modest compared with other major candidates.

    fivethirtyeight.com/features/which-2020-democrat-got-the-most-cable-news-attention-last-week/

  110. 110.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Major Major Major Major: Thanks. An actual count is helpful. That said, it doesn’t include print or network coverage, nor does it include Biden, presumably because he hasn’t declared yet.

  111. 111.

    tobie

    @Major Major Major Major: This makes sense to me for the last week of March. O’Rourke got a ton of free coverage on cable news for his campaign launch. I’ll be curious to see what the statistics for this first week of April look like. My gut sense is that Biden and Buttigieg will be the most covered candidates but I could be wrong. Thanks for the empirical evidence!

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @karen marie:

    I am baffled that Warren is not taken more seriously as a candidate.

    I absolutely love Warren, we’re ideological twins, but I think there have been long standing concerns about her ability to get elected. I think people believe she should be stronger in a blue state like Massachusetts and that worries them, because she’ll have to carry places that are a lot less D. If she were the Senator from Oklahoma people would be more confident.

    The reasons liberals who get elected in red or purple states get so much attention is national candidates have to be competitive in those states. That’s real. It’s more difficult than getting elected in a blue state. Abrams is a phenom partly because Georgia, and Beto because Texas.

  113. 113.

    rikyrah

    Another evil wretch departs the regime

    While I was out living life, news came in on the wires that Secretary of Allowing Child Rape Kirstjen Nielsen resigned her post as head of the Department of Homeland Security.

    I wish to express my heartfelt appreciation of Secretary Nielsen’s tenure protecting our Nation.

    Fuck you.

    Fuck you as you ripped babies from their mothers.

    Fuck you as you ripped children from their fathers.

    Fuck you as you instituted something we haven’t seen in this country since the Second World War: our own gulag for “undesirables”.

    Fuck you as you served as handmaiden to one of the most evil policies this country has ever engaged in.

    Fuck you as you justified this policy with nonsense and lies.

    Fuck you in the rest of your life as, if there is a God and She’s just, you experience not a moment’s peace.

    May your evil haunt you until you’re thrown into a hole in the ground.

    May your evil haunt you until you’re driven mad and the logical conclusion takes place.

    You’re a woman, and you tore children from women.

    You’re a human being, and you treated other human beings as if they were vermin.

    You are the perfect embodiment of this regime: heartless, cruel, concerned only with your own needs and power.

    According to Maggie Haberman’s reporting, you were feeling increasingly paranoid. Fuck you. I don’t care about your mental health. You instituted a moral evil which will take the rest of us decades to wash away, if ever.

  114. 114.

    Kay

    @plato:

    No, because Republicans will be seen more favorably now :)

    Look, I’m not a magician. They’re doing this because it’s popular, which will make them more popular, not less.

    The school funding plan is good! I’m amazed.

  115. 115.

    zhena gogolia

    @Major Major Major Major:

    This is the point I’m trying to make.

    WE HAVE TO DEFEAT TRUMP THIS TIME. I don’t care how we do it. Sanders is not the answer. Those are my rock-bottom truths. The rest is froth.

  117. 117.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @oclday: Or we could just stop arguing about the 2016 election and move ahead with a (mostly) great slate of candidates.

    I honestly can’t figure out why otherwise good candidates have to take these gratuitous slaps at Hillary. Whatever “credibility” they may confer with the Hillary-haters, they do far more damage to the Democratic base.

  119. 119.

    Miss Bianca

    @OzarkHillbilly: I think I saw that on FB. Wee kitty Nala! Love how this guy’s journey stopped being about himself and started being about his relationship with his cat.

  120. 120.

    Major Major Major Major

    @O. Felix Culpa: @tobie: yeah, it’s not an exhaustive study by the CJR or anything, and it doesn’t differentiate positive and negative coverage… but this is one area where it’s super easy to let our biases determine our perception (who watches all the news channels all day?), so I figured I’d look it up.

    I’m going to check out that archive they link to. If it’s easy to work with (or already has this feature) I might make and front-page a tool to explore these figures in an ongoing way.

  121. 121.

    Kay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I think it’s a mistake too, but I don’t think it’s malicious or even strategic. I think they are political people and they cannot resist weighing in. They all did the same thing to John Kerry and Al Gore. Democrats absolutely suck at playing for a team.

