Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

Tick tock motherfuckers!

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

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

This must be what justice looks like, not vengeful, just peaceful exuberance.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

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

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

There are a lot more evil idiots than evil geniuses.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

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

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Friday Morning Open Thread: We Are What Our Experiences Make Us

Friday Morning Open Thread: We Are What Our Experiences Make Us

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From the Washingtonian, an unexpectedly prescient article (by an underappreciated reporter) about Biden’s response to that tragedy, written back in 1974:

Joseph Robinette Biden, the 31-year-old Democrat from Delaware, is the youngest man in the Senate, which makes him a celebrity of sorts. But there’s something else that makes him good copy: Shortly after his election in November 1972 his wife Neilia and infant daughter were killed in a car accident. Suddenly this handsome, young man struck down in his moment of glory was prey to scores of hungry reporters clamoring to write soul-searching stories.

According to his staff he was hounded for weeks by the media. “It was awful in the beginning,” says Chazy Dowaliby, a press aide. “A few weeks after Neilia’s death we got a call from Sally Quinn of the Post. She wanted to do a story on the Senator as Washington’s most eligible bachelor. Naturally we said no but it wasn’t easy because she kept calling all the time. She wasn’t the only one. Women’s Wear Daily called morning, noon, and night. And so did every female magazine in the country. They all wanted to write some kind of weeping willow story on him and he knew it. So he told us to refuse all press calls.” Biden wouldn’t even talk to journalists like the Post‘s David Broder, and he wouldn’t appear on the “Today” show or “Face the Nation” or “Meet the Press.”

Although time has softened the pain of those early months in the Senate, Biden’s staff still protects him. The few reporters admitted in the past eighteen months have been asked to concentrate on Joe Biden, Senator, rather than Joe Biden, tragic figure. But the combination of youth, death, and a Kennedy-style upset victory continues to fascinate the press…

Biden had little time to savor his victory. The week before Christmas 1972 he was in Washington putting a staff together. His wife, baby daughter, and two young sons were driving home on a highway west of Wilmington after shopping for a Christmas tree when a hay truck hit their station wagon. The car was thrown over an embankment, and Biden’s wife and daughter were killed. The sons lived—four-year-old Joseph, known in the family as Beau, was in traction for weeks. Two-year-old Hunt was hospitalized with a serious head injury.

Biden was devastated. He wanted to resign. Majority Leader Mike Mansfield persuaded him to stay, promising him several prestigious committee assignments. The Senate passed a resolution allowing him to be sworn in at the hospital bedsides of his sons. That was more than a year ago, and at the time he wasn’t sure he’d be able to stay in the Senate through 1973. He said he would resign if his Senate duties took too much time away from his sons. “They can always get another Senator, but my boys cannot get another father.”

Biden says he no longer allows himself the luxury of long-range planning, but he enjoys the prestige of being a Senator and seems committed to finishing his six-year term. In fact, he says he might consider running for President. “My wife always wanted me to be on the Supreme Court,” he says. “But while I know I can be a good Senator, and I know I can be a good President, I do know that I could never be another Oliver Wendell Holmes. I know I could have easily made the White House with Neilia. And my family still expects me to be there one of these days. With them behind me anything can happen.”…

Reader Interactions

242Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    Biden wouldn’t even talk to journalists like the Post‘s David Broder

    He would have been my first choice in the primary had I known this.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    There’s some amazing things and some cringeworthy things about Joe in that article.  To be expected since it was 1974. Excellent find.

  5. 5.

    Barbara

    Why am I not surprised that Quinn’s response to the tragic loss of a young wife was to consider the widower’s prospects as an eligible bachelor. What a horrible human being.

  6. 6.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    @satby: Joe will lead us in mourning. We’ve gotten so much whiplash from the outgoing maladministration that we’ve been unable to mourn what we’ve lost. We don’t need Republicans for that and there will be some who appreciate it.

  8. 8.

    Citizen Scientist

    Good morning everyone. As I’ve not slept well all week and I have to get into work early to deal with some HR issues with a problem employee, I just wanted to wish all the jackals a great weekend and say that I hope the holidays go as well as they can for all of us.  Only 33 days to go.  Keep your heads up.

  17. 17.

    Anne Laurie

    @Baud: There’s some amazing things and some cringeworthy things about Joe in that article. To be expected since it was 1974. Excellent find.

    Wish I could find the tweet that linked it for me!

    I was frankly expecting some pushback on the author, because too many otherwise sensible people fell for the Reagans’ fake outrage back in the unlamented 90s…

  22. 22.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Biden makes no bones about saving he is underpaid. Last September, when the Senate was debating a pay raise for itself, he said, “I dont know about the rest of you but I am worth a lot more than my salary of $42,500 a year in this body. It seems to me that we should flat out tell the American people we are worth our salt.” Before he finished his speech, the Associated Press was banging out a dispatch later picked up by William Loeb, the right-wing editor of the Manchester Union Leader. “Can you imagine the conceit and stupidity of a young man of 30 who would say that?” said Loeb in a front-page editorial. “The voters of Delaware who elected this stupid, conceited jackass to the Senate should kick him in the rear to knock some sense into him, and then kick themselves for voting for such an idiot.”
    ………………………………………………..
    Biden framed Loeb’s editorial and hung it in his office. “When you get a blast like that you really know you’re worth something,” he laughs. “I feel I’ve really paid my dues now. Some thing like that makes me know that I’ve finally arrived.”

    I can’t imagine a Republican reacting to criticism in the same way.

  25. 25.

    debbie

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    If that’s from AL’s linked article, it would have been about the time of the Timberlane teacher’s strike. I was an office assistant in an NHEA regional office. All the teachers wanted was the right to collective bargaining. What a monstrous dick Loeb was at that time, ginning up people’s anger—not so different from the T***p cult today. My windshield was smashed just because I had a bumpersticker supporting the teachers.

    Needless to say, the teachers lost. A real red-letter day for Loeb and this country.

  26. 26.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Scientists looking for aliens investigate radio beam ‘from nearby star’
    Tantalising ‘signal’ appears to have come from Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the sun

    Don’t get your hopes up:

    The latest “signal” is likely to have a mundane explanation too, but the direction of the narrow beam, around 980MHz, and an apparent shift in its frequency said to be consistent with the movement of a planet have added to the tantalising nature of the finding. Scientists are now preparing a paper on the beam, named BLC1, for Breakthrough Listen, the project to search for evidence of life in space, the Guardian understands.
    ……………………………………………..
    “The chances against this being an artificial signal from Proxima Centauri seem staggering,” said Lewis Dartnell, an astrobiologist and professor of science communication at the University of Westminster. “We’ve been looking for alien life for so long now and the idea that it could turn out to be on our front doorstep, in the very next star system, is piling improbabilities upon improbabilities.

    “If there is intelligent life there, it would almost certainly have spread much more widely across the galaxy. The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality.”

  27. 27.

    John S.

    @OzarkHillbilly: I used to think people chose their politics, but I have come to realize that politics chooses their people. Everyone is wired differently, but you can pretty much tell a person’s politics by how they are wired.

  28. 28.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: If that’s from AL’s linked article,

    It is, I’d have given a link otherwise.

    I don’t remember Loeb. I was in HS when this was written, better than a decade away from any political awareness.

    ETA, still got all the glass in my truck, much to my surprise.

  30. 30.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality

    So, Qanoners will totally believe we have nearby intergalactic neighbors stealing our elections and trying to implant us with tracking devices, in other words.

  31. 31.

    John S.

    @debbie:

    Needless to say, the teachers lost. A real red-letter day for Loeb and this country.

