“We need to be clear with the American people about what to expect”
President-elect Joe Biden outlines his plan for tackling the Covid crisis in the US https://t.co/VVJu36MLxx pic.twitter.com/5Dpefv6C17
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) November 19, 2020
I spy FIVE Republican governors on this call with the President-Elect — including Alabama, Utah and Arkansas https://t.co/FzKnf6uNkO
— Peter Hamby (@PeterHamby) November 19, 2020
Biden brushes aside Trump attempts to overturn the election, confident his victory will stand https://t.co/L4sM2Vjk9S
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 20, 2020
Excellent read:
… “It’s hard to fathom how this man thinks. It’s hard to fathom,” Biden told reporters in Wilmington, Del. “I am confident he knows he hasn’t won and he’s not going to be able to win, and we’re going to be sworn in on Jan. 20.”
Biden said he did not plan any new legal moves in response to Trump’s latest efforts, but also did not rule out taking action against the General Services Administration at a future date to force a belated recognition of his presidential transition. The GSA, following Trump’s dictate, has refused to allow the traditional exchange of information with the incoming administration, even blocking intelligence and pandemic briefings.
“Hang on. I’m on my way,” Biden said, after being asked what he would tell people concerned by Trump’s efforts to question the results. “That’s what I say to them. Not a joke.”…
Biden’s communications team has also concluded there is no upside to engaging more directly with Trump’s false claims about the election, including broadly discredited conspiracy theories of massive voter fraud. They are aware that such accusations may weaken voters’ confidence in the election and Biden’s ability to govern across party lines but think elevating the issue with Biden at the fore would not help.
“The Biden campaign built the largest and most aggressive voter protection operation in history, and they are still out there making sure every vote is counted and all the votes are certified,” said Ben LaBolt, who served as press secretary for President Barack Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign. “The president-elect is focused right where he should be, which is staffing his administration and outlining his plan to govern.”…
“The claims are totally laughable and it’s political theater,” said one Biden adviser, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “We’re focused on the issues that we think the American people care about: health care, covid, the economy. And that’s the split screen: Trump is relegated to a smaller and smaller audience while we’re focused on doing the business of the transition.”…
JUST IN: After a statewide audit, Georgia election officials have confirmed President-elect Biden's victory over President Trump https://t.co/aReuY9s9d2
— CNN (@CNN) November 20, 2020
A top Georgia election official says a hand tally of race ballots has been completed and the results affirm Joe Biden's narrow lead over President Trump. The hand count stemmed from a required audit and was not in response to any suspected problems. https://t.co/CQGcCYVMz4
— The Associated Press (@AP) November 20, 2020
The Biden transition team is in the process of vetting Rep. Deb Haaland for the Interior secretary post, sources told The Hill.
If tapped by Biden, Haaland's nomination would be historic, making her the first Native American Cabinet secretary.https://t.co/reUEwwwXvR
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 18, 2020
Yes, that's Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), Haaland's counterpart on the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on National Parks, Forests and Public Lands. QUITE an endorsement: https://t.co/rGH8YSyUGK
— Emma Dumain (@Emma_Dumain) November 18, 2020
Baud
Good news to start the morning.
debbie
Mr. President-Elect, it’s hard to fathom how this man ever got to be president.
Emma from FL
This is such wonder to wake up to. Sane people doing constructive things. Day-um it’s feels like a century since we’ve heard the sound of adulting.
Immanentize
@Emma from FL: The sounds of careful parenting are always overwhelmed by the noises of squabbling toddlers.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Scalzi has a post this morning that includes a long video from a constitutional scholar explaining why Trump will fail in his attempt to overturn the election. Since it’s about an hour long, I haven’t watched the video yet, though I may later. Apparently it demonstrates that every path Trump might try to take ends in the House with the D’s able to block it. I trust it’s soothing to our battered nerves.
Geminid
I was glad to see that the House Democratic Caucus leadership elections came off without rancor. Last time, Hakeem Jeffries’ 120-110 victory over Barbara Lee sparked some hard feelings, even a short-lived “primary Jeffries” movement. This time, Jeffries was unopposed. Rep. Pete Aguilar (CA) is now Assistant Caucus Chair, and Rep. Katherine Clark (MA) won the Assistant Speaker post vacated by Ben Ray Lujan (NM), who is now Senator-elect Luhan.
Baud
@Geminid:
Agreed. That could have been a distraction.
OzarkHillbilly
Blech.
Betty Cracker
Anne Laurie, thank you for introducing the concept of customizing Trump tweet warning labels in the overnight thread. A new hobby I didn’t realize I needed! :)
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Yesterday marked 58 trips ’round the ☀ for yours truly. Musical ? interlude
Thanks to all of the Jackalteriat – being in the midst of (reasonably) sane people has helped make the last four years survivable.
Immanentize
@Geminid: I really like Barbara Lee. There is an active campaign to get her named as Harris’s replacement in California. Which is a good reason for her to lie low.
And I love Katherine Clark who is my Rep.!
Baud
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Happy birthday!
p.a.
I believe R congresscritter talk abt “we’ll be able to work with Dem X as Sec of Y” about as much as I believe my latest Nigerian prince email.
Immanentize
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Happy Happy! ?????️x 58
JMG
Clark is my representative. One thing about Mass., you often get a congressperson with clout. Ed Markey had the seat before her. When I first lived in Cambridge in the ’70s, Tip O’Neill was my rep. A call to his office for constituent service, dealing with red tape, etc., brought comically fast response from the rest of the government.
Immanentize
@p.a.: Don Young has Covid. And he is the oldest member of the House. I suspect he is NFLTG plus a little nuts (always has been).
comrade scotts agenda of rage
From Brianna Keilar yesterday on CNN:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDNgEWxPYRo&feature=emb_logo
The wording CNN talking heads use continually amazes me, in a good way. I never thought I’d see the day when a corporate media outlet would basically go full-on Keith Olbermann almost across the board.
Only took a totally botched response to a global pandemic to push em over the edge.
Compare them with Totebagger radio who still can’t bring themselves to say “lies” unless you pull strongly on their fingernails.
Immanentize
@JMG: Neighbor! But was Clark your State Senator too?
MomSense
My kid is tormenting me this morning. He showed me a disgusting video of Rudy. He blows his nose in a tissue and then takes that tissue, booger side out, and wipes his mouth and his whole face with it. WTF. This is before he oozes hair dye all over himself.
Has there ever been a cast of such bizarre, disgusting, vile humans?
Nina
Since Nancy said this would be her last term as Speaker (thank you for staying), I suspect they’re all holding their fire on one another for the 2022 House elections.
NotMax
If you happen to like Hawaiian music, three free live concerts accessible online this weekend. All scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Eastern time.
Details: Day 1 — Day 2 — Day 3.
YouTube livestream page.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: We had our old dogwood taken out yesterday and the princess is sad. We tried to get rid of the english ivy for years and the tree dudes said it was inside the tree!
