Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Democrats have delivered the Square Deal, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, and now… the Big Joe Biden Deal.

People are complicated. Love is not.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Fuck the extremist election deniers. What’s money for if not for keeping them out of office?

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

“But what about the lurkers?”

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Fani Willis claps back at Trump chihuahua, Jim Jordan.

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

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

The poor and middle-class pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the wealthy pay politicians.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Thursday Morning Open Thread: National Readership Capture

Thursday Morning Open Thread: National Readership Capture

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(President-Elect Biden has a really good media team)


I think Tumulty has the right take — “Trump is trashing the government on his way out. Biden is confident he can fix it.”:

… “What this president has done and what his political appointees have done and what landmines are laid out there, I can’t tell you that I have a clear view of what they are,” President-elect Joe Biden says. “Many of the people with the competence to be able to tell us what exactly is going on in the Justice Department or the Energy Department, they’ve either been fired or they left — but they’re not there. And so I think it’s going to take a while to find out where the intentional as well as unintentional landmines are.”…

Speaking with a small group of columnists on Wednesday, Biden noted that he has taken some criticism for stocking his administration with many familiar figures, rather than bringing in more fresh faces. As Biden put it: “One reason you need old hands is the old hands know where the old bodies might be buried.”

He also said his team is having quiet consultations with “former Republican appointees, former Republican personnel telling us what they know and don’t know about how the system is rotten,” as well as GOP senators “worried about things being left untethered.”

Still, the soon-to-be 46th president sounded upbeat and confident about his abilities to marshal the resources — and the bipartisan political will — that he will need to lead the country out of the coronavirus pandemic. With covid-19 now killing about 3,000 Americans a day, he said, the costly denialism that Trump fostered in the early months of the pandemic is being replaced by “a new sense of urgency, I think, on the part of the public at large.”…

Biden also said that, as a president who wants to avoid inflaming a closely divided Congress, he plans to tread lightly when it comes to using his executive power — a declaration that no doubt will cause some heartburn on the left, where such caution is considered naive.

Upon his inauguration, Biden says he plans to issue executive orders to undo some of what Trump has done. He will instruct the United States to rejoin the 2015 Paris climate agreement, to protect immigrant “dreamers” whose parents brought them to the United States as children, and to reinstate environmental regulations that Trump did away with…

“It’s a balancing act, but I’m optimistic that we can get a lot of the things that I’d like to do done,” he added. “I’ve spent most of my career arguing against the imperial presidency. . . . We got three equal branches of government. I’m confident that there are a number of areas that are of such consequence that they go beyond the partisan boundaries.”…

Almost saved this one for New Year’s Day:

Reader Interactions

165Comments

  8. 8.

    rikyrah

    Old hands might know where the old bodies are buried.

    Thank you, 46.
    I don’t want anyone who needs on the job training. We need people who know what to do on DAY ONE.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    CNN, via LGM

    An executive for a voting machine company that has been the target of conspiracy theories in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s 2020 election loss and been baselessly accused of swinging the results against the President is suing his campaign and conservative media figures for defamation.
    ….
    The lawsuit names as defendants the Trump campaign, Rudy Giuliani, Trump adviser Sidney Powell, conservative media outlets One America News Network and Newsmax Media, the right-wing website Gateway Pundit, and Colorado businessman and activist Joseph Oltmann, among others. CNN has reached out to those named in the lawsuit.

    Merry Christmas!

  16. 16.

    Baud

    I don’t care, do u?

    Andrew Sullivan on the War Within Conservatism and Why It Matters to All of Us

    NYT > Top Stories / by Andrew Sullivan / 27min

     

    Andrew Sullivan, Conservativism, and the NYT. These are just three of my least favorite things.

    Edmund Fawcett’s “Conservatism” is a sweeping history that reaches deep into the past but with startling relevance for the present

  21. 21.

    satby

    @2liberal: Oh, brother. Even Muslims and Hindus I know say “Merry Christmas” when it’s on Christmas Eve or Christmas day. I say Happy Holidays, except on the specific holiday, where I switch to the holiday being celebrated. Get a grip. Hanukkah and Diwali are over.

  29. 29.

    Mary G

    @rikyrah: His hand towel with the dogs in the bathtub! The morning wash up ritual! So sweet.

