Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

In my day, never was longer.

This really is a full service blog.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Let there be snark.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

If you’re pissed about Biden’s speech, he was talking about you.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

I’m pretty sure there’s only one Jack Smith.

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

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Reader Interactions

141Comments

  6. 6.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    We just put the Festivus wreath in the window last weekend. And we have turnip pie baking in the oven.

    I know most people stick to the traditional Festivus pole, but we like to do it up. After all, it’s the most wonderful day of the year.

    Bernie is going to be the grand marshal of Macy’s Airing of Grievances parade this year. So kick back and throw stuff at the tee vee.

  7. 7.

    PaulB

    I’m tired of seeing idiots pretend that ignorant people with ill-informed, and more than a little stupid, opinions deserve to be taken seriously. And that if I don’t choose to do that, I’m “intolerant.”

    And I’m even more tired of a lazy and complacent media that give these morons air time and column inches and insist that Democrats need to “reach out to them.” I don’t ever want to see another piece about what “Trump voters think” and will cheerfully burn the newspaper or turn off the radio program that airs such a piece.

  8. 8.

    Elizabelle

    @germy:   Hundreds of thousands of Americans would be alive if the press had accurately covered Hillary Clinton.

    The Guardian had a feature on “Pinch” Sulzberger, former publisher/father of the present one, and a key purveyor of Clinton Derangement Syndrome.

    Did not click on it and never looked at it again.  Cannot even look at Sulzberger’s face.  He helped bring us Trump.  He helped bring us excess COVID deaths, and gave oxygen to the people who turned America into a plague ship.  Period.

  10. 10.

    Amir Khalid

    I suggest we dedicate this thread to airing our grievances. I’ll go first: my cat died, and I’m very aggrieved about that.

  11. 11.

    dmsilev

    @PaulB:

    There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.’

    That was Isaac Asimov about 40 years ago. It’s even more true today.

  13. 13.

    TomatoQueen

    There were spozed to be frozen bagel bites (bagel holes stuffed w/ schmear), but instead yet another shipment delayed notice.

  14. 14.

    Elizabelle

    I don’t have a problem with bigfooting posts on Balloon Juice. I actually hate when some post I have no interest in is up there, for hours upon hours because — no bigfooting!

    We have a recent comments bar.  We have Juicers who know how to check out earlier threads.  This is not the drive in movie theatre — what is one the screen is what YOU will watch.

    I do not mind the occasional “embarrassment of riches” here.

  16. 16.

    germy

    @Elizabelle:

    I do not mind the occasional “embarrassment of riches” here.

    It’s spoiled me, though.  There are local blogs written by people in my city.  Interesting topics and comments on issues that have immediate impact on my life.

    They literally go months without being updated.

  20. 20.

    NotMax

    Dunno about others, but I don’t air grievances. I coddle and nurture them like hothouse seedlings.

    ;)

  21. 21.

    UncleEbeneezer

    My grievance is with the world in general:

    • Singer/friend from my first band just lost his Dad to Covid.
    • Friend/petsitter just lost her Mom to Covid.
    • Friend’s Mom has Covid in a nursing home that has an outbreak (she will probably be ok, fingers crossed).
    • Neighbor just had to put her 2nd dog down in just 3 weeks.
    • Wife accidentally broke our bubble (helping neighbor with dog) so we have to mask, social distance and eventually test during the holidays (including my B-day, today)
    • Just realized a decent friend/colleague is a big-time Julian Assange fanboy (not surprising given his Rose Twitter politics but still disappointing).
    • Trump/Republicans still exist

    Etc.

  22. 22.

    germy

    Didn’t have to be this way.

    A contractor with zero experience got a $34.5 million contract to supply the VA with masks and other medical supplies. He flew around the country on a private jet trying to track everything down. He ultimately did not deliver a single mask to the VA. https://t.co/6QpdlEjls2

    — ProPublica (@propublica) December 23, 2020

  26. 26.

    Betty Cracker

    I want to break up with America, but I am aggrieved because it’s too late for that. I hate having to share a country with 74,223,744 assholes who voted for four more years Donald Fucking Trump. Fuck those goddamn stupid fucks!

    I do not excuse the 62,984,828 assholes who voted for Donald Fucking Trump in 2016, but I assumed many were irresponsible jerks making a performative “protest” vote. And while every single one is on the hook for the multitude of horrors that occurred on Trump’s watch, I had hoped that a significant portion would renounce their thoughtless act of civic vandalism in 2020.

    But nope, not in this shithole country: 11 million MORE assholes came out of the woodwork to vote for a manifestly incompetent, corrupt, malevolent shithead whose stunning fecklessness and obstinate stupidity directly resulted in the deaths of tens or maybe even hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens.

    As grateful as I am for the 81,283,485 who voted for Biden, I am aggrieved because 2020 annihilated what was left of my patriotism. This is a stupid country, and perhaps a terminally stupid one. And I’m mad at myself for retaining the capacity to be surprised and disappointed by it.