OzarkHillbilly
@p.a.: Translation? “Getting Deb Haaland out of Congress opens up a possible GOP p/u and besides, she has been a royal pain in my butt for years.
SiubhanDuinne
I love the thought of Deb Haaland for Interior. And good for Don Young for giving her that generous and (presumably) unsolicited endorsement.
Nice way to start the day. Thanks, Anne Laurie!
Baud
@MomSense:
I expect Rudi’s next press conference will be held with him sitting on a toilet.
RandomMonster
Also too, Happy Birthday Joe Biden!!!
satby
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Belated Happy Birthday Ben!
Immanentize
@NotMax: Definitely gonna catch as much as I can. Sadly, I teach until one and again at two today. But I will sneak some in at lunchtime! Thank you for the heads up.
Immanentize
@RandomMonster: Good point. But Joe Biden is old enough to be Ben Cisco’s President.
Baud
@RandomMonster:
I didn’t know! What a happy birthday for him.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: My sympathies. I hate losing trees, they’re like old friends to me.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Happy belated birthday to you!
Ken
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Congratulations! Coincidentally, my 58th is tomorrow.
PsiFighter37
@SiubhanDuinne: Haaland’s seat is safely Democratic. NM Republicans will only ever have a shot in NM-02, as the map is currently drawn.
Baud
Haha. Today show covering Sweden’s covid fuck up.
Baud
@Ken:
Happy birthday!
Immanentize
@raven: I never noticed before, but your house looks like my old house in San Antonio did — Double shotgun with a center hallway? I loved that house (pier/beam)
MagdaInBlack
@MomSense: I watched, or rather, watched Hal Sparks watch ( because I love Hal’s running commentary) the entire thing. That was just a whole boatload of crazy, and not the fun kind of crazy. Hal did made note of every time Rudy wiped down his whole face with snot and yet missed the dye running down his cheek.
mrmoshpotato
@Emma from FL:
So true.
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Yea, she’s bummed. They also were supposed to save the branches from the chinese tallow tree that they trimmed and they didn’t. She makes really nice Christmas wreaths from the berries so now I’m trying to find another one.
Immanentize
@Ken: It’s a Birthflurry! Congrats
MomSense
@Baud:
There is no bottom to how vile they will go. I mean the guy showed his face after he was caught on film masturbating in front of someone he thought was a 15 year old girl. After that did he slink off in shame? I can’t even believe he showed his bullshit oozing face after that.
NotMax
Quietly proud that managed to figure out how to get a book from the public library onto the Kindle which did finally arrive this week (took five weeks before it shipped).
Info on how to do this at the library’s site ranged from barely helpful to non-existent.
Ken
Where’s a T-Rex when you really need one?
LurkerNoLonger
Biden: wearing a mask is a “patriotic duty”. I like that! Throw that in the (maskless) face of a flag-humping Trump supporter and watch them sputter.
SiubhanDuinne
@PsiFighter37:
You might have intended your comment for Ozark, immediately above me, who mentioned a GOP pickup. I didn’t think that at all.
MomSense
@MagdaInBlack:
I gagged a little bit and I’ve had kids puke all over me.
That’s when I learned that eating too many carrots is a problem. And just to give you a glimpse of how bizarre my kids are, they were sneaking carrots out of the refrigerator. Did they sneak ice cream or cookies? Nope carrots.
Baud
@Ken:
Heh. Took me a minute to get the reference.
Ken
@Baud: Well, the movie is 27 years old. Which reminds me that this xkcd need updating.
Thanks to all for the birthday congrats. I’m feeling a little down because I was planning to visit my parents for birthday and Thanksgiving, but we decided to cancel because of covid. We’ll zoom instead.
raven
@Ken: He lives a few blocks away.
Kay
Actually comparing Bush (just as a politician) to Trump (just as a politician) is hysterical.
Bush was hands down better- across the board. They have just set this incredibly low bar for Trump and they’ve taken him completely out of the context of other Republican Presidents and other Republican candidates. If you compare him to…no one else he looks successful.
Donald Trump put together a Republican coalition that was less successful than that of George W Bush..
Republicans did better with a conventional candidate- they won the re-elect and they kept better educated voters while still turning out enough WWC to win.
raven
@Immanentize: No, it does have an 8ft hallway (we put a stairway in that takes up 4 ft) but it’s not a shotgun. Our rental next door is interesting, it has two front doors but it’s one house.
We suppose that it was a mill house and was two separate apartments years ago. There were textile mills just up the street.
NotMax
BTW, belated kudos to Mr. Tam.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Ken
I see Rudy’s hair-dye-and-lies press conference made cracked.com. The one at the landscaping place did too. At least he’s useful for something.
rikyrah
@Ken:
Happy Birthday ??,?????
rikyrah
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Happy Birthday ????????
Nicole
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Happy birthday plus one day! Wishing you many more trips around the sun.
debbie
@MomSense:
Colbert was all over that plus the dripping hair dye. Just appalling.
Baud
@Kay:
Are there any reliable data on demographics? Last I saw, things were still in flux.
zhena gogolia
I hope the Haaland news is true. It’s making me cry first thing this morning.
SFAW
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Belated Happy Birthday, young man!
raven
Did ya’ll see where the Kenosha shooter bought the rifle with his stimulus check?
zhena gogolia
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Oh, happy birthday!
Nicole
@Ken: And happy early birthday to you!
Baud
@raven:
Yeah. What can you do? It was his money. I’m not sure why it’s news.
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
I’m sure it’s true that she is being vetted.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Thanks everyone!
Time for work – catch you on BJ After Dark!
Kay
Republicans traded away their whole political party for a candidate who did worse than George W Bush and slightly better than Mitt Romney. Trump is in the middle between Bush and Romney.
zhena gogolia
@MomSense:
We don’t know that he thought she was 15. Still disgusting, though.
raven
@Baud: I report, you decide.
rikyrah
???
SFAW
@Ken:
Happy B-Day wishes in advance!
Litlebritdifrnt
@MomSense: That reminds me of a brilliant Billy Connolly sketch about people puking in the streets on a Saturday night in Glasgow. He says it always includes tomatoes and carrots. He says “I’ve never eaten tomatoes and carrots but when I puke there they are, I’m convinced there is a guy with a pocket full of tomatoes and carrots following puking people around and throwing them in”.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@Ken: Happy Birthday!
Baud
@Kay:
Trump was a turnout machine for both sides. We matched them plus some. The proportions are comparable.
Geminid
@PsiFighter37: This year Haaland won her seat by 16.4%. Governor Michelle Lujan-Griffen held it before before her. Haaland had a rough early adulthood, as a single mother with an alcohol addiction. She went on to get a law degree, and I believe she was Governor of Laguna Pueblo. She headed the Obama New Mexico Native American outreach program during the 2012 election, and under her tenure as State Democratic Chairwoman New Mexico Democrats won back a majority in the lower state legislature in 2017.
I also would like to see Haaland as Interior Secretary, although Speaker Pelosi might miss her influence in the House Caucus. Haaland seems like a uniter.
rikyrah
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Lots of different reasons why it might have them. Why Does My House Have 2 Front Doors?. Quite common for old farm houses around here. Our own place, built in 1976, has 2 front doors.