    Ooh, you mean like a scarlet letter? It would be “A” for asshole. Life would be so much easier if the assholes would just wear that scarlet letter and help us identify them more easily.

  32. 32.

    Gloom Raider

    @Baud: There’s a lot of truth to this (hence my semi-yearly delurk); when my grandmother died in the ’80s, my grandfather found that every widow from their church turned up immediately, and for weeks afterward, with food and sympathy.

    To be clear, while I loved my grandpa very much, he was kind of an egg-shaped guy in overalls and not at all what you’d think of as a stereotypical “catch.”

  34. 34.

    BlueGuitarist

    @debbie:

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    How it started: 1970s: Far-Right nut William Loeb criticism of Joe in his far right newspaper, the Union Leader

    How it’s going: 2020: Union Leader endorses Joe Biden for president, first Democrat they endorsed in 100+ years.

    (But still right-wing they also called for voting R down-ballot. Blech)

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality

     

     

    Not if you figure the Stargate has only limited reach.

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    @Anne Laurie:   Kitty Kelley.  Interesting point.

    Always thought she was an equal opportunity poison pen biographer, but maybe she is due for a reappraisal.

  39. 39.

    Scout211

    Last night’s The Daily Social Distancing Show was a retrospective of the top 100 Trump scandals during his presidency, hosted by Roy Wood, jr.  It was well done.

  40. 40.

    Baud

    After an internal review that took more than two months, The New York Times has determined that “Caliphate,” its award-winning 2018 podcast, did not meet the standards for Times journalism.

     

    The 12-part audio documentary featuring Rukmini Callimachi, a Times correspondent who has frequently reported from conflict zones, sought to shed light on the Islamic State terrorist group. The Times found that “Caliphate” gave too much credence to the false or exaggerated accounts of one of its main subjects, Shehroze Chaudhry, a resident of Canada who claimed to have taken part in Islamic State executions.

     

    Dean Baquet, the executive editor of The Times, said the blame fell on the newsroom’s leaders, including himself.

    Now if only they would apply the same scrutiny to their domestic political desk.

  41. 41.

    Punchy

    So I just noticed that Trump has blasted the lukewarm corpse of McCain because Just Because.  So upon Trump reading this about Biden’s misfortune, approx how many hours until he says something horribly disgusting about this late wife and daughter?

    Always worth remembering: The Biggliest Christains(TM) fully endorse this grotesque behavior.

  42. 42.

    gene108

    Then Sen. Biden from the article:

    If we assume I am a candidate for President and you are deciding whether or not to work for me, I could stay here all night answering your questions about how I stand on the issues. But the fact remains that you will not have raised the issues which will be the ones I will be dealing with in my last year as President.

    Just wonder what he thought 2020 was going to be like then. I doubt a global pandemic would’ve marked the top of his to do list.

  43. 43.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Gloom Raider: When we put my old man in an Alzheimer’s facility, I over heard 2 fellow residents of the fairer sex talking about him:

    “Did you see the new gentleman?”
    “You betcha I did!”

    A couple of years earlier and the old flirt would have made out like Valentino.

  44. 44.

    Baud

    Relying on his gut, Biden shrugs off criticism to form a ‘Cabinet of firsts’
    ….

    He has made Vice President-elect Kamala D. Harris perhaps his closest partner in the Cabinet-selection effort; she has interviewed each candidate separately and traded notes with Biden afterward in what people close to the transition say has been an important step in deepening their working relationship.

  45. 45.

    Anne Laurie

    @Elizabelle: Kelley started as a reporter, and that seems to have informed her career as a biographer — for the better.

    Case in point:  The never-explicitly-spelled-out point of her Reagan bio was that the Reagans were badly damaged children whose folie a deux was crucial for some very bad people taking over the California GOP… and eventually the White House.

    If you believe the story as presented in the book, Nancy’s narcissistic mother sold her to a pedophile in return for a cushy life as a rising doctor’s socialite wife.  And Ronnie was fathered by the town drunk, and raised by his mom, another narcissist with a talent for fantasizing, to a degree where young Ron was never entirely clear on the difference between reality and what he wanted the world to be like — think Trump, but without the multimillionaire cushion to protect him.

    If the Very Serious People had paid more attention, we could’ve avoided so much of the terribleness of the past 30 years… but the Reagan Regency was so glamorous!!!

  46. 46.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So when I was driving home yesterday, sports talk had gone into a truly boring lull by a Q&A with a coach whose name and team escape me. Curiousity struck me, and I meandered over to the RWNJ station.

    I heard the most godawful English accent whipping up a frenzy with complete and total bullshit – misstatements of law, misstatements of fact. I hung in to figure out who this idiot was and thought him to sound like a particularly stupid Bond villain of the Roger Moore era.

    Turned out to be Seb Gorka. What a goddamned buffoon.

  48. 48.

    Sloane Ranger

    @Barbara: In the UK, local newspapers used to carry short Notices of Births, Marriages and Deaths. It was referred to as the Hatch, Match and Dispatch page.

  50. 50.

    Elizabelle

    @Anne Laurie:   Hmmm.  Might have to give that book another read.  Threw out the copy my mom had.

    I always loved the title of another book about Saint Reagan.  “Sleepwalking Through History.”  By the WaPost’s excellent Haynes Johnson.

    NY Times review from 1991:

    The half-remembered personalities who ruled the airwaves during the Reagan Presidency, some of whom managed to stay out of jail, now appear in a stinging indictment that resembles a cartoon history of the United States in the 1980’s as drawn by Herblock in The Washington Post:

    Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Ivan F. Boesky. Michael K. Deaver. Jerry Falwell. Jessica Hahn and Fawn Hall (one posed topless, the other shredded government documents, but which was which?). Arthur B. Laffer. Dennis B. Levine. Edwin Meese 3d. Michael R. Milken. Lyn Nofziger. Oliver L. North. John M. Poindexter. Oral Roberts. Richard V. Secord. Jimmy Swaggart. Donald J. Trump. E. Bob Wallach. Not to forget Nancy and Ronald Reagan, who dominated the scene.

    All these real-life characters turn up as leading or featured players in “Sleepwalking Through History” by Haynes Johnson, a national affairs columnist for The Washington Post and a regular panelist on the television show “Washington Week in Review.” What distinguishes this ambitious book as social history is that it uses the Reagan Presidency (Mr. Johnson throws in President Bush’s succession to round out the decade) to describe what was happening while the Chief Executive and his spear carriers were, in Mr. Johnson’s view, setting the highest standards of greed, immorality and deception.

    From all this, Mr. Johnson draws a conclusion for today: that the country is now paying for the Reagan legacy with lowered ideals and a debtor economy. He writes: “Two types of problems typified the ethical misconduct cases of the Reagan years, and both had heavy consequences to citizens everywhere. One stemmed from ideology and deregulatory impulses run amok; the other from classic corruption on a grand scale.”

    ….  Was President Reagan responsible for the growing power of the televangelists, the leveraged-buyout manipulators, the excesses of the new Gilded Age? [Hell yes!!] All typified “a self-indulgent and imitative age when entertainers became public leaders and when celebrities, not pioneers, scientists or artists, became cultural heroes.” Mr. Johnson does not say so specifically, but the reader cannot help thinking that by emphasizing the national sleepwalking during the Reagan Presidency, he attributes the inspiration for the worst of times to the Reagan White House.

    “Sleepwalking Through History” is an important addition to the growing shelf of works about the Reagan years because of its rich background information. It deserves a place just below Ronnie Dugger’s “On Reagan: The Man and His Presidency” and Garry Wills’s “Reagan’s America: Innocents at Home,” both of which are even harsher in their judgments of the President who brought Hollywood to the Potomac.