  27. 27.

    Barbara

    @dmsilev: There is a fucking cult of ignorance everywhere in the world.  What makes that cult dangerous is when so-called leaders decide that they can get ahead by exploiting it.  That’s what we are seeing with Trump and his enablers like Graham and Cruz and the rest of them who KNOW what a fucking asshole idiot he is but have decided that they can use him and the power he has that comes with bringing people to the table.

    The question going forward is whether those people will show up to the table after Trump is gone.  Cruz, Rubio and Cotton are a band of weirdos who never really learned the Long Island Construction Worker Lingo that Trump has so effectively leveraged.  Those three also refer to God all the time, which, really, there are a lot of people who DON’T LIKE.  I mean, they don’t care if evangelicals want to canonize Trump but they actually like that he is Mr. Pagan and evangelicals still fall down on their knees to worship  him.  Maybe they will never vote for Clinton but that doesn’t mean they will vote for Cruz.  It’s just as likely they stay away.

  29. 29.

    Brachiator

    I have a big problem with all the dopes who insisted that they could defeat the virus with “personal responsibility” and common sense. This is contradicted by the spike in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

    And I am especially honked off with the nutballs here in California who want to recall the governor because he shut down outdoor dining at restaurants. Again, I thought that the evaporation of available hospital beds might cause these morons to reconsider their position, but instead some idiots have pretty much decided that they just don’t care whose deaths they might be responsible for, as long as they can dine with their friends.

    And people who insist on having big get togethers for the holidays? Fuck ’em.

    And that’s just the top of my grievances.

  35. 35.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Betty Cracker: Well said.  The one upside way of looking at it though is, Black people (and indigenous) in this country have known forever just what trash most of its’ voters are.  And yet they still manage to have a lot of hope and patriotism and desire to work toward something better.  I always try to remind myself that if they can find some glimmer of redemption, I need to learn how to find that perspective for my white, cis, het privileged ass.  It is possible, even if only to save our own mental health, to do so while not being dishonest about how awful people/voters generally are.

  38. 38.

    jonas

    @germy: If something like this had happened on a Democrat’s watch during a pandemic, every conservative media consumer in the country would know about it by 9am, be listening to a rant about it by noon on the radio, and calling their congressperson over it by 3 and talk about it for the next six months as evidence that Democrats are irredeemably corrupt. That’s how the right-wing media ecosystem works.

    Our side? One or two tweets. Never mentioned again.

  41. 41.

    rikyrah

    I don't think we've fully come to terms with how close we came to losing everything. I mean, we still could. Democracy can't be taken for granted. Ever. We need to stop screwing around with elections and candidates. Either the Biden coalition continues to win… or else bye-bye.— Bob Cesca (@bobcesca_go) December 23, 2020

  42. 42.

    VeniceRiley

    The ABC news van is in my parking lot filming the new nurses strike at the small community hospital across the street. There is a picket line and everything.  Here comes the downhill slide I feared as the pandemic explodes.

  43. 43.

    rikyrah

    Today, President Trump named Hope Hicks to the Fulbright board, which includes Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Heather Nauert, the son of the owner of the Florida Panthers, the former director of presidential personnel, and the former White House director of legislative affairs.— David Gura (@davidgura) December 23, 2020

  44. 44.

    JeanneT

    My grievance is that I just got results on a blood panel for my 13 year old dog and it looks like his 3 year cancer remission has ended.   He’s otherwise a spunky, active, happy dog.  I’m not happy to be faced with the decisions that are coming….

  46. 46.

    germy

    @jonas:

    Not just every conservative media consumer.

    Nora O’Donnell would be leading off with it on the CBS Evening News.  “Breaking news!” [dramatic music] Same as ABC and NBC.  The lead story for weeks.

    George Stephanoupolous, Chuck Todd, Margaret Brennan would make it the number one topic on their talk shows.  It’d be front page everywhere.

  47. 47.

    Frankensteinbeck

    My grievance is people who think Mitch McConnell is an insignificant obstacle to legislation, and whose concept of ‘negotiation’ is that if you manage to get half a loaf or even just a crust, you could have gotten the whole loaf and didn’t try.

    EDIT – @rikyrah:

    I don’t think we’ve fully come to terms with how close we came to losing everything.

    Republicans knew, which is why 11 million more people turned out to vote for Trump this time.  It’s why they’re freaking out with bizarre “Maybe there’s one weird trick and we could still win???” conspiracy theories now.  They got within an inch of permanently crushing everyone they hate, and were baying with blood-lust for it.

  48. 48.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @zhena gogolia: Thanks.  Since 2015, I have had serious struggles dealing with the realization of just how terrible our country is and managing to not let that stop me from doing the work.  It’s HARD.  So I look to others for inspiration/guidance.

  50. 50.

    J R in WV

    @Amir Khalid:

    Now that’s a grievance worth being aggrieved over~!~ So sorry for your loss, she was a marvelous kitty.

