Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Republicans can’t even be trusted with their own money.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

I see no possible difficulties whatsoever with this fool-proof plan.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

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

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

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

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

Come on, man.

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

I was promised a recession.

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115Comments

  3. 3.

    trollhattan

    It’s super easy, at least the on-line edition. In case anybody is procrastinating.

    German, German, German…we’re everywhere.

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Baud: did mine yesterday, took less than five minutes

    Apparently there’s a card being sent out with an ID number on it? Someone else posted yesterday that they never received one, neither did I. Seems it’s a thing for those of us who have PO box addresses. You don’t need that card or number, it just adds an extra short step where you have to type in your physical home address.

  6. 6.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    on Favreau @jonfavs 54m

    Congrats again to the New Tone crowd

    Aaron Rupar  @atrupar · 1h
    TRUMP: “Did you know I was number one on Facebook? I just found out I’m number one on Facebook.” (Trump has 29 million followers; Obama has 53 million.)

  11. 11.

    evap

    I did ours online a few days ago. I was surprised that there was a vast array of choices for race/ethnicity, but only two choices for gender.

  12. 12.

    Mandalay

    So today Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued a 30 day stay-at-home order (effective on Friday), limiting “movement to Essential Services and Activities During COVID-19 Emergency”.

    Way too late of course, but better than nothing, except buried in the small print….

    For purposes of this Order and the conduct it limits, “essential activities” means and encompasses the following:
    1. Attending religious services conducted in churches, synagogues and houses of worship;

    Doing this a month ago would have merely been massive incompetence. Now it’s closer to pre-planned murder. I didn’t think I could despise a politician more than Trump, but DeSantis proved me wrong.

  13. 13.

    JMG

    Did it online three days ago. BTW, Seven Samurai is on TCM right now. It’s Toshiro Mifune’s 100th birthday, so it’s been all him and Kurosawa all day. Just finished High and Low. A pair of geniuses. Mifune was also absurdly handsome, like his Western contemporary Olivier.

  14. 14.

    dmsilev

    @Mandalay: The NRA and various gun stores have been suing various states/counties/etc. to get gun sales declared ‘essential’. Because of course they are.

  15. 15.

    Uncle Cosmo

    Finished the paper form waiting at traffic lights last time I was out, a week ago last Thursday, & left it for the letter carrier.

    Getting a Chopin Liszt together for Day 15 of voluntary misanthropic hermiting (Friday) when I shall don a dust mask (more out of solidarity than effectiveness, but it’s what I’ve got & I never learned to sew) & go a-foraging.

    SIX FEET APART
    or SIX FEET UNDER
    IT’S UP TO YOU

  17. 17.

    lgerard

    I did mine today, as well as my elderly neighbors

    Now it seems that trump won’t pay social security recipients the virus bucks unless they file a tax return, so I will be doing that for her tomorrow.  It seems pointless since there is no way to enter bank information unless you are getting a refund or making a payment.

  18. 18.

    Leto

    Don’t like how it segregated out the Hispanic races. Also wtf do they need to know my ancestral background? I’m a white American. End of story. Something’s funky with this.

  19. 19.

    JMG

    @dmsilev: In a sane society, buying a gun because of a virus would be instant committal grounds. Incapable of taking care of oneself.

  22. 22.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Rachel Maddow MSNBC @maddow
    “Roughly 280 million masks in warehouses around the U.S. were purchased by foreign buyers on Monday alone, according to Forbes. A FEMA spokesperson said the agency ‘has not actively encouraged or discouraged U.S. companies from exporting overseas’.”

    Following the link from Politico to Forbes, it does look like they were N95 masks

  24. 24.

    zhena gogolia

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    My husband found a package of 5 dust masks in the basement. I guess we’ll use them when we need to. At the moment our refrigerator is full to bursting so we’ll wait a while.

  26. 26.

    chris

    @lgerard: The tax return might not be necessary but direct deposit probably is.

