Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

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

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

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

Museums are not America’s attic for its racist shit.

Too often we confuse noise with substance. too often we confuse setbacks with defeat.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

If ‘weird’ was the finish line, they ran through the tape and kept running.

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

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

The unpunished coup was a training exercise.

Books are my comfort food!

Shut up, hissy kitty!

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

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Giving up is unforgivable.

Just because you believe it, that does not make it true.

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden For President / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Joe Biden for America

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Joe Biden for America

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Despite all the well-earned abuse, Meghan McCain’s got a point about Joe Biden — he’s a genuinely decent human being, as even a none-too-bright Republican legacy kid can understand.

While we may not agree with every tactic proposed by Pete Buttigieg’s campaign manager, she obviously does have an eye for the zeitgeist:

… Mr. Biden’s greatest asset as a campaigner is his palpable empathy. Politicians can learn a lot of tricks — talking points, debate and interview strategies — but personal warmth is something that cannot be taught. It also happens to be a trait that translates well on TV…

This human touch is especially important at a time when voters are looking as much for a “healer in chief” as they are a commander in chief. It also sets up a stark contrast with President Trump, who in crisis after crisis has demonstrated a lack of empathy and inability to feel Americans’ pain…

His campaign should analyze the primary media consumption habits of the voters they need to put together for a winning coalition. For voters under the age of 40, it’s on mobile screens and social media; for black voters, local TV news; for Latino voters, Spanish-language TV and radio news outlets like Univision, Telemundo and La Mega, along with English-language local media in metro areas with large Latino populations…

By going everywhere, Mr. Biden will meet voters where they are, on their terms. Being able to do so without leaving his makeshift home studio gives him a tremendous advantage.

It’s only fitting that a “return to normalcy” would be achieved through the most abnormal circumstances in recent campaign history.

Reader Interactions

183Comments

  2. 2.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A righteous twitter rant:

    Covered Dish People
    @doctorow
    “Re-opening” isn’t about saving ordinary workers and earners. You can’t save someone by infecting them with a deadly disease. In a world without contact-tracing, therapeutics, tests, PPE, santizing products, etc, more contact means more risk of illness and death. 1/

    “Re-opening” is about saving investors: the 1% who constitute the major shareholders in large firms whose calculus goes like this: “30% unemployment means that for every worker who dies on the job, ten more will apply to take their place.” 2/

    These people are willing to risk workers’ lives and shoppers’ lives because they believe they do not have a shared microbial destiny with the rest of us. They think they won’t get sick, and if they do, they think they’ll get better. 3/

    That’s because they never had to go without medical care because they lacked insurance or because their insurer-imposed rationing denied them the care their doctors advised them to get, so they are less likely to have chronic illnesses and other comorbidities. 4/

    They can afford premiums to gougers for PPE for shopping trips, and if they do get sick, they can afford private rooms, hoarded ventilators, and home care (with PPE for the workers who care for them). For the investor class, “re-opening” is low risk and high reward. 5/

    There’s only one fly in the ointment. People don’t want to throw themselves in a volcano to appease the economy gods. The vast majority of Americans think re-opening is a bad idea. 6/

    That’s why the gloves are off, like in Ohio, where bosses can use a confidential snitchline to rat out workers who won’t come back for fear of their lives: these workers will lose their unemployment benefits, their homes, their grocery money. 7/

    ……………………………………………………….
    The right loves to talk about “moral hazard” in the context of social safety nets (“if we let people see a doctor without paying, they won’t take steps to keep themselves from getting sick or injured”). 21/

    But reality demonstrates, time and again, that the real moral hazard comes from letting investors socialize their costs and privatize their gains. eof/

  3. 3.

    Villago Delenda Est

    “Return respect and dignity to America”

    You know, make America actually great again.

  6. 6.

    prostratedragon

    Halellujiah! Someone finally checked one of these cover lies out, in the matter of the Ahmoud Arbery murder:

    “Well, Gregory McMichael, who is of course former law enforcement, first thing he begins telling the officers when they arrive on scene after horrific shooting, says they were in hot pursuit of the suspect because of a series of break-ins in the neighborhood,” said [CNN reporter Martin] Savidge. “This is a perception even some callers to 911 had said, so we went looking into the police records to find the reports about all the break-ins. You don’t find them. There’s one reported theft that occurred on New Year’s Day, a gun taken out of an unlocked pickup, that belonged, by the way, to the McMichaels.”