    Today’s my birthday, and Zinsky’s. I am officially an old at 65 and received a yuge present from the company where I worked from 1980-2000 before having to go on disability.

    They have managed to not only stay in business, but thrive and expand to multiple states. We were dumped into 401ks in 1989, so I didn’t have much expectation of the old fashioned pension. Turns out it remains solvent and starting around New Year’s I will get just about half of my SSDI check! Riches it isn’t, but it takes some of the worry about rising copays and premiums for the supplemental policy off my head.

    And yes,  I am a spoiled boomer getting things millennials can only dream of and I feel guilty and want this country to get them what I have. I know Uncle Joe and Auntie Kamala will do their damndest to do it.

  32. 32.

    ThresherK

    Has Karen Tumulty been getting better in the last year?

    She’s coming perilously close to saying “The grownups are back in charge”.

  33. 33.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: Apparently a lot of the fallen were noticing that Trump was The Man and were purged. So now Jones is part of the conspiracy lol

  34. 34.

    Delk

    Lindsey won’t vote to override trump’s veto unless section 230 is winded down. The smell of trump’s ass on his breath is staggering.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Mary G: I don’t feel at all guilty for receiving the things I earned over the years. I feel angry as hell about the fact that my sons can’t have the same.

  39. 39.

    Elizabelle

    I think I’ve watched the Champ and Major video about 8-10 times now since last night, and still not tired of it.  Always brings a smile.

    Merry Christmas Eve, jackals.

    The America that is reachable will eventually see the Joe Biden we do.  The point about old hands knowing where old bodies might be buried — brilliant.

  41. 41.

    Betty Cracker

    I’m not going to spend one minute of the next four days getting worked up about politics! I’m only here to share this amazing and hilarious video I’ve been laughing at for three hours:

    Merry Christmas, y’all!

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    Obama was too polite to place blame, but Joe will be different. He will name names. He will remind those who would think otherwise that it was Trump who stomped all over the Constitution and created all the messes he now has to fix.

  44. 44.

    satby

    @Mary G: Happy Birthday to you and Zinsky! All the joys and relief of a bit more inflow for the outgo ?

    Christmas Eve was also my mother’s birthday, which she shared with her twin brother. Both gone now, never forgotten.

  52. 52.

    Amir Khalid

    @ThresherK:

    I liked Karen Tumulty back when she was at TIME’s blog, Swampland. Of the group of writers there, she had the best interaction with commenters, certainly better than Joe Klein; and her writing about her special-needs brother getting scammed by junk health insurance was an eye opener.

  57. 57.

    JWR

    Sorry if already mentioned, but RIP Leslie West. (Non Covid related causes.)

    From Rolling Stone:

    Released in 1970 on Mountain’s debut album, Climbing!, “Mississippi Queen” was two and a half minutes of boisterous bliss built around West’s burly yowl and guitar blasts and drummer Corky Laing’s completely unironic cowbell. One of those never-say-die songs of the classic-rock era, “Mississippi Queen” has been featured in countless soundtracks, TV shows (The Americans, The Simpsons) and in Guitar Hero III. In an interview with Guitar Player earlier this year, West said the song “has just everything you need to make it a winner. You’ve got the cowbell, the riff is pretty damn good, and it sounds incredible. It feels like it wants to jump out of your car radio. To me, it sounds like a big, thick milkshake. It’s rich and chocolatey. Who doesn’t love that?”

    Mmm, big, thick, chocolate milkshake distortion! I was 12 when this album came out, “Mississippi Queen” was in heavy rotation on my AM radio, and the early 1970’s were a magical time to be a guitarist, because there were just so many influential flavors from which to choose. He will be missed.

  58. 58.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Mary G: Happy birthday to you and to Zinsky!

    Is Festivus over? Because I want to gripe about my coffee. I bought some pods of half-caff because my blood pressure was up. About a quarter of the time, they blow up in the keurig and spew coffee grounds around the counter and into my cup. I’m chewing my coffee this morning.

  59. 59.

    Edmund Dantes

    if Biden actually believes what he is saying it’s beyond Naive.

    we will see how quickly he pivots off of it. As that will determine whether we are really screwed, and just delaying the inevitable or actually digging out the rot and making it possible for us to save us from the GOP. 

  65. 65.

    Baud

    Fox Nation’s first original Christmas movie feels like every other cozy, Christmas movie — with one exception
    ……
    Oh, and Fox News hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt make appearances.

