Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Donald Trump, welcome to your everything, everywhere, all at once.

This really is a full service blog.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

“But what about the lurkers?”

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

It’s pointless to bring up problems that can only be solved with a time machine.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Books are my comfort food!

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

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

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

Boeing: repeatedly making the case for high speed rail.

An unpunished coup is a training exercise.

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

So many bastards, so little time.

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Monday Morning Open Thread: Wanna Go Shopping?

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  3. 3.

    Baud

    Biden’s America: Democrats see competence, Republicans see chaos

    This is an important point. The GOP sells fear
    of Dems to its hard core base, but it sells stress to everyone else. When we freak out over something, we’re reinforcing the GOP’s message.

  5. 5.

    Low Key Swagger

    I live in a deep red county in a deep red state.  Still quite a bit of mask wearing here, no hard looks toward those with or without.  I have to wonder what kind of people feel the need to berate mask wearers?  Is it perceived as an attack on them?

  8. 8.

    Baud

    Shocking.

    The Sunrise Movement endorses top Sanders ally Nina Turner to fill US House seat in Ohio

  12. 12.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Low Key Swagger:

    I have to wonder what kind of people feel the need to berate mask wearers? Is it perceived as an attack on them?

    Insecure whiny-assed titty baby assholes.
    Yes.
    SATSQ.

  14. 14.

    Kay

    In Ohio, Boards of Election are composed of equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats. You can be an independent, but they never get appointed because Republicans pick Republicans and Democrats pick Democrats. The Republicans on the board interview and appoint a board of elections appointee (and employee) to serve as the “lead” at the bd ofice, and so do the Democrats. The lead then alternates every year- R one year, D another. This is a bd of elections employee with an additional role, as a manager but also a kind of tie-breaker on decisions within the office.

    For the first time ever, the Republicans on our county board are refusing to certify the D’s chosen lead. They are insisting they get to choose the D employee who is the lead for the Democrats. It goes to the Sec of State and if it isn’t resolved at that level the Democrats can sue.

    One of the things that stopped a catastrophe after Trump denied losing the election was local and state pols refusing to do his bidding. I think we’ll see Republicans at the local level refusing to certify next time.

  15. 15.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Nina Turner’s principal opponent seems to be Cayuhoga County Commissioner Shontel Brown. Brown posted a video recently in which she raps out a fundraising message. It’s really good.

  16. 16.

    sab

    @Baud: Nina Turner is running some really good ads. It’s very disturbing. She might actually win this thing. (I believe she is running for Marcia Fudge’s seat.) I was hoping Emilia Sykes would run for it, but it’s a crowded field and it’s a very gerrymandered but mostly Cleveland district.

  17. 17.

    Jinchi

    @NotMax: ​
     

    1) New study shows 42% of people in the US can’t name a single Asian American

    Specifically, they asked if people could name a famous Asian American.

    Personally, I’d fail that test no matter which ethnicity you asked about.

  20. 20.

    Geminid

    I see that Brooklyn Congresman Hakeem Jeffries has endorsed Maya Wiley for New York City Mayor. I don’t know nearly enough about the City’s fractious Democratic politics to know how much of an impact Jeffries’ endorsement will have. But Jeffries, Democratic House Caucus Chairman, strikes me as a shrewd and practical man, so his endorsement of Wiley tells me that he believes she has a shot at winning the June primary.

  26. 26.

    sab

    @Kay: I fear you are right.

    The Sec of State refused to accept the head of either party on the Board of Elections in my county because of shenanigans in purging the voting rolls. They didn’t do it bipartisan as they are supposed to do. They split the jobs up. The Democrats were in charge of purging the ineligibles, and the purged a bunch of not incarcerated felons who should have been allowed to vote. The Republicans were in charge of purging the deceased, and they only purged those with Ohio coroners death certificates, so all the snowbirds who died out of state were still on the rolls. At least one of those guys voted.

    Sec of State LaRose (R) refused to accept reappointment of the Dem and the Rep in charge of the mess. Both appealed to the Ohio Supreme Court (overwhelmingly R). The Dem lost. The R won, so he is back on the local board of elections.

  28. 28.

    NotMax

    Hmm. Miss Mexico won the Miss Universe title yesterday, crowned at the ceremony in Florida. Dolt 45, a former owner* of the pageant, must be apoplectic.

    *Let’s not rehash his creepiness thereunto, okay?

  29. 29.

    germy

    In a letter sent from behind bars, a key defendant in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol said he and fellow inmates have bonded in jail, and boasted that those attacking the building could have overthrown the government if they had wanted.

    The letter is signed “the 1/6ers” and expresses no remorse for the assault on the Capitol, in which five people died. While no names appeared on it, ProPublica was able to determine, through interviews with his family and a review of his correspondence from jail, that it was penned by Guy Reffitt, a member of the Three Percenter right-wing militant group accused of participating in the riot. The letter said the inmates arrested for their role in the attack regularly recite the Pledge of Allegiance inside the Washington, D.C. jail and sing the national anthem “all in unison, loud and proud most everyday.”

    “January 6th was nothing short of a satirical way to overthrow a government,” said the letter, written by hand on yellow lined paper. “If overthrow was the quest, it would have no doubt been overthrown.”

    https://www.propublica.org/article/in-exclusive-jailhouse-letter-capital-riot-defendant-explains-motives-remains-boastful

  32. 32.

    debbie

    @germy:

    “January 6th was nothing short of a satirical way to overthrow a government,” said the letter, written by hand on yellow lined paper. “If overthrow was the quest, it would have no doubt been overthrown.”

    Can someone define “satirical,” please? I apparently have no idea what satire really is. //

  33. 33.

    NotMax

    Fixy fix.

    satby

    Also too (aside from some named within the linked article), Connie Chung and Keanu Reeves, among others.

    ;)

  39. 39.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Shontel Brown is Cuyahoga Council Representative for District 9. She was also Chairman of the Cuyahoga County Democratic Party.

    Last summer Nina Turner gave a fiery speech at the organizing convention of the People’s Party. The People’s Party more or less blew up on the launch pad, and Marcia Fudge’s seat opened up, so Turner is now pretending to be a Democrat again. There are several actual Democrats also in the mix, and no runoff. Turner hopes to win a plurality victory. Then she will go on to try and wreck the House Democratic Caucus.

