Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Never give a known liar the benefit of the doubt.

đŸŽ¶ Those boots were made for mockin’ đŸŽ”

Not all heroes wear capes.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The willow is too close to the house.

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

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power
use it!

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.


 riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. don’t touch it.”

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

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Days Since JD Vance Insulted Women Across America: Zero

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Bogus polls are all they’ve got left. Let’s bury these fuckers at the polls a year from now.

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

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

I wonder if trump will be tried as an adult.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Dear Washington Post, you are the darkness now.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Everybody saw this coming.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: Medal of Dishonor

Late Night Open Thread: Medal of Dishonor

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Reader Interactions

175Comments

  1. 1.

    Anya

    Everyone alive who was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom should just throw it away since it has lost its value.

    Also, Jake Sherman is the worst. Fuck that guy.

  2. 2.

    Chetan Murthy

    Aaaaaand Tom Cotton [!] comes out against the Kruz Koup Krew.  Hoocoodanode?  Tom Cotton on the side of democracy?  Inconceivable!

  3. 3.

    Mike in NC

    It’ll take at least 50 years to undo all of the nasty shit that Fat Bastard has unleashed with his fascist henchmen.

  5. 5.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I think Orange Dbag is using this as a distraction. Keep your eyes off the shiny object and on whatever grossly corrupt act he’s pulling off. More grossly corrupt than normal for Orange Dbag.

    Silver lining is that President  Obama didn’t give Dolly Parton the Medal of Freedom so President Biden can create a new medal and have her as the first recipient. I don’t think even Moscow Mitch would have a negative thing to say about that.

  6. 6.

    Ohio Mom

    This brings to mind Kissinger’s Nobel Peace Prize. Maybe it’s inevitable that these sorts of honors are eventually debased?

    I expect Biden to be very strategic when it’s his turn to bestow a Presidential Medal of Freedom. That will be fun and interesting to see.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Tom Cotton on the side of democracy?

    I think you mean ‘Tom Cotton on the side of not looking like a pathetic loser.’ If Cotton thought there was even a remote chance of Trump winning, he wouldn’t be taking this stance.

  8. 8.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Chetan Murthy: one the one hand, a sign of the air going out of that balloon, on the other: Mrs Cotton may have raised a boy-who-ain’t-right freak, but not the kind of boy-who-ain’t-ight freak who chases after a smarmy little weasel like Hawley or a creepy bloated douche like Ted. Tom Cotton will flame out on his own terms, by God!

  9. 9.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @Anya: 

    “What if both sides compromise by agreeing to contract something milder, like chlamydia?”

  10. 10.

    Geoduck

    @Mai Naem mobile: 
    After four goddam years of this, people are still going with “it’s all a cunning distraction on the Shiatgibbon’s part!” No. He’s not trying to distract from anything, he’s just throwing feces at all the walls to punish every last person in the United States for not loving him the way we’re supposed to.

  11. 11.

    patrick II

    I know this is a serious thread — even though open — and there’s not many NBA fans here, but Steph got 62 tonight.  He is fun to watch when he gets cookin’.

  12. 12.

    Another Scott

    @dmsilev: 

    Ok everybody…the Medal was already tarnished when Rush got it. Trump is using it for service to himself, not America, and the cost is your soul. You all earned a true medal for your work saving America. We aren’t finished yet. Hold hands and hooves and let’s get her back??? pic.twitter.com/Se5oLcgjcR

    — Devin Nunes’ cow ? (@DevinCow) January 4, 2021

    Yup. Eyes on the prizes.

    Victory in Georgia!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  15. 15.

    cain

    Apparently, our left wing are quite angry at the Squad – who all voted for Pelosi. They are apparently getting hammered.

    I think eventually, you’re going to see AOC and the rest get tired of these imbeciles and their purity politics. They know nothing about the reality of working policy – only that they must win and they are delusional enough to think that 80% of us are behind them.

    They don’t a show of power plays and shit. They should just watch “Dallas” instead.

  16. 16.

    cain

    @Anya:

    You know who is missing from getting an award? Why Donald J. Trump! He deserves a reward too, and he’s gonna arrange it so that he also gets an award – even if he has to make it up.

  17. 17.

    dmsilev

    @cain: This is about that ForceTheVote thing, right? Where they were supposed to go to Pelosi and say ‘give us a vote for Medicare For All, or we’ll flip the House to the GOP.’ I’m shocked, shocked I tell you, that nobody in the Dem Caucus decided to walk out on that limb.

