Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

Republicans don’t trust women.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, it’s door #2)

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

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

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

It looks like winning debates is a black job!

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

Books are my comfort food!

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

This has so much WTF written all over it that it is hard to comprehend.

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

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

People identifying as christian while ignoring christ and his teachings is a strange thing indeed.

You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2020 / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Inspiration for Us All

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Inspiration for Us All

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161Comments

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Hate less.

    I’m not sure I agree with this. “Hate better” might be better message.

  12. 12.

    Baud

    A Florida cop planted meth on random drivers, police say. One lost custody of his daughter.
    …..
    Wester, who was fired last September, was arrested Wednesday and charged with 52 counts of racketeering, false imprisonment, official misconduct, fabricating evidence and possession of controlled substances, among other charges. He’s accused of indiscriminately targeting innocent drivers and hauling them off to jail after planting meth or marijuana in their vehicles while feigning a “search.”

  13. 13.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @eclare: 118 0f 120 pumps “are online, and that they were “all hands on deck” and “continuing to work this event”. Time will tell. Just happy mine is up here to visit.

  17. 17.

    plato

    France passes tax on tech giants despite US threats.

    France has approved a digital services tax despite threats of retaliation by the US, which argues that it unfairly targets American tech giants.

    The 3% tax will be levied on sales generated in France by multinational firms like Google and Facebook.

    The French government has argued that such firms headquartered outside the country pay little or no tax.

    The US administration has ordered an inquiry into the move – which could result in retaliatory tariffs.

  19. 19.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Quote from the linked article:

    Wester, who joined the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office in 2016, fell under suspicion last year after a prosecutor noticed inconsistencies in what Wester wrote in his reports and what was captured on his body camera — if he turned it on. The problem was he seemed to leave the device off most of the time, conveniently only recording after drugs were already “found” in a vehicle.

    There’s got to be a way to make body cams turn on automatically when cops are on a call.

  27. 27.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I wonder if foreign policy might be what makes him stand out in a positive way. His campaign just seems passive to me- like they are relying on people drifting away from the other candidates in some inexorable gravitational move towards the center.

    I wish I thought the huge mass of D voters who won’t be tuning in for another year cared that much about foreign policy – “relationships” and “institutions”- but I don’t think they do.

  29. 29.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Biden does seem to be playing prevent defense. But I don’t know, his chief rivals are all competing for the progressive space, so maybe there’s so method to his madness.

  33. 33.

    satby

    @Baud: I still think he’s doing it because he feels it’s his duty, not because he still has the fire in his belly to be President any more. And he’d be a perfect competent one, though not my first choice. So I’m willing to let the process play out.

  38. 38.

    evodevo

    @OzarkHillbilly: I’m a rural mail carrier. We carry scanners to record the packages we deliver. They upload our location every few minutes, and if they malfunction or are turned off, headquarters knows it immediately…The tech is there – but I bet the “will” to make it happen is not…

  39. 39.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    You’re right about passive. We are supposed to support him because he was closer to President Obama than we are. Osmosis will elect him!

  40. 40.

    satby

    @satby: and though the article was written by a former Republican official, it has some good statistics on how overturning the ACA will impact purple states. Plus this:

    Nearly 70% of the US rates their healthcare coverage as either good or excellent. In other words, most of the US is not looking to recreate the world anew.

    which I see in my circle of acquaintances. Though part of that is because Americans really don’t understand how it works in other countries at all, so fear drives some of that percentage.

  41. 41.

    satby

    @Baud: good, make it harder to hide the real reason they’re doing it. Every time he opens his ignorant yap he undermines a legal argument his team is trying to make.*
    * And I bet that’s why Pelosi made the speech on that question that she did. She knew he’d want to answer her. She’s got his number.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @satby:

    People here don’t trust government to not make things worse. For reasons both valid and manufactured.

  45. 45.

