Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

In after Baud. Damn.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

This blog will pay for itself.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Republicans don’t trust women.

President Biden is doing good where he can, and getting it done.

Consistently wrong since 2002

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

Israel is using food as a weapon of war. Unforgivable.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

“That’s what the insurrection act is for!”

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

You are here: Home / Elections / Biden-Harris 2020 / Saturday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Countdown

Saturday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Countdown

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Saturday Morning Open Thread: Back to the Countdown

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287Comments

  4. 4.

    satby

    @OzarkHillbilly: ?

    @WereBear: yes!

    Good morning everyone. Debating even bothering to go into the market today. Most of the side streets aren’t plowed since the big snowfall was on the holiday. I have a four wheel drive vehicle, but the parking lot probably isn’t plowed either. And I’m not sure I even want to deal with the kind of nutbags who go out to shop under these conditions anyway.

    Can’t wait until January, taking the whole month off except my few hours a week at the Drs. office. Yay!

  10. 10.

    WereBear

    @satby: Can’t wait until January, taking the whole month off except my few hours a week at the Drs. office. Yay!

    I share the yay! We all need recovery time, by golly.

    Yesterday I shared a kitten Mr WereBear has fallen for:

    Greta the kitten

    Application approved, road trip in my future!

  13. 13.

    terben

    @mrmoshpotato: More correctly called a test rather than a tournament. Australia to win. India will fold again like a cheap suit. Perhaps not in 2 and 1/2 days like last time, but expect fireworks on day 4.

  14. 14.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Thanks for asking. Came out particularly well. Whole meal was A+++.

    Found a bottle of cabernet sauvignon lurking in the wine rack to complement the repast.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    News from the 22nd New York Congressional  District, where Democratic Congressman Anthony Brindisi and former Congresswoman Claudia Tenney are locked in a court battle over disputed ballots: Tenney ended the initial election count with a 19 vote lead but after a district wide recount and a week of ballot review, Brindisi held a 14 vote lead as of Christmas Eve. New York courts recess from Christmas until News Years Day, so a final result will not be had until the week Jan. 4-8.  The NY 22nd stretches from Binghampton on the Pennsylvania border to Oswego on Lake Ontario.

    This is an interesting story for those interested in the nuts and bolts of a contested election. And Covid era litigation: at one point all six Madison County election officials gave remote testimony regarding 100 some ballots that were time-stamped Nov. 4, erroneously according to Brindisi’s attorneys. None remembered any ballots received after Election Day, and Oswego Supreme Court Judge Scott DelConte ruled that these ballots be counted.  Judge DelConte seems to be playing this election contest straight.

  16. 16.

    WereBear

    @satby: They held out as long as they could, since that pic is from Halloween, but her pair-bonded brother went the day before I inquired.

    So she really needs us. I have two older cat brothers, 18 months old, who really need to be managed :)

  24. 24.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @satby:

    Just saw that, and am in tears. And Garry Kasparov lost his mother yesterday. Two heartbreaking Christmas Day deaths.

  27. 27.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: For what it’s worth, Congressman Brindisi (NY-22) is a member of the notorious Blue Dog Caucus. The Blue Dogs numbered 25 in the 117th Congress but five, including Xochitl Torres-Small (NM-2) and Kendra Horn (OK-4), lost their red districts this past election. Blue Dog Dan Lipinski lost his primary to Marie Newman, who went on to win the blue Chicago district.

  28. 28.

    satby

    I take deep satisfaction in Lipinski’s defeat, I voted against him in primaries ever since he took over his dad’s seat. Wish I still lived in Chicago just to be part of the vote that finally sent him packing.

  29. 29.

    WereBear

    @SiubhanDuinne: I will be making an appointment as soon as I hear back. It’s a shelter which requires a road trip: there wasn’t anyone  we felt was right, locally.

    Besides, the GOOD news is the shelter pet shortage, so I’m still happy about that :)

  33. 33.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I agree. I put that out there because people often denigrate the Caucus collectively, but I like to put names on them so people can judge them on their merits. Blue Dog freshmen who won reelection this year include Jared Golden (ME-2), Abigail Spanberger (VA-7), and Mikie Sherrill (NJ). Charlie Christ and Stephanie Murphy of Florida are also members of the Blue Dog Caucus.

  34. 34.

    PsiFighter37

    @Geminid:  Good to know that there are more incompetent BoEs in NYS than NYC’s. The stories out of NY-22 are almost a joke when it comes to absurdity. Glad to see Brindisi is likely to be safe, although I wonder if he’ll be a prime candidate to be redistricted out by the time 2022 comes.

  37. 37.

    Geminid

    @PsiFighter37: There were enough reports of problems across the 22nd District for Judge DelConte to order a district wide recount before he took up issues regarding disputed ballots. The recount came in fairly close to the original count. The real absurdities were in the Tenney campaign’s ballot challenges. They argued that one ballot be thrown out because of a dark spot that they said was blood. The Brindisi people said it could be chocolate. No, said Tenney’s people, it’s blood, and the voter could be identified through DNA , so the ballot was no longer secret and must be thrown out.

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @PsiFighter37: New York party politics seem very strange, and the 2021 Congressional redistricting will be interesting. It seems more likely that Democrats in Albany will want to protect a Democrat holding a previously Republican seat. Since districts will expand geographically and in population, Brindisi could be protected by adding liberal Ithaca to his district, provided that does not weaken another Democrat too much. But like I said, New York party politics seem very strange.

  47. 47.

    Geminid

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, it’s absurd argument. I would not be surprised if the Tenney campaign dropped that challenge before Judge DelConte had a chance to blow it out of the water. DelConte’s approach has been to not exclude ballots over trivial and specious questions.

  48. 48.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Geminid: Abigail Spanberger (VA-7) won her district because she’s a Blue Dog. Her area is full of fairly conservative “moderate independents.”

  49. 49.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @satby: Don’t go.

    Longing for normal politics, we’ve been re-watching West Wing on Netflix and got into season 6 before it vanished yesterday. So yesterday afternoon, we watched the first episode of QUEEN’S GAMBIT and then in the evening, we watched the first two episodes of EMILY IN PARIS.

    We expected QUEEN’S GAMBIT to be good and it was. EMILY IN PARIS surprised us both. We thought it might be sitcom dull, but it made us both laugh out loud. And the setting is wonderful. I want to go to Paris again!

  50. 50.

    Geminid

    @CliosFanBoy: I think you are right. And it was a very close election. Spanberger did not pull ahead until the last day of counting absentee ballots. Before she flipped the district in 2018, it had been in Republican hands since the 1970s, when Virginia realigned and the dominant conservative Democrats became Republicans.

  51. 51.

    Nelle

    In Iowa, in one district, the lead has gone back and forth with the Republican, Meeks-Miller bring declared the winner by 6 votes.  They both agree that there are ballots not counted but to appeal through Iowa provisions wouldn’t have given enough time to do a thorough count.  The Democrat, Rita Hart, is employing a rarely used provision for the House to conduct the recount (as I understand it).  The R’s are howling that Hart is asking outsiders to decide the election in a neat bit of framing.  Iowans should decide, they cry.  Hart is asking the decisions of Iowans to be counted.

  54. 54.

    Ian

    @Geminid:

    The NY 22nd stretches from Binghampton on the Pennsylvania border to Oswego on Lake Ontario.

    Ahhh, a nice contiguous compact district, clearly built on geographical similarities and relevant communities of interest.

    Nice redistricting job, NY //…

  56. 56.

    PST

    @Baud: I normally agree that there are “no factions when we’re in a race against Republicans,” but Lipinski is special. He didn’t endorse Obama in 2012, even though his district was safe. He’s a Joe Lieberman, with no excuse for being a jerk, not a Joe Manchin, someone we are lucky to have given his unfavorable constituency. Lipinski is a blue dog in a yellow dog district, where almost any Democrat could win. This was a well justified primary challenge.

  58. 58.

    CliosFanBoy

    @Geminid: and her opponent this time was such a loser. Jesus.  I was still surprised how close it was given the republican.

    FWIW, I saw a lot of her ads up here in the DC area of Northern VA.

