Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Stop using mental illness to avoid talking about armed white supremacy.

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

DeSantis transforms Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Joe Lieberman disappointingly reemerged to remind us that he’s still alive.

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

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

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

He really is that stupid.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

No one could have predicted…

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

Jack be nimble, jack be quick, hurry up and indict this prick.

After roe, women are no longer free.

Is it irresponsible to speculate? It is irresponsible not to.

Everyone is in a bubble, but some bubbles model reality far better than others!

There is no compromise when it comes to body autonomy. You either have it or you don’t.

You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / TGIF Open Thread

TGIF Open Thread

by | 66 Comments

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Because we need some lighter news.

Thank you, HumboldtBlue:

Reader Interactions

66Comments

  2. 2.

    Spanky

    I hope that “free community college” also means “free technical school”, because a lot of people are more suited to skilled handiwork than the white collar kind.

  4. 4.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Spanky: ​ 
    It will up here because College of the Redwoods expanded its vo-tech classes 8-10 years ago to fill that niche of skilled labor. Those classes are as much a part of the school as English and math.

  5. 5.

    Ken

    Tonight for the first time in 15 months, I’m getting together with friends to play board games.  There’s a Biden accomplishment.

    (I don’t think I’ll have a panic attack and run screaming from the room.)

  6. 6.

    HumboldtBlue

    @Ken: ​ 
    I hung out with my friends on Sunday, barbecued, watched NBA playoffs and had a great time unmasked in front of people for the first time in 18 months.
    I gotta say, the resilience of the kids (2nd and 3rd graders) is pretty impressive.

  9. 9.

    Brachiator

    ‘Beyond falling virus numbers? Beyond getting a pandemic under control?’ — Jen Psaki after a reporter questioned Pres. Biden’s record ‘beyond falling virus numbers’

    I needed a good laugh and God knows you cannot take this question seriously.

    Elsewhere, this is a two year old story about an unexpected unemployment problem, but it popped up for me recently, and I enjoyed the whimsy.

    Much has been said about the economic benefits of legalizing marijuana — Colorado has brought in $1.5 billion in state revenue since 2012. But one job that’s in jeopardy because of legalized recreational cannabis? The marijuana-sniffing dog.
    Once a dog has been trained to sniff marijuana, it can’t be untrained.

    I later saw follow-up stories about teaching old dogs new tricks, but there are reliability issues. And some of the poor little critters get flustered during trials under cross-examination.

  10. 10.

    guachi

    C’mon, Joe! You’re wife is dropping you. Lay down those watts!

    I’m a cyclist, so forgive me for staring at the bikes but… those look like entry-level bikes. Like they rented them for the ride, or something.

    She’s riding a Trek. Probably a Trek FX1 but I can’t tell the brand that Joe is riding.

  12. 12.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Ken:

    Tonight for the first time in 15 months, I’m getting together with friends to play board games. 

    One game of Monopoly takes 15 months.  Get comfy!

  13. 13.

    zhena gogolia

    @guachi:

    There was at least one time during the campaign when they were biking. I think the reporter shouted out who was going to be the VP candidate, and Biden said, “You!” Something like that.

    Maybe they rented them, but this isn’t their first time biking.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    A summer of freedom.

    A summer of joy.

    A summer of get-togethers and celebrations.

    But no summer of love?

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    @Spanky:

    I hope that “free community college” also means “free technical school”, because a lot of people are more suited to skilled handiwork than the white collar kind.

    I think that trade schools are often part of the community college system. This is certainly the case in California, with schools like Los Angeles Trade Technical College.

  16. 16.

    Bridgier

    @guachi: definitely need to get something a little rowdier.  POTUS/FLOTUS on an Evil Chamois Hagar would be a sight to see….

  17. 17.

    mrmoshpotato

    @guachi:

    I’m a cyclist, so forgive me for staring at the bikes but… those look like entry-level bikes. Like they rented them for the ride, or something. 

    Ahoy there, BikeSnobNYC!

  18. 18.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    But no summer of love?

    That was the 60s, dude!

    And just in time for summer concerts:

    A women’s urinal has been created by two ex-University of Bristol students, which they claimed was six times quicker to use than a conventional loo.