    We have two cats who are starting to get up in years now. They are affectionate and like to snuggle in the wee hours when the house cools down. Purr loudly when they warm up a little bit.

  51. 51.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Roger Moore:

    We’ve had four years of a President who has to air his grievances every fucking day. 

    Yup.  Fucking whiny ass Soviet shitpile mobster conman titty baby.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @jeffreyw: My guys are kinda freaked out by the wind today, too.  Here, the freakout is being channeled into barking (Tucker) and lap-sitting (Henry).

    That is a most lovely photo of Mrs. J and Gabe.

    Once again I marvel that the multiple husbands of Mrs. J here all seem to get along splendidly.  No jealousy, no competition.  I do wonder how Mrs. J manages to have a lovely life with each of you!

  56. 56.

    CaseyL

    I live in a ~950 sqft house. That is, or should be, plenty of room for one human and two cats. But my “extra” bedroom is my glass art studio, and my “dining room” has become the place to put random stuff that doesn’t really go anywhere else. (And will probably end up as an addendum to the studio; i.e., a place to do torch work.)

    Last night, while researching inexpensive exercise bicycles, I realized: a) I’ve got no place to put one; and therefore 2) need at least two more rooms. One for a guest bedroom and the other for an exercise room.

    The 950 sqft that looked and felt downright palatial when I first moved in about 23 years ago…. doesn’t, anymore.

    Thus, my grievance: no matter how much room one has, or how large one’s house, one will almost always expand to fill it…and then need more space.

  60. 60.

    germy

    @CaseyL:

    I remember an old folk tale.  A husband and wife and a tiny house.  Wife complained bitterly and constantly about not having enough room.  So each day husband brings in a new item.  To teach her a lesson, I guess. Furniture.  Chairs, tables, and then finally some goats.  Eventually the house is so full the wife has absolutely no room.  Then the husband removes everything, and they’re both amazed out how… roomy and spacious the house suddenly feels.

  64. 64.

    Barbara

    @NotMax: I find them to be repellent.  I don’t find Rubio to be repellent in the same way, just inept, and never more so than when he is trying to be serious.

  67. 67.

    Nicole

    @Elizabelle:

    Hundreds of thousands of Americans would be alive if the press had accurately covered Hillary Clinton.

    So true.  And yet I have no doubt that the GOP would have run against her this year with, “30,000 people dead from Covid!  This is all Hillary’s fault! One life lost is too many!” and the media would have supported the GOP every step of the way.  And she would have lost.  Because we’d never know how bad it could be.  She would have saved so many lives and yet still been blamed.  :(

    I’ve been spending a lot of time lately watching documentaries about English history on Youtube, and boy oh boy, men throughout history have gone to great lengths to keep women out of power.  Henry VIII started a whole new church and killed a wife to get around it.

  68. 68.

    Kristine

    @CaseyL: My house is 1100 sq ft (plus full unfinished basement for laundry/storage). I’ve pretty much turned the entire ground-level space into Office-with-attached-kitchen-and-bath. I have dreams of turning one of the bedrooms into an actual guestroom, but I may wind up sticking the treadmill in there because right now that’s taking up a chunk of living room and yeah, I wouldn’t mind an extra room or two. And a mudroom. My kingdom for a mudroom.

  69. 69.

    CaseyL

    @JeanneT: I am so sorry! How well (or not) did he tolerate treatment the first time around?  That might be a good indicator of how well a second round would go.

    Also:  An extra three years isn’t bad, isn’t bad at all.  Pam Houston’s Irish Wolfhound lived another three years after his cancer treatments.  Houston’s novel “Sight Hound”  is a fictionalized account of that time.  Parts of the book are told from the Wolfhound’s POV, and as he put it, “We stole three years back from the cancer.”

    You and your pup stole three years from the cancer, and  three years is a long time to a dog. That’s excellent.

  70. 70.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah: 
    Gosh, the collective IQs in that room must be breathtaking.

    Been wondering what Possum Queen’s second act might be. Public office I guess, since her love of the nearest camera is similar to good old dad’s.

  71. 71.

    Betty Cracker

    @Barbara: Rubio is repellent alright, but you’re right — in a different way. I’ve so enjoyed Ana Navarro’s commentary on Rubio since she turned on him for becoming a Trump toady. She’s based in FL, is highly connected in GOP politics here and used to be Rubio’s ally, so that gives her all kinds of ammunition to expose him as the pathetic, repulsive poseur he is. I’ll also always appreciate Chris Christie for curb-stomping Rubio during the 2016 debate and hope he (Christie) runs again in the 2024 primary so he can curb-stomp Rubio again.

  72. 72.

    Frankensteinbeck

    This thread has helped me put together something I never fully appreciated before.  I’ve generally disliked the term ‘white grievance’ because it’s whitewashing, pun intended, white supremacy.  There is a core of deep wisdom in the words, though.  Liberals wonder how Republicans can respect Trump, because Trump is such a whiny-ass titty baby.  But that is a key to Trump’s appeal, and one that no other Republican has ever truly offered them.  Yes, Trump exactly expresses and validates the “WAAAH ME ME ME HOW DARE YOU” craven, selfish whining that is a core emotion and motivation of so much of the Republican voting base.  No politician with an ounce of dignity can stoke that flame the way Trump can.

