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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Thursday Morning Open Thread: Not Our Circus, Not Our Monkeys

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Not Our Circus, Not Our Monkeys

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I like the Democratic message!

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241Comments

  2. 2.

    germy

    Reporters from “conservative” outlets keep trying to stump the band:

    The reporter tried two different gotchas and was shut down both times:
    “She said 50 organizations! She must be lying!”
    (Psaki starts rattling them off)
    “Why do you need so many organizations??” https://t.co/4wPnWk7n0N

    — Charles #GetCovered-ba (@charles_gaba) May 6, 2021

  3. 3.

    debbie

    Mitch is the perfect heir to Dick Cheney’s “It (power) is our due.” Screwem.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    Some “moderate” black woman Republican who voted for Biden said that the “sane” Republicans will make some big announcement next month that she couldn’t reveal right now.

  5. 5.

    MattF

    The question is whether they should push back harder, e.g., ‘We haven’t caused a half-million American deaths’.

  6. 6.

    debbie

    @germy:

    Stupid reporter. She wants the CDC to come up with guidelines with no input from anyone. Experts should proceed inexpertly?

  8. 8.

    Spanky

    Of the 81 minutes and 15 seconds of Tucker Carlson Tonight ad time from March 25-31, My Pillow made up about 20% of those, Fox News Channel promos had over 5% and Fox Nation had nearly 4%. Relief Factor and Balance of Nature were the only other advertisers to account for at least 5% of the total commercial minutes during the show.

    Nearly 50% of My Pillow’s total TV ad impressions during that final week of March came from Fox News’s primetime block of Carlson (27%), Hannity (13%) and the Ingraham Angle (10%), though the company is clearly all-in on Hannity more than anyone else.

    Carlson’s other top advertisers once again read like… less of a primetime roster.

    Ark Encounter, which has the fourth-most airings of any brand during the show, is a museum/ship with exhibits and a zoo in Williamstown, Ky. For Relief Factor, over 41% of their TV ad impressions in 2021 have come from daytime programming, and ALL impressions are during Fox News shows.

    Among the brands that appeared during Tucker Carlson Tonight in January but weren’t there anymore in March were AliveCor, Relaxium, TaxSlayer.com, RockAuto, Gotham Street, OmegaXL, SlimFast and many more.

    Yet these departures also opened the door for the likes of new advertisers too. That list included right-wing misinformation hub PragerU, Theraworx Relief, Hero Health, the Indianapolis Colts, Kubota and Bass Pro Shops, to name a few.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    Seems apropos.

    “Unreason and anti-intellectualism abominate thought. Thinking implies disagreement; and disagreement implies nonconformity; and nonconformity implies heresy; and heresy implies disloyalty — so, obviously, thinking must be stopped. But shouting is not a substitute for thinking and reason is not the subversion but the salvation of freedom.”
     - Adlai Stevenson
    .

  17. 17.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    The GOP will still occasionally flog Bill Clinton supposedly not allowing Bob Casey to speak at the 1992 convention because he was anti-choice, as demonstrating Dem intolerance.

    The page will stay right where it’s at until we are finished reading it.

  21. 21.

    Anonymous At Work

    Anyone got a quote from Manchin or Sinema about McConnell’s quote?

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    IIRC, last time House Republicans held a leadership vote, it was a secret vote and Cheney retained her seat by a wider margin than you’d expect given all the public groveling before the orange crybaby. That was before Trump told McCarthy to get rid of Cheney or else. So, will House GOP members have to record their next leadership vote in public? Awkward!

  24. 24.

    randy khan

    Jen Psaki is awfully good, not just because I like her snark, but because she’s really focused on getting the Administration’s message out.  The Trump Administration did itself no favors by having a series of press secretaries who thought their job was to not tell anyone anything.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: It almost seems like a movement afoot. I’m loving the stories about whiny store/restaurant owners who can’t find staff. Pay them more! Isn’t that what we’re told when anyone questions obscene payouts to CEOs? That they have to shovel millions of dollars at these geniuses or they’ll go elsewhere? Okay then, same principle applies! You want servers? Pay what the market demands or STFU!

  28. 28.

    germy

    @debbie:

    Reporter:  “Why do you do this thing?”

    Psaki: “Here are the reasons.  Also, these things are standard. They’ve always been done.”

    Reporter:  “Pfft.”

  29. 29.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I wonder if it’s the Ivanaka/Goldman Sachs plan women borrow from their future Social Security benefits to pay for child care.

    While the details of the proposal remain unknown, Rubio told Politico this week that he plans to fund the program, which would offer six weeks of parental leave, using Social Security benefits, a new idea circulating in conservative circles. Under this system, workers would draw from their Social Security retirement benefits, delaying their benefits once they retire.

    They have another one for college costs on the Right, where people also borrow from future Social Security benefits.
    In a generation we could have parents who spent their future Social Security benefits on child care, but their children can’t because those children already spent theirs on college.

  30. 30.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven: I knew there was a reason for my fondness of 5/6. I mean a reason other than the fact that Cinco de Mayo was over.

  32. 32.

    Shalimar

    @Betty Cracker: If they want her out, and McCarthy seems to have decided they do, the vote will be public.  I think she still wins a secret vote.

  33. 33.

    rikyrah

    Enjoy that 46 brought up that Moscow Mitch said the same thing about 44.

    Remind those tricks in the MSM that we know you are shilling for Moscow Mitch and that bipartisan bullshyt is just that….so, your dumb azzes need to stop.asking about it ??

  34. 34.

    debbie

    @Kay:

    “Why can’t these Americans act more like the undocumented aliens I used to reign over?”

  38. 38.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: It sounds like Cheney knows she’ll be replaced as Conference Chairman, and is not putting much energy into trying to keep the post. Next year’s Wyoming Congressional primary will be a different story, I think. That will be a real fight, and I would not count Cheney out.

  39. 39.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    They left a note on the door (because the store is closed) and “disrespectful” was their second complaint after “low wages”.

  40. 40.

    artem1s

    @debbie:

    Stupid reporter. She wants the CDC to come up with guidelines with no input from anyone. Experts should proceed inexpertly?

    worked for TFG, surely input from Jared is all the expertise anyone needs.  /s

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Conservatives are up at night, fretting over the fact that lower income people haven’t burned through their Social Security benefits yet. It’s money just sitting there that Right wingers could spend!

    Anyone who allows even the slightest CHINK in the wall that protects Social Security should be immediately driven from office. They will spend every fucking penny if they get their greedy mitts on it.

  43. 43.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @raven:

    Voted into the Hall of Fame in 1979, he was the ninth player to be so honored in his first year of eligibility. But when 23 of 432 baseball writers failed to vote for Mays, Dick Young wrote, “If Jesus Christ were to show up with his old baseball glove, some guys wouldn’t vote for him. He dropped the cross three times, didn’t he?”

  45. 45.

    zhena gogolia

    @Betty Cracker: 
    Oh, the terrorist fist bump! Not a form of greeting that we’ve all had to adopt since TFG bungled the pandemic response!