  53. 53.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Baud:

    Pence trying to spin gold out of last weeks straw in a neglected horse stall is something amazing.

  54. 54.

    Elizabelle

    @Sloane Ranger:  Hatch, Match, and Dispatch. That’s funny.

    Some people used to refer to the engagement and wedding notices as “the women’s sporting pages.”

  59. 59.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I always refer to him as “Doctor” Gorka.  His Ph.D. is a joke, given to him by ideological buddies for a ‘dissertation’ that was, at best, a mediocre Master’s Thesis as a 3d tier state school.   (And I say that as someone with a Master’s from a 2d tier state school!)

  62. 62.

    Matt McIrvin

    @gene108: I doubt early-1970s Biden would have imagined his Presidency being this far in the future, if it was going to happen at all.

  63. 63.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    Mr DAW went out to pick up bagels he ordered on line and came back with a giant cup of coffee for me. I’ve been drinking half-caff so this is a real kick.

    Maybe I’ll actually write today. Or not.

  64. 64.

    Gloom Raider

    @Baud:  He dated very casually for a few years in a church-social kind of way. He seemed to be at a life stage where he liked the free casseroles as much as, if not more than, the romance.

  66. 66.

    Elizabelle

    Apologies for not reading the Washingtonian’s Biden piece yet, and scattershotting in other stuff.  Just not awake enough yet for that profile.

    BUT:  Kitty Kelley has a good blog; new entry two days ago. And this recent tidbit from late October  — wow!

    “Never offend an enemy in a small way,” Gore Vidal once wrote. The prickly writer, who thrived on making enemies, may soon be spewing venom from six feet under. Eight years after his death, he is scheduled to cast shade on his nemesis, William F. Buckley, Jr., in a new play by Alexandra Petri, called Inherit the Windbag. The play is in virtual rehearsals right now, at Washington, D.C.’s Mosaic Theatre Company, but when a stage version opens, likely next spring,

    Yes.  That Alexandra Petri.  The WaPost’s exceptionally funny satirist.

    Inherit the Windbag.  About William F. Buckley.  I cannot wait.

  67. 67.

    different-church-lady

    The Senate passed a resolution allowing him to be sworn in at the hospital bedsides of his sons.

    Today they’d be using it as an excuse to not seat him at all.

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    @Matt McIrvin:   And who could ever guess he would be following the literally worst president in US history?  A narcissistic real estate developer, with no previous electoral experience,  in hock up to his eyeballs to foreign interests, who was a spite president?

  72. 72.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    As CNN is helpfully noting, President Festivus wasn’t present at a middling sort of public education and reassurance event, choosing instead to sit on the toilet and tweet his grievances.

  73. 73.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: There was no reconciling my father with it. Tears, tears, and more tears, calls for Jesus to come and take him, a deathgrip hold of my hand… My wife couldn’t handle it, never came back after the 2nd visit.

    The only way to avoid his tear filled begging of me not to abandon him there, was to tell him I was going to the bathroom. The only thing that made the guilt from lying bearable was the knowledge that he would forget I had been there long before he expected me to return. It was a small mercy I could give him.

  75. 75.

    Chyron HR

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    That’s just so bizarre. Trump brags about the vaccine! He wants it named after him.

    Trump created the vaccine, which is good.  Biden wants to force it on us with his socialism, which is bad.

  77. 77.

    rikyrah

    Reminder: On the same day he became AG, Bill Barr arranged for his daughter Mary, a lawyer, to get a top job at Treasury working directly with Steven Mnuchin to protect Trump’s taxes plus his Deutsche Bank loans, and provide trumped-up dirt on the Bidens to Congress Republicans.— Andrea Junker ® (@Strandjunker) December 15, 2020

  82. 82.

    Betty Cracker

    Sally Quinn, sweet Jeebus, what a ghoul.

    From the linked story:

    In fact, he says he might consider running for President. “My wife always wanted me to be on the Supreme Court,” he says. “But while I know I can be a good Senator, and I know I can be a good President, I do know that I could never be another Oliver Wendell Holmes.

    It’s a good to know your limitations, especially as a young and ambitious person. That’s too rare.

    I’ve never understood people who rolled out of the cradle wanting to be president. I don’t know that Biden did, but probably, if he was already thinking about it in 1974. Bill Clinton was in that category too. I don’t think Obama did, or at least I didn’t get that impression from reading his early memoir years ago. Once he’d been a politician for a while, he wanted to get to the top of that profession and pursued it single-mindedly, but he considered other occupations first.

    I’m not saying it’s positive or negative thing, hankering to be president from childhood on. It’s just something I’ve never really understood. Maybe because I’m a girl. :)

  84. 84.

    sab

    @OzarkHillbilly: We lied and told my dad that his house was undergoing much needed repairs and those damn contracters take forever

    ETA I am sorry about your dad’s experience. My dad would have reacted the same if he’d known it was permanent.

  86. 86.

    Elizabelle

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage:   I hope Kitty Kelley is writing a bio of the Trump family!

    =====

    Mike Pence and Mother Pence have been vaccinated, on live TV.  With Anthony Fauci and CDC head Robert Redfield in attendance.  Walter Reed doctors, making a housecall to the Old Executive Office Building.

    The republic is saved.

    Meanwhile, per the WaPost:

    Trump, meanwhile, has no public appearances scheduled on Friday. He touted vaccine distribution in several tweets.

    The only event on Trump’s schedule advertised by the White House is a closed-door meeting with Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary.

    Trump is, no doubt, too vain to expose his flabby white/orange upper arm in public.

  87. 87.

    Spanky

    Meghan McCain
    @MeghanMcCain
    Two years after he died, you still obsess over my dad. It kills you that no one will ever love you or remember you like they loved and remember him. He served his country with honor, you have disgraced the office of the presidency.

    You couldn’t even pull it out in Arizona…

    Oh Meghan! Did you have to end on such a sentiment?

  88. 88.

    NotMax

    @Elizabelle

    The only event on Trump’s schedule advertised by the White House is a closed-door meeting with Christopher C. Miller, the acting defense secretary.

    “Why hasn’t my military stenciled my named in big letters on the cartons of vaccine before they get put on those trucks yet?”

    //

  89. 89.

    Suzanne

    There is an interesting piece in Vox today, an interview with the author of “The Consumer Citizen”. I am very curious about this book, and if the thesis is correct, I think it could really help us understand to be more effective messengers. Would love to hear y’all’s thoughts.

  90. 90.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Spanky: shades of her father, who was wildly overrated for most of his career, but might well have found his moment in the trump era if he hadn’t gotten sick

    I gather Megs spends most of her air time on The View shrieking that it’s unfair– to say the least– to blame Republicans for Donald Trump

  91. 91.

    Elizabelle

    @Spanky:   Meghan McCain is determined to be the 21st century version of Varina Anne “Winnie” Davis, the original “Daughter of the Confederacy.”  They really did try to build a cult around Winnie.  Albeit Jefferson Davis’s daughter died (infectious illness) aged 34.  Meghan is already 36.

    Meghan’s most recent tweet:

    Is every single person who ever worked with my dad – except me and
    @SarahPalinUSA
    officially a Democrat now? I’m just over here still believing and clinging to all the beliefs, principles and political ideology he taught me and fought for my entire life…

    Le sigh.  The dumbness, it hurts.

  92. 92.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    He would have been my first choice in the primary had I known this.

    If we had a ‘like’ button, I’d be punching it until my fingers were sore.

  93. 93.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Chyron HR:

    Trump created the vaccine, which is good.  Biden wants to force it on us with his socialism, which is bad.

