Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

I’m more christian than these people and i’m an atheist.

Republicans don’t want a speaker to lead them; they want a hostage.

Second rate reporter says what?

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Anyone who bans teaching American history has no right to shape America’s future.

Innocent people do not delay justice.

Come on, man.

White supremacy is terrorism.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

I really should read my own blog.

People are complicated. Love is not.

If America since Jan 2025 hasn’t broken your heart, you haven’t loved her enough.

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

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

It is not hopeless, and we are not helpless.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Morning Open Thread: We Could All Learn to Like This

Thursday Morning Open Thread: We Could All Learn to Like This

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231Comments

  2. 2.

    Baud

    The fact that Jonathan Martin chose to highlight that one quote from the WaPo article speaks to his low character and his employer’s.

    @japa21:
    Good morning.

  3. 3.

    japa21

    @Baud: We have a FPer here that tends to lift quotes and highlight them when the full article presents a different picture.

  7. 7.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Here’s a better quote from the same article:

    “Biden knows what it is to have a life,” said House Majority Whip James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), a close ally. “We never got a break from Trump because he didn’t want anyone to have a break — because they might think of something other than him. He had to be constantly in your face, having a presence, didn’t want anybody with a headline but him. Biden doesn’t need that.”

    Truth. I’m somewhat amazed by how losing his Twitter account muzzled Trump so thoroughly. I figured he’d find the nearest TV camera or call in to Fox & Friends to get the attention he craves.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Dammit.

    Lawyers are still unable to reach the parents of 611 children who had been split from their families by US border officials between 2017 and 2018, according to the latest court filing.

    As horrible and inept as the previous administration was, there have to be records somewhere.

  16. 16.

    satby

    And because I was starved for something to read this morning since I’ve been up since 5, wandering around the intertubes turned up this blast from the past. I started reading here about 2004, so I remember the conversion times. A much more freewheeling joint back then.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    Well, that was cutting it close.

    ATM card for one of the bank accounts expires at the end of this month. Replacement card didn’t arrive in the mail until yesterday.

    /first world stuff

  19. 19.

    satby

    @debbie: why do you think there has to be records when they had no real intention of returning those kids in the first place? Records might help a future investigation.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    @NotMax:

    People here are starting to complain about packages arriving opened and empty. Something must be up at the post office again. Isn’t DeJoy gone yet?

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: Not necessarly, but trying to reunite these families can face many difficulties, starting with a lack of address to begin with, up to and including the death of the parent.

  24. 24.

    debbie

    @satby:

    I think record-keeping is an intrinsic part of human nature. Even Nazis kept meticulous records, if only to revel in looking back at their “accomplishments.”

    I know Trump destroyed any record that involved him, but his administration was a sprawling mess that not even he could control entirely.

  27. 27.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: I think record-keeping is an intrinsic part of human nature.

    Hmmm… Not part of my nature. Than again, who said I was human?

  29. 29.

    John S.

    @debbie: Apparently DeJoy is embedded into the USPS like a tick. Biden can’t get rid of him, and it would seem that gross incompetence and complete failure aren’t enough to have the board of governors replace him.

  31. 31.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    That Kerry clip. My God, Kerry is also prime presidential timber. And then just the little moment of Jen Psaki afterwards — she is terrific!

    HUMANS IN GOVERNMENT!

  32. 32.

    Nicole

    John Kerry pointing out the cost of cleaning up extreme weather events was really smart.

    Another advantage to the old guy who’s been in government forever getting the top job- he knows absolutely everybody and has a pretty clear idea about if they’d be good in a particular position. Would I have thought, “Oh, John Kerry- climate change!” No. But that was an excellent talk he gave.

  37. 37.

    debbie

    @Nicole:

    It’s the same with health care. “I don’t want my dollars to be used to pay for others!” Dumbass, you already are paying! Do you think those aspirin in the hospitals really cost $5 a pop?

  39. 39.

    zhena gogolia

    @Barbara:

    I got a TV Guide the other day (now everyone will laugh at me for subscribing to TV Guide — it alerts me to interesting stuff I would miss otherwise, on streaming and on TV). I started looking at the listings and then realized that these movies had just been on TCM. Then I realized the magazine was for two weeks earlier.

  41. 41.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Actually, it might have been better if I had. I’m so disorganized I’d have fucked it up from the gitgo, such that maybe none would have been taken to begin with.

  43. 43.

    Van Buren

    @Barbara: A relative sent xmas checks to my sons on or about Dec.18. Dropped in a mailbox at the same time. One arrived in a few days, the other in mid-January.

  44. 44.

    satby

    @John S.: Well, there are four vacancies in the USPS board of governors, and pretty much all the Republican slots are filled (has to have a split between the two parties). If Biden can get those nominations through Senate confirmation, there would be a 5/4 split, DeJoy could be fired, and the USPS can be repaired.

    edit: presumably Biden could fire all of the board and name new ones, but just filling the vacancies would go a long way to fixing things.

  45. 45.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Parkland survivors call for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s censure after harassment

    Survivors of the 2018 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, are asking congressional Republicans to publicly censure Marjorie Taylor Greene for suggesting the school shooting was a “false flag” and for harassing a teenage survivor on Capitol Hill in 2019.

    Greene, the newly elected Georgia congresswoman who is known for her support of the pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory, was filmed in March 2019 as she followed 18-year-old David Hogg, one of the students who survived the shooting at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas high school, outside Capitol Hill.

    In the clip from 25 March, Greene can be heard calling Hogg a “coward”, demanding that he explain how the students were able to set up meetings with so many lawmakers, and telling him that she herself was a gun owner. Greene tells Hogg that gun control will not work, and that his classmates would not have been killed if one of the law enforcement officers assigned to guard the school had “done his job”.