  74. 74.

    CaseyL

    @Betty Cracker: Unfortunately, Dolt45 has lowered the bar for GOP behavior so damn much that the MSM will fawn all over any GOPster who displays even the tiniest awareness that politics is about policy, not endless grifting and self-aggrandizement.

    A GOPster like Christie – as corrupt as he is – will be treated by the MSM like a goddamn statesman (statesperson?).

  75. 75.

    moonbat

    I HAD a grievance with the way the Coronavirus Relief Bill II (Electric Boogaloo) was being covered by the mainstream media: all the photos of McConnell posing in front of flags like he single-handedly saved the nation and Pelosi getting pranged for the relief checks not being bigger.
    But now I am giggling because of Trump’s 11th hour stunt and Pelosi’s quick reaction to it has basically forced the media to cover the issue properly in that it was Republicans and McConnell who wanted the checks to be smaller and the Democrats who were fighting for a larger stimulus and now the only people standing between you and bigger checks are the Republicans. Now with the Georgia elections hanging in the balance is McConnell going to go out there and say, “No way, peons, big stimulus is for the already wealthy, be satisfied with $600 because that’s all you’re getting.” ??? “And btw, elect Perdue and Loeffler so I can stay in power.”
    Hahahahahahahaha! Merry Festivus, fuckers!

  77. 77.

    Betty Cracker

    @CaseyL: It’s inevitable. Nicolle Wallace, who is among my favorite Never Trumpers because I believe she has experienced a sincere conversion and is horrified by her own role in elevating a raving dumbass like Sarah Palin, called Christie out on her show yesterday for remaining silent while Trump trashed the country. But you’re correct; any Republican who isn’t a Trump-level nutbar will be received with Beltway media hosannas, which is infuriating.

  78. 78.

    The Moar You Know

    Maybe, one day, I will write about just how awful a year this has been for me personally.  I can’t yet.  It’s WAY too raw.

  79. 79.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Kristine: I just need to start paring down my stuff but it’s hard to make myself get rid of all my parents photo albums and other keepsakes. I need to talk to my niece and nephews and see if I can ship some to them. Will save some for my kid too but it’s time to simplify my life and my space. Plus too much clutter is causing tension at home and Christmas sucks enough already. Just found out my daughter and her boyfriend had dinner last week and stayed overnight upstate with his parents again. And last night his dad was diagnosed with symptomatic  COVID. I want to yell at her but what’s the use. She stopped speaking to us for a month back in the spring when we told her they were being foolish and careless. I need a nap. And a hug…

  82. 82.

    ixnay

    I broke my back in May, and need to wear a full TLSO brace whenever I go outside. All hands and feet work well, but motivating exercise is difficult. Also, my very favorite cat is hyperthyroid. Because he is only 12, aand otherwise in good condition, he will be getting the radioactive iodine therapy, which should be curative. And Bryce the standard poodle has seizures. And Mr. ixnay is a professional musician. Because we are in rural maine, and I am a meter-pegging introvert, isolation has not been too bad, so that is one for the plus side.

  83. 83.

    Elizabelle

    @CaseyL:

    “We stole three years back from the cancer.”

    I like that perspective.   Wise wolfhound.  (And they are relatively short-lived dogs, aren’t they??)

  85. 85.

    cain

    I have a lot of grievance towards a lot of things in the political theater – but thankfully none in my personal life. At least there is that.

  86. 86.

    Elizabelle

    @The Moar You Know:   Are you journaling?

    Article I keep meaning to read: free from Cambridge University Press; looks like it’s from “Advances in Psychiatric Treatment”:

    Emotional and physical health benefits of expressive writing

    Which I found via this story, WaPost about the importance of teaching kids to journal.

    And I really need to take my own advice. It’s been hard to maintain this habit.  And this was the year for it, like never before.

  87. 87.

    Kent

    @Nicole: So true. And yet I have no doubt that the GOP would have run against her this year with, “30,000 people dead from Covid! This is all Hillary’s fault! One life lost is too many!” and the media would have supported the GOP every step of the way. And she would have lost. Because we’d never know how bad it could be. She would have saved so many lives and yet still been blamed. :(

    So true. In fact, in the alternate history that Hillary wins in 2016 we likely don’t take back the House in 2018 and might well be looking at the upcoming Donald Trump inauguration in 30 days. This stuff is never easy. And a 4th straight Dem term is a really tough thing.

  89. 89.

    Elizabelle

    @Nicole:   Agree with you.  And, weirdly, I have been reading and thinking about Tudor times too.  Absolutely terrifying.  I always thought they should remake “Wolf Hall” with dinosaurs.  Henry’s power to behead, and the elites’ having to comply with it, is horror.