    That would be funny if morons wouldn’t take it at face values and scream about “MAH FREEDUMB!” and “SOSHELLISUM! and “TIERANNIE!”

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    @NotMax:   “And what do you mean Jared can’t sell arms to [insert name(s) of likeliest source of Trump-Kushner financing, in years to come]??”

  95. 95.

    germy

    People who stood by Donald Trump for the last four years are now claiming to be offended that a Democratic campaign manager used a curse word? I don't think so.

    — Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) December 17, 2020

  96. 96.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: Meghan McCain really is a moron and also a symbol of the debased state of conservatism — that such a whiny, clueless, entitled nitwit passes for one of its more house-trained public representatives.

  97. 97.

    germy

    New: Ben Carson has told confidants he wants to start a think tank after President Trump leaves office next month. He still hasn’t publicly acknowledged Biden’s victory but is privately planning his post-Trump life. https://t.co/iig9QMc0om

    — Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) December 18, 2020

    But Ben is profoundly stupid. What will he think about?

  99. 99.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I gather Megs spends most of her air time on The View shrieking that it’s unfair– to say the least– to blame Republicans for Donald Trump 

    Everyone knows Obummer is responsible for the racist fascist Soviet shitpile mobster conman.  What with all his being President while, ya know – being black.

    Seriously, John McCain’s daughter can still go fuck herself and the entire GOP can diaf.

  100. 100.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    Isn’t Sally Quinn the one who sniffed that the Clintons were not our sort? The famous quote about ”it’s not their house”?

  102. 102.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Elizabelle:

    I’m just over here still believing and clinging to all the beliefs, principles and political ideology he taught me and fought for my entire life… 

    Oh Meg…  “Tax cuts for the rich and fuck everything and everyone else!” are still shit-covered beliefs, principles and political ideology 40 years later.

  105. 105.

    Kattails

    @Elizabelle: @Anne Laurie: Are you talking about Saint Ronnie? I will absolutely have to read these.  Reagan’s piddle-down economics is still fucking us over today, with zero analysis from supporters of the past who can’t notice that not a damn thing has trickled down. At the same time they complain about people being on welfare and food stamps, can’t notice that the minimum wage has stagnated for a decade. The gang that jerks and twitches in fear every time the Republicans hit the “socialist” buzzer but are oblivious to the fact that we’re picking up the slack in salaries for MacDonalds and Walmart.  And who are themselves on Social Security.

    I swear I need a three-ring sectioned binder for all the information that can be gleaned from this website.

  106. 106.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:   Yup.  Another one of the “quiet parts out loud”  types.

    She and her arch-nemesis, DJ Trump, are both walking poster children for the perils of nepotism.  Not smart, but they must be in that spotlight.

  108. 108.

    germy

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:  I gather Megs spends most of her air time on The View shrieking that it’s unfair

    No.  She hasn’t been on for weeks. She took months off when she got pregnant (“I’ve got morning sickness!”) and now that the infant is born, she’s taking more time off.  She says she’ll be back sometime in January.

    She also took many weeks off so she could grieve when her father died.

    More power to her, I just wish real working people could get that kind of time off for family matters

  109. 109.

    mrmoshpotato

    @germy:

    Ben Carson has told confidants he wants to start a think tank after President Trump leaves office next month. 

    LOL!  Is it a carnival dunk tank atop which he can think why he destroyed what probably would’ve been an obscure, but noble, life’s legacy as a surgeon for a known life’s legacy as grifting trash for a traitorous conman?

  111. 111.

    oatler.

    @Spanky:I

    i continue to take pleasure in her absence from The View, as well as other hosts’ silence on it   (remember when Whoopi had pneumonia?)

  114. 114.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @mrmoshpotato: the old man was against the first round of Bush tax cuts, back when he was mad at Bush for stealing his presidency (and rumor had it, thinking about switching parties till Jim Jeffords stole that spotlight). Then Bush started a war and McCain got all horny for winning Vietnam in the desert. Then Obama stole his presidency and he flip-flopped on Gitmo, climate change and probably a few other things I’m forgetting. Megs has always been quite comfortable cloaking herself in borrowed valor– her father’s, her brothers’– to support sending other people to die

    @different-church-lady: one would think…. kinda surprised she acknowledges Palin’s existence, since even his Beltway hagiographers– his base, as he used to call them– couldn’t avoid mentioning her as his hero’s flaw

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: It feels to me as if being Obama’s Vice-President for eight years changed Joe Biden as a politician–took some of that hyper-ambitious edge off, while simultaneously giving him a deep look inside the White House. It’s as if he made a conscious decision in the summer of 2008 to play the second banana happily and that affected everything else about him.

  119. 119.

    germy

    @mrmoshpotato:  he destroyed what probably would’ve been an obscure, but noble, life’s legacy as a surgeon

    No one thought he was a good surgeon except for lifestyle magazine writers and republican operators. And the guy he hired to create decorative biblical graffiti in his house, spelling “proverbs” wrong.

    The actual people he operated on held different opinions.

  121. 121.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle:

    he and her arch-nemesis, DJ Trump, are both walking poster children for the perils of nepotism.  Not smart, but they must be in that spotlight.

    and the perils of narcissistic fathers who never gave their kids the love and attention they needed– I hesitate to put McCain in the exact same basket as The Beast in any regard, but I’m sure he preferred playing poker with the boys to little Meghan’s dance recitals

  123. 123.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Luciamia:

    “Washington’s most eligible bachelor?” What the fuck is wrong with people? 

    What?  Did you want “Washington’s most eligible widower?”

    Sorry, couldn’t resist.  Yeah, they’re terrible people.

  124. 124.

    Betty Cracker

    First laugh of the day — thought I’d share:

    A few years back, I was on a group conference call run by a notoriously humorless and unforgiving client and her downtrodden employees. Her cats got in a massive fight that she had to pause the meeting to quell. It was glorious!

  125. 125.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @OzarkHillbilly: I watch “Event Horizon” on you tube which spends a lot of time considering the Fermi Paradox and they were pointing out the assumption SETI is based on is an advance civilizations will set up a very high powered radio beacon to broadcast their presence to universe, even though we do no such thing and in fact in our radio communications a lot of effort is put in to  minimize the energy used and focus the broadcast.

  127. 127.

    Spanky

    A video question for the hive mind:

    I’ve got a 77-second video from my phone that’s 166MB! MP4 format, which I’m not familiar with.

    What can I do to reduce the size to something more manageable (i.e. transportable)?

  128. 128.

    germy

    Speaking of The View:

    You never know exactly what the work environment is going to be at any job. For former news anchor Connie Chung, her experience working at ABC News was less than perfect due to the environment created by two of her co-workers — and it may not be the co-workers you were expecting.

    In an interview with Andrew Goldman for Los Angeles Magazine’s “The Originals” podcast, Chung shared that while working alongside fellow future famous female reporters Barbara Walters and Diane Sawyer, she felt like she was “always playing a game of whack-a-mole.” “I popped my head up and one of them would have a hammer and go whack, and put me down back in my little hole,” says Chung in an excerpt from the interview, now making the rounds on Twitter.

    Chung was initially optimistic about joining ABC News with Walters and Sawyer at first, thinking they’d be able to form a kinship as women. “Oh, this is going to be great,” said Chung. “It’ll be three women who get along.’” But things quickly took a turn south as the women were forced to compete for interviews and airtime, with Chung affirming Goldman’s speculation that the environment was “like a shark tank.” When asked how it feels to get knee-capped professionally by Walters and Sawyer, Chung responded, “It’s not unlike what Tonya Harding did to Nancy Kerrigan.”