    She later addresses her viewers, echoing false yet frequently spread conspiracy claims that mass shooting survivors and family members of victims are “crisis actors” and the attacks that killed their loved ones were staged as a plot to pass gun control laws.
    ……………………………
    “I’m a gun owner, I’m an American citizen and I have nothing. But this guy with his George Soros funding and his major liberal funding has got everything. I want you to think about that,” Greene told her viewers.

    In reality, said Eve Levenson, one of the college students who helped organize the advocacy event, the advocacy event and the meetings with senators had been organized by college kids, including herself, from the floor of her dorm room.

  46. 46.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Baud:

    The fact that Jonathan Martin chose to highlight that one quote from the WaPo article speaks to his low character and his employer’s.

    @jmart = one step down from K-Mart

  47. 47.

    Betty Cracker

    @Cameron: Maybe that explains it. From the clips I see posted on Twitter by the poor souls who are paid to monitor Fox News, the network is still pumping out anti-Biden, pro-Trump swill to keep viewers outraged and ignorant. But maybe the Murdochs told them to keep Trump off the air because national instability is bad for business.

  48. 48.

    John S.

    @satby: I did not know that! Thanks for the ray of hope on this front. I’m sure the situation at the USPS is an obvious problem to a lot of people, and I am confident that the competent folks in the Biden admin would seek such an easy remedy.

  50. 50.

    John S.

    @OzarkHillbilly: Good, I hope it happens. She’s an odious piece of shit to begin with, but this nonsense about the “false flag” at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas is personally offensive to me (and my wife).

    We both went to high school there and we still live in the community, so MTG can get bent.

  51. 51.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: She should be expelled along with the other Q kook, but that won’t happen. As AOC said, Kevin McCarthy answers to the nutbars rather than the other way around.

  52. 52.

    raven

     

    I got this from a friend who taught the young man.

    This may be too far off the radar for you to consider, but I want to ask anyway. A family friend of mine (actually, his son, Zac Hendrix) is a recent UGA grad and mentored a young, at risk child in Athena while he was there. The child lived in a mobile home park, and last night his home burned, killing his mother, grandmother, and sister. He is now alone and needs help.

    Zac is asking for donations for the little boy. I’m wondering if you could make a short post on the blog about it. If not, I understand.

    Here is an article about the fire: https://www.onlineathens.com/story/news/2021/01/27/house-fire-athens-kills-three-boy-escapes-flames/4276946001/

    >Here is the GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/57f3a1e9

  55. 55.

    Nicole

    @zhena gogolia: when I was growing up my grandparents had a book that was a collection of articles that had come out in TV Guide in the 1950s and 1960s. One of the great regrets of my life is that I never took that book. I can’t even remember what it was called. So I have no way of tracking it down again.

    (I would never mock anyone for their TV Guide subscription is what I’m saying.)

  56. 56.

    Jeffro

    @Betty Cracker:From the clips I see posted on Twitter by the poor souls who are paid to monitor Fox News, the network is still pumping out anti-Biden, pro-Trump swill to keep viewers outraged and ignorant.

    If anything, Fox has gone even more batshit than ever, trying to claw their audience back from OANN and Newsmax.  They seem to be done with running non-political stuff and are going full-bore “every last little thing Biden & Co do is BADBADBAD!”  Good luck with that, Fox.  Your ‘base’ doesn’t trust you quite so much anymore and they’ve had several months away to help break the habit.

  57. 57.

    zhena gogolia

    @scribbler:

    One of the front pagers tends to post in the afternoon with “sky is falling” stories about how horrible the Democrats are, and they often turn out to be based on selected passages from the articles referenced. Everything is slanted toward, we’re screwed, we can’t do anything. It gets wearing.

  58. 58.

    Jeffro

    Btw (and kind of related to that NYT tweet, about Biden getting 1,000+ folks in super-quickly): it is great that he’s essentially implementing the Green New Deal without calling it that.  I expect he will do the same with all of Warren’s pro-consumer regulatory reforms.

    NFLTG Uber-progressive Joe Biden is my kinda Biden!  ;)

  61. 61.

    Amir Khalid

    @Cameron:

    I don’t understand Congressional Republicans’ continuing loyalty to him. He was a liability at the elections in 2018 and 2020, costing them the House, the Senate, and the White House. The kind of help he gave Loeffler and Perdue cost them their wins in the Georgia runoff elections. He has dragged the party’s name through the mud by inciting insurrection. Now that he’s broken up with Fox News and been booted off social media, his ability to reach the public has gone poof: his influence over base Republican voters will only diminish over time. You’d think that all that would bring the party to conclude that Trump is yesterday’s guy. But no …

  66. 66.

    satby

    @Amir Khalid: His fans are crazy and they carry guns. And Republicans are spineless, lazy creatures who got into politics to line their own pockets, not because they believe in public service. So expecting them to risk a mob out for their blood is unrealistic. None of them care about their party or it’s long term prospects.

  67. 67.

    trnc

    @Baud: 

    The fact that Jonathan Martin chose to highlight that one quote from the WaPo article speaks to his low character and his employer’s.

    I see he’s getting appropriately dragged for it.

  68. 68.

    RandomMonster

    @Betty Cracker: I figured he’d find the nearest TV camera or call in to Fox & Friends to get the attention he craves.

    Except that Trump doesn’t do interviews well. Maybe even he gets that by now.

    I do expect him to have rallies again, but he knows he has to lay low on those for a while…

  72. 72.

    JPL

    Although I mentioned this several times, MGT lived in my district.   The local republican party hand picked a safe seat for her, because they thought Karen Handel could beat Lucy McBath.

  75. 75.

    Amir Khalid

    @Amir Khalid:

    He has dragged the party’s name through the mud by inciting insurrection.

    I should add that he also tried to get Congressional Republicans, and his own VP, killed.

  76. 76.

    Jeffro

    @NotMax: truth!