  67. 67.

    WaterGirl

    @Edmund Dantes: It’s aspirational.  Barack Obama used to do it all the time.  Sometimes people try to live up to the praise; sometimes they say fuck you and go back to their tricks.

    Biden is a sly dog, and anyone who listened to Biden’s “holiday” speech can see that those who put party over country are gong to be called out.

    In a way, I think Biden is coming into this with no more fucks left to give.  One thing he is not is naive.  And I say this as someone who – during the early primaries – was downright pissed at Biden for running.  He truly is the right person for the moment.

  68. 68.

    kindness

    I sure hope Uncle Joe is posturing for the media wrt kumbaya.  He has to know Republicans will gut him and his administration any and every chance they will get.

  69. 69.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I’m chewing my coffee this morning.

    LOL. Lovely turn of phrase. Have you thought about taking up writing as a career? :)

    @Mary G: Happy birthday to you and Zinsky! Celebrate with abandon.

    And Merry Christmas to snarling jackals far and wide. May Santa bring you what you want and, perhaps, what you deserve.

  70. 70.

    Spanky

    “Naive” is about the last word I’d use to describe a lifelong Senator and 2 term vp of an extremely well-run administration. I think Joe knows that what he says now means nothing about how he’ll govern.

     

    Stay tuned.

  71. 71.

    Baud

    @WaterGirl:

    Biden isn’t going to go scorched earth 24/7. Sooner or later, Biden will have to work with the GOP on some things, and the Internet will be all like “I told you he was naive!” and will call him week and feckless and DINO.

  73. 73.

    JWR

    @Delk:

    From Graham:

    I will not vote to override presidential veto unless effort is made to wind down Section 230.

    Sounds like more weasel words from Lindsey, as he searches desperately for the Next Big A-hole to which he can attach his Remora lips.

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud: Of course he isn’t going to go scorched earth, but I think he’s gonna call out bullshit when he sees it.  Let the internet say what it wants.

    When you’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t, you have the luxury of doing what you think is right.

  83. 83.

    MomSense

    Well we just got our negative tests and now we are all back in quarantine!  Yay!

    And last night we had a mini flood. Fortunately I heard the rushing water sound coming from the washing machine.  I’m pretty sure my mom thinks the drainage hose is a handle and keeps pulling it out of the pvc pipe.

    At least the laundry area is super clean!

  85. 85.

    Steeplejack

    Hola, jackals! I’m easing into a socially distanced Christmas here in NoVA. I had a limited dinner at Sighthound Hall last Sunday, so I’m not going over there. They are going over to the Maryland side to have Christmas dinner with Aunt E–, recently returned from several months in Brazil. ? But it’s okay, because she previously had a mild case of coronavirus back in the spring. ?? At least Bro’ Man got his first vaccination this week. (He sent me the now obligatory jab shot.)

    Side note: His HMO has been giving non-front-line doctors like him the shot as fluctuations in demand allow. He said that a lot of their D.C. firefighter clients seem to be declining the shot. Go figure.

    My semi-connected D.C. insider friend is stopping by this afternoon, probably after seeing her mother in a nearby assisted-living facility, and we’ll talk out on the street for a little bit. I’m going to give her a bottle of cava and a bottle of red—either Cabernet or Malbec—part of my haul from Total Wine last night. That was my last big expedition. If I get really motivated, I might nip over to the nearby Honey Baked Ham store later this morning. I’ve been hungry for ham lately, and the supermarket deli stuff hasn’t been doing it for me.

    Last Sunday my brother gave me a few artifacts from his trip to Las Vegas last month (to start prepping our mother’s house for sale). He shipped a bunch of stuff back here, and it arrived last week. He showed me Mom’s passport from 1960, when we returned from England: Steep, 8, and RWNJ brother, 4½, in the same picture with Mom, Bro’ Man, 4 months, in a separate photo added in. And he gave me a composition book that I kept as an English schoolboy circa 1958-59. Excerpts to follow.

    And he brought me something that I had specifically requested—Mom’s 10″ cast-iron skillet. Based on its design and “7G3” stamped on the bottom, it appears to be a BSR (Birmingham Stove & Range) skillet, probably from the 1950s. I’ll ask my mom if she bought it herself or got it handed down. I’m looking forward to cooking with it. Probably will start with some cornbread.