    Amber Probyn and Hazel McShane designed the hands-free Peequal because they were fed up with long queues for the ladies toilets at festivals.

     

  19. 19.

    Ken

    @guachi: Like they rented them for the ride, or something.

    BikeGate! This will be the only thing the WH press corps asks about for the next month.

  20. 20.

    Fair Economist

    @mrmoshpotato:

    One game of Monopoly takes 15 months. Get comfy!

    Don’t be ridiculous. A game of Monopoly doesn’t take 15 months.

    It just FEELS like 15 months.

  21. 21.

    Ken

    @mrmoshpotato: One game of Monopoly takes 15 months.

    Clearly you don’t play by my cousin’s family rules, which not only put the tax money under Free Parking, but everything paid for properties including houses and hotels.  Fifteen minutes into the game there’s a huge stack of bills and they’re basically waiting to see who hits it first, because they’ll win the game.

  23. 23.

    Anne Laurie

    @Mary G: To my eyes, that is an about-to-stop-nursing bitch.

    She just wanted to get away from the kids, whatever it took, poor girl!

  24. 24.

    Ken

    @Old School: No, this year will be the slutty summer of casual sex.

    Board games, haircuts, casual sex… there’s all sorts of pent-up demand finally being released.

  26. 26.

    Ohio Mom

    Zhena:
    I think that was the goofball Doocy from Fox asking who would be VP.

    Biden seems to enjoy teasing Doocy (he deserves every bit of it, needless to say).

    On another note, free preschool for all will allow schools to start identifying and helping kids with learning differences and developmental delays during critical brain growth years.

    You can really influence a kid’s developmental trajectory during the preschool years. Universal preschool will have lasting effects, it’s an important idea and a worthy goal.

  28. 28.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    On a FB photography site I won Picture of the Day for my Milky Way and Live Oak that I shared with you all on Wednesday’s OTR.  Other than that life is a shit sandwich sans bread.

  29. 29.

    trollhattan

    @Spanky: 
    Betting it’s common among community college districts to have a robust technical and vocational tracks. The one nearest us has aviation tech and cosmetology, for example. You essentially exit the program into paying jobs (presuming you pass the boards on cosmetology).

  31. 31.

    Jeffro

    We’ll be up there in a week, Uncle Joe – come back, stop by, I’ll buy the ice cream!  ;)

  32. 32.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @James E Powell: Yeah, ain’t got no bread though.

    Actually, I got one other compliment on my work.  I met another photographer when I was shooting at Leo Carrillo a bit over a year ago.  Turns out he’s pretty well known and has been featured on APOD(NASA’s Astronomy Pic of the Day) 6 times.  The pic he was taking that night was the Milky Way out of a sea cave.  He posted a pic of the zodiacal light* from Death Valley recently on IG, I gave it a like and added a comment that I’d shot it at Leo Carrillo, he wanted to see it(only my patrons had seen it so far), so I put it up and shared the link.  He thought it was an amazing photo

    *Zodiacal light is a portion of the sky that lights up after the sun has set, it’s caused by the recently set Sun reflecting off dust particles near the inner planets.  It usually only occurs near the Spring and Fall equinox in the higher northern and southern latitudes, but occurs all year long near the equator.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @Ken: 
    If you use the published rules and play well, the game doesn’t take too long. There’s a slow beginning part while everyone buys up properties, a flurry of trades, and then a while of everyone going around hoping to avoid the other players’ monopolies. Eventually, someone gets bankrupted, and then it’s pretty much over. The game only takes a long time if people never trade to get monopolies.
    Monopoly is actually quite well designed in terms of the flow of money in the game. When there are no monopolies, the combination of the cards and money from passing Go is enough that people gradually build up cash reserves. Once they start building houses and hotels, the combination of finance for mortgages, loss of money reselling houses and hotels, and the cost of the “assessed for street repairs/make general repairs on all your properties” cards combine to pull money out of the game, so it will eventually end. Doing things like giving people money for landing on Free Parking actually makes the game drag on by putting money back in.

  34. 34.

    Jeffro

    @Old School: there was a very funny picture from some dorm hall at my undergrad institution last week

    It was a poster-sized “Hot Girl Summer Points List”.  You get 10 points for making out with a stranger, 20 points for making out with 2 in a night, 50 points for um er having relations with a stranger, etc.  It went up to 500 points for things I’m not gonna even put in italics.