    We really got lucky that trumpov and his minions were so utterly incompetent.  I don’t even wanna think about it…

  78. 78.

    Soprano2

    @Barbara: Yesterday we received a Christmas card that was postmarked December 18. From less than 200 miles away in PA.

    I got an e-mail last week for my husband saying that a payment was due on that day on a credit card bill. He never received the bill at all!! Luckily I was able to pay it online and avoid a late fee. I’ve also read that it’s affecting people’s payments, that they are mailing payments 10 days early and they’re still arriving late. I don’t know how, but someone needs to address this ASAP, because it’s messing with people’s lives.

  80. 80.

    gvg

    @debbie: No there doesn’t. It can be easy to NOT make any records, especially if no one above you wants you to. They wanted to lose those kids.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    @Amir Khalid: they keep waiting, and waiting, and waiting for overwhelming evidence of his corruption to take him out of the game, never realizing that by waiting, they’re the ones keeping him in the game.  By waiting, they endorsed what he said and did – the corruption became ok, and then it became the standard – and now they don’t have a leg to stand on, so they just keep following him down the spiral into SeditionLand and Q-craziness.

  83. 83.

    Geminid

    @JPL: I thought Green decided on her own to move her candidacy to the GA 14th, after Tom Graves announced his retirement.

  84. 84.

    Soprano2

    @satby:  If Biden can get those nominations through Senate confirmation, there would be a 5/4 split, DeJoy could be fired, and the USPS can be repaired.

    What’s so sad is that this is one of about a million things that Biden needs to take time to unfuck. Glad to hear there’s actually something that can be done eventually.  I was encouraged to see that he’s already filled over 1,000 positions. I wonder how many of them have been vacant since the beginning of Trump’s presidency? Sometimes I think half the dysfunction was because they didn’t have enough people to actually get the work done right.

  86. 86.

    oldster

    Listen up, fellow kids!

    A lot of people have short-sold Balloon Juice over the years, so this is our chance to bring those hedge-funds to their knees:

    Step 1) All of us start buying shares in Balloon Juice, see? That drives up the share-price, and as the nervous hedge-funds start buying to cover their short, that drives it up even more.

    Step 2) Soon, each of our shares in Balloon Juice has gone up twenty gazillion percent!

    Step 3) Profit!

    It can’t lose. Just stick with the plan, fellow Juicers, and we’ll all get filthy rich.

  88. 88.

    satby

    @Soprano2: Because the board has to be (somewhat) equally split between the parties by law I just take it for granted that the previous criminals refused to nominate anyone for the open Democratic slots. McConnell probably refused to confirm anyone Obama nominated if the vacancies were open then.

  89. 89.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: When they draw new Congressional districts later this year, Georgia Republicans will try to gerrymander McBath out of that seat. Or Carolyn Bordeaux, or both.            Kansas Republicans will try the same with Sharice Davids.

  90. 90.

    Soprano2

    @Amir Khalid: I don’t understand Congressional Republicans’ continuing loyalty to him.

    When you realize that the majority of his voters actually belong to the cult of Trump, rather than caring about the political issues conservatives care about, it makes a lot more sense. Trump has become a cult of personality among many on the right – he’s not a political leader anymore, he’s their Messiah who will vanquish the libs with his terrible sword and bring white people back into the prominent positions they’ve always deserved (according to his followers). Judging from my FB feed what they are most upset about right now is giving transgender people equal rights under the law (Biden has DESTROYED girl’s and women’s sports according to them) and stopping construction of the Keystone pipeline (all those jobs, just gone!). It’s instructive to be friends with some Trump supporters, it shows what they really care about.

  94. 94.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @oldster:Heh, I was just about to post this here:

    The three largest shareholders in GameStop, the video game retailer at the center of a frenzied duel between Wall Street and small investors, have made more than $2bn from the company’s astronomic recent share rise.

    Stock in the company continued its vertiginous rise on Wednesday, hitting a fresh 52-week high of $354.83, making the 13% stake held by Ryan Cohen, 34, GameStop’s largest single shareholder, worth more than $1.3bn.

    Over the past two weeks, according to CNBC, Cohen’s net worth increased an average of $90m a day, or nearly $4m per hour, as GameStop stock has surged more than 1,550% this year alone.

    Other winners include…
    ………………………………
    The gains comes as thousands of small investors have poured into the stock and forced Wall Street hedge funds, including Melvin Capital and Citron, which were betting on GameStop’s collapse, to take billions in losses.

    The trading frenzy over GameStop drew comment from the incoming Biden administration on Wednesday with the treasury and other regulators announcing they were monitoring the situation.

    Cohen was a catalyst in the company’s phenomenal share price rise. Last year the investor and founder of Chewy, an online retailer of pet products, bought a stake in GameStop and launched a campaign for the company to move faster into the digital age to compete with Amazon.

    In January Cohen and two allies joined GameStop’s board. Despite the record rise in the company’s share price it is still planning to close up to 450 stores this year.

  95. 95.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: I know that, but right now it’s what they’re obsessed with. That’s all I’m saying, it’s filling my FB feed. Oh, and taxing ammunition and firearms is exactly the same thing as taking them away from people!

  97. 97.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    They’ll be obsessed with any progress we make.  When we’re not making progress, they’ll make up something we’ve done in order to be obsessed over it. Their hatred of us is like a black hole that warps the  space-time of their information bubble.

  98. 98.

    Zinsky

    One of my favorite new websites that Balloon Juice readers might find interesting is the Department of Justice’s on-line spreadsheet titled, “Investigations Regarding Violence at the Capitol”:

    https://www.justice.gov/opa/investigations-regarding-violence-capitol

    It provides details regarding all the low-life, deviant scumbags and dirtball criminals who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th and the crimes they are being charged with.  The column labeled “Links to Press Releases/Charging Documents” allows you to see details on these vermin.

