Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

The Supreme Court cannot be allowed to become the ultimate, unaccountable arbiter of everything.

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

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

“In this country American means white. everybody else has to hyphenate.”

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

“Facilitate” is an active verb, not a weasel word.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

There are times when telling just part of the truth is effectively a lie.

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

The lights are all blinking red.

Petty moves from a petty man.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

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

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Tuesday Morning Open Thread: What Is Best In Life?…

Tuesday Morning Open Thread: What Is Best In Life?…

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Joe Biden is much too generous a person (and too canny a politician) to embrace this trope. But I’m not!


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Reader Interactions

205Comments

  2. 2.

    debbie

    I hope someone with better Google fu than I can find and link to today’s New York Daily News cover, which I can only find on Facebook. Suffice it to state the caption: “It’s Over, Even if Fat Man Won’t Sing.”

  6. 6.

    Baud

    Warning: Politico playing games trying to make Biden’s visit to GA sound controversial.

    Biden puts skin in the game in Georgia

    Politico / by Marc Caputo and James Arkin / 1h

     

    When Joe Biden heads to Georgia on Tuesday to campaign for Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock, it won’t be because he wants to. He has to.

  7. 7.

    debbie

    Can’t find a link to the statement, but Weasel Portman squeezed out a weasel-y statement yesterday, something to the effect that voter fraud wasn’t widespread enough to show that Trump had won, so Biden’s the president-elect. Asshole.

  8. 8.

    MazeDancer

    Let’s help give Mr. Biden the Senate he needs: Win Georgia.

    This week and next are prime time for sending PostCards to GA Voters to support the Senate runoffs.

    Get addresses, download free PostCard designs, and get ideas on what to say at PostCardPatriots.com

    (And, yes, during PostCard Prime Time, the threads may be lightly spammed.)

  9. 9.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    On 25 April, Hitler issued a telegram [from the Führerbunker] to Göring telling him that he had committed “high treason” and gave him the option of resigning all of his offices “for reasons of health”, in exchange for his life. Göring subsequently resigned

     

    Scott Dworkin
    @funder

    Let’s be real. Barr was fired. And then likely forced to sign that weird resignation letter/love letter to Trump.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    Imagine poor Donald, locking himself in the bathroom for a good cry: “How could you, Vlad?”

  12. 12.

    jayjaybear

    Will 2020 ever end? Husband went to the ER at 4AM this morning with labored breathing, extreme nausea, and abdominal pain. He’s been feeling ill for a couple of days; nausea, sweats, chills. He went by ambulance, so I’m not there (my car is at the mechanic’s so I can’t get to the hospital right now), but they called and told me he had a ventricular tachycardia and pneumonia. He’s in cath lab right now, and will be going to ICU after. I hope to be able to pick up the car and see him later today.

    Die, 2020! Die!

  14. 14.

    Jeffro

    @Cheryl Rofer: yeowch!!

    I mean, it’s not even close to what he deserves, but still.

    Remind me to drop a few pounds before I make my big move in 2032 (or whenever Baud’s two terms are up).   =)

  19. 19.

    debbie

    Ick to what’s being done to the English language. From an email from a poetry website, “Because poems companion us.” ?

  23. 23.

    raven

    I’ll tell you what, I’m going to vote for our candidates but this GOTV is out of FUCKING control.

  28. 28.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @jayjaybear:

    How worrying for you! I’m glad he’s in good medical hands. My very best wishes to you and your husband at this stressful time.

    (Agree with your sentiments re: 2020. This year just keeps on giving and giving.…)

  30. 30.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @raven: In what way – are they knocking on your door or are you just being inundated with mailers and emails?

  38. 38.

    arrieve

    On a completely unrelated note, can I just share that I turned in my last paper and I have now survived my first semester of grad school? (Master’s program in teaching English as a second language.) Being back in school after decades away was a challenge but having a schedule (and homework!) has kept me sane these past few months.