  46. 46.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    When people used to get paper social security benefit statements in the mail, sometimes they would bring it in the office and ask me if the projected benefit was real- always low income older people.

    So anxious, because they know it is all they will have. Thank goodness they didn’t spend it on child care, right?

  47. 47.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Kay: It’s invested in US treasury bonds. What the GOP objects to is that nobody is able to steal use it to make more money.

  50. 50.

    Kay

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Oh, I agree. It makes them absolutely furious that there is a giant pile of money out there that no one is skimming.

    People made fun of Al Gore for the “lockbox” but he was dead on. It has to to be sequestered, behind a moat, with dragons.

  51. 51.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: But think of the returns we could get if the Social Security Trust Fund were invested in Bitcoin!  Or gold, I just saw a commercial about how gold is always a good investment.

  52. 52.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    But, it’s Good that little Marco is pushing this ridiculous bullshyt.

    Like the GOP.option is a.viable one.

    Phuck that trick ?

  54. 54.

    Soprano2

    @Spanky: Not surprised to see Bass Pro Shops on that list, they’re Republicans from way back. They made a big deal out of George W. shopping there once when he was in town for some event. My husband worked there, and he hates that place with the hot hatred of a 1,000 blue suns. I think if I ever shopped there he’d divorce me!

  57. 57.

    leeleeFL

    @Betty Cracker: As a server, I can tell you it isn’t just about money….though that’s a big thing.  Many of my fellow servers and bartenders did not get called back in one month, like I did.  I was scared crapless, but i was there every shift because i wasn’t giving anyone an excuse to ley me go.  after 7-8 years of building a career there, fuck that noise.  Many of my fellows went back to school, learned real estate or insurance,  work in offices, or groceries or drug stores.  They get weekends off quite often, do not have to work holidays, pay for day care  AND some are happy to know what their kids look like, or see a spouse more often than passing each other in the doorway.  Lady COVID-19, has changed the landscape dramatically.

  60. 60.

    Betty Cracker

    @leeleeFL: Those are all great points. If this country wasn’t weighed down by a plurality of religious fanatics and oppositional defiant disordered kooks who are reflexively hostile to change, this would be a great time to rethink how we do the service industry in this country. But we are where we are, so it’s heartening to see the free market slapping some of the biggest assholes in the face.

  61. 61.

    Betty Cracker

    @rikyrah: Excellent point. Their ultimate goal seems to be to memory-hole Trump and the insurrection but use the Big Lie to dismantle the institutions that ensure election integrity. I’m not sure they won’t get away with it either.

  62. 62.

    Ken

    @rikyrah: What’s the new scam that Elon Musk has come up with now?

    Is that a rhetorical question, or is he really pushing something?  “It’s like bitcoin, but the servers are on Mars!”

  63. 63.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: Yep, they want all that money in the stock market so they can gamble with it. There’s nothing wrong with the stock market, but people’s SS benefits shouldn’t be there.

  64. 64.

    leeleeFL

    @Betty Cracker: Yes, but… there’s always a but….I am working overtime, getting bitched at by bosses for the ridiculous crime of thinking and SAYING we are too understaffed to allow the number of people who come in to eat, and listening to my fellow employees who haven’t left, bitch about me thinking we have to feed the people (having checked with one of said bosses) cause they want to go home!!!  I NEED to win the Bleeding Lottery!

  65. 65.

    Soprano2

    @leeleeFL: Good to see a personal report that tracks with what I believe, which is that the extra unemployment is only a small part of the reason for the current shortage of people to work in the service industry. Every time the topic comes up in conversation, the other person immediately says “It’s that extra unemployment, no one wants to work anymore”. I always push back on that, saying it’s only a small part of the issue. I had one person who actually hadn’t even thought of the problem with daycares either being closed or operating at 50%! Like, hey, that’s a big problem for working women with children, who do you think works at these jobs? I’m not sure what the total solution is going to be for the hospitality industry, but I know part of it will involve paying more money.

  66. 66.

    The Thin Black Duke

    @Betty Cracker: 
    Yeah, but the sheep who will believe the GOP’s revisionist history want to believe it, so what does it matter? Facts never meant anything to them anyway.

  68. 68.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: They left a note on the door (because the store is closed) and “disrespectful” was their second complaint after “low wages”.

    That’s probably actually what caused them to quit. We have a server whose husband fell down the stairs and got a concussion, so she had to miss her shift Saturday night. Our manager told her do what you need to do, we’ll cover it, and it was covered just fine. The next time I saw her, she thanked me profusely for letting her do that, and my thought was “what kind of monsters have you worked for in the past?”. I mean really, treat people with dignity, tell them you appreciate what they do for you. My biggest worry right now is that our manager is having to work so much because of the worker shortage. When our employees tell us how much they appreciate us, we tell them we appreciate them more because without them we’d have nothing. It’s the truth! Oh, and the people at the Dollar Store quitting can’t be the high unemployment, because they probably won’t be able to draw any!

  69. 69.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Betty Cracker: ​

    it’s time to “turn the page.”

    Yep. Like I said, very few of them worship Trump, even publicly. McCarthy does, the nutcase, which is amplifying a tiny trend. But they can’t repudiate Trump. That’s disloyalty, not to Trump, but to total war against evil Democrats. In particular it’s unacceptable to claim that Democrats didn’t cheat to win, because blacks only being able to win by cheating has been a core Republican principle since Nixon.So what the vast majority of elected Republicans want is for everyone to shut the fuck up about Trump and let him fade into the past while they concentrate on what’s important: voter suppression.
    @Betty Cracker: ​

    That was before Trump told McCarthy to get rid of Cheney or else.

    And like I said, McCarthy specifically is the one who bends the knee to Trump, but he was chosen to be point man for assholery, which is just the kind of person who would cling to and worship the orange toad.

    @rikyrah: ​

    Her more significant heresy is demanding the GOP commit to democracy *going forward.* And Republicans don’t want to do this:

    Bingo. Trump’s claim that Democrats cheated is everything Republicans are and have been, he only made it the issue of the day. And what have white supremacists done every single time blacks outvoted them for the first time in a state they thought was a white refuge? Pissed themselves in terror, gone apeshit with fury, and thrown Democracy aside to stop blacks from being able to vote, with a governmental overthrow if necessary.

  70. 70.

    RSA

    @Soprano2: From the Social Security Administration:

    Social insurance, as conceived by President Roosevelt, would address the permanent problem of economic security for the elderly by creating a work-related, contributory system in which workers would provide for their own future economic security through taxes paid while employed.

    One would think that’s a problem easy enough for even a Republican in Congress to understand.

  72. 72.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m not sure they won’t get away with it either.

    This is kind of doom and gloomy. I don’t think it’s that bad

  73. 73.