    Another Scott

    @evodevo: Around here, the excuse I’ve always heard involves things like “I need to be able to turn it off when I go to the crapper!!”. Which is a reasonable concern, but it gets stretched by bad cops (and their enablers) into “I need to be able to have it off unless I control exactly what’s recorded.” Beat cops shouldn’t be spending 98% of their day in the toilet…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  46. 46.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Someone needs to stand up an ask him how he, as a second generation immigrant, can have the immigration policies he supports.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    JPMorgan grew its farm-loan portfolio by 76 percent, to $1.1 billion, between 2008 and 2015, according to year-end figures, as other Wall Street players piled into the sector. Total U.S. farm debt is on track to rise to $427 billion this year, up from an inflation-adjusted $317 billion a decade earlier and approaching levels seen in the 1980s farm crisis, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

    Obama was the best US President for agriculture. Better than Bush, much better than Trump.
    Facts don’t care about their feelings.

  49. 49.

    debbie

    But Marcus [CEO of Home Depot who is donating unspecified millions to Trump’s campaign], who retired as $231 billion company’s chairman in 2002, told the AJC that Trump has “got a businessman’s common-sense approach to most things.” He added that, “the truth is he has produced more than anybody else. He has. If we look at this country, I would say that we are better off today than we were eight years ago or six years ago.”

    Such an idiot. Obama was his president for six or four of those years, far more than Trump.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @satby: I’ve long suspected the high marks insured Americans give their coverage is mostly directed at their healthcare providers, not the coverage provided by insurance companies. Most people I know despise insurance companies, especially if they actually have to interact with them, and they’re annoyed by rising deductibles, co-pays and referral processes.

  52. 52.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    It might though. Never underestimate how little people pay attention :)

    I’m fine with polling the primary candidates- obviously I read it and it interests me- but a lot of these people are just lying. They don’t have a clue about these candidates. You would not even believe the conversations I’ve had with supposedly “engaged” D voters. In 2012 we canvassed Obama donors. Small donors. We canvassed on Obama and Sherrod Brown. Half of them had no idea who Sherrod Brown is- like “is she the senator?” DONORS, so the best list you could possibly have, the most engaged 10%.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yeah, but I hear people in UK despise the NHS, until someone threatens to take it away.

    I’m lucky in that I’ve never had a major problem with insurance.

  56. 56.

    JPL

    @Baud: Once again Pelosi will just shake her head and let the citizenship question be put on the form. I assume that it won’t e illegal if you don’t check the box, but how many people know that.
    fuckem

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    Yeah, it annoys me when people assume that everyone is operating from the same knowledge base.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Home Depot is a horrible place to work. It’s one of the places you hear horror stories about. The CEO of Menards is also a Right wing nut and GOP donor but they pay better and have happier employees. They pay better right now. They operate on an annual bonus system, so if the economy slides their employee pay slides too. That hasn’t hit yet but it will. The flaw in the bonus system for lower wage workers :)

  60. 60.

    satby

    @Betty Cracker: I suspect that you’re quite correct on that, and because it’s so intertwined by networks of care people don’t understand that it’s two different things. Plus people would hate insurance companies a bit less if every claim wasn’t a battle to the death to get paid for the coverage purchased.

  62. 62.

    JPL

    @Baud: What’s to stop trump from signing an executive order and sending it to the printer? Are they going to impeach him? I think not.

    eeyore

  63. 63.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Is it too much to hope that someone will ask 1) when will the two administration officials who committed perjury in the SCOTUS census hearing be fired and prosecuted, and 2) what value InfoWars-backed trolls and QAnon crackpots added to the White House “social media summit?”

  64. 64.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @evodevo: I’m not so sure. I am the last person to talk about tech, but it seems to me the amount of data transmitted/recorded by a gps locator is quite a bit less than a body cam running nonstop for 8- 10 -24 hours a day.

  65. 65.

    different-church-lady

    a country that is healed & in good shape does not elect a man like that to president”

    She’s absolutely right. But the problem is that the thing that’s broken is roughly half the people. How do solve that with policy? How do you tell half a country, “Your entire approach to life and humanity has gone wrong?” How can you even address the phenomenon without getting raked over the coals?