    That’s about it. I hope all you jackals have a good holiday. You have made this place an oasis and a safe haven these last years, and I thank you for that.

  86. 86.

    debbie

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I gave up on Keurig a while ago. Needle always getting clogged because of those three microscopic openings in the injector, etc. There’s not much worse than having to deal with a clogged coffeemaker first thing in the morning when you really need that caffeine.

    I’ve switched to some sort of Italian brand and haven’t had a moment of trouble with it. Its injector is just one opening. No more coffee chewing for me!

  87. 87.

    debbie

    @JWR:

    Mountain was one of the few bands to make it to Columbus, OH when I was in high school. I saw them twice on a double bill with Jethro Tull. I still like Nantucket Sleigh Ride.

  88. 88.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yep. A further gripe I have about this is the number of Republican-voting pensioners, people truly on a pension, who have absolutely NO CLUE that pensions basically don’t exist any more. No clue. Thus, they are A-OK with assholes nibbling away at Social Security.

  89. 89.

    JWR

    @raven: Haha! You’re a few years older than me, and so got to experience some of that era first hand. Another thing I recently found out I had missed back then was  Led Zeppelin at the Rose Palace in Pasadena, CA, not 5 miles from where my 12 year old, Zeppelin worshiping self lived! Oh well.

  91. 91.

    MomSense

    @debbie:

    Another positive at the office so we are back in quarantine.  We are just going to keep repeating this ridiculous pattern.

  94. 94.

    Elizabelle

    Via Andy Borowitz (New Yorker satirist):  Melania has written us a Christmas letter.

    Dear my people,

    As you know, this is my last Christmas as your Queen. That means I will never again decorate ugly Christmas tree with ugly tinsel and ugly balls. Also, I will never talk to you again. As a famous jacket once said, “I really don’t care, do u?” (LOL)

    But before I go, I want to share some stories of amazing things that happened to your Queen this year. I don’t know where the time is going! Before I know, Barron will be going to college and I will only have only one baby at home.

    Be Best,

    Melania

  95. 95.

    Edmund Dantes

    @Chyron HR: bwahahaha you’re adorable. I have never been and never will be a Bernie supporter, but thanks for trying to play.

    You don’t have to be any of that to know that this is a dangerous road Biden is walking down in our current circumstances. If he actually governs like he is talking, we are long term screwed cause of who is on the other side of the table.

    It didn’t work for Obama (and I hold Obama’s political skills in a lot higher regard than Biden), so why does he think he has any ability to pull it off (again if it’s not all kabuki).

    Trump was not the cause of what has happened over the past 30-40 years.  He’s the symptom. And getting rid of the cause isn’t going to be handled by what Biden is pushing.

  96. 96.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Delk:

    Lindsey won’t vote to override trump’s veto unless section 230 is winded down. The smell of trump’s ass on his breath is staggering.

    Wow. It was infantile enough for Trump to veto the defense bill because Twitter is being mean to him, but anyone going along with that has joined Trump in giving up their last pretense of adulthood.

    Remember how the Republicans were once the defense/natsec party?  Let’s review the bidding:

    1. Awhile back, Trump got rid of all our top cybersecurity people and didn’t bother to replace them. And now we’ve had  major cyberattack, and if the reporting is correct, people who should have been two or three levels down have had to figure out what to do about it.
    2. Trump vetoed the bill funding our national defense in meatspace, on account of he’s pissed at Twitter.  That’s how important our defense is to him.
    3. And of course, Covid-19 is killing a 9/11’s worth of people almost every day.  Which Trump has done worse than nothing about, despite having characterized it as a hostile attack by China. (Not that that should matter: whatever its origins, it’s quite successfully attacking us, killing thousands of Americans daily. He left us undefended, and undermined those who tried to protect us.)

    (And sure, the vaccine, but if Covid-19 kills a half a million Americans before most of us are vaccinated, that’s still a pretty huge fail.)

    And the Republicans have stood by him every bit of the way.  This, folks, is your party of a strong defense.

  97. 97.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @MomSense: If your tests are negative (and yay for that), why are you still quarantined

    ETA: I see you answered. The reason we have a pandemic is that people are fucking selfish and stupid. It would matter less if the consequences fell only on them.

  100. 100.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Edmund Dantes: if Biden actually believes what he is saying it’s beyond Naive.