    I’d got so tired of hearing “there had been a lot of robberies” or whatever, and no one actually going to the public record to look it up. Give that man the Pulitzer.

  10. 10.

    Immanentize

    Is Joe locked down with his wife?  We all know how much Michele helped Barack’s image.  I wish Biden would make a viddy with his wife (a Doctor), who he clearly loves, in a “just at home together like you are” way.

    Trump could never pull that off. What a clear contrast that would create.

  11. 11.

    OzarkHillbilly

    An amazing and good story: The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months

    I came across an obscure blog that told an arresting story: “One day, in 1977, six boys set out from Tonga on a fishing trip … Caught in a huge storm, the boys were shipwrecked on a deserted island. What do they do, this little tribe? They made a pact never to quarrel.”

    The article did not provide any sources. But sometimes all it takes is a stroke of luck. Sifting through a newspaper archive one day, I typed a year incorrectly and there it was. The reference to 1977 turned out to have been a typo. In the 6 October 1966 edition of Australian newspaper The Age, a headline jumped out at me: “Sunday showing for Tongan castaways”. The story concerned six boys who had been found three weeks earlier on a rocky islet south of Tonga, an island group in the Pacific Ocean. The boys had been rescued by an Australian sea captain after being marooned on the island of ‘Ata for more than a year. According to the article, the captain had even got a television station to film a re-enactment of the boys’ adventure.

    I was bursting with questions. Were the boys still alive? And could I find the television footage? Most importantly, though, I had a lead: the captain’s name was Peter Warner. When I searched for him, I had another stroke of luck. In a recent issue of a tiny local paper from Mackay, Australia, I came across the headline: “Mates share 50-year bond”. Printed alongside was a small photograph of two men, smiling, one with his arm slung around the other. The article began: “Deep in a banana plantation at Tullera, near Lismore, sit an unlikely pair of mates … The elder is 83 years old, the son of a wealthy industrialist. The younger, 67, was, literally, a child of nature.” Their names? Peter Warner and Mano Totau. And where had they met? On a deserted island.

    My wife Maartje and I rented a car in Brisbane and some three hours later arrived at our destination, a spot in the middle of nowhere that stumped Google Maps. Yet there he was, sitting out in front of a low-slung house off the dirt road: the man who rescued six lost boys 50 years ago, Captain Peter Warner.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @hueyplong:

    There’s one reported theft that occurred on New Year’s Day, a gun taken out of an unlocked pickup, that belonged, by the way, to the McMichaels.”

  13. 13.

    debbie

    I came awfully close to punching my television screen last night. The first words out of Trump’s mouth, whatever the question, should not be “It’s not my fault” or “No one blames me.” Yeah, it is, and yeah, I do. It’s your depraved indifference to the majority of the inhabitants of this country that has brought us to this point.

    I am heartened at the increased odds of his acquiring COVID-19. The universe sends us the lessons we need to learn.

  14. 14.

    Amir Khalid

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “if we let people see a doctor without paying, they won’t take steps to keep themselves from getting sick or injured”

    This is a weird argument. It presumes that Those People don’t mind getting sick or injured, because then they get to entertain themselves by going to a doctor.

  15. 15.

    Anne Laurie

    @prostratedragon: Imagined McMichaels dialog: Some (no doubt black) dude stole our gun!  Our beloved display-penis!  Only death can avenge the slur upon our veritable manhood!

    District attorney, nodding along:  Any good Southrun fella woulda done the same, boys.  The colored, these days — uppity, ever’ one.

    Bets against them using a slightly-cleaned-up version of this defense, to the media?

  16. 16.

    Baud

    Arbery certainly isn’t the first unarmed black guy to be gunned down, but it seems like this murder is resonating with people in a way that past murders did not.  Or that’s my subjective perception anyway.

  18. 18.

    Anne Laurie

    @Immanentize: I wish Biden would make a viddy with his wife (a Doctor), who he clearly loves, in a “just at home together like you are” way.