  124. 124.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Kay: It’s not that hard to program one’s mind to simply avoid all references to 2016 or Clinton. Just answer all such questions with “We’ve got a great slate of candidates, and we’re going to win in 2020.” Focus on defeating Trump.

    You are correct. No sense of teamwork.

  125. 125.

    Kay

    @snoey:

    Right. It’s concerning. It matters where they are and looking at it thru the lens of “appealing to white Trump voters in the midwest” is way too narrow. Correct me if I’m wrong but our latest domestic terrorist came out of NY.

  127. 127.

    zhena gogolia

    @Major Major Major Major:

    My feelings exactly. It’s politics. If you’re going to faint every time somebody says something you might not have said, BECAUSE LIKE THEY’RE THE POLITICIAN TRYING TO GET ELECTED, then we’re doomed.

  128. 128.

    Kay

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    I would actually go the other way. I think Clinton voters felt they were unfairly treated by the media and they would interpret a strong defense as sticking up for them. They’re not political pundits. They don’t have any obligation to do 2016 election analysis. Be an advocate.

  131. 131.

    Miss Bianca

    @Major Major Major Major: And I’m not fine with Hillary-bashing at all, at all, under any circumstances, because that’s *not* “what it takes”. It’s what our fucked-up, misogynistic culture and media are *demanding*, and I will think ill of any Democratic candidate who doesn’t recognize that part of his/her/their mandate is to starve that fucking beast. Questions about Hillary and the 2016 election?: “Next question”.

  132. 132.

    Betty Cracker

    I wonder how much of the Buttigieg coverage is driven by the historic nature of having an openly gay candidate on the trail with his spouse and also by Buttigieg’s age. We’ve never had a president in his 30s nor an openly gay president.

  133. 133.

    Kay

    Norah O’Donnell ??
    ‏Verified account
    @NorahODonnell
    Follow Follow @NorahODonnell
    More
    “It’s been a tough road – she’s had a difficult 16 months. She’s defended policies that she at times, I think, was questioning, and so look – she served well, I think it’s a relief for her to be able to get out and move on.” -@FranTownsend on Sec. Nielsen’s resignation

    No, she did a terrible job, even in the context of the horrible and inhumane policy she supported. She handled those kids incompetently. They never should have snatched them because they were too fucking incompetent to track and place and then reunite them, because child placement is not now and never should have been a federal role.

    So really she was terrible across the board. The next one will be even lower quality, though.

  134. 134.

    rikyrah

    @NotMax:

    Military and Overseas ballots, by law, are sent out 45 days before the election.
    Which means that they have to be designed, QC’d and printed before that.

  135. 135.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Saw some speculation on Twitter that maybe Nielsen would spill the beans on Trump now that he shit-canned her in humiliating fashion. I wish I knew where these folks get their optimism because I sure could use some. If Nielsen was a decent person, she wouldn’t have gone to work for Trump in the first place, and the fact that she went out and told bald-faced lies about the horrifying policies is all the evidence I need that she’s no better than Trump.

  136. 136.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    No, she did a terrible job, even in the context of the horrible and inhumane policy she supported. She handled those kids incompetently. They never should have snatched them because they were too fucking incompetent to track and place and then reunite them, because child placement is not now and never should have been a federal role.

    And, routinely lied to Congress when she wasn’t being flippant about not knowing how many children’s lives they were destroying.

  137. 137.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    Maybe, but I think they love him because he’s so happy to spend so much time on things like “narrative” and how the Democratic Party should position themselves, and that’s what they prefer over policy. I myself think it’s a mistake for him- we’re not hiring a political science analyst. He’s smart but he’s also young and I hate to tell him but I have heard the same things he’s saying in every gathering of Democrats I have ever been in- he didn’t invent this criticism. It’s almost boilerplate in the Party.

    I’m a little disappointed he’s going this route. It’s boring.

  138. 138.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    I love how they pretend they do a bad job because they’re so morally conflicted and anguished over the work.

    Do it or don’t do it. Spare us this bullshit handwringing, which looks exactly like incompetence. They told her to JAIL the children, and she followed that order. No one ordered her to LOSE them. “Misplacing” 6 year olds was all her.

  139. 139.

    zhena gogolia

    @Kay:

    I love how they pretend they do a bad job because they’re so morally conflicted and anguished over the work.

