Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“But what about the lurkers?”

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

“woke” is the new caravan.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

If a good thing happens for a bad reason, it’s still a good thing.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

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

Whoever he was, that guy was nuts.

How any woman could possibly vote for this smug smarmy piece of misogynistic crap is beyond understanding.

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

Republicans choose power over democracy, every day.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

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

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

… gradually, and then suddenly.

Disappointing to see gov. newsom with his finger to the wind.

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

No one could have predicted…

I’d hate to be the candidate who lost to this guy.

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Friday Morning Open Thread: Things Going Well

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265Comments

  1. 1.

    debbie

    God, I’d forgotten that meeting where they went around the table one by one extolling T****’s genius. ?

  3. 3.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    You’re right! I can’t get over the polling that shows two to one in favor of higher taxes. Have people regained their sanity???

  4. 4.

    only

    I admire Psaki for being so good at a thing that i find very hard — coming up with the perfect retort instantly. And she manages to say the right thing without being hostile or belligerent. She’s probably the best (most effective) press secretary I have ever seen.

  5. 5.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: I only doom ? about stuff happening in India these days.
    Eagerly awaiting the arrival of the first ?

  6. 6.

    John S.

    @debbie: No, but there are some things that most people can agree on. Like the fact that our roads, power grid, bridges, etc. are crumbling, fixing them would create a lot of new jobs and taxing the rich is a great way to pay for it.

  8. 8.

    Biff Baxter

    S&P 500 flies past 4000 and Biden’s is not all over Twitter boasting and looking for appreciation. He doesn’t understand proper Presidenting.

  9. 9.

    geg6

    Between the quiet and relentless competence of the Biden administration and the Matt Gaetz meltdown, the news has mostly been entertaining lately. The only grim and ugly thing is the Chauvin trial, which has been just heart wrenching. The good news there is that the prosecutors have been stellar and the defense has been as cartoonishly evil as anyone could wish.

    May

  10. 10.

    Baud

    @geg6:

    There’s plenty of awful in the world. But in terms of things we can control, our people are as stellar as they’ve ever been.

  11. 11.

    burnspbesq

    So today is the Day of Peak Effectiveness (two weeks since Shot Two).

    Trader Joe’s or Austin Vintage Guitars (Porsche Austin remains off-limits, for other reasons)?

  12. 12.

    Baud

    I hope the lesson we learn isn’t that the Dems president always has to be genial old white guy in order to calm GOP voters.

  16. 16.

    debbie

    @only:

    I think she specializes in responses that can be taken as responsive or a put-down, depending on the listener. I welcome them.

  19. 19.

    debbie

    @satby:

    I hate when conservatives bitch about the high tax rates in the 1950s. They choose to ignore that people were paying off the war debt. We are where we are because they ceased to be responsible citizens.

  21. 21.

    David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch

    The American Jobs Plan will make sure every single American has access to high quality, affordable, high-speed internet.

    In related news, shares of Pornhub rose sharply after the size of Biden’s package was released.

  23. 23.

    Kathleen

    @debbie: NO!! BIDEN PROMISED A CAT AND HASN’T DELIVERED. WHAT OTHER PROMISES WON’T BE DELIVERED? (NYT. Pols**tico Etc)

  24. 24.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @only: What Psaki is doing requires a lot of work. Here’s probably how she does it.

    Her staff generates the likely questions by watching tv and social media. They pull resources for her to read. She does Q&As with them to perfect likely answers to likely questions. She reads all the resources. I suspect she’s got a near-photographic memory.

    Every weekday.

  25. 25.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    @satby: Holy cow, what a great gif. I retweeted that.

    Very tangentially related to creating a gif, I just saw a post from my BIL. He and my sister were at an outdoor restaurant where he asked for a menu and the waitress said, “Just scan the QR code with your smart phone,” to which they both responded, “Whaaaat?” As she disappeared inside, she called back “Just download the app,” to which once again they said, “Whaaaat?” Fortunately there was another server who brought them a paper menu. Also, get off my lawn.

  28. 28.

    John S.

    @satby: It’s amazing how many of the responses to that tweet are about taxes being “theft”, the flat tax, and perpetuating the myth of the mega-rich as job creators and benevolent saviors of society.

    The Reagan/Laffer/GOP/Glibertarian propaganda has been terribly effective.

  31. 31.

    John S.

    @Baud: Speaking of Bitcoin, did you see that PayPal has now enabled payments for regular things with millions of merchants in Bitcoin?

    Considering that PayPal is already one of the worst offenders when it comes to fraud in the payment world, what could possibly go wrong?

  34. 34.

    rikyrah

    First of all, ewwww ???

    Second, we have reached the point where there is a writer somewhere, beginning their script of the Lifetime Movie based on this.

     

     

    NEW: One woman who Gaetz and Greenberg had sex with had sex with an unidentified associate of theirs in FLA Republican politics. Women were recruited from websites that connect people who go on dates in exchange for gifts, fine dining, travel. w/@ktbenner https://t.co/4pvR4e7vxm— Michael S. Schmidt (@nytmike) April 2, 2021

  37. 37.

    John S.

    @rikyrah: I should have known that one episode of Law and Order SVU featuring a website called “Sugar Daddies” was a mirror of reality.

  39. 39.

    rikyrah

    Of course the ex-GOP operative thinks Gaetz is "a smart man" and "capable"No, he's not. Born rich, everything handed to him, rose through state politics by grifting the foolish Floridian voters – becoming every last bit the human garbage one would expect such a person to be— Jeff R. (@IamJeffsLiver) April 2, 2021

  45. 45.

    burnspbesq

    @rikyrah:

    ‘If by “work with them” they mean “piss on everything Democrats stand for,” they’re probably right.

  48. 48.

    different-church-lady

    @rikyrah:  In Matt Gaetz’s defense, he probably had no idea that doing those kinds of things makes a person a scumbag.

  49. 49.