  18. 18.

    Jeffro

    @cain: the end of this whole nightmare is going to be even more pathetic than we thought.  Just as nightmarish and at times crazy-stressful, but also pathetic.

    I look forward to the orange moron handing the Medal of Whatever to his fantasy bride/daughter/idiot spawn who will then lovingly put it around his neck and make us all throw up.  Not just Dems, I mean ALL of us will throw up.

  19. 19.

    Anya

    @cain: I’ve been fighting the urge to google Jimmy Dore. From the clips I’ve seen he seems like he has difficulty regulating his emotions. He has whipped Rose Twitter into a frenzy and now they’re attacking the Squad. Of course Rose Twitter ignores all of the progressives who voted to elect Nancy Pelosi and direct all of their attacks on the WOC and Black women. 

  21. 21.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    Have any other serving Members of Congress received the MoF while still serving in Congress? WTF has Nunes and Jordan done to deserve it? It’s totally a blatant reward to members of the president’s party

    I’m also super pissed that DeWine on CNN earlier today tried to give credence to “election irregularities”

  23. 23.

    Suzanne

    @patrick II: Steph is an unbelievable joy when he’s crankin’. I got to see him play once and it was unreal.

    So this is how Pandemic Day 8264291926352 went:

    Spawn the Younger, while watching me do skincare stuff:
    “I have a pimple on my butt.”
    “Lemme check to see if it’s still there.”
    Me: <does not know how to reply>
    “Yep, it’s still there.”
    “Maybe I should wash my hands.”

    Can we get these vaccines soon so we have something else to talk about besides Trump and butt pimples, which I realize are the same thing?

  25. 25.

    AnotherBruce

    Hey, Dan Gable is an honorable man. As a native Iowan I will tell you that he worked his ass off as a coach and athlete. But if that is the last MOF, it would be retired with dignity.

  26. 26.

    cain

    RIP Tanya Roberts – as an adolescent – she captured my attention in the movie Beast Master which I was not supposed to watch cuz it was rated R. :D

  27. 27.

    Suzanne

    @Jeffro:

    I look forward to the orange moron handing the Medal of Whatever to his fantasy bride/daughter/idiot spawn who will then lovingly put it around his neck and make us all throw up.  Not just Dems, I mean ALL of us will throw up. 

    Remember his bullshit comments about the Purple Heart? Good God.
    Can someone head over to Claire’s Boutique and get some rhinestone shit and hot glue it together ASAP? Just distract him with something shiny, tell him he earned it, maybe organize a little ceremony, and let’s just get through the next 17 days.

  28. 28.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Jeffro:

    Funny enough, Trump actually has said he wanted to award himself the Medal of Honor

    President Donald Trump claimed to laughter on Wednesday that he sought to give himself a Medal of Honor, but decided not to after being counseled against the move by aides.

    The offhand remark from the president came during his address to the 75th annual national convention of American Veterans, a volunteer-led veterans service organization also known as AMVETS.

    All of those veterans actually laughed and thought it was funny, although Politico notes the chuckles were “scattered”

  29. 29.

    dmsilev

    Officials in Brad Raffensperger’s office recorded his call with President Trump on Saturday, but Georgia’s secretary of state said he did not want it released unless Trump attacked him or misrepresented it, per @JMOCNN. Trump tweeted today attacking him.
    — Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) January 4, 2021

    Trump self-Krakened. Impressive.

  30. 30.

    kindness

    We are going to need new medals to differentiate from the bastardized old ones.  Naming them should be fun.

  33. 33.

    cain

    @Anya:

    My hope is that they realize that these people are a bunch of equally racists assholes and that if they want a true progressive agenda they need to ignore them and stay true to themselves and learn how to do the deal making.

    What goes on inside the People’s House is waay different than what these idiots think is happening.

  35. 35.

    VeniceRiley

    NOVAVAX has started phase 3 enrollment. only 1/3rd will get placebo; so, if you’re worried you are too far back in line and are hankering for a shot, read the details here
    https://www.novavax.com/PREVENT-19
    List of sites enrolling or waiting to enroll at the bottom

  37. 37.

    Punchy

    @Anya: and they’ll use their new favorite term, “Fake Gnus!”, when they deny it.  Always blame the media, do they.

  38. 38.

    Yutsano

    I just noticed that Brad Raffensperger looks like Peter Capaldi and it’s driving me meschugnah that I can’t unsee it.

