Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

I did not have this on my fuck 2025 bingo card.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

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

All hail the time of the bunny!

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

The snowflake in chief appeared visibly frustrated when questioned by a reporter about egg prices.

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

The current Supreme Court is a dangerous, rogue court.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

if you can’t see it, then you are useless in the fight to stop it.

When I was faster i was always behind.

A sufficient plurality of insane, greedy people can tank any democratic system ever devised, apparently.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

How stupid are these people?

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

You are here: Home / Economics / C.R.E.A.M. / Friday Morning Open Thread: Happy Year of the (Metal) Ox

Friday Morning Open Thread: Happy Year of the (Metal) Ox

by | 121 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,


Elsewhere…

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  5. 5.

    MJS

    I hope Democratic Senators ruin Blunt’s Saturday by asking a million questions. I watched a good bit of the last two days, but I think those questions could be used to explore in more detail the genesis of the rally and how it turned into an unpermitted march.

  8. 8.

    Immanentize

    It is 9° outside.  Brrrr. Taking the Immp to the airport in a bit to get him back to college.

  9. 9.

    Hildebrand

    The defense should just be honest today – ‘we aren’t offering a defense because the Republicans have already made up their minds.’

  11. 11.

    Low Key Swagger

    Wondering if anyone else here read Molly Ball’s newest in Time?  She describes an alliance among various Liberal entities to ensure the election was conducted properly.  It’s getting some push back from the usual suspects, but it’s a compelling read

    Edited to add:  It’s behind a paywall (though Time gives you a few freebies) but I read it in the dead tree version as I am a subscriber.

  12. 12.

    raven

    @OzarkHillbilly: Great story, they misread the charts and go hung on the reef.  My old man’s “bucket of bolts”, the WW1 destroyer was actually fitted with LCPR’s. The were like a Higgins Boat but the gun buckets were in the front and the ramp was only one man wide as opposed to the LCVP where the ramp was the width of the craft. There are not many LCPR’s existing but there is a replica at the Seal museum in Florida.

  14. 14.

    Immanentize

    @raven: Jeez. You had to get around the forward gun to go down a single wide ramp?  Glad there was a redesign.

    ETA I guess the thin ramp helped prevent swamping.

  17. 17.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    I may be interested in how many ways the lawyers can say he did it but we don’t care. OTOH, I may have a spice rack to organize today or something.

  19. 19.

    sab

    @Immanentize: My grocery store will not process unsalted peanuts. I order those and get salted. So the squirrels are suffering. Squirrel kidneys or squirrels fed? Choices.

  21. 21.

    Mo MacArbie

    OT bleat at WaterGirl: Site behaving weirdly in the last couple days with links not opening a new tab sometimes. This one, for instance. Not all the time, but enough to mess up my habits.

    Win 10, Chrome 88.0.4324.150 (64-bit)

  22. 22.

    Immanentize

    @sab: fed.  I like squirrels.  We had all three — grey, red, and black — in my yard this summer.  I only see the black squirrels attacking my neighbor’s bird feeder this morning.

  24. 24.

    The Fat White Duchess

    The Duke encouraged me to copy&paste my insomniac remarks from a stale thread (Left for Dead). Blame him. (Honestly, I can’t keep up in <24 hours, especially  on work days.)

    [re: WaPo article on ecnomic anxiety of some insurrectionists, not being just a Cletus safari]

    @West of the Rockies: Yes, though they only briefly (as many of the conments note) hinted at the important that these economically precarious folks: 1. strongly leaned libertarian glassbowl, and were precarious because of liens on unpaid taxes and suchlike forms if deadbeat patriotism, 2. then blamed their lisses on Others who needed to be put in their proper status.

    (Sorry for the unwieldy sentences, if anybody is still reading yesterday’s thread. Insomnia, like madness, takes its toll.

  28. 28.

    The Fat White Duchess

    (from stale thread, posted at 3 a.m. — this was in reference to Ivan X’s rejection of advertising on hate-talk radio)

    @Ivan X: Admirable decision, thank you.

    In my teen years, WABC-77 was the ultimate Top-40 radio that most of my classmates listened to.  (I did, too, for a year, trying to fit in. Then disco took over, and I gave up.). Sorry to hear it’s gotten so much worse.

    A close friend (and ex-girlfriend) of our housemate’s is a… well… conservative evangelical married to a serious RWNJ. I like her as long as we don’t talk politics (which is mostly doable, as she only thinks about the topic via her husband, and I avoid him).  Occasionally I challenge her, because she is basically a good person thoroughly brainwashed and I would dearly love to help her escape the cult.

     

    [I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the Upton Sinclair remark re: salary, and how often it also applies to relationships . Especially, it seems, for women.]