    Hospodi bozhe. The truly “naive” are the Stalinist imbeciles who will scream bloody murder if Uncle Joe doesn’t declare a Soshulist Revolution & start throwing the 74 million Trump voters into re-education camps by, oh, dinnertime on January 20 (& some won’t give him that long before the whining starts).

  104. 104.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Steeplejack: A variety of large and small. My DIL had my initials printed on some from Zazzle. They’re just lined paper, but hand writing in them feels both more permanent and less official than creating a Word doc. I use them for ideas mostly.

    And I keep one for every book I write, not only for the ideas but also to record each day’s writing session. I enter questions, problems, and how I feel. That last is useful because there’s always a point where I’m in despair, and it helps to look back and see I always feel this way at around the 35K word mark.

  105. 105.

    lowtechcyclist

    @rikyrah:

    Old hands might know where the old bodies are buried.

    Thank you, 46.

    I don’t want anyone who needs on the job training. We need people who know what to do on DAY ONE.

    A sentiment I happen to agree with.

    Hence my ire about Buttigieg.

  107. 107.

    Kristine

    Doesn’t anyone else believe that Joe is waiting for the outcome in GA?  Whatever he says now may not matter, or may just be the beginning.

    Plus, if he keeps saying ‘hands across the aisle’ over and over, it will become his standard according to the MSM whether it’s indeed the case or not. They tend to go with what they’ve heard rather than what’s actually happening.

  110. 110.

    Luciamia

    On  BBC radio listening to lovely program about that story of the animals talking on Christmas Eve.

  112. 112.

    debbie

    @Luciamia:

    Thanks so much for jogging my foggy memory. My classical music station is running A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, and it begins in three minutes!

  113. 113.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Luciamia:

    And the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols begins in a couple of minutes! One of my don’t-miss traditions.

    ETA: Waves to Debbie!

  114. 114.

    Immanentize

    @Steeplejack: I was Christmas Eve 2020 years old when I learned about the 1 to square of 2 ratio for notebooks.  Add it to the pile of info that will probably haunt my mind for the rest of my days.

    I’m generally a Moleskine guy (good quality, can be found everywhere), but some of those Japanese A2 notebooks are fabulous.  Thank you.

  115. 115.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @debbie: Nantucket Sleighride…Goodbye, little Robin Marie…and I know you’re the last true love I’ll ever need…I love that song too.  I saw Leslie West when I did time in St. Louis (okay, high school…I was an unhappy transplant from NY).

  119. 119.

    Steeplejack

    @Immanentize:

    I have a few Moleskines within reach at the desk right now. Also an old-school reporter’s notebook that my semi-connected insider friend got from a hole-in-the-wall place in Baltimore. I’ll have to ask her the name when she comes over this afternoon.

  122. 122.

    Citizen Alan

    @satby:  I refuse to say Merry Christmas under any circumstances and I haven’t said it once this season. As far as I am concerned, the republicans have succeeded in turning the phrase “merry Christmas” into “fuck you liberal snowflake.”

  124. 124.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @JWR: He used to appear on Howard Stern all the time.   So he made it to 75 after battling diabetes and weight issues through out his life – not bad.

    L’chaim

  125. 125.

    Citizen Alan

    @Edmund Dantes:   My hope is that hes just saying that until the results of the Georgia elections.  His strategies for dealing with the senate will obviously be very different depending upon whether the traitor turtle is still in control or not by  Inauguration day.

  128. 128.

    zhena gogolia

    @Edmund Dantes:

    Yeah, the man who’s been a senator (elected at age 29) and two-term vice president and just won a hotly contested primary and the presidency is incredibly naive.

  130. 130.

    trollhattan

    @rikyrah: 
    Look at the size of that thing! Have seen plenty of small dogs, that one makes small dogs look massive.

    Speaking of, friend’s mom parked at a suburban mall and returned to find somebody had broken into the car and stolen her little dog. Stole the damn dog! Which was not chipped.

    Sent lost dog notices to the various services and days later was contacted–a woman found the dog in a dog park, took it to her vet who did the detective work and connected with the owner. A Festivus miracle!

    1. Chip your dog.
    2. Uh, don’t go to malls? This is a personal rule but YMMV.
    3. Who steals a dog? I understand there are lots of fraudulent dog sales during COVID days and maybe that’s what somebody was considering, but sounds like underpants gnome thinking.