    BruceFromOhio

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: ​
      Encountered this also. While I have a phone and know what to do, I wondered what would happen to patrons with no phones or who are visually impaired. Go somewhere else? Go hungry? Guess a menu item? While its great (and smart) not to have to handle menus, keeping a stack of throwaways around is probably a good move for customers.

  51. 51.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: Lucky you. I am increasingly in situations where clients insist on paying *only* through PayPal.

  55. 55.

    BruceFromOhio

    @rikyrah: ​
     

    Biden may find zero GOP support for jobs plan

    GQP “support” in Congress ain’t happening, the Qpers have already demonstrated that. Why replay what won’t change, or try to chase down what doesn’t exist? One foot in front of the other, Joe.

  57. 57.

    Joe Falco

    I got my first COVID shot (Pfizer)! I’m currently in observation, but the process has been easy ever since Georgia opened up their vaccine registration website for my age group to register. I drove to one of several sites being staffed by National Guardsmen. It was all very efficiently done. Time to get some breakfast and relax for the rest of the day!

  58. 58.

    Gin & Tonic

    So the former news agency known as Reuters partners with TASS, and becomes a stenographic agency for Russia’s MFA:

    “Civil war in eastern Ukraine.”

    “Pro-Russian separatists.”

    This brief Reuters report is a masterclass in everything that is wrong with international coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine. Have they really learnt nothing from seven years of hybrid warfare? https://t.co/Y3mxJyE4Ah
    — Business Ukraine mag (@Biz_Ukraine_Mag) April 1, 2021

  59. 59.

    NotMax

    1) Noted for foodies that Julia & Jacques Cooking at Home is available on Prime. (Julia Child and Jacques Pépin program that aired on PBS st the end of the last century.)

    2) Attention L.A., NYC, Chicago, Miami and Pittsburgh: free food on 4/6! Start practicing saying “Ken ikh hubn a baygl mit shmirkeyz” now.

    (Ken is said sort of halfway between the English ken and kin. The ‘kh’ in ikh guttural, pronounced like the ‘ch’ in Chanukkah. Hubn = WHO-bin. The ikh and the hubn run together almost as if one word, the end of the guttural transitioning into a softer h sound. Shmrikeyz equals (more or less) shmeercase.)

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    Politico has an excerpt from Boehner’s new book:

    Under the new rules of Crazytown, I may have been Speaker, but I didn’t hold all the power. By 2013 the chaos caucus in the House had built up their own power base thanks to fawning right-wing media and outrage-driven fundraising cash. And now they had a new head lunatic leading the way, who wasn’t even a House member. There is nothing more dangerous than a reckless asshole who thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Senator Ted Cruz. He enlisted the crazy caucus of the GOP in what was a truly dumbass idea. Not that anybody asked me.

    He blames Fox News and “conservative media” for building Crazytown, and he’s not altogether wrong, but he didn’t give a damn until the nuts turned on him, of course.

  61. 61.

    Spanky

    @Mary G:

    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I stopped reading about when the reports of a video of a naked girl hula hooping being shown to his friends on the floor of Congress came out. Ugh.

    It would be useful to have a list of those “friends” published.

  62. 62.

    debbie

    @John S.: 

    It’s amazing how many of the responses to that tweet are about taxes being “theft”

    Bullshit. They’re rent. We pay for the privilege of living in America.

  63. 63.

    different-church-lady

    @BruceFromOhio: The fact that PayPal wants a percentage of every invoice I cut? For something that people use to just send me a check for? And then they want more to move the money from PayPal to my bank or they’ll hold my money for a few more days? Yeah, it’s an EXTREMELY bad thing.

  65. 65.

    Spanky

    @Betty Cracker:  So Boner has turned into that bachelor uncle at Thanksgiving, who after a few beers in front of the game on TV starts saying the quiet parts out loud. The adults are giving each other the side-eye, but the kids want to hear more.

  67. 67.

    Ken

    I wonder if Biden’s tweet about “A Cabinet that looks like America” has some subtext, since they’re all masked and properly distanced.

  69. 69.

    different-church-lady

    @Ken: America also looks like a shirtless guy in a viking helmet tazering a Capital cop, so two Pinoccios.

  72. 72.

    satby

    @different-church-lady: we pay to build roads too. I look at it as a payment infrastructure that allows people to order and pay me for products though my customers and I will probably never meet IRL. Any payment app works the same way.

  74. 74.

    Ken

    @Cheryl Rofer: What Psaki is doing requires a lot of work. Here’s probably how she does it.

    That does sound like a lot of work. I see now why recent occupants of that office have stuck to spouting lies and calling reporters stupid for asking questions.

  77. 77.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Representatives Cheri Bustos, David Cicciline, and Hakeem Jeffries of the House Democratic Communications Committee certainly thought the 2017 tax cuts were unpopular. Their guidance to candidates in 2018 was to pound two simple messages: defense of the Affordable Care Act, and attacking the trillion dollar tax-giveaway to corporations and the wealthy. Democrats picked up 40 seats that year.

  80. 80.

    NotMax

    @satby

    Fun fact: The first bill for initial construction under Ike’s interstate plans clocked in at $27 billion. Entire federal budget for the year before was $56 billion (80% of that amount for defense spending).

  82. 82.

    SFAW

    @burnspbesq:

    ‘They won’t have the model I’m interested in (Taycan Cross Turismo) until summer.

    To tide you over, can they get you a used Anglia? Or maybe, if you’re lucky, a Trabant?

  84. 84.

    JMG

    @Betty Cracker: John Boehner’s face turn is one of the funniest American political stories ever. From routine GOP bagman to cruising the country in an RV half in the bag much of the time, while composing a give no f**ks, settle all scores memoir.

  85. 85.

    jonas

    @Ken: ​
      It also helps that she works for a president who is honest and trying to do his best and trusts the people he picks, not a lying, incompetent asshole who only cared about how much you kissed his ass on camera while trying to polish whatever turds he tweeted that morning.

  87. 87.

    Kathleen

    @satby: Ha ha! I’m with you Satby!. That is why we toil with the great unwashed who can’t grasp “real journalism” and are continually reminded of same by our Beltway Propatainers.