    Soprano2

    @leeleeFL: I know, I’m not sure what’s going to happen, because you can’t automate serving people at their tables. I think in the fast food part of the industry there will be more and more automation. I also wonder how many of those places will close their dining rooms and go to drive-thru only locations, because you can operate a drive thru with fewer employees. I’ve noticed that around here even though they could be at 100% capacity right now some fast food places haven’t opened their dining rooms yet. I also think one issue in hospitality is that the huge immigration crackdown that’s happened the past 4 years is finally coming home to roost. I saw “All Things Considered” did a story about how the lack of a certain type of visa employee is really hurting the industry in some areas. That could actually be an issue in Branson, which is hurting a lot more for employees than Springfield is right now. I’ll also tell you that I’ve made it clear to all of my employees that they are not to put up with customers treating them disrespectfully, or harassing them. We had a customer we had to ban because he kept trying to show the women “dick pics” – and he was over 60, so to me even more shocking than normal! How gross! No one should have to put up with that.

  74. 74.

    Betty Cracker

    @The Thin Black Duke: That’s true. Maybe the best strategy is to drive a wedge between the Trumpenproletariat, who don’t comprise a majority of voters, and unaffiliated voters who aren’t onboard for disenfranchisement efforts that affect them, like what’s happening in Florida and Georgia. It would take sustained and disciplined messaging, so who knows…

  76. 76.

    Betty Cracker

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The governor of my state just signed a bill restricting ballot access (after bragging for months about how the 2020 election was a “model for the nation”), so I’m not feeling particularly optimistic today.  Feel free to pie me if you find my uncertainty about the ultimate outcome disturbing.

  77. 77.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Betty Cracker: Isn’t that what we’re told when anyone questions obscene payouts to CEOs? That they have to shovel millions of dollars at these geniuses or they’ll go elsewhere?

    The interesting thing is that the correlation between corporate performance and CEO compensation is negative. (CEOs are routinely compensated this year for last year’s “great job” – which they had fook-all to do with, merely having been in the right seats at the right time – and when the stars don’t align in the same propitious way, things go south.) Whereas when the folks who actually do the work get paid better (and are treated more respectfully) they generally respond by doing a good job.

  78. 78.

    leeleeFL

    @Soprano2:  Thank God I don’t have that kind of thing to deal with…though the disrespectful stuff does happen.  I am old enough to give them the Mom/Grandma stare of disapproval and that is the end of that.  One older guy(my age) who’s noted for being inappropriate pulled something on Saturday.  I stared at him like a bacteria and he apologized.  Gotta have a line they cannot cross.

  79. 79.

    Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:  at least those assholes died off and we finally had a unanimous vote recently. It was so fucking stupid. I hope to see more.

  80. 80.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Betty Cracker:

    I’m sure that law will be challenged and more than likely ruled unconstitutional. The SCOTUS knows that if they go too far, Dems will do court reform

  82. 82.

    Frankensteinbeck

    I must add that in Arizona it was the Native American vote that organized and turned the tide against the white supremacists, but the history of how white supremacists respond is all demonstrated with the black vote.

  84. 84.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @OzarkHillbilly: ​I’m recalling former PGH/BOS/PHA first baseman Dick Stuart, whose fielding was so atrocious he was called “Dr. Strangeglove” – not for that nickname, but a more obscure one: “The Ancient Mariner” – because, just like the guy in the poem, “he stoppeth one of three”…

  85. 85.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @debbie: What he meant was that they have turned the page on Trump as being a viable 2024 candidate. He’s just a box to be ticked so that the GOP can keep the base happy and engaged — which really means — enraged. Liz is ruining that for the GOP by reminding everyone that Trump is, well, Trump and that ticking the Trump box (bending the knee to him) means that the GOP is full-on racist, insurrectionist, and nihilist. Pretty much exactly what Republican voters want, apparently.

  87. 87.

    Soprano2

    @leeleeFL: We just banned that dude, because even though he told my husband he’d stop doing it he didn’t stop. We also banned another guy who was routinely rude to the servers. We hated to do that, because we really like his girfriend, but he was too much to put up with. The beauty of owning your own place is that you don’t have to put up with things if you don’t want to.

  88. 88.

    evodevo

    @Soprano2: Had a customer on my mail route who would do that, only NOT with a phone lol – he sat in his front yard and exposed himself if you were a younger blond female.  He was elderly and a stroke victim, and this stuff didn’t start till after the CVA, so I concluded it was stroke damage.  I would just wave at him and drive on by, but the younger carriers were all freaked out…he never approached the car or got out of his lawn chair…..

    I would probably have said to your customer, “Oh, it’s SO tiny!  No wonder your wife left!”  Works every time…

  90. 90.

    Ken

    @Uncle Cosmo: “The Ancient Mariner” – because, just like the guy in the poem, “he stoppeth one of three”…

    My takeaway is that sportswriters used to be a lot more well-read.

  94. 94.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Soprano2: We hated to do that, because we really like his girfriend, but he was too much to put up with.

    I once left a guy paddling a canoe in the dark miles from his takeout because just the thought of his *bitchy GF* in my camp was just too much. Looked at my sons and said, “Remember this boys when you start dating.”

    **We heard her long before they paused in front of our camp. “Long suffering” didn’t begin to describe what that poor guy was putting up with.

  95. 95.

    Betty Cracker

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I hope you’re right. On the bright side, that law could have been a lot worse. FL Republicans saw what happened in GA (corps speaking out, games moved to other states) and chickened out on the worst provisions. Still, it’s plenty bad enough, and legal analysts don’t seem overwhelmingly confident that it’ll be overturned. We’ll see. DeSantis signed it in front of a Trump fan club (literally) in West Palm and banned all media except Fox News. I hope in-your-face shit like that hurts him politically, but he seems to think it won’t. Again, we’ll see.

  96. 96.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: Excellent opening scene.  Does the guy come rushing into your camp at two in the morning, yelling “There’s been a terrible accident! I think my girlfriend’s dead!”

  97. 97.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    BTW, what happened to Omnes? I haven’t seen his nym lately, though admittedly I haven’t been as active myself

  98. 98.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker:

    The governor of my state just signed a bill restricting ballot access

    before twitter went cattywampus on me, I saw that he had banned media from the signing ceremony because he had granted Fox News “an exclusive”

  99. 99.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Headline on an opinion piece at the Guardian: To understand why Joe Biden has shifted left, look at the people working for him

    I can’t bring myself to *read it* (or even link it), I am just amazed at the blinders one must wear to not notice who it was who put those people in those positions?

    **it is in fact possible the author does address Joe’s picking his people, headlines are usually written by others after all.

  100. 100.

    Barbara

    @Betty Cracker: It’s depressing, but I will say that Virginia used this gambit to try to forestall the blue-ification of the state, along with harsh gerrymandering and very limited absentee voting, and it was, to say the least, only temporarily successful.  I think the wild card in Florida has always been the disproportionately large population of seniors (in a state that is growing economically, the proportion of seniors tends to go down, not up) along with in-migration of Latino groups that are highly suspicious of anything that smacks of socialism.  The senior factor matters because of the significant demographic and voting differences by age cohort at this point in time.