NotMax
A happy b-b-b-birthday to both jackals.
(While not technically a birthday tune it’s fun and catchy. No one can accuse me of not playing to — the bass.)
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: We’ve had to take down a few oaks, and will have to take more in winter when the ground freezes enough for the guys to get trucks in there. The gypsy moth infestations of a couple of years ago were very bad. I hate to see each one go, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
Baud
@rikyrah: That was their previous move.
Kay
@Baud:
A lot of the hot takes were premature. It looks more like a reversion to GOP norm now. Trump will get the same (losing) margin with Latinos that McCain did.
They could have retained their political Party and done better than they did with Trump with just a slightly better traditional or conventional GOP pol and/or a slightly worse Dem candidate. They traded everything for a coalition that is not more “winning” than the coalition they had in 2000 and 2004. Plus, now about 30 to 40% of their coalition are insane and completely divorced from the concept of democracy.
Immanentize
@raven: Ha! FDL talk
Gin & Tonic
Oh, and I put in my paperwork for retirement. Oddly anticlimactic.
Betty Cracker
@raven: I didn’t think juveniles received stimulus checks.
Gin & Tonic
@raven: Well, the idea of a stimulus payment is you spend it and not put it in the bank. So he was just doing his civic duty.
Kay
@Baud:
It was Obama. Obama drove them round the bend and they panicked and bet everything on Trump. And now he lost and they’re left with a Trump coalition who couldn’t even execute a re-elect of an incumbent. That’s the bargain they made. It’s a bad deal. Dumb. They could have just stuck with a conventional R of the George W Bush caliber (not that high a bar) and they’d be in much better shape.
Soprano2
Maybe, but I also wonder how many of these people are privately fed up with dealing with the Trump administration’s fourth-string poor hires, and are looking forward to having some actual competent people in these jobs. Plus, it’s possible that there is a more liberal candidate out there that he’d rather not see in the job, so he’s trying to up the chances of this appointment by making it bi-partisan.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: that is so cool!!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
Those between 16 and 18 did. But his story is odd. He says he was furloughed from his job so got 1200 dollars. The stimulus check and the 600 dollar bump were two different things. I don’t know which part he’s lying about but his recitation of this doesn’t make sense.
Raven
Dorothy A. Winsor
Speaking of birthdays (sort of), I took up Duolingo Spanish as a pandemic project and today it tells me I’ve done it 125 days in a row. It gives me a little award for that. :-)
Raven
@Kay:
CNN)Kenosha shooter Kyle Rittenhousesays he used money from a stimulus check to purchase the gun he allegedly used to kill two people and wound one other on the night of August 25.
“I got my twelve hundred dollars from the coronavirus Illinois unemployment cause I was on furlough from YMCA. And I got my first unemployment check so I was like, ‘Oh, I’ll use this to buy it,'” Rittenhouse said in a phone interview with the Washington Post that was published Thursday.
Immanentize
@Raven: from what? Poor guy. He was always — high energy.
Immanentize
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Bueno!
Dorothy A. Winsor
Native American Deb Haaland would be a significant change from the oil company lobbyist who’s at Interior now.
Soprano2
I thought all the hot takes about the percentage of “X” minority group that Trump got were premature since they were still counting ballots all over the country! It’s comforting to know that he didn’t do any better than Bush did, although I have to say that it’s still disconcerting to know how many non-white people looked at Trump’s last 4 years and said “I want 4 more years of that”. I’m waiting to see what the QAnon reaction will be when their “storm” doesn’t happen, as there is no massive pedophile ring for Trump to roll up and arrest. I predict they’ll double down, because that’s what cult members usually do.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Immanentize: Gracias!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Soprano2: I predict they’ll say Trump has now gone into hiding to fight it better. Maybe he even lost on purpose.
MomSense
@Raven:
Lucky you to be his neighbor. He’s been channeling the Covid/election anxiety into baking pies. They look so good, invent a reason to stop by and say hello (in a mask at a distance) good.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
¡Olé!
Kay
@Betty Cracker:
He wouldn’t have gotten “1200 dollars” unless it was some fluke where the 600 bump and the state unemployment totaled exactly 1200 dollars over 2 weeks (it wouldn’t). That was the stimulus check that wasn’t tied to unemployment.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: Charles Johnson has done the same with many of Dump’s rantings.
mrmoshpotato
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Happy Roundtripday!
Soprano2
Yep, it’ll be something like that. I heard an interview with a reporter who has been studying and interacting with the Q movement for a couple of years. She said it doesn’t matter whether the predictions in the “Q drops” come true or not, they still blindly believe no matter what actually happens. One of them actually told her that something in a “Q drop” not happening was a sign that something else was going to happen! I’ve listened to a couple of stories about the Q movement, because I think it’s important to try to understand it since it’s becoming so prevalent, and it’s so insane it’s hard to understand how anyone could actually believe it.
MomSense
@Soprano2:
That is classic cult behavior. Think of all those doomsday cults that continue after their doomsday predictions don’t happen. People sell everything they own and then it doesn’t happen and they still don’t question the cult.
raven
@Immanentize: Ticker
raven
@MomSense: That’s funny, I mean EVERYONE I know is his FB friend and he lives just a couple of blocks away but I don’t really know him. I met him at the Georgia Center back in the FDL days but just never was in his orbit.
wait. . you are DW?
Immanentize
@raven: He’s a young guy. Maybe he should lay off the pie? We’ll. I am going in for first time hypertension med check next Tuesday. Trying to keep myself out of that mess
Kay
@Raven:
Right but he would get 1200 that wasn’t tied to employment and then whatever he got from Illinois unemployment, which probably wasn’t exactly 1200 since it was state unemployment plus 600 federal bump. I don’t know what he’s confused about or why he’s seizing on the 1200 number but his story doesn’t make sense. It’s all electronic transfer. Someone could look, but maybe it doesn’t matter enough to look.
OzarkHillbilly
@Soprano2: Whenever I find myself pondering these unknowables, I ask myself one simple question: Did they vote to impeach trump? And then it no longer matters to me what their true motives are.
raven
@Kay: Baud doesn’t think so.
Steeplejack (phone)
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
Happy birthday! ?????
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay: @Raven: If he was under 18 he needed to have a straw buyer to purchase it for him.
mrmoshpotato
@Ken: YES! They clocked the T-Rex at 32 miles per hour. :)
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: Right, they have arrested the dude who bought it.
Steeplejack (phone)
I’m off to get a haircut—first one in 21 weeks! My leonine silver mane is way too leonine, and it’s driving me crazy.
Geminid
@Geminid: Congressman Raul Grijalve(AZ-3rd) is Chairman of the House Natural Resources Commitee on which Deb Haaland serves, and is a strong proponent of Haaland as Interior Secretary. So are the Justice Democrats, but I don’t hold that against her. They have a shrewd sense of which bandwagon to jump on, as they demonstrated this past June when they backed Marie Newman’s primary challenge to Ted Lipinski, after ignoring her in 2018.