  88. 88.

    jonas

    @Cheryl Rofer: ​
      Her staff generates the likely questions by watching tv and social media.

    …and then asking what’s the stupidest, most inane fucking question someone could ask about this stuff?

  92. 92.

    SFAW

    I watched that interchange between Psaki and The Asshole of the Day. Were I in her role, I might stroke out when I tried to keep myself from saying “Tone? After four years of the lies and bullshit personal attacks from that dictator-wannabe, and from his minions standing at this podium, and from many/most of elected Rethuglicans, you have the stones to ask me that? Get the fuck outta here until you learn some manners, and some basic journalistic skills. And while you’re at it, do some research on ‘integrity,’ see if you can learn some, you fascist-enabling asshole.”

    So I appreciate her grace and ability.

  93. 93.

    SFAW

    Even Nice Polite Republicans commented on the “no one in the Cabinet gave a public tongue bath to President Biden, unlike with That Fucking Guy.”

    OK, so maybe I’m paraphrasing a little.

  95. 95.

    Geminid

    @jonas: Psaki’s adept handling of the press seems almost effortless. That is the result of a lot of hard work by her and her staff.

    The contrast between her and her immediate predecessors makes me wonder, how many people in trump’s White House actually knew how to work hard? Their boss certainly didn’t.

  96. 96.

    Jinchi

    @Cheryl Rofer: 

    What Psaki is doing requires a lot of work. Here’s probably how she does it.

    Interesting. Do we know how Sarah Huckabee-Sanders did it?

  99. 99.

    Ken

    @SFAW: Hey, buddy, got any spare bitcoin? So I can buy a cup o’ coffee?

    By the time the bitcoin system cleared the transaction, the coffee would be ice cold. And probably have fuzzy stuff growing on it.

  102. 102.

    Immanentize

    @SFAW: Also too, the guy’s reading skills were poor.  He did not look so good when he whined: “that’s not what the Governor of Georgia says….”

    You mean the guy who just signed a bill restricting voting under a painting of a slave plantation?  That Governor?!

  104. 104.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @Cheryl Rofer: I think you are right.  The method you outlined (except for having staff and reading social media) is exactly how I prepped for exams in undergraduate and graduate schools and then, once in a job, press conferences, especially for popular culture exhibitions at museums.  Even if different questions are asked, one has enough material in one’s head that one can go in different directions.  FYI, I’m also a William and Mary graduate as is Ms. Pskaki.  They teach you how to use your brain and organize your thoughts.  I dunno how Comey came out of school to be such an idiot.

  105. 105.

    satby

    @SFAW: As a fellow redhead (or was before the gray started to predominate) I especially admire her ability not to go berserk on idiots like yesterday’s “tone” questioner. Because the reputation for fiery temperament is deserved, and *I*  would have marched down from the podium, snatched his notepad, and beaten him senseless with it. Probably while cursing.

  110. 110.

    different-church-lady

    @satby: Let me try this again: I and my clients used to do this simple thing WITHOUT ANY FEES before PayPal wormed its way into the middle. Clear now?

  111. 111.

    SFAW

    @satby:

    *I*  would have marched down from the podium, snatched his notepad, and beaten him senseless with it. Probably while cursing.

    I think I love you.

  114. 114.

    different-church-lady

    @Ken:

    By the time the bitcoin system cleared the transaction, the coffee Sun would be ice cold.

  115. 115.

    satby

    @different-church-lady: I wasn’t confused sweetie. I was pointing out a difference. And checking accounts used to have fees, IIRC. Been 10 years since I wrote a check.

    Millennials don’t carry cash, they put a $3 transaction on their debit cards. I could refuse the transaction, and all that would do is leave me $2.97 poorer. Cost of doing business.

  116. 116.

    Jeffro

    @debbie:  I can’t get over the polling that shows two to one in favor of higher taxes.

    Me either!

    AND YET

    The dead-tree edition of yesterday’s WaPo led off with “Wide Criticism for $2 Trillion Biden Plan”, followed by stories where the plan “…met with a chorus of opposition late Wednesday”

    UM…NOT FROM THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, IT DIDN’T!!

    Sad, Post, just sad.

  117. 117.

    WereBear

    @John S.:

    The Reagan/Laffer/GOP/Glibertarian propaganda has been terribly effective.

     
    I suspect we’ll always have a third of the population who prefer lies to the truth; protection of their status instead of opportunity; power grabs instead of equality, and cruelty instead of love.

    Keeping them out of the system they want to break should be an important focus moving forward.

  118. 118.

    different-church-lady

    @satby: I DO BUSINESS WITH OTHER CLIENTS WHO ARE NOT IN PAYPAL’S THRALL AND IT DOES NOT COST EITHER PARTY ANY FEES WHAT THE FUCK AM I NOT SPEAKING ENGLISH HERE?

  120. 120.

    Ken

    @satby: I wonder if there’s any way you could substitute for Psaki for a day* and pull something like that. It might have a salutary effect on the press corps.

    [*] Sounds like the old game show “Queen for a Day” where ordinary housewives were treated as queens by… winning a new stove so they could have dinner ready when their husbands got home.  But what prizes would you win on “Psaki for a Day”?

  121. 121.

    Anyway

    I helped a 50+ friend get the Pfizer vaccine yesterday! He wanted the vax but couldn’t be bothered to go online and look for an appointment (insert appropriate emoji). Found an opening at a health center operated by the state. He said it was pretty smooth once he got there.

  123. 123.

    Immanentize

    @satby: Ha!  My son does everything by debit or Google pay.  He happily puts less than a $2 purchase on his debit card all the time.  It’s really quite funny looking at his account.  25 transactions — total of about $75 (a whopper at 10 bucks snuck in there).

  124. 124.

    satby

    @different-church-lady: oh, settle down. Don’t use it then.

    YOU are the one not grasping the concept that not taking a payment system (pp, square, whatever) means you won’t get some customers. Like the old geezers at the farmers market who focus on a 2% surcharge they refuse to pay for debit/credit sales, while watching the 98% balance of the sale they could have had move on to a different booth. Whatever.