  66. 66.

    different-church-lady

    @debbie: George Carlin vastly underestimated: I’d say it’s more like 90% of the people you meet are below average intelligence.

  67. 67.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    I think that’s too harsh. IMO one of the reasons you want a functioning government is so you can do your thing and they can do theirs. People already have jobs and families. They have enough to do. Government functions should work in the background. Conservative policy does not allow that, because I have to be choosing fucking contractors and bidding and navigating hundreds of unregulated markets and getting ripped off 5 or 10 or 20% of the time. If I’m doing that I’m not doing what I do to make money or care for my family or enjoy myself. Think how insane it is to hire “health insurance navigators”. We have just made this endlessly complex and what that means as a practical matter is TIME. Our time. That we could be doing something else, like, you know, what WE do to make money, which is not create spreadsheets to compare health care plans.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @JPL:

    And do you think impeachment would stop him in that scenario? Your thinking has no logical stopping point, and only reinforces anti-Dem sentiment.

  69. 69.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I get so tired of the unrelenting daily onslaught of evil and cruelty. I have to take breaks from it. I get so discouraged and despairing sometimes.

    Liz Warren is a large part of what keeps me going. And she’s what got me out of the fetal position after the 2016 election.

    I will vote for whoever is our candidate, but I think a lot of Democrats are underestimating the depth and strength of the enthusiasm that Warren could draw if she’s the candidate. And unlike Bernie-bots, it’s reality-based.

  71. 71.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie:

    that Trump has “got a businessman’s common-sense approach to most things.”

    That explains a lot about why our economics are so fucked up.

  74. 74.

    Baud

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    First of all, take care of yourself. Second,

    but I think a lot of Democrats are underestimating the depth and strength of the enthusiasm that Warren could draw if she’s the candidate

    If she really is that, then she should handily win the nomination. I don’t know why we should think Dem primary voters are somehow worse than general election voters*

    In fairness, unlike 2016, there are more than two candidates who are completive, so that could be a factor.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    What conservative “governance” demands is that you become well versed on a whole range of things- health insurance, 401k’s and IRA’s, mortgage lending, college loans, even something as simple as finding a bank that will not STEAL fees from your checking account. I want regulators so I can buy something or purchase a service and think there is some baseline safety and quality regulator, because I can’t be the unpaid regulator. I’m not compensated for that.

  76. 76.

    MomSense

    @different-church-lady:

    That’s what scares me. You’ve got the non voting millions who don’t care enough to vote. Then there are the 60 or so million who are voting for racism and cruelty either because they like racism and cruelty or because they don’t care what happens to other people as long as they get their tax cuts. How the hell are we going to deal with that mess?

    I’m also pretty fucking furious that some of he never trumpers who were the purveyors of racism and cruelty are now making $$&& by writing books and selling them to resistors. Rick Wilson should have been publicly canceled for his Max Cleland ad and that was a loooong time ago.

  77. 77.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @JPL: Damned near every executive order he has signed has been stopped in it’s tracks by a lawsuit. Sign away donald, just so much more toilet paper.

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I’m a supporter too but I fret. I’ll admit I’m risk averse at this point. If Biden shows me he has a better chance to win I’d switch and I’ve never been a Biden fan. I don’t think I’m willing to rely on the unproven enthusiasm of the D base and I think sexism in presidential politics is real and wasn’t factored in enough in ’16. I heard it, and I heard it from Democrats. This happened. I witnessed this thing. They can tell me it was Clinton-specific but these weren’t Clinton-specific smears. These were smears that are directed at women. It also comes from some women. That’s the other thing we pretend doesn’t happen.

  80. 80.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Good morning all. Despite a lovefest with hard rightwingers today in the White House and a promise of mass deportations on Sunday, Gramps is having a bad morning.

    I try not to analyze every tweet, but today’s are tempting.