    Guess what? – They aren’t Antifa!  They aren’t Democrats in disguise.  They are Republicans.  They are Trump supporters. And they are deeply criminal and unpatriotic!

  99. 99.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: NYT Editoral Board told “Joe” his executive orders are bad because legislation. On phone so no google fu to provide link. Saw it on Twitter. Somebody needs to investigate their finances.

  100. 100.

    oldster

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Question is, who are the largest shareholders in BJ who are set to make a killing?

    I’m guessing it’s Steve and Thurston. Rosey has always sold it short, and is now feeling the squeeze. Lily, wisely enough, bought a basket of index funds a long time ago and does not think about any of it.

  101. 101.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Zinsky:They aren’t Antifa! They aren’t Democrats in disguise.

    They’re George Soros paid crisis actors! How do we know? None of them have denied it!

  102. 102.

    Ken

    @Soprano2: I’ve also seen screencaps of Fox (I don’t watch) showing that their “immigrant caravans” show has been rebooted after a four-year hiatus.

    There was also one something like “Biden in office 3 days – 400,000 COVID deaths”.  I was a little surprised by that, but I guess they really do have a low opinion of their viewers’ intelligence.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @Kathleen:

     “Joe”

    They said “Joe”? I thought they were persnickety about their style guide. I guess we should be thankful they didn’t go with kiddo.

  104. 104.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: I quit Facebook a few years back, so I have no insight into how my Trumpy relatives are coping with the downfall of their idol. But my husband and I took a road trip this past weekend through a rural area, and we passed several MAGA cult shrines. Not just signs and flags, though plenty of those — shrines with declarations such as “Jesus is my savior and Trump is my president.”

    I have no idea if Cult45 has long-term staying power or if the orange fart cloud will dissipate and people will go back to being garden variety ignorant, hateful bigots without the Trump branding like they were before. What do you think?

    PS: Does ANYTHING depress gun sales? Ever? Obama’s election sent gun sales through the roof. So did pre-anxiety that Hillary would win in 2016. So did Trump’s election. So did Biden’s election. The corrupt, bankrupt NRA had the easiest job in the fucking world: scaring cowards.

  105. 105.

    prostratedragon

    I’ve been amused lately by the failure of some to pick up on what Hazanov tweeted.

  106. 106.

    rikyrah

    You mean, Democrats have receipts and are willing to pull them???

    Folks been telling you- you muthaphuckas are reading the room wrong.??

    GOPs "frustrated", "angry" that Democrats are opting not to get strung along in a replay of 2009-2015 era. That model is clear: bargain Dems down, play out the clock and end up not supporting anything. https://t.co/gurWI6aixP— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) January 28, 2021

  107. 107.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Kathleen:

    I wrote a reader comment to that editorial last night criticising the NYT for referring to the President as “Joe.”  Pissed me right off. I guess they decided not to publish it, though; at least, I haven’t received the usual email alert that my comment was approved.

  110. 110.

    Matt McIrvin

    @debbie: With Trump it was a mercy when he stuck to the teleprompter (which he almost never did). Those were the “days Trump finally became President” because it meant he’d give a halfway coherent speech.

  111. 111.

    VOR

    @zhena gogolia: Kerry is a long-time Senator, a former Presidential candidate from Biden’s party, and a former Secretary of State. He’s a serious person and foreign governments will take him seriously, evidence Biden isn’t messing around like Trump.

  112. 112.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin: Van Jones canceled himself with that “this is when Trump became president” nonsense. Speaking of which, I saw somewhere that Jones teamed up with Meghan McCain for a “unity” documentary. I’d rather gouge out my own eyeballs with a melon-baller than watch that hot garbage.

  113. 113.

    Nicole

    @SiubhanDuinne: OH MY GOD THANK YOU SO MUCH.

    Seriously, I’ve thought about that book a lot over the years.  The articles were fun, and a hoot to read in the 1980s (when I read the book).  I remember there was one about how loud commercial were, compared to the TV shows and teenage me thought, “Well, that’s never changed.”

  114. 114.

    germy

    I had the plum job. The top of the masthead of one of the most prestigious and respected publications with more than a 150-year-old history. I left because I blew the whistle on my boss for doing something unethical then abusing the staff and undermining the editorial process during which time I was assured he would be fired but instead he was promoted and after threatening me privately in his office, he marginalized me to the point of being completely invisible. In addition to being my boss at this prestigious publication, he was also the president of the principal organization in the United States for the editorial leaders of magazines and websites. Literally every editor of every publication was beholden to him.

    My career was over. I was 44 years old.

    Not long after I quit, he also left but he went on to be next in line to run the paper of record, and I was volunteering to write the newsletter for the parent organization at my kid’s school. He’s since been fired, or rather resigned, for another major public failing but just last week I was told he’s working with the new editor in chief of the publication I left to write for them. He’s going to land on his feet. At the top.

    Why does it matter? Because the same men who continually fuck up are still in charge of the media. They shape the world. If you don’t think that’s true, take a look at the coverage of Hillary Clinton during my former boss’s tenure at the paper of record leading up to the 2016 election. Despite even major public failings, they keep coming back because they work behind the scenes to protect themselves and each other to stay in power and preserve the status quo.

    https://jenzerb.medium.com/i-left-my-career-in-prestige-media-because-of-the-shitty-men-in-charge-and-they-are-still-in-4963374ec6b8

  115. 115.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: So did Trump’s election.

    ‘Democrats Are Good For Gun Sales’: Guess What Happened After Trump’s Election

    Donald Trump won the backing of the National Rifle Association and many gun owners by opposing limits to the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. But since his election and in the early months of his presidency, Trump has not been good for the gun business.

    Shares of publicly traded firearms companies have fallen. The pro-gun president nicking the fortunes of the industry he vowed to protect may seem illogical on its face.