    JUST NOW FROM TREASURY: "Social Security beneficiaries who are not typically required to file tax returns will not need to file an abbreviated tax return to receive an Economic Impact Payment. Instead, payments will be automatically deposited into their bank accounts."— Ben White (@morningmoneyben) 1 April 2020

  27. 27.

    dmsilev

    @lgerard: They just changed that policy:

    Social Security recipients who don’t usually file tax returns no longer need to file them to get stimulus payments, Treasury says in reversal

    The Treasury announced late Wednesday that Social Security beneficiaries who typically do not file a tax return will automatically get the $1,200 payment and no longer must submit anything extra.

    The administration announced earlier this week that the beneficiaries would need to file a short tax return in order to qualify for the payments. The announcement drew criticism from Democrats and some Republicans about requiring so many extra hurdles for this vulnerable population to get aid when the government already has their information on file.

    The reversal Wednesday came as the administration tries to rapidly get stimulus payments out to Americans in the face of the quickest economic decline in modern history.

  28. 28.

    AliceBlue

    Years from now, anyone doing any genealogical research will certainly be disappointed with this census.  Starting in 1850, census questions involved  the name and age of everyone in the household, occupation of parents, whether or not children were in school, state or country of birth, value of real and personal property, literacy questions, and whether anyone in the household was blind and/or insane.

  29. 29.

    Scout211

    As I posted yesterday, to all the jackals who only have PO Boxes:  the census letters are being sent to physical addresses only, no PO Boxes and no names. Our postal worker in our rural post office has had to go through hundreds of the letters to match the physical address on the letter to a PO Box to deliver them. So all the letters in my postal code are late. If you haven’t gotten your letter with the code yet, it probably will be coming soon, for that reason.

    But you actually don’t need the letter with a code to fill out the online form.  You can check the box “I don’t have a code” and start the process by entering your physical address.  Easy peasy.

  31. 31.

    HinTN

    Done, and because I own an uninhabited mess I had to call the census number. I got a knowledgeable, responsive person who took care of my expressed issues. DO IT!

  32. 32.

    Irony Abounds

    Filed mine last week. I need to find out how to access the material when it is available. One thing I really enjoy is the olden days census lists where I can see the handwritten information regarding my ancestors. I have a real lack of interest in shoes given my great-great grandfather and great-grandfathers were shoemakers.

  34. 34.

    dmsilev

    @zhena gogolia: My freezer is officially full. As in, I had to pull out the ice cube trays in order to fit in the bread I baked this morning. I’d like to make a pot of chili next week, but have to eat a few things from the freezer stash in order to make room for the leftovers…

  35. 35.

    WaterGirl

    @Uncle Cosmo: I stood about 3 feet apart from my UPS guy yesterday and never thought a thing about it.  Then we both realized and I came inside and printed out your little graphic.

    (I did a screen capture and then printed it.)

    Then I taped it on my door at eye level so hopefully I wouldn’t be that stupid again.

  36. 36.

    chris

    @Leto: It’s hard to ballpark the cost of a proper white christian-forget-the-judeo-part homeland without a proper inventory.

  37. 37.

    Irony Abounds

    @dmsilev: However, if you are not a SS recipient and have not had enough income to file taxes you will still need to file what the IRS characterizes as a simple tax return, and they have yet to put what that means on the IRS website.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    @Leto: I thought that was odd, too, and I didn’t remember that kind of detail before, but it has been 10 years, so hopefully I have slept since then.

    I would suppose that they are trying to find out if people are the “right” kind of white, don’t you.  You know, really white.  The people who deserve to live and vote.

  40. 40.

    Mohagan

    @AliceBlue: I was disappointed by the lack of questions for the same reason. This data can be invaluable for historical researchers, and genealogy, especially questions like birth place. My favorite question asked during the Great Depression was how many radios were in the house.

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    @AliceBlue: I was able to find three out of four grandparents in the 1930 and 1940 census rolls. Also a few earlier ancestors going back as far as 1900. Unless they’ve changed the laws recently, the 1950 raw rolls will become public two years from now, which means I should be able to find my parents as well.

  42. 42.

    FlyingToaster

    We got two letters, two days in a row, a couple weeks ago. We (WarriorGirl and I) filled it out online that Sunday night (the beginning of the Quarantine).

    The biggest problem I see is that families w/o internet at home don’t have the library or school lobby anymore. So who the F knows how they’re gonna get counted.

  43. 43.

