people are transitioning from bad election tweets to just generally bad opinions and i feel like we are already mending and it’s not even january 20th. upward and onward.
— Normie Transition Team (@CalmSporting) December 1, 2020
It’s only just becoming clear how much the squatting misadministration has kept even the ‘neutral arbiters’ stressed. You may no longer consciously notice the jackhammer chorus next door, but it’s a pure physical relief when they finally stop…
in some ways the last four years have been gearing up for this moment, where the president clearly lost and his party is so ground into dust that they can't even state this obvious fact. it is forbidden to say the thing everyone knows. tremendous stuff.
— Normie Transition Team (@CalmSporting) December 1, 2020
“The only question left open is whether the media will give up their addiction to him or not — that will determine a great deal." https://t.co/NUn4fPXZK3
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) December 2, 2020
if trump hadn’t broken the needles off all the gages everyone would be fascinated with joe biden breaking the right’s brains by pulling shit like stepping out of the way as trump sets himself on fire with rudy & the moron gang while also getting them to shriek about neera tanden
— kilgore trout, tiny desk carpenter (@KT_So_It_Goes) December 2, 2020
We know, we were there. https://t.co/jnbVsYcXY4
— Four Seasons Total Manscaping ?️?? (@SJGrunewald) December 2, 2020
(Also you will hear lots of sanctimonious rationalizations like, “How dare you, he’s a potential 2024 candidate, it’s news!!!” There are lots of potential 2024 candidates—this is about eyeballs and clixxxx and feeding a beast that Biden is less likely to feed.)
— James Poniewozik (@poniewozik) December 2, 2020
Biden isn’t horrifying the world. No one is desperate to see Democrats who are rejecting Biden. https://t.co/lypTx3WNAl
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) December 2, 2020
At some point it’s no longer infighting, it’s just fighting. https://t.co/beyggMJBHo
— Tentin Quarantino (@agraybee) December 2, 2020
the problem with weigel’s premise here is that the neverbidens aren’t like, “normal” moderate democrats, they’re closer to the “own the libs” ideology of trump supporters. they’re incongruous comparisons, dave, and your friends seem to be making plenty of money on their own.
— special interest machine (@golikehellmachi) December 2, 2020
Let's put some people who have been absolutely wrong about everything and who represent even a smaller part of the electorate than Never Trumpers on TV.
— staying home stan account?? (@Convolutedname) December 1, 2020
On the quickly growing irrelevance of @realDonaldTrump: “To a remarkable degree, people have already stopped paying attention to the 45th president.” https://t.co/tyqsIo1l3G
— Joy WE VOTED!! WEAR A MASK!! Reid ?) (@JoyAnnReid) December 3, 2020
… The past few weeks have offered a preview of what Donald Trump’s post-presidency might look like: The president fulminates at length, playing pundit, but is a practical nonfactor in policy discussions. He can still command the affection of millions—and raise millions of dollars from them—but the balance of the country has already moved on and tuned out. Trump’s ability to command the news cycle has been eclipsed by the virus he couldn’t be bothered to stop and the rival candidate he couldn’t beat.
This is not license for the nation to let down its guard. There is still much damage that the outgoing president can do, and is doing, to democratic institutions, governance, and policy. Yet the odd atmosphere over the past few days, in which Trump ramps up his rhetoric yet seems to have an ever more tenuous hold on the nation’s attention, represents a shift even from the initial days after November 3, when his attempt to steal the election was still headline news…
2021 Pets of Balloon Juice Calendars Are Ready To Order
Baud
Interesting how he sees the world.
ETA: Did Fox have a bunch of NeverTrumpers on?
Edmund Dantes
Man. A lot of these reads like “trump was the problem, glad that’s all solved”.
I hope people understand (mostly DC elite I worry the most about) Trump is only a symptom of a much more broken party that will continue to do damage long after he is gone.
MattF
Yup. Power is leaking out of the Trump White House, and the Orange Menace can’t stop it. Failing downwards will be a novel experience for Trump, and it’s about time. The limited behavioral repertoire is drained. There’s a noisy, vehement, and bonkers cheering section, a larger mute peanut gallery, and a majority who are looking forward to a more normal existence in around a year.
Bruce K in ATH(GR)
This whole lame-duck period is like … well, imagine you’ve been diagnosed with something that requires surgery, and you know that once it’s done you’ll be better, but there isn’t an open operating room ready yet, so you’ve just got to wait and endure until then.
Bruce K in ATH(GR)
@Edmund Dantes: No kidding. I’m convinced that a lot of the kids who voted for the first time this year are going to live to see the end of either the GOP or the USA. I’m convinced there’s no longer a future in which both survive.
WaterGirl
@Bruce K in ATH(GR): I think every comment has to be manually approved if you have an ( or ) in your name.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@WaterGirl: Oops! I’ll change my nym then
(Oops again. Maybe the hyphen? Or the fact that I was just using “Bruce K” up until now?)
Jeffro
It’s a dynamic situation – boring orange moron can’t hog the mic forever! – and there’s a long-overdue GOP civil war a-comin’. Let’s help the media find their way to THAT story.
gene108
It will take you just one second to watch this video. It will brighten up your day.
https://twitter.com/TheRealDWoo/status/1334558645439393798?s=20
gvg
@Edmund Dantes: Well we all know the whole GOP has been a problem for some time BUT a President as stupid and malicious as Trump is actually a serious problem in a way that a GOP senate isn’t. The worst GOP governors are also a similar issue. We still have problems but we are escaping a frightening burden and it’s OK to celebrate that isn’t it?
I also wonder of some of the media are striking back at Trump in spite and rubbing it in that he lost and he is a nut. He threatened them, why shouldn’t they enjoy hurting him back?
Yeah there are still other problems but a malignant kook in the Presidency is special. Hope we don’t let it happen again.
gene108
@Jeffro:
The GOP’s had a few “civil wars” over the last few decades.
This round won’t amount to much.
Republicans will become more radically conservative. A few people, who still have some principles left will exit the party. The rest of the Republicans will carry on becoming more radical.
different-church-lady
Yeah, I feel that, but then every once in a while a time-kill tweet I’m reading leads me down the rabbit hole, and the kind of crazy happening down there does not inspire any kind of calm feeling about anything at all. There’s a lot of people who fully believe Trump won because HE JUST DID!! No logic, no evidence, no nothing, just raw screeching about the impossibility of him not winning. An complete alternate universe, and it’s not going to ever go away entirely.
Bill Arnold
@gene108:
Mike in NC
The Bidens won’t get invited to the White House, but Putin probably will be. He’ll most likely decline.
Trump joins Andrew Johnson as a seditious, impeached, one term loser who sympathized with the enemies of democracy and churlishly refused to meet with his successor.
germy
He’s got top shelf talent working for him.
Cameron
Trump has been living in hell for the last four years? Shows how out of date my theology is. I didn’t know they have golf in hell.
Chyron HR
@Cameron:
I think it’s the only sport they have.
Patricia Kayden
different-church-lady
@Cameron: Kinda makes you wonder why he wanted to re-enlist.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: Weigel was a big promoter of Chapo Traphouse, as I recall. I actually think he’s a good reporter, but his own politics seem a bit…. erratic. He seems drawn to the fringe
Imagine promoting BJG as “credible”.
gene108
@Bill Arnold:
Baby bat dah de do do do do baby bat
Bill Arnold
@different-church-lady:
The oh-so-curious thing about the mainstream election fraud conspiracies involving rigging is that they just as easily explain why polls were so wrong in battleground states; perhaps the election was rigged for Trump (and in 2016 too, and 2018 in Florida! :-), just not quite enough to overcome the larger than expected Democratic turnout.