    Baba Walters was the spoiled daughter of a wealthy show biz mogul. I’ve read interviews with people who worked for him. They said she was just as horrible as he was.

  129. 129.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @satby: Proxima Centauri is were they reanimated Hugo Chaz who is now orbiting the earth as a 2001 Space Odyssey star child and is now using strange alien powers to mentally control the socialist take over of the US.

  131. 131.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I recall asking SETI researcher Paul Horowitz about that. He said the assumption they were generally making was that they were looking not for signal leakage but for intentional transmissions designed to be heard by other civilizations, and that any civilization willing to do this on a continuing basis would probably be one far materially richer than we are, able to do stuff way up Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. So they’d at least thought about it.

  135. 135.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @germy: The Latin Quarter! which IIRC was the model for Ricky Ricardo’s Club Babalu on the old Lucy show?
    And speaking of the long ago night life of café society, here’s an interesting even if not precisely, technically true tidbit about The Stork Club and their menu

    Hayes Brown @HayesBrown
    I just ran some of these prices through the BLS inflation calculator and they had folks paying the equivalent of $32 for some prosciutto and melon and $46 for the Caesar salad

  136. 136.

    Betty Cracker

    @Suzanne: It makes sense to me, particularly since there’s really not a shared vision of citizenship. Some of the most effective politicians are already taking what you could call a consumer angle. Katie Porter is constantly hammering banks, bureaucrats, etc., using the “fairness” argument.

  141. 141.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Matt McIrvin: Yes and the counterargument to that it would be easier to detect such a civilization because there would be a spherical black spot in a galaxy as this civilization was sucking up the energy out put from various stars.

  142. 142.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Spanky: There’s another popular method.  You open a youtube account, which can be done easily if you already have a google account, and then you upload the video to youtube and mark the video private, so it can only be seen by you and those authorized.  I do that with family videos so it’s easy to watch on the big flat screen, as well as my phone, and teachers/professors use that for their classrooms.  The advantage is youtube does all the compression work for you and it’s easy to share.  (link)

  143. 143.

    Geminid

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: trump may be up to some military adventure. Supposedly his national security team talked him out of a strike against Iran a few weeks ago, but trump likes to exercise power, and at this point starting a war is one of the destructive things he can still do. It can’t hurt his reelection chances now.

  144. 144.

    mad citizen

    @Scout211:  Thanks for posting this@Scout211:  These pop up on my YouTube feed on my tv, so thanks for posting, I will look for it.
    The snarky comment is that there is still a month left so probable they will figure out a few more scandals that can crack the Top 100.

  145. 145.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Suzanne: Very interesting article and it rings very true with me. I always think of  people who say “someone should do something about that.” when they hear about something bad happening. Well, the answer is almost always that some level of government action is/should or can be the “someone” that fixes “that” thing.

  146. 146.

    jonas

    @Geminid: Actually, I think Trump really, really doesn’t want to start a war because the he can’t control events and if stuff goes south, he’s left holding the bag. No, what he really likes is *threatening* force, and then dreaming that the adversary, cowed by his awesome badass-ness, comes crawling to him waving a white flag and begging to “make a deal.” Then all he has to do is start getting fitted for that tux to wear to the Nobel Peace Prize banquet.

    It’s all a vivid tableau in his mind.

  147. 147.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Fun fact, Don Davis’ son hangs out at my pub. He played their boss on “Stargate”. That’s as famous as we get unless John Goodman or Brad Pitt ever walk in the door (could happen, sometimes they come to town in secret.)

  148. 148.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @germy: By all accounts Ben Carson was a gifted pediatric neurosurgeon. His subsequent career is clear refutation of the fallacy that expertise in one field implies expertise in any other field with a minimum of mental effort.

    Then again, the same could be said of most US med-school graduates.

    Carson doesn’t need to found a think tank – he can certainly find (& buy) a tank that can think better than him. My guess is most septic tanks would qualify.

  150. 150.

    germy

    @Uncle Cosmo: 
    By all accounts Ben Carson was a gifted pediatric neurosurgeon.

    Puff pieces in lifestyle magazines.

    He operated on people without bothering to read their charts. And then after causing brain damage, said “If I’d read your chart I never would have operated!”

    Malpractice lawsuits were brought against him.

  151. 151.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @BlueGuitarist:

    How it’s going: 2020: Union Leader endorses Joe Biden for president, first Democrat they endorsed in 100+ years.

    (But still right-wing they also called for voting R down-ballot. Blech)

    Thus demonstrating a fundamental conservative trait: complete lack of self-awareness.

  152. 152.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Soprano2:

    I wanted to like that series, but unlike the original movie, they had the aliens from all worlds speaking conversational English.

  154. 154.

    Jinchi

    @Scout211: Last night’s The Daily Social Distancing Show was a retrospective of the top 100 Trump scandals during his presidency

    Courageous call on their part to assume that Trump can’t get several more scandals in the top 10 before January 20th.

  155. 155.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    “If there is intelligent life there, it would almost certainly have spread much more widely across the galaxy. The chances of the only two civilisations in the entire galaxy happening to be neighbours, among 400bn stars, absolutely stretches the bounds of rationality.”

    There are a couple of things wrong with this two-sentence statement, namely, the first sentence and the second sentence.

    First, we humans are somewhat intelligent lifeforms, yet we haven’t spread widely across the galaxy. Second, the chance of another civilization developing in the nearest solar system to us is exactly the same chance as another civilization developing in the furthest solar system from us. Either way, the a priori probability of civilization existing on anyone planet is very low, but it’s the same probability for each of them. This does not push the bounds of rationality; it is rational.

  156. 156.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @germy: Malpractice lawsuits were brought against him.

    Anyone who does any kind of risky surgery will have malpractice suit bought against them.  Did he lose?   Were they settled for significant sums?  As we’ve seen following the recent election, virtually anyone can file a lawsuit over virtually anything.

  157. 157.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Speaking of a series, we started “The Crown” last night – SO good.

  158. 158.

    germy

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Every time I mention Carson, people here invariably defend him.  “He was a brilliant surgeon!”

    The man is an imbecile.  He couldn’t even figure out how to enter the stage during the republican primary debate.

    Maryland court records indicate Carson has been involved in at least a half-dozen malpractice cases.  Some of the cases are pending.  Others settled or dismissed for unknown amounts. Carson has faced several malpractice allegations since the early 1980s.

    “Some patients claim Carson was not a perfect doctor.  The patients have told the press that Carson left them with continued suffering from paralysis, seizure, an uncontrollable bladder and other life-altering pains”

    Again, the story I remember is when he told a woman “If I’d read your chart, I never would have operated on you.”

    https://www.amfs.com/ben-carson-accused-of-medical-malpractice/

    The magazine puff pieces that brought him to national attention were condescending, in my opinion.  “He’s a Black guy, but he’s also a brain surgeon!  Imagine that?!”

  159. 159.

    dnfree

    @Gloom Raider: after my mother died, the same thing happened to my dad, who was only mid-70s.  At first he thought all those nice women from church were inviting him over for dinner out of the kindness of their hearts. After he figured it out, he was flattered, but he quickly realized that replacing my mom wouldn’t be just a matter of having someone who could cook. A couple of years later he did remarry, and his new wife was a treasure and a delight to our family.

    They were married 15 years, most of them very good years. When he died, he had dementia, but he did tell us that he had been a lucky man to have two wonderful wives. Some people don’t even get one.

  161. 161.

    sdhays

    @germy: He couldn’t even figure out how to enter the stage during the republican primary debate.

    LOL. I had forgotten about that one!