  39. 39.

    MisterForkbeard

    @dmsilev: This does explain his very up-front discussion, though. He knew he’d probably be releasing it, so he was more confrontational than he normally would be.

  40. 40.

    Roger Moore

    @dmsilev:

    It says something about Trump that Raffensperger felt the need to record a conversation with him just in case.  I can’t imagine Democrats under Obama deciding they needed a record of their calls with him in case he decided to lie about it or attack them.

  41. 41.

    dmsilev

    @Roger Moore: I remember reading that back in his NY real estate days, some of the lawyers who dealt with Trump had a rule never to meet with him alone, because he would incessantly lie about any discussions and having one or more witnesses was essential.

  42. 42.

    patrick II

    @cain:

    Well, even though I wasn’t a teenager anymore Tanya was the reason to watch Beastmaster.  A very beautiful woman.

  44. 44.

    Steeplejack

    Thread:

    I can tell you this—every foreign diplomat and intel officer posted to the United States is surely writing cables back home tonight about the fragility of America’s democracy and the depravity of her President. 1/8

    — Abigail Spanberger (@SpanbergerVA07) January 4, 2021

  46. 46.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    @cain: Rated R?.  Yikes. I must have watched that movie 2 dozen times when I was in 3rd or 4th grade on HBO.  I lacked parental supervision. She was beautiful.

  49. 49.

    Redshift

    @Geoduck: Agreed. Trump’s talent isn’t cleverly directing attention where he wants to distract from his misdeeds. His only real talent is making people pay attention to him.

    I’d guess that he thought it would get stale if he just kept shoveling out pardons until the 20th.

  51. 51.

    Bill Arnold

    @cain:

    I think eventually, you’re going to see AOC and the rest get tired of these imbeciles and their purity politics.

    Where purity politics means helping to elect Republicans because that’s what they are, crypt-Republicans to enhance the contradictions?
    They should accept that because the Democratic Party house majority is very slim, both The Squad and the rightmost DINOs will have a lot of leverage.

  52. 52.

    Ruckus

    @Chetan Murthy:

    Just because they are utter and complete assholes doesn’t mean their IQ is below that of a piece of used TP. They can read the writing on the walls, floors, and likely in their mail about how utterly shitty the Greasy Old Poop political party is and that if they don’t at least say something that’s at least on the road to reasonable, they are going to go down with the shit show.

  53. 53.

    Ruckus

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    A thought.

    If trump was to shoot himself in the head on the front lawn of the WH, might Biden award him the Presidential Medal for coming to the rescue of the country?

  54. 54.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I watched FOX for a few minutes. They were covering the GA race and Donny’s tape. Newt Gingrich whined about the SOS secretly taping and that Donny had already tweeted everything on the tape. Karl Rove and Dana Perino talked about winning the Senate to balance out the radical Nancy Pelosi and Joe Biden. Then the surprise was Harold Ford who I thought had gotten kicked off teevee because of MeToo stuff. He was pretty good at attacking Donnie and his paying attention to this while the world is burning down.  Pleasant surprise.

    Tom Cotton just has those sadistic serial killer dead eyes. He gives me the creeps.

  55. 55.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Ruckus: Well, I guess I’m still a little surprised that it’s -Cotton- that came out against the coup, when Cruz, Hawley, and so many others are clearly all onboard for it.

    Whatevs.  I’ll say a kind word in the House of Commons for ol’ bobble-throated slapdick, no problemo.

  56. 56.

    Anotherlurker

    @dmsilev: I have worked in TV for 45 year, mostly in the NYC market.  I only had 2 gigs that involved trump but there was a universal rule for dealing with him: you will always bring some one with you.  You cannot trust either him or his people.

    The same rules and procedures also were stressed when dealing with Cosby.

  57. 57.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Ruckus: I don’t think they give posthumous Presidential Medals of Freedom so I don’t think its possible – assuming he would die if he shot himself in the head.

  58. 58.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Ruckus:

    A thought.

    If trump was to shoot himself in the head on the front lawn of the WH, might Biden award him the Presidential Medal for coming to the rescue of the country?

    Is this like when a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it does it still make a sound?

  60. 60.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    Bernie lost every county in Michigan.  Rose twitter isn’t real life.

    “Idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

    Macbeth

  62. 62.

    West of the Rockies

    Did someone finally muzzle Giuliani?  Seems he’s been kinda quiet for about a week.