  61. 61.

    Elizabelle

    @PST:   Wondering if Lipinski was actually a Republican, born into a Democratic seat for the taking.  So:  Blue Dog!

  63. 63.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @Mary G: I didn’t even know it was a book.

    I’m reading LOVELY WAR by Julie Berry. I hesitated because it’s a WWI story and I’ve read a lot of stories about world wars I and II lately. But this one is narrated by Greek gods which I thought might be interesting. I’m not very far into it because my pandemic brain is unable to focus for long, so I’ll have to see how it goes.

  65. 65.

    mad citizen

    @MattF: Seems like not many juicers want more orange-man stuff today (understandable), but I’ll say thanks for posting this link.  This piece is an excellent take on these years.  Again, hoping Biden in his inaugural pushes back hard on the “evil government” crap.  The piece also makes me wonder why any American would behave that way in the office of the president.

     

    Fintan O’Toole:

    “The power of his instinct was that he knew how to tap into a hatred of government that has been barely below the surface of American culture since before the foundation of the US.”

  66. 66.

    debbie

    Expect Trump to go into a tizzy any minute. NPR reports that China will become the world’s #1 economy in five years or less. China’s economy is the only one to have expanded over the past year, and that’s because of careful management.The American economy is expected to be sluggish for the next decade.

    Could Trump possibly be accused of mismanagement?!?

  67. 67.

    Geminid

    @PST: Lipinski’s primary was an an interesting application of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Commitee’s “blacklist policy,” wherein campaign operatives were refused DCCC funds generally if they worked on primary challenges to incumbent Democrats. DCCC Chairman Cherie Busto justified this policy because the DCCC collects dues from Caucus members. It had been an informal policy already. Campaign consultants working for groups like NARAL asked if they would also be blacklisted for working against Ted Lipinski and were told no, so long as they were not working for Marie Newman directly.

  71. 71.

    Elizabelle

    Have not read either of these in full yet, but the NY Times has two excellent longform articles this week.  Worth using a click.

    First up:  Swedish photographer Marcus Westberg couldn’t travel, so he headed north to see the old growth forests and life up there.  Reindeer, ice hotels, snow, ancient trees (endangered by clear cutting), snow, the aurora borealis.  Lots of photos; lots of information about life in an area of the world not seen by most.

    Wintry Scenes From a Swedish Wonderland

    With his foreign assignments canceled for the year, a photographer refocuses on his homeland — and finds plenty to admire.

    Second:  Alan Cowell, one of the best foreign correspondents ever.  He’s written several good books.
    The Brexit Fight, Through a Reporter’s Prism of a Changed Continent

    Stories like these are why I keep the NY Times sub, despite their ridiculous framing of US politics.

  73. 73.

    Elizabelle

    @MattF:   NYRB, you say.  I now have a subscription to that (and you can tell I have not been reading it much yet).

    Will be happy to share his articles with you. Think I have your email from the DC area meetups.  Hunting for that now…

    The NYRB and a lot of other pubs were pretty much giving their content away this pandemic year.  Think I got a year’s sub for $10.

    h/t:  germy turned me on to the NYRB.  Much obliged, g.

  74. 74.

    mad citizen

    @debbie: I have not been keeping track (old economist that I am), but my assumption was that China had already achieved #1 economy over us.  But thinking about it, I suppose that event might create some news and awareness.

    In any case, they have 1.4 billion people, so 4 times the size of the U.S.  I’m sure we’ll switch over to some per capita ranking soon, even if we aren’t #1 on the rankings.  We are #13; China #79.

    https://www.worldometers.info/gdp/gdp-per-capita/

  76. 76.

    MattF

    @Elizabelle: Thanks, but no need…  I’m also a subscriber. IMO, it’s dropped a couple of notches since the original editor died, but still worth reading. The old NYRB was where I discovered Frances Yates, but I don’t see anything like that happening with the current NYRB.

  77. 77.

    Amir Khalid

    @debbie:

    Easily. He has been ignorant, stupid, lazy, corrupt, and maliciously neglectful on the economy just as he has been at managing everything else that POTUS is in charge of.

  79. 79.

    Danielx

    Seventeen degrees outside. If I was single and there wasn’t an ongoing pandemic, I’d be planning to flee to the Keys.

  81. 81.

    Elizabelle

    @MattF:   Ah good.  Cuz not finding the email address.

    Never heard of Frances Yates.  Will research her.  Thanks!

    (In looking at emails from the DC meetup timeframe, found several re the Small Press Expo.  Miss them so much.  Hope they survive, because maybe September 2021 will be good to go.)

  82. 82.

    satby

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: @rikyrah: Well, I got here (the market) about 9. Most vendors aren’t here. It’s going to be a quiet day, which is ok, because I have to get ready to close down for a month. But I scored a free espresso, gave one of my young minions his Xmas gift, and made two sales already, so it’s fine.

  84. 84.

    satby

    @Elizabelle: The Lipinskis represented the white flight area of Mt.Greenwood as well as the long term diverse areas of Beverly, and nearby suburbs. But he only cared about his core racist voters. He was despised in my neighborhood.

  85. 85.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @MattF:

    Naah.  That was written by someone who found Trump surprising.  The writer still does not grasp that someone can be driven by pure id, and casts about for strategy where there is none.  I mean, points for figuring out Trump hates government, but it’s not a philosophy he pursues as strategy and wants to endure as a legacy.  He’s just a spiteful asshole who resents that he’s been forced to obey environmental regulations and especially that he’s been forced to let blacks rent his properties.  Similarly, the lack of war is laziness and cowardice, not philosophy in any way.

  86. 86.

    bemused

    @satby:

    I have followed Andrew’s twitter and this is so heart wrenching. It’s been a shitty year for most of us but for parents to go through this ordeal, losing their sweet baby girl, is unspeakably tragic.

  89. 89.

    PST

    @Elizabelle:

    Wondering if Lipinski was actually a Republican, born into a Democratic seat for the taking. So: Blue Dog!

    He was born to seat in any event. His father, Bill, represented the district for many years. Bill retired after winning a primary but before the general election, and convinced the relevant party committee to name his son as his replacement. That way Dan, who is free of any shred of charisma, never had to run in a primary except as the incumbent.

  90. 90.

    satby

    @debbie: oh, don’t give drump a pass on that. Millions of people grow up in horribly dysfunctional families and get the help and therapy they need to overcome it. Adults have agency, he’s chosen to be a vile human over and over again, and deserves ALL the contempt he’s earned.

  91. 91.

    Gin & Tonic

    We had 3.5 inches of rain yesterday, on top of the 10” of snow from last week, so today will be spent vacuuming water out of the basement. Big fun.

  93. 93.

    mad citizen

    @debbie: Yes, I think framing always matters.  What is sluggish?  Is it 10 years of 2.0 or 2.5 growth?  I think most nations would take that.  This fantasy that the U.S. is going to achieve regular 4 % annual growth rates (as the Orange one seemed to talk to) is just that, most likely a fantasy.  The real thing to avoid is crippling recessions/depressions.  We should probably also talk about how we define economic wellness, etc.  and not use GNP/GDP as the ONE measure.
    I’ve been thinking sometimes lately about the 1980s–remember when Japanese were buying up lots of stuff in the U.S. and there were thought pieces/worries about them taking over in some way?  Nations seem to come and go; steady growth is good.  It seems likely China’s economy will grow, as will most of the world.  Unless there are black swan events–shocks in economist-speak (at least when I was in school that was the term).

  94. 94.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Thinking about Nashville and the test run/exploratory first blast that happened there.

    It sure would be nice if there were some existing government program pulling in data packets for search via a search warrant under the hood of some accountable government agency so the methods and coconspirators could be identified and prosecuted.

    Thanks to Snowjob and Greenwald’s treason and thanks o manipulative glibertarian congressional assholes stoking the fears of basement trolls that someone could see their brony prOn search histories, we can’t have that….

  97. 97.