    Have been watching the free first season of “The Spanish Princess” on Amazon Prime.  And got to see the musical about Henry’s wives — “Six” — on a Norwegian Cruise Line ship in January.  COVID has postponed its opening big for some months now.  Fluffy entertainment, on a serious topic.  (PS:  The “Anne of Cleves” number is superb.  Karl Lagerfeld should have lived to see it.)

    I guess we need to keep Henry VIII in mind, when we are looking at the horrible injustices of our present political system.

  90. 90.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    We’re at 80,000 Benghazis and rising.

    100+ WTC strikes.

    On another note, the bloated mediocrity keeps blubbering “China’s fault”. What I’m wondering – and what no person is seriously covering – is that outside of the three week period in November-December  2019 when local/regional PRC officials were downplaying the severity of the pandemic in order to not create embarrassment for themselves, China has been pretty damned proactive and cooperative. Considering that the emerging pandemic team that he shuttered in 2018 would have figured it out, what would the twit have had China do? And what is so different about his minimization of the virus from what those middling officials (most of whom have probably either been executed or are in prison now) did?

  91. 91.

    JeanneT

    @CaseyL:  It’s good to hear the words of support from you and the other jackals – definitely helping me bring my emotions about it up and out.  I’ve decided to at least go ahead for the diagnostic imaging and see what that tells us.

    Technical info follows:

    If it’s a recurrence, it’s going to be a hunt to track it down: parathyroid cancer metastases can migrate to almost anywhere, and are VERY SMALL even though very powerful in causing hypocalcemia, which is what in the end wrecks the dog’s health.  Could be in multiple sites.  Only treatable by surgery or ablation techniques: chemo doesn’t touch it.

    Then again, it could be some other kind of cancer altogether.  We’ll see.

  92. 92.

    Barbara

    @Frankensteinbeck:  Yes, I agree, but also, it’s really curious to me, the way Trump has ceded rather than seized power at key moments. Threatening to veto the latest congressional Covid relief is so typical — He could have engineered relief months ago and probably would have increased his chances of getting reelected. But instead, he stayed out of the discussion and now whines and complains when it is basically too late to change. After so many examples of this, I conclude that he is the kind of person who is more interested in complaining about failure than he is in solving problems. It is just so toxic.

  93. 93.

    Betty Cracker

    @Oklahomo: Someone here called Rubio a biography in search of political donations, and that’s so true. He strutted around for years calling himself the “son of exiles” and implying that immigrants who fled Castro like his parents supposedly did were superior to immigrants who came for a better opportunity. Then it was revealed his parents bugged out of Cuba before Castro came to power, so he dropped that line.

    I’ve always thought he was a phony jackass, but I began to truly despise him when he used the Pulse nightclub massacre as an excuse to run for reelection to his senate seat after his presidential primary campaign fizzled. He had sworn up and down repeatedly he wouldn’t run for reelection, then he used a horrific mass murder as an excuse to go back on that promise. What a shitty person.

  94. 94.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Kent:

    In that alternate history, Obama’s pandemic team is in place still in late fall 2019.

  95. 95.

    Sure Lurkalot

    Fuck cancer.  My sister died of colon cancer in February and now my BIL has it.  He is still awaiting one more test and its results before he knows the course of treatment.  My sister’s death was accelerated because she had severe adverse reactions to the chemo treatment that might have given her a few months or so. My BIL is younger and the original assessment was more optimistic than my sister’s diagnosis.  Fuck cancer.  There, bookends.

  96. 96.

    trollhattan

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    One detail I recall from the time [NB memory involved here so…] was the Chinese authorities first considered the then-new outbreak as communicable only once symptoms presented which, as we well know now was grievously incorrect. They had opportunities to stanch the spread early and made mistakes that meant that would not happen.

    We’ll eventually learn, I suspect, that it began earlier than generally believed.

    Trump’s flight bans, which have become Republican talking points for “see, he did everything he could” were both far too late and too narrowly prescribed, since by then the virus was traveling here from Europe.

  97. 97.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    called Christie out on her show yesterday for remaining silent while Trump trashed the country.

    that was a surprise, because from his earlier appearances on her show, I had thought they had a very friendly relationship. Whenever she says she’s been talking with someone very close to trump world or however she phrases it, I assume she’s talking about Christie. She really has no fucks left to give, I think. I was in the car and switched it off during his segment cause I hate the enablers more (I think, on some days) more than I hate trump.

    Does that count as airing a grievance?

  98. 98.

    Ohio Mom

    Embraceyourinnercrone:

    The two things I am finding most useful in my slow-motion deaccessioning is 1) the rule of thumb, “Would I buy this again?” (I am finding I often answer that one with, “No, duh, it’s five sizes too small”), and 2) the book, The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning (which has a section on photographs). It’s a lot more sensible approach than Maria Kondo’s.

    What are my complaints this fine holiday? The obvious ones about Republicans, and personal frustrations on behalf of Ohio Family.

