Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Human rights are not a matter of opinion!

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

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

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

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

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

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

Not all heroes wear capes.

We still have time to mess this up!

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

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

Come on, man.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

This fight is for everything.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

“I was told there would be no fact checking.”

When we show up, we win.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

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Archives for 2019

Election Year Open Thread: We Know It’s Almost Caucus Time…

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… Because the Very Serious People are realizing, once again, that giving Iowa its current front-runner importance is actually stupid and counter-productive. But right now, we’re all stuck with it!

Latest from the AP, “Iowa swung fiercely to Trump. Will it swing back in 2020?”

… In 2008, its voters propelled Barack Obama to the White House, as an overwhelmingly white state validated the candidacy of the first black president. A year later, Iowa’s Supreme Court sanctioned same-sex marriage, adding a voice of Midwestern sensibility to a national shift in public sentiment. In 2012, Iowa backed Obama again.

All that change proved too much, too fast, and it came as the Great Recession punished agricultural areas, shook the foundations of rural life and stoked a roiling sense of grievance.

By 2016, Donald Trump easily defeated Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Republicans were in control of the governor’s mansion and state legislature and held all but one U.S. House seat. For the first time since 1980, both U.S. Senate seats were in GOP hands.

What happened? Voters were slow to embrace Obama’s signature health care law. The recession depleted college-educated voters as a share of the rural population, and Republicans successfully painted Democrats’ as the party of coastal elites.

Those forces combined for a swift Republican resurgence and helped create a wide lane for Trump…

TL;DR (to my jaundiced eye): Aging, low-info white voters were easily misled by Repub grifters into choosing the latest ooh, shiny! “populist” because the local agricorp bankrupted their town and abandoned it. Then the Walmart closed, so they have to drive an hour to pick up groceries. And also, their ungrateful kids never come back to visit any more, preferring the Godless sodoms of Des Moines or Chicago.

… But now, as Democrats turn their focus to Iowa’s kickoff caucuses that begin the process of selecting Trump’s challenger, could the state be showing furtive signs of swinging back? Caucus turnout will provide some early measures of Democratic enthusiasm, and of what kind of candidate Iowa’s Democratic voters — who have a good record of picking the Democratic nominee — believe has the best chance against Trump.

If Iowa’s rightward swing has stalled, it could be a foreboding sign for Trump in other upper Midwestern states he carried by much smaller margins and would need to win again…

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Dear WaterGirl: So Many Image Questions!

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Dear Watergirl,

Does Tunch show up on every post, everywhere?  It seems like I see him a lot.  He’s the perfect choice, so I’m not complaining!  I’m just trying to make sense of it.

Dear Just Trying to Understand,

No, Tunch is not on every post.  That awesome picture of Tunch is the default for some things, but not for everything.

Dear WaterGirl,

I see images everywhere, even in places where I didn’t know they existed!  Imagine my surprise the other day when I saw an image when I clicked on one of the wings to take me to another thread.  Where else might I see images?

Dear Surprised,

I may not be able to think of all of them at the moment, but I’ll give it a try.  Sometimes there are images in the post.  Sometimes there are images that show up in the the wings, and it’s not even a picture that’s anywhere in the post.  There are images on Twitter feeds, images on Facebook.  Images that show up with a post in a RSS Reader.  If I think of any more, I’ll add them in later.

Dear WaterGirl,

What’s up with images on the new site?  I don’t understand the logic of what images we see where.  Are you using some kind of image randomizer just to mess with us?

Dear What’s Up With Images,

I would never do that!  But this is a classic example of a situation where if you know the rules, it makes total sense.  But if don’t know the rules?  It’s difficult to reverse engineer and figure out what the rules are.  The short story is that it’s pretty much up to the front pagers to determine what pictures show up where.

Dear WaterGirl,

If everybody doesn’t have to use the same images, and front pagers can do what they want…

Could Cheryl always use that map I’ve seen a couple of times?
Could Betty use a picture of Badger?
Could Mayhew use an abacus?
Could Tom use a printing press?
Could TaMara use a duck?

Dear My, You Have Given This a Lot of Thought!

Yes, if they wanted to, each front pager could have a standard featured image on most or all of their posts, that could be a brand, of sorts.  Their posts would be known by the company they keep could be easily recognizable from the image that shows up.

Dear WaterGirl,

I saw that a couple of commenters had added an image directly into their comment, and they weren’t even front pagers.  How come they get to do that and I can not?!  It’s not fair!  Or can we all do that, and I just don’t know how?

Dear It’s Not Fair!

Only front pagers can add images in the comments.  That’s the plan, anyway!  I turns out that we have some clever commenters who like to test the boundaries, and sometimes they find a way around things. That’s okay, that just helps us make the site more secure.  They find ‘em, we block ‘em. :-)

THAT’S ALL THE LETTERS FOR TODAY.  I’LL CONTINUE TO DO THIS FOR A BIT UNTIL EVERYBODY IS UP TO SPEED.

Please feel free to snack on some cake while you read.

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This is better!

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Yesterday, Joe Biden said he wouldn’t comply with a congressional subpoena in Trump’s impeachment trial in the Senate. Here is the relevant portion of his remarks to the Des Moines Register:

Former Vice President Joe Biden confirmed Friday he would not comply with a subpoena to testify in a Senate trial of President Donald Trump…

Biden said in early December he wouldn’t comply with a subpoena by the Senate, and confirmed that statement Friday in an interview with the Des Moines Register’s editorial board. He has not been subpoenaed, but Trump’s allies have floated the idea.