  131. 131.

    Karen S.

    My wife and I got the Covid test on Monday because we had been around my 93-year-old mother who was discharged last week after a nearly 3-week stay in a nursing home where she tested positive earlier this month. She was asymptomatic and we thought our chances of getting were low but we wanted to be sure. We’re both negative! I found the test interesting. After the initial thrust of the Q-tip-like thing up my nostrils, it sort of tickled. I giggled.

    My mom ended up in the nursing home after being in the hospital to treat pneumonia. Now she’s back home with my dad and is livelier and more animated than I’ve seen her in several months. My wife and I are going to spend the next few days with them, which will be stressful and joyful at once. I’m just thankful that she’s home.

    I’m making Xmas dinner tomorrow: a ham, corn pudding, sauteed Swiss chard, Brussels sprouts, buttermilk biscuits and chess pie for dessert. Yum. Happy holidays!

  132. 132.

    trollhattan

    @Kristine:

    Like it or not, he needs two plans: one should we win both Georgia seats and another, sadly less ambitious, should we take one or zero seats. Whatever he’s doing and saying now has to fit both (although some of it is aimed straight at Georgia voters to encourage GOTV).

  134. 134.

    The Moar You Know

    Sorry if already mentioned, but RIP Leslie West. (Non Covid related causes.)

    @JWR:  Mr. West had been working on a massive cardiac event his entire life; I was stunned a few years back when he showed up on something, still very much alive. That guy should not have lived into his forties. That he made it until 75 is just another stunning example of how hard it is to kill a human being.

  135. 135.

    trollhattan

    @JWR:

    Jesus, 2020 has been sleighing the music world [get it?]

    R.I.P. very large man with guitar. The riffs will survive you.

  137. 137.

    The Moar You Know

    Who steals a dog? I understand there are lots of fraudulent dog sales during COVID days and maybe that’s what somebody was considering, but sounds like underpants gnome thinking.

    @trollhattan:  #1 (and this will convince you to never leave your dog alone anywhere) people who train fighting dogs.  The stolen dogs are used as bait.  This is sadly the vast majority of stolen dogs.

    #2:  (if you’ve got a breed dog) people who advertise themselves as breeders/amateur rescues.  I’ve got a purebred golden through Guide Dogs (he failed out).  I’ve watched people scoping my car with him in it before.

    Don’t ever leave your dog alone where you can’t see him.  If you’re not a fast runner, don’t leave him/her alone at all.  Not in the car, not tied up outside the store.  It takes maybe ten seconds to undo the leash or break your window and waltz off with your dog.  That story will usually have a horrific ending.  Just don’t do it.

  139. 139.

    CaseyL

    @Mary G:  Hippo birdies two ewe, and to Zelinsky.  Growing up, did. you get more presents because your Bday was also Xmas day, or not?

  140. 140.

    CaseyL

    @zhena gogolia:  A smiling and affable public face with brass knuckles hidden in one pocket and a stiletto in the other is just fine with me.  Kamala in the background with a tommy gun at the ready is also very good.

  143. 143.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Uncle Cosmo:

    The truly “naive” are the Stalinist imbeciles who will scream bloody murder if Uncle Joe doesn’t declare a Soshulist Revolution & start throwing the 74 million Trump voters into re-education camps by, oh, dinnertime on January 20 (& some won’t give him that long before the whining starts).

    Boy howdy, is this ever a serious case of excluded middle.

    Y’know, there’s a considerable range of points of view in between (a) Biden and Pelosi can do no wrong, and (b) Bernie Sanders is ok but a bit of a squish.  People of a left-of-center persuasion aren’t just one or the other.

  144. 144.

    evodevo

    @MomSense: Is your PVC drainage pipe 2″ in diameter?  The older installations only used 1 1/2″ pipe, and that evidently won’t accommodate the flow from the newer generation of washers.  The water will blow back and/or blow the drain hose right out of the pipe opening.  My neighbor had that problem with her new house/washer…I ended up having to tie my drain hose down with a piece of copper wire to keep it from vibrating out when the washer was draining, and I have 2″ pipe…

  145. 145.

    Miss Bianca

    @Baud: is that this case?

    Full disclosure, as Adam would say: I know the lawyer who filed this complaint. Nicest guy in the world. And…I sure as shit would not want to go against him in court.