    Being mostly cooped up inside the house is setting Ohio Son back noticeably, and Ohio Dad is having an incredibly hard tie in his job search.

    We are not sorry he quit the job he’d found soon after being laid off from the job before: the new job had a lot of travel, and the locations tended to be Covid hotspots (Las Vegas in July was the last straw). It’s nerve-wracking to dip into savings but at least we have savings.

  100. 100.

    waratah

    @PaulB: I have not heard on MSNBC all morning what does the Republican base think about this.  I have not heard that Republican Senators are worried about what the base will think of the extra money. I hope they are all having panic attacks right now.

  101. 101.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Betty Cracker:

    I found out a lot I needed to know about Cuba and the emigre community by going to that weird little museum that commemorates pre-Castro Cuba in Key West.

    There’s a wall showing all the Cuban presidents prior to Castro, in fairly glowing terms. While there, I looked at a broader history of each – and saw how corrupt, incompetent and cruel each one was (in comparison to the whitewash). There’s a reason why a country has multiple leaders in a list where many can count their time in office in terms of months.

    I think my favorite ex President was Carlos Prio Socarras (ousted in a coup by Batista, and who later became a businessman before his death in the trunk of a Cadillac in Miami). He famously said something along the lines of “they say I was a bad president – but I was the best president Cuba ever had”.

    Castro came about for a reason – and many of those reasons he became the  leader of Cuba ran like scalded dogs to escape the rightful wrath of the people that had been used and cheated over the decades.

  102. 102.

    trollhattan

    Say what, now?

    WASHINGTON Tucked away in the 5,593-page spending bill that Congress rushed through Monday night is a provision that some tax experts call a $200 billion giveaway to the rich.

    It involves the tens of thousands of businesses that received loans from the federal government this spring with the promise that the loans would be forgiven, tax free, if they agreed to keep employees on the payroll through the coronavirus pandemic.

    But for some businesses and their high-paid accountants, that was not enough. They went to Congress with another request: Not only should the forgiven loans not to be taxed as income, but the expenditures used with those loans should be tax deductible.

    “High-income business owners have had tax benefits and unprecedented government grants showered down upon then. And the scale is massive,” wrote Adam Looney, a fellow at the Brookings Institution and a former Treasury Department tax official in the Obama administration, who estimated that $120 billion of the $200 billion would flow to the top 1% of Americans.

    The new provision allows for a classic double dip into the Paycheck Protection Program, as businesses get free money from the government, then get to deduct that largess from their taxes.

  103. 103.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Elizabelle: I listened to the whole Wolf Hall trilogy on my pandemic walks earlier in the year, and it was consistently amazing how the descriptions of Henry mirrored those of trump

    If you like that period, the BBC History podcast just did a series on “The Princes in the Tower“– Henry’s young uncles

  104. 104.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Barbara:

    I conclude that he is the kind of person who is more interested in complaining about failure than he is in solving problems.

    That is correct.  The trick is, I don’t think there’s a direct connection.  He doesn’t let problems happen so he can whine later.  He enjoys whining and he’s lazy, selfish, mean, and cowardly.  When the time comes to fix a problem, he doesn’t have the motivation.  In fact, he’s usually motivated against it.  When the time comes to whine, whether or not he caused the problem, he pounces like a tiger.

  105. 105.

    J R in WV

    @JeanneT:

    He’s otherwise a spunky, active, happy dog. I’m not happy to be faced with the decisions that are coming….

    No one would be. As long as he continues to be happy and active, you don’t need to make any decision in haste. Once he is no longer happy, the decision becomes pretty easy for us.

    I’m sorry for the bad news, and hope you lavish love on your pup as long as he seems able to appreciate it.

  107. 107.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I read the first two books twice, but I’ve just now started on the third one. I keep falling asleep. Does it pick up?

    I don’t know why the first two enthralled me (although I did have to start the first one a few times before it caught me), but this one just isn’t doing it. Maybe I don’t want to get to the end that I know is coming. But somehow my relationship with Cromwell (whom I now picture as Mark Rylance) has cooled off and I’m having trouble reigniting it.

  108. 108.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: Huh, I was all in from the start. I got a hardback copy so I could go back and read certain passages that struck me as I was listening. Though I have always thought the first book was best, maybe cause it was my introduction to Mantel’s style.

    I haven’t heard any talk of a TV version with Rylance, I’d like to see it.

  110. 110.

    Brachiator

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    I found out a lot I needed to know about Cuba and the emigre community by going to that weird little museum that commemorates pre-Castro Cuba in Key West.

    Some emigres create false myths about the past, but the majority hated the dictators as much as they hated Castro.

    The dictators were corrupt and would take a little off the top, leaving most people with something. Castro came along and said “we will take all your shit and re-allocate what we think you should have. In the name of the Revolution.”

    I was always amazed at people I knew who thought that revolution was good enough for Cubans, but not anything that they would want for themselves.