    Martin

    @dmsilev: We’re having a slight problem with Ms Martin being sufficiently pleased to be cooking for a family stuck at home that we’re getting daily meals for 8 for a family of 4 and struggling to keep up with leftovers.

  45. 45.

    kindness

    I got the short form this time.  Last time we got the long one.  The long one asks more than you might imagine a census would ask.  It was looooong.

  47. 47.

    Gin & Tonic

    Question to the jackaltariat. My son is a born-and-raised USian. Last fall he moved out of the country on a temporary assignment. He will return this summer or fall, most likely. I have no idea whether a card was mailed to his former residence. Does he count?

  49. 49.

    mvr

    Did it online last week. Spent the afternoon sewing a mask for my sweetie who has an appointment inside a clinic later in the week for unrelated stuff. Took a while to troubleshoot the sewing machine, enough that I had stitched a good bit of it. But with the help of the intertubes I figured out what was wrong with the inherited 1970s Bernina.

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    I just completed my participation in the census online. Don’t forget to do yours if you were mailed a packet!

    I censed myself online.  I liked how, after answering questions they wanted my name. But they allow a fake name or nickname.  I almost used Donald J Trump

  54. 54.

    Scout211

    @Gin & Tonic:

    I think he can fill out the online form. IIRC, there was a box to check that said something like “I don’t have an address”.

    The letters are sent to residences, not people.

  55. 55.

    Gin & Tonic

    @lgerard: But I did mine, and there were questions in there about being away at school or in the military. He’s neither, and he certainly intends to return.

  60. 60.

    Gin & Tonic

    OK, they have a pretty decent FAQ, which says: “If you live outside the country, and you are not employed by the U.S. government or as a member of the U.S. military, you are not counted in this census.”

    Pedants will cringe that that section of the site is entitled “Who to Count.”

  61. 61.

    mrmoshpotato

    I don’t care what she wants to do.  All I want to do is dance dance!

    (I have not become a little loopy!)

  64. 64.

    NotMax

    @NotMax

    “Special limited edition with diamond chips forming a profile of The Greatest President In The History Of The Universe!”

  66. 66.

    lamh36

    Did mine bout 1/2 hr ago after my ZOOM class session was over.

    It was simple and quick

  68. 68.

    OGLiberal

    Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne and countless other bands/projects, died today at 52 from COVID-19.  Just sucks.  Big part of my mid-20s to mid-30s soundtrack.  Saw him several times, both with FOW and Ivy.  Great songwriter – indie bands, movie and TV soundtracks, musicals, etc.  Too young, too sad

    ETA:  One of his more interesting projects – Tinted Windows, with James Iha, Bun E. Carlos and Taylor Hanson:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjTSXcGhRoI

  70. 70.

    Leto

    @Mohagan: Yup. My mom has done a ton of genealogical research on our family tree (both sides) and we’re Scottish. Thought English but found a common name change around 1840, roughly, so went further and pinned it down. Not going to lie, I’ve wondered what we would need to do to maybe claim Scottish heritage to move back there…

  73. 73.

    Brachiator

    @chris:

    The tax return might not be necessary but direct deposit probably is.

    Some people do not have bank accounts.  Nor would it be easy for them to cash a check.

    There is some discussion about whether to use debit cards for these and other folks.

    Sending out checks is not that easy.

  74. 74.

    Leto

    @WaterGirl: That went through my head too. “Ok you’re white, but what type of white?” I just don’t trust anything this government does, which just now struck me as how conservatives have supposedly felt forever. Of course that doesn’t mean I’m going to stock up on guns/ammo, strike out to the wilds of Montana to live it survivalist style…

  75. 75.

    Ken

    @NotMax: So far have received five of the blue postcards.

    Oh good, I’m not alone.  I got the letter with the 12-character code, completed it online that day, and have gotten three reminders since.  It got to the point where I went back online and tried the code again, but it confirmed that it had been completed.