  41. 41.

    lowtechcyclist

    @germy: I noticed from the link that he said he was carrying on 1/6.  There’s this bullshit claim going around, as part of the “they were only tourists” bullshit, that the insurrectionists weren’t armed.

    Of course, since nobody was rounding them up and searching them as they left the Capitol grounds (I still don’t understand why not, unless they weren’t able to get sufficient manpower in place in time to do that), there’s no real proof one way or the other.  But between the few who were searched at the time, and the occasional unforced admissions like this guy, it’s clear that a fair number of them were armed.

    And that’s also one of the reasons the Capitol police gave for not using their guns when under attack: they figured they were not only outnumbered, but outgunned as well, and if they started shooting, it would go even worse for them than it was already going.

  43. 43.

    NotMax

    Funny, would have guessed of the trio of stories the one which elicited the most comment would have been #3.

    Just goes to show ya.

  45. 45.

    PST

    @Geminid: Regarding the NYC mayor’s race, the NY Times just endorsed Kathryn Garcia, who has a long career with the sanitation department. Mara Gay was on MSNBC this morning explaining the choice, which she seemed to strongly support. I get the impression that many people admire Maya Wiley and think she might make a good member of congress or something, but you need experience to be able to take control of a huge bureaucracy.

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @debbie:

    Do you think the Democrats will not sue?

    They’ll sue. A lot of elections law cases are along the lines of “deliver X, Y or Z” – just a demand and then an order- because obviously the potential to throw a wrench into the works with partisan “refusals” is always there. There isn’t a lot of discretion for judges.
    The Democrat I talked to last night said it has “poisoned” the board. They’re insulted. Just furious because it should be just housekeeping. Remember all these people know one another, some of them quite well. This isn’t Trump issuing a statement. It’s one on one, face to face.

  48. 48.

    rikyrah

    @Geminid:

    Brown had a great ad showing Turner’s questionable.’Democratic Party’ ties, i.e., pointing out the shyt she has been saying about Democrats, including 46.

     

    Brown was very clear that she has not been disrespectful to 46.

    I have been giving Brown donations.

    Brown has been getting endorsements from people who provide boots on the ground.

  51. 51.

    NotMax

    @PST

    Kathryn Garcia, who has a long career with the sanitation department

    If there’s any candidate who knows where the bodies are buried….

    //

  52. 52.

    Geminid

    @PST: Well, I do not have so much knowledge of City politics and governance. But I said, Hakeem Jeffries seems to be a shrewd and practical man, and he evidently thinks Wiley is up to the task.

  53. 53.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    This isn’t Trump issuing a statement. It’s one on one, face to face.

    It’s Trump proxies issuing a statement. How long before the Dems realize that comity, etc., are “no longer operational”? I hope not too long, because they should have realized it well before now.

  56. 56.

    Chris Johnson

    @Low Key Swagger: I’ve said, and still believe, that the whole ‘attack mask wearers! attack those who force their helpless children to wear masks!’ is a Russian op.

    It’s an attempt at social manipulation and is twofold: one, to make the wingnuts freak out and act out,  and two, to get a reaction. It’s not expected to get any useful results from attacking liberals. What is EXPECTED is that through doing this, you can get some liberal to freak out and start swinging, or start shooting, and that’s the true payload: Russia and the GOP MUST get a reaction it can then parade before its people, telling them, ‘you see? The enemy are crazy and violent! It’s only self-defence to attack them!’

    The danger is that they will lose heart through not being attacked enough, through not enough drama and threat in spite of all their media can do to invoke it. All they can do is earnestly request their people to do outrageous stunts like harassing children in hopes that the parents will flip out and do something newsworthy they can use.

  57. 57.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    Putting these guys away for a long time

    I am hopeful that the meaning of “these guys” is expanded to include TFG, MTG, McQarthy, Hice, Boebert, Graham, and the rest of the insurrectionist-adjacent pols in the Partei of Traitors.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    That would be a good article. btw. Not interviews with Trump voters, but interviews with Trumpsters at the local level who have actual roles in elections. They’re a threat because they can take action.

    If they believe that the election was stolen, and a lot of them do, how does that belief inform their work on local boards of elections? They claim to no longer believe in the legitimacy of the process. Can they function competently and fairly or are we going to see this conspiracy theory expressed thru their actions?  Ask them.

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    @Kay:

    If they believe that the election was stolen, and a lot of them do, how does that belief inform their work on local boards of elections? They claim to no longer believe in the legitimacy of the process. Can they function competently and fairly or are we going to see this conspiracy theory expressed thru their actions?  Ask them.

    They’ll simply respond with the tried-and-true “it’s those OTHER areas and boards that are corrupt; we’re just fine. Except for the Demon-craps, that is.”

    A number of years ago, some polling was done re: Congressional approval. I know you’ll be stunned to hear that while many responders blamed/hated Congress, they thought their own Rep was doing a good job — it was just those other reps. It would not surprise me to learn that the persons who responded that way skewed Rethug, but I have no data to confirm that.

  66. 66.

    NotMax

    @Dorothy A. Winsor

    Realistically, the sheer numbers involved would have overwhelmed any processing facility (as well as putting the much fewer number of arresting officers working amidst a seething throng in peril), not to mention transporting the arrested and maintaining control throughout the procedure. Plus nearly all would be released as there isn’t the physical space readily sitting unoccupied for detention of such an influx, and manpower to staff it.

  67. 67.

    trnc

    @sab: Better to have a fraudulent vote or two (especially since they often get caught) than to mistakenly (or purposely) purge eligible voters, so I’m glad the repubs on the board appear to have been careful. I sure hope the dems on that board get their shit together so they don’t purge more eligible voters. We’re having a bad enough time in the republican states where that seems to be the policy if the voters don’t vote for them.

  68. 68.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Jinchi:

    Specifically, they asked if people could name a famous Asian American.

    Personally, I’d fail that test no matter which ethnicity you asked about.

    @satby:

    @Jinchi: George Takei? Bruce Lee (if not restricted to current living)? Kamala Harris (Indian ancestry)? off the top of my head.

    @NotMax:

    Also too (aside from some named within the linked article), Connie Chung and Keanu Reeves, among others.

    I’m with jinchi here.  Sure, once you mention the names of these people, I know who they are, but other than Kamala Harris, I just don’t think about these people.