    Sad and surprising about Tanya Roberts.  I always loved her scruffy voice.  But Jaclyn was always my favorite. Such elegance.

  64. 64.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    @Anotherlurker: Who’s the most charismatic person you ever worked with?

    I have a friend in tee vee who says Sean Connery was electrifying in person.

  67. 67.

    Amir Khalid

    @Geoduck:

    If Tanya Roberts had reached retirement age, the same has to be true of most of the other actresses who played Angels on that show. I feel old.

  71. 71.

    Amir Khalid

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    Getting shot in the head is not always fatal. It depends, of course, on what the bullet hits. Suicide attempts using this method have been known to fail.

  73. 73.

    divF

    @patrick II:

    Tanya was the reason to watch Beastmaster.

    I thought it was Rip Torn and the ferrets.

    Also, sorry I missed Steph Curry light things up tonight. My interest in basketball started with his arrival on the scene – he is a joy to behold.

  75. 75.

    Anotherlurker

    @David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch: I got to work on a BBC production of “The Mother” by Paddy Chayefsky, starring Ann Bancroft.  She was amazing to watch.  In one poignant scene, she had the entire crew in tears.  When asked by the director to do it again, she asked that the studio be cleared for 10 minutes.  When we returned she performed the scene again, this time even better.  We all were, again, in tears.

    That same summer, I worked Pavarotti in Central Park.  During the afternoon’s rehearsal, for camera blocking, they had the program sung by a substitute tenor, a Juliard voice major.  He was amazing!

    Next out was the Man himself.  Pavarotti was dressed in slacks, shirt a neckerchief and a heavy cardigan.  Bear in mind, this is August on the Sheep Meadow in NYC.   He shakes hands with the Maestro and the orchestra starts to play.

    Imagine my surprise and disappointment when he whispered thru the program.  I could barely hear him and my work position was 20′ from Center Stage.

    Well, when we went on the air, Himself takes the stage. The orchestra begins and he opens his mouth and totally blows me away, along with the other  several hundred thousand in the audience.  The power of his voice was amazing!  Add to that the fact that he made the entire audience feel that he was singing just for them.   Charisma?  Forgeddabout it!   I am of Italian/Scottish descent and I don’t speak a word of Italian, but I was in tears during a good part of the performance.  From what I understand, that is exactly what is supposed to happen when you listen to Opera.

    Along with “The Mother”, It has to one of the top 5 shows that I ever worked on and they happened within a month of each other.

  77. 77.

    Mai Naem mobile

    I thought I was being so smart and careful answering Ruckus’s hypothetical about Orange Dbag but nooo it has to be pointed out to me that this medal has been given out posthumously and that you can survive a gunshot to the head. I actually dealt with somebody(long story)who survived a suicide attempt with a gunshot to the head. Surprisingly the only thing it seemed to have affected was one eye which had a prosthetic eyeball.

  78. 78.

    tokyokie

    @Jeffro: I just looked through the full list of Medal of Freedom recipients, and as near as I can tell, politicians holding elective office, until now, retired before receiving the award. Thus Daniel Inouye got his posthumously because he died in office, and John Glenn, who went from NASA to politics, didn’t receive one until he retired from the Senate. Politicians in appointive positions, mostly guys (almost exclusively) who cycled through the top Cabinet posts (Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, and Attorney General), like Melvin Laird and James Baker, received it while still active in politics. I’m pretty sure Nunes and Jordan are the first sitting Congress critters. But fatso’s choices, unsurprisingly, are pretty dismal: right-wingers like Rush Limbaugh and Lou Holtz, or grandstanding by giving it to long-dead cultural icons like Babe Ruth and Elvis Presley.

  79. 79.

    AxelFoley

    @Chetan Murthy: Aaaaaand Tom Cotton [!] comes out against the Kruz Koup Krew. Hoocoodanode? Tom Cotton on the side of democracy? Inconceivable!

     

    Nah, he’s just trying to position his racist self for 2024.

  80. 80.

    Achrachno

    @Amir Khalid: Yes, and with T.  there’s a good chance nothing important would be hit because of all the vacant space  and adipose tissue in there.

  81. 81.

    HumboldtBlue

    I have awarded myself with the Staff of K Street Medal of Awesomeness and Handsomenicity the standard the K Street Mob will carry into battle in 2021.

    We will fight.

    Just because.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    Rudy haz a disappoint he’s not received one.

