We are planning a Balloon Juice Zoom to celebrate the new year, which starts with a sane person for president.
– Inauguration Day on 1/20/2021 – 5:30 – 7:30 pm (Eastern)
doors open 30 minutes in advance
If you want to attend:
Please end me an email that includes both your name and your BJ nym, and I will send you the link and other info.
Lurkers welcome! If you are a lurker, let me know in your email what name we should look for when joining the zoom.
This has been in the comments a few times, but I don’t think it’s been on the front page yet.
Much better than a prescription for Ativan!
Animals interrupting wildlife photographers. A thread:
1. ? Dan Dinu pic.twitter.com/FYfohHAucq
— Joaquim Campa (@JoaquimCampa) January 17, 2021
If you haven’t discovered this fellow yet, he is someone to watch.
He has some great stuff up for MLK day, too.
This is a wake up call for republicans. https://t.co/ZPkWdAKEjF
— Matthew Cooke (@thematthewcooke) January 17, 2021
Open thread.
WaterGirl
We might have another zoom on Thursday, emphasis on might. But if you would be interested in that, send me email and mention that.
Laura
Could you post a youtube link? I got kicked off twitter by a bernie bro and I never got back on because twitter never sent me the message that I have to get to restore my account.
Cheryl Rofer
For the countdown,
zhena gogolia
@Laura:
I read/watch Twitter all the time and I’m not on it.
WaterGirl
@Laura: I’m not logged into twitter, but I can view both of those by clicking on the bird and it opens in a new browser window.
Does that work for you?
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: Do we know what plane that is?
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I heard it was a private plane.
Martin
Gotta give Mitch a shard of credit here:
Provoked was a carefully chosen word. He’s advertising to the impeachment hearing managers where they should go, but is careful around the word ‘incitement’. Mitch’s other powerful people suggests that he fully recognizes what happened here – the broad lie about the election being stolen was the incitement, and members of Congress and Fox News among others are also guilty.
There’s no way in hell he’s going to back the punishment he wants for Trump (banishment from public office) to apply to the others – that would instantly kick out 20% of his caucus and half of the GOP members of the House, but I suspect he’s hunting for ways to make sure they can’t do it again. Not sure how one threads that needle.
It seems like everyone’s voice is loosening up today.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Good. I don’t want them anywhere near the official planes until they have been checked top to bottom and have also been super-cleaned for COVID and everything else.
Steeplejack
@Laura:
You don’t have to have an account to look at stuff on Twitter. You can bypass the Twitter app and go to any Twitter page with your browser.
That said, here’s the YouTube link to the video above.
WaterGirl
@Martin: I’ll wait to consider giving McConnell any points when I see whether he censures his caucus members for their votes against on Jan 6 and he if votes to impeach and if he encourages others to vote to impeach.
zhena gogolia
JL Cauvin’s farewell address.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjSoVLsIKPc
Ken
Nice message, but short of the Clockwork Orange treatment, how do we get it to the people who need to hear it?
Nicole
I’m sorry to miss the Zoom tomorrow; my playwriting group is meeting. I’m glad you guys are doing one, though; what a nice way to celebrate.
Michael Windbigler
@WaterGirl: I have been a lurker. Sorry
jl
Looks like McConnell, McCarthy and Pence snubbing Trump’s little big send-off. Are they going to attend the Big Biden Deal inauguration?
Gosh, you know, even if you are a cynical malicious operator, none-too bright legislative bagman, and none-to-bright flunky sycophant, your crazy boss trying to murder you makes an impression.
Not out of the woods, I hope we continue to luck out because I think the country needs some more good luck in addition to very hard work. Trump has done tremendous damage, but the fact that he’s been basically an infant since the election has prevented him and his flunkies from doing worse.
WaterGirl
@Ken:
Does that have to be ruled out? :-)
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
I wouldn’t even want to be in a space Trump had breathed in, COVID or not.
WaterGirl
@Michael Windbigler: Lurkers are definitely welcome! Can you send email to my nym at balloon-juice.com and let me know that you’d like to attend?
I removed your email address from your comment because it’s best not to include an actual email address on a public web page.
That way I can just reply to your message with the zoom link.
Cheryl Rofer
@WaterGirl: I was just going to post this:
Steeplejack
@zhena gogolia:
LOL. YouTube slapped a warning on that video for me: “The Electoral College has confirmed Joe Biden as president-elect.”
jl
Thanks for the link to animals lulzing on wildlife photographers.
There is an amazing clip of penguins a few tweets down in that thread.
WaterGirl
@SiubhanDuinne: Absolutely! I hope they aren’t planning on sleeping in the main bedroom for awhile.
I almost said de-lousing but that was too specific, I thought! But you and I are on the same page.