  102. 102.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @OzarkHillbilly: that’s a common theme in the tubes: Biden has co-opted the policies of [person I preferred during the primaries and whose major policy initiatives Biden has not, in fact, adopted but it gives me some weird I-told-you-do vibe to pretend my candidate somehow really won]!

  104. 104.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

    FYI

    Lawsuit brought by the League of Women Voters of Florida, Black Voters Matters Fund, Florida Alliance for Retired Americans and individual voters against all 67 Florida counties challenging the voter suppression law, SB 90. The case claims that SB 90’s drop-box restrictions, vote by mail repeat request requirement, volunteer assistance ban, deceptive registration warning and food and water ban violate the First and Fourteenth Amendments.

  105. 105.

    Anonymous At Work

    @Betty: To quote Samuel L Jackson, “What’s the weather like on [his] planet?!”

    Oddly, that line did not have any words redacted.

  106. 106.

    Another Scott

    @Barbara: +1

    People seem to forget that Claude Pepper was able to stay in Congress for decades and keep Social Security sacrosanct by riling up seniors – “Keep your foul hands off Social Security!”.  Even with the Teabaggers Disease, that still has to be a powerful message there, if Democrats would run with it (or a modernized version of it).

    Atrios’ 2013 USAToday column still applies.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  107. 107.

    Baud

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    It’s annoying, but “Biden has co-opted someone I like” is better than “Hillary is totally against someone I like” was.

    In an ideal world, people would have the courage to admit that they had the wrong impression all along, but we live in the world of the privileged.

  108. 108.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Ken: If I was the writer, it would be a very short movie: “They paddled off into the darkness, never to be heard from again.”

    I couldn’t say “seen again” because it was a moonless night. Could barely make out their canoe by the light of our fire. I suppose I could have said, “You can come up into our camp, but only if you push your boat out into the current with her in it.”

  111. 111.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Glenn is like a sub’s sub. He must love being dunked on – he’s replying to himself.

    Glenn Greenwald
    @ggreenwald
    Replying to
    @ggreenwald
    Liberals are the world champions at doling out self-righteous sanctimonious lectures while violating every principle they pretend to support with their craven and self-interested actions.
    10:05 AM · May 6, 2021·Twitter Web App

  112. 112.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Betty Cracker:

    because it’s time to “turn the page.”

    So glad the DoJ isn’t just moving on from tracking down and arresting insurrectionist trash.

  114. 114.

    Ken

    @Anonymous At Work: Oddly, that line did not have any words redacted.

    I think Mr. Jackson’s signature phrase is because he’s a very good actor and enjoys the in-joke, versus that’s the limit of his acting chops.

  115. 115.

    mrmoshpotato

    @randy khan:

    The Trump Administration did itself no favors by having a series of press secretaries who thought their job was to not tell anyone anything. 

    They were all lying shitstains too, who would lie about stupid, verifiable things.

  116. 116.

    Barbara

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes: ​Can he really make a living doing this? I found out from a neighbor that a “nice young man” bought the house across the street from them and he has a Youtube gaming site that has attracted enough sponsorship for him to make a living at it. They had to ask their kids what that meant and they absolutely cannot explain it to their bemused friends. That’s how I feel about Greenwald. Who the fuck cares what Glenn Greenwald thinks enough for him to loll around on a beach in Brazil for the rest of his life? Well, obviously, Putin or his flunkies, I guess. But still.

  118. 118.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    public service announcement for DC peeps

    Paul Rosenzweig @Rosenzweig 16m
    Hey DC. The convention center vaccination site is near empty. Walk ins allowed. I was in and out in 30 minutes. Go!

  121. 121.

    OzarkHillbilly

    An interesting read: ‘We go after them like pitbulls’ – the art detective who hunts stolen Picassos and lost Matisses

    A slight, 58-year-old Italian American with a soft Brooklyn accent, Marinello went to art school before realising he “wasn’t very good”. He then trained as a lawyer, cutting his teeth as a litigator in New York representing galleries, collectors and dealers in cases involving disputed works. “Eventually, it developed into a full-time art recovery practice,” he says. In 2013, he formed his own company, Art Recovery International, which is based in Venice but has offices in London.

    A former client, quoted on his website, describes him as “a mixture of detective, terrier and pin-sharp lawyer”, but in conversation, Marinello is polite and yielding. It is difficult to imagine him stepping in as an intermediary between the police and owners of stolen art. “I am an attorney, not a badass,” he says. “But I’m a pretty good negotiator. I can convince people to do the right thing.”

    One such occasion occurred in 2010, when he was approached by a gallery in Toronto. Somebody had offered them an $80,000 bronze sculpture by Henry Moore that had been stolen nine years earlier. When Marinello contacted the seller, the person revealed himself to be a member of the Italian mafia in Toronto. “He made reference to the fact that I am also an Italian citizen,” says Marinello, “and that I was giving him a hard time. He said they could do the same to me.”

    Unfazed, Marinello was able to negotiate the sculpture’s release. “The bottom line,” he says, “is that if you are trying to sell something that is stolen, you’re the one with a problem, not me.” The mobster, he adds, “could have been arrested for trafficking, for possession, or any number of things. He needed me more than I needed him. That was what I had to convince him.”

  122. 122.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Ken:

    My takeaway is that sportswriters used to be a lot more well-read.

    Yes, indeed. Red Smith, for instance, was a brilliant writer.

  123. 123.

    Geminid

    @Frankensteinbeck: the efforts to turn out Native American voters in Arizona last November has gotten much deserved attention. In it’s  November 1, 2020 article titled “Inside the Machine to Turn Out Arizona Latino- and Flip the State Blue,” Politico reported on an effort that may have been as consequential, maybe even more. The article describes the “union members and a coalition of grassroots Latino groups that make up an expansive field operation, the likes of which the state has never seen until now.” By the time the article was written, these people were well on their way to their goal of knocking on 800,000 doors. Along with other methods, the organizers felt this in-person contact was especially effective in reaching Latino voters.

  124. 124.

    RaflW

    @rikyrah: I appreciate Adam Jentleson pointing out that Manchin is siding with slavery-plantation advocate John C Calhoun.

    @AJentleson
    The Senate was designed to give the minority input, but the Framers rejected a supermajority threshold because it gives the minority a veto. Madison wanted the minority to have a voice, Calhoun wanted a veto. Manchin is defending Calhoun’s vision of the Senate, not Madison’s.

    I don’t advocate throwing Manchin out of the caucus. But he and Sinema point out how essential it is to win a couple of more Senate seats in ’24 (not an easy task!!). Yes, whoever the next-most-marginal Dem will be the prima donna, but they should be to the left of these clowns (Manchin’s clutch votes noted).

  125. 125.