Baud
@raven:
What don’t I think?
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: By the way, how’s the little one?
zhena gogolia
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
That video is well worth watching. I love when she says that Rudy’s heyday was when Crocodile Dundee was the biggest hit in America!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: Ah. Missed that, thanx.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Good litmus test.
NotMax
@Steeplejack
31 years since last set foot in a haircutting emporium.
;)
OzarkHillbilly
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Actions speak louder than words.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
If anybody wants to be greatly amused, hit Greenwald Twitter. He’s mighty vexed by liberals and the state of their Trump reporting.
As always, the greater evil is represented by the center left.
As I have always held, the asshole has always been full on paleocon/alt-right, and that extends to his criminal conspiracy with Snowjob to hand info to Putin. Fucker should swing from a rope, but I’m happy to allow Bolsonaro to do it.
Kay
School called. Youngest is a “close contact” of positive student so will be out of school and quarantined until Dec 3. He just recently got a job at Wal Mart as a “runner”- takes groceries out to cars when people order online. Now we find out how Wal Mart handles this. He gets a letter from the county health department saying he’s quarantined “to give to your employer” so we’ll see how that goes. He likes the job and wants to keep it.
Poor kid. He has suffered for this much more than I have. He hates online learning. He is just diminished- a quieter, sadder person- without a lot of time spent around others. My most “social” kid – the friendly extrovert – somehow landed in a pandemic.
PsiFighter37
@Geminid: I could not care less who Justice Democrats / DSA support. They’re nitwits in my book.
Also, it was Dan Lipinski, not Ted.
SFAW
Jerry Fucking Rivers a/k/a Geraldo Rivera* is at it again. What a fucking moron/ass-kisser/moron/sycophant/moron/RWMF/moron. Fuck him. [Or, as George Carlin would say: “Un-fuck him.”]
*Yes, I know the “Jerry Rivers” thing is bullshit. Fuck him anyway.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: I’ve been on a moderate hypertension med for ages now, works well, no issues. BP is always good.
My father had really serious hypertension for years, so I guess there may be a genetic predisposition.
catclub
@Kay:
Isn’t that mostly because the white percentage of the vote is steadily decreasing?
Baud
@SFAW:
Happy to compromise and rename Covid “Trump’s disease.”
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Kay: I’m so sorry. Poor kid. I hope he remains healthy.
Gin & Tonic
@NotMax: Must be pretty long by now.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: That’s my issue — genetics. But I have never been a smoker and only a moderate drinker (unlike other dead family members). So, Im doing ok! But like my Doc said, “Your genetic past finally caught up with you.”
SFAW
@PsiFighter37:
Good catch. Ted Lipinski won the gold medal for women’s skating at the 1998 Olympics. Of course, that was as “Tara Lipinski,” before the operation. *
*Yes, I’m kidding. It’s just whenever I hear Dan Lipinski’s name, I think of her.
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: God, do you remember him with the Willowbrook stories, when it seemed like he actually cared?
SFAW
@Baud:
a/k/a “swine flu”?
zhena gogolia
@SFAW:
OMG what a horrible idea.
germy
Immanentize
@SFAW: It seems Ted Lipinski was a character on The Walton’s. Time for a person man woman camera tv test.
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
Vaguely. Yeah, he used to be a semi-decent reporter. I don’t know if he went around the bend from/during the “Al Capone’s vault” thing, or sometime before that, but he’s certainly not the guy who I remember from “Eyewitness News” (with Jim Jensen and Bill Beutel). [At least, I think it was that newscast.]
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: The smoking was probably my father’s undoing. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop.
germy
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: You are mostly right, but it’s Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Deb was not the NM Party Chair when we won back the Roundhouse, which was in 2018, not 2017. Deb was running for her first term as CD-1 Representative at that time.
Geminid
@PsiFighter37: That’s right. Ted Lipinski was Dan’s Congressman father. I also have no use for the Justice Democrats. I just like to give them a whack now and then. Someone who is much better at that is tweeter Ragnarak Lobster. He has a funny handle; if reversed, lobster ragnarok would suggest an Icelandic seafood delicacy cooked in a hot spring. But Ragnarok Lobster really brings it, and is fun to follow.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
For me? OK, but I never watched The Waltons, so there’s no memory to have been lost.
“I’m ready for my person/man/woman/camera/TV test, Mr. DeMille.”
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Grows to an inch or two below the shoulder and stops there, unlike when was indisputably a young’un. I do shed a lot but then it grows back in and stops again.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay: I’m sorry, Kay. ☹️
germy
@SFAW:
I remember those guys. I lived in New York and they were my news team. I’m so old, I remember Tex Antoine. Roger Grimsby, etc.
MomSense
@raven:
I don’t know what DW is. I’m a goth ninjas listener and I follow him on Instagram where he keeps posting pie photos.
Nicole
@Kay: I’m so sorry, Kay. I feel so bad for your son.
This past weekend one of my son’s friends had an outdoor party in Central Park for his birthday. The kids (and adults) were all masked, maintaining social distancing was easy and there was a very stiff breeze keeping air circulating (I was really, really cold by the time we left). The son’s mom told me later even though it was just the kids running around on the hill for an hour while the grownups stood near the bagels and coffee, he said it was his “best birthday ever.” And I was equal parts happy and so, so sad. I hate that simply being in the same physical area as their friends is now a special treat for kids, rather than how things should always be. And yet, I also hope that some of the incredible joy they have now when they do get to be together carries forward into the rest of their lives and they always experience some gratitude when getting together with those they love, even after the pandemic is over.
frosty
@Gin & Tonic: Congrats on the retirement (paperwork). After 9 months I’m still on the “incredibly lazy” phase of mine :-).
The Thin Black Duke
@germy: Remember Roger Grimsby?
NotMax
@Geminid
Regular visits to Fafblog used to be on the intertoobz itinerary.
Uncle Cosmo
Just FTR, the concept goes at least as far back as Lenny Bruce, who observed that since “screwing” is one of the most pleasurable things humans can do, why would we wish it on those we despise – we should be saying Unscrew you!
Immanentize
@SFAW: You’ve entirely forgotten that you watched the Walton’s? Bad shape, man. ?
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: Boy, age is doing a number on your brain. Jim Jensen and Bill Beutel were never on the same channel. Jensen was on WCBS, usually alone, and Beutel was on WABC, partnered for a long time with Roger Grimsby. WABC was “Eyewitness News.”
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW: Geraldo can go lock himself in Capone’s vault.
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: Thank you for the corrections from the Land of Enchantment. Hope it’s as nice a day there as it is here in central Virginia. Probably even nicer.
MomSense
@OzarkHillbilly:
Still a fever and congested, but the doctor said his lungs sounded clear. He had the test yesterday to be safe, but the doctor thinks it is a non-Covid respiratory virus. Unfortunately he is also having a reaction to the antibiotic for the tick bite. He just feels like crap.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gin & Tonic: I sympathize.