    Now I have winter break! I think I’ll hop on a plane and go somewhere warm and go craaaazy….oh wait.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @raven: My Virginia 5th Congressional race was hotly contested, and I got a little irritated by the volume of GOTV texts. Some were duplicates from different Democratic entities, and some were from national groups using the race  to build their own brand. I told one of the latter outfits off, and they said they’d remove me from their contact list.                                 But I imagine you are getting double or triple the attention. January 6 probably seems a long time away.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    We made it home in plenty of time to watch the speech last night and thought it was really good. I’ve been hoping for a more forceful denunciation of the outrageous and fascistic Trumpublican efforts to overturn the election, and Biden expressed that last night in the serious terms the issue merits.

    The coughing worried me though. Could be nothing, but at this moment, in this diseased country, with a president-elect who is no spring chicken, it’s a concern.

  50. 50.

    hueyplong

    @jayjaybear: Echoing wag, very glad to know he’s in a hospital and that it has beds available for non-COVID patients.

    Hope the news improves as the hours go by.

  57. 57.

    zhena gogolia

    Okay, I got up too early. I read this comment from last night:

    The chemistry / metallurgy of diodes is fascinating.

    As

    The chemistry/metallurgy of dildoes is fascinating.

  59. 59.

    SFAW

    If you click through on the Kruse/Bobic tweet, and read the weaselly/moronic statement from the Dishonorable Senator Kevin Cramer, the last line says “it looks like the big race is really between the inaugural committee and the Justice Department at this point so we’ll see how the emails turn out.”

     

    WTF? Emails? Justice Department? WT Actual F?

  70. 70.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @arrieve: Excellent! Nothing feels as good as a break after a long semester.

    I once celebrated Spring Break a little too joyously and friend who was working told me I was no longer allowed to mention it. She was a Tolkien fan, so she said I had to call it Sackville Baggins.

  73. 73.

    sab

    @rikyrah: I wish he would go start his own party. I want us (Democrats) to have standards beyond just accept Constitution and the rule of law. That is about the only position he agrees with us on.

  76. 76.

    SFAW

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    It’s like  a replay of 2016 hit songs.

    No kidding. About the only thing that has come close to surprising me during this campaign has been that the Murderer-in-Chief did not seem to scream/whine about Hillary as much as I thought he would. [So I guess the Dishonorable Sen Cramer had to pick up the slack.]

  77. 77.

    Amir Khalid

    @SFAW:

    Maybe he’s holding out hope that the Trump DoJ might indict Hunter Biden before Joe Biden is inaugurated, perhaps on the basis of emails that look incriminating if you hold them upside down and squint just so.

    Apparently, the FBI has been looking hard for months and months and not yet found anything hinky  about Hunter’s dealings in Ukraine. If there were something that looked bad, Trump would be shouting it from the roofops. So I’m rather sceptical that there really is anything to be found.

  79. 79.

    Nicole

    @Betty Cracker: If it makes you feel better, I heard the cough, too, and it made me think of…. me. I’ve been prone to coughing fits when my throat dries since I was a kid, and it always strikes/struck at really inconvenient times- orchestra practice, during a play (both in audience and onstage). My guess is the air of the room he was making the speech in was dry. I don’t think it’s cause for concern.

  84. 84.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: But the DEM party is the only place for someone who accepts the Constitution and the rule of law.

    I’m OK with it. We are free to disagree with any and all policies he might put forth.

  85. 85.

    Princess

    The project of insisting that Barr didn’t really right that resignation letter is the project of rehabilitating Barr (“He knows Trump is awful and never would have said all those nice things about Trump unless forced.”). Think hard about whether you want to support that project. Besides, I think Barr thinks Trump’s presidency has been great. Barr believes all those things. Remember, Barr is a guy whose idea of fun in high school was to beat up Jews.