    Betty Cracker

    @OzarkHillbilly: It’s a pretty good piece, written by a former Obama admin staffer. One point he makes is that the younger Democrats working in the admin don’t have a memory of a Republican Party that’s worth negotiating with and that staffers who put together the briefing books and policy papers are more diverse than any crew in history, so they have a different perspective.

  126. 126.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @RaflW: But he and Sinema point out how essential it is to win a couple of more Senate seats in ’24 (not an easy task!!).

    this, every day on the front page and on all the twitter accounts

  130. 130.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    I love art theft stories – those collectors are deeply pathological. When it comes to the thefts themselves, my attitude is like Dennis Leary’s in the Thomas Crowne Affair.

  131. 131.

    CaseyL

    @RaflW: ​
     

    But he and Sinema point out how essential it is to win a couple of more Senate seats in ’24 (not an easy task!!).

    …2022 first, then 2024.

    Yes indeedy. But which ones? The states are so polarized, and in the Swing States the GQP is quickly passing voter suppression laws.

    I took a quick look at the states with Senate elections coming up in 2022. Of them all, only Pennsylvania (where Pat Toomey is retiring) look like a possibility to switch to a Democratic Senator.

    And then there is the specter of losing Democratic seats. Mark Kelly is up in Arizona, as he won a Special Election; what does the landscape look like for him? Ditto Ralph Warnock in Georgia, who also won a Special Election and is up again in 2022. Both AZ and GA are states with GQP-controlled state government, and both have lost no time in passing voter suppression laws. So far as I know, only the GA law is being challenged in court.

    So… where can we flip from Rep to Dem in 2022?

  132. 132.

    L85NJGT

    So… Trump’s immigration policies, COVID, and demographics, changed the equilibrium points in various US labor markets?

    You don’t say……

  133. 133.

    WaterGirl

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Omnes sometimes comments that he tires of the negativity on Balloon Juice.  At times there is so much “we’re totally screwed” and “what if this terrible thing happens?” talk on the site that it can get tiresome to the people who are more inclined to work for what they believe in than dwell on the worst that could happen.

    I don’t know whether that’s the case for Omnes in this instance or not, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it is.

  134. 134.

    Old School

    @CaseyL:

    So… where can we flip from Rep to Dem in 2022?

    You mentioned Toomey retiring.

    Burr is also retiring, so the North Carolina race will be open.

    Portman is also retiring in Ohio, but Ohio might be a tougher lift.

    And hopefully Wisconsin will finally replace Ron Johnson.

  135. 135.

    Kay

    I got a clematis yesterday. “Polish Spirit”. Isn’t that a great name? They should have made it “Polish Spirit!”

    It’s a big purple flower. Will be. Right now it’s a skinny twig with 6 leaves.

  136. 136.

    JAFD

    @Baud: For some unknown reason, the senior Casey had a deep antipathy for Bill Clinton, and kept a ‘draft (the senior) Cuomo’ movement going past the time when Clinton had a delegate majority upsewn.

    So when time to arrange speaking schedule came, the Clintonites weren’t going to do Gov Casey any favors…

  137. 137.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @CaseyL:

    So… where can we flip from Rep to Dem in 2022?

    One of Obama’s pollsters said that North Carolina is the one that, demographically, looks the most like Georgia. Ben Wikler said on the O’Bros podcast a couple of weeks ago that the reason Ron Johnson hasn’t announced yet is that, crazy and stupid as he may be, he knows he needed unusual circumstances to win– the Tea Party wave in 2010, trump bringing out those irregular voters in 2016. Florida… fuckin’ Florida….

    Other states where Ds might be vulnerable: Maggie Hassan in NW– the Sununu spawn governor is apparently quite popular and may run for the seat, and a few weeks ago, people were worried about Catherine Cortez Masto in NV, but I haven’t seen that in a while

    And a lot of people here don’t want to hear it, but we have to decide if we want candidates and platforms that give left twitter the feelie-feels, or the kind who can win in swing states.

  139. 139.

    L85NJGT

    @Betty Cracker:

    Eight years of Obama helped to build institutional experience and knowledge. Clinton had trouble staffing up – it had been twelve years from Carter, and Hamilton Jordan remains exhibit A in how not to run a White House.

  140. 140.

    different-church-lady

    @Soprano2:

    There’s nothing wrong with the stock market…

    Strictly speaking, I don’t think that’s true.

  142. 142.

    Amir Khalid

    A question for the Jackaltariat:
    I have just acquired a pair of Red Wing boots for a bargain price. Red Wing says the leather type (9013) should be maintained with leather conditioner and shoe cream, but what I have is conditioner and mink oil. Will that do instead, or do I really need shoe cream?

  143. 143.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Betty Cracker: I saw a couple of weeks ago that Conor Lamb and Chrissy Houlahan– moderate vets from opposite sides of the T– are both thinking of getting in to the primary. Malcolm Kenyatta and John Fetterman– also from opposite sides of the T– seem to be competing for the more left votes. The K-Hive, at least, has no love for Fetterman, and will not let people forget that time he chased a black jogger with a shot gun.

  151. 151.

    CaseyL

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    And a lot of people here don’t want to hear it, but we have to decide if we want candidates and platforms that give left twitter the feelie-feels, or the kind who can win in swing states.

     

    I, personally, could not care less about Left Twitter fees-fees. It’s a tiny bit of a tiny pool, and one that gives RWNJs a run for the money for pure solipsistic nihilism.

    I want candidates who will win.

    I applauded Psaki’s response to the question about McConnell’s vow of pure obstructionism; that President Biden is 100% committed to making life better for Americans. I wonder if that message would resonate in state-wide Senate and House campaigns.

    Highlight the contradictions, indeed.

  153. 153.

    WhatsMyNym

    @Barbara:

    I found out from a neighbor that a “nice young man” bought the house across the street from them and he has a Youtube gaming site that has attracted enough sponsorship for him to make a living at it.

    It means he works his ass off, unless he can afford a production team (unlikely). He probably streams on Twitch as well. So, long days even if you enjoy it.

  154. 154.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Chief Oshkosh: It’s a lie, anyway–Trump is the obvious 2024 frontrunner and they’re kidding themselves if they think they can be rid of him.

  155. 155.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @CaseyL:

    I, personally, could not care less about Left Twitter fees-fees. It’s a tiny bit of a tiny pool, and one that gives RWNJs a run for the money for pure solipsistic nihilism.

    I couldn’t agree more, but they’re a (slightly) larger pool in primaries, and they seek, and get, an outsize amount of media attention.

  157. 157.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Barbara: Conservatives in North Carolina, on the other hand, have used these tactics more or less successfully. Remember that NC looked like it was following Virginia into blue-state territory in 2008-09, but after the 2010 wave, Republicans shut that shit down. The Democratic majority there did manage to elect another governor in 2017, but the anti-majoritarian cabal that runs things there immediately moved to take away most of his power.

  160. 160.

    Brachiator

    REPORTER: Mr. President, do you have any comments on efforts to oust Liz Cheney from the House Reublican leadership post?
    BIDEN: I don’t understand the Republicans.