    The names of Connie Chung, Keanu Reeves, and Bruce Lee haven’t crossed my mind in years.  I’ve been aware of Takei more recently, but only because of his second life as a prominent LGBT spokesperson.  But on the whole, the world of celebs is completely off my mental map.  If you mention their names, I usually have some inkling who they are, but their names aren’t floating around my mind to begin with.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    @SFAW:

    I don’t think they will deny it. It’s a mainstream belief in the GOP now, understandably, as the whole Party leadership has endorsed it.

    It wouldn’t be hard at all to tip the system into chaos. A couple of local refusals in 2020 would have thrown enough sand into the gears to lead to real unrest.

    In 2020 the fragmented and localized nature of elections helped, but it’s a double edged sword. It could just as easily be used to overturn. 5 or 6 refusniks in crucial counties and there’s a crisis. That’s always the push-pull of elections- Democrats generally want to federalize and Republicans generally want to localize. If the Trump ethos has trickled down (and I think it has) you could have hot spots of insurrection all over the country.

  71. 71.

    sab

    @trnc: In Ohio it is actually very difficult to determine which felons are eligible, because it’s hard to find out who is actually incarcerated. 88 counties each with its own jail, plus state and federal prisons.  Nobody is actually responsible for keeping lists current, so the local boards of election have to contact everyone all over the state. I agree they should err on the side of leniency, since it’s hard to apply for an absentee ballot from jail or prison.

  72. 72.

    Soprano2

    @Low Key Swagger: I have to wonder what kind of people feel the need to berate mask wearers?  Is it perceived as an attack on them?

    Assholes who think what you do is a personal affront to them. My  bartender Mo told me last night that last week she was accosted by a woman in the Aldi parking lot as she was loading her 1-year-old daughter and some groceries in the car. She was still wearing her mask because it’s easier to wait to take it off after you’ve done all that stuff. She said this woman approached her and said “You know you don’t have to wear that thing anymore”. Mo said she ignored the woman, but she kept pressing and pushing about how she didn’t need to wear it. Mo said she just kept ignoring the woman, who finally got in her car in a huff and drove away. People like that see mask wearing as a personal affront to their views. I think ignoring them is the best approach – they want to fight with you, and if you don’t cooperate eventually they’ll go away.

  73. 73.

    Ken

    @debbie: Can someone define “satirical,” please?

    SATIRICAL, adj. Of the nature of satire; “It was a satirical statement.”

    SATIRE, noun. The moment when a person realizes they have done or said something that will put their career in jeopardy, or result in a long prison term; “The insurrectionist said that the beating of the police officer with a ‘Blue Lives Matter’ flag was satire and the real problem is liberals can’t take a joke.”

  74. 74.

    sab

    @Kay: I will be curious if Frank LaRose has a political future after this, since he tried so jard to appear fair as Sec of State.

  76. 76.

    trnc

    @lowtechcyclist: There’s this bullshit claim going around, as part of the “they were only tourists” bullshit, that the insurrectionists weren’t armed.

    As you probably know, this lie is being spread by repubs in congress. Most of the rioters probably weren’t carrying firearms, but they were clearly armed with other weapons or anything that could be used as weapons (like flagpoles). Also, firearms stashes were found and admitted to during the investigation, and you don’t bring weapons somewhere and stash them away if you aren’t going to use them.

  77. 77.

    Ken

    @lowtechcyclist: But on the whole, the world of celebs is completely off my mental map.

    Same here. I think it’s partly a side effect of the pandemic. I wasn’t going to grocery stores as often, and when I did go I avoided times when there were lines. So I haven’t been standing idly in front of the magazine racks with the cover stories about “Barry and Melanie Expecting Twins!” or “Charice Shares Her Diet Tips”.  Not that I knew who Barry, Melanie, and Charice were anyway, but I was at least exposed to the first names. (And these cover headlines never have last names.)

  78. 78.

    Kay

    @Betty:

    It was always the real risk. There are thousands of local elections officials. The Big Lie was never quarantined in DC. There’s “politics” all over and for the base of the GOP it’s all nationalized.

  79. 79.

    Jeffro

    @Low Key Swagger:I have to wonder what kind of people feel the need to berate mask wearers?  Is it perceived as an attack on them?

    Yes, absolutely.

    The orange moron went mask-less for all but about 10 min of his ‘presidency’…mask wearing reinforces that something went wrong during that ‘presidency’…therefore, mask wearing is a tribal affront to the former guy and by extension his followers.

  80. 80.

    Soprano2

    @SFAW: A number of years ago, some polling was done re: Congressional approval. I know you’ll be stunned to hear that while many responders blamed/hated Congress, they thought their own Rep was doing a good job — it was just those other reps. It would not surprise me to learn that the persons who responded that way skewed Rethug, but I have no data to confirm that.

    It think this is a pretty universal feeling. People always think it’s that other rep or senator who’s been there too long, never theirs. Roy Blunt, (R-MO) has been employed in government pretty much his whole life, but until the past year he had the unwavering support of the vast majority of MO Republicans even though he is the very definition of “career politician”, something they all claim to just hate. I don’t think he’s ever had a job where he wasn’t paid by the government – his first job was teaching at our local state university.

  81. 81.

    Raven

    @Soprano2: I’ll say it again, I have not had one person say a thing to me about wearing a mask. I do wear a military cap when I go out and I just want someone to say something.

  82. 82.

    NotMax

    @Raven

    Ditto (sans the cap). But then again, everyone else I see when out is wearing a mask. I do once in a while get a momentary look if I’m hanging out in the parking lot, leaning on the auto without a mask on, but any animus in the passers-by’s eyes evaporates when I take a puff on my stogie.

    You still a-beachin’? Please leave a few fish for the rest of us.

    ;)

  83. 83.

    zhena gogolia

    @Raven:

    Everyone around here wears masks, and people pretty much mind their own business. Except my dentist, who berated me for wearing a mask (on 4/16).

  84. 84.

    Low Key Swagger

    @Raven: I probably give off a don’t fuck with me look, and so have had no issues with respect to mask wearing, I’d bet most of those who accost other people look for “soft” targets.  It’s bullying at it’s core.

  85. 85.

    Jinchi

    @lowtechcyclist: Sure, once you mention the names of these people, I know who they are, but other than Kamala Harris, I just don’t think about these people.

    Right. I could name you people I work with or know, personally.But if you asked me to name 3 actors in a film as we’re watching it, I’d probably fail that, too.

  86. 86.

    Betty Cracker

    @Kay: It’s been fascinating (in a train wreck sense) to watch how the Big Lie is affecting local wingnuts and Republican election officials in my county.