    He has!  (Normal people loved those videos; the BernieBros / Repubs claimed they proved Biden had dementia, and needed her there as a minder.)    I’m sure she’ll be in future clips, as is judged best.

  19. 19.

    Immanentize

    @prostratedragon: when I first heard about the Arbery case, I wondered about why there was a video. I imagined it might have been taken by someone who was working with the McMichaels to upload the takedown later to YouTube.  But shit went sideways.  They seem never to identify the maker of the video in the news stories. But now we learn the viddy maker, “Roddie” Bryan, is likely to be arrested too.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    I agree. Between the video and the sheriff’s explanation as to why he didn’t bring charges (ie, the minute Arbery grabbed the asshole’s rifle, he was legally allowed to use deadly force), outrage is the only reasonable response.

  21. 21.

    Immanentize

    @Baud: I think it’s the lying in wait aspect.  They hunted Arbery down.  Action cam and all. And the DA doing nothing as if the video would never be seen.

  23. 23.

    Anne Laurie

    @hueyplong: We all suspect they own dozens of guns.

    Well, those guns are lifestyle accessories.  Don’t you own more than one pair of shoes?  More than one shirt?

  27. 27.

    JPL

    This is from the AJC

    BRUNSWICK — 

    Two Glynn County commissioners say District Attorney Jackie Johnson’s office refused to allow the Glynn County Police Department to make arrests immediately after the Feb. 23 shooting death of Ahmaud Arbery………

    “The police at the scene went to her, saying they were ready to arrest both of them. These were the police at the scene who had done the investigation,” Commissioner Allen Booker, who has spoken with Glynn County police, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “She shut them down to protect her friend McMichael.”

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    This is a weird argument. It presumes that Those People don’t mind getting sick or injured, because then they get to entertain themselves by going to a doctor.

    It’s an offshoot of the “If we pay those lazy [insert epithet] unemployment money to stay home, why would they ever want to go back to work.”

    As if losing 50 percent of one’s wages, by staying home, is something the working poor (and working middle class) want to do. [Response from the wealthy/white whiners: “Na-na-na-na I can’t HEAR you!!!”]

  29. 29.

    Immanentize

    @debbie: I’m not sure on that detail.  I know they drove to a side street which he often jogged down and waited for him.  I would not be surprised if they had to drop by home to pick up a few more weapons to execute their plan.  I bet the phone texts are solid gold for prosecutors.

    Also — fucking white trucks!  The new signal of supremacy.  The color of the only true flag of the Confederacy — one of complete surrender.

  30. 30.

    Baud

    @JPL:

    The police at the scene went to her, saying they were ready to arrest both of them.

    Damn. Usually it’s the prosecutors covering up for the police, no?

  31. 31.

    clay

    @Anne Laurie: Yes, Joe and Jill were on Morning Joe together. They asked Jill specifically a question about how the lockdowns will education, and the Roses screamed of course they won’t question Joe, they know he has dementia, blah blah.

    As if a woman with a Doctorate in Education has no business being asked about her subject of expertise. These are bad people.

  34. 34.

    SFAW

    @JPL:

    No doubt paragon of honesty and integrity Brian Kemp will have DA Johnson fired. [Yes, I realize that GA governmental structure may not be amenable to that.]

  36. 36.

    Baud

    @clay:

    These are bad people.

    QFT. We demand conservatives to see Trump for what he is. We should do the same when it comes to bad people on our “side.”

  37. 37.

    Immanentize

    @clay: I’m sorry I missed that — Wait, Morning Joe? Ok, I am not sorry I missed that.

    You watch so I don’t have to. I thank you for your service!

  38. 38.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    We got notice this morning that no new cases of COVID are known to exist anywhere in the facility. Everyone in that Memory Unit has been tested for both active virus and antibodies. The one person who has it is in stable condition. The workers have also all been offered tests though I can’t tell if they all took them from reading the memo. Reading between the lines, it looks to me as if the test results aren’t back yet. I can’t believe how slow the testing is, even for an extended care facility that’s doing it’s best to be responsible.

  42. 42.

    JPL

    @SFAW: She’ll probably resign before Kemp has a chance to fire her. The police are simply trying to salvage their already bad reputation, and Kemp is upset because the state has been deservedly tarnished.