    “Devin Nunes? Hey, what am I, chopped cannoli?”

    //

  83. 83.

    Sm*t Cl*de

    @Amir Khalid:

    Getting shot in the head is not always fatal. It depends, of course, on what the bullet hits.

    Whoever it was, I’m sure they deserved it, and I hope you learned a valuable lesson about aim.

  90. 90.

    HumboldtBlue

    @NotMax:

    “And the latest recipient of the Balloon Juice Talisman of Tunch is
.”

    I’ll take Tunch Talisman all day. Did I get a badge or something?

  92. 92.

    Mo Salad

    @Amir Khalid: I’m right  here, guys.

    To think that he got to hear his version of the song played before the match for over 55 years is just amazing.

    RIP, Gerry. YNWA.

  94. 94.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Ruckus: lol. True. Didn’t think of it that way.. He is just a big empty orange ball. I guess give him the medal. Its worthless now anyway.

  95. 95.

    Steeplejack

    I guess everyone disappeared. A damned shame, since it’s just midnight on the West Coast.

  96. 96.

    eclare

    @Steeplejack:  People might be trying to sleep if they have to go back to work tomorrow (home or office) for the first time in a week or so.  Just a thought.

  98. 98.

    Steeplejack

    @eclare:

    Work?! What even is that?

    I’m just hanging on until Morning Joe. I need the A-listers back after the holiday hiatus, and I need to see some smiting of Trump and the seditionists.

    Might try to get a little sleep, but right now it’s Law and Order: Criminal Intent.

  100. 100.

    Steeplejack

    @smike:

    Antifa? Are they Proud Boys if they’ve got their caps turned around? I have trouble keeping up.

    This week is going to be a shitshow, and I need MSNBC to get in the groove. Their (admittedly anemic) outrage sustains me.

  103. 103.

    Mary G

    I’m here. Just watching assholes running around a mall terrorizing the minimum wage retail employees who tell them they can’t come in without a mask. Plus looking at our horrendous Covid19 stats.

    If you thought the last 4 years were bad… standby… we're about to hit 'peak week'.— JΞSƩΞR âœȘ ΔCĆŠUΔL³³°Âč (@th3j35t3r) January 4, 2021

    16 Days, 10 Hours, 11 Minutes, and 57 Seconds— When Is Trump Gone? (@DaysLeft4Trump) January 4, 2021

  105. 105.

    Mary G

    Also, too, Lin Wood is insane and tweeting. He needs psychological help.

    The 10 intelligence agencies who have members employing this blackmail scheme include CCP, CIA, Mossad, FBI, MI6. The others are easily identifiable.

    The agencies do not which of them was hacked by Lizard Squad.@realDonaldTrump— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) January 4, 2021

    I’ve reported him a bunch of times, along with many others, and Twitter just lets him run.

  106. 106.

    Mary G

    Batshit.

    The blackmail targets are approached with a gun, a child, & a camera. The target is ordered to rape the child on video. The target is then ordered to shoot the child on video. The target is then owned & controlled by the blackmailers until blackmail evidence loses its value.— Lin Wood (@LLinWood) January 4, 2021

  107. 107.

    Steeplejack

    @Mary G:

    Saw a tweet that basically said, “No one had a problem with ‘No shirt, no shoes, no service’ for decades, but suddenly ‘Wear a mask’ is the end of Western civilization as we know it?”

  109. 109.

    Mary G

    Did anyone follow the saga of Bean Dad today? I have got almost nothing done besides reading newspapers and yelling at him. Ken Jennings is collateral damage.

  110. 110.

    opiejeanne

    @Steeplejack: I’m retired, and a little wound up because the cleanup crew is coming tomorrow to scrape the greenhouse and all of its contents off the face of the earth, even the 4″ gravel base is going. Since we need to be out there to rescue anything that can be, I will need to get up at 8 but I’m not sleepy.

    Also, our fence guy is coming to give us an estimate to repair the fence that was plowed into on Jan 1 around 11:30pm, and possibly the kid and his parents are coming to pick up the bits of his car that were left by the tow truck. The nice new gate the contractor built for us in May is undamaged, but posts and rails will have to be replaced and the boulders outside the fence will have to be moved back into position.

  111. 111.

    opiejeanne

    @Mary G: I saw people yelling at the idiot on Twitter, but never read any of his tweets. I got the gist of what that was about and decided my voice did not need to be added to the chorus of condemnation.