Since what hand-recounts there were found nothing, it’s (probably) bullshit, to be clear. It’s just that the theory is a retread of election fraud conspiracy theories promoted by Democrats to explain weird Republican wins. But Republican conspiracy theories live forever. We still hear Bircher theories, and about the 1960 election and voting by the dead.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I thought he meant bring her in to provide the infighting.
Jeffro
They did? When? (1964, maybe?)
Nickel bet on this round! ;)
Ken
That’s not the only thing he’s got an ever-more-tenuous hold on…
West of the Rockies
@gvg:
I would think it irresistible for some of the media to strike back. Especially at Trump, Pompeo, McAninny, and others who were gleefully hateful and dishonest. Then again, Spicer was allowed onto DwtS ad Palin on whatever that masked singer show is.
different-church-lady
@Bill Arnold: In 2016 my gut was quite certain the vote totals were hacked in Trump’s favor.
The difference is (a) I knew I had no evidence of it, I was just hoping it was true, and (b) I was never Clinton’s lawyer.
sdhays
The real reason that no one will hire Democratic Biden critics is that if they criticize Biden from the left, they run the risk of making Biden seem even more moderate and reasonable. Regardless of the sincerity of their critique, giving prominent voice to those kinds of critiques just might move the Overton Window, and then where would the corporate masters be? Taxes!? Regulation?! Safety net???!!!!! Terrifying!!
It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, it only matters if hiring managers think it might be true. Best not to risk it. We’re a “center-right” nation, after all
ETA: I don’t know anything about the people Dave W. is promoting. I’m just speaking generally.
West of the Rockies
@germy:
Giuliani farts in her general direction.
different-church-lady
@Ken: PHRASING!
Spanky
@Patricia Kayden: Sensitive information? So many questions …
PJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Weigel was/is a libertarian Ron Paul fan who became a Bernie Bro. As you say, his reporting is generally solid but his personal opinions tend to be terrible. He is also a huge prog rock fan, which kind of goes without saying with the libertarian stuff.
gene108
@Jeffro:
Latest one I recall was the Tea Party rise, which caused Arlen Spectre to change parties, same with Charlie Christ.
Like I said, their “civil wars” never amount to much. They are authoritarians, who follow whoever is leading them at any given moment. It also helps that they have no actual policies or principles, other than to stay in power.
I would not expect to see anything much coming, after Trump leaves office, in terms of a party publicly fighting with itself. Most will remain loyal to whatever it is they are ordered to believe at the time.
Matt McIrvin
I would love for the country to be in a situation where I felt safe enough to spend all my time sniping at Joe Biden from the left. But I don’t think that’s ever going to happen.
Bill Arnold
@different-church-lady:
Well, your gut could be quite certain that the vote totals were hacked in Trump’s favor in 2020, too. (just not enough.) I mean, why not? It’s more consistent than that they were hacked for Trump in 2016 and for Biden (or not at all) in 2020.
Minnesota polling error 2 percent, Wisconsin polling error 7.7 percent. Explain that, wingnuts! :-) (I need to update my spreadsheet, though, done several days after election.)
Ken
@different-church-lady: I meant a hold on his sanity, but on re-reading I can see other ways it could be read. For example, I understand his golf game is slipping too.
geg6
So, apparently they’ve had phone numbers for the parents of children separated from their parents. And just started turning them over to lawyers for the children. Jesus fucking Christ, I despise these fuckers so much. Just saw it on Nicolle Wallace’s show.
Patricia Kayden
Jeffro
@gene108: the Tea Party was just rebranding, we all know that now ;)
The GOP has never had a berserk post-WH, will-he-run-again??!? lunatic like trumpov stirring up their base and refusing to get out of the way (except, perhaps, to anoint Don Jr or Ivanka as his successor) so that he can keep the grift going.
There’s a whole crop of ambitious GOP pols like Hawley, Rubio, Haley, Crenshaw, and worse and they’re already having to deal with the push-pull of accepting reality (like election results) or backing trumpov. trumpov WILL make it into a loyalty test and WILL actively and publicly go after anyone who tries to move on.
Sooner or later, a Hawley or a Haley has to ask the GOP base, “while we thank trumpov for showing us the way, standing tall, etc etc…are we ready to move on?”
I guess we’ll see…
Ken
Doesn’t Russian have a single word for that? Chekist, maybe? (sound of googling*) Perhaps politruk, though that’s a military position.
* Curious that Hollywood hasn’t settled on a sound effect for that. For a while we were getting modem noises any time anyone touched a computer, but thankfully that’s passed.
Lyrebird
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: It was cool to get to wave hello all the way to ATH GR on one of the Zoom chats!
and as far as seeing…
During the 2016 primary I could laugh at the jokes like,
Trump was sent from the future to destroy the Republican Party.
After 11/9/2016, couldn’t laugh about it.
Now it’s like you said, let’s get this whole business done with already!
Ken
ANNOUNCER: “We warn parents that the following video may be too graphic for children.”
NotMax
Thought it inconceivable to be subjected to a more atrocious finale of Lost.
I was wrong.
danielx
Relief at election results, but…he’s still there. Still running his mouth, still running government agencies into the ground, still ignoring the pandemic while thousands die every day, still…just pissing into the soup in general. It’s exhausting and I can’t relax, like somebody turned off my joy meter.
I want him gone and we are still stuck with him for weeks, flinging shit to see what sticks and creating havoc on general principles like a toddler denied his wishes.
VeniceRiley
@Patricia Kayden: Texas was one of the dry run practice states for cold supply chain.
MomSense
@Bruce K in ATH(GR):
Kalispera!
geg6
@Jeffro:
I read, I think at TPM, about some “leadership” summit or something like that that the RNC and and Ronna Romney McDaniel are planning. Supposedly, it’s to feature their idea of who will be in the 2024 field for their nomination, like Pence and Haley and Pompeo and the like. They are trying to keep it on the down low but did say, of course they will invite Trump. They always planned it that way! Really! It’s not like they’re terrified that he found out and decided on a last minute invite so he doesn’t set his rabid wolverines on them! Really!
Ksmiami
@gene108: stop calling what the GOP is “conservative.” Radical revanchist /reactionary is a more apt moniker. The Rt has been stark raving mad since the late 90s but it’s much worse now
NotMax
@danielx
“Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?
Are we there yet?”
.
:)
Steve in the ATL
@Cameron:
Yes, a PUBLIC course [shudder]
[Hi, BillinGlendaleCA!]
Bruce K in ATH-GR
@Lyrebird: I never saw it as a joke, actually – I’ve been thinking about it for a few years now, but 2020 brought it into sharp relief – the GOP will destroy America within the next couple of generations unless the GOP itself is destroyed, the entire rotten edifice torn down to the ground, the foundations shattered, and the ground salted.
The former National Security Advisor, freshly pardoned by the President, is calling for a coup d’etat, and the GOP is fbeeping letting it happen.
Brachiator
Yes, this is what the Trump administration has been for us.
Anne Laurie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, Weigel’s been a real disappointment over the past year or so. He used to be a good reporter, but getting some ego-strokes from the ‘dirtbag left’ seems to have broken his brain. I was hoping the Biden/Harris win might break the spell, but so far Dave’s fighting to *stay* on the alt-left Titanic!
Miss Bianca
@Chyron HR:
No…*watching* it is the only sport they have.
WaterGirl
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: They hyphen should be fine, but it was the first time with that new nym with the hyphen, and the first one always has to be manually approved.
trollhattan
@gene108:
I totally got this!
JustRuss
Once Trump slithers out of the White House, the media won’t be hanging on his every tweet. His adoring fans will get their fix straight from the source, and the rest of us won’t care what his thumbs are saying. That leaves no eyeballs for the media (except OANN and maybe Fox), too bad, so sad.