    Me too. Gag.

  140. 140.

    tobie

    @Kay: I get that the President is not the Legislator-in-Chief and that candidates do need to talk about their vision for the country generally. But broad statements about governing philosophy and how the Democratic Party is perceived are not ideas about the future direction of the country. They’re platitudes. I actually find Andrew Yang’s wake-up call on automation and his proposal for UBI incredibly refreshing, though I would never vote for someone who has not held public office or worked in the public sector.

  142. 142.

    eric

    If you have to use surrogates to say you were troubled about what you were doing (after the fact, of course), then you should have (1) said so at the time when asked by a co-equal branch of government or (2) perhaps not fucking done it under your authority in the first fucking place.

  143. 143.

    Tenar Arha

    @Baud: @Dorothy A. Winsor: @Major Major Major Major: Did you guys know that “liberal” Massachusetts is one of those states that has never elected a woman as governor? I just double checked & Jane Swift was only elected as Lt. Governor, then filled in as acting-Governor for a couple years. Also there’s just a requirement to be registered to vote, there’s no requirement to pick a party. As long as I registered 6 weeks or so beforehand, I can be unenrolled on primary day & walk in and request a ballot for any participating parties.

    Hillary Clinton won the primary here, while Bernie didn’t in 2016. He had a ceiling on his support.

    Basically, wo Biden on the ticket, & the obvious smart plans Warren has plus having paid her dues to the state, it’s possible for her to win here. Because though we-as-a-state are more than a little sexist about who we pick to lead, we’re also way more conservative (in the form of planning & risk aversion) than anybody ever expects.

    ETA The biggest problem I can see this year is cross party voters. Bc if Bill Weld isn’t running in the GOP primaries by then, GOP’ers will vote on the Democratic ticket for the Democrats they’re most comfortable with, & their voters are more conservative than the Dems’.

  144. 144.

    Tazj

    @Baud: Rachel Bitecofer, who does political polling from a Democratic perspective wrote that the Emerson poll was useless because of its small sample size. Here she is criticizing journalists and pundits who pushed the results of this poll.

    Rachel “The Doc” Bitecofer @ Rachel Bitecofer -16h
    Dear Everyone PLEASE take note that election surveys with NS like this are statistically useless. And you keep incentivizing them to put them out because they’re getting massive hits.

    The sample size in this survey is 371.

  146. 146.

    J R in WV

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Regarding Senator Warren coming behind Sanders and Biden in MA:

    It’s hard to keep blaming name recognition.

    How about blaming white male misogyny on top of name recognition? Or just plain ol’ misogyny, even by women, which is unbelievably a thing.

  147. 147.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: Maybe that’s it, at least for the media types. For supporters, both factors seem to be part of the appeal, and seeing him dismissed as yet another white dude might be perceived as its own brand of erasure.

    I get way too much of my exposure to Dem candidates from the Obama Bro’s podcast (Pod Save America)! That’s where Buttigieg first came to my attention.

    Just heard the interview with Julian Castro over the weekend and was impressed with his proposals on immigration. I hope he gains more traction for that reason alone.

  148. 148.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah:

    If this were a TWILIGHT ZONE episode, Kirstjen Nielsen would wake up in a small cage with Latin American children on the outside watching her.

    I love that so much I had to see it again.

  150. 150.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: I think the vitriol and the circular firing squads got to be too much. Life’s too short to watch the Democratic party do Trump’s work for him by eating their own.

    edit: and not just the Democratic party, but here on BJ.

  151. 151.

    WaterGirl

    @Betty Cracker: I think he gets a lot of attention because he is the underdog, and the press loves an underdog story. I also believe he is a very good candidate, though obviously not perfect. There is no perfect candidate.

    As Barack was fond of saying — we can’t let perfect be the enemy of good.

  153. 153.

    Immanentize

    @WaterGirl: That’s too bad. I really don’t understand the rationale of Buttigieg’s run, but Satby convinced me to take him seriously.

  154. 154.

    J R in WV

    @Kay:

    … No one ordered her to LOSE them. “Misplacing” 6 year olds was all her.