    PST

    @Baud: Yes, of course. And I would have voted for Lipinski without hesitation over any Republican were I in his district. I just felt like pointing out how exceptionally happy we should be to see him superseded. I think Geminid’s comments about the DCCC policy of blacklisting consultants who work for primary challengers is on point. Some challenges are justified, but it’s hard not to use a firm rule without provoking strife within the party.

  100. 100.

    Geminid

    @satby: I think Lipinski may have benefitted from a relatively large number of older conservative Catholic voters in his district. They were still registered as Democrats, but voted “pro-life.” Lipinski narrowly won his last renomination when the “pro-life” Susan B. Anthony List brought in dozens of volunteers in the days leading up to the 2018 primary.

    This would have been a great opportunity for groups like Justice Democrats to swing another primary, but Marie Newman was not a Bernie Bro. So Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez were flown right past Chicago to Kansas in order to help Bernie Bro Brent Welder try to knock out Sharice Davids.

  102. 102.

    Drdavechemist

    @Gin & Tonic: Good to know I’m not the only one. At least I’m fueled up with a fresh bagel and mocha and have leftover tenderloin to look forward to as a reward.

  106. 106.

    Ohio Mom

    germy @99: Thanks, that is beautiful. At this time of year, I hardly remember what summer looks like, so I find this time lapse film reassuring.

  107. 107.

    Immanentize

    @Ian: It kind of is pretty contiguous and similarly-minded folks.  It follows county lines fairly well — stretching from the Southern Tier to Lake Oneonta includes a LOT of rural areas.  It’s not easy to drawn districts of equal size totalling over 700,000 people in the country.  Look at Texas….

    And, there is no “p” in Binghamton!  Named after revolutionary war guy, General Bingham, who got the area land grant for services. The Hamptons are further east.  ?

  109. 109.

    catclub

    @satby: And I’m not sure I even want to deal with the kind of nutbags who go out to shop under these conditions anyway.

     

    ummmm, I think I know who might be one of those nutbags:
    Debating even bothering to go into the market today.

  110. 110.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @MattF:

    Looking at the Irish commentary, many correctly note that he is a symptom, and that millions who share his ideals voted for it.

  111. 111.

    Immanentize

    @Gin & Tonic: I’m so sorry!  Same rain and snow piles here.  But my basement was saved!  I did, however, being a good citizen, shovel out the storm drain in front of my house which had three feet of hard packed snow plow ice and snow covering it up before the rain came.

    All the snow is now gone here and it will be almost 40 today.

  112. 112.

    Immanentize

    @WaterGirl: Sonic excellence!  It took me over two hours, however, to get the gain right

    The gift I gave the Immp which he is enjoying the most is, unsurprisingly, a copper turkish in-store coffee pot.  That boy is over caffeinated!

  115. 115.

    mrmoshpotato

    @debbie:

    Jesus, the excuses Republicans are coming up with! ? 

    Paper ballots are a Democratic plot, man!  Because paper and trees and tree huggers and yeah!

    (Dumbass snorts a massive rail of coke out of his empty briefcase.)

    So they should all be thrown out then, Your Judgeness!

  119. 119.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: If you’re looking for “normal”-ish politics, I highly recommend “My Fellow Americans” (1996) starring Jack Lemmon and James Garner as two ex-presidents who hate each other but are stuck on the run together. We just rewatched that. I think Lemmon is the Republican but honestly don’t recall as they’re both written to be such rational, patriotic, decent and NORMAL human beings.

  120. 120.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Gin & Tonic: What little snow we had in that big storm melted away days ago. Our basement is under an inch or so of water.  Our one pathetic string of outdoor lights stopped working after the last big rainstorm. I was wondering if it might be a circuit breaker. But I’m a little nervous about stepping in the water to check since almost electrocuting myself with that move a year or two ago.

  121. 121.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Immanentize:

    Hydrochloroquine is said to help if taken in Very large doses injected into a lightbulb that’s shoved up your ass until your fat, orange, fascist face lights up. 

    Fixed.

  122. 122.

    Geminid

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Unsolicited advice: basement water problems are often caused a negative grade at the foundation wall. I’ve added to the grade at several houses where the backfill had settled over time. Worth checking out with a level when you have a chance. Sometimes you can see a problem by eye.

  128. 128.

    sab

    @Immanentize: Let him enjoy the caffeine while he can. Forty years from now it won’t even be an option. I used to drink about thirty cups a day. Now, one and a half would probably lead to a life-threatening arrythmia.

  129. 129.

    Hoodie

    @Frankensteinbeck:yeah,  I read that as a kind of not very illuminating restatement of Orwell on authoritarianism being characterized by the arbitrary exercise of power. Trump can be summarized as selfishness is embedded in the human psyche and we revel in not having to answer to anyone, and Trump gives a bunch of people license to think and behave that way by wrapping it in the American flag. Laziness, of course, goes hand in hand with that. Hence, lazy-ass thinking like conspiracy mongering, not giving a shit if you spread Covid to your neighbors, etc. Trump is the president of the shitbirds who don’t want to study for the test but expect to get an A for the class.  The stupid amount of wealth we have in certain sectors of the population enables this.

  131. 131.

    mrmoshpotato

    Summed up nicely.

    the 'you lost, get over it' crowd from 2016 are now shitting their pants and calling for mass violence and martial law, because [checks notes] they lost and they can't get over it— Jeff Tiedrich (@itsJeffTiedrich) December 26, 2020

  132. 132.

    Geminid

    @satby: I think you are right about the Kansas 3rd(?) district that was won by Sharice Davids. Welder would not have been as strong a candidate. Davids won in 2018 and 2020 by fairly wide margins, but Kansas Republicans intend to gerrymander her district so as to knock her out in 2022.

  134. 134.

    sab

    @Immanentize: Har har.

    I have family members with psychiatric issues. Used to have a schizophrenic SIL. She was warm and lovely when the demons weren’t talking to her. OCD stepson. Another with borderline personality disorder. All reachable and often lovely people. All wanted to be better.

    OTOH one of my bosses sons was toxic narcissist. He was unrelentingly evil. And a cunning manipulator. There was no good side to him. And he never let his guard down.

    Maybe Presbyterians have a point about pre-detetmination, but why would God make such people.

    We should thank God that Trump has dementia so bad that he can’t function as a fully operational narcissist.

  135. 135.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    I saw Adam Schiff was trending on twitter and clicked. Turns out the loonies are rejoicing because they have word he’s been arrested. Also Bill Clinton is dead.

    I don’t know why I bother trying to write fantasy. They’re all capable of far more fantastic fiction.

  136. 136.

    Punchy

    Wow, Con Don just UNLOADED on SCOTUS.  Didnt know these justices were so incompetent and weak.  Talk about making enemies of your friends……

  137. 137.

    Miss Bianca

    @WereBear: Just for grins ‘n’ yuks I looked up the humane society shelters closest to me and saw that one had two dogs, total, no cats available, and the other had three cats and a dog. And that one – the one in Canon City, where Alain used to have a house – was almost always overflowing with cats and dogs in the Before Times.

    Good luck picking up your little tortie! You will, of course, provide us with photographic evidence of her takeover of the household?

  138. 138.

    sab

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: You do more interesting character analysis. We care why they behave as they do. Plot doesn’t matter. Why the plot rolls as it does is the point.

    These guys don’t even care if it’s plausible.

  145. 145.

    sab

    @Miss Bianca: About fifteen years ago our city shelter appointed a Councilman’s daughter who loved animals and had government experience to run the pound. Big stink about nepotism. Before we had hired experienced reject managers from other shelters with bad back stories.

    She spent a year running around talking to people all over the country and taking every course available.

    Since she got settled, we haven’t had an animal killed for lack of space. Our cats and dogs go off to the NE for adoption. Of course now it’s difficult to adopt from them locally since the adoptables all get exported.

    There are always sources outside the pound to get pets. Not everyone spays. “OMG my dog’s first litter was eight puppies. Yikes.”

  146. 146.

    Geminid

    @mrmoshpotato: In the case of Lipinski’s district, Justice Democrats could not have run their own candidate in 2018, just helped Marie Newman. They did get on the Newman bandwagon this year, but I think she was going to win this primary with or without their help.

  148. 148.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    he’s been arrested.