Cameron
@different-church-lady: Many are thawed, but few are frozen. Or something like that.
different-church-lady
If I remember correctly, at this point four years ago there were a lot of people saying “WHY WON’T HILLARY JUST GO AWAY???”
trollhattan
@Patricia Kayden:
Uhhhh, wha? There’s more of us. A LOT more.
different-church-lady
@JustRuss:
Oh you kidder you!
Nora
@trollhattan: Ah, but you’re in a BLUE state. Not a real U.S. State that went for Trump. You understand the difference, right? Speaking as someone from another BLUE state (NY), I figure we’ll get pushed to the bottom of the distribution list regardless of our numbers.
JustRuss
@Miss Bianca: Oh, Trump will get to play in Hell alright….but he won’t get to cheat.
Cameron
@Ken: He’s sitting at the Resolute desk flogging his dog? Egad!
NotMax
@Chyron HR
“Warned ya the seventh hole’s a bitch. That dogleg is attached to Cerberus.”
Ken
@Cameron: @Chyron HR: @Miss Bianca: In Dante’s Inferno, there are several sports. Well, forms of exercise, or at least running, generally away from… things. Though the souls in the vestibule chase after banners.
Brachiator
@Cameron:
The Fourth Circle of Hell is where they put sinners who cheat at golf.
trollhattan
California’s new COVID policies.
Heard our county infection rate is around 10% of all tests. IIRC that’s almost an order of magnitude higher than early fall.
debbie
NPR ran a report on the RWNJ rush to Parler. It sounds like it will be a real pool of insanity. I hope those non-existent agencies keep an eye on the goings-on.
Kent
In politics you are either on offense or defense. For every moment of the last 4 years we have been on defense. On immigration, environmental affairs, judges, taxes, health care. On every damn issue under the sun, 100% of our energy has been to simply prevent backsliding from the Obama era.
It will be an enormous enormous relief to finally be on offense. Biden and the Dems aren’t going to win nearly every battle. But every single win will push some metric further in the right direction. Every single one.
As for the sniping from the left? Sure, hold the Biden Administration’s feet to the fire. That’s what they actually want because it give them cover. But the performative lefty grievance bullshit is useless.
But it will be good to finally be on offense for a change. Just never forget that the fucking Orcs are always right outside the door.
rikyrah
@Edmund Dantes:
That’s what they wish. They are just glossing over the crazies that we’re seeing all over the place who are now threatening GOPers that they deem ‘ traitors’- look at Georgia.
They don’t have an explanation for it.
We still have the horror of the GOP who is blocking everything. They were fine with the intransigence of the GOP, as long as it was wrapped up in packages like Moscow Mitch. Remember all the Villagers who assured us that Bill Barr was Old School GOP, and thus a grownup?
They don’t want to admit that the deplorables that they have spent 4 years trying to normalize, while we don’t buy it….are, in fact, phucking deplorable.
Mo MacArbie
@Spanky: Heidi Stirrup? Her name is Heidi Stirrup? Freakin’ writers on this show. Fake names!
Mary G
Ken
@Brachiator: Fourth Circle is another exercise: greedy sinners roll giant balls at one another. Probably as close to golf as anything in hell.
debbie
@trollhattan:
While my county has just gone from purple to red (a small but good thing), my state is now on its own quarantine list. States on this list require a 2-week quarantine upon return home. I can’t figure out how this will work.
Kent
From what I read somewhere, the online porn hubs are all flooding into Parler as well. Nothing like a new internet wild west upon which to stake a claim! Plus, they know their market. It’s probably largely pasty white conservative incel types full of fury and flop sweat who are flooding to Parler in the first place.
NotMax
@debbie
Lemmings. Cliff. ’nuff said.
(Yes, I know it’s not quite like that in real life animal world. Snarktistic license.)
Kent
Biden needs to play hardass just like Trump. Fuck with Kentucky if he has to. Redeploy the 101st Airborne out of Fort Cambell to a blue state and shut the damn place down. That will cost Kentucky a billion or so dollars. Convince the Europeans to leave the massive tariffs on Bourbon when they negotiate the rest of them down. Stuff like that. That’s what Trump would do.
KSinMA
@Patricia Kayden: That story–and the list of jobs that woman has held–is hair-raising.
NotMax
@Kent
“My god, it’s full of
starstissue and socks ads!”//
JMG
@Kent: Some Parler users have returned to Twitter complaining it was no fun being on a site where everyone agreed with them. Translation: They couldn’t be trolls anymore.
Brachiator
We are getting close to the endgame. California should be the last state to certify votes on December 11. Then, unless Trump finds a way to drag this out further…
I am looking forward to another Trump freakout on December 14.
Matt McIrvin
@Kent:
We’re not going to be on offense. The last time the Democrats were really on offense was about 1965. Before I was born. Vietnam + the Southern Strategy ended that.
NotMax
@Kent
A more cogent argument against doing something would be a Herculean task to craft.
West of the Rockies
So this may be a meh kind of observation, but it strikes me that the Trump GOP is sort of like the old TV show Dallas. Trump is JR. As far as I recall, no one really liked JR Ewing (except maybe men who wanted power
money, and to constantly cheat on a beautiful wife). JR was vile and corrupt but people tuned in. Eventually the revolving cast and repetitive conflicts wore thin, I guess. One hopes that this Trump episode will soon collapse under it’s own diseased weight.
Roger Moore
One of the things I find most obvious is how much Twitter itself has changed since the election. I think I’ve seen more non-political hashtag games and funny chain tweets in the past month than I did in the previous 4 years. Maybe that’s just me being overly sensitive, but it sure feels as if Twitter especially has been twisted by Trump’s presence, and his suddenly diminished importance is being felt most acutely there.
m.j.
No one does interviews like the BBC.
It was interesting to hear Gabriel Sterling say that no one else had bothered to ask him if he had voted for Trump.
Kent
I didn’t make the rules, the GOP did.
Sm*t Cl*de
@Patricia Kayden:
Die Kommissarin is no longer back in town.
Cacti
Really?
I don’t feel like we’re mending at all.
Covid deaths are topping 3,000 per day, a widely available vaccine is still months away, and the right wing of this country has fully embraced fascism. It’s great that Trump lost, but I don’t see calm seas ahead in the coming months.
oatler.
@JustRuss: 
“Eating pool food!” -Lucille Bluth
opiejeanne
@Mary G: I just saw an ad during Nicole Wallace’s show for “Save the Children”. They showed pictures of starving and sick kids in Africa, but isn’t that the name of Q-Anon’s phony charity?
“…Save the Children — a century-old, London-based humanitarian organization that aided 144 million children worldwide last year with a mission of ensuring kids grow up healthy, educated and safe — found its trademarked name coopted on social media. The charity has repeatedly said it is not associated with the SavetheChildren hashtag used to spread conspiracy theories….”
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Spanky: There’s Secret, Top Secret, and then Stuff That Lawyers Consider Confidential.
On my last job I dealt with both classified and legally-sensitive stuff, and the precautions they took with the legal stuff were WAAY beyond the merely-classified stuff. Classified stuff they threaten you with firing or jail if you spill it. With the legal stuff the main threat was, “would you like to end up on the witness stand in a lawsuit?”
Frank Wilhoit
@Ksmiami: No, it is exact and perfect conservatism. Forget everything you ever read about the published tradition of conservative pseudophilosophy; all that is now tl;dr . The only thing that can be conserved is privilege and the only way to conserve it is by violence. Reagan’s people were in it for the headbreaking(*) and nothing has changed since 1980.
(*) …apart from the few who were in it for the opportunities to steal; probably fewer then than now, as there are now somewhat more opportunities — but also more gatekeepers.
Geminid
@gene108: The “tea party” people are still here. In Virginia they call themelves “constitutional conservatives” now. It’s a real civil war in the Virginia republican party, and right now the more traditional chamber of commerce types who used to call the shots are losing to an alliance of “constitutional conservatives” and Christian dominionists. My guess is that the radicals will walk away after getting thrashed by the Democrats a few cycles. Then the chamber of commerce types will reclaim a hollowed out Republican party.