    But the slump makes complete sense when seen through unusual economics underlying the gun business. Most businesses are influenced by things such as interest rates and consumer confidence.

    In the gun industry, politics and fear matter. And they matter a lot. Over the last two years, there was plenty of both to go around amid terror attacks and school shootings. And, of course, there was the presidential race, which Hillary Clinton was heavily favored to win.

    Guns and ammunition sold fast. The FBI processed a record number of background checks on potential gun buyers in 2016. (Background checks are considered the best available proxy for gun purchases since overall sales numbers are not made public.)
    …………………………………………
    Since Trump’s victory those guns aren’t moving nearly as fast, says Jenkins, pointing to five AR-15 style weapons on a rack behind the counter of the shop. He says it’s a certain type of customer whose buying decisions are influenced by politics.

    “The hunter doesn’t care who’s president. The revolver shooter or the target shooter or the competition shooter really didn’t care who was president. It’s the self-defense market and the people think certain guns may be tied to politics.”
    “It was interesting because it was a shock for pretty much everybody, whether you’re on the conservative side or liberal side,” he says. “It was like, what’s going to happen now?”
    …………………………..
    One answer to that question became apparent immediately. “What happened probably quicker than anything is that the gun-related stocks were in freefall,” says James Hardiman, an equity research analyst who follows the firearms industry for Wedbush Securities.

    On the day after the election shares of gun maker Sturm Ruger fell 14 percent. And the price of Smith & Wesson, which has since changed its name to the generic sounding American Outdoor Brands, fell 15 percent. Shares of both companies are still down, in contrast to the overall stock market, which has enjoyed big post-election gains. All of this points to that weird dynamic in the gun business.

    I recall a couple were flirting with bankruptcy (Colt? Remington?). And of course the NRA hit hard times too, exacerbated by their own infighting.

  117. 117.

    mali muso

    Good morning jackaltariat!  Hello from Virginia where I am still on a bit of a high from participating as a volunteer in a local mass vaccination clinic yesterday.  I saw the gamut – elderly folks in wheelchairs with their caregivers, young and middle aged teachers, immigrant families with a teenager in the household there to translate – and it gave me some hope.  Each person that came through my check-in station is another life potentially saved.  We can do this!

  118. 118.

    evodevo

    @satby:  As an employee of a quasi-govt. agency, I can tell you there WILL be a record, somewhere…but delving into even the records on ONE family would be a project that would last for months. There will be files SOMEWHERE, but they won’t be all in one place, and it would take a forensic accountant to trace them all. For instance, we had a question in our small office about getting in touch with the landlord who owns our PO building.. it took me an hour riffling through the file cabinet to find her telephone # and address, and I knew what I was looking for. Misfiled, of course, and under a completely irrelevant file name. If it had been on computer, I probably never would have found it. Our office has had 5 supervisors and 3 clerks just in the last 4 years, so I can’t imagine how you would find info from ICE files from who knows how many stations and someone trying to delete them…

  119. 119.

    Ken

    @VOR: IIUC, when someone has already been confirmed by the Senate, they can be put into a post requiring Senate confirmation without another confirmation hearing. Trump abused this a lot.

    What I’m wondering is how long that lasts. Could Biden appoint Kerry, or Hillary Clinton for that matter, to a cabinet position and bypass the Senate?  I expect not, but just what are the limits?

  121. 121.

    evodevo

    @debbie: Nope.  We are stuck with his ass until someone does something about the PO Board of Directors who approved his hire in the first place.  Until someone builds a fire under them, nothing will change, and he was bent on destroying the PO as a matter of principle, so Trumpy’s departure didn’t change much here…

  124. 124.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: Here’s where I got the notion (CBS News):

    With nearly two months still to go in 2020, sales of firearms have hit a new high in the U.S., already topping the prior record set in 2016, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

    The surge began when the novel coronavirus hit the country in March and spurred lockdowns nationwide. “Everybody went to the grocery stores first to stock up on food, then they went to the gun stores,” Eric Wallace, owner and manager of Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, Georgia, told CBS MoneyWatch on Tuesday.

    The holiday season is expected to lift gun sales even more. November and December are traditionally among the busiest months of the year for selling firearms, the industry trade group noted in an analysis based on data from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which are viewed as a proxy for sales…

    “Politically-charged calls to defund police also continue to spur sales,” stated the foundation, which also pointed out that firearm sales typically climb during presidential election years.

    “We saw a little bit of a slowdown in April and May, but it’s been crazy every month since,” retailer Wallace said. “It’s mostly the civil unrest and the talk on the news about defunding the police — people have decided they need to take action to protect themselves, their families and their homes.”

    I was wrong to say Trump’s election spurred sales — it was the scaremongering.

  126. 126.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: Maybe they (wrongly) figure everyone knows who it is, like cryptic comments here complaining about unnamed front pagers…

  127. 127.

    sdhays

    @VOR: Being a long-time person friend of the President doesn’t hurt either (and the President is someone who knows what he wants and stands by his people and positions instead of undermining everything all the time). Governments and leaders know that speaking to him is just about as close to speaking with Biden himself without actually speaking to Biden.

  131. 131.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia:

    All the shitty things we read in the major media outlets; the things that make us say WTF?  They’re written by shitty people on power trips.

    They’re (mostly) guys who hate HRC and are planning to undermine everything Biden tries to do.

    "Not only are these guys shitty at their jobs, they keep each other and themselves in power so they can continue to be shitty at their jobs." https://t.co/GEwEfaB8vR
    — Moira Donegan (@MoiraDonegan) January 27, 2021

  134. 134.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: And of course the NRA hit hard times too, exacerbated by their own infighting.

    Don’t forget the grifting, fraud, and violations of non-profit regulations.