  111. 111.

    frosty

    @WaterGirl: My grievance: the Back button works. But I can’t stop myself from the old workaround of clicking on the date first, which screws things up so the Back button doesn’t work!

    Worse! I can’t say FYWP because FYWP is doing it right for a change.

  113. 113.

    NeenerNeener

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: It exists, and it’s great although it might only cover the first book, or at most, the first and second. The third book was years away when the tv series came out. Claire Foy plays Anne Boleyn.

    If you have Amazon Prime and have PBS as a Prime Channel you can watch Wolf Hall there. I’m not sure about the other streaming services.

  114. 114.

    Betty Cracker

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: I’ve never visited that museum but will have to check it out next time I’m in the Keys. I think you’re right about Castro, but don’t go saying anything like that in Miami! We’ve got Cuban-American relatives, and nuance and context aren’t possible in a discussion about Castro with them, at least not with the old timers.

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: We loved the books too and adored the TV version. Rylance was amazing in that role. I hope they can get him onboard for a new series. It’s hard to imagine anyone else filling his shoes.

  116. 116.

    Bex

    @zhena gogolia: I thought that too, but it did pick up.  I didn’t want to get to the end either.  I think Mantel felt the same way, so she started slow.  I am now reading  Tsarina  by Ellen Alpsten about Peter the Great’s second wife, Catherine Alexeyevna, the first woman to rule Russia in her own right.  One of the blurbs is “Luscious–like Game of Thrones without the dragons.”

  117. 117.

    Nora Lenderbee

    Grievances, small and large:

    1. We’ve been trying to adopt a second cat for months and can’t even get a response from the local shelters. Does anyone have an extra adult cat that can live with other cats and enjoys being petted? (The last is very important, because our current cat hates it.)
    2. The husband of an old friend was diagnosed with fronto-temporal dementia and has moved to a memory-care unit. He is 53 years old. My friend’s mother died of Alzheimer’s, so this is not her first journey down this path.
  119. 119.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @dmsilev: “…the false notion that democracy means that ‘my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”

    I hear ya, Ike, but here’s the thing you (& most of the self-styled intelligentsia) missed – and are still missing, daily if not hourly:

    Each one of those “ignorant” people[1] gets exactly as many votes as each one of you do.

    So as far as elections and voting behavior are concerned,

    their “ignorance” is, in fact, precisely “as good as your knowledge.”

    To the extent that we fail to engage with them, we miss the opportunity to peel off those as might be willing to give us a listen and bring the society a little closer to rendering open fascism unacceptable. Unfortunately our “engagement” too often consists of slapping one-or-two-word labels on them and sneering at their personal preferences and cultural choices[2], which is arguably worse than just walking on by, as it pushes the society a little closer to a Civil War 2.0 which none of us wants[3].

    [1] Presuming they are US citizens over 18, eligible to vote and registered to vote in the same political subdivision(s) as you.

    [2] E.g., what the fuck’s it to ya if they want to eat their steaks well-done & smothered in ketchup? Ain’t going down your piehole!

    [3] More precisely, ought to want if we thought clearly about it for ten seconds. A fair chunk of the military, most of the police, & the preponderance of serious privately-owned weaponry are on their side. You really want to risk yourself, your family and friends under those conditions?

    (ETA: I was at Disclave one year in the late 1970s when Asimov was GoH. There weren’t a lot of women in fandom at the time, but I knew a number of them & I got an earful re Dr A – they all endeavored to stay the hell out of arm’s reach of him, as he was a notorious grab-’em-by-the-whatever swine…)

  120. 120.

    Kristine

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:

    …but it’s time to simplify my life and my space.

    Boy, do I hear you. I pledge to pare down every year, and every year, nothing more than a box here and there. Part of the problem is my desire to recycle as much as possible, but of course we now know that not everything labeled recyclable is indeed recyclable, so it’s left to we the end-users to figure out what’s what.

    tempted to just phone the 1-800-got-junk folks in the spring and leave the piles in the driveway for them to sort out

    Also, sorry for what you’re going through with your family.

  121. 121.

    Nicole

    @Elizabelle: Oh man, I was trying to win tickets in the lottery to see Six just as theater closed here in NYC.  That’s so cool you got to see it!  I’m very curious to see which shows will reopen here next year and which will throw in the towel.

    Youtube has a very interesting 3 part series on “Reel Truth History Documentaries” channel about Lady Jane Grey- when Edward VI was dying, the first 8 people in line for the throne after him were all women and he and his council were freaking about what to do.

    For all that she’s not remembered well, Mary I really led the way for Elizabeth I; she dealt with the brunt of OMG A WOMAN EWW, but 5 years later, the nation had gotten accustomed to the idea of a lady person on the throne.

    I do find some delicious irony that Henry VIII’s obsessive focus on getting a male heir to continue the Tudor dynasty led to the end of the Tudor dynasty, since Mary couldn’t get married until she was on the throne and was too old/sick already to get pregnant, and Elizabeth said, “Fuck that,” to the whole idea of marriage, thanks to her dad killing her mom and her mom’s cousin.