  87. 87.

    tokyocali (formerly tokyo expat)

    @jayjaybear: That must be stressful and frightening. On this side of the Pacific, sending your husband wishes for a smooth, swift and healthy recovery.  Take care of yourself, as well, in these times.

    @arrieve: Yeah you! I’ve taught EFL for more than 20 years. Like any profession, there are moments of frustration, but the joy of teaching, of helping students achieve their dreams, of realizing that they can reach that bit higher, makes it so worthwhile. I wish you every success!

    Edited for clarity.

     

    @rikyrah: Me too! Kay is one of my favorite commenters. Sometimes, I skim so quickly, but as soon as I read the comment, I know it’s hers. I hope she’ll return soon.

  88. 88.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Agreed, but I don’t think such a large tent is sustainable long term. A country where only one of the two major parties is committed to democracy isn’t sustainable long term either. I’m hoping Trump thoroughly blows up the Republican Party so that something more resembling sanity can arise from its ashes.

  89. 89.

    Quiltingfool

    @zhena gogolia:  This reminds me of a teaching moment!  I was teaching an Environmental Science class to 7th and 8th graders; and the lesson was on extinct species.  I had asked the class to tell me what species (they knew) were extinct, and I would list those on the board.  One little 7th grader excitedly volunteered, “The Dildo Bird!”  Thank God I had my back to the class — gave me a few seconds to compose my face.  I turned around and very gently said, “Oh, the DODO bird, yes.”  Meanwhile, several older boys in the class clapped their hands over their mouths to keep from laughing.  I was so glad there was no further talk!  Anyway, I knew the kid really didn’t know what a dildo was, his demeanor was of true innocence.

    His mother was one of our lunch ladies, and I told her about it.  She was horrified, but relieved when I told her I didn’t think her boy knew what the word meant, he was just eager to contribute and the word came out wrong.  That incident happened well over 20 years ago, and it still makes me laugh.  Ah, kids — the best part of teaching — never a dull moment!

  90. 90.

    Eunicecycle

    @Quiltingfool: I have a friend who was a kindergarten teacher. She said it was difficult to look some parents in the eye after what her little students told her about them!

  92. 92.

    MattF

    @Princess: @Baud:

    Bear in mind that the various commentators who welcomed Barr’s appointment were absolutely wrong. Barr has mastered the art of appearing normal and competent, but he is neither. He thrived in the crazy-as-fuckall Trump White House.

  94. 94.

    Amir Khalid

    An appeal to the hive mind: can anyone recommend a free open-source productivity suite (word-processing, spreadsheet rtc.)  that I can download to mny Win10 laptop?

  99. 99.

    Ken

    (click on the tiny type to embiggen)

    Or see the words “GOP Sen.” and realize there’s no point, and ignoring it may help your blood pressure.

  100. 100.

    zhena gogolia

    @Princess:

    He signed it, he wrote it. That’s the rule for executives, as far as I’m concerned. He doesn’t personally write anything — but if he signs it, he wrote it.

  104. 104.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: Agreed, but I don’t think such a large tent is sustainable long term.

    It isn’t, but never trump republicans aren’t going to take over the DEM party. He’ll move on. I see this move as more of performance art on Schmidt’s behalf than anything else.

  106. 106.

    Ken

    @debbie: @mrmoshpotato: Nero Wolfe would pfui that repeatedly.  (Also my use of “pfui” as a verb.)

    That aside, the poem that companioned me is W. S. Gilbert’s “The Yarn of the Nancy Bell.”  My grandfather read it to me when I was young, and it became our “tell me a story” choice.

  111. 111.

    Starfish

    @mrmoshpotato: I really like that song.

    The Republicans are showing “evidence” that Warnock is terrible because he is comparing people who want to defund CHP to Herod, and lefty Twitter is all in the comments loving the sermon.

  113. 113.

    Delk

    Hah. The lgbt owner of the shop that made the kilts some proud boys were wearing has pulled the stock. He saw they bought $750.00 worth of kilts and he was so disgusted that he donated $1000.00 to NAACP.