Roger Moore
@Bill Arnold:
The thing about Republican attempts to steal the election is that they’re done in broad daylight in the form of disenfranchisement and voter suppression. Those have been successful enough that they haven’t necessarily had to resort to outright ballot box stuffing. That said, effective ballot box stuffing wouldn’t show up as a difference in a hand recount, since the hand recount would wind up counting the same ballots.
Frank Wilhoit
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: The Republican Party destroyed America in 1980. Structures so large take a long time to fall. As for what is next, see Rwanda.
Kent
Of course we will be on offense on many policy fronts.
Take climate change, for example. Every fight for the past four years has been trying to limit the damage done by Trump. I fully expect Biden to wield the considerable power of the executive branch to push the needle back as far as in can go in the other direction. We won’t win every battle, but we will win some of them starting with rejoining the Paris Accords, revamping some form of Obama’s Clean Power plan and re-imposing mileage requirements on cars and trucks.
Health care is another area for offense. Instead of undermining the ACA I expect the Biden Administration to put considerable effort into improving it. They may not get any legislation through, but there is a lot more that can be done, starting by reining in a lot of the obnoxious stuff states red are doing with Medicaid
Civil rights and racial justice is another area of offense. The DOJ wields tremendous power. I expect them to start investigating police violence once again, rather than aiding and abetting it.
Patricia Kayden
Mary G
Covid numbers are fucking awful today – WaPo is already at 203,264 new cases, a new record. Deaths 2,555.
NotMax
@Kent
If we’d sought a continuation of Trumpism then we’d have voted for the real thing.
The ‘rules’ are not etched in carbonite. Adopting, obeying and following the GOP playbook is neither democratic nor Democratic.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
We have a new Special Envoy for Climate (John Kerry). That’s a pretty good start.
theturtlemoves
@PJ: I’m a prog rock fan myself. And I work in IT for one of the hated giants of the industry. And yet I have managed to not become a libertarian. I will not dispute, however, that both tech conferences and Rush concerts can be hotbeds of libertarian douche-bros.
Kent
Nothing about the Senate is Democratic or democratic. How do you propose convincing Mitch of anything, short of bringing down pain on Kentucky and every one of Mitch’s financial supporters?
I mean yes, winning the Senate would have been great. But I’m not hopeful of that after the damn Maine fiasco and the guy in NC who couldn’t keep his pants zipped.
I’m not saying be Trump. I’m saying that he pushed the limits of executive power and the GOP and courts were fine with with it. Or do those rules only apply to GOP presidents?
NotMax
@Ceci n est pas mon nym
Place your bets now on how many days until the MSM begins routinely referring to him as Climate Czar.
Fair Economist
@Bill Arnold:
Paper ballot and their counting have proved secure, but there are still electronic voting machines where the votes can’t be verified. Those need to go.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
I’m sick and tired of people describing Dump as a lame duck – that’s an insult to ducks.
To be more accurate, this is the Führer Bunker period.
a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio
@Patricia Kayden: Typing with tentacles is HARD. Also, the dry, cold air really messes up my sense of direction. If only the NHL season would get started, I could hit Seattle for my new gig, but I’m stuck with this gawdawful temp job while Bettman and the owners sort it out with the NHLPA.
signed/
KRAKEN
Luciamia
@West of the Rockies: Noone on the show liked him, but he was presented to the tv audience as this lovable rogue. And God help us, that’s how a lot of his base still sees him.
NotMax
@Kent
We could go back and forth on this for hours, days, weeks. Better to agree to disagree on this, methinks.
Fair Economist
@Mary G: I think those numbers are from yesterday. Worldometer had 206,000 cases yesterday (the numbers are always somewhat different; I’ve never bothered to reconcile). Today Worldometer is still “only” 178,000 and it updates pretty fast, so I doubt the numbers for *today* are to 203,000 by anybody’s count.
But, yeah, really bad, and the Thanksgiving cases and their subsequent chains are just starting.
danielx
@David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch:
But no Russian artillery fire. So far.
PJ
@Ken: Every business or organization of any size, military or not, had a politruk.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@m.j.: England prevails
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
They wanted him to win, because they are delusional, probably not as delusional as he is, and because they think they want the same things he does, but they are wrong. What shitforbrains wants is to be the person he’s always thought he is, wealthy, above the law, and liked by everyone. So as usual, he’s batting zero.
debbie
@Luciamia:
Trump has never been presented anywhere as a lovable rogue. Rogue, yes, lovable, never.
Uncle Cosmo
FTFY. When ~40% of the electorate is prepared, even eager, to believe, in the face of all rational testimony and the utter lack of evidence, that the election was rigged against their beloved Shitgibbon, we have a problem that goes waaaaay deeper than one political party.
Ruckus
@different-church-lady:
They wanted him to win, because they are delusional, probably not as delusional as he is, and because they think they want the same things he does, but they are wrong. What shitforbrains wants is to be the person he’s always thought he is, wealthy, above the law, and liked by everyone. So as usual, he’s batting zero.
Lyrebird
@Bruce K in ATH-GR: Totally agreed.
Since I spent a few years living near the Pentagon, I take some comfort in the traitors having turned VA so blue.
Dan B
@Kent: Reminds me of the phenomenon that occurs every GOP Convention. Hustlers and prostitutes arrive in great numbers just before the speeches and workshops decrying the moral decay in the USA and proposing new methods of arresting our way to purity.
Now it’s online on Parker. Like the anti-gay Fidesz rep caught with ecstasy at an all male orgy in Brussels.
cain
I’m a huge prog rock fan, (eg Rush, Porcupine Tree, etc) the new generation of prog rockers are not libertarians. Most of Rush’s music is humanistic and nothing to do with Ayn Rand other than 2112. Just sayin.
Now the classic big hair bands are all conservative (no shit,given their misogynistic videos, behavior, and sometimes music) – I would put Metallica as your libertarian standard right there.
Patricia Kayden
rikyrah
@geg6:
Evil azz demons.
PJ
@PJ: It is interesting to see how the Republicans ended up adopting so many Communist practices. I guess if you are going to be anti-democratic and authoritarian, best to go with the proven methods.
NotMax
@debbie
Overheard chez Kushner:
“Look, grandpa presented you with a bill for the time he spent visiting. Isn’t that adorable? Say ‘thank you very much, sir.’ Now run and get your piggy bank.”
cain
The problem for them is that they can’t be the odorous asshat that Trump is – outward projecting racism for the masses. Can you imagine Haley trying to do that? It’s not what she is.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
And, yet, we’re supposed to trust anything that comes out of this Administration?
Phuck.Outta.Here.
rikyrah
@Jeffro:
See, you see it too. I don’t see how they can put aside their own savage ambitions to placate Dolt45.
Kent
I’m sure.
I just hate the learned helplessness and unilateral disarmament that some Dems want to revert to simply because Mitch is a meanie.
Just like I’m sick to death of having to bend over backwards because rural white “Christian” folks might get offended about something.
The GOP never gives an inch. Ever. I’m not sure why we need to do it unilaterally because of “norms” that no one else follows and that they will abandon again in a nanosecond once they regain power.
cain
@Kent:
It would not surprise me that porn operators are conservatives and would vote conservative.
Captain C
@Ken: I would go with stukach, perhaps.
Ruckus
@Cameron:
The devil makes you play golf, especially if you are as bad as shitforbrains is. It’s actually the penalty for being such a shitty person. But you never have a decent shot, can’t putt worth a damn, and all the caddies spit on your balls and club grips, just to insure you can’t play well and are always dropping balls and the club always slips. Makes it even more fun….