  128. 128.

    OldDave

    @burnspbesq: There is that.  Still, with so many configuration options there is research to be done.  I had a faint hope of winning a Taycan in a recent PCA raffle, but that didn’t happen.  With one chance in about 4000, I wasn’t expecting to.

  130. 130.

    satby

    @Anyway: I have a friend who’s been doing that too. It’s a real need for less computer literate folks (that gramma can post on FB does not = computer literate). She gets them all set up and sends them the info on appointment, time, what id to bring etc. She’s probably helped around 20 people at this point.

  133. 133.

    different-church-lady

    @satby:

    Don’t use it then.

    Sooooo…. you just missed the part where the client insisted on it?

    PayPal has its uses. Your situation is one of them. My situation is NOT one of them, but PayPal has nonetheless wormed its way in. They have increased the cost of my doing business WITH NO BENEFIT IN RETURN.

    They will continue to worm their way into other situations like this. Just like Facebook wormed its way into every fucking thing.

  134. 134.

    NotMax

    @satby

    Not only do I still primarily pay by check when not using cash, have a rare bird – a checking account which pays interest. A pittance, granted, but more than zero or (heaven forfend) fees that nickel and dime one’s balance. And when it comes time to order additional checks, they’re free.

  135. 135.

    Steve in the ATL

    @only: 

    I admire Psaki for being so good at a thing that i find very hard — coming up with the perfect retort instantly. And she manages to say the right thing without being hostile or belligerent.

    I have years of practice at coming up with quick retorts, but I struggle with your requirement of not being hostile or belligerent….

  136. 136.

    different-church-lady

    @NotMax: I always feel stupid declaring $1.37 in interest on my Schedule A. But it still beats paying the bank to loan them my money.

  137. 137.

    MattF

    Re: PayPal. PayPal somehow managed to suck me into signing up for a PayPay credit card account, and I haven’t forgiven them for that. Avoid.

  139. 139.

    jonas

    @Geminid:  The whole point of being in the Trump administration wasn’t to create policy to help the American people — it was to pwn libs. So yeah, they really weren’t interested in working. Except for Stephen Miller. He *really* fucking hated minorities and immigrants. I think he worked nights and weekends coming up with ever more creative ways to use government to hurt brown people.

  140. 140.

    Jeffro

    @satby:As a fellow redhead (or was before the gray started to predominate) I especially admire her ability not to go berserk on idiots like yesterday’s “tone” questioner. Because the reputation for fiery temperament is deserved, and *I*  would have marched down from the podium, snatched his notepad, and beaten him senseless with it. Probably while cursing.

    LOL

    I bet she visualizes doing exactly that…sighs contentedly inside…and then smiles & proceeds to answer the question.  =)

  141. 141.

    satby

    @different-church-lady: a lot of people, including this almost 66 yo lady right here ?, don’t use or write checks any more. Haven’t had paper checks in 10 years, as I mentioned. So I would have to pay you for your work electronically, or use a different vendor for that work. That isn’t PayPal’s fault, any more than it would be Zelle’s, Square’s, or any other system. If anything, it would be my fault, and you would be free to turn down my business to preserve the sanctity of your cash based business. (Which of course still had fees for checking accounts, printing checks, etc., though less obvious).

    BTW, I also don’t bitch at clouds. Edit: Fini, because I’m agnostic on payment systems. I just like getting paid.

  142. 142.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Technically my checking account pays interest, but the rate is so tiny that it amounts to pennies every year. I don’t even get a 1099 for it.

  143. 143.

    Jinchi

    @satby: ​
     

    I especially admire her ability not to go berserk on idiots like yesterday’s “tone” questioner.

    Who was the tone questioner? It didn’t seem obnoxious enough for a right-wing outlet.

  144. 144.

    NotMax

    @satby

    Quasi-related. Saw a sign in bank that as of March 31, American Express no longer will make paper traveler’s cheques and after any in stock run out, that’s all, folks.

  146. 146.

    Ken

    @NotMax: Or the classic line from Fawlty Towers, “My wife can kill a man at ten paces with one blow of her tongue”.

  147. 147.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @satby: Maybe you have different business models.  You do retail and, from what have gathered, d-c-l does something more like consulting.

  148. 148.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Twitter is abuzz because there is apparently more about Matt Gaetz. It sounds as if I need to put on protective gear before I go look for it. 

    Ugh.  I wish we could pie subject matter.

  149. 149.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @NotMax: I can’t remember how many years ago, or what I wanted to do there, but I remember going to the American Express office in London and finding it had closed for good, and feeling a little sad.

  150. 150.

    different-church-lady

    @satby:

    That isn’t PayPal’s fault, any more than it would be Zelle’s, Square’s, or any other system.

    I really don’t know how to break this to you but… we had ways of paying for shit before all these companies came into existence.

  152. 152.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    @different-church-lady: Heh. I should use that line the next time I get one of those obnoxious scam telemarketers calling me from Cyprus who will. not. acknowledge. my requests for them to delete my name from their lists and leave me alone.

    A dozen calls in the last week alone trying to browbeat me into signing up for some Bitcoin online investment scheme.

  154. 154.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Cheryl from Maryland: LOL, it’s a method I’ve used to prepare for briefing generals, although I never had a staff, just colleagues who would put me through the wringer. Another liberal arts graduate here.

    As to the emotional response others in this thread have said they would be hard-pressed to resist: Once you have all that material in your head and have heard all the ignorant and trolling questions that might be asked, it’s just another day doing your job. You know what the questioners are.

  157. 157.

    What Have The Romans Ever Done for Us?

    Wait…NOW they’re policing tone? WTF? TFG called them all the enemy of the people and they just sat there and took it.

  158. 158.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @different-church-lady: Hey, I am trying to pour oil on troubled waters, not gasoline on a fire. *

    *Although the latter can be more exciting and fun.**

    **Not advocating doing dangerous things simply because they can be exciting and fun.***

    ***Or am I?

  159. 159.

    different-church-lady

    @Cheryl Rofer:

    BIDEN: “What are your qualifications for press secretary?”

