Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Be a wild strawberry.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

This really is a full service blog.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

People are complicated. Love is not.

You know he’s going to shit a cat.

Republicans do not trust women.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Keep the Immigrants and deport the fascists!

All hail the time of the bunny!

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

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

Jesus watching the most hateful people claiming to be his followers

You are here: Home / 2019 / Archives for June 2019

Archives for June 2019

Sunday Night Open Thread

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Found an old picture of me and my platoon from back in Fulda- I’m pretty easy to spot as I am the only one out of uniform:

Lots went on this weekend and I kept taking pictures and meaning to post but got distracted. Gerald and the kids had dinner here Thursday-Saturday, and today they were able to FINALLY move in to their new house (paperwork had them in limbo for about three weeks). They are so excited, and I am too- it’s really nice. Yesterday we went berry picking again in the morning:

I made more jam, and made some raspberry ice cream for dessert (dinner was brisket, beans, tomato/cuke/onion salad, and something else, I forget).

Deck is almost completely done:

I don’t know if the color is coming through in this picture, but it is a grey with hints of blue (it’s name is shark loop from Valspar). Finally, a pretty flower from dad’s garden:

Oh, and last night we had a series of very violent storms. I’ll upload some videos tomorrow.

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Open Thread: Crown Princess Dunning-Kruger

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From the smirk on her face, absolutely. Eighteen months watching Daddy Dearest in the Oval Office, and she’s convinced she can finish off the important bits of the job — yelling at aides about their inadequate PowerPoint presentations, putting the arm on foreign dignitaries and potential celebrity donors — in an hour or two a day. So if she mindfully curates her twitter feed, she’ll be able to accomplish her “real” work (rigorous self-care, supervising the kids’ and Jared’s nannies) and still have plenty of time for celebrity tuft-hunting!

The Washington Post, “‘Surreal’: Ivanka Trump plays a prominent role in her father’s historic Korea trip”:

… The first daughter’s prominence in Japan and South Korea appeared to be by design — a sign of her influence with President Trump and the current absence of influential opponents within the administration.

It’s not clear, however, to what end.

Ivanka Trump shuttered her clothing business after joining the administration, although not right away, and has largely stepped away from her old life as an entrepreneur and social mainstay in New York. She and her husband, senior White House adviser Jared Kushner, let it be known last year that they would remain in Washington and in the White House indefinitely.

Her ambitions are unknown — she demurs on any desire for public office…

Mostly, her prominence on a major foreign trip sends a message about who other countries should listen to or court, said Christopher R. Hill, a former U.S. ambassador to South Korea and other nations.

“It looks to the rest of the world like we have a kind of a constitutional monarchy,” said Hill, who oversaw nuclear talks with North Korea at the close of the George W. Bush administration.

“It’s increasingly problematic in terms of our credibility,” Hill said. “It says to our allies, to everyone we do business with, that the only people who matter are Trump and his family members.”…

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Sunday Afternoon Open Thread

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Here’s Badger seated at the kitchen island counter. He just hops up on a bar stool and watches me cook.

I had some misgivings about this behavior at first, but since he’s been well-behaved and never attempts to put his paws on the counter, I guess it’s okay.

A Badger-related story: I was having lunch at a local diner yesterday. The restaurant occupies a long, narrow space, and we were seated near the back. The place was mostly empty, but there was an elderly gent seated near the front. I was wearing a t-shirt that said “Boston” with a logo like this on it:

After the elderly gent paid his check, he made his way toward us rather than the door. It took a while because he was using a cane and walked slowly. I had plenty of time to hope he wasn’t coming back there to ask us if we’d accepted Jesus Christ as our personal savior.

Finally, he arrived at our table and said to me, “So, are you really from Boston, or did you just go to Boston University?”

I replied, “Neither. I have a Boston terrier.”

He said, “Oh, well I didn’t expect THAT” and walked away. I was vaguely sorry to have disappointed him.

***

At the risk of turning this blog into an AOC fanzine:

SLAIN!

Open thread!

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“Two nuclear-armed narcissists with tragic hairdos walk into a Stalinist hellhole…”

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AP Photo: Susan Walsh

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

Historic! Historic, I tell you! That’s the mainstream media hot take on Trump’s meeting with Kim Jong Un and the 20-pace corpulent shuffle across the border and back (no golf cart!). A few tidbits from the coverage:

“Lots of good things are happening with North Korea,” [Trump] told South Korean business leaders, repeating his belief that the US “would have been at war with North Korea” if someone else had been elected to the White House.

The latter is a bald-faced lie. That a ruthless despot had nuclear weapons and was testing missiles was worrisome of course; doubly so with a thin-skinned despot-wannabe in control of America’s nukes.

But was anyone certain the US was going to war with North Korea before our unhinged leader Trump began taunting their unhinged leader Kim on Twitter? Once again the arsonist wants credit for dousing the fire.

There’s more:

Trump said at Seoul news conference that Obama was “begging” for a meeting with Kim Jong Un…

An emphatic NOPE on that from PBO’s Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes:

Trump is lying. I was there for all 8 years. Obama never sought a meeting with Kim Jong Un. Foreign policy isn’t reality television it’s reality.