  114. 114.

    TomatoQueen

    @Amir Khalid:  I use it on my Lenovo ThinkPad refurb, after being annoyed and hounded by Office 365 and also after a Win10 update crashed the refurb’s already-installed Micro$ Office beyond all hope of repair.
    Libre doesn’t use the same file extensions, but in action this makes no difference, as you can tell what that funny Libre extension means in Micro$ talk. It is otherwise just as functional and over-filled with things you don’t need, and works just as well. And it’s free. And it’s open source.

  115. 115.

    mali muso

    So I have read several stories recently about small towns in places like Kansas or South Dakota where people are dying in droves but the rock-ribbed conservative residents are still “debating” whether or not to impose a mask mandate.  Maybe my basic humanity has been extinguished by the dumpster fire of the last four years and by 2020 in particular, but I find myself caring not at all.  These idiots chose this fate, and I feel nothing but contempt.  They are literally killing themselves to own the libs.

  116. 116.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: True, and Schmidt is hardly the worst of that lot to join us! IIRC, Bill Kristol registered as a Democrat this year! If you’d made that prediction in my presence in 2015, I’d have assumed you were tripping…

  118. 118.

    J R in WV

    @jayjaybear:

    Oh, no! Such scary conditions…

    They have great expertise in cardiac treatment now, I hope he does well. Best wishes for both of you!!

    2020 really does suck… I think we are all agreed on that!

  119. 119.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Delk: Can we take a minute to acknowledge that the Proud Trash hate group is really, really strange?  I haven’t been able to see a driving ideology, though I haven’t given it much thought.

    So many things they do just strike me as weird.

  122. 122.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Ken: Or see the words “GOP Sen.” and realize there’s no point, and ignoring it may help your blood pressure.

    I dunno, I found it impressive in its twisted way.  Somewhere in whatever aprés vie he’s stuck in, the ghost of Nixon press secretary Ron Zeigler must be gaping in admiration.

  123. 123.

    mrmoshpotato

    @mali muso:

    Maybe my basic humanity has been extinguished by the dumpster fire of the last four years and by 2020 in particular, but I find myself caring not at all.  These idiots chose this fate, and I feel nothing but contempt.  They are literally killing themselves to own the libs. 

    Sometimes you gotta go, “Fuck it.  Kill yourselves off.” It’s particularly stupid that this is about wearing a piece of fabric over your mouth and nose.

  125. 125.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @germy:

    Ex-Rohabacher aid Paul Behrends, a staffer Linked to Veselnitskaya, Dies Suddenly After Fall Near His Home

    In the bathtub clutching a poisoned umbrella tip?

  126. 126.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker:

    Have you ever caught Kristol on Ari Melber’s show when he has him on with the rappers he always books on Fridays?  It’s hilarious.  But Kristol seems to love it.  Maybe those segments have introduced Bloody Bill to a bit of America he’s never known and now he likes it.  I have to say I was gobsmacked to see him register Dem.

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

    An appeal to the hive mind: can anyone recommend a free open-source productivity suite (word-processing, spreadsheet rtc.) that I can download to mny Win10 laptop?

     

    LibreOffice suite. At libreoffice.org

  133. 133.

    Gin & Tonic

    @SiubhanDuinne: I know it’s easy for the non-specialist to miss this, but it’s not *in* the bathtub, it’s *under* the bathtub – you see, the bathtub falls on you while you are trying to hoist it up to your balcony. OTOH, you can die *in* the sauna (which, in Russian, is known by a word you might confuse with “bathtub”) while relaxing there with your mistress.

  135. 135.

    J R in WV

    I’ve used it both for writing and editing and the spreadsheet tool as well. Haven’t ever tried the drawing tool. It will remind you of the MS office tools, but it is different enough that the help available from Google will be helpful.