  81. 81.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    My own feminist mother turned into a misogynistic Sandernista. When I called her on it she told me that all her women friends agreed with her.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I’m in the same position. I don’t want Biden. I can say with 100% certainty that I would not have preferred him in 2016. But his current strength is his numbers against Trump, especially in the Midwest. It’s a pretty compelling strength to have.

  87. 87.

    Chyron HR

    @Baud:

    Look, “progressives” are as tired of whining about an impeachment vote as anyone else. That’s why they want the Democrats to get the vote over with, so they can move on to whining that it was just another “sternly-worded letter”.

  88. 88.

    JPL

    Here’s one of trump’s tweets from this morning.

    …or a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas (1000/24th), as your President, rather than what you have now, so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius! Sorry to say that even Social Media would be driven out of business along with, and finally, the Fake News Media!

    The horse genius is back

  91. 91.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I think she was talking about her friends her age – a lot of whom started as work colleagues. There is probably a doctoral dissertation or two in looking at the first wave feminists and their 2016 preferences.

    One time she was complaining about Hillary’s hairstyles and voice and my oldest son said something sarcastic about preferring bernie’s Hair and voice while he was acting particularly shouty while looking quite disheveled.

  92. 92.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @JPL: I actually went to twitter to check that tweet because it’s so preposterous. It reads as if one of his staff got hold of his phone and is punking him.

    Went to my regular Wed night writer group last night. They meet next door in the public library. We moved in here without knowing that, so I just lucked out to find them. Today we’re taking the Metra downtown and doing the riverboat architectural tour.

  93. 93.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MomSense: I was joking. It’s what I would say to my wife if she ever said something about all her male friends.

  94. 94.

    Betty Cracker

    So, here’s a contractor drama question for y’all. We’ve had a nightmarish experience trying to get a new shower installed. Critical background info: this house has 1 full bath and 2 half-baths, so we’ve only got the one shower, unless you count the outdoor camp shower that’s right next to an alligator-filled lagoon, which I do not!

    Anyhoo, I’ll spare you all the gory details, but this project has been a clusterfuck from day one. Finally, four months after the initial agreement, the contractor showed up Tuesday to start the installation. After they had ripped out our existing shower, the idiots discovered that the replacement they’d ordered and hauled into the house is the wrong fucking shower! Getting the right shower would take several weeks — we can’t just go to Lowe’s and get a shower that will fit; it has to be ordered.

    The shower these fucking idiots accidentally ordered is smaller than the old shower, which really sucks because that one was already smaller than I’d prefer. Since the footprint is smaller, they’ll have to figure something out about the tile, which they claim they can do, but I suspect it’s going to look stupid. I’m so fucking pissed, as you can imagine, but I don’t see any solution aside from letting the morons finish the job.

    But once they do finish up, I’m not sure how I should approach paying them. I intend to pay them less than the original agreement, obviously, since this is 100% their fuck-up and I have all the receipts to prove that. They’ve been apologetic but have not mentioned anything about charging us less for installing the wrong shower. How would you handle it?

  98. 98.

    BretH

    Maybe they rig up a temp shower that will hold you until they get the effing correct one made.

  100. 100.

    Quinerly

    @JPL: All of the tweets in the last couple of hours are a sight to behold. I am enjoying the remarks of most tweeting back at him, though. Scathing.

  101. 101.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: Fire them, fire them now Betty and don’t look back. If they are this incompetent at ordering a shower, how incompetent are they at installing one?

    Seriously, you can get any halfway decent plumber to come up with something that will suffice until you get what you really want, which if you don’t get it this time you will be cursing yourself for it starting 2 hours after they are “done” until the day you sell the house.

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @MomSense:

    I think we have to get over the idea that is about “smart” or “well informed”. That’s not where bias comes from and because it’s not where it comes from “smart” and “well informed” can’t cure it. Our all-purpose remedy doesn’t fit this particular ailment.

    I don’t know anything but as I have argued for the last 100 years in Democratic meetings if Democrats want to sell a government health insurance plan they could sell it as security. It will be there. Change jobs, move to a different part of the country, start your own business, have a kid, get married, get divorced, it will be there.