  135. 135.

    evodevo

    @Soprano2: Yes.  The nutjob I keep up with on the Book of Faces is all het up about the Keystone pipeline…over and over and over…the Right Wing Noise Machine picks one or two memes and just drills them into the wingers’ heads and there they stay.  I reply to this idiot with facts/reality, and he just does a Gish Gallop away on another tangent.  They don’t want to hear ANYTHING that will conflict with their talibangelical world view…

  136. 136.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    The left loves to hate on the democratic party, but the Democratic Party is one of the few parties globally that has been able to take back power from a right wing populist.

    That’s exactly why the hard left hates them.  You can’t be the voice howling in the wilderness and prophet of doom when the Revolution already happened.

    Biden talking about unity while going all in on executive action is much better politically than him tweeting guillotine emojies at Mitch, I think.

    Yes, but were the Likes on getting shit done?  Governance is like science, complicated shit, how is some stupid, incest spawned, drug crazed boozo supposed to understand complicated shit unless it’s distilled down to a tweet? Won’t anyone think of our nation’s assclowns?

  138. 138.

    prostratedragon

    This may make you smile:

    Federal Judges Are Retiring Now That Joe Biden Will Pick Their Replacements

    [Victoria A.] Roberts is one of five federal judges with lifetime appointments who have announced plans to retire or semi-retire since last Wednesday, the day Donald Trump left the White House, according to data provided by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. That’s after eight judges had already announced their plans to step down since Biden was declared the winner of the 2020 presidential election.

    Five of these judges were Republican appointees.

  140. 140.

    Ken

    @Baud: Any idea who she is talking about? Why don’t people name names?

    Might there be some legal exposure if she does?  I expect it’s obvious to anyone with knowledge of the industry, but she could still claim “Oh no, Mr. X, I was describing another power-abusing bastard.  But I can see why you might have thought I was talking about you.”

  142. 142.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty Cracker: Covid spurred a big buying spree (I had not considered BLM but no doubt there was more than a little fear mongering around that). I noticed because all of a sudden the shelves were empty of ammo, something I haven’t seen since Obama was president. I had read that gun sales had picked up as well but my brief forays into farm stores and Walmart had shown plenty of firearms still in the racks. I wasn’t paying much attention to the type of firearms tho. The article I linked made note of a difference in sales by type, something I am going to watch out for now. If I do see an AR-15 I would not be surprised if the price is in the $1500-2000 range.

    The money these people spend.

  143. 143.

    Ken

    @WaterGirl: As for Steve and Thurston, pretty sure Steve is the brains of the outfit and Thurston is the muscle.

    One of those “Tell me about the rabbits, George” relations?

    (I loved that Warner Brothers cartoon with the pair of dogs that had that dynamic.  Then I read Of Mice and Men…)

  146. 146.

    sab

    @debbie: Betsy DeVos’s adoption outfit might have some pf them, but good luck hetting her to divulge or a MI based judgime forcing her to.

  147. 147.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: That’s what beget the infighting. If Ollie North had kept his big yap shut…

    ETA: just to make clear, after trump’s inauguration, the membership dropped and their nonprofits took big hits on donations. Then Ollie had his falling out.

  148. 148.

    sab

    @Barbara:One of my dad’s pension checks is arriving on the 11th or 12th of the month instead of th2nd or 3rd like it used to.

    ETA and why is Chewy.com allowed to send 49.5 lb big boxes when my usual postal worker is 5 feet tall and maybe 105 lbs. They could use two boxes and charge me a bit more.

  149. 149.

    prostratedragon

    @Ken:  Good question and no idea, but to note that Janet Yellen just went through confirmation for Treasury, and she had already been confirmed for Fed chairman in 2014.

  150. 150.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Baud: @Betty Cracker: @Ken: That essay is actually pretty transparent if you know the people involved. I’m not that close to the publishing industry, and I figured out that it was Michael Bennet she was talking about and possibly others.

    What she describes is very much like what I ran into back in the sixties through the eighties. Then Los Alamos got better, gradually. Kind of amazing that it still goes on in the publishing industry, but it explains a lot when you consider that Bennet is now at the Times.

  151. 151.

    germy

    Georgia voters would be required to make copies of their photo ID and mail them to election officials twice before being allowed to cast an absentee ballot, according to a bill introduced Wednesday. https://t.co/d8ayK8LWvr #gapol

    — Mark Niesse (@markniesse) January 27, 2021

    Have they thought about installing rings of fire around each polling place?

  153. 153.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    @satby:

     I challenge anyone to find something more worthless than PostPartisan.  Just what everyone needs- Bill Kristol’s deep thoughts in short form.

    Kill me now.

    Perhaps John was the catalyst that forced Bill Kristol to get his shit together?

  155. 155.

    germy

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    Interesting how they focus their abuse on women, but also a few men who don’t fit in.  Like the guy who wrote a book about his anxiety disorder.  He became a target.

    But  the ones who are abused the most are the women trying to build a career.

  156. 156.

    sab

    @Amir Khalid: His people have guns and know where their representatives live, and they are about the only people still regostered as Republicans voting in their primaries.

  157. 157.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Soprano2: The IRS website says my stimulus was authorized to be mailed January 6th and nothing has been received. I’ve pretty much stopped looking for it and now I’m trying to find out how to claim it on my tax return. There was no reason for it to be mailed in the first place…the 1st one was direct deposited and I’ve paid taxes online for years and my bank account number was quite fine for that.

    If we get to restore the USPS, we need to free up the overfunded pension account and expand services to community banking, voting information and registration, etc.

  158. 158.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: My pension is direct deposited into one of my accounts, at my union’s behest. I’d be surprised if your father couldn’t do the same.

  161. 161.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    “Oh no, Mr. X, I was describing another power-abusing bastard.  But I can see why you might have thought I was talking about you.”

    Reminds me of Tulsi’s lawsuit against Hillary.

  165. 165.

