Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

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

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

T R E 4 5 O N

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

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

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

“More of this”, i said to the dog.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Americans barely caring about Afghanistan is so last month.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

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

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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Handsome Devil Open Thread

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Took this last night.

I wonder what he’s plotting.

I don’t know about you all, but I had a hell of a week and am exhausted. Super ready for the weekend! I’m going to the Brooklyn Botanic Garden for an early look at the cherry blossoms on Sunday, if the weather holds. Looking very forward to it. What’s everybody else getting up to?

It looks like it’s too early for a respite open thread, so consider this a normal open thread with non-political content strongly encouraged.

Reader Interactions

127Comments

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    ???

    She’s not bossy, she’s the boss. (@MCTW5) Tweeted:
    @T_FisherKing @chucktodd My kid the millennial / gen X who is living in the south said last night that his impression from people he comes into contact with, both in the under 25 set and regular people, is that Kamala and Beto are the two who can win. Pete was not on the radar and Bernie a non-starter. https://twitter.com/MCTW5/status/1119035646520127488?s=17

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    Currently waiting for a big storm to blow through. It’s dead calm right now, but we’re supposed to get high winds starting in a few hours, then hellacious thunderstorms this afternoon.

  8. 8.

    Wag

    Heading to Boulder with my better half for a hike this morning, helping out at a church tomorrow morning making hot Easter dinners for the homeless, and skiing Sunday.

  15. 15.

    satby

    It’s day 2 of a chilly, rainy weather pattern that continues into tomorrow. After Sunday it’s going to apparently be frost free going forward so I’m deciding where to put the three raised bed grow bags I bought for the tomato plants and dahlia tubers. Looks like most of my roses didn’t survive the polar vortices even though they were covered. I need to pull the dead ones out and basically give up on replacing them. So today I am plotting out my new, improved yard once the weather gets better. Which is a change, because my usual approach is to haphazardly just stick plants in free spaces ?

  20. 20.

    Roger Moore

    @Cacti:

    Julian Assange fabricated the Seth Rich murder story as a smokescreen for Russian intelligence handing him the hacked DNC materials.

    New conspiracy theory: Russian intelligence murderd Seth Rich to give Assange a story about where the emails came from.

  21. 21.

    Roger Moore

    @Cacti:

    Although I do wonder how comrade Greenwald will try to deflect from this one.

    He’ll continue to blather about how the whole thing is a massive setup. See, Mueller just fabricated that part as justification for arresting a good journalist who was too critical of the power people in Washington. Once you’ve decided the whole report is bullshit, it’s easy to write off any individual part the same way.

  23. 23.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Roger Moore: I long ago ceased to care at all what comrade Greenwald thinks about anything, and I have found that my quality of life has not suffered for it.

  25. 25.

    geg6

    Four day weekend here. Today is a girls’ day out. My friend who winters in Florida is back, so we’re going to lunch and then some drinks and catching up. Tomorrow is a haircut and then housework and laundry. Sunday is a family dinner at a local place with a great buffet early in the afternoon and then drinks and dessert at my sister’s. Monday is couch potato day. Glad we’re not cooking Sunday is all I have to say.

  26. 26.

    rikyrah

    Portia McGonagal of Winterfell (@PortiaMcGonagal) Tweeted:
    Oh look @MSNBC “road warriors” can only find White Trump voters to talk to AGAIN about the #MuellerReport . Apparently no non-White people anywhere have opinions. As usual. https://twitter.com/PortiaMcGonagal/status/1119234065524125696?s=17

    Portia McGonagal of Winterfell (@PortiaMcGonagal) Tweeted:
    Aaah now they have the Mayor of Stockton to talk about Black people below the poverty line. Because the only options in this country are : White Trump voters and poor Black people. No on else exists.

    Portia McGonagal of Winterfell (@PortiaMcGonagal) Tweeted:
    Thankfully, he knows that there are diverse working class and middle class voters who care about things like whether a President has a scintilla of integrity and / or is corrupt. https://twitter.com/PortiaMcGonagal/status/1119235179803893760?s=17

  27. 27.

    FlyingToaster

    Ending up school vacation week (Patriots Day Week) amid high winds and repairs. WarriorGirl is off with her godless parents to Anime Boston tomorrow; hopefully the new dishwasher will get installed and I can move onto getting our fences replaced and getting the garden started. Back to school come Tuesday, including the spring Bookfair.

  30. 30.

    rikyrah

    Thread

    Keep going (@evanvwk) Tweeted:
    Tonight I would just like to thank @docrocktex26 and all others who have emphatically asserted that Kremlin disinformation & propaganda aimed at affecting the 2016 US election was aimed at WHITE PEOPLE. https://twitter.com/evanvwk/status/1119102088699453440?s=17

    Keep going (@evanvwk) Tweeted:
    What is the common characteristic of the gullible fools that were swayed by the IRA/GRU дезинформация campaign? They came from every state, every socioeconomic bracket; they were male and female.