    “Security” is underrated in D politics and “opportunity” is overrated. Secure people like and seek opportunity because they are secure enough to take risks. A lot of our voters ARE NOT. Give them security and they will then want opportunity, but that doesn’t work in reverse. Why would they like government health insurance? Because they can stop worrying about being covered and do something else. A lot of other things. All kinds of things.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I think we have to get over the idea that is about “smart” or “well informed”. That’s not where bias comes from and because it’s not where it comes from “smart” and “well informed” can’t cure it. Our all-purpose remedy doesn’t fit this particular ailment.

    Truth.

    if Democrats want to sell a government health insurance plan they could sell it as security. 

    My slogan is, “Corporations enjoy limited liability, so should you.”

  105. 105.

    MomSense

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I’m probably still sort of weirded out by the whole thing. It’s like the time my dad started saying a bunch of nadery things in 2000 and I had to have the talk with him.

    Courts for Demmies. If I ever write a political screed, that may be the title.

  107. 107.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MomSense: My mother evolved in the opposite direction. Before she died in ’06 she, a life long Republican, told me that Bush was the worst thing to ever happen to this country and she would never again vote GOP. If my father hadn’t succumbed to Alzheimers I’m pretty sure he would have felt the same.

  108. 108.

    MomSense

    @Kay:

    I agree with you. I often talk about the ACA as peace of mind. Coverage you can count on. Health security. When people talk about not wanting their money paying for others I explain that we do pay now but we aren’t getting good value for our money. People make emotional decisions in politics. That’s why the usual Dem strategy of countering with facts rarely works. Everything has to be tied to a value and/or emotion.

  110. 110.

    Betty Cracker

    @BretH & @OzarkHillbilly: Good points, thanks. I think these folks are capable of doing the installation because they successfully did some other stuff for us without causing a flood or burning the place down. They apparently are just rank incompetents when it comes to ordering items and showing up on time.

    I was super tempted to fire these assholes on the spot when I found out they’d ordered the wrong shower. But because I live way out in the middle of fucking nowhere, it’s really difficult to get a contractor out here. We’ve engaged in non-stop home reno since October, and it’s just incredibly hard to find someone competent and willing to show up.

    For those reasons, I think we’ll be better off letting them install the wrong fucking shower and either just living with that or replacing it some years down the road. I mean, it is just a shower. But there’s no way in hell I’m paying them the price we agreed on for a different shower.

  112. 112.

    Denali

    I would hold out for the right size shower. Perhaps you could go camping or away somewhere. You will be happier in the long run. Contractors are notorious for delays, etc.

  113. 113.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Denali: A contractor once took our stone-walled front porch apart, scattered the pieces all over the lawn, and went to China for a couple of months. I eventually had to hire someone else to put the porch back together again so someone could get to our front door. A friend who’s an attorney said any jury of home owners would vote for the death penalty.

  114. 114.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: Living rural does present difficulties. I found a good plumber, did a good clean install of a water heater and water softener in a really difficult location. But I can’t seem to get him to come back for other stuff.

    Still, nothing pisses me off more than “I fucked up, but you are going to have to live with it.” and I’d send him down the road in a NY second. Of course, being a skilled carpenter who can manage at electric and plumbing gives me leeway most other’s don’t have.

    ETA: and I would still angle for, “That is not what I want, it is not what I ordered and I will not accept it. You will fix up something temporary to use until I get what I do want.”

  115. 115.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Betty Cracker: @Denali: What a PITA. But I would do what Denali suggests – hold out for the right shower. It will take time, of course, but living with the wrong shower will last a LOT longer. Maybe also discount their fees due to self-inflicted delays?

  117. 117.

    Just One More Canuck

    @Betty Cracker: Maybe Lowe’s can recommend a contractor for you. I agree with OH – if they fuck up something simple like that, they can’t be trusted with figuring out how to do a non-standard installation

  118. 118.