    And Ken Jennings should have kept his big mouth shut.

  112. 112.

    Beautifulplumage

    I was going to get to bed at a reasonable west coast hour, but the combo of the tape & the letter blew that right up. ?

  115. 115.

    Steeplejack

    @Mary G:

    I read some of the Bean Dad stuff. It was weird in a characteristically Twitter way.

    . . . Oh, man, I just went to John Roderick’s account to pull up the offending thread to post here, and he has deleted the account.

  116. 116.

    Mary G

    @opiejeanne: The Trump era has at least exposed white men who vouch for other white men who turn out to be horrible people.

    Ben Wittes and somebody else were all over praise for Kavanaugh before Dr. Ford’s accusations came out. Then after the testimony Wittes at least had the grace to say “Welp, I got that wrong. He needs anger management and not to go on the USSC.”

  117. 117.

    Steeplejack

    @opiejeanne:

    You’ve really had a run of bad luck. Hope it all works out.

    My suspicious nature doesn’t get how the kid who totaled his car on your fence wasn’t drunk but just took the corner a little too fast. Seems like he would be able to correct if he wasn’t drunk (or hot-rodding).

  118. 118.

    Mary G

    @Steeplejack: I spent eight weeks on a locked hospital ward for eating disorders in 1989 and it is fair to say I was triggered by the bean story.

    To be fair, some of his old stuff with all the racial slurs may have been some attempt at humor in the way of Borat, but in this day and age he should’ve deleted them long, long ago.

  119. 119.

    Steeplejack

    @Mary G:

    Yeah, the whole bit was ill-conceived, and when he started to take flak over it he doubled down, which is almost always a mistake on Twitter.

    For readers/​lurkers: This guy’s nine-year-old daughter said she was hungry, he told her to open a can of beans, she didn’t know how to work a can opener, and he went into a long “teaching moment” thread about forcing her to figure out the can opener that was pretty cringe-worthy. Twitter scorn rained down, and he did not take it well.

  120. 120.

    Steeplejack

    I have pressed on to Peter Gunn on MeTV. They show two episodes every Monday morning (really the tail end of Sunday night). It’s wrap-around time: the last episode is on now (season 3, episode 38), and the first one is coming up next. The cycle of life.

  122. 122.

    Mary G

    @Steeplejack: He was doing a jigsaw puzzle, evidently there was no other food in the house, and he refused to show his 9-year-old daughter how to use a can opener, telling her to figure it out by inferring the function of each part. They both got angry, and she cried several times. Six hours later, he’s still doing his puzzle and she finally figures it out. He was very proud of doing this. He defended himself by saying she had had a good breakfast.

    He does (or probably did) do a podcast with Ken Jennings, who vouched for him as being a great, loving dad and not anti-Semitic as he is the more pro-Israel member of their team.

    Then the Twitter detectives went to work and pulled up a bunch of old tweets, the mildest one being “Jews ruin everything” and going downhill from there. Racism on steroids. Twitter is full of screenshots if anybody wanted to look. I don’t recommend it.

  126. 126.

    opiejeanne

    @eclare: No, everything was so totally burned, melted, evaporated that there was not enough left, no way to tell how the fire started.

    I mean, the polycarbonate panels have almost completely disappeared, and the fire was so hot that it vaporized a lot of things.  Polycarbonate burns like mad. We had a large plastic pot, 20″ across the top, that we had grown a massive tomato plant in. We took it out in early November because it was dying, but we left the soil in it. Now there is a big lump of soil and no sign that there was ever a pot there. They have to remove all of the gravel because of possible toxic plastic bits that fell into it. Interestingly, perlite doesn’t burn or melt.

  128. 128.

    Mary G

    @Baud: Summary from the Wrap:

    Bean Dad John Roderick deleted his Twitter account Sunday following an onslaught of brutal criticism about forcing his 9-year-old daughter to struggle for six hours to open a can of beans and the resurfacing of old anti-Semitic and homophobic tweets.

    “Stepped away to so (sic) an interview and we all discovery (sic) that the 9 year old’s Dad is also a racist and and anti-semite. Busy Sunday!” journalist Soledad O’Brien, tweeted.

    She was referring to a series of old posts by Roderick that resurfaced Sunday in which he joked about rape, mocked gay and mentally disabled people, said Jewish lawyers “ruin everybody’s fun” and said the “founders intended USA as white homeland.”