    One of them found a phishing website that pretends to be a police report, but tells you anybody whose name you put in has been arrested.  Then someone saw that rumor and was totally sure someone she saw at an airport was being arrested and it must be Schiff.  Pretty standard conspiracy theorist thinking.

  149. 149.

    germy

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Somebody really needs to seed a spooky theory into QAnon groups that the world is heating up and coming to an apocalyptic end and OOooOOoooOooOoh the global elite are just sitting on the solutions because they're prioritising profit.

    Say it's lizards doing it or something.

    — Elfy Scott (@elfy_scott) September 22, 2020

  154. 154.

    Suzanne

    @mrmoshpotato: If ever there is proof that our elections are terrible because it is how we work out our national psychodrama about how much we hate our fellow countrypeople, it is this:

    I actively want disappointed Trump voters to feel badly. I hope they’re sad and I hope they cry and I hope they eventually suck it up…. but I want them to feel stupid, and inferior, and duped, and like this country isn’t theirs anymore…. because it isn’t.

  155. 155.

    germy

    This thread shows how deeply law enforcement has been infiltrated by… people who shouldn’t be working in law enforcement:

    i hope you all will join me in wishing a merry christmas to the prince william county sheriff’s office’s “human interaction specialist,” deputy aaron hoffman. or, as he’s known on parler, “wethepeoplewarrior.” pic.twitter.com/HlwtwiUhd0

    — molly conger (@socialistdogmom) December 25, 2020

  156. 156.

    JPL

    @satby: John Avlon on CNN mentioned Francisca’s passing and read the eulogy for her.   He had to clear his throat several times and at the end said we all love you Andrew and Rachel.   It’s so heartbreaking.

  157. 157.

    jonas

    @Geminid: I’m in NY-22 as well and to say this election was a complete clusterf*ck is an understatement. I think the county BOEs, despite knowing they were going have to deal with a massive wave of absentee ballots, still couldn’t handle the process. Were it not a particularly close election, this stuff probably wouldn’t have been noticed, but when we’re down to ridiculous margins like this, yeah, you can’t cure ballots with sticky notes.

  158. 158.

    sab

    We have had about fifteen inches of snow in the last three days. 17 degrees, so that snow is not going anywhere.

    Sweet kid I have known since he was a toddler just came down the street with a snowblower, doing sidewalks. Half the block. He stopped before the two Trump houses and turned around and went home.

    LOL. I am not a nice person any more

    ETA he is the kid that gave us the multilingual welcome foreign neighbor sign ( like Cole has in his yard) that he got from church. Hauled it down to us when he was five, after we said how much we liked his.

  159. 159.

    Subsole

    @Suzanne: Eh. They’ve been giving us that same energy on steroids for forty-plus years. I feel no shame chuckling at their misery. I just worry about the ones who get violent on their families.

    Eventually, pain outweighs politeness.

  160. 160.

    Yarrow

    @Frankensteinbeck:
    Totally agree. I mean, this, from the article is just wrong:

    It is hard, after such a relentless barrage of outrage and weirdness over the last four years, to remember what the broad consensus about Trump was at the beginning of 2016.

    It was that he wouldn’t be nearly as bad as he looked. To adapt the old saw about campaigning in poetry but governing in prose, he had campaigned in Gothic horror but he would surely govern in the realistic novel.

    The sheer weight of the office would alter him. The “adults in the room” would keep him under control. He might be let out now and then to howl at the moon, but inside the White House he would be broken in as a house-trained conservative. The institutional superego would cage his rampant Id.

    At worst, Trump would do nothing. He’d sit around eating cheeseburgers and making calls to Fox News, while the serious people got on with serious things.

    Uh, no. That wasn’t the “broad consensus.” At the beginning of 2016 he was treated as a joke by professional media, comedians, and a lot of the general public. And then he started winning primaries. And he was still treated as a joke until it became clear he was going win the nomination. And even after that he was often treated as a joke. Like he couldn’t win.

    The way that section is written it sounds like O’Toole might mean the start of 2017 (after the election but before the inauguration) instead of 2016. At that point the “broad consensus” still wasn’t anything like this. People may have hoped and wished it might work out like he says but it sure in hell wasn’t consensus. People were fucking terrified of what he might do. The Women’s March is but one early example of people organizing to stand up to Trump. This section is utter revisionist history claptrap.

  163. 163.

    Suzanne

    @sab: That’s my kind of neighborliness.

    I saw a few months ago on one of the conservative blogs I sometimes hate-read that the commenters were complaining about why liberals put BLM or “Hate Has No Home Here” signs, and they didn’t understand why. I kept thinking to myself, “So we can identify ourselves to one another and avoid interacting with you”. None of them seemed to think of that.

  165. 165.

    Warblewarble

    Every member of Congress,every appointee of Bidens ,especially security related needs to have Fintan O`Tooles Article brought to their attention. Contact your Congresscritter>

  166. 166.

    Yarrow

    @sab:
    @Suzanne:
    As I said to my cousins when they stopped by for a socially-distanced outdoors visit before Christmas, “Supporting Trump is a sign of low character.”

    One of their siblings, another one of my cousins, is a Trump supporter and they were going to visit that family and were terrified of how they were not taking Covid seriously. At least Trump signs let you know ahead of time who is less likely to be taking coronavirus precautions seriously.

  167. 167.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    @sab:  That’s hysterical. Fuckem. My wife got me PBO’s book for Xmas. Whoo-hoo. It is the heaviest book. Before I unwrapped it I never would have guessed it was a book.

  168. 168.

    Baud

    @Subsole:

    Personally, I care more about their political influence than their state of mind.  If they all went off to lead happy, non-political lives, that’s would be fine with me.

  169. 169.

    Miss Bianca

    @sab:

    Before we had hired experienced reject managers from other shelters with bad back stories.

    Hmm, as to that, I seem to recall there was a stink about the director at the shelter I mentioned, but no idea how or whether that was resolved. Seems that his reputation was…a bit over-burnished, shall we say, and the reality of his performance was different. But I haven’t kept track of it. All I know is that our shelters appear to be following the national trend, which is a good thing.

    And kittens are, or were, available locally for the asking the other day from one of the staff at the grocery store. I have no doubt they all got snapped up by eager adopters!

  170. 170.

    sab

    @Suzanne: My Trump neighbor across the street has a steep driveway and cannot be bothered to shovel it. This year and forever after she is on her own getting that car up the driveway. I can’t remember how many times we have all helped push that car up her driveway.

    Maskless Halloween party. Hope it was awesome because we are done with you as a neighbor.

  171. 171.

    zhena gogolia

    @sab:

    I also will never feel the same about my neighbors (two right across the street) with their Trump signs. But we didn’t interact much anyway.

  172. 172.

    Geminid

    @jonas: Well, at least Judge DelConte seems to have his head screwed on straight.

    Do you live in Cortlandt County? I have some friends up there and took a couple short working vacations this year to construct a bluestone patio. I’ll go back in May to do some follow on work. Beautiful country! But my friends tell me the winters are cold, snowy, and very long. They moved up from NYC 15 years ago, and their first winter was quite a challenge.

  173. 173.

    sab

    @Miss Bianca: My stepdaughter just adopted a puppy she thinks is five weeks although the owners told her it was eight. She thinks it will be small. Seeing a picture I told her if she is lucky it will be medium, but is likely to be large. Looks a bit like Burnese mountain dog.

    Stepdaughter likes chihuahuas. Her current dog is a female pitbull mix that desperately misses its chihuahuas since the divorce. I think they will get along fine. She might have to turn over puppy rearing to the pitbull. My GSD never let me discipline or train “her” newly adopted puppy.

  174. 174.

    Suzanne

    I just read an interesting note in Political Wire that the Trumps are apparently pissed that Melania never got to be on the cover of any of the style mags while she was FLOTUS. I guess on Breitbart, they were calling that proof of media bias. I mean, style magazines are biased to the beautiful and popular? I’m shocked to hear that news.

    They don’t get it: Melania is beautiful to low-taste dudes only. I’ve never heard of her being attractive or interesting to women.

  176. 176.