    J R in WV

    @Betty Cracker:

    Betty,

    Fire them now, obviously incompetent. You could put in a plastic sheet shower while you wait for one that fits, or hire a tile setter to just make the shower the size of the room corner it is in. Or get a big washtub to use on the kitchen floor until the tile guy is done.

    But first things first, fire the guys who can’t measure the hole and order a shower that size.

    First thing they teach at carpentry school, how to measure, measure twice or three times before you cut that board! Once the board is too short, it’s now waste. Same for that shower, send it away with them, it is now waste for them to dispose of, don’t pay them another cent. In fact, demand they repay every cent you gave them, ask for damages to your existing shower. Idiots.

    ETA: The first thing they should have done when they showed up was measure the current shower space, and then go out to the truck and measure the new unit they brought. Not doing that, they lost the whole job. No one else can do worse than they have done right now. When they finish, the new shower will leak, guaranteed.

  119. 119.

    Spanky

    @Betty Cracker: Do not be surprised if they try to charge you MORE because they have to do more labor to make it fit. Get an agreement in writing with them before moving forward.

    I have a shit-ton of problems here at Chez DeferredMaintenance myself, but at least there’s a pretty broad range of contractors around here. Maybe you should make OH an offer he can’t refuse to come down and finish it up.

    ETA: I defer to OH’s opinion. Shit-can them now.

  122. 122.

    kindness

    You gotta love the Queen. I’m glad we don’t have a monarchy here because, well Trump would be a civil war King, but Elizabeth is so cute in that. What she’s 90 and in an official event she says ‘Oh no! I can plant that.’ Cute. Very cute.

  123. 123.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Betty Cracker: Do not settle. You’ll hate it, as OH says, forever. Better to live with sponge baths or whatever for the six weeks it takes for the new shower to come in , than to spend the next five years cursing those idiots every time you take a shower, and then paying to do the job over.

  124. 124.

    Doug R

    @Another Scott:

    Around here, the excuse I’ve always heard involves things like “I need to be able to turn it off when I go to the crapper!!”. Which is a reasonable concern, but it gets stretched by bad cops (and their enablers) into “I need to be able to have it off unless I control exactly what’s recorded.” Beat cops shouldn’t be spending 98% of their day in the toilet…

    In that case, there should be a function to pause it for a few minutes IF THE OFFICER BOOKS OFF. If you’re getting paid, the camera’s on.

  126. 126.

    leeleeFL

    @Betty Cracker: the body cams should be on all the time, remotely.That way both parties are shown in real time. No more BS. There have been too many incidents to discount evil intent.
    Cameras and recordings during ALL interrogations, also remotely controlled. Let’s stop pretending it’s not necessary.
    Madison said, if men were angels, there would be no need for laws. Smart guy.

  128. 128.

    Droppy

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Fire them, fire them now Betty and don’t look back. If they are this incompetent at ordering a shower, how incompetent are they at installing one?

    this is 100% correct. You will be angry and regretful for many years if you let these bozos do any more “work” on your project.

  132. 132.

    Topclimber

    @JPL: I can’t be the first on this but I will gladly repeat that what makes Trump a stable genius is his unmatched ability to shovel horsesh-t at an entire country.

  134. 134.

    chopper

    @Betty Cracker:

    sounds like these guys are fuckups. you’re gonna end up with a shitty shower and it’s gonna take them forever to put it in, or they’ll try to get it done quickly and it’s going to leak like hell and look like shit.

    fire them all and start fresh. sucks, but if you don’t trust them then you’re definitely not likely to end up with something sufficiently waterproof. unless it’s a whole fiberglass unit, those are pretty easy.

  139. 139.

    Quinerly

    @rikyrah: Tail waves and waves back. John Lennon, fearless rescue kitty, appears to be sleeping in… somewhere. Have a great day!

  141. 141.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker: Poor Betty. Oh for some Polish plumbers, eh?? (Brexit subtext)

    Firing them, or sponge baths/a camping shower set-up while you await the actual shower, sounds best. Don’t settle.