  129. 129.

    opiejeanne

    @Steeplejack: It’s a bad corner that people misjudge all the time, but you’d have to see it or drive it to understand just how bad it is. It needs to be a 4-way stop. Wet pavement and going too damned fast to impress the girl he was taking home, and it was nearly midnight. We don’t have many street lights, and none at that corner. Semi-rural area of King County.

    He was shaking with the shock of it and there was nothing that suggested he’d been drinking, and I flat out asked him because I was pretty upset. He said he wasn’t and I believed him.

  132. 132.

    opiejeanne

    @eclare: The fire was on the night of the 22nd. It took me two days to recover from the shock. I mean, I was pretty sanguine about it when it was on fire, but it hit me late that night just how much we had lost in the fire. Neither of us could sleep and we have been dealing with cops, firemen, a cleanup company and two insurance companies over the past ten days. Tomorrow I get a contractor

    The cops know our address by heart.

  133. 133.

    Steeplejack

    @opiejeanne:

    Okay, suspicions quelled. I hope his insurance is paying to get your property fixed. Any chance you can frame him for the greenhouse? ?

  135. 135.

    eclare

    @opiejeanne: Oh I’m sure the sense of loss and things to do is overwhelming.  I hope your appointments today go well, and you can start to put things back in place.

  137. 137.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, I’ve been warming up with Kasie Hunt and Way Too Early. She has been getting into the Trump recording, but I need the full heat of Joe and Mika. Gonna make coffee and get prepped. I’ve got some Trader Joe rugelach for a nosh.

  139. 139.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    Joe’s pretty calm so far, but he often doesn’t work up the full froth until the second hour.

    Also, George Fucking Conway?

  140. 140.

    opiejeanne

    @Steeplejack: Yes, his family has insurance and they will take care of everything. The dad offered to help us tidy up the broken boards, and he offered to help with the repairs but there are three posts set in concrete that will have to be removed and three big boulders that will have to be moved and my husband is 73 so I think it’s better to have the contractor fix the fence.

    Our house sits facing 168th (north/south), but away from the corner, 143rd (east/west) joins it in a big curve with no stop signs, so it’s not like a normal 4-way intersection. The continuation of 143rd is a short lane that serves three houses. Northbound there is one stop sign at our corner. Southbound there is a barricade to prevent 168th becoming even more of a commuter route than it already is.

    Ha, no. We hope no one hates us enough to burn down our greenhouse.

  141. 141.

    Mary G

    British judge rules NOT to extradite Assange to the U.S. because he would in effect be tortured. https://t.co/gFmZ24FZ3K— Arun Gupta Four Seasons Total Geoengineering (@arunindy) January 4, 2021

    It’s come to this – one of our closest allies doesn’t believe we won’t torture a prisoner or keep him from committing suicide.

  142. 142.

    Steeplejack

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    It looks like the tape is so damning—and I’m hearing parts of it that I didn’t listen to before—that Joe is letting it do all the talking.

    George Conway is a dillweed, but I’m not unhappy with him unloading on Trump. I’m sure he is a particular burr under Trump’s saddle.

    I wonder where Kellyanne is? She’s been keeping a low profile lately.

  145. 145.

    raven

    Neighborhood friends drove to California with their kid at Thanksgiving to be with ailing parents. They did all the quarantine properly out there and then drove back to Georgia in 50 hours so they could vote.

  146. 146.

    Steeplejack

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Aw, hell, no. I do not need to hear from that both-sidesy British nitwit Katty Kay. Some of Joe’s entourage may be late getting back from the holiday.

    George Conway looks like a troll. Don’t think I’ve seen him at length before.

  147. 147.

    Steeplejack

    @raven:

    She’s supposed to be at home taking care of their rebellious daughter. Just think it must be hard for her to stay out of the media, unless she has figured that it’s time to lie low while Trump goes down in flames.

  148. 148.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    I’m usually a sucker for a nice British accent, but Katty Kay just irks the bejesus out of me. Always has.

    ETA: Agree about Conway. Previously have known him only through his tweets and op-eds. And while he has said and written many things with which I fully agree, I don’t trust him an inch. Not. One. Inch.

  150. 150.

    Steeplejack

    Okay, Mika, GTFO with the call-backs to Dems talking about election problems in 2005. Where the hell was she going with that?

    And now Joe is (semi-)both-sides-ing it too. ?

  152. 152.