  162. 162.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @germy:

    I’m going to agree with Omnes for once in my life – docs in high risk specialties do wind up with a fair number of suits. There are a number of gray areas in the determination as to whether the standard of care was breached, as well as gray areas as to whether the negative condition or death was caused by that breach. Sometimes, the optimal medical result just can’t be reached due to the vagaries of that patient’s condition or body.

    Conversely, these don’t make the losing suit meritless-there are legit disagreements among medical providers about best practices, so our system of assigning responsibility provides an opportunity to test those.

  164. 164.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @germy: My point was, and is, that suits filed is not any kind of measure of the competence of a surgeon in a high risk field.  I am not saying that he is a brilliant surgeon; I am saying that nothing you have posted proves that he isn’t.

    ETA:  Being a brilliant surgeon, being a Harvard grad, or being first in one’s class at West Point does not prevent someone from being an idiot in all other aspects of life.

  165. 165.

    germy

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Yes, there are unavoidable damages when it comes to brain surgery.  But there are also damages that occur when the doctor is distracted and incompetent.

    Familiarizing oneself with a patient’s chart before deciding on a course of surgery falls into the latter.

    Mention Rudy here and there’s the “What happened to him?? He was America’s mayor!”  comments. Mention Dershowitz and hear “What happened to him? He was a brilliant lawyer!”  Mention Carson and get the “Yes, but we must all agree that he was a brilliant surgeon!  The NYT magazine lifestyle section did a story on him and everything… he even posed next to the Poverb calligraphy on his wall!”

  167. 167.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Geminid:

    trump may be up to some military adventure. Supposedly his national security team talked him out of a strike against Iran a few weeks ago

    Fuck, no.  Trump’s record is consistent, and those stories are all that he asked about something.  I’m sure he has asked about everything imaginable, because he’s an idiot with a short attention span.  What he decided was to reduce troops to screw with Biden.

    @jonas:

    No, what he really likes is *threatening* force, and then dreaming that the adversary, cowed by his awesome badass-ness, comes crawling to him waving a white flag and begging to “make a deal.”

    This.

    @Benw:

    Columbus was lost is straight fire

    Hee.  And so true.  There may be no historical figure more inaccurately mythologized in America than that mass murdering, child-enslaving, deluded and idiotic pedophile Christopher Columbus.  He did everything wrong and got unbelievably lucky.

  171. 171.

    Jinchi

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: They were pointing out the assumption SETI is based on is an advance civilizations will set up a very high powered radio beacon to broadcast their presence to universe

    That’s not really the basis of SETI. The basis was that aliens might be noisy enough that we could detect them from light years away. Imagine an alien standing on the moon. All he has to do is look up to see evidence of intelligent life on Earth. All that wasted light from our cities illuminating the night side like a Christmas tree. Now imagine a civilization thousands of years more advanced than our own.

    Radio telescopes are cheap. It would’ve been embarassing if the galaxy was filled with aliens shouting at each other and we’d never even bothered to look.

  172. 172.

    Betty Cracker

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I think it’s terrific too — glad y’all are enjoying it. I’ve heard some grumbling online about the latest season, but I think the quality is just as high. The era covered in S4 is stuff some of us recall, so maybe it conflicts with people’s memories? Anyway, terrific acting, production values, etc., all around, IMO.

  173. 173.

    Brachiator

    @Jinchi:

    Courageous call on their part to assume that Trump can’t get several more scandals in the top 10 before January 20th.

    Ha! So true. Trump seems intent on going out with a bang and a sullen whimper.

  174. 174.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: There’s a tale from back in the day when a dollar was (semi)serious ca$h, when George S. Kaufman took Harpo Marx to a fancy restaurant.

    Harpo perused the menu prices in mounting dismay & finally said**, What can a guy get in here for fifty cents?

    Kaufman replied, A quarter.***

    ** Muteness was, of course, just his shtick on stage. ;^D

    *** But a Latin Quarter? Opinions differ… :^p

  177. 177.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:   I still have to watch The Crown.

    Does sound like it’s been dramatized enough to have to carry a disclaimer that some events and characterizations were fictionalized.

    As with “The Spanish Princess.”  Which deals with the distant Tudors.

    FWIW, it’s strange to have the actual historical figure — Princess Diana — be far more glamorous and photogenic than the actresses portraying her.

  178. 178.

    Elizabelle

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Being a brilliant surgeon, being a Harvard grad, or being first in one’s class at West Point does not prevent someone from being an idiot in all other aspects of life.

    And double or triple points on the idiocy if said surgeon, Harvard grad or West Pointer joins the Trump maladministration.

  179. 179.

    scav

    @John S.: Ooh, you mean like a scarlet letter? It would be “A” for asshole. Life would be so much easier if the assholes would just wear that scarlet letter and help us identify them more easily.

    What else could that red hat possibly be?

  180. 180.

    Jeffro

    @germy: did I ever tell this crowd about the time I sat next to Dr. Carson on a flight from CO to VA?  Mrs. Fro thought it was the funniest thing.

  181. 181.

    Miss Bianca

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    My ex and I hired a lawyer after his mother died, because she had had her suspicions about her treatment by the principal physician (she died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, as I recall). This lawyer, who specialized in malpractice suits, found enough evidence to pursue things to a certain point; then told us that, while the treatment regimen that this doctor had prescribed for her had not been the usual one, it was within the bounds of regular practice and – here was the kicker – finished with: “you can pursue this further if you want to, but you’ll have to find a different lawyer.”

    We did not pursue it.

  184. 184.

    cain

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    Fucking hate that guy – that there is some shit painting by Salvador Dali depicting his arrival to America as the coming of angels is as offensive as it gets. I used to own a poster.. I dont know where it is – but if I find it, it’s going to burn.

  185. 185.

    germy

    @Miss Bianca:

    My nephew is 52 years old now.  Can’t speak, can barely walk.  What should have been a normal birth was botched by the doctor who delivered him.

    But my working class family believed any man in a necktie or a lab coat was a wise authority, not to be challenged.  My sister was told “these things happen” and so she didn’t even bother calling a lawyer.

  186. 186.

    Miss Bianca

    @germy:

    My ex’s mother had two stillbirths after he was born – apparently, her original obstetrician had botched some aspect of her afterbirth care, so that she was unable to deliver to term. T would have had two younger brothers. We used to talk about that, sometimes – how different his life would have been as the eldest son, as opposed to the only son.

    Apparently his mom had a nervous breakdown after the second miscarriage. All of the emotional turmoil seriously fucked up his parents’ marriage, and they had a very acrimonious divorce. T and his dad never really reconciled until we got married, in fact.

    All that tragedy because of an incompetent doctor. So yeah…it happens. Sorry to hear about your nephew.

  187. 187.

    germy

    @Miss Bianca:

    It bugs me when people excuse Carson with “Well, all doctors are sued for malpractice… it’s just part of the job!”

    Yes, some lawsuits are baseless.  But many are justified.

  188. 188.

    WereBear

    @Elizabelle:

    Always thought she was an equal opportunity poison pen biographer, but maybe she is due for a reappraisal.

     
    Such was her reputation, but after reading a few of her books, I think she researches and is more honest than that.

  189. 189.

    Ruckus

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Had a similar type of experience with my dad’s Alzheimers facility.

    One of the involved – my dad.

    More to the point the staff at the time informed me that humanity doesn’t quit being humanity just because it can’t remember it’s own name or marital history.

  190. 190.

    Suzanne

    @Betty Cracker: The aspect I find most intriguing about the idea of the citizen as consumer is the role of emotional vs. rational appeals. And the impact of aspiration. It is long known that consumers buy products that reflect the kind of people they aspire to be, not the kind of people they really are. IMO, the Democratic messaging usually sucks at this, which is why we see people voting as if they’re rich when they aren’t.