    Jeffro

    @rikyrah: yup…we’re not going that route again, GOP

    The “Indivisible” site has a great guide explaining how citizens can take part in helping Biden & Co move quickly while ignoring the GOP’s bad-faith arguments

  167. 167.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly: If I do see an AR-15 I would not be surprised if the price is in the $1500-2000 range.  The money these people spend.

    No price is too high to defend ‘Murica from soshulism!!!  Now then…since I don’t have any $$$ to feed my family, lemme go hit the food bank on my way to the monthly militia drill…

  168. 168.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Jeffro: I often wonder (while listening to the full fledged firefight at the shooting range down the road) what do these people eat?

  170. 170.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @NotMax: I had expected that Biden would extend New START. What’s interesting is the Russian enthusiasm for extension. Something we might be able to build on.

    It’s less “stoked” than “Thank the FSM that the damage wasn’t worse.”

  171. 171.

    evodevo

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yeah, this.  With the nutjobs around here, whose finances I am familiar with, they can spend $25k on a used Harley or $5k on an ATV or $2k for an AR-15, but can’t “afford” to pay healthcare premiums for their fambly…who knew!  Priorities!!

  181. 181.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @germy: Too true.

    @sab: Sorry to hear that. My father died of Alzheimers. Does somebody have power of atty? (if you’ve already thought of all this just tell me to STFU and I’ll stop trying to “help”)

  183. 183.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Nicole: Oh, I’m so glad it was the right one! I had fun searching (and I, too, remember that book, though I certainly didn’t recall the title).

  184. 184.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud:Possible rotating tag? Or Baud! 20XX! slogan?

    It works for both! Floor Wax and Desert Topping achievement has been unlocked!

  186. 186.

    Immanentize

    @OzarkHillbilly: @evodevo:
    I may have told this story before, but one of my past students “hung out his shingle” as we say and opened a solo criminal defense practice in San Antonio. He was mostly doing DUI cases for guys in the rural parts of San Antonio south and west of town. These guys didn’t have two nickles to rub together, they lived in cheap housing, old trucks, uncertain labor situations…. But they had guns. Really nice impressive guns. So, my old student took them as payment for his services. His front hall closet was like an armory of the highest cost, exotic weapons you could imagine. Italian and german shotguns, vintage US colts and winchesters. He even had this friggin British sniper rifle in there that was probably worth north of 8K in 1990’s dollars.

    That ex-student is now a judge and doing just fine, thank you.

  192. 192.

    germy

    BREAKING: 71 y/o man arrested with gun and 20 rounds of 9mm ammo.. while parked in intersection near Rayburn US House Office Building.

    — Scott MacFarlane (@MacFarlaneNews) January 28, 2021

  193. 193.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Cheryl Rofer:I had expected that Biden would extend New START. What’s interesting is the Russian enthusiasm for extension. Something we might be able to build on.

    Wasn’t START why Putin was backing Trump in the first place and Trump complete inability to handle the treaty renewale why Putin bailed on Trump in the end? START is supposed to save Russia a pile of money on new weapons which Russia needs  since Russia has been reduced to funding their military on micro transaction sales of T-80 variants in games like World of Tanks, or something like that?

  195. 195.

    zhena gogolia

    @debbie:

    As someone whose name (both first and last) is CONSTANTLY misspelled by people who are replying to e-mails in which it is clearly spelled right there (and who have known me for 20-30 years to boot), I think it’s important to spell people’s names right. Just ignore it if you don’t like it. I’m going to continue to correct it

    ETA: Not to mention that Michael Bennet should not be tarred with his brother’s alleged misdeeds.

  196. 196.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly: it’s strange to think of ‘ammo’ as a monthly line item in the family budget, but it’s expensive and I hear you (literally – we have a range down the road from us too) about gun owners shooting away a serious amount of their paycheck, from the sound of it.

  197. 197.

    Soprano2

    @Betty Cracker: I have no idea if Cult45 has long-term staying power or if the orange fart cloud will dissipate and people will go back to being garden variety ignorant, hateful bigots without the Trump branding like they were before. What do you think?

    I think it depends on how determined Facebook and Twitter are to keep Trump off of them. If he can’t be on social media, I think a significant amount of people will eventually fall away as they hear less and less from their cult leader. You notice how him being gone has already taken the temperature down, and it’s been less than a month. If he’s still not on Twitter or Facebook in a year, I think a lot of people will move on to whoever the next Republican leader is. If he gets back on Twitter, though, all bets are off!

  198. 198.

    Hildebrand

    @Betty Cracker: What really fried my cookies is when Van Jones got all weepy when they declared Biden-Harris had won.  It was profoundly manipulative –  especially in light of the brand of both-sides knavery he peddles.

  199. 199.

    satby

    @rikyrah: Still better than a ventilator. The second shot has slightly more reactivity than the first, but a chart I saw* still showed under 30% of recipients reported side effects and none severe (though admittedly uncomfortable for a day).

    * don’t remember exactly where because I was combing science sites for the doctor yesterday looking for a different statistic. This is the first chart I found today, but it tracks the newer info I read yesterday. Edit: obviously anaphylactic reactions not included here, also very rare.

  200. 200.

    Geeno

    @Ken: Some of those cartoons were actually pretty dark. I remember one where a giant grabbed Bugs and was squishing him while saying “.. and I will hug him and squeeze him and call him George ..”

  204. 204.

    JeanneT

    @Sure Lurkalot: My 94 year old MIL’s stimulus payment was authorized to send at the same time as yours.  It didn’t arrive until Tuesday 1/26, and it was a form letter with a plastic card . She almost threw it away because she thought it was an ad to apply for a credit card.  Luckily she saved it for me to look at!