  136. 136.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @mrmoshpotato: I mean what’s the point of the anti-masturbation belief,

    Rape. As to the kilts, it’s a whole lot easier to run away from the scene of the crime if your pants aren’t down around your ankles.

  137. 137.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Gin & Tonic:

    you see, the bathtub falls on you while you are trying to hoist it up to your balcony 

    Did someone say balcony baths?  Hopefully no meteorites bust up your bath while you’re soaking in Sun.

  138. 138.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Ah, thank you very much. I now grasp the magnitude of my linguistic error, and shall endeavour to use these idioms correctly in future.

    (Narrator: “If there is a future.”)

  145. 145.

    Gin & Tonic

    @mrmoshpotato: No, you don’t install it on the balcony, you just hoist the tub up there to get it in your flat, because your building doesn’t have a lift. The balcony is where you step out for a smoke, slip, and fall five stories to your death if you managed to survive the bathtub installation.

  150. 150.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Their driving ideology is the same as all Republicans:  That straight white evangelical Christian men are the definition of ‘normal’ and ‘America’ and should be allowed to hurt anyone else as much as they want.  Anyone closer to that combination should be allowed to hurt anyone farther as much as they want.  One side effect of this philosophy is that since who hurts who is what’s important, helping anyone ever is suspicious.

    The Proud Boys in particular are focused on the ‘men’, ‘America’, and ‘hurt’ parts of that philosophy.

  152. 152.

    geg6

    @rikyrah:

    Jesus.  The fuckers have seen that asshole over the last four years, same as we have.  If they didn’t see that coming a mile away, tough shit.  Serves them exactly right.

    @jayjaybear:

    Sending all my good thoughts to you and your husband.  2020 truly sucks.

  159. 159.

    zhena gogolia

    @geg6:

    I finished Mary Trump’s book. It is a clear-eyed vision of this horrible man’s life. She doesn’t pretend to be close to him, but somehow her keen glimpses of him at various family “celebrations” and for the brief time he “employed” her as a writer of his memoir are more telling and convincing than many a memoir by a close relative or friend.

  160. 160.

    Quiltingfool

    @Eunicecycle: This.  Didn’t happen to me, but to one of my teacher friends.  She taught a gifted class, and they were studying the Exxon Valdez wreck.  One student said he had taped a documentary on it, and volunteered to bring the tapes for the class to watch.   Well, my friend did not preview the tapes…and while the whole class was watching the documentary, the documentary stopped and they were then watching a home video of the contributing student’s  parents having adult “fun time” (knocking boots, lol).

    Every. Teacher’s. Nightmare.  Therapist windfall (that poor student!).

  161. 161.

    Shalimar

    I think I am done with the internet for at least a few days after coming across the ultimate Florida story: “Man emasculated after failed attempt to rape pit bull”

    No date, so it has to be satire.

  162. 162.

    geg6

    So, Moscow Mitch has finally conceded that Biden and Harris have won.

    Gawd, I despise him so much.  Maybe even more than I despise Mango Mussolini.

  163. 163.

    germy

    @rikyrah:
    Republicans are furious with Trump for pocketing the money they need for the Georgia runoffs

    But what did they expect?  I mean, if there’s money… he’s going to pocket it.  That’s what he does, that’s what he’s always done.

  164. 164.

    germy

    @geg6:

    I just want someone to explain how McConnell blackmailed them all into voting for the trashing of the country. Then I want someone to produce the evidence on McConnell & his wife's dirty dealing in transportation contracts. Like, where is the GOP whistle blower? pic.twitter.com/fdphB7TWqa— ❄Mikki Kendall❄ (@Karnythia) December 15, 2020

    I freely admit I think Yertle the Cursed Turtle is rotting from the weight of his own sins. And tbh while I think Bannon & Miller are guilty as sin, it takes someone who really knows the rules to break them this thoroughly. That's McConnell. And I doubt he was ever coerced.— ❄Mikki Kendall❄ (@Karnythia) December 15, 2020

