Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Everybody saw this coming.

Come on, man.

In my day, never was longer.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

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

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

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

It’s time for the GOP to dust off that post-2012 autopsy, completely ignore it, and light the party on fire again.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

Republicans in disarray!

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / How To Start A Revolution

How To Start A Revolution

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Remember Lauren Duca? A decade ago in Trump years (2016), she wrote a viral Teen Vogue article, “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America”

Over a million people read the essay in under 24 hours (and one of them was Dan Rather, who shared the essay on Facebook that afternoon). As a friend put it at the time, “It’s like you decided to write about politics, and a hole opened in the center of the Earth.”

Her first post to Pancake Brains is heartwrenching. I honestly don’t know how she’s still standing, but I’m grateful she is and is still reminding us our democracy is at risk. As you can guess, she’s targeting empowering young people to stand up and take back their country and change the world.

How To Start A Revolution by Lauren Duca

Teen Vogue award-winning columnist Lauren Duca shares a smart and funny guide for challenging the status quo in a much-needed reminder that young people are the ones who will change the world.

In other news, enough tricksters stopped by that I am out of candy, but mostly because I encouraged a group of middle school boys to stop back by before they headed home and be rewarded with my leftovers as the clock struck 8. They were also rewarded with a Bixby and Scout visit. I had to work tonight while juggling Halloween, so they had to hang out in the back of the house because I could not also juggle them. I released the hounds just in time for the one last group of costumed revelers.

Open thread

 

Reader Interactions

69Comments

  1. 1.

    Mnemosyne

    I have some chicken cacciatore in the Instant Pot for a late dinner. It’s mostly FODMAPS-friendly, but I added some artichoke hearts because it’s chicken cacciatore.

  2. 2.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Byron York @ ByronYork
    ”Fireside chat on live television’: Trump says he wants to read Ukraine call transcript to American people.’

    I can only imagine him doing voices and a dramatic reading

  6. 6.

    trollhattan

    We’ve had maybe twenty kids, in clumps, which isn’t bad for a school night. And the night is perfect, just a little wildfire smoke, so surprised there haven’t been more.

    Seems not long ago we were out with the kids, hauling in tons of candy and beverages for the adults. Sigh.

  9. 9.

    Mnemosyne

    @rikyrah:

    It’s 20 minutes once the pot gets heated up, but it takes a while to heat up, and then it needs to do a “natural release” that takes another 15 minutes or so. So about an hour. The real strength of the Instant Pot is that you can walk away from it and do other stuff while it cooks, because there’s no open flame.

    It’s almost done now, though.

  12. 12.

    Jeffro

    @?BillinGlendaleCA: Everything trumpov does has a Nixon parallel (or is it antecedent?) so add it to the list.

    I think the impeachment hearings are going to be spectacular, leaving the GOP with nothing but basically 190-proof IOKIYAR. Maybe IOKIYAR-EOGET (“especially our god-emperor trumpov”)?

    There’s no defense to using 100s of millions in Congressionally-appropriated public money to extort a fake ‘investigation’ (complete with public announcements) into one’s domestic opponents, and no amount of pretending that it was under some sort of broad program of ‘fighting corruption’ (when only one American family was the focus of these efforts, across multiple countries) can make it so. Ask the trumpublicans to flip it around and pretend a Dem was doing it, and their heads would explode.

    Go Nancy Smash! Go Adam! I might need to print up some “I’m with ‘Shifty’ t-shirts soon…I have a feeling I’d make a mint!

  13. 13.

    Geoduck

    Last year my place had exactly one trick or treater. This year there’s been a steady trickle of them, maybe drawn in by the neighbor’s elaborate display (lights, smoke machine, theme from Halloween playing..) Still bought too much candy. Am proud to say the the big black spider guarding the candy managed to make one tyke hesitate for a very long moment before taking any.

  14. 14.

    dmsilev

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Do you think he’d do it if someone tells him he’d look like Humphrey Bogart(*)?

    (*) As Captain Queeg. Except that Trump would never be able to wrap his tongue around ‘geometric logic’.

  17. 17.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    Wandering the neighborhood with the wife, spawn, and a strong beer tonight was joyous. The other parents were all carrying their favorite beverages whilst the little ones chased candy at the lit houses. Good times. Pissing rain but warm. Winds howling at 60 mph now. Happy Halloween!

  18. 18.

    Mandalay

    Now, at this point, you probably know Tucker as America’s foremost poster boy of white supremacy. In December of 2016, I was only aware of him as the bowtie in that YouTube video where Jon Stewart called him a partisan hack.What unfolded was a hostile, anti-journalistic act of public bullying.