    PSAKI: “In junior high I used to stuff the annoying kids into waste baskets.”

    BIDEN: “When can you start?”

  160. 160.

    NotMax

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR

    Tell them no thanks but you can clue them in on a hot lead who would be very interested. Then give the phone number for the Mar-a-Lago Club.

    (Not going to print it here; readily Googled.)

  163. 163.

    satby

    @Omnes Omnibus: yes, it sounds like we do. So what? If someone wants her services and has no checks to mail, payment would be made via some other method, probably electronic. Hell, I paid cash for my house via wire transfer direct from my account, and that involved a fee. This is an absurd argument. You want cash or checks, take only that and regretfully turn down the people who don’t want to pay that way. It’s a choice. Choosing to take the business and then complaining about a method of payment you essentially agreed to upfront by taking that business is pointless. 

    REALLY done now, it’s just silly. Obviously, not just conservatives need to demonize change.

  164. 164.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cheryl Rofer: ​
      It’s also how you prepare for appellate arguments. FWIW it can be fun to be one of the “judges” and be trolly. One can pretend to simply not understand something and keep coming back to it or ask irrelevant questions. Judges do, so one needs to be ready.

  165. 165.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @rikyrah:

    First of all, ewwww

    Come on, don’t be shaming sex work.  There’s nothing wrong with being a travel escort.  Hell, I hear it’s a great job, and most importantly you get veto power over which clients you take.

    There is everything wrong with having sex with a 17 year old.  Throw that asshole in jail.

    @Betty Cracker:

    Not that anybody asked me

    Fuck you and your campaign of whitewashing your legacy, Boehner.  The Freedom Caucus was tiny.  You weren’t going to lose your job if you laughed at and ignored them.  You and McConnell went all in on absolute, unprecedented obstruction when a black man was elected president, and you use the Tea Party as your scapegoat.  You picked letting them screw you over rather than giving Nancy Pelosi even a shred of power.

    @different-church-lady:

    PayPal is such a mess.  I use it for very limited purposes transferring money to friends, and I find another way if I can help it.  People who haven’t tried to use it for business don’t realize how often they pull shit like freezing thousands of dollars in your account with no explanation for a day or forever depending on their whim.  That any business you use has switched to PayPal only is a gross imposition.

  169. 169.

    Central Planning

    @NotMax: I found a travelers cheque in my fireproof box a few weeks ago. My bank said I could deposit it with them. I’m not sure small businesses around here would know what to do with it

  170. 170.

    Ken

    @different-church-lady: One of my 401K accounts from a previous employer changed due to an acquisition, and I got some obscure form telling me that I had technically earned $1.37 in dividend income in Germany.  I checked and would have had to fill out three separate forms to correctly report it and get a lower dividend rate, so I just hid it on my Schedule B as ordinary dividends and paid the extra $0.008 cents.

    It has now been over ten years so I feel safe in confessing this heinous circumvention of the tax code.

  172. 172.

    satby

    @Omnes Omnibus: pre-slaughtered and dressed? We could work something out. (Actually, barter is a huge thing at that same market, but it’s the food vendors with perishable stuff who are into it.)

  175. 175.

    NotMax

    @Frankensteinbeck

    and I find another way if I can help it

    Dunno about where you are but Western Union is available freaking everywhere here.

    There’s also postal money orders, but then that runs smack up against DeJoy delivery roulette.

  177. 177.

    Cheryl Rofer

    Just looked in my closet to see what to wear today for an in-person piano lesson and found a bunch of blouses I totally had forgotten I had, what with wearing jerseys of one kind or another all year.

  178. 178.

    different-church-lady

    @Frankensteinbeck: Jesus, thank you. I’m tellin’ ya folks, this is Facebook all over again; today it’s “what’s the problem” and tomorrow it’s “How did we let this one company have so much power over us?”

  181. 181.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Frankensteinbeck: 8-12 hours a day, 5-7 days a week. They did pick up any hotel expenses and generally gave a per diem on food. I don’t recall them ever paying for gas tho.

    And I got to travel to such exotic locations as Oil Trough, Arkansas, Pigs Knuckle, Pennsylvania, or Arm Pit, Texas.

  182. 182.

    different-church-lady

    @Frankensteinbeck: Traveler’s checks were invented to solve a problem we don’t have anymore.

    PayPal was invented to solve a new problem (which it did well) but is now in the business of solving problems we don’t have.

  183. 183.

    Cameron

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: If I get a call from any number that isn’t on my contact list, I don’t answer.  It’s especially annoying recently, since I’m an Old, there’s stimulus money, it’s tax refund time…I must get at least a dozen bogus calls every day.  Very annoying.

  184. 184.

    NotMax

    @Central Planning

    Found a U.S. Savings Bond with an issue date from 1952 in a box of miscellaneous clutter some time back. Still in the ‘Really got do something with that one of these days’ category.

    I’m not sure banks even issue paper savings bonds anymore.

  185. 185.

    Salty Sam

    @different-church-lady: They will continue to worm their way into other situations like this…

    I was just having a conversation with my wife the other day, about growing up with rotary dial telephones-  “Remember when we could walk out of the house to run an errand and NOT feel naked without our phone in our pocket?”

    I despise the costs and intrusion of telecomms companies in my life, and how they’ve wormed their way into my everyday life, and at the same time, appreciate the convenience and usefulness of  smart phones and their apps.  Seems to me that PayPal is very similar.

    “TANSTAAFL”. (There AIn’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch)

  187. 187.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Cameron: Just do like I do. Turn it off. The downside is that you miss phone calls from loved ones, but in my case I don’t always want to talk to them either.

    LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!!! (for just a few hours anyway)

  191. 191.

    Ken

    @different-church-lady: I was explaining Bitcoin to my father the other day. The analogy I used was “Imagine you have a wallet, and you put a ten dollar bill in it. When you next open the wallet, that might have turned into a twenty, or a five. How useful would that be as currency?”