Let me know if you end up inspired to write another chapter in the book.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: That’s been slapped onto every YouTube video i have seen in the past few weeks.
zhena gogolia
@Ken:
Clockwork Orange treatment works.
zhena gogolia
@Steeplejack:
Yeah, all his YouTubes have that. I consider that a tribute to him.
jl
One thought I had about Biden is that he’s already got a double. Some presidents worry and strain excessively about being a big shot historic president (IMHO, Bill is an example) but Biden has that covered as well as getting himself elected.
Just following Trump will keep his name in the history books, and I hope in a good way.
Let’s hope he can manage a way to get to home plate. Big Biden Deal, here we come!
MazeDancer
“Momala and the Mensch”
What the Rabbi giving the benediction at Mr. Biden’s Delaware send-off says Joe’s closest Jewish friends call the Biden-Harris administration.
WaterGirl
@MazeDancer: I know, I laughed out loud when I heard that part.
mali muso
Really enjoyed that Matthew Cooke video…watched it over the weekend. If I thought any persuadables would actually be open to facts and reason, I’d share it with them, but facts are apparently a liberal plot.
Will try to make the Zoom, but that slot is pretty tricky to swing with dinner and kiddo time. But we shall see! Always fun to say a virtual hello to jackals.
jackmac
This is shaping up to be a great week and a more hopeful year.
Joe takes over on Wednesday and I hope he doesn’t suffer any wrist injury signing all those executive orders!
Plus, my wife and I were able to schedule COVID-19 vaccinations for Friday!
mrmoshpotato
Say it loud, say it proud – “We’re Republicans! We have terrible ideas that most people won’t vote for, and we hate democracy!”
Baud
@jackmac:
We need to get him a stamp.
jl
@Baud:
” We need to get him a stamp. ”
Even if this is a Big Biden Deal, we can’t put his mug on a stamp right away. Some dumb rule about you have to wait a while.
But there are some political gear shops selling Biden’s mug on a mug. I’ll get one. Have to settle for that for a while.
Baud
@mrmoshpotato:
Wasn’t that their 2016 platform?
Ken
@mrmoshpotato: Or she could move from horrible, high-tax liberal Gwinnett County up to the northwest corner of Georgia, where Republicans win pretty much every office. Just a thought.
Ohio Mom
One thing about the video of Joe and Jill boarding the plane: Joe brings up the rear. Because that is good manners.
Trump usually had to be first, with Melania and on his rare appearances, Baron, trailing behind.
Just another small sign that things are different now.
Baud
@jl:
No, silly. A stamp to sign things with.
“APPROVED!“
jl
This seems like a big story if true. Some Congresscrooks tried to persuade Trump to give them his precious batch of last minute FU pardons.
Trump talked out of pardoning kids and Republican lawmakers
By Kaitlan Collins, Kevin Liptak and Pamela Brown, CNN
Updated 3:01 PM ET, Tue January 19, 2021
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/19/politics/trump-self-pardon-warning/index.html
jackmac
@Baud: Or some kind of auto-signing contraption.
@Baud:
mali muso
Seen somewhere on teh internets…
jl
@Baud: Oh, really? Hoowuddathunk. OTOH, a BaudXXXX!! administration would be so lazy it would it do it right and get an automatic stamp machine.
To maximize efficiency, of course.
I should have thought of that.
Amir Khalid
I am watching a YouTube livestream of Trump’s farewell address. Its content is all his greatest hits of self-serving lies and bullshit and racism, carried on something called The Right Side Broadcasting Network. Are the mainstream networks not carrying it?
Baud
@mali muso: ?
zhena gogolia
@mali muso:
Nice!
hueyplong
@Amir Khalid: Blink twice quickly if you need the assistance of law enforcement.
No way you’re watching this shit of your own free will.
jl
It’s also a day right before a criminal national leader plotted a coup to stay in office, and incited a riot that almost decapitated the national legislature and his second in line, AND was allowed to leave office legally intact, and roam around (at least for the time being) inside the country.
It’s an interesting country, huh?
Amir Khalid
@hueyplong:
I quit after a few minutes. I’d already heard most of it.
mrmoshpotato
@hueyplong:
He might be freely watching it out of morbid, very morbid curiosity.
It’s not his country’s traitorous orange bastard after all.
jl
@hueyplong: I only see major news outlets releasing written excerpts. Maybe they see it as too risky, in terms of reputation and danger of various sorts of liability to broadcast it live.
Even if Trump was cajoled and threatened by his lawyers into not inciting something horrible, who knows whether he’ll go off script on an impulse?
Kent
Mitch is guilty too. Remind me of the date when he acknowledged Biden’s win and congratulated him in public.
Exactly….
He was complicit in perpetrating the lie as well.