    I remain convinced McConnell was the architect of much of what happened the last 4 years. And it fascinates me how much madder people are at Pelosi than McConnell. She gets blamed for rejecting poisoned pills, but nothing about how many he's inserted? Uhh…— ❄Mikki Kendall❄ (@Karnythia) December 15, 2020

    McConnell spent the last 12 years sabotaging everything he could. And I remain confused by his reelection because he's done nothing for his constituents. Same for Graham. This has been a long spree of revenge for even a hint of progress.— ❄Mikki Kendall❄ (@Karnythia) December 15, 2020

  165. 165.

    catclub

    Michael Gerson:  WAPO    This justification — “by any means necessary” — may be the least conservative arrangement of letters in the English language. …    This approach assumes an emergency that does not actually exist.

     

    Well put.

  166. 166.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @mrmoshpotato:

    Speaking of masturbation, as always, conservatives ruin everything.

    I ran across a weird item about Laura Ingraham and some crusade against PrOnhub where she accomplished something. I did a little, uh, research on it.

    There are several facets of the aggregation of material there, and there’s a lot of it. On one hand, there’s professionally produced material that has shitty plots and identification checks on performers – that is heavily monetized. On the other, there’s material submitted by amateurs, the sort of folks who enjoy filming themselves getting down to business and putting on a show. The amateur stuff has been swarming prOnworld for a while and put a heavy dent in the produced material, affecting profits.

    Ingraham alleged that there was a lot of material involving sexual assaults as well as minors, so PrOnhub’s response was to flag all of the amateur stuff for verification, even if it was clear that the people doing the banging were adults.

    Now, this was a huge gift to the monetized portions of the industry, because one doubts that the amateurs follow their own stuff that well or they may be shy about verification.

    I put it down to one of a couple of things – some obsessively wanking asshole who has briefly found Jesus, or somebody in the paid side paying her off for the pressure campaign. There are similar sites out there, but none with that volume of material.

  167. 167.

    catclub

    @germy: Yet another person who does not realize McConnell is the AGENT of his caucus, and that he cannot force them to do things they do not want to do.

     

    They ALL want to block everything Obama wanted.

    They ALL wanted to stop Merrick Garland.

    There is NO GOP whistleblower.

     

    It may be politically easier to focus on McConnell, but he is just at the front of the GOP Senate Caucus.

  168. 168.

    dnfree

    @Quiltingfool:

     

    @Eunicecycle: it is legendary in my husband’s family that in the 1950s the nuns asked his older brother’s first-grade class what they did to help around the house. His brother proudly shared that every night before bedtime he emptied the ashtrays and picked up the beer bottles. The nuns of course had a good laugh when they shared the story with his mom.

  170. 170.

    ballerat

    What is best in life?
    Oh that made me laugh! Because I did indeed hear it in the voice of that warlord from Conan the Barbarian.

    I’ve been reading the Coping MAGA twitter threads to hear da lamentations of da wimmen.

  171. 171.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Trump’s mind is in an even darker place than usual this morning. He may try some extralegal, extrajudicial thing with some of those DHS paramilitary mercs in a few days.

  172. 172.

    WaterGirl

    @raven: The texts are probably coming from dozens of different organizations.  Are you texting STOP in response to each one, so you can get them all?

    And if you donate again. like to the concert, you get back on them and have to type STOP all over again.

  174. 174.

    Geminid

    @catclub:  I also think that McDonnell’s power over his caucus is over-rated. Occasional exceptions like Murkowski voting against Kavanaugh, or Romney voting to convict trump after impeachment, tend to prove the rule that republican Senators stick together on important votes. But their power is independent of their caucus leader, and their allegiance is voluntary.

  176. 176.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @MattF: The military already let Trump know they weren’t going to be his hired guns when he teargassed churchgoers for that ridiculous photo op.

  177. 177.