    What they had in common was whiteness.

    Keep going (@evanvwk) Tweeted:
    Look at the exit polling data. African-American voters backed @HillaryClinton overwhelmingly. They were not fooled by Putin.

    If we all did what @Ange_Amene told us to do and #votelikeblackwomen, we would not be living in this nightmare right now.

  31. 31.

    catclub

    @rikyrah:

    The only reason we’re seeing even one line of the Mueller Report is because Democrats won control of the House in 2018.

    I think If I were to do it again as a Democratic leader, I would advertise that Mueller is going to be a sellout Republican and cover up for Trump, then hope he does substantially better than that to prove me wrong.

  33. 33.

    Nick D’Agostino

    I don’t live far from the botanical gardens! Will have to visit in the next few weeks – after my recovery from knee meniscus surgery (went well and relatively easy recovery).

  34. 34.

    zhena gogolia

    @rikyrah:

    I’m not crazy about Beto, but a Harris/O’Rourke ticket sounds pretty good to me. Hits a lot of good demographic marks.

  35. 35.

    Amir Khalid

    Samwise isn’t plotting anything. How could there possibly be evil machinations behind that sweet happy face?

  38. 38.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Cacti: Greenwald seems to be decompensating: he’s making all sorts of tweets in which he’s simultaneously needling the Democrats for not going harder AND insisting that Trump/Russia was a hoax, and some of them are so garbled that he seems to be condemning himself. It’s like all the classic Star Trek scenes in which Kirk convinces a hostile computer of a contradiction and smoke comes out.

  39. 39.

    dnfree

    He reminds me of a cat we had in the 1970s, creatively named “El Gato”. Ours had a kind of diamond-shaped white patch on his chest and enormous feet, with an extra toe per foot. He was literally an alley cat who found us, but someone told us he looked like a Russian blue. Nice to be reminded of him. He would play “fetch” with a small rubber ball tossed down our long hallway, but when he brought the ball back he would drop it at our feet, not give it to us to throw again.

  40. 40.

    Matt McIrvin

    @zhena gogolia: Biden is going to jump into the race officially very, very soon. From that point on the coverage is going to be 100% Biden vs. Bernie for a while. Hard to predict where it goes after that.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    Ugh — now we’ve got a tornado watch for the next several hours. I was feeling all smug about being able to enjoy a big storm now that we’ve got a new roof and took a massive, damaged tree that was looming over our house down. But a tornado would harsh my mellow!

  42. 42.

    laura

    That cat’s deep, beautiful pelt cries out for petting!
    I snagged a tray of petunias – deep magenta with electric green edges, and HOT pink with white splashes and they’re getting planted today. Eggs will be deviled, ham will be Nigella Lawson CoCola’d, and if time allows, a pan of gingerbread.
    Roadie cousin swings through town with Michael Schenker tomorrow, so we’ll get together with some fried chicken and exchange a sack of books.
    I’m counting the minutes until the workday’s done and over.

  43. 43.

    RandomMonster

    I’ll be going to my weekly life drawing at Creative Alliance – Baltimore on Saturday — the highlight of my week. After that, I guess I’ll do some contract work.

  45. 45.

    Matt McIrvin

    …I’ve been thinking since yesterday that it’s going to be really interesting to see where the Trump/Russia angle goes with the Democratic-Party-skeptical further left. A lot of the lefties I follow on Twitter are going the route of bashing Democrats for being spineless or not supporting impeachment, which, if you absolutely must concentrate on bashing Democrats for some reason, is at least the most reasonable way to go. But then there’s the whole Nation/Chapo/Intercept/brocialist faction that tended to dismiss Trump/Russia as a distraction: do they double down with “Democrats suck for harping on this” or flip over to the “Democrats suck for not harping on this enough” angle?

  46. 46.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin: I’m sure you’re right, but I keep hoping against hope that Biden will stay out of the race. Sanders will come at Biden and make it a referendum on Obama’s presidency, which will be incredibly divisive for the party. If Biden wins the fight, the Bernie people will pout about “the establishment” and sit the election out. If Sanders wins the fight, a lot of otherwise faithful Democrats will consider sitting it out. Maybe they’ll take each other out and allow someone else to emerge. That’s the best case scenario, IMO.

  47. 47.

    Major Major Major Major

    @Matt McIrvin:

    But then there’s the whole Nation/Chapo/Intercept/brocialist faction that tended to dismiss Trump/Russia as a distraction: do they double down with “Democrats suck for harping on this” or flip over to the “Democrats suck for not harping on this enough” angle?