  77. 77.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @ Fahrenthold
    NEW: In the middle of a pandemic, this week the Secret Service signed a $45,000 “emergency order” to rent golf carts in Sterling, Va. — home of @realdonaldtrump‘s Virginia golf club. In the past, such rentals have preceded presidential golf trips.

    from the article:

    The contract was signed Monday and took effect Wednesday, records show. The Secret Service paid a West Virginia-registered company, Capitol Golf Cars and Utility Vehicles, to rent 30 carts until the end of September. […]
    The company that received the new contract, Capitol Golf Cars, was registered in October in West Virginia, according to state records. This appears to be its first federal contract.
    The company lists offices in McLean, Va., and Frederick, Md. Company executives did not respond to messages left by The Post on Wednesday….
    The federal contract for the carts was identified by American Bridge, a super PAC that supports Democrats.

    Golf courses are exempt from the shut-down order in VA. trump’s course is open for business.

  78. 78.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I did the census last week. The ancestry question…huh? My partner said “dunno”?

    We had a FaceTime happy hour with some California friends and we learned that their son tested positive and their DIL has fever. They live in Dallas and went to NY for a vacation sometime in March. So far, they are okay.

    First contact for me. Scary!

  81. 81.

    mvr

    @OGLiberal:

    Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne and countless other bands/projects, died today at 52 from COVID-19. Just sucks.

    I’m sorry. I’m an old guy but this news made me sad. Several of his songs were brilliant.  I was surprised to find out I’m less than a decade older because his hits wer 20 years or so after the ones I regard as iconic hits of my youth. But the pop sensibility and sense of humor really grabbed me. We’re going to be having a lot of this kind of sadness I’m afraid . . . I was hoping that at least we could confine it to the people older than me, but that’s wishful thinking.

  82. 82.

    CarolPW

    @Leto: When I filled it out today I decided I was Welsh. I do have Welsh ancestry but it is not the biggest part. I decided to honor one of my maternal grandfather’s ancestors instead of picking one of the more standard versions. Since I could be in the DAR and have no idea where an eighth of my heritage came from I thought the question was stupid.

  83. 83.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @kindness: The US Census is a two-track operation. One is the decennial enumeration as called for in Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution, the idea being to count everyone. Embedded within the Census is a much more detailed survey whose respondents are selected by some sort of random process. (I’d guess it’s not a simple random sample but is randomized within various strata to ensure getting enough responses from within each level of variables of interest present within the population.) A large enough sample responding to a lot more questions would permit mutidimensional crosstabulations nearly as good for historical research as full enumeration.

    (I spent most of my working career as an applied statistician.)

  84. 84.

    James E Powell

    I didn’t receive anything with respect to the census, should I feel left out?

  87. 87.

    Brachiator

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    A large enough sample responding to a lot more questions would permit mutidimensional crosstabulations nearly as good for historical research as full enumeration.

    Get on with your bad self. “Crosstabulations!”

     

    ETA: This is in no way snark. I enjoyed your clear and well-expressed explanation.

  88. 88.

    Dan B

    @Scout211: So if you don’t have an address you don’t count which would make homeless people 0/5th of a person.  Swell.

    And when a city like Seattle that has one of the biggest percentage of homeless “residents” the fed money is shrunk from the get go.

  89. 89.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Mohagan: @WaterGirl: Glad to be of service. But maybe we should amend it:

    SIX FEET APART
    or SIX FEET UNDER –
    IT’S UP TO ALL OF US

    We are, after all, all in this together… (FTR colors optional.)

  90. 90.

    NotMax

    @Dan B

    How We Count People Experiencing Homelessness

    In 2020, the Census Bureau will devote three days to counting people who are experiencing homelessness across the country, with checks in place to ensure that people aren’t counted more than once. These steps follow months of outreach and coordination with local census offices, partners, shelter directors, service providers, and others:

    Steps 1: Counting people who are in shelters.
    Step 2: Counting people at soup kitchens and mobile food vans.
    Step 3: Counting people in non-sheltered, outdoor locations, such as tent encampments and on the streets.

  92. 92.

    J R in WV

    @Leto:

    I put White in the check box, and typed American in the slot for details. For both of us.

    Wife wanted me to put in Melungeon but I doubt they were prepared to accept that…

  96. 96.

    Miss Bianca

    @JMG: I have a serious movie-star crush on Toshiro Mifune. And I love Kurosawa, too!

    Damn, it’s almost enough to make me want to subscribe to cable.

     

    @Leto: I thought the same thing. I almost entered “what does it matter? White is white is white, according to the Trump Administration”.