  46. 46.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Amir Khalid: Moral hazard is a disease that afflicts only the poor and the working classes who’s immune systems are suppressed due to their sad but inevitable and well deserved lowly existence. Rich people however are immune.

  47. 47.

    MattF

    @Baud: Even the Orange Disgrace seems to get that something bad happened to Arbery. The narrative of ‘innocent black guy shot down by racist assholes’ is out there, and there’s no law-n-order counter- narrative.

  49. 49.

    Gin & Tonic

    For those here who’ve had any connection to NYC, a moment to mourn. Gem Spa is closing for good, I’ve heard. Don’t know where else you can go for an egg cream these days.

  51. 51.

    TS (the original)

    Coronavirus has dramatically changed the election campaigning this year. Most countries spend a couple of months campaigning before an election – the US spends years – trump in particular has been campaigning since the day he was elected. Maybe folks can learn this year that campaigns don’t have to cost millions or take years. It is an interesting and different election to watch from afar.

  54. 54.

    Baud

    @MattF: He hedged his bets.

    “You know, it could be something that we didn’t see on tape,” he added. “There could be a lot of, if you saw things went off tape, and then back on tape, but it was troubling.”

  55. 55.

    gene108

    I am getting tired of the feeling that anytime I leave my place, I am taking my life into my hands.

    I didn’t think it was affecting me this much, but it has.

  56. 56.

    raven

    Many folks in Georgia and around the country are stunned that two vigilante justice bubbas in a truck armed with multiple weapons shot Ahmaud Arbery dead in the street as he was jogging in a residential neighborhood on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
    Apparently, we’ve got some short-term memory issues.
    In 2018, nearly two million of us voted for Brian Kemp, a bubba who brandished a gun and idled a truck in a campaign ad who told us point blank, “I’m Brian Kemp. I own guns that NO ONE’S takin’ away. I got a big truck. Just in case I need one to round up some criminal illegals and take ‘em back myself.” In the ad, Kemp then smirks at the camera and adds, “Yeah, I just said that.”
    Ads like that persuaded 1,978,408 of us to vote for Brian Kemp, Georgia’s then-Secretary of State, who was somehow inexplicably allowed to oversee his own election.
    So, to be clear, when our out of state friends and family members incredulously ask who’s responsible for the street assassination of Ahmaud Arbery, the only correct answer is, “We are.”

  57. 57.

    mad citizen

    @Immanentize: I saw this Roddy Bryan on Inside Edition is a short clip.  Apparantly a lawyer–maybe “their” lawyer, not clear on that.  He sports a beard and long hair with the suit/tie lawyer look–quite a look.  Anyway, he said he shared the video thinking it would clear the murderers.  Ooops.

    I think the reason it resonates is because it shows a racial execution in broad daylight.  There is no misinterpreting it.

    My newish next door neighbor just bought a new white pickup.  I don’t think he’s a racist, he seems really nice and is from the Dem. corner of our state, and moved here to get out of Florida because they couldn’t take the crazy any longer.

  58. 58.

    Matt McIrvin

    When Election Day comes around, Biden has been leading in the polls for the whole campaign, and then Trump mysteriously wins, I’ll look back fondly on these moments.

  62. 62.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    It won’t be mysterious. Everyone understands Biden’s victory is no sure thing. We not going to make the same mistake we made with Hillary (I hope).

  64. 64.

    prostratedragon

    @Baud: I think it might be the obvious stalking on the video. In other cases, even where one could suspect that was what had happened, it hasn’t been so clearly documented. Also, from Arbery’s attire it was so plain that he was out for an exercise run; the instant the video rolled when I saw it my thought, oh no, they’ve killed a jogger.

  66. 66.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Baud: Been talking with my son, and he and his wife are so apprehensive about the potential of Trump winning that they may never return to the US – at least not any time soon.

  68. 68.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: The racists in my neck of the woods don’t care what the color of their truck is, just that they get to fly their freak flag.

    ETA for some reason or other they like to highlight with the color “rust”.

  71. 71.

    Matt McIrvin

    @OzarkHillbilly: When I read Lord of the Flies in high school, I remember receiving it with enthusiastic recognition: yes, this is exactly how boys that age would behave. My model was gym class. In hindsight, I think I didn’t realize how much the savagery there was being tacitly encouraged by the adults in charge.