    Well, Michael Tracey is certainly doubling down on “democrats are monsters for ever thinking there was a conspiracy.” The Intercept seems to think however that it’s a scandal of staggering proportions, if you exclude Greenwald. Yes, I know he’s the founder, but he’s increasingly alienated from every other writer at the site.

  52. 52.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker:

    As a native of the plains, I feel that the word “tornado” has been drastically denatured. They use it for any big wind that has a little twist in it.

    ETA: Good luck with your weather!

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @rikyrah:

    Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) Tweeted:
    Obvious: The only reason we’re seeing even one line of the Mueller Report is because Democrats won control of the House in 2018. Period. Zero question about this. 

    Imagine if we’d won the Senate. Elections have consequences.

  59. 59.

    MomSense

    Connecticut peeps, my middle son’s SO is giving her doctoral piano recital at Van der Mehden Recital Hall at UConn Storrs. It’s called Of Foreign Lands and People and will be on Saturday at 5:00. Admission is free. She’s freaking amazing. Both she and my son are lurking Jackals.

    For Mainahs, oldest son’s band is playing at Maine Craft Distillers in Portland on Saturday. It will be 420 and I think Weed Smoker’s Dream will be on the setlist. They are always a lot of fun to see perform.

    Aside from music I’ve got raking leaves on the agenda. Mother Nature gave us snow before we had a chance to rake. Pray for me, I have a yard covered in soaked leaves and pine needles.

  62. 62.

    chopper

    10 lbs of rolled up lamb leg is sitting in the water bath to be delivered this evening to a cousin’s. the only thing that sucks about this cooking method is you don’t get to smell it as it cooks.

  66. 66.

    rikyrah

    Portia McGonagal of Winterfell (@PortiaMcGonagal) Tweeted:
    Oh look @MSNBC “road warriors” can only find White Trump voters to talk to AGAIN about the #MuellerReport . Apparently no non-White people anywhere have opinions. As usual.

    Portia McGonagal of Winterfell (@PortiaMcGonagal) Tweeted:
    Aaah now they have the Mayor of Stockton to talk about Black people below the poverty line. Because the only options in this country are : White Trump voters and poor Black people. No on else exists.

    Portia McGonagal of Winterfell (@PortiaMcGonagal) Tweeted:
    Thankfully, he knows that there are diverse working class and middle class voters who care about things like whether a President has a scintilla of integrity and / or is corrupt.

    https://twitter.com/PortiaMcGonagal/status/1119235179803893760?s=17

  67. 67.

    MomSense

    @zhena gogolia:

    I’m desperate for a Harris/Murphy ticket. I know he doesn’t want to run for pres, but I’d really like to recruit him for veep. Those two together would be ????

    The Harris interview on Pod Save America is such a good listen. One of the reasons I want her to be our nominee and president is because I really think we could use that Cali energy. Let’s facenit, the media haven’t given their state its due for getting rid of the Republicans who had them in dire financial straits and electing Democrats who have totally transformed their state. They are successful economically, they are leading on climate crisis, and their Democratic congressional delegation has been leading the resistance to Trump.

  73. 73.

    Major Major Major Major

    @schrodingers_cat: the Democratic Party’s nominee, I said. If he wins the nomination that is what he will be. Do you think he would be a better president than Trump? I do. I also don’t think he would be a good president, but sometimes you have to vote for the least-bad option.

  74. 74.

    noname

    @Major Major Major Major: I have been meaning to ask you if your new apartment is in Queens? Your wood floors have the same pattern (with 2 lines of darker wood around the perimeter) and are the same type of wood as in mine about 20 years ago!

  79. 79.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    Getting ready for a trip with Madame to the Carrizo Plain, an area west of the Southern Central Valley and east of the Coastal Range. We’ll see if there are still flowers there, and maybe swing by the Antelope Valley for poppies on the way back.

  85. 85.

    schrodingers_cat

    Did anyone catch the Snooze Hour yesterday. Woodruff was keen on pushing Barr’s interpretation when she was asking questions about the report. I can has liberal media?

  86. 86.

    plato

    New: House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler has issued a subpoena for the full Mueller report and underlying evidence related to the Special Counsel's investigation. The Department is required to comply with that subpoena by May 1, Nadler says. https://t.co/cCzkdjGrwu— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 19, 2019

  93. 93.

    JPL

    @noname: My son’s maltese was called Nona. My son and DIL couldn’t agree on the name and the vet had noname on her chart. They simply dropped the me so I would sometimes call her me Nona. .

  94. 94.

    Sister Golden Bear

    Catching a flight later this morning to Ashland, OR for the Shakespeare festival this weekend.

    Extra special because a friend of mine is in two of the plays: Duke Senior in “As You Like It,” and the ensemble in “Between Two Knees,” a play written a Native American comedy troupe that uses humor to look at the atrocities toward Native Americans between the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890 and the Wounded Knee Standoff in 1973. It’s supposed to be very funny and very biting. “Ensemble” apparently understates things, she’s got 17 different roles. Reviewers have singled her out for praise in both plays.