  123. 123.

    Nicole

    @EmbraceYourInnerCrone:

     I just need to start paring down my stuff but it’s hard to make myself get rid of all my parents photo albums and other keepsakes.

    Man, do I relate to this comment.  I keep telling myself my memories of the people I have loved and lost do not live in their things, but oh, it’s hard to let stuff go when it belonged to someone I loved who isn’t here anymore.  Even when I don’t love the thing itself.

  125. 125.

    Brachiator

    @Nicole:

    For all that she’s not remembered well, Mary I really led the way for Elizabeth I; she dealt with the brunt of OMG A WOMAN EWW, but 5 years later, the nation had gotten accustomed to the idea of a lady person on the throne.

    Matilda, daughter of Henry I, ended up in a civil war because the nobles could not abide the idea of a woman becoming queen. There are even documents indicating that these medieval dopes would criticize Matilda for traits that they admired in a male leader. Ultimately her son became king as Henry II.

     and Elizabeth said, “Fuck that,” to the whole idea of marriage, thanks to her dad killing her mom and her mom’s cousin.

    Elizabeth wisely did not want to surrender power to a husband.

    Centuries later, when Victoria became queen, the court advisors took Albert aside and said, “Look, you ain’t gonna be King, right? Just Prince Consort. And don’t go making no trouble or trying to take precedence, or you will end up being Prince Albert in a can.”

  126. 126.

    Betty Cracker

    @Omnes Omnibus: There’s probably a single German word for “person who arrogantly and erroneously assigns views to others to criticize them for it while sneering that they’re snooty elitists who look down on the dumbest motherfuckers on the planet.”

  127. 127.

    AWOL

    @zhena gogolia:

     

    POTENTIAL NON-PLOT SPOILERS:

     

    Keep at it. “The Mirror and the Light” has a different rhythm. I’ve no idea why Mantel switched to third person for the finale (she hints at it at the conclusion of “Bring Up the Bodies”), but that may be what’s throwing you off. The book is also the length of the first two volumes combined. It’s a wonderful mix of horror, humor, and history—something Mantel excels at.

     

    Grievances? Mantel deserved the Nobel, not Gluck, who is still crying herself to bed over her adolescence. But I guess the Committee felt Gluck needed the dough more than Mantel.

  129. 129.

    zhena gogolia

    @AWOL:

    Thanks, I’ll stick with it.

    I thought they were all in third person? It’s just that the “he” is very close to Cromwell.

  130. 130.

    AWOL

    @zhena gogolia: Everything in the first two volumes is what is directly seen and perceived and interpreted by Cromwell. It’s done with such grace one feels it’s omniscent, but it’s not.

    I used to work with her American editor, J Mac, but he was dumped by Holt before the manuscript came in from the UK. The  editor who picked up the series made some questionable calls—probably because he/she was rushed. The grammar is not Americanized; the product is thin—very cheap paper. The cover art mediocre at best.

    Not to brag—it’s by the sheer accident of my profession: I have the first galley (embargoed) produced in the US, two autographed copies, and one reading copy.

  131. 131.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @zhena gogolia: I watched that, I meant the third volume. I’d find it hard to adapt to a different Cromwell

    @AWOL:

    The cover art mediocre at best.

    I was surprised at how annoyed I was by that garish book jacket

  137. 137.

    AWOL

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: That jacket irked quite a few. It received many complaints on amazon, including readers who also took offense at the sad fact that they could see the ink bleed through from the opposite side of the page in some cases. The US edition was an insult to Mantel, who brought in a ton of revenue for the Holt imprint.

    Personally, the half-assed design that was a ruse B&W cover for the galleys (a TC signet) was better than what Tal Goretsky designed.

    The interior, designed by Holt veteran ML, is brilliant—maybe the best interior design since “Little, Big.”

    The US release was rushed in order to get revenue for the first half of 2020 (Mantel lost a year adapting Wolf Hall for theatre). The pandemic screwed things up; as the books were arriving, the employees were running for cover. I’ll have to order the PB conversion from the warehouse, which should be in production right now, to see if they’ve rectified anything.

    Whatever, Cromwell exists in my own mind. I’ve yet to see the adaptations, albeit I have the screenplay, still unread. I hope to see the Holbein portrait in-person one day.

    And I’ll be spending the break producing violent schlock for morons, some written by humans who should be shunned forever.

  138. 138.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @AWOL:

    Whatever, Cromwell exists in my own mind. I’ve yet to see the adaptations, albeit I have the screenplay, still unread. I hope to see the Holbein portrait in-person one day.

    I had only the vaguest idea of who Cromwell was before Wolf Hall, now I’m fascinated. I’m thinking of downloading a bio for my future walks. I just finished Obama’ audio memoir, which I highly recommend.

    I was hoping to find a book of Holbein’s portraits so I could look at some of these people my new friend Hans painted. I was surprised I couldn’t find on (on Amazon granted, but still….)

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