    Steeplejack

    Joe is at his worst when he reminisces about his days in Congress through the gauzy lens of selective memory. He left  Congress in 2001, but he was still a doctrinaire, Dubya-humping Repug in 2004-05. They were strong and true and doing the Lord’s work. He is ignoring the fact that the 2004 election had a lot more weird stuff (apparently) going on than this one. And why bring it up anyway?! Unnecessary and a distraction from the current debacle.

  153. 153.

    Steeplejack

    I think I’m going to have to wait for Nicolle Wallace and the prime-time crew for some true smiting. Joe and Mike have been pretty weak so far.

  154. 154.

    Mary G

    All I needed to know about George Conway is that he said he loves the judges Twitler and the Turtle have put on the bench. He just wants more NPR Republicans who hide the hate better.

  155. 155.

    Steeplejack

    LOL, the Atlanta reporter just reminded me that Trump’s rally tonight in Dalton, GA, is in the district that has given us Marjorie Taylor Greene, the QAnon nut. It is going to be lit, as the yoots probably don’t say any more.

  159. 159.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Okay, Morning Joe is failing to engage me this morning. I’m going back to bed for a while.

  161. 161.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Steeplejack:

    Saw yesterday that MTG on her very first day in the new job got into some kind of altercation with staffers on the House floor because she refused to wear a mask, as per rules.

  164. 164.

    Geminid

    @Steeplejack: There is a very sad historical marker outside of Dalton, marking the site of New Echota. For a few years New Echota was capital of the Cherokee Nation. Then it was turned into a concentration camp for Cherokee being rounded up for the Trail of Tears.

  168. 168.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Chetan Murthy: For clarity, the Churchill quote you’re pointing toward is of course

    If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.

    /pedant

    “If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the Devil in the House of Commons.”

  169. 169.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @dmsilev: Yes, but it also shows how unethical Raffensperger is. If he was a true patriot, he’d’ve immediately released the tape. He only released it because Trump attacked him. I’m sure he calculated in that releasing will likely harm the chances of Chickenshit Perdue and Moneybot Loeffler in tomorrow’s election.

    Assholes all the way down.

  170. 170.

    JML

    I’m not surprised Tom Cotton has come out against the sedition cabal; if there’s one thing Cotton craves, it’s the attention and approval of the Washington DC intelligentsia. Probably assuming that by the time he starts running for president the short attention span of  of the average GOP primary voter will have forgotten about his break with Dear Leader, especially if he gets a constant stream of spots on the sunday shows, keeps getting his lying op-eds printed, and gets the think tanks praising him as the rising star with “ideas”. He’s a craven weasel, a nasty, racist piece of work, but he’s also a ruthless bastard in the Dick Cheney mode: soulless, but not stupid.

    Ben Sasse was threatening his position as the “intelligent” conservative from those DC insiders, so he had to move.

  171. 171.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Steeplejack:

    I wonder where Kellyanne is? She’s been keeping a low profile lately.

    She’s in their basement, in a coffin lined with dirt from her homeland. Think a vampire version of Rocky Horror without the humor or singing.

    SATSQ

  172. 172.

    Geminid

    @debbie: I used to listen to Beck, for the reason you stated. He has seemed kind of lost since 2016, without Obama to attack and with trump to defend. Now Beck has been replaced on local radio by up-and-comer Brian Kilmead.

  173. 173.

    J R in WV

    @opiejeanne:

    The nice new gate the contractor built for us in May is undamaged, but posts and rails will have to be replaced and the boulders outside the fence will have to be moved back into position.

    Sorry about all the damage… quite a run of bad luck there. Fire is so scary!

    Sounds like you need bigger boulders outside the fence! Much Bigger!!

  174. 174.

    J R in WV

    @opiejeanne:

    Interestingly, perlite doesn’t burn or melt.

    Unlike most of the rest of your green house. This is actually because perlite is expanded volcanic lava, which you would not expect to melt in the puny temperatures in a common industrial fire.

    Perlite is a volcanic glass that is heated to 1,600 degrees F. (871 C.) whereupon it pops much like popcorn and expands to 13 times its former size, resulting in an incredibly lightweight material. In fact, the end product weighs only 5 to 8 pounds per cubic foot (2 k. per 28 l.).

  175. 175.

    No One You Know

    @Mai Naem mobile: 

    One thing I’m tired of (among so very many) is the confusion about what governmental checks and balances mean. It means the bodies of government themselves. Not the parties that hold them. I still think this distinction matters.

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