    I love this about Biden. I think this helped him during the presidential campaign, and I think he does this better than any of the other 2020 presidential aspirants.
    His brief dismissal is more eloquent than any long winded, or even nuanced explanation.
    During the campaign, Trump could not deal with this. He was used to opponents being stung by some bullshit attack and attempting to counterpunch.
    I also love that Biden’s press secretary is on the same page as her president.

  161. 161.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    have some mid-day schadenfreude :

    udy Giuliani, the former personal lawyer for ex-president Donald Trump, has reduced the size of his personal entourage, according to three people familiar with the matter. […]

    Giuliani has enlisted a part-time driver, Eric Ryan, the son of his friend Maria Ryan, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. But he no longer moves around Manhattan with the full complement of as many as five people he has kept around him in recent years. (Ryan didn’t respond to a request for comment.) […]

    the high-flying Giuliani — a frequent habitué of pricey outlets like the Trump International Hotel in D.C., where room rates can run in the high hundreds of dollars a night and a spoonful of wine can cost up to $140, and the Grand Havana Room, a members-only cigar bar in New York — was in need of cash. A lawyer for Giuliani’s wife also alleged in court documents that he dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a private jet subscription service, $40,000 for a friend’s son’s dental work, $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars

    still the small man in search of a balcony

  162. 162.

    Gravenstone

    @rikyrah: And Republicans don’t want to do this:

    Republicans can’t do this if they hope to remain in a position to steal control of the government. Untainted elections mean the Republicans are driven into the electoral wilderness in most of the country.

  167. 167.

    Brachiator

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I, personally, could not care less about Left Twitter fees-fees. It’s a tiny bit of a tiny pool, and one that gives RWNJs a run for the money for pure solipsistic nihilism.

    I couldn’t agree more, but they’re a (slightly) larger pool in primaries, and they seek, and get, an outsize amount of media attention.

    Good point that Left Twitter may be a larger pool in primaries, but this varies and does not always meaningfully affect results.

    They may also get an “outsize amount” of media attention, but again this does not mean that their impact is significant. Mainly they just seem to irritate blog commenters.

  171. 171.

    Ken

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Notice the information on his spending habits comes from “a lawyer for Giuliani’s wife”.  Seems like there’s some subtext there.  If it were “ex-wife”, I’d assume he’s not been keeping up with the alimony payments.

  172. 172.

    Brachiator

    @CaseyL: ​
     

    I applauded Psaki’s response to the question about McConnell’s vow of pure obstructionism; that President Biden is 100% committed to making life better for Americans. I wonder if that message would resonate in state-wide Senate and House campaigns.

    This is why Biden is smart to get as much as he can now, and ignore Left Twitter as necessary.

    Right now, McConnell can’t do much of anything to prevent Biden from getting a good chunk of his agenda done.

    If he is later in a position where he can do more obstruction, he still will not be unable to undo any of Biden’s gains.

  173. 173.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: K-Hive is sometimes used as shorthand for the many Black twitter polemicists pushing back on left wing critics of Democratic politicians. @SashaBeauloux and @ LobsterRagnarock are two of these. Beauloux points out that the lefties often whine about being attacked by those mean KHive people whenever any Black person pushes back at them. A leftie version of, “They all look alike.”

  176. 176.

    Steeplejack

    @Amir Khalid:
    Pens can be collector’s items, like watches, etc. It’s not that you need more than one; you like them and you like having more than one. Like Jerry Seinfeld and his 80 Porsches. ? You have to be able to afford them, which seems to be where Rudy is running into problems.​

    ETA: Who needs more than one guitar? ?

  180. 180.

    Amir Khalid

    @Steeplejack:
    I’ve recently been told that I’m the kind of uncultured oik who doesn’t grok the best things in life, e.g. crazy-expensive Japanese jeans made from high-end artisanal denim or collections of fancy wristwatches. Or all the cars in Jay Leno’s huge garage, or in Seinfeld’s.

  181. 181.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Some “moderate” black woman Republican who voted for Biden said that the “sane” Republicans will make some big announcement next month that she couldn’t reveal right now.

    Was her name “Joan Barron”? Did “she” say “Maybe I’ll tell you, maybe I won’t, but I bet YOU know what I mean.”

  183. 183.

    SFAW

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’ve recently been told that I’m the kind of uncultured oik who doesn’t grok the best things in life, e.g. crazy-expensive Japanese jeans made from high-end artisanal denim or collections of fancy wristwatches.

    Amazing that we still let your nekulturny self hang around here, wot wif all the “high culture” we got goin’ here. Like naked mopping, driving Subarus into ditches, FAXing credenzas to persons, things like that.

  184. 184.

    Kathleen

    @Ken: Anyone who has HBO should watch Avenue 5, a send up about a space voyage in a space ship owned by a young rich and totally incompetent megalomaniac and “flown” by a fake pilot and StarTrekesque fake flight deck manned by telegenic “crew”. At times it’s uneven but other times I laughed harder than I had in years. It was created by Armando Iannucci.

  185. 185.

    Baud

    @SFAW: Heh. For clarification, the quote marks do not indicate quotations from that person, but my skepticism as to the appropriate terms to use to describe Republicans who don’t lie about democratic outcomes.

  186. 186.

    Brachiator

    @Baud: ​
     

    Some “moderate” black woman Republican who voted for Biden said that the “sane” Republicans will make some big announcement next month that she couldn’t reveal right now.

    How many “sane” Republicans are there? Two? Three?

  188. 188.

    Mo Salad

     I wonder if the IP waiver could have a sunset provision, say 5 years. Then that 5 years would get tacked onto the end of the patent. This would be enough of a window to get additional production facilities set up, with the understanding that at the end of five years, license fees will need to be paid if they wish to continue operation. The increased demand for mRNA technology in the future would still make the investment worth the risk. With more than one mRNA vaccine out there, it could put a damper on monopolistic license fee demands.

  190. 190.

    Mo Salad

    @Brachiator: ​
    He’s saying that he has felt like his life has been put on pause for the last 14 months.

    ETA – What SFAW said.

  191. 191.

    Brachiator

    @SFAW:

    I think Munroe was trying to say he’s been in a holding pattern for over a year, but what do I know?

    I thought the “March 2020” was quite effective, even though I almost flew past it initially. But it really captured the mood just right.

    But “May 2021” is ambiguous. Progress? Back to a holding pattern again?

  192. 192.

    Barbara

    @MattF: ​ I doubt if it would speed it up greatly, but it would create more infrastructure in the long run for countries to be in a position to manufacture their own vaccines or drugs, even after the IP waivers expire. AL linked to a blistering article this morning that was highly critical of India’s response to Covid precisely because India has taken on the role of being a key distributor of drugs and vaccines to the developing world — and how at this point India is ignoring signed commitments to other countries that it had made last year to provide them with vaccines. The point being, India is already manufacturing a lot of Covid vaccines and definitely does not need any IP waivers to ramp up manufacturing. It’s other countries, like South Africa, that might be helped. The relative ignorance of so many people about the Indian pharmaceutical manufacturing prowess is truly astonishing to me. Many seem to think that India is still just an agricultural economy with a few backroom software support companies.