    Miss Bianca

    @Amir Khalid: I use LibreOffice on my Mac laptop, works great. Since it can open Microsoft Office documents of all stripes, I am guessing it is Windows-compatible.

  179. 179.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MattF:

    He won’t get that from most of the current structure, but there are probably some other flag officers scattered about who have the same sorts of goofy ideas as McInerney and Flynn that could stir up some problems.

    As for even a wingnut-led DOJ, the people at the level that would have to carry out orders have enough institutional knowledge and connection to know that if they try it, they’d go to jail.

    If it comes, it’s via DHS and it’s merc contractors – they’re thugs in the truest sense of the word, and so stupid that they likely don’t believe that their lives would be forfeit for attempting it.

  181. 181.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    I’m guessing that this one is going to play out like a speech from a belligerent Soviet  autocrat in an Allen Drury novel.

    For the modern equivalent, see Baghdad Bob’s work – of course, Baghdad Bob was kind of lovable and humorous.

  183. 183.

    Bill Arnold

    That HoarseWhisperer thread will be a part in the launch of a counter narrative, that Trump rigged the election, just not quite enough to counter the unexpectedly large number of mailed-in paper ballots and Biden/anti-Trump voting in general. Ooops! It was close; maybe 50K votes in battleground states would have swung it to Trump.
    To flesh out a possible counter-narrative (Note: not saying it’s true, or even definitely a good idea), GA probably wasn’t rigged because they went with traditional voter suppression and their machines print a ballot that voters can look at (true?) so they were safe that an investigation of Georgia wouldn’t uncover any election machine rigging.
    Continuing the scenario/narrative, certain states, with voting machines and not enough audit trail, were rigged and they can be spotted by examining “polling error” especially relative to polling error in neighboring states. Etc. Details adjusted to fit the actual facts of voting machinery, polling, turnout, etc, and Benford’s Law analysis of all reported numbers. (The loony techy right has been doing the Benford’s Law examination already and spotted what they think are anomalies. Hasn’t occurred to them (that I’ve seen) that they might be due to Republican vote rigging. :-)

    Benford’s law

    Benford’s law, also called the Newcomb–Benford law, the law of anomalous numbers, or the first-digit law, is an observation about the frequency distribution of leading digits in many real-life sets of numerical data. The law states that in many naturally occurring collections of numbers, the leading digit is likely to be small.[1] In sets that obey the law, the number 1 appears as the leading significant digit about 30% of the time, while 9 appears as the leading significant digit less than 5% of the time.

  184. 184.

    ballerat

    @rikyrah: Yeah I figure he thinks his prospects as a republican don’t look so good for quite a while to come.

    It’d be touching if he’s doing this out of a change of heart and personal conviction and…. Ha-ha-ha-ha! Oh that’s rich.

    Looks like we’re going to have an infestation of blue dog democrats. Just in time to thwart the shit we really need to do. Fuckem.

  186. 186.

    Betty Cracker

    @geg6: I’ve never seen that! I find Melber irritating (in part because of  the rappers), so I rarely see his show, but that sounds weird enough to be worthwhile! ;-)

  187. 187.

    Bill Arnold

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’m looking at a relative of Open Office called LibreOffice. I’d like to hear from anyone who has used it.

    I use LibreOffice on both Linux and Windows (and MacOS in 2019). It’s pretty stable. You can import and export from/to various Microsoft formats (and a some others). Fancy users might see some minor format translation issues.

  188. 188.

    Bill Arnold

    @germy:

    Ex-Rohabacher aid Paul Behrends, a staffer Linked to Veselnitskaya, Dies Suddenly After Fall Near His Home

    “Heart attack” with blunt head trauma “from the fall”? One presumes.

  191. 191.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker: 

    You’ve got to catch it one of these days. It’s really funny. Kristol always looks completely confused but having fun while doing it. It’s a whole other side to him that has never been evident in anything I’ve ever seen him do.