    You deducted points for a UTI, or for getting a boyfriend (the horror!)   =)

  36. 36.

    Wapiti

    @Ken: We played Bananagram’s at my sister’s on Sunday, 5 players total. We had played over zoom maybe 4 times, but it was a lot of fun to play together at last.

  37. 37.

    Gin & Tonic

    For those who haven’t been following, Roman Protasevich, the Belarusian blogger/journalist/dissident who was arrested off the Ryanair Athens-Vilnius flight recently, appeared on Belarusian state TV the other day to “confess” and to pledge his support of Lukashenko. Since I’m not going to link to Belarusian TV, here’s an artist’s conception of that appearance:

    Raman’s confession
    Author: Tjeerd Royaards pic.twitter.com/pbv8D5RnWQ

    — Franak Viačorka (@franakviacorka) June 4, 2021

    Note that Belarusian-to-English transliteration is weird.

  40. 40.

    JoyceH

    @guachi: Some cyclists start at “entry level” and stay there – and enjoy themselves and get some exercise. You got a problem with that?

  41. 41.

    Feathers

    @Spanky: in lots of places the vo-tech high schools offer community college courses at night, for courses like welding and auto body, which require specialized equipment. I know a friend was debating whether to pay the audit rate or the for credit tuition. Also, for credit always got priority in enrollment, so that was a consideration.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @guachi:

    [. . .] those look like entry-level bikes. Like they rented them for the ride, or something.

    Or, you know, bikes that casual weekend riders who aren’t brand queens might have.

  47. 47.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    @zhena gogolia:

    My brother has a beach house in Rehoboth, regularly hikes Gordon’s Pond Trail and has seen the Bidens biking many times.

  48. 48.

    bemused

    Dr. Biden is so accomplished, youthful and beautiful. She and Michelle Obama are the best First Ladies ever.

  54. 54.

    Nora Lenderbee

    @guachi:  You can have just as much fun on a low-end bike as a high-end bike. I’m a cyclist with several fancy bikes. It’s great to see the Bidens riding, period. I don’t need a president who’s thinking about shaving off a few more grams by replacing his spoke nipples with unobtanium.

  55. 55.

    Geminid

    @Spanky: I think free community college means free technical school. In any event, after President Biden announced his infrastructure program, Kamala Harris visited the battleground state of North Carolina and spoke at the Greensboro Technical Community College: “We are going to take a giant leap into the future. That is what the American Jobs Act is about.”

    Then Harris visited an electric school bus plant in High Point. Biden’s plan called for the conversion of twenty per cent of America’s school buses to electric during this decade. I think that is one target that will be exceeded. Once parents understand the improvement in the air their children breath, every school district will want them.

  56. 56.

    Fair Economist

    @VOR:

    They view it as a diabolical tool to indoctrinate young children into the capitalist system.

    That’s – kinda true? The game was initially developed to demonstrate how *awful* the capitalist system was, with all players but one bankrupt, and with a companion socialist game which everybody could win at. But people found the capitalist version more fun to play, and the socialist companion game was dropped, so it is kind of propaganda for the fun of capitalism, albeit unintentionally.

  58. 58.

    Patricia Kayden

    Jen Psaki on Trump and Facebook: "It feels pretty unlikely that the zebra is going to change his stripes over the next two years. We'll see."— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 4, 2021

  60. 60.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @catclub: I think you should be very worried because I was about to post the same thing.  Not a good sign for your mental health.

  62. 62.

    StringOnAStick

    I’m not a brand queen about bikes though I have what was a hot and super light full suspension mountain bike 20 years ago, right before they started really beefing up the frames because the sport headed towards being much more technical and the lighter frames were breaking under the strain.  I’m not a technical rider, I like to cruise in the woods, not do death defying jumps, etc.

    Now the bike I love has had the front shock fail and it may have been rebuilt too many times and I’ll have to scour the used world for a serviceable replacement front fork/shock.  I love that bike, it weighs 24 pounds and all the new ones are hideously expensive and heavier by a lot.  I really hope it can be fixed, I don’t want to replace it; we’ve been through a lot together

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