  72. 72.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    It feels as if the other side lives in lala land. These guys think the video exculpates them. I see on twitter that Trump says the rest of the world looks to the US as a leader on COVID. Even when I know we’re the ones living in reality, it’s still disorienting to hear stuff like that all the time.

    Mostly I believe reality will eventually make itself felt. But once in a while, I remember how often they escape it, and then I’m looking into the abyss.

  75. 75.

    ThresherK

    @prostratedragon: a gun taken out of an unlocked pickup, that belonged, by the way, to the McMichaels

    Isn’t being stupid enough to leave a firearm to be taken from a vehicle like that a crime in some places?

    (Of course, we all know that this is the kind of thing which should increase whatever compulsory insurance the firearm pays, whether auto, home, or gun. Benign neglect has consequences. You can’t install a swimming pool without a fence around it; this is even moreso.)

  76. 76.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Immanentize: HA! Good comeback.  :-)

    ETA and I shouldn’t talk too much, rust is an accessory on most of my vehicles. I’ve had to get rid of a # of them because while I could keep them running, I couldn’t keep body parts from falling off.

  78. 78.

    ThresherK

    @Matt McIrvin: In hindsight, I think I didn’t realize how much the savagery there was being tacitly encouraged by the adults in charge.

    Have you seen the “Tompkinson’s School Days” episode of Ripping Yarns? It has heaps of that.

  80. 80.

    charluckles

    I know I shouldn’t get bogged down in conspiracy thinking, but Biden’s empathy and decentness are a part of the reason I am skeptical of the Reade issue.  Facing a disgusting immoral and unethical turd like Donald Trump I firmly believe Biden’s compassion and morality are going to shine like a beacon.  It just seems too on the nose for our recent history of ratf*cking that these accusations would come out at this time and be sighted directly at one of the greatest strengths Biden has against Trump.

  84. 84.

    prostratedragon

    @Immanentize: You know they did. Turns the stomach. Like lynching souvenirs. Sometimes people who had such things in the old days would show them around to Black folk. A family friend who experienced that sort of hinting as a teenager got the hell out of Mississippi, leaving parents behind, and never went back.

    @Baud:
    Yeah. Ever see a movie called Gun Crazy? This looked kind of like that to me.

  85. 85.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: It’s a different problem from 2016. This election is going to be so disrupted by the plague, I don’t see how we get high turnout or a legitimate election process in most of the country. And Trump is going to be doing his best to make sure the pandemic is still raging and ramp up the chaos–whether he wants it or not, it’s the only thing he knows how to do.

    His best strategic bet for November probably is for things to be so bad that it’s impossible for people to vote properly or have any confidence who really won, then declare a landslide victory.

  92. 92.

    prostratedragon

    It’s 38 at Chicago Midway, but very sunny. Supposed to get a rain/snow mix tomorrow night. I haven’t much knowledge here. Does the temperature gradient from north to south or poles to middle flatten with warming at the poles?

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Baud: Turnout was way down, though. Who knows what the margin would have been in the counterfactual?

  96. 96.

    NotMax

    Tired of waiting for any dedicated movie threads (watch, one will now mystically appear) so gonna drop this here before it gets any more stale.

    Some second-string possibilities (including kooky obscurities) for passing the time – B Movies Available for Free Download.

  97. 97.

    Keith P.

    I predict that the media will not be doing the “Which candidate do you want to have a beer with?” bit this cycle.

  99. 99.

    Baud

    @Matt McIrvin:

    You can speculate any scenario. When you look at available evidence, however, it’s hard to justify wringing our hands about losing. It’s a possible outcome, but not a likely one.

    Just because we rolled snake eyes in 2016 doesn’t mean the odds of it happening again have changed.

  101. 101.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @NotMax:

    Man, a lot of that is some sloppy viewing.

    I liked my crap movies in the past, but find them difficult today (my faves of all time were “Hot Rods to Hell” and “Panic in the Year Zero”).

  106. 106.

    Nicole

    @Gin & Tonic: There are plenty of places in NYC that still serve egg creams.  I mean, not at the moment, obviously, but the egg cream will survive.  It’s New York Tough.