  193. 193.

    WaterGirl

    With this new McConnell “we are 100% against anything Biden wants and don’t give a shit about what the people need” announcement, it seems pretty clear that Biden and the Dems will go through the dance of bullshit with the Rs and then will have to pass the Jobs bill through reconciliation.

    Agree?  Disagree?  Does anyone think this outright declaration of war doesn’t change the path forward?

  195. 195.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    I’ve recently been told that I’m the kind of uncultured oik who doesn’t grok the best things in life, e.g. crazy-expensive Japanese jeans made from high-end artisanal denim or collections of fancy wristwatches. Or all the cars in Jay Leno’s huge garage, or in Seinfeld’s.

    Sigh. Some things never change about humanity. Years ago I knew a guy who had an ultra-expensive audiophile’s dream music system. But he had absolutely horrible taste in music, and enjoyed listening to sound effects snippets that demonstrated how awesome his sound system was more than he enjoyed listening to actual music.

    I also remember reading years ago that Julia Child enjoyed the taste of McDonald’s french fries. She seemed to know that ultimately it is about enjoying the food you eat, not being dazzled by the cost or exotic nature of the ingredients.

  197. 197.

    Barbara

    @Brachiator: Yeah, and Julia probably would have been pissed when she learned that they stopped frying them in beef tallow.  Why ever did they do that?!!!  Although tbh, I think at times Julia leaned a little too much on just throwing more butter in as a substitute for subtler ways of adding flavor.  I still use her basics cookbook more than any other.

  199. 199.

    Mike in NC

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: A lawyer for Giuliani’s wife also alleged in court documents that he dropped tens of thousands of dollars on a private jet subscription service, $40,000 for a friend’s son’s dental work, $7,000 on fountain pens and $12,000 on cigars

    Just the party of the working stiff, right Rudy?

  200. 200.

    Ruckus

    @WaterGirl:

    We’ve been at war with the conservative side for 50+ years.

    And conservatives have been against what the people want and need since well before that. Conservatives have been against “those people” and anything that takes a dime out of their possession, no matter if they earned or stole their way into possession of it for a lot longer than that.

  201. 201.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @WaterGirl:

    Agree?  Disagree?  Does anyone think this outright declaration of war doesn’t change the path forward?

    I wish I had an answer other than: “Ask Manchin”

  204. 204.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Steeplejack: Who needs more than one guitar? Every guitar player needs more than 1 guitar. Some of us have a terminal case of G.A.S the only thing in my case that keeps it in check is the ever present threat of my wife matching my guitar buying with equal amounts of crafting supplies.

  206. 206.

    Soprano2

    @WaterGirl: Agree?  Disagree?  Does anyone think this outright declaration of war doesn’t change the path forward?

    I think it clarifies things for Biden and the Democrats in Congress. If they want to make any progress, they’ll have to do it without Republicans, which most of us already knew.

  207. 207.

    Ruckus

    @Barbara:

    The stunning lack of knowledge about absolutely anything outside some/many people’s immediate and tiny lives will always stun most people, especially people who think they are worldly, because they watch TV or drive past a museum once in a while.

  208. 208.

    Soprano2

    @Barbara: Yeah, and Julia probably would have been pissed when she learned that they stopped frying them in beef tallow.  Why ever did they do that?!!!

    To make vegetarians and vegans happy. They don’t taste as good, I don’t care what anyone says, just like people who try that happy talk of “Once you start eating right cheeseburgers and fries don’t taste good at all”. Lord, don’t lie to me – cheeseburgers and fries taste awesome to most people, that’s what makes losing weight hard! Sugar tastes good, don’t gaslight me by saying otherwise.

  209. 209.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Soprano2: Yeah……. I do my best to eat right and keep my questionably functioning heart working, but every now and then one wants, nay needs, that big greasy ass, cholesterol and triglyceride bomb cheeseburger and fries. At that point the safest place is not between me and the cheeseburger platter, and the accompanying cold beer.

  210. 210.

    Brachiator

    @Ken:

    Wow! The “explanation” explains too much without being helpful. But it helped me appreciate the brevity of the cartoon more.

    I didn’t have any issue with getting the point of the main series of panels. It’s funny how people want to focus on this, when I think it is the most easily comprehensible part of the satire.

    Also, I like how the last three panels contrast with the first panels. This is very witty, but again, you have to think about it a bit. After a while you get accustomed to political and satirical cartoons that are more obvious in their meaning and point of view. So when you need to slow down and savor a cartoon, sometimes you just want to say “OK, OK. Get to the point.”

    I suppose that the last panel is meant to be hopeful, but I think it still somewhat ambiguous. A rueful punch line. Maybe it’s just me and my own current mood.

    ETA: I probably have gone on more about the damned cartoon than the long winded official “explanation.”

    Bottom line: I liked it.

    And people should get vaccinated.

  211. 211.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @JPL: He’s not working with the Republicans but he sure is enabling them.

    Since common sense and shame don’t appear to work, I’m ready for ridicule. For self-torture, I wonder what it would be like to wake up as, say, Kevin McCarthy. As in, how the hell did I become such a lick ass sycophant? Same with Manchin. Why do I cling to fantasy? 

    FFS, they’re grown ass men who have less awareness than babies.

  212. 212.

    Ken

    @Brachiator: The “explanation” explains too much without being helpful.

    Well, it is a wiki, crowdsource-edited by the kind of people who like editing wikis and like Randall Munroe.  Which may be a single circle on a Venn diagram.

  213. 213.

    Cmorenc

    @Kay:

    The GOP has long been ambitious to create ways to undermine over time  the financial viability and public support for social security, because they know a direct attack in it is political poison.  But they will periodically try, because for ideological gop conservatives, the establishment of social security is the original sin of progressive government, diverting money that the “makers” in society could have obtained higher return if it wasnt being confiscated toward that end.

  214. 214.

    Brachiator

    @Barbara:

    Yeah, and Julia probably would have been pissed when she learned that they stopped frying them in beef tallow. Why ever did they do that?!!!

    As someone else has note, this was done to please vegans and vegetarians. The right thing to do, but it resulted in inferior french fries compared to the original.

    Although tbh, I think at times Julia leaned a little too much on just throwing more butter in as a substitute for subtler ways of adding flavor.

    Sometimes you just gotta go with the simple things that work time and again.

    Yep, her cookbook is great.

    ETA: A while back there was a great NPR story about a secret lab that worked to develop the best coating for french fries that helped them stay warm while you drove home after buying a burger and fries at the takeout window. Stuff like this is worth billions.

    Also, the hamburger is one of the greatest human inventions in history. It’s up there with the wheel and the plow.

  216. 216.

    Brachiator

    @Ken:

    The “explanation” explains too much without being helpful.