    Suzanne

    @sab: Yep. The yard signs that people put out were exceedingly helpful for me as a noob in my neighborhood to indicate who I should befriend and who I should avoid.

  177. 177.

    sab

    @zhena gogolia: I never interacted with the one with the steep driveway, other than pushing her car. The other I have been friends with since I first moved in. I was gobsmacked when he went Trump. I never thought he even voted: too evangelical purity pony for that, I thought.

  178. 178.

    sab

    @MattF: Hopefully the pit bull will be smarter ( //). At least they have a cat.

    Who needs brains? The yard is fenced.

    My aunt used to say she didn’t want a dog brighter than her. I disagree. I want all my dogs brighter than me. Only the GSD visibly jumped that bar. I firmly believe the goldens and the lab did, but were too astute to let me know. Cocker isn’t even close.

  179. 179.

    trollhattan

    @debbie:

    “Biden Administration surrenders America’s #1 economic position to China” will be the headline. China will be pronounced “Chai-Nah.

  180. 180.

    trollhattan

    @MattF:

    Lovable lugs. Also seem to enjoy sitting on your foot, which cannot be ignored when the sitter is 120 pounds. Better than the lap.

  181. 181.

    Baud

    @Suzanne:

    Srandards of quality are generally likely to be biased against Republicans.

    No one stopped Guns and Ammo from putting her on the cover.

  183. 183.

    sab

    @Suzanne: My SIL has a BLM sign in her yard. I have actual black grandchildren next door, so I hesitate to put a sign in the yard in case of the unlikely situation that we need the police.

  184. 184.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: Or Penthouse, she could totally have been on that. Especially after the kidney procedure.

    @sab: Exactly. She’s not known for having impressive style, she doesn’t have a record of impressive accomplishment, she’s not popular with the people who buy style magazines. And her plastic surgery is really obvious and she has a generalized cheap look to her.

  186. 186.

    laura

    @satby: I cannot fathom the tidal wave of grief that is washing over Andrew and his wife – no matter how dire her circumstances, knowing the odds cannot lessen the weight of it. She was lovely and irreplaceable a fighter to the end. Just fuck cancer.

  187. 187.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Geminid: Charlie Christ is a fucking Republican…..he just switched parties praying he could keep his career as a taxpayer leech cause lawyering full time is hard work.

  188. 188.

    MomSense

    @MattF:

    I’m spoiled because my good friends were BMD breeders so their dogs are really special.  Her smallest BMD that is too small to show is a champion at agility trials.  My friend has them trained so she can just make hand gestures and they do exactly what she wants them to.
    Sadly we can never get our dogs together because my dog hates all Bernese Mountain Dogs.  There was one that lived in the house next to the trail access and it picked up a bad barking habit at doggie daycare.  She would bark and snarl every time I walked my then puppy past her house.  There is a really nice BMD in my neighborhood and my dog is a total asshole to him because she thinks it is the other BMD.  Then she saw the nice dog go past in a black Forester.  In her dog brain all dark colored SUVs and trucks are now suspected of having a BMD inside.  She goes nuts barking at every dark truck or SUV she sees.

  189. 189.

    sab

    @Suzanne: Yes. Carli Bruni Sarkozy (sic) and Michelle Obama were equal but different style choices.  I loved Michelle’s but knew I could only have hoped to carry off Carla’s. Melania’s were just sad and stiff. Class as defined by how uncomfortable it is (and ugly.)

  190. 190.

    Ksmiami

    @sab: yep – as far as I’m concerned, if you support Trump, I want nothing to do with your foul ass racist, hateful and idiotic selves. You aren’t my friends, you aren’t my neighbors and certainly not my countrymen

  191. 191.

    Suzanne

    @sab: Melania just looks like a typical rich lady. She doesn’t have notable style.

    I will note that I find it unlikely that any of the people complaining about Melania never getting to be on the cover of a style mag have ever been consumers of style mags or the products sold within. Like, those mags and the lifestyle they’re supporting are not my thing, for any number of reasons, but I don’t dismiss it as shallowness or stupidity. It’s no better or worse than any other interest.

  192. 192.

    sab

    @Ksmiami: I will say that I phucking hate those sweet religious wholesome kids getting political, but they need to be for their own survival. Sorry they need to know that.

  195. 195.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Suzanne: Penthouse models were B List.   The Third Lady is at best D list.

     

    When she left the WH this week, she was wearing thigh high hooker boots.  You can take the escort out of the streets but you can’t take the street out of the escort.

  196. 196.

    sab

    @Suzanne:  In my mispent youth I managed my husband’s retail clothing store outside SF, and I followed those mags. It was fun but the clothes were nuts.

    I never got into the whole thing. My style sense is midcentury midwestern preppy. Comfortable, timeless, who-cares-if -it’s-really-ugly-but-we-try-not -to be.

    Melania’s is who cares-if-it-is-hideously-ugly if it is uncomfortable and look expensive.

  197. 197.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @sab: For me, her “who cares about F-ing Christmas” moment was the closest thing to endearing, because it was the closest thing to human she’s shown us. Of course, she didn’t intend to show that to us.

    About fashion: I’ve never understood why the entire industry exists. There’s a famous speech Meryl Streep gives in “The Devil Wears Prada” about how the fashion show clown suits (she doesn’t say “clown suits”) turn into blue sweaters at K-Mart the next year. I thought, fine, OK, this speech moves the characters along. But I still don’t see any real reason for the clown show. Just make the sweaters blue.

    who-cares-if -it’s-really-ugly-but-we-try-not -to be.

    My Mom had Rules. Not many, but a few like “never wear blue with brown”. She’d occasionally make my Dad change a shirt or a tie.

    It’s a generational thing, I think. For 40 years I’ve been expecting my wife to start critiquing what I’m wearing. Her response is “why would I do that?” And she’s from Long Island, where random strangers will tell you your makeup is wrong.

  198. 198.

    JaySinWA

    It seems repurposed advent calendars as inauguration countdown calendars is a missed Balloon Juice marketing opportunity. Are there other fixed date events that could benefit from a chocolate countdown?
    BTW A FB friend got a wine advent calendar that was mostly not good wine.

  199. 199.

    sab

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: People need clothes so an industry needs to support that need.

    I will never denigrate that industry because I know how hard they all work.

    If you don’t want to sew your own clothes, stop sneering. Also too, you need to weave your own fabric.

    Also too, for many years I did sew my own clothes

    I know I am off from your point but I am sensitive because these people work so hard.

  201. 201.

    Zelma

    I had Christmas dinner with my cousins.  Visiting them is my window into a different world.  They and their friends are non-college educated folks who mostly did manual, skilled labor or the female equivalent.  I’m someone who spent her life in academia.

    They are registered Republicans and they were Trumpers in 2016, which caused some problems in our relationship.  Mostly they seemed to hate Hillary.  But they became disillusioned quite soon and voted for Biden this time.  I was particularly struck with how angry my retired Navy cousin is with Trump.  He called him all sorts of nasty names and said he was a disgrace to the country.  It was refreshing!

    By all rights, they should have remained Trumpers but I think I know why they didn’t.  They don’t watch Fox News and they are not church going people.  They are not on Facebook.  Apparently that’s all it takes to be sane these days.

  204. 204.

    Ohio Mom

    When Melania appeared at the Inauguration in that lovely powder blue outfit, I thought, Well at least we will have lots of fashion eye candy.

    That was the last and only time I was impressed with what she choses to wear. It almost all looks alike — tightly belted waist lines — it is usually cardboard stiff, there are often ugly subtexts. And there is never anything that charms me with its inventiveness.

    It’s a silly standard, I admit. I don’t expect to be wowed by Dr. Biden’s fashion choices. But I expect to enjoy watching her bring humanity and humor to her new role.

  207. 207.

    germy

    @Zelma:  They are registered Republicans and they were Trumpers in 2016, which caused some problems in our relationship.  Mostly they seemed to hate Hillary.  But they became disillusioned quite soon and voted for Biden this time.

    That’s hard for us partisans to imagine sometimes, but there’s lots of people who jump back and forth between parties, depending how they feel about what they’ve seen.