Kent
They should have ripped off the band-aid on November 4th and moved on from Trump. Every day they let this fiasco continue just strengthens Trump’s hand in 2021 and beyond.
But fuck them. It’s their party. They made their bed.
NotMax
@cain
Primary objective is market – um, er, uh – penetration.
;)
theturtlemoves
@cain: You are my brother, sir. The Porcupine Tree reference sealed it. And Metallica has just turned into metal for conservatives who want to appear edgy at this point. And yeah, while Neil dabbled in Ayn Rand in the 70s, he did grow out of it.
cain
yeah, but those douche-bros only like old Rush (eg the first 4 albums) – I think the interesting bit is that everything is always open to interpretation on the lyrics. But it’s hard to say “libertarian” with songs like ‘Animate” which talk about how men ceding power to women.
NotMax
@Ruckus
The greens and the balls are covered in Velcro.
:)
Patricia Kayden
@Kent: Not sure if copying Trump and being divisive is a good way to be a President. Biden can play hardball by expanding the courts and passing substantive legislation if we win the two runoffs in Georgia. Fixing the ACA is hardball to the max. Ditto fixing the Voting Rights Act and DACA.
cain
I think it’s interesting to play that kind of hardball – certainly it would be an interesting threat to use against McConnell – but we are not good at messaging and absolutely our own side in the Senate and the House will start making noises.
We are a very squishy mess.
Just One More Canuck
@Bill Arnold: goth baby bird
The Thin Black Duke
@Kent: I have a feeling that Kamala won’t be shy about kicking Republicans in the junk.
cain
@theturtlemoves:
If forgot to add Dream Theater, Opeth, and a host of others – none of them talk about anything related to libertarian values – all humanitarian or just telling good stories.
BTW clockwork angels seems like an entire essay on Trump’s America. I would say the Clockmaker is definitely Trump.
Losing Neil this year was such a loss. :/ Fuck 2020.
Patricia Kayden
@Matt McIrvin: The problem with sniping from the left is that it will lead to Democratic voters staying home in the midterms and turning Congress over to the Republicans. We’ve already seen that movie in the Obama years.
Uncle Cosmo
Bunch of slang words for the security apparati. One that comes to mind is gehbist, a State Security person, from the Г (“geh”) and Б (“beh”) in КГБ, Комитет государственной безопасности (KGB: Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti, Committee for State Security). Pronounced “gay beast”…
Frankensteinbeck
@Bruce K in ATH(GR):
But now you know it’s not terminal.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke:
If they charged, they could pay down the debt.
Glidwrith
You’ve just described pregnancy
HumboldtBlue
If you ever wondered about how the song Spoonful of Sugar came to be well here’s your answer.
Dan B
@NotMax: I feel that Gov Bevin would be blamed for any hardship in KY. Perhaps investigating Mrs. McConnell via a probe of Chinese oligarchs. Even that is tricky because China has ways to retaliate strategically. First we need to root out the Trumpist plants in our institutions so they can’t assist in torpedoing our efforts to hamstring McConnell. It’s hard to play hardball when you’re being attacked from the outside and undermined from inside.
Maybe after getting the Federal government back in order we can threaten to investigate and ramp it up to prosecute and then possibly retaliate.
sab
@HumboldtBlue: So extremely anachronistic. Kind of like the huge American thrush robins in London
ETA English robins are cute and tiny. Same red breast, but they look like wrens.
West of the Rockies
@Kent:
Why do we Dems keep playing by the rules? I’m sure you know this. We have basic integrity and honor. We are Gryffindor and Republicans are Slytherin.
Matt McIrvin
@HumboldtBlue: I remember that by the time I got the polio vaccine, it was a liquid oral solution. Apparently these days they use an injected vaccine, inactivated virus instead of weakened virus.
West of the Rockies
@theturtlemoves:
Any love for King Crimson?
HumboldtBlue
@Matt McIrvin:
I remember the sugar cube vaccine and I remember getting vaccines in elementary school with the whole class.
Dan B
@NotMax: With Cholla, scorpions, murder Hornets, and Iguanas on the fairways.
For starters. The water hazards have their own hazards. Did I mention Sand Worms in the sand traps?
HumboldtBlue
@Uncle Cosmo:
I associate “chekist” with Tito’s Yugoslavia.
debbie
@rikyrah:
You’re far too kind.
debbie
@NotMax:
“And don’t forget I get half.”
Patricia Kayden
Shhhh. Don’t tell Trump that Blacks live in the suburbs. He thinks we all live in the inner cities. **rolls eyes**
Dan B
@Patricia Kayden: So true! A flanking assault that rallies our base is a vastly superior strategy.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden:
We need them to move to Wyoming.
Patricia Kayden
@geg6: So they had this information but held it back. Why? Evil pricks.
rikyrah
???
debbie
@HumboldtBlue:
I remember getting the polio vaccine. My doctor used a dropper to place several drops on my tongue. I remember my disappointment at not getting the sugar cube.
HumboldtBlue
Blaire Erskine asks if you all can please stop making fun of her grandma, Heidi Stirrup.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Patricia Kayden:
In the best case scenario, if we take both seats in GA, Biden can play as hard as Joe Manchin and Angus King will play, and I think both are on record as opposing court expansion. I think the other three issues you mention would actually be easier in terms of getting to fifty. I’m actually cautiously optimistic on voting rights even if MM is still majority leader.
HumboldtBlue
@debbie:
One thing I know about anti-vaxxers is that none of them served in the military. During the intake medical process you are stood in line with the sleeves of your t-shirt rolled up over your shoulders. You then walk down the hallway and get stuck with a series of vaccines in both arms.
TS (the original)
@HumboldtBlue:
I am feeling very old. When I got the polio vaccine – it was three injections. In a rural school – we all lined up in the paddock that was the school playground & stood in mortal fear as to what was going to happen.
Then we found out we had to do it again … and again.
Dan B
@HumboldtBlue: We got the shot – Salk, and then the sugar cube – Sabin. If I’d been the kid the song might have been “The sugar beats the hell outa the stab!”
Jeffro
@rikyrah: yet another reason the GOP is going to have it out with the trumpov family: the latter is going to try and keep the grift going no matter what (whether via the NRA, RNC, or other GOP-leaning organizations).
SOMEone’s going to have to call them out, or they’ll never stop. Your move, Republicans!
germy
Roger Moore
@cain:
With the notable exception of Woke Axl Rose. Who knew?
Brachiator
@West of the Rockies:
Even a small degree of integrity is a burden. If the Democrats set up a propaganda channel like Fox News I would never watch it. If a Democratic president was as incompetent as Trump in handling the pandemic, I would never support him or her. The Republicans have only disdain for their base. Who needs that kind of bullshit?
HumboldtBlue
Phillip Springer is now 94-years old and he’s the man who wrote Santa Baby. Here he is playing Moonlight Sonata.
KenK
I love Kyle Griffin’s tweet:
“Trump is not expected to attend Biden’s inauguration. He also does not plan to invite Biden to the White House or even call him. Biden officials said Trump won’t affect their plans, regardless of what he does.” https://nbcnews.to/3lr3Bon
Biden: You do what you gotta do… I’ve got a country to rum.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: The Republican party is the party of Trump now. Republicans who can’t see that are going to be tossed aside. You either get on the Trump train or get run over.
Roger Moore
@Dan B:
The biggest thing is that you’re in a foursome with other people who are in Hell for the same things you’re there for.
R. Jamie Langa
So when are the self-promotion open threads for mystery authors? I finally self-published mine, and I’d like to promote it, if that’s okay.
(I am a semi-regular here at Balloon Juice; “R. Jamie Langa” is my pen name.)