    Well, it is a wiki, crowdsource-edited by the kind of people who like editing wikis and like Randall Munroe.  Which may be a single circle on a Venn diagram.

    Looking back, I was a bit too harsh. I appreciate the link.

    But it is a dry explanation, not an act of criticism, and so it doesn’t deal with the how artfully the satire is conveyed. I noted, for example, how the static repetition of the first panels is countered with the elegant movement and change in the last three panels.

    The official explanation stumbles into counting months and misses the larger point entirely.

    Interestingly, there are only 15 panels, so if the ‘normal’ months increased in sync, it would “only” be March 2021, not May 2021.

    Anyway, again, thanks for the link. It was a good reference point.

  217. 217.

    Gravenstone

    @Ksmiami: If he bolts, say hello to “Senate Majority Leader McConnell”. So yeah, no thanks for your brilliant insight.

  218. 218.

    Mo Salad

    @Brachiator: ​
     No. Just the beginning of something different, a New Normal, as it were. Mrs. Munroe is a cancer survivor and Randall knows his science, so they were most likely in a pretty hard-core lockdown.

  219. 219.

    Ksmiami

    @Gravenstone: I don’t want that either but if Manchin ends up being the stumbling block to actually moving forward, better to actually fight the monsters head on than tiptoe around a unicorn called bipartisanship. In other words, either Manchin wises up, or we go to the mat against our real enemy- the GOP

  220. 220.

    Gloomyjim

    @Gravenstone:

    Maybe trade him strait across for Murkowski (sp?)? What with earmarks being back that might just work in our favor…

     

    /s -just to be safe

  221. 221.

    Brachiator

    @Steeplejack:

    Child’s “basic” cookbook—would that be The Way to Cook? Will have to check it out.

    Have a dear friend who had Julia Child’s cookbook and The Joy Of Cooking. Seemed to be really useful, and produced some rocking meals.

    Later gave her and my sister one of Jacques Pepin’s cookbooks. Again, some great meals came out of this.

  224. 224.

    Ksmiami

    @rikyrah: Manchin really doesn’t fucking get it- we are facing down fascism and he still operates like there’s some good faith.

  225. 225.

    WaterGirl

    @Ksmiami:  That seems like a very short-sighted view.  With the majority, we get to decide whether and when to call a vote.  Say, for judges.  With a Republican majority, they can just not call a vote.

    There’s no way we would have the cabinet we have now if Schumer wasn’t majority leader.  There’s no way we would have the Rescue Plan in its current form.  Even without 50 sure votes on the D side, we are 1000x better off with Schumer as majority leader.  Why do you think they freaked out when we won Georgia?

  227. 227.

    evodevo

    @Soprano2: Yep.  I’m old enough to remember when the MickieD’s out on New Circle Rd. in Lexington ky still used fresh, just peeled potatoes and beef tallow in the fryer…oh, man, were those good.  Luckily I was skinny as a rail then and didn’t care what I ate….not like today lol

  228. 228.

    Dan B

    @Kay:  ‘Polish Spirit’s is a very good Clematis. It was easy to find in the field at a wholesale grower. It was the one with almost no foliage visible, just purple flowers. There are more beautiful flowers but a wall-o-purple has its charms as in boggling the minds of your friends, neighbors, and guests.

    It makes a great backdrop to tall willowy white perennials* like Filipendula, Cimicifuga, and Thalictrum.

    *White flowered forms. Also Oriental Lilies and tall oriental hybrids.

  230. 230.

    Dan B

    @Amir Khalid: I had a pair of Red Wing boots I used for work in wet muddy PNW – landscape construction sites.  They got treated once or twice a year, otherwise they were hosed off and left to slowly dry.  In the tropics you need shoe cream to protect from mold.  Oil may soften the leather but, being absorbed, provide better mold protection.  My Red Wings are still around, cracked but not cracked through, after 35 years!  They got whatever was in my shoe mntc. kit at least once a year.

  231. 231.

    TomatoQueen

    @Brachiator:

    If you’re trying Julia for the first time, you might find it more practical to begin with The French Chef cookbook, which is the companion volume to the early TV show.  It has shorter recipes written with the goal of getting dinner on the table tonight, not next week, while still following her fundamental method of learn a way to prepare something and then you’ll know how to do all the variations.  The receipt for the broiled deviled chicken is worth the price of the book. Which I’ve just discovered can be over $100 if the volume is in perfect condition, with perfect dust jacket. The Way to Cook is modernized, updated, and it is still the fundamental method. I have two copies of it somehow, and what I learned from it was a way of making a rice-based gruel that will stop a child’s diarrhea in two hours, which was not at all her intention of course. It is a beautiful book with beautiful design and not something  you want to cook from. The thing to do though is to watch her original shows (PBS runs them late at strange times), and then get Mastering the Art vols 1 and 2–for the French bread recipe alone of course, but more to grasp how she thinks about cooking, for American cooks, using professional techniques modified for what is likely to be in American kitchens in the way of equipment especially (and you see this in the early shows also–my mother had those basic tools and so did yours, and so do I today). In fact if you’ve no time for more than one episode of the original show, the Onion Soup episode contains multitudes.

  232. 232.

    Ksmiami

    @WaterGirl: I guess I don’t understand Manchin’s play here- as a hockey fan, team cohesion is essential- not in every minute but Manchin isn’t doing anyone any favors and setting up for losses in 2022 and beyond.

  233. 233.

    J R in WV

    @Brachiator:

    How many “sane” Republicans are there? Two? Three?

    We had a fairly sane R next door for years, but after Jan 6th he changed his voter registration to Libertarian. Still not vaccinated, tho… so how sane is now questionable…

  235. 235.

    Ruckus

    @Ksmiami: 
    It’s likely that he thinks the only way he can keep his seat is to make nice with republicans. I’m not sure he’s wrong in his state.

  237. 237.

    Ksmiami

    @Ruckus: I think his constituents would like the infrastructure etc not sure his stance gets him points with anyone but his own head

  238. 238.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @Brachiator:

    Which Child cookbook?

    I like Jacques Pépin. He does great things with a handful of ingredients and not much fuss.

  239. 239.

    TomatoQueen

    @Steeplejack (phone): ​
     
    I’m worried about Jacques. Gloria died some weeks ago, and while he seems to be carrying on mostly as usual with his daughter’s help, last night there was a notice in my Fb feed that he’d posted something regarding SPAM. I did not look & hope it disappears.

  241. 241.

    SWMBO

    @evodevo: ​
     
    A friend of mine working the desk at the library had a guy come in and open his coat. She took one look and said in a LOUD voice, “OH LOOK!! ANY BIGGER AND IT WOULD LOOK LIKE A REAL PENIS!!” He never came back in again.

    Another friend was getting on a plane when the guy in front of her exposed himself to the flight attendant. “I’M SORRY SIR, YOU’LL HAVE TO SHOW ME YOUR TICKET, NOT YOUR STUB!”

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