Nicole
@mali muso: Oh my goodness, look how fast I steal that to make it my status update on FB. :)
Mike in NC
That pretty much covers everybody in Trump’s orbit!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: Seems like he’s taking it well, the teardrop tat was a nice touch.
Amir Khalid
@mrmoshpotato:
Yes, exactly.
piratedan
@Kent: and yet the bastard always seems to slither away without anyone prying him outta his shell and cooking his carcass for it. Basically every word out of his pie hole in 2020 was either a lie or an egregious lie, or a blatant fallacy of hypocritical spew…. Wish I understood how he continually gets a pass.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Hope to join you jackals briefly at 5:30, but I have an evening commitment so won’t stay long.
The wildlife photos are (mostly) great. I especially love wolves, so I’m jealous of the guy being loved to death by white wolves.
But some of them look less enjoyable, like #11. “I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun the photographer.”
Calouste
@mali muso: Made me realize that it’s only on the fourth try that a ticket with a woman on it won. On the other hand, tickets with an person of color on it score four out of five, if you count Curtis (Hoover’s VP who was part Native American).
WaterGirl
@Baud: I thought you meant a rubber stamp so he won’t have to sign his name a million times, undoing all the awful executive orders.
L85NJGT
That’s a really nice charter for a 30 minute flight. Shame the Amtrak trip got nixed, but as they say, it is what it is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Hoping this is one of those cases where the tweet is worse from the article, but from what I could see before the Chronicle’s paywall window went up, she’s worried about the tone and good feeling within the Club membership
I think it’s time to start asking each other, doesn’t she look tired?
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer: So, they abandoned the “Joe Comes In by Amtrak” idea, then?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: 2020 platform as well, since it was a copy of the 2016 platform.
topclimber
@jl: I think that in the interest of uniting the country, all Dems and Independents should join with Deplorables Inc. in demanding that Trump NOT be memory-holed. Mitch, McCarthy, Pence and Co. need to own this a-hole in the future for at least as long as they let him screw our country since 2016.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: Secret Service nixed it, from what I heard
Matt McIrvin
@L85NJGT: A chartered 737… I guess Biden needed to bring quite a bit of security and other staff.
hueyplong
Instead of Cletus safaris, I wouldn’t mind it if the FTFNYT kept repeating stories about how people who worked in the administration still can’t find jobs.
“Three years into the Biden administration, XXXX has yet to find work outside the service industry, and now has become an advocate of raising the minimum wage after years of scoffing at the concept as a mortal threat to the economy.”
Kristine
@MazeDancer: I love that!
Jeffro
I know, right? It’s ridiculous. Voting rights aren’t a betting line that moves around every election in order to keep the GOP competitive!! Offer something people actually want to VOTE FOR, Republicans
Matt McIrvin
@Jeffro: They really think an election is unfair if they don’t have a decent shot at winning, regardless of their positions or statements or events.
jl
@topclimber: I totally agree.
I think GOP will try to reduce his influence and ween his fanatical base off the crazy hate juice. Criticizing Trump will have to be part of that effort. But they’ll be constantly on the watch out for a good time to pivot. Dems need to leverage the criticism part of that plan to make their task as difficult as possible.
One thing that surprised me is how deeply the standard GOP Congresscrook is afraid of Trumpism. I didn’t think they would fear being primaried and defeated by Trumpsters years into the future. But they are most abject useless flunky ward heelers one can imagine. Totally incapable of doing anything but following the boss’s swindler pitch. So, scared to death into the indefinite future. Sad way to live.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Good. Not because I didn’t love the idea, but because I was worried for his safety.
God DAMN Trump and the insurrectionists. Just determined to use terrorism to suck all the joy out of our celebrations.
L85NJGT
@Matt McIrvin:
That one is a flying luxury hotel suite. They won’t even have time to break into the snacks. ?
Cheryl Rofer
trollhattan
@Matt McIrvin:
A plain-Jane 737 and not a Max, I hope?
WaterGirl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: doors open 30 minutes before the official start, so you can come at 5:00 (smaller crowd) if that helps.
WaterGirl
@Miss Bianca: Yep, minds changed right about Jan 6, I would say.
The Lodger
@Baud: Autopens pass legal muster, though. I believe Nixon used one for all his non-ceremonial signatures (the reason you can’t get any $$ for an item signed by him.)
NotMax
@trollhattan
Hey!
Oh.
Never mind. :)
Baud
@Cheryl Rofer: They need to set up a Biden cam next to his bed so we can make sure he’s breathing throughout the night.
JMG
@jl: I’ve said this before, but with a few exceptions, GOP Congresspeople are at best the party’s third-string talent. The top ones go on Wall St. or to Big Law Firms and make big money. The ones in Washington, being a Congressperson, even a House backbencher, is the best job they’ll ever have. Lose it, and it’s back to selling Kias for the dealer who’s their top donor.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
I figured either you or a certain Doberman might have thoughts. :)
Adam L Silverman
It was, in fact, not a wake up call for Republicans:
Ohio Mom
Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Rest easy, the photo of the bear chasing the photographer and his crew is a fake — as far as I’ve heard, the rest in the series are real.
