Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

I really should read my own blog.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

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

fuckem (in honor of the late great efgoldman)

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

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

You cannot shame the shameless.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The willow is too close to the house.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

T R E 4 5 O N

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

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Prediction: the GOP will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

I like you, you’re my kind of trouble.

You are here: Home / Past Elections / 2020 Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Friday Morning Open Thread: President-Elected Biden Continues To Impress

Friday Morning Open Thread: President-Elected Biden Continues To Impress

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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.”…

Reader Interactions

310Comments

  3. 3.

    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.

  6. 6.

    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.

  9. 9.

    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! :)

  11. 11.

    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.!

  13. 13.

    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.

  15. 15.

    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.

  16. 16.

    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).

  17. 17.

    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.

  19. 19.

    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?

  20. 20.

    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.

  23. 23.

    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.

  24. 24.

    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!

  28. 28.

    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.

  37. 37.

    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)

  38. 38.

    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.

  40. 40.

    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.

  42. 42.

    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.

  43. 43.

    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.

  44. 44.

    Ken

    @Baud: I expect Rudi’s next press conference will be held with him sitting on a toilet.

    Where’s a T-Rex when you really need one?

  45. 45.

    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.

  47. 47.

    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.

  49. 49.

    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.

  51. 51.

    Kay

    b-boy bouiebaisse
    @jbouie
    ·11m
    the unprecedented multiracial Trump coalition is about as nonwhite as Bush 2000, maybe a little less given Democratic gains with Asian American voters

    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.

  53. 53.

    NotMax

    BTW, belated kudos to Mr. Tam.

    A 28-year-old first-time candidate who won a seat in the state House representing Waikiki and Ala Moana is getting national attention for breaking barriers.

    Adrian Tam is an openly gay son of Asian immigrants.

    That’s not unusual in Hawaii, but elsewhere it’s making news.
    [snip]
    The Kalani High School graduate beat veteran Democratic incumbent Tom Brower in the primary and then in the general won over his Republican opponent with 63% of the vote.

    “This really was rather a dramatic confrontation between two candidates who really are on polar opposites of the political spectrum,” said Colin Moore, University of Hawaii Public Policy Center director and HNN political analyst.

    “Adrian Tam, who is quite progressive, and Nick Ochs, who is the Republican and who’s a member of the Proud Boys, which is a neo-right organization,” Moore added. Source

  56. 56.

    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.

  70. 70.

    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.

  73. 73.

    rikyrah

    ???

    Maddow: Don't get this thing. Do whatever you can to keep from getting it.Rachel Maddow reveals that her partner, Susan, tested positive for Covid-19 and is still recovering, and implores viewers to consider their loved ones when they calculate their own Covid-19 risk. pic.twitter.com/oUz2DBLG63— Maddow Blog (@MaddowBlog) November 20, 2020

  75. 75.

    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”.

  78. 78.

    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.

  79. 79.

    rikyrah

    Republican state legislatures are going to go after mail in ballots in their next legislative session and put in some draconian new laws to make it harder for Black and Brown folk to vote just in time for 2022. You all know that's their next move, right? Watch.— Lynn V (@lynnv378) November 20, 2020

  81. 81.

    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.)

  82. 82.

    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.

  84. 84.

    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.

  88. 88.

    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.

  89. 89.

    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.

  90. 90.

    Soprano2

    @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.

    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.

  92. 92.

    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.

  94. 94.

    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. :-)

  95. 95.

    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.

  99. 99.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: 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.

    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.

  102. 102.

    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.

  104. 104.

    Kay

    @Betty Cracker:

    “I got my $1,200 from the coronavirus Illinois unemployment because 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 his first jailhouse interview.

    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.

  107. 107.

    Soprano2

    @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.

    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.

  108. 108.

    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.

  110. 110.

    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?

  111. 111.

    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

  112. 112.

    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.

  113. 113.

    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.

  119. 119.

    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.

  120. 120.

    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.

  128. 128.

    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.

  129. 129.

    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.

  130. 130.

    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.

  132. 132.

    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.

  133. 133.

    catclub

    @Kay: 

    They traded everything for a coalition that is not more “winning” than the coalition they had in 2000 and 2004.

    Isn’t that mostly because the white percentage of the vote is steadily decreasing?

  137. 137.

    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.”

  138. 138.

    SFAW

    @PsiFighter37:

    Also, it was Dan Lipinski, not Ted.

    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.

  142. 142.

    germy

    Imagine if a quarter million Americans died from a deadly pandemic and a Black President of the United States just lounged around golfing, tweeting and watching TV the whole time.

    — Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) November 20, 2020

  144. 144.

    SFAW

    @Gin & Tonic:

    God, do you remember him with the Willowbrook stories, when it seemed like he actually cared?

    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.]

  147. 147.

    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.

  148. 148.

    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.

  149. 149.

    SFAW

    @Immanentize:

    Time for a person man woman camera tv test.

    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.”

  150. 150.

    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.

  152. 152.

    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.

  153. 153.

    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.

  154. 154.

    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.

  158. 158.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SFAW: Or, as George Carlin would say: “Un-fuck him.”

    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!

  160. 160.

    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.”

  163. 163.

    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.

  165. 165.