    Lots of people also split their tickets.  Also hard for me to relate to, because 99.9% of the time I favor the Democrat.  But there are voters who believe they’re keeping politicians “honest” if they provide opposition.

    I encountered one individual who said she voted for Biden but wanted a Republican senate to keep him from going too far left.   I can’t even.

  208. 208.

    Suzanne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    About fashion: I’ve never understood why the entire industry exists. 

    It exists because some people care about it. It’s not your thing, and that’s okay, but that doesn’t make it dumb.

  209. 209.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @sab: @Suzanne: I don’t think we’re talking about the same thing.

    I’m talking about the bizarre outfits that walk down the runway at the fashion shows and get shown in “Fashion” inserts in the Sunday paper. $10000 outfits that neither you nor I have ever seen a human wearing.

  210. 210.

    Mike in NC

    Video has surfaced of Fat Bastard telling his deranged followers at a rally in October that Sleepy Joe was going to “cancel Christmas”, to which somebody commented ‘Christmas was not, in fact, canceled, but Seasons 5-8 of the Great American Shit Show were.’

  211. 211.

    Brachiator

    @MattF:

    Thanks for the link to the Fintan O’Toole piece on Trump. He really nails it. And he is brilliantly on point when he plainly notes that the people who voted for Trump were voting for “open autocracy.”

    I disagree only with his argument for why Trump did not start a major war.

    But there is a deeper reason. Great building projects and military engagements validate the idea of government itself. Trump’s overwhelming instinct was to destroy that idea.

    Trump loves the idea of having and expanding the biggest, most powerful military; and he loves having control of “my generals” and being able to brag about how much the troops, white mens with guns, love him (he doesn’t recognize the diversity of the actual military).

    But Trump has a deep disdain for the military, especially for the idea of sacrifice and duty. Blind loyalty he understands, but he deeply sees those willing to actually go to war, to risk death or capture, as losers. He would never do it himself, and doesn’t understand that anyone else would do so either.

    Trump would have fantasies about striking an adversary with overwhelming force and taking the spoils of war, like Iran’s oil, but he also fears the possibility a long, drawn out struggle that might sully his popularity. Because in the end it is all about him. Ultimately it comes down to a simple credo: Love Trump, not war.

  212. 212.

    sab

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Those weird runway outfits modulate into normal clothes for plump wives.

    You don’t actually expect  they could build an industry clothing twenty six feet tall 120 pound gorgeous women who married billlionaires?

    All these other rich guys have normal wives they met shortly after grad school. And those wives eat like normal people. Plump like normal people. Those women are fashions customers.

  213. 213.

    burnspbesq

    @Ian:

    It’s reasonably compact considering how depopulated that part of the state has been by de-industrialiazation.

    A drive along State Route 5 from Schenectady to Syracuse would depress the living shit out of you.

  215. 215.

    Suzanne

    @Ohio Mom: I liked that blue outfit, too. I agree with you that he clothes are always meh. She dresses like she’s always trying to show off her figure. It gets old and looks desperate.

  216. 216.

    Kent

    @Geminid:@Baud: I agree. I put that out there because people often denigrate the Caucus collectively, but I like to put names on them so people can judge them on their merits. Blue Dog freshmen who won reelection this year include Jared Golden (ME-2), Abigail Spanberger (VA-7), and Mikie Sherrill (NJ). Charlie Christ and Stephanie Murphy of Florida are also members of the Blue Dog Caucus.

    Do these folks all actually label themselves “Blue Dogs” or is this some label attached to more conservative Dems by others?

  218. 218.

    Suzanne

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    I’m talking about the bizarre outfits that walk down the runway at the fashion shows and get shown in “Fashion” inserts in the Sunday paper. $10000 outfits that neither you nor I have ever seen a human wearing. 

    Eh. Designing clothes is an art form, like all the others, and the runway weirdness is how they push the discipline forward. It’s about ideas and seeing what sticks, seeing what influences what. Some of it waters down to mass market stuff that we all wear for the next ten years and becomes the semiotic for the time. But most of the runway weirdness is always experimental. There’s an avant-garde in everything. For those of us who just want to stay warm and comfortable and socially appropriate, it might seem frivolous, but it’s just another avenue for expression and experimentation, no more no less.

    And then the act of selecting one’s style in order to convey an image is a separate but related thing. Melania hasn’t done anything notable in that regard, IMHO.

  219. 219.

    Another Scott

    @mad citizen:

    Dean Baker at CEPR (from 2015):

    Most of the reporting on China and its current economic problems refers to it as the world’s second largest economy. This is true if its GDP is measured on a currency conversion basis, in other words taking its GDP and effectively converting it into dollars at the official exchange rate.

    However economists more typically use purchasing power parity measures of GDP. These involve using a common set of prices for goods and services in all countries. By this measure China’s GDP is already more than 5 percent larger than the GDP of the United States, not counting Hong Kong.

    You’re right that given China’s huge population and large rural population, the US is still far ahead on a per-capita basis (and will be for a while).

    The USA is 4.2% of the world population. We won’t be king of the hill forever, and we should be working to create and strengthen sensible international institutions that benefit us and those that think like us while we can…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  221. 221.

    rikyrah

    @sab:

    The clothes wore the Birther Trophy Wife, not the other way around.

    She is the least consequential First Lady in 80 years. Have to go back to Hoover’s wife.

  223. 223.

    Brachiator

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:

    About fashion: I’ve never understood why the entire industry exists.

    I feel the same way about the video game industry, college and professional sports, gambling, and any number of industries.

    Also, audiophile equipment. And people who make a big deal about makes, brands and models of automobiles.

    I do, however, enjoy looking at supermodels.

  224. 224.

    Princess Leia

    @Suzanne: Yes to this! I am as boring of a dresser as it gets, but I absolutely loved Next in Fashion on Netflix- yes it is a reality show, and yes, some of the projects are weird, but man, the creativity! Just another form of art, for sure.

  225. 225.

    OzarkHillbilly

    A brother’s grief, a father’s joy and learning to live with both at Christmas

    The other night, I carried our crying baby boy down the stairs to the living room and settled into a chair across from the Christmas tree. It was 3 a.m. Luke couldn’t sleep, and so neither could I. As we sat there and rocked, the crying got softer and then stopped. Luke’s big, blue eyes stared at the tree, mesmerized by all of the bright lights dancing in the darkness.

    It’s difficult to draw firm conclusions about a newborn, but there’s one thing we already know about Luke: He loves the Christmas tree.

    His first real car ride was to a tree farm outside of Pittsburgh. Luke was only three weeks old at the time, but the trip couldn’t wait for another day. This was a family tradition, and even (or maybe especially) in 2020, tradition matters.

    Most years, the Christmas season begins for my family the day after Thanksgiving, when we pile into a couple of cars at my parents’ place in Michigan and go get a tree. This farm is just off the freeway, past open fields and a small cemetery. We walk the rows of firs and spruces, each of us fighting for our favorite, and then gather around the chosen tree for a family picture. That night, we decorate the tree, darken the rest of the house and sing carols.

    All of these years, no one loved that tradition more than my little sister, Bethany. As the youngest of nine kids, she adored the holidays — the time when her siblings came home and the house filled again with family and noise.

    For us, and for so many families around the world, this Christmas is different.

    This is the first Christmas without Bethany, and the first with Luke. Our son was born six days after my little sister died as she slept in her dorm room. She had COVID-19. She was 20.

    It’s a hard read.

  227. 227.

    raven

    @sab: Gumbo! I made a huge pot of stock after browning the bones and then simmering for hours. I’ll make a batch each of gumbo and turkey noodle soup!

  228. 228.

    Amir Khalid

    @Suzanne:

    I find that puzzling. Melania was a model, or so she claimed. Don’t models typically acquire some sense of style just from being around people in the fashion industry?

  229. 229.

    Spanky

    I almost get the sense the Guv is trolling His Orangeness:

    After Nashville blast, Tennessee governor asks Trump for emergency disaster declaration

    He’s not, of course. A completely logical response to the terrorist act, yet here in 2020 …

    ETA: WaPo front page article.

  231. 231.