Cheryl Rofer
@Baud: I agree!
Miss Bianca
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’m just watching this over and over right now. No reason except I’m just so happy to see the next First Family finally arriving!!
jl
@Adam L Silverman: Sad to see that.
But I think the needle the establishment GOP has to thread is also an opportunity for the Dems.
For winning elections, I don’t care what 75 or 80 percent of the Trumpsters are. If we can convert 5, 10, or 15 percent, or confuse them with enough truth and good policy so they sit things out, that makes a big difference in upcoming elections.
The bulk of them are racists and xenophobes, feral affluent driven mad by greed, and people with anger and comprehension issues that they don’t have the means to overcome.
But so what? We don’t need them. Need to concentrate on those who can be salvaged, and those who can be discouraged from voting until they find the means to help themselves figure things out, even if a small percentage.
Jeffro
@Adam L Silverman:
“We have paused for a nanosecond to consider whether or not we were completely duped by the orange moron all this time, and found that possibility just too psychically painful to even consider…so, back to irrationally hating on Dems and rallying around our glorious idol!!”
Also (it’s a package deal):
“400k dead? What 400k dead? Pre-existing comorbidities FTW!”
“Deficits, what deficits? Hey at least trumpov got all (and we do mean ALL) of those tax giveaways back into the hands of the JOB CREATORS, where it belongs!”
“The man barely slept, golfed twice in four years, and got Covid on purpose to show us all that it’s nothing to beafraid ofMasks Are FORWIMPS agagagagaga!”
“Melania? QUEEN of nice! Just an amazing, generous person! So classy!!”
It’s Low-IQAnon, all the way down, now…
Jeffro
@jl: Jamelle Bouie’s column in the NYT today points out that no one on the GOP side has the (gag) star power and decades of name recognition/media presence that trumpov had…it’s highly unlikely that they can produce one or make up for that, either. trumpov also had the entire evangelical base (including infrequent voters) whipped up into a frenzy. He boosted their turnout by a LOT from 2016…and they still came up short.
Unsaid by Bouie, but I think highly relevant: the Dems won – and by an even bigger LOT – with milquetoast Joe Biden at the head of the ticket.
Shorter version, in my view: that was the GOP’s best shot, while we still have a deep bench and ALL the popular policies ideas for the years to come. And my do the yoots hate the GOP with a passion…
Yutsano
Will be working the whole time unfortunately. But have all the fun kids!
MisterForkbeard
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I think it’s because she objected on very narrow grounds in 2004 to one state, but didn’t actually vote against accepting the electors IIRC.
I think she’s just doing her ‘normal’ unhelpful thing, but I doubt it’s too bad.
RR Mikey
@WaterGirl: I’d like to be on the Zoom….
WaterGirl
@RR Mikey: Please send me an email so I can reply with the zoom info.
Laura
@WaterGirl: I will try it. Thank you!
Laura
@WaterGirl: Nope. Maybe because my account was suspended?
WaterGirl
@Laura: What happens if you click this link?
Link
or this one?
John’s twitter
something fabulous
i would love to join! WG, will send you and email to confirm.
And thanks again everyone for your kind thoughts and comments re: Milo and Gigi. Much much appreciated.
–SF
Nobody in particular
I’d caption that Wildlife photographers interrupting animals. But I’m partial to the four legs good team.
Is there any way to lurk the Zoom?
WaterGirl
@Nobody in particular: You can do video but not speak, or you can do audio only and speak or not. Those are the only ways I can think of to lurk on a zoom.
Nobody in particular
@WaterGirl:
Thanks, WaterGirl
I’m not technophobic, just social network phobic. Like Anthropologist Ashley Montagu had mixed feelings – to put it mildly – about TV, which I did not share, I have similar “mixed” feelings about social networking platforms in general. I have tried it, at my doctor’s insistence. That old vaudeville joke about it being more important for the Dr. to see you than for you to see the Dr.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1057/9781137013224_12
He was way ahead of his time.
Nobody in particular
@Jeffro:
A minor quibble, Jeffro, if I may … and somewhat ironically, I would call Trump the real milquetoast.
Reservoir Dogs – barks all day
Norm Ornstein tweeted this out many months ago.
Joe could be called “a potted plant.” I confess I have but he is no milquetoast. Bland, a placeholder, yes, but these are not bad qualities for a POTUS IMO. He’s a very nice, avuncular guy. But he’s scrappy.
My 2 cents worth of bitcoin. YMMV
WaterGirl
I just sent out the zoom info. If you didn’t receive it, send me an email message.