Dan B
@Brachiator: There are means of mass communication that get eyeballs and have integrity. It just takes well reimbursed staff that inspires and leverages volunteer journalists and trains people to be effective on media platforms, you know, like Think Tanks, Fox, etc. But with integrity and transparency.
Roger Moore
@rikyrah:
Good luck with that, Jr. Even if he manages to wrest control from LaPierre- which I sincerely doubt- he’d be taking over a group that’s cash flow negative and facing major legal problems. He knows less about business than his dad, which is saying something.
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: I think even Sebastian Bach got in on that.
Then again, he always did follow Axl’s lead ;)
West of the Rockies
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I just do not understand how a Manchin (or McConnell or Feinstein) can cling so, so desperately to power. Joe M. is 73. He won’t run again until he’s 75, I think. How much is he worth? How much more power and cash does he need? Can’t he just do the right thing and let the next election shake out how it must? I am constitutionally unable to grasp the need for power after a certain age. Aren’t Feinstein and McConnell worth enough that they could just walk away and live their final short few years in comfort and tranquility?
A younger politician making such calculations to retain power I understand, but after 70?
Geminid
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Senator Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) went on record this summer opposing an end to the filibister; it seems likely she would oppose expansion of the Supreme Court as well. And I bet there are other Democratic Senators who are reluctant to do this. But I don’t see Sinema, King, or Manchin standing in the way of expanding the Federal Circuit and District Courts, which would be a very positive move.
germy
Jeffro
@Roger Moore: yeah but a) the NRA always does fine when there’s a Democratic president in office, and b) the trumpovs just need a veneer of an organization from which to fundraise/grift (preferably, in their view, one not named ‘trump’ – at least for a while)
WaterGirl
@R. Jamie Langa: I should do that again soon.
In the meantime, you can send me email with all your information and I can get you added.
If you don’t know my email, check contact us up top for more information.
Roger Moore
@West of the Rockies:
What kind of Senator do you expect WV to elect if Manchin retires? Here’s a hint: it’s not going to be a better Democrat than him.
Jeffro
@West of the Rockies: Avoiding irrelevancy is a helluva drug
(also, many of these way-older Senators are basically ‘run’ by their long time staffers, who in many ways are closer to the Senators than their own families. Step down and all those folks are out of jobs)
mrmoshpotato
@KenK:
Hot! Dog! Plans to combat the virus, fix the economy, and here’s a case of spiced!
Cheers President Biden!
coin operated
This. Most of the prog out there is just that…progressive. Glad to see others here with the same taste in music.
And 2020 can go straight to hell for taking Neil
Yarrow
This will really get under Trump’s skin. Heh.
Emma from FL
@West of the Rockies: We need to recruit some Hufflepuffs. And before you mock, remember that the Hufflepuff mascot is a badger. To quote the author, he badger is “an animal that is often underestimated, because it lives quietly until attacked, but which, when provoked, can fight off animals much larger than itself, including wolves.”
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
The website is back to long delays in loading pages.
NotMax
FYI. Raising the hammer in preparation of bringing it down.
mrmoshpotato
@Yarrow:
Oh. Shit. :)
Bring it!
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Yarrow: Meanwhile, Dump is set to produce a series of dumpster fires and bankruptcies.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
520 error popped up between clicking Post Comment and the page returning, maybe half an hour ago. Haven’t seen it again since.
burnspbesq
It might be instructive to go back and look at how the Hungarian media treated Orban after he lost.
Geminid
@West of the Rockies: Personally I hope Joe Manchin keeps clinging, because when he lets go another Josh Hawley will probably take his place.
HumboldtBlue
@NotMax:
I’m strongly suspecting it’s the number of tweets and links embedded in the post. They take a while to load, at least for me.
burnspbesq
@Jeffro:
I’m just barely old enough to remember the 1964 Republican convention. It was wild.
Mike in NC
@KenK:
The past four malignant years have taken enough of a toll on my poor liver. In 2021, I hope to be imbibing a lot less rum and vodka. Weed, on the other hand…
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
CaseyL
@Roger Moore: That’s funny – what I heard is that Don Jr and Kimberley Guilfoyle want to dump Romney McDaniel and take over the RNC. “They don’t want the ride to end,” is how the article put it.
If I had my druthers, I’d druther they took over the RNC. I think turning that organization into a pure grift would hurt the GOP more than doing the same thing to the NRA.
germy
germy
Roger Moore
@CaseyL:
From the sounds of it, the NRA was already a pretty big grift; that’s the essence of the NY lawsuit against it. I agree that turning the RNC into a grift would hurt the Republican Party, and it would also likely ensure a Trump would lead the ticket in 2024.
Brachiator
The rats know that it’s time to scurry away from a sinking ship.
Trump can wallow in his delusions, but other folks gotta put food on the table, gotta pay the rent.
theturtlemoves
@coin operated: Yeah, I’m going to go out on a limb and assume Peter Gabriel is not a Tory.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Yup, I think court reform has to grow from below, so to speak. It’s never gonna be, and never was gonna be, the “we’ll just name eleven more justices!” giddiness we were seeing in October
Geminid
A poll of the two Georgia Senate runoff races was released today. Taken by SurveyUSA, commisioned by WXIA-TV, Atlanta. Results: Warnock 52%, Loeffler 46%; Ossoff 50%, Perdue 48%.
Keith P.
@KenK: I’d like something like Biden saying “Whatever, but whatever shit of yours is here at noon on the 20th is going on the curb for trash pickup.”
HumboldtBlue
Life pro tip: If you buy an advent calendar the day after Xmas it will count down to inauguration day.
Jus’ sayin’.
Uncle Cosmo
@Patricia Kayden: She got confoozled by the labels in the freezer & thawed out the Turducken instead…:^p
Roger Moore
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think Supreme Court expansion is going to have to wait for the Court to make some egregious rulings. Honestly, though, I think half the purpose of the “expand the Supreme Court” talk was to try to scare Roberts and maybe Gorsuch into putting their worst impulses on the back burner.
Booger
@Geminid: Those are the plump white goobers who squeal that anything that comes out of Richmond is ‘tyranny.’ Eff ’em. What has Campbell County done recently except suck down tax dollars from NoVa?
Roger Moore
@Keith P.:
I’m worried in the opposite direction, that when Biden gets there the whole place will have been stripped to the plaster.
Yarrow
@Geminid: After the last couple of elections I want to see Dems up by 15 points in a poll before I start to breathe a little easier. Still, better than the other way around.
Booger
@theturtlemoves: And didn’t Neil Peart–the libertarian heart and soul of Rush–renounce his early views as naive and ill-informed?
Ksmiami
@Frank Wilhoit: I guess I just don’t see the average rural Magat as privileged – racist, I’ll-educated yes but of a different milieu than a Romney or McCain- they’ve definitely latched onto a herrenvolk populism though
sab
@HumboldtBlue: That is worth knowing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Roger Moore: I think changing the USSC makes people nervous, but I seem to recall Rhenquist appearing before the Senate and saying the federal judiciary was too small and overworked, and Roberts after him. Starting there could make the big ask seem smaller, but it’s a much longer term project than a lot of people had persuaded themselves. And even now, even after Kavanaugh and Barrett, the broad left doesn’t seem very engaged on the matter. Not since the early nineties. I don’t get it.
zhena gogolia
@Geminid:
Ohpleaseohpleaseohplease
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: Just send the Federal Marshals down to Mar a Lago and take back our stuff.
FlyingToaster
@Cameron:
@Chyron HR:
All sports in Hell originated in Scotland.
Golf. Papingo. Curling. Caber Toss. Sheaf Toss. Maide-leisg. Shinty. Backhold. Water Polo.
I rest my case.
sab
@HumboldtBlue: That is how my dad got hepatitis in Korea. One big syringe, so everyone in line behind the guy with hepatitis got it.
cain
That will make a lot of Republican presidential aspirants quite unhappy. Bwahahaha.