  193. 193.

    ballerat

    @mrmoshpotato:  The emblems and props of overt macho. The camo and black armor and hirsute sameness that’s just as much a costume as anything the village people wore. They’re all hairy and rolypoly as, well, bears. Hmm.

    I’m thinking black people voting ain’t the only thing they’re trying to suppress.

  195. 195.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @MattF: Eh, fuck Mona with a rusty pitchfork. If you notice, she’s basically taking the opportunity to continue the Hunter Biden bullshit, basically dropping in passing that there’s incriminating evidence against him, stating it as though it’s known by all.

    After several months, maybe more, of investigation and there’s been absolutely no indictment? No overt side to the investigation? No, there have not been, Mona. What a hack. She’s cut-rate Jenghazi.

  196. 196.

    The Moar You Know

    I’m looking at a relative of Open Office called LibreOffice. I’d like to hear from anyone who has used it.

    @Amir Khalid:  Bloated and shitty.  Just like OpenOffice.  Does it need to be specifically open-source?  If not, I’m going to recommend Google Suite.

  197. 197.

    The Moar You Know

    Ex-Rohabacher aid Paul Behrends, a staffer Linked to Veselnitskaya, Dies Suddenly After Fall Near His Home

    @germy: I see we’ve gotten to the “cleaning up the evidence” stage for the Russians here.  If I were Cohen or Trump or Guiliani or…damn, way too many to list – I’d be pretty concerned.

  198. 198.

    Layer8Problem

    @Amir Khalid:   Way, way late on the LibreOffice endorsements, but I run it under Linux and my partner runs it under FTF-MS Windows 10 because free; it does what we want.  I can export documents (resumes/CVs and so forth) to various MS formats as well as PDF and I’ve never seen a problem looking at the results in my company’s paid-up Word.  I use the spreadsheet without issue for finances and such.

  199. 199.

    Ksmiami

    @rikyrah: me too. Is she despondent about Ohio rt now? She really puts so much effort into keeping her state sane but the morlocks outnumber good ppl

  200. 200.

    Geminid

    @ballerat: Actually, there was an outflow of Blue Dog Caucus members this past election cycle. The caucus numbered 25 members in 2019, but freshmen Kendra Horn (OK-5), Xochtl Torres-Small (NM-5), Joe Cunningham (SC-1), Ben McAdams (UT), and Max Rose (NY-11), and veteran Colin Peterson (MN-7) lost to Republicans last month. Ted Lipinski (IL) lost to Marie Newman in a primary, but she held that safe seat.                                               Blue Dog Anthony Brindisi (NY-22) is in a recount after finishing 12 votes down.                                               Remaining Blue Dogs include Charlie Crist and Stephanie Murphy of Florida, Mikie Sherrill (NJ), Jared Golden (ME), Jason Crow (CO) and Lou Correa (CA-46). But if enough Blue Dogs lose in 2022 the Democrats may get the more ideologically compact congressional caucus some would like to see. Although Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) might be Speaker.

  204. 204.

    frosty

    @Amir Khalid:  Really dead thread: LibreOffice. Or if you’re feeling wealthy you can buy MS Office Home / Student for $149. There may still be a sale on for $100.

  205. 205.

    Another Scott

    @Amir Khalid:  Even deader thread, but I too use LO. I find the compatibility with much of MS Office to be generally excellent.

    PowerPoint compatibility can sometimes be problematic (e.g. differences in text formatting), but PPT is such a horrible program that’s not surprising. I find Impress much easier to use and more flexible (half of my time with PPT is spent fixing the wrong formatting it puts on whatever I’m doing (even working with a template)).

    Draw also works very well.

    It’s well maintained, works well, and one really couldn’t go wrong using it (as long as you don’t have to exchange complex documents with others – of course Mac MS Office users have issues whenever they have to work on PC MS Office documents – it’s the nature of the beast).

    HTH.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

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