    There’s one mouthy codger who’s been a tireless complainer in the letters to the editor section of the local paper for decades and was prominent in the “Stop the Steal” protests last year. He shared (in a letter to the paper) that after one “stolen election” lament, he was personally contacted by the (Republican!) supervisor of elections and given a tour of the local operation.

    He came away from the tour impressed by the operation and mindful of the additional costs and burdens the then-proposed now-enacted voter suppression laws impose, but he reiterated that the laws have to change: “If future generations are to ever regain trust in our voting system, we must lobby our state legislators to pass new legislation that would ensure election integrity.” They did pass it, of course.

    The election supervisor wasted her time. There’s just no getting through to someone like that. If Democrats win, that means the vote was rigged, period.

  87. 87.

    NotMax

    @Low Key Swagger

    Will admit, while looking around while waiting, to glaring daggers at the lady behind me in line last summer when Target was severely limiting occupancy, as she was wearing a Trump 2020 mask.

  88. 88.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Baud: I would say they sell fear of everything to their base, as well as fear of Democrats.  You talk to a Wingnut and they fear a lot of stupid stuff like paper bags. I get the impression the world is like some zombie flick in their minds and they are some of the last surviving humans. I would offer that never ending, inescapable fear is why so many mass shooting / suicides.

  90. 90.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: Hey Jeffro! Have you and yours been on the water yet?

    You may like a D.J. McGuire article posted in Bearing Drift this morning. It’s titled, “So…About Glen Youngkin’s Trade Deal with Communist China.”

    McGuire points out that “the only policy outcome of the [Virginia Governor] nominee’s record is a policy failure.”

    Bearing Drift also has a good article by Lynn Mitchell on the landslide at Afton Mountain.

  91. 91.

    Raven

    @NotMax: I decided to take a break since we extended our trip for three more days. I tell myself I’ll try to sit in the damn chair when I’m surf fishing but I end up fooling with my rigs and lumbering out to cast constantly. This morning I hit on the idea of just taking one rod and a backup reel down this evening. We’re going to hit our fav antique store in Panama City while it’s cool enough for the pup to be in the van. It’s almost the only thing he enjoys other than eating.

  93. 93.

    Falling Diphthong

    @Low Key Swagger: I think there are a lot more people trying to draw eyes by filming themselves ranting about how audience members ought to go up to masked people and berate them, than there are people actually following through on this. It’s an on-air or online invocation of aspirational truth-telling, a way to imagine getting out from behind a screen and yelling those devastating logical arguments at someone who will humbly acknowledge your rightness. But most have the sense to realize this works much better as a fantasy.

    Try it for realsies, a la the Santa Monica middle school protesters, and soon people too young to shave are knifing you with their comebacks while most people roll their eyes and step around you.

  94. 94.

    germy

    Bachelor sex-offender Jeffrey Epstein gave Bill Gates advice on ending his marriage with Melinda after the Microsoft co-founder complained about her during a series of meetings at the money manager’s mansion, according to two people familiar with the situation.

    Gates used the gatherings at Epstein’s $77 million New York townhouse as an escape from what he told Epstein was a “toxic” marriage, a topic both men found humorous, a person who attended the meetings told The Daily Beast.

  95. 95.

    Jeffro

    @Geminid: wassup Geminid!  We did not get out there this weekend, had too much going on (including Fro Jr’s first stint as a soccer ref yesterday – he did really well!)  But we’ll get out there soon.

    I have a feeling this Youngkin is going to fail to light much of a fire with the GQP faithful.  We’ll see how it shakes out.

    I do want to go read that landslide article as it is affecting a couple of my co-workers’ daily drives.  Thanks for the tip!

  96. 96.

    Fair Economist

    @zhena gogolia:

    Everyone around here wears masks, and people pretty much mind their own business. Except my dentist, who berated me for wearing a mask (on 4/16).

    Were that me, they’d be my ex-dentist. On the spot.

  97. 97.

    Ken

    @germy: There’s more reputable places to hang out if you want bad advice about marriage. Didn’t Gates ever watch Cheers?

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @Jeffro: It’s been a little cool so far for kayaking. But the temparature in forecaste to be in the 90s this weekend. Quite a shift.

    I’ve been hoping to try out the fishing on the S. Fork Shenandoah River, at the landing in Elkton. But I can’t clear out the time. Fishing seems to be like a mirage that I never can reach.

  99. 99.

    Ken

    @Jeffro: I do want to go read that landslide article as it is affecting a couple of my co-workers’ daily drives.

    Ah, that answers my question — which didn’t quite rise to the level of a google search — of what kind of landslide the mostly-political-analysis site was reporting.

  101. 101.

    NotMax

    Need to be ready early in the morning to drive landlady into town for something. Coming up on 4 a.m. here right now and not the teensiest bit sleepy.

    Not gonna be good for nuthin’ after we get back on Monday afternoon.

  102. 102.

    Geminid

    @Ken: The slide happened a week or so ago, and has blocked U.S. 250 at the eastern edge of Rockfish Gap. I-64 is still fine, so it hasn’t been a huge problem for the many Shenandoah Valley residents who commute to Charlottesville. The geologists and engineers have surveyed the slide area and are coming up with a plan. They have a lot of rock to move, and may end up blasting more off the mountain to get to a more stable outcome..

  103. 103.

    SFAW

    @germy:

    Gates used the gatherings at Epstein’s $77 million New York townhouse as an escape from what he told Epstein was a “toxic” marriage,

    To quote Shakespeare — well, paraphrase him — Christ, what an asshole.

    I hated Gates/Microsoft for a long time, mostly but not exclusively when I worked for DEC, because of MS’s business practices. Then, when he started his foundation, I softened my stance a bit. Based on the Epstein etc. stories, sounds like my original position was not wrong.

    ETA: And while I understand that sometimes it IS the wife who makes a marriage “toxic,” that Gates appears to have had at least one affair makes me think that the fault is mostly Bill’s.

  104. 104.

    Redshift

    @germy:

    and boasted that those attacking the building could have overthrown the government if they had wanted. 

    “We totally could have overthrown the government if we wanted, we just, you know, didn’t feel like it. I swear we’re not a bunch of fascist thugs who are nowhere near as numerous and powerful as we claim… I’m not crying, you’re crying!”

  105. 105.