    Bruuuuce

    @Amir Khalid: You’d think so. But if you ever saw how Heidi Klum dressed herself in public, you might wonder how her reasonable and perceptive critiques of the contestants on Project Runway slipped past her own mirror.

  234. 234.

    debbie

    @Suzanne:

    Many First Ladies use their wardrobes to highlight up and coming designers. Probably only RWNJ designers would be interested in participating. If so, is it unsurprising they’d be so devoid of fashion design?

  238. 238.

    Geminid

    @Kent: There is a Blue Dog Caucus, with 3 members from California, 2 from Texas, and members from Hawaii, Arizona, Tennessee among other states.

    There are two other Caucuses- the largest being the moderate New Democrat Coalition, the second largest being the Progressive Caucus. Plus many small specialized caucuses that are often bipartisan, like the caucus oriented towards Native American issues that includes Democrats like Sharice Davids (KS) and Republicans like Tom Cole (OK).

  239. 239.

    Brachiator

    @Yarrow:

    Uh, no. That wasn’t the “broad consensus.” At the beginning of 2016 he was treated as a joke by professional media, comedians, and a lot of the general public. And then he started winning primaries. And he was still treated as a joke until it became clear he was going win the nomination. And even after that he was often treated as a joke. Like he couldn’t win.

    Disagree. Trump was dismissed by a narrow group of Beltway pundits and media elite who did not know what to make of him and assumed that he was just clowning around and would soon drop out of the race. People who thought they saw through him falsely assumed that voters felt the same way.

    I recently ran across an old issue of The New Yorker from November 2015 that noted how the GOP leadership was wary of Trump, but that he was winning the hearts and minds of GOP voters.

  240. 240.

    Geoduck

    @Brachiator: A couple more reasons the Shiatgibbon never started a war: he makes his money not from defense contractor stock, but via motels and golf courses, and if you start a war, people stop going to them. And he’s an abject physical coward, and if you start a shooting war, it makes you, however remotely and unlikely, an actual target.

  242. 242.

    Another Scott

    @JaySinWA: Someone (Wonkette?) should have done “30 days of Melania slapping Donnie’s hand away, and Donnie leaving Melania in the car, Advent calendar” with the end day being the Inauguration.

    That would be (part of) a fitting end.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  243. 243.

    J R in WV

    @Gin & Tonic:

    We had 3.5 inches of rain yesterday, on top of the 10” of snow from last week, so today will be spent vacuuming water out of the basement. Big fun.

    You need two things:

    French drains around the exterior of your foundation. This is probably pretty expensive unless you can do the work yourself or have a relative/best friend certified to do that work.

    Install a sump pump in the basement, with drainage built to funnel the water into the sump. Not cheap, but probably way less expensive than the french drains. In a perfect world both would have been installed during construction of the original building.

  244. 244.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    I find that puzzling. Melania was a model, or so she claimed. Don’t models typically acquire some sense of style just from being around people in the fashion industry?

    Not necessarily, by any means. The same is true of actors. They may be impeccably dressed for a role, but have no sense of fashion in real life. I have even heard some actors admit to keeping their wardrobe after a film’s production.

    I also remember a couple of stories noting that Roger Moore wore his own suits in some episodes of the tv show “The Saint.”

  246. 246.

    Feathers

    @Yarrow: “Broad consensus” may be the wrong term, but there were a lot of people who thought he’d be constrained by existing norms and were contemptuous of those of us who were worried about what Tr*mp would do. I remember going to knitting group on the day after the election. There was a young woman who was really snotty with us all. She worked at EPA! She rolled her eyes over her boss giving pep talks to those who were upset. She worked in clean water. None of this was going to affect her or her work.

    They may not have been in your social circles, but there were a lot of them and they punched above their weight just by being so fucking annoying.

  248. 248.

    Brachiator

    @Hoodie:

    Trump is the president of the shitbirds who don’t want to study for the test but expect to get an A for the class.  The stupid amount of wealth we have in certain sectors of the population enables this.

    Trump is the president of the shitbirds who don’t want to go to school past the 8th grade and who think that teachers keep them from having fun. And it’s not the wealth, it’s the numbers of the resentful dope population.

  249. 249.

    sab

    Holloween candy corn sitting in a bag in basement fridge. Couldn’t open it myself. Asked husband for help.  ” What is this? Nothing.. candy corn.” “How long has it been there? “;” A while. Since Halloween.” Why haven’ t we eaten it?” ” It has been sitting in the basement since before Halloween.” I just only pulled it out.

  250. 250.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Suzanne: I wouldn’t argue that our elections are terrible.  I’d argue that the Republican party is terrible.  Because it is and has been for decades.

    “Fuck everyone but the rich, and let’s make the rich even richer at everyone else’s expense.” is no governing philosophy in a democracy.

  252. 252.

    Ohio Mom

    JR in WV @243:
    When we bought this house, it had been retrofitted with a sump pump that emptied *three feet away from the basement.* Every time there was a hard rain, the pump emptied the sump well, the water filtered down to the sump and around and around for a day after the weather cleared.

    Okay, we were very naive house hunters but what was the house inspector’s excuse?

    As for the geniuses we bought the house from, they met their end driving through an ice storm in a new pickup truck. I sound harsh, I know. The wife’s sister used to park her car across the street and stare at our house, like she was visiting their graves.

  253. 253.

    StringOnAStick

    Lucky for us that our new home appears to be surrounded by fellow liberals, based on the signs.  100 miles East of here it’s rural Oregon rednecks, which is not unlike it was when we lived in the far West side of Denver.  A good thing is that a cop/protester interaction before the election, where a guy who pulled a gun on the liberals wasn’t arrested until a couple of days later, led to the conservatives on the city council getting voted out in favour of openly liberal candidates.

  254. 254.

    Ruckus

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    I tried to finish up WW before the end of Thursday. They at least let me finish up the episode I was watching at midnight. But it’s on HBO max and while I had quit HBO max because it is less than great how it works – and the content isn’t worth the $, my subscription is paid up till the end of the month. So I get to finish watching WW. One last time.

  255. 255.

    catclub

    @JaySinWA: BTW A FB friend got a wine advent calendar that was mostly not good wine.

     

    and we know it is not good wine  because we drank it all, to make sure.

  258. 258.

    Kent

    @Brachiator:Trump is the president of the shitbirds who don’t want to go to school past the 8th grade and who think that teachers keep them from having fun. And it’s not the wealth, it’s the numbers of the resentful dope population.

    The WHITE shitbirds.

    Biden won handily with lower income groups.

  259. 259.

    Kent

    @NoraLenderbee:I can’t believe how hard it is to adopt a cat now.

    Around here there are always plenty of kittens on craigslist.  But yeah, the official channels can be a hassle.

  261. 261.

    CaseyL

    Man, it’s hard coming to a thread late: there are so many great conversations going, where to even start?

    @mad citizen: I’m not sure “biggest economy” is any more reliable an indicator of economic health than the NYSE or salary “averages.”  As noted, you can be No.1 just by having more people than anyone else.

    I’m not sure who first likened the ideal of an ever-maximally-growing economy to cancer (Looked it up:  Edward Abbey) but that metaphor has stuck with me for ages.

    I keep wondering what alternative models might be: 18-19th Century style mercantilism? Small scale communitarianism?  Democratic socialism?

    But the one thing that seems to be true is that a non-destructive economy needs to be small in scale.  I’m not sure a national, or global, economy is even possible without capitalism (in the Marxist sense:  an economy run by the people who have the capital to invest).

    There’s no doubt that a global economy is good for capitalism. The global economy certainly offers a lot of gratification to consumers.  But even if, in the short term, a global economy can “raise all boats,” it is demonstrably destructive in the medium to long term.

    The horse has long left the barn, but I’d be interested in exploring alternatives to an all-growth-all-the-time global economy.

  262. 262.

    Kent

    @Feathers:

    @Yarrow: “Broad consensus” may be the wrong term, but there were a lot of people who thought he’d be constrained by existing norms and were contemptuous of those of us who were worried about what Tr*mp would do. I remember going to knitting group on the day after the election. There was a young woman who was really snotty with us all. She worked at EPA! She rolled her eyes over her boss giving pep talks to those who were upset. She worked in clean water. None of this was going to affect her or her work.