    You think so? Because I thought at the time it was a deliberate conspiracy to flush those innocent, kidnapped children into a Christianist adoption ring where they would be taught to be obedient little brown servants for Mom around the house…

    While allowing Secretary of Stupidity DeVos to flush all the monies into her adoption for profit companies.

    Maybe it was just incompetence, though.

    Eta fix html

  157. 157.

    snoey

    @Immanentize: My guess is that he’s mostly running to have the name recognition as a presidential candidate so that 8, 12 years out he’ll be sitting in the Biden seat.

  158. 158.

    WaterGirl

    @Immanentize: Have you watched/listened to him in a town hall or in a public event? That’s where you get to see what he is really like and what he believes – when he is interacting with people. If you’re interested, I can give you the best 3 or 4 of those that might give you a window into his popularity.

    I feel much less excited about him as a candidate when all I see are sound bites from the political shows, because in those he seems more politician than inspirational candidate.

  162. 162.

    Miss Bianca

    Just visited this thread again to look at Finn’s sweet face. I just want to boop his little pink nose with the tip of one little finger. Is it wrong?

  163. 163.

    karen marie

    @Kay: What I find questionable – but so far the media doesn’t, apparently – is Trump is putting the guy in charge of border patrol, who is overseeing a so-called emergency, in as “acting” director of DHS. Another thing I’ve not seen reported on is the administration not bringing in people to fill vacant positions but instead playing musical chairs. Unlike the traditional game though, where a chair is removed in each round, people are removed, resulting in more chairs than people. Pretty fucked up game. You’d think it would raise questions.

  164. 164.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @J R in WV:

    How about blaming white male misogyny on top of name recognition? Or just plain ol’ misogyny, even by women, which is unbelievably a thing.

    And it scares the hell out of me, because if this blog is any indication, there’s a whole passle of committed, active Democrats who – while pledging to vote for the eventual nominee – insist that said nominee must satisfy one or more of their chosen qualifications.

    Kids, Job One is to sweep the Emperor Tang & the maximum number of his Global Oligarchy Putschists out of office come January 2021. Other things being equal, I’d be happy to have as President a solid Democrat committed to bringing this nation back to (relative) sanity who is also a woman/POC/Latinx/gay/etc. But other things may not be equal.

    Progressives tend to deal in existential & programmatic intersections: if a candidate doesn’t check off all the boxes, s/he’s kicked to the curb in our minds. Our opponents are “unionists” – they gather together everyone who has even one reason to oppose (usually to hate) our nominee.

    I worry we’re going to insist our way into another loss. I would infinitely prefer a nominee who is less than ideal in personal history &/or beliefs who will win over one who satisfies all our yearnings for justice & progress who will not.

    And beyond that, we need to keep in mind that even if we win – even if we win in a landslide – Trump voters will still be there on the morning of 4 Nov 2020. And there will be a lot of them; even if turnout is no better than 2016 & Orangemandyas’s shrinks to the crazyfication factor (27%), that’s nearly 40 million.

    Does the new POTUS take a victory lap? “We outvoted you assholes, so suck it – it’s our turn now!” Send them scuttling back under their rocks to seethe in silence & oil up their home arsenals & plot revenge?

    We desperately need to work out an ending that reconciles as many of those voters as possible to the restored order. We may not like what that entails. Otherwise we’d have to maintain vigilance over 40-million-plus people in the next county or the next town or across the street or down the block, with a significant presence in the police & the military. And when the vigilance eventually flags, the explosion of the stored anger bids fair to be horrific.

    Lincoln was elected on inaugurated on 6 Nov 1860; SC seceded from the Union on 20 Dec. Lincoln was inaugurated on March 4, 1861; the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter SC on 12 April. Right now it feels to me like 1859 reloaded.. JMO of course.

  165. 165.

    Tazj

    @Miss Bianca: No, he’s very cute.

    @Tazj: Just correcting what I wrote earlier to say I believe she analyses polling, I don’t think she does any polling herself.

  167. 167.

    JustRuss

    @Baud: This. We lost because of an electoral system skewed to mollify slave owners, and voter suppression. I’m so tired of the “Hilary campaigned wrong!” meme.

  168. 168.

    WaterGirl

    I am shocked by the number of people (besides me) that have not seen CATS. I am not alone!

    @Miss Bianca: If booping that little nose is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. I would, however, have spelled it “bopping” which is my made-up word for that.

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