    Oh really? Carlson had been on Fox for seven and a half years when Duca did that interview with him. Yet she wants us to believe she had no idea that she was stumbling into a hornet’s nest.

    She’s either lying and knew exactly what she was doing, or she’s dumb as a box of rocks. Pick one (though picking both options is tempting).

  19. 19.

    Fair Economist

    Trick-or-treating has been a bit slow at my house. It’s been slowing down for years, although we still got about 100 though. I assume it’s mostly from the neighborhood getting older – it was new when we moved in, so lots of younger kids; now those kids are grown and only new residents have trick-or-treaters.

  20. 20.

    ArchTeryx

    @Mnemosyne: It’s also a *lot* faster than crock-pot slow cooking. Instead of waiting an entire day for a dish to be done, it’s done in under an hour. And it’s consistent. I’m a big fan of making pudding in it, because it takes out all the touchy guesswork and gives me the same consistency of pudding every single time.

    It’s also twice as fast to steam vegetables in as the old steel “flower” method. Instant Pots may not be in any way instant but they’re hella efficient and what comes out tastes like it’s been slow cooked all day.

  22. 22.

    Leto

    It rained through the day, but stopped for a few hours during prime ToT time. Unfortunately, we only had two kids come by. And this was after Avalune specifically stopped by the store, bought a large bag of candy, and now we have this giant ass bowl of candy. Her coworkers are going to be in a sugar induced coma tomorrow because we absolutely can’t have that in the house.

  23. 23.

    Aleta

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I had to look at it (interview in the Wa Examiner) to believe he really said fireside chat. (Yes he did.)
    Also:

    He outlined a strategy for fighting back that would rely on the White House account of his phone call with the Ukrainian president, including T-shirts with the slogan, “Read the transcript.”

    He’s going to sell impeachment merchandise. Collectibles, trial of the century, why not profit? Maybe shot glasses and framed inspirational quotes are in the works.
    Melania’s book: I Kept My Chin Up Why My Self-Respect is My Own
    Ivanka’s book: He Channeled Lincoln : How My Father Taught Me to Lead in Wartime

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Fair Economist: “About 100” is pretty brisk, judging from the other reports here. About 100, maybe a little over, is actually typical for my neighborhood: we don’t do trick or treat on Halloween; we have a city-designated period on the preceding weekend, early enough that the little ones can go out while it’s still light. This year, they moved it even earlier because of state warnings about mosquitoes. It was a good thing we did it that day, because the weather is awful today. A lot of towns that normally do it on Halloween night actually postponed.

    I know someone in Brookline who typically gets over 1000 kids, though–they shut down her whole street for trick or treat. She has to invite volunteers to come over and help hand out candy.

  25. 25.

    Spanky

    The fast moving deep red line on the radar is passing over us, and the oaks are fast losing their last leaves. It was 73 degrees at 11 PM, and thirty minutes later it’s 60 and still falling.

    We had zero trick or treaters until the last moments, when a couple of pre(?) teen girls in half-hearted goth getups showed up. They were our first in about three years. Each got a fistful of candy, but I’ll be eating it for a week anyhow,

  26. 26.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    No Trick or Treaters here, but I’m in a back building behind a gate(not locked), but there’s also a shitshow going on out front the landlord is kicking out my long time neighbor.

  27. 27.

    Gelfling 545

    I am proud to say that I raised 2 daughters to be the sort of women who hand out full size candy bars to trick or treaters. Makes me quite misty-eyed.

  28. 28.

    Geoduck

    @Matt McIrvin: There’s a neighborhood in my town that does something similar, all the houses get dolled up, the street is closed, they even bring in a band to stroll around and play. Lots of people take their kids there.

  29. 29.

    Mnemosyne

    @ArchTeryx:

    It’s my new favorite way to make Irish oatmeal. I can never get it to turn out right in the crockpot or on the stovetop. You just have to be extra careful not to fill it more than halfway.

  30. 30.

    joel hanes

    @Gelfling 545:

    Bless you.

    My paternal grandmother _always_ gave full-sized Hershey, and counted the trick-or-treaters. Best year was 110. She was proud, and kids came from all over her little town to get their treat, and years later young parents brought their kids to Mrs. Hanes’s doorstep.

    During the Depression, there was a “nice lady” tramp sign on her back fence, and she would find a way to feed any man who came to her back door.

  31. 31.

    ArchTeryx

    @Mnemosyne: I never in a million years thought I’d get such an obviously fad item, but for my friend and I, both amateur chefs, it may as well be made of gold. It can’t do EVERYTHING, but it can do a lot, and what it can do it does easily and consistently.

    Do you put anything in your irish oatmeal? I find some cinnamon and a touch of honey makes it to die for.