    Jeffro

    @Ken:

    @Geminid:

    I think there was a story in the Post a week or two ago about how with global warming/climate change we should expect more rockslides.  Great.  Because there weren’t already enough bad consequences…

    There was another story published recently about a team in Europe (Sweden?  Switzerland) that does rockslide research by…dropping fake boulders.  I mean, first they try to estimate where the boulders will end up, then they drop the boulders, then they see how right/wrong they are.  If someone had told me as a kid that there was a boulder-dropping job waiting for me somewhere in the world…man…   =)

  106. 106.

    mrmoshpotato

    Biden’s America: Democrats see competence, Republicans see chaos

    And the asshole who wrote this op-ed must really miss the orange asshole.

  107. 107.

    SFAW

    @Jeffro:

    If someone had told me as a kid that there was a boulder-dropping job waiting for me somewhere in the world…man…   =)

    Can I suggest that you start with turtles?* Aimed at various persons, including, but not limited to, a two-legged version thereof. Also Murdoch (pere et fils), and a host of others.

    * In case it’s not obvious, it’s a Pratchett reference.

  109. 109.

    Niques

    @rikyrah: My prepared reply is “I don’t want to be mistaken for a MAGAt”. . . but I’m not sure I’d have the nerve.

  110. 110.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    @SFAW:

    I hate Microsoft because of the systemic vulnerability of its products at root levels, the ridiculous behavior of its products as update requests are ignored (they seem to freeze after a while), the initialization of TEAMS at startup (the worst virtual meeting environment of all), the fact that they put their best products on an annual subscription, and the useless bloatware  “upgrades” which don’t do anything I actually want and which impair the things I do want.  I deem it all a ridiculous ploy to keep programmers employed at lower wages by a steady flow of bullshit “work”.

  113. 113.

    Brachiator

    @germy:

    Gates used the gatherings at Epstein’s $77 million New York townhouse as an escape from what he told Epstein was a “toxic” marriage, a topic both men found humorous, a person who attended the meetings told the Daily Beast.

    This is the first time that I have looked at any of the articles about the Gates’ divorce.  I wonder who these sources were at these supposed meetings who would be listening to personal conversations? Epstein household staff? Gates security people.

    Otherwise some of this stuff in the Daily Beast look for simple narratives that can trash either Bill Gates or Melinda Gates. I don’t know these people or anything about their private life. I’m not sure even whether they have any children or how old they are.

    And ultimately, I suppose I will go back to ignoring this story.

  114. 114.

    Soprano2

    @Low Key Swagger: I’d bet most of those who accost other people look for “soft” targets.  It’s bullying at it’s core.

    Yep, I’ve never been approached but a young mother putting her 1-year-old in the car with groceries would appear to be a soft target like this. She wasn’t though – they don’t know Mo or they wouldn’t have even tried to get a rise out of her. I will never understand why these people are so offended by others wearing a mask.

  117. 117.

    rikyrah

    @Brachiator:

     

    Otherwise some of this stuff in the Daily Beast look for simple narratives that can trash either Bill Gates or Melinda Gates. I don’t know these people or anything about their private life. I’m not sure even whether they have any children or how old they are.

    Melinda – mid 50’s.

    Bill – mid 60’s.

     

    They have three children. All college age and above.

    Melinda has been planning the divorce since 2019.

  118. 118.

    Another Scott

    @Low Key Swagger: It’s tribalism.  You’re not doing what I’m doing, so you’re not in my tribe.  Therefore, you are bad/stupid/a threat/not human/etc.

    So if you’re looking for someone to blame, you’ve got somebody right down the street! That wouldn’t have been true in the past.

    Scapegoating is an incredibly mammalian thing to do. Why is that? Because it makes you feel better! It’s a horrifyingly effective stress-reduction mechanism.

    If you have a rat that has just gotten a shock, one of the best ways to decrease its stress hormones is to make it easy for it to turn around and bite another rat. Roughly 50 percent of baboon aggression is “displacement aggression”—somebody taking out their bad day on somebody smaller. It’s a defining feature of social organisms in pain.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  120. 120.

    germy

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:  I hate Microsoft because of the systemic vulnerability of its products at root levels, the ridiculous behavior of its products as update requests are ignored (they seem to freeze after a while), the initialization of TEAMS at startup (the worst virtual meeting environment of all), the fact that they put their best products on an annual subscription, and the useless bloatware  “upgrades” which don’t do anything I actually want and which impair the things I do want.

    Yes.  That’s how he made his fortune.  I struggled with his product for decades in my career.  And he didn’t really become a philanthropist until his wife initiated it.  She’s the one with a social conscience.

    I usually go along with the “this personal stuff is none of my business” crowd, but I make an exception when it comes to billionaires who affect my own life, and who are held up by the news media as someone to admire.  The last interview I saw with him was with Lesley Stahl, who seemed to be in awe of him.

  121. 121.

    Doug R

    @NotMax: And for #1, one of the top answers is Sandra Oh who technically got her US citizenship only a few years ago. She’s really Asian-Canadian.

  122. 122.

    Ken

    @lowtechcyclist: Yeah, the tricky part isn’t so much the rocks that are actually on the road, as making sure that the rocks uphill from them aren’t going anywhere.

    Spend extra taxpayer funds this year, so you don’t have to spend them when the mountain finishes collapsing after the next election? Sounds suspiciously forward-thinking.

  124. 124.

    Brachiator

    @Doug R:

    And for #1, one of the top answers is Sandra Oh who technically got her US citizenship only a few years ago. She’s really Asian-Canadian.

    Really Asian-Canadian? Did the US citizenship not stick?

  127. 127.

    J R in WV

    Regarding famous Asian Americans

    May 17, 2021 at 7:53 am
    @satby

    Also too (aside from some named within the linked article), Connie Chung and Keanu Reeves, among others.

    What about Tiger Woods? He was kind of well known, wasn’t he? Still makes a headline when he wrecks a $160,000 car on a winding residential road at 85…

  128. 128.

    Spinoza Is My Co-pilot

    @NotMax: The NYPD rounded up — on the street — thousands of protesters at our demonstration in Aug ’04 against the RNC convention in Manhattan, and detained them in temporary chain link cages outdoors (some kept like that for a couple days). I was there, saw it happen, narrowly avoided getting grabbed up myself (the uniformed and armed fascists rolled out plastic mesh across the streets, trapping people) when I happened to be just on the other side of the their net.