  142. 142.

    BC in Illinois

    @JPL:

    Trump’s tweet of Elizabeth Warren as

    a nervous and skinny Pocohantas

    started my morning off with a stiff dose of anger. But it’s part of a longer, vile, contemptible sentence, over two tweets.

    Could you imagine having Sleepy Joe Biden, or @AlfredENeuman99,.. …or a very nervous and skinny version of Pocahontas (1000/24th), as your President, rather than what you have now, so great looking and smart, a true Stable Genius!

    The 3rd-grade name-calling of Biden and (I assume ) Buttigieg and Warren is what we’ve come to expect from Trump. But for him to say,

    “Can you imagine them as President, rather than ME!
    Great looking! Smart! Stable! Genius!”

    . . . is delusional.

    And this level of delusion is packed into a larger narrative of how “The Fake News is not as important as Social Media,” how all the social media “will all be Endorsing me at some point, one way or the other” (whatever the hell that means; and why is “Endorsing” capitalized?), and

    When I ultimately leave office in six…… ….years, or maybe 10 or 14 (just kidding), they will quickly go out of business for lack of credibility, or approval, from the public.

    This man is no joke. He must be resisted, fought, removed, imprisoned, impoverished, scorned, and whatever the next set of verbs will be.

  143. 143.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: If Obama were President and had pulled Trump’s tariff tantrum the 24×7 story would be “Black Guy screws over Real American White Farmers In The Heartland”. (trademark)
    In addition, Village Frownie Faces would intone sad stories about companies scrambling to realign their supply chains and impact of tariffs on consumers.
    I post this in vain.

  144. 144.

    Elizabelle

    @JPL: Do you ever consider how much of the “Pelosi is a douche” coverage is driven by misogyny and unrealistic expectations (fed perhaps, by some well-placed barbs by those who actually fear Pelosi and her effectiveness)? Don’t discount naivete or stupidity, either. They’re tearing down another powerful woman.

  145. 145.

    the Conster

    @Kathleen:

    Anyone who is screeching that impeachment hearings would be covered in a way that would change people’s minds or educate them about Trump’s criminality is delusional. It will be non-stop trashing of Dems 24/7, like always, except on steroids.

  146. 146.

    satby

    @BC in Illinois: it’s weird who he calls names. He’s hated Warren forever, Biden is a threat according to polling, but Buttigeig? Even though I like my mayor, he’s barely in the top 5 of candidates. I assume it’s his fundraising haul, because the traitor only cares about $$.

  147. 147.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @satby: Buttigieg is also young and smart and is captivating just the sort of people who would never invite trump into their homes, the people who think what their (grand) parents would have said about him, and probably did, “Not our kind, darling”

  148. 148.

    Elizabelle

    Elizabeth Warren from tweet at top: “Things were broken before he ever got there…a country that is healed & in good shape does not elect a man like [Trump] to president”

    Truth.

  149. 149.

    Kelly

    @different-church-lady:

    She’s absolutely right. But the problem is that the thing that’s broken is roughly half the people. How do solve that with policy? How do you tell half a country, “Your entire approach to life and humanity has gone wrong?” How can you even address the phenomenon without getting raked over the coals?

    This has been haunting me since Nov 2016. Enough delusional fellow citizens to keep us from fixing things will be here for a long time.

  152. 152.

    leeleeFL

    @Kelly: It has kept me worried, somewhat sleepless and more angry than I can say since it happened.
    The fact that in 2019 we are still unable to assume that Women, POC, LGBTQ ppl, Immigrants and many Children are not, in any way, to be protected by the present occupant of the White House, makes me despair for my Grands and 1 Great Grand. How do we fix this cluster-f–k?

  154. 154.

    Kathleen

    @the Conster: Yup. I agree with Pelosi that the only way we really deal with any of this effectively is by winning elections. I believe the House is doing due diligence on Oversight as best as they can. Pelosi also wants to protect reps (Davids, Underwood, etc) who flipped Red seats because we cannot afford to lose the House. I also agree with Warren that this is much bigger than Trump.