  192. 192.

    burnspbesq

    @Elizabelle:

    The ironic part of that is that the crusading U.S. Attorney who led the team that cleaned up Wall Street was … (wait for it) … Rudy Giuliani.

  195. 195.

    trollhattan

    @Elizabelle:

    Portrayal of the interpersonal relationships, we can only guess as to how fanciful they may be. Think one of the “problems” is that Queen Elizabeth has reigned so very long and it could be that official historical accounts of her reign cannot be published during said reign. (NB I’m not someone who follows the monarchy and don’t know the rules on these things, official or presumed.)

    The historical framework is quite accurate WRT who did what, when.

    Probably my biggest complaint is taking Charles from sympathetic character, especially the maltreatment from dear old dad, to whiny, detached, cruel husband in season 4. They do not make any attempt to show us the bridge to that transformation.

    I found the portrayal of Diana quite believable, others may not–she’s still burned into a lot of memories. Rollerskating in the palace? Yes, please. Love the portrayals of Anne (especially teenage Anne) and Margaret (who doesn’t love Helena Bonham Carter?).

    I cannot keep track of what castle they’re in from scene to scene, although the Buckingham staircase features prominently in many.

  197. 197.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @trollhattan:

    Margaret (who doesn’t love Helena Bonham Carter?).

    I do, and I thought the actress who played the younger Margaret was great too. I do wish they had worked in Peter Sellers and Mick Jagger.

    I have a theory that the Helen Mirren movie did a lot to shore up the royals’ popularity. I’ve thought the same thing about the Crown– the Claire Foy seasons seemed especially sympathetic to Betty–, but I haven’t got to the Diana season yet

    ETA Rollerskating in the palace?

    I vaguely remember real time reports of roller-skating in the palace. And the portrayal of Anne is the most favorable press I’ve ever seen her get. She’s the only royal I’ve ever seen in person. I was in Edinburgh and I walked down to Holyrood Palace. They were temporarily blocking entry and wouldn’t say why, then Anne walked out with her umbrella, we all clapped, she got into the back of what I still maintain was a stretch Ford Escort (people have told me there’s no such thing) and they drove her away. She didn’t acknowledge the applause, which would seem to me a small price to pay for the overnight in the palace and the stretch Escort.

  198. 198.

    burnspbesq

    @Benw:

    That Haaland tweet tho. Columbus was lost is straight fire

    Truth. Erling Haaland wishes he could hit the target like that.

  199. 199.

    Immanentize

    @Miss Bianca: My Father’s mother gave birth to her first child who was strangled by the umbilical cord.  My Grandmother blamed “the drunk midwife” to her dying day.  It was a boy.  They named him Josef after my grandfather and buried the wee tot.  Then, she had another kid — a boy — my father!  They named him Josef after my Grandfather.

  201. 201.

    Elizabelle

    @burnspbesq:   Oh lord. The 1990s.

    Just noticed that Trump’s name appears in the book review excerpt I put up for Sleepwalking in America, among the parade of deplorables orbiting the Reagans.

  202. 202.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Kaitlan Collins @kaitlancollins· 1h
    Though President Trump has nothing on his schedule except a meeting with the defense secretary later, pool reporters were just abruptly summoned to go into an unknown event in the Cabinet room. But it was canceled just as fast as it was called.

    he wanted to remeasure the strawberries

  203. 203.

    Elizabelle

    @WereBear:   And Kitty Kelley is certainly good on getting people to dish. She knows how to ply her sources, it would seem.  Find the disenchanted.  Get them to talk.

    @trollhattan:   Think I’m the last person in America without Netflix.  Really would like to see The Crown, and a lot of their other fare.  As it is, I barely watch Amazon Prime.

  206. 206.

    Another Scott

    Meanwhile, … RollCall:

    Negotiations on a coronavirus aid package appeared to hit an 11th-hour setback Friday when Democrats accused Republicans of making a late demand to block Federal Reserve lending programs.

    Republican Sen. Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania has led a GOP push to block the next administration and the Federal Reserve from relaunching several expiring lending programs for businesses next year. Democrats said the move could hamper the economic recovery and hamstring the incoming Biden administration.

    “We almost have a bipartisan COVID package, but at the last minute Republicans are making a demand that WAS NEVER MENTIONED AS KEY TO THE NEGOTIATIONS,” Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, tweeted Friday. “They want to block the FED from helping the economy under Biden. It’s the reason we don’t have a deal.”

    So, the GOP senate is trying to break things for the incoming Democratic administration. Another day ending in “y”??

    Grrr…

    Meanwhile, meanwhile… Navy.mil:

    WASHINGTON ̶ The U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard released a new tri-Service maritime strategy today, entitled Advantage at Sea.

    The document provides strategic guidance on how the sea services will prevail in day-to-day competition, crisis, and conflict over the next decade. It also directs the services to deepen tri-service integration, aggressively pursue force modernization, and continue robust cooperation with allies and partners.

    Inside the 34 page .pdf it says (p.22):

    Nuclear deterrence. The Navy will deliver Columbia-class submarines on time to
    replace the retiring Ohio-class and continue to modernize nuclear command, control, and
    communications systems. As directed by current national guidance, Navy is fielding small
    numbers of low-yield, submarine-launched ballistic missile warheads and will continue
    development of a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile to ensure the United States can
    credibly deter nuclear coercion or nuclear employment in any scenario.

    The “as directed” is maybe significant? It’ll be interesting to see how that direction changes come January 20….

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  207. 207.

    Brachiator

    @Elizabelle:

    Think I’m the last person in America without Netflix. Really would like to see The Crown, and a lot of their other fare. As it is, I barely watch Amazon Prime.

    Same here. I never have enough time to watch videos. Use Amazon Prime because it was part of the package. Also have HBO, but barely watch anything on it anymore.

  208. 208.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    Negotiations on a coronavirus aid package appeared to hit an 11th-hour setback Friday when Democrats accused Republicans of making a late demand to block Federal Reserve lending programs.

    This is insane, but maybe this is where Republicans are. The Fed needs to have flexibility to do what it needs to do.

    This may be more than just trying to screw with the Democrats. The GOP may be trying to force Biden to go with Republican economic policy rather than set his own agenda.

  210. 210.

    germy

    Trump’s vaccine timeline is off — by a lot, Biden advisers say. Doctors advising Biden say, in contrast to Trump predictions, some Americans might not get vaccinated till the end of summer. Democrats fear Trump raised expectations to make Biden look bad. https://t.co/xLEkB9KloK

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 18, 2020

  211. 211.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    He was declaring martial law and his military coup, when he was told for the hundredth time the military ain’t backing that shit.

    More seriously, I do wonder if it was some insane thing like that.  Firing SCOTUS, won’t leave the White House, some other thing he had to be told he physically can’t do.

  212. 212.

    StringOnAStick

    @Suzanne: I think this is an excellent idea.  I’m 62 which means I grew up with plenty of PSA’s about not littering, the wonders of government projects like dams to make the arid West green (ignore the environmental damage caused by fans of course(, etc.  People need to know what the government does for them!

  213. 213.

    Calouste

    @Elizabelle: Calls for the disclaimer came from the Tories after their saint Maggie Thatcher was displayed as less than absolutely perfect. No one seemed to bother during the first three seasons.

  215. 215.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Trump’s vaccine timeline is off — by a lot, Biden advisers say. Doctors advising Biden say, in contrast to Trump predictions, some Americans might not get vaccinated till the end of summer. Democrats fear Trump raised expectations to make Biden look bad.