The devil has forced his way into the house, and he’s not leaving and bad shit is going to continue to happen. The Trump family taking over the party is going to end into an epic grift mess.
zhena gogolia
Very nice Olive & Mabel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Bgn_3eHP-g
Uncle Cosmo
@HumboldtBlue: Really? Hard to imagine why. The Russian Cheka was long gone before the Communist ascendancy there, and the various permutations of names for the secret police don’t seem to have any relation to it. (Source)
Geminid
@Booger: Well, Campbell County did give us Congressman-elect Bob Good.
I’m waiting to see Governor Northam send ABC agents to shut down Campbell County bars, and to watch those Liberty University Baptists stand up for the right to sell booze in their First Amendment Sanctuary County.
Uncle Cosmo
@debbie: I remember getting the Salk injection ca. 1956, & a couple of years later the Sabin sugar cube.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
@Roger Moore: I’m sure Ivanka will be stripping the copper pipes
mrmoshpotato
@cain:
MWHAHAHAHAHAFuck ’em!
Delk
Shocking news Jenna Ellis padded her resume.
Uncle Cosmo
@West of the Rockies: Manchin retires & his seat is 99.99% certain to be taken by a Republican. Most of the WV Democratic Party is still trying to find the keys to let them out of the bunker where they’ve been cowering for the last 20 years.
Joe has been a damn sight better Democrat than we have any right to expect from his benighted state & I guaranfuckingtee ya we will miss the bejeezus out of him when he’s gone.
Ken
@germy: That explains how she came to Giuliani’s attention.
HumboldtBlue
@Uncle Cosmo:
Pretty sure it goes back to a WW2 movie I saw as a kid about partisans in Yugoslavia and ever since then I have connected the two.
The Bond villain with the steel teeth was a bad guy chekist.
@zhena gogolia:
Those are brilliant.
mrmoshpotato
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
And throw the Kremlin’s bitch out on the sidewalk.
debbie
@Roger Moore:
That could be why we haven’t seen Trump in the Oval Office. He’s tearing it down to take with him!
cain
I don’t think he was ever libertarian. I think he was an avid reader and found her book interesting and some of its ideas showed up in writing. 2112 wasn’t supposed to be Ayn Rand – but he ack’d it all the same since it did appear to be close enough.
Regardless, Rush reached cult status and there will always be some kind of debate about them. But I appreciate the lyrics and the musical talent!
mrmoshpotato
@Delk: Water is also wet, and it’s cold in the northern hemisphere now. :)
HumboldtBlue
@sab:
By my time they had figured out that using those injection shooter-taser-looking things.
They are no longer used due to concerns about contamination.
cain
@Uncle Cosmo:
This is where we need that 50 state strategy. They can at least find that key – they just need to get the right Democrats in position. They need a Beto.
cain
Hah, that was Jaws. It did end well for him – he found love with a young woman who had bracers. :D
Aleta
Starting now: No Tears Suite: Live from New Orleans
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvryBzFiPfc&feature=youtu.be
In partnership with the National Park Service, Oxford American is proud to premiere a full concert video of No Tears Suite, recorded live at Marigny Studios in New Orleans in November 2020. Performing the suite are composer/pianist Christopher Parker, lyricist/vocalist Kelley Hurt, percussionist Brian Blade, bassist Roland Guerin, tenor saxophonist Bobby LaVell, trumpeter Marc Franklin, and alto saxophonist Chad Fowler.
Made possible by Lower Mississippi Delta Initiative, Stella Boyle Smith Trust, New Orleans Jazz National Historical Park, Little Rock Central High School National Historic Site, and Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve. The No Tears Suite is available as a studio album (released by Mahakala Music) for purchase at OxfordAmericanGoods.org.
mrmoshpotato
@cain:
Debate about Rush – the band – being awesome or super awesome! ?
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
The new Court appointees may be smelling blood. Gorsuch directed some barbs at Roberts in his opinion for the wrongheaded “no separation between church and pandemic” ruling. He has not been consistent, but at times Roberts seemed to signal that he was going to try to steer a moderate path on some issues. But I don’t know. This Court may be hot to do some right wing freaky, with or without Roberts.
zhena gogolia
@HumboldtBlue:
I think you’re thinking of “chetnik.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chetniks
NotMax
@David Merry Christmas Koch
Eyes urgently request the words “Ivanka” and “stripping” never appear in the same sentence again.
:)
zhena gogolia
@Uncle Cosmo:
What do you mean it was gone before Communism? It was created by Lenin.
People still call the secret police the Cheka. It never disappeared, even after it wasn’t the official name.
zhena gogolia
@Uncle Cosmo:
Oh, I guess you mean the Communist ascendancy in Yugoslavia.
I think he’s thinking of “chetnik.”
Cameron
@germy: That, BTW, is Newt “I’m a carpetbagger from Central Pennsylvania” Gingrich trying his best to be relevant, and, secondarily, to pimp Trump.
Benw
@mrmoshpotato: Rush = super awesome, of course. Even with the awkward Objectivist phase lyrics! :)
Cameron
@West of the Rockies: Do you really want to know who or what would replace Manchin?
BruceFromOhio
@Mike in NC: I support this comment and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
NotMax
@zhena gogolia
“Strewth, you heard what’s going ’round about the new Soviet ambassador in Canberra?”
“Yep. He’s Cheka, mate.”
Matt McIrvin
@cain:
Here’s the weird thing–she didn’t! She totally didn’t! Everyone remembers it that way because the joke is so obvious that it seems like it should be there (in a movie that was packed solid with goofy-ass stuff on that level), but it’s not.
J R in WV
@Matt McIrvin:
I remember getting a shot at the folk’s employer. My little brother was quite small, yet willing to fight so that it took 4 grown adults to hold him still for the shot after he saw me get one.
Some years later we all stood in line at an elementary school for the Sabin vaccine, a pink drop on the sugar cube. Mom and dad, me and bro. They wanted to do all the vaccines, because the alternative was so, so horrible.
Even if you didn’t die, you could be really, really disabled, for the rest of your life. I had classmates in grade school with bent limbs, writing oddly, walking with crutches, because of that virus.
Vaccinations were a blessing for everyone. Not like the nutjobs today.
HumboldtBlue
@Cameron:
Dream replacement would be Richard Ojeda.
HumboldtBlue
@zhena gogolia:
I think you’re correct.
Matt McIrvin
@J R in WV: Roald Dahl lost a daughter to measles shortly before the vaccine was available, and whatever his other moral deficiencies (and he had many), he was a ferocious pro-vaccination advocate his whole life.
Lapassionara
@J R in WV: my younger sister had polio. It has affected her life for sure. The vaccine changed so much for the better.
J R in WV
@HumboldtBlue:
Just no!! I tried to work for Ojeda in the previous cycle, he’s crazier than any other politician I know of. Really strange!!!!! Keep him away + he won’t win a statewide election here or anywhere.
Teaching shop is his best shot at a civilian job.
NotMax
Olbermann today:
“…that woman who is either drunk Karen from Kalamazoo or the next Mrs. Rudy Giuliani.”
:)
SiubhanDuinne
POTUS-elect Biden and VPOTUS-elect Harris are on CNN in a joint interview.
cain
I loved the early 80s, when we talked about Rush we meant the band, not the fucking asshole oxycontin fueled peddler of lies. :D
So glad to see so many of my fellow fans here :D
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
L?L
HumboldtBlue
@J R in WV:
OK, he was praised by my very active Dem sister, so that’s all I know. He is working in Georgia for Dems as well.
schrodingers_cat
OMG there was Indian ? in Giuiliani’s clown show yesterday. She said all Chinese people look the same so we need Voter ID
HumboldtBlue
@zhena gogolia:
Yes, and the movie I was thinking of was Force 10 From Navarone.