  147. 147.

    Nicole

    I don’t understand.  I was assured that if Democrats win, the saying of “Merry Christmas” will be one of the first things to be outlawed.  And yet, here it is, on a video ostensibly FROM A DEMOCRAT.

    I mean, it’s almost as if I’ve been lied to by the right-wing.  Unless this is a Deep State plot.  It probably is.  I bet Chavez is involved.  He probably provided the dog toys, as a distraction.

  148. 148.

    Miss Bianca

    @Edmund Dantes: Oh, fuck off. Do you really think Biden is going to get farther in DC by saying, “fuck all y’all, do as I say because otherwise I will DO SOMETHING to you?” Like, I don’t know…”release the Kraken!” or something? Yeah, that’ll get us places! Yeah! Let’s THREATEN the GOP, they will obviously take that SO seriously.

  149. 149.

    Feathers

    @lowtechcyclist: Yeah, but a bunch of rose Twitter has gone full Stalinist, saying that the problems of the Soviet Union were largely US propaganda, that socialism isn’t enough if it means there will be any capitalism left behind, etc., etc.  They are known as Tankies. Had some in my feed briefly, but finally had to block them all.

  150. 150.

    Jean

    @Mary G: Happy Birthday, Mary.  “It’s my birthday too, yeah.”  The rule in my family since I was a child is that birthday and Christmas presents should not be in one box or presented as “Birthday and Christmas.”  Birthdays are separate!

  151. 151.

    Geo Wilcox

    I think Joe may go the Teddy Roosevelt way of a presidency. Walk softly but carry a big stick, type of thing.

  152. 152.

    Miss Bianca

    @Feathers: oh, ffs. Really? I mean, it was bad enough when American socialists/communists were Stalin apologists, but at least back in the 1930s they had the excuse of genuine ignorance.

    Well, I guess the modern-days *also* have the excuse of genuine ignorance, but it’s not quite as…excusable.

  155. 155.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Miss Bianca:  Here is one of those American socialists describing working in the Soviet Union in the 30s

    https://youtu.be/Wkw21YfvpBk

    My take is the Soviet Union was rather unique because of Russian culture and if the US went communist, it would different.  I think that’s what was Huxley’s point with Brave New World, an American Socialist Republic would be all happy pills, mass consumption and planned obsolescence.

  158. 158.

    rikyrah

    @Kristine:

     

    Doesn’t anyone else believe that Joe is waiting for the outcome in GA?

     

    I think the result in Georgia will determine the AG pick.

    And, that fascinates me, because of who the ‘ difficult’ candidate for AG could be.

  159. 159.

    The Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion

    @Miss Bianca: Thank you!  It doesn’t really feel like Christmas at all to me until someone on balloon-juice says “fuck off!”

  161. 161.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: I can’t recall where I read the discussion of the AG picks, maybe Lawfare?  But whoever it was, they thought Sally Yates would be harder to get through than Doug Jones.

  163. 163.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl:  Doug Jones might have an advantage because he has been a Senator. They tend to see themselves as part of an elite club, and would be reluctant to vote against a fellow member.

  164. 164.

    Geminid

    @WaterGirl: re “hardheaded”: I ve also used hardheaded as to mean stubborn. In this particular context, people were equating Biden’s professed openness to working with republicans as naivete or soft headedness, and I was using hardheaded to mean the opposite.

  165. 165.

    J R in WV

    Miss Bianca, I have read the pleading filed by Doctor Coomer via his lawyers, Charles Cain and Steve Skarnulis. I assume Mr Cain is your acquaintance, as Mr Skarnulis is requesting pro hoc vice authority to represent Dr Coomer in Colorado. Their work product is a piece of great art, and it’s no wonder that the defendants are running scared after their lawyers read that filing.

    This country is so huge, yet I have spent time in and near Salida CO off and on for years! We loved the Salida community pool and hot spring plunge, and found that the legal requirement that the privately owned hot spring west of town provide hot water to the town fortunate and amusing. Our friends who have made a life in Pueblo just sold their camp in the mountains above Cotopaxi, where we have stayed several times.

    Also, my birthday is 3 days hence on the 27th — OMG, I’m going to be 70 years old if I survive.

    My family also worked pretty hard to separate my Xmas from my birthday. So I have things in common with Mary G in that regard.

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