SFAW
@germy:
One of the best parts for me was when Jim Bouton did the weather report. [I think usual weather person was on vacation] He was hilarious. As before, I think it was that newscast, not some other channel.
Person, man, man, TV, wombat.
NotMax
@SFAW
And Rose Ann Scamardella, inspiration for one of Gilda Radner’s most memorable characters.
;)
MomSense
@Kay:
I’m so sorry, Kay. We are going through the same issues.
Immanentize
@MomSense: lyme is no laughing matter. I hope it all clears up pronto so he can get back to vigorous youthitude.
germy
@SFAW:
Tex Antoine got into trouble when he told a rape joke on live TV.
Even in those days, it was too much to ignore.
OzarkHillbilly
@MomSense: Good news, anyway. Better news when the test comes back negative.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nicole: That’s a sweet (and sad) story
Omnes Omnibus
@raven: Rittenhouse is 17. I doubt he was eligible for a stimulus check.
ETA: I see it was IL unemployment compensation.
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
I’m sorry, do I know you? Have you commented here before?
You are, of course, correct. I’m a little embarrassed at my memory failure.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: He must be miserable. I wonder how many millions of times this year someone has said “but at least it’s not COVID”.
SFAW
@germy:
Yes, I remember — “lay back and enjoy it.” It was sometime after that I learned he “had a drinking problem.”
WaterGirl
@Nicole: We are all getting a major lesson in not taking things for granted. Even for the kids, this pandemic is going to change their outlook, probably forever.
That doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but I think it will be a thing nonetheless.
germy
Yes, I was a 1970s teenager when those guys were on. They really gave off an “old school” vibe, like Grimsby had a bottle of scotch in his desk drawer or something.
My high school teachers showed us a Geraldo documentary. It wasn’t the willowbrook one, I think it was an anti-drug production…
Just One More Canuck
@raven: My mother liked ivy and had my dad plant some as ground cover. About 10 years later, it had grown up the side of the chimney and had started to show up inside the living room. Took a while to get rid of it all
Sebastian
Rick Scott positive y’all
frosty
@Kay: My younger son (who lives with us) found out he was in contact with someone who tested positive. He got a test and told his employer – a grocery store where he stocks shelves overnight. They told him to come to work while he waited to get the test results. We all agreed this was nuts but that’s what he did. The contact was outside at a bonfire at considerable distance so he figured he wouldn’t have gotten infected.
Tested negative, BTW.
ETA: I’m sorry your social kid is in this quandary. Mine is more social than we are but has been holding up well, getting out playing Pokemon Go, much of which is done while they stay in their cars.
germy
@Sebastian:
Isn’t the virus taking a dangerous chance infecting him? It might end badly for COVID
raven
@Just One More Canuck: I remember a neighbor with and ivy lawn when I was a kid. We hated it because we’d lose so many baseballs in it!
germy
The bosses all know Mitch McConnell’s got their back.
Shalimar
I have known Alabama Governor Kay Ivey for most of my life. She used to be from the pro-business wing of the party, not the insane lunatics. I don’t think she has changed that much, regardless of some really crazy public statements she has made the past few years. Hopefully she will continue taking opportunities to help her state by working with the Biden administration.
Kay
@Nicole:
It is sad. I wonder how they’ll think of this time when they’re older. He’s lucky in a lot of ways because he’s a high school senior – he’ll only lose about half a year of school when it’s all said and done. About a quarter of his school district are really low income. The smaller kids are going to be way behind and they had a high hill to climb even without constant interruptions in school.
He just texted me though: “look at this” Wal Mart will pay him for the quarantine period. He knows I would be pleased about that :)
Sebastian
@germy:
Virus is demonstrating formidable species jumping skills for sure. Bat, Pangolin, human, lizard people, …
MomSense
@WaterGirl:
INORITE. Yesterday we were wondering if we should hope for Lyme.
BTW did you see Rachel Maddow’s video from yesterday? The love of her life has been battling Covid.
mrmoshpotato
@SFAW: ?Mongoose, platypus, wombat, penguin, Leonard Bernstein?
Gin & Tonic
@SFAW: Get used to it.
Odd little tangent. In the late 1970’s, Jim Jensen’s son died in a hang-gliding accident up in Ellenville (there was, and is, a popular spot for that up on the Shawangunk Ridge between Wurtsboro and Ellenville.) A good friend of mine flew there a lot as well, and knew him. That death was very hard on Jensen père, who went into a tailspin with drugs and booze, and had some embarrassing on-air moments until he ended up in rehab.
Kathleen
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Happy Birthday!
MomSense
@Kay:
My grandmother was 20 when the 1918 pandemic started. She never discussed it and she told lots of stories about everything else including ending up in a tent city on Lake Erie during the depression. My grandparents, great aunt and great great aunt and uncle all never talked about it.
Nicole
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
@WaterGirl:
I really, really hope I live to be old because I’m so curious to see how Gen Alpha, as I guess they’re calling them, will turn out as adults, having gone through this pandemic as kids. In my more optimistic moments, I’m hopeful they’ll maybe be less IGMFYA than some of my generation is, since it’s going to take communities pulling together to get Covid under control.
mrmoshpotato
@Sebastian: What about Bible banger hypocrite Marco?
NotMax
@SFAW
Recall the whole nastiness and subsequent canning well. Also vaguely remember a cartoon depiction at the time of Uncle Wethby replacing the person in Edvard Munch’s “The Scream.”
Semi-related, for the younger set: How respected live TV newscasts once handled breaking news, dead air be damned.
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: It’s going to be a sunny, unseasonably warm day in NM. What counts as central VA? I had a lovely vacation in VA some years ago. Was based outside Charlottesville and toured various wineries and cideries, plus a few outings to historical sites like Monticello, Montpelier, and Appomattox Court House. Beautiful area.
SFAW
@Gin & Tonic:
That’s too bad about his son, and him. I was in MA by the late 1970s, so I don’t recall hearing about that.
Re: memory loss: I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.
Kathleen
@Baud: It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
O. Felix Culpa
@MomSense: So glad to hear that YoungSense’s lungs are ok. I was worried for both of you. There is a nasty respiratory flu going around in addition to COVID. Fingers crossed for a quick recovery!
Dorothy A. Winsor
This is a good twitter thread. I don’t know the poker terms he uses about Trump’s bluff, but I think I still got the drift.
mrmoshpotato
@Sebastian: Haha. I was going to say it’s infecting bats again.
raven
@MomSense: got it
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Just One More Canuck:
You just have to keep cutting it at the ground until you stop seeing shooters – about three to four years for full success.
SFAW
@NotMax:
Neat. I especially liked the sound of typewriters in the background. [I can hear Goku saying “the sound of what?”]
Kathleen
@Ken:
Happy Birthday!