  33. 33.

    Aleta

    We only had three but they were super cute.

    I got the the soul dog a permethrin neck gaiter to wear when we’re in places with deer ticks. (I got a one made for people cause they’re better quality). On a walk I pull it up over the top of his head so it covers his ears, and we call him babushka. He’s also the spitting image of the wolf in costume as Little RR Hood’s granny , so tonight he wore it to answer the door with me. The kids all guessed correctly.

    We had a queen in a hand-knit crown who I mistook for a princess, a ghost hunter who I mistook for a motorcycle gang member, and a lovely small creature in a black wing-like cape with lines of glitter.

    My dentist’s kid was going to be a swat team member, which I think is a truly scary choice to encounter when you open your door. One year my friend’s kid came as a “scary electric bill.”

  36. 36.

    MobiusKlein

    @Mandalay:

    She’s either lying and knew exactly what she was doing, or she’s dumb as a box of rocks. Pick one (though picking both options is tempting).

    That’s appalling. Not everybody is wired into the ‘Tucker Carlson is a animate turd in a klan suit’ vibe that we are.

  38. 38.

    Mnemosyne

    @ArchTeryx:

    I put in ground nutmeg and maple syrup. Since I make a lot and then refrigerate it, I’ll sometimes put a dollop of plain yogurt on top and eat it cold, like Swiss oatmeal.

  39. 39.

    hervevillechaizelounge

    @Uncle Jeffy: @Uncle Jeffy:

    Trump can read?

    I’m sure the teleprompter will have all the words spelled out phonetically.

    Slightly OT, but I just now learned John Yoo, who questioned the patriotism of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman because he was born in Ukraine, was himself born in Korea.

    The kind of shit you couldn’t make up, that is.

  44. 44.

    joel hanes

    @ArchTeryx:

    One or two high-quality pitted dates per serving of oatmeal are a fine addition.
    So are slices of fresh apple.
    So are a handful of walnut pieces.
    I used to like to add an eighth cup of 12-grain cereal from the bulk bins at the co-op: it adds a nice nutty flavor.

  45. 45.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Aleta:

    He’s going to sell impeachment merchandise. Collectibles, trial of the century, why not profit? Maybe shot glasses and framed inspirational quotes are in the works.

    I heard on NPR the other day they made a million fucking dollars selling branded plastic straws

  55. 55.

    Martin

    @Matt McIrvin: We only had about 20. The neighborhood that gets 1000 is just a few blocks down, so nobody really bothers with us. Mostly just really little kids that are overwhelmed by the crowds. They hand out full-size candies, lots of decorations, there’s a legit haunted house (hollywood special effects couple – it’s seriously good), hayrides, bounce houses, all that. There’s no ringing of doorbells with that much traffic, you sit out front and hand out candy.

  61. 61.

    Central Planning

    We only had a pair or trick or treaters. Two little girls, maybe 4-ish. One was Wonder Woman and the other was Elsa.

    Thankfully I picked out the candy this year and I don’t like any of it: Payday, Skittles, Mounds, and Cookies and Cream Hershey Bars.

    I’m now sitting in the dark because our power is out with no estimate for when it will be restored. I think the other side of the street still has power. Bastards.

  63. 63.

    ruemara

    We had only 2 groups of kids tonight, which is sad. I like hanging with my friends and giving candy to someone else’s children so they can go be hell beasts at their home. But the pumpkin carving was in good form. Hope every one had fun and too much sugar. Back to keto and clean eating tomorrow.

  64. 64.

    Central Planning

    @BlueDWarrior: We have dropped about 20 degrees in 6 hours. I have a generator, but hopefully won’t need to crank that up. I should have looked for my male-male extension cord before I went to bed.

  65. 65.

    ruemara

    I also made a really good curried butternut squash soup but it spilled in the car. I hope my car liked it.

  66. 66.

    Central Planning

    @ruemara: We once had a crock pot of corn chowder tip over in our minivan. It still smelled a little funky after two trips to Delta Sonic to clean/wash out the inside.

  68. 68.

    rb

    @Mandalay:

    She’s either lying and knew exactly what she was doing, or she’s dumb as a box of rocks. Pick one (though picking both options is tempting).

    Sure. She should have just expected all the death and rape threats, amirite?

    She went on a journalist’s show expecting him to act like a journalist, and instead he was a misogynistic coward. No need to join in.

    (Also: At one time, Tucker Carlson was a person who was notably shocked when GWB made fun of Carla Faye Tucker’s appeal for clemency. He has gotten markedly more hideous over the past several years. Let’s not naively pretend that the orange menace hasn’t made everything worse, including the worst among us.)

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