    SFAW

    @germy:

    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.

    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.

  172. 172.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @raven:  Rittenhouse is 17. I doubt he was eligible for a stimulus check.

    ETA: I see it was IL unemployment compensation.

  175. 175.

    SFAW

    @germy:

    Tex Antoine got into trouble when he told a rape joke on live TV.

    Yes, I remember — “lay back and enjoy it.” It was sometime after that I learned he “had a drinking problem.”

  176. 176.

    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.

  177. 177.

    germy

    @The Thin Black Duke:  Remember Roger Grimsby?

    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…

  178. 178.

    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

  180. 180.

    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.

  183. 183.

    germy

    @frosty: 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 bosses all know Mitch McConnell’s got their back.

  184. 184.

    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.

  185. 185.

    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 :)

  187. 187.

    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.

  189. 189.

    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.

  191. 191.

    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.

  192. 192.

    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.

  194. 194.

    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.

  195. 195.

    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.

  196. 196.

    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.

  198. 198.

    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!

  199. 199.

    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.

     

    I’m no political pundit but I grew up w a dad who was a federal prosecutor & he taught me a lot & I’ve also sat a fair amount of poker w serious players & l’ll say this: I do not think Trump is trying to ‘make his base happy’ or ‘laying the groundwork for his own network’…— Edward Norton (@EdwardNorton) November 20, 2020

  203. 203.

    SFAW

    @NotMax:

    Semi-related, for the younger set: How respected live TV newscasts once handled breaking news, dead air be damned.

    Neat. I especially liked the sound of typewriters in the background. [I can hear Goku saying “the sound of what?”]

  205. 205.

    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.

  206. 206.

    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.

  207. 207.

    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.

  208. 208.

    Ken

    @Immanentize: You’ve entirely forgotten that you watched the Walton’s?

    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.

  209. 209.

    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.

  212. 212.

    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.

  214. 214.

    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….

  215. 215.

    Kay

    @Nicole:

    With luck, your youngest will still get to have a graduation ceremony; I am really hoping by spring things will be getting better.

    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”.

  216. 216.

    p.a.

    JUST IN: Sen. Rick SCOTT has coronavirus.

    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?

  219. 219.

    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.

  220. 220.

    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.

  221. 221.

    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.

  222. 222.

    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.

  223. 223.

    SFAW

    @Ken:

    I think that sound was teletypes.

    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.

  226. 226.

    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.”

  227. 227.

    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.

  230. 230.

    SFAW

    @Elizabelle:

    Why we call it Fuck the Fucking NY Times.

    Speak for yourself. I refer to it as the FTFTFNYT — the “Fuck the Fucking Trump-Fluffing NY Times.”

  231. 231.

    Nicole

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    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.

    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.

  232. 232.

    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.

  235. 235.

    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.

  240. 240.

    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.

    The essence of audacity and audacious is “having the bravery to do something that could offend others.” Because of this, the word has both a positive (bravery, bold) connotation and a negative (rude, impudent, disrespectful) connotation.

  242. 242.

    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.

  244. 244.

    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.

  249. 249.

    germy

    @hueyplong:  For me, reading Greenwald is like hearing Trump’s voice.

    Then whatever you do, don’t listen to Greenwald’s whiny voice.  It’s like air escaping from a resentful balloon.

  252. 252.

    catclub

    @TS (the original): 

    It meant that the lady (whose name escapes me) had her nomination to the Federal Reserve blocked because too many GOPers were missing.

    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.

  253. 253.

    dmsilev

    @p.a.:

    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?

    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…

  255. 255.

    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?

  257. 257.

    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.

  258. 258.

    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.

  259. 259.

    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.

  261. 261.

    dmsilev

    Via Josh Marshall, Geraldo makes a strong entry in the “Trump fluffer of the day” contest on Fox:

    To soften the blow of defeat Fox's Geraldo proposes naming the vaccine after Trump. "It would be a nice gesture to him and years from now it would become kind of a generic name. Have you got your trump yet, I got my trump, I'm fine. I wished we could honor him in that way." pic.twitter.com/fM8qwFhxF6— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) November 20, 2020

  262. 262.

    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.

  265. 265.

    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.

  268. 268.

    Amir Khalid

    @dmsilev:

    The most only interesting thing I know about Geraldo is that his ex-wife’s dad, who didn’t like him, called him Jerry Rivers.

  269. 269.

    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.

  270. 270.

    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.

  272. 272.

    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.

  273. 273.

    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.

  276. 276.

    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.

  277. 277.

    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.

  279. 279.

    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.

  280. 280.

    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.

  282. 282.

    Ken

    @TS (the original): her unorthodox views of monetary policy

    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”.

  284. 284.

    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.

  285. 285.

    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.

  290. 290.

    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.

  292. 292.

    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.

  293. 293.

    Lyrebird

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:

    From Brianna Keilar yesterday on CNN:

    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.

  295. 295.

    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.

  299. 299.

    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].

  300. 300.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Ken: I also remember a radio-blip noise (think “Mr and Mrs America and All the Ships at Sea!”)

    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.)

  301. 301.

    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.

  302. 302.

    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.

  307. 307.

    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.

  309. 309.

    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.

  310. 310.

    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.

Comments are closed.