Testifying before the Senate on the matter would take attention away from Trump and the allegations against him, Biden said. Not even “that thug” Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s personal attorney and former New York City mayor, has accused Biden of doing anything but his job, the former vice president said. Biden also said any attempt to subpoena him would be on “specious” grounds, and he predicted it wouldn’t come to that.

Biden said even if he volunteered to testify in an attempt to clear the air, it would create a media narrative that would let Trump off the hook.

“What are you going to cover?” Biden said to Register Executive Editor Carol Hunter in response to a question. “You guys are going to cover for three weeks anything that I said. And (Trump’s) going to get away. You guys buy into it all the time. Not a joke … Think what it’s about. It’s all about what he does all the time, his entire career. Take the focus off. This guy violated the Constitution. He said it in the driveway of the White House. He acknowledged he asked for help.”

I thought that was a crappy answer and said so in the morning thread. Opinions varied. But this morning, Biden clarified on Twitter:

I want to clarify something I said yesterday. In my 40 years in public life, I have always complied with a lawful order and in my eight years as VP, my office — unlike Donald Trump and Mike Pence — cooperated with legitimate congressional oversight requests.

But I am just not going to pretend that there is any legal basis for Republican subpoenas for my testimony in the impeachment trial. That is the point I was making yesterday and I reiterate: this impeachment is about Trump’s conduct, not mine.

The subpoenas should go to witnesses with testimony to offer to Trump’s shaking down the Ukraine government — they should go to the White House.

That’s a much better answer! Still, I think Ozark Hillbilly had the best response of all:

“I will answer any subpoena in the same way as Donald trump. If he agrees to appear and submit himself to questions without any preconditions on the matters before the Senate, I will do the same.”

The Biden campaign should hire Mr. Hillbilly as a consultant. Open thread!

 

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: “It’s the Economy, Stupid”

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Two very separate economies, now:

… The emergence of atypical fortunes underscores just how much money the uber-rich accumulated in 2019.

And the richer they were at the start of the year, the richer they got. The world’s 500 wealthiest people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index added $1.2 trillion, boosting their collective net worth 25% to $5.9 trillion…

Such gains are sure to add fuel to the already heated debate about widening wealth and income inequality. In the U.S., the richest 0.1% control a bigger share of the pie than at any time since 1929, prompting some politicians to call for a radical restructuring of the economy…

Through it all, their bank balances remained robust, as a record bull market got a December kick with an easing of trade tensions between the U.S. and China, a resolution to Britain’s political stalemate and a blowout U.S. jobs report.

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Late Night Open Thread: A Truly *Professional* Grifter Takes No Holidays

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Give Ben Domenech due credit — he started grifting for the GOP while in high school, networked his way from the NRO online and RedState through the Heartland Institute into ‘publishing’ The Federalist (funder officially unidentified). And he’s married to John McCain’s daughter — since Meghan’s mommy is a billionaire beer heiress, neither she nor Ben would ever have to work for a living, if they didn’t take pride in their work ethic. (Or at least need a public outlet for their grievances & insecurities.)

Whining about the NYTimes’ 1619 Project has become the latest masturbatory group-grievance for the ‘intellectual’ branch of the Wingnut Wurlitzer, and by Prosperity Jesus, where there’s a grievance to be milked, Mr. Domenech is on it!

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Rotating Tags That Have Been Nominated

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This is not a democracy – Cole will decide which of the nominated rotating  tags make the cut.  But I thought you guys might like to see what has been nominated and share your thoughts.

In no particular order:

This is the way.

McConnell is a turtle-faced, fascist sack of shit who doesn’t believe in the United States Constitution.

Balloon Juice is such a weird place.

We ended up with transgender bathrooms instead of flying cars.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

When your President is a carnival barker, you’re going to have a circus.

The taproot of bigotry is the seeking of unfair advantage. So their arguments are never sincere or in good faith, and libs are suckers for thinking otherwise.

The GOP is FUBAR.

Cole is an eldest child, so he has no idea how a little love can avert pooping in the hallway to the bathroom.

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

Trump is going to draw a dick on that dog with a Sharpie before this is all over, isn’t he?

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Think of it like Cole’s new house – you walk in and find Walter, but then you fall through a hole in the front porch.

Meth, This Site Is On IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Nevertheless, she persisted.

Fortunately nobody else was home, and we have no rabbit.

… and don’t forget to hydrate.

These assholes make me want to scoop out my eyes with a melon baller and jam chopsticks through my eardrums right now.

“Fear is never a word used with me. You should know right away,” Pelosi added. “I’m never afraid and I’m rarely surprised.”

All I wanted from the trip was a t-shirt, and I got this shitty president, instead…..

Yeah, two fucking people in their 70s on the ticket. That is brilliant.

He’s the index to the cookbook, except no one has written any of the recipes.

edit: and for no reason other than that I mostly missed Christmas because I was sick – and because it will be a good example for my post this weekend on what images show up where – here is my tree.

Site Issues Update: Major Change – Starting with a Clean Slate on Issues 1

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Friday Evening Open Thread: Sometimes Things *Do* Improve…

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Yeah, vaping isn’t a great substitute. But on the other hand, if you’re old like me, you can remember when expectant fathers smoking in the maternity wards was so common as to be a joke trope. Change for the better happens, even while sometimes it feels like we’re stuck in an endless loop of reactionary backlash.

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