    But back pre-2016 we attended their Christmas party, and every person there (except the three of us) talked about their daily routine of listening to the local hate radio. It was weird, and chilling, and I didn’t know what to do except plead a headache and go to a quiet room to read.  I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them were in the 1/6 mob; fortunately, S’s husband seems to have abstained.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @sab: Rinse them off in water, ifn’s you want you can pop them into the oven to dry them after or just spread them out on a towel.

  30. 30.

    Ken

    Speaking of stale threads, I may be misremembering, but it seems to me that I would get up in the morning and find several hundred comments on the late-night open thread. Lately, it’s been a few dozen. People sleeping better lately?

  31. 31.

    Princess

    @The Fat White Duchess: human beings are too easily addicted to hate. That’s the only thing that can explain this to me. Because there was nothing especially conservative (eg. policy discussions of free-market principles or arguments against social liberalism) about those channels; it was/is all about hating the evil other who is, ahem, us. And frankly, from what I see on twitter, the left (and I don’t mean just the hard left) is as addicted to hate as the right, though the consequences have so far been less dire. People love nothing more than to pile onto someone who has been wrong! wrong! on the internet. It feels more like addiction than principle to me.

  34. 34.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Princess: When we went to Singapore in late January 2020, they were preparing for Lunar New Year and there were decorations up everywhere, often depicting the Metal Rat. Of course, the celebrations turned out to be an early spreading event in China.

  35. 35.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: Yeah. I mentioned him to you once before. I call him my “hero uncle” because he got wrote up in a YA book titled “Frogmen of WWII” for some shit he did on one Dday.

  36. 36.

    SFAW

    @Immanentize:

    I like squirrel.  We had all three — grey, red, and black — in my yard this summer.

    Any difference in taste? Or is that not what you meant?

    I expect Immp has mixed feelings about going back to school: sorry to be leaving you, but glad to get back to warmer climes.

  38. 38.

    debbie

    @Immanentize:

    Listening to a statement from him or his compadre yesterday, it was clear Trump had beaten both to bloody pulps. A tone of total dismissiveness.

  42. 42.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    My teacher DIL got her first dose of Moderna yesterday. McHenry County (IL) arranged a giant clinic for educators.

    It’s ironic that she’s been teaching from home, and Mr DAW and  I have been able to stay home, and we all have access to the vaccine, but not my son, who has to go into an office every day. He even has a letter from his defense contractor employer saying he’s an essential employee, but no dice.

  43. 43.

    debbie

    @Immanentize:

    There are a few white/albino squirrels around here. They’re usually pretty scrawny (shunned by squirrel society, I guess), but this year, even they have gone all chonky.

  47. 47.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yeah, not exactly the first thing one thought of when watching Green Acres.

    I sort-of remember him in Captain Newman, M.D. A good role, but I wonder how he felt about playing the nutjob (and not nuts in a funny way) colonel.

  51. 51.

    sab

    @debbie: In NE Ohio a lot of our squirrels are black Carolina grey squirrels, smuggled in from Ontario by a Kent State groundskeeper back in the sixties. Back then you could just stuff squirrels in your car on a hunting trip and drive them across the border.

  52. 52.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    You forgetting to whack them on the head first?

    A former co-worker, a guy who grew up in Loovul (a/k/a Louisville) talked about going on a camping trip with some of his classmates at MIT, making squirrel traps (basically nooses), and then making stew with the resultant bounty.

  54. 54.

    debbie

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    It’s so hit or miss. Most of my friends are slightly older and are getting their shots. I finally got an appointment for next Wednesday, but of course a snowstorm has been predicted.

  57. 57.

    germy

    Republicans are calling for the impeachment or resignation of Gov. Cuomo.

    Rich Azzopardi, senior advisor to Cuomo, issued this statement Thursday night:

    “We explained that the Trump administration was in the midst of a politically motivated effort to blame Democratic states for COVID deaths and that we were cooperating with Federal document productions and that was the priority and now that it is over, we can address the state legislature.  That said, we were working simultaneously to complete the audit of information they were asking for.”

    https://wnyt.com/news/ny-post-cuomo-aide-admits-to-withholding-true-nursing-home-death-numbers/6010213/?cat=10114

  61. 61.

    Soprano2

    @MagdaInBlack: Well, that word brought up all kinds of memories, and I was 10 in ’68. I remember.

    I don’t remember much about it, but my husband was in the middle of that shitshow.

  62. 62.

    Amir Khalid

    So Castor and Schoen might use only three of their 16 hours before the Senate. Why three hours? It doesn’t take that long to say, “We got nothing.”
    Here’s how I expect it will go. The prosecution spent 12 hours pounding the law and pounding the facts. David Schoen will spend his hours pounding the table. If Bruce Castor speaks at all, no one will have any idea what the fuck he’s talking about.

    As a Firefox user, I really and truly miss commenting in visual mode. I pray the fates will be kind and grant me the use of visual mode again.