  192. 192.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @OzarkHillbilly: a recent iPhone 11 update offered me a chance to block all suspected spam calls, it’s the first real improvement I’ve noticed. It doesn’t make up for the loss of the home button.

    I’ve also started setting my phone to Do Not Disturb more and more frequently. Trouble is I keep forgetting to turn it off. Actually, it’s not much trouble so far.

  194. 194.

    different-church-lady

    @Salty Sam: Just about everything about the 21st century leads to Daffy telling Elmer Fudd, “For a small price, I can install this little blue button to get you down!”

  195. 195.

    different-church-lady

    @Omnes Omnibus: I might want to consider contracts in the first place. This is all such penny-ante loosey-goosey stuff. It’s a miracle I don’t get burned on a regular basis, but somehow we all get by without the whole thing going Lord of the Flies on everyone.

  196. 196.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    It’s also how you prepare for appellate arguments. FWIW it can be fun to be one of the “judges” and be trolly. One can pretend to simply not understand something and keep coming back to it or ask irrelevant questions. Judges do, so one needs to be ready.

    Protip: “Fuck you, you disingenuous fuck” is often not the best response to such questions.

  197. 197.

    Salty Sam

    @different-church-lady: Just about everything about the 21st century leads to Daffy telling Elmer Fudd, “For a small price, I can install this little blue button to get you down!”

    I agree with you 100% on this…

  198. 198.

    Mo Salad

    Quit worrying about tax reporting of miniscule interest amounts on your 1040. Amounts under $10 are not reported to the IRS. That’s why you didn’t receive a 1099. But neither did the IRS. While you are legally obligated to report all of your income, I wouldn’t lose any sleep about not finding that $1.09 of interest. If you are using the tax tables to compute your liability, your tax is not likely to change.

  199. 199.

    Ken

    @different-church-lady: This is all such penny-ante loosey-goosey stuff. It’s a miracle I don’t get burned on a regular basis, but somehow we all get by without the whole thing going Lord of the Flies on everyone.

    This should be the preface of every economics textbook.

  204. 204.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @rikyrah:

    One woman who Gaetz and Greenberg had sex with had sex with an unidentified associate of theirs in FLA Republican politics.

    Reminds me of a popular song from the 1920s — “I Danced with a Man Who Danced with a Girl Who Danced with the Prince of Wales” — except much ickier.

  205. 205.

    NotMax

    Some of the conversation this morning made me remember this bit from a parody Heathkit radio ad from the 60s.

    “Other kit makers advertise ‘almost all you have to do is shake the box.’ Heapkits does away with the ‘almost.’ Our guarantee: just shake the box — with our modestly priced box shaker kit — and if your TV, stereo or whatever does not instantly go together, simply ship it to our factory where our trained technicians will do it for a (pause to clear throat) slight additional charge.”

    Though my favorite part remains this:

    “Other kits require you use wires of different sizes and even different colors. Not Heapkits. All our wires are sixteen inches long and green; you can’t go wrong!”

  206. 206.

    WaterGirl

    @Baud:

    Republicans think they can tell their voters they support the things they vote against.

    And they’re right.  They do exactly that, and it likely works at least half the time.

  208. 208.

    Chris Johnson

    @different-church-lady: You’re not wrong there.

    Me, I’ll still take PayPal because people demand to not have to use Patreon, but in my opinion you’re right. I think our best bet here is Elizabeth Warren. Bet she’s taking notes.

    I’m in the music business, I already knew third parties wedge themselves in, block alternate paths and then take your money. For me that’s ‘Tuesday’. It’s Twitter and Facebook that got more of my ire. Paypal isn’t propagandizing me, just taking my money because it can.

  210. 210.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    Electronic payment is much, much easier for the merchant/ seller and since most people are adopting it is one of the few win/wins.  We were late starting with it but it’s a better system, IMO. The transaction fee is worth every penny and costs much less over time than handling checks or cash with any volume at all. Just the instant recording of the transaction is worth it and the ability to move it without handling it or counting and entering the figure over and over all but eliminates errors. In/out instantly. There’s no float, waiting for paper to appear or clear so there’s no “balancing”. God, just no bad checks alone is worth the fee. I have to keep a local bank account because a lot of our people still pay in cash or checks but I’d be happy to go 100% electronic.

  211. 211.

    sherparick

    @debbie: ​
      Higher taxes on rich people (which is what higher taxes on corporations means since they overwhelmingly owned and controlled by the rich) and not on me. For 40 years Republicans have been trying to keep people confused that the taxes on the rich are actually taxes on them.

  216. 216.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    You’re a merchant. You’re selling something. The idea that there are more intermediaries electronically than writing a check is just not true. Issue the check, perhaps mail the check, you then handle the check, deposit it or cash it, enter the sum into however you keep track of that – this is all unpaid labor on your end. You buy these checks, right? Put the gas in your car to haul them around and hand them to someone else who then spends time handling them and counting them over and over, at each step of the chain? None of those steps are “free”.

  217. 217.

    Ruckus

    @SFAW:

    She is saying exactly that. She just has a way to say it so that doesn’t use those exact words. Because you know that if the person asking her the most inane questions, designed to draw the wrong response actually understood what was happening to them they would never open their ignorant mouths again. Or they would lay on the floor, screaming and crying like the small spoiled child they are.

  218. 218.

    Origuy

    @SFAW: Hey, buddy, got any spare bitcoin?

    I saw that Coinstar machines now pay in bitcoin.

    I also saw that the Coinstar CEO gave the guy who got his last paycheck in pennies a check for the whole lot and rounded it up to $1000.

  219. 219.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay: ​

    Electronic payment is much, much easier for the merchant/ seller and since most people are adopting it is one of the few win/wins.

    Certainly true. It’s being locked into the absolute shittiest electronic payment system, the one known to screw over merchants in ways that ought to be illegal, that’s the problem.

  220. 220.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    Love the people who invented it. There are few things that make me happier than watching money appear – like magic!- in my business account. And it’s all neatly recorded and accurately summed and I can just take those sums and put them into whatever else I have to fill out and it always balances.