Nicole
@Kay: With luck, your youngest will still get to have a graduation ceremony; I am really hoping by spring things will be getting better. I felt awful for the kids who didn’t get one last year. And I mean, I know in the total time scheme of things, a ceremony is not a big deal, but we hold those celebrations because they give something to our lives. Though maybe the kids who don’t get one will have it as a way to connect with each other throughout their lives- they were the Covid seniors. It’s a morbid analogy to draw, but as someone who lost a parent when I was a child, I find I have an instant connection when I meet someone else who did, too. There’s have a common emotional experience between you that people who haven’t gone through it will never understand. The Covid kids will, I think, have that, too.
In some of my other optimistic moments, I hope this will make us look at our educational inequalities, because it’s really highlighting who has access and who doesn’t. There was a tweet a few days ago about someone watching a kid in Rent Court trying to do online school while their parent was pleading an eviction notice. Not okay. Not okay at all.
All that said, I’m glad your son will get paid while quarantining. It should be that way for all workers.
Nicole
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I just read that thread; you’re right; it’s very good. The comments also made me go look up Donald Manes, and now I want to watch City Hall, which I’ve never seen. Oh, Twitter. Sometimes you make the best rabbit holes.
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
Steve (“Of All People?!”) Inskeep, despite his decades-long history of bone-headed devotion to mediocrity, is actually using the word “lies” these days. Probably not on the air – but on Twitter it seems to be OK.
When the middle of the part of the road that runs down the kerb half of the right lane has lost Inskeep … well. Miracle & wonder, long-distance call, etc.
Ken
I sometimes watched it back in the day. I caught part of an episode recently, and the language seemed so artificially folksy – not quite “Beverly Hillbillies” territory but close.
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Yes the exit polls are problematic, this year even more so because the people who voted on the day of the election skewed more Republican while many Ds had already voted by mail or early.
Just One More Canuck
@SFAW: name the vaccine after Trump? No. Name an anal cyst after Trump? Yes
NotMax
@SFAW
Coincidentally the same day the Roe v. Wade decision was released. Newsroom typewriters were abuzz.
Ken
@SFAW: I think that sound was teletypes. The trope probably started in the movies – I wonder if we could pinpoint when the sound changed from telegraph keys.
Sebastian
@mrmoshpotato:
Dunno, I want it so badly for him tho. Donald is planning on loyalty show holiday parties. He is going to kill them all.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
I’m just really wanting the virus to cripple or kill off one or more loud GOP senators.
All of them would be nice, but the Goddess hates me, soooooo….
Kay
@Nicole:
I think we have to realize too, before we dismiss high school graduation ceremonies as a minor sacrifice, that for about 60% of people that is the only graduation ceremony they will ever get.
We really tried here. We ended up with a mix of in person and in a car. So the graduate would drive up and get out and stand by the flag pole. The school officials stood 6 feet away and they all do the recitation. The parents are in a car watching from the roadway area in front of the flag pole. The parents were just really grateful we tried to do something so it was celebratory and fun in that great way when people are just like “WTF, who knows, just go forward”.
The school mantra has been “we’re all just doing our best”.
p.a.
Rethug Party officially a superspreader event.
How many quarantined so Dems become majority? Can they push anything, or are we at the whim of turtle even if his tools are out sick?
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Nicole: A lost graduation ceremony may not be a big thing, but there aren’t a lot of moments we celebrate in our lives and it’s too bad when we don’t get to mark them.
DivF
@Immanentize: Barbara Lee speaks for me! I’ve been voting for her, and before her, Ron Dellums, since my first election in 1972.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Nicole:
I think that what they’ll remember is that grandmas, grandpas, aunts and uncles whined about masks and nebulous freedoms and evil lockdowns and socialism while extending the pandemic into about 2 years of misery in the prime of their young lives by refusing to do the things necessary to tamp it as quickly as it could be done.
NotMax
@Ken
Definitely typewriters. Teletypes not only had a differing distinctive sound, common practice was for them (any more than one-horse news outfits had many chugging away, connected to the various wire services) to be in a separate room, one with lots of big windows.
Matt McIrvin
@Ken: And for many years after it was gone, the theme music they used for TV news broadcasts was usually a staccato thing that suggested that sound of teletypes.
Omnes Omnibus
@Dorothy A. Winsor: Riffing on that sentiment for a moment…. That is why I keep telling people here that we need to celebrate our wins. Even the little ones that leave so much more to be done. When something good happens or you pass a milestone, take a moment to enjoy it. We only pass by once.
SFAW
@Ken:
Well, they may have been present, but the sound I noticed was individual keys hitting paper, as well as a manual carriage return or two.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: If they are related to you, I am sure all they will remember is bitching.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Jesus, some of you fuckers are old.
Elizabelle
Why we call it Fuck the Fucking NY Times. Blurb at top right of the front page (website), right now.
Trump’s Attempts to Overturn Election Are Unparalleled in U.S.
Analysis: President Trump’s push to overturn the results of the 2020 election is an audacious use of brute political force.
Audacious, NYT? Try “egregious.”
Nicole
@Kay: Oh, that’s great that the community did what it could to give the seniors a ceremony. And I am sure that in the decades to come, the kids will look back and remember the effort and care that went into giving them what was possible. There’s a reason lots of grandparents like hand-made gifts best- it’s knowing someone put time and effort in because they care.
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I agree. These milestones that we mark publicly are important. My kid’s school is K-8, and I was crushed for the 8th graders last year: no in-person ceremony, no 8th dance, no 8th grade party at a restaurant, none of the things they’d seen the earlier years be celebrated with. I mean, I poke some gentle fun at all the graduation ceremonies they have in the NYC schools, because it’s not what I grew up with, but it certainly doesn’t mean I’m not sad for the kids who spent years expecting to get a ceremony and then have it taken away.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
What’s that, sonny? You’ll have to use ALL CAPS so I can hear you!
germy
SFAW
@Elizabelle:
Speak for yourself. I refer to it as the FTFTFNYT — the “Fuck the Fucking Trump-Fluffing NY Times.”
Nicole
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
Ha! And I hope the older relatives will lie awake and worry that the younger generation will have that in mind when it’s time to move those older relatives into care facilities.
TS (the original)
@p.a.:
Didn’t McConnell refuse to allow remote voting by senators (whereas Nancy Pelosi allowed it for the House)? This may come back to haunt him. It meant that the lady (whose name escapes me) had her nomination to the Federal Reserve blocked because too many GOPers were missing. Shame they didn’t all get covid sooner – to stop the SCOTUS nominee.
Kathleen
@Omnes Omnibus: Excellent reminder. I should do that every day.
NotMax
@Omnes Omnibus
(Maxwell Smart voice) “And … loving it.”
:)
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: How dare you try to suggest that they take a position. The word audacious, unlike the word egregious, carries no tone at all and is merely descriptive. I am appalled at your effrontery.
germy
Okay, BRB, I gotta change the toner
hueyplong
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: For me, reading Greenwald is like hearing Trump’s voice.
Life’s too short.
mrmoshpotato
@p.a.:
The Rethuglican party is a virus.
germy
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: I always see “audacious” in the positive sense. As in “The Audacity of Hope.” There is a negative connotation, too and that is the only fig leaf the FTF NY Times gets. It is a small one.