    Could be. Good thing is that Biden is confident enough to know that he can just ignore Trump and do what he needs to do,

  216. 216.

    Denali

    @Elizabelle,

    No, you are not the last.  I am waiting in line for the library’s  DVD of Season 3 of The Crown. Netflix has gotten very appealing lately.

  217. 217.

    artem1s

    @Elizabelle:

    Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker. Ivan F. Boesky. Michael K. Deaver. Jerry Falwell. Jessica Hahn and Fawn Hall (one posed topless, the other shredded government documents, but which was which?). Arthur B. Laffer. Dennis B. Levine. Edwin Meese 3d.Michael R. Milken. Lyn Nofziger. Oliver L. North. John M. Poindexter. Oral Roberts. Richard V. Secord. Jimmy Swaggart. Donald J. Trump. E. Bob Wallach. Not to forget Nancy and Ronald Reagan, who dominated the scene.

    OMG, remember the “Ed Meese is a PIG” t-shirts?  I wore mine out.  Might resurrect that for Barr even though it doesn’t have quite the same ring.

  218. 218.

    germy

    @Brachiator:

    Need to emphasize this Pfizer statement on the lack of guidance from the Trump admin: "We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) December 18, 2020

    I really wish Biden/Harris were in charge now.

    Trump isn’t doing anything but tweeting and deciding who to pardon.

  219. 219.

    LuciaMia

    by Salvador Dali depicting his arrival to America as the coming of angels is as offensive as it gets.

    You sure he wasn’t being ironic?

  220. 220.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Though President Trump has nothing on his schedule except a meeting with the defense secretary later, pool reporters were just abruptly summoned to go into an unknown event in the Cabinet room. But it was canceled just as fast as it was called.

    he wanted to remeasure the strawberries

    Ha! Sounds about right.

    Trump can’t accept the reality of his presidential power slipping away. Instead of assisting with the transition, he is looking for stunts to show that he is still in charge.

    He is not just a loser. He is a pathetic loser.

  221. 221.

    germy

    SCOOP w @mikeallen : Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller ordered a Pentagon-wide halt to cooperation with the transition of President-elect Biden, shocking officials across the Defense Department, senior administration officials tell Axios. https://t.co/swM0wx2GN8

    — Jonathan Swan (@jonathanvswan) December 18, 2020

    Confirming @jonathanvswan‘s reporting: Officials tell me Acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller’s actions are NOT routine. This could have an impact on distributing the COVID vaccine and with the US in multiple wars and fielding daily threats, the transition needs to be smooth. https://t.co/8SB2Es6C9A

    — Yamiche Alcindor (@Yamiche) December 18, 2020

  222. 222.

    TomatoQueen

    @Another Scott: I’m listening to the all hands meeting detailing What We Do in case the clowns can’t get a CR extension by COB today, when the week-long CR effectively expires. There is a gov’t shutdown looming and it’s thanks to the Usual Suspects. More as we hear from mgmt.

  223. 223.

    germy

    And of course, wealthy people are demanding special treatment

    “Dr. Jeff Toll, who has admitting privileges at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, one of the first hospitals to stock the vaccine, recalled a patient asking: “If I donate $25,000 to Cedars, would that help me get in line?’” https://t.co/Gv8EYX9oNY

    — Gideon Resnick (@GideonResnick) December 18, 2020

  224. 224.

    LuciaMia

    he is looking for stunts to show that he is still in charge.

    He could just do his friggin’ job!

  226. 226.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Need to emphasize this Pfizer statement on the lack of guidance from the Trump admin: “We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses.

    I really wish Biden/Harris were in charge now.

    Yep. Trump talked his crap about “making America great again,” but he just wanted bragging points.

    He shows again and again that he fundamentally does not care about the American people. Not even his own supporters.

    I despise Trump. But I also have problems with the people who voted for him and who still insist that Trump is a great president, despite what is clearly in front of them.

    Trump, like a bad Santa is working on his naughty list of people to be pardoned, and bellowing like a wounded bull moose about the election results.  Meanwhile, neither he nor his staff or cabinet officers seem to be interested in getting the vaccine distributed.

    None of this had to happen this way.

  227. 227.

    Ruckus

    @LuciaMia:

    No. He really can’t.

     

    He could at least attempt that, but only by shear luck would he come close to not fucking it up. And he’s never been that lucky at anything he’s tried. And no I don’t think he was lucky to win office. And there is no doubt that he’s fucked that up.

  230. 230.

    beckya57

    I don’t know what kind of president Biden will be, but he seems to be an unusually decent man for a politician.  That alone will be a massive improvement.

  231. 231.

    Betty Cracker

    @Elizabelle: They probably should have done a disclaimer. I mean, people should have enough sense to know that a TV show or film like that involves dramatic license, but that’s not always the case. I remember going to see Oliver Stone’s JFK movie with a college friend who majored in history and being shocked that he completely bought into Stone’s plot! That film was particularly egregious since it was interspersed with clips of the assassination.

  233. 233.

    Peale

    @germy: I’m thinking with Miller, Trump has found his lackey who’ll be willing to see who can be marshalled to back martial law. That’s why they are cutting off the Biden transition team. Hoping to control leaks.

  234. 234.

    Spinoza Is My Co-pilot

    @Jinchi: The Fermi Paradox and the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence. If there are advanced civilizations out there in the cosmos it may very well be that the situation is as postulated in The Three Body Problem by Liu Cixin — everyone is doing all they can to avoid detection by anyone else because it always becomes destroy or be destroyed. As Stephen Hawking warned, even though he was still in favor of us looking (paraphrasing): aliens advanced enough to arrive here are more likely to conquer us and take our shit than anything else.

    I think the reason it doesn’t look like there are “advanced” cosmic civilizations out there is because there aren’t any.

  235. 235.

    Matt McIrvin

    @germy: Maybe it’s better if the Trump administration doesn’t order any more vaccine doses–it means they can’t just destroy them to make sure Biden can’t use them.

  236. 236.

    Peale

    @germy: States are reporting that their promised deliveries have been cut 40% next week.  Which is going to be a bummer when it comes time to give the second dose in 21 days.

  237. 237.

    Brachiator

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Maybe it’s better if the Trump administration doesn’t order any more vaccine doses–it means they can’t just destroy them to make sure Biden can’t use them.

    We need to get the vaccines out and put into use.

    Again, I hate Trump. He is just in the way of getting the pandemic taken care of.

     

  238. 238.

    Elizabelle

    @Betty Cracker:   Oliver Stone’s JFK is exactly what I am thinking about with the perils of popular culture supplanting actual historical knowledge.

    And, not having seen The Crown, mind you, it seems that show was very cruel in insinuating [young student] Phillip’s behavior led — in some fashion — to a favorite elder sister’s death in a plane crash.  (I’d heard about that tragedy long before the series was written; it came up while researching something else …)

    @Denali:   The library!  Brilliant idea.  Copy that.

  239. 239.

    Elizabelle

    @artem1s:   Edwin Meese, indeed.  Whole paragraph of people one would rather not know anything about.

    One (and only one) humanizing thing about Meese:  his college student son died in an auto crash on the George Washington Parkway in 1982. Kid was speeding (85 mph in a 45 zone) and hit a tree.  Meese was counselor to the president then; not yet attorney general. Son worked for Senate Republicans (of course) during his summer breaks from Princeton. WaPost link.

    Scanning Meese’s wiki:  I see Scandal after Scandal mentioned; that Meese was not prosecuted.

    That trump gave Meese the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2019.  Because, of course he did.

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