    Had the police been prepared for the insurrection crowd at the Capitol on Insurrection Day (as they should have been, it was well-advertised) like the NYPD was for the RNC protest (and there were a half million of us on the streets for that) then they surely could have detained some significant portion of these traitorous assholes. They weren’t prepared and didn’t bother to even try to detain the insurrectionists for a reason, and it wasn’t because they were worried about a firefight. Most cops were and still are sympathetic to the traitors. ACAB.

  129. 129.

    Barbara

    @Brachiator: Right, it’s not like anyone who really knows is going to tell us the truth.  However, Gates’ relationship with Epstein had come out previously.  Melinda attended a dinner once and refused to go thereafter, but Gates kept it up.  That all seems pretty well-sourced, and it was made public in 2019 when a lot of other people were also exposed as being Epstein curious even after Epstein’s conviction.  No idea how that factors into the divorce.  Maybe it just got too hard to maintain the facade in public.

  130. 130.

    Geminid

    @Ken: Fortunately, Virginia’s state government is really flush with cash coming out of the pandemic, so it can afford to “fix” Afton Mountain.. I’d like to attribute the surplus to our brilliant Democratic political leadership. But the fact is, a lot of money from 49 other states finds it’s way into mine. I’m fine, though, if Terry McAuliffe and company claim credit in this upcoming election. And the Democratic General Assembly is spending money wisely.

  132. 132.

    J R in WV

    @lowtechcyclist:

    This! famous what?

    I would be able to name many Asian friends I worked with, not-famous highly competent tech workers from China, India, Burma, Indonesia, Peru (lots of Asian communities in Peru!) etc. Most now working in the greater Washington DC area or on the west coast.

    But famous? just nah

  133. 133.

    Brachiator

     

    @Barbara:

    Right, it’s not like anyone who really knows is going to tell us the truth.

    I don’t think that anyone really knows, or that anyone’s life can be distilled into a simple “truth.”

  134. 134.

    sdhays

    @SFAW: I’m with you. Once he left MS and worked on the foundation – and when they announced that their children weren’t going to be inheriting the MS billions, I thought that maybe he wasn’t as bad as I had thought. But while his foundation’s malaria work seems 100% good, his education work is straight out of MS, and outright toxic – pushing technology where it’s not needed nor helpful. It’s practically a scam.

    That he was joking around with Epstein (post conviction!) about his “toxic” relationship with Melinda…now I really wonder if he doesn’t have something to be worried about from Ghislaine Maxwell or the Epstein investigation. I think the world would be better off if he’s no longer capable of directing his money.

  135. 135.

    Spinoza Is My Co-pilot

    @Another Scott: Careful with stuff like this. Not sure about how this goes around here (can’t say I’ve noticed) but if you make commentary/links like this over on LGM you’ll get some shrieking haterz calling you out for engaging in “ev psych” pseudoscience.

    I agree with you: I believe there’s overwhelming evidence of evolved biological traits like this in humans (as in other animals) and that our ubiquitous predilection for tribalism is one of those; it’s in our (biological) nature.  Not that we can’t mitigate that to some degree because we know about that and have some agency in working past it (we’re not simply “doomed” by our nature).

    Doesn’t matter that I’ve qualified the notion of tribalism in human societies with that “we’re not condemned by our nature, we can do something about it to reduce the negative aspects” outlook, I’ve been pilloried pretty heavily over there for having the temerity to even bring it up. YMMV and all that, maybe this place isn’t like that.

  136. 136.

    gwangung

    Huh. If you asked everyone on this site about a famous black person, I very much doubt anybody would have any problem.

    As it is, JACKIE CHAN leads the names….

  137. 137.

    J R in WV

    @zhena gogolia:

    Everyone around here wears masks, and people pretty much mind their own business. Except my dentist, who berated me for wearing a mask (on 4/16).

    You need a new dentist, which is the first thing I would have said to someone expressing that sentiment. “So, looks like I need a new Dentist who understands contagious disease spread!”

    Fortunately my dental practice has a great understanding of sanitation and prevention, so I’m good. Very professional, no BS about implants, expensive unnecessary stuff, just keeps patients in good oral health!

  138. 138.

    Betty Cracker

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    the initialization of TEAMS at startup

    The worst thing they’ve force-fed us since Clippy, IMO. I finally had to just uninstall the fucking thing and join meetings via the web app. Half the time that doesn’t work and I have to call in, but that’s preferable to being sandbagged by Teams on 100% of startups.

    I know what they’re up to with this. They’re trying to lock us into their shitty ecosystem by scraping meeting data, etc. It’s beyond maddening.

  139. 139.

    Another Scott

    @Spinoza Is My Co-pilot: No doubt there’s a lot of woo in psychology, etc.

    But the idea that our biology – including our brain biology – doesn’t affect our behavior is, er, silly.  Is it causal/determinative for everyone, no.  And it’s hard to know when it turns on (e.g. babies aren’t born afraid of falling, they learn it in a particular time during their development), but there’s still a vast amount that we don’t know about how our brains work.  And I personally think that we need to learn a lot more because there are too many nefarious actors out there pushing our lizard-brain buttons and endangering us all…

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  140. 140.

    Barbara

    @Low Key Swagger: What kind of people berate others for wearing masks?  The same kind of people who can’t stand to have friends who don’t use drugs when they do.  They interpret contrary practice as a judgment of what they are doing and, deep down, they know that judgment is correct.

  141. 141.

    Barbara

    @Betty Cracker: I hate TEAMS.  Of course, I also hate Zoom, and everyone else seems to hate Webex, which is the one product that I had successfully used for a long time.  Microsoft also owns Skype, but seems to have abandoned it for business use when it decided to go all in with Teams.  As my husband says, 90% of the time, a conference call still works just fine.

  142. 142.

    J R in WV

    @J R in WV:

    And glad to see in your subsequent comment that you have had your records sent to your new dentist. Hope (but doubt) that this is a learning experience for your former dentist, even if just to not mix politics with treatment…

  143. 143.

    germy

    RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Former President Donald Trump will speak at North Carolina’s annual state Republican Party convention next month, party officials announced Monday.

    The former president will speak in person at the June 5 convention dinner in Greenville. Trump narrowly carried North Carolina in 2020 and held numerous events in the state toward the end of his campaign.

    Trump’s speech will be closed to the media, and journalists won’t be able to view it via livestream or alternate forms, said Livy Polen, a spokeswoman for the NC GOP.

  145. 145.

    Baud

    Via LGM, read the media with a very critical eye.