    Also seeing “Cambodian Rock Band,” which set in the present and the Khmer Rouge era, as well as the pre-Khmer Rouge era when the Cambodia music scene flourished. Features music by Dengue Fever, played by the cast itself.

  95. 95.

    Sab

    I hired goats last summer to clear out my perennial bed weed patch. They ate everything but the pachysandra.

    The perennials survived! The daffodils and tulips are already up. The siberian iris has leaves coming up. Yesterday I noticed the peonies are about six inches high. Of course the coneflowers and rudbeckia survived.

    Goats are awesome.

  99. 99.

    noname

    @JPL: HA I should use that name for the vet; i have so many nicknames and endearments for my cats that when I call the vet for their appointments, I literally write their real name down in front of me so I don’t hem and haw for 5 minutes trying to remember it while the person on the other end rolls their eyes :) I guess I should actually be nonym but I am a Luddite and unaware of all internet traditions.

  101. 101.

    Gvg

    @Betty Cracker: high winds just started in Gainesville. Sudden and fast, rather alarming. I am home today because I have multiple appointments, instead of at work in a large solid building where you usually can’t tell the weather. Hope this is over before my next appointment at 2pm. It was calm 15 minutes ago.

  102. 102.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @JPL: Do I ever NOT bring pictures? Even if the flowers aren’t in full glory, it’s an interesting place. I’ve downloaded the map of the area since there won’t be cell phone reception.

  104. 104.

    Anonymous At Work

    @schrodingers_cat: All cats are plotting murder at all times. That is “cat”. They can also plot “nap”, “food”, and “enforce obedience to my whims” as needed.

  106. 106.

    raven

    @Gvg: I was going to go swim at the Y when this frog choker blew in. They close the pool if there is lightning about so I’ll just have to wait.

  108. 108.

    LaNonna

    Spending the weekend here planting, planting, and repotting…dug and divided about 9 sq m of white iris, now that bloom is over, setting up a new curvy line with lots of local rock (tufa) for contrast. Most tufa here have natural holes running through them, they are gorgeous.

  112. 112.

    rikyrah

    @Sab:

    I hired goats last summer to clear out my perennial bed weed patch. They ate everything but the pachysandra.

    Reading this reminds me of the story someone posted here last year of the goats that overran a neighborhood. Before that story, I had no idea that people used goats like that.

  114. 114.

    Sab

    @rikyrah: It’s pretty common around here to rent goats. The city has been using goats for at least a generation to clear the hill around our historic Glendale Staircase (built by the WPA) because the hill is too steep for mowing.

    The particular goatherd I rent is working to earn its own keep. They are pet goats, but goats eat a lot. She rents them out in the summer to earn enough to buy hay for the winter.

    ETA: Plus they eat blackberry bushes and poison ivy.

  117. 117.

    Steve in the ATL

    @MomSense:

    I’ve got raking leaves on the agenda

    Only you can prevent forest fires!

    @JPL:

    Imagine a supreme court without Kavanaugh.

    Or Gorsuch.

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Did anyone catch the Snooze Hour yesterday

    The answer to that question is always “no”.

  119. 119.

    Sab

    @rikyrah: They spread like crazy and they have thorns, so they are painful to prune or otherwise control. I do love blackberries, but I can only pick the ones on the outside of the patch because of the thorns.

  122. 122.

    Roger Moore

    @rikyrah:

    What’s up with the hateration towards Blackberry bushes?

    They are a weed. They may be a weed with tasty fruit, but they will overgrow everything if given a chance.

  123. 123.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Major Major Major Major: IMHO a BS Administration would discredit any sort of leftish policy for a generation through sheer incompetence (not to mention the obstruction of the Thugs remaining in Congress & the Federalist Society-infested courts) & 4 years later the reaction would vomit up a GOP POTUS fully as evil as Agolf Twitler but far smarter about installing full-bore fascism. If Wilmer were the nominee I would vote for him (& probably make a killing investing in clothespin futures in light of the millions of voters’ noses that would be in dire need of same) – but the moment his winning the nomination looked at all likely, I would be looking to prepare a bolt-hole overseas for myself & family & friends.

  125. 125.

    FelonyGovt

    Brooklyn Botanical Garden was a big part of my growing-up years and brings fond memories of my mom and grandma. Hope you have a wonderful day there, M4.

  126. 126.

    catclub

    @zhena gogolia:

    Some of us lived through McGovern.

    I was not a voter then, but my understanding is that the Democrats were totally divided then, big labor refused to back
    McGovern, etc.

    Now, even with all the divisiveness that a Sanders win in the primaries would bring, I think overall, the Democrats are still much more united
    in our desire to oust trump. With any luck we won’t be faced with the problem.

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