    Embarrassing to admit, as I used to live on 5th and B and I’m sure I walked by it oodles of times, but I can’t remember if I ever went to the Gem.  Probably stopped in at some point, but I’m not sure.  There were so many bodegas down there back then.

    Always sad when a fixture goes.

  107. 107.

    rikyrah

    CSPAN’s @SteveScully asks Pelosi if Trump is “part of these discussions” over new Dem stimulus plan Pelosi: I don't have any idea what the President does. Scully: He said that the House is on vacation. Pelosi: You know what – don't waste your time or mine on what he says— Manu Raju (@mkraju) May 9, 2020

  114. 114.

    rikyrah

    Fellow Class of 2020…let’s raise a glass to the FIRST BLACK VALEDICTORIAN in Princeton University’s 274 year history!! n Nicholas Johnson named valedictorian, Grace Sommers selected as salutatorian https://t.co/dsftQUQu78— #3WeeksToGo #HCMGrad #UNO #ClassOf2020 (@psddluva4evah) May 9, 2020

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    @rikyrah: I’ve been following this same fight going on in New Zealand–Maori communities running checkpoints and white people getting upset over it. But the majority I’ve heard seem to be pointing out that the Maori are protecting everybody by doing this.

  117. 117.

    PsiFighter37

    Timothy Egan has a good and very sobering editorial on the whole mess and how Trump is just living in a completely different reality. We’re fucked. We need actual leadership now, but the dithering from him and McConnell is going to get tens of thousands more killed (if not more) and will probably put us in a long-term economic depression. The fact that nothing is going to change on a federal level for at least another 8 months is a disaster. And if Trump cheats his way to another win…I am going to read up on Canadian immigration rules, because this country may just not be worth it anymore.

  120. 120.

    Sab

    @gene108: I have to apologize to my husband every time I go to the grocery! He says send the kids. The kid next door is a single mother of a six year old autistic child. So I should send her to buy our groceries?

  121. 121.

    mad citizen

    @rikyrah: This makes me sad.  I believe he has been living out his final years on top of a Nashville hotel, if I recall correctly.  When I hear a Little Richard song on the satellite radio (Underground Garage mostly), his voice and energy leap out of the speaker.  This man transcended the art form.

    I’ve heard a bit of his later stuff–1970s–still very interesting.  My childhood memories of him are seeing him on the Mike Douglas show, or Merv Griffin, thinking, “what the hell is this?”  And he was the performer who would tell the audience to “Shup Up”, I think.

  122. 122.

    bemused

    Mackay Coppins wrote a good piece in Atlantic about the stress of flying on a full plane recently. Masked passengers very edgy being close to each other on plane. At least all or most passengers seemed to be taking Covid 19 seriously. I can only imagine how much more anxiety producing it would be to fly on a plane packed with reopen, trump supporters.

    I think Coppins’ opinion “false promise of a return to normalcy” is sadly correct.

  124. 124.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @rikyrah: Hmmmm, Shannon County MO did the same thing. I don’t recall reading any communications from the Feds that they had to “consult and come to an agreement with the state of Misery before closing or restricting travel on state or US Highways.” I wonder why that was?

  125. 125.

    Sab

    Pie filter is getting weird. What is with the 18th century rider standing over his dead horse?

  128. 128.

    JMG

    For the truly paranoid, I wish to point out that Trump could lose both the popular vote and electoral college and still get re-elected. Enough states have Republican state legislatures to give Trump 270 simply by passing laws making the legislatures the selectors of electors. This would be entirely constitutional, as one justice whose name I forget helpfully pointed out in Bush v. Gore.

    Of course, this would probably lead to a significant number of dead legislators, so I don’t think it will happen.

  130. 130.

    feebog

    Good morning everyone from SoCal. Golf courses opening this weekend, albeit with restrictions. Going to be beautiful the next few days. Get out, soak up some vitamin D and put that depression aside for a few hours.

  135. 135.

    JMG

    @feebog: Golf courses reopened here today in Mass. It snowed this morning and is now 38 with 30 mph winds in my town, so I don’t think they’re getting much play.

  139. 139.

    Lapassionara

    @mad citizen: I adored Little Richard as a teen. I went into mourning when he left music and went into the ministry. A highlight was seeing him at the House of Blues in Atlanta, during the Olympics.