    According to Axios, “some Democrats” want to make austerity great again.

    ……

    Here is an exhaustive list of the “Democrats” cited in the article:

     

    1. Larry Summers

     

    2. That is all

  146. 146.

    zhena gogolia

    @J R in WV:

    He realized I was upset (because I said, “I’m very upset”), so he said, “You’ve been coming here for 23 years.” I said, “Yes, 23 years, and now it’s been ruined by Trump. Everything Trump Touches Dies.” So I think he got an inkling and wasn’t too surprised when a new dentist sent over for my records a week later.

  147. 147.

    Mike in NC

    @germy: So Fat Bastard is holding a hate rally and the media won’t be allowed to listen. What’s the point?

  148. 148.

    VeniceRiley

    Lesseeee … About a dozen guys I work with.
    Stars: Ming-na Wen, Daniel Dae Kim, maybe a dozen to 20 more.
    South Asian: I can separate them out and start with our Veep.
    Come on people.
    Maybe I should have become a casting director. Ha!

  150. 150.

    germy

    @Mike in NC:

    The media is the enemy, apparently.  His speech is just for the faithful

    I imagine they’ll be frisking the waiters and other staff, to make sure they’re not carrying recording devices.

  151. 151.

    Geminid

    @germy:  NC Republicans will have to make people check their cellphones at the door if they don’t want trump’s convention speech to be made public. And good luck with that program. People will just hide them.

    So why are they so afraid of people hearing what trump has to say?

  153. 153.

    Soprano2

    @germy: Gates used the gatherings at Epstein’s $77 million New York townhouse as an escape from what he told Epstein was a “toxic” marriage, a topic both men found humorous, a person who attended the meetings told The Daily Beast.

    I will never understand why these people don’t just get a divorce if they’re so unhappy. I guess he was worried that he’d only have half of a huge fortune. *rolleyes* Society has changed, the days of being forced by the law to stay in an unhappy marriage are long gone.

  156. 156.

    Baud

    @Soprano2:

    Society has changed, the days of being forced by the law to stay in an unhappy marriage are long gone.

    I take it you haven’t seen the 2024 GOP platform yet.

  157. 157.

    Soprano2

    @Geminid: So why are they so afraid of people hearing what trump has to say?

    I think they’re afraid of people seeing him, honestly, and hearing him rant and rave incoherently. He’s probably more incoherent now than he was before. For God’s sake, he called a horse a “junky”! Who does that?

  158. 158.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: ROFLMAO!!! Some of them think they’d like to go back to that, but honestly they just want other people to be forced into it. Like bullshit like “covenant marriage”, haven’t heard anything about that for awhile.

  162. 162.

    Miss Bianca

    @gwangung: Eh, for me it was Margaret Cho. George Takei snuck in there right after. But I was only on my first cup of coffee.

  164. 164.

    L85NJGT

    Video calls are like super-sonic planes. Forever 1964’s technology of the future. The limited use case and real world utility not withstanding.

  166. 166.

    Central Planning

    @Barbara:

    As my husband says, 90% of the time, a conference call still works just fine.

    I use WebEx all the time, many times it’s for a conference call, but having video is great. I don’t like the isolation in my basement.

    I also prefer clicking on a link and having WebEx auto-dial me instead of me trying to find the bridge number, tap in the bridge id, and then the password.

    Also, I like being able to mute people and/or kick them out of my WebEx. It’s the little things…

  169. 169.

    Kay

    @L85NJGT:

    Video is fine. You just don’t have to use it for everything. If you did conference calls prior to the pandemic you can just keep doing those! Nothing about that changed!

  171. 171.

    artem1s

    @Brachiator:

    Otherwise some of this stuff in the Daily Beast look for simple narratives that can trash either Bill Gates or Melinda Gates. I don’t know these people or anything about their private life. I’m not sure even whether they have any children or how old they are.

    And ultimately, I suppose I will go back to ignoring this story.

    you should ignore it.  Gates is currently on the outs with the Deplorables – I imagine because he decided to take the giving pledge and not hoard his billions for his spawn.  The GQP wants to tie him to Epstein to discredit any Dem candidate who stood next to Bill or Epstein at a fundraiser or foundation function.

    Otherwise they would gladly put the blame on the woman every time.  Red meat for the media who is desperately trying to replace TFG click bait.

    Their personal lives were probably no more or less messy than anyone else’s.  They just ran in circles with other folks who have high name recognition.  I’m fairly sure Bill didn’t need Epstein to manage his investments or give him advise of any kind – marital or otherwise.  I think the whole story is overblown BS and is much ado about nothing – but I expect to hear it over and over again as the press discovers pictures of Bill standing next to Dem candidate X, Y or Z.  Surely this is the FINAL proof that Hillary is running child sex rings – lockherup lockherup lockherup :P

  173. 173.

    Geminid

    @Soprano2: I am a little surprised the North Carolina Republicans invited him, and I wonder how it happened. Was this a power play by a faction controlling the convention? It wouldn’t be the first time the radicals have used trump as a lever to dislodge the establishment from power. But I know little about North Carolina’s internal party poltics.

    I can’t see an upside to to the speech, and there is plenty of potential downside. The fact trump’s speech is being kept private tells me that NC Republicans see the downside as well. But they think they can’t win without the trump cult, and they are probably right.

    But can the Republicans win with him? North Carolina is a purple state, but the trend has been towards blue, like Virginia was trending 10 years ago. More recently Republican self-identification in Virginia dropped from 31% in December, 2019 to 25% in Feburary of this year.* I don’t think Virginia is that much of an outlier. I can see why Republicans work so hard to suppress the Democratic vote. Now they have got to.

    *Wason Center polling of registered Virginia voters.

  174. 174.

    Bluegirlfromwyo

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: One of my weirdest encounters with a wingnut was one telling me organic produce was an attempt by “the left” (this guy never used Republican or Democrat, like I said, weird) to make us spend more money on food because reasons. When I asked him whether he could still buy conventional produce at his grocery store, he said something about leftwing shoppers looking down on him. Like anyone’s looking in his grocery cart.

    They really are conditioned to believe Democrats are watching everything they do and will target those things every chance they get.

  175. 175.

    smith

    @Bluegirlfromwyo: They really are conditioned to believe Democrats are watching everything they do

    They suspect we look down on them, and to a great extent they’re right.

  176. 176.