J R in WV
@germy:
First thing I noticed was “Friends: 0” — big surprise there!!
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
He’s in efgoldman mode today. The linky.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
I watch him every day. He’s been in a Goldmanesque NMFTG space for several weeks now.
cain
@Matt McIrvin:
Huh.. interesting, I wonder why i remember it that way then.
cain
@schrodingers_cat:
I saw that – I was like ‘Lawd..” racist Indian. I wonder how that’s gonna working out for her. The other guy next to him looked like he needed to apply some hemorrhoid medication he was moving around so much.
cain
@HumboldtBlue:
Hey Rush has a song called “Force 10” I wonder if that was where they got that.
Ruckus
@NotMax:
That’s too obvious.
The greens, actually the entire course is made up of Legos so the ball never goes where it looks like it should and any terrain change is in steps. Also every green has a subtle wall around it, not really high, maybe 3-4 blocks high, just so you can’t putt onto the green.
Now if the balls and some of the Legos had velcro………
NotMax
@SiubhanDuinne
Me too. Today is the first I remember him emphatically dropping F bombs.
NotMax
@Ruckus
And the hole turns out to be a trompe l’oeil painted circle.
Matt McIrvin
@cain: The average person watching the scene in Moonraker where Jaws and Dolly first meet will inevitably hallucinate braces on her, because them not being there seems so incorrect.
SiubhanDuinne
@NotMax:
Ah! I shall watch, then, with particular pleasure (after the Joe’n’Kamala show is over).
The Moar You Know
@theturtlemoves: Thankfully. Fan of theirs for decades.
Neil died on my birthday this year. I got the news right before going on stage for one of my now long-gone twice a week cover band gigs. That was rough. And i thought, wow, this year started off so nice and already it’s turned to shit. Well, at least it’s pretty unlikely anything worse can happen.
I had no idea that this year was going to teach me, with utter unrelenting savage brutality (as it has to most all of us) the meaning of a “bad year”.
frosty
@Yarrow: The Obamas working on a show about the chaos Trump brought in? Whether funny or documentary, there is nothing I want to watch less. I’m moving on. Hard pass.
HumboldtBlue
@cain:
No clue, although I do enjoy Rush and never understood the animosity to a clearly excellent trio of musicians and songwriters. I also was only interested in the music and not the backstory.
NotMax
@frosty
Only if they title it T*R*A*S*H.
;)
frosty
@NotMax: Maybe then.
catclub
@NotMax: porque no los dos?
WaterGirl
@HumboldtBlue: @NotMax:
Services were being updated and restarted, which caused the momentary 520 error. So that one is nothing to worry about.
catclub
ANOTHER date in December that will live in infamy!
HumboldtBlue
@WaterGirl:
I’m pretty sure some of this is on my end and could be some issues with Firefox and my shitty Windows 10.
Yutsano
@HumboldtBlue: I have noticed some performance issues with Firefox lately as well. Granted I also need a new computer desperately but that’s not happening until at least January.
planetjanet
@West of the Rockies: Manchin’s successor is most likely not a Democrat.
Mary G
@germy: I looked at the first couple of lines, where she says she’s 5’2″ and does a lot of modeling. Not in this universe, you don’t.
Jackie
WaterGirl, could we have a new post to discuss the Biden-Harris interview on CNN?
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@West of the Rockies:
Dallas: That show where you’ve got insane wealth and power, but live in mom’s house with your wife, your brother, his wife and your sister well into your 40s…..
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Roger Moore:
Twitter was kind of fun pre-Trump. There were some cute comedy and pet threads….
Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes
@Kent:
Kentucky needs the infliction of pain, and lobbyists for various Kentucky-centric industries need to be expressly told “want the pain to stop? Tell McConnell to stop”.
cain
@Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:
I think this will be a lot easier to do than figuring out the logistics of moving the military out of Kentucky. Never mind that you have to put that in the budget and it still has to pass the Senate.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@cain: and you have the Democratic gov who wants to be reelected, and whom presumably we would like to be reelected, lobbying like hell to stop you, and that AG who refused to fully investigate the Breonna Taylor case being handed a platform to run against Beshear.
cain
@The Moar You Know:
It’s kind of funny but this blog has been historically anti-Rush (not that one!) because of that short tryst with Ayn Rand. But yes, Neil did grow out of it and from the late 70s onwards have had some great stuff. I still enjoy the earlier period pieces – but I really really dig clockwork angels – it was the album for these asshole times.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jackie:
Seconded.
rikyrah
@R. Jamie Langa:
How can we find the book?
debbie
@germy:
Compare the photos in your two tweets. One of them is not like the other.
Omnes Omnibus
@cain: If it make you feel any better, my opposition to the band Rush is purely due to the fact that I can’t stand their music.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cain:
No, that’s not it.
Yarrow
Tick tock…
HumboldtBlue
@Yutsano:
Firefox has had a lot of updates lately and there have been some wonky issues and I’m not sure of the cause, but I still sense the dozen or so Twitter embeds in a front page post may play a role as well.
My ignorance is nearly complete on how to fix any of it for the record.
Bill Arnold
@Yarrow:
:-)
I’m wondering if a truth-and-reconciliation process can be concocted to make public all evidence for crimes that have been “preemptively pardoned”. Because there would be no legal jeopardy for one so pardoned, such as (hypothetically) young faux MotU Jared Kushner.
cain
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
All good points. Yeah, I think we need to try something else. I think what we want is to be able to have more on the ground folks there and get the word out.
Maybe McConnell won’t last his 5 years – the man is already dead inside, so it’s likely that the rest of his parts will also die.
NotMax
@HumboldtBlue
This is so. Still have not noticed any difference or degradation in performance. But then, my preferences in settings (and in add-ons) keep it pretty well locked down anyway.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Bill Arnold: Rachel Maddow went into this case in some detail, and IIRC (I was only half paying attention) Lowell and Broidy were lobbying on behalf of a SF billionaire real estate developer (those fuckers) on further behalf of a shady-sounding doctor who had been
indulging inconvicted of SS fraudIANAL or a scholar, but I believe Congress can issue subpoenas to just about anyone? and there may be enough buzz about pardons to give Pelosi the clout to do this, and to put some heat on Lowell, who will want to be a big shot lawyer when Jared goes back to his desk next to his daddy’s. And Lowell was Al Gore’s lawyer before he was Jared’s. He didn’t need that file
cain
@Omnes Omnibus:
And that’s perfectly fine. :-) Many don’t and that’s fine. There is no standard for good music, like what you like. It’s when people bring up the band when it comes to “Ayn Rand supported music” that I must object strenuously.
Yarrow
@Bill Arnold: One would think it could be possible…
BruceFromOhio
@Omnes Omnibus: This made me lolol and reminded me of Tbogg ripping on them. Loomis at LGM hates them, too. You are in fine company!
I’ve seen them six times in concert, and it was glorious.
Uncle Cosmo
Bangalore! My brains must be turning to mush – I know enough about Yugoslavia that I should’ve seen that instantamundo.
Uncle Cosmo
The name Cheka had been retired in the CCCP long before Yugoslav communism was anything but a gleam in the eye of a handful of malcontents – before the end of 1923 it was the OGPU, then NKVD in 1934. (You could look it up.) Tito & his merry men didn’t amount to diddly before June 1941 at the earliest. That’s what I meant.
Matt McIrvin
@cain: I mentioned this exchange to a friend of mine last night, and HE remembered the character as having braces too–and he’s seen the movie many times. Everyone does! It’s the most intense “Mandela effect” sort of phenomenon I’ve ever encountered.
R. Jamie Langa
@rikyrah:
Hey, I was going to wait until the mystery book self-promotion thread, but it’s on Amazon, and the title is “The Dream of the White Elephant”.