  140. 140.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sab: Is it the guy flogging his downed horse? I believe Betty Cracker introduced that meme the other day when we were all…ahem…doing something she deemed similar on a thread.

    ETA: I don’t use the pie filter so I miss out on all the cute new graphics that have been introduced for it. Like the sea lion chow bag.

  141. 141.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    I am convinced Trump and FEMA have hoarded wipes and Purell into hidden warehouses. I am so fucking sick of looking for these things every frggin’ week, I could scream.

  144. 144.

    mad citizen

    @raven:

    Yes, amazing–his stuff was so different I think it took a few decades for people to realize how great it was.  Friggin’ Pat Boone’s versions of the Little Richard songs charted higher–wtf?  Little Richard said he sang Long Tall Sally faster to make it harder for Pat Boone to copy him.

    Just watched the 17 minute 1974 performance in the RS obit–a movie called “Let the Good Times Roll”–highly recommended clip!  Just crazy energy.  Raven you should watch it will take you back.  I loved that music festival photo of yourself from back in the day that you shared, by the way.

  146. 146.

    Amir Khalid

    @rikyrah:

    RIP Little Richard. There’s nothing else in rock like the raucous energy of his early work, and for many he was rock’n’roll’s first gay icon.

  147. 147.

    StringOnAStick

    @bemused: My current assumption is anyone you see in public without a mask is a tRump MAGAT and has likely taken to doing the opposite of social distancing, since the base is now all in on it being a hoax.  I know it never crossed my mind in the Before Times that a pandemic would be so heavily politicised.

    The dental office I used to work at is reopening this Monday.  I’m so, so glad I decided to retire as of March 13. I suspect that most of the patients who will be coming for dental hygiene care are tRumpers, and all the rational, careful ones will only make an appointment for emergency dental.issues. That’s what my husband and I are doing.  I feel so sorry for the people I used to work with.

  153. 153.

    Gin & Tonic

    @feebog:  Do I get much Vitamin D when it’s 40 degrees with 20-30 mph winds gusting to 40? Asking for a friend.

  154. 154.

    Anya

    Sorry for the OT.

    I feel so much better after I unfollowed Yashar Ali.

    Biden’s ad team are really good.

  156. 156.

    WaterGirl

    @Sab: Okay, that was me!  Betty Cracker posted a great GIF of a soldier beating a dead horse in response to a troll the other day, and I liked it so much I threw it in the pie filter.

    Likely won’t stay, but it was fun for a little bit

    Sadly, the GIF-ness didn’t stay when it was added to the pie filter.

  157. 157.

    bemused

    @StringOnAStick:

    Agree. Can’t trust people who don’t wear a mask or social distance or any sensible action to protect themselves or the rest of us. Also those people who keep whining about losing their constitutional rights while claiming to use “common sense” protections against virus. I don’t trust them either even if they haven’t been out protesting.

  159. 159.

    WaterGirl

    @Sab: I just took the guy beating the dead horse out of the pie filter.  He did sort of change the mood.  :-

    If you refresh your screen, you won’t have the horse anymore.

  160. 160.

    VOR

    @Immanentize: I wish Biden would make a viddy with his wife (a Doctor), who he clearly loves, in a “just at home together like you are” way.

    Agree, Joe and Jill Biden seem to have a real relationship unlike whatever it is between Trump and Melania. But just to clarify, Jill Biden is not a medical doctor but instead has a Doctorate of Education (Ed. D.). She is a life-long teacher.

  162. 162.

    different-church-lady

    I’d feel a whole lot better if Pennsylvania had been part of that battleground poll.

  164. 164.

    mad citizen

    @raven: That one is the first one in the Rolling Stone obit–from the 1950s.  I’m talking about this 1974 movie clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EKpydNWqKc

    (which is further down in the obit)

    I admit I FFd to the music–they introduce him at 4:20.  And in parts of this movie they cut in footage from the 1950s clips.  Anyway, the 1974 one turns into a crazy vamp with Little Richard doing some stagecraft–climbing the speaker tower, throwing his clothes into the audience, etc.  Great stuff.

  165. 165.