    Eolirin

    @Betty Cracker: Teams auto starting with the OS is a settings toggle, if that’s what you’re all talking about (not entirely sure that it is). But if it is you can turn it off very easily.

    Also pretty much every messaging app does and has done that going back to AIM.

  178. 178.

    sdhays

    @Bluegirlfromwyo: In this guy’s case, it sounds like people probably are looking at him strangely because he’s ranting and throwing poop.

    “HOW DARE YOU JUDGE ME ON MY POOP??!!?” //

  180. 180.

    catclub

    @Bluegirlfromwyo: ​
     

    They really are conditioned to believe Democrats are watching everything they do and will target those things every chance they get.

    The other half is doing things (hoping they are watching) that will annoy said leftist just to annoy said leftist, not because they really want to do that thing.

  181. 181.

    gwangung

    @sdhays: Yuuuuuup. The whole perpetual foreigner thing, where they can’t differentiate people in Asian from folks who’ve lived here for two or three centuries.

    (And that energizes the anti-Asian hate thing).

  183. 183.

    Miss Bianca

    @gwangung: Funnily enough, in terms of timing on the issue of Asian-American celebrities and actors, I just watched Crazy Rich Asians last night (another one of those movies that was way, WAY better than the book!), and in the little special featurette they had a lot of the cast and crew talking about how amazing it was to work on such a high-profile movie with an all-Asian cast – they said it was the first one ever for Hollywood, and I was thinking, “Can it be? It can’t be!”

    I guess it can. Hopefully not the last.

  184. 184.

    Spinoza Is My Co-pilot

    @Another Scott: Oh, I haven’t any doubt at all that psychology contains a fair bit of woo, as well as a number of approaches and interpretations of how human behaviors work that have little actual evidence to back them up. Many psychological studies that were heavily promulgated have turned out to be unreplicatable in recent investigations. I don’t mean to denigrate the entire field with all this — there is value to be found in psychology — but it is true that a significant amount of psychology is fairly suspect, at least, and ev psych as much or more than most any branch.

    It just seems that humans are deeply tribalistic wherever you look, and though some of that is almost certainly learned behavior, it also seems very likely (from our knowledge of biology and evolution) that the fact we always form societies (unlike most animals, but very much like our closest relatives the bonobos and chimpanzees) is something basic to our evolved biological nature. That’s not “ev psych”.

  185. 185.

    Kay

    Andrew Sullivan
    @sullydish
    · 1h
    The Biden wave. The border is effectively all but open for anyone anywhere in the world.

    It’s just a lie but he’s too lazy to read anything so he probably genuinely doesn’t know that.
    Just so bad to the whole idea of “merit” that this person has continued to be promoted. He’s a moron.
    I remember during the ACA debate when hundreds of people would earnestly try to explain “health care” to him. It’s just bizarre. He comes to the table with absolutely nothing. It’s your job to explain the things he writes about to him.

  186. 186.

    TomatoQueen

    (on a conference call 30 minutes in, at least I don’t have to look at them)

    Kristi Yamaguchi

    Michael Chen

    Yo Yo Ma

    Andrew Yang

    Maya Lin

    Atul Gawande

    Siddhartha Mukherjee

  187. 187.

    WaterGirl

    @TomatoQueen: Seems like they would have gotten better information if they had said:

    Mark the people are you familiar with (mark all that apply) and select the category that applies to what they do (politician, athlete, actor, etc).

  188. 188.

    Geminid

    @Geminid: Well, now I see in the Raleigh News & Observer that State GOP Chairman Michael Whatley announced trump’s convention dinner speech with enthusiasm. And when I read that there would be a reception beforehand, the light went on in my dim brain: the upside to the speech will be the fundraising.

    And this is a convention, not a campaign rally, so trump can only do so much damage. It’s not like his rallies in Dalton and Valdosta during the Georgia Senate runoffs. Georgia Republican leaders really had their fingers crossed before those. trump did not crash off the rails when he spoke, but he did not pull Loeffler and Perdue into the station either. Democrats were apprehensive that the typical Democratic dropoff  from the general election would mean defeat for Ossoff and Warnock. Ossoff was considered considered especially vulnerable. Only the presence of a Libertarian candidate had kept Perdue from winning outright.

    When the January 5 runoff vote was counted, Ossoff indeed had a 100,000 vote dropoff from November. But Perdue had a 200,000 vote drop, and Ossoff won a narrow victory. Voting in Warnock’s race tracked those of Ossoffs.

    Of course, people paid little attention to the details of the January 5 runoff because of what happened in DC the next day.

  189. 189.

    smedley the uncertain

    @NotMax: My job is to reward the sun each afternoon as it sets with a warm hearty toast;  glass raised on high.  It’s working, the sun comes back each day for more.  Cheers.

  191. 191.

    James E Powell

    @Geminid:

    I don’t think NC is quite purple yet. Pretty solid red performance in 2020. Maybe I should move there when I retire, add a drop of indigo.

  193. 193.

    J R in WV

    @NotMax:

    Suspect Nikki Haley will find some reason to be out of town. Perhaps really hiking the Adirondacks.

    Nikki is from South Carolina, and it was the Appalachian Trail that dickhead walked when he went to S America to visit his mistress, not the Adirondacks in upstate NY.

    But, otherwise, yeh, Nikki will avoid the whole scene, I think, also too.

  194. 194.

    Geminid

    @James E Powell: Well, Democrat Roy Cooper has now been elected Governor two times. He won last year by a decent margin. Cal Cunningham had a clear lead in last year’s Senate race until his sex scandle blew up his campaign. donald trump carried North Carolina in 2016 and 2020 with only 49.8% and 49.9% of the vote. And Democrats won two additional House seats last year. These facts tend to make North Carolina purple in my book.

    But I have no problem if you don’t want to call North Carolina a purple state. It seems a pessimistic view, though

    You might like North Carolina as a place to retire. The Piedmont has a fairly temperate climate. There is a lot of it, which tends to buffer land and housing prices. There are several medium sized cities that are more or less progressively minded. And some local jackals who could give you far better information than this Virginian who just drives through The North State from time to time.

  195. 195.

    gwangung

    @Miss Bianca: Yup. It was.

    Hopefully, not the last. But with dumbass Hollywood, who knows? The sequel(s) are very much in doubt. They lowballed the Asian American co-writer of CRA (by an order of magnitude with her white co-writer), the white co-writer has not completed a script for the sequel(s) and the acting talent is finding ways to fill their time, so they might not be available.

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