The NY Times did not use that word lightly. It was their choice.
I mean, Obama: The Rudeness of Hope. The Impudence of Hope. The Disrespect of Hope. No. Just. No.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Are you sure that’s not just a keyboard mash?
danielx
Unseasonably warm stretch coming to an end this evening as in high of 64 today, 46 tomorrow. I was informed by the spousal unit that I really need to finish up painting the back porch windows (read: wood frames with plastic sheeting) today.
Unspoken response: maybe better to finish the ones needing repair before doing cosmetic work? Yes, I have learned one or two things in decades of marriage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: Yes, I know. That was my point.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
They would, but none of us are speaking at the moment, which is fine by me.
Their commitment to patriotic freedom (which equals “fuck you, you’re on your own because John Wayne, the flag and American exceptionalism triumphing over evil socialism even though I’m drawing retirement, SS and Medicare and am so old that I no longer have a stake in change”) seems more important to them than my childrens’, my wife’s and my own financial well being.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Hey, at least they didn’t stoop using “bold” or “courageous.”
//
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: I know. I sensed the snark. But responded, in event it helps any lurkers not familiar with “audacious.”
danielx
@Omnes Omnibus:
And hope to get older, if only my idiotic fellow citizens don’t prevent it.
Omnes Omnibus
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I was referring to the youngs talking about you in future.
germy
Then whatever you do, don’t listen to Greenwald’s whiny voice. It’s like air escaping from a resentful balloon.
Ken
@germy: Ooh, I like. Is there a gradient markup, or did you have to set the color on each letter individually?
NotMax
@NotMax
FYWP ate my preposition.
Ought to read: stoop to.
catclub
@TS (the original):
I don’t think so. It was a cloture vote that was 47(against) and 50(for)
so failed to get 60 (for). They are never getting 60. They will not drop filibuster rules for that – not a lifetime appointment.
dmsilev
@p.a.:
Right now, I think just Scott and Grassley. Senator Kelly gets sworn in on the 30th, so at that point the Senate becomes 52-48 R, and two quarantined Republicans drops that to 50-48. Still not enough, but it does mean that it would only take 2 Republicans to defect on any given vote to cause a flip (one defector would mean a 49-49 tie and Pence shuffles in to break it). A couple more catching COVID from the Republican in-person luncheons and the like and then we’re talking…
hueyplong
@germy: Just as I imagined it.
Thanks for the heads up.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: Hey FTFNYT! Try “fascistic” “anti-democratic” “un-American” and/or “Donald Trump is a traitorous, orange, racist, fascistic, pussy-grabbing, Soviet shitpile mobster conman who’s been sucking the Kremlin’s asshole since at least 1987.”
What absolute trash heaps.
Why can’t we hibernate?
danielx
@Elizabelle:
De l’audace, encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace et la Patrie sera sauvée!
Elizabelle
Peeps: you might enjoy this free film festival this weekend only: Pocahontas Reframed. Independent films by, and about, original Americans/First Americans, Native Americans; your choice.
This year a festival of shorts. It’s usually presented at Richmond VA’s historic Byrd Theatre (1928 movie palace, with a Wurlitzer organ that rises from the orchestra pit for some screenings), but … covid. November 20-22. Starts at noon today.
Eventbrite, for tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-2020-pocahontas-reframed-film-festival-tickets-125830968815
The films, this year’s offerings.
germy
@Ken: No, just the last two words. You can pick a gray, and then manually adjust it.
I’ve done the toner cartridge joke here before. I’ve only got a few tools in my balloon-juice commenting toolbox.
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Omnes Omnibus:
Hey, I only facilitate them, pay for everything and stay out of the way of their decisions and choices. At some point in the next 5 years, I’ll vote in accordance with their choices.
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Some of us having the laying on fat in anticipation of winter part down pat.
Still working assiduously on the rest.
;)
dmsilev
Via Josh Marshall, Geraldo makes a strong entry in the “Trump fluffer of the day” contest on Fox:
TS (the original)
@catclub:
From everything I read the 60 (filibuster) was gone. All they needed was the 50 majority – they dropped it for the SCOTUS, why not this one? From Wapo
Judy Shelton’s nomination to the Federal Reserve Board of Governors was blocked in the Senate on Tuesday, with bipartisan opposition to the controversial economist and GOP absences prompted by the coronavirus imperiling her candidacy.
The vote had been expected to be razor-thin for Shelton, who was nominated by President Trump despite her past criticism of the central bank and her unorthodox views of monetary policy. But after the vote was scheduled, two Republicans, Sens. Rick Scott (Fla.) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), announced they were quarantining themselves after being exposed to the coronavirus and could not attend. (Grassley on Tuesday evening announced he had tested positive for the virus.) Two Republican senators voted against advancing Shelton on Tuesday; a third GOP senator who does not support her, Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), was not in attendance for the vote Tuesday.
The last-minute shifts proved too much for Republicans to overcome, at least for now. Although the GOP holds 53 seats in the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was able to muster only 48 Republican senators to end the filibuster on Shelton’s nomination. In the end, he voted against moving the nomination forward as well, a procedural move that allows him to bring up Shelton’s nomination at a later time.
Omnes Omnibus
@catclub: The 60 vote cloture level is dead for appointments. And a Federal Reserve appointment is not a lifetime gig.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle: NYT: The Asshat’s Asshat
Ken
@SFAW: I also remember a radio-blip noise (think “Mr and Mrs America and All the Ships at Sea!”), but I’m not sure if that was TV news or a movie. Or maybe Warner Brothers cartoons, which is also where I got most of my knowledge of classical music – except for the 9th symphony, which I got from the Huntley-Brinkley report.
Peale
@dmsilev: It’s the Dolly Parton vaccine. Sorry. Its already been named. I want my Dolly!
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax: Hahaha
Amir Khalid
@dmsilev:
The
mostonly interesting thing I know about Geraldo is that his ex-wife’s dad, who didn’t like him, called him Jerry Rivers.ArchTeryx
Thank God I have Balloon-Juice to go to. Lawyers, Guns and Money is in absolute Armageddon mode right now and the Great Orange Satan is ALWAYS in Armageddon mode. All the doom scrolling gets tiresome after a while.
Yes, fascism is on the march in America. I get it. There’s also nothing I can do short of help the Georgia senate elections or become a suicide bomber. The former I’m already doing, the latter doesn’t hold much appeal to me.
hueyplong
@ArchTeryx: We’re capable of a little dooming ourselves.
Watch what happens here if Trump tweets that he’s got Michigan after today’s meeting.
AWOL
@germy: I was actually watching the ABC-7 broadcast when Antoine, drunk off his arse, did the infamous rape joke.
ArchTeryx
@hueyplong: At least that would be a concrete event rather than endless prognostications of catastrophe. It’s right to be worried about the march of the fascists but endless doom posting doesn’t accomplish anything but spreading the pain.
germy
@AWOL:
I remember him drawing cartoons while doing the weather. And it always seemed like there was more drama going on back stage than met the eye.