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I don’t recall how old I was when I saw it — early teens, perhaps younger — and I enjoyed it. Then either my father or my grandmother commented to the effect that it was a poor-man’s version of Catch-22. Which led me to read it shortly thereafter, and then the movie came out a couple of years later.

    My very vague recollection is that Captain Newman was funny, but generally not as darkly humorous as Catch-22.

  65. 65.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Baud: ​
     

    Thanks for the link. Fantastic, and very sobering, read.

    Who knew that voting was a bi-partisan thing? Unless you’re a facist. I learned at least from that perspective, the US Chamber of Commerce is not facist.

  68. 68.

    Ken

    @Amir Khalid: I pray the fates will be kind and grant me the use of visual mode again.

    More than prayer may be necessary.  Remember what John F. Woods said: there are fundamental technical reasons you have to sacrifice a young goat to your SCSI chain every now and then.

  70. 70.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    If Bruce Castor speaks at all, no one will have any idea what the fuck he’s talking about.

    “The party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the party of the first part. How do you like that? …”

    “No, it’s no good.”

    “What’s the matter with it?”

    “I don’t know, let’s hear it again.”

    “The party of the first part shall be known in this contract as the party of the first part.”

    “Sounds a little better this time.”

     

    … usw

  73. 73.

    Betty Cracker

    @germy: At the time, I was thinking that little red book should go in the failed prop hall of fame since fewer than 5% of Americans would have any idea what it was. But maybe it makes frequent appearances on Fox News and I’m wrong about that.

  76. 76.

    karen marie

    @MJS: “Unpermitted march”? Did you miss the part explaining that the Trump campaign jumped in and got a permit for the march on the capitol when they realized the initial organizers were planning a protest only for the mall?

  78. 78.

    Geminid

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently started distancing itself some from the Republicans. Last year they endorsed 20 incumbent Democratic U.S. Representatives, including Abigail Spanberger (VA-7) and Sharice Davids (KS-3).

    The VA 7th campaign, in a suburban and exurban district north of Richmond, featured a Chamber of Commerce endorsed Democrat versus a Republican heavily backed by the Club for Growth. Spanberger won narrowly. Until she flipped it in 2018, the 7th had been held by Republicans since the 1970s, when conservative Democrats realigned with the Republican party.

  81. 81.

    mrmoshpotato

    @sab:

    Back then you could just stuff squirrels in your car on a hunting trip and drive them across the border. 

    I hope the squirrels at least offered to pay for gas.

  82. 82.

    Low Key Swagger

    @HinTN: Right?  I worked against Wamp in the past.  I have Blackburn, so of course my time and attention is elsewhere these days.

  83. 83.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Amir Khalid:Castor probably more clever then he lets on since it’s clear the Republicans don’t have the guts to convict Trump even after Trump tried to have them murdered.  It really doesn’t matter what the defenses does.

  86. 86.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: What does Mao have to do with the insurrection at the capitol? I’m already sliding toward senility. It’s good I’m not watching this.

    My guess is the argument is; holding someone to account for what they say and do is something only  despicable Socialist would do.  But who knows these days with Right, maybe they think how the communist lined up to be purged, tortured and murdered when the Great Leader says they must is a great thing.

  91. 91.

    Mike S (Now with a Democratic Congressperson!)

    @The Fat White Duchess: I read the WaPo article and discussions about it here on BJ earlier. They are the same people that are highly susceptible to multi-level marketing schemes. (i.e. Amway and all its multifarious descendants.) They want (and believe in!) the possibility of getting rich with little or no work. And for them anecdata = reality/proof!

  93. 93.

    Peale

    @Betty Cracker: Its always 1968 with the Fox viewers and they are convinced the Democrats are all commies who are taking orders from the Black Panthers and long hairs from the Weathermen consulting Mao whenever they don’t know what to do next.

  94. 94.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @germy: If you ever thought that this trial was really for anything but recording the events for posterity and nailing Republicans to the wall as a collaborators, you were misled.  There never have been 17 GOP votes that were even theoretically possible.  This doesn’t mean the impeachment or the trial were the wrong thing to do.  We just need to be aware of what constitutes a best achievable result.  To me, it looks like we are getting it.

  97. 97.

    Patricia Kayden

    "No one can say that Donald Trump didn’t take action during those hours following the invasion of the Capitol. Because, on learning that Mike Pence was in peril, Trump acted instantly and decisively … to aim the threat at Pence and his family."https://t.co/tO59QbCvGO— Ben Stephens (@stephens_ben) February 12, 2021

  98. 98.