  97. 97.

    Sab

    @mvr: I took my ancient Bernina in for repairs last summer. They said “Oh dear. This could be expensive. The motherboard could be blown.” Then they called me back later. ” Good news. It just needed cleaning. It is too old to have a motherboard. Purely mechanical. Nothing computerized in it at all.”

  98. 98.

    Dan B

    @lgerard: There’s an image of Ivanka presenting the Ivanka line of body bags, or Human Remains Carriers, or some such name.

    They’re a fine shade of mid-purple.

  99. 99.

    Dan B

    @Leto: I’m half Scots Irish (or Scottish-Irish, as my grandparents said).  Orangeman.  I wonder what it would take to move back to the post Brexit troubles…

  100. 100.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Leto: They’ve asked for race + ethnic background as far back as I remember filling out the census.

    I saw somebody say she refused to fill out the census because they didn’t have a racial classification for Arabs other than “white” which she was not; wanted a Middle Eastern/North African classification there. Seems to me people are only hurting themselves by doing this, but I understand the feeling too.

  101. 101.

    Brachiator

    @Miss Bianca:

    I have a serious movie-star crush on Toshiro Mifune. And I love Kurosawa, too!

    Damn, it’s almost enough to make me want to subscribe to cable.

    You can also get TCM as part of YouTube TV, maybe some other Internet services as well.

    This batch of Kurosawa films is amazing. I also recommend Stray Dog and Red Beard, both, of course, featuring Mifune.

  102. 102.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Dan B: I say “Scots-Irish/English/German/Norwegian” on the form. Can’t really get it shorter than that.

  105. 105.

    Darkrose

    Did mine today, after getting an email from my Congressperson. I <3 Doris Matsui so much.

  106. 106.

    Mohagan

    @Leto:  I am more of a mutt than you (English, Scottish, German, Irish, and Czech), but I am sure I have some S-I in there since my mother’s family was from Virginia for several generations.  (My husband’s father came from North Carolina and his line goes straight back almost 200 years, according to Ancestry.com). I read Jim Webb’s Born Fighting and found it fascinating.

  107. 107.

    cintibud

    Just did mine and I finally found out what type of Hispanic I am – I’m Hispanos! The full name is Hispanos of New Mexico but my family is from Southern Colorado (and yeah, I’m in Ohio. bleech!) “They are typically variously of Iberian, Criollo Spaniard, Mestizo, and Genízaro heritage, and are descended from Spanish-speaking settlers of the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, which makes up the present day U.S. states of New Mexico (Nuevo México), southern Colorado, and parts of Arizona, Texas, and Utah. .”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hispanos_of_New_Mexic

    ETA to remove Wiki links

  108. 108.

    Dan B

    @Matt McIrvin:  Yeah, mine is Scots-Irish, English, Welsh, Mystery.  I didn’t include the last but my surname sounds Russian, except for the short dark woman who cornered me at a garden show booth and exclaimed, hands rising dramatically, “You are Bulgarian!” repeatedly, to the horror of the crowd.  There’s a rumor that it’s Macedonian but it’s very rare and no one has traced it.  My grandfather was left in an orphanage in Chicago and tried to locate his father and sister in England to no avail.  My brother did research as well but all we’ve got is some very red headed english who don’t seem to be related.  My paternal side has jet black hair, and lotsa ivy league, and second tier, academics.

  109. 109.

    cintibud

    Please release my comment – I stripped out the Wikipedia links that came across in my copy/paste

  110. 110.

    Fair Economist

    @Leto: I put down “American”. I know I have English, Scots-Irish, and French ancestry, but I certainly couldn’t exclude other groups and all my ancestors have been here so long it doesn’t mean anything anyway.

  111. 111.

    mvr

    @Sab: Good on the Bernina. They seem to be good machines. With good documentation they could last forever, or at least as long as we are going to!

  113. 113.

    Kattails

    Just did mine, put mixed European English German etc. next to the white part.  Could have said “northern European mutt”, I mean, who knows at this point? This was much shorter than I remember.

  114. 114.

    Yutsano

    Did mine. Punted on the ancestral demographic question and left off the Native American portion since the tribe I belong to is in Canada.

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