Elizabelle
@mrmoshpotato: I know. As a subsciber, it’s knowing their brand of wine has some very good grapes, but also, indubitably, a lot of urine too.
Gin & Tonic
@Elizabelle:
Paging NotMax.
hueyplong
@ArchTeryx: Good point. I read LGM a lot less than I used to for the very reasons you have given.
Still love it when they visit the grave of a Confederate and run smack on him for a few pages.
Spanky
I’ve been listening to a 2-cycle engine running flat out for an hour and a half now. My neighbor’s idiot landscaper is trimming their boxwoods. Now, even a noob gardener knows you don’t prune evergreens in the fall because it’ll stimulate new shoots just before the killing temps and winds arrive.
Eedjits.
Ken
You might enjoy Jasper Fforde’s Early Riser.
NotMax
@Elizabelle
Groucho : You call this a barn? This looks like a stable.
Chico : Well, if you look at it, it’s a barn. If you smell it, it’s a stable.
Omnes Omnibus
@ArchTeryx: Two things: First, if this place is your refuge from doom, damn. Second, the system is being tested, sure. But the system is holding up. Courts are rejecting Trumpy claims, votes are being counted, etc. It’s messy, but democracy is messy. We’ve got this – this time.
NotMax
@Gin & Tonic
Movie palace marquee old joke.
THEY DIED WITH THEIR BOOTS ON
AND SELECTED SHORTS
.
Ken
What a polite way of saying “batshit insane desire to revert to the 19th-century policies that gave us the Panics of 1857, 1873, 1893, 1910, and probably a few I’m missing”.
Chief Oshkosh
@Baud: Another nail in the coffin of the “economic anxious” bullshit?
Geminid
@O. Felix Culpa: I live in Greene County, 20 miles NW of Charlottesville. It is a pretty area. But New Mexico is special. I camped there on a couple of road trips early last year, at Santa Rosa and Bottomless Lakes State Parks. I hope to go back this spring. Will I see more wind generators when I go back? The clean power bill passed by the legislature last year should be kicking in. Santa Rosa State Park was the windiest place I ever camped. The tent sites are on the crest of a ridge, and the wind there made the winds at the NC Outer Banks seem like playful zephyrs.
Ruckus
@Kay:
Does anything about him make sense?
And I mean anything. A 17 yr old crosses state lines, driven by his mother, to shoot people with a gun he brought (he’s 17, can he even buy that gun himself?) with money for help with survival for not working during a pandemic, and that’s the strange thing? I know and supposedly am smart enough to understand this situation, but I don’t think I can make any kind of sense of it whatsoever. There is no explanation possible other than serious idiocracy.
O. Felix Culpa
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
You, sir, are an ageist ass.
Aleta
@Elizabelle: That looks amazing. Thanks very much.
NotMax
@Geminid
(Mental trivia Rolodex furiously spinning.)
Doesn’t Greene County include a community named Dyke?
CaseyL
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Happy (belated) birthday to you, and many more!
@Ken: Happy (early) birthday, and many more, to you, too!
O. Felix Culpa
@Geminid: The Governor instituted strict stay-at-home orders this week. Hopefully we’ll have this wretched virus under control by this spring. I don’t know if we have more wind power installations because we haven’t been able to go anywhere! :)
But yes, there’s strong support for building out renewable energy given how much wind and sunshine we get here.
germy
@NotMax:
“The next number will be Somewhere My Love Lies Sleeping with a male chorus”
BrianM
I don’t want to be all Villago delenda est about it, but re: “President-elect Joe Biden outlines his plan for tackling the Covid crisis in the US“. I could find no news articles about what that plan is. Washington Post, NYTimes, Guardian, and NPR have articles that mention the press conference, but the reporting is all mean-girl gossip and soap opera psychodrama.
The BBC link doesn’t go to an article about the press conference.
NPR at least gives a link to the whole thing, but as Kay might say, it’s not my job to watch and summarize press conferences, it’s theirs.
Lyrebird
@comrade scotts agenda of rage:
WOW this thread is gone but if you’re still here, THANK YOU!
She’s been willing to ask tough questions and speak truth for a while w/o getting much recognition for it, but I have never heard something quite like this! As good as the Nicolle Wallace chicken snit remark (not quite those words) and maybe more far-reaching. With all due respect to the Vindmans, who are awesome and deserve all the credit we could send.
Steeplejack
@Kay:
Sorry to hear that, Kay. I hope the kid gets to keep his job—and tests negative, of course.
jeffreyw
@Sebastian:
With this Skeletor covid news I’m pretty sure the chance of the virus mutating within an infected person and causing a genuine zombie outbreak has just reached a level too horrible to ignore.
Geminid
@NotMax: my voting place was the Dyke Volunteer Fire Department building. It was a pretty 7 mile drive.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Quite sure.
I may be losing my memory, but I’m dead certain that … uh, what was I talking about?
Elizabelle
@NotMax: That’s great. LOL.
Elizabelle
@Kay: Virtual hugs to you and your son. That is rough.
He is having his life overly disrupted because our country is so exceptional [ly stupid and selfish].
Uncle Cosmo
Primo gossip-monger Walter Winchell in the gory days of radio: Good evening Mr and Mrs America and all the ships at sea! FLASH! – & he’d be off with one trashy &/or scurrilous tidbit after another.
(And no I am NOT old enough to remember this foist-hand, but I do have a continuing fascination with the world my parents [both b. 1913] grew up in.)
AWOL
@germy: Grimsby always had this deadpan look like he was a straight man leading a bunch of clowns. Whatever, it was the pre-cable news era, and watching all the NYC networks expand their news to two-plus hours in the mid-1970s foreshadowed our 24/7 news cycle.
Elizabelle
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: Weirdly enough, the NPR news recap person did say Trump lied about the election results. Today at 11:00; I think. They said “lied.”
Was pleasantly surprised. You won’t hear that from that fool who hosts All Things Considered, I would guess.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I have not seen it. Scary stuff.
Miss Bianca
@MomSense: OMG – that is horrifying and deeply, disgustingly funny at the same time.
Miss Bianca
@danielx: Wow, I’m glad I’m not the only French Revolution freak who thought of that line!
Doug R
@Ken: Well, this is 5 years old:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtCslvCjZEY
Anonymous At Work
I noticed that Asa Hutchinson, term-limited from re-running for Governor of Arkansas in 2022…he was sitting as far from his camera as possible while still being visible.
H-Bob
@debbie: It’s not hair dye, it was santorum!
NotMax
Turns out I was having a senior moment when I said at #21 above the free concerts are scheduled to start at 1 p.m. Eastern time and shifted the time difference from here the wrong way – they’ll begin at 11 p.m. Eastern time.
Ruckus
@frosty:
I’ve been retirement age for a while, still haven’t been able to enjoy, or even know what the hell an incredibly lazy phase is.
I’m hoping to make it 5/6 more months so that I can retire and experience that.