  222. 222.

    Kay

    @Frankensteinbeck:

    I think we disagree on “screwing over merchants”. “Merchants” are perhaps not counting the cost of all the labor they’re doing handling paper – it isn’t free. Checks are, quite frankly, a nightmare and they can’t get gone soon enough for me. I’m a complete convert. Vastly superior, IMO, and well worth a fee.

  223. 223.

    Omnes Omnibus

    It’s funny how the needs of every sort of business and and every sort of person who does business are exactly the same.

  225. 225.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay: I used to write an invoice and send it via e-mail. The check arrived and I deposited it in my bank account.

    Under PayPal I write the same invoice, but I also fill out a bunch of redundant stuff on the PayPal site. PayPal takes a fee — usually about $18 bucks for the client I’m talking about. Once the client pays the money sits in my (and this is important…) PAYPAL account, (NOT my bank account) until I specifically request it move to my bank account. When I make that request PayPal (a) offers to charge me another fee to move it immediately (b) or offers to move the money for free but with a delay of a couple of days and (c) encourages me to leave the money with them in the first place.

    I will leave it to you to explain how I am better off under this new scenario than I was in the old.

    (P.S. Don’t ever leave us again!)

  229. 229.

    Geminid

    @Ken: If Patriots coach Bill Belichek’s poltics were better, I’d nominate him as Press Secretary for a day. I’d love to see Belichek grunting out surly, monosyllabic answers to to the press corps’ silly questions.

  230. 230.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    Always remember who owns the WP.

    American people who can read and understand that chart that shows that wealthy Americans pay less taxes than everyone else, especially since 2017 are the ones who want to raise taxes on exactly the people that have billions and are sucking more out of the economy while adding nothing of value, who don’t drive on the roads or take the trains, they have had their own planes. (Apparently, private jets are currently being repossessed at a higher rate than normal in Palm Beach)

  232. 232.

    J R in WV

    @burnspbesq: 

    So today is the Day of Peak Effectiveness (two weeks since Shot Two).

    Trader Joe’s or Austin Vintage Guitars…?

    Porque no los dos? (did I spel that wright?) ;~)

  233. 233.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @SFAW: ​Burnsie in a Trabi, now wouldn’t that be a hoot and 1/2?

    A few years back I spent a few days in the Hotel Kiev in Bratislava, one of the old monsters built for Warsaw Pact tourism. The cavernous lobby was mostly empty but for a centrally-positioned bright shiny Trabi in the livery of the VB: the Veřejná bezpečnost, the national police when it was still part of the Czechoslovak SSR.

    I tried the doors. They were locked. I went to the check-in counter and asked why. Because everyone would try to sit in it, they replied. I noted as a lesson in capitalism that an awful lot of Western tourists would love to stay in their not-all-that-well-updated-from-Intourist-days hotel if they could thereby get a photo of themselves behind the wheel of a VB cruiser.

    (FTR I did get my photo a few years later, in a Trabi with frogman flippers on the rear doors, rather tentatively installed in the roof garden of a pretty freaky 5-storey-high restaurant in Lviv.)​

  235. 235.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @satby: ​Ms Psaki could use an anger translator who would proceed to fuck up anyone who asked stupid or gotcha questions.

    I nominate Major Biden. Major! Sic ’em!

  236. 236.

    Kay

    @different-church-lady:

    Can you request they just transfer the payment to your bank? We pay every single bill electronically now, account to account with the exception of the municipal utility who refuse to participate so are dinging the low income set with their Ally and Chime accounts who want to pay electronically. I love Elizabeth Warren but the wholly electronic banking services are wildly popular with lower income people – they don’t need a bank branch anymore. They’re paid by electronic transfer and they pay by electronic transfer and for everything else they have a debit card.

    Once you hit a majority of people paying electronically the old system starts to seem almost comically archaic. “Let me get this straight- you brought the paper on a truck to the office in big binders and then another truck took the paper near and far and however many days/trips later everyone got paid?”  The old way seems crazily complicated, once you’re in the groove and it’s all whooshing out and in on the regular.

  237. 237.

    Ruckus

    @satby:

    There has always been a cost of doing business, especially when the number of customers grows. Now that the use of cash is much less than 20 yrs ago, and one doesn’t even need a card to pay, it’s 2 clicks on your phone and the transaction is, for all intents and purpose, instantaneous on both ends. The world of transactions has changed a lot in the last 20 or so years.

  238. 238.

    J R in WV

    @burnspbesq:

    ‘They won’t have the model I’m interested in (Taycan Cross Turismo) until summer.

    Looks quite beautiful… what do you think the range will be on the larger battery? Not that I’m going to pay $95,000 for even a Porsche… But beautiful, like most Porsches.

  239. 239.

    J R in WV

    @jonas: ​
     

    @Cheryl Rofer: ​
    Her staff generates the likely questions by watching tv and social media.

    …and then asking what’s the stupidest, most inane fucking question someone could ask about this stuff?

    Let me fix this for you:
    “…and then asking what’s the stupidest, most inane Republican-slanted fucking question someone could ask about this stuff?”

    See what I did there? Better?

  242. 242.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay:  I could, but it leaves me in the same dilemma: in order to get them to pay using any other method than PayPal, I have to put up a stink.
    The issue is not physical vs. electronic; the issue is they insist on PayPal.
    In the end I decided to silently add the fees to my invoice rather than raise the stink.
    Some other points:
    * I use electronic a LOT. I pay almost all bills this way. I’m not a complete luddite. But I will not use PayPal for it, nor anything else I can avoid.
    * I have occasionally allowed PayPal for international clients. For some reason there were no fees involved.
    * I had one client who wanted to do wire transfer because their office was frequently empty of accounting people due to COVID. I explained that my bank was going to hit me for for a fee, and I’d be happy to wait for a check. They agreed, no problem.
    * If every one of my clients insisted I used PayPal they’d be getting thousands of dollars in fees. That’s not a good scenario, even if I make the clients pay for it — PayPal is increasing the cost of my doing business either way, and I am not getting anything new or useful in return for it.