    They may not have been in your social circles, but there were a lot of them and they punched above their weight just by being so fucking annoying.

    I think the Bush years spoiled a lot of people.  I worked for NOAA during both the Clinton and Bush years and honestly it was more or less business as usual that entire time.   Very little changed when we went from Clinton to Bush.  In some ways the Bush years were better for ocean policy than the Clinton years.  https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna13300363

    Bush was horrible in a lot of ways, but was pretty status quo in others.  Trump was a whole different level of chaos and evil.  I think a lot of people just expected a repeat of the Bush years but without the Iraq war.

  263. 263.

    LuciaMia

     And there is never anything that charms me with its inventiveness.

    I dont think there was anything remotely charming about Melania.

  264. 264.

    Ruckus

    @debbie:

    Could Trump possibly be accused of mismanagement?!?

    Wouldn’t he have had to do some management before he could be accused of mismanagement? And he’s not smart enough or lucky enough to have been able to find, fall on, be given, or in any way become associated with any kind of actual management, good, bad or otherwise.

  265. 265.

    LuciaMia

    Brrrrrr. Theres nothing in the forecast but it both feels and looks like imminent snow.

    (Down Baltimore way)

  267. 267.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Suzanne:

    I just read an interesting note in Political Wire that the Trumps are apparently pissed that Melania never got to be on the cover of any of the style mags while she was FLOTUS.

    that gave me a Boxing Day smile

  268. 268.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Another Scott: I had to click to get that.

    I wish Fredo and his gal pal a long relationship, cause that damaged halfwit has already reproduced I think five times, and the world absolutely does not need any more

  270. 270.

    CaseyL

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym:  The point of those over-the-top fashion shows, as I heard or read it many years ago, is this:  No one expects to sell what you see on the runway.

    The entire idea is to be outrageous, to get attention from vendors… who then take the OOT design and tone it down just enough to produce a saleable version.

    But!  The OOT-ness also expands the perception of what a “saleable version” could be.

    Which makes sense to me.  I think the same reasoning applies to “concept cars” seen at auto shows.  They’re not meant to sell; they’re meant to test and expand the possibilities of what could sell.

  271. 271.

    Geminid

    @Kent: Although data suggests that Biden won a majority among voters with incomes less than $100,00, and trump won a majority of voters with incomes over $100,000, there is a fixation here and more generally upon white working class trump voters. The New York Times is notorious for its “Cletus Safaris” examining white working class trump voters.

    Why don’t the NYT and other elite news outfits examine the phenomenon of upper middle class voters who favor trump? Well, for one thing the reporters and editors would be exposing their and their readers’ peers, maybe even their friends.

  272. 272.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Geminid:

    Why don’t the NYT and other elite news outfits examine the phenomenon of upper middle class voters who favor trump? Well, for one thing the reporters and editors would be exposing their and their readers’ peers, maybe even their friends.

    I used to watch Stephanie Ruehle on MSNBC– she and her then co-anchor Ali Velshi are very pro-business, but sometimes had interesting takes. She would frequently cite her mother as an example of a non-racist trump voter. At the height of the outrage about family separation she talked about how her mother didn’t like trump, but liked his policies. I so wanted one of the panelists to say something like, “So she likes toddlers in cages, she just wishes he weren’t quite so vulgar on twitter?”
    She had her mother on once, and she looked like a nice, older, upper-middle class suburban white lady, and I would bet a large amount of money she has more than once used the phrase, “I don’t have a racist bone in my body, but…” or one of its equivalents.

    I do think, as you suggest, the Cletus safaris are an attempt by white political reporters to understand, rationalize and de-racist their own trump-voting relatives and friends, whether they have lunch in diners or country club grill rooms.

  275. 275.

    Bruuuuce

    @PaulWartenberg: I don’t see any. My own review would be that it’s both snarky and factually accurate from a very liberal POV, offering answers to many of the worst abuses and distortions that the right offers.

  276. 276.

    evodevo

    @CaseyL: I have this as my signature tagline on my emails:

    “Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”  Kenneth Boulding

  278. 278.

    Ruckus

    @sab:

    Yes, except that the person with the toxic narcissism has to realize there is a problem and address it and someone with toxic narcissism is going to have a rather difficult time recognizing that they are ill, as they would only see themselves as perfect. One reason toxic narcissism is such a difficult trait to overcome.

  279. 279.

    Ruckus

    @Suzanne:

    A very large book could be written on the things that conservatives don’t get. 3-4 hundred pages of just a very long list of things.

  280. 280.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @raven: Creamed turkey! Shove carcass with whatever meat is clinging desperately to the bone into a pressure cooker with water. Bring to pressure; cool down Shake remaining meat into what is now broth; discard bones. Add 1 lb pkg frozen mixed vegetables, bring to boil til veggies cooked. Add, oh I dunno, 3-4 tbsp flour & simmer while stirring till thickened to the consistency of gravy. Serve over toast. My brother & I liked this better than the original bird!

    (NB Reconstructed from memory. My SIL & I are starting a project to try & recover Mom’s recipes from the depths of time.)

  281. 281.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @sab:

    Another with borderline personality disorder. All reachable and often lovely people.

    I am not a fan of BPD people, and I am suspicious of any reachability and loveliness as being an attempt to manipulate. But being a sociopath, I tend to believe the worst.

  283. 283.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @Bruuuuce: Thanks for this link to the constitution book. I just got it for my Kindle after reading the sample. Amazon say the paperback is out of stock.

  284. 284.

    Ruckus

    @CaseyL:

    I don’t believe it’s the scope of the economy that rules, it’s how the economy is structured to either reward the collectors or the builders. IOW who benefits from the structure, the wealthy or the workers. If it’s only or mostly the wealthy, it is a bad economy because it gives only scraps to the people who actually support most of the economy. If it is workers it likely isn’t strong enough to stand well enough or long enough to support everyone.

    It’s a balancing act. A strong economy is one in which there are rewards but most people share in them to some extent and there is enough to support those who can’t work as part of the whole. The wealthy don’t get wealthy by theft or screwing everyone else, they get that way by providing an economy that supports everyone. Wealthy people often don’t like that kind of economy because they rarely become as wealthy or do so as easily.

    Our economy is biased towards the wealthy right now, and biased far to much in their favor. This creates situations like the one where someone I know of, 65 yrs old, is worried that them making only $80,000/yr when they retire is a death sentence. Currently he works making $80K/yr and the wife makes $100K/yr. House is paid for, kids are grown and earn decent money, they both have retirement accounts and SS. But $80K is not close to enough. That $80K subsistence retirement income is incomprehensible to him. And most people I know would think that $80K/yr is grand. I would.

  285. 285.

    jonas

    @Geminid: Scenery-wise, it’s God’s country — beautiful rolling hills, glacier-etched valleys, waterfalls, and picturesque dairy farms dotting the landscape. Indeed, winter is long and cold many years, but also very pretty. On the other hand, it’s 98% white, with lots of rural poverty — Amish and Mennonites from Ohio and Pennsylvania have swooped in and bought up a lot of cheap, distressed farmland over the past decade or two which has kept a lot of farms running that would have otherwise probably just been abandoned. Though everyone likes to gripe about how supposedly all our hard-earned tax dollars go to subsidize “those people” down in NYC with their fancy subways and sidewalks and all, the reality is that NYC’s wealth subsidizes a relatively decent social safety net in CNY compared to many other rural areas of the country.

  286. 286.

    jonas

    @Ruckus: Currently he works making $80K/yr and the wife makes $100K/yr. House is paid for, kids are grown and earn decent money, they both have retirement accounts and SS. But $80K is not close to enough.

    Good grief. If your house is paid for, you’re mostly debt-free and the kids are on their own, that’s walking around money.  You could take a couple of nice trips a year, start a college fund for the grandkids, enjoy one or two nice meals out per week, etc. Maybe they’re still on the hook for a bunch of student loans for their kids or something. Gambling habit?  Cause otherwise….sheez.

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