  156. 156.

    J R in WV

    @Kelly:

    @different-church-lady:

    She’s absolutely right. But the problem is that the thing that’s broken is roughly half the people. How do solve that with policy? How do you tell half a country, “Your entire approach to life and humanity has gone wrong?” How can you even address the phenomenon without getting raked over the coals?

    This has been haunting me since Nov 2016. Enough delusional fellow citizens to keep us from fixing things will be here for a long time.

    I think the issue is education. The public school systems have left real education behind, focusing with laser–like attention to passing the standardized testing, upon which their payroll depends. If you can do simple math, etc, etc, you’re good to go. No Civics, no World History, no real US History with wars and their causes. Nothing about slavery, nothing about death camps right here in North America, nothing about the labor movement working for a 40-hour week and worker safety, NADA about progressive causes in the early 1900s.

    If you know nothing about slavery and Jim Crow, lynching right up into the 1950s and ’60s — why would you care about that? And the answer is you won’t. If you have to pass history tests about those complex subjects, even if you aren’t inclined to be a progressive, you at least know where 8-hour days and 40-hour weeks came from. And vacation and sick leave~!!~

    None of that was a gift from the magnate owners of the factories!!


    Regarding health care for non-citizens — how do you feel about epidemics?     Typhus and yellow fever and diptheria? Mumps and measles epidemics? Everyone needs health care at some level, if it’s just school nurses giving vaccinations for everything they can invent a vaccine for. OH, Wait, do schools have nurses any more??? Not if Republicans are in charge of anything!!!

    These tropical epidemic diseases will be at home here in no time with the weather patterns changing the way they are, and we need to deal with them right now, for everyone.

  157. 157.

    VeniceRiley

    @Betty Cracker: Have them order and install the right shower. Worth the wait because you’ll have to live with it forever! A few weeks of baths won’t be more than a small unpleasant memory.

  158. 158.

    BellyCat

    @Betty Cracker: Architect of 27 years here.

    Refuse the shower. Have them order the proper one and suck up the wait.

    Ideally, you’ve not paid them and should hire a new contractor.

    Short term pain, long term gain. Every time you look at that smaller shower and weird patch job, for the rest of your life, it will piss you off and that is not worth it.

    EDIT: VeniceRiley (and possibly others since I have not read the entire thread) beat me to it.

    Also, very important detail is to hold back 10% from any payment that you make until the entire punchlist is done to your satisfaction!

  159. 159.

    J R in WV

    We have showered using a tiny backyard wader pool and the kitchen sprayer, Navy style, wet down well, turn it off, wash everything, turn it back on for a quick rinse.

    Saves water, encourages family times together…

    Another quich fix for a shower. I planned to do a nice SW tile shower in the AZ cabin, but by the time came to do that, I had a hell of a time just laying a floor, and did a hell of a (F’ed) job, and no nuthing left to tackle the walls.

    So I bought galvanized 8′ long roofing tin, the flat kind that has crimps in the middle and on both long edges. Self threading screws, loads of silicone goo… now all I need to do is put up the curtains. Bright shiny walls lightens up the long narrow bathroom. Took one afternoon to be done!!! Popular treatment at local saloons, too.

  160. 160.

    smintheus

    This is amazing. I never realized there’s a hall in Peterborough NH that holds 650 people.

  161. 161.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    But once they do finish up, I’m not sure how I should approach paying them. I intend to pay them less than the original agreement, obviously, since this is 100% their fuck-up and I have all the receipts to prove that. They’ve been apologetic but have not mentioned anything about charging us less for installing the wrong shower. How would you handle it?

    I would change the contract to reflect the discount before they start work. That’s the new number. It doesn’t have to be complicated. Just write it in- “wrong shower ordered- minus sign- lower number” and have everyone sign by the new number.
    It’s easier than haggling after the fact and you can even still haggle! That’s optional then :)

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