    What I am railing against is the way PayPal is winning the mindshare war to make sure they are the ONLY method people use for ALL transactions, in the very same way Facebook tried to be the only way people communicated. They may make some people’s lives easier in certain situations, but not ALL situations. They have taken something in my life that was simple and established, complicated it, charged me for it, and are trying to convince everyone it’s better. And other than being obstinate, I’m pretty powerless to fight that tide.

  243. 243.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Kay: ​

    Once you hit a majority of people paying electronically the old system starts to seem almost comically archaic.

    The point is not that paying electronically is bad. The point is that PayPal is a bad service for doing it, and as a merchant, being forced to use it is annoying and potentially dangerous, because PayPal thinks your money is theirs to do whatever they feel like with. If you’re lucky, they’re merely nickle and diming you with fees other electronic payment services don’t.

  245. 245.

    different-church-lady

    At some point we’re gonna need an app just to flush the toilet and boy won’t that be a great world.

  248. 248.

    satby

    @Omnes Omnibus: The businesses aren’t the same. But transactions involving the exchange of some sort of remuneration for some sort of product pretty much are. The most minor sales transaction is an implied contract. Which I’m sure you already know.

    It’s the mindset and changing of habits that is difficult.

  249. 249.

    different-church-lady

    @satby: Oh. Okay. I’ll just give PayPal thousands of dollars because my mindset is obsolete. Groovy, sounds great.

  250. 250.

    satby

    @Ruckus: And Kay delineated the costs of paying by check well; It’s just what people were accustomed to and so had ceased to consider the overhead. Driving to the bank and depositing checks and cash, that’s overhead too. Takes a lot of 2% fees to make up the time and a tank of gas, for me anyway.

  251. 251.

    satby

    @different-church-lady: again, totally in your power to control what free-lance business you take.

    and again, I’m agnostic on method of electronic payments. I’m an uncomplicated soul, someone wants to give me money, I will happily take it in any legal tender.

  252. 252.

    different-church-lady

    @satby: ​
      You’ve heard of mobile deposit? No more driving to the bank. Or is your mindset too obsolete to consider that?

  253. 253.

    different-church-lady

    @satby: ​
      Ah. So you’re suggesting I give up $650 to avoid an $18 dollar fee that didn’t exist before PayPal stuck their nose in? How much would you like for this great advice?

  256. 256.

    Ruckus

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    At the end of the day, business is about moving money for a product/service. I’ve owned two completely different types of business and the reality is that income and payments were generated differently but the actual movement of money was the same, in and out. Now in the first I didn’t use any intermediaries for moving that money and in the second I did. And I paid a small fee for that, which really was less of a bother because I didn’t have to spend time invoicing, collecting/on rare occasion engaging the legal system.

  257. 257.

    different-church-lady

    @Ruckus: 

    Now in the first I didn’t use any intermediaries for moving that money and in the second I did.

    It’s nice that you had that choice. I am describing a future where we don’t anymore. (I’m also describing a present where we don’t without putting up a fuss.)

  258. 258.

    J R in WV

    @different-church-lady: ​

    For the nine hundredth time, I’m not a “merchant”, I’m a freelancer.

    If you are a “freelancer” doesn’t that mean you provide services of some sort to clients? In other words, you sell a service to your client?

    Much of modern commerce is selling services — I think my doctor is a merchant, selling his service to me and my health insurance. I also think you are a merchant, selling your service, whatever that service is, to your customers.

    I can’t believe you are arguing over whether you are a merchant or not… you are selling your services, just like satby is selling her knowledge of making her stuff. Jeeze, louise!

    We all sell something, until we retire, and then we are earning deferred compensation for what we sold when we were working.

    I sold my knowledge of how to develop software… how to hire other software developers, how to write grant applications, etc. etc.

    Ozark sold his ability to assemble parts into a building.

  259. 259.

    burnspbesq

    @J R in WV:

    what do you think the range will be

    Early reports are 225-250 miles. I could make that work 95 percent of the time.

  260. 260.

    Ruckus

    @sherparick:

    A lot of small companies are corps. My first company was, the small company I work for now is, 7 total employees, including the owner.

  261. 261.

    Ruckus

    @satby:

    Oh I get it. I write 3 checks a month. Rent, gas, electric. And only because I don’t like the payment systems they use other that writing a check. Now my rent check is deposited in the office drop box, so no cost, the gas and electric each have a stamp affixed as well as the cost to print the checks, and the envelopes involved. Everything else I do is electronic.

    I have used PayPal quite a bit over time but I currently no longer use it, keep no balance in it. It was handy at one time as I had a small income stream that went into it and a couple of regular payments automatically came out of that. But I moved those to another electronic system that actually pays me when I use it.

    The world has changed a lot in the last 30 yrs or so, how we pay, how we get paid, who gets a cut and how big that is. A lot of the wealthy have been getting far more breaks financially than they should, fewer taxes, far better treatment than they should, just because they have too much money and some think they should have more. One thing I’m noticing here is that of course every transaction costs someone something, and no matter how one pays, there is always a cost involved. Either through all the effort to use cash, all the effort to purchase/use checks, or fees for using a far easier electronic system, not all of which are good or easy or cheap.

  262. 262.

    J R in WV

    @different-church-lady: ​
     

    And don’t mistake my comments as being supportive of Paypal, I hate them and only use them when I contribute to a GoFundMe for a worthy cause. Like support of Balloon-Juice back when that was the only choice.

    I much prefer ActBlue for contributing to worthy political causes, they allow you to select the fee, if any, you want to contribute to ActBlue’s operating budget when you contribute. Hard to argue with that!

    Good luck with your consulting business, whatever you consult in, and certainly include fees in your invoices!!

  263. 263.

    SFAW

    @Ruckus:

    She is saying exactly that. She just has a way to say it so that doesn’t use those exact words.

    Yes, I know. That was my point. She has the self-control; I would not.

Comments are closed.