  205. 205.

    patrick II

    @Barbara: 

    Criminal insurrection requires that force be part of the crime. It would be very tough to tie Postmaster DeJoy to violent action, even though I am sure that the voter suppression he took part in was all part of the broader plan that included violent insurrection if Trump lost.
    Is there a serious crime DeJoy could be charged with for deliberatly slowing down mailed-in ballots that is provable enough for him to spend a many years in jail? Conspiracy maybe? Anything RICO?

  208. 208.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: It has seemed reasonable to me all along that Russia would want to extend New START. Spending too much money on defense was Gorbachev’s reasoning for joining in arms control back in the late 1980s, and it’s hard to see why it’s different now.

    I don’t know why Putin backed Trump or dropped him. I’ll leave that until we have more information. But the backing probably was more Clinton hate than New START love.

    The Trumpies claimed Russia really really wanted New START, and it turns out they were right. But their distorted view of negotiation meant that if you have that leverage, you try to strangle them with it. They might have gained a little with a different approach. Right now, the thing is to put it in place with enough room to work things out. Five years is not too much to work out arms control agreements.

  209. 209.

    Kathleen

    @Baud: Someone on my Twitter feed could not recall them referring to Trump as “Don” or “Donald”. But they have such high standards for their reporters!

  212. 212.

    Kathleen

    @SiubhanDuinne: Good for you! My rage usually reduces me to spittle flecked rants so I’m glad that they heard from an excellent writer such as yourself. Sometimes I think they just want to eff with us.

  213. 213.

    Soprano2

    @prostratedragon: Chuck Schumer talked about this on Maddow earlier this week. He said there were a significant amount of judges who had been waiting to retire depending on the outcome of the election, who would now be retiring so Biden could fill their slots.

  214. 214.

    leeleeFL

    @Ken:  I still hear “tell me about the rabbits, George” in the dog’s cartoon voice!  Loved that book, it broke my heart!  The movie made me fall in love with Burgess Meredith and Long Chaney, Jr.

  217. 217.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @leeleeFL: I’ve seen many, many adaptations but the Burgess Meredith / Lon Cheney Jr film version is absolutely my favorite. I believe it was based on a Broadway adaptation they both starred in.

    It has a number of moments of long silent “business” that seem very theatrical to me, longer silence than most filmmakers would be comfortable with, and which I absolutely love.

  218. 218.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Cheryl Rofer:The Trumpies claimed Russia really really wanted New START, and it turns out they were right. But their distorted view of negotiation meant that if you have that leverage, you try to strangle them with it. They might have gained a little with a different approach.

    Well yes, the Russians just want to save money, not capitulate. I also took it the reason why Bolton joined the Trump admin was specifically to torpedo START since there has never been an arms race the Neocons didn’t like. But interesting on the rest.

  219. 219.

    Geminid

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:  Putin might have hoped to get positive benefits like sanctions relief, for instance, out of a trump presidency. trump could not deliver much, but as a disruptor of the U.S. and it’s alliances trump repaid Putin’s investment many times over.

  221. 221.

    Miss Bianca

    @Cheryl Rofer: I thought Bennet was forced to “retire” from the NYT in the wake of some BS right-wing editorial? Wasn’t it Hawley, previewing the insurrection by claiming that Trump should be shooting BLM protesters

    ETA: Michael B is my senior Senator, and while he’s a standard-issue white guy, I don’t think he makes a habit of creating a toxic work environment for his staffers. Unlike his brother.

  222. 222.

    zhena gogolia

    @Miss Bianca: It was Tom Cotton. And yes, James, as we’ve said above. Michael Bennet has been a good Senator, as far as I know. James is another story.

  225. 225.

    Jinchi

    @Cheryl Rofer: I don’t know why Putin backed Trump or dropped him… But the backing probably was more Clinton hate than New START love.

    I can think of many reasons that Putin backed Trump, but the fact he was so clearly corruptible had to be near the top of the list.

  226. 226.

    cckids

    @Soprano2:I got an e-mail last week for my husband saying that a payment was due on that day on a credit card bill. He never received the bill at all!! Luckily I was able to pay it online and avoid a late fee. I’ve also read that it’s affecting people’s payments, that they are mailing payments 10 days early and they’re still arriving late. I don’t know how, but someone needs to address this ASAP, because it’s messing with people’s lives.

    Yeah, I received a notice from the IRS, dated 11/22, telling me that my payment was due “no later than Dec. 20th”. It arrived on Jan. 19th.

  227. 227.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    @Baud: Trans hate is partly how Trump got elected. Their fears about the trans menace was whipped up into hysteria in 2016.

  228. 228.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    @Nicole:  A quick Google turned up TV Guide: the First 25 Years, edited by Jay S. Harris and published in 1978. Could this be what you are thinking of?

  230. 230.

    Ruckus

    @Amir Khalid:

    They haven’t figured out that he’s not that shinny thing any more. Which is why he opened the office of former president. To at least keep the looser stench at arms length. I call him dumb as a post and he really isn’t quite that dumb. He knows on some low level part of his brain (not that all the parts of his brain aren’t low level) that he’s a fuck up and always has been. But he’s been able to not believe it for his entire life, and if he ever stops it will be a bigger disaster than his life actually has been. But his brain only allows him to admit the lies that he tells, as the truth. His brain is, at the very least, totally fucked up.

    They aren’t going to run from him till it’s so obvious that it physically hurts their brains, that he’s not in any way the person he thinks he is but is the person we see.

  231. 231.

    Ruckus

    @cckids:

    Posted here before, I mailed my utility bill payments ten days early, neither of them travel more than 20 miles, and they were both nine days late. The USPS is to say the least, screwed up beyond belief. And I’d bet it’s for one reason alone, to make payments late so that we have to pay late fees. OK two reasons, the other one is to fuck up any government process so that they can claim killing it and bringing in a profit corp they own will do it better. And they would never, ever be able to, because they are dumber than fence posts, which at least know how to do their jobs.

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