    Matt McIrvin

    @bemused: They go on about “personal responsibility” and then actively deprecate any acts of personal responsibility. For them it seems to mean acting as if externalities of behavior don’t exist.

  166. 166.

    Immanentize

    @VOR: The Doctor thing is my little joke, sorry. I live in the Boston area where we are soggy with ‘Doctors.’ We also have a lot of health care professionals.

  167. 167.

    bemused

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The local guy I was referencing carefully won’t say if he uses a mask or not but makes clear in other remarks he is a trumper. It’s the trunpers who don’t outwardly show who they are or say out loud who they are that are not so easy to detect and steer clear of.

  169. 169.

    Brachiator

    @rikyrah:

    Little Richard, one of rock’s founding fathers who set the template that generations of musicians would follow, has died at 87

    I loved his music. When I was a kid, an aunt and uncle would let me play some of their old 78s. To this day, I associate “Lucille” with the way the needle would dance and bounce over the record as it played.

    Years later, when we had moved to California, I was at a magazine stand in Hollywood, stopping off on my way to the movies.

    As I turned, I froze as saw a man sitting in the passenger side of a car parked at the curb.  Either reading my mind, or simply having had the situation happen so many times, the man looked at me and smiled and said, “That’s right. I’m Little Richard,” and held out his hand to me.

  172. 172.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia: By being as smart and as careful as we can, and taking one day at a time.

    Don’t despair.  We’ll get through this, and we’ll vote the monsters out.  Things will get better.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  173. 173.

    Elizabelle

    @raven:   Bill Haley of the Comets is in the audience.

    And note that audience:  completely segregated.  White, white, white; black performers.  No alcohol:  they’re drinking sodas and ice cream drinks.

    From a movie:  Don’t Knock the Rock

    Little Richard had the most beautiful cheekbones and facial structure.

  174. 174.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @NotMax: One of our favorite places and neighborhoods in NYC. We often head straight for the West 4th Street subway stop and just walk around for a few hours, hitting all our favorite places.

  175. 175.

    Jinchi

    It seems like common sense to thematically link Trump’s personal corruption to a broader policy critique of plutocracy but Democrats haven’t actually done it much…

    I know it feels like years, but it’s only been a couple of months since Super Tuesday. Does Matt Yglesias not remember Elizabeth Warren’s campaign?

  176. 176.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Anya:

    I feel so much better after I unfollowed Yashar Ali.

    the guy who’s retweeted a lot and nobody seems to know why?

  177. 177.

    Anya

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I followed him for the elephants. I am a huge elephant supporter and really liked his focus on elephants survival but he is so freaking insufferable  and he is such a sycophant but also a scold. I just can’t anymore.

  179. 179.

    different-church-lady

    @VOR: Trump and Melania seem to have gotten a years-long head start on social distancing.

  181. 181.

    Salty Sam

    @Matt McIrvin: When I read Lord of the Flies in high school, I remember receiving it with enthusiastic recognition: yes, this is exactly how boys that age would behave. My model was gym class. In hindsight, I think I didn’t realize how much the savagery there was being tacitly encouraged by the adults in charge.

    A-yup.

  182. 182.

    Salty Sam

    @OzarkHillbilly: ETA and I shouldn’t talk too much, rust is an accessory on most of my vehicles. I’ve had to get rid of a # of them because while I could keep them running, I couldn’t keep body parts from falling off.

    Heh-  Last year we drove our ‘03 Suburban from Texas to Massachusetts, and sold it after we finished getting our boat seaworthy.

    It had been a former ranch work vehicle, stored in a barn when not used- had never seen salted roads in its life.  We were amused by the reaction of the Salem boatyard guys’ to a 17 year old beater with NO RUST WHATSOEVER on the undercarriage.  At one point, there was a line of guys coming over to take a look.  It sold pretty quick!

  183. 183.

    James E Powell

    Way back in 10th grade I went to a Big Rock Concert with five or six bands including Country Joe & the Fish and Cactus and headlined by Mountain. Most of the bands played, but after about an hour wait, they announced that Mountain had cancelled, but they had Little Richard. When he came out, the crowd started booing because of the wait and the disappointment, but two songs into the set, the people caught his energy and he tore down the house. I remember we were all standing on our seats.

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