    Jeffro

    Breaking (literally): Nikki Haley lamely attempts to break with trumpov and trumpism

    Best of luck with that, Ms. MAGA

    Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley issued stunning remarks breaking with former President Trump, telling Politico in an interview published Friday that she believes he “let us down.”  “We need to acknowledge he let us down,” Haley, who served in her ambassador role under Trump, said. “He went down a path he shouldn’t have, and we shouldn’t have followed him, and we shouldn’t have listened to him. And we can’t let that ever happen again.”

  100. 100.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: it’s almost like she figured out that Hawley and Cruz have the “insanely violent white supremacist” ‘lane’ of the GQP already sewn up…and also can see independents breaking for the Dems in a  big, big way.

  101. 101.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: The near certainty of this trial’s result is a reason that I personally am agnostic on the question of witnesses. Some political junkies will watch them in real time, and newspapers and TV news will give them attention, but only for one news cycle. The two videos already put forward, on the other hand, are devastating, and will receive much wider circulation.

  104. 104.

    Baud

    @Geminid: 

    Yeah, but some of the GOP votes to acquit will blame it on Dems for not calling witnesses, and Twitter people will buy it hook, line, and sinker.

  105. 105.

    germy

    The dogs look really happy to be there (I can relate to their gratitude.)

    First Lady Jill Biden put a massive Valentine's display on the North Lawn.

    "I just wanted some joy. With the pandemic, just everybody's feeling a little down. So, it's just a little joy. A little hope. That's all." pic.twitter.com/n60nX7tdXj

    — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 12, 2021

  106. 106.

    Jeffro

    @Baud: I think she’s trying to guilt-share as many Republicans and independents as possible, so that they can then…um…I don’t know, underpants gnomes help me out here?

    1. Break (gently) with trumpov and guilt-share with as many Repubs as possible.
    2. ???
    3. be President!
  107. 107.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: The Republican party has lost enough loyal voters that in many states like Virginia and Arizona it has no path to victory without carrying the independent vote.

  108. 108.

    WaterGirl

    @Mo MacArbie:

    Links to external sites open in a new tab.

    Links to anything that’s on balloon juice – say if Steeplejack links to a comment in a thread from yesterday – do not open in a separate tab.

  109. 109.

    Ivan X

    All you Firefox folk: I use three browsers because not every site works in every browser. Sure, they should, but they don’t. It is not a big deal to read this site in a different browser, like Edge, Safari, or Chrome.

    If you’re concerned about feeding the Google monster, use Brave instead of Chrome — it’s a privacy-oriented spinoff built on the same code and is pretty much compatible with everything, much as Chrome is. (Just decline/avoid Brave’s odd pitches for cryptocurrency related nonsense.)

  110. 110.

    NotMax

    Who said irony is dead?

    Castor & Schoen gonna tag team to defend ego massage Dolt 45 and bloviate against BLM on Lincoln’s birthday.

    @germy

    Ooh, timely reminder that Monday is President’s Half Price Candy Day!

    :)

  111. 111.

    Geminid

    @Baud: There are upsides and dowsides to witnesses. I suspect that the House Managers will settle for a few impactful witnesses and then wrap up. The trial should end quickly after that. Last time round Schumer and company used procedural roadblocks  to drag the trial out from a Saturday to the following Wedneday, the day after the State of the Union address. This time, Schumer and McConnell both probably want to get it over with.

  114. 114.

    Ken

    @germy: I don’t like the claim that Trump bought Senators. He’s far too cheap for that. Some of them are working for free, others because they hope they get to be the dictator next time around, and others because they fear the mobs.

  115. 115.

    NotMax

    @mrmoshpotato

    Outside of Philadelphia there is (or was, at the time) graveyard with a large sign identifying it as The Cemetery of Saints Peter and Paul.

    Couldn’t resist quipping to a car mate as we passed if the graves were known as Peter Paul mounds.

  116. 116.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: 

    Yup, and Ms. Haley’s here to tell the GQP some hard truths. I wish her well (because it should crack the party neatly down the middle).

    reap, sow, all that

  117. 117.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: I’m hoping that Republican intraparty strife and defections of independent voters help us take down the execrable Republican 5th VA Congressman next year. He won by only 5 points.                       Although, if the new redistricting commission is serious about drawing compact districts, we might be in the Sixth District next year.

  120. 120.

    Geminid

    @Elizabelle: I appreciate the sympathy. Good does not bother me but so much, since his predecessor voted pretty much the same way. He is a couple rungs down the Republican devolutionary ladder from Riggleman though. But reapportionment  and gerrymandering may lead to a loss of some Democratic Congressional seats, and flipping the VA 5th will be important for that reason, as well as the fact that Good is a raging asshole.

  121. 121.

    The Pale Scot

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Yeah, he was such a happy go lucky guy it was hard to imagine him there

    From the film Platoon;

    “Remember, when you get out of here every day is gravy”

    Which isn’t the way it worked out for a lot of guys

Comments are closed.