Per CNN’s Jim Acosta, Trump attacked the REAL enemy several times during the coverage:

Still grumbling about the media, Trump says press “would have hit me hard” had Kim Jong Un not shown up for the DMZ meeting.

True, just as restaurant reviewers would hit a pizza joint hard if its free pizza promotion failed to attract a customer. Why on earth wouldn’t Kim show up to collect his unearned imprimatur of legitimacy from the orange clown? Kim may be evil, but, unlike Trump, he’s not stupid.

Acosta again:

No breakthrough after DMZ meeting with Kim Jong Un. Trump says both sides will designate teams to keep the negotiations going over the next few weeks “to see whether they can do something.”

In other words, it was a photo-op. And you know what? Maybe that’s okay.

People who know a lot more about foreign policy than I do say it’s a mistake to give Kim the legitimacy he craves without extracting a major concession. Maybe they’re right, but it’s possible they’re wrong. We make peace with enemies, not friends, and sometimes that requires extending a hand without preconditions to get things started.

But I wish the non-wingnut media would wait until Trump actually accomplishes something before blowing up my phone with hosannas about the historical shitgibbon. Oh, and this from NPR’s David Folkenflik:

The American contingent in NK appearance included Trump’s daughter and son-in-law advisors and his Fox foreign policy adviser, Tucker Carlson, per multiple reporters.

Reminds me of that time President Obama brought Sasha, Malia and Bill Ayers along for the Autocrats Roadshow. Except that never happened, and if it had, the media explosion would have rendered the prospect of nuclear annihilation redundant.

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Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Summer Shots

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Thank you, commentor LaPassionara:

[At top] is a photo of my Hybrid Annabell hydrangeas. They will make quite a display all summer.


Some autumn ferns I planted a few weeks ago. This is a shady area, with some morning sun, and I am hoping they spread and fill in behind the diminished daffodils.

A new bed that I made at the end of last summer. These are castor bean plants, grown from seed. The seeds are poisonous, so they are not favored plants, but I like the red stems and sometimes purple leaves.

This is a typical site in my backyard, lots of different ground covers, with the stray daylily bloom. It started with euonymus winter creeper, with an added splash of your favorite, vinca minor, then some new and unknown spreading plants. I focus my efforts here on weeding out the honeysuckle shrubs and poke salat plants, plus cutting the euonymus away from the tree trunks. A never-ending battle.

Finally, this is now growing in the daylily bed that I repurposed last fall. I had planted rudbeckia seeds in pots on my back patio last summer, then put them in the new spot. They survived the winter and are now growing like crazy.

Love everyone’s garden photos! Thanks for keeping that Sunday morning tradition alive.

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I didn’t accomplish much gardening this week, not least because the gas company pulled a surprise raid to replace our meter and left us with no hot water for THREE HIDEOUS DAYS. The tech finally showed up at 7:15pm on Friday, and I cannot express how much being able to take a real shower improved my mood. (I never claimed survivalist credentials, thank you.)

Fortunately, the weather remained damp enough to keep the new transplants hydrated — I checked the tomato rootpouches after today’s violent thunderbursts, and not only did they come through unscathed, but a few of the plants are setting fat green fruit. Today’s project, Murphy the Trickster God willing: Get the Spousal Unit to dig up the handful of daylilies I planted in the shaded raised bed now overrun by his vinca (they’ve survived but don’t bloom there), while I dig up the ragged row of dwarf iris in front of the foundation lilac and replace them with more OsoEasy landscape roses to accompany the one that’s been sturdily thriving, scentless but bloomiferous, for some years.

What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?

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Early Morning Sundae Sermons Open Thread

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This is true! Spare a single tiny tear for the professional Panglossians, paid by Our Betters to remind all ‘sensible’ readers that well-groomed center-right white men with the correct credentials are obviously the best people to lead us, that’s just science. The Oval Office Occupant has been almost as much a disaster for their quiet careers as he is for the rest of the world… a sloppy, shambling, semi-literate professional faker who continually demonstrates not only his own unfitness, but the general shoddiness of the Panglossians. One tear, maybe a swift kick, and move on without them.

When you’re a privileged white dude, not getting first chair (and right of refusal) feels like a demotion…

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Late Night Open Thread

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It’s Pride Saturday night here. What this means for me is that I’m home alone making fussy green tea and reading Iain M. Banks. Fortunately, I’ve got the company of Nature’s Perfect Killing Machine.

It’s been a smidge hot lately; that’s how much energy Samwise could muster for greeting me after brunch. We keep the AC on in the bedroom, but I guess he decided the muggy living room was more his speed.

Happy Pride! How are you all? Got any Netflix/Hulu/Prime recommendations? I’ve been watching Neon Genesis Evangelion, which holds up surprisingly well.

Parting observation: Marianne Williamson has suddenly taken on a huge memetic presence in my Twitter feed. One of my Very Online friends even bought her shirt. You know, ironically.

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